CHAPTER III.
BEHIND THE GREAT GATE.
That was the tale of the giant scissors as it was told to Joyce in the pleasant fire-lighted room; but behind the great gates the true story went on in a far different way.
Back of the Ciseaux house was a dreary field, growing drearier and browner every moment as the twilight deepened; and across its rough furrows a tired boy was stumbling wearily homeward.

He was not more than nine years old, but the careworn expression of his thin white face might have belonged to a little old man of ninety.

He was driving two unruly goats towards the house.

The chase they led him would have been a laughable sight, had he not looked so small and forlorn plodding along in his clumsy wooden shoes, and a peasant's blouse of blue cotton, several sizes too large for his thin little body.
The anxious look in his eyes changed to one of fear as he drew nearer the house.

At the sound of a gruff voice bellowing at him from the end of the lane, he winced as if he had been struck.
"Ha, there, Jules! Thou lazy vagabond! Late again! Canst thou never learn that I am not to be kept waiting ?" "But, Brossard," quavered the boy in his shrill, anxious voice, "it was not my fault, indeed it was not.