I stopped for some minutes to watch him, and seeing an engineer captain of my acquaintance among the party, couldn't resist calling out:-- "I say, Hatchard, your friend on the chestnut mare must have had an easier day yesterday than some of us, or I'll be hanged if he'd be so active this morning." Hatchard hung his head in some confusion, and did not reply; and on my looking round, whom should I see before me but the identical individual I had so coolly been criticising, and who, to my utter horror and dismay, was no other than Lord Wellington himself.

I did not wait for a second peep.

Helter-skelter, through water, thickets, and brambles, away I went, clattering down the causeway like a madman.

If a French squadron had been behind me, I should have had a stouter heart, although I did not fear pursuit.

I felt his eye was upon me,--his sharp and piercing glance, that shot like an arrow into me; and his firm look stared at me in every object around.
Onward I pressed, feeling in the very recklessness of my course some relief to my sense of shame, and ardently hoping that some accident--some smashed arm or broken collar-bone--might befall me and rescue me from any notice my conduct might otherwise call for.