"And won't they sleep here?" returned Pille-Miche with a laugh. "I'm
afraid the Gars will be angry!" he added, too low for Francine to
hear.
"Well, let him," said Marche-a-Terre, in the same tone, "we shall have
killed the Blues anyway. Here's that coach, which you and I had better
put up."
Pille-Miche pulled the carriage by the pole and Marche-a-Terre pushed
it by one of the wheels with such force that Francine was in the barn
and about to be locked up before she had time to reflect on her
situation. Pille-Miche went out to fetch the barrel of cider, which
the marquis had ordered for the escort; and Marche-a-Terre was passing
along the side of the coach, to leave the barn and close the door,
when he was stopped by a hand which caught and held the long hair of
his goatskin. He recognized a pair of eyes the gentleness of which
exercised a power of magnetism over him, and he stood stock-still for
a moment under their spell. Francine sprang from the carriage, and
said, in the nervous tone of an excited woman: "Pierre, what news did
you give to that lady and her son on the road? What is going on here?
Why are you hiding? I must know all."
These words brought a look on the Chouan's face which Francine had
never seen there before. The Breton led his innocent mistress to the
door; there he turned her towards the blanching light of the moon, and
answered, as he looked in her face with terrifying eyes: "Yes, by my
damnation, Francine, I will tell you, but not until you have sworn on
these beads (and he pulled an old chaplet from beneath his goatskin)
--on this relic, which /you know well/," he continued, "to answer me
truly one question.
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