uch an
experienced counsellor as himself. His contention against Wegstetten in
pronouncing the six light bays too weak to drag gun six had indeed been
proved correct. That, of course, afforded him a certain amount of
satisfaction; but to have one horse dead and another disfigured was
paying too high a price for it!

They had now reached the top of the ridge, and the barracks could be
descried far below in the valley. There was plenty of time before the
rendezvous, so the battery might still keep to their easy pace.
Nevertheless, the time of the march was gradually accelerated the
horses of course could not yet scent the nearness of their stables; but
the men were impatient, and involuntarily urged the animals on. Having
once seen the barracks, they wanted to be home as soon as possible.

Half of them, it was true, were only to sleep one more night within
these walls; then they would doff the green coat and be once more their
own masters. To these men it felt as if their time of service had ended
with the parade which closed the man[oe]uvres. When they had marched
past the commanding general they had still been soldiers; but if now
they received orders, they would not carry them out with the prompt,
alert movements to which they had been trained during the last two
years. They took things more leisurely now. The drill which had been
thrashed into them already began to be forgotten; only a perfunctory
obedience remained.

It was as though a spirit of revolt had taken possession of the men.
There were many among them who had never thought of concerning
themselves with the aims of Social-Democracy; who might perhaps have
returned to their ploughs and their spades in a docile and dutiful
spirit. But now it dawned upon them all at once how the little
they as soldiers had been obliged to learn had been made quite
unnecessarily difficult for them. They stripped off, like a troublesome
strait-waistcoat, the superfluity of petty rules to which they had been
subjected; and the recognition of the needless compulsion they had so
long endured produced, as its inevitable consequence, a violent
reaction, which quite naturally manifested itself in a hasty change of
opinion. Many of those who, on their discharge the next morning, would
have to join in the cheers for the Emperor and the King, had, no doubt,
already on their lips the socialist song which would be sung after
midnight in the taverns of their native places.

And the res