FOLLE-FARINE.
15

"Not she," grumbled the old dame, whose son was
a Driest " One day my blessed son, who is nearly a
sanit Heaven knows, menaced her with his cross,
and she stood straight and fearless, and looked at it,
and said, ' By that sign you do all manner of vileness
in this world, and say you are to be blest in another;
I know!' and so laughed and went on. What are you
to do with a witch like thateh?"
"Go Flandrin," shrieked the women in chorus, bo!
Every minute you waste the little angels are nearer to
"Come vourselves with me, then," said Flandrin,
sullenly. ' 1 will not go after those infants, it is not a
man's work."                                                   ....
In his own mind he was musing on a story his priests
had often told him, of swine into which exorcised devils
had entered, and dispatched swiftly down a slope to a
miserable end; and bethought of his own pigs, black,
fat and happy, worth so much to him in the market.
Better he mused, that Manon Dax's grandchildren
should' be the devil's prey, than those, the choicest,
swine.
The women jeered him, menaced him, flouted him,
besought him. But vainlyhe would not move alone.
He had become possessed with the terrors that his own
fancy had created; and he would not stir a step for all
their imprecations.                                                 ..
"Let us go ourselves, then !" screamed his wile at
length flourishing above her head the broom with
winch she had swept the snow. " Men are forever cow-
ards It shall never bo said of me, that I left those
babe's to the fiend while I gave my own children their
porridge by the Are !"
There was a sentiment in this that stirred all her com-
panions to emulation. They rushed into their homes,
Snatched a shovel, a staff, a broom, a pegstick each
whatever came uppermost, and, dragging Mandrin m
the midst, went down the sloping frozen road between
its fringe of poplars. They were not very sure m therr
own minds why they went, nor for what they went;
but they had a vague idea of doing what was wrse and
pious, and they had a great hate in their, hearts against
They sped as fast as the slippery road would let
them, and their tongues flew still faster than their feet;
the cold of the daybreak made them sharp and keen
on their prey ; they screamed themselves hoarse, their
voices rising shrilly above the whistling of the winds,
and the creaking of the trees; and they inflamed each
other with ferocious belief in the sorcery they were to
They were in their way virtuous; they were content
on very little, they toiled hard from their birth to their
:grave they were most of them chaste wives and
devoted mothers, they bore pi-ivation steadily, and
they slaved in fair weather and foul without a com-
plaint. But they were narrow of soul, greedy of tem-
per, bigoted and uncharitable, arrd, where they thought
themselves or their offspring menaced, implacable.
They were of tbe stuff that would be burned for a creed,
and burn others for another creed. It is the creed of
the vast majority of every nation; the priests and law-
givers of every nation have always told their people
that it is a creed holy and honorable-how can the
people know that it is at once idiotic and hellish?
Folle-Farine sat within on the damp hay under the
broken roof, and watched the open door.                     _
The children were still asleep. The eldest one m Iris
Bleep had turned and caught her hand and held it.
She did not care for them. They had screamed, and
run behind the woodstack, or their grandam s skirts, a
hundred times when they had seen her on the load or
in the orchard. But she was sorry for them ; almost as
sorry as she was for the little naked woodpigeons
when their nests were scattered on the ground in a
tempest, or for the little starveling rabbits when they
screamed in theii holes for the soft, white mother that
was lying, tortured and twisted, in the jaws of a steel
She was sorry for themhalf roughly, half tenderly
with some shame at her own weakness, and yet too
sincerely sorry to be able to persuade herself to leave
them to their fate there, all alone with their dead.
For in the savage heart of Taric's daughter there was
an innermost corner wherein her mother's nature slept.
She sat there quite still, watching the open porch and
listening for footsteps.
The snow was driven m circling clouds by the winds,
the dense fog of the dawn lifted itself off the surround-
ing fields; the branches of the trees were beautrful
with hanging icicles; from the meadow hard by there
wailed unceasingly the mournful moaning of Flandrin s
cattle, deserted of their master and hungry in their
wooden sheds.                             ,   ,    '
She heard a distant convent clock strike six; no one
oanre. Yet, she had resolved not to leave the children
all alone; though Flamma should come and find her
there, and thrash hr for her absence from Ins tasks.
So she sat still and waited.
After a little she heard the crisp creaking of many
feet on the frozen snow nd ice-filled ruts of the narrow
road; she heard a confused clatter of angry voices
breaking harshly on the stillness of the winter morning.
The light was stronger now, and through the door-
way she saw the little passionate crowd of angry faces
as the women pressed onward down the hill with i lan-
drin in their midst.
She rose and looked out at them quietly.
For a minute they pausedirresolute, silent,  p.r-
plexed: at the sight of her- they were half daunted;
they felt the vagueness of the crime they came to
bring against her.                                         .    _   ,
The wife of Flandrin recovered speech first, and
dared them to the onslaught.
"What!" she screamed, "nine good Christrans fear-
ful of one daughter of hell? Fie! for shame! Look;
my leaden Peter is round my neck! Is he not stronger
than she any day?"
In a moment more, thus girded at and guarded at
the same time, they were through the door and on the
mud floor of the hearth, close io her, casting hasty
glances at the poor dead body on the hearth, whose
fires they bad left to die out all through that bitter win-
ter. They came about her in a fierce, gesticulating,
breathless troop, flourishing their sticks in her eyes,
and casting at her a thousand charges in one breath.
Flandrin stood a little aloof, sheepishly on the thresh-
old, wishing he had never said a word of the death of
Manon Dax to his good wife and neighbors.
" You met that poor saint and killed her in the snow
with your witcheries!" one cried.
"You have stifled that poor babe where it lay!"
rled another.                               ..             ..,.<   I
"A good woman like that!" shrieked a third, "who
was well and blithe and praising God only a day ago,
for I saw her myself come down the hill for our well
water ' ' '
" It is as you did with the dear little Rmy, who will
be lame all his life through you," !
the notary was a name of awe to them, for he was a
severe man but just.
They seized the ohildren, went out with them into
the road, closed the hut door behind them, and moved
down the hill, the two younger wailing saaly, and the
eldest trying to get from them and go back.
The women looked mournful and held their heads
down and comforted the little ones; Flandrin himself
went to his cattle in the meadow.    ......
" Is anything amiss?" the old white-haired notary
asked, stopping his gray mule at sight of the little cav-
aloade
The women, weeping, told him that Manon Dax was
dead, and the youngest infant likewiseof cold, in the
night, as they supposed. They dared to say no more,
to? he had many times rebuked them for therr ak of
charity and their bigoted cruelties and superstitions,
and they were quaking with fear lest he should by any
chance enter the cottage and see their work.
"Flandrin, going to his cow, saw her first, and ne
came to us and told us," they added^ crossrng them-
selves fervently, and hushing little Bernardou, who
wanted to get from them and return; and_ we have
taken the poor little things to carry the"", home we
are going to give them food, and warm them awhile
by tfie stove, and then we shall come back and do all
that is needful for the beloved dead who are within    __
" That is well.   That is good and neighborly ot you
said the notary, who "ked them having marned them
all, and registered all their chrldren's births, and who
was a good old man, though stern.                      ,ii
He promised them to see for his part that all needed
by the law and by the church should be done for their
ofd lost neighbor; and then he urged bis mule into a
trot, for he had been summoned to a rich man s sick-
bed in that early winter morning, and was m haste lest
the priest should be beforehand with him there
" How tender the poor are to the poor! Those peo-
ple have not bread enough for themselves, and yet they
burden their- homes with three strange mouths, ineir
heartsS be true at the core if their tongues some-
times be foul," he mused, as he rode the mule down
thThegwomen0w'ent on. carrying and dragging the chil-
dren with them, in a sullen impatience.
"To think we should have had to leave ^that fiend
of Yprs!" they muttered in their teeth. 'JKeill, there
is one thing, she will not get over the hurt for days
Her bones will be stiff for many a ^week. That will
teach her to leave honest folk alone.
And they traversed the road slowly, muttenng to one
"Hold thy noise, thou little P>S!" cr'ed^^ndrm s
She laughed aloud as the image of Peter was thrust   wife, pushmg Bernardou on before her       Hold my
i her fnce    She saw it was some emblem and idol of i noise i tell you, or I will put you in the black box ma
'ole   in   the  ground,  along with  they gieat-grana
be tame an ms lire mruuS.i juu,    m^ .-.--
" You are not fit to live; you spit venom like a toad.
" Are you alive, my angels?'r said a fifth, waking the
three children noisily, and rousing their piercing cries
" Are you alive after that witch has gazed on you? it
is a miracle!    The saints be praised !"
Folle-Farine stood mute and erect for a moment, not
comprehending why they thus with one accord fell
UDon her. She pointed to the bodies on the hearth,
with one of those grave and dignified gestures which
were her birthright.                                                  __
" She was cold and hungry," she said curtly, her mel-
low accent softening and enriching the provincial
tongue which she had learned from those amidst whom
she dwelt. " She had fallen, and was dying. I brought
her here. The young child was killed by the snow, 1
stayed with the rest because they were frightened, and
alone.   There is no more to tell.   What of it?
" Thou hadst better come away. What canst thou
prove?" whispered Flandrin to Iris wife.          .
He was afraid of the storm he had invoked, and
would fain have stilled it. But that was beyond hrs
power. Tire women had net come forth half a league
inthe howling winds of a midwinter daybreak only to
go back with a mere charity done, and with no ven-
geance taken.                                     ,     ,  . ...     ___
They hissed, they screamed, they hurled their rage
at her; they accused her of a thousand crimes; they
filled the hut with clamor as of a thousand tongues;
they foamed, they spat, they struck at her with their
sticks; and she stood quiet, looking at them, and the
old dead face of Manon Dax lay upward m the dim
' The eldest boy struggled in the grasp of the peasant
woman who had sefzed him, and stretched hrs arms, in-
stead, to the oire who had fed him and whose hand he
had held all through his restless slumber in that long
and dreary night.
The woman covered his'eyes with a scream.
"Ahh!" she moaned, " see how the innocent child
is bewitched ! It is horrible !"
" Look on that-oh, infernal thing !" cried Flandrin s
wife, lifting up her treasured figure of Peter. you
dare not face that blessed image. Seesee all of you
how she winces, and turns white!"         ,.,...     ,,
Folle-Farine had shrunk a little as the ehrld had called
her. Its gesture of affection was the first rhat she had
ever seen towards her in any human thin
,_.d aloud as the image of _Pei~.
in her face. She saw it was some emblem and idol of
their faith, devoutly cherished. She stretched her
hand out, wrenched it away, trampled on it, and tossed
it through the doorway into the snow, where rt sank ana
disappeared.  Then she folded her arms, and waited tor
Vlre're was a shriek at the blasphemy of the impious
act; then they rushed on her.                       ,.,,.,.
They came inflamed with all the fury which abject
fear and bigoted hatred can beget m minds of the
lowest and most brutal type. They were strong rude,
ignorant, fanatical peasarrts, and they abhorred her
a<  U'iev believed no child of theirs to be safe m its bed
while siie walked alive abroad. Beside such women,
when in wrath and riot, the tiger and the hyena are as
the lamb and the dove.                            ,
They set on her with furious force; they flung her,
they trod on Tier, they beat her, they kicked her with
their wood-shod feet, with all the malignant fury of the
female animal that fights for its off spring s and rts own
security.                                                 , .    .
Strong though she was, and swift, and full of courage,
she had no power against the numbers who had thrown
themselves on her, and borne her backward by dint or
their united effort, and held her down to work their
worst on her. She could not free herself to return
their blows, nor lift herself to wrestle with them ; she
could only deny them the sweetness of wringing from
her a single cry, and that she did. She was mute
while the rough hands flew at her, tbe sticks struck at
her, the heavy feet were driven against her body, and
the fierce fingers clutched at her hair, and twrsted and
tore itshe was quite mute throughout.
" Prick her in the breast, and see if the devrl be strll
in her. I have heard say there is no better way to test
a witch!" cried Flandrin's wife, writhing in rage for
the outrage to the Petrus.                                   .
Her foes needed no second bidding; they had her
already prostrate in their midst, and a dozen eager,
violent hands seized a closer grip upon her, pulled her
clothes from her chest, and, holding her down on the
mud floor, searched with ravenous eyes for the signet
marks of hell. The smooth, soft skin baffled them; its
rich and tender hue -, were without spot or blemrsh
" What matter-what matter?" hissed Rose Flandrin..
" When our fathers hunted witches in the old time, did
they stop for thai;?   Draw blood, and you will see.
She clutched a jagged, rusty nail from out the wall,
and leaned over her prey.                                         ,  .
" It is the only babe that will ever cling to thee ! she
cried, with a laugh, as the nail drew blood above the
Still Folle-Farine made no sound and asked no mercy.
She was powerless, defenseless, flung on her back
amidst her tormentors, fastened down by treading feet
and clinching hands; she could resist rn nothing, she
could not stir a limb; still she kept silence, and her
proud eyes looked unquailing into the hatetul faces
bent to hers.                                  ,    ,        .        ,+,.
The muscles and nerves of her body quivered with a
mighty pang, her chest heaved with the torture of in-
dignity, her heart fluttered, like a wounded birdnot at
the physical pain, but at the shame of these women s
craze, the loathsome contact of therr hands.
The iron pierced deeper, but they could not make her
sneak. Except for her eyes, which glowed wrth a
dusky fire as they glanced to and fro seeking escape,
she might have been a statue of olive-wood, flung
down by ruffians to make a bonfire.
"If one were to drive the nail to the head, she would
not feel!" cried the women in furious despair, and
were minded, almost, to put her to that uttermost test.
Suddenly,  from the doorway, Flandrin   raised an
" There is our notary close at hand, on the road on
his mule) Hist! Come out quickly ! You know how
strict he is, and how he forbids us ever to try and take
the law into our own keeping. Quick-as you love
your livesquick !"
J   m,   .     .___:    1F+ +
But Bernardou wept aloud, refusing to be comforted
or terrified into silence. He was old enough to know
that- never more would the old kmdly withered blown
face bina over him as he woke in the morning nor the
old kindly quavering voice croon him country ballads
and cradle songs at twilight by the "ght wood fi e
Little by little the women carrying the children crept
down the slippery slope, half ice and half mud m the
ttow, ancl entered7 their own village, and therein were
much praised for their charity and courage.          __
For when they praise, as when they abuse, villages
are toud  of voice and blind of eye almost as much as
aheTr tonfues and those of their neighbors clacked all
day long noisily and bravely, of their good and their
great dfds; they had all the sanctity of martyrdom,
Ind all the glory of victory, in one. True, they have
ffet all their house and field-work half done ' Eut the
Holy Peter will finish it in his own good tune.and
avenee himself for his outrage," mused the wife of
iSrin sorrowing over her Tost Petrus in the snow-
drift and boxing the ears of little Bernardou to make
him ctase from his weeping, where he was huddled m
hWnenThe^ wenTback with their priest at noon to the
hut of "id Manon Dax to make her ready for her burial,
[toy trembled inwardly lest they should find their vic-
tim there and lest she should lift up her voice m accu-
saTiori acinst them. Their hearts misgave them sorely.
Then-prfest a cobbler's son, almost as ignorant.as them-
selves; save that he could gabble a few morsels of bad
T atin would be, they knew, on their side; but they
wf senSibie that they had let their fury hurry them
tato acts that could easily be applauded by their neigh-
bors, but not so easily justified to the 'aw.
" For the law is overgood," said Rose Flandrin and
takes the part of all sorts of vile creatures. It will
nrotect a rogue a brigand, a bullock, a dog, a witch
rS^anfthi'ng-except' now and therr an honest
WBtheir fears were groundless; she was gone; the
hut when they entered it had no tenants, except the
Ufelels   familied bodies of the old grandam and the
yewhen FofllenFarine had heard the hut door close, and
the steps of her tormentors die away down the hill, she
had tried vainly several times to raise herself from the
flSh had beenaso Suddenly attacked and Aung down
and trampled on, that her brain had been deadened,
and her senses had gone, for the first sharp moment of
thir"hTmte"d herself slowly, and staggered to her
feet and saw the blood trickle where tie nail had
Pierced her breast, she understoiwhathad kgri
tn her- her face grew savage and dark, nor eyes rreice
and lustful,X?ke the eyes of some wild beast rising
%UnwlsdnotfoXe hurt she cared ; it was the shame
of defeat and outrage that stung her like a whip of asps.
She stood awhile looking at tie face of the woman
Sh"Ihariedtodhelp you," she thought. "I was a fool.
I niight have known how they pay any good done to
thShe was not surprise*; her mind had been too dead-
enedbya long course of ill usage to feel any wonder at
the treatment she had been repaid with.              __
She toted" hem writhe mute unyielding hatred of
her race but she hated herself more because she had
yielded to the softness of sorrow and pity for any human
rhine-- and more still because she had not been aimed
and on her Sard, and had suffered them to prevail and
to escane without her vengeance.
" I wSI never come out without a knife tamygirtlj
again," .she thougjit-thte was_ tl
Tto'furTerieft their prey, rd scattered and fled; ' clarity tod brou^rt her as its teachh*