Читать книгу The Story of a Peninsular Veteran. Sergeant in the Forty-Third Light Infantry, during the Peninsular War онлайн

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My parents, I regret to state, were Roman Catholics. They knew no better; for no other teaching had reached their minds. Their membership with that fallen community was their misfortune rather than their fault. I believe the profession they made was sincere; and that, though mingled with the dross of Popish superstition, they were possessors of at least some few grains of sterling piety. My mother, in particular, was remarkably constant and fervid in her devotions; and the earnest manner in which her beads were counted, though I could never detect the meritorious points of calculation, is to be numbered among the earliest and most powerful impressions I ever received. My father had for several years acted as steward to Archibald Nevens, Esq., a gentleman who, at that time, was the owner of considerable estates in the vicinity of Portarlington.

Ours was a happy family. My father, though a plain man, was excelled by few in attachment to his wife and children. ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast;’ and we flattered ourselves that futurity offered to our notice lengthened years of comfort. But we soon found that our hold on earthly happiness was fragile as the spider’s thread. My father was taken ill and died. Even now the procession of his funeral is pictured on my memory. The gentleman already named as my father’s employer had fallen upon evil days. His property passed into other hands; and as the purchaser knew nothing of our family, no one cared for the widow and her orphan charge. A house with every needful convenience had been built for us by the original proprietor. This we were abruptly ordered to quit. Another king had arisen, who knew not Joseph or his father’s house. We went away, weeping at every step. I saw my mother’s tears, and to this day her low wailing strikes my ear. But though destitute, we were not forsaken; though in straits, we did not perish; and by the blessing of Almighty Providence upon the well-directed industry of my mother and my elder brothers, we were sustained with food convenient.