"Let us go and see some others," I suggested, touching the veterinarian's arm.

Hearing this, the man came down ten francs. Then, little by little, he came down to 210 francs, but he stopped there. The veterinarian had nudged me and given me to understand that he was not serious in saying what he did about the cow, that it was an excellent animal, but then 210 francs was a large sum for us.

During this time Mattia had gone behind her and pulled a long wisp of hair from her tail and the animal had given him a kick. That decided me.

"All right, 210 francs," I said, thinking the matter was settled. I held out my hand to take the rope.

"Have you brought a halter?" asked the man. "I'm selling my cow, not the halter."

He said that, as we were friends, he would let me have the halter for sixty sous. We needed a halter, so I parted with the sixty sous, calculating that we should now have but twenty sous left. I counted out the two hundred and thirteen francs, then again I stretched out my hand.

"Have you got a rope?" inquired the man. "I've sold you the halter, but I haven't sold you the rope."

The rope cost us our last twenty sous.

The cow was finally handed over to us, but we had not a sou left to buy food for the animal, nor for ourselves. After warmly thanking the veterinarian for his kindness, we shook hands and said good-by to him, and went back to the inn, where we tied our cow up in the stable. As it was a very busy day in the town on account of the fair, and people from all parts had come in, Mattia and I thought that it would be better for each to go his own way and see what we could make. In the evening Mattia brought back four francs and I three francs fifty centimes.

With seven francs fifty we felt that we were again rich. We persuaded the kitchen maid to milk our cow and we had the milk for supper. Never had we tasted anything so good! We were so enthusiastic about the quality of the milk that we went into the stable as soon as we had finished to embrace our treasure. The cow evidently appreciated this caress, for she licked our faces to show her appreciation.

To understand the pleasure that we felt at kissing our cow and to be kissed by her, it must be remembered that neither Mattia nor I had been overburdened with caresses; our fate had not been that of the petted and pampered children who are obliged to defend themselves against too many kisses.

The next morning we rose with the sun and started for Chavanon. How grateful I was to Mattia for the help he had given me; without him I never could have collected such a big sum. I wanted to give him the pleasure of leading the cow, and he was very proud indeed to pull her by the rope while I walked behind. She looked very fine; she walked along slowly, swaying a little, holding herself like an animal that is aware of her value. I did not want to tire her out, so I decided not to get to Chavanon that evening late; better, I thought, get there early in the morning. That is what we intended to do; this is what happened:

I intended to stay the night in the village where I had spent my first night with Vitalis, when Capi, seeing me so unhappy, came to me and lay down beside me. Before reaching this village we came to a nice green spot, and, throwing down our baggage, we decided to rest. We made our cow go down into a ditch. At first I wanted to hold her by the rope, but she seemed very docile, and quite accustomed to grazing, so after a time I twisted the rope around her horns and sat down near her to eat my supper. Naturally we had finished eating long before she had, so after having admired her for some time and not knowing what to do next, we began to play a little game with each other. When we had finished our game, she was still eating. As I went to her, she pulled at the gra.s.s sharply, as much as to say that she was still hungry.

"Wait a little," said Mattia.

"Don't you know that a cow can eat all day long?" I replied.

"Well, wait a little."

We got our baggage and instruments together, but still she would not stop eating.

"I'll play her a piece on the cornet," said Mattia, who found it difficult to keep still. "There was a cow at Ga.s.sot's Circus and she liked music."

He commenced to play a lively march.

At the first note the cow lifted up her head; then suddenly, before I could throw myself at her horns to catch hold of the rope, she had gone off at a gallop. We raced after her as fast as we could, calling to her to stop. I shouted to Capi to stop her. Now one cannot be endowed with every talent. A cattle driver's dog would have jumped at her nose, but Capi was a genius, so he jumped at her legs. Naturally, this made her run faster. She raced back to the last village we had pa.s.sed through. As the road was straight, we could see her in the distance, and we saw several people blocking her way and trying to catch hold of her. We slackened our speed, for we knew now that we should not lose her. All we should have to do would be to claim her from the good people who had stopped her going farther. There was quite a crowd gathered round her when we arrived on the scene, and instead of giving her up to us at once, as we expected they would, they asked us _how_ we got the animal and _where_ we got her. They insisted that we had stolen her and that she was running back to her owner. They declared that we ought to go to prison until the truth could be discovered. At the very mention of the word "prison" I turned pale and began to stammer. I was breathless from my race and could not utter a word. At this moment a policeman arrived, and, in a few words, the whole affair was explained to him. As it did not seem at all clear, he decided to take possession of the cow and have us locked up until we could prove that it belonged to us. The whole village seemed to be in the procession which ran behind us up to the town hall, which was also the station house. The mob pushed us and sneered at us and called us the most horrible names, and I do believe that if the officer had not defended us they would have lynched us as though we were criminals of the deepest dye. The man who had charge of the town hall, and who was also jailer and sheriff, did not want to admit us. I thought what a kind man! However, the policeman insisted that we be locked up, and the jailer finally turned the big key in a double-locked door and pushed us into the prison. Then I saw why he had made some difficulty about receiving us. He had put his provision of onions to dry in this prison and they were strewn out on every bench. He heaped them all together in a corner. We were searched, our money, matches and knives taken from us. Then we were locked up for the night.

"I wish you'd give me a good slap," said Mattia miserably, when we were alone; "box my ears or do something to me."

"I was as big a fool as you to let you play the cornet to a cow," I replied.

"Oh, I feel so bad about it," he said brokenly; "our poor cow, the Prince's cow!" He began to cry.

Then I tried to console him by telling him that our situation was not very serious. We would prove that we bought the cow; we would send to Ussel for the veterinarian ... he would be a witness.

"But if they say we stole the money to buy it," he said, "we can't prove that we earned it, and when one is unfortunate they always think you're guilty." That was true.

"And who'll feed her?" went on Mattia dismally.

Oh, dear, I did hope that they would feed our poor cow.

"And what are we going to say when they question us in the morning?"

asked Mattia.

"Tell them the truth."

"And then they'll hand you over to Barberin, or if Mother Barberin is alone at her place and they question her to see if we are lying, we can't give her a surprise."

"Oh, dear!"

"You've been away from Mother Barberin for a long time; how do you know if she isn't dead?"

This terrible thought had never occurred to me, and yet poor Vitalis had died, ... how was it I had not thought that I might lose her....

"Why didn't you say that before?" I demanded.

"Because when I'm happy I don't have those ideas. I have been so happy at the thought of offering your cow to Mother Barberin and thinking how pleased she'd be, I never thought before that she might be dead."

It must have been the influence of this dismal room, for we could only see the darkest side of everything.

"And, oh," cried Mattia, starting up and throwing out his arms, "if Mother Barberin is dead and that awful Barberin is alive and we go there, he'll take our cow and keep it himself."

It was late in the afternoon when the door was thrown open and an old gentleman with white hair came into our prison.

"Now, you rogues, answer this gentleman," said the jailer, who accompanied him.

"That's all right, that's all right," said the gentleman, who was the public prosecutor, "I'll question this one." With his finger he indicated me. "You take charge of the other; I'll question him later."

I was alone with the prosecutor. Fixing me with his eye, he told me that I was accused of having stolen a cow. I told him that we bought the animal at the fair at Ussel, and I named the veterinarian who had a.s.sisted us in the purchase.

"That will be verified," he replied. "And now what made you buy that cow?"

I told him that I was offering it as a token of affection to my foster mother.

"Her name?" he demanded.

"Madame Barberin of Chavanon," I replied.

"The wife of a mason who met with a serious accident in Paris a few years ago. I know her. That also will be verified."

"Oh!..."

I became very confused. Seeing my embarra.s.sment, the prosecutor pressed me with questions, and I had to tell him that if he made inquiries of Madame Barberin our cow would not be a surprise after all, and to make it a surprise had been our chief object. But in the midst of my confusion I felt a great satisfaction to know that Mother Barberin was still alive, and in the course of the questions that were put to me I learned that Barberin had gone back to Paris some time ago. This delighted me.

Then came the question that Mattia had feared.

"But how did you get all the money to buy the cow?"