And it was not until they reached the village, where they narrowly escaped falling into the clutches of the pickets who were stationed along the entire length of the Remilly road, that their dangers and hardships really commenced; again they were obliged to take to the fields, feeling their way along blind paths and cart-tracks that could scarcely be discerned in the darkness.  The most trivial obstacle sufficed to drive them a long way out of their course.  They squeezed through hedges, scrambled down and up the steep banks of ditches, forced a passage for themselves through the densest thickets.  Jean, in whom a low fever had developed under the drizzling rain, had sunk down crosswise on his saddle in a condition of semi-consciousness, holding on with both hands by the horse’s mane, while Maurice, who had slipped the bridle over his right arm, had to steady him by the legs to keep him from tumbling to the ground.  For more than a league, for two long, weary hours that seemed like an eternity, did they toil onward in this fatiguing way; floundering, stumbling, slipping in such a manner that it seemed at every moment as if men and beast must land together in a heap at the bottom of some descent.  The spectacle they presented was one of utter, abject misery, besplashed with mud, the horse trembling in every limb, the man upon his back a helpless mass, as if at his last gasp, the other, wild-eyed and pale as death, keeping his feet only by an effort of fraternal love.  Day was breaking; it was not far from five o’clock when at last they came to Remilly.

In the courtyard of his little farmhouse, which was situated at the extremity of the pass of Harancourt, overlooking the village, Father Fouchard was stowing away in his carriole the carcasses of two sheep that he had slaughtered the day before.  The sight of his nephew, coming to him at that hour and in that sorry plight, caused him such perturbation of spirit that, after the first explanatory words, he roughly cried: 

“You want me to take you in, you and your friend? and then settle matters with the Prussians afterward, I suppose.  I’m much obliged to you, but no!  I might as well die right straight off and have done with it.”

He did not go so far, however, as to prohibit Maurice and Prosper from taking Jean from the horse and laying him on the great table in the kitchen.  Silvine ran and got the bolster from her bed and slipped it beneath the head of the wounded man, who was still unconscious.  But it irritated the old fellow to see the man lying on his table; he grumbled and fretted, saying that the kitchen was no place for him; why did they not take him away to the hospital at once? since there fortunately was a hospital at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse; and there was a big room in it, with everything nice and comfortable.

“To the hospital!” Maurice hotly replied, “and have the Prussians pack him off to Germany as soon as he is well, for you know they treat all the wounded as prisoners of war.  Do you take me for a fool, uncle?  I did not bring him here to give him up.”