clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was the
golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. His chin
dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of Gaspe
settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something else
happened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of great
things. A cock crowed--almost in his very ear, it seemed. He lifted his
head quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. His eyes
fastened on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. To his
excited imagination it was as though the ancient symbol of the Barbilles
had spoken to him in its own language of good cheer and defiance. Yes,
there it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head was erect in the
midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert above the
wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, and the man
alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as though the
Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and the crowing had
not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away from him.
Jean Jacques' head went up too.

"Me--I am what I always was, nothing can change me," he exclaimed
defiantly. "I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again."

So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier had
more heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacques did
sell the Barbille farm, and got in cash--in good hard cash-eight thousand
dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willing to take
the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, and lose
the rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eight thousand
dollars to rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showed such amazing
courage after the burning of the mill, and spread himself out in a
greater activity than his career had yet shown. He shaved through this