Pagina 408 van 896

A rumour just lived in the village--had a faint and bare

existence there, as its people had--that when the knife struck

home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger

and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up

forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a

cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for

ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber

where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the

sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had

seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged

peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at

Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have

pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among

the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find

a living there.