awaiting the reaper, and although he endeavoured
to reassure Jan and himself by insisting that Chris-
tophe's life could safely be left in the hands of his Maker,
Jan was not reassured for he also loved, and love
sometimes demands a great deal of reassuring. Thus
it was that once more he must lie awake, very deeply
distressed because of his cousin; and wise though he
certainly was for his years — bookwise in such things
as theology and latin, as dogma and ritual, as legend
and fact pertaining to saints and to reverend persons
— he yet thought at these times with the mind of a
child who, himself loving food, would dread to go
hungry.
That Christophe now often went hungry he knew,
the best being saved for his ailing brother, and so
Jan would lie on his bed and scheme how to get
cake and fruit while having no money; for the matter
of that how to get bread and cheese wherewith to
fill Christophers rapacious stomach. Christophe's
appetite was whale-like these days, so remorselessly
was his young body growing — he would even go
foraging up in the hills, on the look out for sweet and
edible berries. Why, when Madame Roustan asked
him to supper, this because her son had stamped and
insisted, she declared that the larder was cleared for
a week, that her housekeeping purse was completely
flattened.
'Santo Flour/ she would grumble, 'he eats like a
pig. No, I cannot but feel that Christophe is greedy!5
But apparently Jan had become greedy also, for
whenever he visited Hermitte the baker he would
gaze with big, longing eyes at the wares: *U . . . m,
that looks good, very good . . / he would murmur.
And if Hermitte was serving this was met by a frown,
but if Hermitte's fat wife was behind the counter Jan
might easily go off with two or three cakes, or a couple
of rolls shaped like glossy brown crescents. And so it
3*7