FRANÇOIS THE WAIF

BY

GEORGE SAND

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY

JANE MINOT SEDGWICK

WITH AN ETCHING BY E. ABOT

NEW-YORK

GEORGE H. RICHMOND & CO.

1894

CONTENTS

[PREFATORY NOTE]
[PREFACE]
[INTRODUCTION]
CHAPTER [I]
CHAPTER [II]
CHAPTER [III]
CHAPTER [IV]
CHAPTER [V]
CHAPTER [VI]
CHAPTER [VII]
CHAPTER [VIII]
CHAPTER [IX]
CHAPTER [X]
CHAPTER [XI]
CHAPTER [XII]
CHAPTER [XIII]
CHAPTER [XIV]
CHAPTER [XV]
CHAPTER [XVI]
CHAPTER [XVII]
CHAPTER [XVIII]
CHAPTER [XIX]
CHAPTER [XX]
CHAPTER [XXI]
CHAPTER [XXII]
CHAPTER [XXIII]
CHAPTER [XXIV]
CHAPTER [XXV]

[PREFATORY NOTE]

François le Champi, a pretty idyl that tells of homely affections, self-devotion, "humble cares and delicate fears," opens a little vista into that Arcadia to which, the poet says, we were all born. It offers many difficulties to the translator. It is a rustic tale, put into the mouths of peasants, who relate it with a primitive simplicity, sweet and full of sentiment in the French, but prone to degenerate into mawkishness and monotony when turned into English. Great care has been taken to keep the English of this version simple and idiomatic, and yet religiously to avoid any breach of faith toward the author. It is hoped that, though the original pure and limpid waters have necessarily contracted some stain by being forced into another channel, they may yet yield refreshment to those thirsty souls who cannot seek them at the fountain-head.

J. M. S.

Stockbridge, January, 1894.

[PREFACE]

FRANÇOIS LE CHAMPI appeared for the first time in the feuilleton of the "Journal des Débats." Just as the plot of my story was reaching its development, another more serious development was announced in the first column of the same newspaper. It was the final downfall of the July Monarchy, in the last days of February, 1848.

This catastrophe was naturally very prejudicial to my story, the publication of which was interrupted and delayed, and not finally completed, if I remember correctly, until the end of a month. For those of my readers who are artists either by profession or instinct, and are interested in the details of the construction of works of art, I shall add to my introduction that, some days before the conversation of which that introduction is the outcome, I took a walk through the Chemin aux Napes. The word nape, which, in the figurative language of that part of the country, designates the beautiful plant called nénufar, or nymphææ, is happily descriptive of the broad leaves that lie upon the surface of the water, as a cloth (nappe) upon a table; but I prefer to write it with a single p, and to trace its derivation from napée, thus leaving unchanged its mythological origin.

The Chemin aux Napes, which probably none of you, my dear readers, will ever see, as it leads to nothing that can repay you for the trouble of passing through so much mire, is a break-neck path, skirting along a ditch where, in the muddy water, grow the most beautiful nymphææ in the world, more fragrant than lilies, whiter than camellias, purer than the vesture of virgins, in the midst of the lizards and other reptiles that crawl about the mud and flowers, while the kingfisher darts like living lightning along the banks, and skims with a fiery track the rank and luxuriant vegetation of the sewer.

A child six or seven years old, mounted bare-back upon a loose horse, made the animal leap the hedge behind me, and then, letting himself slide to the ground, left his shaggy colt in the pasture, and returned to try jumping over the barrier which he had so lightly crossed on horseback a minute before. It was not such an easy task for his little legs; I helped him, and had with him a conversation similar to that between the miller's wife and the foundling, related in the beginning of "The Waif." When I questioned him about his age, which he did not know, he literally delivered himself of the brilliant reply that he was two years old. He knew neither his own name, nor that of his parents, nor of the place he lived in; all that he knew was to cling on an unbroken colt, as a bird clings to a branch shaken by the storm.

I have had educated several foundlings of both sexes, who have turned out well physically and morally. It is no less certain, however, that these forlorn children are apt, in rural districts, to become bandits, owing to their utter lack of education. Intrusted to the care of the poorest people, because of the insufficient pittance assigned to them, they often practise, for the benefit of their adopted parents, the shameful calling of beggars. Would it not be possible to increase this pittance on condition that the foundlings shall never beg, even at the doors of their neighbors and friends?

I have also learned by experience that nothing is more difficult than to teach self-respect and the love of work to children who have already begun understandingly to live upon alms.

GEORGE SAND.

Nohant, May 20, 1852.

THE WAIF

[INTRODUCTION]

R*** AND I were coming home from our walk by the light of the moon which faintly silvered the dusky country lanes. It was a mild autumn evening, and the sky was slightly overcast; we observed the resonance of the air peculiar to the season, and a certain mystery spread over the face of nature. At the approach of the long winter sleep, it seems as if every creature and thing stealthily agreed to enjoy what is left of life and animation before the deadly torpor of the frost; and as if the whole creation, in order to cheat the march of time, and to avoid being detected and interrupted in the last frolics of its festival, advanced without sound or apparent motion toward its orgies in the night. The birds give out stifled cries instead of their joyous summer warblings. The cricket of the fields sometimes chirps inadvertently; but it soon stops again, and carries elsewhere its song or its wail. The plants hastily breathe out their last perfume, which is all the sweeter for being more delicate and less profuse. The yellowing leaves now no longer rustle in the breeze, and the flocks and herds graze in silence without cries of love or combat.

My friend and I walked quietly along, and our involuntary thoughtfulness made us silent and attentive to the softened beauty of nature, and to the enchanting harmony of her last chords, which were dying away in an imperceptible pianissimo. Autumn is a sad and sweet andante, which makes an admirable preparation for the solemn adagio of winter.

"It is all so peaceful," said my friend at last, for, in spite of our silence, he had followed my thoughts as I followed his; "everything seems absorbed in a reverie so foreign and so indifferent to the labors, cares, and preoccupations of man, that I wonder what expression, what color, and what form of art and poetry human intelligence could give at this moment to the face of nature. In order to explain better to you the end of my inquiry, I may compare the evening, the sky, and the landscape, dimmed, and yet harmonious and complete, to the soul of a wise and religious peasant, who labors and profits by his toil, who rejoices in the possession of the life to which he is born, without the need, the longing, or the means of revealing and expressing his inner life. I try to place myself in the heart of the mystery of this natural rustic life—I, who am civilized, who cannot enjoy by instinct alone, and who am always tormented by the desire of giving an account of my contemplation, or of my meditation, to myself and to others.

"Then, too," continued my friend, "I am trying to find out what relation can be established between my intelligence, which is too active, and that of the peasant, which is not active enough; just as I was considering a moment ago what painting, music, description, the interpretation of art, in short, could add to the beauty of the autumnal night which is revealed to me in its mysterious silence, and affects me in some magical and unknown way."

"Let us see," said I, "how your question is put. This October night, this colorless sky, this music without any distinct or connected melody, this calm of nature, and the peasant who by his very simplicity is more able than we to enjoy and understand it, though he cannot portray it—let us put all this together and call it primitive life, with relation to our own highly developed and complicated life, which I shall call artificial life. You are asking what possible connection or direct link can there be between these two opposite conditions in the existence of persons and things; between the palace and the cottage, between the artist and the universe, between the poet and the laborer."

"Yes," he answered, "and let us be exact: between the language spoken by nature, primitive life, and instinct, and that spoken by art, science,—in a word, by knowledge."

"To answer in the language you have adopted, I should say that the link between knowledge and sensation is feeling."

"It is about the definition of feeling that I am going to question you and myself, for its mission is the interpretation which is troubling me. It is the art or artist, if you prefer, empowered to translate the purity, grace, and charm of the primitive life to those who only live the artificial life, and who are, if you will allow me to say so, the greatest fools in the world in the presence of nature and her divine secrets."

"You are asking nothing less than the secret of art, and you must look for it in the breast of God. No artist can reveal it, for he does not know it himself, and cannot give an account of the sources of his own inspiration or his own weakness. How shall one attempt to express beauty, simplicity, and truth? Do I know? And can anybody teach us? No, not even the greatest artists, because if they tried to do so they would cease to be artists, and would become critics; and criticism—"

"And criticism," rejoined my friend, "has been revolving for centuries about the mystery without understanding it. But, excuse me, that is not exactly what I meant. I am still more radical at this moment, and call the power of art in question. I despise it, I annihilate it, I declare that art is not born, that it does not exist; or, if it has been, its time is past. It is exhausted, it has no more expression, no more breath of life, no more means to sing of the beauty of truth. Nature is a work of art, but God is the only artist that exists, and man is but an arranger in bad taste. Nature is beautiful, and breathes feeling from all her pores; love, youth, beauty are in her imperishable. But man has but foolish means and miserable faculties for feeling and expressing them. He had better keep aloof, silent and absorbed in contemplation. Come, what have you to say?"

"I agree, and am quite satisfied with your opinion," I answered.

"Ah!" he cried, "you are going too far, and embrace my paradox too warmly. I am only pleading, and want you to reply."

"I reply, then, that a sonnet of Petrarch has its relative beauty, which is equivalent to the beauty of the water of Vaucluse; that a fine landscape of Ruysdael has a charm which equals that of this evening; that Mozart sings in the language of men as well as Philomel in that of birds; that Shakspeare delineates passions, emotions, and instincts as vividly as the actual primitive man can experience them. This is art and its relativeness—in short, feeling."

"Yes, it is all a work of transformation! But suppose that it does not satisfy me? Even if you were a thousand times in the right according to the decrees of taste and esthetics, what if I think Petrarch's verses less harmonious than the roar of the waterfall, and so on? If I maintain that there is in this evening a charm that no one could reveal to me unless I had felt it myself; and that all Shakspeare's passion is cold in comparison with that I see gleaming in the eyes of a jealous peasant who beats his wife, what should you have to say? You must convince my feeling. And if it eludes your examples and resists your proofs? Art is not an invincible demonstrator, and feeling not always satisfied by the best definition."

"I have really nothing to answer except that art is a demonstration of which nature is the proof; that the preëxisting fact of the proof is always present to justify or contradict the demonstration, which nobody can make successfully unless he examine the proof with religious love."

"So the demonstration could not do without the proof; but could the proof do without the demonstration?"

"No doubt God could do without it; but, although you are talking as if you did not belong to us, I am willing to wager that you would understand nothing of the proof if you had not found the demonstration under a thousand forms in the tradition of art, and if you were not yourself a demonstration constantly acting upon the proof."

"That is just what I am complaining of. I should like to rid myself of this eternal irritating demonstration; to erase from my memory the teachings and the forms of art; never to think of painting when I look at a landscape, of music when I listen to the wind, or of poetry when I admire and take delight in both together. I should like to enjoy everything instinctively, because I think that the cricket which is singing just now is more joyous and ecstatic than I."

"You complain, then, of being a man?"

"No; I complain of being no longer a primitive man."

"It remains to be known whether he was capable of enjoying what he could not understand."

"I do not suppose that he was similar to the brutes, for as soon as he became a man he thought and felt differently from them. But I cannot form an exact idea of his emotions, and that is what bothers me. I should like to be what the existing state of society allows a great number of men to be from the cradle to the grave—I should like to be a peasant; a peasant who does not know how to read, whom God has endowed with good instincts, a serene organization, and an upright conscience; and I fancy that in the sluggishness of my useless faculties, and in the Ignorance of depraved tastes, I should be as happy as the primitive man of Jean-Jacques's dreams."

"I, too, have had this same dream; who has not? But, even so, your reasoning is not conclusive, for the most simple and ingenuous peasant may still be an artist; and I believe even that his art is superior to ours. The form is different, but it appeals more strongly to me than all the forms which belong to civilization. Songs, ballads, and rustic tales say in a few words what our literature can only amplify and disguise."

"I may triumph, then?" resumed my friend. "The peasant's art is the best, because it is more directly inspired by nature by being in closer contact with her. I confess I went to extremes in saying that art was good for nothing; but I meant that I should like to feel after the fashion of the peasant, and I do not contradict myself now. There are certain Breton laments, made by beggars, which in three couplets are worth all Goethe and Byron put together, and which prove that appreciation of truth and beauty was more spontaneous and complete in such simple souls than in our most distinguished poets. And music, too! Is not our country full of lovely melodies? And though they do not possess painting as an art, they have it in their speech, which is a hundred times more expressive, forcible, and logical than our literary language."

"I agree with you," said I, "especially as to this last point. It drives me to despair that I am obliged to write in the language of the Academy, when I am much more familiar with another tongue infinitely more fitted for expressing a whole order of emotions, thoughts, and feelings."

"Oh, yes!" said he, "that fresh and unknown world is closed to modern art, and no study can help you to express it even to yourself, with all your sympathies for the peasant, if you try to introduce it into the domain of civilized art and the intellectual intercourse of artificial life."

"Alas!" I answered, "this thought has often disturbed me. I have myself seen and felt, in common with all civilized beings, that primitive life was the dream and ideal of all men and all times. From the shepherds of Longus down to those of Trianon, pastoral life has been a perfumed Eden, where souls wearied and harassed by the tumult of the world have sought a refuge. Art, which has always flattered and fawned upon the too fortunate among mankind, has passed through an unbroken series of pastorals. And under the title of 'The History of Pastorals' I have often wished to write a learned and critical work, in which to review all the different rural dreams to which the upper classes have so fondly clung.

"I should follow their modifications, which are always in inverse relation to the depravity of morals, for they become innocent and sentimental in proportion as society is shameless and corrupt. I should like to order this book of a writer better qualified than I to accomplish it, and then I should read it with delight. It should be a complete treatise on art; for music, painting, architecture, literature in all its forms, the theater, poetry, romances, eclogues, songs, fashions, gardens, and even dress, have been influenced by the infatuation for the pastoral dream. All the types of the golden age, the shepherdesses of Astræa, who are first nymphs and then marchionesses, and who pass through the Lignon of Florian, wear satin and powder under Louis XV., and are put into sabots by Sedaine at the end of the monarchy, are all more or less false, and seem to us to-day contemptible and ridiculous. We have done with them, and see only their ghosts at the opera; and yet they once reigned at court and were the delight of kings, who borrowed from them the shepherd's crook and scrip.

"I have often wondered why there are no more shepherds, for we are not so much in love with the truth lately that art and literature can afford to despise the old conventional types rather than those introduced by the present mode. To-day we are devoted to force and brutality, and on the background of these passions we embroider decorations horrible enough to make our hair stand on end if we could take them seriously."

"If we have no more shepherds," rejoined my friend, "and if literature has changed one false ideal for another, is it not an involuntary attempt of art to bring itself down to the level of the intelligence of all classes? Does not the dream of equality afloat in society impel art to a fierce brutality in order to awaken those instincts and passions common to all men, of whatever rank they may be? Nobody has as yet reached the truth. It exists no more in a hideous realism than in an embellished idealism; but there is plainly a search for it, and if the search is in the wrong direction, the eagerness of the pursuit is only quickened. Let us see: the drama, poetry, and the novel have thrown away the shepherd's crook for the dagger, and when rustic life appears on the scene it has a stamp of reality which was wanting in the old pastorals. But there is no more poetry in it, I am sorry to say; and I do not yet see the means of reinstating the pastoral ideal without making it either too gaudy or too somber. You have often thought of doing it, I know; but can you hope for success?"

"No," I answered, "for there is no form for me to adopt, and there is no language in which to express my conception of rustic simplicity. If I made the laborer of the fields speak as he does speak, it would be necessary to have a translation on the opposite page for the civilized reader; and if I made him speak as we do, I should create an impossible being, in whom it would be necessary to suppose an order of ideas which he does not possess."

"Even if you made him speak as he does speak, your own language would constantly make a disagreeable contrast; and in my opinion you cannot escape this criticism. You describe a peasant girl, call her Jeanne, and put into her mouth words which she might possibly use. But you, who are the writer of the novel, and are anxious to make your readers understand your fondness for painting this kind of type—you compare her to a druidess, to a Jeanne d'Arc, and so on. Your opinions and language make an incongruous effect with hers, like the clashing of harsh colors in a picture; and this is not the way fully to enter into nature, even if you idealize her. Since then you have made a better and more truthful study in 'The Devil's Pool.' Still, I am not yet satisfied; the tip of the author's finger is apparent from time to time; and there are some author's words, as they are called by Henri Mounier, an artist who has succeeded in being true in caricature, and who has consequently solved the problem he had set for himself. I know that your own problem is no easier to solve. But you must still try, although you are sure of not succeeding; masterpieces are only lucky attempts. You may console yourself for not achieving masterpieces, provided that your attempts are conscientious."

"I am consoled beforehand," I answered, "and I am willing to begin again whenever you wish; please give me your advice."

"For example," said he, "we were present last evening at a rustic gathering at the farm, and the hemp-dresser told a story until two o'clock in the morning. The priest's servant helped him with his tale, and resumed it when he stopped; she was a peasant-woman of some slight education; he was uneducated, but happily gifted by nature and endowed with a certain rude eloquence. Between them they related a true story, which was rather long, and like a simple kind of novel. Can you remember it?"

"Perfectly, and I could repeat it word for word in their language."

"But their language would require a translation; you must write in your own, without using a single word unintelligible enough to necessitate a footnote for the reader."

"I see that you are setting an impossible task for me—a task into which I have never plunged without emerging dissatisfied with myself, and overcome with a sense of my own weakness."

"No matter, you must plunge in again, for I understand you artists; you need obstacles to rouse your enthusiasm, and you never do well what is plain and easy to you. Come, begin, tell me the story of the 'Waif,' but not in the way that you and I heard it last night. That was a masterly piece of narrative for you and me who are children of the soil. But tell it to me as if you had on your right hand a Parisian speaking the modern tongue, and on your left a peasant before whom you were unwilling to utter a word or phrase which he could not understand. You must speak dearly for the Parisian, and simply for the peasant. One will accuse you of a lack of local color, and the other of a lack of elegance. But I shall be listening too, and I am trying to discover by what means art, without ceasing to be universal, can penetrate the mystery of primitive simplicity, and interpret the charm of nature to the mind."

"This, then, is a study which we are going to undertake together?"

"Yes, for I shall interrupt you when you stumble."

"Very well, let us sit down on this bank covered with wild thyme. I will begin; but first allow me to clear my voice with a few scales."

"What do you mean? I did not know that you could sing."

"I am only speaking metaphorically. Before beginning a work of art, I think it is well to call to mind some theme or other to serve as a type, and to induce the desired frame of mind. So, in order to prepare myself for what you ask, I must recite the story of the dog of Brisquet, which is short, and which I know by heart."

"What is it? I cannot recall it."

"It is an exercise for my voice, written by Charles Nodier, who tried his in all possible keys; a great artist, to my thinking, and one who has never received all the applause he deserved, because, among all his varied attempts, he failed more often than he succeeded. But when a man has achieved two or three masterpieces, no matter how short they may be, he should be crowned, and his mistakes should be forgotten. Here is the dog of Brisquet. You must listen."

Then I repeated to my friend the story of the "Bichonne," which moved him to tears, and which he declared to be a masterpiece of style.

"I should be discouraged in what I am going to attempt," said I, "for this Odyssey of the poor dog of Brisquet, which did not take five minutes to recite, has no stain or blot; it is a diamond cut by the first lapidary in the world—for Nodier is essentially a lapidary in literature. I am not scientific, and must call sentiment to my aid. Then, too, I cannot promise to be brief, for I know beforehand that my study will fail in the first of all requisites, that of being short and good at the same time."

"Go on, nevertheless," said my friend, bored by my preliminaries.

"This, then, is the history of 'François the Champi'" I resumed, "and I shall try to remember the first part without any alteration. It was Monique, the old servant of the priest, who began."

"One moment," said my severe auditor, "I must object to your title. Champi is not French."

"I beg your pardon," I answered. "The dictionary says it is obsolete, but Montaigne uses it, and I do not wish to be more French than the great writers who have created the language. So I shall not call my story 'François the Foundling,' nor 'François the Bastard,' but 'François the Champi'—that is to say, the Waif, the forsaken child of the fields, as he was once called in the great world, and is still called in our part of the country."

[CHAPTER I]

ONE morning, when Madeleine Blanchet, the young wife of the miller of Cormouer, went down to the end of her meadow to wash her linen in the fountain, she found a little child sitting in front of her washing-board playing with the straw she used as a cushion for her knees. Madeleine Blanchet looked at the child, and was surprised not to recognize him, for the road which runs near by is unfrequented, and few strangers are to be met with in the neighborhood.

"Who are you, my boy?" said she to the little boy, who turned confidingly toward her, but did not seem to understand her question. "What is your name?" Madeleine Blanchet went on, as she made him sit down beside her, and knelt down to begin to wash.

"François," answered the child.

"François who?"

"Who?" said the child stupidly.

"Whose son are you?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know your father's name?"

"I have no father."

"Is he dead then?"

"I don't know."

"And your mother?"

"She is over there," said the child pointing to a poor little hovel which stood at the distance of two gunshots from the mill, and the thatched roof of which could be seen through the willows.

"Oh! I know," said Madeleine. "Is she the woman who has come to live here, and who moved in last evening?"

"Yes," answered the child.

"And you used to live at Mers?"

"I don't know."

"You are not a wise child. Do you know your mother's name, at least?"

"Yes, it is Zabelle."

"Isabelle who? Don't you know her other name?"

"No, of course not."

"What you know will not wear your brains out," said Madeleine, smiling and beginning to beat her linen.

"What do you say?" asked little François. Madeleine looked at him again; he was a fine child, and had magnificent eyes. "It is a pity," she thought, "that he seems to be so idiotic. How old are you?" she continued. "Perhaps you do not know that either."

The truth is that he knew no more about this than about the rest. He tried his best to answer, ashamed to have the miller's wife think him so foolish, and delivered himself of this brilliant reply:

"Two years old."

"Indeed?" said Madeleine, wringing out her linen, without looking at him any more, "you are areal little simpleton, and nobody has taken the trouble to teach you, my poor child. You are tall enough to be six years old, but you have not the sense of a child of two."

"Perhaps," answered François. Then, making another effort, as if to shake off the lethargy from his poor little mind, he said:

"Were you asking for my name? It is François the Waif."

"Oh! I understand now," said Madeleine, looking at him compassionately; and she was no longer astonished that he was so dirty, ragged, and stupid.

"You have not clothes enough," said she, "and the weather is chill; I am sure that you must be cold."

"I do not know," answered the poor waif, who was so accustomed to suffering that he was no longer conscious of it.

Madeleine sighed. She thought of her little Jeannie, who was only a year old, and was sleeping comfortably in his cradle watched over by his grand-mother, while this poor little waif was shivering all alone at the fountain's brink, preserved from drowning only by the mercy of Providence, for he was too foolish to know that he would die if he fell into the water.

Madeleine, whose heart was full of kindness, felt the child's arm and found it warm, although he shook from time to time, and his pretty face was very pale.

"Have you any fever?" she asked.

"I don't know," answered the child, who was always feverish.

Madeleine Blanchet loosened the woolen shawl from her shoulders and wrapped it round the waif, who let her have her way without showing either surprise or pleasure. She picked up all the straw from under his knees and made a bed for him, on which he soon fell asleep; then she made haste to finish washing her little Jeannie's clothes, for she nursed her baby and was anxious to return to him.

When her task was completed, the wet linen was twice as heavy as before, and she could not carry it all. She took home what she could, and left the rest with her wooden beater beside the water, intending to come back immediately and wake up the waif. Madeleine Blanchet was neither tall nor strong. She was a very pretty woman, with a fearless spirit and a reputation for sense and sweetness.

As she opened the door of her house she heard the clattering of sabots running after her over the little bridge above the mill-dam, and, turning round, she saw the waif, who had caught up with her, and was bringing her her beater, her soap, the rest of the linen, and her shawl.

"Oh!" said she, laying her hand on his shoulder, "you are not so foolish as I thought, for you are obliging, and nobody who has a good heart can be stupid. Come in, my child, come in and rest. Look at this poor little boy! He is carrying a load heavier than himself! Here," said she to the miller's old mother, who handed her her baby, rosy and smiling, "here is a poor sick-looking waif. You understand fevers, and we must try to cure him."

"Ah! that is the fever of poverty!" replied the old woman, as she looked at François. "He could cure it with good soup, but he cannot get that. He is the little waif that belongs to the woman who moved in yesterday. She is your husband's tenant, Madeleine. She looks very wretched, and I am afraid that she will not pay regularly."

Madeleine did not answer. She knew that her husband and her mother-in-law were not charitable, and that they loved their money more than their neighbor. She nursed her baby, and when the old woman had gone out to drive home the geese, she took François by the hand, and, holding Jeannie on her arm, went with them to Zabelle's.

Zabelle, whose real name was Isabelle Bigot, was an old maid of fifty, as disinterested as a woman can be when she has nothing to live on, and is in constant dread of starvation. She had taken François after he was weaned, from a dying woman, and had brought him up ever since, for the sake of the monthly payment of a few pieces of silver, and with the expectation of making a little servant out of him. She had lost her sheep, and was forced to buy others on credit, whenever she could obtain it; for she had no other means of support than her little flock, and a dozen hens, which lived at the expense of the parish. She meant François to tend this poor flock along the roadsides, until he should be old enough to make his first communion, after which she expected to hire him out as best she could, either as a little swineherd or a plowboy, and she was sure that if his heart were good he would give part of his wages to his adopted mother.

Zabelle had come from Mers, the day after the feast of Saint Martin, leaving her last goat behind her in payment of what she owed on her rent, and had taken possession of the little cottage belonging to the mill of Cormouer, without being able to offer any security beside her pallet-bed, two chairs, a chest, and a few earthen vessels. The house was so poor, so ill-protected from the weather, and of such trifling value, that the miller was obliged to incur the risk of letting it to a poor tenant, or to leave it unoccupied.

Madeleine talked with Zabelle, and soon perceived that she was not a bad woman, and that she would do all in her power to pay the rent. She had some affection for the waif, but she was so accustomed to see him suffer and to suffer herself that she was at first more surprised than pleased by the pity which the rich miller's wife showed for the forlorn child.

At last, after she had recovered from her astonishment, and understood that Madeleine had not come to ask anything of her, but to do her a kindness, she took courage, related her story, which was like that of all the unfortunate, and thanked her warmly for her interest. Madeleine assured her that she would do her best to help her, but begged her to tell nobody, acknowledging that she was not her own mistress at home, and could only afford her assistance in secret.

She left her woolen shawl with Zabelle, and exacted a promise from her that she would cut it into a coat for the waif that same evening, and not allow the pieces to be seen before they were sewed together. She saw, indeed, that Zabelle consented reluctantly, thinking the shawl very convenient for her own use, and so she was obliged to tell her that she would do no more for her unless the waif were warmly clothed in three days' time.

"Do you not suppose," she added, "that my mother-in-law, who is so wide-awake, would recognize my shawl on your shoulders? Do you wish to get me into trouble? You may count upon my helping you in other ways if you keep your own counsel. Now, listen to me: your waif has the fever, and he will die if you do not take good care of him."

"Do you think so?" said Zabelle. "I should be very sorry to lose him, because he has the best heart in the world; he never complains, and is as obedient as if he belonged to a respectable family. He is quite different from other waifs, who are ill-tempered and unruly, and always in mischief."

"That is only because they are rebuffed and ill-treated. If yours is good, it is because you have been kind to him, you may be sure."

"That is true," rejoined Zabelle; "children are more grateful than people think, and though this little fellow is not bright, he can be very useful at times. Once, when I was ill last year, and he was only five years old, he took as good care of me as if he were a grown-up person."

"Listen," said the miller's wife: "you must send him to me every morning and evening, at the hour when I give soup to my child. I shall make more than is necessary, and the waif may eat what is left; nobody will pay any attention."

"Oh! I shall not dare bring him to you, and he will never have enough sense to know the right time himself."

"Let us arrange it in this way. When the soup is ready, I will put my distaff on the bridge over the dam. Look, you can see it very well from here. Then you must send the child over with a sabot in his hand, as if he were coming to get a light for the fire; and if he eats my soup, you will have all yours to yourself. You will both be better fed."

"That will do very well," answered Zabelle. "I see that you are a clever woman, and that I am fortunate in coming here. I was very much afraid of your husband, who has the reputation of being a hard man, and if I could have gone elsewhere I should not have taken his house, especially as it is in wretched repair, and the rent is high. But I see that you are kind to the poor, and will help me to bring up my waif. Ah! if the soup could only cure his fever! It would be a great misfortune to me to lose that child! He brings me but little profit, for all that I receive from the asylum goes for his support. But I love him as if he were my own child, because I know that he is good, and will be of use to me later. Have you noticed how well-grown he is for his age, and will soon be able to work?"

Thus François the Waif was reared by the care and kindness of Madeleine, the miller's wife. He soon recovered his health, for he was strongly built, and any rich man in the country might have wished for a son with as handsome a face and as well-knit a frame. He was as brave as a man, and swam in the river like a fish, diving even under the mill-dam; he feared neither fire nor water; he jumped on the wildest colts and rode them without a halter into the pasture, kicking them with his heels to keep them in the right path, and holding on to their manes when they leaped the ditches. It was singular that he did all this in his quiet, easy way, without saying anything, or changing his childlike and somewhat sleepy expression.

It was on account of this expression that he passed for a fool; but it is none the less true that if it were a question of robbing a magpie's nest at the top of a lofty poplar, or of finding a cow that had strayed far from home, or of killing a thrush with a stone, no child was bolder, more adroit, or more certain of success than he. The other children called it luck, which is supposed to be the portion of a waif in this hard world. So they always let him take the first part in dangerous amusements.

"He will never get hurt," they said, "because he is a waif. A kernel of wheat fears the havoc of the storm, but a random seed never dies."

For two years all went well. Zabelle found means to buy a few sheep and goats, though no one knew how. She rendered a good many small services to the mill, and Cadet Blanchet, the miller, was induced to make some repairs in her roof, which leaked in every direction. She was enabled to dress herself and her waif a little better, and looked gradually less poverty-stricken than on her arrival. Madeleine's mother-in-law made some harsh comments on the disappearance of certain articles, and on the quantity of bread consumed in the house, and once Madeleine was obliged to plead guilty in order to shield Zabelle from suspicion; but, contrary to his mother's expectation, Cadet Blanchet was hardly angry at all, and seemed to wink at what his wife had done.

The secret of Cadet Blanchet's compliance was that he was still very much in love with his wife. Madeleine was pretty, and not the least of a coquette; he heard her praises sung everywhere. Besides, his affairs were prosperous, and, as he was one of those men who are cruel only when they are in dread of calamity, he was kinder to Madeleine than anybody could have supposed possible. This roused Mother Blanchet's jealousy, and she revenged herself by petty annoyances, which Madeleine bore in silence, and without complaining to her husband.

It was the best way of putting an end to them, and no woman could be more patient and reasonable in this respect than Madeleine. But they say in our country that goodness avails less in the end than malice, and the day came when Madeleine was rebuked and called to account for her charities.

It was a year when the grain had been wasted by hail, and an overflow of the river had spoiled the hay. Cadet Blanchet was not in a good humor, and one day, as he was coming back from market with a comrade who had just married a very beautiful girl, the latter said to him:

"You, too, were not to be pitied in your day, for your Madelon used to be a very attractive girl."

"What do you mean by my day, and Madelon used to be? Do you think that she and I are old? Madeleine is not twenty yet, and I am not aware that she has lost her looks."

"Oh, no, I do not say so," replied the other. "Madeleine is certainly still good-looking; but you know that when a woman marries so young you cannot expect her to be pretty long. After she has nursed one child, she is already worn; and your wife was never strong, for you see that she is very thin, and has lost the appearance of health. Is the poor thing ill?"

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask me?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think she looks sad, as if she suffered or had some sorrow. A woman's bloom lasts no longer than the blossom of the vine. I must expect to see my wife with a long face and sober expression. And we men are only in love with our wives while we are jealous of them. They exasperate us; we scold them and beat them sometimes; they are distressed and weep; they stay at home and are afraid of us; then they are bored and care no more about us. But we are happy, for we are the masters. And yet, one fine morning, lo and behold, a man sees that if nobody wants his wife, it is because she has grown ugly; so he loves her no longer, and goes to court his neighbor's. It is his fate. Good evening, Cadet Blanchet; you kissed my wife rather too warmly to-night; I took note of it, though I said nothing. I tell you this to let you know that she and I shall not quarrel over it, and that I shall try not to make her as melancholy as yours, because I know my own character. If I am ever jealous, I shall be cruel, and when I have no more occasion for jealousy, I shall be still worse perhaps."

A good disposition profits by a good lesson; but, though active and intelligent, Cadet Blanchet was too arrogant to keep his self-possession. He came home with his head high and his eye bloodshot. He looked at Madeleine as he had not done for a long time, and perceived that she was pale and altered. He asked her if she were ill, so rudely that she turned still paler, and answered in a faint voice that she was quite well. He took offense, Heaven knows why, and sat down to the table, desirous of seeking a quarrel. He had not long to wait for an opportunity. They talked of the dearness of wheat, and Mother Blanchet remarked, as she did every evening, that too much bread was eaten in the house. Madeleine was silent. Cadet Blanchet wanted to make her responsible for the waste, and the old woman declared that she had caught the waif carrying away half a loaf that very morning. Madeleine should have been indignant and held her own, but she could only cry. Blanchet thought of what his companion had said to him, and was still more irritated; and so it happened that from that day on, explain it as you can, he no longer loved his wife, but made her wretched.

[CHAPTER II]

HE made her wretched, and as he had never made her happy she was doubly unlucky in her marriage. She had allowed herself to be married, at sixteen, to this rough, red-faced man, who drank deeply on Sunday, was in a fury all Monday, in bad spirits on Tuesday, and worked like a horse all the rest of the week to make up for lost time, for he was avaricious, and had no leisure to think of his wife. He was less ill-tempered on Saturday, because he had finished his work, and expected to amuse himself next day. But a single day of good humor in a week is not enough, and Madeleine had no pleasure in seeing him merry, because she knew that he would be sure to come home the next evening in a passion.

But as she was young and pretty, and so gentle that it was impossible to be angry long with her, there were still intervals when he was kind and just, and when he took her hands in his and said:

"Madeleine, you are a good wife, and I think that you were made expressly for me. If I had married a coquette, such as so many women are, I should kill her, or I should drown myself under my own mill-wheel. But I know that you are well-behaved and industrious, and that you are worth your weight in gold."

After four years of married life, however, his love had quite gone; he had no more kind words for her, and was enraged that she made no answer to his abuse. What answer could she make? She knew that her husband was unjust, and was unwilling to reproach him for it, for she considered it her duty to respect the master whom she had never been able to love.

Mother Blanchet was pleased to see her son master of the house again, as she said; just as if it had ever been otherwise. She hated her daughter-in-law, because she knew her to be better than herself. When she could find no other cause of complaint, she reviled her for not being strong, for coughing all winter, and for having only one child. She despised her for this, for knowing how to read and write, and for reading prayers in a corner of the orchard, instead of gossiping and chattering with the dames of the vicinity.

Madeleine placed her soul in God's hands, and thinking lamentations useless, she bore her affliction as if it were her due. She withdrew her heart from this earth, and often dreamed of paradise, as if she wished to die. Still, she was careful of her health, and armed herself with courage, because she knew that her child could only be happy through her, and she accepted everything for the sake of the love she bore him.

Though she could not feel any great affection for Zabelle, she was still fond of her, because this woman, who was half good and half selfish, continued to do her best for the poor waif; and Madeleine, who saw how people deteriorate who think of themselves alone, was inclined to esteem only those who thought sometimes of others. As she was the only person in the neighborhood who took no care of herself, she was entirely isolated and very sorrowful, without fully understanding the cause of her grief.

Little by little, however, she observed that the waif, who was then ten years old, began to think as she did. When I say think, I mean you to understand that she judged from his behavior; for there was no more sense in the poor child's words than on the first day she had spoken with him. He could not express himself, and when people tried to make him talk they were sure to interrupt him immediately, for he knew nothing about anything. But if he were needed to run an errand, he was always ready, and when it was an errand for Madeleine, he ran before she could ask him. He looked as if he had not understood the commission, but he executed it so swiftly and well that even she was amazed.

One day, as he was carrying little Jeannie in his arms, and allowing him to pull his hair for his amusement, Madeleine caught the child from him with some slight irritation, saying half involuntarily:

"François, if you begin now by suffering all the whims of other people, there is no knowing where they will stop."

To her great surprise, François answered:

"I should rather suffer evil than return it."

Madeleine was astonished, and gazed into the eyes of the waif, where she saw something she had never observed in the eyes even of the most honest persons she knew; something so kind, and yet so decided, that she was quite bewildered. She sat down on the grass with her child on her knees, and made the waif sit on the edge of her dress, without daring to speak to him. She could scarcely understand why she was overcome with fear and shame that she had often jested with this child for being so foolish. It is true that she had always done so with extreme gentleness, and perhaps she had pitied and loved him the more for his stupidity; but now she fancied that he had always understood her ridicule, and had been pained by it without being able to say anything in return.

She soon forgot this incident, for a short time afterward her husband, who had become infatuated with a disreputable woman in the neighborhood, undertook to hate his wife in good earnest, and to forbid her to allow Zabelle and her boy to enter the mill. Madeleine fell to thinking of still more secret means of aiding them, and warned Zabelle, telling her that she should pretend to neglect her for a time.

Zabelle was very much in awe of the miller, and had not Madeleine's power of endurance for the love of others. She argued to herself that the miller was the master, and could turn her out of doors, or increase her rent, and that Madeleine would be unable to prevent it. She reflected also that if she submitted to Mother Blanchet, she would establish herself in the good graces of the old woman, whose protection would be more useful to her than that of the young wife. So she went to the miller's mother, and confessed that she had received help from her daughter-in-law, declaring that she had done so against her will, and only out of pity for the waif, whom she had no means of feeding. The old woman detested the waif, though for no reason except that Madeleine took an interest in him. She advised Zabelle to rid herself of him, and promised her at this price to obtain six months' credit on her rent. The morrow of Saint Martin's day had come round, and as the year had been a hard one, Zabelle was out of money, and Madeleine was so closely watched that for some time she had been unable to give her any. Zabelle boldly promised to take back the waif to the foundling asylum the next day.

She had no sooner given her word than she repented of it, and at the sight of little François sleeping on his wretched pallet, her heart was as heavy as if she were about to commit a mortal sin. She could not sleep, and before dawn Mother Blanchet entered the hovel.

"Come, get up, Zabeau," she said. "You gave me your promise and you must keep it. If you wait to speak to my daughter-in-law, you will never do anything, but you must let the boy go, in her interest as well as your own, you see. My son has taken a dislike to him on account of his stupidity and greediness; my daughter-in-law has pampered him too much, and I am sure that he is a thief already. All foundlings are thieves from their birth, and it is mere folly to expect anything of such brats. This one will be the cause of your being driven away from here, and will ruin your reputation; he will furnish my son with a reason for beating his wife every day, and in the end, when he is tall and strong, he will become a highwayman, and will bring you to shame. Come, come, you must start! Take him through the fields as far as Corley, and there the stage-coach passes at eight o'clock. Get in with him, and you will reach Châteauroux, at noon, at the latest. You can come back this evening; there is a piece of money for your journey, and you will have enough left over to amuse yourself with in town."

Zabelle woke the child, dressed him in his best, made a bundle of the rest of his clothes, and, taking his hand, started off with him by the light of the moon.

As she walked along and the day broke, her heart failed her; she could neither hasten her steps, nor speak, and when she came to the highroad, she sat down on the side of a ditch, more dead than alive. The stage-coach was approaching, and they had arrived only just in time.

The waif was not in the habit of worrying, and thus far he had followed his mother without suspicion; but when he saw a huge carriage bowling toward him for the first time in his life, the noise it made frightened him, and he tried to pull Zabelle back into the meadow which they had just left to join the highroad. Zabelle thought that he understood his fate, and said:

"Come, poor François, you really must!"

François was still more frightened. He thought that the stage-coach was an enormous animal running after him to devour him. He who was so bold in meeting all the dangers which he knew lost his head, and rushed back screaming into the meadow. Zabelle ran after him; but when she saw him pale as death, her courage deserted her. She followed him all across the meadow, and allowed the stage-coach to go by.

[CHAPTER III]

THEY returned by the same road they had come, until they had gone half the distance, and then they stopped to rest. Zabelle was alarmed to see that the child trembled from head to foot, and his heart beat so violently as to agitate his poor old shirt. She made him sit down, and attempted to comfort him, but she did not know what she was saying, and François was not in a state to guess her meaning. She drew out a bit of bread from her basket and tried to persuade him to eat it; but he had no desire for food, and they sat on for a long time in silence.

At last, Zabelle, who was in the habit of recurring to her first thoughts, was ashamed of her weakness, and said to herself that she would be lost if she appeared again at the mill with the child. Another stage was to pass toward noon, and she decided to stay where they were until the moment necessary for returning to the highroad; but as François was so terrified that he had lost the little sense he possessed, and as for the first time in his life he was capable of resisting her will, she tried to tempt him with the attractions of the horse's bells, the noise of the wheels, and the speed of the great vehicle.

In her efforts to inspire him with confidence, she said more than she intended; perhaps her repentance urged her to speak, in spite of herself, or it may be that when François woke that morning he had heard certain words of Mother Blanchet, which now returned to his mind; or else his poor wits cleared suddenly at the approach of calamity; at all events, he began to say, with the same expression in his eyes which had once astonished and almost startled Madeleine:

"Mother, you want to send me away from you! You want to take me far off from here and leave me."

Then he remembered the word asylum, spoken several times in his hearing. He had no idea what an asylum was, but it seemed to him more horrible than the stage-coach, and he cried with a shudder:

"You want to put me in the asylum!"

Zabelle had gone too far to retreat. She believed that the child knew more of her intentions than he really did, and without reflecting how easy it would be to deceive him and rid herself of him by stratagem, she undertook to explain the truth to him, and to make him understand that he would be much happier at the asylum than with her, that he would be better cared for there, would learn to work, and would be placed for a time in the charge of some woman less poor than herself, who would be a mother to him.

This attempted consolation put the finishing touch to the waif's despair. A strange and unknown future inspired him with more terror than all Zabelle could say of the hardships of a life with her. Besides, he loved with all his might this ungrateful mother, who cared less for him than for herself. He loved another, too, almost as much as Zabelle, and she was Madeleine; only he did not know that he loved her, and did not speak of her. He threw himself sobbing on the ground, tore up the grass with his hands and flung it over his face, as if he had fallen in mortal agony. When Zabelle, in her distress and impatience, tried to make him get up by force and threats, he beat his head so hard against the stones that he was covered with blood, and she thought he was about to kill himself.

It pleased God that Madeleine Blanchet should pass by at that moment. She had heard nothing of the departure of Zabelle and the child, and was coming home from Presles, where she had carried back some wool to a lady, who had given it to her to spin very fine, as she was considered the best spinster far and wide. She had received her payment, and was returning to the mill with ten crowns in her pocket. She was going to cross the river on one of those little plank bridges on a level with the surface of the water, which are often to be met with in that part of the country, when she heard heart-piercing shrieks, and recognized at once the voice of the poor waif. She flew in the direction of the cries, and saw the child, bathed in blood, struggling in Zabelle's arms. She could not understand it at first; for it looked as if Zabelle had cruelly struck him, and were trying to shake him off. This seemed the more probable, as François, on catching sight of her, rushed toward her, twined his arms about her like a little snake, and clung to her skirts, screaming:

"Madame Blanchet, Madame Blanchet, save me!"

Zabelle was tall and strong, and Madeleine was small and slight as a reed. Still, she was not afraid, and, imagining that Zabelle had gone crazy, and was going to murder the child, she placed herself in front of him, resolved to protect him or to die while he was making his escape.

A few words, however, sufficed for an explanation. Zabelle, who was more grieved than angry, told the story, and François, who at last took in all the sadness of his lot, managed this time to profit by what he heard, with more cleverness than he had ever been supposed to possess. After Zabelle had finished, he kept fast hold of the miller's wife, saying:

"Don't send me away, don't let me be sent away."

And he went to and fro between Zabelle, who was crying, and the miller's wife, who was crying still harder, repeating all kinds of words and prayers, which scarcely seemed to come from his lips, for this was the first time he had ever been able to express himself.

"O my mother, my darling mother!" said he to Zabelle, "why do you want me to leave you? Do you want me to die of grief and never see you again? What have I done, that you no longer love me? Have I not always obeyed you? Have I done any harm? I have always taken good care of our animals—you told me so yourself; and when you kissed me every evening, you said I was your child, and you never said that you were not my mother! Keep me, mother, keep me; I am praying to you as I pray to God! I shall always take care of you; I shall always work for you; if you are not satisfied with me, you may beat me, and I shall not mind; but do not send me away until I have done something wrong."

Then he went to Madeleine, and said:

"Madame Blanchet, take pity on me. Tell my mother to keep me. I shall never go to your house, since it is forbidden, and if you want to give me anything, I shall know that I must not take it. I shall speak to Master Cadet Blanchet, and tell him to beat me and not to scold you on my account. When you go into the fields, I shall always go with you to carry your little boy, and amuse him all day. I shall do all you tell me, and if I do any wrong, you need no longer love me. But do not let me be sent away; I do not want to go; I should rather jump into the river."

Poor François looked at the river, and ran so near it, that they saw his life hung by a thread, and that a single word of refusal would be enough to make him drown himself. Madeleine pleaded for the child, and Zabelle was dying to listen to her. Now that she was near the mill, matters looked differently.

"Well, I will keep you, you naughty child," said she; "but I shall be on the road to-morrow, begging my bread because of you. You are too stupid to know it is your fault that I shall be reduced to such a condition, and this is what I have gained by burdening myself with a child who is no good to me, and does not even pay for the bread he eats."

"You have said enough, Zabelle," said the miller's wife, taking the child in her arms to lift him from the ground, although he was very heavy. "There are ten crowns for you to pay your rent with, or to move elsewhere, if my husband persists in driving you away from here. It is my own money—money that I have earned myself. I know that it will be required of me, but no matter. They may kill me if they want; I buy this child, he is mine, he is yours no longer. You do not deserve to keep a child with such a warm heart, and who loves you so much. I shall be his mother, and my family must submit. I am willing to suffer everything for my children. I could be cut in pieces for my Jeannie, and I could endure as much for this child, too. Come, poor François, you are no longer a waif, do you hear? You have a mother, and you can love her as much as you choose, for she will love you with her whole heart in return."

Madeleine said all this without being perfectly aware of what she was saying. She whose disposition was so gentle was now highly excited. Her heart rebelled against Zabelle, and she was really angry with her. François had thrown his arms round the neck of the miller's wife, and clasped her so tight that she lost her breath; and at the same time her cap and neckerchief were stained with blood, for his head was cut in several places.

Madeleine was so deeply affected, and was filled with so much pity, dismay, sorrow, and determination at once, that she set out to walk toward the mill with as much courage as a soldier advancing under fire. Without considering that the child was heavy, and she herself so weak that she could hardly carry her small Jeannie, she attempted to cross the unsteady little bridge that sank under her weight. When she reached the middle, she stopped. The child was so heavy that she swerved slightly, and drops of perspiration started from her forehead. She felt as if she should fall from weakness, when suddenly she called to mind a beautiful and marvelous story that she had read the evening before in an old volume of the "Lives of the Saints." It was the story of Saint Christopher, who carried the child Jesus across the river, and found him so heavy that he stopped in fear. She looked down at the waif. His eyes had rolled back in his head, and his arms had relaxed their hold. The poor child had either undergone too much emotion, or he had lost too much blood, and had fainted.

[CHAPTER IV]

WHEN Zabelle saw him thus, she thought he was dead. All her love for him returned, and with no more thought of the miller or his wicked old mother, she seized the child from Madeleine, and began to kiss him, with sobs and cries. They sat down beside the river, and, laying him across their knees, they washed his wounds and stanched the blood with their handkerchiefs; but they had nothing with which to bring him to. Madeleine warmed his head against her bosom, and breathed on his face and into his mouth as people do with the drowned. This revived him, and as soon as he opened his eyes and saw what care they were taking of him, he kissed Madeleine and Zabelle, one after the other, so passionately that they were obliged to check him, fearing that he might faint again.

"Come, come," said Zabelle, "we must go home. No, I can never, never leave that child; I see now, and I shall never think of it again. I shall keep your ten crowns, Madeleine, so I can pay my rent to-night if I am forced to do so. Do not tell about it; I shall go to-morrow to the lady in Presles, so that she may not inform against you, and she can say, in case of need, that she has not as yet given you the price of your spinning. In this way we shall gain time, and I shall try so hard that, even if I have to beg for it, I shall succeed in paying my debt to you, so that you need not suffer on my account. You cannot take this child to the mill; your husband would kill him. Leave him to me; I swear to you that I shall take as good care of him as before, and if we are tormented any further, we tan think of something else."

It came to pass that the waif's return was effected without disturbance, and without exciting attention; for it happened that Mother Blanchet had just fallen ill of a stroke of apoplexy, without having had an opportunity of telling her son what she had exacted from Zabelle about the waif, and Master Blanchet sent in all haste for Zabelle to come and help in the household, while Madeleine and the servant were taking care of his mother. For three days everything was in confusion at the mill. Madeleine did not spare herself, and watched for three nights at the bedside of her husband's mother, who died in her arms.

This blow allayed the miller's bad temper for some time. He had loved his mother as much as he was capable of loving, and his vanity was concerned in making as fine a funeral for her as his means allowed. He forgot his mistress for the required time, and with pretended generosity distributed his dead mother's clothes to the poor neighbors. Zabelle had her share of the alms, and the waif received a franc piece, because Blanchet remembered that once, when they were in urgent need of leeches for the sick woman, and everybody was running futilely hither and thither to look for them, the waif went off, without saying a word, to fish some out of a pool where he knew they were, and brought them back in less time than it took the others to start out for them.

So Cadet Blanchet gradually forgot his dislike, and nobody at the mill knew of Zabelle's freak of sending back the waif to the asylum. The question of Madeleine's ten crowns came up later, for the miller did not neglect to make Zabelle pay the rent for her wretched cottage. Madeleine said that she had lost them as she ran home through the fields, on hearing of her mother-in-law's accident. Blanchet made a long search for them and scolded a great deal, but he never found out the use to which the money had been put, and Zabelle was not suspected.

After his mother's death, Blanchet's disposition changed little by little, though not for the better. He found life still more tedious at home, was less observant of what went on, and less niggardly in his expenditure. He no longer earned anything, and, in proportion as he grew fat, led a disorderly life, and cared no more for his work. He looked to make his profit by dishonest bargains and unfair dealings, which would have enriched him, if he had not spent on one hand what he gained on the other. His mistress acquired more ascendency over him every day. She took him with her to fairs and feasts, induced him to engage in petty trickeries, and spend his time at the tavern. He learned how to gamble, and was often lucky; but it would have been better for him to lose always than acquire this unfortunate taste; for his dissipations threw him entirely off his balance, and at the most trifling loss, he became furious with himself, and ill-tempered toward everybody else.

While he was leading this wretched life, his wife, always wise and good, governed the house and tenderly reared their only child. But she thought herself doubly a mother, for she loved and watched over the waif almost as much as if he were her own. As her husband became more dissolute, she was less miserable and more her own mistress. In the beginning of his licentious career he was still very churlish, because he dreaded reproaches, and wished to hold his wife in a state of fear and subjection. When he saw that she was by nature an enemy to strife, and showed no jealousy, he made up his mind to leave her in peace. As his mother was no longer there to stir him up against her, he was obliged to recognize that no other woman was as thrifty as Madeleine. He grew accustomed to spend whole weeks away from home, and whenever he came back in the mood for a quarrel, he met with a mute patience that turned away his wrath, and he was first astonished and ended by going to sleep. So finally he came to see his wife only when he was tired and in need of rest.

Madeleine must have been a very Christian woman to live thus alone with an old servant and two children, and perhaps she was a still better Christian than if she had been a nun. God had given her the great privilege of learning to read, and of understanding what she read. Yet she always read the same thing, for she possessed only two books, the Holy Gospel and an abbreviated copy of the "Lives of the Saints." The Gospel sanctified her, and saddened her to tears, when she read alone in the evening beside her son's bed. The "Lives of the Saints" produced a different effect upon her; it was just as when idle people read stories and excite themselves over dreams and illusions. These beautiful tales inspired her with courage and even gaiety. Sometimes, out in the fields, the waif saw her smile and flush, when she had her book in her lap. He wondered at it, and found it hard to understand how the stories which she told him, with some little alteration in order adapt them to his capacity (and also perhaps because she could not perfectly grasp them from beginning to end), could come from that thing which she called her book. He wanted to read, too, and learned so quickly and well that she was amazed, and in his turn he was able to teach little Jeannie. When François was old enough to make his first communion, Madeleine helped him with his catechism, and the parish priest was delighted with the intelligence and excellent memory of this child, who had always passed for a simpleton, because he was very shy and never had anything to say.

After his first communion, and he was old enough to be hired out, Zabelle was pleased to have him engaged as servant at the mill; and Master Blanchet made no opposition, because it was plain to all that the waif was a good boy, very industrious and obliging, and stronger, more alert and sensible than the other children of his age. Then, too, he was satisfied with ten crowns for wages, and it was an economical arrangement for the miller. François was very happy to be entirely in the service of Madeleine and the dear little Jeannie he loved so much, and when he found that Zabelle could pay for her farm with his earnings, and thus be relieved of her most besetting care, he thought himself as rich as a king.

Unfortunately, poor Zabelle could not long enjoy her reward. At the beginning of the winter, she fell seriously ill, and in spite of receiving every care from the waif and Madeleine, she died on Candlemas Day, after having so far recovered that they thought her well again. Madeleine sorrowed and wept for her sincerely, but she tried to comfort the poor waif, who but for her would have been inconsolable.

Even after a year's time, he still thought of her every day, and almost every instant. Once he said to the miller's wife:

"I feel a kind of remorse when I pray for my poor mother's soul; it is because I did not love her enough. I am very sure that I always did my best to please her, that I never said any but kind words to her, and that I served her in all ways as I serve you; but I must confess something, Madame Blanchet, which troubles me, and for which, in secret, I often ask God's forgiveness. Ever since the day my poor mother wanted to send me back to the asylum, and you took my part, and prevented her doing so, my love for her, against my will, grew less. I was not angry with her; I did not allow myself even to think that she was wrong in trying to rid herself of me. It was her right to do so; I stood in her way; she was afraid of your mother-in-law, and after all she did it very reluctantly; for I could see that she loved me greatly. In some way or other, the idea keeps recurring to my mind, and I cannot drive it away. From the moment you said to me those words which I shall never forget, I loved you more than her, and in spite of all I could do, I thought of you more often than of her. She is dead now, and I did not die of grief as I should if you died!"

"What were the words I said, my poor child, that made you love me so much? I do not remember them."

"You do not remember them?" said the waif, sitting down at the feet of Madeleine, who was turning her wheel as she listened. "When you gave the crowns to my mother, you said: 'There, I buy that child of you; he is mine!' And then you kissed me and said: 'Now you are no longer a waif; you have a mother who will love you as if you were her own!' Did not you say so, Madame Blanchet?"

"If I did, I said what I meant, and am still of the same mind. Do you think I have failed to keep my word?"

"Oh no! only—"

"Only what?"

"No. I cannot tell you, for it is wrong to complain and be thankless and ungrateful."

"I know that you cannot be ungrateful, and I want you to say what you have on your mind. Come, in what respect don't I treat you like my own child? I order you to tell me, as I should order Jeannie."

"Well, it is—it is that you kiss Jeannie very often, and have never kissed me since the day we were just speaking of. Yet I am careful to keep my face and hands very clean, because I know that you do not like dirty children, and are always running after Jeannie to wash and comb him. But this does not make you kiss me any more, and my mother Zabelle did not kiss me either. I see that other mothers caress their children, and so I know that I am always a waif, and that you cannot forget it."

"Come and kiss me, François," said the miller's wife, making the child sit on her knees and kissing him with much feeling. "It is true that I did wrong never to think of it, and you deserved better of me. You see now that I kiss you with all my heart, and you are very sure that you are not a waif, are not you?"

The child flung his arms round Madeleine's neck, and turned so pale that she was surprised, and putting him down gently from her lap, tried to distract his attention. After a minute, he left her, and ran off to hide. The miller's wife felt some uneasiness, and making a search for him, she finally found him on his knees, in a corner of the barn, bathed in tears.

"What does this mean, François?" said she, raising him up. "I don't know what is the matter with you. If you are thinking of your poor mother Zabelle, you had better say a prayer for her, and then you will feel more at rest."

"No, no," said the child, twisting the end of Madeleine's apron, and kissing it with all his might. "Are not you my mother?"

"Why are you crying then? You give me pain!"

"Oh, no! oh, no! I am not crying," answered François, drying his eyes quickly, and looking up cheerfully; "I mean, I do not know why I was crying. Truly, I cannot understand it, for I am as happy as if I were in heaven."

[CHAPTER V]

FROM that day on Madeleine kissed the child, morning and evening, neither more nor less than if he had been her own, and the only difference she made between Jeannie and François was that the younger was the more petted and spoiled as became his age. He was only seven, while the waif was twelve, and François understood perfectly that a big boy like him could not be caressed like a little one. Besides, they were still more unlike in looks than in years. François was so tall and strong that he passed for fifteen, and Jeannie was small and slender like his mother, whom he greatly resembled.

It happened one morning, when she had just received François's greeting on her door-step, and had kissed him as usual, her servant said to her:

"I mean no offense, my good mistress, but it seems to me that boy is very big to let you kiss him as if he were a little girl."

"Do you think so?" answered Madeleine, in astonishment. "Don't you know how young he is?"

"Yes, and I should not see any harm in it, except that he is a waif, and though I am only your servant, I would not be hired to kiss any such riff-raff."

"What you say is wrong, Catherine," returned Madame Blanchet; "and above all, you should not say it before the poor child."

"She may say it, and everybody else may say it, too," replied François, boldly. "I don't care; if I am not a waif for you, Madame Blanchet, I am very well satisfied."

"Only hear him!" said the servant. "This is the first time I ever knew him to talk so much at once. Then you know how to put two or three words together, do you, François? I really thought you could not even understand what other people said. If I had known that you were listening, I should not have spoken before you as I did, for I have no idea of hurting your feelings. You are a good, quiet, obliging boy. Come, you must not think of it any more; if it seems odd to me for our mistress to kiss you, it is only because you are too big for it, and so much coddling makes you look sillier than you really are."

Having tried to mend matters in this way, big Catherine set about making her soup, and forgot all about what had passed.

The waif followed Madeleine to the place where she did her washing, and sitting down beside her, he spoke as he knew how to speak with her and for her alone.

"Do you remember, Madame Blanchet," said he, "how I was here once, long ago, and you let me go to sleep in your shawl?"

"Yes, my child," said she, "it was the first time we ever saw each other."

"Was it the first time? I was not certain, for I cannot recollect very well; when I think of that time, it is all like a dream. How many years ago is it?"

"It is—wait a minute—it is nearly six years, for my Jeannie was fourteen months old."

"So I was not so old then as he is now? When he has made his first communion, do you think he will remember all that is happening to him now?"

"Oh! yes, I shall be sure to remember," cried Jeannie.

"That may be so or not," said François. "What were you doing yesterday at this hour?"

Jeannie was startled, and opened his mouth to answer; then he stopped short, much abashed.

"Well! I wager that you cannot give a better account of yourself, either," said the miller's wife to François. She always took pleasure in listening to the prattle of the two children.

"I?" said the waif, embarrassed, "wait a moment—I was going to the fields, and passed by this very place—I was thinking of you. Indeed, it was yesterday that the day when you wrapped me up in your shawl came into my mind."

"You have a good memory, and it is surprising that you can remember so far back. Can you remember that you were ill with fever?"

"No, indeed!"

"And that you carried home my linen without my asking you?"

"No."

"I have always remembered it, because that was the way I found out how good your heart was."

"I have a good heart too, haven't I, mother?" said little Jeannie, presenting his mother with an apple which he had half eaten.

"To be sure you have, and you must try to copy François in all the good things you see him do."

"Oh, yes!" answered the child quickly, "I shall jump on the yellow colt this evening, and shall ride it into pasture."

"Shall you?" said François, laughing. "Are you, too, going to climb up the great ash-tree to hunt tomtits? I shall let you do it, my little fellow! But listen, Madame Blanchet, there is something I want to ask of you, but I do not know whether you will tell it to me."

"Let me hear."

"Why do they think they hurt my feelings when they call me a waif? Is there any harm in being a waif?"

"No; certainly not, my child, since it is no fault of yours."

"Whose fault is it?"

"It is the fault of the rich people."

"The fault of the rich people! What does that mean?"

"You are asking a great many questions to-day; I shall answer you by and by."

"No, no; right away, Madame Blanchet."

"I cannot explain it to you. In the first place, do you know yourself what it is to be a waif?"

"Yes; it is being put in a foundling asylum by your father and mother, because they have no money to feed you and bring you up."

"Yes, that is it. So you see that there are people so wretched as not to be able to bring up their own children, and that is the fault of the rich who do not help them."

"You are right!" answered the waif very thoughtfully. "Yet there are some good rich people, since you are one, Madame Blanchet, and it is only necessary to fall in their way."

[CHAPTER VI]

NEVERTHELESS, the waif, who was always musing and trying to find reasons for everything since he had learned to read and had made his first communion, kept pondering over what Catherine had said to Madame Blanchet about him; but it was in vain that he reflected, for he could never understand why, now that he was growing older, he should no longer kiss Madeleine. He was the most innocent boy in the world, and had no suspicion of what boys of his age learn all too quickly in the country.

His great simplicity of mind was the result of his singular bringing-up. He had never felt his position as a foundling to be a disgrace, but it had made him very shy; for though he had not taken the title as an insult, he was always surprised to find he possessed a characteristic which made a difference between himself and those with whom he associated. Foundlings are apt to be humbled by their fate, which is generally thrust upon them so harshly that they lose early their self-respect as Christians. They grow up full of hatred toward those who brought them into the world, not to speak of those who helped them to remain in it. It happened, however, that François had fallen into the hands of Zabelle, who loved him and treated him with kindness, and afterward he load met with Madeleine, who was the most charitable and compassionate of women. She had been a good mother to him, and a waif who receives affection is better than other children, just as he is worse when he is abused and degraded.

François had never known any amusement or perfect content except when in the company of Madeleine, and instead of running off with the other shepherd-boys for his recreation, he had grown up quite solitary, or tied to the apron-strings of the two women who loved him. Especially when with Madeleine, he was as happy as Jeannie could be, and he was in no haste to play with the other children, who were sure to call him a waif, and with whom he soon felt himself a stranger, though he could not tell why.

So he reached the age of fifteen without any knowledge of wrong or conception of evil; his lips had never uttered an unclean word, nor had his ears taken in the meaning of one. Yet, since the day that Catherine had censured his mistress for the affection she showed him, the child had the great good sense and judgment to forego his morning kiss from the miller's wife. He pretended to forget about it, or perhaps to be ashamed of being coddled like a little girl, as Catherine had said. But at the bottom, he had no such false shame, and he would have laughed at the idea, had he not guessed that the sweet woman he loved might incur blame on his account. Why should she be blamed? He could not understand it, and though he saw that he could never find it out by himself, he shrank from asking Madeleine for an explanation. He knew that her strength of love and kindness of heart had enabled her to endure the carping of others; for he had a good memory, and recollected that Madeleine had been upbraided, and had narrowly escaped blows in former years because of her goodness to him.

Now, owing to his good instincts, he spared her the annoyance of being rebuked and ridiculed on his account. He understood, and it is wonderful that the poor child could understand, that a waif was to be loved only in secret; and rather than cause any trouble to Madeleine, he would have consented to do without her love.

He was attentive to his work, and as, in proportion as he grew older, he had more to do, it happened that he was less and less with Madeleine. He did not grieve for this, for, as he toiled, he said to himself that it was for her, and that he would have his reward in seeing her at meals. In the evening, when Jeannie was asleep and Catherine had gone to bed, François still stayed up with Madeleine while she worked, and read aloud to her, or talked with her. Peasants do not read very fast, so that the two books they had were quite sufficient for them. When they read three pages in an evening they thought it was a great deal, and when the book was finished, so much time had passed since the beginning that they could take it up again at the first page without finding it too familiar. There are two ways of reading, and it may not be amiss to say so to those persons who think themselves well educated. Those who have much time to themselves and many books, devour so many of them and cram so much stuff into their heads, that they are utterly confused; but those who have neither leisure nor libraries are happy when a good book foils into their hands. They begin it over again a thousand times without weariness, and every time something strikes them which they had not observed before. In the main, the idea is always the same, but it is so much dwelt upon, so thoroughly enjoyed and digested, that the single mind which possesses it is better fed and more healthy than thirty thousand brains full of wind and twaddle. What I am telling you, my children, I have from the parish priest, who knows all about it.

So these two persons lived happy with what they had to consume in the matter of learning; and they consumed it slowly, helping each other to understand and love all that makes us just and good. Thus they grew in piety and courage; and they had no greater joy than to feel themselves at peace with all the world, and to be of one mind at all times and in all places, on the subject of the truth and the desire of holy living.

[CHAPTER VII]

MASTER BLANCHET was no longer particular concerning his household expenses, because he had fixed the amount of money which he gave to his wife every month for her housekeeping, and made it as little as possible. Madeleine could, without displeasing him, deprive herself of her own comfort in order to give alms to the poor about her; sometimes a little wood, another time part of her own dinner, again some vegetables, some clothing, some eggs, and so on. She spent all she had in the service of her neighbors, and when her money was exhausted, she did with her own hands the work of the poor, so as to save the lives of those among them who were ill and worn out. She was so economical, and mended her old clothes so carefully, that she appeared to live comfortably; and yet she was so anxious that her family should not suffer for what she gave away, that she accustomed herself to eat scarcely anything, never to rest, and to sleep as little as possible. The waif saw all this, and thought it quite natural; for it was in his character, as well as in the education he received from Madeleine, to feel the same inclination, and to be drawn toward the same duty. Sometimes, only, he was troubled by the great hardships which the miller's wife endured, and blamed himself for sleeping and eating too much. He would gladly have spent the night sewing and spinning in her place; and when she tried to pay him his wages, which had risen to nearly twenty crowns, he refused to take them, and obliged her to keep them without the miller's knowledge.

"If my mother Zabelle were alive," said he, "this money would be for her. What do you expect me to do with it? I have no need of it, since you take care of my clothes, and provide me with sabots. Keep it for somebody more unfortunate than I am. You work so hard for the poor already, and if you give money to me, you must work still harder. If you should fall ill and die like poor Zabelle, I should like to know what good it would do me to have my chest full of money. Would it bring you back again, or prevent me from throwing myself in the river?"

"You do not know what you are talking about, my child," said Madeleine, one day that this idea returned to his mind, as happened from time to time. "It is not a Christian act to kill oneself, and if I should die, it would be your duty to live after me to comfort and help my Jeannie. Should not you do that for me?"

"Yes, as long as Jeannie was a child and needed my love. But afterward! Do not let us speak of this, Madame Blanchet. I cannot be a good Christian on this point. Do not tire yourself out, and do not die, if you want me to live on this earth."

"You may set your mind at ease, for I have no wish to die. I am well. I am hardened to work, and now I am even stronger than I was in my youth."

"In your youth!" exclaimed François in astonishment. "Are not you young, then?"

And he was afraid lest she might have reached the age for dying.

"I think I never had time to be young," answered Madeleine, laughing like one who meets misfortune bravely. "Now I am twenty-five years old, and that is a good deal for a woman of my make; for I was not born strong like you, my boy, and I have had sorrows which have aged me more than years."

"Sorrows! Heavens, yes! I knew it very well, when Monsieur Blanchet used to speak so roughly to you. God forgive me! I am not a wicked boy, yet once when he raised his hand against you as if to strike you—Oh! he did well to change his mind, for I had seized a flail,—nobody had noticed me,—and I was going to fall upon him. But that was a long time ago, Madame Blanchet, for I remember that I was much shorter than he then, and now I can look right over his head. And now that he scarcely speaks to you any more, Madame Blanchet, you are no longer unhappy, are you?"

"So you think I am no longer unhappy, do you?" said Madeleine rather sharply, thinking how it was that there had never been any love in her marriage. Then she checked herself, for what she was going to say was no concern of the waif's, and she had no right to put such ideas into a child's head.

"You are right," said she; "I am no longer unhappy. I live as I please. My husband is much kinder to me; my son is well and strong, and I have nothing to complain of."

"Then don't I enter into your calculations? I—"

"You? You are well and strong, too, and that pleases me."

"Don't I please you in any other way?"

"Yes, you are a good boy; you are always right-minded, and I am satisfied with you."

"Oh! if you were not satisfied with me, what a scamp, what a good-for-nothing I should be, after the way in which you have treated me! But there is still something else which ought to make you happy, if you think as I do."

"Very well, tell me; for I do not know what puzzle you are contriving for me."

"I mean no puzzle, Madame Blanche! I need but look into my heart, and I see that even if I had to suffer hunger, thirst, heat, and cold, and were to be beaten half to death every day into the bargain, and then had only a bundle of thorns or a heap of stones to lie on—well, can you understand?"

"I think so, my dear François; you could be happy in spite of so much evil if only your heart were at peace with God."

"Of course that is true, and I need not speak of it. But I meant something else."

"I cannot imagine what you are aiming at, and I see that you are cleverer than I am."