hovering about his heart, notwithstanding the factitious
courage of the whiskey bottle. "What on airth is the manin' of all this?
is it the French that's landed at last to give us a hand and help us in
airnest to this blessed repale? If it is not them, I simply ask who the
div--, I mane who on airth are they, for such sogers as them I never
seen before in my born days?"

By this time the foremost of them were quite near, and truth to say they
were the queerest soldiers he had ever seen in the course of his life.
They wore long gaiters and leather breeches, three-cornered hats, bound
with silver lace, long blue coats, with scarlet facings and linings,
which latter were shewn by a fastening which held together the two
opposite corners of the skirt behind; and in front the breasts were in
like manner connected at a single point, where and below which they
sloped back, disclosing a long-flapped waistcoat of snowy whiteness; they
had very large, long cross-belts, and wore enormous pouches of white
leather hung extraordinarily low, and on each of which a little silver
star was glittering. But what struck him as most grotesque and outlandish
in their costume was their extraordinary display of shirt-frill in front,
and of ruffle about their wrists, and the strange manner in which their
hair was frizzled out and powdered under their hats, and clubbed up into
great rolls behind. But one of the party was mounted. He rode a tall
white horse, with high action and arching neck; he had a snow-white
feather in his three-cornered hat, and his coat was shimmering all over
with a profusion of silver lace. From these circumstances Peter concluded
that he must be the commander of the detachment, and examined him as he
passed attentively. He was a slight, tall man, whose legs did not half
fill his leather breeches, and he appeared to be at the wrong side of
sixty. He had a shrunken, weather-beaten, mulberry-coloured face, carried
a large black patch over one eye, and turned neither to the right nor to
the left, but rode on at the head of his men, with a grim, military
inflexibility.

The countenances of these soldiers, officers as well as men, seemed all
full of trouble, and, so to speak, scared and wild. He watched in vain
for a single contented or comely face. They had, one and all, a
melancholy and hang-dog look; and as they passed by, Peter fancied that
the air grew cold and thrilling.

He had seated himself upon a stone bench, from w