To which my rustic friend responded, with an air of having been
scandalized:
"What do you think, sir, she has picked up a toad which has had its paw
battered, and carried it to her room, and has put it in her wash-stand,
and dressed it up like a man. If that is not profanation, I should like
to know what is!"
On another occasion, when walking along the Falaise, she had bought a
large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the
sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought it, though paid
handsomely, was greatly provoked at this act, more exasperated, indeed,
than if she had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For a
whole month he could not speak of the circumstance without getting into
a fury and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a
demoniac, this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an
inspiration of genius in thus christening her.
The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa
in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a roguish air:
"She is an old hag who has lived her days."
If the poor woman had but known!
The little, kind-hearted Céleste, did not wait upon her willingly, but I
was never able to understand why. Probably, her only reason was that she
was a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue, and of another
religion. She was, in good truth, a demoniac!
She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and searching
for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of
bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed
aside the branches and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused
at having been found thus, fixed on me eyes as terrible as those of a
wild cat, surprised in open day.
Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the banks of the Falaise like a semaphore signal. She
passionately gazed at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the
boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at
the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with an English, elastic step;
and I would go towards her, attracted I know not by what, simply to see
her illuminated visage, her dried-up, ineffable features, which seemed
to glow with interior and profound happiness.
I would often encounter her also in the corner of a field sitting on the
grass, under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little Bible lying
open on her knee, which she looked at meditatively at the distance.
I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country neighborhood,
being bound to it by a thousand links of love for its sweeping and soft
landscapes. At this farm I was unknown to the world, far removed from
everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy,
beautiful and green soil. And, must I avow it; there was something
besides curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother
Lecacheur. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss
Harriet, and to know what passed in the solitary souls of those
wandering old, English dames.