"They must have fought in the field next to the Berandiere," said the
boy.
"Go and see," replied his mother.
The child ran to the place where the fighting had, as he said, taken
place. In the moonlight he found the heap of bodies, but his father
was not among them, and he came back whistling joyously, having picked
up several five-franc pieces trampled in the mud and overlooked by the
victors. His mother was sitting on a stool beside the fire, employed
in spinning flax. He made a negative sign to her, and then, ten
o'clock having struck from the tower of Saint-Leonard, he went to bed,
muttering a prayer to the holy Virgin of Auray. At dawn, Barbette, who
had not closed her eyes, gave a cry of joy, as she heard in the
distance a sound she knew well of hobnailed shoes, and soon after
Galope-Chopine's scowling face presented itself.
"Thanks to Saint-Labre," he said, "to whom I owe a candle, the Gars is
safe. Don't forget that we now owe three candles to the saint."
He seized a beaker of cider and emptied it at a draught without
drawing breath. When his wife had served his soup and taken his gun
and he himself was seated on the wooden bench, he said, looking at the
fire: "I can't make out how the Blues got here. The fighting was at
Florigny. Who the devil could have told them that the Gars was in our
house; no one knew it but he and the handsome garce and we--"
Barbette turned white.
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