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Updated: May 6, 2025
Margot worked for a hard master, living indeed as one of the family, but sharply driven all day long at all manner of housework and field work. Reine Allix had kept her glance on her, through some instinctive sense of the way that Bernadou's thoughts were turning, and she had seen much to praise, nothing to chide, in the young girl's modest, industrious, cheerful, uncomplaining life.
The little wooden shutter of the house was closed. Some winter roses bloomed in a pot beneath the little crucifix. Bernadou's flute lay on a shelf; he had not had heart enough to play it since the news of the war had come. Suddenly a great sobbing cry rose without the cry of many voices, all raised in woe together. Bernadou rose, took his musket in his hand, undid his door, and looked out.
He was always a child to her, this last-born of the numerous brood that had once dwelt with her under the spreading branches of the sycamores, and had now all perished off the face of the earth, leaving himself and her alone. Bernadou's eyes met hers frankly. "It is Margot Dal. Does that please you, gran'mere, or no?" "It pleases me well," she said, simply.
Do what you will with your own life, Bernadou, it is yours, but leave them to do as they will with theirs. You cannot make sheep into lions, and let not the first blood shed here be a brother's." Bernadou's head dropped on his breast. "Do as you will," he muttered to his neighbours.
They called him a madman; they denounced him as one who would be their murderer; they threw themselves on him and demanded his musket, to bury it with the rest under the altar in the old chapel on the hill. Bernadou's eyes flashed fire; his breast heaved; his nerves quivered; he shook them off and strode a step forward.
The two there were straining to behold him, but the soldiers pushed them back, so that in the flare of the torches they could not see, nor in the tumult hear. He thanked God for it. "Your choice?" asked the uhlan, impatiently, after a moment's pause. Bernadou's lips were white, but they did not tremble as he answered, "I am no traitor."
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