But Jean shocked the old gossip and the whole parish by employing a hired man. What sinful extravagance and folly! It was not as in former times, when one could get an able-bodied man for a shilling a day. Now one had to pay at least twice as much, while the rascals did barely half as much work, and demanded the best of everything--white bread, butter, soup, pork, and even eggs. And they would not sleep in the stable, as formerly, but wished to have a room in the house, a straw mattress, blankets, sheets, a candle to light them to bed--all the luxuries of modern life. But those Giroux people--how could they afford all that? Surely they were on the road to ruin, on the very brink of it. Presently they would be in poverty, and the parish would have to support them. Yes, it was a matter of public concern and somebody ought to interfere. Nevertheless, Jean Baptiste kept the hired man, and, while working on the farm somewhat more than formerly, still found time for hunting and fishing and the reading of books, while his mother, as though bewitched, smiled complacently at everything that he did. But Jean sank lower still in the estimation of the neighbours, for he began to keep bad company, the very worst--that of a sorcerer. It came about in this way. Jean was having a day’s fishing, and, although the trout were rising well, he was not content to stay in one place but kept moving on up the stream until he found himself, at sunset, standing on a rocky ledge beside a deep, dark pool, called the _trou du sorcier_. Precipitous cliffs, crowned with firs and pines, rose on all sides, enclosing a sort of amphitheatre into which the river plunged in a white cascade. Striking a granite ledge, the stream swirled around in a great eddy, a dark whirlpool, on the borders of which lurked giant trout, old warriors that had broken the tackle of many a luckless angler, wary fish that must be under the special protection of Satan himself--so often had they escaped the toils. It was a place of evil repute, little frequented by anglers. So much the better, as Jean knew, for the man of courage, and, although he had never taken a large fish in the place, he was determined to try his luck once more in the famous pool.