One morning Mathieu, wishing to ascertain if the young coveys of partridges were plentiful in the direction of Mareuil, took Gregoire with him; and when they found themselves alone among the plantations of the plateau, he began to talk to him seriously.

“You know I’m not pleased with you, my lad,” said he.  “I really cannot understand the idle life which you lead here, while all the rest of us are hard at work.  I shall wait till October since you have positively promised me that you will then come to a decision and choose the calling which you most fancy.  But what is all this tittle-tattle which I hear about appointments which you keep with the daughter of the Lepailleurs?  Do you wish to cause us serious worry?”

Gregoire quietly began to laugh.

“Oh, father!  You are surely not going to scold a son of yours because he happens to be on friendly terms with a pretty girl!  Why, as you may remember, it was I who gave her her first bicycle lesson nearly ten years ago.  And you will recollect the fine white roses which she helped me to secure in the enclosure by the mill for Denis’ wedding.”

Gregoire still laughed at the memory of that incident, and lived afresh through all his old time sweethearting—­the escapades with Therese along the river banks, and the banquets of blackberries in undiscoverable hiding-places, deep in the woods.  And it seemed, too, that the love of childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus recalled those distant times.

“Poor Therese!  We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock.  It’s true that last spring we made it up again on finding ourselves face to face in the little wood at Monval over yonder.  But come, father, do you mean to say that it’s a crime if we take a little pleasure in speaking to one another when we meet?”

Rendered the more anxious by the fire with which Gregoire sought to defend the girl, Mathieu spoke out plainly.

“A crime?  No, if you just wish one another good day and good evening.  Only folks relate that you are to be seen at dusk with your arms round each other’s waist, and that you go stargazing through the grass alongside the Yeuse.”

Then, as Gregoire this time without replying laughed yet more loudly, with the merry laugh of youth, his father gravely resumed: 

“Listen, my lad, it is not at all to my taste to play the gendarme behind my sons.  But I won’t have you drawing some unpleasant business with the Lepailleurs on us all.  You know the position, they would be delighted to give us trouble.  So don’t give them occasion for complaining, leave their daughter alone.”

“Oh!  I take plenty of care,” cried the young man, thus suddenly confessing the truth.  “Poor girl!  She has already had her ears boxed because somebody told her father that I had been met with her.  He answered that rather than give her to me he would throw her into the river.”