CHAPTER II.
On the evening of the same day, after supper, Louise, having taken her spinning-wheel, had gone to spend the evening with Dame Rochart, at whose cottage all the old gossips and young girls of the neighbourhood were in the habit of assembling, relating old legends, chatting about the rain, the weather, marriages, christenings, the departure or the return of the conscripts, and what not—all of which helped to pass away the time in a very agreeable manner.
Hullin sat alone, opposite his little copper lamp, repairing the old wood-cutter's sabots. Already he thought no more of the fool, Yégof; his hammer went up and down, hitting the big nails into the thick wooden soles, and all mechanically, and from force of habit. A thousand thoughts, however, passed through his head; he was a dreamer without knowing why.
At times he thought of Gaspard, who, for a long while, had given no sign of life; then of the campaign, which was being indefinitely prolonged. The lamp lit up with its yellowish flame the little smoky cabin. Outside not a sound was to be heard. The fire was almost out; Jean-Claude rose to throw on a fresh log, then sat down again, murmuring:
"Bah! this cannot go on much longer. We shall have a letter one of these days."
The old clock began to strike nine; and as Hullin resumed his work, the door opened, and Catherine Lefévre, the mistress of the Bois-de-Chênes farm, appeared on the threshold, to the great surprise of the shoemaker, for it was not usual for her to leave her home at such an hour.
Catherine Lefévre might be about sixty years of age, but she was as upright and straight as at thirty. Her clear gray eyes and hooked nose gave to her face some-what the look of a bird of prey; her sunken cheeks, and the corners of her mouth, drawn down by thought, added something of a gloomy and bitter expression; two or three thick locks of grizzled hair hung down on each side of her temples; on her head she wore a striped brown hood, which covered her shoulders also down to her elbows; in short, her whole aspect denoted a character firm to obstinacy, mingled with something of grandeur and sadness which inspired at once respect and fear.
"You, Catherine!" said Hullin, surprised out of himself.