Mauprat
a victim. May this disgust you of the hangman's trade, which has been handed down from father to son in your family. Good-evening! You can go now; I no longer bear you malice; the justice of God is satisfied. You can tell your uncles to put me on their gridiron; they will have a tough morsel to eat; and they will swallow flesh that will come to life again in their gullets and choke them."
Then he picked up the dead owl, and looking at it sadly:
"A peasant's child would not have done this," he said. "This is sport for gentle blood."
As he retired to his door he gave utterance to an exclamation which escaped him only on solemn occasions, and from which he derived his curious surname:
"Patience, patience!" he cried.
This, according to the gossips, was a cabalistic formula of his; and whenever he had been heard to pronounce it, some misfortune had happened to the individual who had offended him. Sylvain crossed himself to ward off the evil spirit. The terrible words resounded through the tower into which Patience had just withdrawn, then the door closed behind him with a bang.
My comrade was so eager to be off that he was within an ace of leaving me there bound to the tree. As soon as he had released me, he exclaimed:
"A sign of the cross! For God's sake, a sign of the cross! If you don't cross yourself you are bewitched; we shall be devoured by wolves as we go, or else we shall meet the great monster."
"Idiot!" I said; "I have something else to think about. Listen; if you are ever unlucky enough to tell a single soul of what has happened, I will strangle you."
40
