Chaouache turned upon his wife one look of silent despair. Wife and children threw themselves upon his neck, weeping and wailing. 'Thanase bore the sight a moment, maybe a full minute; then drew near, pressed the children with kind firmness aside, pushed between his father and mother, took her tenderly by the shoulders, and said in their antique dialect, with his own eyes brimming:-- "Hush! hush! he will not have to go." * * * * * At a gentle trot the short column of horsemen moves again, but with its head the other way. The wind and rain buffet and pelt horse and rider from behind. Chaouache's door is still open. He stands in it with his red-eyed wife beside him and the children around them, all gazing mutely, with drooping heads and many a slow tear, after the departing cavalcade. None of the horsemen look back. Why should they? To see a barefoot man beside a woman in dingy _volante_ and _casaquin_, with two or three lads of ten or twelve in front, whose feet have known sunburn and frost but never a shoe, and a damsel or two in cotton homespun dress made of one piece from collar to hem, and pantalettes of the same reaching to the ankles--all standing and looking the picture of witless incapacity, and making no plea against tyranny! Is that a thing worth while to turn and look back upon? If the blow fell upon ourselves or our set, that would be different; but these illiterate and lowly ones--they are--you don't know--so dull and insensible. Yes, it may be true that it is only _some_ of them who feel less acutely than _some_ of us--we admit that generously; but when you insinuate that when we overlook parental and fraternal anguish tearing at such hearts the dulness and insensibility are ours, you make those people extremely offensive to us, whereas you should not estrange them from our tolerance. Ah, poor unpitied mother! go back to your toils; they are lightened now--a little; the cooking, the washing, the scrubbing. Spread, day by day, the smoking board, and call your spared husband and your little ones to partake; but you--your tears shall be your meat day and night, while underneath your breath you moan, "'Thanase! 'Thanase!" CHAPTER V. THE CURE OF CARANCRO. It was an unexpected and capital exchange. They had gone for a conscript; they came away with a volunteer. Bonaventure sat by the fire in Sosthene's cottage, silent and heavy, holding his small knees in his knit hands and gazing into the flames. Zosephine was washing the household's few breakfast dishes. _La vieille_--the mother--was spinning cotton. _Le vieux_--Sosthene--sat sewing up a rent in a rawhide chair-bottom. He paused by and by, stretched, and went to the window. His wife caught the same spirit of relaxation, stopped her wheel, looked at the boy moping in the chimney-corner, and, passing over to his side, laid a hand upon his temple to see if he might have fever.