Page:A Leaf in the Storm.djvu/262

 His love was for the soil—a deep-rooted love as the oaks that grew in it. Of Paris he had a dim, vague dread, as of a superb beast continually draining and devouring. Of all forms of government he was alike ignorant. So long as he tilled his little angle of land in peace, so long as the sun ripened his fruits and corn, so long as famine was away from his door and his neighbours dwelt in goodfellowship with him, so long he was happy, and cared not whether he was thus happy under a monarchy, an empire, or a republic.

This wisdom, which the peddler called apathy and cursed, the young man had imbibed from Nature and the teachings of Reine Allix.

"Look at home and mind thy work," she had said always to him. "It is labour enough for a man to keep his own life clean and his own hands honest. Be not thou at any time as they are who are for ever telling the good God how He might have made the world on a better plan, while the rats gnaw at their haystacks and the children cry over an empty platter."

And he had taken heed to her words; so that in all the countryside there was not any lad truer, gentler, braver or more patient at labour than was Bernadou; and though some thought him mild even to foolishness, and meek even to stupidity, he was