“And besides, would it not be as well to have already acquired some rights over Madame Suzanne, by the time Monsieur Magloire passes, in the course of nature, into the other world, which, considering the way in which the old scamp eats and drinks, cannot be a matter of long delay?”
And then, no doubt because the good qualities of the Bailiff’s wife which had been so highly extolled to him came back to his mind:
“No, no,” he continued, “no illness, no death! but just those ordinary disagreeables which happen to everybody; only, as it is to be to my advantage, I should like rather more than the usual share to fall to him; one cannot at his age set up for a smart young buck; no, every one according to their dues ... and when these things come to pass, I will give you more than a thank you, Cousin Wolf.”
My readers will doubtless not be of the same way of thinking as Thibault, who saw nothing offensive in this pleasantry of his, but on the contrary, rubbed his hands together smiling at his own thoughts, and indeed so pleased with them that he had reached the town, and found himself at the end of the Rue de Largny before he was aware that he had left the Bailiff’s house more than a few hundred paces behind him.
He now made a sign to his wolves, for it was not quite prudent to traverse the whole town of Villers-Cotterets with a dozen wolves walking alongside as a guard of honour; not only might they meet dogs by the way, but the dogs might wake up the inhabitants.
Six of his wolves, therefore, went off to the right, and six to the left, and although the paths they took were not exactly of the same length, and although some of them went more quickly than the others, the whole dozen nevertheless managed to meet, without one missing, at the end of the Rue de Lormet. As soon as Thibault had reached the door of his hut, they took leave of him and disappeared; but, before they dispersed, Thibault requested them to be at the same spot on the morrow, as soon as night fell.
Although it was two o’clock before Thibault got home, he was up with the dawn; it is true, however, that the day does not rise very early in the month of January.
He was hatching a plot. He had not forgotten the promise he had made to the Bailiff to send him some game from his warren; his warren being, in fact, the whole of the forest-land which belonged to his most serene Highness the Duke of Orleans. This was why he had got up in such good time. It had snowed for two hours before day-break; and he now went and explored the forest in all directions, with the skill and cunning of a bloodhound.
He tracked the deer to its lair, the wild boar to its soil, the hare to its form; and followed their traces to discover where they went at night.
And then, when darkness again fell on the Forest, he gave a howl,—a regular wolf’s howl, in answer to which came crowding to him the wolves that he had invited the night before, followed by old and young recruits, even to the very cubs of a year old.