Of all the digressions we have indulged in, this is perhaps the most unwarrantable; and, though it has relieved me unspeakably, I hereby tender a certain amount of contrition for the same. _Revenons à nos moutons_--though there was very little of the sheep in the appearance of Jean Duchesne, whose demeanor (when we left him) you will recollect was decidedly aggressive. It was evident that the mule-boy thought mischief was brewing, for he twisted his features--irregular and _tumbled_ enough already--into divers remarkable contortions expressive of remorse and terror.
"Who, then, dares to trespass on my lands? Do you think we sow our crops for your cursed mules to trample on?"
He spoke in a hoarse, thick voice (suggestive of spirituous liquors), and in the disagreeable Provençal dialect, which must have altered strangely since the time of the _troubadours_: brief as his speech was, it found room for more than one of those expletives which are nowhere so horribly blasphemous as in the south of France.
Cecil had started slightly at the first interjection, which broke her day-dream, but she was not otherwise alarmed or discomposed: she seemed to regard the _propriétaire_ simply as an unpleasant obstacle to their progress, and glanced at Mr. Fullarton as if she expected him to clear it away. The latter was not good at French, but he did manage to express their sorrow if they had done any harm unconsciously, and their wish to retire instantly. "Not before paying," was the reply. "_Quinze francs de dedommagemens; et puis, filez aux tous les diables!_"
Women are not expected to carry purses or any other objects of simple utility; but why Mr. Fullarton should have left his at home on this particular day is between himself and his own conscience. The party very soon realized the fact that they could muster about a hundred and fifty centimes among them.
Even kings and kaisers, when _incogniti_, have ere this been reduced to the extremest straits of ignominy from the want of a few available pieces of silver; and, in ordinary life, five shillings ready at the moment are frequently of more importance than as many hundreds in expectancy. There lives even now a man who missed the most charming rendezvous with which fortune ever favored him, because he rode a mile round to avoid a turnpike, not having wherewithal to pay it. Since that disastrous day he is ever furnished with such a weight of small change that, had Cola Pesce carried it, the strong swimmer must have sunk like a stone--in penance, probably, even as James of Scotland wore the iron belt. At a pause in the conversation you may hear him rattling the coppers in his pocket moodily, as the spectres in old romances rattle their chains; but his remorse is unavailing. A fair chance once lost, Whist and Erycina never forgive. The beautiful bird that might _then_ have been limed and tamed shook her wings and flew away exultingly: far up in air the unlucky fowler may still sometimes hear her clear mocking carol, but she is too near heaven for his arts to reach, and has escaped the toils forever.