There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated
without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall. Loud and
vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden,
who stood panting and regarding the troops with defiance.

At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments
went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange plants.
Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.

The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as
circumstances would allow him. In the evening he wandered a few
paces into the gloom. From this little distance the many fires,
with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the
crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects.

He lay down in the grass. The blades pressed tenderly against
his cheek. The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.
The liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel
vast pity for himself. There was a caress in the soft winds;
and the whole mood of the darkness, he thought, was one of
sympathy for himself in his distress.

He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the
endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the
fields, from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house.
He remembered he had so often cursed the brindle cow and her
mates, and had sometimes flung milking stools. But, from his
present point of view, there was a halo of happiness about each
of their heads, and he would have sacrificed all the brass