“A long way,” said the other; “a long, long way. I heard a child cry. . .”
“There is no child here,” answered Hyacinthe, shaking his head. “Monsieur L’Oreillard is not fond of children, he says they cost too much money. But if you have come far, you must be cold and hungry, and I have no food nor fire. At the Cinq Châteaux you will find both!”
The stranger looked at him again with those quiet eyes, and Hyacinthe fancied his face was familiar. “I will stay here,” he said. “You are very late at work and you are unhappy.”
“Why, as to that,” answered Hyacinthe, rubbing again at his cheeks and ashamed of his tears, “most of us are sad at one time or another, the good God knows. Stay here and welcome if it pleases you, and you may take a share of my bed, though it is no more than a pile of balsam boughs and an old blanket, in the loft. But I must work at this cabinet, for the drawer must be finished and the handles put on and these corners carved, all by the holy morning; or my wages will be paid with a stick.”
“You have a hard master,” put in the other boy, “if he would pay you with blows upon the feast of Noel.”
“He is hard enough,” said Hyacinthe; “but once he gave me a dinner of sausages and white wine, and once, in the summer, melons. If my eyes will stay open, I will finish this by morning, but indeed I am sleepy. Stay with me an hour or so, comrade, and talk to me of your wanderings, so that the time may pass more quickly.”
“I will tell you of the country where I was a child,” answered the stranger.
And while Hyacinthe worked, he told—of sunshine and dust; of the shadows of vine-leaves on the flat white walls of a house; of rosy doves on the flat roof; of the flowers that come in the spring, crimson and blue, and the white cyclamen in the shadow of the rocks; of the olive, the myrtle and almond; until Hyacinthe’s slow fingers ceased working, and his sleepy eyes blinked wonderingly.
“See what you have done, comrade,” he said at last; “you have told of such pretty things that I have done no work for an hour. And now the cabinet will never be finished, and I shall be beaten.”
“Let me help you,” smiled the other; “I also was bred a carpenter.”