And yet if I had had love there--some friend to talk to when the splendour of things filled me; the consciousness of a kind eye to share the pleasure of a sunshine or to light at a common memory; or if I had had hope, the prospect of brighter days and a restitution of my self-respect, they might have been much happier these marching days that I am now only too willing to forget. For we trod in many pleasant places even when weary, by summer fields jocund with flowers, and by autumn's laden orchards. Stars shone on our wearied columns as we rested in the meadows or on the verge of woods, half satisfied with a gangrel's supper and sometimes joining in a song. I used to feel then that here was a better society after all than some I had of late been habituated with upon the coast. And there were towns we passed through: 'twas sweet exceedingly to hear the echo of our own loud drums, the tarantara of trumpets. I liked to see the folks come out although they scarce were friendly, and feel that priceless zest that is the guerdon of the corps, the crowd, the mob--that I was something in a vastly moving thing even if it was no more than the regiment of raw lads called d'Auvergne. We were, for long in our progress, no part of the main army, some strategy of which we could not guess the reasoning, making it necessary that we should move alone through the country; and to the interest of our progress through these foreign scenes was added the ofttimes apprehension that we might some day suffer an alarm from the regiments of the great Frederick. Twice we were surprised by night and our pickets broken in, once a native guided us to a _guet-apens_--an ambuscade--where, to do him justice, the major fought like a lion, and by his spirit released his corps from the utmost danger. A war is like a harvest; you cannot aye be leading in, though the common notion is that in a campaign men are fighting even-on. In the cornfield the work depends upon the weather; in the field of war (at least with us 'twas so) the actual strife must often depend upon the enemy, and for weeks on end we saw them neither tail nor horn, as the saying goes. Sometimes it seemed as if the war had quite forgotten us, and was waging somewhere else upon the planet far away from Prussia. We got one good from the marching and the waiting; it put vigour in our men. Day by day they seemed to swell and strengthen, thin faces grew well-filled and ruddy, slouching steps grew confident and firm. And thus the Regiment d'Au-vergne was not so badly figured when we fought the fight of Rosbach that ended my career of glory.