"Good-night, Joseph, good-night!" cried Catharine, "and do not forget to come Sunday."
I turned around to wave my hand; then I ran on without raising my head, for the cold was so intense that it brought tears to my eyes even behind the great collar.
I ran on thus some twenty minutes, scarcely daring to breathe, when a drunken voice called out:
"Who goes there?"
I looked through the dim night, and saw, fifty paces before me, Pinacle, the pedler, with his huge basket, his otter-skin cap, woollen gloves, and iron-pointed staff. The lantern, hanging from the strap of his basket lit up his debauched face, his chin bristling with yellow beard, and his great nose shaped like an extinguisher. He glared with his little eyes like a wolf, and repeated, "Who goes there?"
This Pinacle was the greatest rogue in the country. He had, the year before, a difficulty with Monsieur Goulden, who demanded of him the price of a watch which he undertook to deliver to Monsieur Anstett, the curate of Homert, and the money for which he put into his pocket, saying he had paid it to me. But, although the villain made oath before the justice of the peace, Monsieur Goulden knew the contrary, for on the day in question neither he nor I had left the house. Besides, Pinacle wanted to dance with Catharine at a festival at Quatre-Vents, and she refused because she knew the story of the watch, and was, besides, unwilling to leave me.
The sight, then, of this rogue with his iron-shod stick in the middle of the road did not tend to rejoice my heart. Happily a little path which wound around the cemetery was at my left, and, without replying, I dashed through it, although the snow reached my waist.
Then he, guessing who I was, cried furiously:
"Aha! it is the little lame fellow! Halt! halt! I want to bid you good-evening. You came from Catharine's, you watch-stealer."