"I shall fire no more while you are here," Thorold said as he
touched his cap, and he gallopped back to his place. He sat
like a rock; it was something pretty to see. Then came an
order, which I could not distinguish; and in an incredibly
short time wheels were geared, guns were mounted, and the
dismantled condition of everything replaced by the most alert
order. The major said it was done very well, and told me how
quick it could be done; I forget, but I think he said in much
less than a minute; and then I know he wanted to move; but I
could not. I held my place still, and the battery manoeuvred
up and down the ground in all manner of directions, forming in
various forms of battery; which little by little I got the
major partially to explain. He was not very fluent; and I did
not like his explanations; but nevertheless it was necessary
to give him something to do, and I kept him busy, while the
long line of artillery wagons rushed over the ground, and
skirted it, and trailed across it in diagonal lines; walking
sometimes, and sometimes going at full speed of horses and
wheels. It stirred me, it saddened me, it fascinated me, all
at once; while the gray horse and his rider held my eye far
and near with a magnet hold. Sometimes in one part of the
line, sometimes in another, the moving spirit and life of the
whole. I followed and watched him with eye and heart, till my
heart grew sick and I turned away.