"
"Is the Gars going to Fougeres?"
"Yes, to see his handsome garce. I have been sent here and there all
day about it. I think he is going to marry her and carry her off; for
he told me to hire horses and have them ready on the road to
Saint-Malo."
Thereupon Galope-Chopine, who was tired out, went to bed for an hour
or two, at the end of which time he again departed. Later, on the
following morning, he returned, having carefully fulfilled all the
commissions entrusted to him by the Gars. Finding that Marche-a-Terre
and Pille-Miche had not appeared at the cottage, he relieved the
apprehensions of his wife, who went off, reassured, to the rocks of
Saint-Sulpice, where she had collected the night before several piles
of fagots, now covered with hoarfrost. The boy went with her, carrying
fire in a broken wooden shoe.
Hardly had his wife and son passed out of sight behind the shed when
Galope-Chopine heard the noise of men jumping the successive barriers,
and he could dimly see, through the fog which was growing thicker, the
forms of two men like moving shadows.
"It is Marche-a-Terre and Pille-Miche," he said, mentally; then he
shuddered. The two Chouans entered the courtyard and showed their
gloomy faces under the broad-brimmed hats which made them look like
the figures which engravers introduce into their landscapes.
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