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With that, he was off across the marshy commons, leaving the squirrel in my hand. Forgetting lessons, I ran to M. Picot's house. That governess answered the knocker. "From Jack Battle to Mistress Hortense!" And I proffered the squirrel. Though she smirked a world of thanks, she would not take it. Then Hortense came dancing down the hall.
"The largest is for the gate," says she with the panic of conscience running from fire. "The brass one unlocks the great door, and and the M. Picot's cell unbolts," she stammered. "May I examine them, Rebecca?" "I will even draw you a pint of cider," says Rebecca evasively, with great trepidation, "but come back soon," she called, tripping off to the wine-cellar door.
For the same flotilla that brought Hortense brought all M. Picot's hoard of furs. Coming down the river, lying languidly back among the peltries of the loaded canoe, Hortense, I mind, turned to me with that honest look of hers and asked why Sieur Radisson sent to fetch her in such royal state. "I am but a poor beggar like your little Jack Battle," she protested.
As for this client of yours, it is lucky for her Monsieur Picot's relatives are not members of the French academy; it is in the correctional police-court, sixth chamber, where they mean to give her the reward of virtue. However, to come back to what we were talking about.
"The crops have been blighted," says Rebecca; though what connection that had with M. Picot's mole, I could not see. "Deliverance Dobbins oft hath racking pains," says Rebecca, with that air of injury which became her demure dimples so well. "Drat that Deliverance Dobbins for a low-bred mongrel mischief-maker!" cries old Tibbie from the pantry door.
She liked him because he was always good-tempered and unaffected, and she could not imagine Etouvent without the Abbé Picot's fat figure trotting past the farms. He himself did not seem very rejoiced at his advancement. "I have been here eighteen years, Madame la Comtesse," he said, "and it grieves me to go to another place.
Our weapons rang with a glint of green lightnings. A piece of steel flew up. My rapier had snapped short at the hilt. A cold point was at my throat pressing me down and back as the foil had caught me that night in M. Picot's house. To right, to left, I swerved, the last blind rushes of the fugitive man. . . . "Storm and cold man and beast powers of darkness and devil he must fight them all "
My thoughts were as the snatched sleep of a sick man's dreams. Again the hideous nightmare of the old martyr at the shambles; but now the shambles were in the New World and the martyr was M. Picot. Something cold touched my hand through the dark, and there crouched M. Picot's hound, whining for its master. Automatically I followed across the commons to the court-house square.
He came out into the arbor, where he ordered a cup of coffee to be served him, and as he had heard the concluding words of Picot's narrative, proceeded to take a hand in the conversation: "Bah! my children, those things that you are speaking of don't amount to anything. It is only the beginning of the dance; you will see the fun commence in earnest presently.
Mistress Hortense Hillary was down on the beach with M. Picot's blackamoor, who dogged her heels wherever she went; and presently comes Rebecca Stocking to shovel sand too. Then Ben must show what a big fellow he is by kicking over the little maid's cart-load. "Stop that!" commands Jack Battle, springing of a sudden from the beach. For an instant, Ben was taken aback.
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