"Well, shall we go?" asked Hourdequin. "They are waiting for me at the farm."
Just then Cœlina and her daughter Berthe ran out again to beg Monsieur de Chédeville to come in for a moment; and that gentleman would have gladly done so, for he had at length found breathing-space, and was gratified to renew his acquaintance with the pretty, bright, dissipated eyes of the young lady.
"No, no!" resumed the farmer, "we haven't time. Some other occasion."
He then bundled him back into the gig; while to a question from the waiting priest he answered that the council had taken no steps in the matter of the parish service. The driver whipped forward his horse, and the vehicle spun off through the midst of the friendly and delighted village. The priest alone was furious, as he set off to walk his two miles from Rognes to Bazoches-le-Doyen.
A fortnight later Monsieur de Chédeville was elected by a large majority, and towards the end of August he had redeemed his promise—the subsidy was granted for the opening of the new road, and the work was immediately put in hand.
On the evening when the first stroke of the pick-axe was given the thin and dark Cœlina stood at the fountain listening to La Bécu, who, with her lanky arms intertwined under her apron, was talking at endless length. For the last week the meetings at the fountain had been revolutionised by this mighty question of the road. The constant topic was the money paid as an indemnity to So-and-so, and the slanderous rage of the rest. Every day La Bécu kept Cœlina posted as to what Flore Lengaigne said; not, of course, to provoke dissension, but, contrariwise, to induce them to explain themselves, that being the surest way of bringing them to an harmonious understanding. Women were standing round, forgetful and listless, with their pitchers full beside them.
"Well, so she said, just like that, that it was all arranged between the assessor and the mayor how they could best swindle in the matter of the ground. And she also said that your husband was double-tongued."
At this moment Flore came out of her house with her pitcher in her hand. When she had got there, fat and flabby, Cœlina, with her arms a-kimbo, shrewish and virtuous, broke out into vile abuse, falling upon her in fine style, flinging in her teeth her hussy of a daughter, and taxing her with behaving improperly with her customers. The other, dragging along her slippers trodden down at heel, confined herself to repeating, in a whimpering tone:
"There's a baggage for you! There's a baggage for you!"
La Bécu then threw herself between them, and tried to make them kiss each other; which all but resulted in their tearing one another's hair out. Then she let fly a piece of news.