This cry, "The Cossacks! the Cossacks!" flew from one end of the road to the other like a whirlwind; women turned round, gaping-mouthed, with fear and wonder, and children stood upright in the carts and vehicles to see as far off as they could. Never was anything seen like it; and Materne felt indignant, and blushed for the terror of these people, who might have defended themselves, but for their selfishness and desire to save their property, which drove them to an unworthy flight.
At a branch of the road just by Schirmeck, Kasper and Frantz rejoined their father; and they all three entered the "Golden Keg" tavern, kept by the widow Faltaux, to the right of the road.
The poor woman and her two daughters were watching from a window the great migration, with tearful eyes and clasped hands.
In truth, the tumult increased from second to second. The cattle, the carriages, and the people, seemed to want to pass out over each other's backs; they seemed to have gone out of their minds, and were shouting, and even striking at each other in their mad desire to escape.
Materne pushed open the door, and, seeing the women more dead than alive, pale and dishevelled, he exclaimed, striking his stick on the ground—"What! Mother Faltaux! are you, too, out of your senses? What! you, who ought to set a good example to your daughters, have you lost all presence of mind; it's too bad!"
Then the old woman, turning round, replied, in a doleful voice—"Ah, my poor Materne! if you did but know—if you did but know!"
"Well, what? the enemy is here; he will not eat you."
"No, but they are swallowing up everything without mercy. Old Ursule, of Schlestadt, who arrived here yesterday evening, says that the Austrians will have nothing but knoépfe and noudels, the Russians schnaps, and the Bavarians sour-krout. And when they've stuffed themselves with all that up to their very throats, they keep still calling out, with their mouths full: 'schokolate! schokolate!' My God! my God! how shall we feed all these people?"
"I well know that it is very difficult," replied the old huntsman. "You can never give a jackdaw enough cheese; but, in the first place, where are these Cossacks, these Bavarians, and these Austrians? All the way from Grandfontaine we have not met a single one."
"They are in Alsace, round about Urmatt, and they are coming here."