white trousers, fixed and motionless.

Mr. Pickwick had been so fully occupied in falling about, and
disentangling himself, miraculously, from between the legs of horses,
that he had not enjoyed sufficient leisure to observe the scene before
him, until it assumed the appearance we have just described. When he
was at last enabled to stand firmly on his legs, his gratification and
delight were unbounded.

'Can anything be finer or more delightful?' he inquired of Mr. Winkle.

'Nothing,' replied that gentleman, who had had a short man standing on
each of his feet for the quarter of an hour immediately preceding. 'It
is indeed a noble and a brilliant sight,' said Mr. Snodgrass, in whose
bosom a blaze of poetry was rapidly bursting forth, 'to see the gallant
defenders of their country drawn up in brilliant array before its
peaceful citizens; their faces beaming--not with warlike ferocity, but
with civilised gentleness; their eyes flashing--not with the rude
fire of rapine or revenge, but with the soft light of humanity and
intelligence.'

Mr. Pickwick fully entered into the spirit of this eulogium, but he
could not exactly re-echo its terms; for the soft light of intelligence
burned rather feebly in the eyes of the warriors, inasmuch as the
command 'eyes front' had been given, and all the spectator saw before
him was several thousand pair of optics, staring straight forward,
wholly divested of any expression whatever.

'We are in a capital situation now,' said Mr. Pickwick, looking round
him. The crowd had gradually dispersed in their immediate vicinity, and
they were nearly alone.

'Capital!' echoed both Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle.

'What are they doing now?' inquired Mr. Pickwick, adjusting his
spectacles.

'I--I--rather think,' said Mr. Winkle, changing colour--'I rather think
they're going to fire.'

'Nonsense,' said Mr. Pickwick hastily.

'I--I--really think they are,' urged Mr. Snodgrass, somewhat alarmed.

'Impossible,' replied Mr. Pickwick. He had hardly uttered the word, when
the whole half-dozen regiments levelled their muskets as if they had
but one common object, and that object the Pickwickians, and burst forth
with the most awful and tremendous discharge that ever shook the earth
to its centres, or an elderly gentleman off his.

It was in this trying situation, exposed to a galling fire of blank
cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military, a fresh body
of whom had begun to fall i