Madame Bordin burst out laughing. All the others followed her example, after their respective ways—the curé giving a sort of cluck like a hen, Hurel coughing, the doctor mourning over it, while his wife had a nervous spasm, and Foureau, an unceremonious type of man, breaking an Abd-el-Kader and putting it into his pocket as a souvenir.
When they had left the tree-hedge, Bouvard, to astonish the company with the echo, exclaimed with all his strength:
"Servant, ladies!"
Nothing! No echo. This was owing to the repairs made in the barn, the gable and the roof having been demolished.
The coffee was served on the hillock; and the gentlemen were about to begin a game of ball, when they saw in front of them, behind the railed fence, a man staring at them.
He was lean and sunburnt, with a pair of red trousers in rags, a blue waistcoat, no shirt, his black beard cut like a brush. He articulated, in a hoarse voice:
"Give me a glass of wine!"
The mayor and the Abbé Jeufroy had at once recognised him. He had formerly been a joiner at Chavignolles.
"Come, Gorju! take yourself off," said M. Foureau. "You ought not to be asking for alms."