They didn't quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile, looking pretty vacant. Then old D'Arc said:
“Yes, your mother--that is true. I never saw such a woman. She worries, and worries, and worries; and wakes nights, and lies so, thinking--that is, worrying; worrying about you. And when the night storms go raging along, she moans and says, 'Ah, God pity her, she is out in this with her poor wet soldiers.' And when the lightning glares and the thunder crashes she wrings her hands and trembles, saying, 'It is like the awful cannon and the flash, and yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the spouting guns and I not there to protect her.”
“Ah, poor mother, it is pity, it is pity!”
“Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times. When there is news of a victory and all the village goes mad with pride and joy, she rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till she finds out the one only thing she cares to know--that you are safe; then down she goes on her knees in the dirt and praises God as long as there is any breath left in her body; and all on your account, for she never mentions the battle once. And always she says, 'Now it is over--now France is saved--now she will come home'--and always is disappointed and goes about mourning.”
“Don't, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I get home. I will do her work for her, and be her comfort, and she shall not suffer any more through me.”
There was some more talk of this sort, then Uncle Laxart said:
“You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and none may deny it; but what of the King? You are his best soldier; what if he command you to stay?”
That was a crusher--and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to recover from the shock of it; then she said, quite simply and resignedly:
“The King is my Lord; I am his servant.” She was silent and thoughtful a little while, then she brightened up and said, cheerily, “But let us drive such thoughts away--this is no time for them. Tell me about home.”
So the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything and everybody in the village; and it was good to hear. Joan out of her kindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of course. She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her name was the mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she was the comrade of princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above all Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by right of baring her commission direct from God. To put it in one word, she was JOAN OF ARC--and when that is said, all is said. To us she was divine. Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word implies. We could not be familiar with her. No, you can see yourselves that that would have been impossible.