"what a charming view is
on the left there. We must be on high ground. What a panorama for poor
flat England! If we are good boys, we shall be out on parole, and be
able to stroll about the country, and chat with the cherry-lipped maidens
at the farms, and drink the farm-house milk, and, what is better, their
famous English beer. And look, there is a lake, I declare. It seems a
good-sized one. We will go fishing."

So he ran on; and though the words pattered down in vain, like rain upon
the pavement, yet the evident intention unconsciously pleased, as kind
intentions often, if not always, do, however awkward the way in which
they are displayed.

And now, as the column passed a clump of trees at a bend in the road, the
barracks and their surroundings suddenly came into view. All eyes were
directed towards them; and if any of those unhappy sons of France had
indulged in fancy on the way, and pictured their future place of
confinement as some romantic fortress, with towering walls and gates of
iron, they must have been greatly disappointed.

Nothing could be less romantic than the appearance of these Norman Cross
Barracks. They looked from outside exactly like a vast congeries of
large, high, carpenters' shops, with roofs of glaring red tiles, and
surrounded by wooden palisades, very lofty and of prodigious strength. In
fact, the place was like an entrenched camp of a rather more permanent
type. But if there was no architectural beauty, there was the perfection
of security. It looked like business. The prisoners were in no wise to
escape:--

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

Another regiment of militia, besides the men who formed the prisoners'
escort, was quartered in what we call the soldiers' barracks, to
distinguish them from those occupied by the prisoners. Of these, a
strong body were drawn up right and left of the principal entrance, which
was in the Peterborough Road, and as the column passed between them the
soldiers were ordered to salute the officers. Major Kelly, the
commandant of the troops, and Captain Mortimer, Admiralty agent to the
Depot, were there to receive them; and a large number of rustics from
Yaxley and Stilton, and other villages, had collected as near as they
could get to the entrance, and made their remarks in various sympathetic
ways, for the country people, of all classes, were very friendly at all
times with the prisoners.

"Poor lad," said one woman, as a very