rough and steep, while the snow come
down and made the ways so slippy that it was hard to move without
falling. But on I went, I can't tell how, though there was many that
dropped behind me and never come up again. That march was terrible
long, and the boy kept crying to be put down; but when I laid mun down
for a minute or two he couldn't rest for long, but would cry out again
that the sarjint was after mun, so I had to pick mun up and go on again.

"I reckon that it must have been the next day--but I can't tell, for
days turns to years at such times--that as I was a tramping on I seed a
crowd of women a-stooping down to the ground to gather up something or
another, and scrambling, and fighting, and squabbling like a lot of
fowls when they'm fed. It was money they was a-fighting for. The oxen
a-drawing the carts with the money was foundered, and the Gineral had
gived orders to throw the money away. I picked up some few pieces
myself, thinking it might buy something for the boy, but there was one
woman that loaded herself like a bee with dollars, and said she would
be a lady when she got home.

"After that, she and I was a good bit together, she carrying her
dollars and I carrying the boy; but the way grew worse and worse, and
but for the boy I think that I should have gived out myself as so many
did. Once I remember I saw a sojer and his wife a-lying down by the
wayside; they couldn't go no farther and had lain down to die together;
and I wished that it had been Jan and me; but I had the boy on my back
and I went on. Well, I won't tell you what terrible sights we saw on
the road; but I'll tell 'ee this, that I have seen grown men a-sobbing
like children for pain and cold and hunger. It was enough to turn the
head of a grown man, let alone a child. And so it was that after a
time the boy stopped crying and complaining and went quite quiet. I
couldn't think what was come to mun, that he was always a-staring and
never speaking nor taking no notice; but I reckoned that if I could
carry mun on to the end, he would recover hisself. And I did carry mun
on to the end to--what was the name of the place again?--something like
currants it was."

"Corunna?" said Colonel George.

"Ay, that was it, Corinner--but when we got there, there wasn't no
ships, and General Moore had to fight the French and bate mun before he
could sail home. And he was a-killed, poor gentleman, he was, as you
know, and many other brave men b