The Devils Pool | Page 9

discretion and her dollars will help us
now and make us feel easy about the future."
"That is true, Father. I shall try to please her and to like her."
"To do that you must go to find her, and see her."
"At her own place? At Fourche? That is a great way from here, is it not?
And we scarcely have time to run off at this season of the year."
"When it is a question of a love-match you must make up your mind to
lose time, but when it is a sensible marriage of two people, who take no
sudden fancies and know what they want, it is very soon decided.
To-morrow is Saturday; you will make your day's work a little shorter
than usual. You must start after dinner about two o'clock. You will be

at Fourche by nightfall. The moon rises early. The roads are good, and
it is not more than three leagues distant. It is near Magnier. Besides,
you will take the mare."
"I had just as lief go afoot in this cool weather."
"Yes, but the mare is pretty, and a suitor looks better when he comes
well mounted. You must put on your new clothes and carry a nice
present of game to Father Leonard. You will come from me and talk
with him, pass all of Sunday with his daughter, and come back Monday
morning with a yes or no."
"Very well," answered Germain calmly, and yet he did not feel very
calm.
Germain had always lived soberly, as industrious peasants do. Married
at twenty, he had loved but one woman in his life, and after her death,
impulsive and gay as his nature was, he had never played nor trifled
with another. He had borne a real sorrow faithfully in his heart, and it
was not without misgiving nor without sadness that he yielded to his
father-in-law; but that father had always governed the family wisely,
and Germain, entirely devoted as he was to the common welfare and so,
by consequence, to the head of the house, who represented it, could not
understand that he might have wronged his own good sense and hurt
the interests of all. Nevertheless, he was sad. Few days went by when
he did not cry in secret, for his wife, and although loneliness began to
weigh on him, he was more afraid of entering into a new marriage than
desirous of finding a support in his sorrow. He had a vague idea that
love might have consoled him by coming to him of a sudden, for this is
the only way love can console. We never find it when we seek it; it
comes over us unawares.
This cold-blooded scheme of marriage that Father Maurice had opened
to him, this unknown woman he was to take for his bride, perhaps even
all that had been said to him of her virtue and good sense, made him
pause to think. And he went away musing as men do whose thoughts
are too few to divide into hostile factions, not scraping up fine
arguments for rebellion and selfishness but suffering from a dull grief,

submissive to ills from which there is no escape.
Meanwhile, Father Maurice had returned to the farm, while Germain,
between sunset and dark, spent the closing hour of the day in repairing
gaps the sheep had made in the hedge of a yard near the farm-buildings.
He lifted up the branches of the thorn-bushes and held them in place
with clods of earth, whilst the thrushes chattered in the neighboring
thicket and seemed to call to him to hurry, for they were eager to come
and see his work as soon as he had gone.

IV -- Mother Guillette
FATHER MAURICE found at his house an old neighbor who had
come to talk with his wife, seeking at the same time to secure a few
embers to light her fire. Mother Guillette lived in a wretched hut two
gunshots away from the farm. Still she was a willing and an orderly
woman. Her poor dwelling was clean and neat, and the care with which
her clothes were mended showed that she respected herself in the midst
of her penury.
"You have come to fetch your evening fire, Mother Guillette," said the
old man to her. "Is there anything else you want?"
"No, Father Maurice," answered she; "nothing for the present. I am no
beggar, as you know, and I take care not to abuse the kindness of my
friends."
"That is very true. Besides, your friends are always ready to do you a
service."
"I was just talking to your wife, and I was asking her if Germain had
finally decided to marry again."
"You are no gossip," replied Father Maurice; "we