As for Jean, having served his time in the English army and covered himself with honour and glory, he returned one day to the old farmhouse in the little Belgian village and lived there in ease and plenty for the rest of his days.
L. L. Weedon.
A SOLDIER in the uniform of a French grenadier was clambering up the side of a steep ravine. His face and hands were covered with scratches, and he was hot and breathless, but still he pressed eagerly after his guide, a young goatherd, only pausing for a second to ask, "Does the fort lie over yonder?"
"But half a league further," answered the boy, tossing back his shaggy hair, and on they plunged through the underwood, by a path that nobody but one born and bred among those mountains could have found.
They had come six miles across country at a desperate pace, but fatigue was nothing to the grenadier, La Tour d'Auvergne, a name already known for valour throughout the length and breadth of France. He had a mission to accomplish, and his duty came before all else.
"Yonder is the fort; you have but to follow the path up the pass," said his guide at last.
La Tour's eyes brightened, he put some money into the lad's hand, and the latter disappeared among the bushes. Inspired by fresh courage the weary grenadier pounded up the narrow rocky way, but he was surprised, as he approached the building, that no sentinel challenged him. What was the garrison doing that it took no precautions against a sudden attack? La Tour had an inward feeling that all was not right: his heart misgave him as he rushed up to the door.
