"So!" exclaimed Andrew, and now the third bottle was broached--which, after all, was not much amongst six of them! "So I, who must myself go that way--Dijon, you say, is great and prosperous?--or anyone who wished to go that way from here, would do well to proceed by this track? Better than the high roads, which are doubtless roundabout and lengthy."
"Better far," replied Muhlenbein, "since thereby you save half the distance. Yet, have a care if you adventure by it. In the mountains there are no inns--none such as this; mein Gott, no!--no refuge nor shelter. Nothing but the great trees, and, in a storm, the riven branches on your head."
"Ja, Ja," said another, the man who had sold Andrew the medallion, "and sometimes worse than that, worse than shattered branches to burst in the head. Worse! outlaws and outcasts, men driven from France and from this land, too, to whom the Vosges alone offer retreat. Travellers have entered those mountains on one side before now, and have never come forth on the other yet. Gott in Himmel! Their heads were not broken in by fallen branches. Not by fallen branches!"
"Ha!" said Andrew. "Well! here is one traveller who must pass that way. And we will see for the breaking of heads. We will see. While, for shelter, I have a cloak. 'Tis not," forgetting for the moment that he was a "merchant" and not a soldier, "'tis not the first time it has been my only roof. Friends, adieu!"
"The Herr will go," said Muhlenbein. "Soh! Well! he is big and strong. Has been a soldier, perhaps?"
"Ay, has been a soldier," and as he spoke he made his way to where his horse was. Yet, ere he mounted it he paused and said, while the rustics lolling at the inn door cast admiring glances over both man and steed:
"Where begins this ascent to the mountains? Tell me; or, rather, if anyone will earn a crown, let him conduct me to it."
In an instant all had proffered their services, and each man sprang forth as quickly as his great wooden shoes would let him, whereon Andrew, selecting one, set out upon his journey.
His journey! To end how, he knew not, and cared less, so long as it brought him to Remiremont. To Remiremont where he believed he would stand face to face with De Bois-Vallée once more, would find Marion Wyatt. The woman who, Debrasques had testified, was innocent, yet against whom all circumstances pointed as being guilty.
The road the peasant led him passed across the plains lying between Holtzheim and Entzheim, across the fields on which he had fought some few weeks ago, but which were now deserted except that there were other peasants from each of those villages still hunting and scraping for further pickings. For, to them, anything was precious, would fetch money some day if not now, would help to mend their broken and burst walls or buy fresh seed for their devastated fields.