ie for it
themselves. The mob had not the quick intelligence to be at once struck
with this stern meeting: but at last a woman cried, "Look at your work,
ye dogs!" and the crowd took it like wildfire, and there was a horrible
yell, and the culprits groaned and tried to hide their heads upon their
bosoms, but could not, their hands being tied. And there they stood,
images of pale hollow-eyed despair, and oh how they looked on the bier,
and envied those whom they had sent before them on the dark road they
were going upon themselves! And the two men who were the cause of both
processions stood and looked gravely on, and even Manon, hearing the
disturbance, crept to the window, and, hiding her face, peeped trembling
through her fingers, as women will.

This strange meeting parted Denys and Gerard. The former yielded
to curiosity and revenge, the latter doffed his bonnet, and piously
followed the poor remains of those whose fate had so nearly been his
own. For some time he was the one lay mourner: but when they had reached
the suburbs, a long way from the greater attraction that was filling the
market-place, more than one artisan threw down his tools, and more
than one shopman left his shop, and touched with pity or a sense of our
common humanity, and perhaps decided somewhat by the example of Gerard,
followed the bones bareheaded, and saw them deposited with the prayers
of the Church in hallowed ground.

After the funeral rites Gerard stepped respectfully up to the cure, and
offered to buy a mass for their souls.

Gerard, son of Catherine, always looked at two sides of a penny: and he
tried to purchase this mass a trifle under the usual terms, on account
of the pitiable circumstances. But the good cure gently but adroitly
parried his ingenuity, and blandly screwed him up to the market price.

In the course of the business they discovered a similarity of
sentiments. Piety and worldly prudence are not very rare companions:
still it is unusual to carry both so far as these two men did. Their
collision in the prayer market led to mutual esteem, as when knight
encountered knight worthy of his steel. Moreover the good cure loved a
bit of gossip, and finding his customer was one of those who had fought
the thieves at Domfront, would have him into his parlour and hear the
whole from his own lips. And his heart warmed to Gerard, and he said
"God was good to thee. I thank Him for't with all my soul. Thou art
a good lad." He added