powerful voice by way of silencing the dog's loud barks.

Abbe Mouret looked up.

'Oh! it's you. Fortune?' he said, approaching the edge of the field in
which the young peasant was at work. 'I was just on my way to speak to
you.'

Fortune was of the same age as the priest: a bigly built, bold-looking
young fellow, with skin already hardened. He was clearing a small plot
of stony heath.

'What about, Monsieur le Cure?' he asked.

'About Rosalie and you,' replied the priest.

Fortune began to laugh. Perhaps he thought it droll that a priest should
interest himself in such a matter.

'Well,' he muttered, 'I'm not to blame in it nor she either. So much the
worse if old Bambousse refuses to let me have her. You saw yourself how
his dog was trying to bite me just now; he sets him on me.'

Then, as Abbe Mouret was about to continue, old Artaud, called Brichet,
whom he had not previously perceived, emerged from the shadow of a bush
behind which he and his wife were eating. He was a little man, withered
by age, with a cringing face.

'Your reverence must have been told a pack of lies,' he exclaimed. 'The
youngster is quite ready to marry Rosalie. What's happened isn't