miller's wife again came and inspected the wanderer, and
declared that if he were not so white he would be well enough, but
that such a colour did not seem natural.

Rupert answered her that it would soon go, and offered that if, at
the end of a week, he did not begin to show signs of colour coming,
he would give up the job.

The bargain was sealed. The miller supplied him with a pair of
canvas trousers and a blouse. Rupert cut off his long hair, and set
to work as the miller's man.

In a week the miller's wife, as well as the miller himself, was
delighted with him. His great strength, his willingness and
cheeriness kept, as they said, the place alive, and the pallor of
his face had so far worn off by the end of the week that the
miller's wife was satisfied that he would, as he said, soon look
like a human being, and not like a walking corpse.

The winter passed off quietly, and Rupert stood higher and higher
in the liking of the worthy couple with whom he lived; the climax
being reached when, in midwinter, a party of marauders--for at that
time the wars of France and the distress of the people had filled
the country with bands of men who set the laws at defiance--five in
number, came to the mill and demanded money.

The miller, who was not of a warlike disposition, would have given
up all the earnings which he had stored away, but Rupert took down
an old sword which hung over the fireplace; and sallying out, ran
through the chief of the party, desperately wounded two others, and
by sheer strength tossed the others into the mill stream, standing
over them when they scrambled out, and forcing them to dig a grave
and bury their dead captain and to carry off their wounded
comrades.

Thus when the spring came, and Rupert said that he must be going,
the regrets of the miller and his wife were deep, and by offer of
higher pay they tried to get him to stay. Rupert however was, of
course, unable to accede to their request, and was glad when they
received a letter from a son in the army, saying that he had been
laid up with fever, and had got his discharge, and was just
starting to settle with them at the mill.

Saying goodbye to his kind employers, Rupert started with a stout
suit of clothes, fifty francs in his pocket, and a document signed
by the Maire of the parish to the effect that Antoine Duprat,
miller's man, had been working through the winter at Evres, and was
now on his way to join his regiment with the army