The giddiness did not last long. It was a sharp but short attack. Hardly had his father got him into a recumbent position on the chest at the foot his bed than Mathurin opened his eyes. He looked at his father, raised himself unaided, and putting hand to the back of his neck, said:
"You see, it is nothing. The pain you caused did it.... I am not ill."
All trace of anger had disappeared, but the misery in his face was the same, mingled with that kind of horror men experience when they have been at the very verge of death.
"Would you like me to help you?" asked his father.
With a shrug of the shoulders the cripple began to undress himself, and taking off his coat, folded it, and laid it on the chest.
"No. I will get to bed by myself. I want to be left in peace." His voice trembled as much as his hands. "You had better go to meet Rousille. She will have her news to tell you—and, moreover, it is pitch dark, the roads are not too safe——"
Toussaint Lumineau, who knew the danger of opposing his son in such an attack, made no demur.
"I will go as far as the road, Mathurin, and will tell the man to be at hand in the bakery in case you need him."
He did not go even as far as the road. He was too uneasy. He went some hundred yards along the wall of La Fromentière in the rain, turned back, and then not wishing to go in too soon as to allow Mathurin time to calm down, he went into the stables to look to the animals, and see that none had broken loose.
But, all unsuspected, Mathurin had slipped out after him. The farmer had not gone ten paces beyond the gate ere the cripple had come out into the courtyard, cautiously shut the outer door, and was making his way towards the threshing-floor in order to reach the meadow by the short cut.