"True," he replied, "there is Mathurin. We must go."
And together they passed in front of the Château, turned into the avenue leading towards the servants' offices, and thence into the fields belonging to the farm. As they neared La Fromentière, Rousille felt that the farmer was gradually recovering his self-control, and when they were in the courtyard, with a rush of pity for the cripple, Rousille said:
"Father, Mathurin is very unhappy too. Do not talk much to him of your distress."
Hereupon the farmer, whose courage and clear reasoning had revived, passed his hand over his eyes, and preceding Rousille, pushed open the door of the house-place, where his crippled son lay stretched deep in thought, beside the nearly burnt-out candle.
"Mathurin, my son," he said, "do not worry overmuch ... they have gone, but our Driot will soon be home again!"
CHAPTER VII.
DRIOT'S RETURN.
"Our Driot is coming." For a fortnight La Fromentière lived on these words. Work had been resumed the day after the trouble. A farm-labourer, hired by Lumineau at Saint Jean-de-Mont, a tall, lean man, with thighs as flat as his cheeks, replaced Jean Nesmy, and slept in the room beyond the stable. Marie-Rose did, single-handed, the work before shared by both sisters: housekeeping, cooking, dairy-work, and bread-making. She rose earlier and went to bed later. Under her coif she ever had some wise idea in her little head which prevented her from thinking of the past; and in all her movements was displayed that silent activity that the farmer had loved in his old Luminette.
Mathurin had of himself offered to look after the "birds," that is to say, the stock of half-wild turkeys and geese bred at La Fromentière. Carrying a sack fastened across his shoulders, he would drag himself down every morning to the edge of the first canal of the Marais, where, at a part that widened out, were fastened the two boats belonging to La Fromentière. In the shallow water he would scatter his supply of corn or buck-wheat, and from across the meadows drakes with blue-tinted wings, ducks, grey, with a double notch cut on the right side of their beaks to mark them as belonging to Lumineau, would hurry and dive for their food. For hours Mathurin would find amusement in watching them, then, lowering himself gently into one of the boats, seated or kneeling, would try to recover the sure and rapid stroke which at one time had made him famous among the puntsmen of the Marais.