young fellows went ahead of their company to the next halting place, or lagged behind it; it depended upon their fitness to bear the fatigues of a long march.  This particular wayfarer was some considerable way in advance of a company of conscripts on the way to Cherbourg, whom the mayor was expecting to arrive every hour, for it was his duty to distribute their billets.  The young man’s footsteps were still firm as he trudged along, and his bearing seemed to indicate that he was no stranger to the rough life of a soldier.  The moon shone on the pasture land about Carentan, but he had noticed great masses of white cloud that were about to scatter showers of snow over the country, and doubtless the fear of being overtaken by a storm had quickened his pace in spite of his weariness.

The wallet on his back was almost empty, and he carried a stick in his hand, cut from one of the high, thick box hedges that surround most of the farms in Lower Normandy.  As the solitary wayfarer came into Carentan, the gleaming moonlit outlines of its towers stood out for a moment with ghostly effect against the sky.  He met no one in the silent streets that rang with the echoes of his own footsteps, and was obliged to ask the way to the mayor’s house of a weaver who was working late.  The magistrate was not far to seek, and in a few minutes the conscript was sitting on a stone bench in the mayor’s porch waiting for his billet.  He was sent for, however, and confronted with that functionary, who scrutinized him closely.  The foot soldier was a good-looking young man, who appeared to be of gentle birth.  There was something aristocratic in his bearing, and signs in his face of intelligence developed by a good education.

“What is your name?” asked the mayor, eying him shrewdly.

“Julien Jussieu,” answered the conscript.

“From—?” queried the official, and an incredulous smile stole over his features.

“From Paris.”

“Your comrades must be a good way behind?” remarked the Norman in sarcastic tones.

“I am three leagues ahead of the battalion.”

“Some sentiment attracts you to Carentan, of course, citizen-conscript,” said the mayor astutely.  “All right, all right!” he added, with a wave of the hand, seeing that the young man was about to speak.  “We know where to send you.  There, off with you, Citizen Jussieu,” and he handed over the billet.

There was a tinge of irony in the stress the magistrate laid on the two last words while he held out a billet on Mme. de Dey.  The conscript read the direction curiously.

“He knows quite well that he has not far to go, and when he gets outside he will very soon cross the marketplace,” said the mayor to himself, as the other went out.  “He is uncommonly bold!  God guide him!...  He has an answer ready for everything.  Yes, but if somebody else had asked to see his papers it would have been all up with him!”