"Eh? what? What does he want, the rotten blackguard? He's been poisoning my poor sister long enough; that's quite clear, or she would never have died of her accident. And she showed pretty plainly what she thought of him by not leaving him anything. Knock him over, Buteau! Don't let him come inside, or he'll give us all some beastly illness!"
Jean, although he was boiling over with indignation at this virulent attack, still attempted to reason with her.
"I know very well," he said, "that the house and land revert to you; but half of the furniture and live stock belong to me."
"Half, indeed! You've got a lot of cheek, you have!" cried Lise, interrupting him. "You foul stink-pot, how dare you claim half of anything, you who didn't even bring a broken comb into the place? You merely came here with the shirt on your back! So you want to fatten yourself and get rich by preying on women, eh? That's a dirty, swinish game."
Buteau backed her up, and, with a sweeping gesture across the threshold, he cried out:
"She's telling the truth! Look sharp! You came with your jacket and breeches, and you've got them on, so take yourself off with 'em! Nobody wants to deprive you of them!"
The other members of the family, especially the women, Fanny and La Grande, who were standing in a group some thirty yards away, seemed by their silence to approve of Buteau's conduct. Jean, turning pale at the insults which were offered him, and stung to the quick by the accusation of mercenary scheming, now broke out into an angry retort:
"Very well, so you are bent upon making a disturbance, eh? I insist upon entering, for I have still the right of possession, as the formal partition has not yet been made. Then I shall at once go and fetch Monsieur Baillehache, who will put everything under seal, and appoint me guardian. The house is mine for the present, and it is for you to take yourselves off."
He now stepped up to Lise with such a threatening air that she retreated from the doorway. Buteau, however, rushed upon him, and a struggle ensued, the two men reeling into the middle of the kitchen. There another violent discussion followed as to which of the two parties should be ejected—the husband, or the sister and brother-in-law.