You can
still see one end of it. If any one had the bad luck to stop here at
night, he would be very sure not to be able to go away before dawn. It
would do him no good to walk, walk: he might travel two hundred leagues
through the woods and find himself still in the same place."--The
ploughman's imagination was impressed, do what he would, by what he
heard, and the idea of the misfortune which might follow, to justify the
remainder of the old woman's assertions, took such complete possession
of his brain that he felt cold all over his body. Despairing of
obtaining any additional information, he mounted his horse and began to
ride through the woods, calling Pierre at the top of his voice,
whistling, cracking his whip, breaking off branches to fill the forest
with the noise of his progress, then listening to see if any voice
answered; but he heard naught but the bells on the cows scattered among
the bushes, and the fierce grunting of pigs fighting over the acorns.
At last, Germain heard behind him the footsteps of a horse following in
his track, and a man of middle age, swarthy, robust, dressed like a
semi-bourgeois, shouted to him to stop. Germain had never seen the
farmer of Ormeaux; but an angry instinct led him to determine at once
that it was he. He turned, and, eyeing him from head to foot, waited to
hear what he had to say to him.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103