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Chouette, laughing loudly; "but I should like to see what a 'guy' you will make of yourself. So on your knees, as if you were 'pattering' love to your old darling. Come, do it directly, or we will leave you; and I tell you that in half an hour it will be quite dark, though you don't look as if you thought so, old 'No-Eyes.'"
"Night or day, what's that to him?" said Tortillard, saucily. "The gentleman always has his shutters closed."
"Then here, on my knees, I humbly ask your pardon, Chouette; and yours also, Tortillard! Will not that content you?" said the robber, kneeling in the middle of the highway. "And now will you leave me?"
This strange group, enclosed by the embankment of the ravine, and lighted by the red glimmer of the twilight, was hideous to behold. In the middle of the road the Schoolmaster, on his knees, extended his large and coarse hands towards the one-eyed hag; his thick and matted hair, which his fright had dishevelled, left exposed his motionless, rigid, glassy, dead eyeballs—the very glance of a corpse. Stooping deprecatingly his broad-spread shoulders, this Hercules kneels abjectly, and trembles at the feet of an old woman and a child!
The old hag herself, wrapped in a red-checked shawl, her head covered with an old cap of black lace, which allowed some locks of her grizzled hair to escape, looked down with an air of haughty contempt and domineering pride on the Schoolmaster. The bony, scorched, shrivelled, and livid countenance of the parrot-nosed old harridan expressed a savage and insulting joy; her small but fierce eye glistened like a burning coal; a sinister expression curled her lips, shaded with long straight hairs, and revealed three or four large, yellow, and decayed fangs.
Tortillard, clothed in a blouse with a leathern belt, standing on one leg, leaned on the Chouette's arm to keep himself upright. The bad expression and cunning look of this deformed imp, with a complexion as sallow as his hair, betokened at this moment his disposition—half fiend, half monkey. The shadow cast from the declivity of the ravine increased the horrid tout ensemble of the scene, which the increasing darkness half hid.
"Promise me—oh, promise me—at least, not to forsake me!" repeated the Schoolmaster, frightened by the silence of the Chouette and Tortillard, who were enjoying his dismay. "Are you not here?" added the murderer, leaning forward to listen, and advancing his arms mechanically.
"Yes, my man, we are here; don't be frightened. Forsake you! leave my love! the man of my heart! No, I'd sooner be 'scragged'! Once for all, I will tell you why I will not forsake you. Listen, and profit. I have always liked to have some one in my grip—beast or Christian. Before I had Pegriotte (oh! that the 'old one' would return her to my clutch! for I have still my idea of scaling off her beauty with my bottle of vitriol)—before Pegriotte's turn, I had a brat who froze to death under my care. For that little job, I got six years in the 'Stone Jug.' Then I used to have little birds, which I used to tame, and then pluck 'em alive. Ha! ha! but that was troublesome work, for they did not last long. When I left the 'Jug,' the Goualeuse came to hand; but the little brat ran away before I had had half my fun out of her carcass. Well, then I had a dog, who had his little troubles as well as she had; and I cut off one of his hind feet and one of his four feet; and you never saw such a rum beggar as I made of him; I almost burst my sides with laughing at him!"
"I must serve a dog I know of, who bit me one day, in the same way," said the promising Master Tortillard.
"When I fell in again with you, my darling," continued the Chouette, "I was trying what I could do that was miserable with a cat. Well, now, at this moment, you, old boy, shall be my cat, my dog, my bird, my Pegriotte; you shall be anything to worry (bête de souffrance). Do you understand, my love? Instead of having a bird or a child to make miserable, I shall have, as it were, a wolf or a tiger. I think that's rather a bright idea; isn't it?"
"Hag! devil!" cried the Schoolmaster, rising in a desperate rage.
"What, my pet angry with his darling old deary? Well, if it must be so, it must. Have your own way; you have a right to it. Good night, blind sheep!"
"The field-gate is wide open, so walk alone, Mister No-eyes; and, if you toddle straight, you'll reach the right road somehow," said Tortillard, laughing heartily.
"Oh, that I could die! die! die!" said the Schoolmaster, writhing and twisting his arms about in agony.
At this moment, Tortillard, stooping to the ground, exclaimed, in a low voice:
"I hear footsteps in the path; let us hide; it is not the young miss, for they come the same way as she did."
On the instant, a stout peasant girl in the prime of youth, followed by a large shepherd's dog, carrying on her head an open basket, appeared, and followed the same path which the priest and the Goualeuse had taken. We will rejoin the two latter, leaving the three accomplices concealed in the hollow of the path.
CHAPTER V.
THE RECTORY-HOUSE.
The last rays of the sun were gradually disappearing behind the vast pile of the Château d'Ecouen and the woods which surrounded it. On all sides, until the sight lost them in the distance, were vast tracts of land lying in brown furrows hardened by the frost—an extensive desert, of which the hamlet of Bouqueval appeared to be the oasis. The sky, which was serenely glorious, was tinted by the sunset, and glowed with long lines of empurpled light, the certain token of wind and cold. These tints, which were at first of a deep red, became violet; then a bluish black, as the twilight grew more and more dark on the atmosphere. The crescent of the moon was as delicately and clearly defined as a silver ring, and began to shine beautifully in the midst of the blue and dimmed sky, where many stars already had appeared. The silence was profound; the hour most solemn. The curate stopped for a moment on the summit of the acclivity to enjoy the calm of this delicious evening. After some minutes' reflection, he extended his trembling hand towards the depths of the horizon, half veiled by the shadows of the evening, and said to Fleur-de-Marie, who was walking pensively beside him:
"Look, my child, at the vastness and extent to which we have no visible limit; we hear not the slightest sound. Say, does not this silence give us an idea of infinity and of eternity? I say this to you, Marie, because you are peculiarly sensitive of the beauties of creation. I have often been struck at the admiration, alike poetical and religious, with which they inspire you—you, a poor prisoner so long deprived of them. Are you not, as I am, struck with the solemn tranquillity of the hour?"
The Goualeuse made no reply. The curé, regarding her with astonishment, found she was weeping.
"What ails you, my child?"
"My father, I am unhappy!"
"Unhappy!—you?—still unhappy!"
"I know it is ingratitude to complain of my lot after all that has been and is done for me; and yet—"
"And yet?"
"Father, I pray of you forgive my sorrows; their expression may offend my benefactors."
"Listen, Marie. We have often asked you the cause of these sorrows with which you are depressed, and which excite in your second mother the most serious uneasiness. You have avoided all reply, and we have respected your secret whilst we have been afflicted at not being able to solace your sorrows."
"Alas; good father, I dare not tell you what is passing in my mind. I have been moved, as you have been, at the sight of this calm and saddening evening. My heart is sorely afflicted, and I have wept."
"But what ails you, Marie? You know how we love you! Come, tell me all. You should; for I must tell you that the time is very close at hand when Madame Georges and M. Rodolph will present you at the baptismal font, and take upon themselves the engagement before God to protect you all the days of your life."
"M. Rodolph—he who has saved me?" cried Fleur-de-Marie, clasping her hands; "he will deign to give me this new proof of affection! Oh, indeed, my father, I can no longer conceal from you anything, lest I should, indeed, deserve to be called and thought