CHAPTER XLI.
Speaking of Limoise I will be vain enough to speak here of an act of mine that I consider as brave as it was obedient, for it fell in with a promise that I had given.
It happened a short time before my departure for the south, before that journey to the mountains with which my imagination was ever busy; it occurred in the month of July following my twelfth birthday.
One Wednesday, having started earlier than usual, so that I might arrive at Limoise before nightfall, I begged those accompanying me to go no farther than just beyond the town; I entreated them, for this once, to allow me to make the journey alone as if I were a grown boy.
As I was being ferried across the river I compelled myself to take from my pocket the white silk handkerchief that I had promised to wear about my neck to protect it from the cool breezes on the water; the old weather-beaten sailors were looking at me and I felt unspeakably ashamed as I tied the muffler around my neck.
And at Chaumes, in that shadeless spot, a place always baked by the sun, I fulfilled the pledge that had been exacted from me at my departure.

I opened a large sunshade!--oh! how my cheeks reddened and how humiliated I felt when I was ridiculed by a little shepherd-boy who, with head bared to the sun's rays, guarded his sheep.

And my agony increased when I arrived at the village and I saw four boys, who had doubtless just come from school, look at me with astonishment.

My God! I felt as if I would faint.

It was true courage which enabled me to keep my promise at that moment.
As they passed they stared hard as if to mock me for being afraid of the sun.