Florent looked to right and left of him, and wondered at the quiet and order. The wild and vague reports of the war, its sieges, disasters, retreats, current at the Hague, had not prepared him for this monotonous expanse of tents and wooden shelters, through which little groups of men and horses moved without noise.
It was hazy afternoon; the sunshine was thick and yellow like honey over the canvas, the trampled ground, and the distant belt of dark trees, beyond which, on a slight incline, rose a windmill with sluggish sails and a thatch stained golden.
The warm air seemed to wrap the sound of things close by with a sense of distance: the fierce, sweet song of a lark that hovered a few feet up, the jangle of the harness as the horses tossed their heads, the crackling of twigs as one man lit a fire at his tent door, came faintly through the veil of the languid summer haze.
Florent and his companion traversed the encampment and made their way across a strip of meadow to a red-tiled farm with green cowsheds adjoining, neat white curtains at the windows.
“The Deputies are staying here,” explained the officer.
“My message was to the Prince.”
“Well, you can see M. Beverningh,” answered the other, as if it were much the same thing.
In the beautifully kept garden, filled with stocks, pinks, and gillyflowers, a maid in a blue gown was scouring brass pans; seeing them approach she stood up hastily and wiped her bare arms, wind and sun-coloured to a deep rose.
“Tell M. Beverningh there is a gentleman here from the Hague.”