Chapter VIII

IT was twilight when they set out, and when they passed the sluice of the pond of Rochefolle night had already fallen. The moon had not yet risen above the trees, and in that part of the country the roads are so washed by numerous springs that they are not at all good. François spurred his mare on to speed, for he disliked the company of Sévère, and longed to be with Madame Blanchet.

But Sévère, who was in no haste to reach home, began to play the part of a fine lady, saying that she was afraid, and that the mare must not go faster than a walk, because she did not lift her legs well and might stumble at any minute.

"Bah!" said François without paying any attention; "then it would be the first time she said her prayers, for I never saw a mare so disinclined to piety!"

"You are witty, François," said Sévère giggling, as if François had said something very new and amusing.

"Oh, no indeed!" answered the waif, who thought she was laughing at him.

"Come," said she, "you surely cannot mean to trot down-hill?"

"You need not fear, for we can trot perfectly well."

The trot down-hill stopped the stout Sévère's breath, and prevented her talking. She was extremely vexed, as she had expected to coax the young man with her soft words, but she was unwilling to let him see that she was neither young nor slender enough to stand fatigue, and was silent for a part of the way.

When they came to a chestnut grove, she took it into her head to say:

"Stop, François; you must stop, dear François. The mare has just lost a shoe."

"Even if she has lost a shoe," said François, "I have neither hammer nor nails to put it on with."

"But we must not lose the shoe. It is worth something! Get down, I say, and look for it."

"I might look two hours for it, among these ferns, without finding it. And my eyes are not lanterns."

"Oh, yes, François," said Sévère, half in jest and half in earnest; "your eyes shine like glowworms."

"Then you can see them through my hat, I suppose?" answered François, not at all pleased with what he took for derision.

"I cannot see them just now," said Sévère with a sigh as big as herself; "but I have seen them at other times!"

"You can never have seen anything amiss in them," returned the innocent waif. "You may as well leave them alone, for they have never looked rudely at you and never will."

"I think," broke in at this moment the priest's servant, "that you might skip this part of the story. It is not very interesting to hear all the bad devices of this wicked woman, for ensnaring our waif."

"Put yourself at ease, Mother Monique," replied the hemp-dresser. "I shall skip as much as is proper. I know that I am speaking before young people, and I shall not say a word too much."

We were just speaking of François's eyes, the expression of which Sévère was trying to make less irreproachable than he had declared it to be.

"How old are you, François?" said she with more politeness, so as to let him understand that she was no longer going to treat him like a little boy.

"Oh, Heavens! I don't know exactly," answered the waif, beginning to perceive her clumsy advances. "I do not often amuse myself by reckoning my years."

"I heard that you were only seventeen," she resumed, "but I wager that you must be twenty, for you are tall, and will soon have a beard on your chin."

"It is all the same to me," said François, yawning.

"Take care! You are going too fast, my boy. There! I have just lost my purse!"

"The deuce you have!" said François, who had not as yet discovered how shy she was. "Then I suppose that you must get off and look for it, for it maybe of value."

He jumped down and helped her to dismount. She took pains to lean against him, and he found her heavier than a sack of corn.

While she pretended to search for the purse, which was all the time in her pocket, he went on five or six steps, holding the mare by the bridle.

"Are not you going to help me look for it?" said she.

"I must hold the mare," said he, "for she is thinking of her colt, and if I let her loose she will run home."

Sévère looked under the mare's leg, close beside François, and from this he saw that she had lost nothing except her senses.

"We had not come as far as this," said he, "when you called out that you had lost your purse. So you certainly cannot find it here."

"Do you think I am shamming, you rogue?" said she, trying to pull his ear; "for I really believe that you are a rogue."

François drew back, as he was in no mood for a frolic.

"No, no," said he, "if you have found your money, let us go, for I should rather be asleep than stay here jesting."

"Then we can talk," said Sévère, when she was seated again behind him; "they say that beguiles the weariness of the road."

"I need no beguiling," answered the waif, "for I am not weary."

"That is the first pretty speech you have made me, François!"

"If it is a pretty speech, I made it by accident, for I do not understand that sort of thing."

Sévère was exasperated, but she would not as yet give in to the truth.

"The boy must be a simpleton," said she to herself. "If I make him lose his way, he will have to stay a little longer with me."

So she tried to mislead him, and to induce him to turn to the left when he was going to the right.

"You are making a mistake," said she; "this is the first time you have been over this road. I know it better than you do. Take my advice, or you will make me spend the night in the woods, young man!"

When François had once been over a road, he knew it so perfectly that he could find his way in it at the end of a year.

"No, no," said he, "this is the right way, and I am not in the least out of my head. The mare knows it too, and I have no desire to spend the night rambling about the woods."

Thus he reached the farm of Dollins, where Sévère lived, without losing a quarter of an hour and without giving an opening as wide as the eye of a needle to her advances. Once there, she tried to detain him, insisting that the night was dark, that the water had risen, and that he would have difficulty in crossing the fords. The waif cared not a whit for these dangers, and, bored with so many foolish words, he struck the mare with his heels, galloped off without waiting to hear the rest, and returned swiftly to the mill, where Madeleine Blanchet was waiting for him, grieved that he should come so late.