An inspection there proved that the enemy had retreated, though doubtless some of them were within the church. However, for the moment at least, the bulk of the mob had gone, and Tom took advantage of the lull to make his preparations for feeding the defenders. The kitchen fire was soon roaring up the chimney, while outside, in the yard, there was another blaze. A trooper, booted and spurred, and stripped to his shirt, bent over a huge basin perched on a low wooden table, and sturdily pummelled a mass of dough. Near at hand stood another, stripped like his fellow, thrusting his long moustaches upward toward his eyes.
"Nom de nomme, but this is soldiering!" he was saying to his comrade, as he added handfuls of flour from an open sack. "This is what a man can call campaigning."
"Eh? Ah!" the other grunted. "Mais pourquoi?"
"Hear him!" came the astonished answer, while the trooper held a floury hand aloft as if to show his amazement. "He asks why, when the reason is plain. Dites donc, mon fou; is it so often, then, that we fight under the eye and command of an English garçon? Poof! That is the charm of the thing. I tell you, yesterday I said to myself: 'Pierre, you will be chopped to pieces before the sun comes up to-morrow. You and your comrades will be but mince meat.'"
The man kneading the dough shivered and grunted his disapproval. "Gently, comrade," he growled. "You will spoil the tart I am making. What then?"
"What then? He asks what then? See here, mon brave, we have fighting, heaps of it, and it is the peasants—poor fools!—who are chopped to pieces. We have excitement and work fit for a soldier, I say, and, with it all, see also what we get. Ah! I smell meat cooking, and here is something that we have not seen for many a long day."
He went clanking his spurs across to a corner where the watchful Howeley had deposited a huge jar of jam, and came staggering back with it. The two men took the pan from the low table, lifted the dough from it, and, having thickly dusted the table top with flour, laid their dough upon it. Then came the task of rolling.
"Try that, mate," suggested Howeley, who was now watching the proceedings with a grin of expectation. "Wasn't meant for the job; but beggars can't be choosers."
He offered the barrel of an old firelock, the butt and lock of which had gone, and the trooper took it with a flourish. Dusting it well, like the table, he rolled the dough with the hand of an expert, and, having satisfied himself that his work was nearly finished, he pinched a corner from the dough and handed it to the rifleman.
"Try," he grunted.