familiar
to his ears. Presently he added: "Ah, I see; it is those men again, the
francs-tireurs from Dieulet, after something to eat."

"Quick, I must be gone!" said Silvine, hurrying from the room and
leaving him again in darkness. "I must make haste and see they get their
loaves."

A loud knocking was heard at the kitchen door and Prosper, who was
beginning to tire of his solitude, was holding a hesitating parley with
the visitors. He did not like to admit strangers when the master was
away, fearing he might be held responsible for any damage that might
ensue. His good luck befriended him in this instance, however, for just
then Father Fouchard's carriole came lumbering up the acclivity, the
tramp of the horse's feet resounding faintly on the snow that covered
the road. It was the old man who welcomed the newcomers.

"Ah, good! it's you fellows. What have you on that wheelbarrow?"

Sambuc, lean and hungry as a robber and wrapped in the folds of a
blue woolen blouse many times too large for him, did not even hear the
farmer; he was storming angrily at Prosper, his honest brother, as he
called him, who had only then made up his mind to unbar the door.

"Say, you! do you take us for beggars that you leave us standing in the
cold in weather such as this?"

But Prosper did not trouble himself to make any other reply than was
expressed in a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, and while he was
leading the horse off to the stable old Fouchard, bending over the
wheelbarrow, again spoke up.

"So, it's two dead sheep you've brought me. It's lucky it's freezing
weather, otherwise we should know what they are by the smell."

Cabasse and Ducat, Sambuc's two trusty henchmen, who accompanied him in
all his expeditions, raised their voices in protest.

"Oh!" cried the first, with his loud-mouthed Provencal volubility,
"they've only been dead three days. They're some of the animals that
died on the Raffins farm, where the disease has been putting in its fine
work of late."

"_Procumbit humi bos_," spouted the other, the ex-court officer whose
excessive predilection for the ladies had got him into difficulties, and
who was fond of airing his Latin on occasion.

Father Fouchard shook his head and continued to disparage their
merchandise, declaring it was too "high." Finally he took the three men
into the kitchen, where he concluded the business by saying:

"After all, they'll have to take it and make the best of it. It co