"That's how things change in this world, Mademoiselle Bertha. I desire now to see Monsieur Michel my master's son-in-law."
Jean Oullier said the words with a look so expressive and a voice so sad and meaning, that Bertha felt her heart tighten, and she thought involuntarily of Mary. She was about to question the old keeper, but, at that moment, the sound of trumpets came down upon the wind from the direction of Clisson.
"Courte-Joie was right!" exclaimed Jean Oullier. "The explanation you ask of me, Bertha, you shall have as soon as circumstances permit; for the present we must think of our own safety." Then, listening attentively, he added: "Come, let us start! there's not an instant to lose, I'll answer for that."
Passing his hand through Michel's well arm to support him, he gave the signal to depart. Courte-Joie was already perched on Trigaud's shoulders.
"Which way shall we go?" he asked.
"Better make for the lonely farmhouse of Saint-Hilaire," replied Jean Oullier, who felt Michel staggering under his first few steps. "It is quite impossible that Monsieur Michel should do the twenty miles to Machecoul."
"Straight for Saint-Hilaire, then," said Courte-Joie.
In spite of their slow advance, by reason of Michel's feebleness in walking, they were not more than a few hundred steps from the farm, when Trigaud showed his rider with some pride a sort of club he had been peeling and polishing with his knife as he walked along. It was made from the stem of a wild apple-tree, of suitable length, which Trigaud had spied in the orchard at Pénissière; he thought it admirably suited to replace the terrible scythe he had shattered at Chêne.
Courte-Joie gave a cry of anger. Evidently he did not share the satisfaction with which his companion flourished the knotty bulk of his new weapon.
"The devil take that animal to the lowest hell!" he cried.