said, as his teeth almost chattered with fear, I have secured something at last. It is only-only-' But before he could finish his sentence, his daughter had vanished in quest of her bonnet.

'It is only,' he went on, 'a common sort of rough cart, large enough to hold my daughter and my luggage, or I am sure I should be delighted to ask you to share it with us, Dawson ; only-only-'

'You think you could not go along so fast, Mr. Heneage,' said the Colonel, with a dry smile. Two such heavy people as Hetty and myself might be the cause of the Cuirassiers coming up and cutting us all into mincemeat. Never fear, sir, I am not in the least offended. I never in the least intended quitting Brussels. I have, thank God, sufficient confidence in the Duke and the brave fellows who serve under him. My legs are stiff, too, and I am too old to run away very quickly. With you it is different-you, who are so light and active.'

But even this joking at the expense of his corpulence and his courage was quite lost upon Mr. Heneage. Fear was the only passion which held possession of him, and it was jealous of any other having the least to do with him.

'I am sorry to leave you Of course I beg your pardon for leaving you,' continued the parson, 'but I must go. We shall see you -see you in England when you have finished your visit. Hetty, my dear, good-bye, good-bye. I am extremely sorry-quite grieved, in fact, my dear-that I unintentionally awakened you. But we are going back to England. I have important business.'

The weathercock of the church has caught a serious cold, and the matter must be looked into at once,' remarked Mr. Dawson. 'But don't stand on ceremony.

Don't stop here if every moment adds to your misery.'

'I can't help it, Dawson. I really can't help it. It drives me mad,' said the parson. 'I must be going; the horses-'

Are tired of waiting. Be off, man, and keep up your spirit.' Then the father and daughter left.

Hetty had now sat down on the clumsy old fauteuil. Her father raised her and took her in his

arms.

'My dear,' he said, with a calm kind voice, 'we are well rid of such friends. If we have a trouble, we can share it together. All will be well for us, and all will be ordained for the best. I can feel what your grief is, although you may not think it. Try not to forget that I am with you.'

She leant her head on his shoulder, and he bent down and kissed her, and there was peace and quietness in her heart, although the low grumbling thunder ceased.

never

Try to play something,' said the old man; 'it seems to quiet you.'

Then she sat down at the piano, and, without knowing why, the grand old German hymn, 'God is my Refuge,' came to her mind.

And as she played softly and with timid fingers hardly daring to touch the notes, the storm of war never ceased; and so the day passed until the sun went down.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE OPENING ROAR.

THERE is something at all times at once curious and melancholy about the Low Countries. Whether the dark history which clings to every acre of ground has anything to do with it, we know not,

but so it is. The peasants in the fields move slowly; the very fowls in the road have a languid air, and do not peck and cluck as cheerfully as they do in merrier England. It is a depressing country, and cannot be regarded in any other way. There is a grayness about it everywhere. Even when the crops are standing in the fields, and the trees are at their very best, one somehow misses the cheery aspect of an English landscape. But when the -2d had got once free of the dense Soignies their spirits rose, be the country as it might. They looked at the swelling slopes covered with crops of rye with pleasure, and gazed at the distant hamlets with a feeling of relief at some sign of life. The -2d was considerably in the rear of the division; and so the hot dust that was raised from the stone road was filling the air everywhere, and every one was as thirsty as he well could be. There was, too, a heaviness in the air, that nauseating heaviness which always precedes a violent storm of lightning.

Still, once out of Waterloo, the men and boys marched with a lighter heart and a brisker step.

'I should have thought we should have gone the other way to Nivelles,' said Harry to himself; 'but it doesn't matter much where we go to.'

They were passing now through some great cornfields, with high banks on each side of the road. The swarthy peasants did not appear to be much alarmed at what would soon be coming on. The milk-carts slowly passed them on the road, and the great lumbering wains drew aside to let them go by.

So they marched until they had passed through little Genappe, with its small bridge, and villagers looking out of their windows in coloured nightcaps, all smiles and perfect good-humour.

When the village was left behind, and they had ascended the slightly rising ground, where a few cottages lay to the left, for the first time a loud roaring sound seemed to burst from the ground in front of them.

It was night-time at Brussels, and yet the city had not its usual quiet. In the estaminets the people were sitting up late, smoking and drinking. In some of them there was loud singing and rejoicing; and, for a city that was going to be conquered, the citizens seemed to take the matter very easily. The rumour had come into the town of the British defeat. Although so far off, stragglers and deserters had already made their appearance; for what are twenty-two miles odd to a brave soul who thinks that a bayonet or a sabre is close behind him? And the English gentlemen left in Brussels had met at the D'Arenberg, and their faces were pale, and they were almost too cast down to be frightened even.

And Colonel Dawson had seen his daughter to her room, and then grew so restless that he could not sleep within doors, and so had made his way out. In the streets noisy groups were talking, and he heard the words 'Anglais' and 'abîmés' over and over again. As he stood at the top of the Montagne, he listened to them until he grew absolutely angry, and set off on a high-time walk to cool himself and his temper.

'I'll not go down into the town,' he said to himself; the cackling of the fowls will drive me mad.'

So he made for the Bois de Coimbre-no cheerful place for an old gentleman, no matter though his conscience was tolerably clear. He walked briskly along, with his Malacca cane over his shoulder. The noise of the guns had ceased now, and the night was still and

quiet, although heavy clouds were gathering overhead. Not a sound could be heard in the wood except the occasional rustling of the leaves as a squirrel scampered along a branch or jumped from bough to bough.

There will be a storm soon,' he said, looking above, and they won't have a very pleasant bivouac. Would that I could find out something about what has gone on! I daren't leave Hetty, or, stiff as my joints are, I'd ride to the front and see and hear what is to be seen and heard.'

So he walked on, and now and again a group of blue-coated Belgians would come hurrying along in the dark. Sometimes one would be by himself; sometimes they came in groups of twos, threes, and fours; sometimes even in greater numbers.

'The rascals must have run quickly to get back here now. So the English are all overthrown, they say. I don't believe a word of it.'

He was now descending a steepish hill, where there was a clearing in the wood, and two or three small huts. Lights were in the windows, and he could hear the sound of voices talking within. The Colonel was an old campaigner, and had but few small fears to trouble him. He coolly walked up to one of the cottages, and knocked at the door. It was opened by an old woman in a white frilled cap. In the room were seated three youths wearing the uniform of the Prince of Orange. They were talking vociferously, and drinking their thin beer copiously. They did not seem to have the least shame at the fact that they were nothing more nor less than runaways from the field. The room was warm, the beer was good, the tobacco was good-that was enough for them. As for de

feats or victories, they were a matter of great indifference, so long as they got off with a whole skin.

The Colonel always remembered that scene-the little stumpy fellows, with their coats off, sitting round a small three-legged table; the brass crucifix on the wall, and the barrels in the corner of the

room.

'You have had a bad time?' he asked one of them, in his not too excellent French.

'Ah, monsieur, it would take more than heroes to withstand the Emperor. I regret, if monsieur be English, that his compatriots should have the misfortune to encounter them.'

The Colonel took a pinch of snuff, and looked very dryly at the little warrior.

'Where were you?' he asked after a short pause.

'I was by the wood, monsieuryes, I was by the wood; that I remember well. And did I see the cuirassiers? O yes, monsieur, of course so.'

'And you saw the red-coats?' 'Poor men, they were quite annihilated!'

('That fellow is telling a lie,' the Colonel thought; 'he has seen a great deal too much.')

'But how is it you got here?' he went on; it is a long distance, my young friend.'

'We were pursued for miles, monsieur-pursued for miles. O, I have had quite enough indeed of the horrors of war-enough, monsieur, to last a lifetime.'

'Well, take this for a pourboire, said the Colonel, throwing him a silver piece; and the devil take you, too,' he continued to himself, 'for an impudent little liar and poltroon, as I firmly believe all your fellow-countrymen are!'

Yet, for all his brave words, he could not shake off the influence of what was growing upon him.

'YES, I'll go,' said Philip, again perusing a letter received from Jim Sawface, dated Oakville, Oak County, Texas.

The progress Sawface had made was truly surprising.

'You can form no idea of the country,' he wrote. 'I have purchased a farm of two hundred acres at two dollars an acre by easy instalments, and on a long credit. A creek runs through it which swarms with fish. Rabbits, partridges, and wild turkeys are running all over my farm. Be sure you bring a gun and fishing tackle. All I can say, have no hesitation in coming; you are sure to get on. Land is dirt cheap and highly productive, and it costs little or no thing to live.'

The matter was quickly decided. There could be no doubt that the land was a perfect paradise. Saw face had written to Brown in the same glowing terms, and, to show his confidence, he-Brown-had gone and taken his family with him.

Philip therefore lost no time in booking his passage to Philadelphia. The roar, the bustle, the swarms of human beings, the smoke, the fogs, the leaden skies, the endless streets, he longed to get away from, and in their stead he pictured to himself woody vales, murmuring waters, the bleating of lambs, the lowing of herds, the gorgeous bloom of tropical flowers, blue skies, soft summer winds, waving cornfields, and, above all, the freedom of those wilds-a pleasant

vision brightening the prospect of the future.

On a dull, dark, misty morning drizzling with rain, Philip arrived in that gloomiest of gloomy cities, Liverpool. It was blowing half a gale; and the Ocean Queen, which was to sail that afternoon, lay tossing in the Mersey, as if impatient to break loose from her moorings and sail right away from that murky stream. With the usual pushing, shouting, whistling, bell - ringing, swearing, &c., Philip got on board.

'Now, then, steerage and second-class passengers this way— this way!' shouted a man, dressed in oilskin trousers and an enormous hat of the same material, as if he were prepared to encounter a second deluge.

'Where?' said Philip, somewhat surprised at this general mixing of steerage and second-class passengers.

'Why, down there!' replied the man in the oilskins, pointing to a place which looked like the entrance to a coal-hole. 'Can't you

see ?'

'But I am intermediate!' remonstrated Philip.

Intermediate or steerage, it's all the same. You pays yer money and takes yer choice,' added Oilskins jocosely.

'I pay my money and don't have my choice!' replied Philip, enraged at the deception practised on him.

Invoking all the blessings of Providence on the board of direc