But as Bru was the only one who did not loll out his tongue after La Morillonne, naturally one day she began to think of him, and she declared that she, at any rate, was not afraid of his evil eye, and so she went after him.

“What do you want?” he said, and she replied boldly: 

“What do I want?  I want you.”

“Very well,” he said, “but then you must belong to me alone.”

“All right,” was her answer, “if you think you can please me.”

He smiled and took her into his arms, and she was away from the village for a whole week.  She had, in fact, become entirely Bru’s exclusive property.

The village grew excited.  They were not jealous of each other, but they were of him.  What!  Could she not resist him.  Of course he had charms and spells against every imaginable thing.  And they grew furious.  Next they grew bold, and watched from behind a tree.  She was still as lively as ever, but he, poor fellow, seemed to have become suddenly ill, and required the most tender nursing at her hands.  The villagers, however, felt no compassion for the poor shepherd, and so, one of them, more courageous than the rest, advanced towards the hut with his gun in his hand: 

“Tie up your dogs,” he cried out from a distance; “fasten them up, Bru, or I shall shoot them.”

“You need not be frightened of the dogs,” La Morillonne replied; “I will be answerable for it that they will not hurt you;” and she smiled as the young man with the gun went towards her.

“What do you want?” the shepherd said.

“I can tell you,” she replied.  “He wants me and I am very willing.  There!”

Bru began to cry, and she continued: 

“You are a good for nothing.”

And she went off with the lad, while Bru seized his crook, seeing which the young fellow raised his gun.

“Seize him! seize him!” the shepherd shouted, urging on his dogs, while the other had already got his finger on the trigger to fire at them.  But La Morillonne pushed down the muzzle and called out: 

“Here, dogs! here!  Prr, prr, my beauties!”

And the three dogs rushed up to her, licked her hands and frisked about as they followed her, while she called to the shepherd from the distance: 

“You see, Bru, they are not at all jealous!”

And then, with a short and evil laugh, she added: 

“They are my property now.”

WAITER, A “BOCK"[13]

[Footnote 13:  A French imitation of German Lager Beer.]

Why did I enter, on this particular evening, a certain beer shop?  I cannot explain it.  It was bitterly cold.  A fine rain, a watery dust floated about, which enshrouded the gas jets in a transparent fog, made the pavements that passed under the shadow of the shop fronts glitter, and which at once exhibited the soft slush and the soiled feet of the passers-by.