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, Duchêne 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, Duchêne, 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 Lefévre, 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!"