“Here, sir, is the present I have for you,” answered little Marie, aloud, as she threw the golden louis in his face with all her might. “I thank you heartily, and I beg that if you come anywhere near our house, you will be good enough to let me know. All the boys in the neighborhood will go out to welcome you, because, where I live, we are very fond of gentlemen who try to make love to poor girls. You shall see. They will be on the lookout for you.”
“You lie with your dirty tongue,” cried the farmer, raising his stick with a dangerous air. “You wish to make people believe what is not so, but you shall never get a penny out of me. We know what kind of a girl you are.”
Marie drew back, frightened, and Germain sprang to the bridle of the farmer’s horse and shook it violently.
“I understand now,” said he; “it is easy to see what is going on. Get down, my man, get down; I want to talk to you.”
The farmer was not eager to take up the quarrel. Anxious to escape, he set spurs to his horse and tried to loosen the peasant’s grasp by striking down his hands with a cane; but Germain dodged the blow, and seizing hold of his antagonist’s leg, he unseated him and flung him to the earth. The farmer regained his feet, but although he defended himself vigorously, he was knocked down once more. Germain held him to the ground. Then he said:
“Poor coward, I could thrash you if I wished. But I don’t want to do you an injury, and, besides, no amount of punishment would help your conscience—but you shall not stir from this spot until you beg the girl’s pardon, on your knees.”
The farmer understood this sort of thing, and wished to take it all as a joke. He made believe that his offense was not serious, since it lay in words alone, and protested that he was perfectly willing to ask her pardon, provided he might kiss the girl afterward. Finally, he proposed that they go and drink a pint of wine at the nearest tavern, and so part good friends.
“You are disgusting!” answered Germain, rubbing his victim’s head in the dirt, “and I never wish to see your nasty face again. So blush, if you are able, and when you come to our village, you had better slink along Sneak’s Alley.”2
He picked up the farmer’s holly-stick, broke it over his knee to show the strength of his wrists, and threw away the pieces with disgust. Then giving one hand to his son and the other to little Marie, he walked away, still trembling with anger.
XIV
The Return to the Farm
At the end of fifteen minutes they had left the heath behind them. They trotted along the high road, and the gray whinnied at each familiar object. Petit-Pierre told his father as much as he could understand of what had passed.
“When we reached the farm,” said he, “that man came to speak to my Marie in the fold where we had gone to see the pretty sheep. I had climbed into the manger to play, and that man did not see me. Then he said good morning to Marie, and he kissed her.”
“You allowed him to kiss you, Marie?” said Germain, trembling with anger.
“I thought it was a civility, a custom of the place to newcomers, just as at your farm the grandmother kisses the young girls who enter her service to show that she adopts them and will be a mother to them.”
“And next,” went on little Pierre, who was proud to have an adventure to tell of, “that man told you something wicked, which you have told me never to repeat and not even remember; so I forgot it right away. Still, if father wishes, I will tell him what it was—”
“No, Pierre, I don’t wish to hear, and I don’t wish you ever to think of it again.”
“Then I will forget it all over again,” replied the child. “Next, that man seemed to be growing angry because Marie told him that she was going away. He told her he would give her whatever she wanted—a hundred francs! And my Marie grew angry too. Then he came toward her as if he wished to hurt her. I was afraid, and I ran to Marie and cried. Then that man said: ‘What’s that? Where did that child come from? Put it out,’ and he raised his cane to beat me. But my Marie prevented him, and she spoke to him this way: ‘We will talk later, sir; now I must take this child back to Fourche, and then I shall return.’ And as soon as he had left the fold, my Marie spoke to me this way: ‘We must run, my Pierre; we must get away as quickly as we can, for this is a wicked man and he is trying to do us harm.’ Then when we had gone back of the farmhouses, we crossed a little meadow, and we went to Fourche to find you. But you were not there, and they wouldn’t let us wait. And then that man, riding his black horse, came behind us, and we ran on as fast as we could and hid in the woods. And then he followed us, and when we heard him coming, we hid again.
