"Pray don't put yourself out of the way, ma'am," said Bourdin, with an ironical grin. "I've only just got to remark that if your good man lays his little finger on me, why I'll make him remember it," continued he, swinging his loaded stick round and round.
Entirely occupied with thoughts of Louise, Morel scarcely heard a word of what was passing. All at once an expression of bitter satisfaction passed over his countenance, as he said:
"Louise has doubtless left the notary's house; now I shall go to prison willingly." Then, casting a troubled look around him, he exclaimed: "But my wife! Her mother! The children! Who will provide for them? No one will trust me with stones to work at in prison, for it will be supposed my bad conduct has sent me there. Does this hard-hearted notary wish the destruction of myself and all my family also?"
"Once, twice, old chap," said Bourdin, "will you stop your gammon? You are enough to bore a man to death. Come, put on your things, and let us be off."
"Good gentlemen, kind gentlemen," cried Madeleine, from her sick-bed, "pray forgive what I said just now! Surely you will not be so cruel as to take my husband away; what will become of me and my five poor children, and my old mother, who is an idiot? There she lies; you see her, poor old creature, huddled up on her mattress; she is quite out of her senses, my good gentlemen; she is, indeed, quite mad!"
"La! what, that old bald-headed thing a woman? Well, hang me if that ain't enough to astonish a man!"
"I'll be hanged if it isn't, then!" cried the other bailiff, bursting into a horse-laugh; "why, I took it for something tied up in an old sack. Look! her old head is shaved quite close; it seems as though she had got a white skull-cap on."
"Go, children, and kneel down, and beg of these good gentlemen not to take away your poor father, our only support," said Madeleine, anxious by a last effort to touch the hearts of the bailiffs. But, spite of their mother's orders, the terrified children remained weeping on their miserable mattress.
At the unusual noise which prevailed, added to the aspect of two strange men in the room, the poor idiot turned herself towards the wall, as though striving to hide from them, uttering all the time the most discordant cries and moans. Morel, meanwhile, appeared unconscious of all that was going on; this last stroke of fate had been so frightful and unexpected, and the consequences of his arrest were so dreadful, that his mind seemed almost unequal to understanding its reality. Worn out by all manner of privations, and exhausted by over-toil, his strength utterly forsook him, and he remained seated on his stool, pale and haggard, and as though incapable of speech or motion, his head drooping on his breast, and his arms hanging listlessly by his side.
"Deuce take me," cried Malicorne, "if that old patterer is not going fast asleep! Why, I say, my chap, you seem to think nothing of keeping gen'l'men like us waiting; just remember, will you, our time is precious! You know this is not exactly a party of pleasure, so march, or I shall be obliged to make you."