CHAPTER X.

You may imagine the state of excitement at the farm, the comings and goings of the servants, enthusiastic shouts of all, the clinkings of glasses, and clatterings of knives and forks, the joy painted on every face, when Jean-Claude, Doctor Lorquin, the Maternes, and all those who had followed Catherine's vehicle, were installed in the large house-room at the farm, around a magnificent ham, and had set steadily to work to celebrate their future triumphs cup in hand.

It chanced to be on a Tuesday, always a grand cooking day at the farm.

The great kitchen fire had been blazing since morning; old Duchene, in his shirt-sleeves, was drawing from the oven innumerable manchets of bread, the good smell of which pervaded the whole house. Annette took them from his hands, and piled them up in a corner of the hearth. Louise waited on the guests, and Catherine Lefevre superintended everything, calling out as she did so:

"Make haste, children, make haste, the third batch must be ready by the time the men from the Sarre arrive. That will make six pounds of bread a man."

Hullin, from his place, watched the old farm-mistress as she came and went.

"What a woman!" he exclaimed, "what a woman! Go and find me such another the whole country round! She forgets nothing! The health of Catherine Lefevre!"

"The health of Catherine Lefevre!" was loudly responded by all the rest.

There was a renewed clinking of glasses, and then the talk fell again on marches, attacks, and entrenchments. Every one felt inspired by an invincible confidence; every one said to himself, "All will prosper."

But Heaven was reserving for them on that day a still greater pleasure and surprise, and especially for Louise and Dame Lefevre. Towards noon, just as a bright ray of the winter's sun was making the snow look whiter than ever and melting the hoar-frost on the window-panes, and the great red cock thrusting his head out of the fowl-house was flapping his wings and making the echoes of the Valtin resound with his shrill cry of triumph, all of a sudden the watch-dog, old Yohan, who was quite toothless, and very nearly blind, began to give vent to a succession of barks at once so joyous and so plaintive, that everyone's attention was attracted.

The great kitchen fire was blazing at its height; the third batch was being drawn from the oven, and yet Catherine Lefevre herself stopped to listen.

"There is something going to happen," said she, in a low tone.

Then she added, in a voice that shook with emotion:

"Since my boy left home, Yohan has never barked like that."

At the same moment rapid steps were heard crossing the court-yard; Louise sprang towards the door, exclaiming, "It is he! it is he!" and almost immediately a trembling hand was at the latch; the door opened, and a soldier appeared at the threshold, but a soldier, so lank, sunburnt, and haggard, his old grey overcoat with pewter buttons so worn out, his long cloth gaiters so torn and discoloured, that all the spectators were speechless with surprise.

He seemed unable to take a step farther, as he firmly put the butt-end of his gun to the ground. The tip of his eagle nose--the exact counterpart of Dame Lefevre's--shone like bronze, his red moustaches quivered; he looked just like one of those lean, hungry hawks driven by famine in winter to the stable doors. He looked straight into the kitchen, and his cheeks seemed to turn pale beneath their tinge of sun-brown, and his hollow eyes filled with tears as he stood there without being able to speak a word or advance a step.

Out of doors the old dog kept leaping, and whining, and rattling his chain as if he would break it; within, not a sound could be heard but the crackling of the fire, so deep was the silence; but very soon the voice of Catherine Lefevre was heard exclaiming, in heartrending tones:--

"Gaspard!--my child! It is you!"

"Yes, mother!" replied the soldier, in a voice choking with emotion.

And in a second Louise had begun to sob, whilst all in the vast room rose at once with a noise like thunder.

All ran towards him, with Master Jean-Claude at their head, shouting:

"Gaspard!--Gaspard Lefevre!"

But Gaspard and his mother were clasped in each other's arms: this woman, usually so strong-minded, so courageous, was weeping unrestrainedly; her son shed no tears, but held her close to his heart, his red moustaches buried in her gray locks, as he murmured:

"Mother! mother! ah! how often have I thought of you!"

Then, in a louder voice:

"Louise!" said he, "I saw Louise!"

And Louise rushed into his arms, and they mingled their tears and kisses together.

"Ah! you did not know me again, Louise!"

"Oh! yes--oh! yes, I knew you directly by your step."

Old Duchene, with his cotton night-cap in his hand, stood by the fire stammering:

"Gracious Lord--is it possible? my poor child--how changed he is!"

He had brought Gaspard up, and always pictured him since his departure fresh and ruddy-cheeked, in a handsome uniform with red facings. It deranged all his ideas to see him otherwise.

At this moment Hullin, raising his voice, said:

"And we, Gaspard, all of us, your old friends, have you nothing to say to us?"

Then the brave fellow turned round, and uttered a shout of recognition:

"Hullin! Doctor Lorquin! Materne! Frantz! all! they are all here!"

And the embracings began again, but this time more joyously, mingled with shouts of laughter and hearty hand-shakings, that seemed as if they would never come to an end.

"Ah! Doctor, is that you? Ah! my old Papa Jean-Claude!"

They looked at him again and again, staring him full in the face with countenances beaming with joy, as if to assure themselves that it was really he; then, linking their arms in his, they carried rather than led him into the kitchen, and Dame Catherine followed with his knapsack, Louise with the gun, Duchene with the tall shako, all laughing and crying by turns, and drying their eyes and cheeks. You never saw anything like it.

"Come, let us sit down--let us drink!" exclaimed Doctor Lorquin; "this is the _bouquet_ of the feast."

"Ah! my poor Gaspard, how glad I am to see you come back again safe and sound," said Hullin. "He! he! without wishing to flatter you, I like you better as you are than with your fat red cheeks. You are a man now, i'faith! You remind me of the old soldiers of my own time, the men of Sambre, of Egypt, ha! ha! ha! we had no fat cheeks among us! we were not sleek and shining! We looked more like hungry rats who have just caught sight of a piece of cheese, and our teeth were long and white, I warrant you."

"Yes, yes; that does not surprise me, Papa Jean-Claude," replied Gaspard. "Sit down, sit down; we shall talk more at our ease. But what is this?--what brings you all to the farm?"

"What! you do not know? All the country is up in arms, from the Houpe to St. Sauveur, to defend ourselves."

"Yes, the Anabaptist of Painbach told me something of this as I was passing; it is true, then?"

"Is it true? Why, everyone is engaged in it, and I am general-in-chief."

"All right, all right; a thousand thunders! Let those dogs of _kaiserlicks_ have their own way in our country! that wouldn't suit me at all. But just pass me the knife. Whatever happens, it's always jolly to find oneself at home again. I say, Louise, just come and sit beside me a little. Look, Papa Jean-Claude, with my little girl on one side of me, that capital ham on the other, and a jug of good wine forming the line in front, it would not take me a fortnight to get into condition again, and my comrades would not know me again when I joined my company."

Everybody had sat down again, and was fully employed in watching with wondering looks the brave soldier, cutting, carving, quaffing, then casting tender glances at Louise and his mother, and replying to one and another without at the same time losing a single mouthful.

The farm people, Duchene, Annette, Robin, and Dubourg, ranged behind in a half-circle, stood gazing upon Gaspard in a sort of ecstasy; Louise kept filling up his glass, while Dame Lefevre, sitting near the oven, looked over the contents of his knapsack, and finding there nothing but two old shirts quite black with dirt, and with holes large enough to put your hand in, a pair of shoes down at heel, an empty tobacco-pouch, a comb with three teeth, and an empty bottle, she lifted up her hands, murmuring to herself: "Good Lord! need we be surprised that so many die of starvation!"

Doctor Lorquin, at the sight of such a vigorous appetite, gleefully rubbed his hands, as he muttered from under his thick beard: "What a fellow it is! What a digestion! What a set of teeth! Why, he could crack pebbles like nuts!"

And even old Materne said to his boys: "In my time, after a two or three days' hunt on the mountain tops in winter, I have known what it was, too, to have the appetite of a wolf, and to eat the haunch of a roe-buck at a sitting; now I am grown old, a pound or two of meat is enough for me. Age makes all the difference!"

Hullin had lit his pipe, and seemed absent and thoughtful; it was plain that he was uneasy about something. After a few moments, seeing Gaspard's appetite begin to relax, he abruptly exclaimed: "But tell us, Gaspard, if I may make so bold as to ask, how does it happen that you are here? We thought you were still on the Strasbourg side of the Rhine!"

"Ah! ha! old boy, I understand," said young Lefevre, with a knowing wink; "there are so many deserters; is it not so?"

"Oh! such an idea as that would never enter my head! and yet----"

"You would not be sorry to know if we are all right and correct! I don't blame you, Papa Jean-Claude; you are quite right; those who don't answer to the muster-roll when the _kaiserlicks_ are in France, richly deserve to be shot! Make your mind happy; there's my leave."

Hullin, who had no false delicacy, read: "Twenty-four hours' leave of absence to Grenadier Gaspard Lefevre, of the 2nd company of the 1st regiment.--January the 3rd, 1814. GEMEAU, chief of the battalion." "Good, good," said he; "put it up in your knapsack; you might chance to lose it."

All his good-humour had returned.

"Look you, my children," said he, "I know what love is; there is bad and good about it; but it is bad in particular for young soldiers who come too near their homes after a campaign. They are capable of forgetting all and everything till they find themselves brought back with two or three gendarmes at their heels. I've seen that happen before now. But, however, since everything is clear and straightforward here, let's drain a bumper of _rikevir_. What say you, Catherine? The men of the Sarre may arrive from one moment to the next, and we have not an instant to lose."

"You say well, Jean-Claude," replied the old farm-mistress, sadly. "Go down and bring up three bottles from the little cellar, Annette."

The servant-girl ran quickly out at her mistress's orders.

"But this leave, Gaspard," continued Catherine, "how much longer has it to run?"

"I received it yesterday, at eight in the evening, at Vasselonne, mother. The regiment is in retreat upon Lorraine; I must rejoin it this evening at Phalsbourg."

"Well and good; you have still seven hours before you. It will not take you more than six to get there, though there is a good deal of snow at Foxthal."

The good woman came and sat down by her son. Her heart was full almost to bursting; she could not conceal her grief. Everyone was deeply touched. Louise, with her arm on Gaspard's worn-out epaulet, and her cheek pressed against his, was sobbing as if her heart would break. Hullin knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the corner of the table; he sat silently, with knitted brows and compressed lips; but as soon as the bottles made their appearance and were uncorked, "Come, Louise!" he exclaimed, "courage! what the deuce! All this will be only for a short time; it must come to an end some way or another, and I say that it will end well. Gaspard will come back, and we shall have a happy wedding."

He filled up the glasses as he spoke, and Catherine wiped her eyes as she murmured: "And to think that all these robbers are the cause of this happening to us! Ah, let them come! let them only come here!"

They drank, though in a melancholy sort of way, but the good old _rikevir_, as it found its way to the hearts of these worthy people, soon cheered their drooping spirits. Gaspard, stronger than he had appeared at first, began to relate the terrible affairs of Bautzen, Lutzen, Leipzig, and Hanau, where the conscripts had fought like veterans, gaining victory upon victory until traitors found their way among them. Everyone listened with silent interest; Louise, when the recital touched upon moments of great danger--crossing rivers under the enemy's fire, carrying a battery at the point of the bayonet--pressing his arm as if to defend him. Jean-Claude's eyes sparkled. The doctor always wanted to know the exact position of the ambulances; Materne and his sons stretched out their necks, and showed by the rigid compression of their massive red-bearded jaws how eagerly they were drinking in every word that fell from his lips, and with the aid of the generous wine, the general enthusiasm increased each moment, and every now and then vented itself in muttered expressions. "Oh! the dogs! the villains! let them beware! All is not over yet!"

Dame Lefevre admired the courage and good fortune of her son in the midst of these events, the memory of which will be preserved from generation to generation. But when Lagarmitte, grave and solemn, in his long gray gaberdine, his large black felt hat upon his head, his wooden horn on his shoulder, crossed the kitchen, and, standing in the doorway, announced, "The men from the Sarre are coming!" then all this excitement disappeared, and everyone rose, thinking only of the terrible struggle which was shortly going to begin on the mountain.

Louise threw her arms round Gaspard's neck, exclaiming: "Gaspard, do not leave us! Stay with us!"

He turned very pale. "I am a soldier," said he; "my name is Gaspard Lefevre; I love thee, Louise, a thousand times better than my own life, but a Lefevre knows nothing but his duty!" And he unclasped her arms from about his neck. Then Louise sank, half-fainting, down, and, with her head lying on the table, began to groan aloud. Gaspard rose.

Hullin placed himself between them, and pressing his hands warmly, while his own strong frame shook with emotion, "Right, my lad!" said he; "spoken like a man, and a brave one, too."

His mother approached more calmly to buckle his knapsack on to his shoulders. She performed that task with knit brows, her lips firmly compressed under her long hooked nose, without uttering a sigh; but two big tears slowly coursed each other down the furrows in her cheeks. And when she had finished, turning round with her sleeve to her eyes, she said, "There; go, go, my child, thy mother blesses thee. If war seizes thee for its prey, still thou wilt not be dead to us. See, Gaspard, there is thy place; there, between Louise and me; thou wilt ever be there! This poor child is not yet old enough to know that to live is but to suffer."

Everyone went out. Louise, left alone, began to weep and groan afresh. A few moments after, as she heard the butt end of his gun resounding on the flagstones and the outer door opening, she rushed out after him, shrieking in heartrending tones, "Gaspard! Gaspard! see, I will be firm; I will not cry any more; I do not want to keep you back--oh, no, but do not leave me in anger; have pity on me!"

"Anger! angry with you, my darling! Oh, no, no," he replied. "But to see you so miserable breaks my heart. Ah! if you had but a little firmness now, I should be happy."

"Well, then, I have; kiss me. See, I am no longer the same. I will try to be like our good mother Lefevre."

They exchanged their parting embrace with more calmness. Hullin stood by, holding the gun; Catherine waved her hand, as much as to say, "Go, go--enough."

And he, suddenly seizing his weapon, departed, with a firm step, and without once turning his head.

On the other side, the men of the Sarre, with their pickaxes and hatchets, were climbing in procession the steep and rugged ascent of the Valtin.

At the end of five minutes, at the turning by the great oak, Gaspard looked round, and waved his hand. Catherine and Louise answered him. Hullin then came forward to meet his men. Doctor Lorquin alone remained with the women; when Gaspard, continuing his way, was quite out of sight, he exclaimed:--"Catherine Lefevre, you may be proud of having so brave a man for your son. Heaven speed and prosper him!"

They heard the distant voices of the new-comers, who were laughing gaily among themselves, and marching to war as to a marriage festival.