This eBook was produced by David Widger
By Gilbert Parker
It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, theNew Cure or M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was aliveJean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree ofillumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to hisfathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he whohad baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, andfirmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to hissuccessor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, wasyoung; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he wenta lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The NewCure could command their obedience, but he could not command their loveand confidence until he had earned them.
So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Curein the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesserdegree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very wellin life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill,which ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill morethan paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of a cousinwho worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; the ash-factorywhich his own initiative had started made no money, but the loss was onlysmall; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, althoughSebastian Dolores, Carmen's father, had at one time mismanaged them—butof that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the business of money-lendingand horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fire insurance and a dealerin lightning rods.
In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a goodmany irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many peoplein his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worththeir while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid,he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded morethan eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. Hischeerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor.Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish,would find dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cordof wood or a bag of flour.
It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity.His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of hisown personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age;but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became anobsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spentsummer months at St. Saviour's, sought to interest him in science andhistory, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but sciencemarched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; thewild places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberlessdates and facts. Perhaps he could have manage