The very deference of his air was disconcerting, and so, assuming a look of easy cordiality, I said,
"First, I will ask you to give me something to eat; and, secondly, to give me your company for half an hour."
Jacques promised both, and learning that I preferred my breakfast in the open air, proceeded to arrange the table under a blossoming chestnut-tree.
"Are you quite alone here?" asked I, as he passed back and forward.
"Quite alone, sir; and except a stray fagot-cutter or a chance traveler who may have lost his way, I never see a human face from year's end to year's end. It's a lonely thing for an old soldier, too," said he, with a sigh.
"I know more than one who would envy you, Jacques," said I, and the words made him almost start as I spoke them. The coffee was now ready, and I proceeded to make my breakfast with all the appetite of a long fast.
There was indeed but little to inspire awe, or even deference in my personal appearance--a threadbare undress frock and a worn-out old foraging cap were all the marks of my soldier-like estate; and yet, from Jacques's manner, one might have guessed me to be a general at the least. He attended me with the stiff propriety of the parade, and when, at last, induced to take a seat, he did so full two yards off from the table, and arose almost every time he was spoken to. Now it was quite clear that the honest soldier did not know me either as the hero of Kehl, of Ireland, or of Genoa. Great achievements as they were, they were wonderfully little noised about the world, and a man might frequent mixed companies every day of the week, and never hear of one of them. So far, then, was certain it could not be my fame had imposed on him, and, as I have already hinted, it could scarcely be my general appearance. Who knows, thought I, but I owe all this obsequious deference to my horse. If Jacques be an old cavalry-man, he will have remarked that the beast is of great value, and doubtless argue to the worth of the rider from the merits of his "mount." If this explanation was not the most flattering, it was, at all events, the best I could hit on; and with a natural reference to what was passing in my own mind, I asked him if he had looked to my horse?