"Yes," said Brulette, much comforted, "but yesterday morning! Well, since everything is known," she added, turning to the monk, "what do you advise me to do, Brother Nicolas? You have been employed on Charlot's account; can't you find some story to spread about to cover the secret of his parentage and repair the harm done to my reputation?"
"Story?" said the friar. "I, advise and abet a lie? I am not one of those who damn their souls for the love of the young girls, my little one. I should gain nothing by it. You must be helped some other way; and I have already been working at it more than you think. Have patience; all will come out right, as it did in another matter, where, as Maître Huriel knows, I have not been a bad friend to him."
"I know that I owe you the peace and safety of my life," said Huriel. "People may say what they like of monks, I know one, at least, for whom I would be drawn and quartered. Sit down, Brother, and spend the day with us. What is ours is yours, and the house we are in is yours too."
Thérence and the Head-Woodsman were showing their hospitality to the good friar, when my aunt Marghitonne came hurrying up, and would not let us stay anywhere but with her. She said the wedding party were going to perform the "cabbage ceremony;" which is an old-fashioned foolery practised the day after the marriage; the procession, she said, was already forming and was coming round our way. The company drank, and sang, and danced at each stopping-place. It was impossible for Thérence now to keep aloof, and she accepted my arm to go and meet the crowd, while Huriel escorted Brulette. My aunt took charge of the little one, and the Head-Woodsman marched off with the monk, who was easily persuaded into joining a jovial company.
The fellow who played the part of gardener, or as we still say among us, the pagan, seated on a hand-barrow, was decorated in a style that astonished everybody. He had picked up near the park a beautiful garland of waterlilies tied with a silver ribbon, which he had bound about his flaxen poll. It didn't take us much time to recognize Joseph's bunch, which he had dropped or thrown away on leaving us. The ribbons were the envy of all the girls of the party, who deliberated how to get possession of them unspoiled; at last, flinging themselves on the pagan, they snatched them away from him and divided the booty, though in defending himself he managed to kiss more than one with a mouth that was covered with foam. So scraps of Joseph's ribbon glittered all day in the caps of the prettiest girls in the neighborhood, and came to a much better end than their owner thought for when he left his bunch in the dust of the road.
This farce, played from door to door through the village, was as crazy as usual, ending with a fine repast and dancing till twilight. After which, we all took leave, Brulette and I, the Head-Woodsman, Thérence, and Huriel, and started for Nohant, with the monk at our head, leading the clairin, on which Charlot was perched, tipsy with excitement at what he had seen, laughing like a monkey, and trying to sing as he had heard others do all that day.
Though the young people of the present age have degenerated wofully, you must often have seen girls in their teens tramping fifteen miles in the morning and as much more in the evening in the hottest weather, for a day's dancing, and so you can easily believe that we arrived at home without fatigue. Indeed, we danced part of the way along the road, we four; the Head-Woodsman playing his bagpipe, and the friar declaring we were crazy, but clapping his hands to excite us on.
We reached Brulette's door about ten at night, and found Père Brulet sound asleep in his bed. As he was quite deaf and slept hard, Brulette put the baby to bed, served us a little collation, and consulted with us whether to wake him before he had finished his first nap. However, turning over on his side, he saw the light, recognized his granddaughter and me, seemed surprised at the others, and sitting up in bed as sober as a judge, listened to a statement the Head-Woodsman made to him in a few words, spoken rather loud but very civilly. The monk, in whom Père Brulet had the utmost confidence, followed in praise of the Huriel family, and Huriel himself declared his wishes and all his good intentions both present and to come.
Père Brulet listened without saying a word, and I began to fear he had not understood; but no such thing; though he seemed to be dreaming, his mind was really quite clear, and he presently answered discreetly that he recognized in the Head-Woodsman the son of a former friend; that he held the family in much esteem, and considered Brother Nicolas as worthy of all confidence; and, above all, he trusted in the sense and good judgment of his granddaughter. Then he went on to say that she had not delayed her choice and refused the best offers of the neighborhood to commit a folly in the end, and that if she wished to marry Huriel, Huriel would certainly be a good husband.
He spoke in a collected manner: yet his memory failed him on one point, which he recalled soon after, as we were about to take leave, namely, that Huriel was a muleteer.