"Well, well! I am going to obey you," said she, as she went down to the cellar.
Catherine took off her pretty shawl and hung it on the back of my chair, then she put some wood on the fire and some butter in a saucepan and looked into the kettles to see that everything was in order. Aunt came in at that moment with a bottle of white wine.
"You will first refresh yourselves a little before dinner, and while Catherine looks after the kitchen I will go and put on my sacque and give my hair a touch with the comb, for certainly it needs it, and you—go into the orchard;—here, Joseph, take these glasses and the bottle and go and sit in the bee-house, the weather is fine, in an hour all will be in order and I will come and drink with you."
Father Goulden and I went out through the tall grass and the yellow dandelions which came up to our knees. It was very warm and the air was full of soft murmurs. We sat down in the shade and looked at the glorious sunshine.
Mr. Goulden took off his peruke in order to be more at his ease and hung it up behind him, and I opened the bottle and we drank some of the good white wine.
"Well! all goes on even though man does commit follies; the Lord God watches over all his works. Look at the grain, Joseph, how it grows! What a harvest there will be in three or four months. And those turnips and cabbages, and the shrubs, and the bees, how busy everything is, how they live and grow! what a pity it is that men do not follow so good an example! what a pity that some must labor to support the others in idleness. What a pity that there must be always idlers of every kind, who treat us like Jacobins because we wish for order and peace and justice!"
There was nothing he liked so much to see as industry, not only that of man but even of the smallest insect that runs about in the grass, as in an endless forest, which builds and pairs and covers its eggs, heaps them up in its places of deposit, exposes them to the sunshine, protects them from the chills of night, and defends them from its enemies; in short, all that great universe of life where everything sings, everything is in its place; from the lark which fills the air with his joyous music to the ant which goes and comes and runs and mows and saws and pulls and is master of all trades.
This was what pleased Mr. Goulden, but he never spoke of it except in the fields, when this grand spectacle was right under his eyes, and naturally he then spoke of God, whom he called the "Supreme Being," as in the time of the Republic, and he said, He was reason and wisdom and goodness and love; justice, order, and life. The ideas of the almanac-makers came back to him also, and it was splendid to hear him talk of the "Pluviose" the season of rains, of "Nivose" the season of snows, of "Ventose" season of winds, and "Floreal, Prairial, and Fructidor." He said the ideas of men in those times were more closely allied to God's, while July, September, and October meant nothing, and were only invented to confuse and obscure everything. Once on this subject it was plain that he could not exhaust it. Unfortunately I have not the learning that that good man had, otherwise it would give me real pleasure to recount his sayings to you. We were just here when Mother Grédel, well washed and combed and in her Sunday dress, came round the corner of the house toward us. He stopped instantly that she might not be disturbed.
"Here I am," she said, "all in order."
"Sit down," said Father Goulden, making a place for her beside him on the bench.