Joseph kept up his courage till the day of the wedding. In the morning he was pale, and apparently deep in thought; but as we left the church he took the bagpipe from my father-in-law's hand, and played a wedding march which he had composed that very night in our honor. It was such a beautiful piece of music, and was so applauded, that his gloom disappeared, and he played triumphantly his best dance airs all the evening, and quite forgot himself and his troubles the whole time the festivities lasted.
He followed us back to Chassin, and there the Head-Woodsman, having settled his affairs, addressed us one and all, as follows:—
"My children, you are now happy, and rich for country folks; I leave you the business of this forest, which is a good one, and all I possess elsewhere is yours. You can spend the rest of the season here, and during that time you can decide on your plans for the future. You belong to different parts of the country; your tastes and habits are not alike. Try, my sons, both of you, to find what kind of life will make your wives happy and keep them from regretting their marriages now so well begun. I shall return within a year. Let me have two fine grandchildren to welcome me. You can then tell me what you have decided to do. Take your time; a thing that seems good to-day may seem worse, or better, to-morrow."
"Where are going, father?" said Thérence, clasping him in her arms in fear.
"I am going to travel about with Joseph, and play our music as we go," answered Père Bastien. "He needs it; and as for me, I have hungered for it these thirty years."
Neither tears nor entreaties could keep him, and that evening we escorted them half way to Saint Sevère. There, as we embraced Père Bastien with many tears, Joseph said to us: "Don't be unhappy. I know very well he is sacrificing the sight of your happiness to my good, for he has a father's heart for me and knows I am the most to be pitied of his children; but perhaps I shall not need him long; and I have an idea you will see him sooner than he thinks for." Then he added, kneeling before my wife and Huriel's, "Dear sisters, I have offended both of you, and I have been punished enough by my own thoughts. Will you not forgive me, so that I may forgive myself and go away more peacefully?"
They both kissed him with the utmost affection, and then he came to each of us, and said, with surprising warmth of heart, the kindest and most affectionate words he had ever said in his life, begging us to forgive his faults and to hold him in remembrance.
We stood on a hill to watch them as long as possible. Père Bastien played vigorously on his bagpipe, turning round from time to time to wave his cap and blow kisses with his hand.
Joseph did not turn round; he walked in silence, with his head down as if in thought or in grief. I could not help saying to Huriel that I saw on his face as he left us that strange look I had seen in his childhood, which, in our parts, is thought the sign of a man doomed to evil.
Our tears were dried, little by little, in the sunshine of happiness and hope. My beautiful dear wife made a greater effort than the rest of us, for never before being parted from her father, she seemed to have lost a portion of her soul in losing him; and I saw that in spite of her courage, her love for me, and the happiness she felt in the prospect of becoming a mother, there was always something lacking for which she sighed in secret. So my mind was constantly turning on how to arrange our lives to live in future with Père Bastien, were it even necessary to sell my property, give up my family, and follow my wife wherever she wished to live.