The old man, in a moment, continued his questions:
"You were wounded?"
"Yes, veteran, at Lutzen."
"Four months in the hospital!" said he, whistling; "what luck! I have just returned from Spain, flattering myself that I was going to meet the Kaiserliks of 1807 once more—sheep, regular sheep—but they have become worse than guerillas. Everything goes to the bad."
He said the most of this to himself, without paying much attention to me, all the while sewing his shoe, which from time to time he tried on, to be sure that the sewn part would not hurt his foot. At last he put the thread in his knapsack, and the shoe upon his foot, and stretched himself upon a truss of straw.
I was too fatigued to sleep at once, and for an hour lay awake.
In the morning I set out again with the quartermaster Poitevin, and three other soldiers of Souham's division. Our route lay along the bank of the Elbe; the weather was wet and the wind swept fiercely over the river, throwing the spray far on the land.
We hastened on for an hour, when suddenly the quartermaster cried:
"Attention!"
He had halted suddenly, and stood listening. We could hear nothing but the sighing of the wind through the trees, and the splash of the waves; but his ear was finer than ours.