"Come away," she entreated. "You have had wine enough."
Villon contradicted her instantly.
"Never in my life, mammy. I have a fool's head and always get into
my altitudes too soon."
Then, seeing the look of disappointment that made her grey old face
look greyer still,--he added, "I cannot come home just now, mammy,
but there is something I can do for you. Do you remember when I was
a little child--"
Something in the words made him stop suddenly. The hideous contrast
between the phrase and the place wherein he was, between the mother
who fondled him and the wild men-savages and women-savages who were
his daily friends and who were drinking and dicing behind him at the
other side of the settle, came upon him like a great wave of pain
and knocked the mirth out of him. He turned away from his mother and
repeated to himself dismally, "God! when I was a little child!" The
mother's pity, the mother's protection immediately asserted
themselves.
"You were the prettiest child woman ever bore," she said, softly.
Villon turned towards her again, while he tried to wink the tears
out of his eyes.
"You used to sing me to sleep," he said, and as he spoke he rocked
her slowly backward and forward in his arms, while he crooned the
words of that old nurse's song which has soothed so many generations
of French children to sleep, "Do, do, l'enfant do, l'enfant dormira
tantot.
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