he ground. He
met with the same reception everywhere. It was one of those cold, bleak
days, when the heart is frozen and the temper irritable, and hands do
not open either to give money or food.

When he had visited all the houses he knew, "Bell" sank down in the
corner of a ditch running across Chiquet's farmyard. Letting his
crutches slip to the ground, he remained motionless, tortured by hunger,
but hardly intelligent enough to realize to the full his unutterable
misery.

He awaited he knew not what, possessed with that vague hope which
persists in the human heart in spite of everything. He awaited in the
corner of the farmyard in the biting December wind, some mysterious aid
from Heaven or from men, without the least idea whence it was to arrive.
A number of black hens ran hither and thither, seeking their food in the
earth which supports all living things. Ever now and then they snapped
up in their beaks a grain of corn or a tiny insect; then they continued
their slow, sure search for nutriment.

"Bell" watched them at first without thinking of anything. Then a
thought occurred rather to his stomach than to his mind--the thought
that one of those fowls would be good to eat if it were cooked over a
fire of dead wood.

He did not reflect that he was going to commit a theft. He took up a
stone which lay within reach, and, being of skillful aim, killed at the
first shot the fowl nearest to him. The bird fell on its side, flapping
its wings. The others fled wildly hither and thither, and "Bell,"
picking up his crutches, limped across to where his victim lay.

Just as he reached the little black body with its crimsoned head he
received a violent blow in his back which made him let go his hold of
his crutches and sent him flying ten paces distant. And Farmer Chiquet,
beside himself with rage, cuffed and kicked the marauder with all the
fury of a plundered peasant as "Bell" lay defenceless before him.

The farm hands came up also and joined their master in cuffing the lame
beggar. Then when they were tired of beating him they carried him off
and shut him up in the woodshed, while they went to fetch the police.

"Bell," half dead, bleeding and perishing with hunger, lay on the floor.
Evening came--then night--then dawn. And still he had not eaten.

About midday the police arrived. They opened the door of the woodshed
with the utmost precaution, fearing resistance on the beggar's part,
for Farmer Chiquet asserted th