The Belle of the Village
And after all, when he had brushed the dust of travel from his clothes and from his horse’s harness, when he had mounted the gray, and when he had learned the road, he felt that there was no retreat and that he must forget that anxious night as though it had been a dangerous dream.
He found Father Leonard seated on a trim bench of spinach-green. The six stone steps leading up to the door showed that the house had a cellar. The walls of the garden and of the hemp-field were plastered with lime and sand. It was a handsome house, and might almost have been mistaken for the dwelling of a bourgeois.
Germain’s future father-in-law came forward to meet him, and having plied him, for five minutes, with questions concerning his entire family, he added that conventional phrase with which one passer-by addresses another concerning the object of his journey: “So you are taking a little trip in this part of the country?”
“I have come to see you,” replied the husbandman, “to give you this little present of game with my father’s compliments, and to tell you from him that you ought to know with what intentions I come to your house.”
“Oh, ho!” said Father Leonard, laughing and tapping his capacious stomach, “I see, I understand, I am with you, and,” he added with a wink, “you will not be the only one to pay your court, young man. There are three already in the house dancing attendance like you. I never turn anybody away, and I should find it hard to say yes or no to any of them, for they are all good matches. Yet, on account of Father Maurice and for the sake of the rich fields you till, I hope that it may be you. But my daughter is of age and mistress of her own affairs. She will do as she likes. Go in and introduce yourself. I hope that you will draw the prize.”
“I beg your pardon,” answered Germain, amazed to find himself an extra when he had counted on being alone in the field. “I was not aware that your daughter was supplied already with suitors, and I did not come to quarrel over her.”
“If you supposed that because you were slow in coming, my daughter would be left unprovided for, you were greatly mistaken, my son,” replied Father Leonard with unshaken good humor. “Catherine has the wherewithal to attract suitors, and her only difficulty lies in choosing. But come in; don’t lose heart. The woman is worth a struggle.”
And pushing in Germain by the shoulders with boisterous gaiety, he called to his daughter as they entered the house:
“So, Catherine, here is another!”