The peacock, in the mating season, has more gorgeous plumage, and makes the greatest possible display of it. The nightingale and the redbreast have sweeter voices. All alike take pleasure in so arraying themselves as to give pleasure.
“Where are you going, Livette?” her two friends asked her.
“I am going to see monsieur le curé. I must have a talk with him, poor me! for it was a great sin to listen to that sorceress, you know!”
XIV
JOUSTING
Both Renaud and Rampal had spears.
As he rode by the Neuf farm, half a league from Saintes-Maries, Rampal, who owned nothing in the world but his saddle, and had no spear, being at that time simply a drover out of a job, had spied one leaning against a fig-tree, and had appropriated it without dismounting, had “borrowed it without a word,” thinking that he should probably need it to defend himself.
Now he was galloping across the fields, leaning forward on his horse’s neck, with his thong in his boot and the spear resting in the stirrup.
Renaud had mistaken the road in his hot pursuit. Perhaps the gipsy was the cause of it, for, in spite of himself, in order to remain within her range of vision, Renaud had ridden straight toward the Vaccarès, while Rampal had just taken the road to Arles, avoiding stratagem in order to mislead his pursuer more effectually, for he said to himself that Renaud would surely argue that he had made for the middle of the island to take refuge in some deserted jass.