n.

Farther down he again noticed a hand, just one hand, which appeared and
again went out of sight. That was all.

The boatmen who had rushed to the scene found the body that day.

Luc ran back to the barracks, crazed, and with eyes and voice full
of tears, he related the accident: "He leaned--he--he was leaning
--so far over--that his head carried him away--and--he--fell
--he fell----"

Emotion choked him so that he could say no more. If he had only known.

FATHER MILON

For a month the hot sun has been parching the fields. Nature is expanding
beneath its rays; the fields are green as far as the eye can see. The big
azure dome of the sky is unclouded. The farms of Normandy, scattered over
the plains and surrounded by a belt of tall beeches, look, from a
distance, like little woods. On closer view, after lowering the
worm-eaten wooden bars, you imagine yourself in an immense garden, for
all the ancient apple-trees, as gnarled as the peasants themselves, are
in bloom. The sweet scent of their blossoms mingles with the heavy smell
of the earth and the penetrating odor of the stables. It is noon. The
family is eating under the shade of a pear tree planted in front of the
door; father, mother, the four children, and the help--two women and
three men are all there. All are silent. The soup is eaten and then a
dish of potatoes fried with bacon is brought on.

From time to time one of the women gets up and takes a pitcher down to
the cellar to fetch more cider.

The man, a big fellow about forty years old, is watching a grape vine,
still bare, which is winding and twisting like a snake along the side of
the house.

At last he says: "Father's vine is budding early this year. Perhaps we
may get something from it."

The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.

This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot.

It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were occupying the whole
country. General Faidherbe, with the Northern Division of the army, was
opposing them.

The Prussians had established their headquarters at this farm. The old
farmer to whom it belonged, Father Pierre Milon, had received and
quartered them to the best of his ability.

For a month the German vanguard had been in this village. The French
remained motionless, ten leagues away; and yet, every night, some of the
Uhlans disappeared.

Of all the isolated scouts, of all those who were sent to the outpost