The same day, about two in the afternoon, Courtin left La Logerie to go to Machecoul under pretence of buying a draught-ox, but in reality to get news of the events of the night,--events in which the municipal functionary had a special interest, as our readers will fully understand.
When he reached the ford at Pont-Farcy, he found some men lifting the body of Tinguy's son, and around them several women and children, who were gazing at the dead body with the curiosity natural to their sex and years. When the mayor of La Logerie, stimulating his pony by a stick with a leathern thong, which he carried in his hand, made it enter the river, all eyes were turned upon him, and the conversation ceased as if by magic, though up to that moment it had been very eager and animated.
"Well, what's going on, gars?" asked Courtin, making his animal cross the river diagonally so as to reach land precisely opposite to the group.
"A death," replied one of the men, with the laconic brevity of a Vendéan peasant.
Courtin looked at the corpse and saw that it wore a uniform.
"Luckily," he said, "it isn't any one who belongs about here."
"You're mistaken. Monsieur Courtin," replied the gloomy voice of a man in a brown jacket.
The title of monsieur thus given to him, and given, too, with a certain emphasis, was in no wise flattering to the farmer of La Logerie. Under the circumstances and in the phase of public feeling La Vendée had just entered, he knew that this title of monsieur, in the mouth of a peasant, when it was not given as a testimony of respect, meant either an insult or a threat,--two things which affected Courtin quite differently.
In short, the mayor of La Logerie did himself the justice not to take the title thus bestowed upon him as a mark of consideration, and he therefore resolved to be prudent.
"And yet I think," he said, in a mild and gentle voice, "that he wears a chasseur's uniform."