Died on Duty.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1461, 22 September 1885, Page 4

Died on Duty.

An interesting ivlic is preserved m a glass case m the Coldstream Guards' orderly room at Whitehall. It hangs between the old colors carried on the field of Waterloo. It is the head aud neck of a gooso, around which is a golden collar with the inscription, " Jacob— 2nd Battalion CoMsit'cain Guards 1 ;" and beneath it' arc the words " Died on Duty." In 1830 a rebellion broke out m Canada, ami two battalions of Guards were sent out, the battalion mentioned being one. :.. Both corps occupied the citadel of Quebec, and supplied the guards m the town and neighborhood. Near one of the guards wa« a farmyard, which had been suspected of being the place of meeting of the rebels, and a chain of sentries were placed around it. One day the sen'ry, who was watching the entrance to the fai*m, heard an unusual sound, and looking towards the place where it came from, he beheld a fine goose, closely pursued by a fox. His first impulse was to have a shot at the fox, but he would have disturbed the guard, besides giving a false alarm for which ho would he punished. The goose, for refuge, ran its head and neck between the soldier's, legs ;at the same moment the fox made a grab at it, but the sentry sent lm bayonet through him. The poor goose rubbed its head against man's leg, and would not qu^ tue post., but walkad- up and down day after day with each sentry until the battalion left Canada, when tnev brought the goose with them. But the most remarkable part of the story is that the goose m. turn actually paved the fame man's lift*. He was on, the same post about two months after, when an attempt was made to surprise i and kill the sentry. Tt was winter time ; he thought he heard a strange sound, and putting his musket to his shouldei*, shouted " Who goes there ?" There was, however, no response. Soon after two men approached the sentry box, with uplifted knives, nnd wero about to spring upon the tnnn, when the goose rose-^uddenlv on. the wind,and swept around the sentry-box, with its wings' riffhtr-in. the faces of the would-bo assassin*. The sentry bayoneted one and shot the other as he ran away. On the arrival of the regiment m London t'*« bird resumed its old dnty with the sentries. It would stand be side the sentry box, and there wag a circular bath always filled with w«ter for it. Tt was at last run over by a van m the gateway of Old Portmanptreet Barracks, and had one teg hroken. Every earn was taken, bnt it could not recover. Its body was buried with all honors where it died, but the head was preserved as r»ofnro described It died after a " sentry go" of no less flirt n twenty years.