"Here I had remained about four months, when one night we were
alarmed with the arrival of the earl of Boulogne, who had come

over privily from France, and endeavored to surprise the castle.
The design proved ineffectual; for the garrison making a brisk

sally, most of his men were tum- bled down the precipice, and he
returned with a very few back to France. In this action,

however, I had the misfortune to come off with a broken arm; it
was so shattered, that, besides a great deal of pain and misery

which I endured in my cure, I was disabled for upwards of three
months.

"Soon after my recovery I had contracted an amour with a young
woman whose parents lived near the garrison, and were in much

better circumstances than I had reason to expect should give
their consent to the match. However, as she was extremely" target="_blank" title="ad.极端地；非常地">extremely fond

of me (as I was indeed distractedly enamored of her), they were
prevailed on to comply with her desires, and the day was fixed

for our marriage.
"On the evening preceding, while I was exulting with the eager

expectation of the happiness I was the next day to enjoy, I
received orders to march early in the morning towards Windsor,

where a large army was to be formed, at the head of which the
king intended to march into the west. Any person who hath ever

been in love may easily imagine what I felt in my mind on
receiving those orders; and what still heightened my torments

was, that the commanding officer would not permit any one to go
out of the garrison that evening; so that I had not even an

opportunity of taking leave of my beloved.
"The morning came which was to have put me in the possession of

my wishes; but, alas! the scene was now changed, and all the
hopes which I had raised were now so many ghosts to haunt, and

furies to torment me.
"It was now the midst of winter, and very severe weather for the

season; when we were obliged to make very long and fatiguing
marches, in which we suffered all the inconveniences of cold and

hunger. The night in which I expected to riot in the arms of my
belovedmistress I was obliged to take up with a lodging on the

ground, exposed to the inclemencies of a rigid frost; nor could I
obtain the least comfort of sleep, which shunned me as its enemy.

In short, the horrors of that night are not to be described, or
perhaps imagined. They made such an impression on my soul, that

I was forced to be dipped three times in the river Lethe to
prevent my remembering it in the characters which I afterwards

performed in the flesh."
Here I interrupted Julian for the first time, and told him no

such dipping had happened to me in my voyage from one world to
the other: but he satisfied me by saying "that this only

happened to those spirits which returned into the flesh, in order
to prevent that reminiscence which Plato mentions, and which

would otherwise cause great confusion in the other world."
He then proceeded as follows: "We continued a very laborious

march to Exeter, which we were ordered to besiege. The town soon
surrendered, and his majesty built a castle there, which he

garrisoned with his Normans, and unhappily I had the misfortune
to be one of the number.

"Here we were confined closer than I had been at Dover; for, as
the citizens were extremely" target="_blank" title="ad.极端地；非常地">extremely disaffected, we were never suffered

to go without the walls of the castle; nor indeed could we,
unless in large bodies, without the utmost danger. We were

likewise kept to continual duty, nor could any solicitations
prevail with the commanding officer to give me a month's absence

to visit my love, from whom I had no opportunity of hearing in
all my long absence.

"However, in the spring, the people being more quiet, and another
officer of a gentler temper succeeding to the principal command,

I obtained leave to go to Dover; but alas! what comfort did my
long journey bring me? I found the parents of my darling in the

utmostmisery at her loss; for she had died, about a week before
my arrival, of a consumption, which they imputed to her pining at

my sudden departure.
"I now fell into the most violent and almost raving fit of

despair. I cursed myself, the king, and the whole world, which
no longer seemed to have any delight for me. I threw myself on

the grave of my deceased love, and lay there without any kind of
sustenance for two whole days. At last hunger, together with the

persuasions of some people who took pity on me, prevailed with me
to quit that situation, and refresh myself with food. They then

persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a place where
almost every object I saw recalled ideas to my mind which, as

they said, I should endeavor with my utmost force to expel from
it. This advice at length succeeded; the rather, as the father

and mother of my beloved refused to see me, looking on me as the
innocent but certain cause of the death of their only child.

"The loss of one we tenderly love, as it is one of the most
bitter and biting evils which attend human life, so it wants the

lenitive which palliates and softens every other calamity; I mean
that great reliever, hope. No man can be so totallyundone, but

that he may still cherishexpectation: but this deprives us of
all such comfort, nor can anything but time alone lessen it.

This, however, in most minds, is sure to work a slow but
effectual remedy; so did it in mine: for within a twelve-month I

was entirely reconciled to my fortune, and soon after absolutely
forgot the object of a passion from which I had promised myself

such extreme happiness, and in the disappointment of which I had
experienced such inconceivable misery.

"At the expiration of the month I returned to my garrison at
Exeter; where I was no sooner arrived than I was ordered to march

into the north, to oppose a force there levied by the earls of
Chester and Northumberland. We came to York, where his majesty

pardoned the heads of the rebels, and very severely punished some
who were less guilty. It was particularly my lot to be ordered

to seize a poor man who had never been out of his house, and
convey him to prison. I detested this barbarity, yet was obliged

to execute it; nay, though no reward would have bribed me in a
private capacity to have acted such a part, yet so much sanctity

is there in the commands of a monarch or general to a soldier,
that I performed it without reluctance, nor had the tears of his

wife and family any prevalence with me.
"But this, which was a very small piece of mischief in comparison

with many of my barbarities afterwards, was however, the only one
which ever gave me any uneasiness; for when the king led us

afterwards into Northumberland to revenge those people's having
joined with Osborne the Dane in his invasion, and orders were

given us to commit what ravages we could, I was forward in
fulfilling them, and, among some lesser cruelties (I remember it

yet with sorrow), I ravished a woman, murdered a little infant
playing in her lap, and then burned her house. In short, for I

have no pleasure in this part of my relation, I had my share in
all the cruelties exercised on those poor wretches; which were so

grievous, that for sixty miles together, between York and Durham,
not a single house, church, or any other public or private

edifice, was left standing.
"We had pretty well devoured the country, when we were ordered to

march to the Isle of Ely, to oppose Hereward, a bold and stout
soldier, who had under him a very large body of rebels, who had

the impudence to rise against their king and conqueror (I talk
now in the same style I did then) in defense of their liberties,

as they called them. These were soon subdued; but as I happened
(more to my glory than my comfort) to be posted in that part

through which Hereward cut his way, I received a dreadful cut on
the forehead, a second on the shoulder, and was run through the

body with a pike.
"I languished a long time with these wounds, which made me

incapable of attending the king into Scotland. However, I was
able to go over with him afterwards into Normandy, in his

expedition against Philip, who had taken the opportunity of the
troubles in England to invade that province. Those few Normans