, saying:

"You will rejoin your battalion to-morrow, two leagues hence, near
Torgau."

Then the old soldier, looking at me, placed his hand upon the ground,
to show that there was room beside him, and I seated myself. I opened
my knapsack, and put on new stockings and shoes, which I had brought
from Leipzig, after which I felt much better.

The old man asked:

"You are rejoining your corps?"

"Yes; the Sixth at Torgau."

"And you came from?"----

"The hospital at Leipzig."

"That is easily seen," said he; "you are fat as a beadle. They fed you
on chickens down there, while we were eating cow-beef."

I looked around at my sleeping neighbors. He was right; the poor
conscripts were mere skin and bone. They were bronzed as veterans, and
scarcely seemed able to stand.

The old man, in a moment, continued his questions:

"You were wounded?"

"Yes, veteran, at Lutzen."

"Four months in the hospital!" said he, whistling; "what luck! I have
just returned from Spain, flattering myself that I was going to meet
the _Kaiserliks_ of 1807 once more--sheep, regular sheep--but they have
become worse than guerillas. Everything goes to the bad."

He said the most of this to himself, without paying much attention to
me, all the while sewing his shoe, which from time to time he tried on,
to be sure that the sewn part would not hurt his foot. At last he put
the thread in his knapsack, and the shoe upon his foot, and stretched
himself upon a truss of straw.

I was too fatigued to sleep at once, and for an hour lay awake.

In the morning I set out again with the quartermaster Poitevin, and
three other soldiers of Souham's division. Our route lay along the
bank of the Elbe; the weather was wet and the wind swept fiercely over
the river, throwing the spray far on the land.

We hastened on for an hour, when suddenly the quartermaster cried:

"Attention!"

He had halted suddenly, and stood listening. We could hear nothing but
the sighing of the wind through the trees, and the splash of the waves;
but his ear was finer than ours.

"They are skirmishing yonder," said he, pointing to a wood on our
right. "The enemy may be near us, and the best thing we can do is to
enter the wood and pursue our way cautiously. We can see at the other
end of it what is going on; and if the Prussians or Russians are there,
we can beat a retreat without their perceiving us. If they are French,
we will go on."

We all thought the