His cheek grew pale as he read.
“Philomène, harness Robin quickly.”
She came to see what was the matter before obeying.
“What have you there, sir?”
“The bishop has been waiting for me three weeks!”
“You’ve missed your chance,” said the old woman.
The abbé was away until the next evening. When he came back he had a peaceful air, but sometimes peace is not attained without effort and we have to struggle to keep it. When he had helped to unharness Robin and had given him some hay, had changed his cassock and unpacked his box, from which he took a dozen little packages of things bought on his visit to the city, it was the very time that the birds assembled in the branches to tell each other about the day. There had been a shower and the drops still fell from the leaves as they were shaken by these bohemian couples looking for a good place to spend the night.
Recognizing their friend and master as he walked up and down the gravel path, they came down, fluttered about him, making an unusually loud noise, and the tomtits, the fourteen of the nest, whose feathers were still not quite grown, essayed their first spirals about the pear-trees and their first cries in the open air.
The abbé of St. Philémon watched them with a fatherly eye, but his tenderness was sad, as we look at things that have cost us dear.
“Well, my little ones, without me you would not be here, and without you I would be dead. I do not regret it at all, but don’t insist. Your thanks are too noisy.”