an regiment was marching. I
quickened my pace to hear the military music, for I was extremely
partial to it; but the band ceased playing, and no sound was heard
except an occasional roll of the kettle-drum at long intervals to mark
the uniform step of the soldiers. After following them for a half hour,
I saw the regiment enter a small plain, surrounded by a fir grove. I
asked a captain, whose acquaintance I had made, if his men were about to
be drilled.

'No,' said he, 'they are about to try, and perhaps to shoot, a soldier
of my company for having stolen something from the house where he was
billeted.'

'What,' said I, 'are they going to try, condemn, and execute him, all in
the same moment?'

'Yes,' said he, 'those are the provisions of the capitulation.'

This word 'capitulation' was to him an unanswerable argument, as if
everything had been provided for in the capitulation, the crime and the
punishment, justice and humanity.

'And if you have any curiosity to see it,' added the captain, 'I will
place you where you may see everything. It won't be long.'

It may be from my professional education, but the truth is, I have
always been fond of witnessing these melancholy spectacles; I persuade
myself that I shall discover the solution of the enigma--death--on the
face of a man in full health, whose life is suddenly severed. I followed
the captain. The regiment was formed in a hollow square; in the rear of
the second rank and near the edge of the grove, some soldiers were
digging a grave. They were commanded by the third lieutenant, for in the
regiment everything was done with order, and there is a certain form
observed even in the digging of a man's grave. In the centre of the
hollow square eight officers were seated on drums; a ninth officer was
on their right, and some distance before them, negligently writing
something, and using his knees as his desk; he was evidently filling up
the forms simply because it was against the 'regulations' that a man
should be killed without the usual forms. The accused was called up. He
was a tall, fine-looking young man, with a noble and gentle face. A
woman (the only witness in the cause) came up with him. But when the
colonel began the examination of the woman, the soldier stopped him,
saying:

'It is useless asking her any questions. I am going to confess
everything: I stole a handkerchief in that lady's house.

THE COLONEL. What! Piter! You have been stealing! We all thou