“But, dear papa Séchard, your son will be a credit to you, you will see; he will make money and be a rich man one of these days, and wear the Cross of the Legion of Honor at his buttonhole.”
“What is he going to do to get it?”
“You will see. But, meanwhile, would a thousand crowns ruin you? A thousand crowns would put an end to the proceedings. Well, if you cannot trust him, lend the money to me; I will pay it back; you could make it a charge on my portion, on my earnings—”
“Then has someone brought David into a court of law?” cried the vinedresser, amazed to find that the gossip was really true. “See what comes of knowing how to write your name! And how about my rent! Oh! little girl, I must go to Angoulême at once and ask Cachan’s advice, and see that I am straight. You did right well to come over. Forewarned is forearmed.”
After two hours of argument Eve was fain to go, defeated by the unanswerable dictum, “Women never understand business.” She had come with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Séchard must pay Métivier in full. The appearance of a bailiff at a house door is an event in a country town, and Doublon had come far too often of late. The whole neighborhood was talking about the Séchards. Eve dared not leave her house; she dreaded to hear the whispers as she passed.
“Oh! my brother, my brother!” cried poor Eve, as she hurried into the passage and up the stairs, “I can never forgive you, unless it was—”
“Alas! it was that, or suicide,” said David, who had followed her.
“Let us say no more about it,” she said quietly. “The woman who dragged him down into the depths of Paris has much to answer for; and your father, my David, is quite inexorable! Let us bear it in silence.”
A discreet rapping at the door cut short some word of love on David’s lips. Marion appeared, towing the big, burly Kolb after her across the outer room.
“Madame,” said Marion, “we have known, Kolb and I, that you and the master were very much put about; and as we have eleven hundred francs of savings between us, we thought we could not do better than put them in the mistress’ hands—”
“Die misdress,” echoed Kolb fervently.
“Kolb,” cried David, “you and I will never part. Pay a thousand francs on account to Maître Cachan, and take a receipt for it; we will keep the rest. And, Kolb, no power on earth must extract a word from you as to my work, or my absences from home, or the things you may see me bring back; and if I send you to look for plants for me, you know, no human being must set eyes on you. They will try to corrupt you, my good Kolb; they will offer you thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of francs, to tell—”
“Dey may offer me millions,” cried Kolb, “but not ein vort from me shall dey traw. Haf I not peen in der army, and know my orders?”
“Well, you are warned. March, and ask M. Petit-Claud to go with you as witness.”
“Yes,” said the Alsacien. “Some tay I hope to be rich enough to dust der chacket of dat man of law. I don’t like his gountenance.”
“Kolb is a good man, madame,” said Big Marion; “he is as strong as a Turk, and as meek as a lamb. Just the one that would make a woman happy. It was his notion, too, to invest our savings this way—‘safings,’ as he calls them. Poor man, if he doesn’t speak right, he thinks right, and I understand him all the same. He has a notion of working for somebody else, so as to save us his keep—”
“Surely we shall be rich, if it is only to repay these good folk,” said David, looking at his wife.
Eve thought it quite simple; it was no surprise to her to find other natures on a level with her own. The dullest—nay, the most indifferent—observer could have seen all the beauty of her nature in her way of receiving this service.
“You will be rich some day, dear master,” said Marion; “your bread is ready baked. Your father has just bought another farm, he is putting by money for you; that he is.”
And under the circumstances, did not Marion show an exquisite delicacy of feeling by belittling, as it were, her kindness in this way?
French procedure, like all things human, has its defects; nevertheless, the sword of justice, being a two-edged weapon, is excellently adapted alike for attack or defence. Procedure, moreover, has its amusing side; for when opposed, lawyers arrive at an understanding, as they well may do, without exchanging a word; through their manner of conducting their case, a suit becomes a kind of war waged on the lines laid down by the first Marshal Biron, who, at the siege of Rouen, it may be remembered, received his son’s project for taking the city in two days with the remark, “You must be in a great hurry to go and plant cabbages!” Let two commanders-in-chief spare their troops as much as possible, let them imitate the Austrian generals who give the men time to eat their soup though they fail to effect a juncture, and escape reprimand from the Aulic Council; let them avoid all decisive measures, and they shall carry on a war forever. Maître Cachan, Petit-Claud, and Doublon, did better than the Austrian generals; they took for their
