The Wolf-Leader

And the Baron was going forward to emphasise with a few blows from his own whip the exorcisms which Marcotte, according to his orders, was distributing among the poor beasts, when Engoulevent, hat in hand, drew near to the Baron and timidly laid his hand on the horse’s bridle.

“My Lord,” said the keeper of the kennel, “I think I have just discovered a cuckoo in that tree who may perhaps be able to give us some explanation of what has happened.”

“What the devil are you talking about, with your cuckoo, you ape?” said the Baron.

“If you wait a moment, you scamp, I will teach you how to come chaffing your master like that!”

And the Baron lifted his whip. But with all the heroism of a Spartan, Engoulevent lifted his arm above his head as a shield and continued:

“Strike, if you will, my Lord, but after that look up into this tree, and when your Lordship has seen the bird that is perched among the branches, I think you will be more ready to give me a crown than a blow.”

And the good man pointed to the oak tree in which Thibault had taken refuge on hearing the huntsmen approach. He had climbed up from branch to branch and had finally hoisted himself on to the topmost one.

The Baron shaded his eyes with his hand, and, looking up, caught sight of Thibault.

“Well, here’s something mighty queer!” he cried, “It seems that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets the deer burrow like foxes, and men perch on trees like crows. However,” continued the worthy Baron, “we will see what sort of creature we have to deal with.” And putting his hand to his mouth, he halloed:

“Ho, there, my friend! would it be particularly disagreeable for you to give me ten minutes’ conversation?”

But Thibault maintained the most profound silence.

“My Lord” said Engoulevent “if you like …” and he made a sign to show that he was ready to climb the tree.

“No, no,” said the Baron, at the same time putting out his hand to hold him back.

“Ho, there, my friend!” repeated the Baron still without recognising Thibault, “will it please you to answer me, yes or no.”

He paused a second.

“I see, it is evidently, no; you pretend to be deaf, my friend; wait a moment, and I will get my speaking-trumpet,” and he held out his hand to Marcotte, who, guessing his intention, handed him his gun.

Thibault, who wished to put the huntsmen on the wrong scent, was meanwhile pretending to cut away the dead branches, and he put so much energy into this feigned occupation that he did not perceive the movement on the part of the Baron, or, if he saw, only took it as a menace, without attaching the importance to it which it merited.

The wolf-hunter waited for a little while to see if the answer would come, but as it did not, he pulled the trigger; the gun went off, and a branch was heard to crack.

The branch which cracked was the one on which Thibault was poised; the Baron was a fine shot and had broken it just between the trunk and the shoe-maker’s foot.

Deprived of his support, Thibault fell, rolling from branch to banch. Fortunately the tree was thick, and the branches strong, so that his fall was broken and less rapid than it might have been, and he finally reached the ground, after many rebounds, without further ill consequences than a feeling of great fear and a few slight bruises on that part of his body which had first come in contact with the earth.

“By Beelzebub’s horns!” exclaimed the Baron, delighted with his own skill, “if it is not my joker of the morning! Ah! so, you scamp! did the discourse you had with my whip seem too short to you, that you are so anxious to take it up again where we left off?”

“Oh, as to that, I assure you it is not so, my Lord,” answered Thibault in a tone of the most perfect sincerity.

“So much the better for your skin, my good fellow. Well, and now tell me what you were doing up there, perched on the top of that oak-tree?”

“My Lord can see himself,” answered Thibault, pointing to a few dry twigs lying here and there on the ground, “I was cutting a little dry wood for fuel.”

“Ah! I see. Now then, my good fellow, you will please tell us, without any beating about the bush, what has become of our deer.”

“By the devil, he ought to know, seeing that he has been perched up there so as not to lose any of its movements,” put in Marcotte.

“But I swear, my Lord,” said Thibault, “that I don’t know what it is you mean about this wretched buck.”

“Ah, I thought so,” cried Marcotte, delighted to divert his master’s ill-humour from himself, “he has not seen it, he has not seen the animal at all, he does not know what we mean by this wretched buck! But look here, my Lord, see, the marks on these leaves where the animal has bitten; it was just here that the dogs came to a full stop, and now, although the ground is good to shew every mark, we can find no trace of the animal, for ten, twenty, or a hundred paces even?”

“You hear?” said the Baron, joining his words on to those of the pricker, “you were up there, and the deer here at your feet. It did not go by like a mouse without making any sound, and you did not see or hear. You must needs have seen or heard it!”

“He has killed the deer,” said Marcotte “and hidden it away in a bush, that’s as clear as the day.”

“Oh, my Lord,” cried Thibault, who knew better than anybody else how mistaken the pricker was in making this accusation, “My Lord, by all the saints in paradise, I swear to you that I have not killed your deer; I swear it to you on the salvation of my soul, and, may I perish on the spot if I have given him even the slightest scratch. And besides, I could not have killed him without wounding him, and if I had wounded him, blood would have flowed; look, I pray you, sir,” continued Thibault turning to the pricker “and God be thanked, you will find no trace of blood. I, kill a poor beast! and, my God, with what? Where is my weapon? God knows I have no other weapon than this bill-hook. Look yourself, my Lord.”

But unfortunately for Thibault, he had hardly uttered these words, before Maître Engoulevent, who had been prowling about for some minutes past, re-appeared, carrying the boar-spear which Thibault had thrown into one of the bushes before climbing up the tree.

He handed the weapon to the Baron.

There was no doubt about it – Engoulevent was Thibault’s evil genius.

CHAPTER III

AGNELETTE

THE Baron took the weapon which Engoulevent handed him, and carefully and deliberately examined the boar-spear from point to handle, without saying a word. On the handle had been carved a little wooden shoe, which had served as Thibault’s device while making the tour of France, as thereby he was able to recognise his own weapon. The Baron now pointed to this, saying to Thibault as he did so:

“Ah, ah, Master Simpleton! there is something which witnesses terribly against you! I must confess this boar-spear smells to me uncommonly of venison, by the devil it does! However, all I have now to say to you is this: You have been poaching, which is a serious crime; you have perjured yourself, which is a great sin; I am going to enforce expiation from you for the one and for the other, to help towards the salvation of that soul by which you have sworn.”

Whereupon turning to the pricker, he continued: “Marcotte, strip off that rascal’s vest and shirt, and tie him up to a tree with a couple of the dog leashes – and then give him thirty-six strokes across the back with your shoulder belt, a dozen for his perjury, and two dozen for his poaching; no, I make a mistake, a dozen for poaching and two dozen for perjuring himself, God’s portion must be the largest.”

This order caused great rejoicing among the menials, who thought it good luck to have a culprit on whom they could avenge themselves for the mishaps of the day.

In spite of Thibault’s protestations, who swore by all the saints in the calender, that he had killed neither buck, nor doe, neither goat nor kidling, he was divested of his garments and firmly strapped to the trunk of a tree; then the execution commenced.

The pricker’s strokes were so heavy that Thibault, who had sworn not to utter a sound, and bit his lips to enable himself to keep his resolution, was forced at the third blow to open his mouth and cry out.

The Baron, as we have already seen, was about the roughest man of his class for a good thirty miles round, but he was not hard-hearted, and it was a distress to him to listen to the cries of the culprit as they became more and more frequent. As, however, the poachers on His Highness’s estate had of late grown bolder and more troublesome, he decided that he had better let the sentence be carried out to the full, but he turned his horse with the intention of riding away, determined no longer to remain as a spectator.

As he was on the point of doing this, a young girl suddenly emerged from the underwood, threw herself on her knees beside the horse, and lifting her large, beautiful eyes, all wet with tears, to the Baron, cried:

“In the name of the God of mercy, my Lord, have pity on that man!”

The Lord of Vez looked down at the young girl. She was indeed a lovely child; hardly sixteen years of age, of a slender and exquisite figure, with a pink and white complexion, large blue eyes, soft and tender in expression, and a crown of fair hair, which fell in luxuriant waves over neck and shoulders, escaping from underneath the shabby little grey linen cap, which endeavoured in vain to imprison them.

All this the Baron took in with a glance, in spite of the humble clothing of the beautiful suppliant, and as he had no dislike to a pretty face, he smiled down on the charming young peasant girl, in response to the pleading of her eloquent eyes.

But, as he looked without speaking, and all the while the blows were still falling, she cried again, with a voice and gesture of even more earnest supplication.

“Have pity, in the name of Heaven, my Lord! Tell your servants to let the poor man go, his cries pierce my heart.”

“Ten thousand fiends!” cried the Grand Master; “you take a great interest in that rascal over there, my pretty child. Is he your brother?”