"Yes, the stupidity of Trompette and the others has upset me; I should like to know what made them stamp," I answered. "And you, too, Merlin; you surprise me! You think that it is a fine thing to invade the country of our neighbours; to carry off the wheat, the wine, the hay, and the straw of poor people, who never did us any harm. You think it is fine to take their country and to make them French, in spite of themselves. That is sport. You think that is sport! Would you like to become a German? Would you like to obey the Prussians and put aside your country for another? What would it profit us to do such a thing as that? Would it make us richer to tear out the souls of our neighbours? Would that leave us with a good conscience? Well, for my part, I would not, for the honour of our nation, have an ill-gotten centime or inch of land. I do not want to believe what that gentleman says. If it is true, so much the worse! Even if we were the strongest to-day, the Germans, from father to son, would think only of vengeance, of returning to their rights, of reclaiming their blood. Would the good God be just to abandon them? There are only beings without hearts and without religion who are capable of believing it; gamblers, who imagine stupidly that they will always win. Nevertheless, we see that many gamblers end their days on a dunghill."
"Father Frederick," said Merlin, "don't be angry with me. I had never thought of all that; it is true. But you are too angry to return to the kitchen."
"Yes," I answered, "let us go to sleep; that is better than drinking; there is still room in the barn."
We did so, and left the next morning at daybreak.
What I have just told you, George, is true; I have always placed justice above everything, and even now, when I have lost all that I loved best in the world, I repeat the same thing. I am better pleased in my great misery to be deprived of the fruit of my labour for thirty years than to have lost my love of justice.
X
After that the winter passed as usual; rain, snow, great blasts of wind through the leafless trees, uprooted firs, dislodged rocks, covering with earth the roads and paths at the foot of the slope. That is what I had seen for twenty-five years past.
Then gradually the spring arrived. The cattle again descended to drink at the river. Calas began to sing again as he cracked his whip, and the cock began to flap his wings on the low wall of the poultry-yard, in the midst of his hens, filling with his clear voice all the echoes of the valley.
Ah! how all that comes back to me, George, and how beautiful those things to which I then paid no attention, appear to me now in this garret into which scarcely a ray of light can penetrate.
It was our last spring at the forest house.