The man, knowing that the mayor would not brook opposition, set forth again with hesitating steps, casting a timid side glance at the corpse.

Distant voices were heard under the trees, a confused sound, the noise of an approaching crowd, for Mederic had, in the course of his rounds, carried the news from door to door.  The people of the neighborhood, dazed at first, had gossiped about it in the street, from one threshold to another.  Then they gathered together.  They talked over, discussed and commented on the event for some minutes and had now come to see for themselves.

They arrived in groups, a little faltering and uneasy through fear of the first impression of such a scene on their minds.  When they saw the body they stopped, not daring to advance, and speaking low.  Then they grew bolder, went on a few steps, stopped again, advanced once more, and presently formed around the dead girl, her mother, the doctor and Renardet a close circle, restless and noisy, which crowded forward at the sudden impact of newcomers.  And now they touched the corpse.  Some of them even bent down to feel it with their fingers.  The doctor kept them back.  But the mayor, waking abruptly out of his torpor, flew into a rage, and seizing Dr. Labarbe’s stick, flung himself on his townspeople, stammering: 

“Clear out—­clear out—­you pack of brutes—­clear out!”

And in a second the crowd of sightseers had fallen back two hundred paces.

Mother La Roque had risen to a sitting posture and now remained weeping, with her hands clasped over her face.

The crowd was discussing the affair, and young lads’ eager eyes curiously scrutinized this nude young form.  Renardet perceived this, and, abruptly taking off his coat, he flung it over the little girl, who was entirely hidden from view beneath the large garment.

The secretary drew near quietly.  The wood was filled with people, and a continuous hum of voices rose up under the tangled foliage of the tall trees.

The mayor, in his shirt sleeves, remained standing, with his stick in his hands, in a fighting attitude.  He seemed exasperated by this curiosity on the part of the people and kept repeating: 

“If one of you come nearer I’ll break his head just as I would a dog’s.”

The peasants were greatly afraid of him.  They held back.  Dr. Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside La Roque and spoke to her in order to distract her attention.  The old woman at once removed her hands from her face and replied with a flood of tearful words, emptying her grief in copious talk.  She told the whole story of her life, her marriage, the death of her man, a cattle drover, who had been gored to death, the infancy of her daughter, her wretched existence as a widow without resources and with a child to support.  She had only this one, her little Louise, and the child had been killed—­killed in this wood.  Then she felt anxious to see her again, and, dragging herself on her knees toward the corpse, she raised up one corner of the garment that covered her; then she let it fall again and began wailing once more.  The crowd remained silent, eagerly watching all the mother’s gestures.