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

the vile rascal!” roared the Bailiff, taking hold of the Baron’s sword which the latter had laid on a chair, and drawing it out of the scabbard, then, running toward the window which his wife had indicated, “He had better not be behind these curtains, or I will spit him like a woodcock,” and with this he gave one or two lunges with the sword against the window hangings.

      But all at once the Bailiff stayed his hand, and stood as if arrested like a school-boy caught trespassing out of bounds; his hair rose on end beneath his cotton night-cap, and this conjugal head-dress became agitated as by some convulsive movement. The sword dropped from his trembling hand, and fell with a clatter on the floor. He had caught sight of Thibault behind the curtains, and as Hamlet kills Polonius, thinking to slay his father’s murderer, so he, believing that he was thrusting at nothing, had nearly killed his crony of the night before, who had already had time enough to prove himself a false friend. Moreover as he had lifted the curtain with the point of the sword, the Bailiff was not the only one who had seen Thibault. His wife and the Lord of Vez had both been participators in the unexpected vision, and both uttered a cry of surprise. In telling their tale so well, they had had no idea that they were so near the truth. The Baron, too, had not only seen that there was a man, but had also recognised that the man was Thibault.

      “Damn me!” he exclaimed, as he went nearer to him, “if I mistake not, this is my old acquaintance, the man with the boar-spear!”

      “How! how! man with the boar-spear?” asked the Bailiff, his teeth chattering as he spoke. “Anyway I trust he has not his boar-spear with him now!” And he ran behind his wife for protection.

      “No, no, do not be alarmed,” said the Lord of Vez, “even if he has got it with him, I promise you it shall not stay long in his hands. So, master poacher,” he went on, addressing himself to Thibault, “you are not content to hunt the game belonging to his Highness the Duke of Orleans, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets, but you must come and make excursions in the open and poach on the territory of my friend Maître Magloire?”

      “A poacher! do you say?” exclaimed the Bailiff. “Is not Monsieur Thibault a landowner, the proprietor of farms, living in his country house on the income from his estate of a hundred acres?”

      “What, he?” said the Baron, bursting into a loud guffaw, “so he made you believe all that stuff, did he? the rascal has got a clever tongue. He! a landowner! that poor starveling! why, the only property he possesses is what my stable-boys wear on their feet—the wooden shoes he gets his living by making.”

      Madame Suzanne, on hearing Thibault thus classified, made a gesture of scorn and contempt, while Maître Magloire drew back a step, while the colour mounted to his face. Not that the good little man was proud, but he hated all kinds of deceit; it was not because he had clinked glasses with a shoe-maker that he turned red, but because he had drunk in company with a liar and a traitor.

      During this avalanche of abuse Thibault had stood immovable with his arms folded and a smile on his lips. He had no fear but that when his turn came to speak, he would be able to take an easy revenge. And the moment to speak seemed now to have come. In a light, bantering tone of voice—which showed that he was gradually accustoming himself to conversing with people of a superior rank to his own—he then exclaimed; “By the Devil and his horns! as you yourself remarked a little while ago, you can tell tales of other people, my lord, without much compunction, and I fancy if everyone followed your example, I should not be at such a loss what to say, as I choose to appear!”

      The lord of Vez, perfectly aware, as was the bailiff’s wife, of the menace conveyed in these words, answered by looking Thibault up and down with eyes that were starting with anger.

      “Oh!” said Madame Magloire, somewhat imprudently, “you will see, he is going to invent some scandalous tale about me.”

      “Have no fear, Madame,” replied Thibault, who had quite recovered his self-possession, “you have left me nothing to invent on that score.”

      “Oh! the vile wretch!” she cried, “you see, I was right; he has got some malicious slander to report about me; he is determined to revenge himself because I would not return his sheep’s-eyes, to punish me because I was not willing to warn my husband that he was paying court to me.” During this speech of Madame Suzanne’s the lord of Vez had picked up his sword and advanced threateningly towards Thibault. But the Bailiff threw himself between them, and held back the Baron’s arm. It was fortunate for Thibault that he did so, for the latter did not move an inch to avoid the blow, evidently prepared at the last moment to utter some terrible wish which would avert the danger from him; but the Bailiff interposing, Thibault had no need to resort to this means of help.

      “Gently, my lord!” said the Maître Magloire, “this man is not worthy our anger. I am but a plain citizen myself, but you see, I have only contempt for what he says, and I readily forgive him the way in which he has endeavoured to abuse my hospitality.”

      Madame Magloire now thought that her moment had come for moistening the situation of affairs with her tears, and burst into loud sobs.

      “Do not weep, dear wife!” said the Bailiff, with his usual kind and simple good-nature. “Of what could this man accuse you, even suppose he had something to bring against you! Of having deceived me? Well, I can only say, that made as I am, I feel I still have favours to grant you and thanks to render you, for all the happy days which I owe to you. Do not fear for a moment that this apprehension of an imaginary evil will alter my behaviour towards you. I shall always be kind and indulgent to you, Suzanne, and as I shall never shut my heart against you, so will I never shut my door against my friends. When one is small and of little account it is best to submit quietly and to trust; one need have no fear then but of cowards and evil-doers, and I am convinced, I am happy to say, that they are not so plentiful as they are thought to be. And, after all, by my faith! if the bird of misfortune should fly in, by the door or by the window, by Saint Gregory, the patron of drinkers, there shall be such a noise of singing, such a clinking of glasses, that he will soon be obliged to fly out again by the way he came in!”

      Before he had ended, Madame Suzanne had thrown herself at his feet, and was kissing his hands. His speech, with its mingling of sadness and philosophy, had made more impression upon her than would have a sermon from the most eloquent of preachers. Even the lord of Vez did not remain unmoved; a tear gathered in the corner of his eye, and he lifted his finger to wipe it away, before holding out his hand to the Bailiff, saying as he did so:

      “By the horn of Beelzebub! my dear friend, you have an upright mind and a kind heart, and it would be a sin indeed to bring trouble upon you; and if I have ever had a thought of doing you wrong, may God forgive me for it! I can safely swear, whatever happens, that I shall never have such another again.”

      While this reconciliation was taking place between the three secondary actors in this tale, the situation of the fourth, that is of the principal character in it, was becoming more and more embarrassing.

      Thibault’s heart was swelling with rage and hatred; himself unaware of the rapid growth of evil within him, he was fast growing, from a selfish and covetous man, into a wicked one. Suddenly, his eyes flashing, he cried aloud: “I do not know what holds me back from putting a terrible end to all this!”

      On hearing this exclamation, which had all the character of a menace in it, the Baron and Suzanne understood it to mean that some great and unknown and unexpected danger was hanging over everybody’s heads. But the Baron was not easily intimidated, and he drew his sword for the second time and made a movement towards Thibault. Again the Bailiff interposed.

      “My lord Baron! my lord Baron!” said Thibault in a low voice, “this is the second time that you have, in wish at least, passed your sword through my body; twice therefore you have been a murderer in thought! Take care! one can sin in other ways besides sinning in deed.”

      “Thousand devils!” cried the Baron, beside himself with anger, “the rascal is actually reading me a moral lesson! My friend, you were wanting a little while ago to spit him like a woodcock, allow me to give him one light touch, such as the matador gives the bull, and I will answer for it, that he won’t get up again in a