which Pierre struck him a blow which sent Jacques to his bed for six
weeks. The poor mother nearly died of grief. One night, as she was
fast asleep beside her husband, a noise awoke her; she rose up
quickly, and was stabbed in the arm with a knife. She cried out loud,
and when Pierre Cambremer struck a light and saw his wife wounded, he
thought it was the doing of robbers,--as if we ever had any in these
parts, where you might carry ten thousand francs in gold from Croisic
to Saint-Nazaire without ever being asked what you had in your arms.
Pierre looked for his son, but he could not find him. In the morning,
if that monster didn't have the face to come home, saying he had
stayed at Batz all night! I should tell you that the mother had not
known where to hide her money. Cambremer put his with Monsieur Dupotel
at Croisic. Their son's follies had by this time cost them so much
that they were half-ruined, and that was hard for folks who once had
twelve thousand francs, and who owned their island. No one ever knew
what Cambremer paid at Nantes to get his son away from there. Bad luck
seemed to follow the family. Troubles fell upon Cambremer's brother,
he needed help. Pierre said, to console him, that Jacques and Perotte
(the brother's daughter) could be married. Then, to help Joseph
Cambremer to earn his bread, Pierre took him with him a-fishing; for
the poor man was now obliged to live by his daily labor. His wife was
dead of the fever, and money was owing for Perotte's nursing. The wife
of Pierre Cambremer owed about one hundred francs to divers persons
for the little girl,--linen, clothes, and what not,--and it so chanced
that she had sewed a bit of Spanish gold into her mattress for a
nest-egg toward paying off that money. It was wrapped in paper, and on
the paper was written by her: 'For Perotte.' Jacquette Brouin had had
a fine education; she could write like a clerk, and had taught her son
to write too. I can't tell you how it was that the villain scented the
gold, stole it, and went off to Croisic to enjoy himself. Pierre