JOSEPH MARIE MEUNIER,
AGED 80.
KILLED BY THE PRUSSIANS,
AUGUST, 1870.
———
R.I.P.
And then, with a stiffening of every muscle and a cold and deadly sinking at the heart, the English boy realized that Angéle's father had been murdered, and knew what had been the unendurable injury that had provoked the man of eighty to strike in his daughter's defense. Next instant a gun banged, but the charge of slugs that had been meant to lodge in P. C. Breagh's cerebellum merely smashed the conservatory glass and peppered the walls and trees. The intended recipient of these favors had previously been lame. Now, regardless of blisters and skin cracks, he cast away his improvised crutches, darted down the garden-path, nipped through the shattered door that hung upon one twisted hinge, and ran for dear life.
Thenceafter our young friend did not stray too far from the column he temporarily marched with. The secret of those haggard eyes and scowling looks was clear to him now. And the discovery of a giant velocipede with the solid rubber tires of the period and a front wheel of four feet in diameter abandoned in a ditch, presently enabled him—previously schooled by Mr. Tickling in the management of a machine of similar construction to outpace the Red Prince's marching battalions; and—upon highways, keep abreast of his flying cavalry.
Now, hugely daring, he pounded along in the wake of the Great Headquarter Staff, guided by the whipping flicker of the black and white lance-pennons of the Red Uhlans bringing up the rear.
There were troops upon the road.... One or two stray batteries of artillery, and part of an Engineer Corps going the same way, halted to give a cheer for the King. But the galloping dispatch-bearers with their guards of troopers, bound for Pont à Mousson, meeting the Great Staff on the way, turned back with it, adding to the clouds of dust in its wake.