In no other country
in the world--under no other circumstances than the
present--could I have so secured it.
"What were the charges preferred against me?" he continued,
with a violence that almost petrified the unhappy girl.
"Hear them, and judge whether I have not cause for the
inextinguishable hate that rankles at my heart. Every
trifling disobedience of orders--every partial neglect
of duty that could be raked up--was tortured into a
specific charge; and, as I have already admitted I had
latterly transgressed not a little in this respect, these
were numerous enough. Yet they were but preparatory to
others of greater magnitude. Next succeeded one that
referred to the message I had given, and countermanded,
to the sergeant of my company, when in the impatience of
my disappointment I had desired him to tell the colonel
I would see the service d--d rather than inconvenience
myself at that moment for it. This was unsupported by
other evidence, however, and therefore failed in the
proof. But the web was too closely woven around to admit
of my escaping.--Will you, can you believe any thing half
so atrocious, as that your father should have called on
this same man not only to prove the violent and
insubordinate language I had used in reference to the
commanding officer in my own rooms, but also to substantiate
a charge of cowardice, grounded on the unwillingness I
had expressed to accompany the expedition, and the
extraordinary trepidation I had evinced, while preparing
for the duty, manifested, as it was stated to be, by the
various errors he had rectified in my equipment with his
own hand? Yes, even this pitiful charge was one of the
many preferred; but the severest was that which he had
the unblushing effrontery to make the subject of public
investigation, rather than of private redress--the blow
I had struck him in his own apartments.
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