”‘I’d get the old sword—you know it, Edmée: father has it hanging up over the door in our cottage; it’s rather rusty, but it would be good enough for a wolf—and I’d run at him with it before he could touch you. If he had to eat up somebody, I’d let him eat me first.’
”‘Oh, don’t! don’t, Pierrot,’ said Edmée, trembling and clinging to him, ‘I don’t say that; don’t let us speak about things like that! There are no wolves here, are there? and don’t you think, Pierrot dear, if people were very, very kind to all the wolves, and never hunted them, or anything like that—don’t you think perhaps the wolves would get kind?’ Pierre smiled.
”‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, ‘but there are no wolves about here.’
”‘No, no,’ repeated Edmée, ‘no wolves and no naughty people at Valmont. Don’t you wish there were no naughty people anywhere, Pierrot?’
”‘Indeed, I do,’ said the boy, and then he sat silent. ‘What makes you talk about naughty people, Edmée?’
”‘I don’t know,’ said Edmée; ‘sometimes I hear things, Pierrot, that frighten me. I hear the servants talking—they say that some lords like papa are so naughty and unkind. Is it true, Pierrot?’
”‘I’m afraid all rich men are not so kind as the Count,’ said Pierre. ‘But don’t trouble yourself about it, dear; we won’t let naughty unkind people come here.’
“Somehow Edmée had grown silent; she sat there quite still, leaning her little head on the boy’s shoulder. And he did not talk either; Edmée’s innocent words had reminded him of things he too had heard—of talk between his father and mother, which, young as he was, he already understood a good deal of. Even to quiet Valmont growlings of the yet distant storm, which ere long was to overwhelm the country, had begun to penetrate. Now and then peasants from other villages would make their way to this peaceful corner, with tales of cruelties and indignities from which they were suffering, which could not but rouse the sympathy of their more fortunate compatriots. And more than once Pierre had seen his quiet and serious father strangely excited.
”‘It cannot go on for ever,’ he would say to his wife; ‘we may not live to see, but our children will, some terrible retribution on this unhappy land. Ah, if all masters were like ours! But I fear there are but few, even in his own family, think of the difference.’
“But when Pierre eagerly asked what he meant, he would say no more—he would say nothing to sow prejudice in the child’s heart. But from others the boy learnt something of what his father was thinking of, and as he grew older and understand still more, his heart ached sometimes with vague fear and anxiety, though not for himself.