r-beaten flag such as hung in the
cathedral aisle at school, they bethought them for the first time of
its price, with misgivings now in rapid growth, as they return to their
posts as nearly as may be, for the division has been ordered forward in
their brief absence, to find themselves under arrest, with that damning
proof of heroism, of guilt, in their possession, relinquished however
along with the swords they will never handle [231] again--toys,
idolised toys of our later youth, we weep at the thought of them as
never to be handled again!--as they enter the prison to await summary
trial next day on the charge of wantonly deserting their posts while in
position of high trust in time of war.

The full details of what had happened could have been told only by one
or other of themselves; by Uthwart best, in the somewhat matter-of-fact
and prosaic journal he had managed to keep from the first, noting there
the incidents of each successive day, as if in anticipation of its
possible service by way of piece justificative, should such become
necessary, attesting hour by hour their single-hearted devotion to
soldierly duty. Had a draughtsman equally truthful or equally
"realistic," as we say, accompanied them and made a like use of his
pencil, he might have been mistaken at home for an artist aiming at
"effect," by skilful "arrangements" to tickle people's interest in the
spectacle of war--the sudden ruin of a village street, the heap of
bleeding horses in the half-ploughed field, the gaping bridges, hand or
face of the dead peeping from a hastily made grave at the roadside,
smoke-stained rents in cottage-walls, ignoble ruin everywhere--ignoble
but for its frank expression.

But you find in Uthwart's journal, side by side with those ugly
patches, very precise and unadorned records of their common gallantry,
the more effective indeed for their simplicity; [232] and not of
gallantry only, but of the long-sustained patience also, the essential
monotony of military life, even on a campaign. Peril, good-luck,
promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart as ever, (as
if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on them, so "spick
and span" they were, more especially on days of any exceptional risk or
effort) the great confidence reposed in them at last; all is noted,
till, with a little quiet pride, he records a gun-shot wound which
keeps him a month alone in hospital wearily; and at last, its hasty but
seemin