Sans-Souci made all their preparations for a journey which he thought with good reason would be likely to last a long while. Louise was greatly grieved to have her cousin go away, but she realized that he ought not to abandon his friend. The farmer’s wife thrust a well-filled purse into the bag of each of the travellers. It was simply their wages for all the time that they had worked at the farm; but she dared not offer it to them, for she knew that the method that she employed was the best one to avoid a refusal. Kindhearted folk are always shrewd and clever, when it is a question of doing a kind act.
At dawn Jacques was up. Sans-Souci soon joined him. He appeared with his bag over his shoulder, and a stout staff in his hand, and said to his comrade:
“Whenever you are ready, forward march!”
The two friends were about to start. The farmer and his family came forward weeping, to bid them adieu. The children, who had long been accustomed to play with Jacques’s moustaches and to roll on the grass with Sans-Souci, clung to the legs of both travellers, and would not let them go. Louise held a corner of her apron to her eyes, and her sighs said much more than her words. Guillot was no less sorrowful than the rest.
“I say! I’m going to be left alone with my wife, am I?” he said; “what a stupid time I shall have!—Here, comrade Jacques, let me give you a little present for your journey; it may be of some use to you; for you don’t know where you may be.”
As he spoke, Guillot handed Jacques a pair of small pocket pistols.
“I bought them second-hand in the village not long ago, of an old soldier; my idea was to give ’em to you on your birthday, but so long as you’re going away, why take ’em now.”
Jacques thanked the honest farmer and accepted his present; then, after embracing everybody, he set forth with Sans-Souci, swearing not to return to the farm without Adeline, and to take no rest until he had found her.
XXXII
THE GALLEY SLAVES
Jacques was not mistaken when he thought he saw his brother among the convicts. The unhappy Edouard had undergone his punishment for the crime which he had allowed himself to be led into committing. His sentence condemned him to twenty years hard labor, to be branded and exposed to public view.