The dog obeyed, presenting to us his flesh-colored thighs.
"Do you see that long, white line, without any hair on it, which extends from his thigh clear up to his chest? A boar did that. The noble chap did not let go of the brute's ear, in spite of the wound, and we tracked them by the blood. I came up with them first. Seeing my Lieverlé, I cried out, jumped to the ground, and lifting him in my arms, I wrapped him in my mantle and brought him home. I was beside myself with grief. Luckily, the vital parts were not injured, and I sewed up the wound. God! how he howled and suffered; but at the end of the third day he began to lick the place, and a dog who licks a wound is already saved. Ha, Lieverlé! you remember it! And now we love each other, don't we?"
I was much moved by the affection of the man for the dog, and the animal for his master. Lieverlé watched him and wagged his tail, while a tear stood in Sperver's eye. Soon he began again:
"What strength! Do you see, Gaston, he has broken his cord to come to me,—a cord of six strands? He found my tracks, and that was enough. Here, Lieverlé! Catch!"
He threw him the remains of the kid's leg. The dog went over and stretched himself in front of the fire with the bone between his fore-paws, and he slowly tore it into shreds. Sperver watched him from the corner of his eye with evident satisfaction.
"Hey, Gaston," said the old steward, "if any one should order you to go and take that bone away, what would you say?"
"That it was a matter which required delicate manipulation."
We laughed heartily, and Sperver, who was stretched out in his red-leather armchair, with his left arm thrown over the back, one leg resting on a stool, and the other on a log that was dripping with sap and singing in the fierce flame, puffed blue rings of smoke to the ceiling with an air of supreme contentment. As for me, I was lazily watching the dog, when suddenly remembering our interrupted conversation, I began:
"Listen, Sperver! You haven't told me everything. Was it not because of the death of your worthy wife, my old nurse Gertrude, that you left the mountains to come here?"
Gideon looked grave, and a tear dimmed his eye; he straightened up, and knocking the ashes from his pipe upon his thumb nail, he replied: