They all seated themselves at the same table, facing the window which commanded a view of the road; wine was brought them, and each one began to relate all that he knew. One said that the Allies were so numerous that they were obliged at night time to lie down to rest side by side in the valley of Hirschenthal, and so full of vermin, that after their departure the dead leaves walked about all alone in the woods. Another, that the Cossacks had set fire to a village in Alsace, because they had been refused candles for dessert after their dinner; that certain of them, especially the Calmucks, ate soap like cheese, and bacon-rind like cake; that a great number drank brandy by the pint, after having taken care to put handfuls of pepper in it; that you must hide everything from them, for they found everything that came in their way good to eat and drink. On this, the waggoner related how that, three days since, a division of the Russian army having passed in the night under the cannon of Bitsch, it had been obliged to station itself for more than an hour on the ice in the little village of Rorbach; and that this whole division had drunk out of a warming-pan which had been left out by mistake on the window-sill of an old woman of eighty; that this race of savages broke the ice to bathe, and then went into brick ovens to dry themselves; in short, that they were afraid of nothing but corporal _schlague_! These good people related such singular things to each other--things which they declared they had seen with their own eyes, or heard from the best authority--that it was scarcely possible to believe them. Out of doors, the uproar, the rumbling of carts, the bellowing of the cattle, the shouts of the drovers, and clamour of the fugitives in general, continued as loud as ever, and produced the effect of an immense and universal boom. Towards noon, Materne and his sons were just going to set off, when a shout, greater and more prolonged than the others, was heard: "The Cossacks! the Cossacks!" Then every one rushed out except our mountaineers, who contented themselves with opening a window and looking out. Everybody fled across the fields; men, 'ocks, vehicles, all dispersed like leaves before the winds of autumn. In less than two minutes the road was clear, except in Schirmeck, where such uproar and confusion reigned that you could not take four steps for the crowd. Materne, looking far down the road, exclaimed, "It's no good my looking, for I can see nothing." "Nor I, either," replied Kasper. "Ah! I see, I see!" pursued the old huntsman, "that the terror of all these people gives the enemy greater power than they really possess. It is not thus that we will receive the Cossacks in the mountain, as they shall find to their cost!" Then shrugging his shoulders with an expression of contempt: "Fear is a villanous thing," said he; "for, after all, we have but a poor life to lose. Come, let us be going."