The Courting of Dinah Shadd (Unabridged)

"The Courting of Dinah Shadd" is an short story by Rudyard Kipling: First published in Macmillan's Magazine and Harper's Weekly in March 1890. Collected in The Courting of Dinah Shadd and Other Stories in the same year, in Mine Own People in the United States (1891) and Life's Handicap (1891).
There is an extended 'frame' to this tale, in which the narrator is out on manoeuvres with the 'Ould Regiment'. After a lively day, they bivouac companionably for the night. He falls in with the 'Soldiers Three', and settles down by their camp fire. Mulvaney is thoughtful, reflecting on the adventures and misadventures of his life. 'For all we take, we must pay,' he murmurs, 'but the price is cruel high'.