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By Root 1748 0

moment, some two kilometres beyond the first houses in Montsou and just before the crossroads where the road to Vandame met the main highway, Mme Hennebeau and the two young ladies had been watching the mob file past. Their day out in Marchiennes had been a jolly one: they had had a pleasant lunch at the house of the manager of Les Forges, followed by an interesting tour of the workshops and a visit to a neighbouring glass factory, which had taken care of the afternoon; and then, as they were making their way home through the clear twilight of this bright winter’s day, Cécile had noticed a small farmstead at the side of the road and taken a fancy to a cup of milk. The women had all stepped down from the carriage, and Négrel had gallantly dismounted to accompany them. Meanwhile the farmer’s wife, flustered at being visited by gentry, rushed about and declared that she must put a cloth on the table before she could serve them. But Lucie and Jeanne wanted to see the cow being milked, and so they had all gone to the cowshed with their cups; it was almost like going on a picnic, and they laughed with delight as their feet sank into the straw.

Mme Hennebeau was rather warily sipping her milk with the air of an indulgent mother when she became alarmed by a strange roaring noise outside.

‘What’s that?’

The barn stood right at the edge of the road and had large double doors, for it also served for storing hay. Already the girls had poked their heads out and, on looking left, were astonished to see a screaming horde of people pouring out of the Vandame road like a black river.

‘Oh God!’ muttered Négrel, who had also gone out to look. ‘Don’t say our troublesome miners are turning nasty.’

‘It must be the folk from the mines,’ said the farmer’s wife. ‘They’ve been past twice already. It seems things aren’t too good at the minute, and they mean to show who’s boss.’

She spoke each word cautiously, watching for the reaction on their faces; and when she saw how alarmed everyone was and how deeply anxious the encounter had made them, she hastily concluded:

‘Ruffians, the lot of them. Ruffians.’

Négrel, seeing that it was too late to get back to the carriage and drive into Montsou, ordered the coachman to hurry and bring it into the farmyard, where they hid it still harnessed behind a shed. He took his own horse, which a young lad had been holding, and tethered it inside the shed. When he returned, he found his aunt and the young ladies quite distraught and ready to accept the suggestion from the farmer’s wife that they take refuge in her house. But Négrel thought that they would be safer where they were, since no one would ever think to come looking for them among the hay. The barn doors did not shut properly, however, and there were also such large gaps in its rotten wood that the road was perfectly visible.

‘Come now, we must have courage. We shall sell our lives dearly!’

This joke made everyone even more afraid. The noise was growing louder, but there was still nothing to be seen; and out on the empty road it was as though a great gust of wind was blowing, like the sudden squalls that precede great storms.

‘No, no, I don’t want to look,’ said Cécile, as she went to hide in the hay.

Mme Hennebeau, who now looked very pale, was angry that people should spoil her fun like this, and she stood well back, her gaze averted with an air of distaste; while Lucie and Jeanne, though they were trembling, each had one eye glued to a chink in the door, anxious not to miss the show.

The rumble of thunder drew nearer, the ground shook, and Jeanlin appeared first, racing along in front and busily blowing his horn.

‘Scent-bottles at the ready, ladies. The sweaty masses are nigh!’ whispered Négrel, who, despite his republican leanings, liked to mock the common man when he was in the company of the ladies.

But his jibe was lost amid the tempest of the shouting, gesticulating mob. The women had now come into view, almost a thousand of them, with their straggling hair that had come loose during all the rushing about, and with their ragged clothes