Later on they were joined by the occupants of numerous other equipages, all from the same district—but with whom I had but little intercourse. From one poor woman, however, I learned that her two daughters, aged sixteen and seventeen, had been lost from the party for two days. They were in the cart with the curate who had stopped to water his horse, thus losing his place in line. When they had reached the spot where the road forked, which direction had he taken? What had become of them? She pinned her name and route on the refectory wall, begging me to give it to them if they ever inquired for her. To my knowledge they never passed.
At luncheon Madame Guix announced that Yvonne was better. Far from well, but better. That was a load off my mind.
The mother of the poor little infant we had buried was peacefully slumbering on a cot in the hospital, and presently Leon came in to say that old Cesar had put his hoof on the ground for the first time in four days. Bravo! I felt much relieved.
And still the carts rolled down the valley, their noise echoing between the hills. To-day there was no respite: right on through the heat of noon they rumbled past, thicker and faster it seemed to me.
"Bother them!" I thought. "They make so much noise that we couldn't hear the cannon if it were only a mile distant." And hoping that perhaps I might seek some assurance from that sound, I was about to set off for the highest spot in the park to listen. At the door, however, I was accosted by one of the two men who, for several days had been bundling my hay in the stable lofts. He pleaded illness. Would I pay him and let him go? He would come back to-morrow and finish if he felt better.
As there was nothing unusual in his request, I settled his account and told him to go and rest. I now know that he was a German spy, and have recently learned that a fortnight later he was caught and shot at Villers-Cotterets.
I wonder what possessed me to make that long weary climb. Evidently I found out what I wanted to know, but the news was anything but reassuring. I heard the cannon distinctly: so distinctly that I was a trifle unnerved. Not only had my ears caught the long ever-steady rolling (already observed three days since) but I had been able to make out a difference in the caliber of each piece that fired, and added to it all was a funny clattering sound, as when one drags a wooden stick along an iron barred fence. La Fere is putting up a heroic defense, I thought, blissfully unconscious of the fact that it is utterly impossible to hear a cannon at that distance—at half, no, even a quarter of that distance. Judge then for yourselves what was its proximity to Villiers!
For two days now the course in nursing had been abandoned, not for lack of enthusiasm but because each housewife had more than she could attend to at home. The chateau was not the only place where refugees halted, and all the villagers had done their best to make the travelers comfortable. From where I stood overlooking the two valleys, I could see the interminable line of carts on all roads within scope of my view, and in every farm yard as well as on the side of the main thoroughfares, vehicles were drawn up and thin columns of blue smoke rising heavenward, told that the evening meal was under way.
The population of my own courtyard had quadrupled by five o'clock. People from St. Quentin, Ternier, Chauny—each with a tale of horror and sorrow—sought refuge for the night. Madame Guix was permanently established in the dispensary, and a line was formed as in front of the city clinics, each one waiting his turn, hoping that she might be able to relieve his suffering. At dusk a cart turned into the drive and a gray-haired man asked if we had a litter on which to carry his son to the house.
"What was the matter?" I inquired.