When Bécu arrived at Hyacinthe's abode, the sun was just rising. Old Fouan, who was already smoking his pipe at the door, guessed what had happened, and began to feel very uncomfortable, the more so, as matters assumed a serious aspect. Some ink and a rusty old pen were hunted up, and the constable, spreading out his elbows, and assuming an air of deep thought, began to rack his brains for suitable phrases. In the meantime, La Trouille, at a word from her father, brought a quart of wine and three glasses; and by the time Bécu had got to his fifth line, he accepted a bumper feeling exhausted by his struggle with the complicated statement of facts. Then the situation gradually became less strained. A second quart of wine was produced, and then a third. Two hours later, the three men were talking together in loud and friendly voices. They were all very drunk, and they had quite forgotten the incident of the morning.
"You blessed cuckold!" suddenly cried Hyacinthe to Bécu, "you know that I do as I like with your wife."
This was quite true. Since the day of the local fête he had tumbled Bécu's wife in quiet corners, looking upon her as an elderly person with whom no particular show of delicacy was necessary. Bécu, however, whose wine had made him irritable, now lost his temper. Although he was able to tolerate the poacher's relations with his wife when he was sober, the mention of them wounded his feelings when he was drunk.
"You filthy swine!" he bellowed out, brandishing an empty bottle.
Then he hurled the bottle, which broke against the wall, just missing Hyacinthe, who went on with his maudlin chatter, smiling a weak, tipsy smile. To appease the cuckold, they settled to remain there together, and eat the hare at once. Whenever La Trouille cooked a "civet," a pleasant odour spread from one end of Rognes to the other. It was a rough sort of feast, which lasted all day. They were still at table, sucking the bones, when darkness closed in. Then they lighted a couple of candles, and still sat on. Fouan found a couple of two-franc pieces, and sent the girl off to buy a quart of brandy. The men were still sipping their liquor after the whole village had fallen asleep. As Hyacinthe's fumbling fingers were groping about for something with which he could light his pipe, they came across the unfinished report, which was lying on the corner of the table, stained with wine and gravy.
"Ah, it's true, we ought to get this finished!" he stammered out, his belly shaking with tipsy laughter.
As he looked at the paper he tried to think of some facetious trick by which he might show his deep contempt both for the report and the law. Then he suddenly raised his leg, and, slipping the paper underneath him, he let off on the face of it a heavy, sonorous discharge, one of those explosions which, he used to say, came from a tightly-loaded mortar.
"There, it's signed for you now!"
They all began to laugh merrily, even Bécu himself. There was no dullness that night at the Château!
It was about this time that Hyacinthe made a friend. As he went to hide one evening in a ditch till the gendarmes he had espied passed by, he found it already occupied by another man, who, like himself, was desirous of escaping observation. They began to talk. The stranger seemed a pleasant fellow. His name, he said, was Leroi, but he was generally known as Canon. He was a journeyman carpenter, and had left Paris some two years before on account of certain little incidents in his career which had had troublesome consequences, preferring to live in the country, and to wander from village to village, staying a week here and a week there, and going about to the different farms to offer his services whenever patrons were scarce. Trade, he said, was shocking bad just now, and he had taken to begging on the high roads as he tramped along. He had been living on stolen vegetables and fruit, hustled about from pillar to post, and was only too happy whenever he was able to get a night's lodging behind a hay-rick.