The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Our COCHRANE AND PICKERSGILL, 11, WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. THE STAFF OFFICER; OR, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. CHAPTER I. A lie!—on my soul, a lie! I ROSE at six, and leaving the house unperceived, except by the scrubbing servant-maids, hurried down to the deeper part of the Boyne, about half a mile from the house; and there, in its cool and crystal wave, assuaged the fever of my frame. I had brought myself to the resolution of taking leave that very morning after breakfast; but there was other work in store for me. An unusual depression of spirits visited me, which I found it impossible to account for or chase away. I felt certain twinges of conscience, to be sure; but when did conscience long continue to depress the flattered, favored youth of seventeen? About one hour after breakfast, when walking towards the Nag's Head to make arrangements for my party's beating-up on the ensuing fair-day, I was accosted by a sedate, soberly-dressed young man, about five-and-twenty, who, with a very sinister expression of countenance, and in silence, presented to me a written paper, in the regular up-and-down style of hand, in which I had no difficulty in tracing the scribe of a thorough-paced attorney. As those far-famed brothers-in-law, John Doe and Richard Roe, were then strangers to me, I could only fancy that this was some process arising out of my trip to Mr. Fagan's bog some short time before; but what was my amazement, when by a hasty glance of my eye I found it contained an invitation to mortal combat with the gallant lieutenant! Indignation at the offensive terms in which it was worded overcame my first feelings of surprise at such an unexpected billet; so, crumpling it up in my hand, and bestowing a look of as much scorn as my boyish |