I need not tell at length of the wonderful talk, so new and strange to me, in which men and things were judged wholly from a revolutionary point of view. But all the same I began to perceive that the men before me were really and fundamentally simple souls, to whom the future state of Liberty and Equality appeared as a kind of fairy godmother. Out of some inexhaustible bag she would pay each man according to his family needs, money sufficient for his wants and pleasures. He would labour just long enough to place an equivalent in the Fairy Godmother's hands, but no longer. Their wives would keep in order the wardrobes of the bachelor leaders and orators. They would at certain hours also set their houses in order. Others would clean the schools and public-buildings, and for such services additional monies would accrue.
The immediate settlement with the Small Arms Company and its manager was considered purely a temporary matter. Oh, yes, Monsieur Deventer was a good man, and no one could find any fault with him so far as the work was concerned. But, of course, there would be no real peace till they themselves owned the mines and factories, the rolling-mills, the assembling sheds and the hard-stone quarries. Then, indeed, a golden flood would flow directly into their pockets, and in a year or two they might be busily building houses "like proprietors." It was their own word, and even then they did see the delightful incongruity of the proposal. I did not think it worth while to point out that if they disinherited the mill-owners, a younger and still more advanced generation would very hastily expropriate any villas they might build.
But one question I did put to them. "Supposing," I said, "that you take possession of the Arms Factories and carry them on dividing the proceeds among you in proper ratio, after all machinery such as you use is delicate. It wears out quickly. Who is to replace it? Will you keep back so much each week from your wages? Whom will you entrust with the money? How do you know that he will not escape to Switzerland or Italy, carrying your new machinery with him in his breeches pocket?"
This they could not answer themselves. They had not thought of it. Of course, they were accustomed to seeing Deventer and his gang installing a new machine, but where it came from or who paid for it never crossed their minds. With one accord they looked to Gaston Cremieux. He would know what to reply, for he had taught them all they knew. Only by his teaching did they understand even so much. His answer was ready.
"The Commune will lay aside so much of the factory profits each week or month for repairs, the renewal of machinery, the introduction of new types, and so on. This deduction shall be made before wages can be paid."
Such was the oracle's decision, which to me seemed just and natural, but it was wonderful to see the swiftly darkening brows of those who listened.
"What, the Commune would keep back a part of our earnings!" cried Pipe-en-Bois. "Then I say that we will only have exchanged one master for another, and it is not worth the trouble."
Nor could he be moved from his position. Gaston Cremieux could silence him, telling him that doubtless he would himself be a member of the Commune of Aramon. But the man's dark mask as of a gargoyle only took on a deeper scowl, and he looked from one to the other of his companions, sure of their sympathy as he repeated, "What is the use of changing when the Commune will steal from us the earnings of our hands even as the masters do now?"
These were early days and militant theorists (as at present) found construction as difficult as destruction was easy.
Marvelling I sat, and viewed about me these grave men, the elect of the factories and mills, accomplished artisans, yet even now incapable of leadership, or even of submitting to the guiding brain which would give them a chance of success. This thoughtful young advocate of Marseilles was their idol, yet for a mere difference of opinion they were ready to cast him down from the throne they had just set for him. I conceived a new opinion as to the value of popular favour, and I noted that the head of an iconoclast had no easier a resting-pillow than that of the king whose crown he threatened.
We waited till the feast had begun to degenerate a little. Sundry jests and snatches of song seemed to offend the austere thoughtfulness of Cremieux. So I made a signal to Jeanne, previously agreed upon, and she hastened away to get ready the boat, while Gaston and I regulated the expenses with the good hostess, her face still shining from her culinary labours.
While she was changing a ten-franc piece from an immense pocket which swung from her side under her blue rep petticoat, she seemed suddenly to become aware of the noise within. She stepped to the door of the dining-room, listened a moment, and then opening it sharply, said, "Père Félix, if you continue as you are doing, I shall ask you to leave my house!"
"Pardon, Madame," said her husband instantly, rising to his feet and bowing, and the company, feeling themselves somehow vaguely in the wrong, rose to their feet and bowed also in the direction of the door at which appeared the heated face of Madame la Ménagère.
There was no doubt about it that Mère Félix intended to be both master and mistress in her own house, and behind her back the men rubbed their hands and thought how differentlytheycould manage a woman.
We stepped outside into the clean well-aired vault of the twilight. The breeze was from the east, which in Provence of the South has not the terrors of our wind of that name, but is soft and perfumed with the early blossoms along the Gulf of Genoa. The Coast of Azure was sending us up an evening blessing.
We strolled a long way in silence, taking the river road which leads towards Aramon. Then Cremieux broke the silence by asking me brusquely if I had known Rhoda Polly long. I did not think the question ought to have been asked in that tone, but he had done a good deal for me that day and I most certainly owed him a civil answer.
"I have known Rhoda Polly," I said, "ever since I can remember. We used to fight in the garden for pig-nuts and in the woods for acorns. Rhoda Polly scratched my face with long sharp nails, and I thumped her back with little attention to chivalry. She could run faster than I, scratch more savagely, and when trapped she would sometimes bite like a little squirrel taken in the hand—yes, bite till the blood came."
Gaston Cremieux listened with a rather forced smile upon his lips. "And the others—were they present? Were you two allowed to run about the woods all by yourselves?"
You can change anything about a Frenchman except his idea concerning the co-education of the sexes. Here the anarchist is at one with Monsieur the Count de Mun, and Monsieur Jean Jaurès with the Archbishop of Paris.
The convent rule, whether applied by lay mistress or sister of the Sacré Cœur, constant supervision, a fiction of ignorance of things of the commonest knowledge, the girl never to be out of sight of her mother or aunt till the day she is delivered to her husband—these are what the heart of every Frenchman believes to be the only path which the girls he would marry should be allowed to tread. He may praise English and American methods, allow the charm of the result, but in his heart he prefers for himself his "snow-white gosling."
"Tell me about the college to which Rhoda Polly went," he continued, putting aside the early fightings and scratchings as too unsatisfactory for comment.
I told him of the restless yet ordered activity of Selborne College, of the work and of the professors, of the days when the students were permitted to receive young men of other colleges, properly introduced and vouched for. I dwelt mischievously upon the friendships which arose during the common intellectual life of these years. I pitched it all a little strong, because I could not see why in the world he could not take Rhoda Polly as she was, and accept her marked kindness to him without submitting her past to hostile analysis.
When I told him all, he seemed to shake himself suddenly as a man half awake by force of will breaks his way out of a bad dream.
"Good night," he said, "I must go back to Aramon."
And so he left me planted open-mouthed upon the river bank.
At Château Schneider I was received with tumultuary questioning on my return from the reed-beds. Where had I been? What had I been doing? I might easily have got my throat cut and no one would have been sorry. It was a scurvy trick I played them, slipping off like that. And so on—Hugh De venter being the loudest and most persistent.
"My friend in whom I trusted," was his cry. His grievance was not that I had broken bounds and would give no account of myself, but that I had sneaked off alone without giving him a chance to come along with me. However, a glance from Rhoda Polly and the smiling response of her eyes shut my ears to all this hubbub. She understood, and that was enough. I would, of course, tell her about it, making only a mental reservation in the little private matter of Jeanne Félix, and the spraying shadows which her long lashes cast on her eyes of purple-velvet. With a woman, there is no use of talking of another woman—not at least till the listener is well over fifty, and even then it must be done with circumspection.
But I knew my duty, and with another glance at Rhoda Polly I demanded to know where her father was, and in five minutes was sitting among the chimney-pots with that old fighter and captain of men stuffing a pipe bowl and preparing to listen. He nodded his head gravely when I told of my meeting with Gaston Cremieux. He grew restless as a caged beast himself when I described to him the hither-and-yon wolf's prowl of the sullen young men in front of the riding-school. But when I told him of the men's resolve to go at once to work, he rose suddenly to his feet with a shout.
"Jaikes, Irvin, Allerdyce, Brown, Macallister! Here!"
And at his cry these subordinates came running to him like dogs at the shepherd's whistle. Eagerness was in their faces, and confidence in their leader showed in their eyes.
"Young Cawdor has brought good news," he said. "The men are coming back. It may not be for long, but they are coming. They have taken the terms, and now I shall have to fight the masters single-handed. However, I can manage that. Run, fellows! Get the squads together. Set the furnaces going, and steam up in the boilers. It will be the easier for the men when they come in if they find everything ready for them. A few will troop in first in a non-committal way, then will set in a steady trickle of the secretly willing, and lastly the factory benches will fill up with a rush. In two days we will have the ateliers working at high pressure, and we may begin to send out our orders by Saturday."
The engineering sub-chiefs swung their hats in the air and yelled. It was the best of news for them, and they did not even wait to ask how I chanced to be so well informed. Dennis Deventer had doubtless assured himself of that. That was his business, not theirs. They rattled down the ladder one after the other as quickly as a barrel would roll the same distance. They simply fell through the trap-door and disappeared from sight. Presently we could see them leading their emergency gangs across the courtyard to the entrance of the works. In Jack Jaikes's contingent I noticed the broad shoulders and rough blond head of Hugh Deventer, towering like a Viking among the wiry Clydeside and bearded Tynemouth men about him.
His father must have noticed him too, for he turned to me with a smile.
"Yonder goes our Hugh. He is a strong lad, but has no spring. He falls all over himself at present. If you are still set on soldiering, you can take him with you. He has little sense as yet, but I can see that he will do what you tell him."
"Thank you, sir," I said; "war is a stranger business than we young fellows dream of. I cannot be responsible for accidents, but if you trust me with Hugh—well, he is my comrade, and I shall look after him as myself."
He held out his hand, after first glancing about to see that we were not overlooked, and grasped my fingers. Such demonstrations of emotion were by no means in his way.
"With Hugh it is a case of thews and brawn," he said. "When it comes to the marching, see that you make him carry your musket as well as his own. He has no heavy load in his top story."
Of course I had to see Rhoda Polly before our final marching off towards the north. As I came down the great front steps of the Château Schneider I saw her crossing the lawn far away to the right. She was going in the direction of the vegetable garden, and I stood still on the steps till I watched her into the potting-house. With her hand on the latch she cast a look over her shoulder in my direction.
"Amaryllis desires to be first seen," I muttered, and after a comprehensive tour of the grounds I approached the potting-house from the rear.
Rhoda Polly was sitting on a bench with peat and leaf-mould in little boxes about her, and a red flowerpot held firmly between her knees while she kneaded the black flaky mass down with urgent little knuckles.
"If I don't get those Alan Richardson roses to do this year—why, the devil fly away with me!"
She spoke in French, and the words had not the same sound as in English. Something gay and Rhoda Polly-ish rang cheerfully in my heart.
"Really you should not swear!" said I. "What would Miss Balfour-Lansdowne say to that at Selborne College?"
"Oh, sometimes we said a good deal worse than that on the hockey ground, or in the heat of an argument. Besides, if you did not want to hear, you need not have followed me."
"Rhoda Polly," I said, "you know that I followed you because you made me a signal that you wanted to talk to me."
"Yes, I know," owned up Rhoda Polly, who scorned concealment. "Well, what have you to tell me now that you are here? I let you go just now and unbosom yourself to the Paternal without complaining. That was only playing the game, but certainly you owe it to me to stand and deliver as soon as you got clear."
"Well, and here I am, Rhoda Polly—which will you have—plain narrative—question and answer—the Socratic method, or a judicious mixture of the two?"
I knew the inquiry would resolve itself into the latter. Rhoda Polly went on with the potting of her Alan Richardson, biting her under lip at critical points, but ever and anon flashing a pertinent query at me over the boxes of mould without once raising her head.
With the exception of my talks with Jeanne and the harmless little philandering we had indulged in to pass the time, I confided the whole of my day's adventures to Rhoda Polly. I told her also of the permission that her father had given that Hugh should go north and join the new armies with me.
Then at last Rhoda Polly did lift her eyes with a vividness of reproach in them.
"You cannot find enough to do here?" she said. "You trust these men at the works? I tell you they are not to be trusted. I know them better than either you or my father, I have heard their women-folk talking, and I know what they mean to do."
"I know what theysaythey mean to do," I retorted. "I also have heard them in their cups, but it is only folly and emptiness."
"Do not be too sure," she said, patting the flowerpot round the edges and squinting down at it as if it were a work of art symmetrically finished. "I warn you we may need you here sooner than you think, and then Gaston Cremieux may not be so friendly as he is to-day."
I asked her why, but she only bent more over her work and shook her head. It had been clear to me from Cremieux's questions that he was in love with Rhoda Polly, and now from Rhoda Polly's prophecy of his future unfriendliness that she had made up her mind to reject him. But, in the meantime, it was my clear duty to go on and do what I could in the army.
We could not hope to defeat the Germans, but at least every additional man in the ranks added to the chance of withstanding them. If we could only hold them at bay till the politicians did their work, all this peaceful Southland would be spared the horrors of war and the more wearing pains of occupation and pillage.
I said this to Rhoda Polly and she could not help agreeing. Her assent, however, came from her clear head and trained intelligence, but her heart was still unconvinced that Hugh and I ought to go, leaving that houseful of women in Château Schneider. All this was perhaps natural enough, and certainly it made me feel warmer within to know that Rhoda Polly would regret me.
"I owe you a grudge," she said, as she stood up and rubbed the black crumbly mould briskly from her hands, "for without you we should at least have had Hugh. He would never have thought of going by himself."
Rhoda Polly had finished with her roses. She set out the boxes in a row, and then stood up facing me. Her eyes were steady and level like a man's—I mean a man of the North. They did not droop and flutter like Jeanne's at the Ferry. Her breast did not heave nor her full throat swell. The pent-up emotion in Rhoda Polly's bosom found no such commonplace feminine vents. Only the firm lines about her mouth betrayed her, and perhaps a certain moist luminousness of eye.
"I would not hinder you, Angus Cawdor," she said steadily, "let a man do what he knows he ought. But at least you owe it to me to come back the very day the war is over. It is not till then that the storm here will break. I have it from the women. They advise us to go out of the country, but I have a better plan in my head. You must be here to help me carry it out."
"I shall be here, Rhoda Polly, if I get through all right!"
"If you get through all right——?" The words fell uncertainly.
"If I live, Rhoda Polly."
"Ah, if you live," repeated the girl, mechanically holding out her hand. And even as I looked, the bold bright look in her eyes was dimmed, as a pool greys over with the first coming of a breeze.
And thus I took my real farewell of Rhoda Polly. There was some of the black mould on my fingers as I went over to the shops to search for Hugh Deventer.
Hugh Deventer and I reached Orange only to hear that the recruiting parties of the Garibaldians had gone away north. But on the railway, hundreds of wagons laden with supplies were moving in the same direction, and with the conductors of these we made what interest we could.
We showed the letter we had brought from Gaston Cremieux, but these were men of the Saône and Isère, who had never heard of the agitator. But Hugh's willing help during heavy hours of loading and "transhipment," and perhaps also the multitude and flavour of my tales of Scotland, gained us a footing.
From them we heard with pride of what had already been done by Garibaldi, with such wretched material, and how the great Manteuffel himself, in his dispatches, had allowed the excellence of Garibaldi's tactics.
What we were most afraid of was that the whole war would be over before we got a chance. The men of the Isère, however, who on the strength of six months' campaigning considered themselves veterans, laughed scornfully at our young enthusiasms. They would march. They would fight. But as for beating the Germans in the long run it was impossible. That time had gone by when Bazaine had let himself be locked up in Metz.
"All we can do is to help the Republic to get out of the mess with some credit!" said a tall sergeant who sat in the open door of a bullock wagon. And the others agreed with him. They were on tenterhooks to know why we English should be so eager to take up their quarrel. The thousand Italians they could understand. They came because Garibaldi did, touched by the glory of his name, but we English—what had we to do with the affair?
Me they suspected of Southern blood from my quick slimness and swarthy colour, but Deventer was a joy to them. "That Englishman!" they cried, and laughed as at an excellent jest. His big hearty blundering ways, his ignorance of military affairs kept them perpetually on the grin. But when they saw him strip and repair a chassepot with no more tools than a pocket screw-driver and a nail file, they changed the fashion of their countenances. Hugh was not the son of Dennis Deventer for nothing.
Presently we found ourselves privileged stowaways, whirling in the direction of Lyons, protected by these good fellows, who hid us carefully from the rounds of inspection which visited the wagons at every stopping place. Mostly, however, no severe examination was made, and the word of the sergeant was taken that all was right inside.
But as soon as the train slackened speed we sprang on a shelf which ran along one end of the wagon, and there lay snug behind a couple of bags of potatoes.
At last, near Civry, a little town on the foothills of the Côte d'Or, we were abruptly ordered down.
It was a dark night and raining as we set our noses out. We would much rather have remained behind the potato sacks, but there was no help for it. Out we must come along with the rest, for Manteuffel's Uhlans were off on a raid and had cut the line between us and Dijon. At first we could only see the blackness and the shapes of the trees bent eastward by many winter blasts, but after a time our eyes grew accustomed, and we became aware of a long line of wagoners' teams drawn up on a road that skirted the railway.
We did our best to assist at the changing of the provisions and ammunition, and would have been glad of permission to accompany the convoy through the hills to its destination.
But we had the ill fortune to fall in the way of a captain of regulars who asked us our business there, and on our telling him, he answered with evident contempt, that in that case we had better go and look for "Monsieur Garibaldi." As far as he was concerned, if he found us in his convoy again he would have us shot for spies. Hugh Deventer and I could not rejoice enough that we had left our two beautiful Henry rifles and our stores of ammunition on our sleeping shelf. We knew well that our protector the sergeant and his men would say nothing about the matter, though they looked with unrestrained envy and desire of possession upon our repeating rifles.
Accordingly I advised Hugh to confide to the sergeant in private the name of his father, and promise that a similar rifle would be sent to him with the next consignment of chassepots.
The sergeant's eyes glowed, and he told us that he was under orders for his native town of Epinal, which he hoped to reach in about a fortnight. Hugh promised that he would find a Henry repeater with an abundant supply of cartridges waiting for him there at his mother's house. And accordingly he sat down in the empty wagon, and by the light of the lantern wrote a note to his father which he gave into the sergeant's hands to be posted at the first opportunity. He in his turn entrusted it to the care of the engine driver, who was getting ready to take his empty wagons rattling southward again to bring further supplies from the rich Rhône valley.
The sergeant also arranged that we should accompany the rear-guard so far as was possible during the night, when we were to strike off diagonally to the west to pick up Autun, where Menotti Garibaldi was reported to be waiting with a large force to cut off the retreat of the German raiders.
So we started on our march, and had soon reason to be glad that we were not stumbling at hazard up and down those leg-breaking vine-terraces.
The convoy had relays of peasants as guides, and at least we were kept along some semblance of a path. We could hear the rumbling and creaking of the wheels before us, but for that night the goad superseded the loud crack of the whip, and the language beloved of all nationalities of teamsters was, if not wholly silenced, at least sunk to a whisper. We marched far enough in the rear to be rid of the cloud of dust raised by the convoy, which fell quickly in the damp night air.
Occasionally an orderly would gallop back, dust-mantled in grey from head to heel. He was sent to see that we of the rear-guard kept our distance and did not straggle. The Isère and Grenoble men with whom we marched were veterans and in no ways likely to desert, so that the adjutant's report was at once accepted, and the officer galloped back. All the same we two regularly sneaked aside into a belt of trees or took refuge behind the vine-terraces as soon as the sound of hoofs was heard.
We had marched many hours in the darkness—from eight or nine of the evening till the small hours were passing one by one with infinite weariness. I was lighter on my feet than Hugh, having less to carry in the way of "too, too solid flesh." Consequently he suffered more, both from the weight of his rifle, and the dumb remorseless steadiness of the marching column. Forward we went, however, stumbling now and then with sleep, our feet blistered, and the rattle and wheeze of the ammunition wagons coming back to us mixed with a jingle of mules' gear through the dark.
At last, when it seemed as if we could do no more, the column halted, and our grateful sergeant came back in order to set us on the road to Autun.
"Yonder," he said, "you can see a hill which cuts the stars. It is high and steep, but to the right of it is a pass, and when you reach the top you will look down upon the lights of Autun."
He bade us a rapid good-bye, and hastened away to his own place in the column. With a final word of thanks to the adjutant (who is here a kind of sergeant-major), we left our kindly rear-guard and set out to find Garibaldi.
The night grew suddenly darker as we missed the shoulder-touch of a comrade on either side of us. We rolled over vine-terraces, clutching at the gnarled roots, or stumbled with a breath-expelling "ouch" into dry ditches all laid out for the summer irrigation. Fence rails and the corner posts of vineyard guard-shelters marked us black, and blue, but aloft or alow we held firm to the Henry rifles which were to be our chief treasures, when we should at last don the red cardigan of the Garibaldian troops.
To us it seemed as if we never would reach the top of that pass. We could see the mountain towering up on our left hand, and once a shower of stones came rumbling down as a warning not to venture too near. The wind was now soft and equal, and the unusual warmth had served no doubt to loosen the frost-bound rocks above, as well as to keep us in a gentle perspiration while we climbed the corkscrew pathway towards the hill crest. Things became easier after we had left the vineyards beneath us, and our road lay over the clean grassy plateau on which the sheep had that day been grazing. We rested a while in a shepherd's shelter hut, and did not scruple to refresh ourselves with some slices of bread and sausage, washed down by a long swig from a skin of wine. We left a franc in payment, stuck into the cut end of the sausage, with a note appended that we were two recruits on our way to join Garibaldi. Little did we imagine that in a few weeks we should, without hurt to our consciences, simply have transferred the whole supply to our haversacks without thanks or payment.
There was still no hint of dawn when we started out, but beyond the lowest part of the ridge immediately above us a kind of faint illumination appeared. It burned steadily, and for a long while we could not explain it. It could not be the approaching sunrise, for our compasses told us that we were marching as near as possible due west.
Quite suddenly we topped the crest, and saw beneath us the lights of Autun gleaming hazily through a kind of misty drizzle. But that which struck our faces was in no wise wetting. It only struck a chill through us, making our greatcoats welcome. We had so far carried themen bandoulière.
The west side of the ridge was, in fact, already spotted with fine sifted snow, which blew in our faces and sought a way down our necks. Its coming had caused the fluorescent light we had seen as we were mounting the eastern slopes, and now with bowed heads and our rifles as well "happed" as possible, we strode downhill in the direction of the town.
At the limits of the chestnut woods the vineyards began again, and our troubles threatened to be as great as they had been after we left the convoy. But though fine snow fell steadily, its clinging whiteness showed up the stone-dykes and terraces as black objects to be avoided. There was, therefore, less tumbling about among the ledges of loose stones, and presently we came out upon a regular "departmental" road, with drainage ditches on either side, rows of pollarded willows and poplars, and kilometric pillars, with numbers on them which it was too dark to see.
Along this we made all haste, for we were bent on getting to Autun as soon as possible, and indeed it was not long before we were in the way of getting our wish.
"Halt! Who goes there?" came a challenge out of the unseen. Well was it for us that we had attempted no stealthy approach upon the town, but serenely clattered down the middle of the turnpike. Luckier still that we fell into the hands of regular mobiles of the army of the Vosges, instead of a stray company offranc-tireurs, who as like as not, would have cut our throats for the sake of our rifles, the stores of ammunition, and the few silver coins we carried.
We had come upon a picket of men of the regiment of Gray on the borders of the Haute Saône. It was like one of Napoleon's levies after Moscow—young lads of sixteen and men of forty or fifty standing by each other cheerfully, and without distinction of age or previous occupation.
We stated our purpose and asked to be taken to head-quarters. Like most of such casual recruits, we thought we would be taken directly into the presence of Garibaldi, but the Gray men astonished us by the information that the great soldier was almost a recluse, and indeed so much of an invalid that he could only review his troops from a carriage. His sons, Menotti and Ricciotti, were his fighting generals, but all directing power was centred in Colonel Bordone, through whom all orders came to the army.
In the meantime we were conveyed amicably to the temporary head-quarters of the 14th Mobiles of the Haute Saône. Here we found several officers, but after a look at us and a civil enough demand for the production of our papers, we were permitted to betake ourselves to the snug kitchen of an ancient monastery, where the soldiers of the outpost guard were sitting around a huge fire, or lying extended on couches of straw, sleeping the sleep of men who had marched far the day before, and expected to do as much more on the morrow.
Our clothes were soon dry, and our overcoats spread out to the blaze, after being well shaken and thumped to get rid of the clinging snow. The morning began to come tardily, and as if reluctantly. The snow had ceased, but a thin whitish mist had been left behind, softening and dimming all outlines.
The town of Autun bethought itself of waking up. A few shopkeepers took down their shutters in a leisurely fashion, the first of these being a couple of ladies, venders of sweet cakes, both pretty and apparently exceedingly attractive to the young Italian officers, all of whom had the racial sweet tooth as well as the desire to rival each other in the eyes of beauty.
Our men of Gray were rather contemptuous, but could not deny that these young sweet-suckers fought well and bravely whenever it came to blows.
"And I dare say, after all," said a tall brigadier, "it is better to munch sugar cakes flavoured with cinnamon than to swallow the filth they serve out to you in thecafés."
The others agreed, but we did not observe that their teetotal sentiments were more than platonic. At least, during all our stay with the 3rd Corps in the town of Autun, the Frenchmen went to thecaféand the Italians to thepâtissière.
It was nine o'clock when the brigadier of the post detailed two men to accompany us to the Cadran Bleu, the inn where the army head-quarters was established. We had a short time to wait, for the officers within were judging the case of a spy, a dull heavy-witted fellow who had formerly served in a line regiment, but who had had the ill thought to turn his knowledge of the army of the Vosges to account by compiling a careful estimate of the strength of Garibaldi's command, and offering it by ordinary letter post to General Werder of the Prussian service. The letter was addressed to his brother-in-law at Macon, who was to arrange terms. He, however, preferred patriotism (and the chance of a possible heritage) to his relative's life. So the officer of the day was already picking out the firing-party, for, as was the way of the army of the Vosges under Garibaldi, a very short shrift was given to any traitor. Though the supreme judges were Italian and the man a Frenchman, the good sense of the soldiers supported them in the certainty and rapidity of such military punishments. I saw the man come out between a couple of Mobiles with fixed bayonets. His hair fell in an unkempt mass over his brow. His face was animal and stupid, but he had little pig's eyes that glanced rapidly from one side to the other as if seeking for any way of escape. But there was none for him, as the rattle of musketry testified almost before we had reached the antechamber.
Here there were half a dozen young French officers and many Italians all talking together, who turned from their conversations to gaze at us. We had made what toilets we could, and the men of the Gray regiments had rolled up our overcoats in military style.
"Two English come from Aramon to enlist," we heard them say, with a certain resentment as if they had been offered an affront. "Do all the foreigners in the world think that France has need of them to fight her battles?"
However, one of the sub-lieutenants, a handsome lad, from a Protestant family in the Isère, came over to talk to us. The ice was at once broken, and the next moment we had quite a gathering round us admiring our Henry repeaters, and asking questions.
"That is the new Remington action!" said one who stated that he read English and American periodicals, but became appallingly unintelligible as soon as he attempted to speak a single sentence of the language.
"No," said Hugh Deventer, "the movement was invented by my father."
"And who may your father be? Are you travelling for the firm?"
"My father," said Hugh steadily, "is Monsieur Dennis Deventer, director-in-chief of the Arms Factory at Aramon-sur-Rhône, and he will supply as many of these repeaters as the Company is paid for. The Government have the matter under consideration, but if they do not hurry, the war will be over before their minds are made up."
An officer in the red cloak of the Italian corps pushed a door open, spoke an order in imperfect French, and the next moment we found ourselves in an apartment where two men were sitting rolling cigarettes at opposite sides of a long table. They were both tall, dark-bearded men with swarthy faces, clad in uniforms much the worse for wear. I knew them by instinct to be Menotti and Ricciotti Garibaldi. Both had a look of the common lithograph portraits of their father, but perhaps no more than one weather-beaten shepherd on a Scottish hill resembles his comrade on the next.
We stood at attention after the English manner instilled into us by Jack Jaikes and the numerous old soldiers who by Dennis Deventer's orders had taken us for drill during vacation time at the works.
The two grave men looked at one another and smiled. "We have seen something like this when the English lads came to us in Sicily eleven years ago, eh, brother? Tell us your names, little ones! Can you speak Italian?"
We could, and that made us, if not of the "children," at least something very different from the dull peasants whom Gambetta's conscription supplied, or the innumerable company of ne'er-do-weels who appeared from nowhere in particular, drawn by the mere sound of Garibaldi's name.
Hugh Deventer did not much like to be called a "little one," but the Italian speech is not like our English, which lends itself more easily to oaths and cursing than to the "little language" and the expression of emotion.
We presented the letters with which we had been furnished—one a personal epistle to Ricciotti from Dennis Deventer—the others for the most part addressed to the General himself.
That, however, made no difference. His sons opened them all without hesitation or apology. Indeed, we soon learned that, excepting the conduct of the campaign, Father Garibaldi was not allowed to concern himself with anything.
"Ah, Dennis Deventer," said Ricciotti, starting up and embracing Hugh on both cheeks. "I owe much to your father, more than I am likely to pay for some while. He took our word for it that the chassepots for the new troops would be paid for, even though he knows that the Government is likely to fall into the hands of those who hate us. Also the new twelve-pounders—Menotti, brother, what shall we do for this man's son?"
"I must stay with my comrade, Angus Cawdor," put in Hugh Deventer. "He is far more clever than I am, and I should be lost without him. I am only a boy, but he——"
"Has the thoughts of a man—I see," interrupted Menotti, who had been considering us from under his hand without speaking. "I think it would be no kindness to add two recruits of such mettle to the number of the admirably combed and pressed young gentlemen in the anteroom out there. You had better take them, Ricciotti. You will be sure to find old Manteuffel hammering away at you on your return to Dijon, and the lads can take bite and sup with the 'Enfants.' Since they speak Italian no explanations need be made. They can be fitted out by the commissariat adjutant."
"The favour is an unusual one, brother. There will be grumbling."
"The circumstances are unusual, and so are the lads. There is but one Dennis Deventer, and we must do the best we can for his son."
And in this manner we became part of the personal following of Ricciotti Garibaldi, and were destined to take part in the war game which he played out successfully against Manteuffel and Werder till the coming of the armistice stopped all fighting.
"The Children" were young men, some of them hardly more than boys, who had followed the Dictator from Italy. They came from all parts of the Peninsula, but the wide windy Milanese plain supplied most of them. A curious exaltation reigned in the camp. It was like the mystic aura of a new religion. One became infected with it after a few hours among the troops.
They were already veterans in their own opinion, and, feeling that the eyes of their General was always upon them, they claimed as their monopoly all desperate ventures, the front rank in stubborn defences, the rear-guard in retreat, and they died with an "Evviva, Garibaldi!" upon their lips. One snatched the standard from a falling comrade that he might carry it closer to the Prussian lines, only in most cases to fall in his turn under the fatal steadiness of the needle-gun.
The rest of the army of the Vosges fought under the tricolour of France, but for "Les Enfants" Garibaldi had devised his own emblem. It was sufficiently striking and characteristic of the man, but in France at least it only excited astonishment among the masses, and hatred and contempt among the clerical and aristocratic party, which was at that time in a great majority in the provinces. The flag was of a vivid crimson, darker a little than the "Tatter of Scarlet" I had seen go up at Aramon when the Communards expelled the troops from the town. There was no device upon it—only the one word in large letters:
"PATATRAC!"
I saw the rustics gazing open-mouthed upon it every day, yet it was a word admirably descriptive and one which I have heard in frequent use among the peasant folk of the South. "Patatrac!" or "Patatras!" the labourer will exclaim when he lets a bucket fall at a stair-head and hears it go rumbling down. "Patatrac!" a housewife will say when she describes how a careless maid drops a trayful of crockery. It is the crashing sound of the fall that is represented, and in this fashion Garibaldi had been so accustomed to bring down in thunderous earthquake ruin all the brood of century-old tyrannies.
It was his well-earned boast that he had made the device good against all comers (except his specialbête noiresof the Papacy) until the fell day at Mentana when the French chassepots rather belatedly gave him as we say at home "his kail through the reek!"
Yet here he was, only five years after, a broken man, fighting for that same France, just because she had shaken off the yoke of the tyrant and become a republic.
Wonderful always to hear the soldiers speak of their leader. They did not cheer him as did the French corps. They clustered close about his carriage as he moved slowly along, his thin hand, which had so long held a sword, touching their heads, and his feeble sick man's voice saying: "My children—oh, my children!"
Neither of his sons accompanied him on these pilgrimages in the shabby hired barouche in which he drove out every day, but Bordone was always with him—watchful, stern, and devoted, the real tyrant of the little army. Menotti and Ricciotti were always with their troops, perhaps from jealousy of Bordone, perhaps because they had enough to do licking their raw levies into some manner of fighting shape.
The winter was bitter even among bitter winters, and the snow soon began to be trampled hard. The troops, continually arriving, were quartered all over Autun, and in the villages about. Finally the churches had to be occupied, and though nothing was done there that would not have happened with any army of occupation, Garibaldi the polluter was cursed from one end of France to the other as if he had torn down the golden cross upon St. Peter's dome. Not that it mattered to the old Dictator. In silence and solitude he made his plans. He read the reports and dispatches as they came in. He issued his orders through Bordone, before driving out in the halting ramshackle barouche, sometimes with two horses, more often with only one. At every halt he spoke a word or two to the troops as he passed among them, words treasured by the true "Children" like the oracles of God. Then he would return to his lodgings, sit down to his bowl of soup, his loaf of bread, and his glass of water, exactly as if he were on his own island farm within hearing of the waves breaking on the rocks of Caprera.
We found ourselves among Ricciotti's fourth corps of Guides. We were sent to the outfitting captain whose quarters were established in a long hangar overlooking the river. There we found a little rotund man, very bright of eye and limber of tongue, who fitted us out with many compliments and bows. We had brought a letter from the commander himself.
Our first uniform was the gayest ever seen—too picturesque indeed for sober British tastes. It consisted of a red shirt, blue-grey riding breeches, and high boots with jingling silver spurs (for which last we paid from our own purses). On our heads we wore a fascinating "biretta," or cap with a tall feather. The captain of outfitting showed us how to sport it with a conquering air, and with what a grace to swing the short red cloak over one shoulder so that we should not be able to pass a girl in Autun who did not turn and look after us.
This was what the master of the stores said as he stood with his back against the rough pine door-post of his quarters and rubbed his shoulder-blades luxuriously. But in practice I looked like a carnival Mephistopheles, while Hugh Deventer's feather generally drooped over one eye in a drunken fashion. We were not long in suppressing these gauds, though we did our duty in them as gallopers for several days. Finally we went to Ricciotti and begged to be allowed to carry our rifles in one of the foot regiments. We did not want to leave the foreign troops, knowing something of the ostracism and persecution which would be our part among the French regiments. So we were allowed to return our chargers to the remounting officer, and make another visit to the small rotund outfitter in his wooden barrack by the river. There of all our gallant array we retained only our red shirts, and for the rest were rigged out in sober dark blue, aképiapiece, and a pair of stout marching shoes on our feet.
We mounted knapsack and haversack, shouldered our Henry rifles, and in an hour found ourselves established among the first "Etranger," a Milanese regiment with three or four mountain companies from Valtelline and the Bergel.
Now it chanced that I had spent some part of my vacations climbing among the peaks about Promontonio. There I had taken, more as companion than as guide, a Swiss-Italian, or to be exact "Ladin"—of my own age or a little older, by the name of Victor Dor. He was a pleasant lad, and we talked of many things as we shared the contents of our rük-sacks on the perilous shoulder of some mountain just a few feet removed from the overhang of the glacier.
And here and now, with the chevrons of a sergeant, was this same Victor Dor, who embraced me as if he had been my brother.
"Oh, the happiness to see you!" he cried. "And among the children of our father. I know you do not come to save the French who shot us down at Mentana. You are like us. You come because our father calls, and yet to think of those long days in the Val Bergel when we never knew that we were brothers. And yet I do not know. You spoke of the Man who was a Carpenter at Nazareth, and who called his disciples to follow him. So our father came, and we followed him. Princes and Emperors scatter honours. Republics give decorations and offices. But look at our lads lying on the straw yonder. Where will they be in a week? In the hospital or in the grave? Some of these men are well off at home, others are poor. No matter! All share alike, and all are equal before our father. Ah, that is it! You see there is nothing to be gained except the joy of following him. Our poor dear father Garibaldi, what has he to offer? He has nothing for himself but a barren isle, and even that he owes to you English.[1]The liberty of following him, of seeing his face when he passes by, of hearing his voice as he calls us his children, the pride of being his very own chosen, who have shared his perils and never deserted him to the last. These are our rewards. Tell me if they are of this world?"
[1]See Hamerton's "Round my House."
On the third morning after our entry into the Ricciotti's first foreign legion, both Hugh and I awoke stiff and chilled by the frost. The lucky among us had early found quarters in byres and cattle-sheds, where the closely packed animals kept the place warm. We had to make the best of it on a floor of beaten earth, still sparsely strewn with heads of wheat and flecks of straw. The fodder had been requisitioned to the last armful, and not enough was left to build a nest for a sparrow. The barn was doorless, and, except for the shelter of the roof, we might as well have slept in the open air. At least so we thought, but next day men on the outposts told us a different tale. That night the head-quarters thermometers had showed twenty below zero, and many men slept never again to waken, under the open sky—slept leaning on their chassepots, and so died standing up, no one guessing they were dead till they fell over all in one piece like an icicle snapped.
But even Hugh Deventer and I were sorely tried in our open barn. We had lain soft and fed well all our lives. We were not yet broken to the work like the campaigners of Sicily, or even like those who had passed through the war since the autumn.
"If I bored a hole or two where the joints are," groaned Hugh, "one of Jack Jaikes's oil cans might easy my bearings greatly this morning!"
"From what I can guess," said Victor Dor, "you will find it warm enough in an hour or two. Manteuffel is going to make a push for it to-day. Ricciotti managed to capture a couple of Werder's Uhlans, and one of ourfranc-tireurssays that the whole Pomeranian army corps is coming upon us as fast as the men can march."
"Afranc-tireuralways lies," said another Valtelline man, Marius Girr, scornfully, but enunciating a principle generally received in the army.
"Still, it is possible that this one told the truth by mistake—at any rate, it is not a safe thing to lie to Ricciotti about a matter which, in a few days, will prove itself true or untrue. Ricciotti knows the use of a firing party at twelve yards just as well as Bordone."
The morning grew more and more threatening as time passed. The chill tang of coming snow clung to the nostrils. We had breakfasted meagrely on the last rinds of bacon and scraps of sausage in our haversacks. We longed for hot coffee till we ached, but had to content ourselves with sucking an icicle or two from the roof of the barn, good for the thirst, but very afflicting to the tongue at a temperature of minus twenty.
Presently the inexorable bugles called us forward to the trenches, which extended in a vast hollow crescent from the Arroux bank opposite Autun to the hills above St. Leger on the borders of the Nièvre. We could see against the snow dark masses of overcoated Prussians defiling this way and that among the valleys, and at sight of them our field-guns began to speak. With eyes that hardly yet understood we watched the shells bursting and the marching columns shred suddenly apart to be reformed automatically only an instant after, as the narrow strips of dark blue uncoiled themselves towards the plain.
Hugh and I lay close against a railway embankment from which the rails had been ruthlessly torn up. I was inclined to make an additional shelter of these, and indeed Hugh and I had begun the work when Victor Dor stopped us.
"As much earth as you like," he said; "earth or sand stops bullets, but iron only makes them glance off, and often kill two in place of one. Scatter all the rails, plates, and ties down our side of the slope. I will show you something that is far better!"
And with the edge of the shallow iron saucepan which he carried like a targe at his back, he scooped up the earth so that we soon had in front of us a very competent breastwork, giving sufficient cover for our heads and shoulders as well as a resting-place for our rifles.
During the next hour we heard the roar of the German artillery away in the direction of St. Léger, and the resounding "boom-boom" of our heavy mortars and twelve-pounders answering them.
"What would Jack Jaikes give to see these in action," I said in Hugh's ear.
"And still more my father," he answered.
Our outposts began to be driven in, but they had stubbornly defended our front, nor did they yield till the masses of blue battalions showed thickly, and then only to give the artillery free play.
It was in waiting behind us, and the first crash as the shells hurtled over our heads made Hugh and I feel very strange in the pits of our stomachs—something like incipient sea-sickness. The veterans never once looked aloft, but only cuddled their rifles and wriggled their bodies to find a comfortable niche from which to fire.
"Dig your toes into the embankment, you English," Marius Girr of our company called to us; "if you don't, the first recoil of the rifle will send you slipping down into the ditch."
It was good advice, and with a few kicks we dug solid stances for our feet, in which our thick marching shoes were ensconced to the heels. We excavated also hollow troughs for our knees, and, as Hugh said, we behaved generally like so many burying beetles instead of gallant soldiers. All this was not done easily, for the ground was frozen hard, and in the river behind us we could hear the solid blocks of ice clinking and crunching together as the sullen grey-green current swept them along.
It was Sunday, and upon the town road a little behind our line, but quite within the zone of fire, comfortable mammas and trim little daughters were trotting to Mass with their service books wrapped in white napkins. Hugh and I yelled at them to go home, but it was no use. Luckily I remembered their fear of the Iron Chancellor, and assured them by all the saints that "Bismarck was coming," whereupon they kilted their petticoats and made off homeward, their fat white-stockinged legs twinkling in the pearl-grey twilight. It was like a Dutch picture—trampled snow, low brooding sky, white-capped matrons and little girls wrapped in red shawls.
But in a few moments we had other matters to occupy us. The Tanara regiment was on our right, and the sweep of the crescent being farther advanced than at our position, they received the first rush of the Pomeranians.
But there was no waiting, for suddenly out of the woods in front of us stiff lines of blue emerged and began moving forward with the Noah's Ark regularity of marionettes. It seemed impossible that these could be soldiers charging. But we were soon convinced. The dip of the ground hid them for a long time, and then suddenly they appeared not four hundred yards off, no longer in column, but in two lines close together, with a supporting third some distance in the rear.
We could see them extending companies far away on either side. But this we knew to be in vain, for the river protected us on the right, while on the left our entrenchments reached as far as the St. Leger hills which were crowned with our forts.
Then came the splitting growl of the mitrailleuses behind us. These were still held to be rather uncertain weapons. Men familiarly called them pepper-pots, and it was as likely as not that a few bullets might come spattering our way, spread-eagled as we were on the railway embankment, and offering a far more practicable target than the advancing Germans.
But there were no casualties, at least near us, and in a moment the Germans fired a volley which swept the embankment like hail. The rifles of the first Milanese cracked on every side, but I bade Hugh hold his fire till the charging enemy was only a hundred yards away. Our Henry rifles gave us an immense advantage in speed of firing. They came on, breaking at last through a dark barrier of yew and poplar hedge, and as they came we could see their bayonets flash like silver in the dull light. Their colonel was mounted on a black charger, a tall fine-looking man who pushed his horse up every knoll in order the better to see whom and what he was attacking.
But he dropped a little way from the yew hedge, and almost before he reached the ground two men with a stretcher were lifting up their officer, while a third had taken the horse by the bridle and was leading him to the rear, as composedly as a groom in a stable-yard.
"Now, then, Hugh," I cried, "you take the right of the line and I will take the left. But sight carefully and don't aim high."
"Crack—crack—crack!!" went our magazine rifles, and the big Pomeranians went down as if an invisible sickle had mown them. As I expected, Hugh was finished before me, but we had scarcely time to adjust our new cartridge holders before the line broke and the blue coats turned and ran. A few officers and a man or two immediately in their wake got as far as the curve of the embankment—only, however, to be shot down.
The air rang with the shouts of "Evivva Garibaldi!" And a few minutes afterwards the Tanara regiment, encouraged by our success, repulsed the enemy's bayonet charge, so that in an instant our whole line was disengaged. Only out in the open the trampled earth and the glistening crushed-sugar snow were starred here and there with spots and splotches of red and the contorted bodies of men, some still moving, but mostly stricken into the strange stiff attitudes of death.
It was our first battle in the service of Garibaldi. It was destined to be our last. For that night the news of the fall of Paris and the signing of the armistice stopped the fighting everywhere, except at Belfort and along the desperate rear-guard line of Bourbaki's army, which was being driven like a pack of famished wolves into the passes of the Jura.
It was the evening of the 27th of January, and we were back in Autun. The Milanese were later than most in getting inside the gates. We had pushed far forward after the retreating Pomeranians, and now our lot was to bivouac in the square. The houses were full, and the churches with their damp floors did not tempt us. Besides, we were full of the glow of victory, and for that night a camp-fire in the middle of the square satisfied us. The evening had fallen mild and still—clear too, though rapidly growing misty under the red loom of camp-fire smoke. There was not much open rejoicing. The French would not believe that the end had come, and the Italians, still flushed with victory, felt that they had come a long way to do but little. Still, as we lay close to our camp-fires or threshed our arms about to keep warm, we could not keep out of our minds the hope of better days. I know not of what Hugh Deventer thought, but for me I was talking to Rhoda Polly, or lazily steering the ferry-boat across the river while before me Jeanne Félix bent lissomly to the oars. It was clear that I had not yet reached the age of the grand expulsive passion which ignores partage. Indeed, given a temperament like mine, no youth is worth his salt who at twenty-one cannot drive several teams abreast.
Hugh and I put in the night wandering up and down, rendered restless by the thoughts of peace, and unable to sleep about the camp-fires before which we had spread our blankets. Upon the advice of a stranger in a doorway we penetrated into a school, and from the first class-room brought out benches and desks enough to feed our camp-fires all night in the square of Autun. With a stroke or two of the axe Hugh smashed these across the middle, and we soon built up such a range of blaze that the heat drove back the sleepers, some of whom, caught betwixt two, were in peril of being roasted. Those who did not waken we dragged off by the shoulders, usually to be soundly cursed for our officiousness. Then we went back to find the man who had told us of the school-house treasure. He was standing at his door grimly regarding our bonfires. We thanked him courteously in the name of the regiment.
"At least the Jesuits will teach no more lies to poor children on those benches," he said. "You are true Garibaldians, though you do speak French like Linn and myself!"
He was a tall man with a grey beard that came half-way to his waistbelt, and when he invited us in we were wondering who Linn might be.
We found ourselves in a comfortable little kitchen, floored with red brick. On the walls, trophies of matchlocks and Dervish swords on a ground of palm leaves and alfa grass told us that we were in the dwelling of one who in his day had made the campaign of the Atlas.
Over the mantelshelf, and framed in oak in a rough but artistic manner, was a document which attracted me. One side was written in Arabic of the dashing and ornamental sort. I had seen many such in my father's library. The other side was ruled with a pencil, and there the writing was that of a schoolboy just beyond the stage of pot-hooks.
"Is it permitted to read?" I asked, for my curiosity was great.
The man with the long beard was talking to Hugh, but he turned to me with a courteous wave of the hand, and said with a ceremony that was never learned in Autun:
"Sir, this house and all that it contains are at your service."
I followed the ill-traced letters of the translation. It was dated "From my prison-house, in the fortress-city called Amboise," and was signed "Sheik Abd-el-Kader." It contained, after the usual compliments, greetings and affection to the brave fellow soldier and commander of his forces, Keller Bey—with a congratulation on his release from imprisonment.
So it became immediately evident to me that our host had indeed made the campaign of the Atlas, but that he had fought against and not for the tricolour.
He seemed to watch out of the corner of his eye the effect of the framed certificate.
"You are English," he said, "and though you have stolen much yourselves, you can still feel for a great man defending his country, and not condemn the little man who helped him."
"You are Keller Bey?" I asked, pointing to the name on the much crumpled sheet.
"I am Keller," he said, "Keller grown old and staid. Linn keeps me at home. She had the devil's own job ere she got me buckled down, but she did it, and now there is only Linn and our daughter Alida for me to think about."
And in the silence of the house he lifted his voice and called aloud for "Linn."
Presently we heard footsteps coming swiftly along the passage which led from the inner rooms. A woman entered—tall, gaunt, and angular. Her aspect was severe to the borders of being forbidding, and she frowned upon us as Keller, ex-officer of Abd-el-Kader, made some brief introduction.
But the smile with which she held out her hand was transfiguring. The face which had been almost ugly suddenly became attractive and even fascinating. One saw that her eyes were of forget-me-not blue, and when she said "You are welcome" to one and the other of us, it was clear that Linn Keller possessed gifts of attraction which do not depend upon age or external beauty.
She was taller than her husband, but awkward and angular in her movement. She walked with a curious shuffle as if the slipper on one foot was always on the point of coming off, yet—in a moment we found ourselves at home with her, and in five minutes we were calling her "Linn" just as her husband had done. The assurance of youth can surely no farther go.
The lamp on the mantelpiece was of an Oriental design. Curtains and rugs were abundantly scattered about, and in one corner a looped-up hanging showed an oblong bath sunk in the tiled floor.
"This house is our own," said Linn; "we have arranged some things to suit ourselves, having been so long abroad that it seems impossible to do without them. But at any rate you must stay and see Alida. You must rise early, for she has to go out to give her lessons. Alida is a teacher of music. We have put everything except this house and a provision for our old age into Alida's education."
I explained to the pair that we would indeed be most grateful for the warmth and refuge of the kitchen, but that if that were inconvenient we could return at any hour of the morning, always provided the regiment did not march.
"They are fine lads, eh, Linn?" said Keller, turning to his wife. "Can we not do something better for them than the kitchen floor?"
I assured them that we asked no more than permission to stretch ourselves on a couple of rugs with knapsacks beneath our heads. But Linn's housewifery instinct was roused. She took us to a room on the entresol, with two beds, and even insisted on helping us off with our boots. There we should sleep, and she would keep an eye on the regiment, and have us on parade in good time. As for her she was a barrack's child and understood such things. Besides, Keller and she were back and forward all night like the Arabs among whom they had lived.
Never had the touch of sheets felt more caressing. Never did sleep fall upon us so deep and dreamless as when our heads touched the pillow. It was still dark when we were awakened by a light touch on the shoulder, and sitting up each on an elbow we beheld Linn stalking about the room and putting back our uniforms all carefully brushed and folded. A candle stood on a stand, and farther back a gigantic Linn was grotesquely shadowed upon the walls.
"Breakfast is ready," she said, when we had somewhat got over our first blankness. "You have a good hour before you, and if you dress now you will have time to breakfast, and besides you shall see Alida."
I do not know whether it was the breakfast or the prospect of Alida seen in the flesh which aroused us, but no sooner was the door closed behind Linn's back than we flung ourselves into our uniforms with that ordered rapidity which only a soldier understands.
Everything we touched had been warmed and cared for with that affectionate motherliness which looked out of Linn's eyes. We had never experienced any kindness like this before, and it seemed the more marvellous that by merely putting aside the blinds of our sleeping-room we could see our comrades still lying about the fires, and the cooks for the week beginning with their bayonet butts to crush and grind the berries for the morning coffee.
Yonder were Victor Dor and Marius Girr looking down at our sleeping places, and presently beginning to roll up our blankets. It seemed a shame that we should have passed the night between sheets, thus basely abandoning our comrades among the trampled snow of the market square of Autun.
But there interposed between them and us two necessities: a "made" breakfast which we must eat—eat till we could eat no more, and—we must see Alida Keller, daughter of the Atlas "goums."
I don't know what Hugh expected. But for myself I mingled Linn and the ideal music mistress. Tall, forceful, and striding she must be, with energy to bring into such evident subjection Keller Bey and his wife. Something younger and less weather-beaten than Linn, of course—perhaps with a certain passing glow of good looks which would fade out like the mist bloom upon the peach trees in the frost of April.
But when at last she came in, and stood a moment to give a hand to each of us, before nestling into her familiar corner of a low old Oriental couch—I think both our hearts cried out at the same moment: "Oh, the perfect creature!"
She was not like Linn in the least. Her father still less resembled her. It is almost impossible to describe this girl of the South, nevertheless I can but try, Alida Keller was little, but shaped with such delicate perfection that she gave the impression of a greater height. Her skin was of a creamy duskiness through which went and came colour now as faint as that of a rose leaf, which anon flamed out into a vivid red, the colour of the pomegranate flower.
Her father and Linn served her like a princess, and to this she seemed accustomed, for except that she patted Linn's hand, or with a smile said "Petit Père" to her father, she seemed unconscious of their attentions.
As for Hugh and myself, I declare that we were completely cheated out of that admirable breakfast. We had meant to square our elbows, grasp our knives and forks, and fall on. We had rank appetites, sharpened with fighting and hard fare, but the mere presence of Alida cut at the roots of hunger as a scythe cuts down reeds.
We simply sat and gazed at her. She was not in the least put out, ate well and daintily, and looked at us impartially from under her dark lashes. For the instant—I will not admit more—I forgot Rhoda Polly and Jeanne Félix.
But I am not much to be blamed. For the burden of the conversation fell on me. Hugh Deventer could only sit and gape, lifting the same morsel half a dozen times to his mouth without once getting it safely in. He uttered not a word, save sometimes in answer to a direct question he would produce a "yes" or "no," so jerky and mechanical that I was obliged to kick his shins under the table to keep him aware of himself.
Of this Keller and Linn saw nothing. They were all eyes and ears for Alida, and had not a glance for us. The table was covered—we were soldiers and could help ourselves. Meantime I was kept busy answering the questions of Alida. She spoke in a low and thrilling contralto, a voice that had aron-ronin it, something like the pulsing whisper of a bell after it has been rung in a church tower.
How had we left school? We must tell her. Tell her I did, describing as vividly as possible the laundry and the secret way out upon the road, then the good-bye call at my father's house, and our escape from the sentinel at the bridge end. It was lovely to see the cheeks of Alida now going pale now flaming scarlet, and I admit that I made the most of my opportunity. I passed rapidly over the troubles in Aramon-les-Ateliers, both because I knew such things could not interest Alida Keller—also (and chiefly) because I gathered that Keller and Linn would be altogether on the side of the workmen, and I did not feel called upon to defend the difficult position of Dennis Deventer as Manager of the Small Arms Factory—at least not just then.
Our later adventures with the transport train, our march by night, our incorporation in the Garibaldi army, and the many skirmishes culminating in the big fight when we had defeated the Prussians, were all easy to tell—and I had scarcely finished when Linn came in with the news that the regiments were forming up for roll-call.
We had hardly time to promise to come back before we were equipped and pushed out by Linn with well-plenished haversacks. We scurried across the square and appeared in our places out of nowhere in particular, to the great astonishment of Victor and Marius, who hastily arranged our blankets across our shoulders so that we might pass inspection.
"You English fear nothing, I know," said Victor Dor, "but you almost ran things a trifle fine this morning. See yonder!"
He pointed with a finger towards a narrow street which debouched into the upper end of the Market Square. At first we could see nothing—and then—lo, the ramshackle barouche, and the two fatigued white horses of the General himself!
"Garibaldi! Garibaldi!"
The "Children" of the Milanese regiment could hardly keep their lines. We front-rank men felt an impulse as if someone were pushing us from behind. It was the concentred yearning of a thousand men.
Our officers kept whispering to us, "Stand firm. Not just now. He will return. See how the Tanara regiment is standing—would you have them put us to shame before our father?" So the Milanese men stood quivering each like a tuning-fork while their General passed by. Bordone was with him, and Ricciotti rode on the side farthest from the lines. I saw him clearly, and noted the waxen pallor of his face. But his eye was still bright, and the smile kindly on his lips as he passed down the lines. It was the face of a philosopher, a thinker, or a prophet, rather than that of the greatest leader of irregular troops the world had ever seen. But when the carriage turned at the end of the square, the men could no longer be held. They surrounded the old barouche, hanging round it in clusters, like grapes, or more exactly like bees about their queen in her summer flight. Hugh Deventer and I stood a little back, for we felt that this was, as one might say, a family matter, and no concern of ours. But Ricciotti spied us out, and putting his horse into the press, brought us forward to introduce us personally to his father.