I was ashamed to confess what a fool I had been. Still, I did venture to ask if he hadn't seen people and animals in the open.
"Yes, yes," he said, "I have seen plenty of animals, and people too; but they are not mischievous, and we can go away together without their harming us."
I fancied from his voice that he was sneering at my fears. I left the oak as he did; but when we got out of its shadow, I fancied that José's face and figure were not the same as usual. He seemed to me taller, and carried his head higher, walking quickly, and speaking with more energy than naturally belonged to him. This did not ease my mind, for all sorts of queer recollections crossed it. It was not from my grandmother only that I had heard tell that folks with white faces and green eyes, gloomy tempers and speech that you couldn't understand, were apt to consort with evil spirits; and in all countries, as you know, old trees are said to be haunted by sorcerers and other such.
I hardly dared to breathe as long as we were in the undergrowth. I kept expecting to see the same things I had either dreamed in my brain or seen with my senses. But all was still; there was no sound except the breaking of the dried branches as we went along, or the crunching of the remains of ice under our feet.
Joseph, who walked in front, did not follow the main path, but cut across the covert. You would have thought he was a hare, well acquainted with the ins and outs, and he led me so quickly to the ford of the Igneraie, without crossing the potter's village, that it seemed as if I got there by magic. Then he left me, without having opened his lips, except to say that he wished to show himself to his mother, as she was worried about him; and he followed the road to Saint-Chartier, while I took a short cut through the two parishes to my own house.
I no sooner found myself in the places I was familiar with than my terror left me, and I was very much ashamed not to have conquered it. Joseph would no doubt have told me the things I wanted to know if I had only asked him; for, for once in his life, he had lost his sleepy air, and I had even detected for an instant a sort of laugh in his voice, and something in his behavior like a wish to give assistance.
However, when I had slept upon the adventure, and my senses were calmer, I was convinced that I had not dreamed what I had seen in the undergrowth, and I began to think there was something queer about Joseph's tranquillity under the oak. The animals that I had seen in such number were certainly not an ordinary sight. In our part of the country we have no flocks, except sheep, and those I had seen were animals of another color and another shape. They were neither horses nor cattle nor sheep nor goats; besides, no animals were allowed to pasture in the forest.
Now, as I tell you all this, I think I was a great fool. And yet there's a deal that's unknown in the affairs of this world into which a man sticks his nose, and more still in God's affairs, which He chooses to keep secret. Anyhow, I did not venture to question Joseph; for though you may be inquisitive about good things, you ought not to be so about evil ones; and, indeed, a wise man feels reluctant to poke into matters where he may find a good deal more than he looks for.