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 arrondissement, 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.”
This was such a strange assertion that his listeners could not repress a smile. He did not seem to notice it, however.
“It was loaned me,” he continued, “in order that I might bring some great news here the quicker.”
Fear resumed possession of the peasantry.
“Is the enemy in the city?” anxiously inquired some of the more timid.
“Yes; but not the enemy you refer to. This is the former lord of the manor, the Duc de Sairmeuse.”
“Ah! they said he was dead.”
“They were mistaken.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No, I have not seen him, but someone else has seen him for me, and has spoken to him. And this someone is Monsieur Laugeron, the proprietor of the Hotel de France at Montaignac. I was passing the house this morning, when he called me. ‘Here, old man,’ he said, ‘do you wish to do me a favor?’ Naturally I replied: ‘Yes.’ Whereupon he placed a coin in my hand and said: ‘Well! go and tell them to saddle a horse for you, then gallop to Sairmeuse, and tell my friend Lacheneur that the Duc de Sairmeuse arrived here last night in a post-chaise, with his son, Monsieur Martial, and two servants.’”
Here, in the midst of these peasants, who were listening to him with pale cheeks and set teeth, Father Chupin preserved the subdued mien appropriate to a messenger of misfortune.
But if one had observed him carefully, one would have detected an ironical smile upon his lips and a gleam of malicious joy in his eyes.
He was, in fact, inwardly jubilant. At that moment he had his revenge for all the slights and all the scorn he had been forced to endure. And what a revenge!
And if his words seemed to fall slowly and reluctantly from his lips, it was only because he was trying to prolong the sufferings of his auditors as much as possible.
But a robust young fellow, with an intelligent face, who, perhaps, read Father Chupin’s secret heart, brusquely interrupted him:
“What does the presence of the Duc de Sairmeuse at Montaignac matter to us?” he exclaimed. “Let him remain at the Hotel de France as long as he chooses; we shall not go in search of him.”
“No! we shall not go in search of him,” echoed the other peasants, approvingly.
The old rogue shook his head with affected commiseration.
“Monsieur le Duc will not put you to that trouble,” he replied; “he will be here in less than two hours.”
“How do you know?”
“I know it through Monsieur Laugeron, who, when I mounted his horse, said to me: ‘Above all, old man, explain to my friend Lacheneur that the duke has ordered horses to be in readiness to convey him to Sairmeuse at eleven o’clock.’”
With a common movement, all the peasants who had watches consulted them.
“And what does he want here?” demanded the same young farmer.
“Pardon! he did not tell me,” replied Father Chupin; “but one need not be very cunning to guess. He comes to revisit his former estates, and to take them from those who have purchased them, if possible. From you, Rousselet, he will claim the meadows upon the Oiselle, which always yield two crops; from you, Father Gauchais, the ground upon which the Croix-Brulee stands; from you, Chanlouineau, the vineyards on the Borderie——”
Chanlouineau was the impetuous young man who had interrupted Father Chupin twice already.
“Claim the Borderie!” he exclaimed, with even greater violence; “let him try, and we will see. It was waste land when my father bought it—covered with briers; even a goat could not have found pasture there. We have cleared it of stones, we have scratched up the soil with our very nails, we have watered it with our sweat, and now they would try to take it from us! Ah! they shall have my last drop of blood first!”
“I do not say but——”
“But what? Is it any fault of ours that the nobles fled to foreign lands? We have not stolen their lands, have we? The government offered them for sale; we bought them, and paid for them; they are lawfully ours.”
“That is true; but Monsieur de Sairmeuse is the great friend of the king.”
The young soldier, whose voice had aroused the most noble sentiments only a moment before, was forgotten.
Invaded France, the threatening enemy, were alike forgotten. The all-powerful instinct of avarice was suddenly aroused.
“In my opinion,” resumed Chanlouineau, “we should do well to consult the Baron d’Escorval.”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the peasants; “let us go at once!”
They were starting, when a villager who sometimes read the papers, checked them by saying:
“Take care what you do. Do you not know that since the return of the Bourbons Monsieur d’Escorval is of no account whatever? Fouche has him upon the proscription list, and he is under the surveillance of the police.”
This objection dampened the enthusiasm.
“That is true,” murmured some of the older men; “a visit to Monsieur d’Escorval would, perhaps, do us more harm than good. And, besides, what advice could he give us?”
Chanlouineau had forgotten all prudence.
“What of that?” he exclaimed. “If Monsieur d’Escorval has no counsel to give us about this matter, he can, perhaps, teach us how to resist and to defend ourselves.”
For
