To comprehend effectually the feelings of the officers,
it would be necessary that one should have been not merely
a soldier, but a soldier under the same circumstances.
Surrounded on every hand by a fierce and cruel
enemy--prepared at every moment to witness scenes of
barbarity and bloodshed in their most appalling
shapes--isolated from all society beyond the gates of
their own fortress, and by consequence reposing on and
regarding each other as vital links in the chain of their
wild and adventurous existence,--it can easily be understood
with what sincere and unaffected grief they lamented the
sudden cutting off even of those who least assimilated
in spirit and character with themselves. Such, in a great
degree, had been the case in the instance of the officer
over whose grave they were now met to render the last
offices of companionship, if not of friendship. Indeed
Murphy--a rude, vulgar, and illiterate, though brave
Irishman--having risen from the ranks, the coarseness of
which he had never been able to shake off, was little
calculated, either by habits or education, to awaken
feelings, except of the most ordinary description, in
his favour; and he and Ensign Delme were the only exceptions
to those disinterested and tacit friendships that had
grown up out of circumstances in common among the majority.
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