"I will tell her that you killed him. Leave it to me--all to me, my
grand seigneur."

A half-hour afterwards the avocat, the Cure, and the Little Chemist, had
heard the story as the dwarf told it, and Valmond returned to the Louis
Quinze a hero. For hours the habitants gathered under his window and
cheered him.

Parpon sat long in gloomy silence by his side, but, raising his voice,
he began to sing softly a lament for the gross-figured body, lying alone
in a shed near the deserted smithy:

"Children, the house is empty,
The house behind the tall hill;
Lonely and still is the empty house.
There is no face in the doorway,
There is no fire in the chimney.
Come and gather beside the gate,
Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills.

"Where has the wild dog vanished?
Where has the swift foot gone?
Where is the hand that found the good fruit,
That made a garret of wholesome herbs?
Where is the voice that awoke the morn,
The tongue that defied the terrible beasts?
Come and listen beside the door,
Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills."