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She struck the road to the village of Reichshofen, and followed it upward through the forest. There were few abroad upon it, and such as she met were peasants going to Mass. An old woman, red-cheeked and hale, gave her good-day, and added that her son was at Chalons. A group of harvesters played dominoes upon a knoll of grass at the roadside, but stood up awkwardly when she passed. A farmer, driving a weedy brown horse, drew rein as he approached, and asked if there were any soldiers between him and the village. To such as these news of war was little more than news of that distant Paris which interested them so little. The Emperor was going to Berlin! What mattered it to men who were watching the ripening grape or husbanding the maize and the tobacco?
It was dark in many of the thickets, and she rode impetuously, now galloping, now letting the pony go as he would. At the cross-roads, a little way from Reichshofen, she heard a clatter of hoofs behind her and turned her head to see a little old man on a great grey horse, whose outspread cloak and upturned elbows gave him the appearance of a flying mill. She recognised him as the kinsman of the Count of Durckheim, whose chateau lay beyond Froeschweiler, and she saw that he wished to speak to her. There was no greater gossip in the mountains. He would have the last news from Strasburg, she was sure.