"His aim the nicht was
damn puir, however," said one of the Scotch drivers; "he never gave us a
scratch; but I noticed on the road a woman wi' a little bairn, a wee
thing, hardly higher than your knee, and as we were racing by them, a
shell exploded on the side of the road, right alongside o' them, blawin'
the puir things to their doom."
From the description furnished by the driver, I was convinced it was the
poor woman and child for whom I had taken the risk of punishment, and I
could not help thinking what a blessing it was that death had come to
them in the way it did, so soon after her inextinguishable sorrow.
Another evidence testamentary of the industry of the German agents came
to us that very night from the driver. After the wagons were loaded up
at the wagon lines, someone undid the locks of the wagons and on the way
to the guns the shells dropped out from time to time, scattering over
the cobble stones, causing them to lose more than half of their precious
loads.
"Aye," said the Scotch driver who had told us about the woman and her
child, "and a French battery coming up behind us, the horse kicked one
shell that we dropped, and I'm damned if it did na' explode and blaw the
puir beggars to the deil.
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