Hautot Senior answered:
"As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."
"Which direction are we to begin at?" asked the notary, a jolly notary fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new hunting-costume bought at Rouen.
"Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges into the plain, and we will beat there again."
And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard, not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes, gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.
They set forth for the lands referred to. They consisted of a little glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents, covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.
The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other, Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left, and the two guests in the middle. The keeper and those who carried the game-bags followed. It was the solemn moment when the first shot it awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps feeling at the gun-lock every second.
Suddenly the shot went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in quest of his game.
Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard.
"Ha! ha! the rascal!" exclaimed M. Bermont, "he will unearth a hare down there."
They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through which their gaze failed to penetrate.
The notary, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands, shouted:
"Have you got them?"
Hautot Senior made no response.
Then Cesar, turning towards the keeper, said to him:
"Just go, and a.s.sist him, Joseph. We must keep walking in a straight line. We"ll wait."
And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a pa.s.sage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox. Then, suddenly, he cried:
"Oh! come! come! an unfortunate thing has occurred."
They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers.
The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stomach, from which flowed down upon the gra.s.s through the linen vest torn by the lead, long streamlets of blood.
As he was laying down his gun, in order to seize the partridge, within reach of him, he had let the firearm fall, and the second discharge going off with the shock, had torn open his entrails. They drew him out of the trench; they removed his clothes, and they saw a frightful wound, through which the intestines came out. Then, after having bandaged him the best way they could, they brought him back to his own house, and they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest.
When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair:
"My poor boy," said he, "this has not a good look."
But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded man moved his fingers, opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around his troubled, haggard glances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he murmured:
"Ah! good G.o.d! this has done for me!"
The doctor held his hand.
"Why no, why no, some days of rest merely--it will be nothing."
Hautot returned:
"It has done for me! My stomach is split! I know it well."
Then, all of a sudden:
"I want to talk to the son, if I have the time."
Hautot Junior, in spite of himself, shed tears, and kept repeating like a little boy.
"P"pa, p"pa, poor p"ps!"
But the father, in a firmer tone:
"Come! stop crying--this is not the time for it. I have to talk to you.
Sit down there quite close to me. It will be quickly done, and I will be more calm. As for the rest of you, kindly give me one minute."
They all went out, leaving the father and son face to face.
As soon as they were alone:
"Listen, son! you are twenty-four years; one can say things like this to you. And then there is not such mystery about these matters as we import into them. You know well that your mother is seven years dead, isn"t that so? and that I am not more than forty-five years myself, seeing that I got married at nineteen. Is not that true?"
The son faltered:
"Yes, it is true."
"So then your mother is seven years dead, and I have remained a widower.
Well! a man like me cannot remain without a wife at thirty-seven isn"t that true?"
The son replied:
"Yes, it is true."
The father, out of breath, quite pale, and his face contracted with suffering, went on:
"G.o.d! what pain I feel! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live alone, but I did not want to take a successor to your mother, since I promised her not to do so. Then--you understand?"
"Yes, father."
"So, I kept a young girl at Rouen, Reu de l"Eperlan 18, in the third story, the second door--I tell you all this, don"t forget--but a young girl, who has been very nice to me, loving, devoted, a true woman, eh?
You comprehend, my lad?"
"Yes, father."
"So then, if I am carried off, I owe something to her, but something substantial, that will place her in a safe position. You understand?"