I had been told that Joffre had made a frontier of the Marne.
But alas, the Meuse had been made a frontier-but the Germans had crossed
it, and advanced to here in little less than a fortnight. If that--why
not here? It was not encouraging.
A dozen times during the afternoon I went into the study and tried to
read. Little groups of old men, women, and children were in the road,
mounted on the barricade which the English had left. I could hear the
murmur of their voices. In vain I tried to stay indoors. The thing was
stronger than I, and in spite of myself, I would go out on the lawn and,
field-glass in hand, watch the smoke. To my imagination every shot
meant awful slaughter, and between me and the terrible thing stretched a
beautiful country, as calm in the sunshine as if horrors were not. In
the field below me the wheat was being cut. I remembered vividly
afterward that a white horse was drawing the reaper, and women and
children were stacking and gleaning. Now and then the horse would stop,
and a woman, with her red handkerchief on her head, would stand, shading
her eyes a moment, and look off. Then the white horse would turn and go
plodding on.
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