At first, filled with compassion, he had hastily called out the firemen, put himself at their head, and hurried to the fire.

And when they reached it, out of breath, and perspiring, after having made two or three miles at double-quick, they found what?  A wretched heap of straw, worth about ten dollars, and almost consumed by the fire.  They had had their trouble for nothing.

The peasants in the neighborhood had cried, “Wolf!” so often, when there was no reason for it, that, even when the wolf really was there, the townspeople were slow in believing it.

“Let us see,” said M. Seneschal:  “what is burning?”

The peasant seemed to be furious at all these delays, and bit his long whip.

“Must I tell you again and again,” he said, “that every thing is on fire,—­barns, outhouses, haystacks, the houses, the old castle, and every thing?  If you wait much longer, you won’t find one stone upon another in Valpinson.”

The effect produced by this name was prodigious.

“What?” asked the mayor in a half-stifled voice, “Valpinson is on fire?”

“Yes.”

“At Count Claudieuse’s?”

“Of course.”

“Fool!  Why did you not say so at once?” exclaimed the mayor.

He hesitated no longer.

“Quick!” he said to his servant, “go and get me my clothes.  Wait, no! my wife can help me.  There is no time to be lost.  You run to Bolton, the drummer, you know, and tell him from me to beat the alarm instantly all over town.  Then you run to Capt.  Parenteau’s, and explain to him what you have heard.  Ask him to get the keys of the engine-house.—­Wait!—­when you have done that, come back and put the horse in.—­Fire at Valpinson!  I shall go with the engine.  Go, run, knock at every door, cry, ‘Fire!  Fire!’ Tell everybody to come to the New-Market Square.”

When the servant had run off as fast as he could, the mayor turned to the peasant, and said,—­

“And you, my good man, you get on your horse, and reassure the count.  Tell them all to take courage, not to give up; we are coming to help them.”

But the peasant did not move.

“Before going back to Valpinson,” he said, “I have another commission to attend to in town.”

“Why?  What is it?”

“I am to get the doctor to go back with me.”

“The doctor!  Why?  Has anybody been hurt?”

“Yes, master, Count Claudieuse.”

“How imprudent!  I suppose he rushed into danger as usually.”

“Oh, no!  He has been shot twice!”

The mayor of Sauveterre nearly dropped his candlestick.

“Shot!  Twice!” he said.  “Where?  When?  By whom?”

“Ah!  I don’t know.”

“But”—­

“All I can tell you is this.  They have carried him into a little barn that was not on fire yet.  There I saw him myself lying on the straw, pale like a linen sheet, his eyes closed, and bloody all over.”