over."

Accordingly, all the young officers and several of the seniors left with
him, but O'Grady and several of the hard drinkers kept it up until
midnight, observing, however, more moderation than usual in their
potations.

There was none of the grumbling common when men are turned out of their
beds before dawn; all were in high spirits that the time for action had
arrived; the men were as eager to meet the enemy as were their officers;
and the tents were all down and placed in the waggons before daylight. The
regimental cooks had already been at work, and the officers went round and
saw that all had had breakfast before they fell in. At six o'clock the
whole were under arms and in their place as the central regiment in the
brigade. They tramped on without a halt until eleven; then the bugle
sounded, and they fell out for half an hour.

The men made a meal from bread and the meat that had been cooked the night
before, each man carrying three days' rations in his haversack. There was
another halt, and a longer one, at two o'clock, when the brigade rested
for an hour in the shade of a grove.

"It is mighty pleasant to rest," O'Grady said, as the officers threw
themselves down on the grass, "but it is the starting that bates one. I
feel that my feet have swollen so that every step I take I expect my boots
to burst with an explosion. Faith, if it comes to fighting I shall take
them off altogether, and swing them at my belt. How can I run after the
French when I am a cripple?"

"You had better take your boots off now, O'Grady," one of the others