The Wolf-Leader

and slush. “Devil take you, you beast!” cried the shoemaker, bruised by his fall, but even more furious at seeing his new clothes covered with mud. The wish was hardly out of his mouth, when the pig was suddenly taken with a fit of frenzy, and began rushing about the farmyard like a mad animal, breaking, shattering, and turning over everything that came in its way. The farm hands, who had run to their mistress on hearing her cries, thought the pig’s behaviour was the cause of them⁠—and started off in pursuit of the animal. But it eluded all their attempts to seize hold of it, knocking over boys and girls, as it had knocked Thibault over, until, at last, coming to where the mill was separated from the sluice by a wooden partition, it crashed through the latter as easily as if it were made of paper, threw itself under the mill wheel⁠ ⁠… and disappeared as if sucked down by a whirlpool. The mistress of the mill had by this time recovered her speech. “Lay hold of Thibault!” she cried, for she had heard Thibault’s curse, and had been amazed and horrified at the instantaneous way in which it had worked. “Lay hold of him! knock him down! he is a wizard, a sorcerer! a werewolf!”⁠—applying to Thibault with this last word, one of the most terrible epithets that can be given to a man in our forest lands. Thibault, who scarcely knew where he was, seeing the momentary stupefaction which took possession of the farm people on hearing their mistress’s final invective, made use of the opportunity to dash past them, and while one went to get a pitchfork and another a spade, he darted through the farmyard gate, and began running up an almost perpendicular hillside at full speed, with an ease which only confirmed Madame Polet’s suspicions, for the hill had always hitherto been looked upon as absolutely inaccessible, at any rate by the way Thibault had chosen to climb it.

“What!” she cried, “what! you give in like that! you should make after him, and seize hold of him, and knock him down!” But the farm servants shook their heads.

“Ah! Madame!” they said, “what is the use, what can we do against a werewolf?”

IX

The Wolf-Leader

Thibault, fleeing from before Madame Polet’s threats and her farm servants’ weapons, turned instinctively towards the forest, thinking to take shelter within it, should he chance to come across one of the enemy, for he knew that no one would venture to follow him there, for fear of any lurking dangers. Not that Thibault had much to fear, whatever kind of enemy he met, now that he was armed with the diabolical power which he had received from the wolf. He had only to send them where he had sent the widow’s pig, and he was sure of being rid of them. Nevertheless, conscious of a certain tightening of the heart when from time to time the thought of Marcotte came back to him, he acknowledged to himself that, however anxious to be rid of them, one could not send men to the devil quite as readily as one sent pigs.

While thus reflecting on the terrible power he possessed, and looking back at intervals to see if there were any immediate need to put it into use, Thibault, by the time night fell, had reached the rear of Pisseleu. It was an autumn night, dark and stormy, with a wind that tore the yellowing leaves from the trees, and wandered through the forest ways with melancholy sighs and moanings. These funereal voices of the wind were interrupted from time to time by the hooting of the owls, which sounded like the cries of lost travellers, hailing one another. But all these sounds were familiar to Thibault and made very little impression upon him. Moreover he had taken the precaution, on first entering the forest, of cutting a stick, four feet long, from a chestnut tree, and adept as he was with the quarterstaff, he was ready, armed thus, to withstand the attack of any four men. So he entered the forest with all boldness of heart, at the spot which is known to this day as the Wolf’s Heath. He had been walking for some minutes along a dark and narrow glade, cursing as he went the foolish whims of women, who, for no reason whatever, preferred a weak and timid child to a brave, strong, full grown man, when all of a sudden, at some few paces behind him, he heard a crackling among the leaves. He turned and the first thing he could distinguish in the darkness was the glowing light in a pair of eyes which shone like live coals. Then, looking more closely, and forcing his eyes, so to speak, to penetrate the gloom, he saw that a great wolf was following him, step by step. But it was not the wolf that he had entertained in his hut; that was black, while this was a reddish-brown. There was no mistaking one for the other, either as to colour or size. As Thibault had no reason to suppose that all the wolves he came across would be animated with such benevolent feelings towards him as the first with which he had had dealings, he grasped his quarterstaff in both hands, and began twirling it about to make sure he had not forgotten the knack of using it. But to his great surprise the wolf went on trotting quietly behind him, without evincing any hostile intention, pausing when he paused, and going on again when he did, only now and then giving a howl as if to summon reinforcements. Thibault was not altogether without uneasiness as regards these occasional howls, and presently he became aware of two other bright spots of light in front of him, shining at intervals through the darkness which was growing thicker and thicker. Holding his stick up