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 and shake himself. Looking up at the bit of blue sky, he saw two tiny specks against it, and now for the first time the Lark’s song caught his ear.
At any other moment it would have caught his ear only, and left his mind untouched. But it came with the sun, and opened some secret spring under that red coat, without the wearer knowing it. Bill’s sturdy legs tramped on as before, but his thoughts had suddenly taken flight. There was nothing else to think of, and for a minute or two he was away in English midlands, making his way in heavy boots and gaiters to the fields at daybreak, with the dew glistening on the turnip-leaves, and the Larks singing overhead. In those early morning trudges, before work drove all else from his mind, he used to think of a certain Polly, the blooming daughter of the blacksmith; so he thought of Polly now. Her vision stayed awhile, and then gave way to his mother and the rest of them in that little thatched cottage shrinking away from the road by the horsepond; and then the Rectory came in sight just beyond, and the old parson’s black gaiters and knotted stick. Bill, the parson’s schoolboy, bringing home one day a lark’s nest entire with four eggs, had come upon the parson by the gate, and shrunk from the look of that stick.
Bill had put the nest behind him, but it was too late; and he was straightway turned back the way he came, and told to replace the nest where he found it.
“And mind you do it gently, Bill,” said the old parson, “or the Lord won’t love you any more!”
To disobey the parson would have been for Bill a sheer impossibility, though easy enough for other lads. For him the old parson had been in the place of a father ever since he lost his own; and at home, in school, in church, or in the village, he often saw the old man many times a day. Not that he exactly loved him – or at least he was not aware of it; he had more than once tasted of the big stick, and oftener deserved it. But in Bill there was a feeling for constituted authority, which centred itself in those black gaiters and in that bent form with the grey hair; and it was strengthened by a dim sense of gratitude and respect; so he turned back without a word, and put back the nest with all the care he could.
When he came in sight once more, the parson was still at his gate, looking down the road for him from under the wide brim of his old hat.
“Have you done it, Bill?” he said, and without waiting for an answer, “will they thrive yet, do ye think?”
“I see the old ’uns about, sir,” says Bill “There’s a chance as they may take to ’un again, if the eggs be’ant to’ cold ’owever.”
“Then the Lord’ll love you, Bill,” said the old man, quite simply, and turned away up his garden. And Bill went home too; he told no one the story, but the parson’s last words got a better hold of him than all the sermons he had ever heard him preach.
And so it came about that, years afterwards, as he trudged along that Belgian highroad, besides Polly and his mother and the cottage, he saw the Rectory and the old parson, standing at the gate – waiting for the postman, perhaps with news from the seat of war. “I never wrote to ’un,” thought Bill, “as I said I would, to let ’un see a bit of my scrawlen – ”
But a nudge of the elbow from the next man drove all these visions away.
“D’ye hear that, youngster?” said this neighbour, an old Peninsular veteran, once a serjeant, and now degraded to the ranks for drunkenness; “d’ye hear that noise in front? That’s a battle, that is, and we’ll be too late for it, unless Bony fights hard, drat him!”
The pace was quickened, and for several miles they went on in silence, the sound of battle gradually getting louder. At last it began to die away; and soon an aide-de-camp came galloping up and spoke to their colonel, who halted his men in a field by the roadside. Then tumbrils full of wounded men began to roll slowly along the road, at which Bill looked at first with rather a wistful gaze. At last night set in, and they bivouacked on the field as they were.
Early next morning troops began to file past them – infantry, artillery, and baggage; the cavalry, so Bill was told by his neighbour in the ranks, was in the rear keeping off the enemy. Bony was coming after them, sure enough, he said, and the Duke must draw back and get all his troops together, and get the Prussians too, before he could smash that old sinner.
At last their turn came to file into the road, and retrace their steps of yesterday. It was now raining, and already wet and cold, and Bill simply plodded on like a machine, till a slight descent, and the sight of the farmhouse, and of the dark forest looming in front of them, told him that he was again on the ground where the sun had shone and the Lark sung. And his trials for that day were nearly at end, for no sooner had they mounted the slope on the further side, than they were ordered to the right, and turning into the fields by the little cross-track, were halted between the two roads, and lay down as they were, tired out.
Dawn was beginning at three o’clock on Sunday the 18th of June, and the Lark was already astir. In the night an egg had been hatched, and great was the joy of both parents. All was quiet just around the nest; at a little distance a sentinel was pacing up and down, but no one else was moving. The wife, at a call from her mate, left the nest, and rose with him through the drizzling rain.
“Higher, higher,” cried the cock bird, “let us try for the blue sky again, and look for the sunrise as we sing!” And higher they went, and higher, but found no blue that day; and when the sun rose behind the clouds, it rose with an angry yellow light, that gave no cheer to man or beast. And what a sight it showed below them! All along the ridge for a mile and a half lay prostrate forms, huddled together for warmth; picketed horses stood asleep with drooping heads; cannon and waggons covered the ground towards the forest. And all that host lay silent, as if dead. And over there, on the opposite height, lay another vast and dark crowd of human beings. What would happen when they all woke up?
The Larks spent some time, as was their wont, bathing themselves in the fresher air above, and then descended slowly to find insects for the new-born little one. Slowly – for a weight lay on the hearts of both; there was peril, they knew, though neither of them would own it. As they approached the earth, they saw a figure kneeling against the bank, and prying into the ground just where lay the home of all their fond desire. Each uttered at the same moment a piteous cry, and the figure, looking up, rose quickly from his knees and watched them. Then he went slowly away, and lay down among a group of cloaked human forms.
It was Bill, just released from sentinel duty. As he paced to and fro, he had seen the Larks rise, and, relieved by a comrade in a few minutes, he searched at once for the nest. Bill was not likely to miss it; he knew the ways of larks, and searched at a little distance right and left from the spot he had seen them leave. There was the nest – three brown eggs and a young one; it brought back once more the Rectory gate, and the old parson, and those few words of his. “I wish as I’d sent ’un a letter,” he said to himself, as he heard the Larks’ cry, and rose from his knees. That was all he said or thought; but Bill went quietly back to his wet resting-place, and slept with a clear conscience, and dreamed of pothooks and Polly.
When he woke nearly every one was astir: all looking draggled, cold, and dogged. Breakfast was a poor meal, but it freshened up Bill, and after it he found time to go and spy again at the nesting-place. The hen was sitting close, and he would not disturb her. The cock was singing above; presently he came down and crept through the grass towards her. But Bill saw no more then, for the bugles began to call, and all that great host fell gradually into battle array.
Bill’s regiment was stationed some little way behind the cart-track, and was held ready to form square at a moment’s notice. Hours passed, and then a hurried meal was served out; the battle was long in beginning. Every now and