It was a boy's trick—a very boy's trick. Save that I set down everything I would not tell it. I put my hands to my mouth and bellowed:
"Il vient!"
An oath broke from Fontelles. I darted into the middle of the road and for a moment stood there laughing again. He had wheeled his horse round, but did not advance towards me. I take it that he was amazed, or, it may be, searching a bewildered memory.
"Il vient!" I cried again in my folly, and, turning, ran down the road at my best speed, laughing still. Fontelles made no effort to follow me, yet on I ran, till I came to my mother's house. Stopping there, panting and breathless, I cried in the exuberance of triumph:
"Now she'll have need of me!"
Certainly the thing the Vicar spoke of is a distemper. Whether divine or of what origin I will not have judged by that night's prank of mine.
"They'll do very well together at the inn," I laughed, as I flung myself on my bed.