"Now," said Soulas, who had become quite cheery again, "you would be

doing me a kindness if you would help me to move the pens."

Jean and Tron both helped him. The hurdles were constantly moved over

the surface of the far-spreading stubble, never being kept for more

than two or three days in the same position, just sufficient time

to enable the sheep to crop down the stray vegetation. This system,

moreover, had the advantage of gradually manuring the land, patch by

patch. While the shepherd, assisted by his dogs, looked after the

sheep, the two men and the little swine-herd pulled up the stakes and

carried the hurdles some fifty yards further on. Then they again fixed

them so as to enclose a vast square, into which the animals rushed of

their own accord before it was quite completed.

Despite his great age, Soulas was already propelling his wheeled hut

towards the fold.

"What's the matter with Jean?" he presently asked. "One would say he

was burying God Almighty!"

Jean only shook his head sadly. He had been very gloomy ever since he

believed that he had lost Françoise.

"Ah! there's some woman in the matter, I expect," continued the old

man. "The confounded hussies, they ought all to have their necks wrung!"

Thereupon the giant-limbed Tron began to laugh with an innocent air.

"Ah!" he said, "it's only those who are past everything that say that."

"Do you mean to say that I am past everything?" exclaimed the shepherd,

contemptuously. "When did you find that out? But there's one wench,

my lad, whom it's best for you not to touch, or you may be sure that

matters will have a bad ending."

This allusion to Tron's connection with Madame Jacqueline made the

farm-hand blush up to his ears. Soulas had caught them together one

morning in the barn behind some sacks of oats; and in his detestation

of the ex-scullerymaid, who was now so stern and harsh towards her old

pals, he had, after much deliberation, determined to open his master's

eyes as to her conduct. However, at his first word, the farmer had

looked at him with so angry an expression that he had said no more,

resolving to remain silent, unless La Cognette forced him to extreme

measures by bringing about his dismissal. The consequence was that

they were now living together in a state of hostility: Soulas dreading

that he might be turned away like a broken-down old beast of burden,

and Jacqueline biding her time till her influence became sufficiently

consolidated to induce Hourdequin, who was attached to his shepherd,

to dismiss him. Throughout La Beauce nobody understood the art of

sheep-grazing better than Soulas did. His flocks were well-fed and

there was neither loss nor waste, the fields being clean shaved from

one end to the other, without a blade of grass being left behind.

The old man, possessed by the propensity for talking which often leads

those who live solitary lives to take any opportunity of unbosoming

themselves, now continued:

"Ah, if my jade of a wife, before she managed to kill herself, hadn't

put all my brass down her throat as fast as I earned it, I'd have taken

myself off the farm of my own accord before now, so as to get away

from the sight of so much beastliness. That Cognette has made a lot

more money by her face than with her hands, and it's her looks, not

her deserts, that have gained her her present position! Just to think

of the master letting her lie in his dead wife's bed, and being so

infatuated with her that he has ended by taking his meals alone with

her, just as though she were his lawful wife! She'll turn us all out

of the place, neck and crop, at the first opportunity, and the master

himself into the bargain. A filthy sow who has wallowed with every

dirty hog!"

At every sentence spoken by the old man, Tron clenched his fists more

tightly. He was brimming over with suppressed rage, which was rendered

the more terrible by his giant-like strength.

"There that will do!" he cried; "you'd better just shut up. If you

hadn't got into your dotage, I'd have knocked you down before now.

There's more decency in her little finger than there is in the whole of

your old carcass."

Soulas, however, only shrugged his shoulders jeeringly at the other's

threat; and, though he scarcely ever laughed, he now broke out into a

sharp grating giggle, which seemed to come from some mechanism rusted

by disuse.

"You great simpleton, you! You're as foolish and gullible as she's

cunning! Oh, yes, she'll swear hard enough to her virginity! Why,

I tell you that all the country-side has had to deal with her! She

was scarcely fourteen when she and old Mathias, a hunch-back who's

dead now, came together in the stable; then later on, as she was

kneading the dough, she had to do with that little scamp Guillaume,

the swine-herd, who's in the army now, and who found her alone in the

kitchen; and she's been with every farm-labourer that's ever come into

the neighbourhood, in every sort of place imaginable, in every hole

and corner, as is very well known all over the place. Oh! you haven't

far to seek, if you want to tax her with it. I myself saw a fellow

belonging to these parts with her in the hay-loft one morning not long

ago."

He broke out into a fresh giggle, and the side-long glance which

he cast at Jean seemed to make the latter very uneasy. He had been

fidgeting about in silence ever since the conversation had turned upon

Jacqueline.

"It'll be bad for any one whom I find touching her now," growled Tron,

as angry as a dog who has had its bone snatched from it. "I'll spoil

his appetite for him!"

Soulas gazed at the fellow for a moment, surprised by this show of

brutish jealousy.

"Well, that's your own affair, my lad," he drily said in conclusion,

and then he relapsed into one of his fits of contemplative silence.

Tron finally returned to the cart which he was driving to the mill,

while Jean remained for a few minutes longer with the shepherd to help

him to hammer down some of the hurdle stakes. The old man, noticing his

silence and gloomy appearance, began to question him.

"I trust it isn't La Cognette that's upsetting your heart?" he said.

The young fellow shook his head energetically in sign of denial.

"Is it some other wench, then? Who is it, for I don't remember having

seen you with any one?"

Jean glanced at old Soulas, and bethought himself that the counsel of

old men was often valuable in matters of this sort. He also felt a

longing to unbosom himself, and so he told him the whole story, how

he had possessed Françoise, and how he was hopeless of ever seeing

her again since the fight with Buteau. He had even been afraid for a

time, he said, that the latter would prosecute him on account of his

broken arm, which still prevented his doing any work, though it was

now half-way well again. Buteau, however, had probably thought it more

prudent to keep the law from spying into his concerns.

"You have had to do with Françoise, then?" said the old shepherd.

"Yes, once."

The old man reflected with a grave look, and finally continued:

"You had better tell old Fouan all about it; perhaps he will give her

to you."

Jean heard this with astonishment. He had never thought of such a

simple plan. The fold was now complete, and he went away, saying that

he would go and see old Fouan that very evening. As he plodded along

behind his empty cart, Soulas resumed his everlasting watch, his thin,

erect figure standing out like a greyish bar against the flat expanse

of the plain. The little swine-herd was lying down between the two dogs

in the shadow of the movable hut. The wind had suddenly dropped, and

the storm clouds had rolled away towards the east. It was as hot as

ever, and the sun was blazing in a sky of unflecked blue.

That evening Jean left his work an hour earlier than usual, and went to

the Delhommes' to see old Fouan before dinner. As he was going down the

hill-side, he caught sight of the Delhommes amongst their vines, where

they were stripping off the leaves, so as to expose the fruit to the

sun. There had been some heavy rains during the closing quarter of the

moon, and the grapes were ripening badly, so that it was necessary to

take every advantage of the late sunshine. As the old man was not there

with his children, Jean quickened his steps, in the hope of being able

to speak to him alone--a course which he much preferred. The Delhommes'

house was at the other end of Rognes, across the bridge; it was a

little farm, which had recently received various additions in the shape

of barns and out-houses, and the buildings now formed three irregular

blocks, enclosing a fairly large yard. The latter was swept every

morning, and even the dunghills were kept in a state of the greatest

neatness.

"Good day, Father Fouan!" Jean shouted to the old man from the road, in

a somewhat tremulous voice.

Fouan was sitting in the yard with his stick between his legs. His head

was bent down, and he was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not

hear Jean's greeting. A second shout, however, made him raise his eyes,

and presently he recognised who was addressing him.

"Ah, is it you, Corporal?" said he. "Are you coming to see us?"

His greeting was so pleasant and so destitute of spite that the young

man went into the yard. He did not, however, dare to speak immediately

on the subject which had brought him there. His courage failed him

at the thought of openly confessing his intercourse with Françoise.

They talked together of the fine weather, and the good it would do the

grapes. If they only had another week of sunshine the wine would be

excellent.

"What a happy man you must be!" said Jean, wishing to make himself

agreeable. "There isn't such another fortunate fellow in the whole

country-side."

"Yes, indeed."

"And such children, too, as you've got! You'd have a long way to go

before you found better!"

"Yes, yes, indeed; but every one has his troubles, you know."

The old man seemed to have grown gloomy. Since he had taken up his

abode with the Delhommes, Buteau had no longer paid him his share of

the allowance, saying that he did not want his sister to profit by his

money. Hyacinthe had never given him a copper from the outset, and

Delhomme, now that he boarded and lodged with him, had discontinued all

payments. It was not, however, the want of pocket-money that troubled

the old man, for he received from Monsieur Baillehache a hundred and

fifty francs a year, just twelve francs and a-half per month, the

interest on the sum realised by the sale of his house. With this he was

quite able to pay for all his little luxuries, his daily allowance of

tobacco, his drop of brandy at Lengaigne's, and his cup of coffee at

the Macquerons'. Fanny, who was a very careful house-wife, never took

any coffee or brandy out of her cupboard unless some one were ill.

However, despite the fact that he had the means of taking his pleasure

away from home, and wanted for nothing in his daughter's house, the old

man felt aggrieved and seemed to live in a constant state of discontent.

"Ah, yes, indeed," said Jean, unwittingly putting his finger on Fouan's

sore place, "when one lives with other folks, it isn't quite the same

as being in one's own house."

"You're quite right there. Quite right!" replied the old man in a

grumpy voice.

Then he rose from his seat, as though he felt a yearning impulse to

assert his independence.

"Let us go and have a glass together," he said. "I dare say that I may

offer that much to a friend!"

As he was entering the house, however, his courage began to ebb.

"Wipe your feet, Corporal," he said, "for they prate so much, you know,

about their cleanliness and tidiness."

Jean went inside with an awkward gait, intending to make a clean

breast of what he had to say before the others came back. He was

surprised by the trim order of the kitchen. The pans were gleaming

brightly, and there was not a speck of dust on the furniture, while the

flooring was quite worn with the amount of scrubbing it had received.

Some cabbage-soup of the day before stood warming by the side of a

cinder-piled fire.

"Here's your good health!" said the old man, who had taken a couple of

glasses and a partially emptied bottle from the side-board.

His hand trembled slightly as he drained his glass, as if he felt an

uneasy alarm about what he was doing. As he put the glass down with the

air of a man who has risked everything, he abruptly exclaimed:

"Would you believe, now, that Fanny has never once spoken to me since

the day before yesterday, just because I spat? Spat, indeed, just

as though every one didn't spit! I spit, of course, when I feel so

inclined! One had better have done with it altogether than be worried

in this way!"

Then filling his glass a second time, and delighted at having found

some one to whom he could pour out his complaints, he eased his mind,

never giving Jean an opportunity to get in a word. His troubles,

however, did not appear to be very grievous ones, and were born

chiefly of the angry indignation of an old man, to whose feelings and

faults but little toleration was accorded, and upon whom his children

were trying to force a mode of life different from what he had been

accustomed to. However, he was as much affected by his grievances,

slight though they were, as he could have been by actual cruelty and

harsh treatment. A remark repeated in too loud a tone was as hard for

him to bear as a blow would have been; and his daughter made matters

still worse by her excessive touchiness, which seemed to find an

offence and insulting intention in every little sentence which she

could twist into an equivocal meaning. The result of all this was

that the relations between father and daughter were becoming more and

more strained and embittered every day. She who formerly, prior to

the division of the property, had certainly been the kindlier hearted

of the children, was now degenerating into a cross-grained shrew,

subjecting the old man to perfect persecution, constantly following him

about with her broom and duster, and finding fault with him both for

what he did and for what he omitted to do. Without being subjected to

actual cruelty, Fouan was kept in moral torture, over which he silently

moaned in any quiet corner he could find.

"You must try to take it easily," repeated Jean, at each of the old

man's complaints. "An understanding can always be arrived at with a

little patience."

Fouan, however, who had just lighted a candle, now became angrily

excited.

"No, no, I've had quite enough of it!" he cried. "Ah, if I'd only known

what was in store for me here! It would have been better for me if I

had died when I sold my house! But they are very much mistaken if they

think they're going to keep me here! I'd rather go and break stones on

the road."

He was almost choking with emotion, and he was obliged to sit down.

Jean profited by the opportunity to speak out:

"I say, I wanted to see you," he began, "about what took place the

other day. I have regretted it very much, but I was obliged to defend

myself--wasn't I?--since an attack was made upon me. All the same, it

was agreed between me and Françoise. But at present you are the only

person who can put things straight. If you would go to Buteau's, you

could explain matters to them."

The old man became very grave. He wagged his chin, and seemed

embarrassed as to what he should say; however, the return of Fanny

and her husband spared him the necessity of replying. The Delhommes

showed no surprise at finding Jean in their house; they gave him their

customary cordial welcome. Fanny, however, had immediately caught sight

of the bottle and the two glasses on the table. She removed them, and

went to get a duster. Then she spoke to her father for the first time

for forty-eight hours. "Father," she said, "you know that I won't have

that kind of thing."

Fouan rose up, trembling with indignation at this public rebuke.

"At me again! Am I not even at liberty to offer a glass of wine to a

friend? Go and lock your precious wine up! I'll drink water for the

future!"

Fanny was now dreadfully put out by being thus charged with avarice.

"You can drink the house dry and burst yourself, if it gives you any

pleasure to do so," she exclaimed, quite pale with anger; "but I won't

have my table marked with your sticky glasses, just as though the place

were a tavern."

The tears sprang to the old man's eyes.

"A little less anxiety about appearances, and a little more affection,

would become you better, my daughter," he said.

Then, while Fanny was vigorously wiping the table, he went and stood in

front of the window, and painfully overcome by his bitter thoughts,

looked out into the dark night, which had now fallen.

Delhomme had avoided openly taking any part in the incident, but he

had, by his silence, supported his wife's firm attitude. He would not

allow Jean to go away before he had finished the bottle of wine with

him, pouring the remaining contents into some glasses which Fanny

brought to them on plates. She now began, in low tones, to defend her

conduct.

"You've no idea of the trouble that old folks are. They're full of all

sorts of whims and bad habits, and would rather die than be corrected.

There's nothing really bad about my father; he's not strong enough for

anything of that kind now; but I'd rather have to look after four cows

than one old man."

Jean and Delhomme nodded their heads in acquiescence. However, Fanny's

further remarks were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Nénesse,

dressed in town-fashion in a fancy-patterned coat and trousers, bought

ready-made at Lambourdieu's, and with a little hard-felt hat on his

head. His long hairless neck, his blue eyes, and his pretty soft face,

gave him a rather girlish look, as he stood there swaying from side

to side. He had always had a horror of the soil, and he was leaving

the next morning for Chartres, where he was going to take service in a

restaurant where public balls were given. His parents had for a long

time offered a strenuous opposition to his desertion of agriculture,

but at last the mother on being coaxed had persuaded the father to

consent. Since the morning Nénesse had been larking with his friends in

the village, by way of bidding them good-bye.

He seemed surprised for a moment at finding a stranger in the room; but

throwing off his hesitation, he exclaimed:

"I say, mother, I'm going to stand them a dinner at Macqueron's. I

shall want some money."

Fanny looked at him keenly, and opened her lips to refuse his request.

But she was so vain that Jean's presence checked her words. Their

son might surely spend a score of francs without ruining them! And

thereupon she left the room, stiffly and silently.

"Have you got any one with you?" Nénesse's father asked.

He had caught sight of a shadow by the door; and on taking a step

forward, he recognised the young man who had remained outside.

"Oh! it's Delphin. Come in, my lad."

Delphin ventured into the room, excusing himself as he made his

greetings. He was wearing a blue blouse and heavy field-boots. He had

no tie round his neck, and his face was brown from exposure to the hot

sun.

"Well," continued Delhomme, who had a high opinion of the lad, "will

you be setting off for Chartres one of these days?"

Delphin opened his eyes widely, and then energetically exclaimed:

"Oh! Curse it all! No, I should be suffocated in the place."

The father cast a side-long glance at his son, and then Delphin, coming

to the rescue of his friend, continued:

"It's all very well for Nénesse to go there, as he looks so well when

he's dressed up, and can play the cornet."

Delhomme smiled, for he was very proud of his son's skill with the

cornet. Fanny now returned with a handful of two-franc pieces. She

slowly counted out ten of them into Nénesse's palm. All the coins were

quite white from having been kept beneath a heap of corn. She never

trusted her money to her wardrobe, but hid it away in small sums in odd

corners all over the house, underneath the corn, or the coals, or the

sand; the consequence being that when she paid the coins away they were

sometimes one colour, and sometimes another, white, black, or yellow.

"It will do, all the same," said Nénesse, by way of thanks. "Now,

Delphin, are you coming?"

Then the two young fellows went off together, and their merry laughter

could be heard dying away in the distance.

Jean now emptied his glass, seeing that old Fouan, who had kept aloof

during the whole of the last scene, had left the window to go out into

the yard. Then he said good-bye to the Delhommes, and went out in his

turn, finding the old man standing alone in the black night.

"Now, Fouan," said Jean, "will you go to Buteau's and arrange about my

having Françoise? You are the master, and you have only got to say the

word."

"I cannot, I cannot," replied the old man in the darkness, with a jerky

voice.

Then he broke out excitedly, and unbosomed himself of his brooding

wrath. He had done with the Delhommes, he declared, and in the morning

he would go to live with Buteau, who had offered to give him a home.

Even if his son beat him, he would prefer that to being gradually

tortured to death by his daughter's pin-thrusts.

This new obstacle exasperated Jean, and he spoke out bluntly:

"I must tell you, Monsieur Fouan, that Françoise and I have been

together."

The old peasant uttered a simple exclamation: "Ah!" Then, after a

moment's reflection, he added: "We had better wait. By-and-bye we'll

see what can be done."

Fanny now appeared at the door, and called to her father to come in, as

the soup was ready.

"Stick your soup behind!" shouted the old man, turning round to her.

"I'm going to bed."

And, indeed, he went upstairs to bed, with an empty stomach, and

boiling over with anger.

Jean walked slowly away from the farm, so absorbed in his vexation that

he found himself in the level plain again without being conscious of

the road he was taking. The blue-black sky gleamed with stars, and the

night was close and hot. The immobility of the atmosphere told of the

approach of a storm now passing afar, and the reflection of lightning

could be seen towards the east. As Jean raised his head he caught sight

on his left hand of hundreds of phosphorescent eyes gleaming like

candles, and turning towards him at the sound of his steps. It was the

sheep in the pen, alongside of which he was now passing. Then he heard

Soulas ask in his drawling voice: "Well, my lad?"

The dogs, who were lying on the ground, had not stirred, for they had

scented that Jean belonged to the farm. The little swine-herd, driven

from the wheeled hut by the excessive heat, was sleeping in a furrow;

the shepherd standing quite alone on the cropped plain, which was now

enveloped in night.

"Well, my lad, have you settled it?"

"He says," replied Jean, without even stopping, "that if she's in the

family-way he'll see."

He had already stridden past the pen, when old Soulas's response

reached him, sounding solemnly in the deep silence.

"That's true. You must wait."

Jean continued on his way. La Beauce lay stretched around him, buried

in a leaden sleep; and there was an overwhelming sense of the silent

desolation of the scorched stubble and the baked, parched soil in the

burnt smell that floated in the air, and in the chirrup of the crickets

which sounded like the cracking of embers among ashes. Nothing but

the dim forms of the ricks rose above the melancholy nakedness of

the plain; but every twenty seconds or so, low on the horizon, the

lightning flashed in violet streaks of mournful aspect, which swiftly

disappeared.

CHAPTER II.

The next morning Fouan took up his abode with the Buteaus. The removal

of his belongings did not give him any trouble, as they merely

consisted of a couple of bundles of clothes, which he carried himself

in two journeys. It was in vain that the Delhommes tried to bring about

an explanation; he went off without replying to them.

At Buteau's house he was given the big room on the ground-floor--behind

the kitchen--which had hitherto merely been used for the storage of

potatoes and beet-root for the cows. This room, unfortunately, was only

lighted by a small window, some six or seven feet from the ground, and

it was always as dim as a cellar. Then, too, the floor of hardened

soil, the heaps of vegetables, and the rubbish that had been tossed

into the corners gave rise to a copious moisture, which trickled down

the bare plaster of the walls. The Buteaus, besides, left everything

just as it was, and merely cleared out a corner for an iron bed, a

chair, and a deal table. The old man, however, seemed quite delighted.

Buteau now felt very triumphant. Ever since Fouan had been living with

the Delhommes he had been mad with jealousy, for he knew very well what

would be said in Rognes. It would be reported from mouth to mouth that

it made no difference to the Delhommes having to keep their father;

but the Buteaus, poor folks, had barely sufficient for themselves.

So now, during the earlier time of Fouan's stay with him, he plied

him with food in the hope of fattening him, and thus proving to the

neighbourhood that there was no scarcity in his house. Then, too, there

were the hundred and fifty francs a year, the proceeds of the sale of

the house, which he felt sure the old man would leave to the one who

looked after him and took care of him. Moreover, he reflected, now that

Delhomme had no longer to support his father, he would doubtless begin

to pay his share of the allowance again, two hundred francs a year,

and in this expectation he was not disappointed. Buteau had reckoned

upon getting these two hundred francs, he had calculated everything,

and he flattered himself that he would get the credit of being a

good and dutiful son without it costing him anything, besides having

the prospect of reaping a substantial reward later on; to say nothing

of the secret hoard which, so he still suspected, the old man must

possess, though he had never been able to make certain on the point.

For Fouan the change was a perfect honeymoon. He was feasted and shown

to the neighbours. Didn't he look plump and well? the Buteaus asked.

There were no signs of wasting or decline about him, were there? The

little ones, Laure and Jules, were always playing with him, keeping

him amused and delighted. But what, perhaps, pleased him most was

the liberty to indulge himself in his elderly whims and ways, and to

comport himself as he liked in the greater freedom of this household.

Though Lise was a good and cleanly house-wife, she lacked Fanny's

precise tendencies and susceptibilities, and the old man was allowed to

spit wherever he liked, to go out and come in as the fancy seized him,

and to eat every minute if he chose, prompted by that spirit of the

peasant who cannot pass a loaf without cutting a thick slice off it.

Three months passed away in this pleasant fashion. It was now December;

and although the severe frosts froze the water in the old man's jug at

the foot of his bed, still he made no complaints. When it thawed, the

moisture soaked through the walls of his room, and ran down them in

dripping streams; but he seemed to take all this as a matter of course;

he had been brought up in the midst of similar discomforts. So long as

he had his tobacco and coffee, and was not badgered and worried, he

declared he needed nothing more.

Matters began to cloud over, however. One fine, sunny morning, Fouan,

on going back to his bedroom to get his pipe--the others imagined that

he had already left the house--found Buteau there struggling to get

the better of Françoise. The girl, who was strenuously resisting him,

without, however, saying a word, pulled herself together and left the

room, after taking the beet-root which she had come to get for the

cows. The old man, on being left face to face with his son, became

angry.

"You filthy swine, to be going after that girl, with your wife only a

yard or two away!" he cried. "And it wasn't she who wanted you either;

I could see her wrestling with you!"

Buteau, however, who was still panting and flushed, received the old

man's remonstrances very badly.

"Why do you come poking your nose into everything?" he retorted.

"You'd better shut your eyes and hold your jaw, or you'll find it the

worse for you."

Since Lise's confinement, and the fight with Jean, Buteau had been

hotly pursuing Françoise again. He had waited till his arm was strong,

and now all over the house he systematically made onslaughts on the

girl, feeling sure that if he could but once overcome her she would

belong to him in future as much as he wished. Was not this the best way

of preventing the marriage, and of keeping both the girl and her land?

His passion for the two became intermingled, as it were; his resolute

determination to retain the land, and not to part with what was in his

possession, being blended with his unsated sexual lust, now exasperated

by resistance. His wife was becoming enormously stout, a perfect heap

of flesh, and she was still suckling, with Laure constantly hanging at

her breasts; whereas the other one, the little sister-in-law, exhaled

a most appetising odour; her bosom, moreover, being firm and elastic

like the udder of a young heifer. He didn't turn up his nose at either

of them, by the way; in fact, he wanted to have them both, the one soft

and flabby, and the other firmly built; both of them were attractive in

their different styles. He considered himself quite a good enough cock

to have two hens, and he dreamt of leading a pasha-like life, petted,

caressed, and glutted with enjoyment. Why shouldn't he marry both

sisters, if he could get them to consent to his doing so? It seemed to

him to be the best way of keeping things pleasant, and of avoiding a

division of the property, which he dreaded as much as though he were

threatened with having one of his limbs wrenched off.

Now, whenever he and Françoise found themselves alone for a moment,

whether in the stable or the kitchen or anywhere else, it mattered not

where, there was a sudden attack and defence; Buteau rushing upon the

girl, and the girl striking him. It was always the same short, sharp

struggle; the man seizing Françoise firmly round the waist, and the

girl, with clenched teeth and savage eyes, forcing him to let go his

hold by striking him with full force with her clenched fist. Not a word

was spoken by either; there was no sound but that of their hot breath,

a sort of stifled panting, the deadened stir of a struggle. Then

Buteau would with difficulty restrain a cry of pain, while the girl

straightened her clothes and limped away, feeling bruised and sore.

These scenes took place when Lise was in the next room, and sometimes

even when she was in the same room, with her back turned to them while

she arranged some linen in the wardrobe. It was as though the wife's

presence excited the husband; he being at the same time certain of the

girl's proud and resolute silence.

Quarrels, however, had broken out since old Fouan had seen them among

the potatoes. He had bluntly told Lise everything that he had seen, so

that she might prevent her husband from making any further attempt upon

his sister-in-law. Then Lise, after shouting to her father to mind his

own business, angrily attacked her younger sister. She had only herself

to blame, she cried, for enticing the men on, and what had happened to

her was only what was to be expected; all the men were swine. In the

evening, however, Lise made such a scene with Buteau that she came out

of her room the next morning with her eye bunged up and blackened by a

heavy blow which he had dealt her with his fist during the discussion.

After that there was constant quarrelling going on. There were always

two of the inmates of the house trying to bite each other's heads off,

the husband and wife, or the husband and his sister-in-law, or else the

two sisters, even if they were not all three engaged in devouring one

another.

Then it was that the slowly and unconsciously-developed hatred

between Lise and Françoise became truly bitter. Their whilom tender

affection for each other gave place to a savage feeling, which kept

them irritated with one another from morning till night. The real and

only cause of it all was this man, Buteau, who was like some poisonous

leaven. Françoise, quite upset by his perpetual onslaughts, would have

succumbed long previously if her will had not shielded her against

desire each time he touched her. Her obstinate notions of abstract

justice, her resolute determination neither to give up what was her own

nor to take what was another's, brought her no little trouble. She was

angry with herself for feeling jealous and execrating her sister for

possessing this man, rather than have shared whom she herself would

have died. When he pursued her, she angrily retaliated by spitting

upon him, and sent him back, befouled with her saliva, to his wife. To

do this seemed in some way to soothe her struggling desires: it was

as though she had spat in her sister's face in her envious contempt,

for the pleasure in which she had no share. Lise, on the other hand,

was free from jealousy, feeling quite certain that Buteau had merely

bragged in asserting that he enjoyed both of them--not that she

believed him incapable of such a thing, but she was convinced that

her sister was too proud to yield. The only grudge she felt against

Françoise was that, owing to her persistent rejection of Buteau's

advances, the whole house was becoming a hell upon earth. The fatter

she grew, the more complacent she seemed to become, taking a lively

delight in existence, and egotistically craving for pleasant, easy

surroundings. It seemed to her the height of folly that her husband

and sister should go on quarrelling like that, marring the sweetness

of life, when they really had everything that was necessary for their

happiness. The girl's perverse disposition was the sole cause of all

the trouble.

Every night when she went to bed she exclaimed to Buteau:

"It's all my sister! But if she causes me any more annoyance, I'll have

her turned out of the house!"

This course, however, would by no means have suited Buteau.

"A fine notion, indeed! Why, we should have all the country-side crying

shame on us! What a plague you women are! I shall have to duck you both

in the pond till you can live together in harmony."

Two months more passed away, and Lise, who was so upset, might have

sugared her coffee twice, as she said, without finding it to her

palate. She divined whenever her sister had repelled some fresh

onslaught of her husband's, for she then had a further experience of

his angry ill-temper, and she now lived in constant dread of these

repeated repulses, feeling anxious whenever she caught sight of him

creeping up slily behind Françoise's skirts, and making sure that when

he came back again he would be in a violent temper, breaking everything

that came in his way, and making the whole house wretched. These were

hateful days to her, and she could not forgive the obstinate wench for

not restoring tranquillity.

One day matters reached a terrible pitch. Buteau, who had gone down

into the cellar with Françoise to draw some cider, came up again so

harshly repulsed, and in a state of such raging anger, that for the

merest trifle, just because his soup was too hot, he hurled his plate

against the wall, and then rushed out of the room, after knocking Lise

down with a blow that would almost have killed an ox.

Crying and bleeding, she struggled on to her feet again, with her cheek

sadly swollen, and at once fell foul of her sister.

"You dirty drab!" she cried, "go to bed with him, and have done with

it! I'm sick to death of it all; and if you persist in being obstinate,

simply to make him beat me, I'll run away!"

Françoise listened to her, quite pale and horrified.

"As true as God hears me, I'd rather do that," continued Lise. "Perhaps

he'd leave us in peace then!"

She fell down on a chair, and began to sob spasmodically. Her fat body,

which had now begun to shrink, bespoke her recklessness, her one desire

for quiet happiness, even at the cost of sharing her husband with

another. She would still keep a share of him herself, and would have

all that was necessary. People, she thought, had foolish ideas on these

matters. A husband was not like a loaf, that was consumed at each bit

one ate. Ought they not to agree amongst themselves, and live together

in a friendly fashion?

"Come, now, why won't you?" she asked.

Choked with disgust, Françoise could only cry, angrily:

"You are more disgusting than he is!"

Then she, too, went away to sob in the cow-house, where La Coliche

gazed at her with her big, sad eyes. What roused her indignation was

not so much the thing itself as the complaisant part she herself was

to play--to surrender herself just for the sake of securing peace

and quietness in the house. If Buteau had been her own husband, she

thought she would never have consented to give up the least bit of

him. Her bitter feeling against her sister turned into one of scorn

and contempt, and she vowed to herself that she would be flayed alive

rather than give way.

Her life now became still more embittered than before. She became the

general drudge of the house, the beast of burden that came in for

everybody's kicks and buffetings. She was reduced to the level of

a hired servant overburdened with work, and continually rated, and

thumped, and ill-treated. Lise would not permit her a single hour's

leisure; but made her rise before daylight, and kept her up so late

at night that the poor girl often fell asleep without having enough

strength left her to undress herself. Buteau took a malicious pleasure

in torturing her by his familiarities, slapping her on the loins,

pinching her thighs, and falling upon her with all sorts of savage

caresses, which left her bleeding, and with her eyes full of tears,

but as obstinately silent as ever. Buteau himself laughed, and derived

some little satisfaction whenever he saw the girl growing faint, and

with difficulty refraining from crying out from sheer pain. Her body

was sadly discoloured and disfigured with bruises and scratches. In

her sister's presence she especially forced herself to repress every

sign of suffering, and to comport herself as though a man's hands

were not actually fingering her flesh. Sometimes, however, she could

not altogether control herself, but replied to Buteau's attacks by a

swinging blow. Then there would be a general engagement. Buteau would

belabour Françoise; while Lise, under the pretence of separating them,

would assail them both with vigorous kicks from her heavy boots. Little

Laure and her big brother Jules yelled at the top of their voices, and

all the dogs about the premises began to bark, arousing the pity of the

neighbours for Françoise. "Ah, poor girl!" they used to say; "she must

have rare pluck to remain in such a place!"

Her remaining with the Buteaus was, indeed, the standing wonder of all

Rognes. Why didn't she run away? the neighbours asked of each other.

The knowing ones shook their heads; the girl was not of age, she still

had another eighteen months to wait. To run away would be to her own

disadvantage, for she could not take her property with her, and she

showed her sense by remaining. Ah! if Fouan, her guardian, had only

supported her cause? But he himself hadn't too easy a life with his

son-in-law; he had his own peace and quietness to look after, and, for

the sake of his own comforts, was obliged to stand aloof. The girl,

moreover, with her independence and self-reliance, had forbidden him to

interfere in her affairs.

Every outbreak now ended in the same way.

"Off you go at once! Clear out with you!"

"Oh, yes, that's just what you'd like! Once I was foolish, and wanted

to go away; whereas now you may kill me if you choose, but you won't

get me to go. I shall stop here, and wait for what belongs to me. I

want the land and the house, and I mean to have them, too; every inch

and every stone!"

For the first few months Buteau's great fear had been that Françoise

might prove to be with child. He had counted the days since he had

caught her and Jean together among the corn, and he kept casting

anxious, side-long glances at the girl, for the arrival of a baby would

have spoilt everything by necessitating his sister-in-law's marriage.

The girl herself was quite easy about the matter; but when she noticed

the manifest interest that Buteau showed in her figure, she took a

pleasure in puffing herself out, in order to deceive him. And whenever

he seized hold of her, she always imagined that he was measuring her

with his big fingers, the consequence of which was that she ended by

saying to him, with a defiant air:

"Ah, there's one coming, and growing fast enough!"

One day she even folded up some towels and wrapped them round her.

But in the evening there was almost a massacre. A feeling of terror

now seized her at the murderous glances which her brother-in-law cast

at her; she felt quite sure that if she had really been with child

the brutal fellow would have struck her some foul blow in the hope of

killing her. So she discontinued her acting.

"Go and get yourself a baby!" said Buteau one day to her, with a leer.

"If I haven't got one, it's because I don't choose," she replied,

angrily, turning pale.

This was quite true. She obstinately rejected Jean's advances. Buteau,

however, was none the less noisily triumphant, and he now began to

abuse the girl's lover. A fine sort of a man he must be! he cried. Why,

he must be rotten! He might be able to break people's arms by cowardly

tricks, but he hadn't backbone enough about him to put a girl in the

family-way! After that he began to overwhelm Françoise with sarcastic

allusions to Jean, and indulged in filthy jokes about her own person.

When Jean heard of Buteau's remarks about himself he threatened to go

and break his jaw. He was constantly haunting Françoise, and beseeching

her to yield again. He'd soon let them see, he said, if he couldn't

get a child, and a big one, too! His lustful desire was now heightened

by anger. But the girl was always ready with some fresh reason for

putting him off. She had no great dislike for him, it is true, she

simply had no desire for him, that was all; and, indeed, she must have

been completely free from all desire whatever not to have given way

and surrendered herself when she fell into his arms behind a hedge,

still flushed and angered by one of Buteau's onslaughts. Oh, the

filthy swine! She always spoke of him as a filthy swine, boiling over

with passion and excitement; but growing suddenly cold and calm again

when Jean tried to profit by the opportunity. "No, no!" she cried.

She felt ashamed at the thought of it. One day, when he pressed her

very closely, she told him that he must wait a little longer, till the

evening of their wedding-day. This was the first time that she had said

anything that could be interpreted into an engagement, for she had

hitherto always avoided giving Jean a definite answer when he asked

her to be his wife. After that it was taken for granted that he should

marry her, but not until she was of age, and became entitled to her

property, in a position to demand the rendering of accounts. This,

Jean now felt, was the most prudent course: he advised the girl to be

as patient as she could in the meantime, and he ceased to worry her

with his importunities, except at times when the idea of a spree was

strong within him. Françoise, feeling easy and tranquil at the thought

of a promise which was not to be redeemed for a long time, contented

herself by grasping his hands so as to make him desist, and gazing at

him with her pretty, beseeching eyes, the look of which seemed to say

that she did not wish to risk having a child unless its father was her

husband.

Though Buteau had now satisfied himself that she was not in the

family-way, he was seized with a fresh fear that she might become so

if she saw anything more of Jean. He was still greatly bothered about

the latter, for folks told him on all sides that Jean had vowed he

would get Françoise with child. So Buteau now exercised unremitting

surveillance over his sister-in-law from morning till night, forcing

her to work every single minute of the day, keeping her near-by under

threat of a hiding, just as though she had been some beast of burden

which could not be trusted to itself for a moment. This was a great

torture for the girl. Either her brother-in-law or her sister was

continually behind her, and she could not so much as go to the yard

without being followed by a spying eye. At night they locked her up

in her bedroom; one evening, after a quarrel, she even found the

shutter of her little window secured by a padlock. In spite of all

their strict surveillance, however, she managed now and then to make

her escape, and upon her return there were very violent scenes, the

girl having to submit to the most disgusting questions, and sometimes

even to examinations of her person, Buteau seizing hold of her by the

shoulders while his wife partially undressed her and scrutinized her.

All this brought her upon easier terms with Jean, and she made several

appointments with him, taking a pleasure in thwarting her tormentors.

She might even have yielded to her lover, if she had known that Buteau

and Lise were hiding behind them watching. At all events, she again

repeated her promise, that come what might, she would certainly be

his in time; and she swore to him in the most solemn way that Buteau

had lied when he boasted that he slept with both the sisters. He had

said that, she continued, from mere braggartism, and in the hope of

bringing about a state of affairs which did not exist. Jean, who had

previously been much tormented on this score, was quite satisfied with

Françoise's explanation, and felt much easier in mind. As they parted

they kissed each other affectionately; and from this time forward the

girl took the young man for her confidant and adviser, trying to see

him as often as possible, and doing nothing without his sanction and

approbation; while he, on his side, now made no further attempts upon

her, but treated her like a comrade whose interests were identical with

his own.

Every time now that she ran to meet him behind a wall, the conversation

was of a similar kind. The girl excitedly tore open her bodice or

pulled up her sleeves.

"See!" she exclaimed; "just look where that swine has been pinching me

again!"

Then Jean would look at her flesh, remaining quite calm and

unimpassioned.

"He shall be made to pay for it! You must show it to the women about

here. But don't try to do anything to avenge yourself just at present.

By-and-bye we will have justice, when we have got the power on our

side."

"And that sister of mine," continued Françoise, "stands by and watches

him. Only yesterday, when he sprang upon me, instead of throwing a pail

of cold water over him, she never stirred."

"Your sister will have a bad time of it yet with this scoundrel. You

needn't be afraid. He can't force you, so long as you refuse to let

him have you, and you can get over all the rest. If we keep united, we

shall beat him."

Although old Fouan did his best to steer clear of the quarrels, he

was always made to suffer from them. If he remained in the house and

tried to keep silent he was straightway forced into the row; and if

he went out he found himself upon his return in the midst of a scene

of confusion, his mere appearance often sufficing to rekindle the

flame again. So far, he had never had any real physical suffering, but

there now commenced a season of privations, of scantily-doled food,

and a suppression of all his little indulgences. The old man was no

longer stuffed with grub, as had been the case at first; every time

that he cut too thick a slice of bread he was assailed with abuse.

What a bottomless pit his belly was! they cried. The less he did, the

more he stuffed and swilled! Every quarter, when he went to Cloyes to

receive from Monsieur Baillehache the interest on the money realised by

the sale of his house, he was strictly watched, and his pockets were

emptied on his return. Françoise was reduced to pilfering her sister's

coppers to buy him a little tobacco, for she herself was kept equally

destitute of pocket-money. The old man also felt very uncomfortable

in the damp room where he slept, now that he had broken one of the

panes in the window, the aperture having merely been stuffed with

straw to save the expense of a new piece of glass. Oh, those beastly

children! he moaned; they were all equally barbarous! He growled and

grumbled from morning till night, and bitterly regretted having left

the Delhommes, sick at heart at now finding himself so much worse off

than before. However, he concealed his feelings as far as possible,

and it was only his involuntary exclamations that testified to their

existence, for he knew that Fanny had asserted that he would return

and ask her on his knees to take him back again. That remark made it

impossible for him to return; it would sear his heart for ever, like a

bar of iron that he could never remove. He would rather die of hunger

and indignation with the Buteaus, so he told himself, than return and

humble himself before the Delhommes.

One day as Fouan was returning from Cloyes, where he had been to

receive his dividends from the notary, he sat down to rest on the

slope of a dry ditch. Hyacinthe, who happened to be prowling about the

neighbourhood examining the rabbit holes, observed the old man deeply

absorbed in counting a number of five-franc pieces in his handkerchief.

He immediately stooped down and crawled along in silence till he got

close up to his father. As he lay there, concealed from sight, he

was much surprised to see Fouan carefully knotting up a considerable

sum of money, as much, probably, as eighty francs. Hyacinthe's eyes

glistened at the sight, and his wolfish teeth were bared in a quiet

smile. The idea of a secret hoard at once returned to his mind. The

old man evidently had some secret investments, the dividends of which

he received every quarter, taking advantage of his visits to Monsieur

Baillehache to do so without any one being the wiser.

Hyacinthe's first impulse was to put on a piteous air and beg for

twenty francs. On second thoughts, however, this seemed too paltry a

scheme, and, thinking of a better plan, he glided away as noiselessly

as he had come, with all the sinuous suppleness of a snake. Thus Fouan,

who had now set off again, did not feel the least suspicion when, a

hundred yards further on, he met his son, who seemed merely to be on

his way back to Rognes. They walked on together and talked. The father

fell foul of the Buteaus, who were destitute of all human feeling, and

whom he accused of starving him to death. Then the son, with a filial,

sympathetic air, his eyes damp with emotion, offered to rescue his

father from these wretches by taking him to live in his own house. Why

shouldn't he come? he asked. There was no worrying or hardship there;

they led a merry life from morning till night. La Trouille cooked for

two now, and she could just as easily cook for three. And fine cookery

hers was whenever there was any money.

Astonished by his son's offer, and overcome with a feeling of vague

uneasiness, Fouan shook his head in token of refusal. No, no, indeed.

At his age a man could not flit about in that sort of way from one

house to another, changing his mode of life every year.

"Very well, father; but think the matter over. I am quite sincere in my

offer. My place will always be open to you. When you have had enough of

those filthy scamps, come and live with me."

Hyacinthe then went off, perplexed and wondering, asking himself how

his father spent his income, for he unquestionably had one. A heap

of money like that coming in four times a year must amount to a nice

sum--at least three hundred francs. If he did not spend the cash

he must be hoarding it up somewhere. It was clearly a matter to be

investigated. It must be a really magnificent hoard by this time!

That day--a mild, damp October day it was--when Fouan returned home,

Buteau claimed the thirty-seven francs and a-half which the old man

had received, as was usual, every quarter since the sale of his house.

It had been agreed that Buteau should receive this money, as well as

the two hundred francs paid yearly by the Delhommes, on account of the

old man's board and lodging. That day, however, a couple of five-franc

pieces had got mixed up with those which the old man had secured in his

handkerchief; and when, after turning out his pockets, he only produced

twenty-seven francs and a-half, his son burst into a violent fit of

rage, treating him as though he were a thief, and accusing him of

having frittered away the missing ten francs in drink and disgraceful

dissipation. The old father, in a state of great consternation, and

keeping his hand upon his handkerchief, full of alarm lest it should be

examined, stammered out excuses, and swore that he must have lost the

money in pulling out his handkerchief to blow his nose. Again the house

was topsy-turvy until night.

What had put Buteau into such a savage temper was, that while bringing

his harrow back he had seen Jean and Françoise hurrying away behind a

wall. The girl, who had gone out on the pretence of getting some grass

for her cows, had not yet returned, for she knew what kind of reception

awaited her. The night was already falling, and Buteau, in a furious

rage, went out every minute into the yard, and even on to the road, to

see if the hussy were coming back. He swore at the top of his voice,

and poured out a torrent of filthy language, without observing old

Fouan, who was sitting on the stone bench, calming himself after the

row, and enjoying the warm softness of the air, which made that sunny

October like a spring month.

The sound of clogs was now heard coming up the slope, and Françoise

made her appearance, bending double, for her shoulders were laden with

an enormous bundle of grass, which she had tied up in an old cloth. She

was panting and perspiring, almost hidden beneath her burden.

"So here you are, you filthy hussy!" cried Buteau. "You'll soon find

out your mistake if you imagine you can make a fool of me, and go off

with your lover for a couple of hours at a stretch, when there's work

to be done here!"

Then he knocked her over on to the bundle of grass, which had fallen

down, and threw himself upon her, just as Lise came out of the house to

rave, in her turn, at the girl.

"Ah, you dirty jade," she cried, "let me get at you and I'll kick you.

Have you no shame at all?"

Buteau had already firmly seized hold of the girl by her petticoats.

His outbursts of rage always turned into sharp desire. While he

attacked her he growled, nearly choking, with his face empurpled and

swollen by the rush of blood.

"You damned cat!" he sputtered out, "I'll have my turn now! Heaven's

lightning sha'n't prevent me!"

Then there began a furious struggle. Old Fouan could not see very well

in the darkness, but he was able to observe that Lise was standing

there, looking on, without making any attempt to interfere, while her

husband struggled and fought with Françoise, over whom he sprawled. In

the end, however, the girl managed to shake him off.

"You swine! You filthy swine!" she cried, in a panting voice, "you

haven't succeeded, and you never shall--no, never! never!"

Then she strode up to Lise and addressed her in taunting triumph. Her

sister was just silencing her by a heavy blow on the mouth, when old

Fouan, having sprung up from his seat, quite disgusted and horrified at

what he had seen, rushed forward, brandishing his stick.

"You filthy brutes, both of you!" he cried; "can't you leave the girl

alone? There's been more than enough of this!"

Lights were now seen in the neighbouring houses. All these goings-on

were beginning to make people feel anxious, so Buteau hurriedly drove

his father and Françoise into the kitchen, where the candlelight showed

Laure and Jules crouching in a corner, where they had taken refuge in

their terror. Lise also had come in, bewildered and silent ever since

the old man had issued out of the darkness. Fouan now addressed himself

to her again.

"It was too revolting on your part," he said. "I saw you looking on!"

Buteau now brought down his fist on the table with all his strength.

"Silence!" he cried; "the matter's done with. I'll smash the next one

who says another word about it!"

"And if I choose to speak," demanded Fouan, in a quavering voice, "will

you smash me?"

"You as soon as another. I'm quite sick of you!"

Françoise bravely came forward between the two men.

"I beg of you not to interfere, uncle. You have seen that I am able to

take care of myself."

The old man, however, pushed her aside.

"Leave me alone. At present you are not concerned. It is my business

now. Ah, you would smash me, would you, villain?" he cried, raising his

stick. "You had better take care that I don't chastise _you_!"

But Buteau quickly snatched the old man's stick from him, and tossed

it under the dresser. Then, with a wicked look in his leering eyes,

he planted himself straight in front of Fouan, and spoke to him

cheek-by-jowl.

"Will you just leave me alone, eh? Do you think I mean to tolerate your

airs? No, no. Just look at me if you want to know who I am."

Both the men stood silently confronting each other for a moment or

two, glaring fiercely, as though they hoped to cow each other by their

glance. The son, since the division of the property, had grown stouter

and stood more solidly on his legs, and his jaws seemed to project

further from his bull-dog-shaped skull, with its narrow, retreating

brow; while the father, worn out by his sixty years of toil, had shrunk

still further, his stoop increasing slightly day by day. His loins

seemed broken, and his body bent forward towards the ground. His

huge nose was the only feature which retained its pristine shape and

proportions.

"Who you are?" retorted Fouan. "I know it only too well. I begot you."

Buteau sniggered.

"Ah, you shouldn't have done so!" he replied. "Everybody his turn.

There's your blood in me, you know, and I hate to be interfered with.

So once more I tell you, leave me alone, or it will be worse for you!"

"For yourself, you mean. I never spoke to _my_ father in such a way."

"Oh, come now, that's a stiff 'un! Why, you would have killed your

father if he hadn't died before you had time!"

"You lie, you filthy swine! And, by the Lord God, you shall unsay that

this very minute!"

Françoise, for the second time, now tried to interpose; and Lise

herself, terrified by this fresh outbreak, made a similar effort.

But the two men thrust the women aside, and confronted each other,

breathing violently in each other's faces, as they stood there, father

against son, boiling over with that spirit of overweening despotism

which the one had bequeathed to the other.

Fouan wanted to exalt himself by attempting to regain his old absolute

supremacy as head of the family. For half a century, in the days when

he still retained his property and authority, his wife, his children,

and his cattle had trembled at his word.

"Say that you have lied, you filthy swine; say that you have lied, or I

will make you dance, as surely as that candle is burning there!"

Raising his hand, he threatened his son with that gesture which had

once made all his family sink to the ground.

"Say that you have lied!"

Whenever Buteau in his younger days had felt a buffet coming he had

raised his elbow to shield himself, his teeth chattering the while; but

now he merely shrugged his shoulders with an air of insolent contempt.

"You are vastly mistaken. You imagine that you frighten me," he said.

"It was all very well when you were the master to treat us like that!"

"I am the master--the father!"

"Nonsense, you old joker; you are nothing at all. Ah, so you won't

leave me alone, won't you?"

Then seeing that the old man's unsteady arm was descending to deal a

blow, he seized hold of it, and crushed it in his rough grasp.

"What a pig-headed fellow you are!" he cried. "Can't you get it into

that old noddle of yours that no one cares a fig about you now? Do you

suppose that you are good for anything at all? You are so much expense,

and that's all! When a man has outlived his time, and passed his land

over to others, he ought to be content with chewing his grub quietly,

and keep from being a nuisance to other folks."

He shook his father to emphasise what he was saying; and then, giving

the old man a final shake, he hurled him backwards, trembling and

quaking, upon a chair near the window. And there the old man remained,

half choking, for a moment, conquered and humiliated by the complete

loss of his old authority. It was all over with him. He counted for

nothing at all, now that he had stripped himself of his property.

Complete silence reigned in the kitchen, and all remained in

embarrassed inactivity. The children had scarcely dared to breathe for

fear of receiving a cuffing. Presently, however, work was begun again

as if nothing unusual had happened.

"Is that grass going to be left out in the yard?" asked Lise.

"I'll go and put it in the cow-house," replied Françoise.

When she had returned, and after they had dined, Buteau, who was quite

incorrigible, thrust his hand into her bodice, to hunt for a flea which

she said was biting her. She no longer showed any signs of annoyance,

and, indeed, she joked about it.

Fouan had never moved, but still remained stiff and silent in his dark

corner. Two big tears were rolling down his cheeks. He called to mind

the evening when he had broken with the Delhommes; and now again on

this evening he experienced the same bitterness and humiliation at

finding himself no longer the master; the same anger which had then

made him obstinately refuse to eat. They had called to him three times,

but he refused to join in the meal. Presently he sprang up, and went

off to his bedroom. The next morning, as soon as it was light, he left

the Buteaus, to take up his quarters with Hyacinthe.

CHAPTER III.

Hyacinthe was a very windy individual, and he was constantly going

off in explosions, which kept the house in a lively state, for he

never allowed one of these reports to pass without indulging in some

facetious jest. He had a contempt for your timid little reports,

suppressed as much as possible, and sounding as though they were

ashamed of themselves. He himself never let off aught but loud

detonations, crisp and crackling, like gun shots; and every time, as

he raised his leg with a gesture of self-satisfied complacency, he

summoned his daughter in a tone of urgent command and with an air of

serious gravity.

"Come here, you troll, come here at once!"

As soon as the girl hurried forward, the explosion was allowed to take

place, going off with such a sharp vibrating report that La Trouille

quite started at the noise it made.

"Quick, run after it and catch it, and see if it's come out straight!"

At other times when she approached him, he would give her his hand.

"Pull hard, now, you jade! Make it go off with a good crack!"

Then, when the explosion took place with all the sputter and row of a

tightly jammed charge, he exclaimed:

"Ah, that's a hard one! but I'm much obliged to you all the same."

Then at other times he would hold an imaginary gun to his shoulder and

pretend to take aim carefully; and when the explosion had taken place,

he would cry out:

"Run off and retrieve, you lazy bitch!"

La Trouille used to laugh till she fell down on her buttocks, almost

choked. It was a continual fresh and ever increasing merriment. Used as

she was to the sport, the final explosion, with its comical eruptive

noisiness, never failed to shake her with laughter. Oh, what a funny

fellow he was, this father of hers! Sometimes he would talk of a lodger

who had fallen into arrears with his rent, and whom he was obliged to

eject; at other times he would turn round with an air of surprise,

and bow gravely, as though the table had wished him good-morning; and

at others he would trumpet out a series of salutes for his reverence

the priest, his worship the mayor, and the ladies. It seemed almost,

as though the fellow's belly was a sort of musical-box, from which he

could extract any sound he chose; and one day, when the company at

The Jolly Ploughman at Cloyes wagered a glass that he could not let

off six discharges one after another, he victoriously won the bet.

This accomplishment of his had become a source of honour and glory. La

Trouille was quite proud of him; and, as soon as ever he raised his

leg, she began to wriggle. She was constantly admiring him, and his

prowess inspired her with mingled consternation and affection.

On the very evening of the day when old Fouan took up his quarters at

the Château, as the old burrow in which the poacher buried himself was

called, at the very first meal which the girl served to her father

and grandfather, standing behind them in the respectful attitude of a

servant, there were loud and merry explosions. The old man had given

his son five francs, and a pleasant odour spread about--that of the

kidney-beans and veal and onions, which the girl knew so well how to

cook. As she was bringing in the beans she almost broke the dish in her

excitement. For, before sitting down to table, Hyacinthe let off three

sharp, regular reports.

"The salute for the feast!" he exclaimed. "Now we can begin!"

Then, bracing himself up, he gave vent to a fourth single discharge,

very loud and odoriferous.

"That's for those brutes, the Buteaus!" he cried. "Let them stuff it

down their throats!"

Fouan, who had maintained a gloomy demeanour ever since his arrival,

now suddenly broke out into a snigger, and signified his approbation

by nodding his head. This seemed to have put him at his ease. He, too,

in his time, had been noted as a joker, and his children had grown up

quietly at home in the midst of the paternal bombardments. He rested

his elbows on the table, and gave himself up to a pleasant feeling of

enjoyable comfort as he sat opposite that hulking rascal Hyacinthe,

who gazed at him in return with his damp eyes and his air of jovial

scampishness.

"Ah! God Almighty, dad. We'll enjoy ourselves. You shall see my dodge.

I'll undertake to make you merry. Will you be any better off when

you're underground with the moles, for having denied yourself a tit-bit

up here?"

Though he had been a sober man all his life, Fouan, who now felt a

craving to drown his worries, replied in the same strain:

"Well, yes, indeed, it's better to eat up everything rather than leave

any for the others. Here's your good health, my lad!"

La Trouille now served the veal and onions. There was a momentary

silence, and Hyacinthe, to prevent the conversation dropping, let fly

a prolonged flourish, which passed through the straw seat of his chair

with all the varied modulations of a human cry. Then he immediately

turned to his daughter with a gravely interrogative air.

"What did you say?" he asked her.

She could make no reply, but was obliged to sit down and hold her

sides. She was still more upset, however, by some final facetiousness

between the father and son, after the veal and the cheese had been

cleared away, and they began to smoke and help themselves to the bottle

of brandy which had been placed on the table. They sat silently for

some time, boozy with drink.

Presently, Hyacinthe slowly raised his leg, and let off a loud

explosion. Then looking towards the door:

"Come in!" he cried.

Fouan, who felt himself challenged, and who had for a long time

past been regretting his loss of form, now once more regained the

accomplishment of his youthful days, and, raising his leg, he also

broke out into a noisy explosion.

"Here I come!" he exclaimed.

Then they both clapped their hands, slobbering and laughing. They

enjoyed it immensely. But it was too much for La Trouille, who had

fallen down on the floor, and was so shaken with wild spasms of

laughter that she, too, gave vent to a slight explosion, but soft and

musical, like a note from a fife in comparison with the sonorous,

organ-like sounds of the two men.

Hyacinthe sprang up with an air of indignant protest, and stretched out

his arm with a tragical gesture of authority:

"Out of the room with you, you dirty sow. Out of the room at once, you

stink-pot! I'll teach you to show proper respect to your father and

grandfather!"

He had never tolerated this familiarity on her part. It was only

for people of a certain age. He cleared the air as it were with his

outstretched hand, and pretended to be nearly choked by the little

flute-like sound. His own, and his father's, he said, only smelt of

gunpowder. Then, as the culprit, who had turned very red, and was

quite upset by her forgetfulness of etiquette, hung back and showed a

disinclination to leave, he, himself, cast her out of the room with an

energetic shove.

"Go and shake your petticoats, you filthy sow, and don't venture in

here again for another hour, till you've got yourself well ventilated!"

said he.

That day was the commencement of a careless life full of jovial

merriment. The girl's bedroom was given up to the grandfather. It was

one of the divisions of the old cellar, cut off by a wooden partition.

La Trouille herself, relinquishing her room with the greatest

willingness, now took up her quarters at the far end of the cellar,

in an excavation in the rock, which led, so the local legends said,

into some immense subterranean caverns which had been blocked up by

land-slips. Unfortunately this fox-hole of a Château was getting more

deeply buried every winter by the action of the heavy rains, which

flowed down the steep slope of the hill and swept the earth and pebbles

along with them. The old ruin, with its ancient foundations and rough

repairs, would have disappeared altogether if the aged lime-trees that

had been planted over it had not kept the stones together by their

thick, spreading roots. However, when the spring-time came round it

was a charmingly fresh little spot, a kind of grotto lying hid beneath

a tangle of briars and hawthorns. The sweet-briar that grew in front

of the window was starred over with pink blossoms, and the door was

wreathed with a drapery of wild honey-suckle, which had to be lifted

like a curtain before one could enter the place.

It was by no means every evening that La Trouille was called upon to

cook kidney beans and veal and onions. This only happened when the old

man had been induced to part with a five-franc piece. Hyacinthe never

attempted to obtain the money by any show of force or harshness; he

worked upon his father's love of good living and his paternal feelings

to despoil him of his money. There was always a good deal of feasting

at the commencement of each month, when Fouan received his sixteen

francs' allowance from the Delhommes; and every quarter, when the

notary paid him his dividend of thirty-seven francs and a-half, there

was the most uproarious junketing. At first the old man, clinging to

his ingrained habits of parsimony, would only hand out half a franc

at a time, expecting that amount to last for a long while; but,

by-and-bye, he gradually surrendered himself to his scamp of a son,

who flattered him and wheedled him, and sometimes so worked upon his

feelings by his extraordinary stories that he was dissolved in tears,

and easily prevailed upon to part with two and three francs. He, too,

then took to stuffing himself with food, saying that it was best to

enjoy one's-self while one could.

In justice to Hyacinthe, however, it must be said that he fairly

divided everything with the old man; and, if he robbed him, he also

kept him amused. The lazy fellow, with his knavishness, was, at all

events, a better sort than Buteau, and indeed he often boasted to that

effect. At first, when his belly was delighted with fat living, he

dropped all thought even about his father's supposed hoard, and did not

make the least attempt to discover anything concerning it. Old Fouan

was quite free to do as he pleased so long as he cheerfully provided

the means for their festive junketings. It was only during the second

fortnight of the month, when the old man's pockets were quite empty,

that his son indulged in speculations as to where the money of which

he had caught a glimpse could be hidden away. He could not get hold of

a copper of it. He grumbled at La Trouille who served him dish after

dish of potatoes without butter; and, as he felt a painful void in his

belly, he reflected that it was really most idiotic for them to remain

on such short commons simply for the sake of hoarding up some money. It

would certainly be necessary to unearth that hoard some day and have a

fling with it.

Still, even on the evenings when he had fared most wretchedly, and

when he felt utterly weary and tired out, he bravely struggled against

circumstances, and was as genial and hilarious as if he had just made

an excellent dinner: restoring the general gaiety by a cannonade of

heavy guns.

"There, that's for the turnips, La Trouille, and that's for the

butter!" he cried.

Fouan, too, kept brisk and cheerful even during those painful

times--the last days of the month--for the daughter and the father then

scoured the country for the means of keeping the pot boiling, and the

old man, who was gradually induced to join them, ended by employing his

time in the same way. He had become angry when he first saw La Trouille

come home with a fowl which she had fished up from over a wall with a

piece of looped string; but on a second occasion she made him shake

with laughter by attaching a hook baited with some meat to the end of a

string, which she concealed among the branches of a tree, allowing the

baited hook to dangle down in front of a troop of ducks who were taking

a walk. One of them suddenly rushed forward, and swallowed meat,

hook, and string at a bolt. Then it immediately rose in the air, being

sharply pulled up by the girl, before it was able to utter a single

quack. This was not a very honest proceeding certainly; but they argued

that animals which lived out-of-doors belonged to those who could catch

them, and that so long as one did not steal money, one's honesty could

not be impeached. From that time the old man took some interest in the

adventures of the young marauder, who performed some scarcely credible

feats, such as stealing a sack of potatoes and then getting the owner

of them to help her to carry them home; milking cows out at pasture

into a bottle; and sinking the laundresses' linen to the bottom of the

Aigre by loading it with stones, and then going and fishing it up again

during the night.

She was continually to be met on the roads, her geese affording her

a pretext for her perpetual wanderings, and she would sit for hours

on the slope of a ditch on the look-out for an opportunity, with a

sleepy, innocent air, as though she had not a thought in the world

beyond attending to her geese. She often even made use of these latter

as watch-dogs, the gander giving her notice, by his hissing, of the

inopportune approach of any one who might surprise her at work. She was

now eighteen years old, but she was scarcely any taller than she had

been at twelve; being still as slight and supple as a hazel-branch,

with her kid-like head, her green eyes, and her large mouth, twisted

towards the left. Her little, childish bosom had grown hard beneath

her father's old blouses, without in any way developing. She was more

like a boy than a girl, and seemed to care about nothing save her

geese. However, although she scoffed contemptuously at men, this did

not prevent her, when she got larking with some lad of her own age,

from ending with a little amatory amusement, almost as a matter of

course, for it seemed to her quite natural, and no consequences ever

followed. She was lucky enough to keep clear of the tramps and vagrants

that passed along the roads, for grown-up men, finding nothing tempting

about her, left her alone. As her grandfather said, amused and won over

by her quaint ways, apart from the fact that she was given to thieving

and didn't care much about decency, she was a rum sort of girl, more

decorous and less disreputable than might have been expected.

Fouan found especial amusement in accompanying Hyacinthe in his

prowling rambles about the fields. Every peasant, even the most honest,

is at heart a poacher, and the old man took a deep interest in the

setting of snares, and the laying of lines, and in all the various

other ingenious devices of this campaign of ruses, this continual

warfare carried on against gamekeepers and gendarmes. As soon as the

laced hats and yellow shoulder belts of the latter were seen emerging

from a lane and making their way through a corn field, the father and

son, lying on some sloping bank, pretended to be asleep. Presently,

however the son would creep on his hands and knees along the ditch,

and take up his traps; while the father, with his honest elderly

countenance, would keep a careful watch on the receding hats and

shoulder belts.

There were some splendid trout in the Aigre, which they sold for forty

and fifty sous apiece to a dealer at Châteaudun, but the fish were so

artful that it was necessary for the men to lie flat on their stomachs

on the grass watching them for hours. They often, too, sallied out

as far as the Loir, from whose slimy bed some very fine eels were

to be obtained. When his lines brought him nothing, Hyacinthe had a

very simple plan for securing a haul. During the night he plundered

the fish-preserves of the river-side residents. Fishing, however, he

only indulged in as an occasional amusement; the pursuit of game was

his absorbing passion. He ravaged the neighbourhood for miles around,

and no prey was too humble for him. He would snare quails as well as

partridges, and even starlings as well as larks. He seldom fired a gun,

for the report of firearms carried too far over a level expanse. There

was not a single covey of partridges that ever rose from the clover

and lucern without his recognising it, and he knew perfectly well when

and where he could easily lay his hands upon the young birds, drowsy

with sleep and soaked with the night-dew. He was extremely clever in

liming twigs for the capture of larks and quails, and he hurled stones

with a deadly aim at the dense flocks of starlings which the high winds

of autumn brought into the district. For twenty years past he had

been exterminating the game of the neighbourhood, and there was now

scarcely a rabbit to be seen amongst the brushwood about the Aigre, a

fact which extremely angered the local sportsmen. It was only the hares

that escaped him. There were very few of them, however, and what there

were scampered safe from his pursuit over the open country, where it

was too risky to follow them. He smacked his lips at the thought of the

few hares which were to be found on the La Borderie land, and every now

and then he risked being sent to gaol, by sending one rolling over with

a shot from his gun. When Fouan saw him going out with his gun, he

always refused to accompany him. It was too hazardous and foolish, he

said; he would certainly get caught one day or other.

And caught he did get, as was only natural. Farmer Hourdequin,

exasperated by the destruction of his game, had given the most

stringent orders to Bécu, and the latter annoyed at never being able to

catch any one, had determined to pass his nights on a stack and keep

watch. One morning, just at daybreak, the report of a gun, the flame

of which flashed in front of his face, awoke him with a start. It was

Hyacinthe, on the look-out behind the stack, who had just killed a hare

at short range.

"Ah, God Almighty! it's you, is it?" cried the rural constable, seizing

hold of the gun which the other had laid down so as to pick up the

hare. "Ah! you scamp, I ought to have guessed it was you!"

They were boon companions at the taverns, but in the fields they could

not meet without danger; the one being constantly on the point of

arresting the other, and the latter being determined to wring his neck.

"Well, yes, it's I!" replied Hyacinthe; "and I don't care a fig for

you. Come, give me my gun back!"

Bécu was already regretting his capture. He generally turned to the

right whenever he saw Hyacinthe on his left. What was the good of

having a bother with a friend? he used to say. But this time his duty

was evident, and it was impossible for him to close his eyes. And,

besides, when a man is taken red-handed, the least that can be expected

of him is to be civil!

"Your gun, you scamp! No, I'm going to keep that and take it to the

mayor. Now, you be quiet, and don't try to play any of your tricks, or

I'll let you have the other barrel in your guts!"

Hyacinthe, deprived of his gun and in a great rage, thought for a

moment of making a spring at the other's throat. However, when he saw

him directing his steps towards the village, he followed him quietly,

still holding the hare dangling from his hand. The two men walked on

for nearly a mile without speaking, but casting fierce furtive glances

at each other. A violent scene seemed inevitable every moment, though

both of them were regretting what had happened more and more acutely

every minute. How unfortunate it was that they had come across each

other in that way!

As they passed behind the church, at a couple of steps from the

Château, the poacher made a last effort.

"I say, old fellow, don't be stupid; come inside, and have a glass."

"No, I must go and lay an information," replied the rural constable

stiffly.

He was obstinate, like an old soldier whose orders are his only law.

However, he stopped, and, as his companion took hold of his arm and

tried to induce him to come with him, he ended by saying:

"Well, if you've got pen and ink, it will make no difference, I

don't care where the statement is drawn up, whether in your house or

elsewhere, so long as it is drawn up somewhere."

When Bécu arrived at Hyacinthe's abode, the sun was just rising. Old

Fouan, who was already smoking his pipe at the door, guessed what

had happened, and began to feel very uncomfortable, the more so, as

matters assumed a serious aspect. Some ink and a rusty old pen were

hunted up, and the constable, spreading out his elbows, and assuming

an air of deep thought, began to rack his brains for suitable phrases.

In the meantime, La Trouille, at a word from her father, brought a

quart of wine and three glasses; and by the time Bécu had got to his

fifth line, he accepted a bumper feeling exhausted by his struggle

with the complicated statement of facts. Then the situation gradually

became less strained. A second quart of wine was produced, and then a

third. Two hours later, the three men were talking together in loud and

friendly voices. They were all very drunk, and they had quite forgotten

the incident of the morning.

"You blessed cuckold!" suddenly cried Hyacinthe to Bécu, "you know that

I do as I like with your wife."

This was quite true. Since the day of the local fête he had tumbled

Bécu's wife in quiet corners, looking upon her as an elderly person

with whom no particular show of delicacy was necessary. Bécu, however,

whose wine had made him irritable, now lost his temper. Although he

was able to tolerate the poacher's relations with his wife when he was

sober, the mention of them wounded his feelings when he was drunk.

"You filthy swine!" he bellowed out, brandishing an empty bottle.

Then he hurled the bottle, which broke against the wall, just missing

Hyacinthe, who went on with his maudlin chatter, smiling a weak, tipsy

smile. To appease the cuckold, they settled to remain there together,

and eat the hare at once. Whenever La Trouille cooked a "civet," a

pleasant odour spread from one end of Rognes to the other. It was a

rough sort of feast, which lasted all day. They were still at table,

sucking the bones, when darkness closed in. Then they lighted a couple

of candles, and still sat on. Fouan found a couple of two-franc pieces,

and sent the girl off to buy a quart of brandy. The men were still

sipping their liquor after the whole village had fallen asleep. As

Hyacinthe's fumbling fingers were groping about for something with

which he could light his pipe, they came across the unfinished report,

which was lying on the corner of the table, stained with wine and gravy.

"Ah, it's true, we ought to get this finished!" he stammered out, his

belly shaking with tipsy laughter.

As he looked at the paper he tried to think of some facetious trick by

which he might show his deep contempt both for the report and the law.

Then he suddenly raised his leg, and, slipping the paper underneath

him, he let off on the face of it a heavy, sonorous discharge, one of

those explosions which, he used to say, came from a tightly-loaded

mortar.

"There, it's signed for you now!"

They all began to laugh merrily, even Bécu himself. There was no

dullness that night at the Château!

It was about this time that Hyacinthe made a friend. As he went to

hide one evening in a ditch till the gendarmes he had espied passed

by, he found it already occupied by another man, who, like himself,

was desirous of escaping observation. They began to talk. The stranger

seemed a pleasant fellow. His name, he said, was Leroi, but he was

generally known as Canon. He was a journeyman carpenter, and had left

Paris some two years before on account of certain little incidents

in his career which had had troublesome consequences, preferring to

live in the country, and to wander from village to village, staying a

week here and a week there, and going about to the different farms to

offer his services whenever patrons were scarce. Trade, he said, was

shocking bad just now, and he had taken to begging on the high roads as

he tramped along. He had been living on stolen vegetables and fruit,

hustled about from pillar to post, and was only too happy whenever he

was able to get a night's lodging behind a hay-rick.

It must be said, however, that his appearance was not calculated to

inspire any confidence. His clothes were all in rags, and he was very

dirty and very ugly, bearing evident marks of a life of wretchedness

and vice. His face, fringed with a scanty growth of hair, was so

fleshless and pallid that the women shut their doors and windows at the

mere sight of him. What was worse, however, than his appearance was

his conversation. He talked about cutting the throats of all the rich

folks, and of having, some fine day, a glut of licentious pleasure with

the wives and wine of other people. He let fall all kinds of threats

in a tragic voice, clenching his fist, and launching out into wild

revolutionary theories which he had picked up in the slums of Paris. He

ranted, for instance, in the most virulent language about the rights

of the people, and their coming enforcement, his flood of words quite

frightening and dazing the peasants who heard him. During the last

two years the inhabitants of the farms had been accustomed to see him

make his appearance at night-fall asking for a corner and a bundle of

straw for a bed. When he sat down by the fire he quite froze every

one's blood by his terrible words. Then the next morning he went off,

to re-appear again a week later on, at the same gloomy twilight hour,

and with the same prophecies of approaching ruin and death. And it

was because his gloomy and uncanny appearance about the neighbourhood

caused so much fear, and excited so much angry indignation, that he was

now always sent about his business as soon as possible.

He and Hyacinthe, however, took to each other at once.

"Ah," cried the latter, "what a mistake I made in not cutting every

throat in Cloyes in '48! Come along, old fellow, and let's have a glass

together!"

He then took Canon off to the Château, where he made him sleep

that night, inspired with more and more respectful admiration for

the tramp the longer he listened to him. He considered him to be

a man of superior mind, one who knew what he was talking about,

with his plans for reorganising society at a single swoop. Two days

afterwards, Canon went away. A fortnight later, however, he appeared

again in the twilight, and after that he constantly dropped in at the

Château--eating and sleeping there as though he were at home, and

swearing each time he came that the well-to-do classes would be swept

clean out of existence before another six weeks had gone by. One night

when the father was out poaching, Canon made an attempt to ravish the

daughter; but La Trouille, scarlet with shame and boiling over with

indignation, scratched him and bit him so severely that he was obliged

to let her go.

Fouan was no fonder of Canon than La Trouille was. He accused him of

being an idle good-for-nothing, and of trying to bring about a state

of general rapine and bloodshed; and, whenever the vagrant was in the

house, the old man grew quite gloomy and silent, and went out of doors

to smoke his pipe. There was another matter, too, which was disturbing

his life again, and causing an increased disagreement between himself

and his son, indisposing him for all his former hilarious merriment.

Hitherto Hyacinthe, in parting with his share of the land, had never

disposed of it to any one save his brother Buteau or his brother-in-law

Delhomme, to whom indeed he had sold the greater portion, a little bit

at a time. Fouan had always given his signature, as was necessary,

without saying a word in opposition. So long as the land remained

in the family, he had no objection to its being sold. But now a

troublesome question arose about the last field, upon which the poacher

had borrowed money. The mortgagee was threatening to put it up to

auction, as he had not received a copper of the interest that had been

agreed upon. Monsieur Baillehache had been consulted, and had declared

that the field would have to be sold, and sold at once, if they did not

wish to be ruined by law costs. Buteau and Delhomme, unfortunately,

refused to buy it, being angrily indignant with the old man for

allowing himself to be preyed upon by that rascal his elder son; indeed

they had sternly resolved to do nothing for him as long as he remained

where he was. The consequence was that the field was now to be sold

by order of the authorities; writs and stamped paper were already

flying about. It would be the first piece of land that had gone out

of the family. The old man could get no sleep at nights for thinking

of it. This land which his father and grandfather had looked at with

such longing eyes, and had worked so hard to obtain; this land which,

when acquired, had been guarded as jealously as a wife, was now being

frittered away in law-costs, passing into the possession of another,

some neighbour, for half its value! The old man groaned with rage, and

he was so heart-broken that he sobbed like a child. Oh, that scamp of a

poacher!

There were now several terrible scenes between the father and son.

The latter, however, never replied, but allowed his father to exhaust

himself in reproaches and lamentations. The old man would stand there

vociferating and unburdening himself of his wrathful indignation in the

most tragic fashion.

"Yes, you are a murderer! It is just as though you had taken up a knife

and sliced off a bit of my flesh! Such a splendid field as it is! There

isn't a finer anywhere! A field where anything will grow by just being

planted! What a poor miserable creature you must be to allow it to go

to another! Ah, good heavens, to another! The very thought of it going

to an outsider makes my blood turn! And it's all caused by your cursed

drunkenness! You have drunk the land away, you filthy, swilling swine!"

Then, as the old man almost choked with anger, and nearly sank down

from sheer exhaustion, his son quickly answered:

"It's really very foolish of you, dad, to worry yourself in this way.

Fly at me as much as you like, if it relieves you in any way at all;

but you really ought to take things more philosophically. One can't

eat the land, you know! You'd pull a very wry face if any one served

you with a dish of soil, wouldn't you? I've borrowed money on it,

because five-franc pieces are the crop it best suits me to raise on

it. If there's a surplus of a few crowns, we'll drink them! That's the

sensible way to look at things. We shall have more than enough of the

soil when we're dead!"

On one point, however, father and son were perfectly in accord, and

that point was their common detestation of Vimeux the bailiff--a shabby

little fellow who was entrusted with the discharge of such duties as

his colleague of Cloyes refused to undertake, and who had ventured one

evening to come and leave a formal notification of judgment at the

Château. Vimeux was a very dirty-looking little creature, a bundle

of yellow beard and whiskers, from the midst of which there peered

forth a red nose and a pair of bleared eyes. He was always dressed in

shabby-genteel fashion--a tall hat, black trousers, and a frock-coat,

but these garments were most shockingly worn and stained. He was

notorious in the neighbourhood on account of the terrible thrashings he

had received from the peasants every time that he had been compelled

to serve them with unpleasant documents in places distant from all

help and succour. Stories were told about sticks being broken over

his shoulders, of his being ducked in ponds, of his being pursued for

a couple of miles and kept running at full speed by the continued

application of pitchforks; and of a certain sound thrashing that had

been administered to him by a mother and her daughter, after his

trousers had previously been let down.

On the evening when Vimeux paid his visit to the Château. Hyacinthe

was just entering the house with his gun. Old Fouan was sitting on the

trunk of a tree smoking his pipe and watching the bailiff's approach.

"See the disgrace you are bringing upon us, you rascal!" the old man

growled to his son.

"Just you wait a moment!" returned the poacher.

Vimeux, on catching sight of the gun, came to a standstill some thirty

yards away. The whole of his dirty, shabby, black-clothed person quaked

with fear.

"Monsieur Hyacinthe," he began in a weak, quavering voice, "I have come

about the business you are aware of. I leave this here. Good evening."

He then laid the official document on a stone, and was already hastily

retiring, when the poacher called out to him:

"Do you want me to come and teach you politeness, you confounded

paper-stainer? Just be good enough to bring that paper to me!"

Then, as the wretched man stood speechless and rooted to the ground

with terror, daring neither to advance nor to retreat an inch, the

poacher took aim at him with his gun.

"I'll just send you a little bit of lead," he cried, "if you don't

make haste and do what I tell you. Look sharp now, take up your paper,

and bring it here! Oh, you must come nearer than that; and nearer than

that. Hurry along now, you miserable eunuch, or I shall fire!"

Frozen and pale with terror, the bailiff tottered along on his short

legs. He cast an imploring glance at old Fouan. But the latter went

on quietly smoking his pipe, meditating savagely anent the expenses

attaching to the law, and full of bitter rancour against the man who,

in the eyes of the peasantry, personified them.

"Come along, or I shall fire! There, that's better now; you have

managed to get here at last. Now, give me your paper. No, not in that

way, with the tips of your fingers as though you were reluctant to part

with it. Give me it politely and cordially. There, that's very nicely

done!"

Vimeux, paralysed with fright at the sight of the grinning poacher,

stood blinking his eyes and shaking in his shoes at thought of the blow

or cuff which he felt sure was coming.

"Now then, turn round!"

The poor fellow knew only too well what this meant, and he remained

stock-still, nervously twitching his posterior.

"Turn round, or I'll come and turn you myself!"

The luckless bailiff felt that he could do nothing but submit to his

fate; and with a pitiably wretched air he turned himself round, and

presented to view his poor little fleshless posterior, as shrunken as

that of a half-starved tom-cat. Then the poacher, taking a vigorous

spring, brought his foot to bear full on the centre of Vimeux's

buttocks, and with such energy that he sent the luckless bailiff

reeling over on to his nose fully four yards away. The poor fellow

painfully struggled on to his feet again, and bolted off in a state of

abject terror as he heard the poacher yelling after him:

"Look out! I'm going to fire!"

Hyacinthe had indeed raised his gun to his shoulder, but he then

contented himself with lifting his leg and letting off such a violent

explosion that Vimeux, terrified by the report, fell headlong on to the

ground again. This time his black hat fell off, and rolled away amongst

the stones. He ran after it, picked it up, and then bolted off faster

than before, pursued by a constant cannonade from the poacher, and a

jeering accompaniment of noisy laughter which drove the wretched fellow

quite crazy. Careering wildly down the slope, looking like some hopping

insect, he had got a hundred yards away, but the echoes still repeated

the sound of the fusillade. In fact, all the country-side reverberated

with it, and there was a final terrific discharge just as the bailiff,

who, in the distance, now looked about the size of an ant, disappeared

into Rognes. La Trouille, who had hastened out on hearing the noise,

lay down on the ground, holding her sides and clucking like a hen;

while old Fouan took his pipe out of his mouth so that he might laugh

more at his ease.

The following week it was necessary for the old man to make up his

mind to give his signature, so that the land might be sold. Monsieur

Baillehache had found a purchaser, and it seemed most prudent to follow

his advice. It was consequently settled that the father and son should

go to Cloyes on the third Saturday in September, the eve of Saint

Lubin's Day, which was one of the two fêtes of the town. The old man

relied upon getting rid of his son in the midst of the holiday-makers

and going to fetch the dividends of his hidden investment, as he had

done since July. They were to make the journey both ways on foot.

As Fouan and Hyacinthe were standing before the closed barrier at the

level-crossing just outside Cloyes, waiting for a train to pass, they

were joined by Buteau and Lise, who drove up in their cart. A violent

quarrel immediately broke out between the two brothers, and they hurled

volleys of filthy abuse at each other till the gate was opened; Buteau,

as his horse carried him away down the hill on the other side, even

turned round, his blouse puffed out by the wind, and hurled behind him

a volley of insults which he would have done better to keep to himself.

"Go along with you, you worthless fellow, I am supporting your

father!" roared Hyacinthe with all his might, making a speaking-trumpet

of his two hands.

Fouan felt very unhappy when he reached Monsieur Baillehache's office

in the Rue Grouaise, and the more so as it was full of clients, people

who were taking advantage of market-day to transact their business.

The old man and his son had to wait for nearly two hours. The scene

recalled to Fouan's mind that Saturday when he had decided upon the

division of the property. It would have been better if he had hanged

himself rather than done that. When the notary at last received

them, and the signature had to be affixed, the old man took out his

spectacles and wiped them; but his tearful eyes fogged the glasses, and

his hand trembled so much that it was necessary to place his fingers

on the very spot where he was to inscribe his name, which he proceeded

to do, making a lot of blots. It tried him so much that he was now

perspiring and trembling, and glancing about him in dazed confusion,

just as though he had been undergoing a surgical operation, as if he

were a man who, after having a leg amputated, looks about him for the

severed limb. Monsieur Baillehache administered a severe lecture to

Hyacinthe, and then dismissed them both with a dissertation upon the

law. The division of property, so he declared, was immoral, and it

would certainly be one day made illegal, to prevent it from over-riding

the system of inheritance.

After leaving the notary's, Fouan contrived to give his son the

slip in the crowd in the Rue Grande, just by the door of "The Jolly

Ploughman." Hyacinthe, indeed, played into his father's hands, and

quietly smiled to himself, for he felt quite sure what the old man's

purpose was. Fouan at once made his way to the Rue Beaudonnière, where,

in a bright-looking house, with a courtyard and garden, lived Monsieur

Hardy, the tax-collector, a stout, jovial person, with a florid face

and a carefully-trimmed black beard. He was greatly feared by the

peasants, who accused him of upsetting them with his threats. He

received his visitors in a narrow office, cut atwain by a balustrade,

on one side of which he himself sat, while those who came to see him

remained on the other. There were frequently a dozen people there

at once, standing crowded together. At the present moment, however,

Buteau, who had just come in, happened to be the only person there.

Buteau could never make up his mind to pay his taxes promptly and at

once. When he received the demand-note in March he got into a bad

temper for a week, and stormed angrily, and in turn, at the land-tax,

the head-tax, the tax on personal property, and that on doors and

windows. His greatest wrath, however, was poured out upon the growing

increase in the total amount, which got more and more every year. Then

he waited till he was served with a free summons. This gave him an

additional week. Then he paid a twelfth part of the taxes every month,

whenever he went to market; and every month all the old torture of mind

began over again. He felt quite ill on the eve of paying an instalment,

and he went off with his money in as miserable a frame of mind as

though he were going to execution. Oh, that damnable government! It

robbed everybody!

"Ah, is that you?" Monsieur Hardy exclaimed, cheerily, at sight of

him. "I'm glad to see you here, for I was just going to put you to the

expense of a summons!"

"That would have capped the business!" snarled Buteau. "But you must

understand that I'm not going to pay those six francs increase on the

property-tax. It's really most unjust!"

The collector began to laugh.

"What, are you going to begin all that discussion over again? It is

always the same old story every month. I have already explained to you

that it is obvious that the planting of your meadow by the Aigre must

have increased your income. Oh, we know very well what we are about, I

can assure you!"

Buteau, however, boiled over with angry remonstrances. His income was

increasing in a pretty sort of way, forsooth! His meadow had once

measured a couple of acres, but the river had altered its course and

robbed him of a great slice of his land, and yet he still was forced to

pay the tax on two acres! Was that justice?

Monsieur Hardy quietly replied that he had nothing to do with the

survey, and that Buteau must get that altered if he wanted his tax

lowered. Then, under the pretence of explaining details to him, he

overwhelmed him with a flood of figures and technical terms which were

completely unintelligible to an outsider.

"Well, it makes no difference to me whether you pay or not," he said in

conclusion, with a bantering smile; "I shall merely have to send the

bailiff to you if you don't."

Frightened and abashed, Buteau now quickly cooled down; recognising

that, as might lay on his opponent's side, there was no other course

for him but to yield. However, the fear which forced him to yield only

increased his long-standing spite against the vaguely understood

and complicated system of rule to which he was forced to bend--the

government--its courts and the staff of officials, all loafing

gentlefolks, as he was wont to say. Very reluctantly he drew out his

purse with trembling fingers. He had received a large number of coppers

in the market, and he fingered every coin before letting go his hold of

it. He counted the sum three times over, paying it all in coppers; and

the size of the pile gave an additional wrench to his heart-strings.

With sad and troubled eyes he was watching the collector put the money

away in the safe, when old Fouan made his appearance.

The old man had not recognised his son from behind, and he was seized

with consternation when Buteau turned round.

"Ah, how do you do, Monsieur Hardy?" he then stammered in confusion.

"I was passing by, and I thought I'd just come in and wish you good

morning. I don't often get a chance of seeing you now."

Buteau, however, was not deceived. He said good morning, and went

away as though he were in a hurry, but five minutes later he returned

again, to ask some question which he pretended he had forgotten before;

and he did this just as the collector was handing Fouan his quarter's

dividend, seventy-five francs, in five-franc pieces. Buteau's eyes

glittered, but he pretended not to notice what was going on; indeed

he carefully avoided looking at his father, and affected not to have

seen the old man throw his handkerchief over the coins, and then fish

for them, and thrust them down to the bottom of his pocket. This time

they both left together: Fouan greatly distressed in mind and casting

suspicious glances at his son, while Buteau was in an excellent humour

and manifested a sudden renewal of affection for his father. He kept

close to him, and insisted upon taking him off with him in his cart, in

which, indeed, he drove him to "The Jolly Ploughman," where they found

Hyacinthe in company of little Sabot, a vine-dresser from Brinqueville,

a well-known facetious character, who, like his companion, was windy

enough to keep a mill turning. Just now, upon meeting, they had wagered

ten quarts of wine as to which of them could blow out the greater

number of candles. Several friends, laughing noisily and manifesting

great enthusiasm, had accompanied them into a room at the back of the

premises. A circle had been formed, and one of the rivals was placed

on the right and the other on the left, ready to commence operations.

Each of them had his own special candle, and just then little Sabot

had succeeded in extinguishing the flame ten times, whereas Hyacinthe

had scored only nine times, having once failed in producing the

necessary amount of wind. He appeared annoyed; his reputation was at

stake. It would never do for Rognes to be beaten by Brinqueville! So

he blew as never blacksmith's bellows had blown--Nine! ten! eleven!

twelve! The drummer from Cloyes, who had been appointed to re-light

the candle, was himself almost blown away. Little Sabot, who had with

difficulty extinguished his tenth candle, was now quite exhausted, but

his opponent triumphantly blew out another couple, which he bade the

drummer light for a final demonstration; and, when they were lighted,

they burned with a bright yellow flame, the colour of gold, which rose

up like the sun in its glory.

"What a wonderful chap he is!" the spectators cried. "What guts he has

got! He ought to have a medal!"

The company shouted and laughed and cheered till they almost split

their throats. They felt a good deal of real admiration and envy, for a

man must be very solidly built to be able to contain so much wind, and

to discharge it just as he pleased. They spent the next two hours in

drinking the ten quarts of wine, and nothing else was discussed but the

feat they had just witnessed.