Her eyes sought those of Fouan, telling him, and him alone, other things—things that only her own family should know. Dazed as was the old man, he seemed to comprehend her meaning.
"Yes, that is what happened," he said; "she fell and wounded herself. I was there, and saw it."
Jean galloped off to Rognes for a stretcher to carry his wife home. She lost consciousness again on the journey, and they never expected to get her to the house alive.
[CHAPTER IV.]
It happened that on the following day, Sunday, the young men of Rognes were to go to Cloyes for the conscription-ballot; and as La Grande and La Frimat, who had hurried up to the house in the dusk, were undressing Françoise and putting her to bed with the utmost care, the roll of the drum could be heard on the road below, sounding to the poor folks like a knell amid the mournful gloom.
Jean, who was quite off his head with troubled anxiety, had just set off to fetch Doctor Finet, when near the church he met Patoir, the veterinary surgeon, on his way to attend old Saucisse's cow. He forcibly dragged him into the house to see the ailing woman, in spite of his unwillingness to go. But when Patoir saw the hideous wound, he point-blank refused to interfere in the case. What good could he do? Death was plainly written there! Two hours later, when Jean came back with Monsieur Finet, the surgeon made a gesture of hopeless despair. Nothing could be done beyond administering anæsthetics for the sake of deadening the pain. The five months' pregnancy seriously complicated the case; and the unborn child could be felt moving within its mother's wounded body, dying indeed of its mother's death. Before the doctor went away, he dressed the wound as best he could, and, although he promised to return in the morning, he warned Jean that his wife would most probably pass away during the night. She lived through it, however, and she was still lingering on, when, towards nine o'clock in the morning, the drum began to beat again, summoning the young men to meet in front of the municipal offices.
All through the night the flood-gates of heaven had been open, and Jean had listened to a pouring deluge of rain as he sat watching in his wife's room, stupefied with troubled grief, and with his eyes full of big tears. The roll of the drum sounded as though it were muffled as he heard it in the close, damp air of the morning. The rain had now ceased, but the sky was still of a leaden grey.
For a long time the drum-beating continued. The drummer was a new one, a nephew of Macqueron's, who had just left the service, and he beat his drum as though he were leading a regiment into action. All Rognes was in a state of anxiety, for the rumours of approaching war, that had lately been circulated, had greatly increased the emotion which always attended the conscription-balloting. The prospect of being at once marched off to be shot by the Prussians was not an alluring one. There were nine young men of the neighbourhood to ballot upon this occasion, probably a larger number than had ever before been known. Among them were Nénesse and Delphin, once so inseparable, but severed of late owing to the former having taken a situation in a restaurant at Chartres. On the previous evening Nénesse had gone to sleep at his father's farm. When Delphin saw him he scarcely knew him, he was so changed; dressed quite like a gentleman, with a cane and a silk hat, and a blue scarf clasped by a ring. He now had his clothes made to order by a tailor, and cracked jokes about Lambourdieu's ready-made suits. His neck was still scrawny and long, and absolutely devoid of hair on the nape. Delphin, on the other hand, had grown massive and sturdy; his limbs were heavy, like his movements, and his face was tanned and baked by the sun. He had grown up like some vigorous plant in that beloved soil to which he was so firmly rooted. However, he and Nénesse immediately renewed their broken chumship, and were as good comrades as ever. After spending a part of the night with each other, they appeared arm-in-arm the next morning in front of the municipal offices, in obedience to the persistent summons of the drum.