ouse, they broke the chain and dispersed,
while behind they were still coming in at the open gate. The ditches
were now lined with urchins and poor curious people, and the shots did
not cease, but came from every side at once, and mingled a cloud of
smoke, and that smell which has the same intoxicating effects as
absinthe, with the atmosphere.

The women were shaking their dresses outside the door, to get rid of
the dust, were undoing their cap strings and pulling their shawls over
their arms, and then they went into the house to lay them aside
altogether for the time. The table was laid in the great kitchen, that
would hold a hundred persons; they sat down to dinner at two o'clock and
at eight o'clock they were still eating, and the men, in their shirt
sleeves, with their waistcoats unbuttoned, and with red faces, were
swallowing the food and drink down, as if they had been whirlpools. The
cider sparkled merrily, clear and golden in the large glasses, by the
side of the dark, blood-colored wine, and between every dish they made
the hole, the Normandy hole, with a glass of brandy which inflamed the
body, and put foolish notions into the head.

From time to time, one of the guests, being as full as a barrel, would
go out for a few moments to get a mouthful of fresh air, as they said,
and then return with redoubled appetite. The farmers' wives, with
scarlet faces and their stays nearly bursting, did not like to follow
their example, until one of them, feeling more uncomfortable than the
others, went out, when all the rest followed her example, and they came
back quite ready for any fun, and the rough jokes began afresh.
Broad-sides of obscenities were exchanged across the table, and all
about the wedding-night, until the whole arsenal of peasant wit was
exhausted. For the last hundred years, the same broad jokes had served
for similar occasions, and although every one knew them, they still hit
the mark, and made both rows of guests roar with laughter.

At the bottom of the table four young fellows, who were neighbors, were
preparing some practical jokes for the newly married couple, and they
seemed to have got hold of a good one, by the way they whispered and
laughed, and suddenly, one of them profiting by a moment of silence,
exclaimed: "The poachers will have a good time to-night, with this
moon!... I say, Jean, you will not be looking at the moon, will you?"
The bridegroom turned to him quickly and replied: "Only let