for you
that I caught you up. Otherwise you would have been brought back to
the farm between two gensdarmes." As I didn't answer, he said again,
"Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little
girls back, when they run away." I said, "I want to go and see Sister
Marie-Aimee." "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked. I said again, "I
want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimee." He looked as though he didn't
understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of
everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me. I made
the same answer every time. At last he lost patience with me, sat
straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child." I looked up at him
and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister
Marie-Aimee. I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I
could see quite well that he didn't know what to say. He kept still,
and thought for several minutes. Then he put his hand on my knee and
said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to
tell you." And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had
promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to
the town. I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what
she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me
locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night. Then the
farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should
grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy
with them. I was very miserable, and it was all I could do not to cry.
"Come," said the farmer holding out his hand. "Let us be good friends,
shall we?" I put my hand into his, and he held it rather tight. I
said I should like to be friends. He cracked his whip, and we soon got
through the wood. Rain was still falling in a fine shower like a fog,
and the ploughed fields looked drearier than ever. In a field by the
road a man came towards us waving his arms. I thought he was
threatening me at first, but when he was quite close to us I saw that
he was holding something in his left arm, and that his right arm was
moving up and down as though he were working a scythe. I was so
puzzled that I looked at Master Silvain. As though he were answering a
question, he said, "It is Gaboret, sowing." A few minutes afterwards
we got to the farm. The farmer's wife was waiting for us in the
doorway. When she saw m