Before I came to my senses, I could have sworn I was in another world; but, when I opened my eyes, there were the men at ease, holding their sides, laughing like to spleet them; and my gun lying on the ground, two or three ell before me.
When I found myself not killed outright, I began to rise up.

As I was rubbing my breek-knees, I saw one of the men going forward to lift up the fatal piece; and my care for the safety of others overcame the sense of my own peril,--"Let alane--let alane!" cried I to him, "and take care of yoursell, for it has to gang off five times yet." The laughing was now terrible, but being little of a soldier, I thought, in my innocence, that we should hear as many reports as I had crammed cartridges down her muzzle.

This was a sore joke against me for a length of time; but I tholed it patiently, considering cannily within myself, that knowledge is only to be bought by experience, and that, if we can credit the old song, even Johnny Cope himself did not learn the art of war in a single morning..