"My God!" groaned Lumineau, still kneeling. "Grant that he may not be called away before his Easter Communion. Grant that he be not dead!" And taking off his coat he covered his son in it, like a bed, and leaving his own punt he got into the one where Mathurin lay, and pushed off. A shade of hope sustained him, giving renewed vigour to his old arms. He must find help. Standing upright, endeavouring to find out where he was in the pitch darkness, the father had punted on some distance before he detected the light of a farmhouse. Then, to the right, a ray of light pierced through the fog. The punt glided on more rapidly through the dyke, it neared the building, and Toussaint could make out that it was a farm from the shape of the doors and the lighted windows. Alas! it was La Seulière, and a dance was going in. The noise of laughter, songs, the muffled notes of an accordeon plainly audible within, died away in the wind without.
The farmer went on past the brown hillock, but even while he punted with all speed he watched to see if the great dark shade cast by Mathurin had not stirred; then seeing it motionless, thought to himself: "My son is dead!"
Some five hundred yards away on the other side of the canal, he knew now that there was another house, and he made all haste to reach it. For this time it was Terre-Aymont, the farm of Massonneau le Glorieux, his friend. And soon the farmer, throwing his boat-chain round a willow, had sprung to land, and going to the farmhouse door, was crying: "Glorieux! Glorieux! Help!"
Soon lights were moving along the muddy slopes between the farm and the willow to which the boat had been attached, and men and women were hurrying to and fro with tears, laments, and low-voiced prayers. The whole sleeping household had been quickly roused, and were assembled on the bank. Massonneau would have had Mathurin carried into the house-place of La Terre-Aymont and have sent to fetch the doctor of Chalons, but Toussaint Lumineau, having once more examined and felt over his son's body, said:
"No, Glorieux. His sufferings are at an end. I will take him back to La Fromentière."
Then the farmer of La Terre-Aymont turned to two young lads standing in the background, who with arms round each other's necks, their brown heads touching, seemed to be looking on death for the first time.
"My lads," he said, "go and fetch our large punt."
Disappearing in the fog, they ran to fetch the boat which was kept in a meadow close by La Seulière, and as they passed they told the merrymakers what had happened.
It was nearly ten at night when the body of Mathurin Lumineau was reverently placed by friendly hands in the great punt used for carrying forage, and which had so often been seen returning from the meadows laden with hay, one of the Terre-Aymont children perched on the top, singing.
The body was laid in the middle of the boat, covered with a white sheet by the hands of Mère Massonneau; on it she placed a copper crucifix.