Chapter 13

THE MIDDLE AGES

The little party moved away without attracting notice. In a time of such prodigious movement the going or coming of a few individuals was a matter of no concern. The hood that Julie Lannes had drawn over her hair and face, and her plain brown dress might have been those of a nun. She too passed before unseeing eyes.

Lieutenant Legaré was a neutral person, arousing no interest in John who walked by the side of the gigantic Picard, the stalwart Suzanne being in one of the carts beside Julie. The faint throbbing of the guns, now a distinct part of nature, came to them from a line many miles away, but John took no notice of it. He had returned to the world among pleasant people, and this was one of the finest mornings in early autumn that he had ever seen.

The country was much more heavily forested than usual. At points, the woods turned into what John would almost have called a real forest. Then they could not see very far ahead or to either side, but the road was good and the carts moved forward, though not at a pace too great for the walkers.

Picard carried a rifle over his shoulders, and John had secured an automatic. All the soldiers were well armed. John felt a singular lightness of heart, and, despite the forbidding glare of Suzanne, who was in the last cart, he spoke to Julie.

"It's too fine a morning for battle," he said in English. "Let's pretend that we're a company of troubadours, minnesingers, jongleurs, acrobats and what not, going from one great castle to another."

"I suppose Antoine there is the chief acrobat?"

"He might do a flip-flap, but if he did the earth would shake."

"Then you are the chief troubadour. Where is your harp or viol, Sir Knight of the Tuneful Road?"

"I'm merely imagining character, not action. I haven't a harp or a viol, and if I had them I couldn't play on either."

"Do you think it right to talk In English to the strange young American, Mademoiselle? Would Madame your mother approve?" said Suzanne in a fierce whisper.

"It is sometimes necessary in war, Suzanne, to talk where one would not do so in peace," replied Julie gravely, and then she said to John again in English:

"We cannot carry out the pretense, Mr. Scott. The tuneful or merry folk of the Middle Ages did not travel with arms. They had no enemies, and they were welcome everywhere. Nor did they travel as we do to the accompaniment of war. The sound of the guns grows louder."

"So it does," said John, bending an ear--he had forgotten that a battle was raging somewhere, "but we're behind the French lines and it cannot touch us."

"It was a wonderful victory. Our soldiers are the bravest in the world are they not, Mr. Scott?"

John smiled. They were still