The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables

n. Now he would pick a bunch of grapes; now he would eat a big pear under the trellice; now he would draw all sorts of fancies on the path with the end of his cane; now he would go

he once boasted. 'It is a fair consequence that I

fishes, the look of the plants in his garden, the disposition of cloud, the colour of the light, and last, although not least, the arsenal of meteorological instruments in a louvre-boarded hutch upon the lawn. Ever since he had settled at Gretz, he had been growing more and more into the local meteorologist, the unpaid champion of the

, in this exiguous hamlet, has she placed her shrine: here she dwells and lavishes her gifts; here I walk with her in the early morning, and she shows me how strong she has made the peasants, how fruitful she has made the fields, how the trees grow up tall and comely under her eyes, and the fishes in the river become clean and agile at her presence.-Rheumatism!' he would cry, on some malape

d uttered doubtful oracles, sometimes declaring that a river was the type of bodily health, sometimes extolling it as the great moral preacher, continually preaching peace, continuity, and diligence to man's tormented spirits. After he had watched a mile or so of the clear water running by before his eyes, seen

ooked very airy in the sunlight; a few birds that turned about it, seemed to swim in an atmosphere of more than usual rarity; and

ry he espied a little dark figure perched in a medit

on either knee. 'So we rise early in the morning, do we? I

s feet and made a

ur patient?'

e patient was

se early in the mo

ong silence, professe

ing, my man, until we try to learn. Interrogate your consc

boy slowly; 'y

he Doctor. '(We are now pursuing the

ie; 'and I have nothing to do; a

boy plainly thought before he spoke, and tried to answer truly. 'It appears you have a taste for feeling good,' said

d to steal?' a

opinion, little boy

ruelly if I returned with nothing,' he added. 'I was not ignorant of right and wrong; for before that I had been well taught by a priest, who was very kind to me.' (The Doctor made a horrible grimace at t

rising sneer, 'you prayed God to forgive y

ed Jean-Marie.

d see, however,'

ed for the first time. 'I should

arled th

me,' replied the other. 'You do not, I see; but t

y the virtues also, I must go. I am a student of the blessed laws of health, an observer of plain and temperat

,' said

e it is already as blue as at noon. Is not that a beautiful colour? Does it not please the heart? We have seen it all our lives, until it has grown in with our familiar thoughts. Now,' changing his tone, 'su

ot,' answere

roughly. 'I hate all odd people, and you are

head again and looked over at the Doctor with an air of candid

ng heaven, 'I did not know such boys existed; I was ignorant they made them so; I had doubted of my race; and now! It is like,' he added, picking up his stick, 'like a lovers' meeting. I have bruised my favourite staff in that moment of e

Marie, seriously; 'onl

m abroad in the contemplation of the morning. He inhaled the air, tasting it critically as a connoisseur tastes a vintage, and prolonging the expiration with hygienic gusto. He counted the little flecks of cloud along the sky. He followed the movements of the birds round the church tower-making long sweeps, hanging poised, or turning airy somersaults in fancy, and beating the wind with imaginary pinions. And in this way he regained pe

my singing?' he inquired, stopping in the middle of a note; and then, after he had waited some l

e it,' falter

octor. 'Possibly you ar

than that,' r

y, and blushed for himself in consequence, which made him angrier. 'If this is how

at all,' returned the b

apped Doctor Desprez,

ow,' answere

respirable air; but of one thing I am inexpugnably assured:-that you are no human being. No, boy'-shaking his stick at him-'you are not a human being. Write, write it in your memory-"I am not a hum

the street in some emotion, and the boy