from a distance to see if the _feu bellanger_ would pass
that way, and seeing that it did not appear; when midnight came, we
went home. But a neighbour told us on the morrow that he had seen it
in the early hours of the morning, fighting against the knife.

"We straightway proceeded to the place where the knife was. Imagine
our horror on finding that the blade was covered with blood."

"Some poor stray animal _did_ suffer," Frank could not help
remarking. Old Pierre was terribly displeased. He rose to go about
his work, muttering: "Wait till he sees it, when he gets caught, I
bet he'll turn blue."

Frank thought about his labourer's story during the whole of the
afternoon. "These superstitions do a great deal of harm to these
poor people," he said in a soliloquy.

He therefore resolved to try and root out all these strange notions
from Pierre's head. He soon felt a kind of ecstacy. It was a
glorious thing to help bring about the time when science would sweep
away all traces of ignorance.

If the theory of evolution was true, those times would come, so he
decided to set to work at once upon this man.

It was a beginning, small perhaps, but he now believed in small
beginnings.

He had not yet experienced what it is to try and convert a
superstitious man.

It is very difficult to convince an ignorant person.

CHAPTER XIV.

FAILURE.

Having made up his mind to rescue Mait Pierre from his
superstitions, Frank at once set to work.

So, the day following his decision, he advanced to the attack.

When they were both seated as usual having their after-dinner
conversation, Frank began: "Do you really believe all you told me
about the _feu bellanger_, Mait Pierre?"

"If I believe it? why, certainly I do."

Frank knew he did believe it, but he wanted to fix the conversation
at once. "I'll tell you what this fire is," continued the young man;
"it is a light which comes out of the soil, more especially in the
marshy places. It is called 'Will-o'-the-Wisp' by some of the
country folk in England, 'Jack-o'-Lantern' by others. The true name
of this ignited gas is _ignis fatuus_."

The old man smiled. His look at Frank was one of pity. "What a poor
young simple-minded, inexperienced person," he thought, and in the
voice of a man quoting a passage from Horace he said aloud: "I have
seen it on the top of a hill."

"It may be," answered Frank, and, seeing old Pierre's triumphant
attitude, he added: "Do you no