Elizabeth Gaskell

“ Day after day he drifted northwards, making but the slow progress of a feeble man, and yet this short daily walk tired him so much that he longed for rest--for the morning to come when he needed not to feel that in the course of an hour or two he must be up and away. ”

“ Many a hard-handed labourer left his seat by the chimney corner, and came to his door to have a look at one who had been fighting the French, and pushed forward to have a grasp of the stranger's hand as he gave back the empty cup into the good wife's keeping, for the kind homely women were ever ready with milk or homebrewed to slake the feverish traveller's thirst when he stopped at their doors and asked for a drink of water. ”

“ He was too indifferent to life and the world to have a will; otherwise they might have kept their pet patient a little longer where he was.
Slowly passing from ship to ship as occasion served; resting here and there in garrison hospitals, Philip at length reached Portsmouth on the evening of a September day in 1799. The transport-ship in which he was, was loaded with wounded and invalided soldiers and sailors; all who could manage it in any way struggled on deck to catch the first view of the white coasts of England. ”

“ The road they had to go was full of people, kept off in some measure by the guard of soldiers. All sorts of kindly speeches, and many a curious question, were addressed to the poor invalids as they walked along. Philip's jaw, and the lower part of his face, were bandaged up ”

“ How soon he has made it shabby, though,' he continued, taking up a corner where there was an immense tear not too well botched up. 'And so you were on board the _Theseus_ at the time of the explosion? Bring some cold meat here for the good man--or stay! Come in with me, and then you can tell Mrs. Pennington and the young ladies all you know about Harry,--and the siege,--and the explosion.'
So Philip was ushered into the warden's house and made to eat roast beef almost against his will ”