"Yes; but you must remember that she lived with old man le Petit without being married to him, and that is forbidden by the Church. She would not even repent on her death-bed and receive the Blessed Sacrament. How could the curé bury her after that?"
Haidee knew all about the little scandal, for the storm it occasioned had raged all the winter about the curé's head. The same day he had refused to bury mère le Petit he was obliged to go to Paris on Church business. On his return in the dusk of a December evening he was met at the station by all the fishermen in the village partially disguised in home-made masks, each carrying some instrument or implement with which to make hideous sounds; pots, pans, old trays, sheep-bells, and cow-horns had all been pressed into service, and the din was truly fearsome. The curé preserving his serenity was conducted to his presbytery by this scratch band, and on every dark night thereafter it had serenaded him from the shadows near his house. The blare sometimes continued until the small hours of the morning, keeping not only the unfortunate curé, but the whole village awake. The gendarmes from Barleville, the nearest police-station, had made several midnight raids with the stated intention of capturing the offenders, but their efforts were attended by a lack of success so striking as to suggest a certain amount of sympathy, not to say complicity, on the part of the law. At any rate, the curé's music, or "Mujik de Churie," as it was popularly pronounced, went on gaily, and there had been some kind of unofficial announcement that it would continue until the curé cleared out. Old pére Duval opined, however, that the entertainment was likely to cease with the arrival of the first summer visitors, for however vindictive the fishermen were they knew which side their bread was buttered on, and were politic enough not to want to drive away trade by their thrilling "mujik."
Having finished drying plates Haidee retired up-stairs to prepare her confession, telling Hortense to be sure and wait for her. She proceeded to write her sins down on a piece of paper. In spite of her good French she stammered so much from nervousness when confessing that the curé had arranged this method with her. She always gave him the piece of paper, which he took away to the sacristy while she waited in the confessional. When he had read her paper he came back, conferred penance and a little scolding, then gave her absolution.
With the aid of a French Catechism, which had a formula for confession in it, she proceeded to write out her sins, her method being to dive into the book first for a question and then into her soul for a sin that corresponded. Eventually the piece of paper contained the following statement:
"Je ne me suis pas confessé depuis trois semaines; j'ai recu l'absolution. Je m'accuse:
"De n'avoir pas fait ma priere du matin beaucoup de fois.
"De n'avoir pas fait ma prière du soir plusieurs fois.
"D'avoir manqué aux Vêpres 4 fois.
"D'avoir été distraite dans l'Église 2 fois.
"D'avoir été dissipée dans l'Église 2 fois.