little bone in the shape of a cross inside a goat’s heart, which, if crushed into powder, is a sovereign remedy for apoplexy?”
“You intend to kill my goat?” exclaimed Thibault, at the same time leaving hold of the goat’s horns, and dropping its foot, “but I will not have it killed.”
“Fie, fie!” said Engoulevent, “that is not at all a becoming speech, Monsieur Thibault, would you value the life of our good master as of no more worth than that of your wretched goat? I am truly ashamed for you.”
“It’s easy for you to talk. This goat is all I have to depend upon, the only thing I possess. She gives me milk, and I am fond of her.”
“Ah! Monsieur Thibault, you cannot be thinking of what you are saying—it is fortunate that the Baron does not hear you—for he would be broken-hearted to know that his precious life was being bargained for in that miserly way.”
“And besides,” said one of the prickers with a sneering laugh, “if Master Thibault values his goat at a price which he thinks only my lord can pay, there is nothing to prevent him coming to the castle of Vez to claim this payment. The account can be settled with what was left over as due to him yesterday.”
Thibault knew that he could not get the better of these men, unless he again called the devil to his aid; but he had just received such a lesson from Satan, that there was no fear of his exposing himself, at all events for a second time the same day, to similar good offices. His one desire for the time being was not to wish any sort of ill to anyone of those present.
One man dead, another nearly so—Thibault found this lesson enough. Consequently, he kept his eyes turned away from the menacing and jeering countenances around him, for fear of being aggravated beyond control. While his back was turned, the poor goat’s throat was cut, her piteous cry alone informing him of the fact; and it was no sooner killed than its heart, which had hardly ceased throbbing, was opened in search of the little bone of which Engoulevent had spoken. This found, it was ground into powder, mixed with vinegar diluted with thirteen drops of gall from the bladder containing it, the whole stirred together in a glass with the cross of a rosary, and then poured gently down the Baron’s throat, after his teeth had been forced apart with the blade of a dagger.
The effect of the draught was immediate and truly miraculous. The Lord of Vez sneezed, sat up, and said in a voice, intelligible though still a little husky: “Give me something to drink.”
Engoulevent handed him some water in a wooden drinking-cup, a family possession, of which Thibault was very proud. But the Baron had no sooner put his lips to it and become aware of what the vile, abominable liquid was, which they had had the impudence to offer him, than, with an exclamation of disgust, he flung the vessel and its contents violently against the wall, and the cup fell, smashed into a thousand pieces. Then in a loud and sonorous voice, which left no doubt of his perfect recovery, he called out: “Bring me some wine.” One of the prickers mounted and rode at full speed to the castle of Oigny, and there requested the lord of the place to give him a flask or two of sound old Burgundy; ten minutes after he was back again. Two bottles were uncorked, and there being no glasses at hand, the Baron put them in turn to his mouth, draining each at a single draught.
Then he turned himself round with his face to the wall, and murmuring—Mâcon, 1743—fell into a profound slumber.
CHAPTER VI
THE BEDEVILLED HAIR
The huntsmen, being reassured with regard to their master’s health, now went in search of the dogs, which had been left to carry on the chase alone. They were found lying asleep, the ground around them stained with blood. It was evident that they had run down the buck and eaten it; if any doubt on the matter remained, it was done away with by the sight of the antlers, and a portion of the jaw bone, the only parts of the animal which they could not crunch up, and which had therefore not disappeared. In short, they were the only ones who had cause to be satisfied with the day’s work. The huntsmen, after shutting up the hounds in Thibault’s shed, seeing that their master was still sleeping, began to turn their thoughts to getting some supper. They laid hands on everything they could find in the poor wretch’s cupboard, and roasted the goat, politely inviting Thibault to take a share in the meal towards the cost of which he had not a little contributed. He refused, giving as a plausible excuse, the great agitation he still was under, owing to Marcotte’s death and the Baron’s accident.
He gathered up the fragments of his beloved drinking-cup, and seeing that it was useless to think of ever being able to put it together again, he began turning over in his mind what it might be possible for him to do, so as to free himself from the miserable existence which the events of the last two days had rendered more insupportable than ever. The first image that appeared to him, was that of Agnelette. Like the beautiful angels that pass before the eyes of children in their dreams, he saw her figure, dressed all in white, with large white wings, floating across a blue sky. She seemed happy and beckoned to him to follow, saying the while “Those who come with me will be very happy.” But the only answer which Thibault vouchsafed to this charming vision was a movement of the head and shoulders, which interpreted, meant, “Yes, yes, Agnelette, I see you, and recognise you; yesterday, it would have been all very well to follow you; but to-day I am, like a king, the arbiter of life and death, and I am not the man to make foolish concessions to a love only born a day ago, and which has hardly learnt to stammer out its first words. To marry you, my poor child, far from lessening the bitter hardships of our lives, would only double or treble the burden under which we are both borne down. No, Agnelette, no! You would make a charming mistress; but, a wife—she must be in a position to bring money to support the household, equal in proportion to the power which I should contribute.”
His conscience told him plainly that he was engaged to marry Agnelette; but he quieted it with the assurance that if he broke the engagement, it would be for the good of that gentle creature.
“I am an upright man,” he murmured to himself, “and it is my duty to sacrifice my personal pleasure to the welfare of the dear child. And more than that, she is sufficiently young and pretty and good, to find a better fate than what would await her as the wife of a plain sabot maker.” And the end of all these fine reflections was, that Thibault felt himself bound to allow his foolish promises of the day before to melt away into air, and to forget the betrothal, of which the only witnesses had been the quivering leaves of the birch trees, and the pink blossom of the heather. It should be added that there was another mental vision, not wholly irresponsible for the resolution at which Thibault had arrived,—the vision of a certain young widow, owner of the mill at Croyolles, a woman between twenty-six and twenty-eight, fresh and plump, with fine, rolling eyes, not devoid of mischief. Moreover, she was credibly supposed to be the richest match in all the country side, for her mill was never idle, and so, for all reasons, as one can clearly see, it was the very thing for Thibault.
Formerly, it would never have occurred to Thibault to aspire to anyone in the position of the rich and beautiful Madame Polet, for such was the name of the owner of the mill; and this will explain why her name is introduced here for the first time. And, in truth, it was the first time that she had ever occurred as a subject of serious consideration to our hero. He was astonished at himself for not having thought of her before, but then, as he said to himself, he had often thought about her, but without hope, while now, seeing that he was under the protection of the wolf, and that he had been endowed with a supernatural power, which he had already had occasion to exercise, it seemed to him an easy matter to get rid of all his rivals and achieve his purpose. True there were evil tongues that spoke of the owner of the mill as having something of an ill-temper and a hard heart; but the shoe-maker
