“How came you to be with Goujon two nights ago?” he questioned. “Have you been consorting with these scoundrels?” “If I have, M. le Comte,” answered Pasdeloup simply, “it was that I might better serve my master--that I might pay my debt.” “Your debt?” “Ah, that is another thing he does not remember,” said Pasdeloup, turning to me with a sad little smile. “But he was only a boy at the time and it was to him a little thing not worth remembering. We lived in a hut on the edge of the wood yonder, my mother and I. Every morning my mother cleaned the sties here at the château and gave the pigs their food. For this she received every day a loaf of black bread, and she managed now and then to snatch a few morsels from the trough when no one was near. For the rest, we lived on the roots and nuts we gathered in the forest, and we were permitted also to use such wood as the storms swept from the trees. In this manner we somehow managed to keep alive. “But one day my mother fell ill. She could not go to her work; instead, she grew worse and worse, and I had no food to give her. In the course of three days I myself grew so hungry that I could think of nothing better to do than to sit in the sun at the door of our hut and weep. It was while I was doing this that I heard a noise, and looking up, saw approaching me a horse ridden by a being who seemed to me a god. He stopped his horse and asked me what the matter was. So overwhelmed was I by this vision that I could only point to the door of the hut and to my belly. He dismounted, he entered the hut, he looked at my mother; then he came out, patted me on the head and rode away. I was so dazzled by the sight of him that for a time I forgot my hunger; but at last it pinched me again more sharply than before, and I reflected that after all the visit of the god had profited me nothing. And I was just about to renew my wailing when again I heard a noise, and again saw my visitor approaching through the trees. This time he bore in one hand an iron kettle which he thrust upon me and bade me carry in to my mother. The kettle contained two fowls, steaming hot in their own juices,--the first I had ever tasted.” “Ah, now I remember,” said M. le Comte smiling. “I snatched that kettle from the cook just as he had taken it from the fire. I can even yet see his astonished countenance. Well, did it save your mother?” “No, M. le Comte, she was too far gone for that; but at least she entered heaven with a full belly. She filled herself, slept and never awakened. But it saved me, monsieur, and it is that debt which I hope to repay.” “And yet,” said his master, looking at him, “if I remember rightly, that boy must have been at least three years younger than myself; while you are at least ten years older.” “I do not know how old I am, monsieur; I have lost count of it; but I am that boy.”