She had seen the Highland regiments yesterday, and the sight had given her a new self-respect, a new interest in warfare; since (as she maintained against Antoine and Jean) these kilted warriors must be women; giantesses out of the North, but none the less women. “Why, it stands to reason. Look at their clothes!”
The gardener’s wife left discipline to her husband. She took a step or two out into the yard, for a glance at the sun slanting between the poplar top of the avenue. “It’s time Antoine’s father fetched him,” she announced, returning to the chapel. “And what has happened to the birds I cannot think. One would say they had forgotten their roosting house.”
“The birds will return when the corn is spread,” answered Philomène comfortably. “As for little Antoine, if he be not fetched, he shall have supper, and I myself will see him home across the fields. The child has courage enough to go alone, if we pack him off now, before nightfall; but I doubt the evil characters about. There are always many such in the track of an army.”
“If that be so,” the gardener’s wife objected, “it will not be pleasant for you, when you have left him, to be returning alone in the dark. Why not take him back now before supper?”
Philomène shrugged her broad shoulders. “Never fear for me, wife; I understand soldiery. And moreover, am I to leave the chapel unredded on a Saturday evening, of all times?”
“But since no one visits it——”
“The good God visits it, service or no service. What did Father Cosmas preach to us two Sundays ago? ‘Work,’ said he, ‘for you cannot tell at what hour the Bridegroom cometh’—nor the baby, either, he might have said. Most likely the good man, Antoine’s father, has work on his hands, and doctors so scarce with all this military overrunning us. I dreamt last night it would be twins. There now! I’ve said it, and a Friday night’s dream told on a Saturday——”
“Wh’st, woman!” interrupted the gardener’s wife, in a listening attitude; for the shouts of the children had ceased of a sudden.
II
Napoleon, at bay with his back to the hay-loft door, ceased to brandish his weapon, dropped his sword-arm and flung out the other, pointing: