The Werewolf Blood Trail: Tales of Gore, Terror & Hunt. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

      There was, he continued, a splendid warren on these hundred acres, with a wonderful supply of red and fallow deer, boars, partridges, pheasants and hares, of which the bailiff should have some to taste. The bailiff was astonished and delighted. As we have seen, by the menu for his table, he was fond of venison, and he was carried away with joy at the thought of obtaining his game without having recourse to the poachers, and through the channel of this new friendship.

      And now, the last drop of the seventh bottle having been scrupulously divided between the two glasses, they decided that it was time to stop.

      The rosy champagne—prime vintage of Aï, and the last bottle emptied—had brought Népomucène Magloire’s habitual good nature to the level of tender affection. He was charmed with his new friend, who tossed off his bottle in almost as good style as he did himself; he addressed him as his bosom friend, he embraced him, he made him promise that there should be a morrow to their pleasant entertainment; he stood a second time on tiptoe to give him a parting hug as he accompanied him to the door, which Thibault on his part, bending down, received with the best grace in the world.

      The church clock of Erneville was striking midnight as the door closed behind the shoe-maker. The fumes of the heady wine he had been drinking had begun to give him a feeling of oppression before leaving the house, but it was worse when he got into the open air. He staggered, overcome with giddiness, and went and leant with his back against a wall. What followed next was as vague and mysterious to him as the phantasmagoria of a dream. Above his head, about six or eight feet from the ground, was a window, which, as he moved to lean against the wall, had appeared to him to be lighted, although the light was shaded by double curtains. He had hardly taken up his position against the wall when he thought he heard it open. It was, he imagined, the worthy bailiff, unwilling to part with him without sending him a last farewell, and he tried to step forward so as to do honour to this gracious intention, but his attempt was unavailing. At first he thought he was stuck to the wall like a branch of ivy, but he was soon disabused of this idea. He felt a heavy weight planted first on the right shoulder and then on the left, which made his knees give way so that he slid down the wall as if to seat himself. This manœuvre on Thibault’s part appeared to be just what the individual who was making use of him as a ladder wished him to do, for we can no longer hide the fact that the weight so felt was that of a man. As Thibault made his forced genuflexion, the man was also lowered; “That’s right, l’Eveillé! that’s right!” he said, “So!” and with this last word, he jumped to the ground, while overhead was heard the sound of a window being shut.

      Thibault had sense enough to understand two things: first, that he was mistaken for someone called l’Eveillé, who was probably asleep somewhere about the premises; secondly, that his shoulders had just served some lover as a climbing ladder; both of which things caused Thibault an undefined sense of humiliation.

      Accordingly, he seized hold mechanically of some floating piece of stuff which he took to be the lover’s cloak, and, with the persistency of a drunken man, continued to hang on to it.

      “What are you doing that for, you scoundrel?” asked a voice, which did not seem altogether unfamiliar to the shoe-maker. “One would think you were afraid of losing me.”

      “Most certainly I am afraid of losing you,” replied Thibault, “because I wish to know who it is has the impertinence to use my shoulders for a ladder.”

      “Phew!” said the unknown, “it’s not you then, l’Eveillé?”

      “No, it is not,” replied Thibault.

      “Well, whether it is you or not you, I thank you.”

      “How, thank you? Ah! I dare say! thank you, indeed! You think the matter is going to rest like that, do you?”

      “I had counted upon it being so, certainly.”

      “Then you counted without your host.”

      “Now, you blackguard, leave go of me! you are drunk!”

      “Drunk! What do you mean? We only drank seven bottles between us, and the Bailiff had a good four to his share.”

      “Leave go of me, you drunkard, do you hear!”

      “Drunkard! you call me a drunkard, a drunkard for having drunk three bottles of wine!”

      “I don’t call you a drunkard because you drank three bottles of wine, but because you let yourself get tipsy over those three unfortunate bottles.”

      And, with a gesture of commiseration, and trying for the third time to release his cloak, the unknown continued:

      “Now then, are you going to let go my cloak or not, you idiot?”

      Thibault was at all times touchy as to the way people addressed him, but in his present state of mind his susceptibility amounted to extreme irritation.

      “By the devil!” he exclaimed, “let me tell you, my fine sir, that the only idiot here is the man who gives insults in return for the services of which he has made use, and seeing that is so, I do not know what prevents me planting my fist in the middle of your face.”

      This menace was scarcely out of his mouth, when, as instantly as a cannon goes off once the flame of the match has touched the powder, the blow with which Thibault had threatened his unknown adversary, came full against his own cheek.

      “Take that, you beast,” said the voice, which brought back to Thibault certain recollections in connection with the blow he received. “I am a good Jew, you see, and pay you back your money before weighing your coin.”

      Thibault’s answer was a blow in the chest; it was well directed, and Thibault felt inwardly pleased with it himself. But it had no more effect on his antagonist than the fillip from a child’s finger would have on an oak tree. It was returned by a second blow of the fist which so far exceeded the former in the force with which it was delivered, that Thibault felt certain if the giant’s strength went on increasing in the same ratio, that a third of the kind would level him with the ground.

      But the very violence of his blow brought disaster on Thibault’s unknown assailant. The latter had fallen on to one knee, and so doing, his hand, touching the ground, came in contact with a stone. Rising in fury to his feet again, with the stone in his hand, he flung it at his enemy’s head. The colossal figure uttered a sound like the bellowing of an ox, turned round on himself, and then, like an oak tree cut off by the roots, fell his whole length on the ground, and lay there insensible.

      Not knowing whether he had killed, or only wounded his adversary, Thibault took to his heels and fled, not even turning to look behind him.

      CHAPTER XII

       WOLVES IN THE SHEEP FOLD

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      The forest was not far from the Bailiff’s house, and in two bounds Thibault found himself on the further side of Les Fossés, and in the wooded path leading to the brickyard. He had no sooner entered the forest than his usual escort surrounded him, fawning and blinking with their eyes and wagging their tails to show their pleasure. Thibault, who had been so alarmed the first time he found himself in company with this strange body guard, took no more notice of them now than if they had been a pack of poodles. He gave them a word or two of caress, softly scratched the head of the one that was nearest him, and continued on his way, thinking over his double triumph.

      He had beaten his host at the bottle, he had vanquished his adversary at fisticuffs, and in this joyous frame of mind, he walked along, saying aloud to himself:

      “You must acknowledge, friend Thibault, that you are a lucky rascal! Madame Suzanne is in every possible respect just what you want! A Bailiff’s wife! my word! that’s a conquest worth making! and if he dies first, what a wife to get! But in either case, when she is walking beside me, and taking my arm, whether as wife or mistress, the devil take it, if I am mistaken for anything but a gentleman! And to think