I replied with some fervour (my boots were full of water and my cap dribbling pints of iced-water down the back of my neck) that I was not playing the wandering Jew round one-horse Picard villages in late December for the amusement I got out of it and that I could be relied on to return to England at the earliest opportunity, but for the present moment would she let us in out of the downpour, please?  The voice soared to a scream.  No, she would not, not she.  If we chose to come soldiering we must take the consequences, she had no sympathy for us.  She called several leading saints to witness that her barn was full to bursting anyhow and there was no room.  That was that.  She slammed the window-shutter and retired, presumably to bed.  The Corporal, who had been scouting round about, returned to report room for all hands in the barn, which was quite empty.  Without further ado I pushed all hands into the barn and left them for the night.

Next morning, while walking in the village street, I beheld a remarkable trio approaching.  It consisted of a venerable cleric—­his skirts held high enough out of the mud to reveal the fact that he favoured flannel underclothing and British army socks—­and a massive rustic dressed principally in hair, straw-ends and corduroys.  The third member was a thick short bulldog of a woman, who, from the masterly way in which she kept corduroys from slipping into the village smithy and saved the cleric from drifting to a sailor’s grave in the duck-pond, seemed to be the controlling spirit of the party.  By a deft movement to a flank she thwarted her reluctant companions in an attempt to escape up a by-way, and with a nudge here and a tug there brought them to a standstill in front of me and opened the introductions.

“M. le Cure,” indicating the cleric, who dropped his skirts and raised his beaver.

“M. le Maire,” indicating corduroys, who clutched a handful of straw out of his beard and groaned loudly.

“Moi, je suis Madame, Veuve Palliard-Dubose,” indicating herself.

I bowed, quailing inwardly, for I recognized the voice.  She gave corduroys a jab in the short ribs with her elbow. “Eh bien, now speak.”

Corduroys rolled his eyes like a driven bullock, sneezed a shower of straw and groaned again.

“Imbecile!” spat Madame disgustedly and prodded the Cure.  But the Cure was engaged in religious exercises, beads flying through his fingers, lips moving, eyes tight closed.  Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently as if to say, “Men—­what worms!  I ask you,” and turned on me herself.  She led off by making some unflattering guesses as to my past career, commented forcibly on my present mode of life, ventured a few cheerful prophecies as to my hereafter and polished off a brisk ten minutes heart-to-heart talk by snapping her fingers under my nose and threatening me with the guillotine if I did not instantly remove my man-eating horses from her barn.