Then, employed by Picot’s father, he had become a shepherd at the farm. He was an excellent shepherd, zealous and honest, and he could set dislocated limbs, though he had not been taught anything of the kind.
When Picot came into the farm in his time, Gargan was thirty years old and looked forty. He was tall, thin, and bearded, bearded like a patriarch.
Then, just about this time, Martel, an honest country woman, died, leaving a young girl of fifteen, who had been nicknamed “A Wee Drop,” because of her immoderate liking for brandy.
Picot took in this ragged young wretch and employed her in light tasks, feeding her without paying her wages, in return for her work. She slept in the barn, in the cattle-shed or in the stable, on straw or dung, any place, no matter where, for no one bothers to find a bed for these ragamuffins. She slept anywhere, with anyone, perhaps with the carter or the labourer. But it soon came about that she attached herself to the deaf-mute and formed a more lasting union with him. How did these two poor wretches come together? How did they understand each other? Had he ever known a woman before this barn rat, he who had never talked to a soul? Was it she who sought him out in his rolling hut and seduced him at the edge of the road, a hedge-side Eve? No one knows. It only became known, one day, that they were living together as man and wife.
No one was surprised. And Picot even found this union quite natural.
But now the parish priest learned of this union without benefit of clergy, and was angry. He reproached Madame Picot, made her conscience uneasy, menaced her with mysterious penalties. What was to be done? It was quite simple. They were taken to the church and the town hall to be married. Neither of them had a penny to his name; he not a whole pair of trousers, she not a petticoat that was all of a piece. So nothing hindered the demands of State and Church from being satisfied. They were joined together, before mayor and priest, within one hour, and everything seemed arranged for the best.
But would you believe that, very soon, it became a joke in the countryside (forgive the scandalous word) to cuckold poor Gargan? Before the marriage, no one thought of lying with the Wee Drop; and now, everyone wanted his turn just for fun. For a brandy she received all comers, behind her husband’s back. The exploit was even so much talked of in the district round that gentlemen came from Goderville to see it.
Primed with a pint, the Wee Drop treated them to the spectacle with anyone, in a ditch, behind a wall, while at the same time the motionless figure of Gargan was in full view a hundred paces away, knitting a stocking and followed by his bleating flock. People laughed fit to kill themselves in all the inns in the countryside; in the evening, round the fire, nothing else was talked about; people hailed each other on the roads, asking: “Have you given your drop to the Wee Drop?” Everyone knew what that meant.
The shepherd seemed to see nothing. But then one day young Poirot from Sasseville beckoned Gargan’s wife to come behind a haystack, letting her see a full bottle. She understood and ran to him, laughing; then, hardly were they well on the way with their evil work when the herdsman tumbled on them as if he had fallen from a cloud. Poirot fled, hopping on one leg, his trousers about his heels, while the mute, growling like a beast, seized his wife’s throat.
People working on the common came running up. It was too late; her tongue was black and her eyes starting out of her head; blood was running out of her nose. She was dead.
The shepherd was tried by the court at Rouen. As he was dumb, Picot served him as interpreter. The details of the affair were very amusing to the audience. But the farmer had only one idea, which was to get his herdsman acquitted, and he went about it very craftily.
He told them first the whole history of the deaf-mute and of his marriage; then, when he came to the crime, he himself cross-examined the murderer. The whole court was silent.
Picot said slowly:
“Did you know that she was deceiving you?”
And at the same time, he conveyed his question with his eyes.
The other made a sign, “no,” with his head.
“She was lying in the haystack when you found her?”
And he gesticulated like a man who sees a revolting sight.
The other made a sign, “yes,” with his head.
Then the farmer, imitating the gestures of the mayor performing the civil ceremony and of the priest uniting them in the name of God, asked his servant if he had killed his wife because she was joined to him before man and God.
The shepherd made a sign, “yes,” with his head.
Picot said to him:
“Now, show us how it happened.”
Then the deaf-mute himself acted the whole scene. He showed how he was sleeping in the haystack, how he had been awakened by feeling the movement of the straw, how he had looked round carefully, and had seen the thing.
He was standing stiffly between two policemen, and all at once he imitated the obscene actions of the criminal pair clasped together in front of him.
A great shout of laughter went up in the court, then stopped dead; for the shepherd, his eyes wild, working his jaws and his great beard as if he had been gnawing something, his arms stretched out, his head thrust forward, repeated the ghastly gesture of a murderer who is strangling a person.
And he howled horribly, so maddened with rage that he imagined
