"Alas, good lady! my poor grandmother, who is very, very old, has fallen down in trying to climb up the ravine, and hurt herself very much. I am afraid she has broken her leg, and I am too weak to lift her up myself. Mon Dieu! what shall I do if you will not come and help me? Perhaps my poor grandmother will die!"
The Goualeuse, touched with the grief of the little cripple, replied:
"I am not very strong myself, my child; but perhaps I can help you to assist your poor grandmother. Let us go to her as quickly as we can! I live at the farm close by here; and, if the poor old woman cannot walk there with us, I will send somebody to help her!"
"Oh, good lady, le bon Dieu will bless you for your kindness! It is close by here—not two steps down this hollow way, as I told you. It was in going down the slope that she fell."
"You do not belong to this part of the country?" said the Goualeuse, inquiringly following Tortillard, whom our readers have, no doubt, recognised.
"No, good lady, we came from Ecouen."
"And where are you going?"
"To a good clergyman's, who lives on the hill out there," said Bras Rouge's son, to increase Fleur-de-Marie's confidence.
"To the Abbé Laport's, perhaps?"
"Yes, good lady; to the Abbé Laport's. My poor grandmother knows him very, very well."