'he shall not escapk,' she ckieu. THE MEN OF THE MOUNTAIN BY S. R. CROCKETT Author of 'The White Plumes of Navarre,' 'The Lilac Sunbonnet,' 'The Seven Wise Men,' 'The Raiders,' etc. With Illustrations by Harold Copping LONDON THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard, E.G. 1909 'ifIS CONTENTS CHAPTER I. The Shadow on the Wall .. i CHAPTER II. The Military Chaplain lo CHAPTER III. La Petite Flore .. .. .. .. .. .. 22 CHAPTER IV. Council of Revision .. .. .. .. .. 29 CHAPTER V. Jonathan and his David.. .. .. .. ,. 27 CHAPTER \I. A Tooth for a Tooth .. .. .. .. .. 43 CHAPTER VII. Sister NoiLiE .. .. .. .. .. •• 5' CHAPTER VI J I. Not Peace, but a Swoku.. 5 + vii Contents CHAPTER IX. The Elder Brother who would not come in .. 63 CHAPTER X. An Enemy within the Gate 69 CHAPTER XI. The Defence of the East Wing 79 CHAPTER XII. The Shadow that Walketh in Darkness ,. .. 90 CHAPTER XIII. The Commandant 99 CHAPTER XIV. The Evening Sacrifice 112 CHAPTER XV. Breslin the Smith 121 CHAPTER XVI. The Wrath of Man 127 CHAPTER XVII. Cross-Examination 137 CHAPTER XVIII. The Man of the Mountain .. .. .. 145 CHAPTER XIX. The Pastor's Day iS5 viii Contents CHAPTER XX. Without God and Without Hope .. .. .. i66 CHAPTER XXI. The Red Revolt .. .. .. .. .. .. 174 CHAPTER XXII. Mother and Son 1S3 CHAPTER XXIII. " " Physician, Heal Thyself .. 193 CHAPTER XXIV. The Trail of the Wild Cat .. .. .. •• '99 CHAPTER XXV. The Search .. .. 213 CHAPTER XXVI. The Post- Off ice of Vercel-Adam 219 CHAPTER XXVII. The Adventures of a Traitor.. .. .. 227 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Midnight Confession .. .. .. .. 235 CHAPTER XXIX. The Little Schoolmistress Calls up her Reserves 243 CHAPTER XXX. The Fire of Purifying .. .. .. .. .. 254 ix /> Contents CHAPTER XXXI. "And God said, Let there be Light!" .. .. 264 CHAPTER XXXIL He shall Restore Fourfold .. .. ..271 CHAPTER XXXI IL A Sweet Drop in the Bittf.r 27S CHAPTER XXXIV. The Bitter Cup .. .. .. 2S4 CHAPTER XXXV. "Oh, You Man!" .. .. .. 292 CHAPTER XXXVI. " "Not Long A-poing .. .. .. .. .. 29, CHAPTER XXXVII. Black Leo's Waygoing .. .. 306 CHAPTER XXX\'III. "And there was Light!" .. .. , .. 312 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "he . shall not escape," she CRir.D . Frontispiece Facing pa^^e HIS HANDS WERE WIDE APART AND MADE THE SHAPE OF . A CROSS, FOR HIS TIME WAS SHORT . 6 HE DID IT SO REVERENTLY THAT HIS COMPANION TURNED UPON HIM WITH A TWINKLE . .12 " " AHA, WE HAVE SCENTED YOU OUT, OLD FOX ! . 20 "THIS IS THE IDEA OF THE GOVERNMENT!" . 32 "my mother's HOUSE—THE FARM OF VILI.ARS CHAU- MONT," HE EXPLAINED 40 HIS EYE GLINTING ALONG THE TUBE OF HIS REVOLVER 52 THE YOUNG MAN REMAINED FIXED DURING THE SERVICE (,i " "back THERE," HE SHOUTED, WE MUST FINISH OUR GERMAN IN SOME OTHER WAY .... 83 IN A LOW, THRILLING VOICE, HE BEGAN TO READ OUT THE PSALM 118 "l PRAYED FOR A MAN WHO FROU.^.HT HIS FATHER'S GREY HAIRS IN SORROW TO THE GRAVE" . -152 " LET ME TOUCH YOT^— A BLIND WOMAN'S HANDS ARE HER EYES" 162 "and you have to say—WHAT?" DEMANDED THE ADVOCATE-BUSHWHACKER 1 72 THERE WITHIN A DOZEN YARDS OF HIM WAS BLACK LEO 202 " BE BROTHERS ONE TO THE OTHER, BECAUSE I, NOfeLIE, AM YOUR SISTER " 226 HALED INCONTINENT ACROSS THF YARD BY THE ARM. 294 xi The Men of the Mountain CHAPTER I. THE SHADOW ON THE WALL n^HE white wall of a cottage house, with the low 1 sun of one of January's latest mornings red upon it ! In the midst, where the long, lime-washed wall of the garden began, the rosy glare was suddenly cut into by the silhouette of a man. He was dressed in frayed black frock-coat and trousers. His hands were behind his his — back,— and stringy clerical tie washed to a ribbon hung dolorously down upon his open vest. But the man was not afraid, although that might well have been excused him, seeing that he was looking into the muzzles of a firing-party of the Von Hartmann's famous Pomeranians. To be exact, this was the Pastor David Alix of the Evangelical Church of Geneva, long-time domiciled in France, and now in deadly peril of his life at the hands of the German invader. Yet he did not look like a "bush-whacker." He was unarmed. Nevertheless he had been caught along with a comrade who carried a rifle, but no uniform. The companion was that heap of tumbled rags on the rubbish-heap at the stable end. It was I B The Men of the Mountain the early morning on a day of Januaiy of the French — Hills all Year Terrible that is, 1871. The Jura were white with snow as far as one could see, and beneath this hamlet of Mouthe the young Doubs gurgled and chafed under its ice mantle. David Alix was to die. The General had said so. There had been too much shooting of his men from behind stone heaps gathered off the Jurassic fields, s'idden spurts of fire out of the clumps of willow along the Doubs, and along the small tributary burns which ray out from it like the backbones of a fish, v.impling and chuckling to themselves till the sound is lost among the green rounded breasts of the mountains. These now are all delicate and soft as David Alix, who knows them so well, looks his last upon them. Or rather, to his eyes they are tinted with red. A kind of rosy bloom lies on their sides level and slopes where the morning sun is glinting along them. Yet the shadows they throw one upon the other are blue. The shadow of the little \\'hite- washed house is a deeper blue, though not so deep as that of the uniform of the firing-party of Trossel's Colberg regiment of Grenadiers. Tall, angry men they are, for it is their sentries who have been " " Hart- sniped and their details cut up. Old Von mann, Major-General of the Third, has come down on purpose himself to see into things. And twenty minutes ago he had fallen into such an anger at the his —the slim sight of the franc-tirmr and companion man clad in black —that he himself had ordered the immediate shooting of the man with the rifle out of hand, and even presided at the drumhead court- 2 The Shadow on the Wall martial upon David Alix. As Von Hartmann spoke no French in any intelligible fashion, and understood still less of that language when spoken, the trial of David Alix was very summary indeed. There were indeed among the officers several who could have enlightened Von Hartmann upon many things, had not the chief been in such a grunting, bull-dog fury that it was not safe for even his own adjutant to cross him. So David Alix was to die—at the age of thirty. All of them had been spent in doing God service, ever since his mother had taught him his texts in the Genevan version, seated down on the logs by the lakeside—logs all peeled and scratched by being hurled into the rock-spotted foam of the Drance. What had these tall Pomeranians against him } He did not understand. They had turned his pockets out—the deep tail-coat pockets of a travelling pastor. But there was nothing there except a slim, limp, morocco-bound Bible of Segond's version, which he had saved up to buy when, a poor student at the New College of Edinburgh, he could ill afford the price. There was also much bread, in little, hard, round loaves, which his mother had made—a whole provision of them indeed —and, what they looked at longest and most severely, a paper with a list of names neatly written out in the Pastor's own hand. In all this to David Alix there seemed nothinGr worthy of death. Nor with a more proven brigade would there have been — say one of Unser Fritz's " " blooded regim^ents, which had fought right through " '" from Worth to the crowning mercy of Paris. But 3 B 2 The Men of the Mountain these were fresh from the Baltic edges. They had marched long distances. They had participated in none of the great victories, gained no medals, been mentioned in no despatches, and yet ever since they entered the hills their flanks had been scourged with dropping fire. It was certainly trying—a long-range bullet spatting into the column, and lo ! a lad whose mother was waiting for a letter from him, fell forward with a suddenly whitened face among the trampled snow. These things had told against David Alix. Further- more, the little hard loaves with which his pockets were stuffed had, in the opinion of the Trossel's Grenadiers, been destined to feed and sustain the " " bush-whackers who, at eve and morn, slew their "-^ comrades! David Alix, Pasteur"—a likely story! Had he not the roll of a whole company of murderers, or their abettors, in his pocket } And it is certain that neither his position as an ex-citizen of Geneva, nor the Bible bought in St. Andrew's Square, would have saved him had he not fallen on his knees, and with his hands clasped prayed for the ignorant men who, without reason, him out of life because were sending ; and, they knew not what they did, breaking his old mother's heart away down yonder by Le Lochle. David Alix had no fear of death for its own sake. He commended his mother to God and his soul to the Saviour.