noon
And spoke no more on earth . But the little mistress of the bells did not know his soul had passed . And the French officer who came leaping up the stairs , pistol lifted , halted in astonishment to see a dead man lying beside a sack of bombs and a young girl on her knees beside him , weeping and tremblingly intoning `` La Brabançonne . '' A week later , toward noon , as usual , the two American , muleteers , Smith and Glenn , sauntered over from their corral to the White Doe Tavern where , it being a meatless day , they ate largely of potato soup and of a tench , smoking hot . The tench had been caught that morning off the back doorstep , which was an ancient and mossy slab of limestone let into the coping of the river wall . Jean Courtray , the crippled inn-keeper , caught it . All that morning he had sat there in the sun on the river wall , half dozing , opening his dim eyes at intervals to gaze at his painted quill afloat among the water weeds of the little river Lesse .