"All here, eh?" said he. "Then come along."
A dirty, bedraggled urchin of twelve was in attendance, carrying the chain under his arm and the stand and the staves over his shoulder, while with his free hand he swung the square, which was in an old burst cardboard case.
They all set out without waiting for Buteau, whom they had just descried in the distance, standing still before the largest field of the holding. That field, some five acres in extent, was immediately adjacent to the one along which La Coliche had dragged Françoise a few days before. Buteau, thinking it useless to proceed further, had stopped there in a brown study. When the others arrived, they saw him stoop down, take up a handful of earth, and gradually filter it through his fingers, as though to estimate its weight and flavour.
"There," resumed Grosbois, taking a greasy memorandum-book from his pocket: "I have already drawn up an accurate little plan of each lot, as you asked me to do, Fouan. It now devolves upon us to divide the whole into three portions; and that, my children, we will do together, eh? Just tell me how you intend it to be done."
The day had worn on. A ripping wind was driving continuous masses of thick clouds across the pale sky; and La Beauce lay sullen and gloomy, lashed by the keen air. Yet not one of them seemed conscious of that breeze from the offing, which inflated their blouses and threatened to carry off their hats. Not one of the five, in holiday attire, as befitted the gravity of the occasion, spoke a word. As they stood on the confines of the field, amid the boundless expanse, their lineaments had a dreamy, frozen fixedness, the musing expression of mariners who live alone in large open spaces. La Beauce, flat and fertile, easily tilled but demanding continuous effort, has made the Beauceron calm and reflective, without passion save for the land itself.
"It'll all have to be divided into three," said Buteau at length.
Grosbois shook his head, and a discussion set in. An apostle of progress, by virtue of his connection with large farms, he occasionally went so far as to set himself up against his smaller clients, by condemning extreme subdivision. Would not the labour and cost of transport from place to place become a ruinous thing, when there were only odds and ends of land left that might be covered by a handkerchief? Was it farming at all, with paltry garden-plots on which it was impossible either to improve the system of crops or to introduce machinery? No: the only sensible thing to do was to make a mutual arrangement, not to adopt the murderous course of chopping a field up like so much pastry. If one of them would be content with the plough-land, another might manage with the meadows; the portions could eventually be equalised, and the distribution decided by lot.
Buteau, with the natural liveliness of youth, adopted a jocose tone. "And, with only some meadow-land, what shall I have to eat? Grass, I suppose? No, no; I want some of everything, hay for cow and horse, corn and grape for myself."
Fouan, who was listening, nodded assent. For generations, such had been the mode of partition; and fresh acquisitions, by marriage or otherwise, had subsequently swollen the plots anew.