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"You will promise not to go near the pond," said mother. "Remember it is Sunday, and you have your best frocks on; you must not romp or climb trees." "O no, mother, of course not," said Trudel. "We'll stay in the garden and promise to be very good." When father and mother returned from their walk, the first thing they saw was Lottchen staggering along with a stand of empty beer-bottles.
She pointed out some young men in officers' uniform, who had come from a military school. "I've got 6d. in tips, and I spent it on chocolate." "Well I never!" said mother, astonished at her daughter's prowess "you have turned into a waitress, and on Sunday afternoon too. Whatever would your aunts say?" "I think I had better tell you what the young men said to me," said Trudel seriously.
He thought of Louis Trudel, in his grave, and his own questioning: "Show me a sign from Heaven, tailorman!" and he wrote: "What is the token, Ever unbroken, Swept down the spaces of querulous years, Weeping or singing That the Beginning Of all things is with us, and sees us, and hears?" He made an involuntary motion of his hand to his breast, where old Louis Trudel had set a sign.
When they sat down at noon to a piece of venison which Charley had prepared himself taking the frying-pan out of the hands of Margot Patry, the old servant, and cooking it to a turn Louis Trudel saw his years lengthen to an indefinite period.
"Leave this room of death, I command you. Go at once to your homes. This man" he pointed to Charley "is my friend. Who seeks to harm him, would harm me. Go hence and pray. Pray for yourselves, pray for him, and for me; and pray for the troubled soul of Louis Trudel. Go in peace." Soon afterwards the house was empty, save for the Cure, Charley, old Margot, and the Notary.
Hermann stood in the cart and Trudel threw the swedes to him as the bricklayers throw the bricks to one another. Fritz and Lottchen helped too; they had to take their turn and be very quick, as the hole was small. Hour after hour this went on, till the children were as black as chimney sweeps, and yet Trudel's energy did not fail.
The one person beside the Cure, Jo Portugais, and Louis Trudel, to whom M'sieu' talked much, was the postmaster, who sometimes met him of an evening as he was taking the air. More than once he had walked behind the wheel-chair and pushed it some distance, making the little crippled man gossip of village matters.
Louis Trudel had heard the Cure's words, and in his place at the rear of the church he smiled sourly to himself. In due time the little cross should be returned, but it had work to do first. He did not take the holy communion this Easter day, or go to confession as was his wont.
There by the great fireplace stood Louis Trudel picking up a red-hot cross with a pair of pincers. Grasping the iron firmly just below the arms of the cross, the tailor held it up again. He looked at it with a wild triumph, yet with a malignancy little in keeping with the object he held the holy relic he had stolen from the door of the parish church. The girl gave a low cry of dismay.
Here was sensation indeed, for though old M. Rossignol, the Seigneur, had an eye- glass, it was held to his eye a large bone-bound thing with a little gold handle; but no one in Chaudiere had ever worn a glass in his eye like that. Presently people came and stood at the tailor's door and talked, or listened to Louis Trudel and M'sieu' talking.
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