Parpon sat in the dormer window for a long time, the cat purring against
his head, and not seeming the least afraid of falling, though its master
was well out on the window-ledge. He kept mumbling to himself:
"Ho, ho, Farette is below there with the gun, rubbing and rubbing at the
rust! Holy mother, how it will kick! But he will only meddle. If she
set her eye at him and come up bold and said: 'Farette, go and have your
whiskey-wine, and then to bed,' he would sneak away. But he has heard
something. Some fool, perhaps that Benoit--no, he is sick--perhaps the
herb-woman has been talking, and he thinks he will make a fuss. But it
will be nothing. And M'sieu' Armand, will he look at her?" He chuckled
at the cat, which set its head back and hissed in reply. Then he sang
something to himself.
Parpon was a poor little dwarf with a big head, but he had one thing
which made up for all, though no one knew it--or, at least, he thought
so. The Cure himself did not know. He had a beautiful voice. Even in
speaking it was pleasant to hear, though he roughened it in a way. It
pleased him that he had something of which the finest man or woman would
be glad. He had said to himself many times that even Armand de la
Riviere would envy him.
Sometimes Parpon went off away into the Bois Noir, and, perched there in
a tree, sang away--a man, shaped something like an animal, with a voice
like a muffled silver bell.
Some of his songs he had made himself: wild things, broken thoughts, not
altogether human; the language of a world between man and the spirits.
But it was all pleasant to hear, even when, at times, there ran a weird,
dark thread through the woof. No one in the valley had ever heard the
thing he sang softly as he sat looking down at Julie:
"The little white smoke blows there, blows here,
The little blue wolf comes down--
C'est la!
And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife's ear,
When the devil comes back to town--
C'est la!"
It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melodious, and the cat
purred an accompaniment, its head thrust into his thick black hair. From
where Parpon sat he could see the House with the Tall Porch, and, as he
sang, his eyes ran from the miller's doorway to it.
Off in the grounds of the dead Seigneur's manor he could see a man push
the pebbles with his foot, or twist the branch of a shrub thoughtfully as
he walked. At last another man entered the garden. The two greeted
warmly, and passed up and down together.