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“Monsieur served in the Crimea?”

“This is the proof of it,” he said, a little grimly, touching the scar on his forehead.

“And this,” his wife added, touching the bit of red ribbon in his button-hole. “He was the bravest man in all that war, Monsieur, this old husband of mine. His cross was given him by–“

“Tchut, little one! What does Monsieur care how I got my cross? It was not much that I did. Any man would have done the same.”

“But the others did not do the same. They ran away and left thee to do it alone. Did not his Majesty tell thee–“

“Ah, Monsieur hears what a babillarde it is. If she were given her own way she would swear that I commanded the allied armies, and that I blew up the Redan and stormed the Malakoff and captured Sebastopol all alone!”

“Tell Monsieur what thou didst do,” said the little woman, warmly. “Tell him truly precisely what thou didst do, and then let him judge for himself if what I have said be one bit less than thy due.”

“And so bring Monsieur to know that I am a babbling old woman like thyself?” He pinched her gently, and then settled himself back against the cushion as though with the intention of giving himself wholly to the enjoyment of his pipe: yet was there a look in his eyes that showed how strong was the desire within him–the desire that is natural to every brave and simple-minded old soldier–to tell the story of his honorable scars. Even had I felt no desire to hear this story, not to have pressed him to tell it would have been cruel. But little pressing was required.

“Since Monsieur is good enough to desire to hear what little there is to tell,” he said, “and to show him how foolish is this old woman of mine, I will tell him the whole affair. It is a stupid nothing; but Monsieur may be amused by the trick that was put upon me by those great generals–yes, that certainly was droll.

“Our regiment, Monsieur, was the Twenty-seventh of the Line. It was drawn almost wholly from the towns and villages in these parts: Aries and Tarascon and Saint-Remy and Salon and Maillane and Chateau Renard–there is the old chateau, over on the hill yonder, beside the Durance–and Barbentane, that we shall see presently around the corner of the hill. We all were Provencaux together, and the men of the other regiments of our division gave us the name of the Provence cats; though why they gave us that foolish name I am sure they never knew any more than we did ourselves. It was not because we were cowards, that I will swear: our regiment did some very pretty fighting in its time, as any one may know by reading the gazettes which were published in those days.

“Our division held Mont Sapoune–the French right, you know–facing the Little Redan across the Carenage Ravine. It was early in the siege, and we had only drawn our first parallel: close against the Selinghinsk and Vallyrie redoubts, and partly covering the ground where we dug our rifle-pits later on. But we were going ahead with our work fast, and already we had thrown up the little redoubts known as No. 11 and No. 15, which covered the advancing earthwork leading to where our second parallel was to begin. Redoubt No. 11 was a good hundred yards, and Redoubt No. 15 was more than three times that distance outside of our lines; and everybody knew that these two advanced posts would be in great danger until our second parallel was well under way. So very possible was it that they might be surprised, and the guns turned on our own lines in support of a general attack, that in each of them spikes and hammers were kept in readiness against the need for spiking the guns before they fell into the enemy’s hands. Our regiment lay just behind these redoubts, in the rear of the artillerymen who manned our trenches; and as the gunners had plenty to do all day long, and through the night too sometimes, the work of keeping up the night pickets fell to our share.