Roux

“ The farmer looked up; "I shall tell her," he said, and walked away.
"Our little affair is coming off splendidly," said Adèle as she tripped into the garden to speak to Jacques. "Yes, Miss, you are so clever, you deserve to succeed."
"We must not rejoice too soon; did you see Frank last night?"
"Yes, Miss."
"And he told you that he would come?"
"Yes, Miss; he gave me a letter for you but I must not give it to you now, I fancy Mr. Rougeant is watching us."
"You are quite right, leave it in the stable when you go there and I will fetch it. Has my father asked any questions?" ”

“ Two oxen was all he had, and one of them died.
The poor Farmer was in despair. One ox was not enough to draw the plough over the heavy land; and he had no money to buy another. So he sent a message to his son, that he was wanted at home.
When the son came, his father told him that one of his oxen was dead, and he had no money to buy another. So he begged his son to ask the King to give him an ox.
“No, no,” said his son, “I am always asking the King for something. If you want an ox, you must ask him yourself.” ”

“ Rougeant a bottle of medicine for which the latter grudgingly paid three francs, and told the farmer to come and see him again in a few days.
As Mr. Rougeant was descending the Rohais, his old horse trotting slowly and joggedly, an unwelcome thought flashed across his mind. "I must be in the vicinity of their house," he said to [Pg 190] himself, then he made a gesture with his right hand. "Bah! what have I to do with them."
He felt very lonely, his spirits were depressed, the doctor's remarks did not tend to enliven him.
He heard a cry. He thought he recognized the voice of his little Adèle. ”

“ The farmer fetched a mug of cider and placed it on the table between them. Tom was delighted.
"I am glad that you are here," quoth Mr. Rougeant. "It is not that I generally care for visitors, but you are always welcome. Besides, Adèle is gone and we shall pass the evening agreeably."
"That's what I thought, uncle."
Mr. Rougeant looked, at his nephew and wondered what ailed him.
[Pg 149]
"Did you know she was gone?" he asked, and added: "Perhaps you met her down the road."
"No; is she gone?" asked Tom.
Said the farmer inly: "Is the fellow mad?" aloud; "Yes; she is gone to a concert." ”

“ Surely it is wise and prudent to conciliate the clever young men who might inflame the masses against us. Rohesia thinks so; she says it may be our only chance of stemming the rising tide of Revolution, Rupert!
Sir Rup. Oh, if Rohesia thinks a revolution can be stemmed by asking a few poets down from Saturday to Monday, she might do her share of the stemming at all events.
Lady Culv. But you will be nice to him, Rupert, won't you?
Sir Rup. I don't know that I'm in the habit of being uncivil to any guest of yours in this house, my dear, but I'll be hanged if I grovel to him, you know ”

“ Fouret consulted a white witch. She told him it was an old woman who was jealous of [Pg 112] him, and gave my employer a powder to burn. 'You may be certain that the culpable person will come to you, when you have burnt that powder,' she said to him.
"Mr. Fouret did as he had been told to do, and Mrs. X. came on the following morning. She said: 'I thought I would call so as to have a look at your new acquisition.'"
"I do not care to hear any more," interrupted Frank; "science and reasoning will in time do away with all this." ”

“ He glanced at the bundles as she threw them, with a letter, down on the counter, and whisked out through the door. He called after her, “Here, here, Roxy; here, my dear! Come back. I have some figs for you!”
But no Roxy came back. He heard her little heels clattering down the sidewalk fast as they could go. So he got up and read the letter, for it was directed to himself.
Here are the four notes Roxy wrote:—
“Dear Father: I Will paye you every Cent if I Live. I shall always be a Good Girl, and never hanker after Only what I have Got. ”

“ She came to the window and opened it.
‘Benedicta,’ said I, hastily, after returning her greeting, ‘wild and drunken boys are on their way hither to take you to the dance. Rochus is with them, and says that he will fetch you to dance with him. I have come before them to assist you to escape.’ At the name of Rochus I saw the blood rise into her cheeks and suffuse her whole face with crimson. Alas, I perceived that my jealous guide was right: no woman could resist that beautiful boy, not even this pious and virtuous child. ”

“ I have seen purty little Roxy grow up from a chile, an' as she begin to round up and git tall, says I: 'Nigger or no nigger, she's angel!' The white gals they all throwed off on me, caze I wasn't earnin' nothin', an' I sot my eyes on Roxy Custis an' I says: 'What kin I do fur to make her shine to me?' So I kept a-follerin' of her everywhere, an' I see her one day comin' along the road a-pickin' of the wild blossoms an' with her han' full of 'em, an' I says: 'Roxy, what you doin' of with them flowers?' 'They're fur my missis, Miss Vesty,' says she ”

“ And Roxie,—poor little Roxie,—whom Jake was so glad to think of as safe at home, was at that very moment stepping over a wide crack between two great masses of ice, and staring forlornly about her, for a little way in advance appeared another great gap, and the bear close behind was whimpering with terror as he clung to the edge of the floating mass upon which Roxie had only just leaped, and which he had failed to jump upon. ”

“ In the original, the same incident of boiling the hero in a kettle and of his springing out of it occurs as in the tale of Mrs. Bear and the Raccoon. This I have here omitted. The Mephistophelian and mocking character of Lox is strongly shown when he says, "Nothing but a cat-tail or bulrush can kill me," this being evidently an allusion to Glooskap. This is to an Indian much like blasphemy. Lox, or Raccoon, or Badger,—for they are all the same,—in his journeyings after mere mischief reminds us of an Indian Tyl Eulenspiegel. ”

“ When Rouse reappeared in the room his bearing was a trifle disturbed.
"There was no one upstairs, sir. It must have been in the street."
I kicked at this.
"Come, Rouse, that won't do. Did it sound to you as though it were in the street?"
"It didn't, sir. But it must have been. There's no one upstairs, and the maids are all below. Besides, sir, there's no one in the house as plays the fiddle."
Ernest interposed. A smile was twinkling in his eyes.
"Where was the violin?"
"There's a violin-case upon the table, sir. I don't know if a violin is in it. The case is closed." ”

“ Rougeant been doing now?"
"I fell in the quarry," said the farmer gruffly, "go and prepare some dry clothing, be quick, make haste."
Jeanne immediately did as she was bid. She did not leave the room, however, without casting an inquisitive glance at Frank.
"Adèle," shouted Mr. Rougeant in a voice of thunder, "where are you?"
"Miss Rougeant is gone, she told me she would not be long," answered the servant from upstairs.
"Oh, yes, always gone," said the father of Adèle, in none too pleasant a tone; "those young girls are always out when most wanted." ”

“ They held her. That armful of a girl, soft and warm as one of the grey pigeons, was crushed for a moment against the boy's chest. She was closer to him than she had been in any of those waltzes. Yet it seemed no strangeness to be so near—feeling his heart beat below hers, feeling the roughness of his tweed jacket through the thin linen of her frock. She felt as she'd felt about flying, in that dream of hers. ”

“ But in the Passamaquoddy versions it is the dreaded and mysterious Lox, who appears to be a species of Lynx or Wolverine. The Lox is said, by trustworthy white travelers as well as Indians, to follow hunting parties for weeks, inspired apparently only by an incredible mania for mischief, much like that of a monkey or a revengeful savage, but guided by remarkable intelligence. He will find his way into a camp and destroy every object made by the hand of man with a thoroughness akin to genius, and what he cannot destroy he will carry to a great distance and carefully conceal. ”

“ Rougeant goes to Church.
he first Sunday after Mr. Rougeant's recovery, Adèle said she intended to go to church. The farmer's eyes flickered more than usual. "I think I shall accompany you," he said.
His daughter started. What could he mean? He had not been to church these last three years or more; besides, he had not a decent suit of clothes to put on. Oh! it was disgusting.
"He is afraid of my meeting Frank on the road," she said to herself; "he need not fear, I am green, but not quite so much as he seems to think." "You have not even a suit of clothes that is fit to wear," she said aloud. ”

“ And he is one of those who rise from the dead. Now it came to pass that some days after two boys of the Kwedech or Mohawk race found the Lox lying dead on a rock in the sunshine, and the worms were crawling from him. ”

“ Conquering his ‘great inclinations to cry,’ with an effort, Rousseau admired the Earl’s ‘open, animated, and noble physiognomy.’ Without ceremony, and acting as a Child of Nature, Jean-Jacques went and sat down beside the Earl on his sofa. In his noble eye Rousseau detected ‘something fine, piercing, yet in a way caressing.’ He became quite fond of the Earl. Wordsworth has justly remarked that you seldom see a grown-up male weeping freely on the public highway. ”

“ I have obtained a promise that he shall not be pursued if he makes his escape; but if he persists in exposing himself to be taken this will immediately happen." La Roche conjured me in behalf of Madam de Luxembourg to rise and go and speak to her. It was two o'clock and she had just retired to bed. "She expects you," added he, "and will not go to sleep without speaking to you." ”

“ The last, I confess, made me suspect Madam de Luxembourg. La Roche, her valet de chambre, had sent me the papers, and I could think of nobody but herself to whom this fragment could be of consequence; but what concern could the other give her, any more than the rest of the letters missing, with which, even with evil intentions, nothing to my prejudice could be done, unless they were falsified? As for the marechal, with whose friendship for me, and invariable integrity, I was perfectly acquainted, I never could suspect him for a moment. ”

“ Roxy’s mother would have been awfully shocked at the wavy, flowing hair of you Wide Awake girls, I assure you!
And Roxy’s dress. You never saw a “tow and linen” dress, I dare say. Roxy’s dresses were all 051“home-made”—not merely cut and sewed at home; but Roxy’s father raised the flax in the field north of the house, and Roxy’s mother spun the flax and tow into thread upon funny little wheels. ”

“ The humble heights of the Jura, and the lovely points of the valley of Chambéri, sufficed to give him all the pleasure of which he was capable. In truth a man cannot escape from his time, and Rousseau at least belonged to the eighteenth century in being devoid of the capacity for feeling awe, and the taste for objects inspiring it. Nature was a tender friend with softest bosom, and no sphinx with cruel enigma. ”

“ This was a true garden of Eden, with the serpent in temporary quiescence, and we may count the man rare since the fall who has found such happiness in such conditions, and not less blessed than he is rare. The fact that he was one of this chosen company was among the foremost of the circumstances which made Rousseau seem to so many men in the eighteenth century as a spring of water in a thirsty land. ”

“ Rougeant.
Frank felt flattered. He began to talk about agricultural chemistry, but he was soon stopped by his host.
"I don't believe in theory," interrupted Mr. Rougeant, "give me facts, show me results. A great many people write about farming who can hardly distinguish a parsnip from a carrot."
The young man dared not go against the farmer. [Pg 64] He saw, by his manner, that he was not a man to be contradicted. He looked at Adèle. She was smiling, but directly her father looked round towards her, her face became as grave as a nun's. ”

“ The same confidence in quacks, which destroyed the grandson, hastened the dissolution of the grandfather, and to this he added the pusillanimity of wishing to dissimulate the infirmities of age. M. de Luxembourg had at intervals a pain in the great toe; he was seized with it at Montmorency, which deprived him of sleep, and brought on slight fever. I had courage enough to pronounce the word gout. Madam de Luxembourg gave me a reprimand. The surgeon, valet de chambre of the marechal, maintained it was not the gout, and dressed the suffering part with beaume tranquille. ”

“ Grim’s eyes are alight with the eagerness of the hunter, and her stiff tongue quivers in her mouth as, with widely opened jaws, she springs upon her prey.
The roach is good enough! It wriggles between her teeth and tickles her cheeks and chin with slaps of its little tail; and yet ... it has an inexplicable strength like that of a little pearly fish that she dimly remembers.
She grows angry. Is an insignificant little fish like this going to resist her will? The silly little thing is ready to go any way but the one she wants it to go; she can hardly get from one thicket of weeds to the other. ”

“ Lady Culverin (to herself) . Can Rohesia have known this? What possible object could she have had in—— And oh, dear, how disgusted Rupert will be!
Sir Rupert (to himself) . Seems a decent young chap enough! Too bad of Rohesia to let him in for this. I don't care a straw what he is—he's none the worse for not being a poet.
Lady Cantire (to herself) . What is he maundering about? It's utterly inconceivable that I should have made any mistake. It's only too clear what the cause is—Claret!
Spurrell (aloud, good-humouredly) . ”