"'Twill be that fine lass, Rosette, his niece!" he exclaimed. "Ah, I
knew it."
"And she has taken a husband," I encouraged him, now so far committed
that I might not draw back.
"Not young Voisin, the miller's son!"
"No, monsieur; a stranger from a far corner of the diocese. One
Michel."
We were now in the entrance of the log house, and Joncaire opened
wide the door.
"Jean, you are a lad in a million!" he pronounced. "You shall drink
deep. I have some wine which Bigon the _intendant_ fetched out for a
few of us--you will understand you must say naught of it hereafter;
it never paid duty. Aye, we shall make a fine night of it, and you
shall tell me of all that has passed in Arles these many years.
"_Mon Dieu_! I could weep at the thought of the time I have spent in
this place of devils; and my children will never know the country
that their father came from!"
Ta-wan-ne-ars would have followed us indoors, but Joncaire turned and
pushed him down on the doorstep.
"Sit, sit," he said kindly in a tongue which Ta-wan-ne-ars afterward
told me was the Messesague dialect. "You shall have your food here."