"We'll see. Let him come to-morrow."
Hilarion, who had understood, began to tremble to such a degree that he all but crushed his feet as he dropped his last slab. As he went off he cast a furtive glance on his grandmother, like a whipped, terrified, submissive animal.
Another half-hour went by. Bécu, tired of ringing, was smoking his pipe once more in the sunshine. La Grande remained there, silent and imperturbable, as if her mere presence sufficed as a mark of respect to the priest; while the latter, whose exasperation was on the increase, kept running every instant to the church door to cast a fiery look across the empty square towards the Buteaus' house.
"Ring, Bécu, why don't you!" he shouted all at once. "If they're not here in three minutes' time, I'm off!"
Then as the bell pealed out madly once more, and set the aged ravens a-fluttering and a-cawing, the Buteaus and their party were seen to leave the house one by one and cross the square. Lise was in consternation; the godmother had still not arrived, and so they settled to stroll quietly over to the church, in hopes that perhaps that would bring her a little quicker. But they were only a hundred yards away, and the Abbé Godard at once began to hurry them up.
"I say, you know, are you trying to make a fool of me?" he called. "I consult your convenience, and in return I'm kept waiting an hour! Make haste! Make haste!"
Then he pushed them all towards the baptistery: the mother carrying her newly-born child, the father, grandfather Fouan, uncle Delhomme, aunt Fanny, and even Monsieur Charles, who, in his black frock-coat, looked very dignified as a godparent.
"Your reverence," said Buteau, with an exaggerated air of humility, in which a sniggering slyness lurked, "if you would only be so good as to wait a tiny bit longer——"
"Wait! What for?"
"Why, for the godmother, your reverence!"