Some people are hard to impress, but they are few who do not feel a thrill of excitement on the passing-by of a well-drilled regiment whose band is playing some lively march, to which, and the heavy beat of the drum, the tramp, tramp of six or eight hundred men is heard, like the pulsation of Old England's warlike heart. The thrill is felt by the bystanders and the men themselves; and the sight of the eager, interested faces the soldiers pass has given renewed spirit to many a man, hot, weary, and faint from some long march, and seemed to tighten muscle and nerve for the work yet to come. That special morning Dick Smithson felt that, after all, his was a very bright and happy life. The past was dead; he had friends about him, and there was a delirious feeling of satisfaction to be there, at the head of the long line of men, whose glittering bayonets flashed and undulated in the sun as they passed down the main street, at the end of which, where the people formed a crowd, hurrying along on either side, the brass band ended its strains, and after a preliminary flourish on the kettle-drums these and the fifes rattled and shrilled in their well-marked music. Turn and turn, with an occasional change, when the kettle-drums had it all to themselves--_trr_--_trr_--_trr_--_trr_--a light, sharp tap, to mark the step as the towns were left behind, and the course led between the Kentish hedgerows and the bare fields, which seemed to be growing crops of poles, for the young hops themselves were only just showing their bronze-hued points above the ground. Then, on and on, in open order, till, far away on the slope of a hill, where the white chalky road could be traced for miles, a cloud of dust could be seen. Soon after there was a flicker, as if the cloud were not dust, but smoke, and the flickering light was that of the fire within. Then there was another flicker, and more and more, till it was plain enough that the sun was being reflected from burnished brass or steel, and the sinuous cloud was hovering over the regiment they had come to meet. Half an hour later the two regiments had met, there had been a halt called, and at its end the march back to town was commenced, the men going over the hard road with a light, springy step. It was all very simple and unadventurous, but everyone seemed to enjoy it--the men whose march had only been from Ratcham and those whose dusty clothes told of the many long miles they had tramped since early morn. The crowd was greater than ever when the town was reached again, the 205th's band leading them and making the streets echo to the strains of "The British Grenadiers." There were loud bursts of cheering, too, now, and the traffic was stopped as the band was halted near the gates of the High Barracks to play the 310th in.