"It is the infamous strength of the devil!" said Claudis Flamma, when he found that he could not force her to deviate from the truth.
The world says the same of those who will not feed it with lies.
CHAPTER V.
That long dry summer was followed by an autumn of drought and scarcity.
The prayers of the priests and peoples failed to bring down rain. The wooden Christs gazed all day long on parching lands and panting cattle. Even the broad deep rivers shrank and left their banks to bake and stink in the long drought. The orchards sickened for lack of moisture, and the peasants went about with feverish faces, ague-stricken limbs, and trembling hearts. The corn yielded ill in the hard scorched ground, and when the winter came it was a time of dire scarcity and distress.
Claudis Flamma and a few others like him alone prospered.
The mill-house at Yprès served many purposes. It was a granary, a market, a baker's shop, an usurer's den, all in one.
It looked a simple and innocent place. In the summertime it was peaceful and lovely, green and dark and still, with the blue sky above it, and the songs of birds all around; with its old black timbers, its many-colored orchards, its leafy gardens, its gray walls washed by the hurrying stream.
But in the winter it was very dreary, utterly lonely. The water roared, and the leafless trees groaned in the wind, and the great leaden clouds of rain or fog enveloped it duskily.