Now Bertha was at the window, and, as the sailor spoke, he looked into her face.  She quickly put her arm round his neck in the German fashion, kissed him gratefully, and said, “You good, good man!”

He kissed her in turn, and looked eagerly at her,—­but she didn’t recognize him, though he kissed her in precisely the manner of six years ago.

He sat down again, and again smoked,—­and as, in the most heroic poem, people eat and drink, and as Anne Boleyn would have thought it hard to starve while her trial was going on, surely, as this is only the chronicle of people such as you may meet any day, and not at all heroic, it may not be wrong to state, that plain-spoken, every-day, love-making little Doome got supper ready.

Bertha had saved a prisoner, Daniel had assisted, and little Doome rather liked Daniel, yet nobody ate much; and when Daniel (at the suggestion of Doome) was furnished with a mattress and blanket on the floor, he did not make use of it, but sat smoking,—­smoking for hours after the two women had gone off to Bertha’s room.

But when the tobacco-pouch was empty, and the pipe was cold, the sailor fell asleep in his chair; and though he had done a good act the preceding day, he did not sleep well, but sighed heavily as he slumbered on.

And now it was that Jodoque, the Discomfited, again came upon the stage.  Having been laughed at by every soul in the village, that poor bachelor went to his lonely house, took a small mug of consolatory weak beer, felt convinced that all women were deceivers, vowed that from that time forth he would think no more of matrimony, and went to bed in the dark,—­prompted thereto by the power of economy in candles.  He had fallen asleep, and slept soundly, when thrift prompted him to remember that one piece of cloth, several balls of wool, and one white rabbit,—­his property,—­were at that moment at the deceiver Bertha’s.  Why should he, the deceived, make the married pair happy, with one piece of cloth, several balls of wool, and a white rabbit?  And Jodoque woke up to the terrible truth in a cold sweat.  The articles in question were at the deceiver Bertha’s.  At the first break of day he would go and demand his property.  Being unable to sleep through the remainder of the dark hours, he presented but a disreputable appearance when he clapped to the little door of his house.

It was barely light, and it was not an overpowering distance for Jodoque to walk from his house to Bertha’s.  He knew the household would not be up, but he determined to sit down before it,—­besiege it, in fact,—­and carry off the cloth, the wool, and the white rabbit, when the enemy should first be moving.

And this is what he saw, as he came up to the cottage:—­A young officer in the French uniform was getting in at Bertha’s kitchen-window.  Jodoque seized the idea, as though it were the white rabbit,—­this was the French officer who had escaped yesterday, endeavoring to hide himself in Bertha’s house.