The Pranks of Gilles Pafflard

Gilles Pafflard hated work. Not all work — he was supremely skilled at devising excuses, inventing pretexts, and avoiding any task that required even the slightest effort. When his father asked him to plough the field, Gilles complained of back pain. When his mother sent him to fetch water, he vanished for hours and returned with a tale that the well had frozen over — in the middle of August.

One evening, patience ran out. His father, an honest farmer with calloused hands and little tolerance, slammed his fist on the table. “You are a disgrace to this family, Gilles! Tomorrow you leave this house. Find work as a farmhand or beg by the roadside — I don’t care. But under this roof, no man eats who does not work.”

Gilles left the next morning, a bundle over his shoulder and a grin on his face. For he had a plan.

On the farm of farmer Mathieu, at the edge of the village, worked Gertrude — a girl with dark curls and eyes like hazelnuts. Gilles had admired her for months, but from a distance, for he had no reason to pass by the farm. Until now.

He offered himself as a farmhand. Farmer Mathieu regarded him sceptically — Gilles’ reputation was well known to him — but he desperately needed hands. “Very well. You start tomorrow with the cows.”

Gilles’ first day was a masterpiece of apparent diligence. At dawn he reported that the largest cow, Bertha, “did not look well” and that he must keep an eye on her all day. He installed himself on a bale of hay beside the barn, with a view of the yard where Gertrude was doing the washing, and slept half the day with one eye open.

When farmer Mathieu asked him to dig up the potatoes, Gilles solemnly declared he knew an old family recipe to double the harvest — but for that the potatoes had to remain in the ground one more week. Mathieu, greedy enough to believe it, agreed. Gilles had won himself a week’s reprieve.

Gertrude saw through Gilles quickly enough. She watched him fall asleep behind the barn while claiming to “inspect” the tools. She heard his wild stories about wolves threatening the chickens — stories that always conveniently ended with Gilles needing to “stand guard” at some comfortable spot in the shade.

But instead of growing angry, she laughed. There was something irresistible about his shameless ingenuity. And when one evening, leaning against the barn, he sang her a song he had supposedly “learned from a travelling minstrel” — a song that suspiciously seemed to be about himself — she was lost.

They married in the autumn. Farmer Mathieu was relieved to be rid of his worst farmhand, and Gilles’ father could not believe his good-for-nothing son had found a wife.

But Gilles soon discovered that marriage was a trickier game than being a farmhand. For Gertrude knew all his tricks — and had twice as many of her own. Lazy Gilles became busy Gilles, and the people of Amel laughed for years about the man who was clever enough to win love, but not clever enough to escape it.