Freemason's apron over my knees, and was getting
all ataut. The day was burning and golden, the
sky blue and spotless, except where white
clouds billowed and toppled about like poised
avalanches. The bell rang, the guard waved his
red flag, we were off with a hiss and trample,
and a pulsation as of some giant's heart.

I settle myself down in the spare box of a
carriage, I establish a treaty and alliance of legs
with the Buckinghamshire rnan, who I find has
been a militiaman, which is a tie between us.
Lady's-maid, sallow and waxy with sitting up
late at night, cheerless, for ladies coming
home from gay parties, subsides into a stupor
of rest, in the corner. The drummer—such a
drummer!—a little pink-faced boy, say about
fourteen, frank, at his ease, with his great buff belt,
with brass scutcheoned buckle, lying before him
on a vacant seat, with his knapsack, only
numbered with name, No. of company, raid
detachment. How firm and disciplined, and almost
gentlemanlike, he looks with his black trousers
slived with red cord, and his little scarlet frock,
fringed white at the shoulders, and striped and
epauletted with white lace, studded with blue
fleur-de-lis reminiscences of Cressy and
Agincourt, and our old French claim.

The Buckinghamshire man, in an energetic
and robust way, announced himself to me as
having been for thirty-five years watchman of
Olney parish, sheep-shearer, brewer, and guide to
Cowper's cottage, where the poet kept his
tame hares and wrote the hymns, and other
curiosities. He was a cheery, ruddy, large-made
man, with eyes of washed-out blue, large, round,
and staring; in his gestures, demonstrative,
stamping, and redundantly energetic.

But I must go back to the starting. Ching,
clang! ching, clang! ching, clang! went the
Euston-square bell. Whew! whew! whew! went
the guard's whistle. Another drummer-boy,
with two medals at the breast of his scarlet
coat, who had come to see his younger comrade
off, thrust his hand in at the window to give him
a last shake.

"Good-by, Tom," said the rough, kind stripling,
"and take care when you get to the station
to go straight home, and don't let any blackguard
get your money out of you; get to your father
and mother, then you are all right. Think of
the regiment. Mind and write to the drum-
major."

A demon-thirsting scream gave the signal.

"Good-by, Tom," said the lad.

"Good-by, Jack," said the boy.

The little fellow would have liked to cry, but
he was a soldier, and a soldier's son, and he didn't
like, so ho gave a rather rueful look at the
blank, square window no kind, sturdy face there
now and to hide his faint heart set to work
buckling up and arranging his great, square,
black knapsack, on which his name, "Thomas
Wilson, Scots Fusiliers, 27, 3rd Company," was
inscribed in great white letters. Then he
shifted his linen bag, or haversack, which was
slung at his side by a linen belt passing over his
shoulder; then he adjusted his smart foraging-
cap, with the strap on his lip, and loosened, just
to feel he was out of Trafalgar-square barracks,
his white buckskin belt with the brass badge of
a buckle. He was not going to compromise the
character of the army among civilians.

We passed out of the great shadows of the
station tunnel that fell on the white page of the
book I was reading like the broad shadow of some
evil angel's hand. Champ, champ! rattle, rattle!
like the roar of a million of Attila's cavalry
chafing at our heels—a battling, angry din that
deafens and excites—we break out into the free
light.

Now, no noise but the gentle puff of the
engine far away, and the white cloud at the
window, as of the great Manitou of the waim a
women, breathing, sleeping on this pleasant
autumn day, high in heaven as his spirit life.
Now, no brooding, noisy darkness, but a broad
column of light like that of a sudden resurrection,
or as the sunshine comes to us out of the grave of
an eclipse. We settled ourselves to our places
for the next forty miles' rush and roll, and the
great white clouds of steam floated round us as
if we were being borne on the Hindoo image-car
of Paradise to the gardens of India.

We began to settle; the lady's-maid took out
a limp, ill-used novel; the drummer began, with
true boy's hunger, to pinch suspiciously certain
projections in his haversack that seem ededible; the
Buckinghamshire man's eyes fixed intently on him
with mingled admiration, sympathy, wonder, and
sagacity. He was eminently sociable, and began
the conversation at once by aiming a playful
blow at the drummer's chest, and asking a question
so abruptly, and in such a deep chest voice,
that it sounded like a blow too:

"Isn't a volunteer better than two pressed
men, youngster?" said the Bucksman, as if
contradicted and put out.

Tom laughed, and said he rather thought so.
"This is a queer card," thought he, and looked
so.

"I say," said Bucks (let us call him Bucks
for shortness), with a sorrowful shake of his
rusty hat and grizzled hair, at the same time
wetting his lips to show that he was going to
begin, "those were nice ones at that public-
house with your comrade there and the
other soldiers. Oh! they were bad ones, bad
lot."

"Yes, they were," said Tom, in a neat, disiplined
voice, recognising Bucks as having been
togther at the "ale-us" before starting.

"Very bad lot; I should be sorry to see sons
of mine like those gentlemen with the pack of
cards. Did you see one of them pull the
sergant's sword and make a slash in fun at him.
Oh! they were bad ones. I was sorry to see it.
Bad ones, bad ones."

Bucks relapsed into silence after this simple
homily on virtue, and proceeded with his staring
blue 'eyes to take a careful inventory of the
drummer's fantastic dress from top to toe: his
scarlet coat, a little purple and faded in places,
ts long stripes of dull white lace worked with
blue fleur-de-lis (strange tradition of the old