It was, then, with an anxious heart I pressed my horse forward into a gallop as the night drew near. The artillery had been distinctly heard during the day, and while I burned with eagerness to know the result, I felt scarcely less anxious for the fate of that little hamlet whose name many a kind story had implanted in my memory. The moon was shining brightly as I passed the outpost, and leading my horse by the bridle, descended the steep and rugged causeway to the village beneath me. The lanterns were moving rapidly to and fro; the measured tread of infantry at night--that ominous sound, which falls upon the heart so sadly--told me that they were burying the dead. The air was still and breathless; not a sound was stirring save the step of the soldiery, and the harsh clash of the shovel as it struck the earth. I felt sad and sick at heart, and leaned against a tree; a nightingale concealed in the leaves was pouring forth its plaintive notes to the night air, and its low warble sounded like the dirge of the departed. Far beyond, in the plain, the French watch-fires were burning, and I could see from time to time the fatigue-parties moving in search of their wounded. At this moment the clock of the convent struck eleven, and a merry chime rang out, and was taken up by the echoes till it melted away in the distance. Alas, where were those whose hearts were wont to feel cheered at that happy peal; whose infancy it had gladdened; whose old age it has hallowed? The fallen walls, the broken roof-trees, the ruin and desolation on every side, told too plainly that they had passed away forever! The smoking embers, the torn-up pathway, denoted the hard-fought struggle; and as I passed along, I could see that every garden, where the cherry and the apple-blossom were even still perfuming the air, had now its sepulchre. “Halt, there!” cried a hoarse voice in front. “You cannot pass this way,--the commander-in-chief’s quarters.”