Fate had flung him off his couch of down into the
tempest of war; into the sternness of life spent ever on the border
of the grave; ruled over by an iron code, requiring at every
step self-negation, fortitude, submission, courage, patience; the
self-control which should take the uttermost provocation from those in
command without even a look of reprisal, and the courageous recklessness
which should meet death and deal death; which should be as the eagle to
swoop, as the lion to rend. And he was not found wanting in it.
He was too thoroughbred to attempt to claim a superiority that fortune
no longer conferred on him; to seek to obtain a deference that he had
no longer the position to demand. He was too quiet, too courteous, too
calmly listless; he had too easy a grace, too soft a voice, and too many
gentleman habits, for them. But when they found that he could fight like
a Zouave, ride like an Arab, and bear shot-wounds or desert-thirst
as though he were of bronze, it grew a delight to them to see of what
granite and steel this dainty patrician was made; and they loved him
with a rough, ardent, dog-like love, when they found that his last
crust, in a long march, would always be divided: that the most desperate
service of danger was always volunteered for by him; that no severity of
personal chastisement ever made him clear himself of a false charge at a
comrade's expense; and that all his pay went in giving a veteran a stoup
of wine, or a sick conscript a tempting meal, or a prisoner of Beylick
some food through the grating, scaled too at risk of life and limb.
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