Suddenly, round a bend in the path, a number of children appeared in evident high glee. They stopped when they reached the men and explained, all speaking at once, that they were going to see La Grand' Querrue. Perrin, who loved children, listened patiently to the shrill little voices and patted the innocent faces.
"But we can't go on yet!" exclaimed the eldest of the group, "we are waiting for little Marie, she stopped to tie up her shoe. Ah, there she is!"
Perrin looked up and saw that Ellenor had lifted little Marie in her arms and was bringing her to the other children. The golden haired baby nestled her head against the girl's breast: and her chubby arm was thrown round Ellenor's neck. The two made a sweet picture. The girl's sombre face was softened by contrast with the lovely little head pressed confidingly against her. The eternal wonder of mother and child is seen whenever a woman has a baby in her arms, and though Perrin could not have explained the thrill that swept over him, he knew in his heart that the sight of the two together moved him to an intense longing, an intense reverence. In his nature was none of the coarse fibre which so often marks the men whose lives are all action, danger and privation. When Ellenor kissed little Marie and put her down with a gentleness unusual to herself, Perrin's thoughts rang of what she would be as a mother. His heart throbbed suddenly as he dared to drag to light a long-hidden secret—kept hitherto from himself. He loved her. He had loved her from childhood, when he, a big clumsy boy, had taken her part, and fought her battles, at the parish school. He wanted her for his wife. He wanted her for the mother of his children.
Ah, what a picture rose before him as his thoughts painted rapidly! A little cottage on the moorland; a rose red vraic fire; Ellenor seated in a low chair, beside her a cradle; on her lap, a little baby, with wide sad eyes like hers. He saw himself enter the cottage and fling his net into a corner; he felt her kiss on his lips, and....
"Wake up, Corbet! Not a word have you spoken since we left those children—and what with you as glum as a fish and Ellenor gone in front, its precious dull for me!"
Cartier slapped his friend on the back, and Perrin exerted himself to chat and laugh. Then, all at once, Jean broke into the talk of parish gossip.
"Look here, mon gars, I'm not happy about Ellenor. She is unhappy, worse and worse each day; and so bad tempered. You know she never gets on with her mother, poor girl; but now, even at me she snaps, and, God knows, I love her well, and she loves me."
Perrin was silent.