Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/298

 swarmed in the woods and on the roads. They had settled on the village as vultures on a dead lamb's body.

It was a little, lowly place: it might well have been left in peace.

It had had no more share in the war than a child still unborn, but it came in the victors' way, and their mailed heel crushed it as they passed. They had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs sheltered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it hard and fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; some to ransack the dwellings; some to seize such food and bring such cattle as there might be left; some to seek out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed the fields; and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a breach.

The people did not attempt to resist.

They stood passive, dry-eyed in misery, looking on whilst the little treasures of their household lives were swept away for ever, and ignorant what fate by fire or iron might be their portion ere the night was done.

They saw the corn that was their winter store to save their offspring from famine poured out like ditch-water. They saw oats and wheat flung 19*