JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP
VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL
IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE"
X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS!
XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE
XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM
CHAPTER IV
THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY
It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, the
New Cure or M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was alive
Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree of
illumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to his
fathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he who
had baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, and
firmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to his
successor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, was
young; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he went
a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The New
Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command their love
and confidence until he had earned them.
So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Cure
in the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesser
degree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very well in
life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world.
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