see him quick enough if he were
needed.

I had never seen so many English together, and indeed I had a kind of
contempt for them, as folk always have if they live near a border.
But the two regiments that were with us now were as good comrades as
could be wished. The 52nd had a thousand men in the ranks, and there
were many old soldiers of the Peninsula among them. They came from
Oxfordshire for the most part. The 95th were a rifle regiment, and had
dark green coats instead of red. It was strange to see them loading,
for they would put the ball into a greasy rag and then hammer it down
with a mallet, but they could fire both further and straighter than we.
All that part of Belgium was covered with British troops at that time;
for the Guards were over near Enghien, and there were cavalry regiments
on the further side of us. You see, it was very necessary that
Wellington should spread out all his force, for Boney was behind the
screen of his fortresses, and of course we had no means of saying on
what side he might pop out, except that he was pretty sure to come the
way that we least expected him. On the one side he might get between us
and the sea, and so cut us off from England; and on the other he might
shove in between the Prussians and ourselves. But the Duke was as
clever as he, for he had his horse and his light troops all round him,
like a great spider's web, so that the moment a French foot stepped
across the border he could close up all his men at the right place.

For myself, I was very happy at Ath, and I found the folk very kindly
and homely. There was a farmer of the name of Bois, in whose fields we
were quartered, and who was a real good friend to many of us. We built
him a wooden barn among us in our spare time, and many a time I and Jeb
Seaton, my rear-rank man, have hung out his washing, for the smell of
the wet linen seemed to take us both straight home as nothing else could
do. I have often wondered whether that good man and his wife are still
living, though I think it hardly likely, for they were of a hale
middle-age at the time. Jim would come with us too, sometimes, and
would sit with us smoking in the big Flemish kitchen, but he was a
different Jim now to the old one. He had always had a hard touch in
him, but now his trouble seemed to have turned him to flint, and I never
saw a smile upon his face, and seldom heard a word from his lips.
His whole mind was set on revenging himself upon