“That would be all very well,” said Coucou Peter, “if I hadn’t known this old gipsy. It is not for nothing that her companions call her the Black Magpie; the older she grows the more she likes other people’s property. I’m sure that, after her death, the Being of Beings will send her back with crooked fingers, as a reward for her good actions.”
“But if that is the case, let us return to the village and warn the miller.”
“Bah! what is the use of our mixing ourselves up in matters that do not concern us? Besides, in the first place, I’m not sure she may not be ill; in the next place, this miller is not a bit better than she, for he is the greatest stealer of flour I know. If the Black Magpie wrings the necks of his fowls, he has crunched the bones of many others. We need not trouble ourselves about that, Maître Frantz. I only wanted to tell you that these gipsies are of another race than ourselves; still this justice must be done them—that they never attack people on the road; they like to eat and drink at the expense of others, and, good faith, in that respect, they are not unlike some other people!”
While this conversation was proceeding, the illustrious philosopher and his disciple advanced farther and farther into the forest. Coucou Peter believed himself sure of the path, every moment expecting to see the house of the gamekeeper Yorich, one of his old comrades, where he proposed passing the night. But at the end of an hour, nothing coming in sight, doubts crossed his mind as to the direction of the road, though he said nothing to Mathéus on the subject. After going on for another half-hour, the path becoming narrower and narrower, he no longer doubted having missed his way. It was about seven o’clock; brambles and thorns attached themselves to the clothes of Mathéus and his disciple; at length the path disappeared entirely, and lost itself in the midst of tall bushes.
“I say, Maître Frantz,” then said the fiddler, “are you quite sure of this road?”
“Of this road!” cried Mathéus, stopping abruptly, “I don’t know it at all.”
“Then we are in a nice fix!—and I’ve been letting you lead me! What’s to be done?”
“Let us go back,” said the good man.
“But we haven’t more than half an hour’s daylight before us, and we’ve come two leagues from Tieffenbach; on the contrary, let us push forward—still forward; we must arrive somewhere.”
They then looked at each other in silence, in the greatest uncertainty. The missel-thrushes called to each other from the tops of the pines; the setting sun spread its yellow hues on the foliage; the dull roar of the torrent in the valley was heard. They had remained for several minutes without exchanging a word, when Coucou Peter exclaimed—