boy—half-witted: he cocked a broomhandle at them, and they burnt him. Oh, she’ll take you to Réchamp safe enough.”
“Where Scharlach’s been”—so he had been as close as this to Réchamp! I was wondering if Jean knew it, and if that had sealed his lips and given him that flinty profile. The old horse’s woolly flanks jogged on under the bare branches and the old woman’s bent back jogged in time with it. She never once spoke or looked around at us. “It isn’t the noise we make that’ll give us away,” I said at last; and just then the old woman turned her head and pointed silently with the osier-twig she used as a whip. Just ahead of us lay a heap of ruins: the wreck, apparently, of a great château and its dependencies. “Lermont!” Réchamp exclaimed, turning white. He made a motion to jump out and then dropped back into the seat. “What’s the use?” he muttered. He leaned forward and touched the old woman’s shoulder.
“I hadn’t heard of this—when did it happen?”
“In September.”
“They did it?”
“Yes. Our wounded were there. It’s like this everywhere in our country.”
I saw Jean stiffening himself for the next question. “At Réchamp, too?”
She relapsed into indifference. “I haven’t been as far as Réchamp.”
“But you must have seen people who’d been there—you must have heard.”
“I’ve heard the masters were still there—so there must be something standing. Maybe though,” she reflected, “they’re in the cellars....”
We continued to jog on through the dusk.
V
“There’s the steeple!” Réchamp burst out.
Through the dimness I couldn’t tell which way to look; but I suppose in the thickest midnight he would have known where he was. He jumped from the trap and took the old horse by the bridle. I made out that he was guiding us into a long village street edged by houses in which every light was extinguished. The snow on the ground sent up a pale
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