While the young officer was thus closing in upon the Chouans, the little detachment under Hulot had reached a point still parallel with that at which Gudin had arrived. The old soldier, at the head of his men, was silently gliding along the hedges with the ardor of a young man; he jumped them from time to time actively enough, casting his wary eyes to the heights and listening with the ear of a hunter to every noise. In the third field to which he came he found a woman about thirty years old, with bent back, hoeing the ground vigorously, while a small boy with a sickle in his hand was knocking the hoarfrost from the rushes, which he cut and laid in a heap. At the noise Hulot made in jumping the hedge, the boy and his mother raised their heads. Hulot mistook the young woman for an old one, naturally enough. Wrinkles, coming long before their time, furrowed her face and neck; she was clothed so grotesquely in a worn-out goatskin that if it had not been for a dirty yellow petticoat, a distinctive mark of sex, Hulot would hardly have known the gender she belonged to; for the meshes of her long black hair were twisted up and hidden by a red worsted cap. The tatters of the little boy did not cover him, but left his skin exposed. “Ho! old woman!” called Hulot, in a low voice, approaching her, “where is the Gars?” The twenty men who accompanied Hulot now jumped the hedge. “Hey! if you want the Gars you’ll have to go back the way you came,” said the woman, with a suspicious glance at the troop. “Did I ask you the road to Fougeres, old carcass?” said Hulot, roughly. “By Saint-Anne of Auray, have you seen the Gars go by?” “I don’t know what you mean,” replied the woman, bending over her hoe. “You damned garce, do you want to have us eaten up by the Blues who are after us?” At these words the woman raised her head and gave another look of distrust at the troop as she replied, “How can the Blues be after you? I have just seen eight or ten of them who were going back to Fougeres by the lower road.” “One would think she meant to stab us with that nose of hers!” cried Hulot. “Here, look, you old nanny-goat!” And he showed her in the distance three or four of his sentinels, whose hats, guns, and uniforms it was easy to recognize. “Are you going to let those fellows cut the throats of men who are sent by Marche-a-Terre to protect the Gars?” he cried, angrily. “Ah, beg pardon,” said the woman; “but it is so easy to be deceived. What parish do you belong to?” “Saint-Georges,” replied two or three of the men, in the Breton patois, “and we are dying of hunger.” “Well, there,” said the woman; “do you see that smoke down there? that’s my house. Follow the path to the right, and you will come to the rock above it. Perhaps you’ll meet my man on the way. Galope-Chopine is sure to be on watch to warn the Gars. He is spending the day in our house,” she said, proudly, “as you seem to know.”