134 STORIES FROM DAUDET

that on Sunday, when we saw him come
into church, we old people all felt
ashamed of him, and he knew it so
thoroughly that he did not venture to
come and sit in the workmen’s seat
any longer. He always sat at the
bottom of the church, near the holy
water stoup, with the poor people.

There was something mysterious,
too, in Gaffer Cornille’s way of living.
For a long time no one in the village
had taken any corn to him to grind,
and yet his mill-sails were as busy as
ever. ... In the evening we met the
miller on the road driving his donkey
before him laden with big flour sacks.
‘Good evening, Gaffer Cornille,’ the
villagers called to him. ‘Your mill is
prospering then ?’

‘Going on capitally, my friends,’ the
old man would answer gaily. ‘We are
in no want of work, thank God.’ Then
if you asked him where in the name of
wonder all this work came from, he
put his finger to his lip and answered