s of money, in exchange for
white pieces, for beautiful glittering coins, with which they paid for
sacraments and masses, advice and protection, pardon of sins and
indulgences, purgatory and paradise according to the yearly income and
the generosity of the sinner.

The Abbe Raffin, who knew his man and who never lost his temper, burst
out laughing.

"Well, yes, I'll tell your father my little story; but you, my lad,
you'll come to church."

Houlbreque extended his hand in order to give a solemn assurance:

"On the word of a poor man, if you do this for me, I promise that I
will."

"Come, that's all right. When do you wish me to go and find your father?"

"Why, the sooner the better-to-night, if you can."

"In half an hour, then, after supper."

"In half an hour."

"That's understood. So long, my lad."

"Good-by till we meet again, Monsieur le Cure; many thanks."

"Not at all, my lad."

And Cesaire Houlbreque returned home, his heart relieved of a great
weight.

He held on lease a little farm, quite small, for they were not rich, his
father and he. Alone with a female servant, a little girl of fifteen, who
made the soup, looked after the fowls, milked the cows and churned the
butter, they lived frugally, though Cesaire was a good cultivator. But
they did not possess either sufficient lands or sufficient cattle to earn
more than the indispensable.

The old man no longer worked. Sad, like all deaf people, crippled with
pains, bent double, twisted, he went through the fields leaning on his
stick, watching the animals and the men with a hard, distrustful eye.
Sometimes he sat down on the side of the road and remained there without
moving for hours, vaguely pondering over the things that had engrossed
his whole life, the price of eggs, and corn, the sun and the rain which
spoil the crops or make them grow. And, worn out with rheumatism, his old
limbs still drank in the humidity of the soul, as they had drunk in for
the past sixty years, the moisture of the walls of his low house thatched
with damp straw.

He came back at the close of the day, took his place at the end of the
table in the kitchen and when the earthen bowl containing the soup had
been placed before him he placed round it his crooked fingers, which
seemed to have kept the round form of the bowl and, winter and summer, he
warmed his hands, before commencing to eat, so as to lose nothing, not
even a particle of the heat that came from the fire,