Weary-looking and footsore as they were, their dress, their bearing, and their soldierlike air, struck me forcibly, and sent into my heart a thrill I had not known for many a day before. I came up quickly behind them, and could overhear their complaints at having mistaken the road, and their maledictions, uttered in no gentle spirit, on the stupid mountaineers who could not understand French.
‘Here comes another fellow, let us try him,’ said one, as he turned and saw me near. ‘Schwartz-Ach, Schwartz-Ach,’ added he, addressing me, and reading the name from a slip of paper in his hand.
‘I am going to the village,’ said I in French, ‘and will show the way with pleasure.’
‘How! what! are you a Frenchman, then?’ cried the corporal, in amazement.
‘Even so,’ said I.
‘Then by what chance are you living in this wild spot? How, in the name of wonder, can you exist here?’
‘With venison like this,’ said I, pointing to a chamois buck on my shoulder, ‘and the red wine of the Lech Thai, a man may manage to forget Veray’s and the “Dragon Vert,” particularly as they are not associated with a bill and a waiter!’
‘And perhaps you are a Royalist,’ cried another, ‘and don’t like how matters are going on at home?’
‘I have not that excuse for my exile,’ said I coldly.
‘Have you served, then?’