Things looked gloomy enough, but the greater number thought only of defending their homes, and Jean-Claude was everywhere well received.
The same day, at about five in the evening, he reached the top of Hengst, and stopped at the dwelling of the hunter-patriarch, old Materne. There he passed the night; for in winter the days are short and the roads difficult. Materne promised to keep watch over the defile of Zorn, with his two sons, Kasper and Frantz, and to respond to the first signal that should be made from Falkenstein.
Early the next day, Jean-Claude arrived at Dagsbourg to see his friend Labarbe the wood-cutter. They went together to the hamlets around, to light in all hearts the love of country. Labarbe accompanied Hullin to the cottage of the Anabaptist Nickel, a grave and respectable man, but they could not draw him into their glorious enterprise. He had but one reply to all their arguments. "It is well," he said; "it is doubtless right; but the Scriptures say that he who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword." He promised, however, to pray for the good cause, and that was all they could obtain of him.
They went thence to Walsch, where they found Daniel Hirsch, an ancient gunner in the navy, who promised to bring with him all the men of his commune.
Here Labarbe left Jean-Claude to pursue his route alone.
For a week more our brave friend wandered over the mountains, from Soldatenthal to Leonsberg, from Meienthal to Voyer, Cirey, Petit-Mont, Saint-Sauveur, and the ninth day he found himself at the shoemaker Jerome's, at Saint-Quirin. They visited together the defile of Blanru, after which Hullin, entirely satisfied with the results of his journey, turned once more toward his village.
Since two o'clock in the afternoon he had been pressing on at a brisk pace, thinking of the life of the camp, the bivouac, the crash of battle, marches and countermarches--all those details of a soldier's life which he regretted so often and which he now looked forward to with ardor. The twilight shadows had begun to fall when he discovered the village of Charmes, afar off, with its little cottages, from which curled wreaths of light-blue smoke, scarcely perceptible against the snow-covered mountain-side, its little gardens with their fences, its slate-covered roofs, and to the left the great farm-house of Bois-de-Chênes, and below, in the already dark ravine, the saw-mill of Valtin.