第49章 TRAVELS OF THE COVERED CART(3)

letters from France were looked for with scarce more eagerness by himself than by these alien sympathisers; when they came, he would read them aloud in the parlour to the assembled family, translating as he went.The Colonel's English was elementary; his daughter not in the least likely to be an amusing correspondent; and, as I conceived these scenes in the parlour, I felt sure the interest centred in the Colonel himself, and I thought I could feel in my own heart that mixture of the ridiculous and the pathetic, the contest of tears and laughter, which must have shaken the bosoms of the family.Their kindness had continued till the end.It appears they were privy to his flight, the camlet cloak had been lined expressly for him, and he was the bearer of a letter from the daughter of the house to his own daughter in Paris.The last evening, when the time came to say good-night, it was tacitly known to all that they were to look upon his face no more.He rose, pleading fatigue, and turned to the daughter, who had been his chief ally: 'You will permit me, my dear - to an old and very unhappy soldier - and may God bless you for your goodness!' The girl threw her arms about his neck and sobbed upon his bosom; the lady of the house burst into tears; 'ET JE VOUS LE JURE, LE PERE SE

MOUCHAIT!' quoth the Colonel, twisting his moustaches with a cavalry air, and at the same time blinking the water from his eyes at the mere recollection.

It was a good thought to me that he had found these friends in captivity; that he had started on this fatal journey from so cordial a farewell.He had broken his parole for his daughter:

that he should ever live to reach her sick-bed, that he could continue to endure to an end the hardships, the crushing fatigue, the savage cold, of our pilgrimage, I had early ceased to hope.I did for him what I was able, - nursed him, kept him covered, watched over his slumbers, sometimes held him in my arms at the rough places of the road.'Champdivers,' he once said, 'you are like a son to me - like a son.' It is good to remember, though at the time it put me on the rack.All was to no purpose.Fast as we were travelling towards France, he was travelling faster still to another destination.Daily he grew weaker and more indifferent.

An old rustic accent of Lower Normandy reappeared in his speech, from which it had long been banished, and grew stronger; old words of the PATOIS, too: OUISTREHAM, MATRASSE, and others, the sense of which we were sometimes unable to guess.On the very last day he began again his eternal story of the cross and the Emperor.The Major, who was particularly ill, or at least particularly cross, uttered some angry words of protest.'PARDONNEZ-MOI, MONSIEUR LE

COMMANDANT, MAIS C'EST POUR MONSIEUR,' said the Colonel: 'Monsieur has not yet heard the circumstance, and is good enough to feel an interest.' Presently after, however, he began to lose the thread of his narrative; and at last: 'QUE QUE J'AI? JE M'EMBROUILLE!'

says he, 'SUFFIT: S'M'A LA DONNE, ET BERTHE EN ETAIT BIEN

CONTENTE.' It struck me as the falling of the curtain or the closing of the sepulchre doors.

Sure enough, in but a little while after, he fell into a sleep as gentle as an infant's, which insensibly changed into the sleep of death.I had my arm about his body at the time and remarked nothing, unless it were that he once stretched himself a little, so kindly the end came to that disastrous life.It was only at our evening halt that the Major and I discovered we were travelling alone with the poor clay.That night we stole a spade from a field - I think near Market Bosworth - and a little farther on, in a wood of young oak trees and by the light of King's lantern, we buried the old soldier of the Empire with both prayers and tears.

We had needs invent Heaven if it had not been revealed to us; there are some things that fall so bitterly ill on this side Time! As for the Major, I have long since forgiven him.He broke the news to the poor Colonel's daughter; I am told he did it kindly; and sure, nobody could have done it without tears! His share of purgatory will be brief; and in this world, as I could not very well praise him, I have suppressed his name.The Colonel's also, for the sake of his parole.REQUIESCAT.