La Teuse shrugged her shoulders, and glanced at the priest with an expression of annoyance.

‘It would be much better, mademoiselle,’ said she, ’if you were to go and quiet your fowls.  They all seem to be murdering one another.’

Indeed, the uproar in the yard had now become so great that the girl was already hurrying off with a great rustling of her petticoats, when the priest called her back.  ’The milk, my dear; you have not finished the milk.’

He held out his cup to her, which he had scarcely touched.  And she came back and drank the milk without the slightest scruple, in spite of La Teuse’s angry look.  Then she again set off for the poultry-yard, where they soon heard her reducing the fowls to peace and order.  She had, perhaps, sat down in the midst of them, for she could be heard gently humming as though she were trying to lull them to sleep.

III

‘Now my soup is too hot!’ grumbled La Teuse, as she returned from the kitchen with a basin, from which a wooden spoon was projecting.

She placed herself just in front of Abbe Mouret, and began to eat very cautiously from the edge of the spoon.  She wanted to enliven the Abbe and to draw him out of his melancholy moodiness.  Ever since he had returned from the Paradou, he had declared himself well again, and had never complained.  Often, indeed, he smiled in so soft and sweet a fashion, that his fever seemed to have increased his saintliness, at least so thought the villagers.  But, at intervals, he had fits of gloomy silence, and appeared to be suffering torture which he strove to bear uncomplainingly.  It was a mute agony which bore down upon him, and, for hours at a time, left him stupefied, a prey to a frightful inward struggle, the violence of which could only be guessed by the sweat of anguish that streamed down his face.

At such times La Teuse refused to leave him, and overwhelmed him with a torrent of gossip, until he had gradually recovered tranquillity by crushing the rebellion of his blood.  On that particular morning, the old servant foresaw a more grievous attack than usual, and poured forth an amazing flood of talk, while continuing her wary manoeuvres with the spoon, which threatened to burn her tongue.

‘Well, well,’ said she, ’one has to live among a lot of wild beasts to see such goings-on.  Would any one ever think in a decent village of being married by candlelight?  It shows what a poor sort these Artauds are.  When I was in Normandy, I used to see weddings that threw every one into commotion for a couple of leagues round.  They would feast for three whole days.  The priest would be there, and the mayor, too; and at the marriage of one of my cousins, all the firemen came as well.  And didn’t they have a fine time of it!  But to make a priest get up before sunrise and marry people before even the chickens have left their roost, why, there’s no sense in it!  If I had been your reverence, I should have refused to do it.  You haven’t had your proper sleep, and you may have caught cold in the church.  It is that which has upset you.  Besides which it would be better to marry brute beasts than that Rosalie and her ugly lout.  That brat of theirs dirtied one of the chairs.—­But you ought to tell me when you feel poorly, and I could make you something warm.—­Eh!  Monsieur le Cure, speak to me!’