He woke up to find himself lying on the trampled, muddy bank, amid a strong smell of bruised peppermint. M. de Brencourt himself was bathing his head, and told him that he had had a nasty knock, but that, luckily, the blade had turned. Two of their men had been less fortunate.
But the ford! Lucien dreamed of it that night; yet what he still saw with most particularity was none of the slain cavalrymen, but one dead rawboned chestnut horse, which lay pathetically with outstretched neck in the stream which was not deep enough to float it, the cut traces bobbing on the current.
And now the youth, relieved of his command, since the Comte was at the farmhouse, sat in the nursery and longed for its other occupants. M. de Brencourt had been unwontedly genial to him, and really solicitous about his hurt, but his manner was sometimes very strange, he was restless to an extraordinary degree, and looked as if he had not slept for nights. And though rumours were beginning to come in of the complete success of the expedition, rumours indeed that it had beaten off the enemy and was on its way back with what it had gone to fetch, M. de Kersaint’s chief of staff seemed in no way uplifted by them. Lucien could not make him out.
He was in fact thinking about him now when the door of the nursery opened a little way and a small barefooted boy looked timidly in.
“Hallo!” said the young man. “What do you want, mon gars? Come in!”
“Yes, go in, child, and tell us what you want,” commanded de Brencourt, appearing at that moment behind him. “Why, you are from the Ferme des Vieilles, are you not—Le Blé-aux-Champs’ brother?”
The boy, half frightened, half alert, looked up with dark eyes at the gentleman who had him by the shoulder. “Yes, Monsieur le Comte.”
“You came to see if he was back, I suppose?”
“No, Monsieur le Comte. I came on a message,” said the boy, rubbing one bare and dirty foot against the ankle of the other. “I knew they were not back. But soon they will be. There is dust hanging over the road from the sea.”
“Ah, a good scout already,” observed M. de Brencourt, releasing him. “How is that head, du Boisfossé?”
“Better, thank you, sir,” responded Lucien politely. “How soon do you think they will be here?”