SIXTEENTH EVENING.
However, I began to see clearly, little by little, and my feet, whose soles had seemed pegged to the ground, followed the Head-Woodsman in the direction of the lodges. I was much surprised to find that there was no one there but his daughter, Brulette, Joseph, and three or four old men who had been at the fight. All the others, it appeared, had run away when they saw the sticks produced, to avoid giving witness in a court of justice if the matter ended fatally. These woodland people never betray each other, and to escape being summoned and harassed by the law, they manage so as to see nothing and have nothing to say. The Head-Woodsman spoke to the old men in their own language, and I saw them go back to the place where the fight occurred, without understanding what they intended to do there. Meantime I followed Joseph and the women, and we reached the lodges without saying a word to each other.
As for me, I had been so shaken in mind that I did not want to talk. When we entered the lodge and sat down we were all as white as if we were afraid. The Head-Woodsman, who soon joined us, sat down too, evidently in deep thought, with his eyes fixed to the earth. Brulette, who had compelled herself not to ask questions, was crying in a corner; Joseph, as if worn out with fatigue, had thrown himself at full length on a pile of dried ferns; Thérence alone came and went, and prepared the beds for the night; but her teeth were set, and when she tried to speak she stammered.
After a while the Head-Woodsman rose and looking round upon us said: "Well, my children, after all, what is it? A lesson has been given, and justly given, to a bad man, known everywhere for his evil conduct,—a man who abandoned his wife and let her die of grief and poverty. Malzac has long disgraced the fraternity of muleteers, and if he were to die no one would regret him. Must we make ourselves unhappy because Huriel gave him a few hard blows in honest battle? Why do you cry, Brulette? Have you such a soft heart that you are shedding tears for the beaten man? Do you not think that my son was right to defend your honor and his own? He had told me all that happened in the woods of La Roche, and I knew that out of prudent regard for your safety he refrained from punishing that man at the time. He even hoped that Tiennet would have said nothing about it to-night, so that the cause might never be known. But I, who never approve of concealing the truth, allowed Tiennet to say what he liked. I am well-pleased that he was prevented from entering a fight which is most dangerous for those who do not understand the passes. I am also well-pleased that victory was with my son; for as between an honest man and a bad man, my heart would have gone with the honest man even if he were not blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh. And so let us thank God, who judged the right, and ask him to be ever with us, in this and in all things."
The Head-Woodsman knelt down and offered the evening prayer; which comforted and tranquillized every one of us. Then we separated in hearty friendship to seek some rest.
It was not long before I heard the Head-Woodsman, whose little chamber I shared, snoring loudly, in spite of the anxiety he had undergone. But in his daughter's room Brulette was still crying, unable to recover herself, and evidently ill. I heard her talking to Thérence, and so, not from curiosity but out of pity for her trouble, I put my ear to the partition to hear what I could.
"Come, come," Thérence was saying, in decided tones, "stop crying and you will go to sleep. Tears won't do any good, and, as I told you, I must go; if you wake my father, who does not know he is wounded, he will want to go too, and that may compromise him in this bad business; whereas for me, I risk nothing."
"You terrify me, Thérence; how can you go alone among those muleteers? They frighten me badly enough, but you must let me go with you; I ought to, for I was the cause of the fight. Let us call Tiennet—"
"No, no! neither you nor him! The muleteers won't regret Malzac if he should die,—quite the reverse; but if he had been injured by any one not belonging to their own body, especially a stranger, your friend Tiennet would be in the greatest danger. Let him sleep; it is enough that he tried to meddle in the affair to make it important that he should keep quiet now. As for you, Brulette, you would be very ill-received; you have not, as I have, a family interest to take you there. No one among them would attempt to injure me; they all know me, and they are not afraid to let me into their secrets."