“And mind you keep away from those cowsheds. Your nurse ought to have been here. It’s tea time.”
“I don’t want any tea. I’m going to smell the milk. I love the smell of a farmyard. Don’t you? But, there! You have never smelt anything else. Every place has its own smell. Paris smells like smoky wood. London smells of beer. Here there is always the smell of cows....”
“Martin!” called a harsh voice from the interior, and the boy perforce brought his wandering wits to bear on the wrongdoing of David in taking a census of the people of Israel.
He read steadily through the chapter which described how a pestilence swept from Dan to Beersheba and destroyed seventy thousand men, all because David wished to know how many troops he could muster.
He could hear Angèle talking to the maids and making them laugh. A caravan lumbered through the street; he caught a glimpse of carved wooden horses’ heads and gilded moldings. His quick and retentive brain mastered the words of the chapter, but to-day there was no mysterious and soul-awakening glimpse of its spirit.
“What did David say te t’ Lord when t’ angel smote t’ people?” said Bolland when the moment came to question his pupil.
“He said, ‘Lo, I have sinned; but what have these sheep done?’”
“And what sin had he deän?”
“I don’t know. I think the whole thing was jolly unfair.”