All these people wore the blue blouse over quaint and antique coats of a black or greenish cloth, Sunday clothes which they would only uncover in the streets of Havre.  Their heads were covered by silk caps at high as towers, the emblem of supreme elegance in the small villages of Normandy.

Cesaire Horlaville closed the door, climbed up on his box and snapped his whip.

The three horses awoke and, tossing their heads, shook their bells.

The driver then yelling “Get up!” as loud as he could, whipped up his horses.  They shook themselves, and, with an effort, started off at a slow, halting gait.  And behind them came the coach, rattling its shaky windows and iron springs, making a terrible clatter of hardware and glass, while the passengers were tossed hither and thither like so many rubber balls.

At first all kept silent out of respect for the priest, that they might not shock him.  Being of a loquacious and genial disposition, he started the conversation.

“Well, Maitre Caniveau,” said he, “how are you getting along?”

The enormous farmer who, on account of his size, girth and stomach, felt a bond of sympathy for the representative of the Church, answered with a smile: 

“Pretty well, Monsieur le cure, pretty well.  And how are you?”

“Oh!  I’m always well and healthy.”

“And you, Maitre Poiret?” asked the abbe.

“Oh!  I’d be all right only the colzas ain’t a-goin’ to give much this year, and times are so hard that they are the only things worth while raisin’.”

“Well, what can you expect?  Times are hard.”

“Hub!  I should say they were hard,” sounded the rather virile voice of Rabot’s big consort.

As she was from a neighboring village, the priest only knew her by name.

“Is that you, Blondel?” he said.

“Yes, I’m the one that married Rabot.”

Rabot, slender, timid, and self-satisfied, bowed smilingly, bending his head forward as though to say:  “Yes, I’m the Rabot whom Blondel married.”

Suddenly Maitre Belhomme, still holding his handkerchief to his ear, began groaning in a pitiful fashion.  He was going “Oh-oh-oh!” and stamping his foot in order to show his terrible suffering.

“You must have an awful toothache,” said the priest.

The peasant stopped moaning for a minute and answered: 

“No, Monsieur le cure, it is not the teeth.  It’s my ear-away down at the bottom of my ear.”

“Well, what have you got in your ear?  A lump of wax?”

“I don’t know whether it’s wax; but I know that it is a bug, a big bug, that crawled in while I was asleep in the haystack.”

“A bug!  Are you sure?”

“Am I sure?  As sure as I am of heaven, Monsieur le cure!  I can feel it gnawing at the bottom of my ear!  It’s eating my head for sure!  It’s eating my head!  Oh-oh-oh!” And he began to stamp his foot again.