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After traveling all night, the Barclays arrived at Tours at ten o'clock, on the morning of the day after that upon which they had left Belle Isle. At the station they said adieu to Monsieur Teclier; who went at once to Gambetta, with the dispatches; while the Barclays turned away to Colonel Tempe's lodgings and, to their great surprise as well as delight, found him in.
All the principal people of the place were assembled; and when Monsieur Teclier entered, followed by the young Barclays, the gentlemen clapped their hands and cheered, and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs. After breakfast, the Sous Prefect proposed an adjournment into the drawing room; and now the voyagers each became the center of a knot of questioners as to the voyage.
Those who remained behind were encouraged partly by this thought, but still more by the really irrational one that, as the boys had gone away and come back safe, once, they would probably do so again. The evening of the same day, the Barclays reported themselves for duty to the general and, next morning, began work. Their duty was hard, though simple.
Although the villagers might appear to understand no language but German, they might yet know enough French to glean what was said and, if traitorously inclined, to warn the Germans, and thus enormously increase the danger when the Barclays should again go down to the town.
When this was done he ordered the men to fall in placing the Barclays, and Tim in their midst and then went up to the major and saluted, saying coldly that the men were ready to march. The major nodded, signed to the orderly who was holding his horse to approach, vaulted into the saddle, and rode along the road back toward the main body of the army.
So the Barclays asked a score or so of the old people in for dinner New Year's Eve; and they kept below stairs until midnight. Then they filed into the ballroom, with its fair fresh faces, its shrill treble note of merriment, these old men and women, gray and faded, looking back on the old century while the others looked into the new one. There came Mr. and Mrs.
Sylvia, lying in the hot sand on the tiny crescent beach under the cliffs, listened gravely to Siward's figures, as, note-book in hand, he went over the real-estate problem, commenting thoughtfully as he discussed the houses offered. "Twenty by a hundred and two; good rear, north side of the street next door to the Tommy Barclays, you know, Sylvia; only they're asking forty-two-five."
The forty thousand people in Garrison County have believed for thirty years that finding the court-house yard in possession of the enemy, Bemis suggested going through the cave by the Barclays' home, which had its west opening in the wall of the basement of the court-house; and furthermore, tradition has said that Bemis led John and Bob through the cave, and with crowbars and hammers they made a man-sized hole in the wall, crawled through it, mounted the basement stairs, unlocked the commissioners' room, held their meeting in darkness, and five minutes before twelve o'clock astonished the invading forces by lighting a lamp in their room, signing the levy that Bemis, as county attorney, had prepared the Sunday before, and slipping with it into the basement, through the cave and back to the troop of horsemen as they were jogging across the bridge on their way back from Carnine's farm.
The German soldiers took from the houses what few articles they fancied, and then set fire to them; sitting down and eating their breakfast as the flames shot up. At a short distance from where the Barclays were sitting was a group of some eight or ten franc tireurs, and six or seven peasants, guarded by some soldiers. Near them the German major and two lieutenants were talking.
The winter was now fast approaching, and Somerville thought that in my weak state a warm climate was necessary; so we arranged with our friends, the Miss Barclays, to pass the Simplon together. We parted company at Milan, but we renewed our friendship in London.
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