"Well, go down to Alsace, and you will see."
The poor creatures went on, shaking their heads in extreme indignation, and he laughed slyly.
The farther Materne advanced, the number of herds became greater. There were not only troops of cattle bellowing and lowing, but flocks of geese, as far as the eye could reach, screeching and cackling, dragging themselves along the road with wings spread and half-frozen feet: it was piteous to see.
It was worse still on approaching Schirmeck. The people were flying in crowds, with their great wagons loaded with barrels, smoked meats, furniture, women and children. They were lashing their horses almost to death on the road, and screaming in terrified voices: "We are lost; the Cossacks are coming."
The cry of "The Cossacks! the Cossacks!" ran along the whole line like a puff of wind; the women turned round open-mouthed, and the children stood up on the wagons to get a better view. You never beheld anything like it before; and Materne, angered, blushed for the terror of these people, who might have defended themselves; while selfishness and their desire to save their property, made them fly like cowards.
At the crossing of the Fond-des-Saules quite close to Schirmeck, Kasper and Frantz rejoined their father, and the three entered the "Golden Key" tavern, kept by the Widow Faltaux, on the right side of the road. The poor woman and her two daughters were watching from a window the great migration with streaming eyes and clasped hands.
In fact, the tumult increased every minute; the cattle, wagons, and people seemed eager to get away over each other's shoulders. They no longer had any command of themselves: they were howling and striking about them in their desire to escape.
Materne pushed the door open, and seeing the women more dead than alive, white and dishevelled, he shouted, striking his stick on the ground: "What, mother, have you too gone mad? What! you, who owe a good example to your daughters,—have you lost courage? it is a shame."
The old woman turned round and said in a broken voice: "Ah, my poor Materne, if you only knew—if you only knew!"
"Well, what then? The enemy is coming: they won't eat you."