"But, father, to interfere with personal liberty! You can't——"
"I am mayor since this morning, and it is my duty to lock up vagabonds. Do as I say, Emile, or I will go myself."
Emile still hesitated. Monsieur Cardonnet, unable to brook the slightest shade of resistance, pushed him sharply away from the door and went out, to issue orders to the constable, in the capacity of chief magistrate of the village, to arrest Jean Jappeloup, native of Gargilesse, a carpenter by trade, and without any known domicile.
This mission was extremely distasteful to the rustic functionary, and Monsieur Cardonnet read his hesitation on his face.
"Caillaud," he said, in an imperative tone, "your dismissal within a week, or twenty francs reward!"
"Very good, monsieur," said Caillaud; and he set off at a round pace, waving his pike.
He overtook the fugitive within two gun-shots of the village; it was not a difficult task, for the latter was walking slowly, with his head hanging forward on his breast, absorbed in painful reflections.
"If it wasn't for my wrong-headedness," he was saying to himself, "I should be now on the road to rest and comfort, instead of which I must put on the collar of poverty again, stray like a wolf among the rocks and bramble-bushes, and be too often a burden to poor Antoine, who is kind, who always gives me a hearty welcome, but who is poor and gives me more bread and wine than I can pay for with partridges and hares for his table, taken in my snares. And then what breaks my heart is the idea of leaving forever this poor dear village where I was born, where I have passed all my life, where all my friends are, and where I can never show my face again unless like a starved dog that runs the risk of a bullet to get a piece of bread. And yet all the people here are kind to me; and if they weren't afraid of the gendarmes they would give me shelter!"
As he mused thus Jean heard the bell ringing the evening Angelus, and tears rolled unbidden down his tanned cheeks. "No," he thought, "there isn't a bell within ten leagues that has such a sweet tone as the bell of Gargilesse church!"—A nightingale sang among the hawthorns in the hedge near by.—"You are very lucky," he said, speaking aloud in his revery, "you can build your nest here, steal from all the gardens I know so well, and feed on everybody's fruit, without any complaint being lodged against you."
"Complaint, that's the word," said a voice behind him; "I arrest you in the name of the law!"