Blondet stood where he was told without remarking the lapse of time, for every now and then the old fellow made him a sign as much as to say that all was going well; and besides, nothing makes time go so fast as the expectation that quick action is to succeed the perfect stillness of watching.
"Pere Fourchon," whispered the boy, finding himself alone with the old man, "there's REALLY an otter!"
"Do you see it?"
"There, see there!"
The old fellow was dumb-founded at beholding under water the reddish-
brown fur of an actual otter.
"It's coming my way!" said the child.
"Hit him a sharp blow on the head and jump into the water and hold him fast down, but don't let him go!"
Mouche dove into the water like a frightened frog.
"Come, come, my good gentleman," cried Pere Fourchon to Blondet, jumping into the water and leaving his sabots on the bank, "frighten him! frighten him! Don't you see him? he is swimming fast your way!"
The old man dashed toward Blondet through the water, calling out with the gravity that country people retain in the midst of their greatest excitements:--
"Don't you see him, there, along the rocks?"
Blondet, placed by direction of the old fellow in such a way that the sun was in his eyes, thrashed the water with much satisfaction to himself.
"Go on, go on!" cried Pere Fourchon; "on the rock side; the burrow is there, to your left!"
Carried away by excitement and by his long waiting, Blondet slipped from the stones into the water.
"Ha! brave you are, my good gentleman! Twenty good Gods! I see him between your legs! you'll have him!-- Ah! there! he's gone--he's gone!" cried the old man, in despair.
Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fellow plunged into the deepest part of the stream in front of Blondet.
"It's your fault we've lost him!" he cried, as Blondet gave him a hand to pull him out, dripping like a triton, and a vanquished triton."The rascal, I see him, under those rocks! He has let go his fish,"
continued Fourchon, pointing to something that floated on the surface.
"We'll have that at any rate; it's a tench, a real tench."
Just then a groom in livery on horseback and leading another horse by the bridle galloped up the road toward Conches.
"See! there's the chateau people sending after you," said the old man.
"If you want to cross back again I'll give you a hand.I don't mind about getting wet; it saves washing!"
"How about rheumatism?"
"Rheumatism! don't you see the sun has browned our legs, Mouche and me, like tobacco-pipes.Here, lean on me, my good gentleman--you're from Paris; you don't know, though you DO know so much, how to walk on our rocks.If you stay here long enough, you'll learn a deal that's written in the book o' nature,--you who write, so they tell me, in the newspapers."
Blondet had reached the bank before Charles, the groom, perceived him.
"Ah, monsieur!" he cried; "you don't know how anxious Madame has been since she heard you had gone through the gate of Conches; she was afraid you were drowned.They have rung the great bell three times, and Monsieur le cure is hunting for you in the park."
"What time is it, Charles?"
"A quarter to twelve."
"Help me to mount."
"Ha!" exclaimed the groom, noticing the water that dripped from Blondet's boots and trousers, "has monsieur been taken in by Pere Fourchon's otter?"
The words enlightened the journalist.
"Don't say a word about it, Charles," he cried, "and I'll make it all right with you."
"Oh, as for that!" answered the man, "Monsieur le comte himself has been taken in by that otter.Whenever a visitor comes to Les Aigues, Pere Fourchon sets himself on the watch, and if the gentleman goes to see the sources of the Avonne he sells him the otter; he plays the trick so well that Monsieur le comte has been here three times and paid him for six days' work, just to stare at the water!"
"Heavens!" thought Blondet."And I imagined I had seen the greatest comedians of the present day!--Potier, the younger Baptiste, Michot, and Monrose.What are they compared to that old beggar?"
"He is very knowing at the business, Pere Fourchon is," continued Charles; "and he has another string to his bow, besides.He calls himself a rope-maker, and has a walk under the park wall by the gate of Blangy.If you merely touch his rope he'll entangle you so cleverly that you will want to turn the wheel and make a bit of it yourself;
and for that you would have to pay a fee for apprenticeship.Madame herself was taken in, and gave him twenty francs.Ah! he is the king of tricks, that old fellow!"
The groom's gossip set Blondet thinking of the extreme craftiness and wiliness of the French peasant, of which he had heard a great deal from his father, a judge at Alencon.Then the satirical meaning hidden beneath Pere Fourchon's apparent guilelessness came back to him, and he owned himself "gulled" by the Burgundian beggar.
"You would never believe, monsieur," said Charles, as they reached the portico at Les Aigues, "how much one is forced to distrust everybody and everything in the country,--especially here, where the general is not much liked--"
"Why not?"
"That's more than I know," said Charles, with the stupid air servants assume to shield themselves when they wish not to answer their superiors, which nevertheless gave Blondet a good deal to think of.
"Here you are, truant!" cried the general, coming out on the terrace when he heard the horses."Here he is; don't be uneasy!" he called back to his wife, whose little footfalls were heard behind him."Now the Abbe Brossette is missing.Go and find him, Charles," he said to the groom.
