We had been walking for about two hours. The sun began to shine, and it was a pleasure to see the first rays gild the waving heads of a magnificent cornfield, the edge of which we were following. Suddenly we saw two women in a corner of this field, in tears, and raising their hands to heaven.
“Quick, my friends,” cried Brigandos, “perhaps this is an occasion for doing good—we indulge in evil so often.”
We instantly ran up to these women, shouting to them not to be afraid and to tell us the cause of their grief.
They were too perturbed to reply, and while still weeping, they pointed to three men on horseback, galloping full tilt through this rich harvest, snapping the stalks, making the ears fly, and destroying in a minute a measure of the hope and work of an entire family....
“Sir knight,” one of these women said at last to our leader, her voice broken with sobs, “this is my father's field, and there are fifteen of us who live on its produce the whole year round.... The climate has been in our favor this season, and the good old man wanted to put a small sum to one side to marry my young sister here, but my poor dear father will not have that comfort.... These men you see galloping through our property have been doing this same thing for three days. It's the parish priest, sir, with his curate and sexton. They've done us more harm than four storms in one summer.”
“But why?” asked Brigandos.
“One of his parishioners,” the woman went on, “whose house you can see down there, has been very ill for several days. He sent for the pastor, and he, to come to the aid of the dying man as quickly as possible, as he expects a considerable legacy, crosses our field, as you see, instead of taking the highway. He doesn't want his penitent to die without his ministration, and he claims that going as the crow flies saves him three-quarters of an hour. The day before yesterday he went there to admonish him, yesterday for the holy oil, and today I don't know why, but he is ruining us, sir, ruining us.”
And the two unhappy women began to shed their tears again. In the meantime the priest cleaved the air, and as he was coming in our direction, he was scarcely more than thirty paces away when Brigandos in his fury cried at him in a voice of thunder to stop instantly, or he would be dead. But the holy man went galloping on and promptly produced from the fob of his breeches a small tin box; the curate uncovered his head and recited a few paternosters, the sexton made the air resound with a hand bell, and all three, without stopping, continued to harvest the field.
“By Lucifer's beard,” cried Brigandos, who was getting hotheaded in his wrath, “stop, you greybeards, or I'll bury you under the corn you're breaking!”
“Infidel,” the priest cried at him, “surely you see that I am carrying God?”
“If you bore the Devil,” our leader rejoined, “you would get no further, or I'd disembowel you.”
And as our men all advanced on these three riders together, they had to come to a halt. The two women were still there, not knowing what Brigandos would do.
“Sir,” the Bohemian said, briskly unseating the priest, “where did you learn that you had to destroy a sound man's heritage in order to bear God to a sick one? Are there no roads in the district? Why don't you use 'em?”
“Should I let a man go to Hell out of consideration for a few grains of corn?”
“Understand, stupid knave,” cried Brigandos, grasping the pastor's neck sharply, “that the humblest blade of corn that Nature grants for the upkeep of these unfortunates is a hundred times more worthy and valuable than all the doughy idols in your disgusting breeches; and remember that it is with this corn that the gods you carry are made, and that if you destroy the raw material, their holy species will be unable to reproduce.”
“Arrant blasphemer!”
“Please, no compliments, I am not obstructing your duties to hear myself praised by you, but to have you make good instantly the wrongs you have been doing to these good people for three days. See them weeping at your crimes, and dare to say that you are God's servant after that.”
“I, make good?”
“Yes, and by all devildom, you must.”
“How then?”
“By you three disbursing here the sum of one hundred piastres, at which I value approximately the damage you have done to these peasants.”
“A hundred piastres? They could not be found in the whole parish.”
“We will verify that,” said our captain, making a sign to his men to do as he did.
Upon this he leaped on the pontifical breeches, and first found the holy box: “Oh, for this gem,” he said, hurling it forty feet over his head, “I wouldn't give a damn.”
And completely unbreeching the pastor, he eventually uncovered an old leather purse.
Then turning to his comrades, while the priest restored his unveiled modesty in the background: “Well, lads,” he said, “see if your hunting has been as good as mine. Add it up....”
The three purses were emptied, and yielded a total of ten piastres more than our leader's assessment.
“Come here, my good women,” our captain went on, calling the plaintiffs.... “Here, take what the Bohemian tribunal awards you as damages for what has been done to you.”
“Oh, sir, sir,” cried these women, bathing their Solomon's hands with tears.... “Alas, we are indeed happy, but this man of God you have just sentenced is wicked, and you will not have gone very far before he will return to take back what you have so justly awarded us.”
“Take it back? My band will not leave the neighborhood of this farm for two weeks,” Brigandos said to the priest, “and, rogue, if so foul a deed enters your head, I will make you eat your balls on a skewer.... Here, take the rest of your money, I am not like officers of the law.... Pick up your God.... Get on your beast... stop thinking that what you were doing was a good thing that could be bought at the price of the evil your stupidity dared permit you; the good was only imaginary, the ravages incontestible. Remember, my friend, that what is called good, is only the useful, and that the useful is never fulfilled so long as it costs poverty a tear.”
The priest was abashed, having perhaps never said anything so philosophical from the pulpit, and ran off at once to find his box. But while the case was being judged, an unusual thing happened; one of our women, pressed by a desire of some consequence, had hidden herself in the corn with the intention of going about it with as much satisfaction as modesty. Either by chance, or by temptation, the wretched box was there, and it had fallen open; its inside received her superfluity, and it was in this sorry state of increase that the reliquary greeted the pastor. Too abashed to dare complain, he contented himself with crossing himself three times, put his gods and their seasoning in his pocket, then, straddling his brood mare, he took leave of our chief, who swore that if he behaved, he would be friends nonetheless.
All went their various ways. The young peasant women were so entranced by their judge that they begged him to come and spend at least two days in their home with his band.