As the Abbé Godard listened to her, his coarse, perspiring face assumed a look of the purest kindness, his little angry eyes grew beautiful with charity, his large mouth took a sweetly sad expression. This formidable scold, always being whirled to and fro by gusts of wrath, was passionately devoted to the wretched, and gave them everything—his money, linen, and clothes. To such a point that in all La Beauce you would not find a priest with a rustier or a more extensively darned cassock.
He fumbled anxiously in his pockets, and slipped a five-franc piece into Palmyre's hand.
"Here! Put it away; I've none for anybody else. I shall have to talk again to La Grande, since she's so wicked."
This time he got clear off. Luckily, as he was puffing and blowing up the slope on the other side of the Aigre, the Bazoches butcher, on his way back, gave him a lift in his cart; and he all but vanished as he gained the level of the plain, jolting along with the dancing silhouette of his three-cornered hat alone standing out against the leaden sky.
Meantime the church square had emptied, and Fouan and Rose had just gone down home, where they found Grosbois already waiting. A little before ten, Delhomme and Hyacinthe arrived in their turn; but Buteau was waited for in vain till twelve.
The eccentric rascal never could be punctual. Doubtless he had stopped on the road somewhere to breakfast. It was proposed to go on without him; then, a vague fear inspired by his hot-headedness led to the decision that the lots should not be drawn for till two o'clock, after breakfast. Grosbois, accepting a bit of bacon and a glass of wine from the Fouans, finished up one bottle, started on another, and relapsed into his usual state of intoxication.
Two o'clock, and still no Buteau appeared. So Hyacinthe, languishing for debauch, like the rest of the village, that Sunday feast-day, went lounging past Macqueron's. This succeeded: the door was flung open, and Bécu appeared shouting:
"Come along, you rascally baggage, and let me treat you to a glass."
Bécu had got stiffer still, assuming more and more dignity as his intoxication increased. A drunken, old-soldierly fellowship, a secret affection, drew him towards the poacher; but he avoided recognising him when he was on duty with his badge on his arm, being always on the point of catching him flagrante delicto, and struggling between duty and inclination. In the tavern, however, when he was tipsy, he stood him treat like a brother.
"Take a hand at piquet, eh?" said he; "and, by God, if the Bedouins bore us, we'll slit their ears for 'em!"