So much tribulation turned the feebler heads. Folk no longer understood each other aright. They got confused over names. Those who called La Zaat by its name were rebuked by those who called it La Chaux Sei, and those parties both fell out with the supporters of the name Bellalui. No one was quite clear about the identity of Petit Mont Tubang and Grand Mont Tubang. They were in a mist as to Petit Mont Bonvin and Grand Mont Bonvin. Everybody confused one and all of these with the Tonio de Merdasson. In short, the mind of the country-side was muddled, now that all eyes saw double when they looked in the direction of Vermala.
Old men, however, stiffened their backs and spoke in firm voices above the new Babel of tongues. They said it had always been known before their time and would ever hereafter be manifest, that the crest that is visible from Lens is the brow of Bellalui, and they clinched the matter with the reminder that when Bagnoud the mayor built his new house, he called it Bellalui after the mountain.
As it happens, it was at Lens that the meteoric personage once more called attention to himself.
Truth to say, though there was no one who did not expect his return, there was nevertheless a general shudder when Jean Perrex who had gone to Saillon, brought back the news that “he” was known to have brought out of the stable the horse which had lately been bought with a new cart, to show visitors over the country. “He” had put the horse to the cart without collar, traces, or bridle. Without whip or ribbons, he had driven to St. Pierre de Clages. He had tied the horse to the church door. Then he had sat down on the grass at the foot of the Norman tower, between the beehives of the curé and the wasps’ nest that is there sunk in the soil. Nobody could say how and when they had seen him. It would have been useless to ask what he was like. But it could not but be he, since the abandoned horse and cart had been impounded, and the church was now sinking more rapidly than heretofore.
The most convincing testimony, however, was that of Claudine Rey. Her brother was in the habit of walking out with a girl who had a situation in a hotel in Brigue. One night he had clambered up the wall to the terrace, when the moon suddenly grinned through the clouds. Then, instead of the girl he was to meet, whom should he see there to his right in the arbour but “him” in the shape of a dwarfish, wizened wiseacre, clutching in his right hand a death’s head, and with the fingers of his left running rapidly along the lines of a book of charms!
When, on St. Martin’s eve, this account was given to the worthy curé of Lens, who had gathered about his hearth some of his parishioners to crack in goodly company the arolla nuts roasting in the ashes, the dear old man shook his head; his mind was running on the words “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
Then a gentle scratching was heard on the panes of the closed window. The gathering looked that way and most turned pale. The first snow of the coming winter was swirling and whirling against the glass, borne on the soughing wind. And the bluish purple light poured forth from the wells of memory into the sockets of their eyes.
The curé came out with his guests on his way to trim the church lamp. A thin layer of snow covered the village lanes. He cast about him furtive and mistrustful glances. The pure white carpet was as yet unsullied by footprints. Would “he” come?
Now this curé was a bit of an astronomer and a clerical moralist. He took every care of the sundial of his church tower and had adorned it with an inscription, in two expressive lines:—
“Le temps passé n’est plus, l’éternité commence.