A HOME OF TOMMY ATKINS. 



55 



A GUARD-HOUSE. 



morning exercises. We pass a guard -house where the sentry, 

 rifle in hand, paces up and down his beat, and the men of 

 the guard sit on benches on the shady side of the hut, lazily 

 dozing, or sucking at their short pipes, while just beyond, 

 marching and countermarching over a bare, dusty patch of 

 ground, a squad of candidates for martial glory is undergoing 

 the ordeal of the "setting-up" drill under the charge of a 

 spruce sergeant. Now and then we meet a soldier engaged 

 on some fatigue duty ; a working party in their canvas over- 

 alls, picks and shovels on their shoulders, crosses the road ; 

 a smart hussar orderly, his busby strapped under his chin, and 

 trappings clanking on his horse's flanks, trots by; the hum of 



