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A pause now ensued; the French in this brief contest had lost 1400 men, and the British had suffered severely. The French then held a council of war, and determined to attack along the whole line in force. Hours passed away; the English munched their corn, smoked their pipes, and watched the enemy scattered over the plain.
She had fled to announce her thrilling news before her own tea had come. "I do think men look perfectly horrid with their hair unbrushed in the morning, don't you, Em?" she said, presently, as she munched, while Mary poured her out some tea into the emptied sugar-basin and handed it to her.
"Now, having satisfactorily 'munched, and munched, and munched, like the sailor's wife who had chestnuts in her lap are you acquainted with my friend, Mr. William Shakspeare, young gentleman? I must try to fulfil the other duties of existence. You said the Coltham mail passed here in three hours? Very well. I have the honour of wishing you a very good day, Mr. "Halifax." "And yours?" "Fletcher."
But when Bob put out his hand for the corn Dandy kicked up his heels and away he went. He ran round and round like a pony in a circus. The children clapped their hands and shouted. Dandy went faster and faster. It was very exciting. At last Dandy stopped running. Then Bob led him back to the pen. There the little pony munched the corn happily. Next it was Peggy's turn to show Polly.
I dropped all my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely down by the roadside to consider my situation. Modestine in the meanwhile, munched some black bread with a contrite hypocritical air.
The latter hurried us off to the restaurant forbidden ground to us men as a rule, sat us down among the officers, and gave us a rattling good dinner, while our comrades munched their biscuits outside. De Wet, we heard, was ahead, having crossed the line with 1000 men, two nights ago, further south.
Horses munched and snorted all about me, unseen hostlers hissed and whistled, and a man in a smart livery hung upon the bridles of two horses harnessed to a handsome closed travelling carriage, blood-horses that tossed proud heads and stamped impatient hoofs, insomuch that the groom alternately cursed and coaxed them, turning his head ever and anon to glance towards a certain back door of the inn with impatient expectancy.
"One would think that she was glad of what I told her." He was thoroughly put out by this reflection, and munched his breakfast in sulky silence, listening cynically to his step-mother's idle utterances and Kitty's vivacious replies. He was conscious of some disinclination to meet Elizabeth's tranquil glance, of which he bitterly resented the tranquillity.
And so once more Hal sat on the hard bench, and munched his hunk of bread, and thought jail-thoughts. When the quitting-whistle blew, he stood at the window, and saw the groups of his friends once again, and got their covert signals of encouragement. Then darkness fell, and another long vigil began. It was late; Hal had no means of telling how late, save that all the lights in the camps were out.
Bob ran off, and the big black looked at me, threw back his head, and laughed, and laughed again, as he drove the spade deeply into the rich loamy soil; and when the bread and bacon came he laughed, and bit with those great white teeth of his, and munched and chewed like the lying-down oxen, and dug and dug, till my father said, "No more to-night," and bade me carry in the spades.
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