Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/70

42 where great events were even then taking place, attracted some attention in the West, where this second rising filled every one's thoughts. A change was remarked in the methods adopted by the Chouans in the opening of the war: never before had they attacked so considerable a body of troops. Hulot's conjectures led him to suppose that the young Royalist whom he had seen must be "the Gars," a new general sent over to France by the princes, and that his own name and title were concealed after the custom of Royalist leaders by that kind of nickname which is called a nom-de-guerre. This circumstance made him as uneasy after his dubious victory as he had been on his first suspicion of an ambuscade; more than once he turned to look at the plateau of La Pèlerine, which he was leaving behind, while even yet at intervals the faint sound of a drum reached him, for the National Guard was going down the valley of the Couësnon, while they themselves were descending the valley of La Pèlerine.

"Can either of you suggest their motive for attacking us?" he began abruptly, addressing his two friends. "Fighting is a kind of trade in musket shots for them, and I cannot see that they have made anything in our case. They must have lost at least a hundred men; while we," he added, screwing up his right cheek, and winking his eyes by way of a smile, "have not lost sixtyBy Heaven, I can't understand the speculation! The rogues need never have attacked us at all. We should have gone past the place like letters by the post, and I can't see what good it did them to make holes in our fellows."

He pointed dejectedly to the wounded as he spoke. "May be they wanted to wish us good-day," he added.

"But they have secured a hundred and fifty of our lambs," said Merle, thinking of the recruits.

"The requisitionaries could have hopped off into the woods like frogs; we should not have gone in to fish them out again, at any rate not after a volley or two. No, no," went on Hulot; "there is something more behind."