This made him a bit of a butt among the men at first, and they laughed at him for it; but when they came to know him better they found that he was not a good man to laugh at, and then they dropped it.
We were early risers at that time, and the whole brigade was usually under arms at the flush of dawn.

One morning--it was the sixteenth of June--we had just formed up, and General Adams had ridden up to give some order to Colonel Reynell within a musket-length of where I stood, when suddenly they both stood staring along the Brussels road.

None of us dared move our heads, but every eye in the regiment whisked round, and there we saw an officer with the cockade of a general's aide-de-camp thundering down the road as hard as a great dapple-grey horse could carry him.

He bent his face over its mane and flogged at its neck with the slack of the bridle, as though he rode for very life.
"Hullo, Reynell!" says the general.

"This begins to look like business.
What do you make of it ?" They both cantered their horses forward, and Adams tore open the dispatch which the messenger handed to him.