a lad they loved--how shall I say?--well, they loved him like an
only child, they were mad about him. How many times we have seen them at
fairs buying all sorts of things to please him; it was out of all reason
the way they indulged him, and so folks told them. The little Cambremer,
seeing that he was never thwarted, grew as vicious as a red ass. When
they told pere Cambremer, 'Your son has nearly killed little such
a one,' he would laugh and say: 'Bah! he'll be a bold sailor; he'll
command the king's fleets.'--Another time, 'Pierre Cambremer, did
you know your lad very nearly put out the eye of the little Pougard
girl?'--'Ha! he'll like the girls,' said Pierre. Nothing troubled him.
At ten years old the little cur fought everybody, and amused himself
with cutting the hens' necks off and ripping up the pigs; in fact,
you might say he wallowed in blood. 'He'll be a famous soldier,' said
Cambremer, 'he's got the taste of blood.' Now, you see," said the
fisherman, "I can look back and remember all that--and Cambremer, too,"
he added, after a pause. "By the time Jacques Cambremer was fifteen or
sixteen years of age he had come to be--what shall I say?--a shark. He
amused himself at Guerande, and was after the girls at Savenay. Then he
wanted money. He robbed his mother, who didn't dare say a word to his
father. Cambremer was an honest man who'd have tramped fifty miles to
return two sous that any one had overpaid him on a bill. At last, one
day the mother was robbed of everything. During one of his father's
fishing-trips Jacques carried off all she had, furniture, pots and pans,
sheets, linen, everything; he sold it to go to Nantes and carry on his
capers there. The poor mother wept day and night. This time it couldn't
be hidden from the father, and she feared him--not for herself, you may
be sure of that. When Pierre Cambremer came back and saw furniture in
his house which the neighbors had lent to his wife, he said,--

"'What is all this?'

"The poor woman, more dead than alive, replied:

"'We have been robbed.'

"'Where is Jacques?'

"'Jacques is off amusing himself.'

"No one knew where the scoundrel was.

"'He amuses himself too much,' said Pierre.

"Six months later the poor father heard that his son was about to be
arrested in Nantes. He walked there on foot, which is faster than by
sea, put his hands on his son, and compelled him to return home. Once
here, he did not ask him, 'What have you done?' but he sa