Part 1 (2/2)

As he said this he shook his clinched fist menacingly at a white flag that floated from the tower.

His generous anger won the close attention of his auditors, and they were still listening to him with undiminished interest, when the sound of a horse's hoofs resounded upon the stones of the only street in Sairmeuse.

A shudder traversed the crowd. The same fear stopped the beating of every heart.

Who could say that this rider was not some English or Prussian officer?

He had come, perhaps, to announce the arrival of his regiment, and imperiously demand money, clothing, and food for his soldiers.

But the suspense was not of long duration.

The rider proved to be a fellow-countryman, clad in a torn and dirty blue linen blouse. He was urging forward, with repeated blows, a little, bony, nervous mare, fevered with foam.

”Ah! it is Father Chupin,” murmured one of the peasants with a sigh of relief.

”The same,” observed another. ”He seems to be in a terrible hurry.”

”The old rascal has probably stolen the horse he is riding.”

This last remark disclosed the reputation Father Chupin enjoyed among his neighbors.

He was, indeed, one of those thieves who are the scourge and the terror of the rural districts. He pretended to be a day-laborer, but the truth was, that he held work in holy horror, and spent all his time in sleeping and idling about his hovel. Hence, stealing was the only means of support for himself, his wife, two sons--terrible youths, who, somehow, had escaped the conscription.

They consumed nothing that was not stolen. Wheat, wine, fuel, fruits--all were the rightful property of others. Hunting and fis.h.i.+ng at all seasons, and with forbidden appliances, furnished them with ready money.

Everyone in the neighborhood knew this; and yet when Father Chupin was pursued and captured, as he was occasionally, no witness could be found to testify against him.

”He is a hard case,” men said; ”and if he had a grudge against anyone, he would be quite capable of lying in ambush and shooting him as he would a squirrel.”

Meanwhile the rider had drawn rein at the inn of the Boeuf Couronne.

He alighted from his horse, and, crossing the square, approached the church.

He was a large man, about fifty years of age, as gnarled and sinewy as the stem of an old grape-vine. At the first glance one would not have taken him for a scoundrel. His manner was humble, and even gentle; but the restlessness of his eye and the expression of his thin lips betrayed diabolical cunning and the coolest calculation.

At any other time this despised and dreaded individual would have been avoided; but curiosity and anxiety led the crowd toward him.

”Ah, well, Father Chupin!” they cried, as soon as he was within the sound of their voices; ”whence do you come in such haste?”

”From the city.”

To the inhabitants of Sairmeuse and its environs, ”the city” meant the country town of the _arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_, Montaignac, a charming sub-prefecture of eight thousand souls, about four leagues distant.

”And was it at Montaignac that you bought the horse you were riding just now?”

”I did not buy it; it was loaned to me.”

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