The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

THE VV'OODCUTTER Théophraste ended his discourse, and, pleasantly parting, sauntered off with his mistress, arm-in-arm. Neither of them gave their victim another thought. Out of the wood they went, and (thank God 1) out of the story. But Placide leant upon his axe and stared after them. In his brain one thought only remained, which Theophraste might have formulated logically as “ Some men do not chop wood.” And in his heart and eye was a dull animal lust. Two strangers had come to his soul's Inn. There being only one room, he put them to bed together, in this form or some- thing like it: “ Chop—chop—chop—chop; I’m sick of it. Even in had a fine girl from Paris like that, what could I do but chop—chop—chop—chop? " For the first time in his life he went home half an hour earlier than his custom, to the accompaniment of a terrific thunderstorm that rolled up from the valley of the Loing and fell like night upon the forest, like a dark winter's night that afternoon of May. He was wet to the skin before he reached his hut. Opening the door, he glowered with dull surprise. Equally wet, standing in one corner and wringing out a blouse, was a girl of about twenty years old, an Amazon maid. He could see that she was a lady—that is, that she was not a villager; but he had no means of knowing that she was the Honourable Diana Vi11iers-Jernyngham—Ketteringham. Placide spoke a patois that a Parisian might have surmised to be Cherokee, and Diana’s boarding—school French would have been given up by that Parisian as no earthly language at all. 85