"No, things that interest me in the matter of voyages, other countries.... One of the sons has settled across the sea, in America. He has a farm as large as this whole parish."
"Was he rich?"
"No. He is now."
Mathurin did not further press the subject, but he continued to observe, to add indication on indication. If André chanced to leave a pamphlet on emigration lying about, or an advertisement of land to be let or sold, taking it up Mathurin would seek to discover the places over which his brother's brows had met in a frown, or where something like a smile, a wish, a desire had lighted up his eyes.
By proof on proof he had arrived at the conviction that Driot was thinking of leaving La Fromentière. When? For what remote land where money was easily made? Those were the problems. Thus in the month of December, when opportunities for confidential chat are more frequent by reason of days of snow and rain and squall, when alone with André in the stables or the house, he would say treacherously:
"Tell me about Africa, Driot. Tell me some yarns of men who have made money out there. I like to hear such things." Or at other times he would say: "La Fromentière must seem small and insignificant to a fellow like you who read so much. It certainly is not as productive as it used to be."
Mathurin had settled coming events in his mind, while Driot was still in doubt.
So the year drew to a close, and the new year began. It was a wet winter, with hard frost at nights; every morning spiders' webs covered with frozen mist would wave in the breeze like white wings, the damp earth would steam in the mid-day sun, and the white wings turn grey. The main work of the fields was suspended; the owners of land on high ground felled trees, or re-made fences; those on the Marais were perforce reduced to idleness; it was holiday-time with them; dykes and ditches were overflowing. The greater number of the farms surrounded by water, and, as it were, floating above it, were cut off from all communication with the neighbouring towns or each other save by boats steered over the inundated meadows. It was the time for dancing and shooting.
The ground, however, was not too hard to work upon, and, following Mathurin's advice, Toussaint Lumineau resolved to dig up his vineyard attacked by phylloxera.
So one morning the farmer and André made their way up to the little field lying well exposed to the south on the high ground which cuts the road between Chalons and La Fromentière. Before them they saw nothing but seven rows of vine enclosed by furze hedges, stony ground, and the revolving sails of two wind-mills.