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The keeper also brought, for Francis, a cocoanut cup, elaborately carved, a genuine work of art, representing a battle. Madame Graslin was walking at the time on the terrace, in the direction which overlooked Les Tascherons. She sat down on a bench, took the cup in her hand and looked earnestly at the deft piece of work. A few tears came into her eyes.
The rector had been informed, while in church, of a desperate resolution taken by the Tascherons as soon as they heard that Jean-Francois's appeal was rejected and that he had to die. These worthy souls intended to leave the country, and their worldly goods were to be sold that very morning. Delays and formalities unexpected by them had hitherto postponed the sale.
This sentiment made the place uninhabitable any longer to the Tascherons. Their deep religious feeling took them to church that morning; for how could they let the mass be offered to God asking Him to inspire their son with repentance that alone could restore to him life eternal, and not share in it? Besides, they wished to bid farewell to the village altar.
The father and mother, Denise and her sisters, were too unhappy to eat. There was a lofty, stern resignation in the accomplishment of these last duties of rustic hospitality. The Tascherons, men of the olden time, ended their days in that house as they had begun them, by doing its honors.
From the garden front the eye takes in that part of Montegnac which is still called Les Tascherons, and follows the high-road leading through the village to the chief town of the department. The facade on the courtyard has a view of the vast plains semicircled by the mountains of the Correze, on the side toward Montegnac, but ending in the far distance on a low horizon.
She founded scholarships and hospital beds at Limoges solely for working-men; she assigned a considerable sum three hundred thousand francs in six years for the purchase of that part of the village called Les Tascherons, where she directed that a hospital should be built.
Monsieur l'abbe will not find a table like that of Monseigneur the bishop in this poor village, but we will do the best we can. Monsieur Bonnet will soon be in; he has gone to comfort those poor people, the Tascherons. Their son has met with a terrible end to-day." "But," said the Abbe Gabriel, when he could get in a word, "where is the house of those worthy persons?
Then he gave it himself to the nurse, who carried it away. Madame Sauviat looked at her daughter, and saw the efficacy of the rector's words; for Veronique's eyes, long dry, were moist with tears. The old woman made a sign to the priest and disappeared. "Let us walk," said the rector to Veronique leading her along the terrace to the other end, from which Les Tascherons could be seen.
The Abbe Gabriel was tempted to go up to the Tascherons and say, "Your son and brother is reprieved." But he did not like to disturb the mass; and, moreover, he knew that a reprieve was only a delay of execution. Instead of following the service, he was irresistibly drawn to a study of the pastor from whom the clergy in Limoges expected the conversion of the criminal.
The Tascherons had expected to leave before that fatal day; but the proposed purchaser of their property was a stranger in those parts, and was prevented from clinching the bargain by a delay in obtaining the money. Thus the hapless family were forced to bear their trouble to its end.
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