“Poor lad,” said one woman, as a very youthful prisoner passed by, “he does look tired. What would his mother say if she saw him now?”
“God help them,” said another: “they all seem as if they wanted a good supper, and go to bed.”
“No fear of supper, neighbour,” replied a man; “you should just see the quarters of beef that go in at t’other gate. It makes me real hungry to think of it.”
A big lad, standing close to a gentleman on horseback, who was surveying the scene with evident interest, made an ugly face at one of the prisoners, and said, “Well, mounseer, how do you find yourself?” But a cut from the horseman’s whip across his shoulders taught him a sharp lesson of respect for his betters.
A halt was made as soon as the column was well within the outer inclosure of the barracks. Then, in the first place, the officers were marched to one of the barrack-yards that was to be their quarters; and then, with the marvellous promptitude which military pre-arrangement secures, the rest of the prisoners, in batches, were quickly conducted to other barrack-yards appointed for them.
A tremendous cheering at that moment burst forth from the prison: a volcano of huzzas, of somewhat foreign accent, shot up into the air, with shouts of “Vive l’Empereur.”
Eager eyes had been watching, and though the palisades surrounding each separate yard were much too lofty for men to climb up and look over, yet the inmates, though bereft of their liberty, were not bereft of their wits, as we shall see in more striking ways as the story proceeds; and some of them, from the topmost berths on the sides of their immensely high dormitories, had taken off the tiles, and from thence saw all that was going on.
We will not attempt to follow the prisoners generally to their quarters, but accompany the officers alone. Enthusiastic were the greetings of their companions in tribulation who had been before them, some as long as five years. The shaking of hands, and the embracing, and the kissing, and the crying, were as if a very large family had met after years of separation. Albeit,
not one of the older prisoners had probably ever seen before one of the new arrivals. All honour to such warmth of excitement. None but those who have lived for years far away from their country and home, can understand the intensity of pleasure that is felt in meeting anybody, literally anybody, who comes from “the old place.” It may not last, neither does a flash of lightning, but it is very real while it lasts. And what if foreigners exhibit their emotions in ways that may seem effeminate to our phlegmatic temperaments? Are we always right—ordained by Providence to set the fashion to all the world in everything? How often does Virgil make the brave Trojans and others “weep”? Nevertheless, it would look funny to see a row of stalwart Grenadiers, each one mopping his eyes with a white pocket handkerchief!
The hall of reception was an enormous wooden casern or barn, very long, and, as we have said, extraordinarily high, with berths or hammocks all up the walls. It served as dormitory,