One afternoon he was engaged in his occupation of grinding flour, standing in an atmosphere which would have rendered life disagreeable, if not altogether unsupportable, to any one but a miller, when Robert, Madame Perchon's eldest born, put his head inside the open door of the mill.
"This creature, M. le Maire; this creature!"
Robert Perchon was an undersized youth of some twenty years of age, who had escaped military service not only as being the eldest son of a widow, but as being in possession of an unrivalled squint, which would have excluded him in any case, and which would have rendered it really difficult for a drill sergeant to have ascertained to his own satisfaction whether, at any given moment, the recruit had his "eyes front" or behind.
"Ah, at last! Where is this vagabond? We will settle his business in a trice!"
Having shouted instructions to his assistant to keep his eyes upon the stones, M. le Maire came forth.
"He is in the buck-wheat field! I was going to the little field by the river, when, behold! what should I see in the buck-wheat field, lying close to the hedge, and yet among the wheat, what but this creature, fast asleep! It is so, I give you my word. At this time of day, when all honest people are at work, in the middle of my field there was this creature, fast asleep. I knew him at once, although I have not seen the wretch before; but I have heard him described, and there is indeed something absolutely diabolical in his aspect even as he lies among my buck-wheat fast asleep!"
"You did not wake him?"
"Ah, no! Why should I wake him? Who knows what injury the creature might have done me when he found himself disturbed?"
"Then we will wake him, I give you my word. We will capture this vagabond. We will discover what there is about him diabolical."
The mayor's courage was applauded. There was Robert Perchon, his mother--in tears, at the thought of the peril which her son had only just escaped--a select assembly of the villagers, and the two gorgeous gendarmes from the St. Thégonnec gendarmerie. All these people perceived that the mayor was brave.