ent scarlet garments, and at once
proposed to the clerk that he should buy his soul, an offer which the
clerk pretended to accept. It so happened that the devil was carrying
under his arm a register in which different persons of the town, who had
already sold themselves, had signed their names. However, the clerk, who
was a cunning fellow, pulled out of his pocket a pretended bottle of ink,
which in reality contained holy water, and with this he sprinkled the
devil, who raised frightful shrieks, whilst the clerk took to flight,
carrying the register off with him. Then began a wild, mad race, which
might last throughout the night, over the mountains, through the valleys,
across the forests and the torrents. "Give me back my register!" shouted
the fiend. "No, you sha'n't have it!" replied the clerk. And again and
again it began afresh: "Give me back my register!"--"No, you sha'n't have
it'!" And at last, finding himself out of breath, near the point of
succumbing, the clerk, who had his plan, threw himself into the cemetery,
which was consecrated ground, and was there able to deride the devil at
his ease, waving the register which he had purloined so as to save the
souls of all the unhappy people who had signed their names in it. On the
evening when this story was told, Bernadette, before surrendering herself
to sleep, would mentally repeat her rosary, delighted with the thought
that hell should have been baffled, though she trembled at the idea that
it would surely return to prowl around her, as soon as the lamp should
have been put out.

Throughout one winter, the long evenings were spent in the church. Abbe
Ader, the village priest, had authorised it, and many families came, in
order to economise oil and candles. Moreover, they felt less cold when
gathered together in this fashion. The Bible was read, and prayers were
repeated, whilst the children ended by falling asleep. Bernadette alone
struggled on to the finish, so pleased she was at being there, in that
narrow nave whose slender nervures were coloured blue and red. At the
farther end was the altar, also painted and gilded, with its twisted
columns and its screens on which appeared the Virgin and Ste. Anne, and
the beheading of St. John the Baptist--the whole of a gaudy and somewhat
barbaric splendour. And as sleepiness grew upon her, the child must have
often seen a mystical vision as it were of those crudely coloured designs
rising before her--have seen the blood