"Though that is all the same, Peggy," he used to say, "for it is
winter all the year round with me! If I could only die as the
old year does! That would be the thing!"
But long and merciless as the winter is, spring does come at
last, if we can but live and fight our way through the storms and
cold.
One night a cry of fire roused all the country-side. All but the
old soldier. He heard them say the castle was burning, but what
was that to him? Nothing could burn away the remembrance that he
had once been called a thief within its walls! But the next
morning he heard a step--not a horse's hoof this time, but a
strong man walking hastily towards him.
"Where is the veteran of Waterloo?" asked his lordship's voice,
and when the old soldier stepped forward, he threw his arms about
his neck with tears and sobs.
"Comrade," he said, "come up to the castle! The snuff-box is
found, and I want you to stand in the very room where it was lost
while I tell everyone what a great and sorrowful wrong a brave
and honest soldier has suffered at my hands!"
It did not take many words to explain. In the first alarm of
fire the butler had rushed to the plate-closet to save the
silver.
"Those goblets from the high shelf! Quick!" he said, to the
footman who was helping him, and with the haste about the goblets
something else came tumbling down.
"The lost diamond snuff-box!" cried the butler. "That stupid
fellow I dismissed the day it disappeared, must have put it there
and forgotten all about it!"
The fire was soon extinguished, but not a wink of sleep could his
lordship get until he could make reparation for the pitiful
mistake about the box; and once more the old soldier made his way
across the moors, even the wooden leg stepping proudly as he went
along, though now and then, as the old feeling came over him, his
white head would droop for a moment again.
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