Presently we could see soldiers marching, the flash of bayonets, and groups of a dozen, as if pushed beyond their patience, turning and firing with rapid irregularity. All this in flashes of vision, mostly at the bridge-end, or at the intersection of two streets. Through the northern gate a kind of uncertain retreat began to dribble--the red breeches of the linesmen, the canter of the artillery horses attacking the hill, with stragglers here and there looking about for their regiments. Neither Deventer nor I knew enough to explain these things. "There are no Germans nearer than Toul or Besancon," he said, with a puzzled anxiety. The field guns answered him smartly. From all the houses about the northern gate a storm of rifle fire broke out. The soldiers on foot hastened their retreat. The artillerymen, better led or of firmer courage, faced about, and with one volley pitted the facades of the houses from which the attack had come. They withdrew regularly, covering the retreat of the infantry, and spat out their little devils' claws of shrapnel over every group which showed itself outside the wall. Slowly the soldiers passed out of sight. The artillery bucketed over the knolls of the Montagne of Aramon among the evergreen odoriferous plants and the faint traces of the last snow wreaths. There was nothing left for us to see now except the town of Aramon, its green and white houses sleeping in the sun, the tall chimney of the Small Arms Factory, now smokeless--and the broad Rhone sweeping grave and placid between them and us. Nevertheless we waited alone on the recreation ground, our heads a little dizzy. The swooning hum of the class-rooms awoke behind us, but we heeded not at all. We saw the tricolour of the Republic come down with a run from the tall flagstaff on Fort St. Andre, and presently, irregularly tugged, rising a few feet at a time, a red flag fluttered out, probably an improvised table-cover or bedspread. It flapped out bravely in the brisk breeze off the water. We had had our first glimpse of "The Tatter of Scarlet." CHAPTER II KITH AND KIN I don't think I troubled much about my father when I resolved to run away from the _Lycee_ St. Andre. He had, as I thought, never troubled much about me. Afterwards I found that I had been mistaken, but perhaps not more than most. For it is the rarest thing in the world to find a son entering upon life, able to do justice to his father's ideas and motives.