!Tention: A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War

"There! Ahoy!" shouted Punch, and the black figure slowly raised his head and began to look round till he was gazing in quite the opposite direction to where the boy was hurryin...

Punch's appealing sign was sufficient to chase away the imaginative notions that had beset Pen's awakening. His hand went at once to the water-bottle slung to his side, and, as...

"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" A bright, ringing specimen of a youth's laugh, given out by one who is healthy, strong, and fairly content, allowing for drawbacks, with the utterer's position...

As the evening drew near, it was to the two young riflemen as if Nature had joined hands with the enemy and had seemed to bid them stand back and rest while she took up their wo...

Private Gray, of his Majesty's --th Rifles,--wrenched himself round once more, pressed aside a clump of heathery growth, crawled quickly about a couple of yards, and found himse...

"Yes, what is it?" cried Pen, starting up on the bed at a touch from his companion, who had laid his hand gently on the sleeping lad's forehead, and then sinking back again with...

"To think about that old chap. I wanted to trust him, but I kept on feeling that he was going to sell us; and all the time he's been doing everything he could for us. But, I say...

It was far longer than Pen anticipated, for the darkness grew deeper, the forest sounds fainter and fainter, and there were times when the watcher went out to listen and returne...

"Thank you," said Punch. "I didn't want to bother you, you know, comrade, only you see I ain't like you--I don't know a dozen languages, French and Latin, and all the rest of th...

It was still dark, but there were faint suggestions of the coming day when Pen began to creep in the direction of a black patch which he felt must be forest.

"Yes; I have been watching ever so long. I woke up hours ago, all in a fright, thinking that gal had come back; and I seemed to see her come in at the door and look round, and t...

There was a burst of excitement, hurried ejaculations, and half-a-dozen pistols were rapidly discharged by their holders at the ceiling; while directly after, in obedience to a...

"If one wasn't in such trouble," said Punch to himself, as he lay in the growing darkness beneath the great chestnut-tree, "one would have time to think what a beautiful country...

It was bright daylight, and Pen Gray started up in alarm, his mind in a state of confusion consequent upon the heaviness of his sleep and the feeling of trouble that something--...

Punch woke up with a start to find that it was broad daylight, for the sun was up, the goats on the valley-side were bleating, and a loud musical bell was giving forth its const...

It was like coming back to life. In an instant Pen felt full of energy and excitement once more. The pangs of hunger supplemented those of thirst; and, almost raging against the...

"Oh, you have come back again, then," grumbled Punch, as Pen met his weary eyes and the dismal face that was turned sideways to watch the door of the hut. "Thought you had gone...

"Bah! How cold it is lying out here in this chilly wind which comes down from the mountain tops! I say, what an idiot I was to strip myself and turn my greatcoat into a counterp...

"Bother the old milk! I'm sick of it; and I don't want to go to sleep. I feel sometimes as if I had nearly slept my head off. A fellow can't be always sleeping. Now, look here;...

"Grumpy! Well, isn't it enough to make a fellow feel low-spirited when he has been ill for weeks, wandering about here on these mountain-sides, hunted as if we were wild beasts,...

The King's party remained perfectly still during the first few shots, and then, unable to contain themselves, they seemed to the lads to be preparing for immediate action. The t...

The boys were seated upon a huge block of stone watching the coming and going of the _contrabandistas_, several of whom formed a group in a nook of the natural amphitheatre-like...

The two lads started off light-hearted and hopeful, for if they could trust the goat-herds, whose information seemed to be perfectly correct, a day's journey downward to the riv...

Three days in the English camp, and the two lads had pretty well recovered; but they were greatly disappointed to find that during the absence of the dragoons on vedette duty th...

"Don't quite know," was the reply. "Chap can't think with his arms strapped behind him and his wrists aching sometimes as if they were sawn off and at other times being all pins...

"No," cried the boy excitedly, as he turned to gaze after the men, who were some little distance away amongst the goats, "I didn't dream it. It was real. First one of them and t...

Pen's heart beat heavily as he lay listening to the tramping of feet upon the rocky shelf, and at last the sounds seemed so close that he drew himself together ready to spring t...

Slight as was the check--two shots only--the sight of a couple of their men going down was sufficient to stop the advance of the attacking party for a few minutes; but the firin...

"Are you in much pain, Punch?" said Pen, as, with his wrists tied tightly behind him, he knelt beside his comrade, who lay now just outside the door of the hut, a couple of Fren...

The imploring tone of his words had its effect, though the tongue was foreign that fell upon the girl's ears, and she stopped slowly, to look back at him; and, then as it seemed...

"Yes, I suppose you are right, Punch," said Pen, frowning. "Thick-headed idiot. I have quite taken the skin off my knuckles. Poor girl," he continued, "she has been cruelly puni...

A sharp volley, which ran echoing along the ravine, then another, just as the faint bluish smoke from some hundred or two muskets floated up into the bright sunshine from amidst...

"This is rather hard work, Punch, lad," said Pen, after a long silence; but the boy took no notice. "The ground's so rugged that I've nearly gone down half-a-dozen times. Well,...

He was quite right, and all through that night the slow business of setting a division on the march was under way, and the long, long train of baggage wagons drawn by the little...

"Phee-ew!" whistled the boy softly. "Oh, it's all coming back now. The French came, and knocked over that Spanish chap, and I thought that they were going to take me away and sh...

Pen never could quite settle in his own mind how it all happened. He was conscious of the rush of water and the foam bubbling against his lips, while he clung tightly to his com...

"Oh, I say," whispered Punch, in a half-suffocated tone, "my word! Talk about near as a toucher! It's all right, comrade; but if I had held my breath half a jiffy longer I shoul...

"Or dogs," said Pen angrily. "What a fellow you are, Punch! Don't you think we had enough to make us low-spirited and miserable without you imagining that the first howl you hea...

It seemed to Pen to be a dream, and then by some kind of mental change it appeared to be all reality. In the first instance he felt that he was lying in the loft over the priest...

But the morning brought not only the horizontal rays of the great sun which lit up the hut with its sad tale of death and suffering, but likewise a renewal of the fight of the p...

"Hooray!" cried Punch, wrenching his head round and stretching one hand towards their visitor, who stepped in, put the basket she carried upon the bed, and placed her hand upon...

The two lads grasped hands as they listened in the intense darkness to what seemed to be a scene of extreme excitement, the actors in it having evidently been hurrying to reach...

Nearer and nearer came the sound of marching, and it was all Punch could do to keep from rising to his knees and changing his position; but he mastered himself into a state of c...

It is one thing--or two things--to make plans mentally or upon paper, and another thing to carry them out. A general lays down his plan of campaign, but a dozen hazards of the w...

They marched only by night, and under Pen's guidance the French forces that had been besieging the old mine were utterly routed. This happened at a time when provisions were fai...

"Oh yes, sir," replied Pen. And the boys' eyes met--their hands too, for Punch with his lips still pressed together took a step forward and caught Pen by the hand and wrist.