u want to be compassionate, our poor fellows want food just as
much as those French peasants. Deny yourself if you like, but take care
that the soldiers have what they need. If ever you get back to Berlin,
then in God's name you can please yourself by distributing alms, and
buy a place for yourself in heaven."

Wilhelm was obliged to admit that the captain was right, but he could
not change his nature. Capturing, destroying, giving pain, were not to
his taste. From that time he left other people's property alone, and
let the French run if they fell into his hands. He was excellent on
outpost and patrol duties, for then his brains and not his hands were
at work--then he could think and endure. He could go for twenty-four
hours on a bit of bread and a draught of water better than any one, and
without a minute's sleep, stand for hours at a stretch holding a
position; he was always the first to explore dangerous roads, signing
to his companions if he could answer for their safety, and all this
with a natural, quiet self-possession as if he were taking a walk in
town, or reading a newspaper at Spargnapani's.

Weeks and months went by like a dream, in constant excitement, and the
exhausting strain of strength. Christmas passed at the outposts without
gifts and with few good wishes, and the thunder of the guns took the
place of church bells. January came in with a hard frost, trying the
field troops bitterly, and bringing with it hard work for Wilhelm's
regiment. The 61st belonged to General Kettler's brigade, which
strategically kept the Garibaldi and Pelissier divisions in check. By
the middle of January the brigade was in full touch with the enemy. On
the 21st the troops broke out from the St. Seine, dashed into the Val
Suzon, and after an hour's conflict with the Garibaldians, drove them
out and established themselves on the heights of Daix toward two
o'clock. Before them were the rugged summits of Talant and Fontaine,
the last spurs of the Jura Mountains seen in the blue distances both of
them crowned, by old villages, whose outer walls looked down a thousand
feet below. The gray walls, the rhomboid towers of the mediaeval
churches, brought to one's mind the vision of robber knights rather
than the modest homes of peasants. Between these two mountains was a
narrow valley, through which one caught a glimpse of Dijon, with its
red roofs and numbers of towers, and its high Gothic church above all,
St. Benigne, well known la