captain. "Be so kind as to keep close
to the bank."

When I reached my gate I found some of the men of the guard dragging a
big, long log down the road, and I watched them while they attached it
to a tree at my gate, and swung it across to the opposite side of the
road, making in that way a barrier about five feet high. I asked what
that was for? "Captain's orders," was the laconic reply. But when it
was done the corporal took the trouble to explain that it was a
barricade to prevent the Germans from making a dash up the hill.

"However," he added, "don't you get nervous. If we chase them out it
will only be a little rifle practice, and I doubt if they even have any
ammunition."

As I turned to go into the house, he called after me,--

"See here, I notice that you've got doors on all sides of your house.
Better lock all those but this front one."

As all the windows were barred and so could be left open, I didn't mind;
so I went in and locked up. The thing was getting to be funny to
me,--always doing something, and nothing happening. I suppose courage
is a cumulative thing, if only one has time to accumulate, and these
boys in khaki treated even the cannonading as if it were all "in the
day's work."

It was just dusk when the bicycle corps returned up the hill. They had
to dismount and wheel their machines under the barricade, and they did
it so prettily, dismounting and remounting with a precision that was
neat.

"Nothing," reported the captain. "We could not go in far,--road too
rough and too dangerous. It is a cavalry job."

All the same, I am sure the Uhlans are there.

XIII

September 8, 1914.

I had gone to bed early on Friday night, and had passed an uneasy night.
It was before four when I got up and opened my shutters. It was a
lovely day. Perhaps I have told you that the weather all last week was
simply perfect.

I went downstairs to get coffee for the picket, but when I got out to
the gate there was no picket there. There was the barricade, but the
road was empty. I ran up the road to Amelie's. She told me that they
had marched away about an hour before. A bicyclist had evidently
brought an order. As no one spoke English, no one understood what had
really happened. Pere had been to Couilly--they had all left there.
So far as any one could discover there was not an English soldier, or
any kind of a soldier, left anywhere in the commune.

This was Saturday morning,