Moreover, if he keep his own counsel, you may go to him at a pinch with the more certainty that he will keep yours." "What did I tell you?" whispered La Marmite to Jo Lagasse, who had joined the little crowd. "The Father's eye turns you inside out: he knows how we have been grumbling all day. But all the same," she added aloud, "he is young and ought to laugh." "I have told you," said Father Launoy, "that you should judge a man by his virtues: but, where that is hard, at least you should judge him by help of your own pity. All this day Dominique has been copying his dead father; and the same remembrance that has been to him a sorrowful incitement, has been to you but food for uncharitable thoughts. If I am not saying the truth, correct me." They were silent. The priest had a great gift of personal talk, straight and simple; and treated them as brothers and sisters of a family, holding up the virtues of this one, or the faults of that, to the common gaze. They might not agree with this laudation of Dominique: but no one cared to challenge it at the risk of finding himself pilloried for public laughter. Father Launoy knew all the peccadilloes of this small flock, and had a tongue which stripped your clothes off--to use an expression of La Marmite's. They followed him down to the shore where the Etchemins held the canoe ready. There they knelt, and he blessed them before embarking. Dominique stepped on board after him, and the two Indians took up their paddles. Long after the boat had been pushed off and was speeding down the broad waterway, the harvesters stood and watched it. The sunset followed it, gleaming along its wake and on its polished quarter, flashing as the paddles rose and dipped; until it rounded the corner by Bout de l'lsle, where the rapids began. The distant voice of these rapids filled the air with its humming; but their ears were accustomed to it and had ceased to heed. Nor did they mark the evening croak of the frogs alongshore among the reed beds, until Jo Lagasse imitated it to perfection. "To work, my children!" he croaked. "Work is the only cure!" They burst out laughing, and hurried back to gather the last load before nightfall. CHAPTER XI. FATHER LAUNOY HAS HIS DOUBTS. For a little while after leaving the shore the priest kept silence. "Dominique," said he at length, "there is something in your guests that puzzles me; and something too that puzzles me in the manner of their coming to Boisveyrac. Tell me now precisely how you found them."