‘The battle will be lost before it is fought. If we lose Quatre Bras, we shall never get to Waterloo.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Slavin, just now. The miners are coming in, and he will have them in tow in half an hour.’
He looked at me appealingly. I knew what he wanted.
‘All right; I suppose I must, but it is an awful bore that a man can’t have a quiet smoke.’
‘You’re not half a bad fellow,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I shall get the ladies to furnish coffee inside the booth. You furnish them intellectual nourishment in front with dear old Punch and Judy.’
He sent a boy with a bell round the village announcing, ‘Punch, and Judy in front of the Christmas booth beside the church’; and for three-quarters of an hour I shrieked and sweated in that awful little pen. But it was almost worth it to hear the shouts of approval and laughter that greeted my performance. It was cold work standing about, so that the crowd was quite ready to respond when Punch, after being duly hanged, came forward and invited all into the booth for the hot coffee which Judy had ordered.
In they trooped, and Quatre Bras was won.
No sooner were the miners safely engaged with their coffee than I heard a great noise of bells and of men shouting; and on reaching the street I saw that the men from the lumber camp were coming in. Two immense sleighs, decorated with ribbons and spruce boughs, each drawn by a four-horse team gaily adorned, filled with some fifty men, singing and shouting with all their might, were coming down the hill road at full gallop. Round the corner they swung, dashed at full speed across the bridge and down the street, and pulled up after they had made the circuit of a block, to the great admiration of the onlookers. Among others Slavin sauntered up good-naturedly, making himself agreeable to Sandy and those who were helping to unhitch his team.
‘Oh, you need not take trouble with me or my team, Mike Slavin. Batchees and me and the boys can look after them fine,’ said Sandy coolly.