Now Fleurette could hear the dull stamping of hoofs on the dusty road, and the tramping of heavy, weary footsteps: and she watched, fascinated, these men coming along.
All at once the rider put his horse to a trot, and the next moment he reined in on the bridge. He put out his hand and cried a sharp: “Halte!” whereupon the other men all came to a halt. Fleurette stood there wondering what all this meant. Vaguely she guessed that these men must be soldiers, though, of a truth, with the exception of the one on horseback, and who appeared to be their officer, there was very little that was soldierly about them. Their red caps were of worsted, and adorned with what had once been a tricolour cockade, but was now so covered with dust that the colours were well-nigh distinguishable. The men’s coats too, once blue in colour and fitted with brass buttons, were torn and faded, with several buttons missing: their breeches were stained with mud, they had no stockings inside their shoes, and it would have been impossible to say definitely whether their shirts had been of a drabby grey when they were new, or whether they had become so under stress of wear and dirt. Fleurette’s recollection flew back to the smart soldiers she used to see when she was a tiny tot and Bibi took her to Serres or Sisteron on fête days when the military band would march past in their beautiful clothes all glittering with brass buttons, and their boots polished up so that you could almost see yourself in them.
But there! everyone knew that these were terribly hard times and that new clothes were very, very dear: so Fleurette supposed that the poor soldiers had to wear out their old ones just like everybody else. And her sensitive little heart gave an extra throb or two, for she had suddenly remembered that M’sieu’ Amédé would also be a soldier very soon, wearing a shabby coat, and perhaps no stockings inside his shoes. Still thinking of M’sieu’ Amédé, she was very polite to the man on horseback, although he was unnecessarily abrupt with her, asking her gruffly whether Citizen Armand was within.
Fleurette said “No!” quite gently, and then, choosing to ignore the coarse manner in which the man uttered a very ugly oath, she went on: “Father has been gone a quarter of an hour and more, and if you—”
“Citizen Armand, I asked for,” the officer broke in roughly, “not your father.”
“Father’s name is Armand,” Fleurette said, still speaking very politely. “I thought you were asking for him.”
The horseman, she thought, realizing his mistake, should have excused himself for speaking so rudely: but he did nothing of the sort. He just shrugged his shoulders and said in a very curious way, which sounded almost like a sneer:
“Oh! is that how it is? You are Citizen Armand’s daughter, are you?”
“Yes! M’sieu’ l’officier.”
“Call me citizen lieutenant,” the man retorted roughly. “Hasn’t your father taught you to speak like a good patriot?”
Fleurette would not have admitted for the world that she was half afraid of this unkempt, unshaved officer with the gruff voice, but she felt intimidated, shy, ill at ease. She would have given worlds to have someone friendly beside her, old Louise, for instance, or even Adèle.
“Shall I call M’ame Louise,” she suggested, “to speak with you?”
“No,” the man replied curtly, “what’s the use if your father isn’t there? Which way did he go?”
“To the village first, M’sieu’—I mean citizen, to pick up his horse which he always leaves at M’sieu’ Colombe’s stables. He is going to Paris afterwards.”
“How far is it to the village?”
“Less than a quarter of a league—er—citizen.”
“And the house,” the officer asked again, “where the ci-devant Frontenacs live, is that far?”
“About half a league by the road from here,” Fleurette replied, “the other side of the village. There is a shortcut behind this house, past the mill, but—”
The man, however, was no longer listening to what she said. He muttered something that sounded very much like an oath, and then turned to the soldiers: “Allons! Marche!” he commanded sharply. The men appeared terribly dusty and tired and hardly made a movement to obey: at the first call of “Halte,” some of them had thrown themselves down by the edge of the road and stretched out full length on the heaps of hard stones piled up there; others had wandered down the slope by the bridge, and lying flat on the ground were slaking their thirst in the cool, clear water of the stream. Fleurette was very sorry for them.
“May they wait a moment, M’sieu’ le—I mean citizen lieutenant,” she pleaded, “I’ll get them something to drink. We haven’t much, but I know Louise won’t—”
But the officer took no further notice either of her or of the men. Having given his order to march, he had readjusted the reins in his hands, and struck his spurs somewhat viciously into his horse’s flanks. The horse reared and plunged for a moment, then started off at a sharp trot, clouds of dust flying out from under its hoofs.
The men made an effort to rise. Fleurette put up a finger and smiled at them all.
“Wait one minute,” she said, and ran quickly back into the house.
There was the best part of a bottle left of that good red wine: Bibi had not touched it again after he broke the stem of his glass. Fleurette had picked up the bottle and taken a tin mug from the dresser and was about to start out again before Louise thought of asking her what she was up to.
“There are some poor, tired soldiers outside on the bridge,” Fleurette replied, “I want to take them something to drink. There’s not much of it, and twelve of them to share it,
