Autumn Glory; Or, The Toilers of the Field

CHAPTER III.

THE DWARF ORCHARD.

It was a curious sight, this dwarf orchard. The cider apple and pear trees with which it was planted had never been able to grow higher than the top of the wall on account of the strong winds that blew from the sea. Their stems were thick and gnarled, their branches all bent and driven towards the east; leafless above, they met and over-arched beneath. Looking at it from outside one simply saw a billowy mass of bare branches; but on making one's way down the central path, one found oneself in a leafy shade some four feet high, safe from inquisitive eyes, from rain and heat, and from the gales which sweep over the Marais. It was a sailor's folly, such as might be found in far-off isles. As a child, it had been Rousille's playground; now grown up, it was here she had come to meet her betrothed.

Entering, she stooped and made a path for herself towards the western wall, then sitting upon the forked branch of an apple-tree, hidden among them like a partridge in a corn-field, she gazed out upon the vast plain along which Jean Nesmy must come.

At this early hour the Marais was covered with mists which did not rise, but parted ever and anon, undulating in the breeze. The solitude was unbroken, the atmosphere light, sensitive, nervous, carrying the faintest sound without diminution. The bark of a dog at Sallertaine came to her ears as if it were beside her. Great square corn-fields that looked like patches of grey fur stitched together faded away into nothing in the distance. Here and there canals, cutting each other at right angles, looked like tarnished mirrors, the mist curling in smoke above them. Then vaguely from out the fog darker outlines began to appear, like oases in the desert; they were farmhouses built on the low-lying ground of the marshland, with their outbuildings and groups of poplars to lend shade. Now the undulating veil of mist began to rise, rays of light touched the grasses, sheets of water sparkled like windows in a setting sun. For many a league, from the bay of Bourgneuf to Saint Gilles, the Marais of La Vendée had awakened to the light of a fresh day.

Rousille rejoiced in it. She loved her native soil, faithful, true, generous soil, ever yielding its increase whether in rain or sunshine; where one would sleep one's last sleep to the sighing of the wind, under the shelter of the Cross. She loved nothing better than that horizon where every tiniest road was familiar to her, from the fence that ran along the first meadow of La Fromentière close at hand, to the paths on the embankment which must be traversed pole in hand to jump the dykes.

"Four o'clock," she said to herself, "and he has not come back yet! What will father say?" She was beginning to grow uneasy, when, as she was gazing into the distance towards the pointed clock tower of Sallertaine, a voice startled her with:

"Rousille!" On the rising path, the marshland behind him, standing looking at her in the light of the early morning, was Jean Nesmy.

"I did not see you come," she said.

He laughed, and with a proud air raised above his head a bundle of feathers, four plovers and a teal tied together. The next moment, resting the gun he carried against the inside of the wall, and flinging over the birds, he dropped down beside Rousille.

"Rousille," he said, taking her hand under the arching apple-trees, "I have had luck! Four plovers and such fine ones! I had a couple of hours' sleep in the barn at La Pinçonnière, and if the farmer had not dragged me out this morning, I should have been late, I was so sound asleep. And you?"

"I," replied Marie-Rose, as he sat opposite to her, "I am afraid. Father spoke to me so angrily last night—he had been talking to Mathurin in the courtyard—they must know."

"Well, and if they do? I am doing nothing to anger them. I mean to win you by my work, to ask your father for your hand, and take you home as my wife."

She looked at him, happy, despite her fears, at the determination she read in the lad's face. And reserving her thought which answered yes, she said without direct reply:

"What is it like in your home?"

"In my home," replied Jean Nesmy, contracting his eyes as if to fix the picture thus evoked, and looking over Rousille's head—"in my home is my mother, who is old and poor. The house she lives in is called the Château, as I have told you before, in the parish of Châtelliers; but it is not by any means a castle, Rousille, only two rooms, in which live six little Nesmys besides myself, who am the eldest ... it was, as you know, on account of our poverty and the number of children that I could only serve one year in the army."

"Oh, yes, I remember," she answered, laughing, "that year seemed to me longer than any other."

"I am the eldest; then come two girls, who are growing up. They are not dressed altogether like you, for instance...."

An idea seized him, and with his hand quite near yet without touching Rousille, he sketched about the young girl's shoulders and waist, the little shawl and the long velvet ribbons encircling the bust. "All round there two rows of velvet; rich girls have even three. You would be charming, Rousille, in the costume of the Châtelliers and La Flocellière, for they dress in the same manner, the villages are quite close."

She laughed, as if caressed by the hand which never touched her, following its action with half-closed eyes.

"As you may suppose," he continued, "they only dress like that on Sundays! There would not be bread in the house every day if I did not send home the wages that your father gives me. Then I have two brothers who have finished their schooling, and look after cows and begin to do little odd jobs. The farmer who hires them gives them each one row of potatoes to dig up for their own. It is a great help!"

"So I should think!" returned Rousille, with an air of conviction

"But above all," continued the lad, "our air is superb. We have plenty of rain, indeed it rains without ceasing when the wind blows from Saint Michael, a place about one league from us. But immediately after we are in full sunshine; and as we have plenty of trees and moss and ferns about us, the air is a very joy to breathe, quite different from here; for our country is not at all like that of the Marais; it is all hills, here, there, and everywhere, big and little; there is no getting away from them. From any height it looks a perfect paradise. Ah, Rousille, if you only knew Le Bocage, and the moors of Nouzillac, you would never want to leave them!"

"And is the land tilled like this?"

"Very nearly, but much deeper. It takes strong oxen, sometimes six or eight to plough."

"Father uses as many, when it pleases him."

"Yes, for the honour of it, Rousille, because your father is a rich man. But down there, believe me, the soil has more granite and is harder to turn."

She hesitated a little, the smile left her face as she asked:

"Do the women work in the fields?"

"Oh, no, of course not," answered the lad warmly. "We respect and care for them as much as men do here in your Marais. Even my mother, who goes gleaning at harvest-time and when the chestnuts are gathered, is never seen working in the fields like a man. No, you may depend on it, our women are more indoors spinning, than doing out-of-door work."

Recalled to the stern conditions of his daily life, the young man grew grave, and added slowly:

"Rest assured, I will never slacken in my work. I am known for more than two leagues round Châtelliers as a lad who has no fear of hard work. We will have our own little house to ourselves, and if only I have your love, Rousille, like my father and mother, I will never complain of any hardships."

He had scarcely ended his speech of humble love-making when a voice from the road called:

"Rousille!"

"We are betrayed!" she said, turning pale. "It is father."

They both remained motionless, with beating hearts, thinking only of the voice that would call again.

And, in truth, it was now heard nearer.

"Rousille!"

She did not resist. Signing to Jean Nesmy to remain under cover of the trees, and bending half double, she made her way out to the path that divided the orchard. There straightening herself, she saw her father standing before her in the road. He looked at his daughter for a moment, as she presented herself, pale, breathless, dishevelled by the branches, then said:

"What were you doing there?"

She would not lie; she felt herself lost. In her trouble involuntarily she turned her head as if to invoke the protection of him in hiding, and there just behind, erect, quite close to her, Rousille saw her lover, who had come to her aid in the moment of danger. With an air of defiance he drew himself up, and strode in front of her. Then the girl ventured to look again at her father. He was no longer occupied with her, nor had he the angry aspect she expected to see; his expression was grave and sad, and he looked steadily at Jean Nesmy, who, pressing forward on the grassy walk, had stopped at the opening, within three feet of him:

"You here, my farm-servant!" he said.

Jean Nesmy made answer:

"Yes, I am here."

"You have been with Rousille, then?"

"And what is the harm?" inquired the lad, with a slight tremor, which he could not control, not of fear, but of the hot blood of youth.

There was no anger in the farmer's voice. With head bent on his breast, as of a master whose kindness has been abused, and who is sorrowing, he said with a sigh:

"Come you here, at once, with me."

Not a word to Marie-Rose, not one look. It was a matter to be settled among men first; the daughter did not count at present.

The farmer was already retracing his steps, walking with leisurely stride towards La Fromentière; Jean Nesmy followed at a short distance, his gun slung on his back, swinging the birds he had shot in one hand. Far behind them came Rousille in sore distress, sometimes looking at Jean Nesmy, sometimes at the master who was to decide his fate.

When the two men had gone into the courtyard, she did not dare to follow them in, but leaning against a pillar of the ruined gateway, half hidden behind it, her head on her arm, she waited to see what would happen.

Her father and his man, crossing the yard, proceeded to Jean Nesmy's room, which was to the left beyond the stables. There was no sound but the noise of wooden shoes on the gravel; but Rousille had seen the cripple crouching down in the first rays of the sun, beyond the stables; he was nodding his head with an air of satisfaction, his malicious eyes never leaving the stranger he had denounced, who, yesterday so happy, was now the culprit.

Not far off, François, on a ladder, was cutting out a wedge of hay from a rick, firm and compact as a wall; he, too, was watching slyly from under the brim of his hat, but there was no malice upon his phlegmatic countenance, nothing more than a mild curiosity broadening his lips into a half smile under the heavy yellow moustache. He did his work as slowly as possible so as to be able to remain there and see the end of it.

Toussaint Lumineau and his man had soon reached the shed piled with empty casks, baskets, spades, and pickaxes, that had for many a year served as sleeping-place for the farm-servants. The master sat down on the foot of the bed. The look on his face had not changed; it was still the dignified paternal look of one who regrets parting from a good servant, and yet is resolutely determined to suffer no encroachment upon his authority, no disrespect to his position. Leaning his elbow upon an old cask showing marks of tallow, on which Jean Nesmy used to rest his candle at night, he slowly raised his head, and in the daylight that streamed in at the open door, he at length addressed the young man, who was standing bare-headed in the middle of the shed.

"I hired you for forty pistoles," he said. "You received your wages at Midsummer; how much is now owing to you?"

The lad, absorbed, began counting and recounting with his fingers on his blouse, the veins of his forehead swelling with the effort; his eyes were fixed on the ground, and not another thought disturbed the complicated operation of the countryman calculating the price of his labour. During this time, the farmer mentally went over the brief history of his connection with the lad, who, come by chance to the Marais in search of burnt cow-dung, used by the Vendéens for manure, had been then and there hired by him, and had quickly fallen into the ways of his new master. The farmer thought of the three years that the stranger lad had lived under the roof of La Fromentière, one before his military training, two since; years of hard, thorough work, of good conduct, without having once given cause for serious reproof, of astonishing gentleness and submission despite his sons' hostility, which, manifested on the very first day, had never lessened.

"It should make ninety-five francs," said Jean Nesmy.

"That is what I make it," said the farmer. "Here is the money. Count and see if it is right." From his coat pocket where he had already placed them, Toussaint Lumineau drew out a number of silver pieces which he threw on the top of the cask. "Take it, lad."

Without touching the money Jean Nesmy had drawn back.

"You will not have me any longer at La Fromentière?"

"No, my lad, you are going." The old man's voice faltered, and he continued: "I am not sending you away because you are idle, nor even, though it did annoy me, because you are too fond of shooting wild-fowl. You have served me well. But my daughter is my own, Jean Nesmy, and I have not given my consent to your courting her."

"If she likes me, and I like her, Maître Lumineau?"

"You are not one of us, my poor boy. That a Boquin should marry a girl like Rousille is an impossibility, as you know. You should have thought of it before."

For the first time Jean Nesmy's face grew a shade paler, he half closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth drooped as though he were about to burst into tears. In a low voice he said:

"I will wait for her as long as you think fit. She is young, and so am I. Only say how long it must be, and I will submit."

But the farmer answered:

"No, it cannot be. You must go."

The young man quivered from head to foot. He hesitated for a moment, with knitted brows, his eyes fixed on the ground, then decided not to speak his thought: I will not give her up. I will come back. She shall be mine. True to the taciturn race from which he sprang, he said nothing, took up the money, counted it, dropping the pieces one by one into his pocket as he did so. Then without another word, as though the farmer were not in existence, he began to collect his clothes and belongings. The blue blouse that he knotted by the sleeves to the barrel of his gun held them all, save a pair of boots that he slung on to a piece of string. When he had finished, he raised his hat, and went out.

It was broad sunshine. Jean Nesmy walked slowly; the strong will that dominated the slight youth made him hold his head high, and his eyes scanned the windows of the house seeking Rousille. She was nowhere to be seen. Then in the middle of the great courtyard, he, the hired servant, who had been dismissed, who had but another moment to tread the ground of La Fromentière, called:

"Rousille!"

A pointed coif appeared at the angle of the gateway; Rousille came forth from her shelter and ran to him, tears streaming down her face. But almost at the same moment she stopped, intimidated by the sight of her father on the threshold of the shed, and stricken with terror at a cry which, rising from that side of the courtyard, some fifty paces off, had caused Nesmy to turn his head:

"Dannion!"

A monstrous apparition came out from the stables. The cripple, bare-headed, with eyes bloodshot, inspired by impotent rage, had rushed out, with arms rigid on his crutches, his huge body shaking with the effort. Roaring like some wild beast with wide-open mouth he hurled the old cry of hatred at the stranger, the cry with which the children of the Marais greet the despised dwellers of the Bocage.

"Dannion! Dannion Sarraillon—look to yourself!"

Rushing with a speed that betokened the violence and strength of the man, he neared Nesmy. The rage in his heart, the jealousy that tortured him, the agony caused by the effort he was making, rendered the convulsed face terrible to behold, as it was projected forward by jerks; while onlookers could not but think, with a shudder, what a powerful man this deformed, unearthly looking creature had once been.

Seeing him come close up to the farm-servant, Rousille was terrified for the man she loved. She ran to Jean Nesmy, put her two hands on his arms, and drew him backward towards the road.

And, on her account, Jean Nesmy began to draw back, slowly, step by step, while the cripple, growing still more furious, shouted insultingly:

"Let go of my sister, Dannion!"

The farmer's loud voice interposed from the depths of the courtyard:

"Stop where you are, Mathurin; and you, Nesmy, loose your hold of my daughter!"

And he advanced to them, without haste, as a man not desiring to compromise his dignity. The cripple stopped short, let go of his crutches, and sank exhausted to the ground.

But Jean Nesmy continued to retreat. He had placed his hand in Rousille's; and soon they were within the portal of the gateway, framed in sunshine. There lay the road. The young man bent towards Rousille and kissed her cheek.

"Farewell, my Rousille," he said.

And she, running across the courtyard without looking back, her hands to her face, wept bitterly.

Having watched her disappear round the corner of the house by the barn, Nesmy called out:

"Mathurin Lumineau, I shall come back!"

"Only try!" retorted the cripple.

The whilom farm-servant of La Fromentière began to mount the hill beside the farm; clad in his russet work-day clothes he walked with difficulty as if worn out with fatigue. His whole wardrobe, slung on to his gun, consisted of but one coat, a blouse, three shirts, a couple of boxwood bird calls for quails that clapped together as he walked, and yet the load seemed heavy. A feeling of dismay at having to go back to the daily seeking of employment had come over him while making up the modest bundle. He was already thinking of his mother's alarm at this sudden return. Every step was a wrench from some loved object, for he had lived three years in this Fromentière. His heart was heavy with memories; he walked on slowly, looking at nothing yet seeing every stick and stone. The trees he brushed past had all been pruned by him, or flicked by his whip; every inch of ground had been ploughed and reaped by him; he knew how every furrow was to be sown on the morrow.

Having reached the back of the farm, at the rise of the road where formerly four mills had been busily grinding corn and now only two were at work, he turned to look back that he might increase the pain of parting.

Below him, bathed in sunlight, lay the plain of the Marais, where rushes, taking on their autumn array, formed golden circles round the meadows; there were farms distinguishable by their groups of poplars, inhabited islands in the desert of marshland, where he was leaving good friends, and the recollection of happy hours that come back in sorrow; his eyes scanned the crowded houses of Sallertaine and its church dominating them all, recalling bygone Sundays. Then, with his soul in his eyes, he bent them upon La Fromentière, as a bird would hover with wide extended wings.

From the height on which he stood the lad could discern the whole of the farm, even to its slightest details. One by one he counted the windows, the doors and gates, the paths round the fields along which every evening, for the last two years especially, he had never failed to sing as he drove the cattle homewards. When his eyes lighted on the dwarf orchard, so distant that it looked no larger than a pea-pod, he quickly turned away; as he did so, his foot struck against something in the path, it was a dog lying down, quite still.

"What, you, Bas-Rouge?" said Jean. "My poor doggie, you cannot follow me where I am going;" and, walking on, he stroked the dog's head between his ears, in the place where Rousille loved to fondle him. After some twenty paces, he said again:

"You must go back, Bas-Rouge. I do not belong to you any more."

Bas-Rouge trotted on a little further with his friend; but when they had reached the last hedge of La Fromentière, he stopped, and turned slowly homewards.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MICHELONNES.

Marie-Rose made no reply, shed no tear, but withdrew to her room. She had no thought of dinner, either with or without them; but began to dress herself in her best, as for Sunday, taking by turns from the wardrobe a black skirt, raised from the ground by a broad tuck, showing the pretty feet beneath; her most dainty coif and embroidered pyramid of muslin kept in shape by silver paper that rested on her hair; open-work stockings; sabots, like the prow of a ship, so much did they turn up. A blue silk kerchief filled in the low bodice, as was the custom in the Marais; there only remained to smooth the bands of chestnut hair with a little water, to bathe her red eyes, then going out into the courtyard she turned off on the road to Sallertaine.

For the first time in her life she had a feeling of standing alone in the world. Mathurin did not love her; François did not understand her. André himself, the soldier brother so soon coming home, who had always been kind, only treated her as a child to be teased and petted. And she felt herself a woman—a woman who was learning to know sorrow, and one who needed to pour out her trouble to sympathetic ears.

Hitherto, if they were unkind, if they neglected her, she had never felt the need of telling her troubles to anyone; the thought of Jean Nesmy had been enough to make her forget them all. But now that he whom she loved had had to go, and that his going was the sorrow, her soul cried out for aid—sought some safe place wherein to rest. In her distress she thought of the sisters Michelonne. Rousille passed close beside the dwarf orchard; Rousille skirted the edge of the Marais whence can be seen Sallertaine upon its eminence. No, she had no other hope save in those two dear old friends; no other regret than that she had not before been to that little house in the town. The old sisters' warmth of heart seemed to her just now a thing of priceless worth, which, hitherto, had not been valued half enough. The mere thought of their round faces, withered and smiling, was a goal to her. It seemed as if only to see the Michelonnes, even if she might not speak one word of her trouble, would be a consolation, because of their kind hearts, and because, old maids though they were, they were not the people to gossip about a young girl's red eyes. What excuse could she make for going to them? Oh, it was very simple. She had promised to draw out her money and lend it to her father to pay the rent. She had only to say, "I have come for my money; father needs it." Then if they guessed the slightest thing, she would tell all, all her trouble, all the grief she could not endure alone.

It was close upon one o'clock. A mist of heat quivered over the meadows. Rousille walked fast. Now she had reached the Grand Canal, smooth as a mirror; there was the bridge across it, the winding road flanked on either side by the white-washed houses of the outskirts of Sallertaine, their orchards at the back looking towards the Marais. Rousille walks faster. She is afraid of being hailed and stopped, for the Lumineaus are known to everyone in the district. But the good folks are either taking their noonday sleep, or else without quitting their shady corners they call to her, "Good day, little one! How fast you are walking!" "Yes, I am in a hurry. Sometimes one is." "Yes, indeed," they reply, and on she goes. She has reached the long open Place that narrows as it reaches the church. Now she has only eyes for the humble dwelling which stands at the extreme end where the street is narrowest, facing the side door of the church by which the faithful enter on Sundays. It is a very little house, one window looks on to the Place, the other on to a steep lane, the three steps to the entrance are at the corner; it is also very old, and built under the shadow of the clock tower, beneath the peal of bells, thus nearer to Heaven.

The sisters Michelonne have lived there all their lives. Rousille can picture them within the walls; a half smile, a ray of hope crosses her sad face. She ascends the three steps, and pauses to regain breath.

When Rousille presses down the iron latch, the door opens to the tinkle of so tiny a bell that it would need the ears of a cat to hear it.

But they were true cats, ever on the watch, these two old sisters, cloak-makers to the whole of Sallertaine. Scarcely did they divine a visitor from the shadow cast through the glass door, than with simultaneous movement their chairs, always close together, were pushed back, their heads turned towards the door, and their busy hands sunk on their laps. The two sisters were very much alike; the same deep, arched wrinkles in the rosy faces, round the toothless mouths, round the short noses, round the blue, childlike eyes that had a light in them as of a perpetual laugh, and was the reflection of their sixty years of work, of sisterly affection, and their good consciences. There was also a twinkle in their eyes of fun without malice; a something as of the flame of youth economised in the course of their lives, and leaving a fund for their old age. Poverty had not been wanting, but it had always been borne by them together. From childhood's day they had worked side by side in the light of the same window, day rising and setting on their busy needles never at rest. There was no one in all Sallertaine, nor in Perrier, nor Saint Gervais who could cut and make cloaks as skilfully as they could; and they were general favourites. As soon as the weather was mild enough for them to stand a pot of ivy geranium on the sill and to sit by the open window, there was not a person coming down the lane, whether fisherman, sportsman, drover, or horse-breeder, who did not call in as he passed "Good day and good luck, les Michelonnes." To which they would make some kind reply in soft voices, so alike that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. They were asked to St. Sylvester gatherings because they had an inexhaustible store of songs, when young folks had long come to the end of all they knew.

The Curé said of them: "The flower of my flock; it is a pity they have no successors."

When Rose-Marie entered, they did not get up, but said both together, Adelaide at the window, Véronique a little away:

"It is you, little Lumineau! Good day, pretty one!"

"Sit down, child," said Adelaide, "you are quite out of breath."

"But not ill?" asked Véronique. "Your eyes are as bright as if you had fever?"

"Thank you, aunts," answered Marie-Rose. She called them aunts on account of a distant relationship difficult to establish, but principally on account of the old ladies' kindness. "I have been walking quickly, and I do feel a little tired. I have come for some of my money."

The sisters exchanged a side-look, laughing already at the thought of the coming marriage, and the eldest, Adelaide, drawing her needle across her lips as if to smooth out the wrinkles, asked:

"You are about to marry, then?"

"Oh, indeed no!" returned Marie-Rose, "I shall be married like you, my aunts, to my seat in church and my rosary. It is for father, who has not money to pay the rent of the farm; he is in arrears."

And as, while speaking, she did not look into her old friends' faces, but into the shade of the room, somewhere towards the two beds ranged along the side of the wall, the sisters Michelonne shook their heads as though to communicate the impression that, all the same, some disturbing element had entered into Rousille's life. But the sisters were more instinctively polite than curious. They reserved their thought for the long hours of chat together, and Adelaide, throwing down her half-finished work, clasping her white bony hands, and bending forward her thin body, said gaily:

"Well, my pretty one, you have come just at the right time! I had lent your money on interest to my nephew, who, you know, breeds foals, and very good ones, on the Marais. He is a sharp fellow, that François. Would you believe it, yesterday he actually sold his dappled grey filly—that flies like a plover, and was the envy of all the breeders and dannions that went by the meadow—and for such a big price that he would not even tell us the amount. So, you see, it will be quite easy for him to pay back a good part of the loan. How much will you want?"

"A hundred and twenty pistoles."

"You shall have them. Are they wanted at once?"

"Yes, Aunt Adelaide. I promised them by to-morrow."

"Then, Véronique, my girl, suppose you were to go to our nephew? The cloak can well wait an hour."

The younger sister rose at once; she was so short standing, that she did not reach above the head of Marie-Rose sitting. Rapidly shaking off the threads of cotton from her black apron, she kissed the girl on both cheeks:

"Good-bye, Rousille. To-morrow the money will be here, and you will only have to come and fetch it."

In the quiet of the sleepy town, Véronique's gliding steps could be heard as they went down the lane. No sooner had she gone than Adelaide went up to Marie-Rose and fixing upon the girl her clear kind eyes, her eyelids quivering with uneasiness:

"Child," she said hurriedly, "you are in trouble; you have been crying. Why, you are crying now!" The wrinkled hand seized the girl's pink palm. "What is it, my Rousille? Tell me, as you would tell your own mother. I love you as she would do."

Marie-Rose repressed her tears. She would not cry when she could speak. Trembling at the contact of the hand which touched her own, her eyes like diamonds, her face set, as though she were addressing those enemies before whom her tongue had been tied:

"They have sent away Jean Nesmy," she said rising.

"He, my dear? Such a good worker? And why?"

"Because I love him, Aunt Michelonne. They turned him out this morning. And they think that all is over between us because I shall not see him again. They little know the girls of these parts."

"Well said, Maraîchine," exclaimed the old aunt.

"I will give them all my money, yes, readily; but my love—where I have placed it there I will leave it. It is as sacred as my baptismal vows. I have no fear of poverty; no fear that he will forget me. The day he comes back, for he has promised to come back, I will go to meet him, and no one shall prevent me—had I to cross the Marais, were there snow and ice, and all the girls of the town to mock at me, did my father and my brothers forbid me to go, still I would do it!"

Erect, passionate, she made the walls of the little room unused to loud voices ring with the voice of love and bitterness. It was to herself, herself only, that she spoke, because she suffered. She was looking straight before her, vaguely, apparently unaware of the Michelonne's presence.

Adelaide, however, had risen, and was listening, agitated and excited, so struck by Rousille's words, so carried out of the restricted circle of everyday thought, that all the calm had vanished from her face, and the quiet old maid, oppressed by the small cares of life, seemed transformed into a woman—a woman who remembered and had regained her youth to suffer with the other.

"You are right, dear child. I thoroughly approve. Love him truly!"

At these words Rousille, looking down at the old lady, had the revelation of a being hitherto unknown to her. There was a light in her face; the poor arms, helpless from rheumatism, were held out towards Rousille trembling with emotion.

"Yes, love him truly. Your happiness is with him. Leave it to time, but do not yield, my Rousille, for I know others who in their youth refused to marry to please their fathers, and who had such difficulty afterwards to kill their hearts! Do not live alone, it is worse than death! Your Nesmy, I know him—your Nesmy and you are true lovers of the soil, such as the land can boast but few nowadays, and if old Aunt Adelaide can help you, defend you, give you what is wanted to enable you to marry, come to me, my child, at any time, come!"

She was holding Rousille now in close embrace, the girl bending over the little black-robed figure and suffering her tears to flow on the friendly shoulder, now that she had unburdened her heart.

For a moment the room was as silent as was the town slumbering in the mid-day sun. Then the Michelonne, gently disengaging herself from the girl's arms, went towards the window, standing where she could not be seen from outside. Between the roofs of two adjoining houses, looking westwards, was set, as in a frame, a corner of the Marais, its reddish-brown rushes finally fading away on the horizon.

"It was Mathurin, was it not, who denounced you?" she asked in a low voice.

"Yes, he was always watching me."

"He is jealous, you see. He has a grudge against you."

"For what, poor creature!"

"Your youth, my poor child. He is jealous of all who take the place that should have been his; jealous of François, of André, of you. He is like a lost soul when he hears that anyone but himself is to manage your father's farm. Shall I tell you all?"

Her frail hand uplifted, she pointed to the distant Marais, where the poplars, tiny as grains of oats, were standing out against the sky.

"Well, he still thinks of Félicité."

"Poor brother!" exclaimed Rousille, nodding her head. "If he is still thinking of her, she is only making fun of him."

"Innocent," returned the old woman in a whisper, "I know what I know. Beware of Mathurin, he has drunk too deeply of love to forget. Beware of Félicité Gauvrit, because she is furious that being an heiress, no suitors come to her."

Rousille was about to reply. Adelaide made her a sign to keep silence; she had heard a footstep in the lane. Hastily drying her eyes, the old lady re-seated herself and picked up her work, like a child surprised in some fault by her mother. A pair of sabots was heard at the foot of the wall, they passed the doorsteps, and went on down the Place. It was not Véronique. Marie-Rose had drawn back; she was looking at her one friend, so old, so worn, so timid, yet whose heart was so young. And she thought no more of what she had been about to reply; she only said simply:

"Good-bye, Aunt Michelonne. If I need help I shall know where to come."

"Good-bye, dear child. Beware of Mathurin. Beware of the girl out there!"

They said no more in words, only their eyes were fixed on each other's, Rousille looking back until she had reached the door; then the latch was lifted, fell back into its socket, and there only remained in the silent chamber a little old woman stooping down over her black work, but who could not see her needle for the mist of tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER V.

PLOUGHING IN SEPTEMBER.

In the farm bakery, left of the building, and dividing their room from that of François, Eléonore and Marie-Rose were engaged heating the oven. From the semicircular opening flames were shooting up, now in heavy wreaths, now in groups of red petals set on upright stems. Eléonore standing before it, in a print gown, was feeding the oven with faggots of bramble, thrusting them with an iron fork into the furnace. Marie-Rose was busily going backwards and forwards bringing in the baskets of dough. They did not speak; for a long time there had been a coolness between the sisters. But as for the tenth time Eléonore looked towards the door, as if expecting to see some person or thing in the courtyard, Rousille asked:

"What are you expecting, Eléonore?"

"Nothing," was the cross reply. "I am hot. My eyes smart." And she busied herself with separating the burning embers, arranging them in layers at the sides of the oven; this finished:

"Help me to fill the oven," she said.

One by one the loaves of leavened dough were placed by Rousille upon a large flat shovel, which Eléonore slid over the burning bricks, and drew out again with a sharp jerk. Twenty loaves there were of twelve pound each; enough wherewith to feed all at La Fromentière, and to give to the poor of Monday for a fortnight. The last having been placed, Eléonore closed the mouth of the oven with an iron plate; the sisters had wiped their hot cheeks with their sleeves, the smell of new bread was beginning to be perceptible through the chinks of the oven, when a loud laughing voice called in from the yard:

"M François Lumineau. Is he at home?" and the postman, a visitor who had been seen fairly often at La Fromentière for some months past, held out a letter with printed heading on it. He added jocosely, for something to say:

"Another letter from the State Railways, Mam'selle Eléonore. Any of you got friends there?"

"Thank you," returned Eléonore, hastily taking the letter and putting it into the pocket of her apron, "I will give it to my brother. Fine weather to-day for your round?"

"Aye, that it is. Better than for heating the oven I should say by the look of you." The man made a half-turn on his well-worn shoes, and went his way in the steady jog-trot of seven leagues a day at thirty sous.

Eléonore, leaning against the doorpost, paid no further attention to him; she was gazing, as if hypnotized, on the corner of white paper that protruded from her pocket. She seemed strangely agitated, her eyelids swelled, her breast heaved beneath the calico bodice all streaked with flour and soot.

"There is some secret, I am sure," exclaimed Marie-Rose from behind her. "I do not ask what it is, I am accustomed at home to be left to myself. But still I cannot help seeing what is going on; only yesterday, after mass, you and François went off by yourselves to read some paper in the lane by the Michelonnes, I was there to fetch my money, and saw you gesticulating.... And now you are crying. It is hard, Eléonore, to see one's sister cry and not to know the reason—not to be able to say one word to comfort her."

To Rousille's intense surprise, Eléonore, without turning, held out a trembling hand towards her, and drew her younger sister tumultuously to her beating heart; and for the first time for many years, overcome with emotion, she leant her cheek on Rousille's, then suddenly broke out into sobs.

"Yes," she sobbed, "there is a secret, my poor Rousille, such a secret that I can never have the like again in all my life. I cannot tell it to you ... it is there in the letter ... but François must read it first, and then father—Heavens! what an unhappy girl I am!"

Tenderly Rousille pressed her face against her sister's all bathed in tears.

"But the secret, Eléonore, it only concerns François, does it?"

"No, me too; me too! Oh, when you hear it, Rousille.... It was François who persuaded me, he talked until I yielded ... and then I signed ... and now it is all done. Still, were it not for him, I feel that even now I could not do it; I would break the agreement—I would refuse."

"You are going, Eléonore?" cried the girl, drawing back.

Her sister's white face was the only answer.

"You are going?" she repeated. "Oh, where? Oh, do not leave us."

Eléonore, stupefied for the moment, now gave way to a feeling of anger, and repulsed the girl whom the instant before she had drawn to her.

"Hold your tongue!" she said roughly. "Do not talk like that. Are you going to tell tales of us?"

"I have no wish to do so."

"They are coming. You heard them. You said it aloud for them to hear, you sneak!"

"Indeed, I did not."

"They are coming. Hark!"

The distant footsteps of the men, one following the other, were audible. They were returning for the mid-day meal.

Eléonore, in terror, almost suppliant, her voice shaken with emotion, ejaculated:

"Mathurin is coming first—if only he did not hear what you were saying, Rousille. If he catches sight of me, he will guess everything.... I dare not go back into the house with such red eyes. You take my place. Go and pour out the soup, I will be with you in a moment."

The men went into the house, walking in their usual leisurely manner; François alone had a presentiment of the news awaiting them. The hot sun had dried the moisture on grass and leaves, a soft haze lay all around, the air was mild and balmy; linnets, innumerable, had settled on the waggon-ruts, where lay thistles trodden down by the oxen. An aroma of hot bread pervaded the farmyard, and cheered by the wholesome smell the fine old farmer entered the house-place, whither Mathurin had preceded him.

As soon as they had disappeared within the house, Eléonore, who had been watching at the door of the bakery, crossed the yard to the stable where François, having deposited his load of maize, was coiling up the rope by which he had carried it.

"François," she exclaimed, "they want you. Your letter has been burning me like fire." And still quite pale, Eléonore held out the letter, watching it pass from her hands to those of her brother with a nervous dread of the unknown future.

"When is it?" she asked. "Be quick!"

Without showing any emotion François tried to smile, as though to mark masculine superiority over the weaker sex, as he proceeded deliberately to open the envelope with his thick, moist fingers. He read, reflected for a moment, then answered:

"Humph! to-morrow."

"To-morrow?"

"Yes, I have to be at La Roche at noon, to begin work on the railway."

Eléonore covered her face with both hands.

"Oh, I say, don't you go and leave me now," he continued. "Do you want to?"

"No, François, but to go to-morrow—to-morrow!"

"Not to-morrow, to-night—at once. You ought to have expected it. Why, you engaged with the owner of the coffee shop in Rue Neuve two months ago. Did you sign the lease or not?"

"Yes."

"Did you promise to keep house for me?"

"Yes, François."

"When you bothered me to find you a good place at La Roche, did I not trouble myself about you on the condition that you would keep house for me? Yes or no? Of course, I want someone, and now you are not willing to go?"

"I do not say...."

"Oh, well. I shall tell father presently what you promised. Stay behind, if you like; but I warn you they will lead you a pretty life at La Fromentière when I am gone; without mentioning the action the landlord at La Roche will bring against you at once, do you understand? at once, if you refuse to take the shop you have rented. Stay, if you like. I am going!"

She raised her arms above her head and always under the impression of the moment, said:

"I will go; whatever time you like, I will be ready. Only I cannot hear you tell father. Do not speak to him when I am there." She hurriedly left the stable and went into the house to serve the dinner, whilst François proceeded to give the oxen their forage, taking as much time over it as he could.

Toussaint Lumineau was quietly talking with Mathurin. Sitting side by side at the table, they watched their steaming plates of soup cool as they discussed the new farm-servant whom it was necessary to engage shortly.

"I will hire him at Chalons fair," said the father.

"That will be too late."

"We must do our best till then, my boy. I will look out for a strong fellow, a lad from these parts."

"Yes, no Boquin, above all things! We know what they are!"

Toussaint Lumineau shook his head as he replied gently:

"Do not wrong the lad, Mathurin. I sent Jean Nesmy away, and for a reason. But as regards work, I have nothing but good to say of him; he worked well, and he loved farming, whilst others...." Little Rousille was listening with eyes lowered, standing like a statue by the window. François entered. "Whilst others," continued the farmer, slightly raising his voice, "do not show as much energy as they might. Eh, my François?"

The fair, ruddy-cheeked youth shrugged his shoulders as he took his seat.

"The work is too hard," he said. "Since I came back I have felt that I cannot accustom myself to that kind of thing."

"Oh, you half of a man," cried Mathurin. "Are you not ashamed of yourself? If I could but walk, our father would have no need to hire anyone. Look at these arms," and he held them out, the muscles showing under his coat sleeves like knots of an oak-tree imprisoned within the bark, while his face was suffused with crimson, the veins of his forehead swelled, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"My poor boy!" said his father, touching his hand to calm him. "My poor boy, I well know your misfortune has cost La Fromentière dear." Then after a short silence, he added: "Still we will get through some good work, children, with François and Driot, who will soon be home, and the man I am about to hire. I have a mind to start to-day on the field of La Cailleterie, that has lain fallow there two years. The rain we have had must have softened the ground, the plough will bite."

Eléonore, who had just then pushed open the inner door, stopped tremblingly, seeing François in the act of moving his lips as if to speak and tell their secret. But no word escaped the young man's lips during the remainder of the meal. Towards the end, as they were rising from table, Mathurin, looking at the sky through the smoke-begrimed windows, said:

"Father, will you take me up there in the cart?"

"Of course I will. Go fetch the cart, Eléonore, and you, François, yoke the oxen."

The farmer was well-nigh gay; the young people thought his mind was dwelling upon Driot, whose name was now so constantly upon his lips. But it was nothing but the first tillage of the season that made him so content.

A quarter of an hour later the farmer passed round his body the strap fixed to the box on wheels in which the cripple was seated and began dragging it as one tows a boat; the oxen, led by François, going on in front. They took the same road which Jean Nesmy had taken the morning of his dismissal; his footprints were still visible in the dust. There were four superb oxen, preceded by a grey mare, Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, and Matelot, all with tawny coats, widespread horns, high backs, and slow supple gait. With perfect ease they drew the plough, the share raised, up the steep ascent; and when a trail of bramble across their path tempted them, they would simultaneously slacken speed, and the iron chain that linked the foremost couple to the beam would clank on the ground. François walked gloomily beside them, deep in thought on matters not connected with the day's work.

Those following him, the farmer and his crippled son, were equally silent, but their thoughts were centred on the soil over which they were passing; and with the like sense of peaceful content their eyes roamed over gates, ditches, fields, their minds filled with the same simple interests. With them meditation was a sign of their calling, the mark of the noble vocation of those by whose labours the world is fed. Arrived at the top of the knoll in the field of La Cailleterie, his father helped Mathurin out of the little cart to the foot of an ash-tree, whose branches threw a light shadow over the slope. Before them the fallow land, covered with weeds and ferns, fell away in an even descent, surrounded by hedges on the four sides. Looking down the slope and over the lower hedge could be seen the Marais fading away in the distance like a blue plain.

And now the farmer, having loosened the pin that held the share, himself guided the plough to the extreme left of the field, and put it in place.

"You stay there in the sun," he said to Mathurin. "And you, François, lead your oxen straight. This is a grand day for ploughing. Ohé! Noblet, Cavalier, Paladin, Matelot!"

A cut of the whip sent the mare off, the four oxen lowered their horns and extended their hocks, the ploughshare cut into the earth with the noise of a scythe being whetted; the earth parted in brown clods that formed high ridges on either side, falling back in powdery masses upon themselves like water divided by the bow of a ship. The well-trained oxen went straight and steadily. Their muscles under the supple skin moved regularly and without more apparent effort than if they had been drawing an empty cart upon an even road. Weeds lay uprooted in the ruts; trefoil, wild oats, plantains, pimpernels, broom, its yellow blossoms already mixed with brown pods, brakes folded back on their long stems like young oaks cut down. A haze ascended from the upturned earth exposed to the heat of the sun; in front the dust raised by the feet of the oxen caused the team to proceed in a ruddy aureole, through which numberless gnats and flies were darting.

Mathurin, in the shade of the mountain ash, looked on with envy as the team descended the slope of the hill, and the forms of his father and brother, the oxen and mare, grew smaller in the distance.

"François," exclaimed his father, enjoying the feeling of the shaft under his hand, "François, see to Noblet, he is slackening. Touch up Matelot! The mare is drawing to the left. Brisk up, my boy, you look half asleep!"

And, in truth, François was taking no interest in guiding the plough. He was feeling that the time had come for him to speak, and the difficulty of beginning made him walk with head downcast. At the far end of the field they turned and began the ascent, the plough marking a second line of furrows beside the first. From where Mathurin sat he had lost sight of them on the low ground; now the horns of the oxen and his brother's goad came into view, and, to greet the return of the plough, he began with stentorian voice to chant the slow refrain which can be varied or ended at pleasure. The notes were flung far and wide from his powerful chest, embellished with fioriture ancient as the art of ploughing itself. The oxen knew the rhythm, and stepped in time to it; the cadence accompanied the groan of the wheels on their axes; borne on the air, it was wafted afar o'er the hedges, telling other labourers in fields that the plough was at work on the fallow land of La Cailleterie. The cadence rejoiced the farmer's heart. But François remained gloomy. As the plough neared the shade of the ash-tree, Mathurin, whose thoughts were always busied with the future of La Fromentière, said:

"Father, it would be a good thing to re-plant our vineyard that is dying off. As soon as Driot is home we should do it; what think you?"

The farmer stayed his oxen, lifted his hat to cool his hot head, and smiled, well pleased.

"You are always thinking of something to the point, Mathurin. If the wheat comes up well in La Cailleterie, faith of a Lumineau! I will lay in a stock of vines. I am hopeful of our work to-day. Come on, youngster, straighten the harness. Look to your mare, she is hot; coax her a bit, walk beside her, that she may see you and go more quietly."

The team moved off again; a mist of heat enveloped men and beasts; the air was thick with flies; turtle-doves, gorged with seed, took shelter in the ash-trees from the burning heat of the stubble fields. The cripple had ceased his song, and the farmer, as they got to the middle of the field, said:

"It is your turn to tune up now, François. Sing, boy, it will gladden your heart!"

The young man went on a few paces, then began: "Oh! oh! my men, oh! oh! oh!" His voice, of higher register than Mathurin's, made the oxen prick up their ears as it faltered past them; then, all suddenly, it came to a dead stop, rendered mute by the fear that mastered the singer. He pulled himself together, raised his head, and, looking towards the Marais, made a fresh effort; a few more notes faltered out, then a sob choked them, and, crimson with shame, the young man resumed his way in silence, his face turned towards the fallow land, walking in front of his father, who looked at him across the croup of the oxen. No word was said by either until the farmer had finished the furrow; then, at the end of the field, Toussaint Lumineau, troubled to the very depths of his soul, said:

"You have news for me, François, what is it?"

They were some three feet apart, the father standing level with the hedge, his son on the far side of the plough at the head of the oxen.

"That I am going away, father."

"What, François? The heat has turned your head, my boy. Are you feeling ill?" But from the expression of his son's eyes he quickly saw that this was a very different thing from some passing illness; that misfortune was coming.

François had made up his mind to speak. With one hand resting on Noblet's back, as if to support himself, trembling and nervous, yet with hard, insolent look, he cried:

"I have had enough of this. I shall cut it."

"Enough of what, my lad?"

"Enough of digging the ground, enough of looking after the cattle, enough of drudgery at seven-and-twenty to make money that all goes to pay the rent of the farm. I mean to be my own master, and make money for myself. I have got a situation on the railway, and I begin to-morrow—to-morrow, do you hear?" His voice rose in a kind of frenzy.

"I am accepted; there is nothing more to be said. The thing is done. I am taking Eléonore to La Roche to keep house for me. She, too, has had enough of this. She has found a good place, a shop where she will make more than with you; at any rate, she will have a chance of marrying.... And I don't see that we have acted badly towards you in what we have done. Don't say that we have! And don't make that rueful face about it! We have served our time with you, father, have waited patiently for André's return. Now that he is coming home, let him help you. It is his turn."

The unexpected blow had stupefied the farmer; he had grown very white. With set teeth, one arm resting on the plough, he remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon François as if demented. Slowly the full force of the situation, with all its pain, filtered into his soul.

"But, François, what you tell me cannot be true; Eléonore never complained of her work."

"Oh yes, she has; not to you."

"As for you, you have always had plenty of help. If I have sometimes reproached you for idleness, it has been because times are hard for everyone. But now that I am going to take on a farm-servant, now that another fortnight will see Driot home, we shall be four of us, counting myself, who am still of some use. You will not go, François?"

"Yes."

"Where will you do better than at home? Have you been short of food?"

"No."

"Have I ever refused you clothes, or even money for your tobacco?"

"No."

"François, it must be that military service has changed your heart towards us."

"That may be."

"But say that you will not leave us?"

The young man put his hand into his coat pocket, and held out the letter.

"I have to be there at noon to-morrow," he said. "If you don't believe me, read for yourself."

The father stretched out his hand across the team for the letter, trembling so much that he could scarcely take it. Once in his hands, without opening it, in a sudden access of indignation he crumpled and tore it into atoms, then crushed the pieces under his sabots into the soft earth.

"There," he cried, "is an end to the letter. Now are you going?"

"That alters nothing," returned François.

He would have passed his father, but a powerful hand was laid upon his shoulders, a voice commanded:

"Stay here!"

And the son was constrained to stay.

"Who engaged you, François?"

"The head of the office."

"No; who advised you? You did not do this thing by yourself, you had the help of some gentleman. Who was it?"

The young man hesitated for a moment, then, feeling himself a prisoner, stammered out:

"M. Meffray."

With one thrust the farmer sent him flying.

"Run; harness La Rousse to the dog-cart. Quick! I am going myself to M. Meffray."

So he shouted in his rage. But when he saw his son obey him and take the path towards the farm—when he found himself alone in the far end of his field, he was seized with anguish. So far he had ever found help in the difficulties of his life; this time, taken unawares by danger in the full swing of work, he turned him slowly round as if moved by habit, and searched the landscape as far as his eyes would carry, for a helper, a support, someone who should defend his cause and advise with him. His oxen standing still, looked at him out of their large soft eyes. The first object he saw, in among the trees, was the belfry of Sallertaine. He shook his head. No, the Curé, the good old friend he consulted so willingly, could do nothing. Toussaint Lumineau knew him to be powerless against town officials and authorities, all the great unknown outside the parish. His gaze left the church, passed over the farm without stopping, but rested awhile on the pointed roofs of La Fromentière. Ah! were the Marquis but there! He feared nothing: neither uniforms, nor titles, nor long words that poor uncultured people could not understand. And expense was nothing to him. He would have made the journey from Paris to prevent a Maraîchin from leaving the soil. Alas! the Château was empty. No longer the Master to appeal to.... The old farmer's eyes fell upon the two newly made furrows rising before him to the ash-tree on the hill; then it struck him that Mathurin was waiting and wondering, and that he must say something to prevent his growing uneasy.

"Ohé!" cried he, "Lumineau!"

Over the curve of the hill, through the still air, a voice replied:

"Here I am. You are not coming up again?"

"No; the chain has snapped. I must take back the team."

"All right."

"Do not mind waiting a bit; Rousille will come to fetch you. I am going round by the slope of the meadow."

At the foot of the field, filled in with bundles of thorn, was a gap in the hedge leading on to a narrow slip of meadow, and thence to the farm. To avoid having to answer Mathurin's questions, the farmer touched up his oxen and took this way back. In the middle of the courtyard he perceived the dog-cart already harnessed, François standing beside it in his Sunday clothes.

"Fasten up the oxen," he said roughly. Then, passing in front of him, he opened the house door and called:

"Eléonore!"

There was no answer. Going through the house-place he passed into the kitchen, where he met Rousille.

"Where is your sister?"

"She was talking to François in the courtyard just now. Shall I look for her?"

"No, that will do. I will see her later on. Rousille, we have some business at Chalons, François and I. We shall be back before supper. Go to Mathurin, who will be tired of waiting so long at La Cailleterie, and bring him back."

Without another word, the farmer returned to the yard, where François awaited him. Getting into the cart, he signed to his son to take the place beside him, and with a cut of the whip sent the mare, unaccustomed to such harsh usage, off at a gallop.

"Where are they going at such speed?" thought the few spectators whom they passed on their way—spectators whom nothing escapes: innkeepers standing at their doors, tramps on the highway, peasants lopping the trees. "What has come to them? Old Lumineau is lashing La Rousse, and jerking the reins like a groom afraid of his master, and not a word does he say to his lad."

In fact the farmer's wrath was growing as he meditated his wrongs; he muttered between his teeth what he would say to that Meffray, while his stalwart arms, eager for strife and vengeance, lashed into the mare. François, on the contrary, exhausted by the effort he had made, had relapsed into his usual apathy, and suffered himself to be carried on towards his fate, looking at the hedges with vacant stare.

It was he, who on arrival at the Place by the Halles-Neuves of Chalons, jumped down and tied the mare to a ring attached to one of the pillars; then followed his father who turned up one of the streets on the left, and stopped before a modern, narrow, red-brick building. An iron plate, under the door bell, was inscribed, "Jules Meffray, Ex-Sheriff's Officer, Town Councillor."

The farmer pulled the bell vigorously.

"Is your master in?" he asked the servant who opened the door.

The girl examined the peasant who inquired for her master in a tone and look not of the pleasantest, and who presented himself in work-day clothes soiled with mud, and replied:

"I think he is. What may be your business?"

"Tell him that Toussaint Lumineau, of La Fromentière, wants to speak to him; and let him be quick, I am in a hurry."

Astonished, not daring to show Lumineau into the dining-room where M. Meffray was wont to receive his clients, the maid left the farmer and his son standing in the shabby passage at the foot of the stairs. So taken aback was she, that she did not see the shamefaced François hidden in the background, but only the stalwart old peasant, whose broad shoulders almost blocked the way as he stood erect, hat on head, under the ill-kept hall lamp that was never lighted.

A few seconds later the garden door opened, and a tall, stout man came in, dressed in a white flannel suit, a cap of the same material on his head; his face was clean-shaven, his small eyes blinking, probably with the sudden change from the outer glare. This was M. Meffray, member for Chalons, an ambitious small tradesman, who, originally one of them, was possessed by a secret animosity towards the peasant class; and who, living amongst them, had only learnt to know their defects of which he made use.

Informed of the manner in which Lumineau had presented himself, dreading some violence, he stopped short at the foot of the staircase, rested his elbow on the banisters, and touching the brim of his cap with three fingers, said carelessly:

"They should have shown you in, farmer. But as it seems that you are in haste, we can talk just as well here. I have done your son a service, is that your reason for coming?"

"Just so," returned Lumineau.

"Can I do anything more for you?"

"I want to keep my boy, M. Meffray."

"Keep him? What do you mean?"

"Yes; that you should undo what you have done."

"But that depends upon him. Have you had your summons, François?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, my friend, if you do not want to take the post, there is no lack of candidates to fill your place, as you know. I have now ten other applications which I have far more reason to support than I had yours. For after all, you Lumineaus, you do not vote with us in the elections. So do you wish to give up the place?"