At sight of us they scrambled to their feet and fled
through one of the doors, one shrieking, the other screaming:
"Mamma! Mamma! Strange men! Strange men!"
In her panic she did not attempt to shut the door behind her and bolt it,
both of which, as I afterwards discovered, she might have done.
No other voices came to our ears and I followed the children into the rear
room in which they had taken refuge. It was totally dark, except for what
light found its way through its door, and was cramped and small and half
filled by a Gallic bed. I had never seen a Gallic bed before. Such a bed
is made like the body of a travelling-carriage or travelling litter,
entirely encased in panelling, topped off with a sort of flat roof of
panelling, and with sliding panels above the level of the cording, so that
the occupants can shut themselves in completely; a structure which looks
to a novice like a device for smothering its occupants, but which is a
welcome retreat and shelter on cold, windy, winter nights, as I have
learned by later experience. As this was my first sight of one I was
amazed at it.
Usually, as I learned later, such a bedstead is piled up with feather-
beds, so that the occupant is much above the level of the top edge of the
lower front on which the panels slide.
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