Half an hour later the order came for the regiment to march, and soon the men were swinging along on the way to Toro. It was a fine frosty day, and the cold, though keen, was exhilarating. The road, which in wet weather would have been a mere slough of mud, was now frozen hard, and walking was easy and pleasant. Many women walked with the regiment; others, with their children, were perched on the baggage- and ammunition-wagons. There was joking and laughter; the prospect of soon meeting the enemy whom they had been so long hoping to fight gave brightness to the men’s eyes and elasticity to their gait. Colonel Beckwith rode up and down the column, throwing a word to this man and that, encouraging the laggards and chaffing the boasters. A little snow fell at times, causing the women to snuggle under their cloaks and the men to growl about wet boots; but during this day’s march, and the four succeeding days’, the high spirits of the regiment were well maintained, and it was with surprisingly little loss by sick or stragglers that the infantry arrived, on December 20th, at Mayorga, where a junction was effected with the column under Sir David Baird. They moved forward again the following morning, and their enthusiasm was raised to the highest pitch by the news that Lord Paget, with the 10th and 15th Hussars, had surprised a large body of French cavalry in Sahagun, killing or capturing over 200 officers and men. When they arrived at this place in the evening, the main army found that it had outstripped its supplies. Wagons were short, and neither food nor clothing was to be had. It was therefore imperative that a breathing-space should be allowed, that time should be given for recruiting their strength and repairing their equipment. Eager as they were to fight, they were not sorry when they learnt that at least a day’s rest was to be given them. But when the whole of December 22nd passed without the expected order to advance, the men again began to chafe at the delay. Corporal Wilkes and some of his cronies were sitting round their camp-fire on the evening of that day discussing the situation. "What I want to know," said Wilkes in a tone suggesting that he would rather have resented the information—"what I want to know is, why we don’t up and at them Frenchmen at once. What are we waiting for? True, we ain’t had much grub, and our toggery ain’t exactly what the general would specially admire on parade, but over yonder, where that Marshal Salt, or whatever they call him, is, there’s plenty of tommy and fine clothes too, and if we could only make a move we’d very soon be able to fill our insides and polish up our outsides. Here we are, three days off Christmas, and where’s the roast-beef and plum-pudding to come from? We’ll have to sing for it, by what I can see." "Sing for it!" interposed Bates with a grunt. "No, thank’ee; we’ve had enough of the waits. Ha! ha!" There was a general guffaw at Bates’s little witticism.