Fouan, seeing her on her threshold, had drawn near out of respect. She was ten years older than he, and he regarded her sternness, her avarice, her obstinate resolution to possess and to live, with an admiring deference, shared by the whole village.
"I was just wanting to tell you about it, La Grande," said he. "I have made up my mind, and am going up yonder to see about the division."
She made no reply, but tightened her grasp upon the stick which she was flourishing.
"The other night I wanted to ask your advice again, but I knocked and no one answered."
Then she broke out in shrill tones:
"Idiot! Advice, indeed! I gave you advice. The fool, the poltroon you must be to give your property up as long as you can get about. They might have bled me to death, but, under the knife, I would still have refused. To see what belongs to one in the hands of others, to turn one's self out of doors for the benefit of rascally children.—No! No! No!"
"But," put in Fouan, "if you're incapable of farming, and the land suffers accordingly."
"Well, let it suffer. Rather than lose half an acre of it, I would go and watch the thistles grow every morning."
She drew herself up grimly, in her featherless, old vulture-like way, and, drumming on his shoulder with her stick, as if to impress her words upon him more deeply, she resumed:
"Listen, and mark me. When you have nothing and they have everything, your children will refuse you a mouthful of bread. You'll end with a beggar's wallet, like a road-tramp. And when that happens, don't come knocking at my door, for I give you fair warning, it'll be the worse for you. Would you like to know what I shall do, eh? Would you?"
He waited submissively, as behoved a younger brother; and she returned indoors, banging the door behind her and screaming:
"I shall do that! Die in a ditch!"
Fouan stood for an instant motionless before the closed door. Then, with a gesture of resigned decision, he went up the path leading to the Place de l'Eglise. On that very spot stood the old family residence of the Fouans, which, in the division of property, had fallen to his brother Michel, called Mouche; his own house, lower down along the road, had come to him from his wife Rose. Mouche, who had long been a widower, lived alone with his two daughters, Lise and Françoise, embittered by disappointments, still humiliated by his lowly marriage, and accusing his brother and sister, after forty years, of having cheated him when the allotments were drawn for. He was for ever telling the tale how the worst lot had been left for him at the bottom of the hat; and, in the course of time, this seemed to have become true, for he proved so excellent at excuses and such a sluggard at work that his share lost half its value in his hands. "The man makes the land," as folks say in La Beauce.
That morning Mouche also was on the watch at his door when his brother came round the corner of the square. The division roused his spleen, reviving old grudges, although he had nothing to expect from it. However, to demonstrate his utter indifference, he, too, turned his back and shut the door with a slam.
Fouan had suddenly caught sight of Delhomme and Hyacinthe, who were waiting twenty yards apart from each other. He made for the former, while the latter made for him. The three, without speaking, scanned the path which skirted the edge of the plateau.
"There he is," said Hyacinthe, at last. "He" was Grosbois, the local surveyor, a peasant from Magnolles, a little village near Cloyes. His knowledge of reading and writing had ruined him. When summoned from Orgères to Beaugency, on surveying business, he used to leave to his wife the management of his property, and he had contracted during his constant pilgrimages such drunken habits that he was now never sober. Very stout, very sturdy for his sixty years, he had a broad red face budding all over into purple pimples; and, despite the early hour, he was, on the day in question, in a state of abominable intoxication, the result of a merry-making held the night before by some Montigny vine-growers in honour of a divided inheritance. But that mattered nothing: the tipsier he was, the clearer his brain. He never measured incorrectly, and never added up incorrectly. He was held in deference and honour, advisedly, for he had the reputation of being extremely spiteful.
"All here, eh?" said he. "Then come along."
A dirty, bedraggled urchin of twelve was in attendance, carrying the chain under his arm and the stand and the staves over his shoulder, while with his free hand he swung the square, which was in an old burst cardboard case.
They all set out without waiting for Buteau, whom they had just descried in the distance, standing still before the largest field of the holding. That field, some five acres in extent, was immediately adjacent to the one along which La Coliche had dragged Françoise a few days before. Buteau, thinking it useless to proceed further, had stopped there in a brown study. When the others arrived, they saw him stoop down, take up a handful of earth, and gradually filter it through his fingers, as though to estimate its weight and flavour.
"There," resumed Grosbois, taking a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket: "I have already drawn up an accurate little plan of each lot, as you asked me to do, Fouan. It now devolves upon us to divide the whole into three portions; and that, my children, we will do together, eh? Just tell me how you intend it to be done."
The day had worn on. A ripping wind was driving continuous masses of thick clouds across the pale sky; and La Beauce lay sullen and gloomy, lashed by the keen air. Yet not one of them seemed conscious of that breeze from the offing, which inflated their blouses and threatened to carry off their hats. Not one of the five, in holiday attire, as befitted the gravity of the occasion, spoke a word. As they stood on the confines of the field, amid the boundless expanse, their lineaments had a dreamy, frozen fixedness, the musing expression of mariners who live alone in large open spaces. La Beauce, flat and fertile, easily tilled but demanding continuous effort, has made the Beauceron calm and reflective, without passion save for the land itself.
"It'll all have to be divided into three," said Buteau at length.
Grosbois shook his head, and a discussion set in. An apostle of progress, by virtue of his connection with large farms, he occasionally went so far as to set himself up against his smaller clients, by condemning extreme subdivision. Would not the labour and cost of transport from place to place become a ruinous thing, when there were only odds and ends of land left that might be covered by a handkerchief? Was it farming at all, with paltry garden-plots on which it was impossible either to improve the system of crops or to introduce machinery? No: the only sensible thing to do was to make a mutual arrangement, not to adopt the murderous course of chopping a field up like so much pastry. If one of them would be content with the plough-land, another might manage with the meadows; the portions could eventually be equalised, and the distribution decided by lot.
Buteau, with the natural liveliness of youth, adopted a jocose tone. "And, with only some meadow-land, what shall I have to eat? Grass, I suppose? No, no; I want some of everything, hay for cow and horse, corn and grape for myself."
Fouan, who was listening, nodded assent. For generations, such had been the mode of partition; and fresh acquisitions, by marriage or otherwise, had subsequently swollen the plots anew.
Delhomme, passing rich with his fifty acres or so, had broader views; but he was in a conciliatory mood, and had indeed only come, in his wife's interest, to see that she was not cheated in the measurements. As for Hyacinthe, he had gone off in pursuit of a flight of larks, with his hands crammed full of pebbles. Whenever one of the birds, distressed by the wind, stopped still a couple of seconds in mid-air with quivering wings, he felled it to the ground with the skill of a savage. Three fell, and he thrust them bleeding into his pocket.
"Come, stop your talk, and let's have it cut up into three!" said the lively Buteau, addressing the surveyor familiarly; "and not into six, mind, for you seem to me this morning to have both Chartres and Orleans in your eye at once."
Grosbois, feeling hurt, drew himself up with much dignity.
"When you've had as much to drink as I have, young shaver, see whether you can keep your eyes open at all. Which of you clever people would like to take the square instead of me?"
As no one ventured to take up the challenge, he called out harshly and triumphantly to the boy, who was rapt with admiration of Hyacinthe's pebble-shooting. The square duly installed on its stand, the stakes were being set up, when a new dispute arose over the method of dividing the field. The surveyor, supported by Fouan and Delhomme, wanted to divide the five acres into three strips parallel with the Aigre valley; while Buteau insisted on the strips being taken perpendicular to the valley, on the plea that the arable layer got thinner and thinner as it neared the slope. In this way every one would have his share of the worse end; whereas, in the other case, the third lot would be altogether of inferior quality.
But Fouan grew heated; swore that the depth was the same everywhere, and reminded them that the former partition between himself, Mouche, and La Grande had been made in the direction he indicated; in proof of which, Mouche's five acres lay adjacent to the third of the proposed lots. Delhomme, on his side, made a decisive remark: even admitting that the one lot was inferior, the owner would be benefited as soon as the authorities decided to open the road that was to skirt the field at that point.
"Oh, yes; I daresay!" cried Buteau. "The celebrated road from Rognes to Châteaudun, by way of La Borderie! And a jolly long time you'll have to wait for it!"
His importunity being, nevertheless, disregarded, he entered a protest from between his clenched teeth.
Hyacinthe himself had drawn near, and they were all absorbed in watching Grosbois trace out the lines of division. They kept a sharp eye on him, as if they suspected him of trying by unfair means to make one share half-an-inch bigger than the others. Three times did Delhomme put his eye to the slit in the square, to make quite sure that the line fairly intersected the stave. Hyacinthe swore at the "d——d youngster" because he did not hold the chain right. But Buteau, in particular, followed the process step by step, counting the feet, and going over the calculations again in his own way with trembling lips. With this consuming desire to possess, with the joy he felt at getting at last a grip of the land, his bitterness and sullen rage at not being able to keep the whole grew and grew. Those five acres, all of one piece, made such a fine field. He had insisted on the division, so that no one might have what he couldn't get; and yet the wholesale destruction drove him distracted. He again tried to find frivolous causes of quarrel.
Fouan, standing in a listless attitude, had been looking on at the dismemberment of his property without a word.
"It's finished!" said Grosbois. "And look at it how you will, you won't find a pound difference between the lots."
There were still, on the plateau, ten acres of plough-land divided into a dozen plots, none of which were much more than an acre in size. Indeed, one was only about a rood, and the surveyor having inquired, with a sneer, whether that also was to be sub-divided, a fresh dispute arose.
Buteau, with his instinctive gesture, had stooped down and taken up a handful of earth, which he raised to his face as if to try its flavour. A complacent wrinkling of his nose seemed to pronounce it better than all the rest; and, after gently filtering it through his fingers, he said that if they left the lot to him it was all right, otherwise he insisted on a division. Delhomme and Hyacinthe angrily refused, and likewise wanted their share. Yes, yes! A third of a rood each; that was the only fair way. By sub-dividing every plot, they were sure that none of the three could have anything which the other two lacked.
"Come on to the vineyard," said Fouan, and as they turned towards the church, he threw a last glance over the vast plain, pausing for an instant to look at the distant buildings of La Borderie. Then, with a cry of inconsolable regret, alluding to the old lost opportunity of buying up the national property:
"Ah!" said he, "if father had only chosen, Grosbois, you would now be measuring all that!"
The two sons and the son-in-law turned sharply round, and there was a new halt and a lingering look at the seven hundred and fifty acres of the farm spread out before them.
"Ugh!" grunted Buteau, as he set off again: "Much good it does us, that story! It's always our fate to be the prey of the townsfolk."
Ten o'clock struck. The main part of the work was over. But they hastened their steps, for the wind had fallen, and a heavy dark cloud had just discharged itself of a premonitory shower. The various Rognes vineyards were situated beyond the church, on the hill-side which sloped down to the Aigre. In former times, the château had stood there with its grounds; and it was barely more than a century since the peasantry, encouraged by the success of the Montigny vineyards, near Cloyes, had decided to plant vines on this declivity, though it was specially adapted for the purpose by its Southern aspect and the steepness of its slope. The wine it yielded was thin but of a pleasantly acid taste, and resembled the minor Orléanais vintages. Each owner only secured a few casks, Delhomme, the wealthiest, possessing some seven acres of vine-land; the rest of the country-side was entirely given up to cereals and plants for fodder.
They turned down behind the church, skirted the old ruined presbytery which had been turned into a lodging for the rural constable, and gained the narrow chequered patches. As they crossed a piece of stony ground, covered with shrubs, a shrill voice cried through a gap:
"Father, it's raining! and I've brought out my geese."
It was the voice of "La Trouille,"[3] Hyacinthe's daughter, a girl of twelve, thin and wiry like a holly branch, with fair towzled hair. Her large mouth had a twist to the left, her green eyes stared so boldly that she might have been taken for a boy, and her dress consisted of an old blouse of her father's, tied round her waist with some string. The reason everybody called her La Trouille—although she bore, by right, the fair name of Olympe—was that Hyacinthe, who used to yell at her from morning till night, could never say a word to her without adding:
"Just wait, you dirty troll, and I'll make it hot for you!"
He had begotten this wilding of a drab, whom he had picked up in a ditch after a fair, and whom he had installed in his den, to the great scandal of all Rognes. For nearly three years the household had been at sixes-and-sevens, and one harvest evening the baggage went off the way she came, in company with another man. The child, then scarcely weaned, had grown apace after the manner of ill weeds; and, as soon as she could walk, she got the meals ready for her father, whom she both dreaded and worshipped. Her chief passion, however, was for geese. At first she had only had two, male and female, stolen when quite young from behind a farm hedge. Then, thanks to her maternal care, the flock had increased, and she now possessed twenty birds, which she fed by pillage.
When La Trouille made her appearance, with her brazen, goat-like look, driving the geese before her with a stick, Hyacinthe flew into a temper.
"Be sure you're back for dinner, or else you'll catch it! And mind you keep the house carefully locked up, you dirty troll, for fear of robbers!"
Buteau sniggered, and even Delhomme and the others could not help laughing, they were so tickled at the idea of Hyacinthe being robbed. His house was a sight; an old cellar consisting of three walls crumbled to their original clay, a regular fox-hole, amid heaps of fallen stones and under a cluster of old lime-trees. It was all that remained of the château; and when our poaching friend, falling out with his father, had ensconced himself in this stony corner belonging to the village, he had had to close up the cellar by building a fourth wall of rough stones, in which he left two openings for window and door. The place was overgrown with brambles, and a large sweet briar hid the window. The country folk called it the Château.
A new deluge poured down. Luckily the acre or so of vineyard was close by, and the division into three was effected straightforwardly, without any new ground for a quarrel arising. There now only remained seven or eight acres of meadow down by the river side; but at this moment the rain became so heavy, and fell in such torrents, that the surveyor, passing the gate of a residence, suggested that they should go in.
"What if we took shelter for a minute at Monsieur Charles's?"
Fouan had come to a standstill, wavering, full of respect for his brother-in-law and sister, who had made their fortune, and lived in a retired way in this middle-class residence.
"No, no," he muttered; "they breakfast at twelve. It would disturb their arrangements."
But Monsieur Charles put in an appearance on his stone steps under the verandah, taking an interest in the fall of rain, and, on recognising them, he called out:
"Come in, come in, do!"
Then, as they were all dripping wet, he bade them go round and enter by the kitchen, where he joined them. He was a fine man of sixty-five summers, close-shaven, with heavy eyelids over his lack-lustre eyes, and the solemn, sallow face of a retired magistrate. He was clad in deep-blue swan-skin flannel, with furred shoes, and an ecclesiastical skull-cap, which he wore with the dignified air of one whose life had been spent in duties of delicacy and authority.
When, at the age of twenty-five, Laure Fouan, then a dressmaker in a shop at Châteaudun, married Charles Badeuil, the latter kept a little café in the Rue d'Angoulême. The young pair, ambitious, and eager to make a rapid fortune, soon left there for Chartres. But, at first, nothing succeeded with them; all they put their hands to came to grief. They vainly tried another eating-house, a restaurant, even a salt-fish shop; and they despaired of ever having a copper to call their own, when Monsieur Charles, being of an enterprising nature, had the idea of buying one of the "licensed houses" in the Rue aux Juifs, which had greatly declined, owing to an unsatisfactory staff and notorious uncleanliness. He took in the situation at a glance: the requirements of Chartres, and the void to be supplied in a large town which lacked a respectable establishment, abreast of modern progress as regards safety and comfort. Indeed, before two years had passed, Number 19, re-decorated, fitted with curtains and mirrors, and provided with a highly select staff, became so very favourably known that the number of women had to be increased to six. All the officers, all the public functionaries—in short, society in general—went nowhere else. This success was kept up, thanks to the strong right arm of Monsieur Charles and his unflagging paternal administration; while Madame Charles proved herself extraordinarily active, keeping her eye on everything, letting nothing go to waste, and yet shrewd enough to overlook, when necessary, the petty larcenies of rich customers.
In less than twenty-five years the Badeuils saved three hundred thousand francs, and they then thought of fulfilling the dream of their lives: an idyllic old age, face to face with nature, amid trees, flowers, and birds. But they were kept two years longer by their inability to find a purchaser for Number 19 at the high price they valued it. And what a heartrending thing it was! An establishment furnished by themselves on the best scale, bringing in a larger income than a farm, and yet about to pass, perforce, into strange hands, in which, possibly, it would degenerate. On his settling in Chartres a daughter had been born to Monsieur Charles, by name Estelle, whom he sent to the nuns of the Visitation, at Châteaudun, when he moved into the Rue aux Juifs. In this devout, rigidly moral boarding school, he left the young girl till the age of twenty, to further purify her purity; sending her some distance off for her holidays, and keeping her in ignorance of the business in which he made his money. He only took her away on the day he wedded her to Hector Vaucogne, a young fellow employed on the local excise staff, whose excellent natural gifts were marred by extraordinary laziness. Estelle was close on thirty, and had a daughter, Elodie, aged seven, when, being at length acquainted with the facts by hearing that her father's business was in the market, she went to him of her own accord and asked him to give her the preference. Why should so safe and flourishing a business go out of the family? All was duly arranged. The Vaucognes took the place over, and the Badeuils, before a month had elapsed, had the fond satisfaction of ascertaining that their daughter, although brought up to other ideas, had turned out a first-rate manageress, which, happily, compensated for their son-in-law's supineness and lack of administrative power. They had lived in retirement at Rognes for five years, and had the supervision of their grand-daughter, Elodie, who, in her turn, had been sent to the nuns of the Visitation at Châteaudun, there to be religiously trained in principles of the strictest morality.
When Monsieur Charles came into the kitchen, where a maid was whipping some eggs, while she kept her eye upon a pan of larks fizzing in butter, they all of them, even old Fouan and Delhomme, uncovered their heads, and seemed extremely flattered at shaking hands with him.
"Bless me!" said Grosbois, to make himself agreeable, "What a charming property this is of yours! And to think that you picked it up for a mere song. Oh, you artful dog, you!"
The other puffed himself out like a turkey-cock.
"A bargain, a windfall. We took a fancy to it, and, besides, Madame Charles had set her heart on ending her days in her own part of the country. As for me, where the heart is engaged I have always been indulgent."
Roseblanche, as the property had been christened, was the "folly" of a townsman of Cloyes, who had just laid out upon it nearly fifty thousand francs, when a fit of apoplexy struck him down before the paint was dry on the walls. The house, very trim, and situated on the slope of the plateau, stood in a garden of some seven acres, which reached down to the Aigre. In that out-of-the-way spot, on the confines of sombre Beauce, no purchaser could be found, and Monsieur Charles had got the place for twenty thousand francs. There he blissfully satisfied all his tastes, fishing the stream for superb trout and eels, making beloved collections of rose-trees and carnations, and keeping a large aviary full of wood warblers, which no one but himself tended. There the fond old pair ran through an income of twelve thousand francs, in a state of perfect happiness, which they looked upon as the rightful recompense of their thirty years of toil.
"Eh?" added Monsieur Charles. "At least people know who we are, here."
"Undoubtedly you are known," replied the surveyor. "Your money is sufficient recommendation."
All the rest assented.
"True; quite true."
Then Monsieur Charles bade the servant bring some glasses, he himself going into the cellar to fetch up two bottles of wine. With their noses turned towards the frying-pan, in which the larks were browning, they all sniffed the savoury smell, and solemnly drank, rolling the wine round in their mouths.
"Gracious! It don't come from this part of the country, I know! Capital!"
"Another drop. Your health!"
"Yours!"
As they laid down their glasses, Madame Charles, an estimable-looking matron of sixty-two, with snowy frontlets, made her appearance. In her the thick, large-nosed visage of the Fouans was of a pale, pink hue; hers was the calm, sweet, monastic complexion of an aged nun who had led a sequestered life. Clinging to her with awkward shyness followed Elodie, who was spending a two days' holiday at Rognes. Preyed upon by chlorosis, and over-tall for a girl of twelve, her flabby ugliness, and her thin, blanched hair bespoke an impoverished system; and she had been, moreover, kept in such restraint during her course of training for spotless maidenhood that she was half an imbecile.
"Ha! you here!" said Madame Charles, shaking hands with her brother and nephew, slowly and impressively, in token of the distance between them. Then, turning round, and giving no further heed to such fellows, she added:
"Come in, come in, Monsieur Patoir; the animal is here."
Patoir was the Cloyes veterinary—short, stout, full-blooded, and purple; with the aspect of a trooper, and wearing heavy moustaches. He had just driven up in a mud-splashed gig through the pelting rain.
"This poor darling," she went on, taking out of a warm oven a basket in which an old cat lay in the throes of death; "this poor darling was seized yesterday with a shivering fit, and it was then I wrote to you. Ah! he's not young; he is nearly fifteen. We had him ten years at Chartres, but last year my daughter had to get rid of him, and I brought him here because he misbehaved himself in every corner of the shop."
"Shop" was for Elodie's benefit, she being told that her parents kept a confectionery business, amid such a press of work, that they could not receive her there. The country-folk, however, did not even smile, for the expression was current in Rognes, where people said that "even Hourdequin's farm was not so profitable as Monsieur Charles's shop." The men stared at the shrivelled, old, yellow, mangy, miserable cat; the old cat who had purred in all the beds in the Rue aux Juifs, the cat stroked and fondled by the plump hands of five or six generations of women. Long had he been pampered and petted, the spoiled darling of the saloon and retiring-rooms, licking up unconsidered trifles of pomade, drinking the water in the toilet-glasses, a mute, abstracted spectator of what went on, seeing everything with his slender pupils set in gold.
"Monsieur Patoir, pray cure him," concluded Madame Charles.
The veterinary distended his eyelids, and screwed up his nose and mouth, all his bluff, coarse, bull-dog physiognomy being set in motion. And he cried:
"What? You've brought me all this way for that! I'll cure him for you! Tie a stone round his neck and chuck him into the water!"
Elodie burst into tears, and Madame Charles became purple in the face with indignation.
"Why, he stinks, this pet of yours! Keeping a horrid thing like that, to give the house cholera! Chuck the beast into the water!"
Nevertheless, the old lady being really angry, he eventually sat down at the table and grumblingly wrote out a prescription.
"Oh! all right, if you enjoy being plague-stricken. So long as I'm paid, what on earth can it matter to me? Look here; get this down his throat, a spoonful at a time, every hour; and here's another mixture for two baths, one this evening, the other to-morrow."
For the last instant or so Monsieur Charles had been restless feeling disconsolate at seeing the larks burn, while the maid, tired of beating up the omelette, stood idly by. So he briskly gave Patoir his six francs 'consulting fee, and urged the others to empty their glasses.
"Anyhow, the breakfast's got to be eaten. Ah! see you again soon. The rain has given over."
They left reluctantly, and the veterinary, getting into his rickety old trap, said once more:
"A cat that isn't worth the cord to chuck him into the water with! Well, that's just how it is, when people are well off!"
But all of them, even Buteau, who had grown pale with sullen envy, shook their heads in protest; and Delhomme the wise declared:
"Say what you will, people who have managed to put by an income of twelve thousand francs can't be either idlers or fools."
The veterinary had whipped up his horse, and the others made for the Aigre, through pathways now converted into torrents. They had got to the seven or eight acres of meadow that were to be divided, when the rain came down again in a perfect deluge. But this time they stuck obstinately to the task, being desperately hungry, and anxious to get it over. Only one dispute delayed them, with reference to the third lot, which was treeless, whereas a copse happened to be distributed between the other two. However, all now seemed settled and sanctioned. The surveyor promised them he would forward the memoranda to the notary, to enable him to draw up the deed; and it was agreed to defer the drawing of the lots till the following Sunday, when it should take place at ten o'clock, at the father's house.
As they returned into Rognes, Hyacinthe jerked out an oath:
"Wait, wait, you dirty troll, and I'll make it pretty hot for you!"
By the grassy wayside, La Trouille was leisurely driving her geese under the muttering downpour. At the head of the dripping, delighted flock, walked the gander, and when he turned his big yellow beak to the right, all the other big yellow beaks went to the right too. The child, taking fright at her father's words, sped home to see to the dinner, followed by a file of long-necks, which were all stretched out in the rear of the outstretched neck of the gander.
CHAPTER IV.
The following Sunday happened to fall just on All Saints' Day, the first of November; and, on the stroke of nine, the Abbé Godard, who was priest of Bazoches-le-Doyen, with subordinate charge of the ancient parish of Rognes, reached the top of the slope which led down to the little bridge over the Aigre. Rognes, more important in days of yore, but now reduced to a population of barely three hundred souls, had had no priest of its own for years, and seemed completely indifferent to the fact, insomuch that the municipal council had lodged the rural constable in the half-ruined parsonage.
So, every Sunday, the Abbé Godard walked the two miles between Bazoches-le-Doyen and Rognes. Being stout and dumpy, with a neck red at the nape and so swollen at the throat as to tilt his head backward, he compelled himself to this exercise for the sake of his health. On this particular Sunday, finding himself late, he was puffing terribly, with his mouth wide open in his apoplectic face, the fat of which half smothered his small snub nose and tiny grey eyes; and, despite the livid, snow-laden sky, and the premature frost which had followed the storms of the week, he was swinging his hat in his hand, having bared the thick tangles of his grizzled, carroty hair.
The road made an abrupt descent, and on the left bank of the Aigre, before reaching the stone bridge, there were only a few houses, a sort of suburb, through which the Abbé rushed tempestuously. He did not even cast a glance, either up or down stream, on the slow, limpid river winding through the meadows amid clumps of willows and poplars. On the right bank began the village proper, a double row of frontages edging the high road, while others climbed at random up the slope; and just past the bridge one found the municipal offices and the school, an old barn raised a floor higher and white-washed. For an instant the Abbé hesitated, and then craned his neck into the empty entrance-hall of the school. When he turned round, he cast a searching glance into two taverns facing him: the one having a neat shop-front, filled with flasks, and surmounted by a little yellow wooden sign bearing the inscription: Macqueron, grocer, in green letters; the other merely having its door decorated with a holly-branch, and displaying in black upon a roughly-whitened wall the words: Lengaigne. Tobacco. The priest was making up his mind to enter a steep lane between these two houses, a short ascent leading straight to the front of the church, when he caught sight of an old peasant and stopped.
"Aha! so it's you, Fouan. I'm in a hurry, but I wanted to see you. Tell me, what's doing? It's out of the question for your son, Buteau, to leave Lise in the plight she's in, with her figure unmistakably on the increase. She is one of the 'Handmaidens of the Virgin.' It's a disgrace, a disgrace!"
The old man listened, with an air of deferential politeness.
"Why, your reverence, what do you expect me to do, if Buteau holds out? And, besides, the lad's right, so far as that goes; he can't marry at his age on nothing."
"But there's a baby!"
"To be sure there is. Only the baby's not yet born, and one can never tell. That's just where it is: a baby's not an encouraging thing when you can't afford a shift for its back."
He made these remarks sagely, as became an old man who knew life. Then he added, in the same measured tone:
"Besides, an arrangement may, perhaps, be made. I am dividing my property. The lots will be drawn for presently, after mass. Then, when Buteau gets his share, he will, I hope, see about marrying his cousin."
"Good!" said the priest. "That's enough. Fouan, I rely upon you."
The pealing of a bell curtailed his speech, and he asked, apprehensively:
"That's the second bell, isn't it?"
"No, your reverence, the third."
"Good gracious! that brute of a Bécu at it again! Ringing without waiting for me!"
He cursed, and ran violently up the pathway. At the top he all but had a fit; he was puffing away like a blacksmith's bellows.
The bell rang on, while the ravens it had disturbed flew cawing round the steeple, a fifteenth-century spire, which bore witness to the ancient importance of Rognes. In front of the wide, open door a group of peasants were waiting, among whom the innkeeper, Lengaigne, a freethinker, was smoking his pipe. Farther on, against the churchyard wall, farmer Hourdequin, the mayor—a well-built man, with strongly-marked features—chatted with his assessor, the grocer Macqueron. When the priest had passed by with a salute, they all followed him, excepting Lengaigne, who ostentatiously turned his back, pulling at his pipe.
Inside the church, to the right of the porch, there was a man hanging on to a rope, which he still went on pulling.
"That'll do, Bécu!" said the Abbé Godard, beside himself. "I've told you twenty times to wait for me before you ring the third time."
The rural constable, who was also the bell-ringer, fell to his feet, aghast at his own disobedience. He was a little man of fifty, with the square, bronzed physiognomy of an old soldier, grey moustache and goatee, and a rigid neck, seeming as if he were continually choked by a tight collar. Already very tipsy, he stood to attention, without venturing to excuse himself.
Moreover, the priest had already made off, and was crossing the nave, with a glance at the seats. There was a scanty attendance. On the left, he as yet saw only Delhomme, present in his capacity of municipal councillor. On the right, the women's side, there were at the most a dozen. He recognised Cœlina Macqueron, shrivelled, sinewy, and overbearing; Flore Lengaigne, buxom, mild, and good-humoured; and Bécu's good woman, a lanky, very dirty, dark brunette. But what put the finishing touch to his wrath was the behaviour of the "Handmaidens of the Virgin" in the front row. Françoise was there between two of her friends—the Macquerons' daughter, Berthe, a handsome brunette, brought up as a lady at Cloyes, and the Lengaignes' daughter, Suzanne, a fair, plain, bold-faced hussy, whom her parents were about to apprentice to a dressmaker at Châteaudun. All the three were indulging in unseemly laughter. And, beside them, poor Lise, plump and cheerful, faced the altar, exposing her scandalous condition to public comment.
Finally, the Abbé Godard was going into the sacristy, when he came across Delphin and Nénesse pushing each other about in play, whereas they were supposed to be getting the wine vases ready for mass. The first-named, Bécu's son, aged eleven, was a sun-burnt youngster, already well-knit, and just leaving school to become a ploughman; while Ernest, Delhomme's eldest, of the same age, fair, slim, and given to loafing, always carried a looking-glass in his pocket.
"Now, then, you mischievous imps," cried the priest, "do you think you're in a cow-shed?"
And turning towards a tall, thin, young man, whose sallow face bristled with a few light hairs, and who was arranging some books on the shelf of a cupboard, he added:
"Really, Monsieur Lequeu, you might keep them quiet when I am out of the way!"
This was the schoolmaster, a peasant's son, whose education had taught him to hate those of his own station. He resorted to violence with his boys, treating them like brute beasts, and cloaked Republican ideas under a scrupulously formal demeanour towards the priest and the mayor. He sang well in the choir, and even looked after the sacred books; but he had refused point-blank to ring the bell, in spite of custom, such a task being unworthy of a free man.
"I am not entrusted with maintaining order in church," he responded, dryly. "At my place, though, wouldn't I just box their ears!"
And as the Abbé, without answering, hastily shuffled into his alb and stole, he went on:
"Low mass, isn't it?"
"Yes, to be sure, and be quick! I've got to be at Bazoches by half-past ten for high mass."
M. Lequeu, who had taken an old missal from the cupboard, closed the latter and went out to place the book on the altar.
"Make haste, make haste," repeated the priest, hurrying Delphin and Nénesse.
And, still perspiring, still panting, with the chalice in his hand, he went back into the church and began the mass, at which the two urchins officiated with sly, quizzical side-looks. The church had but one aisle, with a vaulted, oak-panelled roof, falling to pieces through the obstinate refusal of the municipal council to allow any funds. The rain dripped through the broken slates of the roofing, deep stains marked the advanced state of decay of the woodwork, and beyond the choir, shut off by a railing, a greenish leakage aloft disfigured the fresco of the apsis, cutting the figure of an Eternal Father, worshipped by angels, atwain.
When the priest turned, open armed, towards the congregation, he calmed down a bit on observing that some people had come in—the mayor, his assessor, some municipal councillors, old Fouan, and Clou the farrier, who played the trombone when there was a musical service. Lequeu had remained, with a stately air, in the front row. Bécu, although drunk, stood bolt upright in the background. On the women's side, especially, the seats had filled up, Fanny, Rose, La Grande, and others had come, so that the "Handmaidens of the Virgin," now poring over their books in an exemplary way, had had to crowd closer together. What particularly flattered the priest was to perceive Monsieur and Madame Charles, with their grand-daughter Elodie; he in a black frock-coat, she in a green silk dress, both of them solemn and splendiferous, setting a good example.
Nevertheless, he hurried over his mass, mangling the Latin and maiming the rites. In his address, not going into the pulpit, but sitting on a chair in the middle of the choir, he made a miserable exhibition of himself, lost the thread of his discourse, and gave up as hopeless the task of ever finding it again. Eloquence was not his strong point; he stumbled over his words, and hum'd and ha'd without ever being able to finish his sentences, which explained why his lordship the Bishop had overlooked him for twenty-five years in his little cure of Bazoches-le-Doyen. The rest of the service was vamped; the bell-ringing, during the elevation of the Host, sounded like electric signals gone mad, and the priest dismissed the congregation with an "Ite missa est," as smart as the crack of a whip.
The church was barely empty when the Abbé Godard re-appeared, with his hat hastily put on wrong side foremost. Before the door stood a group of women—Cœlina, Flore, and old mother Bécu—all much annoyed at having been raced along at that pace. It was making very light of them to give them no more on a high holiday.
"I say, your reverence," asked Cœlina, in her shrill voice, as she stopped him: "You've got a spite against us, packing us off just like a bundle of rags."
"Why, it's like this," he replied; "my own people are waiting for me. I can't be both at Bazoches and at Rognes. Get a priest of your own if you want high masses."
This was always a sore point between Rognes and the Abbé, the villagers insisting on special attention, and he strictly confining himself to what he was obliged to do for a village which refused to repair its church, and where, moreover, constant scandals discouraged him. Indicating the "Handmaidens of the Virgin," who were leaving together, he resumed:
"And, besides, is it decent to go through ceremonies with young folks who have no respect whatever for God's commandments?"
"You don't mean that for my girl, I hope?" asked Cœlina, between her teeth.
"Nor for mine, I'm sure?" added Flore.
Then he lost all patience and burst out:
"I mean it for those it concerns. It's as plain as a pike-staff. White dresses, indeed. A pretty thing! I never have a procession here without one of them being in the family way. No, no; you'd tire out God Almighty himself."
He left them; and Bécu's wife, who had remained silent, had to make peace between the two mothers, who, in considerable excitement, were heaping reproaches on each other on their daughters' account. But her peace-making was of such a bitterly insinuating character that the quarrel rose higher.
Oh yes! They would see how Berthe would turn out, with her velvet bodices and her piano! And Suzanne, what a first-rate idea to send her to the milliner's at Châteaudun, so that she might go the pace with the best of them!
The Abbé Godard was rushing off, when he came full upon Monsieur and Madame Charles. A broad, beaming smile overspread his face, and his hat performed a sweeping obeisance. Monsieur bowed majestically. Madame made her best curtsey. It was fated that the priest should never get off, for no sooner had he cleared the square than he was brought up by another chance encounter. This was with a tall woman of thirty, who looked quite fifty, with thin hair and a flat, flabby, bran-yellow face. Broken down and worn out by excessive exertion, she was staggering under the weight of a faggot of brushwood.
"Palmyre," he asked, "why didn't you come to mass on All Saints' Day? It's disgraceful."
"No doubt, your reverence," she groaned, "but what's to be done? My brother is cold, and we are freezing at home. So I've been picking up these along the hedges."
"La Grande is still as hard as ever, then?"
"Rather! She'd die before she'd chuck us a crust or a log."
In a dolorous voice she repeated her own and her brother's story: how their grandmother had turned them out of doors, how she had had to take refuge with her brother in an old deserted stable. Poor Hilarion, bandy and hare-lipped, lacked intelligence; indeed, despite his twenty years of age, he was so idiotic that no one would give him employment. And so she was bringing herself to death's door in working for him, tending him with the impassioned care and untiring tenderness of a mother.
As the Abbé Godard listened to her, his coarse, perspiring face assumed a look of the purest kindness, his little angry eyes grew beautiful with charity, his large mouth took a sweetly sad expression. This formidable scold, always being whirled to and fro by gusts of wrath, was passionately devoted to the wretched, and gave them everything—his money, linen, and clothes. To such a point that in all La Beauce you would not find a priest with a rustier or a more extensively darned cassock.
He fumbled anxiously in his pockets, and slipped a five-franc piece into Palmyre's hand.
"Here! Put it away; I've none for anybody else. I shall have to talk again to La Grande, since she's so wicked."
This time he got clear off. Luckily, as he was puffing and blowing up the slope on the other side of the Aigre, the Bazoches butcher, on his way back, gave him a lift in his cart; and he all but vanished as he gained the level of the plain, jolting along with the dancing silhouette of his three-cornered hat alone standing out against the leaden sky.
Meantime the church square had emptied, and Fouan and Rose had just gone down home, where they found Grosbois already waiting. A little before ten, Delhomme and Hyacinthe arrived in their turn; but Buteau was waited for in vain till twelve.
The eccentric rascal never could be punctual. Doubtless he had stopped on the road somewhere to breakfast. It was proposed to go on without him; then, a vague fear inspired by his hot-headedness led to the decision that the lots should not be drawn for till two o'clock, after breakfast. Grosbois, accepting a bit of bacon and a glass of wine from the Fouans, finished up one bottle, started on another, and relapsed into his usual state of intoxication.
Two o'clock, and still no Buteau appeared. So Hyacinthe, languishing for debauch, like the rest of the village, that Sunday feast-day, went lounging past Macqueron's. This succeeded: the door was flung open, and Bécu appeared shouting:
"Come along, you rascally baggage, and let me treat you to a glass."
Bécu had got stiffer still, assuming more and more dignity as his intoxication increased. A drunken, old-soldierly fellowship, a secret affection, drew him towards the poacher; but he avoided recognising him when he was on duty with his badge on his arm, being always on the point of catching him flagrante delicto, and struggling between duty and inclination. In the tavern, however, when he was tipsy, he stood him treat like a brother.
"Take a hand at piquet, eh?" said he; "and, by God, if the Bedouins bore us, we'll slit their ears for 'em!"
They installed themselves at a table, and played cards boisterously, while quart after quart of wine was served them.
Macqueron, with his fat, moustachioed face, sat huddled up in a corner, twiddling his thumbs. Since he had been gaining money by speculating in the light wines of Montigny, he had fallen into idle ways—hunting, fishing, and playing the gentleman; though he remained filthy and ragged, while his daughter Berthe flounced to and fro in silk. If his wife had heeded him they would have shut up shop, giving up both the grocery and the refreshment business; for he was growing conceited, and had dim ambitions, as yet unrecognised by himself. But she was ferociously eager for gain, and he, although concerning himself personally about nothing, was content to let her go on serving tipple, just to annoy his neighbour Lengaigne, who kept the tobacco shop, and also dealt in drink. 'Twas a long-standing rivalry, ever smouldering, and ever ready to burst into a blaze.
Yet sometimes they were at peace for weeks together; and, as it happened, Lengaigne then came in with his son Victor, a tall, awkward youth, who was to draw for the conscription the next year. Lengaigne himself, a lanky, frozen-looking man, with a little owl's head set upon broad, brawny shoulders, had remained a peasant and tilled the soil, while his wife weighed out the tobacco and drew the wine. He derived a special importance from the fact that he was barber and hair-cutter to the whole village, an avocation which he had brought back from his regiment, and which he plied either at his shop, amid the eaters and drinkers, or else, if his customers preferred it, at their own homes.
"Well, this beard of yours, is it to be done to-day, my boy?" he asked, from the door.
"Bless me! Right you are, I told you to come," cried Macqueron. "This very moment, if you like."
He reached an old shaving-dish from its hook, and took some soap and warm water, while the other drew from his pocket a razor the size of a cutlass, which he set about sharpening on a strop fixed to the case. A squeaky voice now issued from the adjacent grocery department:
"I say," cried Cœlina, "are you going to mess the tables which people drink at? Well, then, you sha'n't! I won't have hair found in the glasses at my house."
This was an attack on the cleanliness of the rival tavern, where customers ate more hair than they drank genuine wine, she said.
"Sell your salt and pepper, and hold your row!" replied Macqueron, annoyed by this public curtain-lecture. Hyacinthe and Bécu tittered.
"An extinguisher for the good lady that!" They ordered of her a fresh quart of wine, which she brought in speechless fury. Then they shuffled the cards, and dashed them violently on to the table, as if to exasperate each other. Trump, trump, and trump!
Lengaigne had already lathered his customer, and was holding him by the nose, when Lequeu, the schoolmaster, pushed the door open.
"Good-day, everybody!"
He stood silently in front of the stove, warming his loins, while young Victor, stationed behind the players, became absorbed in watching their game.
"By the by," resumed Macqueron, taking advantage of a moment when Lengaigne was wiping the lather off the razor on to his shoulder, "just now, before mass, Monsieur Hourdequin spoke to me again about the road. Things must be settled some way or another."
The road in question was the famous one direct from Rognes to Châteaudun, which was to shorten the distance by about two leagues, for vehicles were now forced to pass through Cloyes. Of course, the farm was much interested in this new route, and to carry the point the mayor relied greatly on his assessor—himself interested in a speedy settlement. There was a question of facilitating the approach of vehicles to the church, which could now only be reached by goat-paths, and the projected line of route followed the steep lane that wound its narrow way between the two taverns. Only broaden that, and level down the ascent a bit, and the grocer's grounds—which would be by the road-side, and of easy access—would increase tenfold in value.
"Yes," he continued, "it would seem that the Government, before giving us any help, is waiting for us to vote something. That's so, isn't it? You are in it."
Lengaigne, who was a municipal councillor, but who had not as much as a square inch of garden behind his house, replied:
"I don't care a curse! What the deuce has your road to do with me?"
Then, making an attack on the other cheek, which he rasped as with a nutmeg-grater, he fell foul of the farm. These latter-day gentlefolks were even worse than the nobles of old. Why, they had kept everything to themselves in the distribution of the land, made laws merely for their own advantage, and they lived only on the distress of poor folks. The others listened, constrained, yet inwardly pleased by his temerity, for they had the peasant's immemorial, unconquerable hatred of the landowner.
"It's a good thing we are among ourselves," muttered Macqueron, glancing uneasily at the schoolmaster. "I am on the Government side. So is our deputy, Monsieur de Chédeville, who is, they say, a friend of the Emperor's."
Lengaigne began furiously shaking his razor.
"And that's another pretty rogue of a fellow! Oughtn't a rich man like him, possessing more than two thousand acres of land over there towards Orgères, oughtn't he to make you a present of your road, instead of trying to wring coppers out of the village? The low beast!"
The grocer, alarmed this time, protested. "No, no. He's very straightforward, and not proud. But for him you wouldn't have had your tobacco-counter. What would you say if he took it away from you again?"
Abruptly calming down, Lengaigne went on scraping the other's chin. He had lost his temper and gone too far; his wife was right in saying that his ideas would play him false. At that moment a quarrel was heard to threaten between Bécu and Hyacinthe. The former was in an ill-tempered, pugnacious state of drunkenness, while the other, on the contrary, grim and overbearing though he was when sober, grew more and more maudlin with every glass of wine, subsiding into the genial meekness of a tipsy apostle. Add to this their radical difference of opinion: the poacher being a Republican—a Red, as people said—who boasted of having made the gentlefolks dance the rigadoon at Cloyes in '48; and the rural constable being a wild Bonapartist and worshipping the Emperor, with whom he pretended to be acquainted.
"I swear it! We had partaken of a red herring salad together, when he said to me: 'Not a word. I am the Emperor.' I knew him at a glance, because of his likeness on the five-franc pieces."
"Maybe! Anyhow, he's a low fellow, who beats his wife and never loved his mother!"
"Hold your tongue, in God's name! or I'll break your jaw for you!"
The quart bottle which Bécu was brandishing had to be taken from him; whilst Hyacinthe, with tearful eyes, sat awaiting the blow in cheerful resignation. Then they resumed their game, like brothers. Trump, trump, and trump!
Macqueron, rendered uneasy by the assumed indifference of the schoolmaster, finished by asking him:
"And you, Monsieur Lequeu, what do you say?"
Lequeu, who was warming his slender, sallow hands against the stove-pipe, smiled the bitter smile of a superior person who is compelled by his position to remain silent.
"I say nothing," he answered. "It's none of my business."
Macqueron soused his face in a basin of water, and while spluttering and wiping himself dry, replied:
"Well, mark my words! I mean to do something. If the road's voted, by God, I'll let 'em have my ground for nothing."
This declaration stupefied the audience. Even Hyacinthe and Bécu looked up, despite their intoxication. There was a pause. They gazed at Macqueron as if he had suddenly gone mad; and he, spurred on by the effect produced, yet with his hands trembling at the engagement he was taking, added:
"There'll be something like half an acre. The man who goes back on his word is a scoundrel! I've sworn it!"
Lengaigne departed with his son Victor, exasperated and disgusted by his neighbour's munificence. Land didn't cost him much, the way he robbed people.
Macqueron, despite the cold, now took his gun, and went out to see if he could come across a rabbit he had noticed in his vineyard the day before. In the tavern there only remained Lequeu—who spent his Sundays there without taking anything to drink—and the two gamblers, who were poring over their cards. Hours elapsed, while other peasants came and went.
Towards five o'clock the door was roughly pushed open, and Buteau appeared, followed by Jean. Immediately he saw Hyacinthe, he cried:
"I'd have wagered five francs. Don't you care a damn for anybody? We're waiting for you."
The drunkard, slobbering and merry, replied:
"That's a good 'un! I'm waiting for you. You've kept us hanging about since morning, and I think it cool of you to complain."
Buteau had stopped at La Borderie, where Jacqueline, whom, at the age of fifteen, he had knocked head over heels in the hay, had kept him to eat some hot buttered toast with Jean. Farmer Hourdequin having gone to breakfast at Cloyes after mass, the two sparks had kept it up pretty late, and had only just reached the village in each other's company.
Meantime, Bécu yelled out that he would pay for the five quarts, but that the game was to stand over; while Hyacinthe, reluctantly unfixing himself from his chair, followed his brother, chuckling to himself, with his eyes swimming in mildness.
"Wait there," said Buteau to Jean, "and in half an hour come and pick me up. You know you dine with me at father's."
When the two brothers had entered the sitting-room of the Fouans' house, they found the company assembled in full. The father was standing up with bent head. The mother, seated near the table in the middle, was mechanically knitting. Opposite her was Grosbois, who had eaten and drunk so much as to be in a state of doze, with his eyes half-open; while, farther off, Fanny and Delhomme were waiting patiently on two low chairs. There were some unwonted articles in the smoky room, with its shabby old furniture and its utensils worn by scrubbing: a blank sheet of paper, an ink-bottle, and a pen stood on the table beside the surveyor's hat—a monumental, rusty-black hat with which he had trudged through rain and sunshine for ten years past. Night was falling, and through the narrow window came an expiring, murky glimmer, in which the flat brim and urn-like body of the hat loomed strangely.
Grosbois, always ready for business in spite of his intoxication, woke up and stammered out:
"Now we're right. I told you the deed was ready. I called yesterday at Monsieur Baillehache's, and he showed it me. Only the numbers of the lots are left blank after your names. So we will draw, and the notary need then only write in the lots and you can sign on Saturday at his place."
He roused himself and raised his voice: "Come, I will get the tickets ready."
Fouan's children abruptly approached, making no secret of their distrust. They watched Grosbois, and kept a sharp eye on his slightest movements, as on those of a conjuror capable of juggling away the shares. First he had cut the sheet of paper into three with his drink-sodden, shaking fingers; now he was writing the figures 1, 2, 3, and enormous, strongly-marked figures they were. The others watched his pen over his shoulders, the parents themselves nodding their satisfaction on seeing the impossibility of deception. The tickets were slowly folded up and thrown into the hat. A solemn stillness reigned.
At the expiration of two long minutes Grosbois exclaimed:
"Well, you must make up your minds. Who begins?"
No one stirred. The night deepened, and the hat seemed to grow larger in the gloom.
"By order of seniority, eh?" proposed the surveyor. "You begin, Hyacinthe, you're the eldest."
Hyacinthe, the amiable, came forward, but he lost his balance, and all but fell sprawling. He had violently shoved his fist into the hat as though with the purpose of extracting a mass of rock from it. When he had secured one of the tickets, he had to go to the window to see.
"Two!" cried he, evidently finding something exceedingly humorous in the figure, for he choked with laughter.
"Your turn, Fanny," now called Grosbois.
When Fanny had got her hand to the bottom, she did not hurry. She fumbled about, stirred the papers round, and seemed to weigh them one after the other.
"Picking and choosing's not allowed," said Buteau, savagely. He was suffocating with passion, and had turned pale on ascertaining the number drawn by his brother.
"Eh? Why not?" replied Fanny. "I'm not looking; surely I may feel."
"Get on," murmured the father; "there's nothing to choose between 'em; one's as heavy as the other."
At last she made up her mind, and ran to the window.
"One!"
"Well, then, Buteau has number three," resumed Fouan. "Draw it, my boy."
In the growing darkness they had not seen how the face of the young man changed. He burst out in wrath:
"Never, never!"
"What?"
"If you think I'm going to assent to this, you're wrong! The third lot, eh? The bad one! I told you over and over again that I wanted a different division. But you pooh-pooh'd me! Besides, can't I see through your trickery? Oughtn't the youngest to have drawn first? No, I won't draw, since there's been cheating!"
The parents gazed at his wild movements as he gesticulated and stamped about.
"My poor boy, you're going crazy," said Rose.
"Oh, yes, mamma, I know well enough you never liked me. You'd strip the skin off my back to give it to my brother. You'd all of you eat me alive."
Fouan sternly interrupted him. "Enough of this folly! Will you draw?"
"It'll have to be done all over again."
At this there was a general protest. Hyacinthe and Fanny clutched their papers as if a forcible attempt were being made upon them. Delhomme declared that the drawing had been fair, and Grosbois, much aggrieved, threatened to leave if his honesty were called in question.
"Then papa shall add a thousand francs to my share out of his hoard," said Buteau.
The old man, taken aback for an instant, stammered. Then he drew himself up and advanced threateningly.
"What's that you say? So you're anxious to get me assassinated, you brute? Raze the house to the ground and you won't find a copper. Take that paper, or, by God, you shall have nothing at all!"
Buteau, with a hardened and obstinate brow, did not quail before his father's raised fist.
"No!"
An awkward silence again fell. The huge hat was now an encumbrance and obstruction, with this solitary scrap of paper, which nobody would touch, inside it. The surveyor, to cut things short, advised the old man to draw it out himself. He did so, gravely, and went to the light to read it, as if the number were still unknown.
"Three! You've the third lot, d'ye hear? The deed is ready, and it's quite certain that Monsieur Baillehache won't alter it, for once done can't be undone. As you're sleeping here, I give you the night to think it over in. So that's done with. Let's say no more about it."
Buteau, wrapped in shadow, made no reply. The others noisily assented, while the mother at last made up her mind to light a candle so as to lay the cloth.
At that moment Jean, who was coming to meet his comrade, espied two intertwined shadows watching, from the dark deserted road, the progress of events at the Fouans. Feathery snow-flakes were beginning to flutter across the slate-grey sky.
"Oh, Monsieur Jean," said a soft voice, "how you frightened us!"
Then he recognised Françoise's long face and thick lips. She was nestling against her sister Lise, and had one arm round her waist, while she leant her head on her shoulder. The two sisters adored each other, and were always seen about like this, hanging on each other's neck. Lise taller, and of pleasant aspect, despite her large features and the incipient development of her whole plump person, bore her misfortune with equanimity.
"You were spying, eh?" Jean inquired gaily.
"Why, what's going on in there has an interest for me," replied Lise, freely and openly. "It's a point whether it will make Buteau come to a decision."
Françoise, with her other arm, had now caressingly encircled her sister's swollen figure.
"What a shame, the brute! When he's got some land, p'raps he'll be looking out for some one better off."
But Jean gave them hope. The drawing of the lots must have come to an end, and the rest was matter of arrangement. When he told them he was to sup at the old folks' house, Françoise added, as she turned away: "Well, we shall see you presently; we're going to the evening meeting."
He watched them disappear in the darkness. The snow was thickening and embroidering their mingled dresses with fine white down.
CHAPTER V.
At seven o'clock, after dinner, the Fouans, Buteau, and Jean went to share the cow-house with the two cows which Rose had decided to sell. The animals, fastened up at the farther end, near the trough, kept the closed shed warm with the powerful exhalation from their bodies and their litter; whereas the kitchen, containing only three meagre, smouldering logs, left there after the cooking, was already chilled by the early November frost. So, in the winter, the evening meeting was held in the cow-house, on the trampled earth, snugly and warmly, with no other preparation than carrying in a small round table and a dozen old chairs. Each neighbour brought a candle in rotation. Tall shadows flickered over the bare, dust-begrimed walls, reaching up to the cobwebs on the beams; and from the rear came the warm breath of the cattle, that lay and chewed the cud.
La Grande was the first to arrive, with a piece of knitting. She never brought a candle, presuming on her great age, and she was held in such awe that her brother dared not remind her of the custom. She forthwith took the best place, drew the candlestick towards her, and kept it to herself, on the score of her failing eyes. She had rested the stick, which never left her, against her chair. Glittering flakes of snow were melting on the bristles which stuck up over her fleshless, bird-like head.
"It's coming down?" asked Rose.
"It is," she replied in her curt tones. And setting straightway to work with her knitting, she compressed her thin lips, never prodigal of speech, and cast a searching glance at Jean and Buteau.
The others made their appearance behind her. First Fanny, her son, Nénesse—Delhomme never came to the meetings—then, almost immediately, Lise and Françoise, who laughingly shook off the snow which covered them. The sight of Buteau made the former faintly blush. He looked at her unmoved.
"Been all right, Lise, since we last met?"
"Pretty well, thanks."
"Glad to hear it."
Palmyre, meanwhile, had stolen in through the half-open door, and she was shrinkingly placing herself as far as possible from her grandmother, the redoubtable La Grande, when a tumult outside made her start up. Furious stammerings, tears, laughter, and yells were heard.
"Those rascally children are at him again!" cried she.
She had made a spring forward, and opened the door again. With a bold rush, and growling like a lioness, she rescued her brother Hilarion from the mischievous clutches of La Trouille, Delphin, and Nénesse. The last-named had just joined the other two, who were hanging round the cripple and yelling. Hilarion, breathless and scared, shambled in on his twisted legs. His hare's lip made him dribble at the mouth. He stuttered unintelligibly, was decrepit-looking for his age, and brutishly hideous like the cretin that he was.
He was in a very spiteful mood, quite furious at not being able to catch and clout the urchins who were teasing him. Once more he complained that he had been pelted with a volley of snow-balls.
"Oh! what a story!" said La Trouille, with an air of surpassing innocence. "He's bitten my thumb; look!"