It surely was cannon. I went out to the gate where the corporal of the
guard was standing, and asked him, "Do I hear cannon?" "Sure," he
replied. "Do you know where it is?" I asked. He said he hadn't an
idea--about twenty-five or thirty miles away. And on he marched, up and
down the road, perfectly indifferent to it.
When Amelie came to help get tea at the gate, she said that a man from
Voisins, who had started with the crowd that left here Wednesday, had
returned. He had brought back the news that the sight on the road was
simply horrible. The refugies had got so blocked in their hurry that
they could move in neither direction; cattle and horses were so tired
that they fell by the way; it would take a general to disentangle them.
My! wasn't I glad that I had not been tempted to get into that mess!
Just after the boys had finished their tea, Captain Edwards came down
the road, swinging my empty basket on his arm, to say "Thanks" for his
breakfast. He looked at the table at the gate.
"So the men have been having tea--lucky men--and bottled water! What
extravagance!"
"Come in and have some, too," I said.
"Love to," he answered, and in he came.
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