Part 12 (2/2)
”Good heavens, forty!”
”Yes, sir, that's the mark; there or thereabouts”
”What! no more?”
”No, sir, not a day more; not an hour”
”Upon honor?”
”Yes, sir, upon honor; upon a soldier's honor”
”Ha! -- ha! -- ha! -- Well, colonel, I would not for a thousand guineas that your rifleuess
The British would not dread them as they do Forty years old, indeed!
ill you say, colonel, when I tell you that I have been two and forty years a soldier”
Here we all exclaieneral! ientlemen,” replied he, ”it is not at all impossible, but very certain Very certain that I have been two and forty years a soldier in the service of the king of France!”
”O wonderful! two and forty years! Well then, at that rate, and pray how old, general, entlemen,” replied he, ”man and boy, I am now about sixty-three”
”Good heaven! sixty-three! and yet such blooentleht had you seen eneral! he cannot be alive yet, sure”
”Alive! yes, thank God, and alive like to be, I hope, for entlemen, let me tell you a little story of my father
The very Christmas before I sailed for America, I went to see him
It was three hundredat the house I found hty-third year, randdaughters carded the wool and sung a hy was over, I eagerly asked for my father 'Do not be uneasy, one to the woods with his three little great-grandchildren, to cut some fuel for the fire, and they will all be here presently, I'll be bound!' And so it proved; for in a very short ti My father was the foremost, with his axe under his arm, and a stout billet on his shoulder; and the children, each with his little load, staggering along, and prattling to entlemen, that this was aabsence, to meet a beloved father, not only alive, but in health and dear dos: also to see the two extre and e into a paradise”
In telling this little story of his aged father and his young relatives, the general's fine countenance caught an animation which perfectly charmed us all
The eyes of Marion sparkled with pleasure ”General,” said he, ”the picture which you have given us of your father, and his little great-grandchildren, though short, is extrehtful It confir entertained, which is, that there is e than in a castle
Pray give us, general, your opinion of that matter”
”Why,” replied De Kalb, ”this opinion of yours, colonel, is not a novel one by any means It was the opinion of Rousseau, Fenelon, and ofsuch high authority, Ileave to be a dissenter I have seen so es and castles, that I cannot but conclude, that happiness does not belong, peculiarly, to either condition, but depends on so very different froerly asked what he alluded to
”Why, gentlemen,” replied he, ”since you have been so polite as to ask h I a from a soldier However, be that as it may, my opinion you have asked, and ion is the only thing to es or courts”