"Ho, Peggy!" he used to say to his wife, "my cloak is as fine as the one
the 'Iron Duke' wore when they carried me past him just as the French
were breaking; and as for the bread, only a veteran knows how the
recollection of victory makes everything taste sweet!"

But it seemed as if the old soldier's life was going to prove like his
share in that great day at Waterloo--success and victory till the end
had nearly come, and then one shot after another striking him with
troubles, he could never get over.

The first came in the midst of the beautiful summer days, when the bees
droned through the delicious air, the rose-bush was in full bloom, and
the old soldier sat in the cottage door reveling in it all. A slow,
merciless fever rose up through the soft air--it did not venture near
the high ground where the castle stood, but it crept noiselessly into
the whitewashed cottage, one night, and the soldier's two daughters were
stricken down. This was the beginning of terrible trouble to the veteran
of Waterloo. Not that he minded watching, for he was used to standing
sentry all night, and as for nursing, he had seen plenty in the
hospital; but to see his daughters suffering--that was what he could not
bear!

And worst of all, between medicines and necessaries for the sick, the
three months' pension was quite used up, and when the old soldier's
nursing had pulled through the fierceness of the fever, there was
nothing but black bread left in the house--and black bread was almost
the same as no bread at all to the dainty appetities the fever had left;
and that was what he had to think of, and think of, as he sat in the
cottage door.

"Bah!" said the old soldier, with something more like a groan than was
ever heard from him while his wounds were being dressed, "I could face
all the armies of Napoleon better than this!"

And he sat more and more in the cottage door, as if that could leave the
trouble behind; but it stood staring before him, all the same, till it
almost shut the rosebush and the bees out of sight. But one morning a
tremendous surprise came to him like a flash out of the sky! He heard
the sound of galloping troops, and he pricked up his ears, for that

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