On the London Road 



fifteen years ago, and yet I can still distinctly see 

 the eyes of one soldier looking at me from his berth 

 in the waggon. The glow of intense pain the glow 

 of long-continued agony lit them up as coals that 

 smouldering are suddenly fanned. Pain brightens 

 the eyes as much as joy, there is a fire in the brain 

 behind it; it is the flame in the mind you see, and 

 not the eyeball. A thought that might easily be 

 rendered romantic, but consider how these poor 

 fellows appeared afterwards. Bevies of them hopped 

 about Brussels in their red-and-blue uniforms, some 

 on crutches, some with two sticks, some with sleeves 

 pinned to their breasts, looking exactly like a company 

 of dolls a cruel child had mutilated, snapping a foot 

 off here, tearing out a leg here, and battering the face 

 of a third. Little men most of them the bowl of 

 a German pipe inverted would have covered them 

 all, within which, like bees in a hive, they might 

 hum " Te Deum Bismarckum Laudamus." But the 

 romantic flame in the eye is not always so beautiful 

 to feel as to read about. 



Another shutter on wheels went by one day with 

 one little pony in the shafts, and a second harnessed 

 in some way at the side, so as to assist in pulling, 

 but without bearing any share of the load. On this 

 shutter eight men and boys balanced themselves; 

 enough for the Olympian height of a four-in-hand. 

 Eight fellows perched round the edge like shipwrecked 

 mariners, clinging to one plank. They were so 

 balanced as to weigh chiefly on the axle, yet in front 

 of such a mountain of men, such a vast bundle of 

 ragged clothes, the ponies appeared like rats. 



On a Sunday morning two fellows came along on 

 their shutter: they overtook a girl who was walking 

 On the pavement, and one of them, more sallow and 



241 Q 



