But the Lancers had had the laugh on their side when they crumpled up the 69th and carried off one of the colours.

To wind it all up, the Duke was in retreat in order to keep in touch with the Prussians, and it was rumoured that he would take up his ground and fight a big battle just at the very place where we had been halted.
And soon we saw that this rumour was true; for the weather cleared towards evening, and we were all out on the ridge to see what we could see.

It was such a bonny stretch of corn and grazing land, with the crops just half green and half yellow, and fine rye as high as a man's shoulder.

A scene more full of peace you could not think of, and look where you would over the low curving corn-covered hills, you could see the little village steeples pricking up their spires among the poplars.
But slashed right across this pretty picture was a long trail of marching men--some red, some green, some blue, some black--zigzagging over the plain and choking the roads, one end so close that we could shout to them, as they stacked their muskets on the ridge at our left, and the other end lost among the woods as far as we could see.

And then on other roads we saw the teams of horses toiling and the dull gleam of the guns, and the men straining and swaying as they helped to turn the spokes in the deep, deep mud.