This fat little man, doubled-up in
his corner, opened his porcelain-blue eyes every now and then, and
looked at each speaker with a sort of terror. He appeared to be afraid
of his fellow-travellers and to care very little about the Chouans.
When he looked at the driver, however, they seemed to be a pair of
free-masons. Just then the first volley of musketry was heard on La
Pelerine. Coupiau, frightened, stopped the coach.
"Oh! oh!" said the priest, as if he had some means of judging, "it is
a serious engagement; there are many men."
"The trouble for us, Monsieur Gudin," cried Coupiau, "is to know which
side will win."
The faces of all became unanimously anxious.
"Let us put up the coach at that inn which I see over there," said the
patriot; "we can hide it till we know the result of the fight."
The advice seemed so good that Coupiau followed it. The patriot helped
him to conceal the coach behind a wood-pile; the abbe seized the
occasion to pull Coupiau aside and say to him, in a low voice: "Has he
really any money?"
"Hey, Monsieur Gudin, if it gets into the pockets of your Reverence,
they won't be weighed down with it."
When the Blues marched by, after the encounter on La Pelerine, they
were in such haste to reach Ernee that they passed the little inn
without halting. At the sound of their hasty march, Gudin and the
innkeeper, stirred by curiosity, went to the gate of the courtyard to
watch them.
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