Читать книгу The Wolf-Leader - Александр Дюма, Dumas Alexandre - Страница 7

“And what is it you do, Mocquet, when you want to catch this animal of yours?” asked my father.

“I set a trarp, General.” Mocquet always called a trap a trarp.

“Do you mean to tell me you have set a trap to catch Mother Durand?”

My father had of course said trap; but Mocquet did not like anyone to pronounce words differently from himself, so he went on:

“Just so, General; I have set a trarp for Mother Durand.”

“And where have you put your trarp? Outside your door?”

My father, you see, was willing to make concessions.

“Outside my door! Much good that would be! I only know she gets into my room, but I cannot even guess which way she comes.”

“Down the chimney, perhaps?”

“There is no chimney, and besides, I never see her until I feel her.”

“And you do see her, then?”

“As plainly I see you, General.”

“And what does she do?”

“Nothing agreeable, you may be sure; she tramples all over my chest: thud, thud! thump, thump!”

“Well, where have you set your trap, then?”

“The trarp, why, I put it on my own stomach.”

“And what kind of a trarp did you use?”

“Oh! a first-rate trarp!”

“What was it?”

“The one I made to catch the grey wolf with, that used to kill M. Destournelles’ sheep.”

“Not such a first-rate one, then, for the grey wolf ate up your bait, and then bolted.”

“You know why he was not caught, General.”

“No, I do not.”

“Because it was the black wolf that belonged to old Thibault, the sabot-maker.”

“It could not have been Thibault’s black wolf, for you said yourself just this moment that the wolf that used to come and kill M. Destournelles’ sheep was a grey one.”

“He is grey now, General; but thirty years ago, when Thibault the sabot-maker was alive, he was black; and, to assure you of the truth of this, look at my hair, which was black as a raven’s thirty years ago, and now is as grey as the Doctor’s.”

The Doctor was a cat, an animal of some fame, that you will find mentioned in my Mémoires and known as the Doctor on account of the magnificent fur which nature had given it for a coat.

“Yes,” replied my father, “I know your tale about Thibault, the sabot-maker; but, if the black wolf is the devil, Mocquet, as you say he is, he would not change colour.”

“Not at all, General; only it takes him a hundred years to become quite white, and the last midnight of every hundred years, he turns black as a coal again.”

“I give up the case, then, Mocquet: all I ask is, that you will not tell my son this fine tale of yours, until he is fifteen at least.”

“And why, General?”

“Because it is no use stuffing his mind with nonsense of that kind, until he is old enough to laugh at wolves, whether they are white, grey or black.”

“It shall be as you say, General; he shall hear nothing of this matter.”

“Go on, then.”

“Where had we got to, General?”

“We had got to your trarp, which you had put on your stomach, and you were saying that it was a first-rate trarp.”

“By my faith, General, that was a first-rate trarp!” It weighed a good ten pounds. What am I saying! fifteen pounds at least with its chain!

I put the chain over my wrist.

“And what happened that night?”

“That night? why, it was worse than ever! Generally, it was in her leather overshoes she came and kneaded my chest, but that night she came in her wooden sabots.”

“And she comes like this…?”

“Every blessed one of God’s nights, and it is making me quite thin; you can see for yourself, General, I am growing as thin as a lath. However, this morning I made up my mind.”

“And what did you decide upon, Mocquet?”

“Well, then, I made up my mind I would let fly at her with my gun.”

“That was a wise decision to come to. And when do you think of carrying it out?”

“This evening, or to-morrow at latest, General.”

“Confound it! And just as I was wanting to send you over to Villers-Hellon.”

“That won’t matter, General. Was it something that you wanted done at once?”

“Yes, at once.”

“Very well, then, I can go over to Villers-Hellon, – it’s not above a few miles, if I go through the wood – and get back here this evening; the journey both ways is only twenty-four miles, and we have covered a few more than that before now out shooting, General.”

“That’s settled, then; I will write a letter for you to give to M. Collard, and then you can start.”

“I will start, General, without a moment’s delay.”

My father rose, and wrote to M. Collard; the letter was as follows:

“My dear Collard,

“I am sending you that idiot of a keeper of mine, whom you know; he has taken into his head that an old woman nightmares him every night, and, to rid himself of this vampire, he intends nothing more nor less than to kill her.

“Justice, however, might not look favourably on this method of his for curing himself of indigestion, and so I am going to start him off to you on a pretext of some kind or other. Will you, also, on some pretext or other, send him on, as soon as he gets to you, to Danré, at Vouty, who will send him on to Dulauloy, who, with or without pretext, may then, as far as I care, send him on to the devil?

“In short, he must be kept going for a fortnight at least. By that time we shall have moved out of here and shall be at Antilly, and as he will then no longer be in the district of Haramont, and as his nightmare will probably have left him on the way, Mother Durand will be able to sleep in peace, which I should certainly not advise her to do if Mocquet were remaining anywhere in her neighbourhood.

“He is bringing you six brace of snipe and a hare, which we shot while out yesterday on the marshes of Vallue.

“A thousand-and-one of my tenderest remembrances to the fair Herminie, and as many kisses to the dear little Caroline.

“Your friend,

“Alex. Dumas.”

An hour later Mocquet was on his way, and, at the end of three weeks, he rejoined us at Antilly.

“Well,” asked my father, seeing him reappear in robust health, “well, and how about Mother Durand?”

“Well, General,” replied Mocquet cheerfully, “I’ve got rid of the old mole; it seems she has no power except in her own district.”