An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him
a sort of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little
arms with incredible fury. One would have said that they were
threatening and pursuing some one.

He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time
to time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice
which was the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it
was possible to hear, "Little Gervais! Little Gervais!"

Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed
and would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child
was no doubt already far away.

He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:--

"Monsieur le Cure, have you seen a child pass?"

"No," said the priest.

"One named Little Gervais?"

"I have seen no one."

He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them
to the priest.

"Monsieur le Cure, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Cure,
he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think,
and a hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?"