Meanwhile the short winter day drew on towards the close. Jules, out in
the field with the goats, walked back and forth, back and forth, trying
to keep warm. Brossard, who had gone five miles down the Paris road to
bargain about some grain, sat comfortably in a little tobacco shop, with
a pipe in his mouth and a glass and bottle on the table at his elbow.
Henri was at home, still scrubbing and cleaning. The front of the great
house was in order, with even the fires laid on all the hearths ready
for lighting. Now he was scrubbing the back stairs. His brush bumped
noisily against the steps, and the sound of its scouring was nearly
drowned by the jerky tune which the old fellow sung through his nose as
he worked.

A carriage drove slowly down the road and stopped at the gate with the
scissors; then, in obedience to some command from within, the vehicle
drove on to the smaller gate beyond. An old man with white hair and
bristling mustache slowly alighted. The master had come home. He put
out his hand as if to ring the bell, then on second thought drew a key
from his pocket and fitted it in the lock. The gate swung back and he
passed inside. The old house looked gray and forbidding in the dull
light of the late afternoon. He frowned up at it, and it frowned down on
him, standing there as cold and grim as itself. That was his
only welcome.

The doors and windows were all shut, so that he caught only a faint
sound of the bump, thump of the scrubbing-brush as it accompanied
Henri's high-pitched tune down the back stairs.

Without giving any warning of his arrival, he motioned the man beside
the coachman to follow with his trunk, and silently led the way