



Produced by Chris Curnow, eagkw and the Online Distributed
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  THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

  A LOVE STORY.




  [Illustration]




  [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF LIFE
  A LOVE STORY]




  THE
  BATTLE OF LIFE.
  A Love Story.

  BY
  CHARLES DICKENS.

  London:
  BRADBURY & EVANS, WHITEFRIARS.
  MDCCCXLVI.




  LONDON:
  BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.




  THIS
  Christmas Book
  IS CORDIALLY INSCRIBED TO MY ENGLISH FRIENDS
  IN SWITZERLAND




ILLUSTRATIONS.


    _Title._                 _Artist._           _Engraver._

  FRONTISPIECE             D. MACLISE, R.A.    _Thompson._

  TITLE                    D. MACLISE, R.A.    _Thompson._

  PART THE FIRST           R. DOYLE.           _Dalziel._

  WAR                      C. STANFIELD, R.A.  _Williams._

  PEACE                    C. STANFIELD, R.A.  _Williams._

  THE PARTING BREAKFAST    J. LEECH.           _Dalziel._

  PART THE SECOND          R. DOYLE.           _Green._

  SNITCHEY AND CRAGGS      J. LEECH.           _Dalziel._

  THE SECRET INTERVIEW     D. MACLISE, R.A.    _Williams._

  THE NIGHT OF THE RETURN  J. LEECH.           _Dalziel._

  PART THE THIRD           R. DOYLE.           _Dalziel._

  THE NUTMEG GRATER        C. STANFIELD, R.A.  _Williams._

  THE SISTERS              D. MACLISE, R.A.    _Williams._




THE BATTLE OF LIFE.

A Love Story.

PART THE FIRST.




[Illustration]

PART THE FIRST


[Illustration]

Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it
matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a
long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower
formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt
its enamelled cup fill high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped.
Many an insect deriving its delicate color from harmless leaves and
herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened
way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the
air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground
became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of
human feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and
glimmered at the sun.

[Illustration]

Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the sights the moon beheld
upon that field, when, coming up above the black line of distant
rising-ground, softened and blurred at the edge by trees, she rose
into the sky and looked upon the plain, strewn with upturned faces
that had once at mothers' breasts sought mothers' eyes, or slumbered
happily. Heaven keep us from a knowledge of the secrets whispered
afterwards upon the tainted wind that blew across the scene of that
day's work and that night's death and suffering! Many a lonely moon
was bright upon the battle-ground, and many a star kept mournful watch
upon it, and many a wind from every quarter of the earth blew over it,
before the traces of the fight were worn away.

They lurked and lingered for a long time, but survived in little things,
for Nature, far above the evil passions of men, soon recovered Her
serenity, and smiled upon the guilty battle-ground as she had done
before, when it was innocent. The larks sang high above it, the swallows
skimmed and dipped and flitted to and fro, the shadows of the flying
clouds pursued each other swiftly, over grass and corn and turnip-field
and wood, and over roof and church-spire in the nestling town among
the trees, away into the bright distance on the borders of the sky
and earth, where the red sunsets faded. Crops were sown, and grew up,
and were gathered in; the stream that had been crimsoned, turned a
watermill; men whistled at the plough; gleaners and haymakers were seen
in quiet groups at work; sheep and oxen pastured; boys whooped and
called, in fields, to scare away the birds; smoke rose from cottage
chimneys; sabbath bells rang peacefully; old people lived and died; the
timid creatures of the field, and simple flowers of the bush and garden,
grew and withered in their destined terms: and all upon the fierce and
bloody battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in
the great fight.

But there were deep green patches in the growing corn at first, that
people looked at awfully. Year after year they re-appeared; and it was
known that underneath those fertile spots, heaps of men and horses lay
buried, indiscriminately, enriching the ground. The husbandmen who
ploughed those places, shrunk from the great worms abounding there; and
the sheaves they yielded, were, for many a long year, called the Battle
Sheaves, and set apart; and no one ever knew a Battle Sheaf to be among
the last load at a Harvest Home. For a long time, every furrow that was
turned, revealed some fragments of the fight. For a long time, there
were wounded trees upon the battle-ground; and scraps of hacked and
broken fence and wall, where deadly struggles had been made; and
trampled parts where not a leaf or blade would grow. For a long time,
no village-girl would dress her hair or bos