THE FRENCH PRISONERS. CHAPTER I. 'The sound of war Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me.' COWPER (Task, iv.) THE berries were red on the mountain-ashes that spread their branches over the village street, for it was high summer tide. Before the yard gate of the Vicarage an old man was standing, looking down the road. There they are at last!' he exclaimed, talking to Mr. Enderlein, the parson of Bockelow, who sat with a book under the vine-covered porch, and lifting his thin old hand in welcome. Two lads came marching along the shady avenue, waving their light-coloured schoolboy caps, and nodding merrily to the village people who greeted them from their cottage doors. Over their shoulders they carried knapsacks, and strong buck B |