“The pilgrimage!—what a lucky chance!” cried Coucou Peter, joyously; “we are going there too. Good faith!—an excellent opportunity to renew our acquaintance. But what are you making the pilgrimage for, Maître Hans Aden?—have you anybody sick in your family?”
“No, Coucou Peter, no,” replied the Mayor of Dabo. “Thank God, everybody at home is well. We are going to thank St. Florent for having vouchsafed us a child. You know that my wife and I have been married for five years without having had that happiness: at last my wife said to me, ‘Listen to me, Hans—we must make a pilgrimage; all the wives who make a pilgrimage have children!’ I thought there was no use in it. ‘Bah!’ I said, ‘that’s no good, Thérèse—and, besides, I can’t leave the house; it’s just harvest time; I can’t give up everything.’ ‘Well, then, I’ll go alone,’ she said to me; ‘you are an unbeliever, Hans Aden, and you’ll end badly!’ ‘Well, go by yourself, then, Thérèse,’ I said to her, ‘and we shall see which of us is right!’ Good!—she went; and imagine, Coucou Peter, just nine months after came a baby!—a big, fat baby; the finest and handsomest boy-baby of the mountain! From that time all the women of Dabo have been wanting to make pilgrimages.”
Coucou Peter had listened with singular attention to this story; suddenly he raised his head and said—
“And how long is it since Dame Thérèse went on her pilgrimage?”
“It was this day two years,” replied Hans Aden.
“Two years!” cried Coucou Peter, turning pale, and supporting himself against a tree; “two years!”
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Hans Aden.
“Nothing, Maître Hans—nothing; it’s a weakness that comes into my legs whenever I sit too long.”