Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/31

Rh "You're among the best of the land, now that Madelinette's married to the Seigneur. You ought to wear a paper collar every day!"

"Bah!" answered the blacksmith. "I'm only old Lajeunesse the blacksmith, though she's my girl, my lads. I was Joe Lajeunesse yesterday, and I'll be Joe Lajeunesse to-morrow, and I'll die Joe Lajeunesse the forgeron—bagosh! So you take me as you find me. M'sieu' Racine doesn't marry me. And Madelinette doesn't take me to Paris, and lead me round the stage and say, 'This is M'sieu' Lajeunesse, my father.' No. I'm myself, and a damn good blacksmith, and nothing else am I."

"Tut, tut, old leather-belly," said Gingras the shoemaker, whose liquor had mounted high, "you'll not need to work now. Madelinette's got double fortune. She gets thousands for a song, and she's lady of the Manor here. What's too good for you, tell me that, my forgeron!"

"Not working between meals—that's too good for me, Gingras. I'm here to earn my bread with the hands I was born with, and to eat what they earn, and live by it. Let a man live according to his gifts—bagosh! Till I'm sent for, that's what I'll do; and when time's up I'll take my hand off the bellows, and my leather apron can go to you, Gingras, for boots for a bigger fool than me."

"There's only one," said Bénoit the ne'er-do-weel, who had been to college as a boy.

"Who's that? " said Muroc.

"You wouldn't know his name. He's trying to find eggs in last year's nest," answered Bénoit with a leer.

"He means the Seigneur," said Muroc. "Look to your son-in-law, Lajeunesse. He's kicking up a dust