e that I have never known what fear was. No doubt
you have heard them say it. For many years, out of a foolish pride, I
have let the saying pass. And yet now, in my old age, I can afford to
be honest. The brave man dares to be frank. It is only the coward who is
afraid to make admissions. So I tell you now that I also am human; that
I also have felt my skin grow cold, and my hair rise; that I have even
known what it was to run away until my limbs could scarce support me. It
shocks you to hear it? Well, some day it may comfort you, when your own
courage has reached its limits, to know that even Etienne Gerard has
known what it was to be afraid. I will tell you now how this experience
befell me, and also how it brought me a wife.

For the moment France was at peace, and we, the Hussars of Conflans,
were in camp all that summer a few miles from the town of Les Andelys
in Normandy. It is not a very gay place by itself, but we of the Light
Cavalry make all places gay which we visit, and so we passed our time
very pleasantly. Many years and many scenes have dulled my remembrance,
but still the name Les Andelys brings back to me a huge ruined castle,
great orchards of apple trees, and above all, a vision of the lovely
maidens of Normandy. They were the very finest of their sex, as we may
be said to have been of ours, and so we were well met in that sweet
sunlit summer. Ah, the youth, the beauty, the valour, and then the dull,
dead years that blurr them all! There are times when the glorious
past weighs on my heart like lead. No, sir, no wine can wash away such
thoughts, for they are of the spirit and the soul. It is only the gross
body which responds to wine, but if you offer it for that, then I will
not refuse it.

Now of all the maidens who dwelt in those parts there was one who was
so superior in beauty and in charm that she seemed to be very specially
marked out for me. Her name was Marie Ravon, and her people, the Ravons,
were of yeoman stock who had farmed their own land in those parts since
the days when Duke William went to England. If I close my eyes now, I
see her as she then was, her cheeks, dusky like moss roses; her hazel
eyes, so gentle and yet so full of spirit; her hair of that deepest
black which goes most fitly with poetry and with passion; her finger as
supple as a young birch tree in the wind. Ah! how she swayed away from
me when first I laid my arm round it, for she was full of fire and
pride, ever evadin