On the evening of which we write, the laborers leaving the fields, the flocks returning to their stables made the road a somewhat lively and varied panorama. Each heavy hay-cart, each group returning from the Nantes market, and, above all, every peasant-woman in her short skirt was a text for remark and jocularity, which, it must be owned, were not restrained.
"Goodness!" cried one of the men, suddenly, "what's that I see down there?"
"A fellow with bagpipes," said another.
"Bagpipes, indeed! Do you think you are still in Brittany? Down here they don't groan bagpipes; they only whine complaints."
"What has he got on his back, then, if it isn't his instrument?"
"That's an instrument, sure enough," said a fourth soldier; "it must be an organ."
"Queer organ!" said a fifth. "I tell you that's a sack; the man's a beggar. You can tell him by his clothes."
"Then his sack has eyes and a nose, like the rest of us. Why, look at him, Limousin!"
"Limousin's arm is long, but his sight is short," said another; "you can't have everything."
"Pooh!" said the corporal; "I see what it is. It is one man carrying another on his shoulders."