e stuff, but we set fire to it and burned most of the
malice out of it. I made a ballad about that night a year or two later,
and perhaps I may be forgiven if I quote a verse or two of it here. It
gives at least a fair picture of the scene.

"Through ceaseless rain the rival cannon sounded
With sulky iteration boom on boom,
And while assailant and defender pounded
Each other with those epigrams of doom,
I sat at table, by my friends surrounded,
Where mirth and laughter lit the dingy room
And we made merry one and all, though dinner
Had failed for days, and we were growing thinner.

There, while that sulky iterated boom
Shook the thick air, our songs of home we sang;
And memory wrought for each on fancy's loom,
Unmoved, unshaken by War's clash and clang,
Some dreamy picture woven of light and gloom,
Of home and peace."

Who shall forget that night who took a part in it?
The ceaseless downpour of the rain,
The incessant thundering of the guns,
The shells that ricochetted from the glacis
Or went howling overhead.

"We pushed the gourd about and jested hard,
Sang rattling songs, told many a rattling tale,--
A jest might keep the heart's deep floodgates barred.
Chant gaily, Pity! lest thy blood grow pale:
Bid every sprightly fancy stand at guard!
Be noisy, Mirth! lest all thy mirth should fail,
And yet, and yet our neighbour miseries
Would blur the sparkle in our hearts and eyes.

"For near at hand there lay such countless woes,
Such up-heaped horrors as no tongue can tell,
Where helpless Pity's ineffectual throes
Made that long shambles seem one ghastly hell,
And all the broken, battered, blood-stained rows
Of dead seem blessed in that they sleep so well;
Where the soul sickened and the heart grew faint
At scenes which Dante scarce had striven to paint."

The rum was all drunk and the wine-gourds were all empty--the last song
was sung and the last tale told, and we betook ourselves to rest. Our
jackdaw friend, for economic reasons, had found a lodging elsewhere. He
found it better to drop in upon the rest of us when there was anything
special going than it would have been to forage for himself. By the
time at which he left us, it had turned much colder, and the rain was
freezing as it fell. The village streets were covered with a slippery