Kitabı oku: «The Wolf-Leader», sayfa 7

CHAPTER VII
THE BOY AT THE MILL

FINDING it impossible either to cut off or pull out the accursed hair, the only thing left for Thibault to do was to hide it as well as he could, by bringing the other hair over it; everybody would not, he hoped, have such eyes as Agnelette.

As we have already said, Thibault had a fine head of black hair, and by parting it down the side, and giving a certain turn to the front lock, he trusted that the one hair would pass unobserved.

He recalled with envy the young lords whom he had seen at the court of Madame de Maintenon, for, with their powdered wigs to cover it, the colour of their hair, whatever it might be, was of no moment. He, unfortunately, could not make use of powder to hide his, being prohibited from doing so by the sumptuary laws of the period.

However, having successfully managed, by an adroit turn of the comb, to hide his one red hair artistically under the others, Thibault decided to start again on his premeditated visit to the fair owner of the mill. He was careful this time, instead of inclining to the left, to verge towards the right, fearing to meet Agnelette if he followed the same path as he had taken that morning.

Emerging, therefore, on to the road leading to La Ferté-Milou, he then took the footpath which runs direct to Pisseleu across the fields. Arriving at Pisseleu, he continued along the valley in the direction of Croyolles, but had scarcely pursued this lower road for more than a few minutes, when, walking just ahead of him, he saw two donkeys being driven by a tall youth, whom he recognised as a cousin of his, named Landry. Cousin Landry was head boy at the mill, in the service of the owner whom Thibault was on his way to visit, and as the latter had but an indirect acquaintance with the widow Polet, he had counted on Landry to introduce him. It was a lucky chance therefore to come across his cousin like this, and Thibault hastened to overtake him.

Hearing footsteps behind him echoing his own, Landry turned and recognised Thibault. Thibault had always found Landry a pleasant and cheerful companion, and he was therefore very much astonished to see him looking sad and troubled. Landry waited for Thibault to come up to him, letting his donkeys go on alone. Thibault was the first to speak:

“Why, Cousin Landry,” he asked, “what’s the meaning of this? Here am I, putting myself out and leaving my work to come and shake hands with a friend and relation that I have not seen for more than six weeks, and you greet me with a face like that!”

“Ah, my dear Thibault,” replied Landry, “what would you have of me! I may greet you with a gloomy face, but, believe me or not as you will, I am truly delighted to see you.”

“That may be as you say, but you do not appear so.”

“What do you mean?”

“You tell me you are delighted to see me in a tone of voice fit to bring on the blue-devils. Why, my dear Landry, you are generally as bright and lively as the click-clack of your mill, and singing songs to accompany it, and to-day you are as melancholy as the crosses in the cemetery. How now then! has the mill stopped for want of water?”

“Oh! not that! there is no want of water; on the contrary, there is more than usual, and the sluice is kept constantly at work. But, you see, instead of corn, it is my heart that is in the mill, and the mill works so well and so incessantly, and my heart is so ground between the stones that there is nothing left of it but a little powder.”

“Indeed! Are you so miserable then at the mill?”

“Ah! would to God I had been dragged under the wheel the first day I put my foot inside it!”

“But what is it? you frighten me, Landry!.. tell me all your troubles, my dear lad.”

Landry gave a deep sigh.

“We are cousins,” continued Thibault, “and if I am too poor to give you a few crowns to help you out of any money trouble you are in, well, I can at least give you some words of good advice if it is a matter of the heart that is causing you grief.”

“Thank you, Thibault; but neither money nor advice can do me any good.”

“Well, anyhow, tell me what is the matter; it eases trouble to speak of it.”

“No, no; it would be useless; I will say nothing.”

Thibault began to laugh.

“You laugh?” said Landry, both angry and astonished, “my trouble makes you laugh?”

“I am not laughing at your trouble, Landry, but at your thinking that you can hide the cause of it from me, when it is as easy as anything to guess what it is.”

“Guess then.”

“Why, you are in love; nothing more difficult than that to guess, I can swear.”

“I, in love!” exclaimed Landry; “why who has been telling you lies like that?”

“It is not a lie, it is the truth.”

Landry again drew a deep sigh, more laden with despair even than his former one.

“Well, yes!” he said, “it is so, I am in love!”

“Ah! that’s right! you have spoken out at last!” said Thibault, not without a certain quickening of the pulse, for he foresaw a rival in his cousin, “and with whom are you in love?”

“With whom?”

“Yes, I ask you with whom?”

“As to that, Cousin Thibault, you will have to drag the heart out of my breast before I tell you.”

“You have told me already.”

“What? I have told you who it is?” cried Landry, staring at Thibault with astonished eyes.

“Certainly you have.”

“Surely you cannot mean it!”

“Did you not say that it would have been better for you to have been dragged under by the mill wheel the first day you entered into the service of Madame Polet, than to have been taken on by her as chief hand? You are unhappy at the mill, and you are in love; therefore, you are in love with the mistress of the mill, and it is this love which is causing your unhappiness.”

“Ah, Thibault, pray hush! what if she were to overhear us!”

“How is it possible that she can overhear us; where do you imagine her to be, unless she is able to make herself invisible, or to change herself into a butterfly or a flower?”

“Never mind, Thibault, you keep quiet.”

“Your mistress of the mill is hard-hearted then, is she? and takes no pity on your despair, poor fellow?” was Thibault’s rejoinder; but his words, though seemingly expressive of great commiseration, had a shade of satisfaction and amusement in them.

“Hard-hearted! I should think so indeed!” said Landry. “In the beginning, I was foolish enough to fancy that she did not repulse my love… All day long I was devouring her with my eyes, and now and then, she too would fix her eyes on me, and after looking at me a while, would smile… Alas! my dear Thibault, what happiness those looks and smiles were to me!.. Ah! why did I not content myself with them?”

“Well, there it is,” said Thibault philosophically. “Man is so insatiable.”

“Alas! yes; I forgot that I had to do with someone above me in position, and I spoke. Then Madame Polet flew into a great rage; called me an insolent beggar, and threatened to turn me out of doors the very next week.”

“Phew!” said Thibault, “and how long ago is that?”

“Nearly three weeks.”

“And the following week is still to come?” The shoe-maker as he put the question began to feel a revival of the uneasiness which had been momentarily allayed, for he understood women better than his cousin Landry. After a minute’s silence, he continued: “Well, well, you are not so unhappy after all as I thought you.”

“Not so unhappy as you thought me?”

“No.”

“Ah! if you only knew the life I lead! never a look, or a smile! When she meets me she turns away, when I speak to her on matters concerning the mill, she listens with such a disdainful air, that instead of talking of bran and wheat and rye, of barley and oats, of first and second crops, I begin to cry, and then she says to me, Take care! in such a menacing tone, that I run away and hide myself behind the bolters.”

“Well, but why do you pay your addresses to this mistress of yours? There are plenty of girls in the country round who would be glad to have you for their wooer.”

“Because I love her in spite of myself, I cannot help it, so there!”

“Take up with some one else; I’d think no more about her.”

“I could not do it.”

“At any rate, you might try. It’s just possible that if she saw you transferring your affections to another, the mistress of the Mill might grow jealous, and might then run after you, as you are now running after her. Women are such curious creatures.”

“Oh, if I was sure of that, I would begin to try at once … although now …” and Landry shook his head.

“Well, what about … now?”

“Although now, after all that has happened, it would be of no use.”

“What has happened then?” asked Thibault, who was anxious to ascertain all particulars.

“Oh! as to that, nothing,” replied Landry, “and I do not even dare speak of it.”

“Why?”

“Because, as they say with us, ‘Best let sleeping dogs lie.’ ”

Thibault would have continued to urge Landry to tell him what the trouble was to which he referred, but they were now near the Mill, and their explanation would have to remain unfinished, even if once begun. What was more, Thibault thought that he already knew enough; Landry was in love with the fair owner of the Mill, but the fair owner of the Mill was not in love with Landry. And, in truth, he feared no danger from a rival such as this. It was with a certain pride and self-complacency that he compared the timid, boyish looks of his cousin, a mere lad of eighteen, with his own five feet six and well-set figure, and he was naturally led into thinking, that, however little of a woman of taste Madame Polet might be, Landry’s failure was a good reason for believing that his own success was assured. The Mill at Croyolles is charmingly situated at the bottom of a cool green valley; the stream that works it forms a little pond, which is shaded by pollard willows, and slender poplars; and between these dwarfed and giant trees stand magnificent alders, and immense walnut trees with their fragrant foliage. After turning the wheel of the mill, the foaming water runs off in a little rivulet, which never ceases its hymn of joy as it goes leaping over the pebbles of its bed, starring the flowers that lean coquettishly over to look at themselves in its clear shallows with the liquid diamonds that are scattered by its tiny waterfalls.

The Mill itself lies so hidden in a bower of shrubs, behind the sycamores and weeping willows, that until one is within a short distance of it, nothing is to be seen but the chimney from which the smoke rises against the background of trees like a column of blue tinted alabaster. Although Thibault was familiar with the spot, the sight of it filled him, as he now looked upon it, with a feeling of delight which he had not hitherto experienced; but then he had never before gazed on it under the conditions in which he now found himself, for he was already conscious of that sense of personal satisfaction which the proprietor feels on visiting an estate which has been obtained for him by proxy. On entering the farm-yard, where the scene was more animated, he was moved to even greater ecstasy of enjoyment.

The blue and purple-throated pigeons were cooing on the roofs, the ducks quacking, and going through sundry evolutions in the stream, the hens were clucking on the dung-heap, and the turkey cocks bridling and strutting as they courted the turkey-hens, while the brown and white cows came slowly in from the fields, their udders full of milk. Here, on one side, a cart was being unloaded, there, as they were being unharnessed, two splendid horses neighed and stretched their necks, now freed from the collar, towards their mangers; a boy was carrying a sack up into the granary, and a girl was bringing another sack filled with crusts and the refuse water to an enormous pig, that lay basking in the sun waiting to be transformed into salt-pork, sausages, and black puddings; all the animals of the ark were there, from the braying donkey to the crowing cock, mingling their discordant voices in this rural concert, while the mill with its regular click-clack, seemed to be beating time.

Thibault felt quite dazzled; he saw himself the owner of all that he now looked upon, and he rubbed his hands together with such evident pleasure, that Landry, if he had not been so absorbed in his own trouble, which grew ever greater as they drew nearer to the house, would certainly have noticed this apparently causeless emotion of joy on his cousin’s part. As they entered the farm-yard, the widow, who was in the dining-room, became aware of their presence, and seemed very inquisitive to know who the stranger was who had returned with her head boy. Thibault, with an easy and confident sort of manner, went up to the dwelling-house, gave his name, and explained to her, that, having a great wish to see his cousin Landry, he had decided to come over and introduce himself to her.

The mistress of the Mill was extremely gracious, and invited the new comer to spend the day at the Mill, accompanying her invitation with a smile that Thibault took as a most favourable augury.

Thibault had not come unprovided with a present. He had unhooked some thrushes which he had found caught in a snare set with rowan-berries, as he came through the forest; and the widow sent them at once to be plucked, saying as she did so, that she hoped Thibault would stay to eat his share of them. But he could not help noticing that all the while she was speaking to him, she kept on looking over his shoulder at something which seemed to attract her attention, and turning quickly, he saw that the pre-occupation of the fair owner of the Mill had evidently been caused by watching Landry, who was unloading his asses. Becoming conscious that Thibault had noticed the wandering of her looks and attention, Madame Polet turned as red as a cherry, but, immediately recovering herself she said to her new acquaintance:

“Monsieur Thibault, it would be kind of you, who appear so robust, to go and help your cousin; you can see that the job is too heavy a one for him alone,” and so saying, she went back into the house.

“Now, the devil!” muttered Thibault, as he looked first after Madame Polet and then at Landry, “is the fellow after all more fortunate than he suspects himself, and shall I be forced to call the black wolf to my assistance to get rid of him?”

However, he went as the owner of the mill had asked him, and gave the required assistance. Feeling quite sure that the pretty widow was looking at him through some chink or other of the curtain, he put forth all his strength, and displayed to the full his athletic grace, in the accomplishment of the task in which he was sharing. The unloading finished, they all assembled in the dining-room where a waiting-maid was busy setting the table. As soon as dinner was served, Madame Polet took her place at the head of the table, with Thibault to her right. She was all attention and politeness to the latter, so much so indeed that Thibault, who had been temporarily crestfallen, took heart again, filled with hope. In order to do honour to Thibault’s present, she had herself dressed the birds with juniper-berries, and so prepared, no more delicate or appetising dish could well have been provided. While laughing at Thibault’s sallies, however, she cast stealthy glances now and again at Landry, who she saw had not touched what she herself had placed on the poor boy’s plate, and also that great tears were rolling down his cheeks, and falling into the untasted juniper sauce. This mute sorrow touched her heart; a look almost of tenderness came into her face, as she made a sign to him with her head, which seemed to say, so expressive was it, “Eat, Landry, I beg of you.” There was a whole world of loving promises in this little pantomime. Landry understood the gesture, for he nearly choked himself trying to swallow the bird at one mouthful, so eager was he to obey the orders of his fair mistress.

Nothing of all this escaped Thibault’s eye.

He swore to himself, using an oath that he had heard in the mouth of the Seigneur Jean, and which, now that he was the friend of the devil, he fancied he might use like any other great lord: “Can it be possible,” he thought, “that she is really in love with this slip of a youth? Well, if so, it does not say much for her taste, and more than that, it does not suit my plans at all. No, no, my fair mistress, what you need is a man who will know how to look well after the affairs of the mill, and that man will be myself or the black wolf will find himself in the wrong box.”

Noticing a minute later that Madame Polet had finally gone back to the earlier stage of side-long glances and smiles which Landry had described to him, he continued, “I see I shall have to resort to stronger measures, for lose her I will not; there is not another match in all the countryside that would suit me equally well. But then, what am I to do with Cousin Landry? his love, it is true, upsets my arrangements; but I really cannot for so small a thing send him to join the wretched Marcotte in the other world. But what a fool I am to bother my brains about finding a way to help myself! It’s the wolf’s business, not mine?” Then in a low voice: “Black wolf,” he said, “arrange matters in such a way, that without any accident or harm happening to my Cousin Landry, I may get rid of him.” The prayer was scarcely uttered, when he caught sight of a small body of four or five men in military uniform, walking down the hill-side and coming towards the mill. Landry also saw them; for he uttered a loud cry, got up as if to run away, and then fell back in his chair, as if all power of movement had forsaken him.

CHAPTER VIII
THIBAULT’S WHISHES

THE widow, on perceiving the effect which the sight of the soldiers advancing towards the mill had upon Landry, was almost as frightened as the lad himself.

“Ah! dear God!” she cried, “what is the matter, my poor Landry?”

“Say, what is the matter?” asked Thibault in his turn.

“Alas I,” replied Landry, “last Thursday, in a moment of despair, meeting the recruiting-sergeant at the Dauphin Inn, I enlisted.”

“In a moment of despair!” exclaimed the mistress of the mill, “and why were you in despair?”

“I was in despair,” said Landry, with a mighty effort, “I was in despair because I love you.”

“And it is because you loved me, unhappy boy! that you enlisted?”

“Did you not say that you would turn me away from the mill?”

“And have I turned you away?” asked Madame Polet, with an expression which it was impossible to misinterpret.

“Ah! God! then you would not really have sent me away?” asked Landry.

“Poor boy!” said the mistress of the mill, with a smile and a pitying movement of the shoulders, which, at any other time, would have made Landry almost die of joy, but, as it was, only doubled his distress.

“Perhaps even now I might have time to hide,” he said.

“Hide!” said Thibault, “that will be of no use, I can tell you.”

“And why not?” said Madame Polet, “I am going to try, anyhow. Come, dear Landry.”

And she led the young man away, with every mark of the most loving sympathy.

Thibault followed them with his eyes: “It’s going badly for you, Thibault, my friend,” he said; “fortunately, let her hide him as cleverly as she may, they have a good scent, and will find him out.”

In saying this, Thibault was unconscious that he was giving utterance to a fresh wish.

The widow had evidently not hidden Landry very far away, for she returned after a few seconds of absence; the hiding-place was probably all the safer for being near. She had scarcely had time to take breath when the recruiting-sergeant and his companions appeared at the door. Two remained outside, no doubt to catch Landry if he should attempt to escape, the sergeant and the other soldier walked in with the confidence of men who are conscious of acting under authority. The Sergeant cast a searching glance round the room, brought back his right foot into the third position and lifted his hand to the peak of his cap. The mistress of the Mill did not wait for the Sergeant to address her, but with one of her most fascinating smiles, asked him if he would like some refreshment, an offer which no recruiting-sergeant is ever known to refuse. Then, thinking it a favourable moment to put the question, she asked them while they were drinking their wine, what had brought them to Croyolles Mill. The Sergeant replied that he had come in search of a lad, belonging to the Mill, who, after drinking with him to his Majesty’s health and signed his engagement, had not re-appeared. The lad in question, interrogated as to his name and dwelling-place, had declared himself to be one Landry, living with Madame Polet, a widow, owner of the Mill at Croyolles. On the strength of this declaration, he had now come to Madame Polet, widow, of Croyolles Mill, to reclaim the defaulter.

The widow, quite convinced that it was permissible to lie for a good cause, assured the Sergeant that she knew nothing of Landry, nor had any one of that name ever been at the Mill.

The Sergeant in reply said that Madame had the finest eyes and the most charming mouth in the world, but that was no reason why he should implicitly believe the glances of the one or the words of the other. He was bound, therefore, he continued, “to ask the fair widow to allow him to search the Mill.”

The search was begun, in about five minutes the Sergeant came back into the room and asked Madam Polet for the key of her room. The widow appeared very much surprised and shocked at such a request, but the Sergeant was so persistent and determined that at last she was forced to give up the key. A minute or two later, and the Sergeant walked in again, dragging Landry in after him by the collar of his coat. When the widow saw them both enter, she turned deadly pale. As for Thibault, his heart beat so violently, that he thought it would burst, for without the black wolf’s assistance, he was sure the Sergeant would never have gone to look for Landry where he had found him.

“Ah! ah! my good fellow!” cried the Sergeant in a mocking voice, “so we prefer the service of beauty to the King’s service? That is easy to understand; but when one has the good fortune to be born in his Majesty’s domains and to have drunk his health, one has to give him a share of service, when his turn comes. So you must come along with us, my fine fellow, and after a few years in the King’s uniform, you can come back and serve under your old flag. So, now then, march!”

“But,” cried the widow, “Landry is not yet twenty, and you have not the right to take him under twenty.”

“She is right,” added Landry, “I am not twenty yet.”

“And when will you be twenty?”

“Not until to-morrow.”

“Good,” said the Sergeant, “we will put you to-night on a bed of straw, like a medlar, and by to-morrow, at day-break, when we wake you up, you will be ripe.”

Landry wept. The widow prayed, pleaded, implored, allowed herself to be kissed by the soldiers, patiently endured the coarse pleasantry excited by her sorrow, and at last offered a hundred crowns to buy him off. But all was of no avail. Landry’s wrists were bound, and then one of the soldiers taking hold of the end of the cord, the party started off, but not before the lad of the mill had found time to assure his dear mistress, that far or near, he would always love her, and that, if he died, her name would be the last upon his lips. The beautiful widow, on her side, had lost all thought of the world’s opinion in face of this great catastrophe, and before he was led away, she clasped Landry to her heart in a tender embrace.

When the little party had disappeared behind the willows, and she lost sight of them, the widow’s distress became so overpowering that she became insensible, and had to be carried and laid on her bed. Thibault lavished upon her the most devoted attention. He was somewhat taken aback at the strong feeling of affection which the widow evinced for his cousin; however, as this only made him applaud himself the more for having cut at the root of the evil, he still cherished the most sanguine hopes.

On coming to herself, the first name the widow uttered was that of Landry, to which Thibault replied with a hypocritical gesture of commiseration. Then the mistress of the mill began to sob. “Poor lad!” she cried, while the hot tears flowed down her cheeks, “what will become of him, so weak and delicate as he is? The mere weight of his gun and knapsack will kill him!”

Then turning to her guest, she continued:

“Ah! Monsieur Thibault, this is a terrible trouble to me, for you no doubt have perceived that I love him? He was gentle, he was kind, he had no faults; he was not a gambler, nor a drinker; he would never have opposed my wishes, would never have tyrannised over his wife, and that would have seemed very sweet to me after the two cruel years that I lived with the late M. Polet. Ah! Monsieur Thibault, Monsieur Thibault! It is a sad grief indeed for a poor miserable woman to see all her anticipations of future happiness and peace thus suddenly swallowed up!”

Thibault thought this would be a good moment to declare himself; whenever he saw a woman crying, he immediately thought, most erroneously, that she only cried because she wished to be consoled.

He decided, however, that he would not be able to attain his object without a certain circumlocution.

“Indeed,” he answered, “I quite understand your sorrow, nay, more than that, I share it with you, for you cannot doubt the affection I bear my cousin. But we must resign ourselves, and without wishing to deny Landry’s good qualities, I would still ask you, Madame, to find someone else who is his equal.”

“His equal!” exclaimed the widow, “there is no such person. Where shall I find so nice and so good a youth? It was a pleasure to me to look at his smooth young face, and with it all, he was so self-composed, so steady in his habits! He was working night and day, and yet I could with a glance make him shrink away and hide. No, no, Monsieur Thibault, I tell you frankly, the remembrance of him will prevent me ever wishing to look at another man, and I know that I must resign myself to remaining a widow for the rest of my life.”

“Phew!” said Thibault; “but Landry was very young!”

“There is no disadvantage in that,” replied the widow.

“But who knows if he would always have retained his good qualities. Take my advice, Madame, do not grieve any more, but, as I say, look out for some one who will make you forget him. What you really need is not a baby-face like that, but a grown man, possessing all the qualities that you admire and regret in Landry, but, at the same time sufficiently mature to prevent the chance of finding one fine day that all your illusions are dispersed, and that you are left face to face with a libertine and a bully.”

The mistress of the Mill shook her head; but Thibault went on:

“In short, what you need, is a man who while earning your respect, will, at the same time make the Mill work profitably. You have but to say the word, and you would not have to wait long before you found yourself well provided for, my fair Madame, a good bit better than you were just now.”

“And where am I to find this miracle of a man?” asked the widow, as she rose to her feet, looking defiantly at the shoe-maker, as if throwing down a challenge. The latter, mistaking the tone in which these last words were said, thought it an excellent occasion to make known his own proposals, and accordingly hastened to profit by it.

“Well, I confess,” he answered, “that when I said that a handsome widow like you would not have to go far before finding the man who would be just the very husband for her, I was thinking of myself, for I should reckon myself fortunate, and should feel proud, to call myself your husband. Ah! I assure you,” he went on, while the mistress of the Mill stood looking at him with ever-increasing displeasure in her eyes, “I assure you that with me you would have no occasion to fear any opposition to your wishes: I am a perfect lamb in the way of gentleness, and I should have but one law and one desire, my law would be to obey you, my desire to please you! and as to your fortune, I have means of adding to it which I will make known to you later on…”

But the end of Thibault’s sentence remained unspoken.

“What!” cried the widow, whose fury was the greater for having been kept in check until then, “What! you, whom I thought my friend, you dare to speak of replacing him in my heart! you try to dissuade me from keeping my faith to your cousin. Get out of the place, you worthless scoundrel! out of the place, I say! or I will not answer for the consequences; I have a good mind to get four of my men to collar you and throw you under the Mill-wheel.”

Thibault was anxious to make some sort of response, but, although ready with an answer on ordinary occasions, he could not for the moment think of a single word whereby to justify himself. True, Madame Polet, gave him no time to think, but seizing hold of a beautiful new jug that stood near her, she flung it at Thibault’s head. Luckily for him, Thibault dodged to the left and escaped the missile, which flew past him, crashing to pieces against the chimney-piece. Then the mistress of the house took up a stool, and aimed it at him with equal violence; this time Thibault dodged to the right, and the stool went against the window, smashing two or three panes of glass. At the sound of the falling glass, all the youths and maids of the Mill came running up. They found their mistress flinging bottles, water-jugs, salt-cellars, plates, everything in short that came to hand, with all her might at Thibault’s head. Fortunately for him widow Polet was too much incensed to be able to speak; if she had been able to do so, she would have called out; “Kill him! Strangle him! Kill the rascal! the scoundrel! the villain!”

On seeing the reinforcements arriving to help the widow, Thibault endeavoured to escape by the door that had been left open by the recruiting party, but just as he was running out, the good pig, that we saw taking its siesta in the sun, being roused out of its first sleep by all this hullabaloo, and thinking the farm people were after it, made a dash for its stye, and in so doing charged right against Thibault’s legs. The latter lost his balance, and went rolling over and over for a good ten paces in the dirt and slush. “Devil take you, you beast!” cried the shoe-maker, bruised by his fall, but even more furious at seeing his new clothes covered with mud. The wish was hardly out of his mouth, when the pig was suddenly taken with a fit of frenzy, and began rushing about the farm-yard like a mad animal, breaking, shattering, and turning over everything that came in its way. The farm hands, who had run to their mistress on hearing her cries, thought the pig’s behaviour was the cause of them – and started off in pursuit of the animal. But it eluded all their attempts to seize hold of it, knocking over boys and girls, as it had knocked Thibault over, until, at last, coming to where the mill was separated from the sluice by a wooden partition, it crashed through the latter as easily as if it were made of paper, threw itself under the mill wheel … and disappeared as if sucked down by a whirlpool. The mistress of the mill had by this time recovered her speech. “Lay hold of Thibault!” she cried, for she had heard Thibault’s curse, and had been amazed and horrified at the instantaneous way in which it had worked. “Lay hold of him! knock him down! he is a wizard, a sorcerer! a were-wolf!” – applying to Thibault with this last word, one of the most terrible epithets that can be given to a man in our forest lands. Thibault, who scarcely knew where he was, seeing the momentary stupefaction which took possession of the farm people on hearing their mistress’s final invective, made use of the opportunity to dash past them, and while one went to get a pitch-fork and another a spade, he darted through the farm-yard gate, and began running up an almost perpendicular hill-side at full speed, with an ease which only confirmed Madame Polet’s suspicions, for the hill had always hitherto been looked upon as absolutely inaccessible, at any rate by the way Thibault had chosen to climb it.