The soldiers, taken by surprise, drew back a little way.

“We are perishing with hunger; we want something to eat.”

“I have nothing, not a crust.  Do you suppose that I keep victuals in my house to fill a hundred thousand mouths?  Others were here before you; yes, General Ducrot’s men were here this morning, I tell you, and they cleaned me out of everything.”

The soldiers came forward again, one by one.

“Let us in, all the same; we can rest ourselves, and you can hunt up something—­”

And they were commencing to hammer at the door again, when the old fellow, placing his candle on the window-sill, raised his gun to his shoulder.

“As true as that candle stands there, I’ll put a hole in the first man that touches that door!”

The prospect looked favorable for a row.  Oaths and imprecations resounded, and one of the men was heard to shout that they would settle matters with the pig of a peasant, who was like all the rest of them and would throw his bread in the river rather than give a mouthful to a starving soldier.  The light of the candle glinted on the barrels of the chassepots as they were brought to an aim; the angry men were about to shoot him where he stood, while he, headstrong and violent, would not yield an inch.

“Nothing, nothing!  Not a crust!  I tell you they cleaned me out!”

Maurice rushed in in affright, followed by Jean.

“Comrades, comrades—­”

He knocked up the soldiers’ guns, and raising his eyes, said entreatingly: 

“Come, be reasonable.  Don’t you know me?  It is I.”

“Who, I?”

“Maurice Levasseur, your nephew.”

Father Fouchard took up his candle.  He recognized his nephew, beyond a doubt, but was firm in his resolve not to give so much as a glass of water.

“How can I tell whether you are my nephew or not in this infernal darkness?  Clear out, everyone of you, or I will fire!”

And amid an uproar of execration, and threats to bring him down and burn the shanty, he still had nothing to say but:  “Clear out, or I’ll fire!” which he repeated more than twenty times.

Suddenly a loud clear voice was heard rising above the din: 

“But not on me, father?”

The others stood aside, and in the flickering light of the candle a man appeared, wearing the chevrons of a quartermaster-sergeant.  It was Honore, whose battery was a short two hundred yards from there and who had been struggling for the last two hours against an irresistible longing to come and knock at that door.  He had sworn never to set foot in that house again, and in all his four years of army life had not exchanged a single letter with that father whom he now addressed so curtly.  The marauders had drawn apart and were conversing excitedly among themselves; what, the old man’s son, and a “non-com.”! it wouldn’t answer; better go and try their luck elsewhere!  So they slunk away and vanished in the darkness.