They mounted to the terrace and passed back into the courtyard, Pauline still following. Antoine’s father had arrived to fetch him; had arrived too with a cart. The cart held a quantity of household furniture. The farmer held the reins, and the gardener’s wife and Philomène were hoisting the child up beside him. They were agitated, as anyone could see, and while her father led the visitor into the chapel Pauline walked over to Jean, who stood watching, to ask him what it all meant.
“He says the war is coming back this way: it may even be to-night.”
“Yes,” said the farmer, addressing the women and unwittingly corroborating Jean’s report. “This is the third load. With the first I took along my good woman, and by God’s mercy found a lodging for her at the Curé’s. A small bedroom—that is all; but it will be handy for the midwife.”
“And your crops, my poor friend?”
“It was a fine swathe of rye, to be sure,” agreed the farmer, sighing. “And the barley full of promise—one gets compensation, they tell me; but that will be small comfort if while the grass grows the cow starves. So I brought you the first word, did I? Vraiment? And yet by this time I should not wonder if the troops were in sight.” He waved a hand to the southward.
Jean plucked Pauline by the sleeve. The two stole away together to the ladder that stood against the pigeon-house.
“We hear no news of the world at all,” said the gardener’s wife. “My man at this season is so wrapped up in his roses——”
“Holà, neighbour!” called the gardener at this moment, coming forth from the chapel, the visitor behind him. “You are stealing a march on us, it seems? Now as a friend the best you can do is to drive ahead and bespeak some room at the village for my wife and little ones, while they pack and I get out the carts.”
“Is it true, then?” His wife turned on him in a twitter.
“My good woman,” interposed the visitor, coming forward—at sight of whom the farmer gave a gasp and then lifted his whip-head in a flurried (and quite unheeded) salute—“it is true, I regret to say, that to-night and to-morrow this house will be no place for you or for your children. Your husband may return if he chooses, when he has seen you safely bestowed. Indeed, he will be useful and probably in no danger until to-morrow.”