The man had worked till he was almost past work, and his faithful helpmate was no less broken with toil.  It was painful to see how the summer sun and the winter’s cold had blackened their faces, and covered them with such deep wrinkles that their features were hardly discernible.  It was not their life history that had been engraven on their faces; but it might be gathered from their attitude and bearing.  Incessant toil had been the lot of both; they had worked and suffered together; they had had many troubles and few joys to share; and now, like captives grown accustomed to their prison, they seemed to be too familiar with wretchedness to heed it, and to take everything as it came.  Yet a certain frank light-heartedness was not lacking in their faces; and on a closer view, their monotonous life, the lot of so many a poor creature, well-nigh seemed an enviable one.  Trouble had set its unmistakable mark on them, but petty cares had left no traces there.

“Well, my good Father Moreau, I suppose there is no help for it, and you must always be working?”

“Yes, M. Benassis, there are one or two more bits of waste that I mean to clear for you before I knock off work,” the old man answered cheerfully, and light shone in his little black eyes.

“Is that wine that your wife is carrying?  If you will not take a rest now, you ought at any rate to take wine.”

“I take a rest?  I should not know what to do with myself.  The sun and the fresh air put life into me when I am out of doors and busy grubbing up the land.  As to the wine, sir, yes, that is wine sure enough, and it is all through your contriving I know that the Mayor at Courteil lets us have it for next to nothing.  Ah, you managed it very cleverly, but, all the same, I know you had a hand in it.”

“Oh! come, come!  Good-day, mother.  You are going to work on that bit of land of Champferlu’s to-day of course?”

“Yes, sir; I made a beginning there yesterday evening.”

“Capital!” said Benassis.  “It must be a satisfaction to you, at times, to see this hillside.  You two have broken up almost the whole of the land on it yourselves.”

“Lord! yes, sir,” answered the old woman, “it has been our doing!  We have fairly earned our bread.”

“Work, you see, and land to cultivate are the poor man’s consols.  That good man would think himself disgraced if he went into the poorhouse or begged for his bread; he would choose to die pickaxe in hand, out in the open, in the sunlight.  Faith, he bears a proud heart in him.  He has worked until work has become his very life; and yet death has no terrors for him!  He is a profound philosopher, little as he suspects it.  Old Moreau’s case suggested the idea to me of founding an almshouse for the country people of the district; a refuge for those who, after working hard all their lives, have reached an honorable old age of poverty.