Jean the hunchback was a muscular little deformity and a wonder of
good nature. His head looked unnaturally large, nestling
grotesquely between the points of his lifted and distorted
shoulders, like a shaggy black animal in the fork of a broken
tree. He was bellicose in his amiable way and never knew just when
to acknowledge defeat. How long he might have kept up the hopeless
struggle with the girl's invincible grip would be hard to guess.
His release was caused by the approach of a third person, who wore
the robe of a Catholic priest and the countenance of a man who had
lived and suffered a long time without much loss of physical
strength and endurance.
This was Pere Beret, grizzly, short, compact, his face deeply
lined, his mouth decidedly aslant on account of some lost teeth,
and his eyes set deep under gray, shaggy brows. Looking at him
when his features were in repose a first impression might not have
been favorable; but seeing him smile or hearing him speak changed
everything. His voice was sweetness itself and his smile won you
on the instant. Something like a pervading sorrow always seemed to
be close behind his eyes and under his speech; yet he was a
genial, sometimes almost jolly, man, very prone to join in the
lighter amusements of his people.
"Children, children, my children," he called out as he approached
along a little pathway leading up from the direction of the
church, "what are you doing now? Bah there, Alice, will you pull
Jean's leg off?"
At first they did not hear him, they were so nearly deafened by
their own vocal discords.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30