Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/282

 The people replied that they had seen nothing of the kind, and the horsemen pressed on, jamming their spurs into their poor beasts' steaming flanks.

"If you see him, catch and hang him," they shouted as they scoured away: "he is a Prussian Spy!"

"A Prussian!" the villagers echoed with a stupid stare—-"a Prussian in France!"

One of the riders looked over his shoulders for a moment:

"You fools! do you not know? We are beaten—beaten everywhere—and the Prussian pigs march on Paris."

The spy was not seen in the Berceau, but the news brought by his pursuers scared sleep from the eyes of every grown man that night in the little village.

"It is the accursed Empire!" screamed the patriots of the wine-shop.

But the rest of the people were too terrified and downstricken to take heed of empires or patriots: they only thought of Louis and Jean and André and Valentin; and they collected round Reine Allix, who said to them, "My children, for love of money all our fairest fruits and flowers—yea, even to the best blossoms of our maiden-hood—were sent to 18*