Jean having finished his ploughing, determined to go at once to La Borderie, to get the seed-corn which had been promised to him. He took the horse out of the plough, and sprang on to its back, leaving the plough in a corner of the field. As he was riding off, he again thought of Fouan and looked round for him, but could not see him. He thereupon concluded that the old man had taken shelter from the cold behind a rick of straw which was standing in Buteau's field.
When Jean arrived at La Borderie, and had tethered his horse, he called without eliciting any response. Everybody appeared to be at work away from the house. However, he went into the kitchen and stamped on the floor with his feet, and presently heard Jacqueline's voice proceeding from the cellar where the dairy was. Access to it was obtained through a trap-door opening at the foot of the staircase, and so awkwardly placed that an accident was always being feared.
"Who's there?" she called.
Jean had squatted down on the top step of the steep little staircase, and she recognised him from below.
"Ah! so it's you, Corporal?"
He, too, could now see Jacqueline in the semi-darkness of the dairy, which was lighted merely by a grating in the wall. She was busily working among the bowls and the pans, from which the whey was dripping slowly into a stone trough. Her sleeves were rolled back as far as her arm-pits, and her arms were white with cream.
"Well, why don't you come down? You're not afraid of me, are you?"
She addressed him in the same familiar manner as of yore, and she laughed in her old enticing way. Jean, however, felt ill at ease, and did not move.
"I've come for the seed-corn," he said, "that the master promised me."
"Oh yes, I know. Wait a moment, and I'll come up."