CHAPTER XXI.
DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE.
"Aië! cela ressemble un peu à certaine fable celèbre, dont la morale se résume ceçi ne comptez pas sans votre hôte."
—BENJAMIN SULTE
"St. Gregory the Great! Here comes the Small-pox!" exclaimed Zotique, as he and Chamilly, with their guest, were off behind the Manoir, and standing by the weather-worn Chapel in the hayfields, which served as the tomb of the first Haviland, "the Protestant Seigneur."
The name "Picault" offered itself so readily to the pun of
"Picotte,"—Small-pox,—that the jest had become almost a usage.
Startled by Zotique's exclamation, Mr Chrysler looked from the commemorative table on the Chapel's side (whose rivulet of eulogies he was reading line by line), towards the pine-walk round the Manoir, whence a distant figure was sauntering towards them along the path, meditatively smoking a cigar.
"That's a fact," exclaimed Chamilly, straining his eyes towards the figure; and the three looked at each other in astonishment. "Has he actually the enterprise to try me again? Or what can he want?"
"I can answer you," the veracious Zotique undertook, "my eyes are good.—He is smiling fully a second hundred thousand."
"That is courage after what I gave him for the first."