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Updated: May 15, 2025
Lorenzo Surprenant was always by her side and talking; she felt the continual regard of Eutrope Gagnon with that familiar look of patient waiting; she was conscious of the handsome bronzed face and fearless eyes of Francois Paradis who sat very silent beyond the door, elbows on his knees.
"I know well enough that we shall have to work hard at first," Eutrope went on, "but you have courage, Maria, and are well used to labour, as I am. I have always worked hard; no one can say that I was ever lazy, and if only you will marry me it will be my joy to toil like an ox all the day long to make a thriving place of it, so that we shall be in comfort before old age comes upon us.
"She suffers, that is one thing certain; we cannot let her go on like this." They drew near the bed where the sick woman was moaning and breathing heavily, attempting from time to time to make slight movements which were followed by sharper outcries. "Eutrope has brought you a cure, Laura." "I have no faith in your cures," she groaned out.
"Eutrope Gagnon," at once declared Chapdelaine. "I was just saying to myself that it would be an odd thing if he did not come and spend the evening with us." Eutrope Gagnon it was in truth. Entering, he bade them all good evening, and laid his woollen cap upon the table. Maria looked at him, a blush upon her cheek.
Eutrope Gagnon was speaking with unusual ease, slowly, but without seeking words, as though his story had been shaped beforehand. Amid her overwhelming grief the thought flitted through Maria's heart: "Francois wished to come here ... to me," and a fugitive joy touched it as a swallow in flight ruffles the water with his wing.
Something had happened; the same breath of life had passed through them both; they did not take each other's arms again. They walked side by side. "Ah, my dear, the world would be too beautiful, if men did not spoil it all! Albine is dead, and Serge is now rector of St. Eutrope, where he lives with his sister Desiree, a worthy creature who has the good fortune to be half an idiot.
Anne," said their mother by way of consolation, "we shall all go a-gathering; the men as well, and whoever fails to bring back a full pail is not to have any." But Saturday, the eve of Ste. Anne's day, was memorable to the Chapdelaines; an evening of company such as their house in the forest had never seen. When the men returned from work Eutrope Gagnon was already there.
When Eutrope departed he left the box of pills; the sick woman had not yet agreed to try them, but her objections grew weaker with their urging. In the middle of the night she took a couple, and two more in the morning, and as the hours passed they all waited in confidence of the virtue of the medicine to declare itself.
But a walk should on no account be omitted up the heights of S. Eutrope to an old windmill that stands on a crest of limestone. The view thence is charming. To the right the green valley of L'Infernet, up which marched Marcellus on the eve of the great battle of Pourrieres. Towering overhead, catching the evening sun on its glistening bald peaks is to be seen Mont Victoire.
Some there be who think themselves pretty strong-able to get on without God's help in their houses and on their lands...but in the bush..." With solemn voice and slowly-moving head he repeated: "We are but little children." "A good man he was," said Eutrope Gagnon, "in very truth a good man, strong and brave, with ill-will to none. "Indeed that is true.
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