her first look sought her sister, on whom she smiled sweetly; then both exchanged glances of surprise, on seeing Dagobert motionless, with his hands clasped and resting on his long staff, apparently affected by some painful and deep emotion.
The orphans just chanced to be at the foot of a little mound, the summit of which was buried in the thick foliage of a huge oak, planted half way down the slope. Perceiving that Dagobert continued motionless and absorbed in thought, Rose leaned over her saddle, and, placing her little white hand on the shoulder of their guide, whose back was turned towards her, said to him, in a soft voice, 'Whatever is the matter with you, Dagobert?'
The veteran turned; to the great astonishment of the sisters, they perceived a large tear, which traced its humid furrow down his tanned cheek, and lost itself in his thick moustache.
'You weeping—you!' cried Rose and Blanche together, deeply moved. 'Tell us, we beseech, what is the matter?'
After a moments hesitation, the soldier brushed his horny hand across his eyes, and said to the orphans in a faltering voice, whilst he pointed to the old oak beside them: 'I shall make you sad, my poor children: and yet what I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it. Well, eighteen years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your father to this very tree. He had two sabre-cuts on the head, a musket ball in his shoulder; and it was here that he and I—who had got two thrust of a lance for my share—were taken prisoners; and by whom, worse luck?—why, a renegado! By a Frenchman—an emigrant marquis, then colonel in the service of Russia—and who afterwards—but one day you shall know all.'
The veteran paused; then, pointing with his staff to the village of Mockern, he added: 'Yes, yes, I can recognize the spot. Yonder are the heights where your brave father—who commanded us, and the Poles of the Guard—overthrew the Russian Cuirassiers, after having carried the battery. Ah, my children!' continued the soldier, with the utmost simplicity, 'I wish you had, seen your brave father, at the head of our brigade of horse, rushing on in a desperate charge in the thick of a shower of shells!—There was nothing like it—not a soul so grand as he!'
Whilst Dagobert thus expressed, in his own way, his regrets and recollections, the two orphans—by a spontaneous movement, glided gently from the horse, and holding each other by the hand, went together to kneel at the foot of the old oak. And there, closely pressed in each other's arms, they began to weep; whilst the soldier, standing behind them, with his hands crossed on his long staff, rested his bald front upon it.
'Come, come you must not fret,' said he softly, when, after a pause of a few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and Blanche, still on their knees. 'Perhaps we may find General Simon in Paris,' added he; 'I will explain all that to you this evening at the inn. I purposely waited for this day, to tell you many things about your father; it was an idea of mine, because this day is a sort of anniversary.'
'We weep because we think also of our mother,' said Rose.
'Of our mother, whom we shall only see again in heaven,' added Blanche.
The soldier raised the orphans, took each by the hand, and gazing from one to the other with ineffable affection, rendered still the more touching by the contrast of his rude features, 'You must not give way thus, my children,' said he; 'it is true your mother was the best of women. When she lived in Poland, they called her the Pearl of Warsaw—it ought to have been the Pearl of the Whole World—for in the whole world you could not have found her match. No—no!'
The voice of Dagobert faltered; he paused, and drew his long gray moustache between finger and thumb, as was his habit. 'Listen, my girls,' he resumed, when he had mastered his emotion; 'your mother could give you none but the best advice, eh?'
'Yes Dagobert.'
'Well, what instructions did she give you before she died? To think often of her, but without grieving?'
'It is true; she told us than our Father in heaven, always good to poor mothers whose children are left on earth, would permit her to hear us from above,' said Blanche.
'And that her eyes would be ever fixed upon us,' added Rose.
And the two, by a spontaneous impulse, replete with the most touching grace, joined hands, raised their innocent looks to heaven, and exclaimed, with that beautiful faith natural to their age: 'Is it not so, mother?—thou seest us?—thou hearest us?'
'Since your mother sees and hears you,' said Dagobert, much moved, 'do not grieve her by fretting. She forbade you to do so.'
'You are right, Dagobert. We will not cry any more.'—And the orphans dried their eyes.
Dagobert, in the opinion of the devout, would have passed for a very heathen. In Spain, he had found pleasure in cutting down those monks of all orders and colors, who, bearing crucifix in one hand, and poniard in the other, fought not for liberty—the Inquisition had strangled her centuries ago—but, for their monstrous privileges. Yet, in forty years, Dagobert had witnessed so many sublime and awful scenes—he had been so many times face to face with death—that the instinct of natural religion, common to every simple, honest heart, had always remained uppermost in his soul. Therefore, though he did not share in the consoling faith of the two sisters, he would have held as criminal any attempt to weaken its influence.
Seeing them this downcast, he thus resumed: 'That's right, my pretty ones: I prefer to hear you chat as you did this morning and yesterday—laughing at times, and answering me when I speak, instead of being so much engrossed with your own talk. Yes, yes, my little ladies! you seem to have had famous secrets together these last two days—so, much the better, if it amuses you.'
The sisters colored, and exchanged a subdued smile, which contrasted with the tears that yet filled their eyes, and Rose said to the soldier, with a little embarrassment. 'No, I assure you, Dagobert, we talk of nothing in particular.'
'Well, well; I don't wish to know it. Come, rest yourselves, a few moments more, and then we must start again; for it grows late, and we have to reach Mockern before night, so that we may be early on the road to- morrow.'
'Have we still a long, long way to go?' asked Rose.
'What, to reach Paris? Yes, my children; some hundred days' march. We don't travel quick, but we get on; and we travel cheap, because we have a light purse. A closet for you, a straw mattress and a blanket at your door for me, with Spoil-sport on my feet, and a clean litter for old Jovial, these are our whole traveling expenses. I say nothing about food, because you two together don't eat more than a mouse, and I have learnt in Egypt and Spain to be hungry only when it suits.'
'Not forgetting that, to save still more, you do all the cooking for us, and will not even let us assist.'
'And to think, good Dagobert, that you wash almost every evening at our resting-place. As if it were not for us to—'
'You!' said the soldier, interrupting Blanche, 'I, allow you to chap your pretty little hands in soap-suds! Pooh! don't a soldier on a campaign always wash his own linen? Clumsy as you see me, I was the best washerwoman in my squadron—and what a hand at ironing! Not to make a brag of it.'
'Yes, yes—you can iron well—very well.'
'Only sometimes, there will be a little singe,' said Rose, smiling.
'Hah! when the iron is too hot. Zounds! I may bring it as near my cheek as I please; my skin is so tough that I don't feel the heat,' said Dagobert, with imperturbable gravity.
'We are only jesting, good Dagobert!'
'Then, children, if you think that I know my trade as a washerwoman, let me continue to have your custom: it is cheaper; and, on a journey, poor people like us should save where we can, for we must, at all events, keep enough to reach Paris. Once there, our papers and the medal you wear will do the rest—I hope so, at least.'
'This medal is sacred to us; mother gave it to us on her death-bed.'
'Therefore, take great care that you do not lose it: see, from time to time, that you have it safe.'
'Here it is,' said Blanche, as she drew from her bosom a small bronze medal, which she wore suspended from her neck by a chain of the same material. The medal bore on its faces the following inscriptions:
Victim
of
L. C. D. J.
