Aunt Lizzie slept beside Violet that night, with her arms tightly clasped around the little girl for whom the day was to break so bitterly. She found the soft breathing of the child, so peaceful in its restfulness, almost more difficult to listen to than the quick uneasy panting of the afternoon, for she knew well the anguish to which she must by-and-by awaken.
"So He giveth His beloved sleep," she murmured to herself as, in the summer dawn, she watched the little face so tranquilly turned towards her; and though occasionally there was a little fluttering sob, it was only a relic of yesterday's passionate weeping. Once when Violet smiled in her sleep and nestled more closely to her, Lizzie kissed her gently on the forehead. The child moved, smiled again, a broadening, happy smile, and said with a sigh of content, "On mother's breast."
Aunt Lizzie could not sleep. She watched the[Pg 106] bands of crimson rising slowly up behind the roofs opposite like streaks of blood. The cocks crew and screamed from yard, and garden, and barn. The fountain at the angle of the street dribbled and splashed monotonously. There was a child crying in an opposite house, bitterly, ceaselessly. The canary awoke, stretched its wings with the help of its thin yellow legs, took a drink at the green fountain, having eyed it first with suspicion, and then burst out into a loud joyous carol. Aunt Lizzie was afraid it would awake Violet; but she slept calmly on.
Then the sun itself rose up in all its splendour and shone gloriously over all. The red roofs blazed and glistened. The orange weather-cock on the chimney of Madame Bellard's house looked as if each separate painted feather on its wings were a tongue of fire, while the scarlet nasturtiums creeping up the red brick shaft trembled and glowed brilliantly.
Aunt Lizzie's mind, from the long night's watching, felt hot and confused. The rays of the sun which shone slantingly through the round old-fashioned panes of glass in the window threw stripes of prismatic colour on the floor and on the chest which held the dead mother's clothes and all the little relics of her homely happy life. If that bitter crying opposite would cease, Lizzie felt as if she could think [Pg 107]connectedly. If it were not for the fear of disturbing Violet, she would have got up ere now and closed the open pane in the window.
She tried to think of the little children at home at Gützberg, of their bright smiles, and hearts innocent of care, but it was impossible. A drum in the distant barrack had begun to throb, and her heart, leaping up to a sudden agony, throbbed with it.
How many other hearts, too, were stirring at that call! men buckling on their armour; and women, who had not slept all night, starting up to fresh paroxysms of grief and despair. It was vain to hope that all the brave fellows going forth this day from their homes would come back to them safe and unharmed. Yet each one cried in their heart, "O God, let this bitterness not come to me"—"Spare, good Lord, spare my husband"—"Lord Jesus, have pity on my son"—"Beloved, thou wilt return to me safe"—"Ah, dear one, forget me not;" while the little ones smiled their adieus, knowing not the dread future.
At six o'clock the whole town seemed astir. Men were talking in the streets; spurs were clanking on the pavement as soldiers hurried to and fro. Bugles were calling, and the incessant rolling of drums came now, not only from the distant barrack across the river, but it seemed as if the whole air and[Pg 108] the blue sky itself were full of this dread prophetic sound.
At seven o'clock, Lizzie, slipping her arm quietly from under Violet, got up and dressed herself. When she came to the window, the first thing she saw opposite was Ella. She was standing in her little night-dress at the small top window in the roof. Her fair hair was partly tied back with a little white night-cap, but stray locks hung out disconsolately. Her face was supported by her two dimpled hands, and her elbows rested on the sill. It needed but one glance at the child's face and eyes for Aunt Lizzie to know who it was who had spent the night in such ceaseless bitter weeping. Even now, though her attention seemed temporarily attracted by the bustle in the street, she saw the white frilled sleeve from time to time passed quickly across the child's face.
In a few minutes Fritz appeared at the other little window in the red roof opposite. He also was attired in his night-dress; but he had a drum hung round his neck by a piece of cord, on which, as he looked down into the street, he began to beat with a prodigious noise; and on his head was a newspaper cap, from which streamed ribbons of scarlet, yellow, and blue. When he was momentarily exhausted he flung open the window, and stretched out his head excitedly.
[Pg 109]
"War, war, war!" he shouted. "Fritz will go to the war. Fritz will beat the drum and kill the French, and bang and hack and slash with all his might, till every man is dead." A brass trumpet which generally hung on a nail in the garret window, and which was often used by Fritz as a signal to attract Violet's attention, was now taken down and blown vehemently into the air; and then the drum was rattled upon more vigorously than ever.
A few of those gathered beneath in the street looked up on hearing the noise, and recognizing Fritz, smiled somewhat sadly; but when Lizzie glanced across again at the little window of Ella's room, the child had vanished, and the drum having ceased clattering for a moment, she could hear that the crying in the room opposite had been resumed.
"How she does weep, poor little girl! and what a noise the boy makes," said Lizzie, closing over the casement. "He will certainly awaken our Violet." She tried to attract Fritz's attention, to make him desist, but finding it useless, she fastened the bolt and turned back into the room.
To her surprise, on looking round, she found Violet sitting up in her bed, her eyes wide open and her face very pa............