"What's the meaning of this?" he asked her, from a distance. "Are we going to begin to-day or to-morrow? Perhaps you think that God Almighty is at your beck and call?"
"In a moment, your reverence; in a moment," replied the old woman, with her impassive calmness.
Hilarion was just then bringing out the last fragments of the flag-stones, and he went by carrying an immense block against his stomach. He swayed from side to side on his crooked shanks, but he did not bend, being as firmly set as a rock, with muscles strong enough to have carried an ox. His hare-lip was dribbling, but not a drop of sweat moistened his hardened skin.
The Abbé Godard, provoked by La Grande's equanimity, fell upon her at once.
"Look here, La Grande," said he, "now that I've got hold of you, is it charitable of you, who are so well off, to let your only grandson beg his bread along the roads?"
"The mother disobeyed me; the child is nothing to me," she answered harshly.
"Well, I've given you fair warning, and I tell you again that if you're so hard-hearted as that you'll go to Hell. He would have starved to death the other day but for what I gave him, and now I'm obliged to invent a job for him."
On hearing the word "Hell" La Grande slightly smiled. As she herself said, she knew too much about it: the poor folks' Hell was on this earth. The sight of Hilarion carrying paving-stones set her thinking, however, far more than the priest's threats did. She was surprised; she would never have imagined that he was so strong, with his jacket-sleeve shanks.
"If it's work he wants," she replied at last, "I daresay he can be found some."
"His proper place is with you. Take him, La Grande," said the priest.