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THE STRAW-CUTTER'S DAUGHTER,
CHAPTEB L
THE FAKM OP CADIOBNE.
IT is a glorious August morning. The sun has risen red and
glowing, and as he mounts higher and higher, the rich
cornfields shine like a goklen sea as the light breeze moves the
farmer of Cadiorne, to his sons and "
laborers, we must all set
briskly to work. Must have a good lot of corn got in before
and you know that those who work well ore paid well."
BY BAOUL DB NAVEBY.
Trantlated from the French by Lady Georgians Fullerton.
night ;
Yves and Aubin, the farmer's sons, harnessed the wagonhorses
; Bobert, the head man, gave out the sharp sickles ; and
the reapers bound large
straw hats.
checked handkerchiefs under their
Marthe, the farmer's wife, stood at her door looking on at
the bright busy scene, a quiet motherly woman, yet the mainspring
of the household as well as its sunshine. She managed
everything with the help of one lame servant, who had grown
old in her service, and whom every one called Limping
Xiouison.
Marthe was turning away as the last of the reapers disappeared,
when her youngest son, Aubin, came jumping over the
blackthorn hedge, and running up to her for one more kiss.
She gave at least a dozen to the sunburnt face and curly black
hair, and then asked whether he wculd not be missed in the
field.
" I really had forgotten my very own little sickle, mother
dear."
"Very well, darling, be off again, and work hard."
"And, mother, you will come to the field when the Angelus
"
rings ?
She nodded a promise ; and Aubin was off like a shot, start-
ling the birds in the hedge with his leap and whistle.
Aubin was soon back with the rest by the side of his favorite
black bullock, a noble creature, with dewlaps that nearly
touched the ground, and large soft eyes that turned slowly ou
his young master as if to thank him for keeping off the flies
with an oak branch, which he flapped about ins head.
On reaching the field, Aubin and Yves, like the others, set
to work at once, and the ripe corn fell quickly and silently as
the reaping-hooks cut their way farther and farther into the
field.
And now it is noon ; there is no shadow cast by the trees ;
the chirp of the grasshoppers and cicadas comes short and
Walnut-trees ; for there, three feet underground, according to
Breton superstition, lurks a'poisonous snake, "le eourd," ttey
call him, whose very presence is fatal to the luckless sleeper.
So they all lie down ruder the oaks, all but Yves, who is
afraid of nothing, and takes a pride in setting tradition, cus-
tom, and unhappily, holier things than these, at defiance.
Jean Patriarche, the father of the two lads, whose acquaintance
we have made, was a very good specimen of a Breton
farmer. He had married young ; and Marthe was his own
billowy mass. The lark darts upwards from the furrow,
straight as an arrow the first of God's creatures to sing its
Maker's praises; the hum of insect-life begins; and all the
pleasant country sounds mingle in sweet confusion the cattle-
;
bell, the herdsman's song, the barking of dogs, the lowing of
cattle, the shrill crow of the cock choice as well as that of his parents. Both families were well
off, and well thought
proclaiming that the business
of the farm has begun.
"
Hurry on, my lads," cried cheery Pere Patriarche, the rich
of in the parish of Saint Aubin du Cormier
;
1
the young people had been taught by the old cure who
,
had known them from their birth and both were ; good, simple,
industrious, and sincerely attached. Marthe was quite an
heiress in her way, with the three splendid cornfields which
made her dowry and Jean's ; famous speckled cattle grazed in
pasture land where the grass grew breast-high. Two years
after her marriage Marthe was the mother of two sons. Aubin
had his father's black hair, open brow, and honest eyes, and
his mother's calm, gentle nature. Sincerely religious, he had
a great love for the poor, and, when quite a little fellow, de-
lighted in cutting great hunches of bread for them, which he
could scarcely cany. One day he met a little barefooted boy,
and instantly taking off his sabots gave them to the child,
while he bound the straw which lined them, on- his own feet.
On his return his mother asked what had become of the sabots ;
she kissed him tenderly when the story was told, and next mar-
ket-day she bought him a smart pair of buff-leather shoes,
while the impromptu slippers were carefully put away in her
press. "So," thought Yves, "tne way to get easy shoes is to
lose one's sabots." And next he came in barefooted and his
face covered with blood.
" Good heavens' ! what has happened? " said Marthe.
" Fighting with little Maclou, the goose-boy; the geese were
making a horrid row, and I halloed to him to keep them quiet;
and as he chose not to mind me, I
his head."
sent one of my sabots at
"
For shame, Yves ! A little fellow like that
"
!
"
He's an impudent monkey, all the same and next ; time I
catch him I mean to wring the neck of that biggest goose of
his ; as soon as the chap began blubbering she flew at me, and
I got as many pecks as I had given him thumps."
" O, Yves, my poor child, will you never mend your ways ? "
"Why, where's the harm of licking Maclou ? "
" Poor little fellow, he was doing you no harm ; and he's
such a good boy. "
" Is he, indeed ? Well, I can't abide the little beggar ; and,
besides, I wanted shoes like Aubin's, so I got rid of my sabots,
for they are broken to bite."
" Aubin's was a very different affair. "
" Not a bit of it ; it all comes to the same thing ; he gave his
sharp in the midday heat. A bell rings, every man stops
work, and the master, uncovering his head, recites the Angelus
with all his men, after which all seek the group of oaks and
away,
walnuts at the bottom of the field, for the welcome hour of
and refreshment. For the hundredth time some laborer
bids his comrades beware of falling asleep under one of the
and I smashed mine; so, as I haven't another pair, you'll
just have to buy the shoes."
" That I shall certainly not do."
"
Oh, then," said Yves "
insolently, there's one law for Aubin,
and another for me, is there ?"
"
Yes, there is a different law for a cruel, disobedient boy,
and for a good and charitable one. I reward the one and I
punish the other. But, mind, you are not to suppose that I