The French Revolution, it will be understood, was at its height. The more moderate and constitutional Republicans--the Girondins, as they were called--worsted in Paris by the Jacobins and the mob, had lately tried to raise the provinces against the capital, and to this end had drawn together at Caen, near the border of Brittany. They had been defeated, however, and the Jacobins, in this month of August, were preparing to take a fearful vengeance at once on them and the Royalists. The Reign of Terror had begun. Even to such a boor as this, sitting over his black bread, the Revolution had come home, and, in common with many a thousand others, he wondered what he could make of it. The girl did not answer, even by the look of contempt to which he had become accustomed, and for which he hated her; and he repeated, "Five crowns! Ah, it is money, that is! _Mon Dieu!_" Then, with a sudden exclamation, he sprang up. "What is that?" he cried. He had been sitting with his back to the barn, but he turned now so as to face it. Something had startled him--a rustling in the straw behind him. "What is that?" he said again, his hand on the table, his face lowering and watchful. The girl had risen also; and, as the last word passed his lips, sprang by him with a low cry, and aimed a frantic blow with her stool at something he could not see. "What is it?" he asked, recoiling. "A rat!" she answered, breathless. And she aimed another blow at it. "Where?" he asked, fretfully. "Where is it?" He snatched his stool, too, and at that moment a rat darted out of the straw, ran nimbly between his legs, and plunged into a hole by the door. He flung the wooden stool after it; but, of course, in vain. "It was a rat!" he said, as if before he had doubted it. "Thank God!" she muttered. She was shaking all over. He stared at her in stupid wonder. What did she mean? What had come to her? "Have you had a sunstroke, my girl?" he said, suspiciously. Her nut-brown face was a shade less brown than usual, but she met his eyes boldly, and said: "No," adding an explanation which for the moment satisfied him. But he did not sit down again. When she went out he went out also. And though, as she retired slowly to the rye fields and work, she repeatedly looked back at him, it was always to find his eyes upon her. When this had happened half a dozen times, a thought struck him. "How now?" he muttered. "The rat ran out of the straw!"