of Flanders.

Determined to run no more risks if he could avoid it, he took a
line which would avoid Paris and all other towns at which he had
ever shown himself. Sometimes he tramped alone, more often with
other soldiers who had been during the winter on leave to recover
from the effects of wounds or of fevers. From their talk Rupert
learned with satisfaction that the campaign which he had missed had
been very uneventful, and that no great battles had taken place. It
was expected that the struggle that would begin in a few weeks
would be a desperate one, both sides having made great efforts to
place a predominating force in the field.

As he had no idea of putting on the French uniform even for a day,
Rupert resolved as he approached the army frontier to abandon his
story that he was a soldier going to take his place in the ranks.

When he reached Amiens he found the streets encumbered with baggage
waggons taking up provisions and stores to the army. The drivers
had all been pressed into the service. Going into a cabaret, he
heard some young fellow lamenting bitterly that he had been dragged
away from home when he was in three weeks to have been married.
Waiting until he left, Rupert followed him, and told him that he
had heard what he had said and was ready to go as his substitute,
if he liked. For a minute or two the poor fellow could hardly
believe his good fortune; but when he found that he was in earnest
he was delighted, and hurried off to the contractor in charge of
the train--Rupert stopping with him by the way to buy a blouse, in
which he looked more fitted for the post.

The contractor, seeing that Rupert was a far more powerful and
useful-looking man than the driver whose place he offered to take,
made no difficulty whatever; and in five minutes Rupert, with a
metal plate with his number hung round his neck, was walking by the
side of a heavily-loaded team, while their late driver, with his
papers of discharge in his pocket, had started for home almost wild
with delight.

For a month Rupert worked backwards and forwards, between the posts
and the depots. As yet the allies had not taken the field, and he
knew that he should have no chance of crossing a wide belt of
country patrolled in every direction by the French cavalry. At the
end of that time the infantry moved out from their quarters and
took the field, and the allied army advanced towards them. The
French army, under Vendome, numbered 100,000 m