e woman, with a sigh, as she re-arranged her battered old
straw bonnet cocked up as if it were a hat, and took off the old scarlet
uniform tail coat she wore over her very clean cotton gown, before going
to the pot, wooden spoon in hand, to raise the lid and give the contents
a stir round.

"Oh, I say, Mother Beane, it does smell good! What's in it?"

"Shoulder o' goat," said the woman.

"Yah! Don't care much for goat," said the boy. "Arn't half so good as
mutton."

"You must take what you can get, Tom. Two chickens."

"Why, that they ain't. I see 'em: they was an old cock and hen as we
chivied into that burnt house this mornin', and Corp'ral shot one, and
Mick Toole run his bay'net through the other. Reg'lar stringies."

"Never mind. I'm cooking 'em to make 'em taste like chicken, and it's
time they were all back to mess. Which way did my old man go?"

"Climbed up yonder. Said he knowed there'd be a house up somewheres
there."

"And why didn't you go with him, sir?" said Mrs Corporal Beane. "Might
have found a melon or some oranges."

"Not me," grumbled the boy. "Frenchies don't leave nothing: hungry
beggars. Murd'rin' wermin. Wish we could ketch 'em."

"Ah, so do I, and it makes my heart bleed to see what we do."

"Ah, but you wait a bit. We shall ketch 'em one o' these days."

"You won't. You're too lazy."

"That I ain't. I'd ha' gone foraging 's morning, and there's an old
boot nail made a hole in one foot, and t'other's all blisters."

"Oh, my poor boy! And I haven't finished that pair of stockings I was
knitting for you. Look here, you go and sit down till the men come
back, and bathe your feet in the stream."

"Did," said the boy, with a chuckle.

"Ah! Where abouts? Not above where we get our drinking water?"

"Course I didn't," said the boy scornfully. "I ain't a Frenchy."

"Ahoy-y-y-y!"

The hail came from high up in a woody ravine far above their heads, and
the boy shaded his eyes and said excitedly--"Here, look. It's Joe
Beane, and he's found something good. Got it on his shoulder."

"What is it?" cried Mrs Beane. "A kid?"

"No, it's a bag o' something. It's--no, he's hid among the trees again.
It was a bag, though--looked whitish."

"It's flour," cried Mrs Beane triumphantly. "Oh, Tom! We'll have
cakes to-night, and you shall carry some to the officers' mess."

"Give us one if I do, Mother Beane?"

"Ah, pig! I never saw such a boy to eat."

"Well, ho