But I would rather have tramped about, for the rest of my life, than remain there under your mother's reproachful eye.

However, thank God you came through it all right, and, after such a lesson, I should hope that we shall never have repetition of such a disaster as that.

As an old soldier, I cannot agree with what you say about the uselessness of drill, even for fighting in a forest.

It must accustom men to listen to the voice of their officers, and to obey orders promptly and quickly, and I cannot but think that, if the troops had gone forward at a brisk double, they would have driven the Indians before them.

As to the whooping and yells you talk so much about, I should think nothing of them; they are no more to be regarded than the shrieks of women, or the braying of donkeys." James smiled as he read this, and thought that, if the old soldier had heard that chaos of blood-curdling cries break out, in the still depth of the forest, he would not write of them with such equanimity.
"You will have heard, from the squire, that you are gazetted to Otway's regiment which, with others, is to cross the Atlantic in a few weeks, when it is generally supposed war will be formally declared.