Across the fields came the sharpening of a scythe, the cry of the
grasshoppers, and the sound of a mill-wheel arose near by. In the mill
itself, far up in a deep dormer window, sat Parpon with his black cat,
looking down upon the scene with a grim smiling.
The sergeant saw that mist fronting Sonnenberg rise up, and show ten
thousand splendid cavalry and fifty thousand infantry, with a king and a
prince to lead them down upon those malleable but unmoving squares of
French infantry. He saw himself drumming the Prussians back and his
Frenchmen on.
"Beautiful God!" he cried proudly, "that was a day! And every man of the
Third Corps that time lift up the lid of hell and drop a Prussian in. I
stand beside Davoust once, and ping! come a bullet, and take off his
chapeau. It fell upon my drum. I stoop and pick it up and hand it to him,
but I keep drumming with one hand all the time. 'Comrade,' say I, 'the
army thanks you for your courtesy.' 'Brother,' he say, 'twas to your
drum,' and his eye flash out where Gudin carved his way through those
pigs of Prussians. 'I'd take my head off to keep your saddle filled,
comrade,' say I.
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