"Monsieur! monsieur! don’t knock! oh! don’t do anything like that!"
"Why not, pray, my friend?" said Alfred with a laugh; "if there’s no one here, what difference does it make whether I knock or not? And if there are people here, we shall make the acquaintance of the proprietor, and he will excuse travellers for so trifling a liberty."
"No matter!" cried Robineau, "it’s most improper to knock; indeed, it’s absurd, and——"
Robineau’s sentence was interrupted by the sound of the knocker, with which Alfred was belaboring the door. At the sound the shepherd retreated even farther, in dire alarm; he evidently expected that some terrifying creature would open the door. Robineau turned pale and hummed a tune. Alfred and Edouard listened; but the blows of the knocker echoed inside the house and finally died away, unanswered.
"No one!" said Edouard.
"Let us try again," said Alfred. He knocked twice more in quick succession, louder than before; but the blows were followed by the same silence.
"You are wasting your time, you see, messieurs!" said Robineau, rising; "you might knock until to-morrow, to no purpose, as there’s no one there!"
"Or else they won’t answer," muttered the shepherd, who had drawn a little nearer.
"It’s a pity!" said Alfred; "I would have liked to see a legion of phantoms come out—just to see what sort of a face Sire de la Roche-Noire would have made."
"My face would not have changed, messieurs; I don’t believe in these old grandmothers’ tales, as you do; that is why I don’t see the need of knocking at doors when I know there’s no one inside."