“Grandad, why do they give her pancakes all tied up with ribbons? Why do they bring good-wishes to that old pilferer?”
“Because, darling, in this world it is better to be on good terms with evildoers.”
“What’s that, Colas Breugnon? What idea are you putting in the child’s head?” growled the vicar.
“I am not holding it up for her admiration. I only tell her that is what every one does, you yourself, vicar, among the first. Don’t stare at me like that, you know when you have a parishioner who knows everything, sees everything, pokes her nose into everything, and is as full of spite as a nut is full of meat you would stuff her mouth with cakes, if that would keep her quiet.”
“Lord, if that were enough,” sighed the vicar. “I am really not fair to old magpie, she is better than some women, and her tongue is sometimes of use!”
“What is it good for, Grandfather?”
“She screams when the wolf is near.”
And at these words, all of a sudden the bird begins to cry, swear, and blaspheme. She flaps her wings, flies, and pours out abuse toward I don’t know who or what down in the valley near Armes. At the edge of the wood her feathered companions, Charlot the jay, and the crow Colas, answer sharply in the same irritated key. The villagers laugh and cry, “Wolf!” No one believes it, but still they think they will go and look (it is good to trust, but better to know), and what do you think they see? A band of armed men coming up the hill at a trot. We know them only too well; they are those rascals, the soldiers of Vézelay, who knowing our town is off its guard, think they will catch the bird on its nest. (Not this old magpie, however.)
We did not stop to look at them, as you may well believe! Every man for himself, was the cry, and we all tumbled over each other. We took to our heels by the road, across the fields; some on all fours, and some sliding on the hinder side of their anatomy. We three jumped into the donkey-cart; and, as if she understood it all, off went Madelon like an arrow from the bow. The vicar forgot in his excitement the consideration due to a donkey which has a cross marked on its back, and belabored her with all his might. We rushed along through a crowd of people screaming like blackbirds, and entered Clamecy first by a head, covered with dust and glory, but with the rest of the fugitives hard on our heels. Madelon scarcely touched the ground as we flew through Béyant at full gallop, the cart bouncing, the vicar beating, and shouting at the top of his lungs, “The enemy is upon us!”
People laughed at first as they saw us flying past them, but it did not take them long to catch the idea, and the town was soon like an ant-heap when you thrust a stick into it. Every one got to work, running in and out. Men armed themselves; women packed up their goods, piling things into baskets and wheelbarrows; and all the folks in the suburbs, abandoning their homes, fled to the shelter of the town walls. The masquers rushed to the ramparts, still wearing their costumes, masks, horns, claws, and paunches; some as Gargantua, some as Beelzebub, armed with gaffs and harpoons; and so when the advance guard of Vézelay reached the walls, the drawbridges were raised, and only some poor devils remained on the other side of the moat, who having nothing to lose made no effort to save it, and poor old King Pluviaut, deserted by his escort, full as a tick, like the Patriarch Noah, sat snoring on his beast, holding on by the tail.