These astounding lies made me still more furious; it took five or six men to hold me, so as to prevent me from getting at him.
I should have ended by turning everything upside down, if the landwehr had not called a party of watchmen who were passing along the road. Then, hearing the butt ends of the muskets as they were grounded at the door, and seeing the helmets in front of the window, I sat down again, and everything calmed down.
The corporal came in; Mme. Vacheron made him take a glass of wine at the bar, and as the noise had ceased, after wiping his mustaches, he went out, making the military salute. But Toubac and I looked at each other with sparkling eyes and quivering lips. He knew, the wretch, that now his shame would be discovered all through the city, and that made him beside himself with rage.
As for me, I thought, "Only manage to be in my way going to Biechelberg; I will pay you off for all that you have done; the poor grandmother will be avenged."
He, doubtless, had the same thoughts, for he looked at me sideways, with his rascally smile. I was very glad when Dr. Simperlin appeared on the threshold of the room, making me a sign to follow him.
I left at once, after having paid for my glass of wine, and we set out for Graufthal.
XXX
You know, George, how much bad weather adds to one's melancholy. It was sleeting, the great ruts full of water were ruffled by the wind. Dr. Simperlin and I walked for a long time in silence, one behind the other, taking care to avoid the puddles in which one could sink up to his knees.
Farther on, after having passed the Biechelberg, on the firmer ground of the forest, I told the doctor about the offers that the Oberförster had made to us, and the refusal of all our guards except Jacob Hepp; of our leaving the forest house, and of our little establishment at Ykel's, in a cold corner of the wretched inn, under the rocks, where the grandmother had not ceased to cough for six weeks.
He listened to me with bent head, and said at the end that it was very hard to leave one's home, one's fields, one's meadows, and the trees that one has planted; but that one should never draw back before one's duty; and that he also was about to leave the country with his wife and children, abandoning his practice, the fruit of his labour for many years, so as not to become one of the herd of King William.