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Long before this, however, this whole regiment, and all the other regiments, marched off to take part in a general review, and Bennoch and I followed, as soon as we had eaten a few mutton-chops. It was a bright, sunshiny day; but with a strong east-wind, as piercing and pitiless as ever blew; and this wide, undulating plain of Aldershott seemed just the place where the east-wind was at home.
Algy is to bring her, and to stay a few days on his way to Aldershott. All day long, I wander with restless aimlessness about the house, my big house so empty, so orderly in its stateliness so frightfully silent! Ah! the doll's house whose whole front came out at once was a better companion much more friendly, and not half so oppressive.
I made another little bit of a speech, too, in response to something that was said in reference to the present difficulties between England and America, and ended, as a proof that I deemed war impossible, with drinking success to the British army, and calling on Lieutenant Shaw, of the Aldershott Camp, to reply.
Lieutenant Shaw assigned me one room in his hut, and Bennoch another, and made us as comfortable as kind hospitality could; but the huts are very small, and the rooms have no size at all; neither are they air-tight, and the sharp wind whistles in at the crevices; and, on the whole, of all discomfortable places, I am inclined to reckon Aldershott Camp the most so.
And so you go to rest, content to say, with the wise American, 'It takes all sorts to make a world. The next morn you rise, to roll on over yet more weary uplands to Montrejeau, over long miles of sandy heath, a magnified Aldershott, which during certain summer months is gay, here and there, like Aldershott, with the tents of an army at play.
King Leopold, his younger son, and his lovely young daughter, Princess Charlotte, were among the Queen's visitors this summer, and a little later came the Prince and Princess of Prussia to improve their acquaintance with their future daughter-in-law. In July the Queen and the Prince were again at Aldershott to review the troops returned from the Crimea.
At three o'clock, having packed a travelling-bag, I went to Bennoch's office, and lunched with him; and at about five we took the rail from the Waterloo station for Aldershott Camp. At Tamborough we were cordially received by Lieutenant Shaw, of the North Cork Rifles, and were escorted by him, in a fly, to his quarters.
These troops were especially on home-service guard-mounting, orderly duty, &c. with no field or picket work whatever. There was no more excuse for slovenliness than might have been allowed to a regiment in huts at Aldershott or Shorncliffe.
They had been playmates and friends since childhood, but the fates in store for them were very different. In the second week of July the freedom of the City of London was presented to Prince Frederick William of Prussia; the Prince Consort was sworn in master of the Trinity House, and the Queen and the Prince visited the camp at Aldershott.
Lieutenant Shaw assigned me one room in his hut, and Bennoch another, and made us as comfortable as kind hospitality could; but the huts are very small, and the rooms have no size at all; neither are they air-tight, and the sharp wind whistles in at the crevices; and, on the whole, of all discomfortable places, I am inclined to reckon Aldershott Camp the most so.
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