The Connecticut labor press., 1920-09-11


 like iced water in my veins, and you
 might have rubbed all our faces in l pipeclay and we should have been no
 winter. "Aye, you'll look sicklier yet
 when you get hatful of grape into your tripes," said he; and then. as saw some of the old soldiers laughing,
 I began to understand that this man was trying to frighten us, so began l to laugh also, and the others as well, but it was not very hearty laugh either.
 The sun was almost above us when
 we stopped at little place called Hal,
 where there is an old pump from
 which drew and drank shako full of water-and never did a mug of
 Scotch ale taste as sweet. More guns passed us here, and Vivian's hussars. three regiments of them, smart men with bonny brown horses, treat to the eye. The noise of the cannons was louder than ever now, and it tingled through my nerves just as it had done
 years before when, with Edie by my side, had seen the merchant ship fight with the pri- ateers- It was so
 loud now that 1t seemed to me that
 the battle must be going on just be- yond the nearest wood, but my friend the sergeant knew better.
 Its twelve to fifteen miles off, said he. you may be sure that the general knows that we are not wanted, or we should not be resting here at Hal"
 What he said proved to be true. for minute later down came the colonel with orders that we should stack arms and bivouac where we were, and there foot and guns, English, Dutch and Hanoverians, were streaming through. The devils music went on till evening, sometimes rising into roar, some times sinking into grumble, until about eight o'clock in the evening 1t stopped altogether. We were eating our hearts out, as you may think. to know what 1t all meant, but we knew that what the Duke did would be for the best, so we just waited in patience.
 Next day the brigade remained at Hal in the morning but about midday came an order from the Duke. and we pushed on once more until we came to village called Braine something. and there we stopped, and time. too, for a sudden thunderstorm came on and plump of rain that turned all the roads and the fields into bog and mire. We got into the barns at this village for shelter, and there we found two strag glers, one from kilted regiment and the other Q man of the German legion, who had tale to tell that was as dreary as the weather.
 Boney had tllrashed the PrussianS the day before, and our fellows had been sore put to it to hold their own against Ney. but had beaten him off at last. It seems an old. stale story to you now, but you cannot think how we scrambled around those two men in the barn. and pushed and fought just to catch a word of what they said, and how those who had heard were in turn mobbed by those who had not. We laughed and cheered and groaned all in turn, as we were told how the Forty fourth had received cavalry in line. . how the Dutch-Belgians had fled, and how the Black Watch had taken the lancers into their square, and then had killed them at their leisure. But the lancers had had the laugh on their side when they crumpled up the Sixty ninth and carried off one of the colors. To wind it all up. the Duke was in re- treat, in order to keep in touch with the Prussians, and it was rumored that he would take up his ground and fight a big battle just at the very place where we had been halted.
 And soon we saw that this rumor  toward evening, and we were all out on the ridge to see what we could see. It was such bonny stretch of corn and grazing land. with the crops just half green and half yellow, and fine rye as high as mans shoulder. A scene more full of peace you could not think of, and look where you would over the low, curving, corn-covered hills, you could see the little village steeples pricking up their spires among the poplars. But slashed right across this pretty picture was a long trail | of marching men, some red, some | green, some blue. some black, zigzap- ging over the plain and choking the roads, one end so close that we conld | shout to them as they stacked their i muskets on the ridge at our left. and | the other end lost among the woods | as far as we could see And then on other roads we saw the teams of | horses toiling and the dull eleam of | the guns, and the men straining and swaying as they helped to turn the spokes in the deep, deep mud. AS we | stood there regiment after regiment and brigade after brigade took posi- tfon on the ridge and ere the sun had set we lay in a line of over sixty thou sand men, blocking Napoleon's way to Brussels. But the rain had come down again, and we of the Seventy-frst rushed off to our barn once more. where we had better quar- ters than the greater part of our com rades, who lay stretched in the mud. with the storm beating upon them. until the first peep of day.
 CHAPTER XII.