And he'd been traveling hard on sixty For want of custom. . . . Hell! but he year would soon The same old road, the same old giddy Be giving them a job. It caught your gait; 90 And he'd be walking, for a pint of beer, Into his coffin, one day, soon or late— But not with such a tempest in his teeth, Half blinded and half dothered, that he hoped! He'd met a sight of weather on the heath, But this beat all. 'Twas worse than when he'd groped His way that evening down the Mallerstang Thon was a blizzard, thon—and he was done, And almost dropping when he came a-bang breath, And puff, and puff! He'd give his very soul For half a pipe. He couldn't understand How he had come to lose it. He'd the rum 'Twas that had stopped them, something big and white A bundle-nay, a woman. And she slept. But it was death to sleep. Aye, that was safe enough; but it would. Asleep himself. He'd nearly dropped 'Twas well that he had That rum; and lucky that the beasts had stopped. Aye, it was well that he had kept the rum. He liked his drink; but he had never cared For soaking by himself, and sitting mum. 159 Even the best rum tasted beiter, shared. THOMAS HARDY (1840- > THE PEASANT'S CONFESSION "Si le maréchal Grouchy avait été rejoint par l'officier que Napoléon lui avait expédié la veille à dix heures du soir, toute question eût It made his head quite dizzy, that dry disparu. Mais cet officier n'était point parvenu à sa destination, ainsi que le maréchal n'a cessé de l'affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l'en croire, car autrement il n'aurait en aucune raison pour hésiter. Cet officier avait-il été pris? avait-il passé à l'ennemi? C'est ce qu'on a toujours ignoré."-Thiers, Histoire de l'Empire. "Water From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun "Engaging Blücher till the Emperor put Twilight suppressed the fray; Lord Wellington to flight, And next the Prussians. This to set afoot Is my emprise to-night." And from Saint-Lambert's upland, chapel- But Grouchy-mis-sent, blamed, yet And 'twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he Colbert, Legros, Blancard! 110 . . . And With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda, L'Estrange, Delancey, Packe, Grose, D'Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay, Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek, Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby, And hosts of ranksmen round . . . Memorials linger yet to speak to thee Of those that bit the ground! 120 The Guards' last column yielded; dykes of dead Lay between vale and ridge, As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped In packs to Genappe Bridge. |