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Updated: May 28, 2025
"Master Scaufflaire," he inquired, "have you a good horse?" "Mr. Mayor," said the Fleming, "all my horses are good. What do you mean by a good horse?" "I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day." "The deuce!" said the Fleming. "Twenty leagues!" "Yes." "Hitched to a cabriolet?" "Yes." "And how long can he rest at the end of his journey?"
Monsieur le Maire must consent to travel in a little tilbury that I own." "I consent to that." "It is light, but it has no cover." "That makes no difference to me." "Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter?" M. Madeleine did not reply. The Fleming resumed: "That it is very cold?" M. Madeleine preserved silence. Master Scaufflaire continued: "That it may rain?"
In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the little-frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the parish in which M. Madeleine resided. The cure was, it was said, a worthy, respectable, and sensible man.
"Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o'clock in the morning." "What is that to me?" "The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire." "What cabriolet?" "The tilbury." "What tilbury?" "Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury?" "No," said he. "The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire." "What coachman?" "M. Scaufflaire's coachman." "M. Scaufflaire?"
He laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it; then he paused again and stopped short, as though in thought, and after the lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste which had not been apparent previously. M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home, engaged in stitching a harness over.
M. Madeleine raised his head and said: "The tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door to-morrow morning at half-past four o'clock." "Of course, Monsieur le Maire," replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with their shrewdness:
That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had passed in front of his face. "Ah! yes," he resumed; "M. Scaufflaire!" If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been frightened. A tolerably long silence ensued.
He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air. "Monsieur Scaufflaire," said he, "at what sum do you estimate the value of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me, the one bearing the other?" "The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire," said the Fleming, with a broad smile. "So be it. Well?" "Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me?"
The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small race of the Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine legs, and solid hoofs a homely, but a robust and healthy race. The excellent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had not a drop of sweat on his loins.
Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed him attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He wrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil. From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out "horses and cabriolets as desired."
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