“Mon père!” cried Marcel, laying a hand on his arm, “mon père!”
But old Caboff did not answer him. He was dead.
The grande armée was still winning famous victories, ploughing up sunny harvest-fields with cannon-balls, and making homes and hearts desolate.
“There is one comfort,” said old Peltran, sitting moodily in his deserted bar: “when things come to the worst they must get better.”
“They’ve not come to the worst yet,” observed a neighbor. “There’s lots of things that might happen, that haven’t happened yet; the plague might come, or the blight, or the grande armée might get beaten. We’ve not come to the worst yet, believe you me.”
“There’s one thing anyhow that can’t happen,” said Peltran: “there can’t be another recruitment in Gondriac, for there isn’t a man left amongst us fit to shoulder a musket; we are all either too old, or lame, or blind of an eye.”
“There’s young Caboff is neither one nor the other. To be sure, he’s not the stuff to make a soldier out of; but when they’ve used up all the men they must make the best of the milk-sops.”
“Marcel is a widow’s only son; he’s safe,” said Peltran.
“From one day to another the last reserves may be called out,” observed the neighbor; “it will be hard on the mother, after two of her sons going for cannon’s meat. It was a plucky thing of the old father putting out that night. I wonder if he knew for certain who was on the deck of the ship.”