n solemn silence, followed
by little Wilkins, looking very important at the head of the brass
instruments, but in dangerous proximity to the trombone-players, cutting
and slashing with their long tubes, behind him.

Some people are hard to impress, but they are few who do not feel a
thrill of excitement on the passing-by of a well-drilled regiment whose
band is playing some lively march, to which, and the heavy beat of the
drum, the tramp, tramp of six or eight hundred men is heard, like the
pulsation of Old England's warlike heart. The thrill is felt by the
bystanders and the men themselves; and the sight of the eager,
interested faces the soldiers pass has given renewed spirit to many a
man, hot, weary, and faint from some long march, and seemed to tighten
muscle and nerve for the work yet to come.

That special morning Dick Smithson felt that, after all, his was a very
bright and happy life. The past was dead; he had friends about him, and
there was a delirious feeling of satisfaction to be there, at the head
of the long line of men, whose glittering bayonets flashed and undulated
in the sun as they passed down the main street, at the end of which,
where the people formed a crowd, hurrying along on either side, the
brass band ended its strains, and after a preliminary flourish on the
kettle-drums these and the fifes rattled and shrilled in their
well-marked music.

Turn and turn, with an occasional change, when the kettle-drums had it
all to themselves--_trr_--_trr_--_trr_--_trr_--a light, sharp tap, to
mark the step as the towns were left behind, and the course led between
the Kentish hedgerows and the bare fields, which seemed to be growing
crops of poles, for the young hops themselves were only just showing
their bronze-hued points above the ground.

Then, on and on, in open order, till, far away on the slope of a hill,
where the white chalky road could be traced for miles, a cloud of dust
could be seen. Soon after there was a flicker, as if the cloud were not
dust, but smoke, and the flickering light was that of the fire within.
Then there was another flicker, and more and more, till it was plain
enough that the sun was being reflected from burnished brass or steel,
and the sinuous cloud was hovering over the regiment they had come to
meet.

Half an hour later the two regiments had met, there had been a halt
called, and at its end the march back to town was commenced, the men
going over the hard road wit