Then began a fusillade which only ended with my last grain of powder, and which collected all the street urchins of the town. At the end of half an hour my mother was warned that I was devoting myself to a most terrific fire practice.
My mother always feared some accident would happen to me, for she loved me much. Once, one of our friends, whose name, M. Danré de Vouty, I have already mentioned, came to our house pale and bleeding. He had been shooting near Villers-Cotterets; it was winter, and in jumping over a ditch some snow got down his gun-barrel; the gun had burst, and the explosion had carried off part of his left hand.
Doctor Lécosse was called in, and at once amputated the thumb. M. Danré recovered, after a fearful attack of fever, but he was maimed for life.
Thus, every time the question of guns or pistols or any sort of firearms was brought up, my mother pictured me being brought home pale and bleeding like M. Danré de Vouty; she was so frightened that I took pity on her, and nearly gave up the idea of ever becoming a Hippolytus or a Nimrod.
Then I would return to my bow and arrows, but here was a fresh subject of alarm for my mother. One of our neighbours, a man called Bruyant (please remember this name, for we shall come across it again in an important event), had had, like Philip of Macedon, his right eye destroyed by an arrow.
My mother's terror, therefore, was great when she learnt that I had been supplied with a pistol and that I had munitions wherewith to practise; but it was very hard work to run after me, for my legs had grown since the adventure of Lebègue; moreover, the forest was my friend; as Bas-de-Cuir knew every nook and corner of his woods, so did I know all the turns and by-ways in ours. I could have hidden there three days without returning. Therefore, they decided to make use of the law.
There lived at the town hall a sort of deputy police agent, who almost fulfilled the office of a commissary: he cried the news of the day to the beating of a drum, as is still done in some country places; in summer, he killed stray dogs, not by shooting, but with a great hunting-knife; in winter, he broke the ice off the streams, and swept the snow from our doors.
His name was Tournemolle.
They told him, and he lay in wait for my return to my mother; then he appeared behind me.
When I saw Tournemolle, I foresaw something dreadful was going to happen.