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How long my nap lasted I am not prepared to say. But some faint sounds over and above the rustle of the ewes in the straw, the bleat of the lambs, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell brought me to my waking senses. Uncle Job was still beside me; but he too had fallen asleep. I looked out from the straw, and saw what it was that had aroused me. Two men, in boat-cloaks, cocked hats, and swords, stood by the hurdles about twenty yards off.
T. Hardy,Wessex Tales, "Eighteen Hundred and Four", Macmillan, London, 1964 ,p. 37 - 38.
PLACE: Dorset
TIME : 1804
At night, when I walk across the lonely place, it is impossible to avoid hearing, amid the scourings of the wind over the grass-bents and thistles, the old trumpet and bugle calls, the rattle of the halters; to help seeing rows of spectral tents and the "impedimenta" of the soldiery. From within the canvases come guttural syllables of foreign tongues, and broken songs of the fatherland; for they were mainly regiments of the King's German Legion that slept round the tent-poles hereabout that time.
T. Hardy,Wessex Tales, "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion", Macmillan, London, 1964 , p.45.
PLACE: Dorset
TIME: ca. 1810
CIRCUMSTANCES: German and Hungarian troops brought to England at time of Napoleonic wars.
The pit-a-pat of their horse's hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there.
T. Hardy,Wessex Tales, "Interlopers at the Knap", Macmillan, London, 1964, p.182, chap. 1
PLACE: Dorset
TIME: ca. 1805
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