The Conscript Part 10

You will receive at Mayence two soldier's shirts,--all that you will need; but I have made for you some shoes, for nothing is worse than those given the soldiers, which are almost always of horse-hide and chafe the feet fearfully. You are none too strong in your leg, my poor boy. Well, well, that is all."

He placed the knapsack upon the table and sat down.

Without, we heard the Italians making ready to depart. Above us Captain Vidal was giving his orders. He had his horse at the barracks of the gendarmerie, and was telling his orderly to see that he was well rubbed and had received his hay.

All this bustle and movement produced a strange effect upon me, and I could not yet realize that I must quit the city. As I was thus in the greatest distress, the door opened and Catharine entered weeping, while Mother Gredel cried out:

"I told you you should have fled to Switzerland; that these rogues would finish by carrying you off. I told you so, and you would not believe me."

"Mother Gredel," replied Monsieur Goulden, "to go to do his duty is not so great an evil as to be despised by honest people. Instead of all these cries and reproaches, which serve no good purpose, you would do better to comfort and encourage Joseph."

"Ah!" said she; "I do not reproach him, although this is terrible."

Catharine did not leave me; she sat by me and we embraced each other, and she said, pressing my arm:

"You will return?"

"Yes, yes," said I, in a low voice. "And you--you will always think of me; you will not love another?"

She answered, sobbing:

"No, no! I will never love any but you."

This lasted a quarter of an hour, when the door opened and Captain Vidal entered, his cloak rolled like a hunting-horn over his shoulder.

"Well," said he, "well; how goes our young man?"

"Here he is," answered Monsieur Goulden.

"Ah!" remarked the captain; "you are making yourself miserable. It is natural. I remember when I departed for the army. We have all a home."

Then, raising his voice, he said:

"Come, come, young man, courage! We are no longer children."

He looked at Catharine.

"I see all," said he to Monsieur Goulden. "I can understand why he does not want to go."

The drums beat in the street and he added:

"We have yet twenty minutes before starting," and, throwing a glance at me, "Do not fail to be at the first call, young man," said he, pressing Monsieur Goulden's hand.

He went out, and we heard his horse pawing at the door.

The morning was overcast, and grief overwhelmed me. I could not leave Catharine.

Suddenly the roll beat. The drums were all collected in the square.

Monsieur Goulden, taking the knapsack by its straps, said in a grave voice:

"Joseph, now the last embrace: it is time to go."

I stood up, pale as ashes. He fastened the knapsack to my shoulders.

Catharine sat sobbing, her face covered with her ap.r.o.n. Aunt Gredel looked on with lips compressed.

The roll continued for a time, then suddenly ceased.

"The call is about commencing," said Monsieur Goulden, embracing me.

Then the fountains of his heart burst forth; tears sprang to his eyes; and calling me his child, his son, he whispered, "Courage!"

Aunt Gredel seated herself again, and as I bent toward her, taking my head between her hands, she sobbed:

"I always loved you, Joseph; ever since you were a baby. You never gave me cause of grief--and now you must go. O G.o.d! O G.o.d!"

I wept no longer.

When Aunt Gredel released me, I looked a moment at Catharine, who stood motionless. I rushed to her and threw myself on her neck. She still kept her seat. Then I turned quickly to go, when she cried, in heart-breaking tones:

"O Joseph! Joseph!"

I looked back. We threw ourselves into each other's arms, and for some minutes remained so, sobbing. Her strength seemed to leave her, and I placed her in the arm-chair, and rushed out of the house.

I was already on the square, in the midst of the Italians and of a crowd of people crying for their sons or brothers. I saw nothing; I heard nothing.

When the roll of the drums began again, I looked around, and saw that I was between Klipfel and Furst, all three with our knapsacks on our backs. Their parents stood before us, weeping as if at their funeral.

To the right, near the town-hall, Captain Vidal, on his little gray horse, was conversing with two infantry officers. The sergeants called the roll, and we answered. They called Zebede, Furst, Klipfel, Bertha; we answered like the others. Then the captain gave the word, "March!"

and we went, two abreast, toward the French gate.

At the corner of Spitz's bakery, an old woman cried, in a choking voice, from a window:

"Kasper! Kasper!"

It was Zebede's grandmother. His lips trembled. He waved his hand without replying, and pa.s.sed on with downcast face.

I shuddered at the thought of pa.s.sing my home. As we neared it, my knees trembled, and I heard some one call at the window; but I turned my head toward the "Red Ox," and the rattle of the drums drowned the voices.

The children ran after us, shouting:

"There goes Joseph! there goes Klipfel!"

Under the French gate, the men on guard, drawn up in line on each side, gazed on us as we pa.s.sed at shoulder arms. We pa.s.sed the outposts, and the drum ceased playing as we turned to the right. Nothing was heard but the plash of footsteps in the mud, for the snow was melting.

We had pa.s.sed the farm-house of Gerberhoff, and were going to the great bridge, when I heard some one call me. It was the captain, who cried from his horse:

"Very well done, young man; I am satisfied with you."

Hearing this, I could not help again bursting into tears, and the big Furst, too, wept, as we marched along; the others, pale as marble, said nothing. At the bridge, Zebede took out his pipe to smoke. In front of us, the Italians talked and laughed among themselves; their three weeks of service had accustomed them to this life.

Once on the way to Metting, more than a league from the city, as we began to descend, Klipfel touched me on the shoulder, and whispered: