comes to
a full stop, for two of the chickens are thoughtful and immobile,
careless of the parental clucking.

"A bad sign," says Paradis; "the hen that reflects is ill." And Paradis
uncrosses and recrosses his legs. Beside him on the bench, Blaire
extends his own, lets loose a great yawn that he maintains in placid
duration, and sets himself again to observe, for of all of us he most
delights in watching fowls during the brief life when they are in such
a hurry to eat.

And we watch them in unison, not forgetting the shabby old cock, worn
threadbare. Where his feathers have fallen appears the naked
india-rubber leg, lurid as a grilled cutlet. He approaches the white
sitter, which first turns her head away in tart denial, with several
"No's" in a muffled rattle, and then watches him with the little blue
enamel dials of her eyes.

"We're all right," says Barque.

"Watch the little ducks," says Blaire, "going along the communication
trench."

We watch a single file of all-golden ducklings go past--still almost
eggs on feet--their big heads pulling their little lame bodies along by
the string of their necks, and that quickly. From his corner, the big
dog follows them also with his deeply dark eye, on which the slanting
sun has shaped a fine tawny ring.

Beyond this rustic yard and over the scalloping of the low wall, the
orchard reveals itself, where a green carpet, moist and thick, covers
the rich soil and is topped by a screen of foliage with a garniture of
blossom, some white as statuary, others pied and glossy as knots in
neckties. Beyond again is the meadow, where the shadowed poplars throw
shafts of dark or golden green. Still farther again is a square patch
of upstanding hops, followed by a patch of cabbages, sitting on the
ground and dressed in line. In the sunshine of air and of earth we hear
the bees, as they work and make music (in deference to the poets), and
the cricket which, in defiance of the fable, sings with no humility and
fills Space by himself.

Over yonder, there falls eddying from a poplar's peak a magpie--half
white, half black, like a shred of partly-burned paper.

The soldiers outstretch themselves luxuriously on the stone bench,
their eyes half closed, and bask in the sunshine that warms the basin
of the big yard till it is like a bath.

"That's seventeen days we've been here! After thinking we were going
away day after day!"

"One never knows," said Paradis, wagging his head and s