“Well,” continued the sergeant, “it was at that old windmill I heard the song of ‘The Sentinel’ first, from one of the enemy, who was sitting with four or five others on the top of one of the heights; and when he was done, a crowd of our fellows, about two or three hundred yards from me, gave him three rounds of applause. The night was so still, that you could hear the cocking of a musket half a mile off, and the song went most melodiously. God knows whether the poor fellow ever sang another song! for the next day there was no singing, but plenty of dancing, to the tune of ‘_over the hills and far away_,’ and I rather think we made the French pay the piper.” “Bluranouns! tell us how it _was_, sargeant,” exclaimed Mulligan, with an anxious smile, and a chuckling twist of his hands. The sergeant was not sorry to have such a favour asked of him, and he did not lose a moment in complying with the request, which now became general. “After I was relieved that night, I lay down in my guard-coat on some Indian-corn straw, behind a wall or sort of pent-house, where our advanced piquet was, and I slept a couple of hours; after which Tom Singleton and I smoked a little while, out of a short stump of a pipe, which Tom brought with him from England, and warmed our gobs with a drop out of the canteen. It was broad daylight, and we got up to look out at the heights over the wall; for the officer of the piquet was very busy with his spy-glass reconnoitring, and we knew we were soon to begin a little bit of business with the Mounseers. “Every body thought Sir Arthur would not let us be long before we should be ordered to be ready,--for he looked like a sharp one. We had not been many minutes leaning over the wall, when we saw the blue fellows moving along the height immediately in front of us, as if to take up a position on their own extreme left; and, presently, four or five officers--I suppose the General and his staff--appeared where the vidette was posted, and planted an eagle-flag on the highest point of the hill; after which all drew their swords, took off their hats, and saluted it. Thinks I, ‘Sir Arthur will pay his addresses to that same flag before long.’ The French General took damned good care to place the eagle on the top of a rock, where the boys could not _scale her nest_ very easily.