Of this priest it might truly be said, as was said of
the priest of Thiers in the Forez, that chance had made him a choir-boy,
but destiny had designed him for the profession of arms; and upon this
one could build an interesting comedy of how chance and destiny are
perpetually at issue, and how chance, having more initiative and not
being so bound to routine, gets the better of destiny upon all occasions
whatsoever.
Well, the priest showed me in this manner whither I should walk, and so I
came out of the valley on to a great upland, and there a small boy (who
was bullying a few geese near a pond) showed much the same excitement as
the priest when he told me at what village I should find the guns.
That village was a few miles further on. As I went along the straight,
bare road, with stubble upon either side, I thought the sound of firing
got louder; but then, again, it would diminish, as the batteries took a
further and a further position in their advance. It was great fun, this
sham action, with its crescent of advancing fire and one's self in the
centre of the curve. At the next village I had come across the arteries
of the movement. By one road provisionment was going off to the right;
by another two men with messages, one a Hussar on horseback, the other a
Reservist upon a bicycle, went by me very quickly.
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