Page:The Master of the House (Hall).djvu/17

 And below in the darkening carpenter's shop Mirfeio, the bitch, gave her teats to her young, rolling sideways that they might come at her belly.

Christophe Marie Bénédit began squealing loudly at the very onset of his baptismal service, so that Monsieur le Curé had some ado to anoint his breast with the Holy Chrism, and even more to place salt on his tongue in accordance with the ritual of Mother Church and the time-honoured Christian custom. But when drops of cold water were splashed on his head then he lost every vestige of self-control and beat with his heels on his godmother's stomach. In addition to being his sponsor before God, she was also his aunt, though he did not know it.

Madame Roustan frowned and gripped him more firmly as she watched this momentous struggle with Satan. 'It is clear that the devil is excessively angry,' she whispered to Goundran the child's godfather, 'he is blistered, no doubt, by the Holy Oil and scourged by our good priest's exorcisms!'

But Goundran was young and a fisherman; he had known far worse struggles than this in foul weather, so that while Madame Roustan continued to frown at their godson, he smiled at the turbulent infant—when he smiled his large teeth gleamed startlingly white in a face that was tanned to the colour of copper.

Arm in arm near the font stood the earthly parents: Jóusè, a mighty and comely man in spite of the fact that he was ageing. His head was covered with thick, small curls, and his plentiful beard was also curly. The hair of his head and his beard was red gold, but touched here and there with streaks of grey, for at this time Jóusè was nearing fifty. Marie, a woman of twenty-nine, was as brown as the soil and as patiently Rh