“I beseech you on my knees, as a favour to your humble servant, my lord,” replied the Bailiff, “to let him go in peace; and deign to remember, that, being my guest, there should no hurt nor harm be done to him in this poor house of mine.”
“So be it!” answered the Baron, “I shall meet him again. All kinds of bad reports are about concerning him, and poaching is not the only harm reported of him; he has been seen and recognised running the forest along with a pack of wolves—and astonishingly tame wolves at that. It’s my opinion that the scoundrel does not always spend his midnights at home, but sits astride a broom-stick oftener than becomes a good Catholic; the owner of the mill at Croyolles has made complaint of his wizardries. However, we will not talk of it any more now; I shall have his hut searched, and if everything there is not as it should be, the wizard’s hole shall be destroyed, for I will not allow it to remain on his Highness’s territory. And now, take yourself off, and that quickly!”
The shoe-maker’s exasperation had come to a pitch during this menacing tirade from the Baron; but, nevertheless, he profited by the passage that was cleared for him, and went out of the room. Thanks to his faculty of being able to see in the dark, he walked straight to the door, opened it, and passed over the threshold of the house, where he had left behind so many fond hopes, now lost for ever, slamming the door after him with such violence that the whole house shook. He was obliged to call to mind the useless expenditure of wishes and hair of the preceding evening, to keep himself from asking that the whole house, and all within it, might be devoured by the flames. He walked on for ten minutes before he became conscious that it was pouring with rain—but the rain, frozen as it was, and even because it was so bitterly cold, seemed to do Thibault good. As the good Magloire had artlessly remarked, his head was on fire.
On leaving the Bailiffs house, Thibault had taken the first road he came to; he had no wish to go in one direction more than another, all he wanted was space, fresh air and movement. His desultory walking brought him first of all on to the Value lands; but even then he did not notice where he was until he saw the mill of Croyolles in the distance. He muttered a curse against its fair owner as he passed, rushed on like a madman between Vauciennes and Croyolles, and seeing a dark mass in front of him, plunged into its depths. This dark mass was the forest.
The forest-path to the rear of Ham, which leads from Croyolles to Préciamont, was now ahead of him, and into this he turned, guided solely by chance.
CHAPTER XIV
A VILLAGE WEDDING
HE had made but a few steps within the forest, when he found himself surrounded by his wolves. He was pleased to see them again; he slackened his pace; he called to them; and the wolves came crowding round him. Thibault caressed them as a shepherd might his sheep, as a keeper of the hounds his dogs. They were his flock, his hunting pack; a flock with flaming eyes, a pack with looks of fire. Overhead, among the bare branches, the screech-owls were hopping and fluttering, making their plaintive calls, while the other owls uttered their melancholy cries in concert. The eyes of these night-birds shone like winged coals flying about among the trees, and there was Thibault in the middle of it all, the centre of the devilish circle.
Even as the wolves came up to fawn upon him and crouch at his feet, so the owls appeared to be attracted towards him. The tips of their silent wings brushed against his hair; some of them alighted to perch upon his shoulder.
“Ah!” murmured Thibault, “I am not then the enemy of all created things; if men hate me, the animals love me.”
He forgot what place the animals, who loved him, held in the chain of created beings. He did not remember that these animals which loved him, were those which hated mankind, and which mankind cursed.