The crossing of the rivers stands out
prominently in my recollection. All the bridges were of
course guarded, and he had two at least within the enemy's
lines to get over - those of the Mincio and of the Adige.
Probably the lagunes surrounding the invested fortress would
be his worst difficulty. The Adige he described as beset
with a two-fold risk - the avoidance of the bridges, which
courted suspicion, and the thin ice and only partially frozen
river, which had to be traversed in the dark. The vigour,
the zest with which the wiry veteran 'shoulder'd his crutch
and show'd how fields were won' was not a thing to be
forgotten.
Lord Lynedoch lived to a great age, and it was from his house
at Cardington, in Bedfordshire, that my brother Leicester
married his first wife, Miss Whitbread, in 1843. That was
the last time I saw him.
Perhaps the following is not out of place here, although it
is connected with more serious thoughts:
Though neither my father nor my mother were more pious than
their neighbours, we children were brought up religiously.
From infancy we were taught to repeat night and morning the
Lord's Prayer, and invoke blessings on our parents. It was
instilled into us by constant repetition that God did not
love naughty children - our naughtiness being for the most
part the original sin of disobedience, rooted in the love of
forbidden fruit in all its forms of allurement.
