The preliminaries being gone through, the arduous duty of forming the companies into line was now to be accomplished. A great stir was at this instant discernible amongst the crowd before Wiggins’s steps, and shortly I observed the figures of several officers waving and glittering with feathers and tinsel rising above the surface of heads as they mounted their prancing steeds. Spurring them through the throng, they succeeded after a while in clearing a long space and extending the breadth of the village street. The word was then given to form the line, and amidst the loud orders of the officers I could see the different squads arranging themselves into marching order. A few minutes elapsed, and then arose a din sufficient to drive one crazy, and yet of the most ludicrous character. Each company was furnished with its own drum and fife, and, in some instances, bass-drum and cymbals. The three or four companies near me commenced marching in columns at nearly the same moment, their respective bands striking up at the same time, each playing its own tune. The effect was laughable in the highest degree. “Hail Columbia” had its slow heels tripped up completely by the _pirouettes_ of “Yankee Doodle;” the “Girl I Left Behind Me” and “Miller’s Quick Step,” locked themselves together in a perfect wrestling match, first one down, then the other—now a bar struggling convulsively, then a strain nearly throttled; then high and low notes, tug and tug, heard alternately, the whole at last mingling itself up into the strangest entanglement possible—a maelstrom, so to speak, of whirling music. A bass-drum would thunder down, breaking the back at a stroke of a long roll proceeding from a tenor one near by, whilst another of the latter species would rub-a-dub right into a pair of cymbals, and scatter their silver clashings into an entire route. New tunes would be constantly arriving as the distant companies came marching up to give fresh life to the wrangling discord, whilst to add to the uproar, the whole pack of pedlers, amounting to nearly a dozen, had given tongue at the first hurly-burly of the music, bursting out, as it were, in full cry. “_Here’s_ your fine penknives, all a going at onst,” shouted a tall, ram-rod looking fellow, with a knob of a hat, and a nose that seemed stretching out on purpose to scent a good bargain. “Walk up, ladies and gentlemen,” bawled another, with a white broad-brim so weak and slouchy as to look as if about to faint away off his head. “How much for this splendid necklace!” yelled another, in a higher key, with the rim of his beaver cocked fiercely in front, and with a patch in the back of his coat, as though he had an eye there to look after his articles in that direction. “Come, gentlemen, can’t wait, onst, twice! wont you say sixpence more!” said a fourth, sinking from a shout gradually down to a coaxing whine, whilst a fifth, with straight, black hair and saturnine complexion, giving him quite a sanctimonious look,