The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 4 of 6. Эжен Сю
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it was damp, just by the corner," added François.
"Do you hear him, mother? Why, the boy's a fool!" said Calabash, making a signal to the widow. "They are mutton-bones I put there for washing-lye."
"It was not a mutton-bone," replied the boy, with alarm, "it was a dead person's bones, – a dead man's bones. I saw quite plainly a foot that stuck out of the ground."
"And, of course, you told your brother, your dear friend Martial, of your grand discovery, didn't you?" asked Calabash, with brutal irony.
François made no reply.
"Nasty little spy!" said Calabash, savagely; "because he is as cowardly as a cur, and would as soon see us scragged, as our father was scragged before us."
"If you call me a spy, I'll tell my brother Martial everything!" said François, much enraged. "I haven't told him yet, for I haven't seen him since; but, when he comes here this evening, I'll – "
The child could not finish; his mother came up to him, calm and inexorable as ever. Although she habitually stooped a little, her figure was still tall for a woman. Holding the willow wand in one hand, with the other the widow took her son by the arm, and, in spite of alarm, resistance, prayers, and tears of the child, she dragged him after her, and made him ascend the staircase at the further end of the kitchen. After a moment's interval, there was heard heavy trampling, mingled with cries and sobs. Some minutes afterwards this noise ceased. A door shut violently; the felon's widow descended. Then, as impassive as ever, she put the stick in its usual place, seated herself close to the fireplace, and resumed her occupation, without saying a word.
CHAPTER IV
THE FRESHWATER PIRATE
After a silence of several minutes, the criminal's widow said to her daughter:
"Go and get some wood; we will set the wood-pile to rights when Nicholas and Martial return home this evening."
"Martial! Do you mean to tell him also that – "
"The wood, I say!" repeated the widow, abruptly interrupting her daughter, who, accustomed to yield to the imperious and iron rule of her mother, lighted a lantern, and went out.
During the preceding scene, Amandine, deeply disquieted concerning the fate of François, whom she tenderly loved, had not ventured either to lift up her eyes, or dry her tears, which fell, drop by drop, on to her lap. Her sobs, which she dared not give utterance to, almost suffocated her, and she strove even to repress the fearful beatings of her heart. Blinded by her fast gathering tears, she sought to conceal her emotion by endeavouring to pick the mark from the chemise given to her, but, from the nervous trembling of her hand, she ran the scissors into her finger sufficiently deep to cause considerable effusion of blood; but the poor child thought much less of the pain she experienced than of the certain punishment which awaited her for staining the linen with her blood. Happily for her, the widow was too deeply absorbed in profound reflection to take any notice of what had occurred. Calabash now returned, bearing a basket filled with wood. To the inquiring look of her mother, she returned an affirmative nod of the head, which was intended to acquaint her with the fact of the dead man's foot being actually above the ground. The widow compressed her lips, and continued the work she was occupied upon; the only difference perceptible in her being that she plied her needle with increased rapidity. Calabash, meanwhile, renewed the fire, superintended the state of the cookery progressing in the saucepan beside the hearth, and then resumed her seat near her mother.
"Nicholas is not here yet," said she to her parent. "It is to be hoped that the old woman who this morning engaged him to meet a gentleman from Bradamanti has not led him into any scrape. She had such a very offhand way with her; she would neither give any explanation as to the nature of the business Nicholas was wanted for, nor tell her name, or where she came from."
The widow shrugged her shoulders.
"You do not consider Nicholas is in any danger, I see, mother. And, after all, I dare say you are quite right! The old woman desired him to be on the Quai de Billy, opposite the landing-place, about seven o'clock in the evening, and wait there for a person who wished to speak with him, and who would utter the word 'Bradamanti' as a sort of countersign. Certainly there is nothing very perilous in doing so much. No doubt Nicholas is late from having to-day found, as he did yesterday, something on the road. Look at this capital linen which he contrived to filch from a boat, in which a laundress had just left it!" So saying, she pointed to one of the pieces of linen Amandine was endeavouring to pick the mark out of. Then, addressing the child, she said, "What do folks mean when they talk of filching?"
"I believe," answered the frightened child, without venturing to look up, "it means taking things that are not ours."
"Oh, you little fool! It means stealing, not taking. Do you understand? – stealing!"
"Thank you, sister!"
"And when one can steal as cleverly as Nicholas, there is no need to want for anything. Look at that linen he filched yesterday; how comfortably it set us all up; and that, too, with no other trouble than just taking out the marks; isn't it true, mother?" added Calabash, with a burst of laughter, which displayed her decayed and irregular teeth, yellow and jaundiced as her complexion.
The widow received this pleasantry with cold indifference.
"Talking of fitting ourselves up without any expense," continued Calabash, "it strikes me we might possibly do so at another shop. You know quite well that an old man has come, within the last few days, to live in the country-house belonging to M. Griffon, the doctor of the hospital at Paris. I mean that lone house about a hundred steps from the river's side, just opposite the lime-kilns, – eh, mother? You understand me, don't you?"
The widow bowed her head, in token of assent.
"Well, Nicholas was saying yesterday that it was very likely a good job might be made out of it," pursued Calabash. "Now I have ascertained, this very morning, that there is good booty to be found there. The best way will be to send Amandine to watch the place a little; no one will take notice of a child like her; and she could pretend to be just playing about, and amusing herself; all the time she can take notice of everything, and will be able to tell us all she sees or hears. Do you hear what I say?" added Calabash, roughly addressing Amandine.
"Yes, sister," answered the trembling child; "I will be sure to do as you wish me."
"Yes, that is what you always say; but you never do more than promise, you little slink! That time that I desired you to take a five-franc piece out of the grocer's till at Asnières, while I managed to keep the man occupied at the other end of the shop, you did not choose to obey me; and yet you might have done it so easily; no one ever mistrusts a child. Pray what was your reason for not doing as you were bid?"
"Because, sister, my heart failed me, and I was afraid."
"And yet, the other day, you took a handkerchief out of the peddler's pack, when the man was selling his goods inside the public-house. Pray did he find it out, you silly thing?"
"Oh, but, sister, you know the handkerchief was for you, not me; and you made me do it. Besides, it was not money."
"What difference does that make?"
"Oh, why, taking a handkerchief is not half so wicked as stealing money!"
"Upon my word," said Calabash, contemptuously, "these are mighty fine notions! I suppose it is Martial stuffs your head with all this rubbish. I suppose you will run open-mouthed to tell him every word we have said, – eh, little spy? But Lord bless you! We are not afraid of you or Martial either; you can neither eat us nor drink us, that is one good thing." Then, addressing herself to the widow, Calabash continued, "I tell you what, mother, that fellow will get himself into no good by trying to rule, and domineer, and lay down the law here, as he does; both Nicholas and myself are determined not to submit to it. He sets both Amandine and François against everything either you or I order them to do. Do you think this can last much longer?"
"No!" said the mother, in a harsh, abrupt voice.
"Ever since his Louve has been sent to St. Lazare, Martial has gone on like a madman, savage as a bear with every one. Pray is it our fault? Can we help his sweetheart being