The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [romance book recommendations TXT] 📗

“Yes,” answered the other, “we know that, like your father, you’re not in the habit of making people work for nothing. Oh! if all the aristocrats had been like you, Monsieur Louis, there wouldn’t have been any revolution.”

“Of course not,” said the other, who seemed to have come solely to echo affirmatively what his companion said.

“It remains to be seen now where the animal is,” said the first peasant.

“Yes,” repeated the second, “remains to be seen where it is.”

“Oh! it won’t be hard to find.”

“So much the better,” interjected the peasant.

“Do you know the pavilion in the forest?”

“Which one?”

“Yes, which one?”

“The one that belongs to the Chartreuse of Seillon.”

The peasants looked at each other.

“Well, you’ll find it some twenty feet distant from the front on the way to Genoud.”

The peasants looked at each other once more.

“Hum!” grunted the first one.

“Hum!” repeated the other, faithful echo of his companion.

“Well, what does this ‘hum’ mean?” demanded Roland.

“Confound it.”

“Come, explain yourselves. What’s the matter?”

“The matter is that we’d rather that it was the other end of the forest.”

“But why the other end?” retorted Roland, impatiently; “it’s nine miles from here to the other end, and barely three from here to where we left the boar.”

“Yes,” said the first peasant, “but just where the boar lies—” And he paused and scratched his head.

“Exactly; that’s what,” added the other.

“Just what?”

“It’s a little too near the Chartreuse.”

“Not the Chartreuse; I said the pavilion.”

“It’s all the same. You know, Monsieur Louis, that there is an underground passage leading from the pavilion to the Chartreuse.”

“Oh, yes, there is one, that’s sure,” added the other.

“But,” exclaimed Roland, “what has this underground passage got to do with our boar?”

“This much, that the beast’s in a bad place, that’s all.”

“Oh, yes! a bad place,” repeated the other peasant.

“Come, now, explain yourselves, you rascals,” said Roland, who was growing angry, while his mother seemed uneasy, and Amélie visibly turned pale.

“Beg pardon, Monsieur Louis,” answered the peasant; “we are not rascals; we’re God-fearing men, that’s all.”

“By thunder,” cried Roland, “I’m a God-fearing man myself. What of that?”

“Well, we don’t care to have any dealings with the devil.”

“No, no, no,” asserted the second peasant.

“A man can match a man if he’s of his own kind,” continued the first peasant.

“Sometimes two,” said the second, who was built like a Hercules.

“But with ghostly beings phantoms, spectres—no thank you,” continued the first peasant.

“No, thank you,” repeated the other.

“Oh, mother, sister,” queried Roland, addressing the two women, “in Heaven’s name, do you understand anything of what these two fools are saying?”

“Fools,” repeated the first peasant; “well, possibly. But it’s not the less true that Pierre Marey had his neck twisted just for looking over the wall. True, it was of a Saturday—the devil’s sabbath.”

“And they couldn’t straighten it out,” affirmed the second peasant, “so they had to bury him with his face turned round looking the other way.

“Oh!” exclaimed Sir John, “this is growing interesting. I’m very fond of ghost stories.”

“That’s more than sister Amélie is it seems,” cried Edouard.

“What do you mean?”

“Just see how pale she’s grown, brother Roland.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Sir John; “mademoiselle looks as if she were going to faint.”

“I? Not at all,” exclaimed Amélie, wiping the perspiration from her forehead; “only don’t you think it seems a little warm here, mother?”

“No,” answered Madame de Montrevel.

“Still,” insisted Amélie, “if it would not annoy you, I should like to open the window.”

“Do so, my child.”

Amélie rose hastily to profit by this permission, and went with tottering steps to a window opening upon the garden. After it was opened, she stood leaning against the sill, half-hidden by the curtains.

“Ah!” she said, “I can breathe here.”

Sir John rose to offer her his smelling-salts, but Amélie declined hastily: “No, no, my lord. Thank you, but I am better now.”

“Come, come,” said Roland, “don’t bother about that; it’s our boar.”

“Well, Monsieur Louis, we will fetch your boar tomorrow.”

“That’s it,” said the second peasant, “to-morrow morning, when it’s light.”

“But to go there at night—”

“Oh! to go there at night—”

The peasant looked at his comrade and both shook their heads.

“It can’t be done at night.”

“Cowards.”

“Monsieur Louis, a man’s not a coward because he’s afraid.”

“No, indeed; that’s not being a coward,” replied the other.

“Ah!” said Roland, “I wish some stronger minded men than you would face me with that argument; that a man is not a coward because he’s afraid!”

“Well, it’s according to what he’s afraid of, Monsieur Louis. Give me a good sickle and a good cudgel, and I’m not afraid of a wolf; give me a good gun and I’m not afraid of any man, even if I knew he’s waiting to murder me.”

“Yes,” said Edouard, “but you’re afraid of a ghost, even when it’s only the ghost of a monk.”

“Little Master Edouard,” said the peasant, “leave your brother to do the talking; you’re not old enough to jest about such things—”

“No,” added the other peasant, “wait till your beard is