the interior of a
cellar which opens upon it, and forms the basement of a deserted
house, the roof doors, and shutters of which have been pulled down
and burnt for bivouac fires. The season is the beginning of
January, and the country is covered with a sticky snow. The road
itself is intermittently encumbered with heavy traffic, the surface
being churned to a yellow mud that lies half knee-deep, and at the
numerous holes in the track forming still deeper quagmires.

In the gloom of the cellar are heaps of damp straw, in which
ragged figures are lying half-buried, many of the men in the
uniform of English regiments, and the women and children in clouts
of all descriptions, some being nearly naked. At the back of the
cellar is revealed, through a burst door, an inner vault, where
are discernible some wooden-hooped wine-casks; in one sticks a
gimlet, and the broaching-cork of another has been driven in.
The wine runs into pitchers, washing-basins, shards, chamber-
vessels, and other extemporized receptacles. Most of the inmates
are drunk; some to insensibility.

So far as the characters are doing anything they are contemplating
almost incessant traffic outside, passing in one direction. It
includes a medley of stragglers from the Marquis of ROMANA'S
Spanish forces and the retreating English army under SIR JOHN
MOORE--to which the concealed deserters belong.]

FIRST DESERTER

Now he's one of the Eighty-first, and I'd gladly let that poor blade
know that we've all that man can wish for here--good wine and buxom
women. But if I do, we shan't have room for ourselves--hey?

[He signifies a man limping past with neither fire-lock nor
knapsack. Where the discarded knapsack has rubbed for weeks
against his shoulder-blades the jacket and shirt are fretted
away, leaving his skin exposed.]

SECOND DESERTER

He may be the Eighty-firsht, or th' Eighty-second; but what I say is,
without fear of contradiction, I wish to the Lord I was back in old
Bristol again. I'd sooner have a nipperkin of our own real "Bristol
milk" than a mash-tub full of this barbarian wine!

THIRD DESERTER

'Tis like thee to be ungrateful, after putting away such a skinful
on't. I am as much Bristol as thee, but would as soon be here as
there. There ain't near such willing women, that are strict
respectable