with dripping plume and cloak hanging loosely about him, turned his horse into the wet fields and galloped heavily past the infantry in the road, the mist closed over them again, and the Larks could see nothing more.

But along the line of the road, to north as well as south, they could hear the rumbling of wheels and the heavy tramp of men marching, deadened as all these sounds were by the mud of the road and by the dense air. Nay, far away to the southward there were other sounds in the air—sounds deep and strange, as if a storm were beginning there.

“But there is no storm about,” said the Skylark’s wife; “I should have felt it long ago. What is it, dear? what can it be? Something is wrong; and I feel as if trouble were coming, with all these creatures about. Look there!” she said, as they descended again to the ground at a little distance, as usual, from the nest; “look there, and tell me if something is not going to happen!”

A little way off, dimly looming through the mist, was a large cart or waggon moving slowly along a field-track. Leading the horses was the farmer, and sitting in the cart was the farmer’s wife, trouble written in her face; on her lap was a tiny child, another sat on the edge of the cart, and a third was astride on one of the big horses, holding on by his huge collar, and digging his young heels into the brawny shoulders below him. All of these the Skylarks knew well; they came from the farm down in the hollow, and they must be leaving their old home, for there was crockery, and a big clock, and a picture or two, and other household goods, all packed in roughly and hurriedly, as if the family had been suddenly turned out into the world. The farmer looked over his shoulder and said a cheering word to his wife, and the Skylark did the same by his.

“Don’t get frightened,” he said, “or you won’t be able to sit close. And sitting close is the whole secret, dear, the whole secret of nesting. I’m sorry I took you up there, but I meant well. Promise me to sit close; if any creature comes along, don’t you stir—it is the whole secret. They won’t find you on the eggs, if you only sit close; and think how hard it is to get back again without being seen when once you’re off the nest! There’s nothing to alarm you in what we saw. See, here we are at the nest, and how far it is from the big road, and how snugly hidden! Promise me, then, to sit close, and in a day or two we shall begin to hatch.”

She promised, and nestled once more on the eggs. It was true, as he had said, that the nest was some way from the road; it was in fact about halfway between two high roads, which separated as they emerged from a great forest to the northwards, and then ran at a wide angle down a gentle slope of corn-land and meadow. In the hollow near to the western road lay the farmhouse, whose owners had been seen departing by the Skylarks, standing in a little enclosure of yard and orchard; near the other road, but higher up the slope, was another homestead. On the edge of the slope, connecting the two main roads, ran a little cart-track, seldom used; just such a deeply-rutted track as you may see on the slope of a south-country down, cutting rather deeply into the ground in some places, so that a man walking up to it along the grass slope might take an easy jump from the edge into the ruts, and need a vigorous step or two to mount on the other side. Just under this edge of the grass-field, and close to the track, the Larks had placed their nest; for the grass of the field, cropped close by sheep, offered them little cover; and they did not mind the cart or waggon that once in two or three days rolled lazily by their home, driven by a drowsy countryman in a short blue frock.

Next day the weather was worse, though the fog had cleared away; and in the afternoon it began to rain. Long before sunset the Larks began to hear once more the rumbling of waggons and the trampling of horses; they seemed to be all coming back again, for the noise grew louder and louder. Each time the cock bird returned from a flight, or brought food to his wife, he looked, in spite of himself, a little graver. But she sat close, only starting once or twice from the nest when the distant crack of a gun was heard.

“Sit close, sit close,” said her consort, “and remember that the way to get shot is to leave the nest. We are perfectly safe here, and I will be hiding in the bank at hand, if any danger should threaten.”

As he spoke, men passed along the track; then more, and others on the grass on each side of it. Then that dread rumbling grew nearer, and a medley of sounds, the cracking of whips, the clanging of metal, the hoarse voices of tired men, began to grow around them on every side. Once or twice, as it began to grow dusk, men tried to kindle a fire in the drizzle, and by the fitful light groups of men could be seen, standing, crouching, eating, each with his musket in his hand, as if he might have to use it at any moment. Officers walked quickly round giving directions, and now and then half-a-dozen horsemen, one on a bay horse always a little in advance, might be seen moving about and surveying the scene. Then more men passed by, and ever more, along the slope; more horses, guns, and waggons moved along the track. A deep slow murmur seemed to rise in the air, half stifled by the pouring rain, and broken now and then by some loud oath near at hand, as a stalwart soldier slipped and fell on the soppy ground. Then, as lights began to flash out on the opposite rise to the southward, a noise of satisfaction seemed to run along the ground—not a cheer, nor yet a laugh, but something inarticulate that did duty for both with wet and weary men. In time all became quiet, but for the occasional voice of a sentinel; and now and then a cloaked form would rise from the ground and try to make a smouldering fire burn up.

All this time the Skylark’s wife had been sitting close; men and horses were all around, but the nest was safe, being just under the lip of the bank. Her husband had crept into a hole close by her, and was presently fast asleep, with his head under his wing. They had already got used to the din and the sounds, and they could not abandon the nest. There they slept, for the present in peace, though war was in the air, and seventy thousand men lay, trying to sleep, around them.

II

On that first day, when the sun had broken through the mist and shone upon the army hastening southwards, an English lad, in the ranks of an infantry regiment, had heard the singing of the Larks high above them. He was a common village lad, a “Bill” with no more poetry or heroism in him than any other English Bill; snapped up at Northstow Fair by a recruiting serjeant, who was caught by his sturdy limbs and healthy looks; put through the mill of army discipline, and turned out ready to go anywhere and do anything at command—not so much because it was his duty, as because it was the lot that life had brought him. He was hardly well past what we now call schoolboy years, and he went to fight the French as he used to go to the parson’s school, without asking why he was to go. He might perhaps have told you, if you had asked him the question, that trudging along that miry road, heavily laden, and wet with the drippings of the forest they had just passed through, was not much livelier than trying to form pothooks under the parson’s vigilant eye.

When they emerged from the forest into the open, and began to descend the gentle slope into the hollow by the farmhouse, the sun broke out, as we have seen, and Bill, like the rest, began to look about him