And Frantz having pushed the door, they saw on a long kitchen table in the centre of the low apartment, with heavy brown rafters, young Colard, stretched at full length, three candles on each side of him, a man at each arm, and a bucket just under him. Doctor Lorquin, his shirt-sleeves turned up to his elbows, a short saw about three fingers broad in his hand, was just preparing to cut off the poor devil's leg, while Despois was holding a large sponge. The blood was splashing down into the bucket. Colard was as pale as death. Catherine Lefévre, standing beside him with a roll of lint over her arm, was striving to be firm, but two deep wrinkles that furrowed her cheeks by the side of her hooked nose showed how she was clenching her teeth. She was looking down on the ground without seeing anything.
"It's all over!" said the doctor, turning round.
And casting a glance at the new comers, he said:
"Ah! is that you, old Rochart?"
"Yes, that's me; but I don't want any one to meddle with me; I'd rather stay as I am."
The doctor, taking up a candle, looked at him, and made a wry face.
"It's time you were seen to, my poor old fellow; you've lost a deal of blood already, and if we wait much longer it will be too late."
"So much the better; I've suffered enough in my time."
"Just as you will: let's go to the next." He looked down a long row of mattrasses at the bottom of the room; the two last were empty, though soaked in blood. Materne and Kasper laid the old wood-cutter on one, whilst Despois approached another of the wounded, saying:
"Nicolas, it's your turn now."
They then saw the tall form of Nicolas Cerf raise itself up, with a face deadly pale, and eyes glistening with fear.
"Give him a glass of brandy," said the doctor.
"No, I would like my pipe better."
"Where is your pipe?"
"In my waistcoat."
"All right; here it is. And the tobacco?"
"In my trousers' pocket."
"I've got it. Fill his pipe, Despois. He has courage, has this one: that's right! It does one good to see a man with a stout heart. We will have your arm off in double-quick time."
"Is there no way of saving it, Doctor Lorquin, for the sake of my poor children? It's their only living."
"No, the bone is crushed; it will never be any goodto you again. Light the pipe, Despois. Now then, Nicolas, smoke away."
The poor fellow began to smoke, without having a great desire for it.
"Are you all right?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," replied Nicolas, in a stifled voice.
"Good. Now then, Despois, attention!—the sponge!"
Then, with a large knife, he described a rapid circle through the flesh, while Nicolas ground his teeth with the agony.
The blood spurted out. Despois put a bandage tight round. The grinding of the saw was heard for a few seconds, and the arm fell heavily to the ground.
"That's what I call an operation well got through with," said Lorquin.
Nicolas was not smoking now: his pipe had fallen from his lips. David Schlosser de Walsch, who had held him, let him go. They bandaged the stump, and then Nicolas went without any assistance and laid himself down again on the mattrass.
"There's one more despatched. Sponge the table, Despois, and let's get on to another," said the doctor, washing his hands in a large bowl.
Every time he said "Let's go to another," all the wounded were struck with fear on account of the groans they heard, and the sharp knives they caught sight of now and then; but what was to be done? Every room in the farm, the barn, the attics, all were filled with the wounded. There was nothing but the large room on the ground-floor left at liberty for the people belonging to the place; so the doctor was obliged to operate under the very eyes of those whose turn must come sooner or later.
All this had passed in a few moments. Materne and his sons had stood looking on, as people do look on at anything horrible to know what it is. Then they had seen in a corner on the left, just under the old Dutch clock, a heap of arms and legs jumbled together. Nicolas's arm had already been thrown on to the top, and the doctor was preparing to extract a ball from the shoulder of a mountaineer of the Harberg with red whiskers; large gashes in form of a cross had to be made in his back, and from his hairy, shuddering flesh the blood was streaming down to his boots.
It was strange to see the dog, Pluto, behind the doctor, surveying the operations with an attentive look, as if he understood it all; and from time to time he stretched his legs and bent his back with a yawn that reached from ear to ear.
Materne could not bear to see any more. "Let us be going," said he.
They had hardly entered the dark walk when they heard the doctor exclaim, "I've got the ball!" which must have caused great pleasure to the man from Harberg.
Once outside, and breathing the fresh clear air, Materne ejaculated: "And to think that the same might have happened to us!"
"Yes," replied Kasper; "to get a bullet through your head is no great matter; but it's another thing to be chopped about like that, and have to beg your bread for the rest of your days."
"Oh! I should do like old Rochart, for my part," said Frantz; "I should just die quietly, without any bother. When you've done your duty, what have you to fear? The good God is always the same!"
At this moment, the hum of voices was heard on their right.
"It is Marc Divès and Hullin," said Kasper, listening.
"Oh, yes! they have been, no doubt, making barricades behind the fir forest to protect the cannon," added Frantz.
They listened again; the footsteps drew nearer.
"You are greatly embarrassed with those three prisoners," Hullin was saying, in an abrupt tone. "Since you return to Falkenstein to-night to procure ammunition, what prevents your taking them with you?"
"But where shall I put them?"
"Where? Why, in the public prison of Abreschwiller; we cannot keep them here."
"All right; I understand, Jean-Claude; and if they attempt to escape by the way, I shall plant my toasting-iron between their shoulders."
"Of course, of course."
They had by this time reached the door, and Hullin, perceiving Materne, could not restrain a cry of delight.
"Ah! is it you, old fellow? I've been looking for you for the last hour. Where the deuce have you been to?"
"We've been carrying poor Rochart to the hospital, Jean-Claude."
"Ah! that's a bad job, isn't it?"
"Yes, very bad."
There was a moment's silence, and then, the worthy man's satisfaction regaining the upper hand, "Yes; it's not pleasant," he went on; "but what can you do? It's the chance of war. You're not hit, you fellows?"
"No; we are all three safe and sound."
"So much the better, so much the better. Those who are left may boast of having been lucky."
"Yes," exclaimed Marc Divès, laughing; "there was a moment when I thought Materne was going to sound a parley; but for those cannon-shots at the end, by my faith! things were taking a bad turn."
Materne coloured, and casting a side-look at the smuggler, "Possibly," he drily observed; "but had it not been for the cannon-shots at the beginning, we should have had no need of those at the end; old Rochart, and fifty more of our brave fellows, would have had their arms and legs still, which wouldn't have made our victory any the less pleasant."
"Bah!" interrupted Hullin, who foresaw the beginning of a dispute between two men whose dispositions were far from conciliatory. "Let's put an end to this; every one has done his duty, and that's the great thing." Then addressing Materne, "I have just despatched a messenger to Framont," said he, "to desire the Germans to fetch away their wounded. In an hour they will be here, no doubt; we must warn our look-outs to let them approach, but without arms, and with torches; if they come otherwise, let them be shot."
"I will see to it at once," replied the old huntsman.
"Hey! Materne, you will come to supper afterwards at the farm with your boys?"
"All right, Jean-Claude."
He departed.
Hullin then told Frantz and Kasper to have large camp fires lighted for the night; Marc, to give his horses a feed of corn, so that they might be ready to go, without loss of time, to fetch ammunition; and, as they withdrew to execute his orders, he entered the farm.
CHAPTER XVIII.
At the end of the dark walk was the court-yard of the farm, down to which you descended by five or six worn steps. On the left were the barn and the wine-press; on the right, the stables and pigeon-house, the gable roof of which stood out in strong and black relief against the dark and cloudy sky, while exactly opposite the door was the wash-house.
No sound from without reached this spot. Hullin, after so many scenes of tumult, was struck by this perfect and profound silence. He surveyed the trusses of straw suspended among the beams of the barn up to the very roof, the wheelbarrows, the carts—these latter standing in the shadow of the outhouses—with a feeling of calm and indefinable complacency. A cock was strutting about on the ground in the midst of his hens, who were sleeping all along the wall. A large cat flew by like lightning, and disappeared through a hole in the cellar. Hullin felt as if awakening from a dream. After a few moments of this silent contemplation, he was proceeding slowly towards the wash-house, the three windows of which were shining like stars in the midst of the darkness.
The farm-kitchen not sufficing to prepare the food of three or four hundred men, they had set up a temporary one in this part of the premises.
Master Jean-Claude heard the fresh voice of Louise issuing orders in a little resolute tone that quite took him by surprise.
"Come, Come, Katel! let's be quick; it's near supper-time. We mustn't let our people be hungry. Since six o'clock this morning to have eaten nothing, and fighting hard all the while! We mustn't keep them waiting. Now then, Lesselé, come along, stir yourself—salt, pepper!"
Jean-Claude's heart leapt within him at the sound of this voice. He could not resist the pleasure of looking through the window for a moment before he went in. The kitchen was large, but rather low, and the walls were whitewashed. A large fire of beech-wood was blazing on the hearth, and encircling with its spiral columns of flame the black sides of an immensemarmite(cauldron). The chimney-piece, very high and rather narrow, hardly sufficed to carry off the thick clouds of smoke that rose from the fire-place. The bright light served to clearly reveal the charming figure of Louise as she moved briskly about, coquettishly attired in a short petticoat, which afforded greater freedom to her limbs; her pretty face crimsoned in the ruddy glow; her bosom confined in a little bodice of red cloth, which displayed to perfection her sloping shoulders and graceful neck. There she was, in the very heat of action, going and coming, and tasting the dishes with her little bustling, housewifely air, trying the soup, approving and criticising. "A little more salt, a little of this, a little of that. Lesselé, won't you soon have finished plucking our great scraggy cock? At this rate, we shall never be ready."
It was really a charming sight to see her take the command thus. Hullin felt the tears come into hiseyes. The two daughters of the Anabaptist; one, long, dry, and pale, with her large flat feet thrust into round shoes, her red hair tucked up under a little coif of black taffeta, her blue cotton gown descending in long folds to her heels; the other, fat and plump, who waddled like a goose, lifting her feet slowly one after the other, and balancing herself with her arms akimbo; these two honest girls formed the strangest contrast to Louise. The fat Katel went to and fro quite out of breath, without saying a word, while Lesselé, in an absent, dreamy way, did all by rule and compass.
The worthy Anabaptist himself, seated at the other end of the wash-house on a wooden chair, with his legs across, his head turned up, his cotton cap on the back of his head, and his hands in the pockets of his gaberdine, was watching everything with a look of astonishment, and saying from time to time, in a sententious voice: "Lesselé, Katel, do just as she bids you, my children; it will be a good lesson for you; you've not yet seen the world; you must get on quicker."
"Yes, yes; we must bustle about," Louise would rejoin; "what would become of us if we were to take months and weeks to consider about putting a little garlic in the sauce? You, Lesselé, you are the tallest; just reach me down that rope of onions from the ceiling."
And the tall girl instantly did as she was bid.
It was the proudest moment in Hullin's life. "How she orders the others about!" said he to himself; "he! he! he! she is a regular little hussar, a white-sergeant! I never suspected her of it."
And it was only at last, after five minutes' watching, that he made up his mind to go in.
"Holloa! all right, children!"
Louise was at that moment peeping into a saucepan, spoon in hand; she left everything, and ran to throw herself into his arms, exclaiming: "Papa Jean-Claude! Papa Jean-Claude! is it you? You are not wounded? you are not hurt?"
Hullin, at the sound of that loving voice, turned pale, and was unable to reply.
It was only after a long silence, and still holding his dear child pressed close to his heart, that he was able at length to say, in a faltering voice, "No, Louise, no; I am very well, and I feel very happy."
"Sit down, Jean-Claude," said the Anabaptist, who saw him trembling with emotion; "see, here is my chair."
Hullin sat down, and Louise, seating herself on his knee, with her arm on his shoulder, began to cry.
"What is the matter, dear child?" said the brave man, in a low voice, and embracing her affectionately. "Come, be calm; a moment ago I saw you so courageous."
"Ah, yes! I was pretending to be so; but, do you know, I was in a great fright all the while? I kept saying to myself, 'Why does he not come?'"
She threw her arms round his neck; then, in a natural outburst of joy, she took the good man by the hand, exclaiming: "Come, Papa Jean-Claude, let's have a dance!" and she waltzed him two or three times round the room.
Hullin smiled in spite of himself, and turning to the Anabaptist, who still preserved his serious air, "We are a little mad, Pelsly," said he; "you mustn't let that surprise you."
"No, Master Hullin; it's very natural. King David himself, after his great victory over the Philistines, danced before the ark."
Jean-Claude, astonished at resembling King David, made no reply. "And you, Louise," he replied, after a pause, "were you not afraid during the last battle?"
"Well, I was at first; all that noise, and those cannon shots; but afterwards, I thought of nothing but you and Mother Lefévre."
Master Jean-Claude became silent. "I knew," he was thinking, "that that child had a brave heart. She thinks of everything, and fears nothing."
Louise then, taking him by the hand, led him in front of a regiment of saucepans all round the fire, and proudly pointed out to him all her cookery. "Here is the beef, here is the roast meat, here is the supper for General Jean-Claude, and here is the soup for our wounded. Ah! we've had to make haste! Lesselé and Katel can tell you. And here is our great batch of bread!" She went on pointing to a long row of loaves ranged on the table. "Mother Lefévre and I baked it."
Hullin listened, quite wonderstruck.
"But that's not all," she added; "come this way."
She took off the iron lid of the oven, at the other end of the wash-house, and the kitchen was immediately filled with an odour of delicious cake that rejoiced the heart. Master Jean-Claude was quite overcome.
At this moment Dame Lefévre entered the room. "Come," said she; "we must lay the table; everybody is ready and waiting. Come, Katel, go and lay the cloth."
The fat girl ran quickly out, and then, all togethercrossing the dark court-yard, one behind the other, proceeded towards the keeping-room of the farm. There they found Doctor Lorquin, Despois, Marc Divès, Materne, and his two sons, all sharp-set, and provided with good stout appetites, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the soup.
"And our wounded, Doctor?" exclaimed Hullin, entering.
"All is finished, Master Jean-Claude; you've given us some tough jobs to do; but the weather is favourable; there is no fear of putrid fevers, and all is going as well as can be."
Katel, Lesselé, and Louise shortly after entered, carrying an enormous smoking soup-tureen, and two magnificent joints of roast beef, which they placed upon the table. They took their places without any ceremony, old Materne to the right of Jean-Claude, Catherine Lefévre on his left, and from that time the clattering of knives and forks, and the opening of bottles, took the place of conversation until half-past eight in the evening. Out of doors, the reflection of bright fires on the window-panes announced that the other volunteers were also enjoying themselves, and doing justice to Louise's cookery, which still further contributed to the satisfaction of the guests within.
At nine o'clock, Marc Divès was on his way to Falkenstein with the prisoners. By ten o'clock every one was asleep at the farm, and on the mountain around the camp fires.
Nothing broke the silence, save, from time to time, the distant challenge of the sentinels on duty, going their rounds.
Thus ended this day, on which the mountaineers proved that they had not degenerated from the ancient race.
Other events, not less grave, were soon to succeed those which had just taken place; for in this world, one obstacle is no sooner overcome, than others present themselves. Human life resembles a troubled sea; one wave follows another from the old world to the new, and nothing can stop this eternal movement.
illustration
CHAPTER XIX.
Throughout the whole of the battle and until night-fall, the folks of Grandfontaine had seen the fool Yégof standing on the summit of the Little Donon, his crown on his head, his sceptre uplifted, transmitting, like a Merovingian king, orders to his imaginary armies.
What passed through the mind of this unhappy being when he saw the utter rout of the Germans, no one knows. At the last cannon-shot he had disappeared. Whither had he fled?
This is what is related on this subject by the inhabitants of Tiefenbach.
At that time, there lived in the Bocksberg two singular creatures, two sisters, one called Little Kateline and the other Big Berbel. These two tattered beings had fixed their abode in theCavern of Luitprandt, so called, say the old chronicles, because the King of the Germans, before descending into Alsace, caused to be interred under that immense vault of red freestone the barbarian chiefs who fell in the battle of Blutfeld. The warm spring that rises always in the middle of the cavern protected the two sisters against the rigorous colds of winter, and the wood-cutter, Daniel Horn, of Tiefenbach, had had the charity to close up the principal entrance of the rock with heaps of broom and brushwood. By the side of the warm spring wasanother, cold as ice, and clear as crystal. Little Kateline, who drank at this spring, was not four feet high; she was stout and squat, and her vacant look, round eyes, and an enormous wen, gave to her the singular expression of a fat turkey in a meditative mood. Every Sunday she was in the habit of lugging to the village of Tiefenbach a wicker basket, which the good people filled with cold potatoes, crusts of bread, and sometimes—on festivals—with cakes and other leavings of their merry-makings. Then the poor creature, quite out of breath, returned to her rocky home, chuckling, laughing, gibbering, and crying all at once. Big Berbel was very careful not to drink at the cold spring; she was lean, one-eyed, and as skinny as a bat; she had a flat nose, large ears, a sparkling eye, and lived on what her sister managed to pick up; but in July, when the very hot weather had set in, she used to shake from the mountain-side a dry thistle over the harvest-fields of those who had not regularly filled Kateline's basket, which brought down upon them fearful storms, hail, rats, and field-mice in abundance.
For which reason they dreaded the spells of Berbel like the plague; she was known everywhere by the name ofWetterhexe,[10]whilst little Kateline passed everywhere for being the good genius of Tiefenbach and its neighbourhood. In this way Berbel lived at her ease, by folding her arms, and the other by clucking and pecking for it wherever it was to be found.
Unfortunately for the two sisters, Yégof had established, for a number of years past, his winter residence in Luitprandt's Cave. It was from thence that he took his departure in the spring, to visit his innumerablecastles, and pass in review his fiefs as far as Geierstein, in the Hundsrück. Every year, therefore, towards the end of November, after the first snows, he came with his raven, which always produced a succession of eagle-like croaks from Wetterhexe.
"What is the matter with you," he would say, quietly installing himself in the best place; "are you not living on my domains? I think it is very good of me to keep two uselessvalkiriesin the Valhalla of my fathers."
Then Berbel would become furious, and overwhelm him with taunts and abuse, while Kateline would sit clucking with an angry look; but he, without taking any notice of them, lit his pipe—made of old boxwood—and began to relate his distant peregrinations to the souls of the German warriors interred in the cavern sixteen centuries ago, calling them by their names, and speaking to them like living beings. I leave you to imagine whether Berbel and Kateline saw the fool arrive with pleasure; to them it was a positive calamity. Now, this year, Yégof not having come, the two sisters thought he was dead, and were rejoicing in the idea of never seeing him any more. During the last few days, however, Wetterhexe had remarked the agitation that prevailed in the neighbouring gorges; people departing in large bodies, gun on shoulder, from the regions of the Falkenstein and the Donon. Evidently something out of the common was taking place. The witch, remembering that the year before Yégof had related to the souls of the warriors that his innumerable followers were shortly going to invade the country, felt a sort of vague uneasiness. She would have given anything to know the reason of this unusual disturbance, but no one came up to the rock where they dwelt, and Kateline havinggone her usual journey the Sunday before, would not have stirred for an empire.
In this state of things, Wetterhexe wandered over the mountain-side, getting more and more anxious and distraught.
During the whole of this particular Saturday, things went even further. From nine o'clock in the morning, loud and heavy explosions rolled like the sound of a tempest amid the thousand echoes of the mountain; and in the distance, towards the Donon, swift lightnings flashed across the sky between the tall tops of the mountains; then, towards night, noises still more deep and formidable resounded through the silent gorges. At each explosion, the summits of the Hengst, the Gantzlée, the Giromani, the Grosmann, were heard to echo back their answer through the very depths of the abyss.
"What is that?" asked Berbel, of herself. "Is it the end of the world?"
Then, re-entering the cavern, and seeing Kateline squatting in her corner, nibbling a potato, she shook her roughly, exclaiming, in a hissing voice: "Idiot! do you, then, hear nothing? You are not afraid of anything—not you! You eat, you drink, you cluck! Oh! you monster!"
She snatched her potato furiously away, and sat down, quite trembling with passion, by the warm spring which was sending up its grey clouds to the vaulted roof of the cavern.
Half an hour after, it having grown dark, and the cold excessive, she lit a fire of brushwood, which threw a pale and flickering light over the blocks of red stone, to the very end of the cavern where Kateline was now sleeping, with her feet in the straw, and her knees up toher chin. Outside every sound had ceased. Wetterhexe pushed aside the bushes at the entrance, to cast a look upon the mountain-side; then she returned and squatted again beside the fire, her large mouth closely compressed, her flabby eyelids shut, forming large circular wrinkles round her cheeks, she drew over her knees an old woollen coverlet, and seemed to be taking a doze. Not a sound was to be heard, save at long intervals, the faint murmur of the condensed vapour falling back from the vault to the spring.
This death-like silence lasted for about two hours; midnight was approaching, when, all at once, a distant sound of footsteps, mingled with discordant clamours, was heard on the mountain-side. Berbel listened; she recognised the sound of the human voice. Then rising, all of a tremble, and armed with her large thistle, she glided to the entrance of the rock, pushed the bushes aside, and saw, at the distance of fifty paces, the fool Yégof, advancing in the bright moonlight. Flourishing his sceptre in the air, he was calling upon his followers, and fighting and struggling as if he were in the thick of a battle. This fearful conflict with invisible beings struck Berbel with superstitious terror; she felt her hair stand on end, and would have fled and hid herself, but, at the same instant, a confused murmur caused her to turn suddenly round, and judge of her alarm when she saw the hot spring boiling more than usual, and clouds of steam rise from it, then detach themselves and move in floating masses towards the door.
And whilst, like phantoms, these thick clouds were slowly advancing, Yégof appeared, exclaiming, in a sharp voice: "At last you are here. You have heard me!"
Then, with a rapid gesture, he put aside every impediment: a rush of frosty air penetrated the cavern, and the vapours dispersed themselves over the spacious canopy of heaven, wreathing and twisting themselves over the rock as if the dead of that day, and those of centuries past, had renewed, in other spheres, the eternal combat.
Yégof, his features livid and contracted beneath the moon's pale rays, his sceptre outstretched, his long beard descending to his breast, and his eyes flashing, saluted each imaginary phantom with a gesture, and called it by its name, saying: "Hail, Bled! hail, Roug! and all of you, my brave companions, hail! The hour you have waited for for centuries is near; the eagles are sharpening their beaks, the earth thirsts for blood; remember the Blutfeld!"
Then Yégof abruptly entered the cavern, and crouched down near the spring, with his huge head between his hands, and his elbows on his knees, watching the bubbling of the water, with a wild and haggard eye.
Kateline had just awoke, and her clucking sounded like sobs; Wetterhexe, more dead than alive, was watching the fool from the darkest corner of the cavern.
"They have all risen from the earth!" suddenly exclaimed Yégof—"all, all! there are none left; they are gone to revive the courage of my young men, and inspire them with contempt for death!" and, raising his pale face, impressed with the expression of bitter grief, "They fought valiantly—yes, yes, they did their duty well—but the hour was not yet come. And now the ravens are fighting over their flesh!" Then, in an accent of terrible rage, tearing off his crown, and handfuls of his hair with both hands: "Oh! race accursed!"he shouted, "must you for ever cross our path? But for you, we should already have conquered Europe; the red men would be masters of the universe! And I have humbled myself before the leader of that race of dogs. I have asked of him his daughter, in lieu of taking her and carrying her off, as the wolf does with the sheep. Ah! Huldrix! Huldrix!" Then, interrupting himself: "Listen, listen,valkirie," said he, in a low voice; and he raised his finger solemnly. Wetterhexe listened. A very high night-wind had just risen, shaking the old forest trees, with their frost-covered branches. How many times had the sorceress heard the north wind howl through the long winter nights without even taking heed of it? But now, how terror-stricken she was! And as she stood there, trembling from head to foot, a harsh cry was heard without, and almost immediately the raven, Hans, dashed wildly into the cavern, and began to describe wide circles overhead, flapping his wings in a frightened manner, and uttering dismal croakings.
Yégof turned as pale as a corpse.
"Vòd, Vòd!" he exclaimed, in heartrending tones, "what has thy son Luitprandt done to thee?"
And for a few seconds he remained as if terror-stricken; but suddenly seized with a wild enthusiasm, and brandishing his sceptre, he rushed out of the cavern.
He went straight forward, with outstretched neck and striding step, like a wild beast marching to his prey. Hans preceded him, fluttering from place to place.
FOOTNOTES:[10]Storm Witch.
[10]Storm Witch.
[10]Storm Witch.
CHAPTER XX.
The Germans had quitted Grandfontaine, Framont, and even Schirmeck. At a distance, very far off, on the plains of Alsace, dark points might be remarked indicating their battalions in retreat. Hullin awoke early, and made the round of the camp. He stood for a few moments contemplating the scene that lay extended before him, the cannon pointed towards the gorge, the volunteers stretched around the fire, the armed sentinels; then, satisfied with his inspection, he returned to the farm where Louise and Catherine were still sleeping.
The greyish light of dawn was stealing through the chamber. A few wounded in the next apartment were beginning to be attacked by fever; they might be heard calling on their wives and mothers. A little later, the hum of voices and the footsteps of people coming to and fro broke the still silence of the night. Catherine and Louise awoke; and the first sight that met their eyes was Jean-Claude sitting in a corner of the window-seat, gazing affectionately upon them; and, ashamed of their apparent laziness, they rose at once, to go and embrace him.
"Well?" said Catherine, inquiringly.
"Well, they are gone; we are left masters of the route, as I foresaw."
This assurance did not appear to tranquillise the oldfarm-mistress; she had to look out of window, and see with her own eyes the Germans in full retreat as far as Alsace. And even then all the remainder of the day her stern countenance still preserved the expression of an indefinable anxiety.
Between eight and nine o'clock, the pastor Saumaize arrived from the village of Charmes. Some mountaineers then came down to the foot of the mountain to carry away the dead; they then dug, to the right of the farm, a long ditch, where volunteers andkaiserlicks, whether clad in uniform or coats, hats or shakos, were quietly ranged side by side.
The pastor Saumaize, a tall old man, with white hair, read the ancient form of prayer for the dead in that rapid and mysterious tone which penetrates to the very bottom of the soul, and seems to invoke bygone generations to attest to the living the horrors of the tomb.
All day long carriages andschlittes[11]kept arriving to remove the wounded, who were imploring to be allowed to see their native village once more. Doctor Lorquin, fearing to increase their irritation, was forced to consent to it. About four o'clock Catherine and Hullin found themselves alone in the large house-room of the farm. Louise had gone to prepare the supper. Out of doors large flakes of snow continued to fall from the skies, and lay thick upon the window-ledges, and from moment to moment a sleigh was to be seen setting out silently with its sick burden lying buried in the straw; sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, leading the horse by the bridle. Catherine, seated by the table, was folding bandages with an absent air.
"Why, what's the matter with you, Catherine?" inquired Hullin. "Since this morning I have noticed how low-spirited you seem. And yet everything is prospering with us."
The old farm-mistress, then slowly pushing back the linen from her, replied:
"It is true, Jean-Claude; I am troubled."
"Troubled! and what about? The enemy is in full retreat. Only just now, Frantz Materne, whom I had sent to reconnoitre, and all the scouts from Piorette, from Jerôme, and from Labarbe, have come to tell me that the Germans are returning to Mutzig. Old Materne and Kasper, after helping to remove the dead, were informed at Grandfontaine that there was nothing to be seen of them on the side of Saint Blaize-la-Roche. All this proves that our Spanish dragoons gave the enemy a warm reception on the road to Senones, and that they were in fear of having their retreat cut off by Schirmeck. I cannot see, therefore, Catherine, what it is you are tormenting yourself about."
And as Hullin regarded her with a questioning look, "You will laugh at me again," said she: "I have had a dream."
"A dream?"
"Yes, the same that I had at the farm of Bois-des-Chênes."
Then, growing excited, she went on in almost an angry tone:
"You may say what you like, Jean-Claude; but a great danger threatens us. Yes, yes, all this, in your opinion, has not a shadow of common sense. Moreover, this was not a dream; it was all like an old story coming back to your mind; something that you seeagain in your sleep, and that you recognise again. Listen. We were, as to-day, after a great victory, somewhere, I don't know where, in a sort of great wooden barrack, with heavy rafters across, and palings round it. We were not in fear of anything; all the faces that I saw, I knew; you were there, and Marc Divès, and many others, old people dead long ago; my father, and old Hugh Rochart, of the Harberg, uncle of the one who has just died, all wearing gaberdines of thick grey cloth, long beards, and bare-necked. We had just won a similar victory, and we were drinking out of a large red earthen pot, when suddenly a cry was raised: "The enemy is returning!" and Yégof, on horseback, with his long beard, his pointed crown, a hatchet in his hand, his eyes glaring like those of a wolf, appeared before me in the darkness of the night. I rush upon him with a stake—he awaits me; and from that moment I see nothing more; only I feel a terrible pain in my neck, a gust of cold wind passes over my face, and it seems to me as if my head were dangling at the end of a cord. It was that miscreant Yégof who had hung my head at his saddle, and was galloping away!" continued the old farm-mistress, in such a tone of conviction that it made Hullin shudder.
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"PASTOR SAUMAIZE READ THE PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD."
There was a few moments' silence; then Jean-Claude, recovering from his stupefied inaction, replied:
"It was a dream. I myself have such dreams sometimes. Yesterday you were disturbed, agitated—all that noise, those shouts."
"No," she retorted, in a firm tone, resuming her occupation—"no, it is not that. And to tell you the truth, during the whole of the battle, and even at the very moment when the cannon was roaring against us,I was not one bit afraid; I was certain beforehand that we could not be beaten: I had already seen that, but now I am afraid!"
"But the Germans have evacuated Schirmeck; all the line of the Vosges is defended; we have more people than we require; they keep on coming every minute."
"No matter!"
Hullin shrugged his shoulders.
"Come, come, you are excited, Catherine; try to be calm, and think of pleasanter things. As for all these dreams, look you, I value them just as much as I do the Grand Turk, with his pipe and his blue stockings. The great thing is to be well on our guard, to have plenty of ammunition, men and cannon; these are worth much more than the very brightest of dreams."
"You are laughing at me, Jean-Claude."
"No; but to hear a woman of good sense and great courage speak like you, reminds one, in spite of oneself, of Yégof, who boasts of having lived sixteen hundred years ago."
"Who knows," said the old woman, in a persistent tone, "whether he recollects what others have forgotten?"
Hullin was about to relate to her his conversation of the evening before at the camp with the fool, thinking thus to upset from top to bottom all her dismal visions; but seeing that she held the same opinion as Yégof on the question of the sixteen hundred years, the brave fellow said nothing more, and resumed his silent walk, with head hung down and careworn brow. "She is mad," he was thinking to himself; "one more little shock, and it will be all over with her."
Catherine, after a moment, in which she seemed to be lost in thought, was just about to say something, when Louise came skimming in like a swallow, exclaiming, in her sweetest voice:—
"Mother Lefévre, Mother Lefévre, here is a letter from Gaspard!"
Then the old farm-mistress, whose hooked nose seemed bent down till it almost met her lips, so indignant was she to see Hullin turn her dream into ridicule, raised her head, and the deep wrinkles in her cheeks relaxed. She took the letter, looked at the red seal, and said to the young girl:
"Kiss me, Louise; it is a good letter."
And Louise immediately bestowed on her a warm embrace.
Hullin had joined them, quite delighted at this incident, and Brainstein, the postman, with his thick shoes an inch deep in snow, stooping shoulders, and his two hands leaning on his stick, stationed himself at the door with a tired look.
The old woman put on her spectacles, opened the letter in a sort of meditative way under the impatient eyes of Jean-Claude and Louise, and read aloud:
"This, my good mother, comes to tell you that all is as well as can be, and that I arrived on Tuesday evening at Phalsbourg, just as they were closing the gates. The Cossacks were already on the side of Saverne; we had to keep up a constant fire all night against their vanguard. The next day, an envoy came to summon us to surrender the place. The governor, Meunier, made answer that he might go and hang himself elsewhere, and three days after great showers of bombs and howitzer-shells began to rain upon the town. The Russianshave three batteries, one on the side of Mittelbronn, the other at the barracks above, and the third behind the tile-kiln of Pernette; but the red-hot shot did us the most harm; they burn the houses from bottom to top, and when some part is set fire to, then come the howitzer-shells in a body and hinder people from putting it out. The women and children do not leave the block houses; the inhabitants remain with us upon the ramparts; they are brave fellows; there are among them some old warriors of Sambre and Meuse, of Italy and Egypt, who have not forgotten their old skill. It made me sorry to see the old greybeards hard at work again with the guns. I warrant you, no bullet misses its mark with them. But, for all that, when you've made the world tremble, it's rather hard to be forced, in your last days, to defend your barrack and your last morsel of bread."
"Yes, it is hard," put in Dame Catherine, wiping her eyes; "only to think of it makes one sorrowful." Then she continued:—
"The day before yesterday the governor decided to make an attack upon the Russian battery at the back of the tile-kiln. You know that the Russians are in the habit of breaking the ice of the tank to bathe in companies of twenty or thirty, and that they then go to dry themselves in the furnace of the brick-kiln. Good. About four o'clock, as day was departing, we went out by the postern of the arsenal, and passed through the Allée des Vaches, gun on shoulder, at a rapid trot. A few minutes after, we opened a running fire on the Cossacks who were bathing in the tank. All the rest then came out of the tile-kiln. They had only just time to catch up their cartridge-pouches, shoulder theirguns, and place themselves in rank, all naked, like so many savages as they were, in the snow. But, for all that, the beggars were ten times more numerous than we, and they were just commencing a movement in the direction of the little chapel of St. Jean, in order to surround us, when the cannon from the arsenal began to pour such a hail of shot in their direction as I never saw the like of before. The grape shot carried away whole files right out of sight. At the end of a quarter of an hour, all in a body began a retreat upon Quatre-Vents, without stopping to pick up their pantaloons, the officers at the head of them, and showers of bullets bringing up the rear. Papa Jean-Claude would have laughed fit to crack his sides at the sight. At length, at night-fall we returned to the town, after having stormed the battery, and thrown two eight-pound shot into the brick-kiln. This is our first expedition. To-day, I am writing to you from the barracks of Bois-des-Chênes, where we are quartered to provision the place. All this may last for months. I have already told you that the Allies are returning by the valley of Dosenheim as far as Weschem, and that they are gaining by thousands the road to Paris. Ah! if it were only God's will that the Emperor should have the upper hand in Lorraine or in Champagne, not a single one of them would escape. However, he who lives longest sees the most. They are sounding the recall from Phalsbourg; we have not fared badly in the way of oxen, cows, and goats in the neighbourhood. There will be a little fighting to get them all in safe and sound. Farewell for the present, my good mother, my dear Louise, Papa Jean-Claude; my affectionate and loving remembrances to you all."
As she finished reading, Catherine Lefévre was quite overcome with emotion.
"What a brave boy!" said she; "he knows nothing but his duty. In short, you hear, Louise, he sends you his affectionate and loving remembrances."
Louise then throwing herself into her arms, they gave each other a hearty embrace, and Dame Catherine, in spite of the firmness of her character, could not restrain two big tears which slowly coursed each other down her wrinkled cheeks; then recovering herself:
"Come, come," said she, "all is going well. Here, Brainstein, you go and eat a piece of beef and drink a glass of wine. Here is a crown-piece for your trouble; I should like to have to give you a similar sum every week for just such another letter."
The postman, delighted with this gratuity, followed the old woman; Louise walked behind, and Jean-Claude came after, impatient to question Brainstein on all that he had learnt by the way touching present events, but he gained nothing new from him, except that the Allies were investing Bitche and Lutzelstein, and that they had lost several hundred men in endeavouring to force the defile of the Graufthal.
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