"Already noon!" exclaimed Kehlmark, drawing out his watch as the hour sounded from the steeple of the Zoudbertinge church.
The farmer invited him, with a laugh, to share their country soup, but without venturing to hope that he would accept.
"Willingly," he said, "but on condition of eating at the servants' table, and even of dipping in the dish like them."
"What an idea!" exclaimed Claudie, flattered however, by this want of ceremony. This condescension even seemed to her of a nature to reduce the distance between this very urbane gentleman and a simple daughter of the soil.
"All these people here burst with health!" declared Kehlmark, including the whole table in one look around. "They are as nice as what they are devouring, and their appetising air adds to the flavour of the dish."
Following the country custom, the women served the men and did not eat till the latter had finished. They provided a sort of pottage of bacon and vegetables into which Henry was the first to dip his tin spoon. His two neighbours, the labourers who had been warehousing the clover, followed his example with alacrity.
