“The pretty soldiers,” he said; “can’t you do without them to-day, Madame?”
She looked up at him, angry at the blunt speech. There was something kind in his big eyes, but his manner was that of a boor.
“If we are a trouble to you, sir—”
“A trouble! God bless me—an Englishwoman! Geeho! Geeho!”
He lashed the pony, and they began to jog across the fields. She gazed—it might be for the last time—up at the forest land where her home had been; and she saw burning houses, and churches which were but quaking walls, and black ruins of the homesteads of yesterday. In the vineyards by the river the labourers were burying the dead. Rusted cuirasses, broken helmets, twisted swords, rags which had been uniforms, rifles in the ditches, horses stiff and stark with their feet pointing upward to the sky—these were the emblems of battle around her. But the sun shone warm upon the pastures; there were gay tunics in all the valleys; she heard the music of the drums; the romance of war put a cloak upon the reality of war. And the way lay to a city and to a home. She desired with all the intensity of which she was capable to turn from that place of death to the light and life of Strasburg. Edmond would come to her there. She thanked God that he was a prisoner, and that war could not harm him now.
They had struck the great southern road to the city; but the way was laborious, for troops followed it everywhere, and no turn of it but showed them the wavering lines of spiked helmets or the lances of the Uhlans. And here the story of the flight was to be read in all its fulness. Dead men with glassy eyes stared up at them from the fœtid ditches. Masterless horses galloped by the roadside whinnying pitifully; or stood in wondering troops, saddles still upon their backs, and even their own wounds to show. No man could have numbered the rifles cast aside by the flying hosts of yesterday. Broken caissons, gun-carriages lacking wheels, empty wagons shattered and plundered, field-glasses, even letters and pocket-books, and little tokens whereby the names of those who fled were to be learned—these things bore witness to the living as the graves upon the hillside bore witness to the dead. But they provoked Beatrix no longer to despair or pity. If, of the aftermath, she should reap her lover’s life, she would crave no other grace. And she was all fortunate. She thought of the children asking to-day for those who nevermore would stoop to lift them to their lips. How many there were in the very city to which this strange Englishman was taking her! How many women prayed in the silent churches for those who lay in the vineyards she was leaving! It was not selfishness, but gratitude, which turned her thoughts to such a channel.
Their way lay to the south; and many a hamlet was numbered before her companion spoke a word or took his pipe from his mouth. The exclamations of Guillaumette fell upon deaf ears. It was odd to be there on the road with one she had never seen before; but the kaleidoscope of her life had been turning swiftly for many hours. She accepted the present as it came to her, and found content therein.
“You are going to Strasburg, Monsieur?” she asked, for the very sake of speaking.
Richard Watts took his pipe from his mouth very slowly and answered her by another question.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed. “Monsieur! Bless you, child, I’m no ‘monsieur.’ I was born within sound of Bow Bells.”