it once or
twice and carried off a few more of its men for army service, and arms
were sent to it from its neighbouring town, and an old soldier of the
First Empire tried to instruct its remaining sons in their use. But he
had no apt pupil except Bernadou, who soon learned to handle a musket
with skill and with precision, and who carried his straight form
gallantly and well, though his words were seldom heard and his eyes were
always sad.

"You will not be called till the last, Bernadou," said the old soldier;
"you are married, and maintain your grandam and wife and child. But
a strong, muscular, well-built youth like you should not wait to be
called; you should volunteer to serve France."

"I will serve France when my time comes," said Bernadou, simply, in
answer. But he would not leave his fields barren, and his orchard
uncared for, and his wife to sicken and starve, and his grandmother
to perish alone in her ninety-third year. They jeered and flouted and
upbraided him, those patriots who screamed against the fallen Empire
in the wine-shop; but he looked them straight in the eyes, and held his
peace, and did his daily work.

"If he is called, he will not be found wanting," said Reine Allix, who
knew him better than did even the young wife whom he loved.

Bernadou clung to his home with a dogged devotion. He would not go from
it to fight unless compelled, but for it he would have fought like a
lion. His love for his country was only an indefinite, shadowy existence
that was not clear to him; he could not save a land that he had never
seen, a capital that was only to him as an empty name; nor could he
comprehend the danger that his nation ran, nor could he desire to go
forth and spend his life-blood in defence of things unknown to him. He
was only a peasant, and he could not read nor greatly understand. But
affection for his birthplace was a passion with him, mute indeed, but
deep-seated as an oak. For his birthplace he would have struggled as a
man can only struggle when supreme love as well as duty nerves his arm.
Neither he nor Reine Allix could see that a man's duty might lie from
home, but in that home both were alike ready to dare anything and
to suffer everything. It was a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had
nobleness, endurance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes
deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is punished as the blackest
crime.

So Bernadou tarried in his cottage till he sh