LITMIR.BIZ

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joyfully, "After all, the lad is buckling to again."

      In truth, of the four young people assembled that September evening in the farm house-place, one only personified intact all the characteristics, all the energy of the race, and this was little Rousille, who was eating the crust of bread given her by Eléonore; one face alone expressed the joy of living, the health of body and soul, the brave spirit of one who has not yet had to do battle but who bides her time, and this was the face of the girl to whom no one, as yet, had spoken a word, and who was standing erect in the chimney-corner.

      "Now the soup is finished," said the farmer. "Come, Mathurin, try a slice of bacon with me."

      "No. It is always the same thing with us."

      "Well, and so much the better," replied the father, "bacon is very good fare; I like it."

      But the cripple, shrugging his shoulders, pushed away the dish, muttering:

      "I suppose other meat is too dear for us now, eh?"

      Toussaint Lumineau's brows contracted at the mention of former prosperity, but he replied, gently:

      "You are right, my poor boy, it is a bad year, and expenses are heavy," then, wishing to change the subject – "Has Jean not come in yet?"

      Three voices, in succession, replied:

      "I have not seen him!"

      "Nor I."

      "Nor I."

      After a silence, during which all eyes were turned towards the chimney-corner.

      "It would be best to ask Rousille," exclaimed Eléonore, "she must know."

      The girl half turning towards the table, her profile standing out in the firelight, answered:

      "Of course I do. I met him at the turn of the road by our swing gate; he was going shooting."

      "Again!" exclaimed the farmer. "Once for all this must be put a stop to. To-night, when I was tying up my cabbages, the keeper of M. le Marquis reprimanded me for that lad's poaching."

      "But is he not free to shoot plovers?" asked Rousille. "Everyone does."

      A simultaneous snort proceeding from Eléonore and François marked their hostility to the Boquin, the alien, Rousille's friend.

      The farmer, reassured by the reflection that the keeper would not trouble himself about Nesmy's shooting in the neutral ground of the Marais, where anyone was free to go after wild-fowl as much as he pleased, resumed his supper.

      François was already nodding, and ate no more.

      The cripple drank slowly, his eyes fixed on space, perhaps he was thinking of the time when he, too, loved shooting.

      There was an interval of apparent peace.

      The summer breeze came through the chinks of the door with a gentle murmur, regular as the waves on a seashore.

      The two girls sitting on either side of the chimney-corner, were each giving all their attention to the peeling of an apple, the conclusion of their supper. But the farmer's mind was unsettled by the keeper's words, and by Mathurin's "Meat is too dear for us, now." The old man was looking back to the long ago, when the four children before him had been busied with their own childish experiences, and could only take their little part in the parents' interests according to their age. First he looked at Mathurin, then at François, as though to appeal to their memory about the old days when as tiny boys they drove the cattle, or fished for eels. Too moved longer to keep silence, he ended by saying:

      "Ah, the country side has changed greatly since M. le Marquis' time! Do you remember him, Mathurin?"

      "Yes," returned Mathurin's thick voice. "I remember him. A big fellow, very red in the face, who used to call out when he came in, 'Good evening, my lads! Has father another bottle of old wine in the cellar? Go and ask him, Mathurin, or you, François.'"

      "Yes, that was just him all over," said the good farmer, with an affectionate smile.

      "He knew how to drink; and you would never find noblemen so affable as ours; they would tell you stories that made you die with laughing. And rich, children! They never used to mind waiting for the rent if there had been a bad harvest. They have even made me a loan, more than once, to buy oxen or seed. They were hot-tempered, but not to those who knew how to manage them; while these agents…" he made a violent gesture as if to knock someone down.

      "Yes," replied Mathurin, "they are a bad lot."

      "And Mademoiselle Ambroisine! She used to come to play with you, Eléonore, but particularly with Rousille, for she was between Eléonore and Rousille for age. I should say she must be about twenty-five by now. How pretty she used to look, with her lace frocks, her hair dressed like one of the saints in a church, her pretty laughing nods to everyone she met when she went into Sallertaine. Ah, what a pity that they have gone away. There are people who do not regret them; but I am not one of those!"

      Mathurin shook his tawny head, and in a voice that rose at the slightest contradiction, exclaimed:

      "What else could they do? They are ruined."

      "Oh, ruined! Not so bad as that."

      "You only need to look at the Château, shut up these eight years like a prison; only need to hear what people say. All their property is mortgaged; the notary makes no secret about it. You will see before long that La Fromentière is sold, and we with it!"

      "No, Mathurin, that I shall not see, thank God, I shall be dead before that. Besides, our nobles are not like us, my boy; they always have property to come into when their own money runs a little short. I hope better things than you. It is my idea that M. Henri will one day come back to the Château, that he will stand just where you now are, and with outstretched hand, say: 'Good day, Father Lumineau!' and Mademoiselle Ambroisine too, who will be so delighted to kiss my two girls on both cheeks, as we do in the Marais, and cry, 'How do you do, Eléonore? How do you do, Marie-Rose?' Ah, it may all come about sooner than you suppose."

      With eyes raised to the mantel-piece, the old man seemed to be seeing his master's daughter standing between his own two girls, while something like a tear moistened his eyelids.

      But Mathurin, striking the table with his fist, said, as he turned his peevish face towards his father:

      "Do you believe they are thinking of us? I tell you, no, unless it is about Midsummer. I'll wager that the keeper just now asked you again for the rent? The beggar only has that one word in his mouth."

      Toussaint Lumineau leant back on the bench, thought for a moment, then said in a low voice:

      "You are right. Only one never can tell if the master really did order him to speak as he did, Mathurin. He often invents words!"

      "Yes, yes. And what did you answer?"

      "That I would pay at Michaelmas."

      "With what?"

      A few minutes before the two girls had gone into the kitchen, to the left of the house-place, and thence came in the sound of running water and the washing of dishes. Every evening, at this hour, the men were left to themselves; it was the time when they discussed matters of interest. Already, in the previous year, the farmer had borrowed from his eldest son the larger portion of the money that he had inherited from his mother. He could therefore only hope for help from the younger; but of that he had so little doubt that, speaking in a low voice to avoid being overheard by his daughters, he said:

      "I was thinking that François would help."

      François, roused from his sleepiness by the foregoing talk, answered hastily:

      "No, no. Do not count on me. It cannot be done…" He had not the courage to look his father in the face as he spoke, but fixed his gaze on the ground like a schoolboy.

      His father was not angry, he only replied gently:

      "I would have repaid you, François, as I shall repay your brother. One year is not like another. Good times will come back to us." And he waited, looking at the thick tawny hair and bull neck of his eldest son that scarcely rose above the table. But François must have already made up his mind, and that very

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