"Come now—Steady—hurry up!" cried the latter to the horse.
"Oh! let him alone! he's going as fast as he can, Lydia," said the elder one. "It's no use shouting at him."
But Steady did not mend his pace. He well deserved his name, for indeed a slower animal never wore harness.
Behind the van came another youngster, not more than ten years old, followed by a black dog clipped so as to faintly resemble a lion. The boy and dog were evidently on the best of terms, and the one no less full of life than the other.
It goes without saying that the whole party of boys, who had come out to receive the soldiers, completely forgot them in the novelty of this strange party, and constituted themselves a guard of honor for Nalla and his friends without giving another thought to the red trousers which had been the original cause of their early morning march-out.
At the entrance of the town was a sort of open square formed by the joining of two roads, and it was there that the owners of the van, the Tamby family, had taken their stand when the expected soldiers, with fife and drums leading, at last marched into Morainville.
As they watched them pass, looking very imposing indeed in all their martial splendor, little Cæsar Tamby said to Nadine his sister:
"The soldiers! We have got here in the nick of time. We ought to take in a lot of money to-night."
But Nadine, whose pretty features wore a sad expression, shook her head doubtfully: