Werewolf Stories. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

your thinking that you can hide the cause of it from me, when it is as easy as anything to guess what it is.”

      “Guess then.”

      “Why, you are in love; nothing more difficult than that to guess, I can swear.”

      “I, in love!” exclaimed Landry; “why who has been telling you lies like that?”

      “It is not a lie, it is the truth.”

      Landry again drew a deep sigh, more laden with despair even than his former one.

      “Well, yes!” he said, “it is so, I am in love!”

      “Ah! that’s right! you have spoken out at last!” said Thibault, not without a certain quickening of the pulse, for he foresaw a rival in his cousin, “and with whom are you in love?”

      “With whom?”

      “Yes, I ask you with whom?”

      “As to that, Cousin Thibault, you will have to drag the heart out of my breast before I tell you.”

      “You have told me already.”

      “What? I have told you who it is?” cried Landry, staring at Thibault with astonished eyes.

      “Certainly you have.”

      “Surely you cannot mean it!”

      “Did you not say that it would have been better for you to have been dragged under by the mill wheel the first day you entered into the service of Madame Polet, than to have been taken on by her as chief hand? You are unhappy at the mill, and you are in love; therefore, you are in love with the mistress of the mill, and it is this love which is causing your unhappiness.”

      “Ah, Thibault, pray hush! what if she were to overhear us!”

      “How is it possible that she can overhear us; where do you imagine her to be, unless she is able to make herself invisible, or to change herself into a butterfly or a flower?”

      “Never mind, Thibault, you keep quiet.”

      “Your mistress of the mill is hard-hearted then, is she? and takes no pity on your despair, poor fellow?” was Thibault’s rejoinder; but his words, though seemingly expressive of great commiseration, had a shade of satisfaction and amusement in them.

      “Hard-hearted! I should think so indeed!” said Landry. “In the beginning, I was foolish enough to fancy that she did not repulse my love.... All day long I was devouring her with my eyes, and now and then, she too would fix her eyes on me, and after looking at me a while, would smile.... Alas! my dear Thibault, what happiness those looks and smiles were to me!... Ah! why did I not content myself with them?”

      “Well, there it is,” said Thibault philosophically. “Man is so insatiable.”

      “Alas! yes; I forgot that I had to do with someone above me in position, and I spoke. Then Madame Polet flew into a great rage; called me an insolent beggar, and threatened to turn me out of doors the very next week.”

      “Phew!” said Thibault, “and how long ago is that?”

      “Nearly three weeks.”

      “And the following week is still to come?” The shoe-maker as he put the question began to feel a revival of the uneasiness which had been momentarily allayed, for he understood women better than his cousin Landry. After a minute’s silence, he continued: “Well, well, you are not so unhappy after all as I thought you.”

      “Not so unhappy as you thought me?”

      “No.”

      “Ah! if you only knew the life I lead! never a look, or a smile! When she meets me she turns away, when I speak to her on matters concerning the mill, she listens with such a disdainful air, that instead of talking of bran and wheat and rye, of barley and oats, of first and second crops, I begin to cry, and then she says to me, Take care! in such a menacing tone, that I run away and hide myself behind the bolters.”

      “Well, but why do you pay your addresses to this mistress of yours? There are plenty of girls in the country round who would be glad to have you for their wooer.”

      “Because I love her in spite of myself, I cannot help it, so there!”

      “Take up with some one else; I’d think no more about her.”

      “I could not do it.”

      “At any rate, you might try. It’s just possible that if she saw you transferring your affections to another, the mistress of the Mill might grow jealous, and might then run after you, as you are now running after her. Women are such curious creatures.”

      “Oh, if I was sure of that, I would begin to try at once ... although now ...” and Landry shook his head.

      “Well, what about ... now?”

      “Although now, after all that has happened, it would be of no use.”

      “What has happened then?” asked Thibault, who was anxious to ascertain all particulars.

      “Oh! as to that, nothing,” replied Landry, “and I do not even dare speak of it.”

      “Why?”

      “Because, as they say with us, ‘Best let sleeping dogs lie.’ ”

      Thibault would have continued to urge Landry to tell him what the trouble was to which he referred, but they were now near the Mill, and their explanation would have to remain unfinished, even if once begun. What was more, Thibault thought that he already knew enough; Landry was in love with the fair owner of the Mill, but the fair owner of the Mill was not in love with Landry. And, in truth, he feared no danger from a rival such as this. It was with a certain pride and self-complacency that he compared the timid, boyish looks of his cousin, a mere lad of eighteen, with his own five feet six and well-set figure, and he was naturally led into thinking, that, however little of a woman of taste Madame Polet might be, Landry’s failure was a good reason for believing that his own success was assured. The Mill at Croyolles is charmingly situated at the bottom of a cool green valley; the stream that works it forms a little pond, which is shaded by pollard willows, and slender poplars; and between these dwarfed and giant trees stand magnificent alders, and immense walnut trees with their fragrant foliage. After turning the wheel of the mill, the foaming water runs off in a little rivulet, which never ceases its hymn of joy as it goes leaping over the pebbles of its bed, starring the flowers that lean coquettishly over to look at themselves in its clear shallows with the liquid diamonds that are scattered by its tiny waterfalls.

      The Mill itself lies so hidden in a bower of shrubs, behind the sycamores and weeping willows, that until one is within a short distance of it, nothing is to be seen but the chimney from which the smoke rises against the background of trees like a column of blue tinted alabaster. Although Thibault was familiar with the spot, the sight of it filled him, as he now looked upon it, with a feeling of delight which he had not hitherto experienced; but then he had never before gazed on it under the conditions in which he now found himself, for he was already conscious of that sense of personal satisfaction which the proprietor feels on visiting an estate which has been obtained for him by proxy. On entering the farm-yard, where the scene was more animated, he was moved to even greater ecstasy of enjoyment.

      The blue and purple-throated pigeons were cooing on the roofs, the ducks quacking, and going through sundry evolutions in the stream, the hens were clucking on the dung-heap, and the turkey cocks bridling and strutting as they courted the turkey-hens, while the brown and white cows came slowly in from the fields, their udders full of milk. Here, on one side, a cart was being unloaded, there, as they were being unharnessed, two splendid horses neighed and stretched their necks, now freed from the collar, towards their mangers; a boy was carrying a sack up into the granary, and a girl was bringing another sack filled with crusts and the refuse water to an enormous pig, that lay basking in the sun waiting to be transformed into salt-pork, sausages, and black puddings; all the animals of the ark were there, from the braying donkey to the crowing cock, mingling their discordant voices