His mother came forward with a calm countenance to buckle his knapsack on his shoulders. She did it with knitted eyebrows and pressed lips, without one sigh escaping her; but two great tears slowly ran down the wrinkles of her cheeks. And when she had done it, she turned away, and with her sleeve over her eyes, said: "It is well! Go--go, my child! thy mother blesses thee. Whatever thy fortune thou wilt yet not be lost to us. Look, Gaspard: there is thy place--there between Louise and myself--thou wilt always be there. This poor child is not old enough yet to know that to live is to suffer." Everybody left; only Louise remained lamenting in the room. A few seconds later, as the butt end of the musket sounded on the slabs of the kitchen, and the outer door was opened, she gave a piercing shriek, and darted after him. "Gaspard, Gaspard, look! I will be courageous; I will not cry; I will not keep thee back. Oh, no; but do not leave me in anger. Have pity on me!" "Angry! angry with thee, my Louise! Oh, no! But to see thee so unhappy breaks my heart. Ah! if thou wert a little braver now, I should feel happier." "Well, I am. Let us kiss each other! See, I am no longer the same. I would be like Maman Lefèvre." They calmly gave each other a parting embrace, Hullin held the gun; Catherine motioned with her hands, as though to say, "Go, go! it is enough!" And he, suddenly seizing his musket, walked away resolutely, without looking back. On the other side, the men of the Sarre, with their axes and hatchets, were climbing the steep ascent of the Valtin. Five minutes later, on passing by the great oak, Gaspard turned round, lifting his hands. Catherine and Louise replied to it. Hullin advanced to meet his people. Doctor Lorquin alone remained with the women; and when Gaspard, continuing his way, had disappeared, he exclaimed, "Catherine Lefèvre, you can pride yourself on having an affectionate son. God grant him good fortune!" And the distant voices of the new-comers could be heard laughing among themselves, as they were marching to war as gayly as to a wedding. CHAPTER X ROBIN'S VISION As Hullin, at the head of the mountaineers, was taking his measures for the defence of his country, the madman Yégof, with his tin crown, that sad spectacle of humanity shorn of its noblest attribute, intelligence--the madman Yégof, his breast exposed to the fierce wind, his feet bare, reckless of cold, like the reptile in his prison, was wandering from mountain to mountain, in the midst of the snows of winter. How comes it that the madman is able to resist the sharpest severity of the atmosphere, while an intelligent being would succumb to it? Does it arise from a more powerful concentration of life, a more rapid circulation of the blood, a state of continued fever? Or is it the effect of the extraordinary excitement of the senses, or any other unknown cause?