“The children—where are the children?” quavered the gardener’s wife, and began calling, “Jean! Pauline!”
Jean and Pauline by this time were perched high on the ladder, under the platform of the pigeon-cote. From this perch they could spy over the irregular ridge of the outbuildings down across the garden to the grove, and yet beyond the grove, between the beech-tops to the southward ridge of the plain which on most days presented an undulating horizon; but now all was blurred in that direction by heavy rain-clouds, and no sign of the returning army could be seen, save a small group of horsemen coming at a trot along the great high-road and scarcely half a mile away. Crosswise from their right a shaft of the setting sun shot, as through the slit of a closing shutter, between the crest of another wood and rain-clouds scarcely less dark. It dazzled their eyes. It lit a rainbow in the eastern sky, where also the clouds had started to discharge their rain.
The château seemed to be a vortex around which the thunderstorm was closing fast—on three sides at any rate. But for the moment, poured through this one long rift in the west, sunlight bathed the buildings; a sunlight uncanny and red, that streamed into the courtyard across the low ridge of the outbuildings. The visitor had stepped back to the eastern angle of the house, and stood there as if measuring with his eye the distance between him and the gate. He began to pace it, and as he advanced, to Jean’s eye his shadow shortened itself down the wall like a streak of red blood fading from the top.
“There’s room in the cart here for the little ones,” the farmer suggested.
“But no,” answered the gardener; “Jean and Pauline will be needed to drive off the cattle. I shall take one cart; you, Philomène, the other; and I will have both ready by the time you women have packed what is necessary.”
“A bientôt, then!” The farmer started his mare, the gardener following him to the gateway. The gardener’s wife turned towards the house, sobbing. “But I shall come back,” called Philomène stoutly. “Mon Dieu, does anyone suppose I will leave our best rooms to be tramped through by a lot of nasty foreign soldiers!”
No one listened to her. After a moment she, too, went off towards the house. Jean and Pauline slid down the ladder.
The farmer’s cart had rumbled through the archway and out into the avenue. The visitor had beckoned his orderly, and was preparing to mount. With one foot in stirrup he turned to the gardener. “By the way,” said he, “when you return from the village bring lanterns—all you can collect”; then to the orderly, “Give me my cloak!” for already the rain was beginning to fall in large drops.
A squall of rain burst over the poplars as he rode away.