Randolphe was evidently anxious to be gone after he had heard this speech. He would not say another word on his own grievances, or those of his neighbours. He fetched his woollen cap, and stood only undecided as to what he should do about furnishing a second, to work with him that night. He glanced from one boy to the other: but both looked too pale to stand in the damps through an April night. He repeated that he would take no second: but while he said so, there were images in his mind of fine or compensation, bringing increased hardships on the morrow. At this moment a voice from the darkness without called his name, and said he need not look any further for a comrade.
All the family knew that this was Charles’s voice; but even the little boys had learned so much caution from hardship, that they did not speak, but only looked at each other. Jérome observed that it told well for his host that he had a neighbour ready, without asking, to help him in so irksome a service.
The soldiers contrived to make room for the boys to sleep, thinking it quite enough that the law obliged Randolphe to flog the ponds, and his wife and daughter to toil in the shed all night, without the addition of the two half-fed lads having to lie down on the clay floor, or not at all. So each boy had a share of the crib, and a corner of the rug.
Volume One—Chapter Three.
A Holiday Morning.
The boys were wakened in the morning by a rap on the door, like that of the preceding evening. When they had rubbed their eyes and got up, they found that their mother was speaking with no less a person than the bailiff from the chateau. It took little time to slip on the only day garment each had: and then, as their mother stood in the doorway, one looked out under each of her arms, to see what was going on.
“Ah! You little fellows,” said the bailiff, “I have some business with you. What have you to do with pigeons, when you know ’tis against the law for you to keep them? Come, no excuses; I saw a brood of pigeons on the ridge of the roof, as I came.”
“How are we to help the Count’s pigeons lighting on our ridge, if they choose, please sir!” said Marc.