You have probably, my friend, fought many
a battle with these fellows of Mayence?"
"Not a battle I ever fought before, Monsieur," said Michael; "nor do
I ever wish to fight another; it's horrid weary work, this of knocking
men's brains out, not to talk of the chance a man runs of losing his
own."
"But ain't you one of the Vendeans, my gallant comrade?" asked Auguste.
"If you mean, did I come over from Poitou with them, I certainly did;
but I only came because I could not help it, and because I could not
live to see a little girl I have fall into the hands of the butchers;
it was not for any love of fighting that I came."
"But yet you take to it kindly, my friend. I am considered to know
something of the sword exercise, and I thought you wielded that axe, as
though your arm had been used to a sabre this many a year."
"I am a blacksmith," said Michael, shortly; "and I have been fifty years
ringing hammers on an anvil: that makes a man's arm lusty."
"Indeed," said the other, "a blacksmith--well, you may be a blacksmith,
and yet a good soldier.
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