Great bunches of wallflower, thyme, spearmint, batchelor buttons, gardeners' gartens, peony roses, gillyflower, and southernwood, were stuck in their button-holes; and broad belts of stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung across their shoulders.

As to their hats, the man would have had a clear ee that could have kent what was their shape or colour.

They were all rowed round with ribands, and puffed about the rim with long green or white feathers; and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of long strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers.

Save us! to see men so proud of finery; if they had been peacocks one would have thought less; but in decent sober men, the heads of small families, and with no great wages, the thing was crazy-like.

Was it not?
At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had been marching to the field of battle.