“The first apprentice opened his eyes wide as the palm of your hand, while Master Eloi’s assistants began to perspire. “‘Ho,’ said Eloi at last, ‘my faith, but I will do it like that--do it just as well.’ “He sets himself to the task. Knife in hand he approaches the horse, and crack! he cuts off the foot, carries it into the smithy, fastens it into the vice, and shoes it at his ease, just like the young apprentice. “But then came the hitch, he must put it back in place. He approaches the horse, spits on the shoe, applies it to the fetlock as best he can. Alas! the salve does not stick, the blood flows, and the foot falls! Then was the proud soul of Master Eloi illuminated: and he went back into the smithy there to prostrate himself at the feet of the young apprentice. But Jesus had disappeared, and also the horse and the cavalier. Tears gushed from the eyes of Master Eloi; he recognised, poor man, that there was a master above him, and above all. Throwing aside his apron he left the forge and went out into the world to teach the word of the Lord Jesus.” Great applause followed the conclusion of this legend, applause both for Saint-Eloi and for Jean Roussière. * * * * * Before I leave the worthy Jean I must mention that it was he who sang to me the popular air to which I put the serenade of Magali, an air so sweet, so melodious, that many regretted not finding it in Gounod’s opera of _Mireille_. The only person in all the world that I ever heard sing that particular air was Jean Roussière, who was apparently the last to retain it. It was a strange coincidence that he should come, by chance as it were, and sing it to me, at the moment when I was looking for the Provençal note of my love-song, and thus enable me to save it just at the moment when, like so many other things, it was about to be relegated to oblivion. The name of Magali, an abbreviation of Marguerite, I heard one day as I was returning home from Saint-Rémy. A young shepherdess was tending a flock of sheep along the Grande Roubine. “Oh! Magali, art not coming yet?” cried a boy to her as he passed by. The limpid name struck me as so pretty that at once I sang: MAGALI.[15] “O Magali, belovèd maid, Forth from thy casement lean! And listen to my serenade Of viols and tambourine.” “Were ever stars so many seen! The wind to rest is laid; But when thy face thou shalt unveil, These stars shall pale!” “So as for rustling leaves, I care For this thy roundelay! I’ll turn into an eel, and fare To the blonde sea away!” “O Magali, if thou wilt play At turning fish, beware! For I the fisherman will be And fish for thee.” “Oh, and if thou thy nets would’st fling As fisherman, then stay! I’ll be a bird upon the wing, And o’er the moors away.”