Then, looking round the horizon, he added:—
"There is a storm brewing somewhere—and the shadows are lengthening. 'Tis time we went down to the Buron, lads, and saw to the milking."
Now these three constituted the usual triumvirate of the Haute Auvergne—the vacher, or cowkeeper, (sometimes called the buronnier) who makes the cheeses which form the principal revenue of the landowners in this part of France; the boutilier who makes the butter; and the pâtre, or herdsman, who looks after the cows, and keeps the Buron and dairy in order. The distinctions of rank among these three are strictly observed.
The varher is a person of authority, "a wise fellow, and, what is more, an officer" the boutilier comes next in dignity; and the pâtre is under both. The Buron, or little wooden hut, in which they live during the six Summer months, in Switzerland would be called a châlet. It is generally built of wood, and divided into three chambers, the first of which is for living and cooking in, and is provided with a rude fire-place and chimney; the second is for the cheese-making, and contains milk-pails, churns, and other implements; the third serves for a cheese-room, store-room, and sleeping-room. A small kitchen-garden, a stable, a pigsty, and an enclosure in which the cattle take refuge in rough weather, completes the establishment.
The Buron to which the three herdsmen now took their way stood on a green slope surrounded by oaks, about six hundred feet below the spot on which they had been sleeping. As they went along, the cows came to their call and followed them, knowing that milking-time was come. Every cow—and there were fifty in all—was branded on the flank with a coronet and an initial P, thus showing them to be the property of the Countess de Peyrelade, a young and wealthy widow whose estates extended for many miles to the eastward of the Plomb de Cantal. Other herds, other Burons, other dependents, she had scattered about the neighbouring hillsides, all portioned off in the same way—namely, fifty cows and three men to each district.
"Tell us, Père Jacques," said the boutilier when, the milking being done, the men sat outside the Buron door, smoking and chatting, "tell us what our new lady is like."
"Like!" repeated the cowkeeper. "Eh, mon garçon, it would take a more skilful tongue than mine to describe her! She is more beautiful than the Madonna in the Cathedral of St. Flour."
"When did you see her, Père Jacques, and where?" asked the pâtre.
"Mon enfant, I have seen her from near by and from afar off. I have seen her as a child, a demoiselle, a bride, a widow. I have carried her in my arms, and danced her on my knee, many and many a time. Ah! that surprises you; but the snow has fallen for many a Winter on the summit of Mount Cantal since that time."
"Then it was a great many years ago, Father Jacques. How old is Madame la Comtesse?"