"Monseigneur," repeated the girl, "our grandfather has not time to wait; he is dying--you must come." "I tell you," replied the abbe, confused within himself at his refusal, "I cannot go. I am, as you see, out shooting: the thing is utterly impossible." With these words he sought to pursue his way; but the young girl, who could not comprehend the bad arguments made use of by the abbe, clung obstinately to his coat skirts, and compelled him to turn round. Aroused by the noise of this altercation, a few of the male population appeared on the thresholds of their doors, others at their windows; and as a village resembles a bundle of dry hay, which a spark will set in a blaze, the wives joined their husbands, the children their mothers, and soon the entire population flocked into the street to see what was the matter. The Abbe du Jard, seigneur of Voisenon, king of the country, felt deeply humiliated amid the crowd which surrounded him, and which had already begun to murmur at this refusal, as irreligious as it was inhuman. But our poor abbe was not inhuman. The fact was, he had completely forgotten the formula used on such occasions; and if the truth must be told, as he was careless and indifferent in religious matters, rather than hypocritical, his conscience reproached him for going to absolve or condemn a fellow-creature when he inwardly felt how utterly unworthy he was himself of judging others at the tribunal of the confessional. Necessity, however, prevailed over his just scruples; which scruples, however, be it said, could not be made use of as excuses to his vassals: so, with downcast eyes and his reversed fowling-piece under his arm, he permitted himself to be led to the cottage where lay the old man, who was unwilling to render his last sigh without having made the official avowal of his sins. The villagers knelt in a circle before the door, whilst the abbe seated himself by the side of the dying man, in order the better to receive his confession. Since the unlucky moment in which the Abbe de Voisenon had been balked of his morning's sport, he had lost--for he had at times his intervals of superstitious terror--the proud determination he had formed of not believing himself ill on that day. But then, what signs of evil augury had greeted him! He had tripped and fallen on leaving home; he had seen flocks of crows; a weeping girl had dragged him to the bedside of a terrified sinner--even now they were repeating the prayers for the dying around him. The Abbe de Voisenon was overcome; his former temerity oozed palpably away, he felt sick at heart, his ears tingled, his asthma groaned within his chest. "I am ill," thought he. "I was in the wrong to come out; why did I not take my old servant's advice, and remain at home?" Finally he lent an ear to the old man's confession. "You were born the same day as myself!" exclaimed the abbe, at the patient's first confidential communication; "you were born the same day as myself!"