CHAPTER VI.

An extraordinary agitation prevailed at this time over all the line of the Vosges; the report of an expected invasion spread from village to village, even to the very farms and cottages of the Hengst and the Nideck. The hawkers, the carriers, the tinkers, all the floating population that roves incessantly from the mountain to the plain, and from the plain to the mountain, brought every day from Alsace and the borders of the Rhine a lot of strange news.

"Every place," said these folks, "is being put in a state of defence; foraging parties are constantly engaged in provisioning them with corn and meat. The roads from Metz, from Nancy, from Huningen, and from Strasbourg, are filled with convoys. In every direction you meet waggons full of ammunition, cavalry, infantry, artillery, all hurrying to their posts. Marshal Victor, with his twelve thousand men, is already engaged in keeping the road to Saverne, but the drawbridges are always raised from seven o'clock every evening till eight the next morning."

Every one was of opinion that all this boded no good. Nevertheless, if many felt serious alarm at the near prospect of war, if old women lifted their hands to heaven and prayed to all the saints in the calendar, the greater number thought only of the means of defence. Under such circumstances, Jean-Claude Hullin, you may be sure, was well received everywhere.

That very day, about five o'clock in the evening, he reached the summit of the Hengst, and stopped at the dwelling of the patriarch of the forest rangers, old Materne. It was there that he passed the night; for, in winter time, the days are short and the roads bad. Materne promised to undertake the charge of the defile of the Zorn with his two sons, Kasper and Frantz, and to reply to the first signal that should be made to him from the Falkenstein.

The next day Jean-Claude repaired betimes to Dagsburg, to consult with his friend Labarbe, the wood-cutter. They went together to visit the neighbouring hamlets, to try and inspire every heart with the love of their country; and the day following, Labarbe accompanied Hullin to the house of the Anabaptist, Christ-Nickel, the farmer of Painbach, a respectable and very sensible man, but whom they could not succeed in winning over to their glorious enterprise. Christ-Nickel had but one reply to every observation:

"It is right, it is just; but the Gospel says, 'Put up thy sword in its place; he who slays with the sword shall perish by the sword.'" He promised them, however, his best wishes for the good cause; this was all they could obtain.

They went from thence to Walsch, to exchange firm hand-grips with Daniel Hirsch, an old naval gunner, who promised them his support, and that of all the people of his commonalty. At this place Labarbe left Jean-Claude to continue his way alone. For a whole week longer he did nothing but work his way to and from the mountain, from Soldatenthal to Leonsberg, to Meienthal, to Abreschwiller, Voyer, Loettenbach, Cirey, Petit-Mont, Saint-Sauveur, and on the ninth day he found himself at the house of the shoemaker, Jerome, at Saint-Quirin. Together they visited the defile of the Blanru, after which Hullin, satisfied with his journey and its results, at length took his way back to the village.

He had proceeded for about two hours at a steady pace, picturing to himself camp life, the bivouac, the attack, the marches and countermarches, all the episodes in a soldier's life which filled him with enthusiasm, when afar off, still at a great distance, he discovered in the pale twilight the hamlet of Charmes, and his own little modest tenement, from the chimney of which rose a wreath of smoke so thin as to be almost imperceptible, the little gardens surrounded with wooden palings, the shingly roofs, and, to the left, the large farm of Bois-de-Chenes, with the sawpit of the Valtin at the other end half-hidden in the already dark ravine.

Then, suddenly, and without knowing why, a deep sadness fell upon him.

He relaxed his pace, as he mused upon the calm, peaceful life that he was about to lose, perhaps for ever; of his own little room, so cosy in winter, so fresh and gay in spring, when he threw open the casements, and inhaled the fresh breeze from the woods; of the drowsy ticking of the old clock, and, above all, of Louise, his dear little Louise, spinning quietly in the twilight, with downcast eyelids, and singing some old song in her clear, pure voice in the quiet evening hour, when a feeling of peace and repose stole over them both. This recollection came upon him so forcibly that the smallest objects, every humble implement of his own trade, the long, shining straps, the short-handled hatchet, the mallets, the little stove, the old cupboard, the glazed earthen porringers, the antique image of Saint Michael nailed to the wall, the old canopied bed at the end of the alcove, the bench, the trunk, the little copper lamp--all came back to his mind like a living picture, and the tears stood in his eyes.

But it was, above all, Louise, his beloved child, whom he most pitied. What tears would she not shed! how she would pray of him to give up the thoughts of fighting! how she would cling about his neck, saying, "Oh! do not leave me, dear, dear father! Oh! I will love you so! Oh! say you will not leave me!"

And the honest fellow saw her beautiful eyes bathed in tears; he felt her arms about his neck. For a moment the idea came into his head to deceive her, to make her believe something else--no matter what--to account for his absence, and console her; but such modes of dealing were foreign to his nature, and he grew more and more sad.

As he was passing by the farm of Bois-de-Chenes, he went in to tell Catherine Lefevre that all was going well, and that the mountaineers only awaited the signal.

A quarter of an hour later, Master Jean-Claude, descending the footpath to the house, stood opposite his own modest dwelling.