m the turf of
the roadside a pageant which the accident of an ordered and servile life
afforded us; for it is true of armies that the compensation of their
drudgery and miserable subjection is the continual opportunity of these
large emotions; and not only by their vastness and arrangement, but by
the very fact that they merge us into themselves, do armies widen the
spirit of a man and give it communion with the majesty of great numbers.
One becomes a part of many men.

The seventh battery, with which we had little to do (for in quarters
they belonged to the furthest corner from our own), first came by and
passed us, with that interminable repetition of similar things which is
the note of a force on the march, and makes it seem like a river
flowing. We recognised it by the figure of one Chevalier, a major
attached to them. He was an absent-minded man of whom many stories were
told--kindly, with a round face; and he wore eyeglasses, either for the
distinction they afforded or because he was short of sight. The seventh
passed us, and their forge and waggon ended the long train. A
regulation space between them and the next allowed the dust to lie a
little, and then the ninth came by; we knew them well, because in
quarters they were our neighbours. At their head was their captain,
whose name was Levy. He was a Jew, small, very sharp-featured, and a man
who worked astonishingly hard. He was very popular with his men, and his
battery was happy and boasted. He cared especially for their food, and
would go into their kitchen daily to taste the soup. He was also a
silent man. He sat his horse badly, bent and crouched, but his eyes were
very keen; and he again was a character of whom the men talked and told
stories. I believe he was something of a mathematician; but we knew
little of such things where our superiors were concerned.

As the ninth battery passed us we were given the order to mount, and
knew that our place came next. The long-drawn _Ha-a-lte!_ and the lifted
swords down the road contained for a while the batteries that were to
follow, and we filed out of our side road into the long gap they had
left us. Then, taking up the trot, ourselves, we heard the order passing
down infinitely till it was lost in the length of the road; the trumpets
galloped past us and formed at the head of the column; a much more
triumphant noise of brass than we had yet heard heralded us with a kind
of insolence, and the whole train with its