The same day, about two in the afternoon, Courtin left La Logerie to
go to Machecoul under pretence of buying a draught-ox, but in reality
to get news of the events of the night,--events in which the municipal
functionary had a special interest, as our readers will fully
understand.
When he reached the ford at Pont-Farcy, he found some men lifting the
body of Tinguy's son, and around them several women and children, who
were gazing at the dead body with the curiosity natural to their sex
and years. When the mayor of La Logerie, stimulating his pony by a
stick with a leathern thong, which he carried in his hand, made it
enter the river, all eyes were turned upon him, and the conversation
ceased as if by magic, though up to that moment it had been very eager
and animated.
"Well, what's going on, _gars?_" asked Courtin, making his animal
cross the river diagonally so as to reach land precisely opposite to
the group.
"A death," replied one of the men, with the laconic brevity of a
Vendéan peasant.
Courtin looked at the corpse and saw that it wore a uniform.
"Luckily," he said, "it isn't any one who belongs about here."
"You're mistaken. Monsieur Courtin," replied the gloomy voice of a man
in a brown jacket.
The title of _monsieur_ thus given to him, and given, too, with a
certain emphasis, was in no wise flattering to the farmer of La
Logerie. Under the circumstances and in the phase of public feeling La
Vendée had just entered, he knew that this title of monsieur, in the
mouth of a peasant, when it was not given as a testimony of respect,
meant either an insult or a threat,--two things which affected Courtin
quite differently.
In short, the mayor of La Logerie did himself the justice not to take
the title thus bestowed upon him as a mark of consideration, and he
therefore resolved to be prudent.
"And yet I think," he said, in a mild and gentle voice, "that he wears
a chasseur's uniform."
"Pooh! uniform!" retorted the same peasant; "as if you didn't know
that the _man-hunt_" (this was the name the Vendéan peasantry gave to
the conscription) "doesn't respect our sons and brothers more than it
does those of others. It seems to me you ought to know that, mayor as
you are."
Again there was silence,--a silence so oppressive to Courtin that he
once more interrupted it. "Does any one know the name of the poor
_gars_ who has perished so unfortunately?" he asked, making immense
but fruitless efforts to force a tear to his eye.
No one answered. The silence became more and more significant.
"Does any one know if there were other victims? Was any one killed
among our own _gars?_ I hear a number of shots were fired."
"As for other victims," said the same peasant, "I know as yet of only
one,--this one here; though perhaps it is a sin to talk of such
victims beside a Christian corpse."
As he spoke the peasant turned aside and, fixing his eyes on Courtin,
he pointed with his finger to the body of Jean Oullier's dog, lying on
the bank, partly in the water which flowed over it. Maître Courtin
turned pale; he coughed, as if an invisible hand had clutched his
throat.
"What's that?" he said; "a dog? Ha! if we had only to mourn for that
kind of victim our tears would be few."
"Nay, nay," said the man in the brown jacket; "the blood of a dog must
be paid for, Maître Courtin, like everything else. I'm certain that
the master of poor Pataud won't forget the man who shot his dog,
coming out of Montaigu, with leaden wolf-balls, three of which entered
his body."
As he finished speaking the man, apparently thinking he had exchanged
words enough with Courtin, did not wait for any answer, but turned on
his heel, passed up a bank, and disappeared behind its hedge. As for
the other men, they resumed their march with the body. The women and
children followed behind tumultuously, praying aloud. Courtin was left
alone.
"Bah!" he said to himself, jabbing his pony with his one spur; "before
I pay for what Jean Oullier lays to my account, he'll have to escape
the clutches which, thanks to me, are on him at this moment,--it won't
be easy, though, of course, it is possible."
Maître Courtin continued his way; but his curiosity was greater than
ever, and he felt he could not wait till the amble of his steed took
him to Machecoul before satisfying it.
He happened at this moment to be passing the cross of La Bertaudière,
near which the road leading to the house of the Picauts joined the
main road. He thought of Pascal, who could tell him the news better
than any one, as he had sent him to guide the troops the night before.
"What a jackass I am!" he cried, speaking to himself. "It will only
take me half an hour out of my way, and I can hear the truth from a
mouth that won't lie to me. I'll go to Pascal; he'll tell me the
result of the trick."
Maître Courtin turned, therefore, to the right; and five minutes later
he crossed the little orchard and made his entrance over a heap of
manure into the courtyard of Pascal's dwelling.
Joseph, sitting on a horse-collar, was smoking his pipe before the
door of his half of the house. Seeing who his visitor was he did not
think it worth while to disturb himself. Courtin, who had an admirably
keen faculty for seeing all without appearing to notice anything,
fastened his pony to one of the iron rings that were screwed into the
wall. Then, turning to Joseph, he said:--
"Is your brother at home?"
"Yes, he is still there," replied Picaut, dwelling on the word _still_
in a manner that seemed a little strange to the mayor of La Logerie;
"do you want him again to-day to guide the red-breeches to Souday?"
Courtin bit his lips and made no reply to Joseph, while to himself he
said, as he knocked at the door of the other Picaut:--
"How came that fool of a Pascal to tell his rascally brother it was I
who sent him on that errand? Upon my soul, one can't do anything in
these parts without everybody gabbling about it within twenty-four
hours!"
Courtin's monologue hindered him from noticing that his knock was not
immediately answered, and that the door, contrary to the trustful
habits of the peasantry, was bolted.
At last, however, the door opened, and when Courtin's eyes fell upon
the scene before him he was so unprepared for what he saw that he
actually recoiled from the threshold.
"Who is dead here?" he asked.
"Look!" replied the widow, without leaving her seat in the
chimney-corner, which she had resumed after opening the door.
Courtin turned his eyes again to the bed, and though he could see
beneath the sheet only the outline of a man's form, he guessed the
truth.
"Pascal!" he cried; "is it Pascal?"
"I thought you knew it," said the widow.
"I?"
"Yes, you,--you, who are the chief cause of his death."
"I?--I?" replied Courtin, remembering what Joseph had just said to
him, and feeling it all-important for his own safety to deny his share
in the matter. "I swear to you, on the word of an honest man, that I
have not seen your husband for over a week."
"Don't swear," replied the widow. "Pascal never swore; neither did he
lie."
"But who told you that I had seen him?" persisted Courtin. "It is too
bad to blame me for nothing!"
"Don't lie in presence of the dead, Monsieur Courtin," said Marianne;
"it will bring down evil upon you."
"I am not lying," stammered the man.
"Pascal left this house to meet you; you engaged him as guide for the
soldiers."
Courtin made a movement of denial.
"Oh! I don't blame you for that," continued the widow, looking at a
peasant-girl, about twenty-five to thirty years of age, who was
winding her distaff in the opposite corner of the fireplace; "it was
his duty to give assistance to those who want to prevent our country
from being torn by civil war."
"That's my object, my sole object," replied Courtin, lowering his
voice, so that the young peasant-woman hardly heard him. "I wish
the government would rid us once for all of these fomenters of
trouble,--these nobles who crush us with their wealth in peace, and
massacre us when it comes to war. I am doing my best for this end,
Mistress Picaut; but I daren't boast of it, you see, because you never
know what the people about here may do to you."
"Why should you complain if they strike you from behind, when you hide
yourself in striking them?" said Marianne, with a look of the deepest
contempt.
"Damn it! one does as one dares, Mistress Picaut," replied Courtin,
with some embarrassment. "It is not given to all the world to be brave
and bold like your poor husband. But we'll revenge him, that good
Pascal! we'll revenge him. I swear it to you!"
"Thank you; but I don't want you to meddle in that, Monsieur Courtin,"
said the widow, in a voice that seemed almost threatening, so hard and
bitter was it. "You have meddled too much already in the affairs of
this poor household. Spend your good offices on others in future."
"As you please, Mistress Picaut. Alas! I loved your good husband so
truly that I'll do anything I can to please you." Then, suddenly
turning toward the young peasant-woman, whom he had seemed not to
notice up to that time, "Who is this young woman?" he said.
"A cousin of mine, who came this morning from Port-Saint-Père, to help
me in paying the last duties to my poor Pascal, and to keep me
company."
"From Port-Saint-Père this morning! Ha, ha! Mistress Picaut, she must
be a good walker, if she did that distance so quickly."
The poor widow, unused to lying, having never in her life had occasion
to lie, lied badly. She bit her lips, and gave Courtin an angry look,
which, happily, he did not see, being occupied at the moment in a
close examination of a peasant's costume which was drying before the
fire. The two articles which seemed to attract him most were a pair of
shoes and a shirt. The shoes, though iron-nailed and made of common
leather, were of a shape not common among cottagers, and the shirt was
of the finest linen cambric.
"Soft stuff! soft stuff!" he muttered, rubbing the delicate tissue
between his fingers; "it's my opinion it won't scratch the skin of
whoever wears it."
The young peasant-woman now thought it time to come to the help of the
widow, who seemed on thorns and whose forehead was clouding over in a
visibly threatening way.
"Yes," she said; "those are some old clothes I bought of a dealer in
Nantes, to make over for my little nephew."
"And you washed them before sewing them? Faith, you're right, my girl!
for," added Courtin, looking fixedly at her, "no one knows who has
worn the garments of those old-clothes dealers,--it may have been a
prince, or it may have been a leper."
"Maître Courtin," interrupted Marianne, who seemed annoyed by the
conversation, "your pony is getting restless."
Courtin listened.
"If I didn't hear your brother-in-law walking in the garret overhead I
should think he was teasing it, the ill-natured fellow!"
At this new proof of the essentially detective nature of the mayor of
La Logerie, the young peasant-woman turned pale; and her paleness
increased when she heard Courtin, who rose to look after his pony
through the casement, mutter, as if to himself:--
"Why, no; there he is, that fellow! He is tickling my horse with the
end of his whip." Then, returning to the widow, he said, "Who have you
got up in your garret, mistress?"
The young woman was about to answer that Joseph had a wife and
children, and that the garret was common to all; but the widow did not
give her time to begin the sentence.
"Maître Courtin," she said, standing up, "are not your questions
coming to an end soon? I hate spies, I warn you, whether they are
white or red."
"Since when is a friendly talk among friends called spying? Whew! you
have grown very suspicious, all of a sudden."
The eyes of the younger woman entreated the widow to be more cautious;
but her impetuous hostess could no longer contain herself.
"Among friends! friends, indeed!" she said. "Find your friends among
your fellows,--I mean among cowards and traitors; and know, once for
all, that the widow of Pascal Picaut is not among them. Go, and leave
me to my grief, which you have disturbed too long."
"Yes, yes," said Courtin, with an admirably played good-humor; "my
presence must be unpleasant to you. I ought to have thought of that
before, and I beg your pardon for not having done so. You are
determined to see in me the cause of your husband's death, and that
grieves me; oh! it grieves me, Mistress Picaut, for I loved him
heartily and wouldn't have harmed him for the world. But, since you
feel as you do, and drive me out of your house, I'll go, I'll go;
don't take on like that."
Just then the widow, who seemed more and more disturbed, glanced
rapidly at the younger woman and showed her by that glance the
bread-box, which stood beside the door. On that box was a
pocket-inkstand, which had, no doubt, been used to write the order
Jean Oullier had taken in the morning to the Marquis de Souday. This
inkstand was of green morocco, and with it lay a sort of tube,
containing all that was necessary for writing a letter. As Courtin
went to the door he could not fail to see the inkstand and a few
scattered papers that lay beside it.
The young woman understood the sign and saw the danger; and before the
mayor of La Logerie turned round she had passed, light as a fawn,
behind him, and seated herself on the bread-box, so as to hide the
unlucky implement completely. Courtin seemed to pay no attention to
this man[oe]uvre.
"Well, good-bye to you, Mistress Picaut," he said. "I have lost a
comrade in your husband whom I greatly valued; you doubt that, but
time will prove it to you."
The widow did not answer; she had said to Courtin all she had to say,
and she now seemed to take no notice of him. Motionless, with crossed
arms, she was gazing at the corpse, whose rigid form was defined under
the sheet that covered it.
"Ho! so you are there, my pretty girl," said Courtin, stopping before
the younger woman.
"It was too hot near the fire."
"Take good care of your cousin, my girl," continued Courtin; "this
death has made her a wild beast. She is almost as savage as the
she-wolves of Machecoul! Well, spin away, my dear; though you may
twist your spindle or turn your wheel as best you can, and you'll
never weave such fine linen as you've got there in that shirt." Then
he left the room and shut the door, muttering, "Fine linen, very
fine!"
"Quick! quick! hide all those things!" cried the widow. "He has gone
out only to come back."
Quick as thought the young woman pushed the inkstand between the box
and the wall; but rapid as the movement was, it was still too late.
The upper half of the door was suddenly opened, and Courtin's head
appeared above the lower.
"I've startled you; beg pardon," said Courtin. "I did it from a good
motive; I want to know when the funeral takes place."
"To-morrow, I think," said the young woman.
"Will you go away, you villanous rascal!" cried the widow, springing
toward him, and brandishing the heavy tongs with which she moved the
logs in her great fireplace.
Courtin, thoroughly frightened, withdrew. Mistress Picaut, as Courtin
called her, closed the upper shutter violently.
The mayor of La Logerie unfastened his pony, picked up a handful of
straw, and cleaned off the saddle, which Joseph, maliciously and out
of hatred,--a hatred which he inculcated to his children against the
"curs,"--had smeared with cows' dung from pommel to crupper. Then,
without complaining or retaliating, as if the accident he had just
remedied was a perfectly natural one, he mounted his steed with an
indifferent air, and even stopped on his way through the orchard to
see if the apples were properly setting, with the eye of a
connoisseur. But no sooner had he reached the cross of La Bertaudière
and turned his horse into the high-road toward Machecoul than he
seized his stick by the thick end, and using the leather thong on one
flank, and digging his single spur persistently and furiously into the
other flank of his beast, he contrived to make that animal take a gait
of which it looked utterly incapable.
"There, he's gone at last!" said the younger peasant-woman, who had
watched his movements from the window.
"Yes; but that may be none the better for you, Madame," said the
widow.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh! I know what I mean."
"Do you think he has gone to denounce us?"
"He is thought to be capable of it. I know nothing personally, for I
don't concern myself in such gossip; but his evil face has always led
me to think that even the Whites didn't do him injustice."
"You are right," said the young woman, who began to be uneasy; "his
face is one that could never inspire confidence."
"Ah! Madame, why did you not keep Jean Oullier near you?" said the
widow. "There's an honest man, and a faithful one."
"I had orders to send to the château de Souday. He is to come back
this evening with horses so that we may leave your house as soon as
possible, for I know we increase your sorrow and add to your cares."
The widow did not answer. With her face hidden in her hands, she was
weeping.
"Poor woman!" murmured the duchess; "your tears fall drop by drop upon
my heart, where each leaves a painful furrow. Alas! this is the
terrible, the inevitable result of revolutions. It is on the head of
those who make them that the curse of all this blood and all these
tears must fall."
"May it not rather fall, if God is just, on the heads of those who
cause them?" said the widow, in a deep and muffled voice, which made
her hearer quiver.
"Do you hate us so bitterly?" asked the latter, sadly.
"Yes, I hate you," said the widow. "How can you expect me to love
you?"
"Alas! I understand; yes, your husband's death--"
"No, you do not understand," said Marianne, shaking her head.