CHAPTER XV.

Seven o'clock, and yet not the slightest movement was perceptible in the valley. From time to time Doctor Lorquin would throw up the sash of a window in the house-room, and look out; there was nothing stirring; the fires were out; all was still and silent.

Opposite the farm, about a hundred paces off, on a sloping wall, lay the Cossack shot the evening before by Kasper; he was white as snow, and hard as a flint.

Within doors, a large fire was burning brightly in the stove. Louise was sitting beside her father, and regarding him with a look of ineffable sweetness; it seemed as if she feared she might never see him again; her red eyes betrayed that she had just been shedding tears. Hullin, though firm, seemed greatly moved.

The doctor and the Anabaptist, both grave and solemn, were talking of present affairs, and Lagarmitte was listening to them attentively.

"We have not only the right, but it is also our duty, to defend ourselves," the doctor was saying; "these woods were laid out and cultivated by our fathers; they are our lawful property."

"No doubt," replied the Anabaptist, in a sententious tone; "but it is written, 'Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not shed thy brother's blood.'"

Catherine Lefevre, who was just at that time busy with a rasher of ham, and who was doubtless tired of this discussion, turned sharply round, and replied, "Which means that, if we were of your religion, the Germans, the Russians, and all the other red men would be allowed to have everything their own way. Yours is a famous religion; yes, famous for such scum as those! It gives them the license to rob and plunder all who are better off than themselves. The Allies would like us to have such a one, no doubt! Unluckily, every one is not of the same opinion. We are not all like sheep, ready for the slaughter; and I, for one, Pelsly, without meaning any offence to you, think it is rather stupid to fatten oneself for the good of others. For all that, you are worthy people, no doubt; no one can say to the contrary; you have been reared from father to son in the same ideas: like father, like son. But we intend to defend ourselves, in spite of you; and when all is over, you shall make us speeches on the subject of eternal peace. I am very fond of listening to lectures on peace when I've nothing else to do, and am sitting by the fire after dinner; it does me good to hear them."

Having spoken in this way, she turned to the fire, and went on quietly cooking her ham.

Pelsly remained staring open-mouthed at her, and Doctor Lorquin could not restrain a smile.

At the same moment, the door opened, and one of the sentinels on duty outside called out: "Master Jean-Claude, come and see; I think they are on the alert."

"All right, Simon, I am coming," said Hullin, rising. "Louise, kiss me; courage, my child; do not be afraid; all will go well."

He pressed her to his breast, his eyes swimming with tears. For her part, she seemed more dead than alive. "And above all," said the worthy man, addressing Catherine, "let nobody go out, and let none approach the windows."

Then he rushed hastily forth.

All the spectators had turned pale.

When Master Jean-Claude had reached the edge of the terrace, casting his eyes over Grandfontaine and Framont, which lay about nine thousand feet below him, this is what he saw.

The Germans arrived the evening before, some hours after the Cossacks, having passed the night, to the number of five or six thousand, in the barns, stables, and outhouses, were now bustling and hurrying about in all directions. It was a regular ant-hill. They were issuing from every door in files of ten, fifteen, and twenty, hastening to buckle on their knapsacks, hook on their swords, and fix their bayonets.

Others, horsemen, Cossacks, hussars in green, grey, and blue uniforms, trimmed with red and yellow; caps of oil-skin, sheepskin, shakos, and helmets, were saddling their horses, and hastily rolling up their large holsters.

The officers, their cloaks flung over their arms, were descending the little narrow stairs, some with upturned heads scanning the country round, others kissing the women on the threshold of the houses they were leaving.

The trumpeters, one hand resting on their hips, the other elbow aloft, were sounding the rappel at every corner of the street; the drummers were tightening the cords of their drums. In short, in this space, which, seen from a distance, looked like a hand's-breadth, might be seen every description of military attitude at the moment of departure.

Some peasants, leaning out of their windows, were watching all this; the women showed themselves at the windows of the lofts. The innkeepers were busy filling flasks, corporal _schlague_[9] standing beside them.

Hullin had a quick eye, nothing escaped him: he took in all this at a glance, and besides, he had been used to this sort of thing for many a long year; but Lagarmitte, who had never seen anything of the kind before, was stupefied with surprise:

"There are a good many of them!" said he, shaking his head.

"Ah! bah! what does that prove?" said Hullin. "In my time, we have exterminated three armies of fifty thousand of the same race, in six months; we were not one against four. All those you see there would not have made our breakfast. And besides, you may make your mind easy, we shall not need to kill them all; they'll fly before us like hares. I've seen that before now!"

After these sage reflections, he judged it prudent to go and inspect his company again.

"Come on!" said he to the shepherd.

They both then, advancing behind the barricades, shaped their course along a path cut through the snow two days before. These snows, hardened by the frost, were now become as solid and firm as ice. The trees, as they lay in front all covered with hoar-frost, formed an impenetrable barrier, which extended for about six hundred metres. The road lay hollowed out below.

As he approached, Jean-Claude saw the mountaineers of the Dagsberg, crouching at intervals of twenty paces in a sort of round nests which they had dug out for themselves.

All these brave fellows were sitting on their knapsacks, their flask on their right, their hats, or fox-skin caps, pushed to the back of their necks, their guns between their knees. They had only to rise in order to see the road at fifty paces beneath them, at the foot of a slippery descent.

They were delighted to see Hullin.

"Eh! Master Jean-Claude, is it going to begin soon?"

"Yes, my lads; don't be afraid; before an hour we shall be hard at it."

"Ah! So much the better!"

"Yes, but above all, mind your aim; breast high; don't be in a hurry; and be careful to show no more flesh than is necessary."

"Never fear, Master Jean-Claude."

He went farther on; everywhere he was received in the same way.

"Do not forget," said he, "to stop firing when Lagarmitte sounds his horn. We must have no waste of powder and shot."

When he came up with old Materne, who commanded all these men, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, he found the old huntsman just preparing to smoke a pipe, his nose as red as a live coal, and his beard bristling with cold like a wild boar.

"Ah! is that you, Jean-Claude?"

"Yes, I've come to shake hands with you."

"All right; but tell me--they seem in no hurry to come--if they should happen to pass another way?"

"No fear of that. They must take this road for the artillery and baggage. Hark! there's the bugle--to boot and saddle!"

"Yes, I saw that before; they are preparing." Then, with a low chuckle:

"You don't know, Jean-Claude, just now, as I was looking towards Grandfontaine, what a droll thing I saw."

"What was that, old boy?"

"I saw four Germans lay hold of the fat Dubreuil, the friend of the Allies; they laid him down on the stone bench at his door, and one tall bony fellow gave him I don't know how many blows with a stout stick over his back. Didn't he bellow, the old rascal! I'll wager he has refused something to his good friends; his old wine of the year 1811, for instance."

Hullin listened no further, for happening to cast a glance down upon the valley, he had just seen a regiment of infantry debouch on the road. Farther off, in the street, the cavalry were advancing, with five or six officers galloping at their head.

"Ah! ha! they are coming now in good earnest," exclaimed the old soldier, whose countenance suddenly assumed an expression of energy and strange enthusiasm.

Then he sprang upon the trench, exclaiming:

"My children, attention!"

As he passed, he caught a glimpse of Riffi, the little tailor of the Charmes, leaning upon a long gun; the little man had made a step in the snow to take aim. Higher up he recognised also the old wood-cutter, Rochart, with his big sabots trimmed with sheepskin; he was taking a hearty draught from his flask, and then slowly raising himself up, with his carbine under his arm, and his cotton cap over his ear.

And that was all; for in order to survey the whole sphere of action, it was necessary for him to climb to the summit of the Donon, where there is a rock.

Lagarmitte followed him, stretching out his long legs as if he were walking on stilts. Ten minutes after, when they had arrived quite out of breath at the top of the rock, they perceived at four thousand odd feet below them the enemy's column of about three thousand men, with long white coats, cloth gaiters, tall shakos, and red moustaches; the young officers with flat cap, riding at regular distances among the troops, caracoling on horseback, sword in hand, and turning round from time to time to call out, in a shrill voice: "_Forvertz! Forvertz!_" (Forward! Forward!)

And this body bristled with glittering bayonets and advanced at full charge towards the barricades.

Old Materne, his long hawk's nose peering over the branch of a juniper tree, had also observed, with raised eyebrows, the arrival of the Germans. And as he was very clear-sighted, he was able even to distinguish faces among all this crowd; and picked out the one whom he would bring down himself.

In the middle of the column, mounted on a tall bay horse, there came riding straight towards them an old officer with a white wig, three-cornered lace hat, his form enveloped in a yellow mantle, and his breast decorated with orders. When this personage raised his head, the corner of his hat, surmounted by a tuft of black feathers, formed a target. He had long wrinkles in his cheeks, and seemed to be no chicken.

"That's my man!" said the old huntsman to himself, taking aim leisurely.

He cocked his gun, fired, and when he looked, the old officer had disappeared.

Immediately the mountain-side was ablaze with shots the whole length of the entrenchments; but the Germans, without answering, continued to advance towards the entrenchments, gun on shoulder, and keeping the ranks as steadily as if they were on parade.

If the truth must be told, more than one brave mountaineer, the father of a family, when he saw that forest of bayonets which kept on advancing up the mountain, in spite of the shots that were poured on them, began to think that he might perhaps have done better to stay at home in his village than to thrust himself into such an affair. But as the proverb says: "The wine is drawn; it must be drunk!"

Riffi, the little tailor, bethought him of the prudent warning of his wife, Sapience: "Riffi, you will get lamed for life, and that will be a pretty job!"

He promised a superb offering to the chapel of St. Leon if he came back safe and sound from the war; but at the same time he resolved to make good use of his long gun.

Two hundred paces from the barricades the Germans halted and opened a running fire such as had never before been heard on the mountain: it was a regular buzz of shots; balls by hundreds hacked down the branches, made bits of ice leap up in all directions, came crashing down upon the rocks, to the right, to the left, before, behind. They came hissing and whistling through the air at times as thick as a flock of pigeons.

This did not prevent the mountaineers from keeping up their fire, but it could no longer be heard. All the mountain-side was wrapped in a bluish smoke which made it difficult to take aim.

At the end of about ten minutes, the roll of the drum was heard, and all that mass of men began to charge at the abattis, officers as well as others, shouting "_Forvertz!_"

The ground trembled beneath them.

Materne, drawing himself up to his full height, by the side of the trench, with a voice terrible in its emotion, cried, "Up! Up!"

It was time, for a good number of those Germans, almost all of them students of philosophy, law, or medicine, scarred in skirmishes at Munich, Jena, and elsewhere, and who fought against us because they had been promised that their liberties should be granted them after the downfall of Napoleon; all these intrepid young fellows began to crawl on all-fours over the ice, and attempted to leap into the entrenchments.

But as fast as they climbed up the sides of the mountains, they were stunned with the butt-ends of the guns, and fell back among their ranks like hail.

It was at this juncture that there was witnessed an act of bravery on the part of the old wood-cutter, Rochart. Singlehanded he overthrew more than ten of those sons of old Germany. Seizing them under the arms, he flung them back upon the road. Old Materne had his bayonet reeking with blood. And the little tailor Riffi kept incessantly reloading his great gun, and firing energetically upon the heaving, struggling crowd below; and Joseph Larnette, who unfortunately received a shot in the eye; Hans Baumgarten, who had his shoulder fractured; Daniel Spitz, who lost two fingers by a sword-thrust; and a crowd of others whose names will be honoured and revered from generation to generation, never ceased for one second to load and discharge their guns.

Below, nothing was heard but fearful shouts and cries; and above, nothing was to be seen but bristling bayonets, and men on horseback.

This state of things lasted a good quarter of an hour; no one knew what the Germans intended to do, since they could not clear a passage. Nearly all the students had fallen, and the others, old campaigners, used to honourable retreats, did not throw themselves into the fray with the same ardour.

They began by beating a retreat, slowly; then more quickly. The officers, behind them, struck them with the flat of their swords; shots came whizzing after them, and finally, they fled with as much precipitation as they had advanced in good order.

Materne, standing erect upon his eminence, with fifty others round him, brandished his carbine, laughing heartily.

At the foot of the ascent heaps of the wounded were dragging themselves painfully along. The trampled snow was red with blood. In the midst of the heaps of dead were to be seen two young officers, still alive, but crushed and entangled under the corpses of their horses.

It was a horrible sight! But men are really ferocious; there was not one among the mountaineers who pitied these unfortunates; on the contrary, the more of them they saw, the more rejoiced they were.

The little tailor, Riffi, at this moment, flushed with a noble enthusiasm, let himself slide down the whole length of the steep ascent. He had just perceived, a little to the left, below the barricades, a superb horse, that of the colonel shot by Materne, and which was standing quietly in a corner, safe and sound.

"You shall be mine," said he to himself; "won't Sapience be astonished, that's all!"

All the others envied him. He seized the horse by the bridle, and got upon his back. But judge of the general astonishment, and that of Riffi above all, when the noble animal set off at full gallop towards his friends the Germans.

The little tailor raised his hands to heaven, invoking all the saints.

Materne had half a mind to fire, but he was afraid, as the horse was going at such a furious pace.

They were no sooner in the midst of the enemy's bayonets than Riffi vanished out of sight.

Every one thought he had been massacred; an hour after, however, they saw him passing down the principal street of Grandfontaine with his hands tied behind his back, and corporal _schlague_ behind him with his uplifted cane.

Poor Riffi! he alone was not fated to share in the day's triumph; and his comrades were even led to laugh at his unhappy fate, just as if it had happened to a _Kaiserlick_.

Such is the nature of men; provided they are happy themselves, the misery of others concerns them but little.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Drum-major.]