He was left quivering and beyond himself, not knowing on whom to vent his wrath. Though he no longer had the courage to turn her into the street forthwith, how gladly would he have kicked her gallant out of doors. But how was he to catch him now? He had gone straight up into the loft, guided by the open doors, without examining the beds; and when he got down again the four waggoners from the stable were dressing, as was Jean, in his garret. Which of the five had it been? One as likely as the other, and, perhaps, the whole lot, one after the other. Nevertheless, he hoped the man would betray himself. Then he gave his morning orders, sent nobody into the fields, and did not go out himself, but rambled about the farm with clenched fists, scowling and hankering after somebody to knock down.
After the seven o'clock breakfast, this exasperated review of the master's set the whole household in a tremble. At La Borderie there were five hands for the five ploughs, three threshers, two cow-herds or yard-men, a shepherd, and a little swine-herd; in all, twelve servants, without counting the house-maid. Hourdequin began in the kitchen by abusing the latter, because she hadn't put the baking-shovels back in their places on the ceiling. Then he prowled into the two barns, one for oats, the other for wheat, the latter being of immense size, as large as a church, with doors five yards high; and he picked a quarrel with the threshers, whose flails, he said, cut up the straw too much. Then he went through the cow-house, and became furious at finding the thirty cows in good order, the central passage scoured, and the troughs clean. He did not know on what ground to fall foul of the cow-herds, till, glancing outside at the cisterns, which were also under their charge, he noticed that a discharge-pipe was stopped up by some sparrows' nests. As in all the Beauce farms, the rain-water from the slate roofs was here sedulously collected and conducted off by a complicated system of gutters. So he asked, roughly, if they meant to let him die of thirst for the benefit of the sparrows. But the storm finally burst on the waggoners. Although the litters of the fifteen horses in the stable were clean, he began by bawling out that it was disgusting to leave them in such filth. Then, ashamed of his own injustice, and the more exasperated, while paying a visit to the four sheds at the four corners of the farm buildings, where the implements were kept, he was delighted to find a plough with its handles broken. Then he regularly stormed. Did the five beggars amuse themselves by breaking his stock on purpose? He'd send the whole five of them about their business; yes, the whole five of them! He'd have no invidious distinctions! While he swore at them, his flashing eyes looked them through, expecting some paleness or quiver that would reveal the traitor. Nobody flinched, however, and he left them with a wild gesture of despair.
On ending his inspection at the sheep-fold, it occurred to Hourdequin to cross-question the shepherd Soulas. This old fellow of sixty-five had been half-a-century at the farm, and had saved nothing by it, having been preyed upon by his wife, a drunkard and a drab, whom he had just had the happiness of laying beneath the sod. He was in dread lest his old age should presently entail his dismissal, and was hurriedly saving up the few coppers requisite to rescue him from want. Possibly the master might help him; but, then, there was no saying which might die first. And did they give money for tobacco and a nip? Besides, he had made an enemy of Jacqueline, whom he loathed with the jealous hatred of an old servant disgusted by the rapid advancement of such an upstart. Whenever she gave him orders, he was beside himself with rage, remembering how he had seen her in rags and filth. She would assuredly have dismissed him, if she had felt herself strong enough to do so; and this made him prudent. He wanted to keep his place, and shunned all conflict, no matter how sure he might be of his master's support.
The sheep-fold occupied the entire building at the end of the yard, a gallery eighty yards long, in which the eight hundred sheep of the farm were only separated by hurdles. On one side, the ewes, in various groups; on the other, the lambs; and farther on, the rams. Every two months the males, reared for sale, were castrated; while the females were kept to renew the flock of mothers, the oldest of which were sold off every year. The younger were served, at fixed times, by the rams, dishleys crossed with merinos, of superb strain, and stupid gentle aspect, with the heavy head and large rounded nose seen in men addicted to vice. Those entering the sheep-fold were choked by a strong smell, the ammoniacal exhalation from the litter: stale straw on which fresh straw was laid for three months running, the racks being fitted with hangers, so as to raise them as the manure-heap ascended. There was ventilation: the windows being wide, and the floor of the loft above being formed of movable oaken beams, which were taken away as the fodder got less. It was said, however, that this living heat, this soft, warm, fermenting heap, was necessary to the proper growth of the sheep.
Hourdequin, pushing open one of the doors, caught sight of Jacqueline escaping by another. She, also, had thought uneasily of Soulas, feeling sure she had been watched with Jean; but the old man had remained impassive, seeming not to understand why she made herself so agreeable, contrary to her custom. The sight of the young woman leaving the sheep-fold, where she never went, aggravated the farmer's feverish uncertainty.
"Well, Soulas," asked he, "any news this morning?"
The shepherd, very tall and thin, with a long face intersected by wrinkles, and looking as though carved with a bill-hook out of a knot of oak, replied slowly:
"No, Monsieur Hourdequin, nothing whatever, except that the shearers are coming and will soon be at work."
The master chatted for a moment, so as not to seem to be questioning him. The sheep, who had been fed indoors since the first frosts of November, were to be let loose again towards mid-May, when the clover would be ready for them. As for the cows, they were seldom pastured until after the harvest. Yet this land of La Beauce, dry and devoid of natural herbage as it was, yielded good meat; and it was only through routine and laziness that the breeding of oxen was unknown there. Five or six pigs, even, were all that each farm fattened, for its own consumption.