The shed in which he lay was at the end of a garden belonging to a very pretty little cottage, occupied by a farmer named Bertrand, who had married, seven years before, a pretty damsel of his village, a fresh, wide-awake young woman known as La Belle Claudine; she had already presented Monsieur Bertrand with two bouncing children, and hoped that the end was not yet.
In the country, everyone rises early. At daybreak, Fanfan and Marie, the farmer's two children, one five years old and the other four, having had their porridge, went out as usual to run about and play in the garden. Happening to pass near the shed, what did they see on the straw? Imagine Azor in Beauty and the Beast, and you will have an idea of the aspect of Dubourg, whose face was entirely hidden by a profusion of reddish-brown curls, which fell over his breast, while his whole body was covered by the cloak, which counterfeited some other animal if not the tiger; fancy, therefore, the fright of those children when they saw that shapeless mass.
Little Marie dropped the slice of bread and butter she held in her hand; while the little boy opened his mouth and could not close it again, being almost petrified by fear.
"Oh! oh! brother, do you see?" said little Marie at last, clinging to him and pointing to the object stretched out on the straw.
"Oh! oh! what a horrid beast!" said Fanfan, running behind his sister.
Then they ran at full speed to the house, uttering piercing shrieks which did not wake Dubourg, because the fatigue of the preceding night made his sleep very sound.
Bertrand had just kissed his Claudine, preparatory to going into the fields to work, when the two frightened, screaming children appeared.
"What's the matter?" said their papa; "why don't you speak, you rascals?"
The children were so panic-stricken that they could not speak coherently. At last, they cried in unison:
"Over there—under the shed—a great big beast all covered with hair—on the straw—with a black head and a red mane; he's bigger'n our donkey! He's a horrid-looking thing!"