r.

'So you were coming to bury me, were you?' growled the old man harshly.
'I don't want anybody. I bled myself.'

He stopped short as he caught sight of the priest, and assumed so
threatening an expression that the doctor hastened to intervene.

'This is my nephew,' he said; 'the new Cure of Les Artaud--a good
fellow, too. Devil take it, we haven't been bowling over the roads at
this hour of the day to eat you, Jeanbernat.'

The old man calmed down a little.

'I don't want any shavelings here,' he grumbled. 'They're enough to make
one croak. Mind, doctor, no priests, and no physics when I go off, or we
shall quarrel. Let him come in, however, as he is your nephew.'

Abbe Mouret, struck dumb with amazement, could not speak a word. He
stood there in the middle of the path scanning that strange solitaire,
with scorched, brick-tinted face, and limbs all withered and twisted
like a bundle of ropes, who seemed to bear the burden of his eighty
years with a scornful contempt for life. When the doctor attempted to
feel his pulse, his ill-humour broke out afresh.

'Do leave me in peace! I bled myself with my knife, I tell you. It's all
over, now. Who was the fool of a peasant who disturbed you? The doctor
here, and the priest as well, why not the mutes too! Well, it can't be
helped, people will be fools. It won't prevent us from having a drink,
eh?'

He fetched a bottle and three glasses, and stood them on an old table
which he brought out into the shade. Then, having filled the glasses
to the brim, he insisted on clinking them. His anger had given place to
jeering cheerfulness.

'It won't poison you, Monsieur le Cure,' he said. 'A glass of good
wine isn't a sin. Upon my word, however, this is the first time I ever
clinked a glass with a cassock, but no offence to you. That poor Abbe
Caffin, your predecessor, refused to argue with me. He was afraid.'

Jeanbernat gave vent to a hearty laugh, and then went on: 'Just fancy,
he had pledged himself that he would prove to me that God exists.
So, whenever I met him, I defied him to do it; and he sloped off
crestfallen, I can tell you.'

'What, God does not exist!' cried Abbe Mouret, roused from his silence.

'Oh! just as you please,' mockingly replied Jeanbernat. 'We'll begin
together all over again, if it's any pleasure to you. But I warn you
that I'm a tough hand at it. There are some thousands of books in one of
the rooms upstairs, which were rescued from the fire at