From time to time one of the maidservants rose up, and went to the cellar to fetch a pitcher of cider.
The husband, a big fellow of about forty, stared at a vine-tree, quite exposed to view, which stood close to the farmhouse, twining like a serpent under the shutters the entire length of the wall.
He said, after a long silence:
“The father's vine-tree is blossoming early this year. Perhaps it will bear good fruit.”
The peasant's wife also turned round, and gazed at the tree without speaking.
This vine-tree was planted exactly in the place where the father of the peasant had been shot.
It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were in occupation of the entire country. General Faidherbe, with the Army of the North, was at their head.
Now the Prussian staff had taken up its quarters in this farmhouse. The old peasant who owned it, Père Milon, received them, and gave them the best treatment he could.
For a whole month the German vanguard remained on the lookout in the village. The French were posted ten leagues away without moving, and yet, each night, some of the uhlans disappeared.
All the isolated scouts, those who were sent out on patrol, whenever they started in groups of two or three, never came back.