At this particular moment the scene was brightened by the fleeting glow with which Nature delights at times in heightening the beauty of her imperishable creations.While the detachment was crossing the valley, the rising sun had slowly scattered the fleecy mists which float above the meadows of a September morning.As the soldiers turned to look back, an invisible hand seemed to lift from the landscape the last of these veils--a delicate vapor, like a diaphanous gauze through which the glow of precious jewels excites our curiosity.Not a cloud could be seen on the wide horizon to mark by its silvery whiteness that the vast blue arch was the firmament; it seemed, on the contrary, a dais of silk, held up by the summits of the mountains and placed in the atmosphere, to protect that beautiful assemblage of fields and meadows and groves and brooks.
The group of young officers paused to examine a scene so filled with natural beauties.The eyes of some roved among the copses, which the sterner tints of autumn were already enriching with their russet tones, contrasting the more with the emerald-green of the meadows in which they grew; others took note of a different contrast, made by the ruddy fields, where the buckwheat had been cut and tied in sheaves (like stands of arms around a bivouac), adjoining other fields of rich ploughed land, from which the rye was already harvested.Here and there were dark slate roofs above which puffs of white smoke were rising.The glittering silver threads of the winding brooks caught the eye, here and there, by one of those optic lures which render the soul --one knows not how or why--perplexed and dreamy.The fragrant freshness of the autumn breeze, the stronger odors of the forest, rose like a waft of incense to the admirers of this beautiful region, who noticed with delight its rare wild-flowers, its vigorous vegetation, and its verdure, worthy of England, the very word being common to the two languages.A few cattle gave life to the scene, already so dramatic.The birds sang, filling the valley with a sweet, vague melody that quivered in the air.If a quiet imagination will picture to itself these rich fluctuations of light and shade, the vaporous outline of the mountains, the mysterious perspectives which were seen where the trees gave an opening, or the streamlets ran, or some coquettish little glade fled away in the distance; if memory will color, as it were, this sketch, as fleeting as the moment when it was taken, the persons for whom such pictures are not without charm will have an imperfect image of the magic scene which delighted the still impressionable souls of the young officers.
Thinking that the poor recruits must be leaving, with regret, their own country and their beloved customs, to die, perhaps, in foreign lands, they involuntarily excused a tardiness their feelings comprehended.Then, with the generosity natural to soldiers, they disguised their indulgence under an apparent desire to examine into the military position of the land.But Hulot, whom we shall henceforth call the commandant, to avoid giving him the inharmonious title of "chief of a half-brigade" was one of those soldiers who, in critical moments, cannot be caught by the charms of a landscape, were they even those of a terrestrial paradise.He shook his head with an impatient gesture and contracted the thick, black eyebrows which gave so stern an expression to his face.
"Why the devil don't they come up?" he said, for the second time, in a hoarse voice, roughened by the toils of war.
"You ask why?" replied a voice.