“‘You have nothing more to say?’ I asked.

“‘No, monsieur.’

“‘Then, farewell.’

“‘Farewell, monsieur, till some day——­’

“I turned to the ashen-faced priest, whose dark outline stood out against the wall, and asked:  ‘Are you going to stay here, Monsieur l’Abbe?’

“‘Yes.’

“Then the dying man sneered:  ’Yes, yes, He sends His vultures to the corpses.’

“I had had enough of this.  I opened the door and ran away.”

THE DISPENSER OF HOLY WATER

We lived formerly in a little house beside the high road outside the village.  He had set up in business as a wheelwright, after marrying the daughter of a farmer of the neighborhood, and as they were both industrious, they managed to save up a nice little fortune.  But they had no children, and this caused them great sorrow.  Finally a son was born, whom they named Jean.  They both loved and petted him, enfolding him with their affection, and were unwilling to let him be out of their sight.

When he was five years old some mountebanks passed through the country and set up their tent in the town hall square.

Jean, who had seen them pass by, made his escape from the house, and after his father had made a long search for him, he found him among the learned goats and trick dogs, uttering shouts of laughter and sitting on the knees of an old clown.

Three days later, just as they were sitting down to dinner, the wheelwright and his wife noticed that their son was not in the house.  They looked for him in the garden, and as they did not find him, his father went out into the road and shouted at the top of his voice, “Jean!”

Night came on.  A brown vapor arose making distant objects look still farther away and giving them a dismal, weird appearance.  Three tall pines, close at hand, seemed to be weeping.  Still there was no reply, but the air appeared to be full of indistinct sighing.  The father listened for some time, thinking he heard a sound first in one direction, then in another, and, almost beside himself, he ran, out into the night, calling incessantly “Jean!  Jean!”

He ran along thus until daybreak, filling the, darkness with his shouts, terrifying stray animals, torn by a terrible anguish and fearing that he was losing his mind.  His wife, seated on the stone step of their home, sobbed until morning.

They did not find their son.  They both aged rapidly in their inconsolable sorrow.  Finally they sold their house and set out to search together.

They inquired of the shepherds on the hillsides, of the tradesmen passing by, of the peasants in the villages and of the authorities in the towns.  But their boy had been lost a long time and no one knew anything about him.  He had probably forgotten his own name by this time and also the name of his village, and his parents wept in silence, having lost hope.