And my delight was so great at this promise that I left the table and went off into the foldyard, to tease a fine bull, who thought nothing of me or my games, but who, when tired of my teasings, would have disembowelled me, if I had not rushed back into the kitchen by jumping over one of the small latticework gates always to be found about farms.
The bull followed me so closely that he put his head over the low gate and bellowed fit to shake the house down.
Madame Moquet calmly took a burning brand from the hearth and put it under the bull's muzzle, whereat he jumped back five or six steps, gave a few tremendous bounds, and disappeared into his stall.
It was not my custom to boast of such feats as these; on the contrary, when anything of the sort occurred to me, I resumed my tranquillity as quickly as possible, and returned to the place from whence I had set forth, with my hands behind my back, like Napoleon, humming Fleuve du Tage or Partant pour la Syrie, airs much in vogue just then, in a voice almost as cracked as that of the great King Louis XV.
Unluckily, Mas, M. Deviolaine's groom, had seen me, with the result that for the next fortnight my agility in jumping gates was the subject of ironical congratulations from Cécile, Augustine, and Félix.
Fortunately Louise was not able to talk yet, or she would most certainly have joined in with the others.
Mas put the horse into his master's carriage; for, as M. Deviolaine had to be at his inspection very early next morning, he preferred to return over night: besides, it was a splendid moonlight night.
M. Moquet tried every possible argument to induce M. Deviolaine to remain, but he had made up his mind, and he asked that preparations should be made to set off that same evening.
There was a custom at M. Moquet's which I have rarely seen elsewhere, even in houses which pride themselves on their aristocratic habits: when the shooters had left, not a single morsel of game remained at the farm; each person took away with him in his carriage-box, in his basket, or in his game-bag, his share of the game, distributed by the master of the house: who alone was always forgotten.