"Take me. I want to see Félicité." Venturesome, imprudent in things concerning himself, soldier of but yesterday, still impregnated with barrack maxims, he had merely said:
"There's not a shadow of sense in it; but if it amuses you!"
And he had chosen the best of the boats, and helped the cripple to stretch himself in the prow; then, standing on the raised part in the stern, and taking up the pole, had begun to punt, now pressing the iron point into the bed of the dyke, now into the bank on either side.
Soon they were far out in the middle of the Marais, the night intensely cold with no moon. Clouds were chasing each other towards the sea; and yet it was not one unbroken darkness; up above in the grey firmament were lighter trails, clear patches constantly broken and effaced by shifting clouds reflected in their passage on the surface of the waters, not only of the dykes, but of the submerged meadows which had been changed into a series of lakes by winter rains, and above which the sloping embankments were scarcely perceptible. Every light was multiplied. The darkness had eddies of light, which enabled André to keep a right course.
The punt followed the canals, cut at right angles; progress was slow, impeded by ice needles, that formed by the cold clustered on the sedges of the bank. Did the wind not rise, the whole Marais would be one sheet of ice before morning; André knew this, and tried to reach La Seulière as quickly as possible. He began to realise the imprudence he had committed in taking Mathurin with him on such a night and so far. The cripple neither moved nor spoke, anxious not to attract his brother's attention to himself, lest he should straightway turn back. But when he saw that they were more than two thousand yards from La Fromentière, sure of reaching their destination, he broke the silence. Lying on his back, his face hidden by the side of the boat, he asked:
"Driot, when you were speaking to-night of land being given to agricultural emigrants, you were not joking?"
"Of course not."
"Have they proposed to give you some?"
Noiselessly, he had raised his head, and was watching with eyes and ears for André's answer. No reply came. In the vast extent of inundated meadows there was heard no sound but the swish of the water parted by the punt and washing up as the tide rose against the hard mud of the shore with little sharp gurgles. Mathurin resumed:
"You miss François, do you not? The house seems different to you with only me there?"