from those carried with
the baggage of the regiment, and the sergeant of the company in which he
had been placed took him to its barrack-room.

"Comrades," he said, "here is a new recruit. He is an Englishman who has
the good sense to prefer fighting the Russians to rotting in prison. He
is a brave fellow, and speaks our language well, and I think you will
find him a good comrade. He has handed over twenty francs to pay his
footing in the company. You must not regard him as a traitor to his
country, my friends, for he has received from the colonel a paper
authorizing him to exchange into a regiment destined for other service,
in case, after we have done with the Russians, we should be sent to some
place where we should have to fight against his countrymen."

In half an hour Julian felt at home with his new comrades. They differed
greatly in age: some among them had grown grizzly in the service, and
had fought in all the wars of the Republic and Empire; others were lads
not older than himself, taken but a month or two before from the plough.
After they had drunk the liquor purchased with his twenty francs, they
patted him on the back and drank to the health of Jules Wyatt, for
Julian had entered under his own surname, and his Christian name was at
once converted to its French equivalent. With his usual knack of making
friends, he was soon on excellent terms with them all, joined in their
choruses, and sang some English songs whose words he had as an exercise
translated into French, and when the men lay down for the night on their
straw pallets it was generally agreed that the new comrade was a fine
fellow and an acquisition to the company.

The division was to halt for two days at Verdun, and the time was spent,
as far as Julian was concerned, in the hands of a sergeant, who kept him
hard at work all day acquiring the elements of drill. On the third
morning the regiment marched off at daybreak, Julian taking his place
in the ranks, with his knapsack and firelock. After the long confinement
in the prison he found his life thoroughly enjoyable. Sometimes they
stopped in towns, where they were either quartered in barracks or
billeted on the inhabitants; sometimes they slept under canvas or in the
open air, and this Julian preferred, as they built great fires and
gathered round them in merry groups. The conscripts had by this time got
over their home-sickness, and had caught the martial enthusiasm of their
older comrades.