A man came through the broken gateway and stood for a moment gazing
around him in the falling twilight at the ruins—a tall sergeant of the
Horse Artillery. He caught sight of Philomène and the children and
stared at them, harder still.
“Well, I’ve seen things to-day,” he said. “But if you ain’t the
unlikeliest. Who belongs here?”
“I could have told you, yesterday,” answered Philomène, in an old voice,
following his look around.
“And you’ve seen these things? You?” he asked. His face was dirty—a mask
of gunpowder; but his eyes shone kindly, and Pauline, without
recognising his uniform, knew him for a friend. “Well, I’m——! But who
lives here just now?”
“There’s nobody at home just now but me and the children, as you see,”
said Philomène. “Were you looking for somebody?” with another look
around. “He will be hard to find.”
The tall sergeant leaned an elbow against the gate. He was tottering
with fatigue. “It’s a victory, that’s what it is,” he said; “an almighty
victory.”
“It ought to be, God knows,” Philomène assented.
“And—and——But you’ll be busy, no doubt?”
“Moderately.”
“I have to push on with my battery. But there’s no real hurry—the
Prussians are after them. Now I thought—on the off-chance, if I could
find a friend here——”
“What is it you ask of me, good man?”
“If one of you wouldn’t mind stepping yonder with me. It’s much to ask,
I know. But there’s a gentleman—an officer of ours——”
“Wounded?”
“No such trouble for you, good woman. Dead he is, and I helped bury him.
But I want to find someone who will mark the place and keep it marked
’gainst I come back—if ever I do.”
“Was he a friend of yours, then?” asked Philomène, while the children
stared.
“I wouldn’t altogether say that. He’d have said ‘yes’ fast enough, if
you’d asked him. But he was a gentleman; Ramsey by name—Major Norman
Ramsey; one of many fallen to-day, but I rode with him in his battery
when he charged in slap through the whole French cavalry at Fuentes
d’Oñoro. Will you come? ’Tis but a little way.”
His voice pleaded so—it was so strange and womanly, coming from a man of
his strength and inches—that they followed him almost without demur, out
by the gateway and around the sunken lane at the back of the buildings,
where (for it was dark) they had to pick their steps for fear of
stumbling over the dead.
Mercifully the way was not far. The tall sergeant halted and pointed to
a patch of broken turf, where was a loose mound among broad wheel-ruts.
“You see, I have marked it with a stone,” said he. “But in a few days’
time there may be many around here. I want you to mark this one—it
doesn’t matter how, so that you know it and can point it out when his
friends ask. He wears his jacket, of course—the same as mine.” The tall
man spanned his chest and turned towards the dying daylight, so that the
bars of yellow braid showed between his fingers. “Only the facings will
be of gold. You see those three trees standing alone? They will be
half-way between it and the wall of the château—in a straight line
almost; and the lane close here on our left. You cannot miss it.” He
felt in his pockets.
“We want no money, soldier,” said Philomène. “We will do our best. Give
me your name, that meanwhile we may pray for you and him, out of these
many.”
“My name is Livesay, Sergeant, of Bull’s troop. That will mean nothing
to you, however.”
“I dare say,” answered Philomène simply, “it will convey more to our
Lord God. I had a man once—who was killed—in the Artillery.”
Jean and Pauline stared at the man. Tears, as he stood by the grave, had
carved channels of white down his powder-stained cheeks.
“I do not believe,” he said, “in praying for the dead. But I am glad,
somehow, there are folks who do. Will you? His name was Ramsey; and the
Duke, who has won this battle, broke his heart, curse him!”
“How did he die, sir?” asked Philomène simply.
“He was killed some while ago and far from here,” answered the sergeant.
“Of a broken heart, Mademoiselle.”
“It is a sad thing,” sighed Philomène, “to live for the Artillery.”
The sergeant seemed to wish to say more, but turned to shake hands with
her. He patted the children lightly on the head, then strode down the
slope. A last shaft of sunset cast his long shadow over the heaps of
slain.
With a sob Philomène pulled herself together.
“Mark my words, children. The pigeons will be home at their roosts
to-morrow and all this will be as if it never had been.”
She turned back to retrace the path, and over the fields of slain the
two children followed her, heavy with sleep.