"Well, I'm glad enough to wash my hands on't," said Israel. "I shall hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin' too big to be handy; 'n' it's one comfort abaout critters, you ken get rid on 'em somehaow when they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, excep' the Lord takes 'em; an' He don't allers see fit."
What added point and weight to these final remarks of old Israel was the well-known fact that he suffered at home from the most pecking and worrying of wives, and had been heard to say in some moment of unusual frankness that he "didn't see how't could be sinful to wish Miss Slater was in heaven, for she'd be lots better off, and other folks too!"
Miss Lucinda never knew what befell her pig one fine September night; she did not even guess that a visit paid to Monsieur by one of his pupils, a farmer's daughter just out of Dalton, had anything to do with this enlèvement; she was sound asleep in her bed up-stairs, when her guest shod his crutches with old gloves, and limped out to the garden-gate by dawn, where he and the farmer tolled the animal out of his sty and far down the street by tempting red apples, and then Farmer Steele took possession of him, and he was seen no more. No, the first thing Miss Lucinda knew of her riddance was when Israel put his head into the back-door that same morning, some four hours afterward, and said, with a significant nod,—
"He's gone!"
After all his other chores were done, Israel had a conference with Monsieur Leclerc, and the two sallied into the garden, and in an hour had dismantled the low dwelling, cleared away the wreck, levelled and smoothed its site, and Monsieur, having previously provided himself with an Isabella-grape-vine, planted it on this forsaken spot, and trained it carefully against the end of the shed: strange to say, though it was against all precedent to transplant a grape in September, it lived and flourished. Miss Lucinda's gratitude to Monsieur Leclerc was altogether disproportioned, as he thought, to his slight service. He could not understand fully her devotion to her pets, but he respected it, and aided it whenever he could, though he never surmised the motive that adorned Miss Lucinda's table with such delicate superabundance after the late departure, and laid bundles of lavender-flowers in his tiny portmanteau till the very leather seemed to gather fragrance.
Before long, Monsieur Leclerc was well enough to resume his classes, and return to his boarding-house; but the latter was filled, and only offered a prospect of vacancy in some three weeks after his application; so he returned home somewhat dejected, and as he sat by the little parlor-fire after tea, he said to his hostess, in a reluctant tone,—
"Mees Lucinda, you have been of the kindest to the poor alien. I have it in my mind to relieve you of this care very rapidly, but it is not in the Fates that I do. I have gone to my house of lodgings, and they cannot to give me a chamber as yet I have fear that I must yet rely me on your goodness for some time more, if you can to entertain me so much more of time?"
"Why, I shall like to, Sir," replied the kindly, simple-hearted old maid. "I'm sure you are not a mite of trouble, and I never can forget what you did for my pig."
A smile flitted across the Frenchman's thin, dark face, and he watched her glittering needles a few minutes in silence before he spoke again.
"But I have other things to say of the most unpleasant to me, Mees Lucinda. I have a great debt for the goodness and care you to me have lavished. To the angels of the good God we must submit to be debtors, but there are also of mortal obligations. I have lodged in your mansion for more of ten weeks, and to you I pay yet no silver, but it is that I have it not at present—I must ask of your goodness to wait."