"In good time. But why are they so slow in coming--tell me that? Are they going to march off in another direction?" "Don't be afraid: they need the road for their artillery and baggage. Hark! they are sounding 'to horse.'" "Yes, I have seen already that they are preparing." Then, chuckling to himself: "Thou dost not know, Jean-Claude, what a funny thing I saw, a few minutes ago, as I was looking toward Grandfontaine." "What was it, my old friend?" "I saw four Germans lay hold of big Dubreuil, the friend of the allies: they stretched him on the stone bench by his door, and one great lanky fellow gave him I know not how many cuts with a stick across his back. Ha, ha, ha, he must have yelled, the old rascal! I will wager that he refused something to his good friends,--his wine of the year XI. for instance." Hullin heard no more: for, casting his eyes accidentally down the valley, he caught sight of an infantry regiment coming up the road. Farther back in the street, cavalry were seen coming, five or six officers galloping in front of them. "Ah, ah! there they come!" cried the old soldier, whose face glowed suddenly with an expression of strange energy and enthusiasm. "At last they have made up their minds!" Then he rushed out of the trench, shouting: "Attention, my children!" Passing by, he saw Riffi, the little tailor of Charmes, bending over a long musket: the little man had been piling up the snow to give him a better position for aiming. Farther up, he saw the old wood-cutter Rochart, his great shoes trimmed with sheepskin: he had taken a gulp at his gourd, and was rising deliberately, having his carbine under his arm and his cotton cap over his ears. That was all: for in order to command the whole of the action, he had to climb almost to the summit of the Donon, where there is a rock. Lagarmitte followed, striding till his long legs looked like stilts. Ten minutes after, when they had reached the top of the rock, half-breathless, they perceived, fifteen hundred mètres below them, the enemy's column, three thousand strong, with white great-coats, leather belts, cloth gaiters, tall shakos, and red mustaches; and in the spaces formed by the companies, the young officers, with flat caps, waving their swords, and shouting in shrill voices: "Forward! forward!" These troops were bristling with bayonets, and advancing at the charge toward the breastworks. Old Materne, his beaked nose rising above a juniper branch and his brow erect, was also watching the arrival of the Germans; and as he was very clear-sighted, he could distinguish even faces among the crowd, and choose the man he wished to knock over.