"Jean," he said, looking at the grave, "Jean Labrouk, a man dies well that dies with his gaiters on, aho! … What have you said for Jean Labrouk, m'sieu'?" he added to the priest.
The priest stared at him, as though he had presumed.
"Well?" said Gabord. "Well?"
The priest answered nothing, but prepared to go, whispering a word of comfort to the poor wife. Gabord looked at the soldiers, looked at the wife, at the priest, then spread out his legs and stuck his hands down into his pockets, while his horse rubbed its nose against his shoulder. He fixed his eyes on the grave, and nodded once or twice musingly.
"Well," he said at last, as if he had found a perfect virtue, and the one or only thing that could be said, "well, he never eat his words, that Jean."
A moment afterwards he came into the house with Babette, leaving one of the soldiers holding his horse. After the old man had gone, I heard him say, "Were you at mass to-day? And did you see all?"
And when she had answered yes, he continued: "It was a mating as birds mate, but mating was it, and holy fathers and Master Devil Doltaire can't change it till cock-pheasant Moray come rocketing to 's grave. They would have hanged me for my part in it, but I repent not, for they have wickedly hunted this little lady."
"I weep with her," said Jean's wife.
"Ay, ay, weep on, Babette," he answered.
"Has she asked help of you?" said the wife.