VI
On the Heath
“Dear me,” said Germain, after they had gone a few steps farther, “what will they think at home when they miss the little man? The family will be worried, and will be looking everywhere for him.”
“You can tell the man who is mending the road up there that you are taking him along, and ask him to speak to your people.”
“That is very true, Marie; you don’t forget anything. It never occurred to me that Jeannie must be there.”
“He lives close to the farm, and he will not fail to do your errand.”
When they had taken this precaution, Germain put the mare to a trot, and Petit-Pierre was so overjoyed that for a time he forgot that he had gone without his dinner; but the motion of the horse gave him a hollow feeling in his stomach, and at the end of a league, he began to gape and grow pale, and confessed that he was dying of hunger.
“This is the way it begins,” exclaimed Germain. “I was quite sure that we should not go far without this young gentleman crying with hunger or thirst.”
“I am thirsty, too!” said Petit-Pierre.
“Very well, then, let’s go to Mother Rebec’s tavern at Corlay, the sign of ‘The Dawn’—a pretty sign, but a poor lodging. You will take something to drink, too, will you not, Marie?”
“No, no; I don’t want anything. I will hold the mare while you go in with the child.”
“But I remember, my good girl, that this morning you gave the bread from your own breakfast to my Pierre. You have had nothing to eat. You would not take dinner with us at home; you would do nothing but cry.”
“Oh, I was not hungry; I felt too sad, and I give you my word that even now I have no desire to eat.”
“You must oblige yourself to eat, little girl, else you will fall sick. We have a long way to go, and it will not do to arrive half-starved and beg for bread before we say how d’ ye do. I shall set you a good example myself, although I am not very hungry: and I am sure that I can, for, after all, I did not eat any dinner. I saw you crying, you and your mother, and it made me feel sad. Come along. I am going to tie the gray at the door. Get down; I wish you to.”
All three entered the inn, and in less than fifteen minutes the fat, lame hostess was able to place before them a nice-looking omelette, some brown bread, and a bottle of light wine.
Peasants do not eat quickly, and little Pierre had such a good appetite that a whole hour passed before Germain could think of starting out again. At first little Marie ate in order to be obliging; then little by little she grew hungry. For, at sixteen, a girl cannot fast for long, and country air is dictatorial.
The kind words with which Germain knew how to comfort her and strengthen her courage, produced their effect. She tried hard to persuade herself that seven months would soon be over, and to think of the pleasure in store for her when she saw once more her family and her hamlet; for Father Maurice and Germain had both promised to take her into their service. But just as she began to cheer up and play with little Pierre, Germain was so unfortunate as to point out to her from the inn window the lovely view of the valley which can all be seen from this height, and which looks so happy and green and fertile.
Marie looked and asked if the houses of Belair were in sight.
“No doubt,” said Germain, “and the farm, too, and even your house—see! that tiny gray spot not far from Godard’s big poplar, below the belfry.”
“Ah, I see it,” said the little girl; and then she began to cry.
“I ought not to have made you think of it,” said Germain. “I can do nothing but stupid things today. Come along, Marie; let’s start, and in an hour, when the moon rises, it will not be hot.”
They resumed their journey across the great heath, and for fear of tiring the young girl and the child by too rapid a trot, Germain did not make the gray go very fast. The sun had set when they left the road to enter the wood.
Germain knew the way as far as Magnier, but he thought it would be shorter to avoid the Chantaloube road and descend by Presles and La Sépulture, a route he was not in the habit of taking on his way to the fair. He lost his way, and wasted more time before he reached the wood. Even then he did not enter it on the right side, although he did not perceive his mistake, so that he turned his back on Fourche, and took a direction higher up on the way to Ardente.
He was prevented still further from finding his way by a thick mist which rose as the night fell; one of those mists which come on autumn evenings when the whiteness of the moonlight renders them more undefined and more treacherous. The great pools of water scattered through the glades gave forth a vapor so dense that when the gray crossed them, their presence was known only by a splashing noise, and the difficulty with which she drew her feet from the mud.
At last they found a good straight road, and when they came to the end of it, and Germain tried to discover where he was, he saw that he was lost. For Father Maurice had told him, when he explained the way, that
