The visitor stood for a moment without answering. Then he said:
"No, nothing."
"Why, of course not!" cried the farmer, throwing up his arms. "How should you know! It's all hanky-panky. Shall I tell you what I think? Well, that old Trainard has been so jolly clever that he's lying dead in his hole ... and the bank-notes are rotting with him. Do you hear? You can take my word for it."
The gentleman said, very calmly:
"There's only one thing that interests me. The tramp, all said and done, was free at night and able to feed on what he could pick up. But how about drinking?"
"Out of the question!" shouted the farmer. "Quite out of the question! There's no water except this; and we have kept watch beside it every night."
"It's a spring. Where does it rise?"
"Here, where we stand."
"Is there enough pressure to bring it into the pool of itself?"
"Yes."
"And where does the water go when it runs out of the pool?"
"Into this pipe here, which goes under ground and carries it to the house, for use in the kitchen. So there's no way of drinking, seeing that we were there and that the spring is twenty yards from the house."
"Hasn't it rained during the last four weeks?"
"Not once: I've told you that already."
The stranger went to the spring and examined it. The trough was formed of a few boards of wood joined together just above the ground; and the water ran through it, slow and clear.
"The water's not more than a foot deep, is it?" he asked.
In order to measure it, he picked up from the grass a straw which he dipped into the pool. But, as he was stooping, he suddenly broke off and looked around him.
"Oh, how funny!" he said, bursting into a peal of laughter.
"Why, what's the matter?" spluttered old Goussot, rushing toward the pool, as though a man could have lain hidden between those narrow boards.
And Mother Goussot clasped her hands.
"What is it? Have you seen him? Where is he?"
"Neither in it nor under it," replied the stranger, who was still laughing.
He made for the house, eagerly followed by the farmer, the old woman and the four sons. The inn-keeper was there also, as were the people from the inn who had been watching the stranger's movements. And there was a dead silence, while they waited for the extraordinary disclosure.
"It's as I thought," he said, with an amused expression. "The old chap had to quench his thirst somewhere; and, as there was only the spring...."
"Oh, but look here," growled Farmer Goussot, "we should have seen him!"
"It was at night."
"We should have heard him ... and seen him too, as we were close by."
"So was he."
"And he drank the water from the pool?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"From a little way off."
"With what?"
"With this."
And the stranger showed the straw which he had picked up:
"There, here's the straw for the customer's long drink. You will see, there's more of it than usual: in fact, it is made of three straws stuck into one another. That was the first thing I noticed: those three straws fastened together. The proof is conclusive."
"But, hang it all, the proof of what?" cried Farmer Goussot, irritably.
The stranger took a shotgun from the rack.
"Is it loaded?" he asked.
"Yes," said the youngest of the brothers. "I use it to kill the sparrows with, for fun. It's small shot."
"Capital! A peppering where it won't hurt him will do the trick."
His face suddenly assumed a masterful look. He gripped the farmer by the arm and rapped out, in an imperious tone:
"Listen to me, Farmer Goussot. I'm not here to do policeman's work; and I won't have the poor beggar locked up at any price. Four weeks of starvation and fright is good enough for anybody. So you've got to swear to me, you and your sons, that you'll let him off without hurting him."
"He must hand over the money!"
"Well, of course. Do you swear?"
"I swear."
The gentleman walked back to the door-sill, at the entrance to the orchard. He took a quick aim, pointing his gun a little in the air, in the direction of the cherry tree which overhung the spring. He fired. A hoarse cry rang from the tree; and the scarecrow which had been straddling the main branch for a month past came tumbling to the ground, only to jump up at once and make off as fast as its legs could carry it.
There was a moment's amazement, followed by outcries. The sons darted in pursuit and were not long in coming up with the runaway, hampered as he was by his rags and weakened by privation. But the stranger was already protecting him against their wrath:
"Hands off there! This man belongs to me. I won't have him touched.... I hope I haven't stung you up too much, Trainard?"
Standing on his straw legs wrapped round with strips of tattered cloth, with his arms and his whole body clad in the same materials, his head swathed in linen, tightly packed like a sausage, the old chap still had the stiff appearance of a lay-figure. And the whole effect was so ludicrous and so unexpected that the onlookers screamed with laughter.
The stranger unbound his head; and they saw a veiled mask of tangled grey beard encroaching on every side upon a skeleton face lit up by two eyes burning with fever.
The laughter was louder than ever.
"The money! The six notes!" roared the farmer.
The stranger kept him at a distance:
"One moment ... we'll give you that back, sha'n't we, Trainard?"
And, taking his knife and cutting away the straw and cloth, he jested, cheerily:
"You poor old beggar, what a guy you look! But how on earth did you manage to pull off that trick? You must be confoundedly clever, or else you had the devil's own luck.... So, on the first night, you used the breathing-time they left you to rig yourself in these togs! Not a bad idea. Who could ever suspect a scarecrow?... They were so accustomed to seeing it stuck up in its tree! But, poor old daddy, how uncomfortable you must have felt, lying flat up there on your stomach, with your arms and legs dangling down! All day long, like that! The deuce of an attitude! And how you must have been put to it, when you ventured to move a limb, eh? And how you must have funked going to sleep!... And then you had to eat! And drink! And you heard the sentry and felt the barrel of his gun within a yard of your nose! Brrrr!... But the trickiest of all, you know, was your bit of straw!... Upon my word, when I think that, without a sound, without a movement so to speak, you had to fish out lengths of straw from your toggery, fix them end to end, let your apparatus down to the water and suck up the heavenly moisture drop by drop.... Upon my word, one could scream with admiration.... Well done, Trainard...." And he added, between his teeth, "Only you're in a very unappetizing state, my man. Haven't you washed yourself all this month, you old pig? After all, you had as much water as you wanted!... Here, you people, I hand him over to you. I'm going to wash my hands, that's what I'm going to do."
Farmer Goussot and his four sons grabbed at the prey which he was abandoning to them:
"Now then, come along, fork out the money."
Dazed as he was, the tramp still managed to simulate astonishment.