CHAPTER IV
Bebee ran home as fast as her feet would take her.
The children were all gathered about her gate in the dusky dewy evening;
they met her with shouts of welcome and reproach intermingled; they had
been watching for her since first the sun had grown low and red, and now
the moon was risen.
But they forgave her when they saw the splendor of her presents, and she
showered out among them Pere Melchior's horn of comfits.
They dashed into the hut; they dragged the one little table out among the
flowers; the cherries and cake were spread on it; and the miller's wife
had given a big jug of milk, and Father Francis himself had sent some
honeycomb.
The early roses were full of scent in the dew; the great gillyflowers
breathed\out fragrance in the dusk; the goat came and nibbled the
sweetbrier unrebuked; the children repeated the Flemish bread-grace, with
clasped hands and reverent eyes, "Oh, dear little Jesus, come and sup
with us, and bring your beautiful Mother, too; we will not forget you are
God." Then, that said, they ate, and drank, and laughed, and picked
cherries from each other's mouths like little blackbirds; the big white
dog gnawed a crust at their feet; old Krebs who had a fiddle, and could
play it, came out and trilled them rude and ready Flemish tunes, such as
Teniers or Mieris might have jumped to before an alehouse at the
Kermesse; Bebee and the children joined hands, and danced round together
in the broad white moonlight, on the grass by the water-side; the idlers
came and sat about, the women netting or spinning, and the men smoking a
pipe before bedtime; the rough hearty Flemish bubbled like a brook in
gossip, or rung like a horn over a jest; Bebee and the children, tired of
their play, grew quiet, and chanted together the "Ave Maria Stella
Virginis"; a nightingale among the willows sang to the sleeping swans.
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