"And there I reckon I should have stayed, spite of all that the officer
said; but the man took me by the arm and told me to come on. 'The
saints rock his soul to rest in glory,' he saith, crossing hisself, for
he was an Irishman, 'and have mercy on us that is still living;' and
then I remembered the boy, and I left Jan and come away. The boy was
terrible weak and ailing, but we set off to walk, though very soon I
had to carry mun; and so I dropped behind. The road lay through the
mountains now, and was terrible rough and steep, while the snow come
down and made the ways so slippy that it was hard to move without
falling. But on I went, I can't tell how, though there was many that
dropped behind me and never come up again. That march was terrible
long, and the boy kept crying to be put down; but when I laid mun down
for a minute or two he couldn't rest for long, but would cry out again
that the sarjint was after mun, so I had to pick mun up and go on again.
"I reckon that it must have been the next day--but I can't tell, for
days turns to years at such times--that as I was a tramping on I seed a
crowd of women a-stooping down to the ground to gather up something or
another, and scrambling, and fighting, and squabbling like a lot of
fowls when they'm fed. It was money they was a-fighting for. The oxen
a-drawing the carts with the money was foundered, and the Gineral had
gived orders to throw the money away.
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