en a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the elements
during the whole of the next day, these comfortable circumstances fell
on my heart like sunshine. There was an English fruiterer at dinner,
travelling with a Belgian fruiterer; in the evening at the _cafe_ we
watched our compatriot drop a good deal of money at corks, and I don't
know why, but this pleased us.

It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than we expected; for
the weather next day was simply bedlamite. It is not the place one would
have chosen for a day's rest; for it consists almost entirely of
fortifications. Within the ramparts a few blocks of houses, a long row
of barracks, and a church, figure, with what countenance they may, as
the town. There seems to be no trade; and a shopkeeper from whom I
bought a sixpenny flint-and-steel was so much affected that he filled my
pockets with spare flints into the bargain. The only public buildings
that had any interest for us were the hotel and the _cafe_. But we
visited the church. There lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had
ever heard of that military hero, we bore the associations of the spot
with fortitude.

In all garrison towns, guard-calls and _reveilles_, and such like, make
a fine romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles, and drums, and
fifes are of themselves most excellent things in nature; and when they
carry the mind to marching armies, and the picturesque vicissitudes of
war, they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a shadow of a
town like Landrecies, with little else moving, these points of war made
a proportionate commotion. Indeed, they were the only things to
remember. It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in
the darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the startling
reverberations of the drum. It reminded you that even this place was a
point in the great warfaring system of Europe, and might on some future
day be ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself a
name among strong towns.

The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and notable physiological
effect--nay, even from its cumbrous and comical shape,--stands alone
among the instruments of noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it
said, that drums are covered with asses' skin, what a picturesque irony
is there in that! As if this long-suffering animal's hide had not been
sufficiently belaboured during life, now by Lyonnese costermongers, now
by presumptuous