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Read Ebook: The Maids of Paradise by Chambers Robert W Robert William
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Ebook has 3601 lines and 105125 words, and 73 pages
"It will rain--bullets," said the old man, simply, and returned to his shop to drag out a chair on the doorsill and sit and listen to the shots which our cavalry outposts were exchanging with the Prussian scouts.
"Poor old chap," said the operator; "it will be hard for him. He was with the Grand Emperor at Jena."
"You speak as though our army was already on the run," I said.
"Yes," he replied, indifferently, "we'll soon be on the run."
After a moment I said: "I'm going to ride to La Trappe. I wish you would send those messages to Paris."
"All right," he said.
Half an hour later I rode out of Morsbronn, clad in the uniform of the Third Hussars, a disguise supposed to convey the idea to those at La Trappe that the army and not the police were responsible for their expulsion.
The warm August sunshine slanted in my face as I galloped away up the vineyard road and out on to the long plateau where, on every hillock, a hussar picket sat his wiry horse, carbine poised, gazing steadily toward the east.
Over the sombre Prussian forests mist hung; away to the north the sun glittered on the steel helmets and armor of the heavy cavalry, just arriving. And on the Col du Pigeonnier I saw tiny specks move, flags signalling the arrival of the Vicomte de Bonnemain with the "grosse cavalerie," the splendid cuirassier regiments destined in a few hours to join the cuirassiers of Waterloo, riding into that bright Valhalla where all good soldiers shall hear the last trumpet call, "Dismount!"
With a lingering glance at the rivers which separated us from German soil, I turned my horse and galloped away into the hills.
A moist, fern-bordered wood road attracted me; I reasoned that it must lead, by a short cut, across the hills to the military highway which passed between Trois-Feuilles and La Trappe. So I took it, and presently came into four cross-roads unknown to me.
This grassy carrefour was occupied by a flock of turkeys, busily engaged in catching grasshoppers; their keeper, a prettily shaped peasant girl, looked up at me as I drew bridle, then quietly resumed the book she had been reading.
"My child," said I, "if you are as intelligent as you are beautiful, you will not be tending other people's turkeys this time next year."
"Merci, beau sabreur!" said the turkey-girl, raising her blue eyes. Then the lashes veiled them; she bent her head a little, turning it so that the curve of her cheeks gave to her profile that delicate contour which is so suggestive of innocence when the ears are small and the neck white.
"My child," said I, "will you kindly direct me, with appropriate gestures, to the military highway which passes the Ch?teau de la Trappe?"
THE GOVERNMENT INTERFERES
"There is a short cut across that meadow," said the young girl, raising a rounded, sun-tinted arm, bare to the shoulder.
"You are very kind," said I, looking at her steadily.
"And, after that, you will come to a thicket of white birches."
"Thank you, mademoiselle."
"And after that," she said, idly following with her blue eyes the contour of her own lovely arm, "you must turn to the left, and there you will cross a hill. You can see it from where we stand--"
She glanced at me over her outstretched arm. "You are not listening," she said.
I shifted a troubled gaze to the meadow which stretched out all glittering with moist grasses and tufts of rain-drenched wild flowers.
The girl's arm slowly fell to her side, she looked up at me again, I felt her eyes on me for a moment, then she turned her head toward the meadow.
A deadened report shook the summer air--the sound of a cannon fired very far away, perhaps on the citadel of Strasbourg. It was so distant, so indistinct, that here in this peaceful country it lingered only as a vibration; the humming of the clover bees was louder.
Without turning my head I said: "It is difficult to believe that there is war anywhere in the world--is it not, mademoiselle?"
"Not if one knows the world," she said, indifferently.
"Do you know it, my child?"
"Sufficiently," she said.
She had opened again the book which she had been reading when I first noticed her. From my saddle I saw that it was Moli?re. I examined her, in detail, from the tips of her small wooden shoes to the scarlet velvet-banded skirt, then slowly upward, noting the laced bodice of velvet, the bright hair under the butterfly coiffe of Alsace, the delicate outline of nose and brow and throat. The ensemble was theatrical.
"Why do you tend turkeys?" I asked.
"Because it pleases me," she replied, raising her eyebrows in faint displeasure.
"For that same reason you read Monsieur Moli?re?" I suggested.
"Doubtless, monsieur."
"Who are you?"
"Is a passport required in France?" she replied, languidly.
"Are you what you pretend to be, an Alsatian turkey tender?"
"Parbleu! There are my turkeys, monsieur."
"Of course, and there is your peasant dress and there are your wooden shoes, and there also, mademoiselle, are your soft hands and your accented speech and your plays of Moli?re."
"You are very wise for a hussar," she said.
"Perhaps," said I, "but I have asked you a question which remains parried."
She balanced the hazel rod across her shoulders with a faintly malicious smile.
"One might almost believe that you are not a hussar, but an officer of the Imperial Police," she said.
"If you think that," said I, "you should answer my question the sooner--unless you come from La Trappe. Do you?"
"Sometimes."
"Oh! And what do you do at the Ch?teau de la Trappe?"
"I tend poultry--sometimes," she replied.
"And at other times?"
"I do other things, monsieur."
"What things?"
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