"They have got a fire there," said Jean Charost, pointing onward, but a little to the left. "Don't you see the blue smoke curling up through the trees into the clear, cool air?"
"I do indeed, sir," said Martin Grille. "Pray, sir, let us turn back. It's not half so pretty as a smoky chimney."
"Are you a coward?" asked Jean Charost, turning somewhat sharply upon him.
"Yes, sir," replied Martin, meekly: "desperate--I have an uncle who fights for all the family."
"Then stay where you are, or go back if you like," replied his master. "I shall go and see who these folks are. You had better go back, if you are afraid."
"Yes, sir--no, sir," replied Martin Grille. "I am afraid--very much afraid--but I won't go back. I'll stay by you if I have my brains knocked out--though, good faith, they are not much worth knocking just now, for they feel quite addled--curd--curd; and a little whey, too, I have a notion. But go on, sir; go on. They are not worth keeping if they are not worth losing."
Jean Charost rode on, with a smile, pitying the man's fears, but believing them to be perfectly idle and foolish. The district of Berri, his native place, had hitherto escaped, in a great degree, the calamities which for years had afflicted the neighborhood of Paris. There was too little to be got there, for the plundering bands, which had sprung up from the dragon's teeth sown by the wars of Edward the Third of England and Philip and John of France, or those which had arisen from the contentions between the Orleans and Burgundian parties, to infest the neighborhood of Bourges; and while the Parisian, with his mind full of tales brought daily into the capital of atrocities perpetrated in its immediate vicinity, fancied every bush, not an officer, but a thief, his young master could hardly bring himself to imagine that there was such a thing as danger in riding through a little wood within less than half a league of the château of the Duke of Orleans.
He went on then, in full confidence, for some fifty or sixty yards further; but then suddenly stopped, and raised his hand as a sign for his servant to do so likewise. Martin Grille almost jumped out of the saddle, on his master's sudden halt, and drew so deep a snorting sort of sigh that Jean Charost whispered, with an impatient gesture, "Hush!"
The fact was, his ears had caught, as they rode on, a sound coming from the direction where rose the smoke, which did not altogether satisfy him. It was an exceedingly blasphemous oath--in those days, common enough in the mouths of military men, and not always a stranger to the lips of kings, but by no means likely to be uttered by a plain peasant or honest wood-cutter.
He listened again: more words of similar import were uttered. It was evident that the approach of horses over the snow had not been heard, and that, whoever were the persons in the wood, they were conversing together very freely, and in no very choice language.