t he's begun that beastly
Latin?'

It did, indeed, seem hard. Edward, the most martial spirit of us all,
was drearily conjugating _amo_ (of all verbs!) between four walls; while
Selina, who ever thrilled ecstatic to a red coat, was struggling with
the uncouth German tongue. 'Age,' I reflected, 'carries its penalties.'

It was a grievous disappointment to us that the troop passed through the
village unmolested. Every cottage, I pointed out to my companions, ought
to have been loopholed, and strongly held. But no opposition was offered
to the soldiers: who, indeed, conducted themselves with a recklessness
and a want of precaution that seemed simply criminal.

At the last cottage a transitory gleam of common sense flickered across
me, and, turning on Charlotte, I sternly ordered her back. The small
maiden, docile but exceedingly dolorous, dragged reluctant feet
homewards, heavy at heart that she was to behold no stout fellows slain
that day; but Harold and I held steadily on, expecting every instant to
see the environing hedges crackle and spit forth the leaden death.

'Will they be Indians?' asked my brother (meaning the enemy) 'or
Roundheads, or what?'

I reflected. Harold always required direct straightforward answers--not
faltering suppositions.

'They won't be Indians,' I replied at last; 'nor yet Roundheads. There
haven't been any Roundheads seen about here for a long time. They'll be
Frenchmen.'

Harold's face fell. 'All right,' he said: 'Frenchmen'll do; but I did
hope they'd be Indians.'

'If they were going to be Indians,' I explained, 'I--I don't think I'd
go on. Because when Indians take you prisoner they scalp you first, and
then burn you at the stake. But Frenchmen don't do that sort of thing.'

'Are you quite sure?' asked Harold doubtfully.

'Quite,' I replied. 'Frenchmen only shut you up in a thing called the
Bastille; and then you get a file sent in to you in a loaf of bread, and
saw the bars through, and slide down a rope, and they all fire at
you--but they don't hit you--and you run down to the seashore as hard as
you can, and swim off to a British frigate, and there you are!'

Harold brightened up again. The programme was rather attractive. 'If
they try to take us prisoner,' he said, 'we--we won't run, will we?'

Meanwhile, the craven foe was a long time showing himself; and we were
reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be
expected to prowl at nightfall. I had