Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/167

Rh narrow, fanatical zeal, decided to pay a visit to Les Pèlerins, in order to point out to the father the risk he was running in entrusting the education of the young Govaertz to this wicked rich man, who was scandalising the community with his concubinage and impiety. Like all inveterate Calvinists, Balthus was also an iconoclast. Had he not feared the fury of the peasants, so attached to the old relics, which reminded them of the stubborness of their ancestors, he would have had the fine fresco of the Martyrdom of St. Olfgar scraped out.

Kehlmark was doubly odious to him, as pagan and as artist. In order to intimidate the Burgomaster, Balthus called on him to tear his son away from the patron who was corrupting him, on pain of causing both his children, Claudie and Guidon, to be disinherited by their venerable aunts. Michael and Claudie, more and more taken with their Dykgrave, packed the troublesome man off to his church with abundance of sarcasm and mockery. Guidon, whom he accosted one day in the neighbourhood of Escal-Vigor park, would not even listen to him, but turned his back on him with a shrug of the shoulders and a still grosser gesture.