We are generous in that coin."
He added a gesture which was like a horrible commentary to his words.
Though the rotundity of the landlord prevented Francine from seeing
the stranger, who stood behind him, she caught certain words of his
threatening speech, and was thunderstruck at hearing the hoarse tones
of a Breton voice. She sprang towards the man, but he, seeming to move
with the agility of a wild animal, had already darted through a side
door which opened on the courtyard. Utterly amazed, she ran to the
window. Through its panes, yellowed with smoke, she caught sight of
the stranger as he was about to enter the stable. Before doing so,
however, he turned a pair of black eyes to the upper story of the inn,
and thence to the mail-coach in the yard, as if to call some friend's
attention to the vehicle. In spite of his muffling goatskin and thanks
to this movement which allowed her to see his face, Francine
recognized the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, with his heavy whip; she saw
him, indistinctly, in the obscurity of the stable, fling himself down
on a pile of straw, in a position which enabled him to keep an eye on
all that happened at the inn. Marche-a-Terre curled himself up in such
a way that the cleverest spy, at any distance far or near, might have
taken him for one of those huge dogs that drag the hand-carts, lying
asleep with his muzzle on his paws.
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