"What's this place called?" inquired one of the dragoons, generally of his comrades.
"Called!—Oh, some jaw-breaking Dutch name of a yard long, I suppose," replied another. "Ax Gentleman Gray—he'll tell you."
"Well, Mr. Gray, do you know the name of this here place?"
"I believe," replied Gray, "we are near a point called Quatre Bras, or the four roads."
"Well," rejoined the other, "if there were half-a-dozen roads, it wouldn't be too much for these here Flemingers—yon road's not wide enough for them, you see. Look, here's a regiment o' them coming back!"
"Ah! poor fellows—we might be in the same situation," observed Gray; "remember that their force is not strong in comparison with the French, by the accounts that have been received; better to fall back at the first of a fight than at the last."
"I say, Jack," said another, with his mouth full of biscuit, "did you ever meet with such a devil of a roadster as the carpolar there with the glazed cocked hat?"
"Who do you mean?" said Jack.
"Why the dook, to be sure—how he did give it us on the long road through the forest."
"Ay—he's the lad; well, here's God bless his jolly old glazed hat any way," cried the trooper, swallowing a horn of grog; "he's the boy what has come from the Peninsula just to gi' 'em a leaf out of his book. He was a dancing last night—riding like a devil all the morning—and I'll warrant he'll be fighting all the afternoon by way of refreshing himself."