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diff --git a/26678-8.txt b/26678-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d499db1 --- /dev/null +++ b/26678-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8230 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Village of Vagabonds, by F. Berkeley Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Village of Vagabonds + +Author: F. Berkeley Smith + +Release Date: September 21, 2008 [EBook #26678] +Last updated: March 3, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Linda McKeown and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at the +end of the text. + + + + +A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS + + +By F. BERKELEY SMITH + +Author of "The Lady of Big Shanty." + + + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + PUBLISHED MAY, 1910 + + COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BY SMITH PUBLISHING HOUSE + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. The House by the Marsh 3 + + II. Monsieur le Curé 35 + + III. The Exquisite Madame de Bréville 63 + + IV. The Smugglers 91 + + V. Marianne 120 + + VI. The Baron's Perfectos 151 + + VII. The Horrors of War 186 + + VIII. The Million of Monsieur de Savignac 213 + + IX. The Man with the Gun 245 + + X. The Bells of Pont du Sable 274 + + XI. The Miser--Garron 308 + + XII. Midwinter Flights 339 + + + * * * * * + + +A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS + + [Illustration: house by the marsh] + +A Village of Vagabonds + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +THE HOUSE BY THE MARSH + + +It was in fat Madame Fontaine's little café at Bar la Rose, that Norman +village by the sea, that I announced my decision. It being market-day +the café was noisy with peasants, and the crooked street without jammed +with carts. Monsieur Torin, the butcher, opposite me, leaned back +heavily from his glass of applejack and roared. + +Monsieur Pompanet, the blacksmith, at my elbow, put down his cup of +black coffee delicately in its clean saucer and opened his honest gray +eyes wide in amazement. Simultaneously Monsieur Jaclin, the mayor, in +his freshly ironed blouse, who for want of room was squeezed next to +Torin, choked out a wheezy "_Bon Dieu!_" and blew his nose in derision. + +"Pont du Sable--_Bon Dieu!_" exclaimed all three. "Pont du Sable--_Bon +Dieu!_" + +"_Cristi!_" thundered Torin. "You say you are going to _live_ in Pont du +Sable? _Hélas!_ It is not possible, my friend, you are in earnest!" + +"That lost hole of a village of _sacré_ vagabonds," echoed Pompanet. +"Why, the mud when the tide is out smells like the devil. It is +unhealthy." + +"Père Bordier and I went there for ducks twenty years ago," added the +mayor. "We were glad enough to get away before dark. B-r-r! It was +lonely enough, that marsh, and that dirty little fishing-village no +longer than your arm. Bah! It's a hole, just as Pompanet says." + +Torin leaned across the table and laid a heavy hand humanely on my +shoulder. + +"Take my advice," said he, "don't give up that snug farm of yours here +for a lost hole like Pont du Sable." + +"But the sea-shooting is open there three hundred and sixty-five days in +the year," I protested, with enthusiasm. "I'm tired of tramping my legs +off here for a few partridges a season. Besides, what I've been looking +for I've found--a fine old abandoned house with a splendid old courtyard +and a wild garden. I had the good luck to climb over a wall and discover +it." + +"I know the place you mean," interrupted the mayor. "It was a +post-tavern in the old days before the railroad ran there." + +"And later belonged to the estate of the Marquis de Lys," I added +proudly. "Now it belongs to me." + +"What! You've bought it!" exclaimed Torin, half closing his veal-like +eyes. + +"Yes," I confessed, "signed, sealed, and paid for." + +"And what the devil do you intend to do with that old stone pile now +that you've got it?" sneered Jaclin. "Ah! You artists are queer +fellows!" + +"Live in it, messieurs," I returned as happily as I could, as I dropped +six sous for my glass into Madame Fontaine's open palm, and took my +leave, for under the torrent of their protest I was beginning to feel I +had been a fool to be carried away by my love of a gun and the +picturesque. + +The marsh at Pont du Sable was an old friend of mine. So were the desert +beach beyond the dunes, and the lost fishing-village--"no longer than +your arm." I had tramped in wind and rain and the good sunlight over +that great desert of pasty black clay at low tide. I had lain at high +tide in a sand-pit at the edge of the open sea beyond the dunes, waiting +for chance shots at curlew and snipe. I had known the bay at the first +glimmer of dawn with a flight of silver plovers wheeling for a rush over +my decoys. Dawn--the lazy, sparkling noon and the golden hours before +the crisp, still twilight warned me it was high time to start back to +Bar la Rose fourteen kilometres distant. All these had become enchanting +memories. + +Thus going to Pont du Sable for a day's shooting became a weekly +delight, then a biweekly fascination, then an incorrigible triweekly +habit. There was no alternative left me now but to live there. The +charm of that wild bay and its lost village had gotten under my skin. +And thus it happened that I deserted my farm and friends at Bar la Rose, +and with my goods and chattels boarded the toy train one spring morning, +bound for my abandoned house, away from sufficient-unto-itself Bar la +Rose and its pigheaded inhabitants, the butcher, the blacksmith, and the +mayor. + + * * * * * + +It is such a funny little train that runs to my new-found Paradise, +rocking and puffing and grumbling along on its narrow-gauge track with +its cars labelled like grown-up ones, first, second, and third class; +and no two painted the same colour; and its noisy, squat engine like the +real ones in the toy-stores, that wind up with a key and go rushing off +frantically in tangents. No wonder the train to my lost village is +called "_Le petit déraillard_"--"The little get-off-the-track." And so I +say, it might all have come packed in excelsior in a neat box, complete, +with instructions, for the sum of four francs sixty-five centimes, had +it not been otherwise destined to run twice daily, rain or shine, to +Pont du Sable, and beyond. + +Poor little train! It is never on time, but it does its best. It is at +least far more prompt than its passengers, for most of them come running +after it out of breath. + +"Hurry up, mademoiselle!" cries the engineer to a rosy-cheeked girl in +sabots, rushing with a market-basket under one arm and a live goose +under the other. "Eh, my little lady, you should have gotten out of bed +earlier!" laughs the conductor as he pulls her aboard. + +"Toot! Toot!" And off goes the little get-off-the-track again, rocking +and rumbling along past desert stretches of sand dunes screening the +blue sea; past modern villas, isolated horrors in brick, pink, and baby +blue, carefully planted away from the trees. Then suddenly the desert is +left behind! Past the greenest of fields now, dotted with sleek, grazing +cattle; past groves of pine; past snug Norman farms with low-thatched +roofs half-smothered in yellow roses. Again the dunes, as the toy train +swings nearer the sea. They are no longer desert wastes of sand and +wire-grass, but covered now with a riot of growing things, running in +one rich congested sweep of orchards, pastures, feathery woodlands and +matted hedges down to the very edge of the blue sea. + +A sudden turn, and the toy train creeps out of a grove of pines to the +open bay. It is high tide. A flight of plover, startled by the engine, +go wheeling away in a silver streak to a spit of sand running out from +the marsh. A puff of smoke from the sand-spit, and the band leaves two +of its members to a gentleman in new leather leggings; then, whistling +over the calamity that has befallen them, they wheel again and strike +for the open sea and safety. + +Far across the expanse of rippling turquoise water stands a white +lighthouse that at dusk is set with a yellow diamond. Snug at the lower +end of the bay, a long mile from where the plovers rise, lies the lost +village. Now the toy train is crawling through its crooked single +street, the engine-bell ringing furiously that stray dogs and children, +and a panicky flock of sheep may have time to get out of the way. The +sheep are in charge of a rough little dog with a cast in one eye and a +slim, barelegged girl who apologizes a dozen times to monsieur the +engineer between her cries to her flock. + +"They are not very well brought up, my little one--those sacred mutton +of yours," remarks the engineer as he comes to a dead stop, jumps out of +his cab, and helps straighten out the tangle. + +"Ah, monsieur!" sighs the girl in despair. "What will you have? It is +the little black one that is always to blame!" + +The busy dog crowds them steadily into line. He seems to be everywhere +at once, darting from right to left, now rounding up a stubborn ewe and +her first-born, now cornering the black one. + +"Toot! Toot!" And the little get-off-the-track goes rumbling on through +the village, past the homes of the fishermen--a straggling line of low +stone houses with quaint gabled roofs, and still quainter chimneys, and +old doorways giving glimpses of dark interiors and dirt floors. Past the +modest houses of the mayor, the baker, the butcher and Monsieur le +Curé; then through the small public square, in which nothing ever +happens, and up to a box of a station. + +"Pont du Sable!" cries the conductor, with as much importance as if he +had announced Paris. + +I have arrived. + + * * * * * + +There was no doubt about my new-found home being abandoned! The low +stone wall that tempered the wind from courtyard and garden was green +with lichens. The wide stone gateway, with its oaken doors barred within +by massive cross-hooks that could have withstood a siege; the courtyard, +flanked by the house and its rambling appendages that contained within +their cavernous interiors the cider-press and cellars; the stable with +its long stone manger, and next it the carved wooden bunk for the groom +of two centuries ago; the stone pig-sty; the tile-roofed sheds--all had +about them the charm of dignified decay. + +But the "château" itself! + +Generations of spiders had veiled every nook and corner within, and the +nooks and corners were many. These cobwebs hung in ghostly festoons from +the low-beamed ceiling of the living room, opening out upon the wild +garden. They continued up the narrow stone stairway leading to the +old-fashioned stone-paved bedrooms; they had been spun in a labyrinth +all over the generous, spooky, old stone-paved attic, whose single eye +of a window looked out over the quaint gables and undulating tiled roofs +of adjoining attics, whose dark interiors were still pungent with the +tons of apples they had once sheltered. Beyond my rambling roofs were +rich orchards and noble trees and two cool winding lanes running up to +the green country beyond. + +Ten days of strenuous settling passed, at the end of which my abandoned +house was resuscitated, as it were. Without Suzette, my little +maid-of-all-work, it would have been impossible. I may say we attacked +this seemingly superhuman task together--and Suzette is so human. She +has that frantic courage of youth, and a smile that is irresistible. + +"To-morrow monsieur shall see," she said. "My kitchen is clean--that is +something, eh? And the beds are up, and the armoires, and nearly all of +monsieur's old studio furniture in place. _Eh, ben!_ To-morrow night +shall see most of the sketches hung and the rugs beaten--that is again +something, eh? Then there will be only the brass and the andirons and +the guns to clean." + +Ten days of strenuous attack, sometimes in the rain, and when I hammer +my fingers in the rain I swear horribly; the average French saw, too, +would have placed Job in a sanitarium. Suzette's cheery smile is a +delight, and how her sturdy, dimpled arms can scrub, and dust, and cook, +and clean. When she is working at full steam she invariably sings; but +when her soufflé does not soufflé she bursts into tears--this good +little peasant maid-of-all-work! + +And so the abandoned house by the marsh was settled. Now there is charm, +and crackling fires o' nights within, and sunny breakfasts in the garden +without--a garden that grew to be gay with flowers, and is still in any +wind, thanks to my friend the lichen-stained wall over which clamber +vines and all manner of growing things; and sometimes my kitten with her +snow-white breast, whose innocent green eyes narrow to slits as she +watches for hours two little birds that are trying to bring up a small +family in the vines. I have told her plainly if she even touches them I +will boil her in oil. "Do you hear, Miquette?" and she turns away and +licks her pink paw as if she had not heard--you essence of selfishness +that I love! + +Shall I tell you who is coming to dine to-night, Green-eyes? Our +neighbours! Madame Alice de Bréville who spoils you, and the Marquis de +Clamard who does not like pussy-cats, but is too well-bred to tell you +so, and the marquise who flatters you, and Blondel! Don't struggle--you +cannot get away, I've got you tight. You are not going to have your way +all the time. Look at me! Claws in and your ears up! There! And Tanrade, +that big, whole-souled musician, with his snug old house and his two big +dogs, either one of which would make mince-meat of you should you have +the misfortune to mistake his garden for your own. Madame de +Bréville--do you hear?--who has but to half close her eyes to make +Tanrade forget his name. He loves her madly, you see, pussy-kit! + +Ah, yes! The lost village! In which the hours are never dull. Lost +village! With these Parisian neighbours, whose day of discovery +antedated mine by several years. Lost village! In which there are jolly +fishermen and fishergirls as pretty as some gipsies--slim and fearless, +a genial old mayor, an optimistic blacksmith, and a butcher who is a +seigneur; gentle old women in white caps, blue-eyed children, kind dogs, +fresh air, and _life_! + +There is a mysterious fascination about that half-hour before the first +glimmer of dawn. The leaves, this September morning, are shivering in +the dusk of my garden; the house is as silent as my sleeping cat save +for the resonant tick-tock, tick-tock, of the tall Norman clock in the +kitchen, to which I tiptoe down and breakfast by candle-light. + +You should see the Essence of Selfishness then as she purrs around a +simmering saucepan of milk destined for my coffee, and inspects the +toast and jam, and sniffs at my breech-loader, well greased with +neatsfoot-oil, and now the ghostly light in the courtyard tells me to +hurry out on the bay. + +Low tide. Far out on the desert of black clay a colony of gulls have +spent the night. Their quarrelsome jargon reaches me as I cautiously +raise my head over the dunes, for often a band of plover is feeding at +dawn out on the mud, close enough for a shot. Nothing in view save the +gulls, those gossiping concierges of the bay, who rise like a squall of +snow as I make a clean breast of my presence, and start across the +soggy, slippery mud toward the marsh running out to the open sea. A +curlew, motionless on his long legs, calls cheerfully from the point of +sand: "Curli--Curli!" Strong, cheerful old bird. The rifts of white mist +are lifting from the bay, thinned into rose vapour now, as the sun +creeps above the green hillsides. + +Swish! Three silver plovers flash back of me--a clean miss. If we never +missed we should never love a gun. It is time now to stalk the bottoms +of the narrow, winding causeways that drain the bay. Their beds at low +tide are full of dead mussels, dormant clams, and awkward sputtering +crabs; the old ones sidling away from you with threatening claws wide +open for combat; the young ones standing their ground bravely, in +ignorance. + +Swish again! But this time I manage to kill them both--two fat golden +plovers. The Essence of Selfishness shall have her fill at noon, and the +pupils of her green eyes will contract in ecstasy as she crunches and +gnaws. + +Now all the bay is alive. Moreover, the sea is sweeping in, filling the +bay like a bath-tub, obliterating the causeways under millions of +dancing ripples of turquoise. Soon my decoys are out, and I am sunk in a +sand-pit at the edge of the sea. The wind holds strong from the +northeast, and I am kept busy until my gun-barrels are too hot to be +pleasant. All these things happen between dawn and a late breakfast in +my garden. + +Suzette sang all day. It is always so with Suzette upon the days when +the abandoned house is giving a dinner. The truth is, Suzette loves to +cook; her pride and her happiness increase as the hour appointed for my +guests to arrive approaches. With Suzette it is a delightful event. + +The cracked jingle-bell over my stone gateway had jingled incessantly +since early morning, summoning this good little Norman maid-of-all-work +to slip her trim feet into her sabots and rush across the court to open +the small door piercing my wall beside the big gates. Twice for beggars, +once for the grocer's boy, three times for the baker--who had, after +all, forgotten the _brioche_; again for the baker's boy, who invariably +forgets if he thinks there is another chance in his forgetting, of +paying a forgotten compliment to Suzette. I heard his mother scolding +him yesterday. His bread, which he kneads and bakes himself before dawn, +is losing its lightness. There is little harmony between rising yeast +and a failing heart. Again the bell jingles; this time it is the Mère +Marianne, with a basket of quivering, iridescent mackerel just in from +the night's fishing. + +Mère Marianne, who once was a village belle, is now thirty-three years +of age, strong as a man, fair-haired, hatless, bronzed by the sun, +salt-tanned, blue-eyed, a good mother to seven fair-haired, blue-eyed +children; yet a hard, amiable drinker in her leisure hours after a good +catch. + +"_Bonjour_, my all beautiful!" she greets Suzette as the door opens. + +"_Bonjour_, madame!" returns Suzette, her cheeks flushed from her +kitchen fire. + +The word "madame" seems out of place, for Mère Marianne wears her man's +short tarpaulin coat cinched about her waist with a thin tarred rope. +Her sinewy legs, bare to the knees, are tightly incased in a pair of +sea-soaked trousers. + +"So monsieur is having his friends to dinner," she rattles on +garrulously, swinging her basket to the ground and kneeling before it. +"I heard it as I came up the road from Blancheville's girl, who had it +from the Mère Taurville. _Eh ben!_ What do you think of these?" she adds +in the same breath, as she turns up two handsful of live mackerel. "Six +sous apiece to you, my pretty one. You see I came to you first; I'm +giving them to you as cheap as if you were my own daughter." + +"Come, be quick," returns Suzette. "I have my lobster to boil and my +roast to get ready; four sous if you like, but not a sou more." + +"Four sous! _Bon Dieu!_ I would rather eat them myself. They only lack +speech to tell you themselves how fresh they are. Look at them!" + +"Four sous," insists Suzette. "Do you think monsieur is rich enough to +buy the _république_." + +"_Allez!_ Then, take them at four sous." And Mère Marianne laughs, slips +the money into her trousers pocket, and goes off to another bargain in +the village, where, if she gets two sous for her mackerel she will be +lucky. + +At six Suzette lifts the Burgundy tenderly from its resting-place in a +closet beneath the winding stone stairs--a stone closet, low, sinister, +and dark, that suggests the solitary dungeons of feudal times. Three +cobwebbed bottles of Burgundy are now carefully ranged before the +crackling blaze in the living room. At six-thirty Suzette lays the +generous dark-oak table in lace and silver, thin glasses, red-shaded +candles, and roses--plenty of roses from the garden. Her kitchen by this +time is no longer open to visitors. It has become a sacred place, +teeming with responsibility--a laboratory of resplendent shining copper +sauce-pans, pots and casseroles, in which good things steam and stew and +bubble under lids of burnished gold, which, when lifted, give one a +rousing appetite. + + * * * * * + +I knew Tanrade's ring--vigorous and hearty, like himself. You would +never guess this sturdy, broad-shouldered man has created delicious +music--fairy ballets, pantomimes, and operettas. All Paris has applauded +him for years, and his country has rewarded him with a narrow red +ribbon. Rough-bearded, bronzed like a sailor, his brown eyes gleam with +kindness and intelligence. The more I know this modest great man the +more I like him, and I have known him in all kinds of wind and weather, +for Tanrade is an indefatigable hunter. He and I have spent nights +together in his duck-blind--a submerged hut, a murderous deceit sunk far +out on the marsh--cold nights; soft moonlight nights--the marsh a mystic +fairy-land; black nights---mean nights of thrashing rain. Nights that +paled to dawn with no luck to bring back to Suzette's larder. Sunny +mornings after lucky nights, when Tanrade and I would thaw out over our +coffee in the garden among the roses. + +Tanrade had arrived early, a habit with this genial gourmand when the +abandoned house is giving a dinner, for he likes to supervise the final +touches. He was looking critically over the three cobwebbed bottles of +his favourite Burgundy now warming before my fire, and having tenderly +lifted the last bottle in the row to a place which he considered a safer +temperature, he straightened and squared his broad shoulders to the +blaze. + +"I'll send you half a dozen more bottles to-morrow," he said. + +"No, you won't, my old one," I protested, but he raised his hand and +smiled. + +"The better the wine the merrier shall be the giver. Eighteen bottles +left! _Eh bien!_ It was a lucky day when that monastery was forced to +disband," he chuckled, alluding to the recent separation of the church +from the state. "_Vive la République!_" He crossed the room to the +sideboard and, having assured himself the Camembert was of the right +age, went singing into Suzette's kitchen to glance at the salad. + +"Bravo, my little one, for your romaine!" I heard him exclaim. + +Then a moment's silence ensued, while he tasted the dressing. +"_Sacristi!_ My child, do you think we are rabbits. _Hélas!_ Not a bit +of astragon in your seasoning! A thousand thunders! A salad is not a +salad without astragon. Come, be quick, the lantern! I know where the +bed is in the garden." + +"Ah, monsieur Tanrade! To think I should have forgotten it!" sighed the +little maid. "If monsieur will only let me hold the lantern for him!" + +"There, there! Never mind! See, you are forgiven. Attend to your +lobster. Quick, your soup is boiling over!" And he went out into the +garden in search of the seasoning. + +Suzette adores him--who does not in the lost village? He had rewarded +her with a two-franc piece and forgiven her with a kiss. + +I had hardly time to open the big gates without and light the candles +within under their red shades glowing over the mass of roses still wet +from the garden, before I heard the devilish wail of a siren beyond the +wall; then a sudden flash of white light from two search-lights +illumined the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice de +Bréville's automobile whined up to my door. The next instant the tip of +a little patent-leather slipper, followed by the trimmest of silken +ankles framed in a frou-frou of creamy lace, felt for the steel step of +the limousine. At the same moment a small white-gloved hand was +outstretched to mine for support. + +"_Bonsoir_, dear friend," she greeted me in her delicious voice. "You +see how punctual I am. _L'heure militaire_--like you Americans." And +she laughed outright, disclosing two exquisite rows of pearls, her soft, +dark eyes half closing mischievously as she entered my door--eyes as +black as her hair, which she wore in a bandeau. The tonneau growled to +its improvised garage under the wood-shed. + +She was standing now in the hall at the foot of the narrow stone stairs, +and as I slipped the long opera-cloak of dove-gray from her shoulders as +white as ivory, she glided out of it, and into the living room--a room +which serves as gun room, dining room and salon. + +"Stand where you are," I said, as madame approached the fire. "What a +portrait!" + +She stopped, the dancing light from the flames playing over her lithe, +exquisite figure, moulded in a gown of scintillating scales of black +jet. Then, seeing I had finished my mental note of line and composition, +she half turned her pretty head and caught sight of the ruby, cobwebbed +row of old Burgundy. + +"Ah! Tanrade's Burgundy!" she exclaimed with a little cry of delight. + +"How did you guess?" + +"Guess! One does not have to guess when one sees as good Burgundy as +that. You see I know it." She stretched forth her firm white arms to the +blaze. + +"Where is he, that good-for-nothing fellow?" she asked. + +"In the garden after some astragon for the salad." + +She tripped to the half-open door leading to the tangled maze of paths. + +"Tanrade! Tanrade! _Bonsoir, ami!_" she called. + +"_Bonsoir_, Madame Punctual," echoed his great voice from the end of the +garden, and again he broke forth in song as he came hurrying back to the +house with his lantern and his bunch of seasoning. Following at his +heels trotted the Essence of Selfishness. + +"Oh, you beauty!" cried Alice. She nodded mischievously to Tanrade, who +rushed to the piano, and before the Essence of Selfishness had time to +elude her she was picked up bodily, held by her fore paws and forced to +dance upon her hind legs, her sleek head turned aside in hate, her +velvety ears flattened to her skull. + +"Dance! Dance!" laughed Alice. "One--two, one--two! _Voilà!_" The next +instant Miquette was caught up and hugged to a soft neck encircled with +jewels. "There, go! Do what you like, Mademoiselle Independent!" + +And as Miquette regained her liberty upon her four paws, the Marquis and +Marquise de Clamard announced their arrival by tapping on the window, so +that for the moment the cozy room was deserted save by Miquette, who +profited during the interval by stealing a whole sardine from the +hors-d'oeuvres. + +Another good fellow is the marquis--tall, with the air of a diplomat, +the simplicity of a child, and the manners of a prince. Another good +friend, too, is the marquise. They had come on foot, these near-by +neighbours, with their lantern. Was there ever such a marquise? This +once famous actress, who interpreted the comedies of Molière. Was there +ever a more charming grandmother? Ah! You do not look it even now with +your gray hair, for you are ever young and witty and gracious. She +clapped her hands as she peered across the dinner-table to the row +before the chimney. + +"My Burgundy, I see!" she exclaimed, to my surprise; Tanrade was gazing +intently at a sketch. "Oh, you shall see," added the marquise seriously. +"You are not the only one, my friend, the gods have blessed. Did you not +send me a dozen bottles this morning, Monsieur Tanrade? Come, confess!" + +He turned and shrugged his shoulders. + +"Impossible! I cannot remember. I am so absent-minded, madame," and he +bent and kissed her hand. + +"Where's Blondel?" cried Clamard, as he extracted a thin cigarette-case +from his waistcoat. + +"He'll be here presently," I explained. + +"It's a long drive for him," added the marquise, a ring of sympathy in +her voice. "Poor boy, he is working so hard now that he is editor of _La +Revue Normande_. Ah, those wretched politics!" + +"He doesn't mind it," broke in Tanrade, "he has a skin like a +bear--driving night and day all over the country as he does. What +energy, _mon Dieu_!" + +"Oh!" cried Madame de Bréville, "Blondel shall sing for us 'L'Histoire +de Madame X.' You shall cry with laughter." + +"And 'Le Brigadier de Tours,'" added Tanrade. + +The sound of hoofs and the rattle of a dog-cart beyond the wall sent us +hurrying to the courtyard. + +"_Eh, voilà!_" shouted Tanrade. "There he is, that good Blondel!" + +"Suzette!" I cried as I passed the kitchen. "The vermouth!" + +"_Bien_, monsieur." + +"Eh, Blondel, there is nothing to eat, you late vagabond!" + +A black mare steaming from her hot pace of twelve miles, drawing a +red-wheeled dog-cart, entered the courtyard. + +"A thousand pardons," came a voice out of a bearskin coat, "my editorial +had to go to press early, or I should have been here half an hour ago." + +Then such a greeting and a general rush to unharness the tired mare, the +marquis tugging at one trace and I at the other, while Tanrade backed +the cart under the shed next to the cider-press, Alice de Bréville and +the marquise holding the mare's head. All this, despite the pleadings of +Blondel, who has a horror of giving trouble--the only man servant to the +abandoned house being Pierre, who was occupied at that hour in +patrolling the coast in the employ of the French République, looking out +for possible smugglers, and in whose spare hours served me as gardener. +And so the mare was led into the stable with its stone manger, where +every one helped with halter, blanket, a warm bed, and a good supper; +Alice de Bréville holding the lantern while the marquise bound on the +mare's blanket with a girdle of straw. + +"Monsieur, dinner is served," announced Suzette gently as she entered +the stable. + +"Vive Suzette!" shouted the company. "_Allons manger, mes enfants!_" + +They found their places at the table by themselves. In the abandoned +house there is neither host nor formality, but in their stead +comradeship, understanding, and good cheer. + +Blondel is delightful. You can always count on him for the current +events with the soup, the latest scandal with the roast, and a song of +his own making with the cheese. What more can one ask? It all rolls from +him as easily as the ink from his clever pen; it is as natural with him +as his smile or the merriment in his eyes. + +During the entire dinner the Essence of Selfishness was busy visiting +from one friendly lap to another, frequently crossing the table to do +so, and as she refuses to dine from a saucer, though it be of the finest +porcelain of Rouen, she was fed piecemeal. It was easily seen Tanrade +was envious of this charity from one shapely little hand. + +What a contrast are these dinners in the lost village to some I have +known elsewhere! What refreshing vivacity! How genuine and merry they +are from the arrival of the first guest to the going of the last! When +at last the coffee and liqueurs were reached and six thin spirals of +blue smoke were curling lazily up among the rafters of the low ceiling, +the small upright piano talked under Tanrade's vibrant touch. He sang +heartily whatever came into his head; now a quaint peasant song, again +the latest success of the café concert. + +Alice de Bréville, stretched out in the long chair before the fire, was +listening intently. + +And so with song and story the hands of the tall clock slipped by the +hours. It was midnight before we knew it. Again Tanrade played--this +time it was the second act of his new operetta. When he had finished he +took his seat beside the woman in the long chair. + +"Bravo!" she murmured in his ear. Then she listened as he talked to her +earnestly. + +"Good!" I overheard her say to him with conviction, her eyes gleaming. +"And you are satisfied at last with the second act?" + +"Yes, after a month's struggle with it." + +"Ah, I am so glad--so glad!" she sighed, and pressed his hand. + +"I must go to Paris next week for the rehearsals." + +"For long?" she asked. + +He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "For weeks, perhaps. Come," he +said, "let us go out to the wall--the moon is up. The marsh is so +beautiful in the moonlight." + +She rose, slipped on the dove-gray cloak he brought her, and together +they disappeared in the courtyard. The marquise raised her eyes to mine +and smiled. + +"_Bonne promenade_, dear children," she called after them, but they did +not hear. + +An hour later Alice de Bréville was speeding back to her château; +Blondel and his mare were also clattering homeward, for he had still an +article to finish before daylight. I had just bid the marquis and the +marquise good night when Tanrade, who was about to follow, suddenly +turned and called me aside in the shadow of the gateway. What he said to +me made my heart leap. His eyes were shining with a strange light; his +hands, gripping me by both shoulders, trembled. + +"It is true," he repeated. "Don't tell me I am dreaming, old friend. +Yes, it is true. Alice--yes, it is Alice. Come, a glass of wine! I feel +faint--and happy!" + +We went back to the dying fire, and I believe he heard all my +congratulations, though I am not sure. He seemed in a dream. + +When he had gone Suzette lighted my candle. + +"Suzette," I said, "your dinner was a success." + +"Ah, but I am content, monsieur. _Mon Dieu_, but I do love to cook!" + +"Come, Miquette! It's past your bedtime, you adorable egoist." + +"_Bonsoir_, Suzette." + +"_Bonsoir_, monsieur." + +Village of Vagabonds! In which the hours are never dull! Lost village by +the Normand sea! In which lies a paradise of good-fellowship, romance, +love, and sound red wine! + + [Illustration: train] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: the little stone church] + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +MONSIEUR LE CURÉ + + +The sun had just risen, and the bell of the little stone church +chattered and jangled, flinging its impatient call over the sleeping +village of Pont du Sable. In the clear morning air its voice could be +heard to the tops of the green hills, and across the wide salt marsh +that stretched its feathery fingers to the open sea. + +A lone, wrinkled fisherman, rolling lazily on the mighty heave of the +incoming tide, turned his head landward. + +"_Sapristi!_" he grinned, as he slipped a slimy thumb from the meshes of +a mackerel-net and crossed himself. "She has a hoarse throat, that +little one." + +Far up the hillside a mile back of the churchyard, a barelegged girl +driving a cow stopped to listen, her hood pushed back, her brown hands +crossed upon her breast. + +Lower down, skirting the velvet edge of the marsh, filmy rifts of mist +broke into shreds or blended with the spirals of blue smoke mounting +skyward from freshly kindled fires. + +Pont du Sable was awake for the day. + +It is the most unimportant of little villages, yet it is four centuries +old, and of stone. It seems to have shrivelled by its great age, like +its oldest inhabitants. One-half of its two score of fishermen's houses +lie crouched to the rambling edge of its single street; the other half +might have been dropped at random, like stones from the pocket of some +hurrying giant. Some of these, including the house of the ruddy little +mayor and the polite, florid grocer, lie spilled along the edge of the +marsh. + +As for Monsieur le Curé, he was at this very moment in the small stone +church saying mass to five fishermen, two devout housewives, a little +child, an old woman in a white cap, and myself. Being in my +shooting-boots, I had tiptoed into a back seat behind two of the +fishermen, and sat in silence watching Monsieur le Curé's gaunt figure +and listening to his deep, well-modulated, resonant voice. + +What I saw was a man uncommonly tall and well built, dressed in a rusty +black soutane that reached in straight lines from beneath his chin to +his feet, which were encased in low calf shoes with steel buckles. I +noticed, too, that his face was angular and humorous; his eyes keen and +merry by turns; his hair of the colourless brown one sees among +fisherfolk whose lives are spent in the sun and rain. I saw, too, that +he was impecunious, for the front edges of his cassock were frayed and +three buttons missing, not to be wondered at, I said to myself, as I +remembered that the stone church, like the village it comforted, had +always been poor. + +Now and then during the mass I saw the curé glance at the small leaded +window above him as if making a mental note of the swaying tree-tops +without in the graveyard. Then his keen gray eyes again reverted to the +page he knew by heart. The look evidently carried some significance, +for the gray-haired old sea-dog in front of me cocked his blue eye to +his partner--they were both in from a rough night's fishing--and +muttered: + +"It will be a short mass." + +"_Ben sûr_," whispered back the other from behind his leathery hand. +"The wind's from the northeast. It will blow a gale before sundown." And +he nodded toward the swaying tree-tops. + +With this, the one with the blue eyes straightened back in the wooden +pew and folded his short, knotty arms in attention; the muscles of his +broad shoulders showing under his thick seaman's jersey, the collar +encircling his corded, stocky neck deep-seamed by a thousand winds and +seas. The gestures of these two old craftsmen of the sea, who had worked +so long together, were strangely similar. When they knelt I could see +the straw sticking from the heels of their four wooden sabots and the +rolled-up bottoms of their patched sail-cloth trousers. + +As the mass ended the old woman in the white cap coughed gently, the +curé closed his book, stepped from the chancel, patted the child's head +in passing, strode rapidly to the sacristy, and closed the door behind +him. + +I followed the handful of worshippers out into the sunlight and down the +hill. As I passed the two old fishermen I heard the one with the blue +eyes say to his mate with the leathery hand: + +"_Allons, viens t'en!_ What if we went to the café after that dog's +night of a sea?" + +"I don't say no," returned his partner; then he winked at me and pointed +to the sky. + +"I know," I said. "It's what I've been waiting for." + +I kept on down the crooked hill to the public square where nothing ever +happens save the arrival of the toy train and the yearly fête, and +deciding the two old salts were right after their "dog's night" (and it +had blown a gale), wheeled to the left and followed them to the tiniest +of cafés kept by stout, cheery Madame Vinet. It has a box of a kitchen +through which you pass into a little square room with just space enough +for four tables; or you may go through the kitchen into a snug garden +gay in geraniums and find a sheltered table beneath a rickety arbour. + +"Ah, _mais_, it was bad enough!" grinned the one with the leathery hand +as he drained his thimbleful of applejack and, Norman-like, tossed the +last drop on the floor of the snug room. + +"Bad enough! It was a sea, I tell you, monsieur, like none since the +night the wreck of _La Belle Marie_ came ashore," chimed in the one with +the blue eye, as he placed his elbows on the clean marbletop table and +made room for my chair. "_Mon Dieu!_ You should have seen the ducks +south of the Wolf. Aye, 'twas a sight for an empty stomach." + +The one with the leathery hand nodded his confirmation sleepily. + +"_Hélas!_" continued the one with the blue eye. "If monsieur could only +have been with us!" As he spoke he lifted his shaggy eyebrows in the +direction of the church and laughed softly. "He's happy with his +northeast wind; I knew 'twould be a short mass." + +"A good catch?" I ventured, looking toward him as Madame Vinet brought +my glass. + +"Eight thousand mackerel, monsieur. We should have had ten thousand had +not the wind shifted." + +"_Ben sûr!_" grumbled the one with the leathery hand. + +At this Madame Vinet planted her fists on her ample hips. "_Hélas!_ +There's the Mère Coraline's girl to be married Thursday," she sighed, +"and Planchette's baby to be christened Tuesday, and the wind in the +northeast, _mon Dieu!_" And she went back to her spotless kitchen for a +sou's worth of black coffee for a little girl who had just entered. + +Big, strong, hearty Madame Vinet! She has the frankness of a man and the +tenderness of a mother. There is something of her youth still left at +forty-six; not her figure--that is rotund simplicity itself--but in the +clearness of her brown eyes and the finely cut profile before it reaches +her double chin, and the dimples in her hands, well shaped even to-day. + +And so the little girl who had come in for the sou's worth of coffee +received an honest measure, smoking hot out of a dipper and into the +bottle she had brought. In payment Madame Vinet kissed the child, and +added a lump of sugar to the bargain. From where I sat I could see the +tears start in the good woman's eyes. The next moment she came back to +us laughing to disguise them. + +"Ah, you good soul!" I thought to myself. "Always in a good humour; +always pleasant. There you go again--this time it was the wife of a poor +fisherman who could not pay. How many a poor devil of a half-frozen +sailor you have warmed, you whose heart is so big and whose gains are so +small!" + +I rose at length, bade the two old salts good morning, and with a +blessing of good luck, recovered my gun from the kitchen cupboard, where +I had reverently left it during mass, and went on my way to shoot. I, +too, was anxious to make the most of the northeast wind. + + * * * * * + +There being no street in the lost village save the main thoroughfare, +one finds only alleys flanked by rambling walls. One of these runs up to +Tanrade's house; another finds its zigzag way to the back gate of the +marquis, who, being a royalist, insists upon telling you so, for the +keystone of his gate is emblazoned with a bas-relief of two carved +eagles guarding the family crest. Still another leads unexpectedly to +the silent garden of Monsieur le Curé. It is a protecting little by-way +whose walls tell no tales. How many a suffering heart seeking human +sympathy and advice has the strong figure in the soutane sent home with +fresh courage by way of this back lane. Indeed it would be a lost +village without him. He is barely over forty years old, and yet no curé +was ever given a poorer parish, for Pont du Sable has been bankrupt for +generations. Since a fortnight--so I am told--Monsieur le Curé has had +no _bonne_. The reason is that no good Suzette can be found to replace +the one whom he married to a young farmer from Bonville. The result is +the good curé dines many times a week with the marquis, where he is so +entertaining and so altogether delightful and welcome a guest that the +marquise tells me she feels ten years younger after he has gone. + +"Poor man," she confided to me the other day, "what will you have? He +has no _bonne_, and he detests cooking. Yesterday he lunched at the +château with Alice de Bréville; to-morrow he will be cheering up two old +maiden aunts who live a league from Bar la Rose. Is it not sad?" And she +laughed merrily. + +"Monsieur le Curé has no _bonne_!" _Parbleu!_ It has become a household +phrase in Pont du Sable. It is so difficult to get a servant here; the +girls are all fishing. As for Tanrade's maid-of-all-work, like the +noiseless butler of the marquis and the _femme de chambre_ of Alice de +Bréville, they are all from Paris; and yet I'll wager that no larder in +the village is better stocked than Monsieur le Curé's, for every +housewife vies with her neighbour in ready-cooked donations since the +young man from Bonville was accepted. + +But these good people do not forget. They remember the day when the farm +of Père Marin burned; they recall the figure in the black soutane +stumbling on through flame and smoke carrying an unconscious little girl +in his strong arms to safety. Four times he went back where no man +dared go--and each time came out with a life. + +Again, but for his indomitable grit, a half-drowned father and daughter, +clinging to a capsized fishing-smack in a winter sea, would not be +alive--there are even fisherfolk who cannot swim. Monsieur le Curé saw +this at a glance, alone he fought his way in the freezing surf out to +the girl and the man. He brought them in and they lived. + + * * * * * + +But there is a short cut to the marsh if you do but know it--one that +has served me before. You can easily find it, for you have but to follow +your nose along the wall of Madame Vinet's café, creep past the modest +rose-garden of the mayor, zigzag for a hundred paces or more among +crumbling walls, and before you know it you are out on the marsh. + + * * * * * + +The one with the blue eye was right. + +The wind _was_ from the northeast in earnest, and the tide racing in. +Half a mile outward a dozen long puntlike scows, loaded to their brims +with sand, were being borne on the swirling current up the river's +channel, each guided at the stern by a ragged dot of a figure straining +at an oar. + +As I struck out across the desolate waste of mud, bound for the point of +dry marsh, the figure steering the last scow, as he passed, waved a +warning to me. With the incoming sweep of tide the sunlight faded, the +bay became noisy with the cries of sea-fowl, and the lighthouse beyond +the river's channel stood out against the ominous green sky like a stick +of school-chalk. + +I jerked my cap tighter over my ears, and lowering my head to the wind +kept on. I had barely time to make the marsh. Over the black desolate +waste of clay-mud the sea was spreading its hands--long, dangerous +hands, with fingers that every moment shot out longer and nearer my +tracks. The wind blew in howling gusts now, straight in from the open +sea. Days like these the ducks have no alternative but the bay. Only a +black diver can stand the strain outside. Tough old pirates +these--diving to keep warm. + +I kept on, foolish as it was. A flight of becassines were whirled past +me, twittering in a panic as they fought their way out of sudden +squalls. I turned to look back. Already my sunken tracks were +obliterated under a glaze of water, but I felt I was safe, for I had +gained harder ground. It was a relief to slide to the bottom of one of +the labyrinth of causeways that drain the marsh, and plunge on sheltered +from the wind. + +Presently I heard ducks quacking ahead. I raised my head cautiously to +the level of the wire-grass. A hundred rods beyond, nine black ducks +were grouped near the edge of a circular pool; behind them, from where I +stood, there rose from the level waste a humplike mound. I could no +longer proceed along the bottom of the causeway, as it was being rapidly +filled to within an inch below my boot-tops. The hump was my only +salvation, so I crawled to the bank and started to stalk the nine black +ducks. + +It was difficult to keep on my feet on the slimy mud-bank, for the wind, +true to the fishermen's prediction, was now blowing half a gale. +Besides, this portion of the marsh was strange to me, as I had only +seen it at a distance from the lower end of the bay, where I generally +shot. I was within range of the ducks now, and had raised my hammers--I +still shoot a hammer-gun--when a human voice rang out. Then, like some +weird jack-in-the-box, there popped out from the mound a straight, +long-waisted body in black waving its arms. + +It was the curé! + +"Stay where you are," he shouted. "Treacherous ground! I'll come and +help you!" Then for a second he peered intently under his hand. "Ah! It +is you, monsieur--the newcomer; I might have guessed it." He laughed, +leaping out and striding toward me. "Ah, you Americans! You do not mind +the weather." + +"_Bonjour_, Monsieur le Curé," I shouted back in astonishment, trying to +steady myself across a narrow bridge of mud spanning the causeway. + +"Look out!" he cried. "That mud you're on is dangerous. She's sinking!" + +It was too late; my right foot barely made another step before down I +went, gun, shells, and all, up to my chin in ice-cold water. The next +instant he had me by the collar of my leather coat in a grip of steel, +and I was hauled out, dripping and draining, on the bank. + +"I'm all right," I sputtered. + +"Come inside _instantly_," he said. + +"Inside? Inside where?" I asked. + +He pointed to the hump. + +"You must get your wet things off and into bed at once." This came as a +command. + +"Bed! Where? Whose bed?" Was he an Aladdin with a magic lamp, that could +summon comfort in that desolation? "Monsieur," I choked, "I owe you a +thousand apologies. I came near killing one of your nine decoys. I +mistook them for wild mallards." + +He laughed softly. "They are not mine," he explained. "They belong to +the marquis; it is his gardener who pickets them out for me. I could not +afford to keep them myself. They eat outrageously, those nine deceivers. +They are well placed to-day; just the right distance." And he called the +three nearest us by name, for they were quacking loudly. "Be still, +Fannine! There, Pierrot! If your cord and swivel does not work, my good +drake, I'll fix it for you, but don't make such a fuss; you'll have +noise enough to make later." And gripping me by the arm, he pushed me +firmly ahead of him to a small open door in the mound. I peered into the +darkness within. + +"Get in," said he. "It's small, but it's warm and comfortable inside. +After you, my friend," he added graciously, and we descended into a +narrow ditch, its end blocked by a small, safe-like door leading into a +subterranean hut, its roof being the mound, shelving out to a +semicircular, overhanging eyebrow skirting the edge of the circular pool +some ten yards back of the line of live decoys. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Monsieur le Curé, "you should have seen the duck-blind I +had three years ago. This _gabion_ of mine is smaller, but it is in +better line with the flights," he explained as he opened the door. "Look +out for the steps--there are two." + +I now stood shivering in the gloom of a box-like, underground anteroom, +provided with a grated floor and a low ribbed ceiling; beyond this, +through another small door, was an adjoining compartment deeper than the +one in which we stood, and in the darkness I caught the outline of a +cot-bed, a carved, high-backed, leather-seated chair, and the blue glint +of guns lying in their racks. The place was warm and smelled, like the +cabin of some fishing-sloop, of sea-salt and tar. + +It did not take me long to get out of my clothes. When the last of them +lay around my heels I received a rubbing down with a coarse sailor's +shirt, that sent the blood back where it belonged. + +"_Allons!_ Into bed at once!" insisted the curé. "You'll find those army +blankets dry." + +I felt my way in while he struck a match and lighted a candle upon a +narrow shelf strewn with empty cartridges. The candle sputtered, sunk to +a blue flame, and flared up cheerfully, while the curé poured me out a +stiff glass of brandy, and I lay warm in the blankets of the _Armée +Française_, and gazed about me at my strange quarters. + +Back of my pillow was, tightly closed, in three sections, a narrow +firing-slit. Beside the bed the candle's glow played over the carved +back of the leather-seated chair. Above the closed slit ran a shelf, and +ranged upon it were some fifty cartridges and an old-fashioned fat +opera-glass. This, then, was Monsieur le Curé's duck-blind, or rather, +in French, his _gabion_. + +The live decoys began quacking nervously. The curé, about to speak, +tip-toed over to the firing-slit and let down cautiously one of its +compartments. + +"A flight of plovers passing over us," he remarked. "Yes, there they go. +If the wind will only hold you shall see--there will be ducks in," his +gray eyes beaming at the thought. + +Then he drew the chair away from the firing-slit and seated himself, +facing me. + +"If you knew," he began, "how much it means to me to talk to one of the +outside world--your country--America! You must tell me much about it. I +have always longed to see it, but----" He shrugged his shoulders +helplessly. "Are you warm?" he asked. + +"Warm?" I laughed. "I never felt better in my life." And I thanked him +again for his kindness to a stranger in distress. "A stranger in luck," +I added. + +"I saw you at mass this morning," he returned bending over, his hands on +his knees. "But you are not a Catholic, my friend? You are always +welcome to my church, however, remember that." + +"Thank you," I said. "I like your little church, and--I like you, +Monsieur le Curé." + +He put forth his hand. "Brother sportsmen," he said. "It _is_ a +brotherhood, isn't it? You are a Protestant, is it not so?" And his +voice sank to a gentle tone. + +"Yes, I am what they call a blue Presbyterian." + +"I have heard of that," he said. "'A _blue_ Presbyterian.'" He repeated +it to himself and smiled. Suddenly he straightened and his finger went +to his lips. + +"Hark!" he whispered. "Hear their wings!" + +Instantly the decoys set up a strenuous quacking. Then again all was +silent. + +"Too high," muttered the curé. "I do not expect much in before the late +afternoon. Do you smoke?" + +"Yes, gladly," I replied, "but my cigarettes are done for, I am afraid; +they were in the pocket of my hunting coat." + +"Don't move," he said, noticing my effort to rise. "I've got +cigarettes." And he fumbled in the shadow of the narrow shelf. + +I had hardly lighted my own over the candle-flame, which he held for me, +when I felt a gentle rocking and heard the shells rattle as they rolled +to the end of the shelf, stop, and roll back again. + +"Do not be alarmed," he laughed, "it's only the water filling the outer +jacket of my _gabion_. We shall be settled and steady in a moment, and +afloat for the night." + +"The night!" I exclaimed in amazement. "But, my good friend, I have no +intention of wearing out my welcome; I had planned to get home for +luncheon." + +"Impossible!" he replied. "We are now completely surrounded by water. It +is always so at high tide at this end of the bay. Come, see for +yourself. Besides, you don't know how glad I am that we can have the +chance to shoot together. I've been waiting weeks for this wind." + +He blew out the candle, and again opened the firing-slit. As far as one +could see the distant sea was one vast sweep of roaring water. + +"You see," he said, closing the firing-slit and striking a match--"you +_must_ stay. I have plenty of dry clothes for you in the locker, and we +shall not go hungry." He drew out a basket from beneath the cot and took +from it a roasted chicken, two litres of red wine, and some bread and +cheese, which he laid on the shelf. "A present," he remarked, "from one +of my parishioners. You know, I have no _bonne_." + +"I have heard so," said I. + +He laughed softly. "One hears everything in the village. Ah! But what +good children they are! They even forgive my love of shooting!" He +crossed his strong arms in the rusty black sleeves of his cassock, and +for some moments looked at me seriously. "You think it strange, no +doubt, irreverent, for a curé to shoot," he continued. "Forgive me if I +have shocked the ideas of your faith." + +"Nonsense!" I returned, raising my hand in protest. "You are only human, +an honest sportsman. We understand each other perfectly." + +"Thank you," he returned, with sincerity. "I was afraid you might not +understand--you are the first American I have ever met." + +He began taking out an outfit of sailor's clothes from the locker--warm +things--which I proceeded to get into with satisfaction. I had just +poked my head through the rough jersey and buckled my belt when our +decoys again gave warning. + +Out went the candle. + +"Mallards!" whispered the curé. "Here, take this gun, quick! It is the +marquis's favourite," he added in a whisper. + +He reached for another breech-loader, motioned me to the chair, let down +the three compartments of the firing-slit, and stretched himself out +full length on the cot, his keen eyes scanning the bay at a glance. + +We were just in time--a dozen mallards were coming straight for our +decoys. + +Bang! thundered the curé's gun. + +Bang! Bang! echoed my own. Then another roar from the curé's left +barrel. When the smoke cleared three fat ducks were kicking beyond our +deceivers. + +"Take him!" he cried, as a straggler--a drake--shot past us. I snapped +in a shell and missed, but the curé was surer. Down came the straggler, +a dead duck at sixty yards. + +"Bravo, Monsieur le Curé!" I cried. + +But he only smiled modestly and, extracting the empty shell, blew the +lurking smoke free from the barrels. It was noon when we turned to half +the chicken and a bottle of _vin ordinaire_ with an appetite. + +The northeast wind had now shifted to the south; the bay became like +glass, and so the afternoon passed until the blood-red sun, like some +huge ribbed lantern of the Japanese, slowly sank into the sea. It grew +dusk over the desolate marsh. Stray flights of plovers, now that the +tide was again on its ebb, began to choose their resting places for the +night. + +"I'm going out to take a look," said the curé. Again, like some gopher +of the prairie, he rose up out of his burrow. + +Presently he returned, the old enthusiastic gleam in his eyes. + +"The wind's changing," he announced. "It will be in the north again +to-night; we shall have a full moon and better luck, I hope. Do you +know," he went on excitedly, "that one night last October I killed +forty-two ducks alone in this old _gabion_. _Forty-two!_ Twenty mallards +and the rest Vignon--and not a shot before one o'clock in the morning. +Then they came in, right and left. I believe my faithful decoys will +remember that night until their dying day. Ah, it was glorious! +Glorious!" His tanned, weather-beaten features wrinkled with delight; he +had the skin of a sailor, and I wondered how often the marsh had hid +him. "Ah, my friend," he said, with a sigh, as we sat down to the +remainder of the chicken and _vin ordinaire_ for supper, this time +including the cheese, "it is not easy for a curé to shoot. My good +children of the village do not mind, but----" He hesitated, running his +long, vibrant fingers through his hair. + +"What then? Tell me," I ventured. "It will go no further, I promise +you." + +"Rome!" he whispered. "I have already received a letter, a gentle +warning from the palace; but I have a good friend in Cardinal Z. He +understands." + +During the whole of that cold moonlight we took turns of two hours each; +one sleeping while the other watched in the chair drawn up close to the +firing-slit. + +What a night! + +The marsh seen through the firing-slit, with its overhanging eyebrow of +sod, seemed not of this earth. The nine black decoys picketed before us +straining at their cords, gossiping, dozing for a moment, preening their +wings or rising up for a vigorous stretch, appeared by some curious +optical illusion four times their natural size; now they seemed to be +black dogs, again a group of sombre, misshapen gnomes. + +While I watched, the curé slept soundly, his body shrouded in the +blankets like some carved Gothic saint of old. The silence was +intense--a silence that could be heard--broken only by the brisk +ticking of the curé's watch on the narrow shelf. Occasionally a +water-rat would patter over the sunken roof, become inquisitive, and +peer in at me through the slit within half a foot of my nose. Once in a +while I took down the fat opera-glass, focussing it upon the dim shapes +that resembled ducks, but that proved to be bits of floating seaweed or +a scurrying shadow as a cloud swept under the moon--all illusions, until +my second watch, when, with a rush, seven mallards tumbled among our +decoys. Instantly the curé awakened, sprang from his cot, and with sharp +work we killed four. + +"Stay where you are," he said as he laid his gun back in its rack. "I'll +get into my hip-boots and get them before the water-rats steal what +we've earned. They are skilled enough to get a decoy now and then. The +marsh is alive with them at night." + +Morning paled. The village lay half hidden behind the rifts of mist. +Then dawn and the rising sun, the water like molten gold, the black +decoys churning at their pickets sending up swirls of turquoise in the +gold. + +Suddenly the cracked bell rang out from the distant village. At that +moment two long V-shaped strings of mallards came winging toward us from +the north. I saw the curé glance at them. Then he held out his hand to +me. + +"You take them--I cannot," he said hurriedly. "I haven't a moment to +lose--it is the bell for mass. Here's the key. Lock up when you leave." + +"Dine with me to-night," I insisted, one eye still on the incoming +ducks. "You have no _bonne_." + +His hand was on the _gabion_ door. "And if the northeast wind holds," he +called back, "shall we shoot again to-night?" + +"Yes, to-night!" I insisted. + +"Then I'll come to dinner." And the door closed with a click. + +Through the firing-slit I could see him leaping across the marsh toward +the gray church with the cracked bell, and as he disappeared by the +short cut I pulled the trigger of both barrels--and missed. + +An hour later Suzette greeted me with eyes full of tears and anxiety. + +"Ah! Mother of Pity! Monsieur is safe!" she cried. "Where has monsieur +been, _mon Dieu!_" + +"To mass, my child," I said gravely, filling her plump arms with the +ducks. "Monsieur le Curé is coming to dinner!" + + [Illustration: flying ducks] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: a château] + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +THE EXQUISITE MADAME DE BRÉVILLE + + +Poor Tanrade! Just as I felt the future was all _couleur de rose_ with +him it has changed to gloom unutterable. + +_Ah, les femmes!_ I should never dare fall in love with a woman as +exquisite as Alice de Bréville. She is too beautiful, too seductive, +with her olive skin, her frank smile, and her adorable head poised upon +a body much too well made. She is too tender, too complex, too +intelligent. She has a way of mischievously caressing you with her eyes +one moment and giving an old comrade like myself a platonic little pat +on the back the next, which is exasperating. As a friend I adore her, +but to fall in love with her! _Ah, non, merci!_ I have had a checkered +childhood and my full share of suffering; I wish some peace in my old +age. At sixteen one goes to the war of love blindly, but at forty it is +different. Our chagrins then plunge us into a state of dignified +desolation. + +Poor Tanrade! I learned of the catastrophe the other night when he +solemnly entered my abandoned house by the marsh and sank his big frame +in the armchair before my fire. He was no longer the genial bohemian of +a Tanrade I had known. He was silent and haggard. He had not slept much +for a week; neither had he worked at the score of his new opera or +hunted, but he had smoked incessantly, furiously--a dangerous remedy +with which to mend a broken heart. + +My poor old friend! I was so certain of his happiness that night after +dinner here in the House Abandoned, when he and Alice had lost +themselves in the moonlight. Was it the moonlight? Or the kiss she gave +him as they stood looking out over the lichen-stained wall of the +courtyard to the fairy marsh beyond, still and sublime--wedded to the +open sea at high tide--like a mirror of polished silver, its surface +ruffled now and then by the splash of some incoming duck. He had poured +out his heart to her then, and again over their liqueur and cigarettes +at that fatal dinner of two at the château. + +All this he confessed to me as he sat staring into the cheery blaze on +my hearth. Under my friendly but somewhat judicial cross-examination +that ensued, it was evident that not a word had escaped Alice's lips +that any one but that big optimistic child of a Tanrade could have +construed as her promise to be his wife. He confided her words to me +reluctantly, now that he realized how little she had meant. + +"Come," said I, in an effort to cheer him, "have courage! A woman's +heart that is won easily is not worth fighting for. You shall see, old +fellow--things will be better." + +But he only shook his head, shrugged his great shoulders, and puffed +doggedly at his pipe in silence. My tall clock in the corner ticked the +louder, its brass pendulum glinting as it swung to and fro in the light +of the slumbering fire. I threw on a fresh log, kicked it into a blaze, +and poured out for him a stiff glass of applejack. I had faith in that +applejack, for it had been born in the moonlit courtyard years ago. It +roused him, for I saw something of his old-time self brighten within +him; he even made an attempt at a careless smile--the reminiscent smile +of a philosopher this time. + +"What if I went to see her?" I remarked pointblank. + +"You! _Mon Dieu!_" He half sprang out of the armchair in his intensity. +"Are you crazy?" + +"Forgive me," I apologized. "I did not mean to hurt you. I only +thought--and you are in no condition to reason--that Alice may have +changed her mind, may regret having refused you. Women change their +minds, you know. She might even confess this to me since there is +nothing between us and we are old friends." + +"No, no," he protested. "You are not to speak of me to Madame de +Bréville--do you understand?" he cried, his voice rising. "You are not +to mention my name, promise me that." + +This time it was I who shrugged my shoulders in reply. He sat gripping +the arms of his chair, again his gaze reverted stolidly to the fire. The +clock ticked on past midnight, peacefully aloof as if content to be well +out of the controversy. + +"A drop more?" I ventured, reaching for the decanter; but he stayed my +arm. + +"I've been a fool," he said slowly. "_Ah! Mon Dieu! Les femmes! Les +femmes! Les femmes!_" he roared. "Very well," he exclaimed hotly, "it is +well finished. To-morrow I must go to Paris for the new rehearsals. I +have begged off for a week. Duclos is beside himself with anxiety--two +telegrams to-day, the last one imperative. The new piece must open at +the Folies Parisiennes the eighth." + +I saw him out to the gate and there was a brave ring in his "_bonsoir, +mon vieux_," as he swung off in the dusk of the starlit road. + +He left the village the next day at noon by the toy train, "the little +get off-the-track," as we call it. Perhaps he wished it would and end +everything, including the rehearsals. + +Bah! To be rehearsing lovelorn shepherds and shepherdesses in sylvan +dells. To call a halt eighteen times in the middle of the romantic duet +between the unhappy innkeeper's daughter and the prince. To marry them +all smoothly in B flat in the finale, and keep the brass down and the +strings up in the apotheosis when the heart of the man behind the baton +has been cured of all love and illusion--for did he not tell me "It is +well finished"? Poor Tanrade! + +Though it is but half a fortnight since he left, it seems years since he +used to come into my courtyard, for he came and went as freely at all +hours as the salt breeze from the marsh. Often he would wake me at +daybreak, bellowing up to my window at the top of his barytone lungs +some stirring aria, ending with: "Eh, _mon vieux!_ Stop playing the +prince! Get up out of that and come out on the marsh. There are ducks +off the point. Where's Suzette? Where's the coffee? _Sacristi!_ What a +house. Half-past four and nobody awake!" + +And he would stand there grinning; his big chest encased in a +fisherman's jersey, a disreputable felt hat jammed on his head, and his +feet in a pair of sabots that clattered like a farm-horse as he went +foraging in the kitchen, upsetting the empty milk-tins and making such a +bedlam that my good little maid-of-all-work, Suzette, would hurry in +terror into her clothes and out to her beloved kitchen to save the rest +from ruin. + +Needless to say, nothing ever happened to anything. He could make more +noise and do less harm than any one I ever knew. Then he would sing us +both into good humour until Suzette's peasant cheeks shone like ripe +apples. + +"It is not the same without Monsieur Tanrade," Suzette sighed to-day as +she brought my luncheon to my easel in a shady corner of my wild +garden--a corner all cool roses and shadow. + +"Ah, no!" I confessed as I squeezed out the last of a tube of vermilion +on the edge of my palette. + +"Ah, no!" she sighed softly, and wiped her eyes briskly with the back of +her dimpled red hand. "Ah, no! _Parbleu!_" + +And just then the bell over my gate jingled. "Some one rings," whispered +Suzette and she ran to open the gate. It was the _valet de chambre_ from +the château with a note from Alice, which read: + + + DEAR FRIEND: It is lonely, this big house of mine. Do come + and dine with me at eight. + Hastily, A. de B. + + +Added to this was the beginning of a postscript crossed out. + +Upon a leaf torn from my sketchbook I scribbled the answer: + + + GOOD DEAR CHARITABLE FRIEND: The House Abandoned is a + hollow mockery without Tanrade. I'll come gladly at eight. + + +And Suzette brought it out to the waiting _valet de chambre_ whom she +addressed respectfully as "monsieur," half on account of his +yellow-striped waistcoat and half because he was a Parisian. + +Bravo, Alice! Here then was the opportunity I had been waiting for, and +I hugged myself over the fact. It was like the first ray of sunshine +breaking through a week of leaden sky. For a long time I paced back and +forth among the paths of the snug garden, past the roses and the +heliotrope down as far as the flaming geraniums and the hollyhocks and +the droning bees, and back again by way of some excellent salads and the +bed of artichokes, while I turned over in my mind and rehearsed to +myself all I intended to say to her. + +Alice lonely! With a château, two automobiles, and all Paris at her +pretty feet! Ha! ha! The symptoms were excellent. The patient was doing +well. To-night would see her convalescent and happily on the road to +recovery. This once happy family of comrades should be no longer under +the strain of disunion, we should have another dinner soon and the House +Abandoned would ring with cheer as it had never rung before. Japanese +lanterns among the fruit-trees of the tangled garden, the courtyard full +of villagers, red and blue fire, skyrockets and congratulations, a +Normand dinner and a keg of good sound wine to wish a long and happy +life to both. There would be the same Tanrade again and the same Alice, +and they would be married by the curé in the little gray church with the +cracked bell, with the marquis and the marquise as notables in the front +pew. In my enthusiasm I saw it all. + + * * * * * + +The lane back of the House Abandoned shortens the way to the château by +half a kilometre. It was this lane that I entered at dusk by crawling +under the bars that divided it from the back pasture full of gnarled +apple-trees, under which half a dozen mild-eyed cows had settled +themselves for the night. They rose when they caught sight of me and +came toward me blowing deep moist breaths as a quiet challenge to the +intruder, until halted by the bars they stood in a curious group +watching me until I disappeared up the lane, a lane screened from the +successive pastures on either side by an impenetrable hedge and flanked +its entire length by tall trees, their tops meeting overhead like the +Gothic arches of a cathedral aisle. This roof of green made the lane at +this hour so dark that I had to look sharp to avoid the muddy places, +for the lane ascended like the bed of a brook until it reached the +plateau of woodlands and green fields above, commanding a sweeping view +of marsh and sea below. + +Birds fluttered nervously in the hedges, frightened at my approaching +footsteps. A hare sniffing in the middle of the path flattened his long +ears and sprang into the thicket ahead. The nightingales in the forest +above began calling to one another. Two doves went skimming out of the +leaves over my head. Even a peacemaker may be mistaken for an enemy. And +now I had gained the plateau and it grew lighter--that gentle light with +which night favours the open places. + +There are two crossroads at the top of the lane. The left one leads to +the hamlet of Beaufort le Petit, a sunken cluster of farms ten good +leagues from Pont du Sable; the right one swings off into the highroad +half a mile beyond, which in turn is met by the private way of the +château skirting the stone wall surrounding the park, which, as early +as 1608, served as the idle stronghold of the Duc de Rambutin. It has +seen much since then and has stood its ground bravely under the stress +of misfortune. The Prussians hammered off two of its towers, and an +artillery fire once mowed down some of its oldest trees and wrecked the +frescoed ceiling and walls of the salon, setting fire to the south wing, +which was never rebuilt and whose jagged and blackened walls the roses +and vines have long since lovingly hidden from view. + +Alice bought this once splendid feudal estate literally for a song--the +song in the second act of Fremier's comedy, which had a long run at the +Variétés three years ago, and in which she earned an enviable success +and some beautiful bank-notes. Were the Duc de Rambutin alive I am sure +he would have presented it to her--shooting forest, stone wall, and all. +They say he had an intolerable temper, but was kind to ladies and +lap-dogs. + +It was not long before I unlatched a moss-covered gate with one hinge +lost in the weeds--a little woebegone gate for intimate friends, that +croaked like a night-bird when it opened, and closed with a whine. +Beyond it lay a narrow path through a rose-garden leading to the +château. This rose-garden is the only cultivated patch within the +confines of the wall, for on either side of it tower great trees, their +aged trunks held fast in gnarled thickets of neglected vines. It is only +another "house abandoned," this château of Alice's, save that its bygone +splendour asserts itself through the scars, and my own by the marsh +never knew luxury even in its best days. + +"Madame is dressing," announced that most faithful of old servitors, +Henri, who before Alice conferred a full-fledged butlership upon him in +his old age was since his youth a stage-carpenter at the Théâtre +Français. + +"Will monsieur have the goodness to wait for madame in the library?" +added Henri, as he relieved me of my hat and stick, deposited them +noiselessly upon an oak table, and led me to a portière of worn Gobelin +which he lifted for me with a bow of the Second Empire. + +What a rich old room it is, this silent library of the choleric duke, +with its walls panelled in worm-eaten oak reflecting the firelight and +its rows of volumes too close to the grave to be handled. Here and there +above the high wainscoting are ancestral portraits, some of them as +black as a favourite pipe. Above the great stone chimney-piece is a +full-length figure of the duke in a hunting costume of green velvet. The +candelabra that Henri had just lighted on the long centre-table, +littered with silver souvenirs and the latest Parisian comedies, now +illumined the duke's smile, which he must have held with bad grace +during the sittings. The rest of him was lost in the shadow above the +chimney-piece of sculptured cherubs, whose missing noses have been badly +restored in cement by the gardener. + +I had settled myself in a chintz-covered chair and was idly turning the +pages of one of the latest of the Parisian comedies when I heard the +swish of a gown and the patter of two small slippered feet hurrying +across the hall. I rose to regard my hostess with a feeling of tender +curiosity mingled with resentment over her treatment of my old friend, +when the portière was lifted and Alice came toward me with both white +arms outstretched in welcome. She was so pale in her dinner gown of +black tulle that all the blood seemed to have taken refuge in her +lips--so pale that the single camellia thrust in her corsage was less +waxen in its whiteness than her neck. + +I caught her hands and she stood close to me, smiling bravely, the tips +of her fingers trembling in my own. + +"You are ill!" I exclaimed, now thoroughly alarmed. "You must go +straight to bed." + +"No, no," she replied, with an effort. "Only tired, very tired." + +"You should not have let me come," I protested. + +She smiled and smoothed back a wave of her glossy black hair and I saw +the old mischievous gleam flash in her dark eyes. + +"Come," she whispered, leading me to the door of the dining room. "It is +a secret," she confided, with a forced little laugh. "Look!" And she +pinched my arm. + +I glanced within--the table with its lace and silver under the glow of +the red candle-shades was laid for two. + +"It was nice of you," I said. + +"We shall dine alone, you and I," she murmured. "I am so tired of +company." + +I was on the point of impulsively mentioning poor Tanrade's absence, but +the subtle look in her eyes checked me. During dinner we should have our +serious little talk, I said to myself as we returned to the library +table. + +"It's so amusing, that little comedy of Flandrean's," laughed Alice, +picking up the volume I had been scanning. "The second act is a jewel +with its delicious situation in which François Villers, the husband, and +Thérèse, his wife, divorce in order to carry out between them a secret +love-affair--a series of mysterious rendezvous that terminate in an +amusing elopement. _Très chic_, Flandrean's comedy. It should have a +_succès fou_ at the Palais Royal." + +"Madame is served," gravely announced Henri. + +Not once during dinner was Alice serious. Over the soup--an excellent +bisque of _écrevisses_--she bubbled over with the latest Parisian +gossip, the new play at the Odéon, the fashion in hats. With the fish +she prattled on over the limitations of the new directoire gowns and the +scandal involving a certain tenor and a duchess. Tanrade's defence, +which I had so carefully thought out and rehearsed in my garden, seemed +doomed to remain unheard, for her cleverness in evading the subject, her +sudden change to the merriest of moods, and her quick wit left me +helpless. Neither did I make any better progress during the pheasant and +the salad, and as she sipped but twice the Pommard and scarcely +moistened her lips with the champagne my case seemed hopeless. Henri +finally left us alone over our coffee and cigarettes. I had become +desperate. + +"Alice," I said bluntly, "we are old friends. I have some things to say +to you of--of the utmost importance. You will listen, my friend, will +you not, until I am quite through, for I shall not mention it again?" + +She leaned forward with a little start and gazed at me suddenly, with +dilated eyes--eyes that were the next minute lowered in painful +submission, the corners of her mouth contracting nervously. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" she murmured, looking up. "_Mon Dieu!_ But you are cruel!" + +"No," I replied calmly. "It is you who are cruel." + +"No, no, you shall not!" she exclaimed, raising both ringless hands in +protest, her breath coming quick. "I--I know what you are going to say. +No, my dear friend--I beg of you--we are good comrades. Is it not so? +Let us remain so." + +"Listen," I implored. + +"Ah, you men with your idea of marriage!" she continued. "The wedding, +the aunts, the cousins, who come staring at you for a day and giving you +advice for years. A solemn apartment near the Etoile--madame with her +afternoons--monsieur with his club, his maîtresse, his gambling and his +debts--the children with their English governess. A villa by the sea, +tennis, infants and sand-forts. The annual stupid _voyage en Suisse_. +The inane slavery of it all. _You_ who are a bohemian, you who +_live_--with all your freedom--all my freedom! _Non, merci!_ I have seen +all that! Bah! You are as crazy as Tanrade." + +"Alice," I cried, "you think----" + +"Precisely, my friend." + +She rose swiftly, crossed the room, and before I knew it slipped back of +my chair, put both arms about my neck, kissed me, and burst into tears. + +"There, there, _mon pauvre petit_," she whispered. "Forgive me--I was +angry--we are not so stupid as all that--eh? We are not like the stupid +_bourgeoisie_." + +"But it is not I----" I stammered. + +She caught her breath in surprise, straightened, and slowly retraced her +steps to her vacant chair. + +"Ah! So it is that?" she said slowly, drawing her chair close to my own. +Then she seated herself, rested her chin in her hands, and regarded me +for some moments intently. + +"So you have come for--for him?" she resumed, her breast heaving. "I am +right, am I not?" + +"He loves you," I declared. "Do you think I am blind as to your love for +him? You who came to greet me to-night out of your suffering?" + +For some moments she was silent, her fingers pressed over her eyes. + +"Do you love him?" I insisted. + +"No, no," she moaned. "It is impossible." + +"Do you know," I continued, "that he has not slept or hunted or smoked +for a week before he was forced to go to Paris? Can you realize what he +suffers now during days of exhausting rehearsals? He came to me a +wreck," I said. "You have been cruel and you have----" + +Again she had become deathly pale. Then at length she rose slowly, +lifted her head proudly, and led the way back to the library fire. + +"You must go," she said. "It is late." + + * * * * * + +When the little boy of the fisherman, Jean Tranchard, was not to be +found playing with the other barelegged tots in the mud of the village +alleys, or wandering alone on the marsh, often dangerously near the +sweep of the incoming tide, one could be quite sure he was safe with +Tanrade. Frequently, too, when the maker of ballets was locked in his +domain and his servant had strict orders to admit no one--neither +Monsieur le Curé nor the mayor, nor so intimate a comrade as +myself--during such hours as these the little boy was generally beside +the composer, his chubby toes scarcely reaching to the rungs of the +chair beside Tanrade's working desk. + +Though the little boy was barely seven he was a sturdy little chap with +fair curly hair, blue eyes, and the quick gestures of his father. He had +a way of throwing out his chest when he was pleased, and gesticulating +with open arms and closed fists when excited, which is peculiar to the +race of fishermen. The only time when he was perfectly still was when +Tanrade worked in silence. He would then often sit beside him for hours +waiting until the composer dropped his pen, swung round in his chair to +the keyboard at his elbow, and while the piano rang with melody the +little boy's eyes danced. He forgot during such moments of ecstasy that +his father was either out at sea with his nets or back in the village +good-naturedly drunk, or that his mother, whom he vaguely remembered, +was dead. + +Tanrade was a so much better father to him than his own that the rest of +his wretched little existence did not count. When the father was +fishing, the little boy cared for himself. He knew how to heat the pot +and make the soup when there was any to make. He knew where to dig for +clams and sputtering crabs. It was the bread that bothered him most--it +cost two sous. It was Tanrade who discovered and softened these hard +details. + +The house in which the fisherman and the little boy live is tucked away +in an angle of the walled lane leading out to the marsh. This stone +house of Tranchard's takes up as little room as possible, since its +front dare not encroach upon the lane and its back is hunched up +apologetically against the angle of the wall. The house has but two +compartments--the loft above stored with old nets and broken oars, and +the living room beneath, whose dirt floor dampens the feet of an oak +cupboard, a greasy table, a chair with a broken leg, and a mahogany bed. +Over the soot-blackened chimney-piece is a painted figure of the Virgin, +and a frigate in a bottle. + +Monsieur le Curé had been watching all night beside the mahogany bed. +Now and then he slipped his hand in the breast of his soutane of rusty +black, drew out a steel watch, felt under a patchwork-quilt for a small +feverish wrist, counted its feeble pulse, and filling a pewter spoon +with a mixture of aconite, awakened the little boy who gazed at him with +hollow eyes sunken above cheeks of dull crimson. + +In the corner, his back propped against the cupboard, his bare feet +tucked under him, dozed Tranchard. There was not much else he could do, +for he was soaked to the skin and half drunk. Occasionally he shifted +his feet, awakened, and dimly remembered the little boy was worse; that +this news had been hailed to him by the skipper of the mackerel smack, +_La Belle Élise_, and that he had hauled in his empty nets and come +home. + +As the gray light of dawn crept into the room, the little boy again grew +restless. He opened the hollow eyes and saw dimly the black figure of +the curé. + +"Tanné," he whimpered. "Where is he, Tanné?" + +"Monsieur Tanrade will come," returned the curé, "if you go to sleep +like a brave little man." + +"Tanné," repeated the child and closed his eyes obediently. + +A cock crowed in a distant yard, awakening a sleek cat who emerged from +beneath the bed, yawned, stretched her claws, and walked out of the +narrow doorway into the misty lane. + +The curé rose stiffly, went over to the figure in the corner and shook +it. Tranchard started up out of a sound sleep. + +"Tell madame when she arrives that I have gone for Doctor Thévenet. I +shall return before night." + +"I won't forget," grumbled Tranchard. + +"I have left instructions for madame beside the candle. See that you +keep the kettle boiling for the poultices." + +The fisherman nodded. "_Eh ben!_ How is it with the kid?" he inquired. +"He does not take after his mother. _Parbleu!_ She was as strong as a +horse, my woman." + +Monsieur le Curé did not reply. He had taken down his flat black hat +from a peg and was carefully adjusting his square black cravat edged +with white beneath his chin, when Alice de Bréville entered the doorway. + +"How is his temperature?" she asked eagerly, unpinning a filmy green +veil and throwing aside a gray automobile coat. + +Monsieur le Curé graciously uncovered his head. "There has been no +change since you left at midnight," he said gravely. "The fever is still +high, the pulse weaker. I am going for Doctor Thévenet after mass. There +is a train at eight." + +Tranchard was now on his knees fanning a pile of fagots into a blaze, +the acrid smoke drifting back into the low-ceiled room. + +"I will attend to it," said Alice, turning to the fisherman. "Tell my +chauffeur to wait at the church for Monsieur le Curé. The auto is at the +end of the lane." + +For some minutes after the clatter of Tranchard's sabots had died away +in the lane, Alice de Bréville and Monsieur le Curé stood in earnest +conversation beside the table. + +"It may save the child's life," pleaded the priest. There was a ring of +insistence in his voice, a gleam in his eyes that made the woman beside +him tremble. + +"You do not understand," she exclaimed, her breast heaving. "You do not +realize what you ask of me. I cannot." + +"You must," he insisted. "He might not understand it coming from me. You +and he are old friends. You _must_, I tell you. Were he only here the +child would be happy, the fever would be broken. It must be broken and +quickly. Thévenet will tell you that when he comes." + +Alice raised her hands to her temples. + +"Will you?" he pleaded. + +"Yes," she replied half audibly. + +Monsieur le Curé gave a sigh of relief. + +"God be with you!" said he. + +He watched her as she wrote in haste the following telegram in pencil +upon the back of a crumpled envelope: + + + MONSIEUR TANRADE, Théâtre des Folies Parisiennes, Paris. + + Tranchard's child very ill. Come at once. + + A. de Bréville. + + +This she handed to the priest in silence. Monsieur le Curé tucked it +safely in the breast of his cassock. "God be with you!" he repeated and +turned out into the lane. He ran, for the cracked bell for mass had +ceased ringing. + +The woman stood still by the table as if in a dream, then she staggered +to the door, closed it, and throwing herself on her knees by the bedside +of the sleeping boy, buried her face in her hands. + +The child stirred, awakened by her sobbing. + +"Tanné," he cried feebly. + +"He will come," she said. + +Outside in the mist-soaked lane three toothless fisherwomen gossiped in +whispers. + +Almost any day that you pass through the village you will see a chubby +little rascal who greets you with a cheery "_Bonjour_" and runs away, +dragging a tin horse with a broken tail. Should you chance to glance +over my wall you will discover the tattered remnants of two Japanese +lanterns hanging among the fruit-trees. They are all that remain of a +fête save the memory of two friends to whom the whole world now seems +_couleur de rose_. + + * * * * * + +"Hi, there! wake up! Where's Suzette? Where's the coffee! Daylight and +not a soul up! _Mon Dieu_, what a house! Hurry up, _Mon vieux!_ Alice is +waiting!" + + [Illustration: three toothless fisherwomen] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: smuggler ship] + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +THE SMUGGLERS + + +Some centuries ago the windows of my house abandoned on the marsh looked +out upon a bay gay with the ships of Spanish pirates, for in those days +Pont du Sable served them as a secret refuge for repairs. Hauled up to +the tawny marsh were strange craft with sails of apple-green, rose, +vermilion and sinister black; there were high sterns pierced by carved +cabin-windows--some of them iron-barred, to imprison ladies of high or +low degree and unfortunate gentlemen who fought bravely to defend them. +From oaken gunwales glistened slim cannon, their throats swabbed clean +after some wholesale murder on the open seas. Yes, it must have been a +lively enough bay some centuries ago! + +To-day Pont du Sable goes to bed without even turning the key in the +lock. This is because of a vast army of simple men whose word, in +France, is law. + +To begin with, there are the President of the République and the +Ministers of War and Agriculture, and Monsieur the Chief of Police--a +kind little man in Paris whom it is better to agree with--and the préfet +and the sous-préfet--all the way down the line of authority to the +red-faced, blustering _chef de gare_ at Pont du Sable--and Pierre. + +On off-duty days Pierre is my gardener at eleven sous an hour. On these +occasions he wears voluminous working trousers of faded green corduroy +gathered at the ankles; a gray flannel shirt and a scarlet cravat. On +other days his short, wiry body is encased in a carefully brushed +uniform of dark blue with a double row of gold buttons gleaming down his +solid chest. When on active duty in the Customs Coast Patrol of the +République Française at Pont du Sable, he carries a neatly folded cape +with a hood, a bayonet, a heavy calibred six-shooter and a trusty +field-glass, useful in locating suspicious-looking objects on marsh or +sea. + +On this particular morning Pierre was late! I had been leaning over the +lichen-stained wall of my wild garden waiting to catch sight of him as +he left the ragged end of the straggling village. Had I mistaken the +day? Impossible! It was Thursday and I knew he was free. Finally I +caught sight of him hurrying toward me down the road--not in his working +clothes of faded green corduroy, but in the full majesty of his +law-enforcing uniform. What had happened? I wondered. Had his stern +brigadier refused to give him leave? + +"_Bonjour_, Pierre!" I called to him as he came within hailing distance. + +He touched the vizor of his cap in military salute, and a moment later +entered my garden. + +"A thousand pardons, monsieur," he apologized excitedly, labouring to +catch his breath. + +"My artichokes have been waiting for you," I laughed; "they are nearly +strangled with weeds. I expected you yesterday." He followed me through +a lane of yellow roses leading to the artichoke bed. "What has kept you, +Pierre?" + +He stopped, looked me squarely in the eyes, placed his finger in the +middle of his spiked moustache, and raised his eyebrows mysteriously. + +"Monsieur must not ask me," he replied. "I have been on duty for +forty-eight hours; there was not even time to change my uniform." + +"A little matter for headquarters?" I ventured indiscreetly, with a nod +in the direction of Paris. + +Pierre shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Monsieur must ask the +semaphore; my lips are sealed." + +Had he been the chief of the Secret Service just in possession of the +whereabouts of an international criminal, he could not have been more +uncommunicative. + +"And monsieur's artichokes?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject. + +Further inquiry I knew was useless--even dangerous. Indeed I swallowed +my curiosity whole, for I was aware that this simple gardener of mine, +in his official capacity, could put me in irons, drag me before my +friend the ruddy little mayor, and cast me in jail at Bar la Rose, had +I given him cause. Then indeed, as Pompanet said, I would be "A _sacré_ +vagabond from Pont du Sable." + +Was it not only the other day a well-dressed stranger hanging about my +lost village had been called for by two gendarmes, owing to Pierre's +watchful eye? And did not the farmer Milon pay dearly enough for the +applejack he distilled one dark night? I recalled, too, a certain +morning when, a stranger on the marsh, I had lighted Pierre's cigarette +with an honest wax-match from England. He recognized the brand +instantly. + +"They are the best in the world," I had remarked bravely. + +"Yes," he had replied, "but dear, monsieur. The fine is a franc apiece +in France." + +We had reached the artichokes. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Pierre, glancing at the riot of weeds as he +stripped off his coat and, unbuckling his belt with the bayonet, the +six-shooter and the field-glass, hung them in the shade upon a +convenient limb of a pear tree. He measured the area of the unruly +patch with a military stride, stood thinking for a moment, and then, as +if a happy thought had struck him, returned to me with a gesture of +enthusiasm. + +"If monsieur will permit me to offer a suggestion--that is, if monsieur +approves--I should like to make a fresh planting. Ah! I will explain +what I mean to monsieur, so monsieur may see clearly my ideas. _Voilà!_" +he exclaimed. "It is to have the new artichokes planted in three +circles--in three circles, monsieur," he went on excitedly, "crossed +with the star of the compass," he continued, as the idea rapidly +developed in his peasant brain. "Then in the centre of the star to plant +monsieur's initials in blue and red flowers. _Voilà!_ It will be +something for monsieur's friends to admire, eh?" + +He stood waiting tensely for my reply, for I shivered inwardly at the +thought of the prospective chromo. + +"Excellent, my good Pierre," I returned, not wishing to hurt his +feelings. "Excellent for the gardens of the Tuileries, but my garden is +such a simple one." + +"Pardon, monsieur," he said, with a touch of mingled disappointment and +embarrassment, "they shall be replanted, of course, just as monsieur +wishes." And Pierre went to digging weeds with a will while I went back +to my own work. + +At noon Pierre knocked gently at my study door. + +"I must breakfast, monsieur," he apologized, "and get a little sleep. I +have promised my brigadier to get back at three." + +"And to-morrow?" I asked. + +Again the shoulders shrugged under the uniform. + +"Ah, monsieur!" he exclaimed helplessly. "_Malheureusement_, to-morrow I +am not free; nor the day after. _Parbleu!_ I cannot tell monsieur _when_ +I shall be free." + +"I understand, Pierre," said I. + + * * * * * + +Before sundown the next afternoon I was after a hare through a maze of +thicket running back of the dunes fronting the open sea. I kept on +through a labyrinth of narrow trails--crossing and recrossing each +other--the private by-ways of sleek old hares in time of trouble, for +the dunes were honeycombed with their burrows. Now and then I came +across a tent-shaped thatched hut lined with a bed of straw, serving as +snug shelters for the coast patrol in tough weather. + +I had just turned into a tangle of scrub-brush, and could hear the +breakers pound and hiss as they swept up upon the hard smooth beach +beyond the dunes, when a low whistle brought me to a leisurely halt, and +I saw Pierre spring up from a thicket a rod ahead of me--a Government +carbine nestled in the hollow of his arm. + +I could scarcely believe it was the genial and ever-willing Pierre of my +garden. He was the hard-disciplined soldier now, under orders. I was +thankful he had not sent a bullet through me for not halting more +promptly than I did. + +"What are you doing here?" he demanded, coming briskly toward me along a +trail no wider than his feet. + +Instantly my free hand went to my hunting-cap in salute. + +"After--a--hare!" I stammered innocently. + +"Not so loud," he whispered. "_Mon Dieu!_ If the brigadier should hear +you! Come with me," he commanded, laying his hand firmly upon my arm. +"There are six of us hidden between here and the fortress. It is well +that you stumbled upon me first. They must know who you are. It is not +safe for you to be hunting to-day." + +I had not followed him more than a dozen rods before one of his +companions was at my side. "The American," said Pierre in explanation, +and we passed on down through a riot of stunted growth that choked the +sides of a hollow. + +Beyond this rose the top of a low circular fort overgrown with +wire-grass--the riot of tangle ceasing as we reached the bottom of the +hollow and stood in an open patch before an ancient iron gate piercing +the rear of the fort. + +Pierre lifted the latch and we passed through a wall some sixteen feet +thick and into a stone-paved courtyard with a broad flight of steps at +its farther end sweeping to the top of the circular defence. Flanking +the sunken courtyard itself were a dozen low vaultlike compartments, +some of them sealed by heavy doors. At one of these, containing a +narrow window, Pierre knocked. The door opened and I stood in the +presence of the Brigadier Bompard. + +"The American gentleman," announced Pierre, relieving me of my gun. + +The brigadier bowed, looked me over sharply, and bade me enter. + +"At your service, monsieur," he said coldly, waving his big freckled +hand toward a chair drawn up to a fat little stove blushing under a +forced draft. + +"At yours, monsieur," I returned, bowed, and took my seat. + +Then there ensued a dead silence, Pierre standing rigid behind my chair, +the brigadier reseated back of a desk littered with official papers. + +For some moments he sat writing, his savage gray eyes scanning the page, +the ends of his ferocious moustache twitching nervously as his pen +scratched on. Back of his heavy shoulders ran a shelf supporting a row +of musty ledgers, and above a stout chest in one corner was a rack of +gleaming carbines. + +The silence became embarrassing. Still the pen scratched on. Was he +writing my death-warrant, I wondered nervously, or only a milder order +for my arrest? It was a relief when he finally sifted a spoonful of fine +blue sand over the document, poured the remaining grains back into their +receptacle, puffed out his coarse red jowls, emitted a grunt of +approval, and raised his keen eyes to mine. + +"A thousand pardons, monsieur," I began, "for being where I assure you I +would not have been had I known exactly where I was." + +"So monsieur is fond of the chase of the hare?" he asked, with a grim +smile. + +"So fond, Monsieur le Brigadier," I replied, "that my enthusiasm has, as +you see, led me thoughtlessly into your private territory. I beg of you +to accept my sincere apologies." + +He reached back of him, took down one of the musty ledgers, and began to +turn the leaves methodically. From where I sat I saw his coarse +forefinger stop under a head-line. + +"Smeeth, Berkelek," he muttered, and read on down the page. "Citizen of +_Amérique du Nord_. + +"Height--medium. + +"Age--forty-one. + +"Hair--auburn. + +"Eyes--brown. + +"Chin and frontal--square. + +"No scars." + +"Would your excellency like to see my hunting permit and description?" I +ventured. + +"Unnecessary--it is in duplicate here," he returned curtly, and his eyes +again reverted to the ledger. Then he closed the book, rose, and drawing +his chair to the stove planted his big fists on his knees. + +I began to breathe normally. + +"So you are a painter?" said he. + +"Yes," I confessed, "but I do not make a specialty of fortresses, your +excellency, even in the most distant landscapes." + +I was grateful he understood, for I saw a gleam of merriment flash in +his eyes. + +"_Bon!_" he exclaimed briskly--evidently the title of "excellency" +helped. "It is not the best day, however, for you to be hunting hares. +Are you a good shot, monsieur?" + +"That is an embarrassing question," I returned. "If I do not miss I +generally kill." + +Pierre, who, during the interview, had been standing mute in attention, +now stepped up to him and bending with a hurried "Pardon," whispered +something in his coarse red ear. + +The brigadier raised his shaggy eyebrows and nodded in assent. + +"Ah! So you are a friend of Monsieur le Curé!" he exclaimed. "You would +not be Monsieur le Curé's friend if you were not a good shot. +_Sapristi!_" He paused, ran his hand over his rough jowls, and resumed +bluntly: "It is something to kill the wild duck; another to kill a man." + +"Has war been suddenly declared?" I asked in astonishment. + +A gutteral laugh escaped his throat, he shook his grizzled head in the +negative. + +"A little war of my own," said he, "a serious business, _parbleu!_" + +"Contraband?" I ventured. + +The coarse mouth under the bristling moustache, four times the size of +Pierre's, closed with a snap, then opened with a growl. + +"_Sacré mille tonnerres!_" he thundered, slamming his fist down on the +desk within reach of him. "They are the devil, those Belgians! It is for +them my good fellows lose their sleep." Then he stopped, and eyeing me +shrewdly added: "Monsieur, you are an outsider and a gentleman. I can +trust you. Three nights ago a strange sloop, evidently Belgian, from the +cut of her, tried to sneak in here, but our semaphore on the point held +her up and she had to run back to the open sea. Bah! Those _sacré_ +Belgians have the patience of a fox!" + +"She was painted like one of our fishing-smacks," interposed Pierre, now +too excited to hold his tongue, "but she did not know the channel." + +"Aye, and she'll try it again," growled the brigadier, "if the night be +dark. She'll find it clear sailing in, but a hot road out." + +"Tobacco?" I asked, now fully alive to the situation. + +The brigadier spat. + +"Of course, as full as she'll float," he answered. He leaned forward and +touched me good-humouredly on the shoulder. "I'm short of men," he said +hurriedly. + +"Command me," I replied. "I'll do my best. I shall return to-night." And +I rose to take my leave, but he instantly raised his hand in protest. +"You are under arrest, monsieur," he declared quietly, with a shrug of +his shoulders. + +I looked at him wide-eyed in astonishment. + +"Arrest!" I gasped. + +"Do not be alarmed," he replied. "It will only be temporary, I assure +you, but since you have so awkwardly stumbled among us there is no +alternative but for me to detain you until this _sacré_ affair is well +over. I cannot, at all events, let you return to the village to-night." + +"But I give you my word of honour, monsieur," I declared, "I shall not +open my lips to a soul. Besides, I must dine at eight to-night with +Madame de Bréville. Your excellency can well understand." + +"I know you have friends, monsieur; they might be inquisitive; and +those friends have servants, and those servants have friends," was his +reply. "No, it is better that you stay. Pierre, give monsieur a carbine +and a place ten metres from your own at sundown; then report to me he is +there. Now you may go, monsieur." + +Pierre touched me on the shoulder; then suddenly realizing I was under +orders and a prisoner, I straightened, saluted the brigadier, and +followed Pierre out of the fort with the best grace I could muster. + +"Pierre!" I exclaimed hotly, as we stood again in the thicket. "How long +since you've held up anything here--contraband, I mean?" + +For a moment he hesitated, then his voice sank to a whisper. + +"They say it is all of twenty years, perhaps longer," he confessed. "But +to-night monsieur shall see. Monsieur is, of course, not exactly a +prisoner or he would now be in the third vault from the right." + +"A prisoner! The devil I'm not? Didn't he tell me I was?" I exclaimed. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have, monsieur?" returned Pierre excitedly, +under his breath. "It is the brigadier's orders. I was afraid monsieur +might reply to him in anger. Ah, _par exemple!_ Then monsieur would have +seen a wild bull. Oh, la! la! When the brigadier is furious----Ah, +_ça!_" And he led the way to my appointed ambush without another word. + +Despite my indignation at being thus forced into the service and made a +prisoner to boot--however temporary it might be--I gradually began to +see the humour of the situation. It was very like a comic opera, I +thought, as I lay flat on the edge of the thicket and pried away a small +opening in the tangle through which I could look down upon the sweep of +beach below me and far out to sea. Thus I lay in wait for the smuggling +crew to arrive--to be blazed at and perhaps captured. + +What if they outnumber us? We might all perish then, with no hope of +quarter from these men whom we were lying in wait for like snakes in the +grass. One thing, however, I was firmly resolved upon, and that was to +shoot safely over anything that lay in range except in case of +self-defence. I was never of a murderous disposition, and the thought of +another's blood on my hands sent a fresh shiver along my prostrate +spine. Then again the comic-opera side of it struck me. I began to feel +more like an extra super in a one-night stand than a real soldier. What, +after all, if the smugglers failed us? + +I was pondering upon the dangerous effect upon the brigadier of so +serious a stage wait, when Pierre crawled over to me from his ambush ten +metres from my own, to leave me my ration of bread and wine. He was so +excited by this time that his voice trembled in my ear. + +"Gaston, my comrade, the fifth down the line," he whispered, "has just +seen two men prowling on the marsh; they are, without doubt, +accomplices. Gaston has gone to tell the brigadier." He ran his hand +carefully along the barrel of my carbine. "Monsieur must hold high," he +explained in another whisper, "since monsieur is unaccustomed to the gun +of war. It is this little machine here that does the trick." He bent his +eyes close to the hind sight and screwed it up to its notch at one +hundred and fifty metres. + +I nodded my thanks, and he left me to my bread and wine and crept +cautiously back to his ambush. + + * * * * * + +A black night was rapidly settling. Above me in the great unfathomable +vault of sky not a star glimmered. Under the gloom of the approaching +darkness the vast expanse of marsh to my left lay silent, desolate, and +indistinct, save for its low edge of undulating sand dunes. Only the +beach directly before me showed plainly, seemingly illumined by the +breakers, that gleamed white like the bared teeth of a fighting line of +wolves. + +It was a sullen, cheerless sea, from which the air blew over me damp and +raw; the only light visible being the intermittent flash from the +distant lighthouse on Les Trois Loups, beyond the marsh. + +One hour passed--two hours--during which I saw nothing alive and moving +save a hare foraging timidly on the beach for his own rations. After a +while he hopped back to his burrow in the thicket, a thicket of silence +from which I knew at any moment might break forth a murderous fire. It +grew colder and colder, I had to breathe lustily into the collar of my +jersey to keep out the chill. I began to envy the hare snug in his +burrow. Thus I held my vigil, and the night wore on. + +Ah! my friend the curé! I mused. Was there ever such an indefatigable +sportsman? Lucky curé! He was not a prisoner, neither had he been +pressed into the customs patrol like a hired assassin. At that moment I +knew Monsieur le Curé was snug in his duck-blind for the night, a long +two miles from where I lay; warm, and comfortable, with every chance on +such a night to kill a dozen fat mallards before his daylight mass. What +would my friend Madame Alice de Bréville, and that whole-souled fellow +Tanrade, think when I did not appear as I had promised, at madame's +château, to dine at eight? Cold as I was, I could not help chuckling +over the fact that it was no fault of mine. + +I was a prisoner. Alice and Tanrade would dine together. It would be +then a dinner for two. I have never known a woman as discreet as Alice. +She had insisted that I dine with them. In Paris Alice might not have +insisted, but in the lost village, with so many old women with nothing +to talk about save other peoples' affairs! Lucky Tanrade! + +I could see from where I lay the distant mass of trees screening her +château, and picture to myself my two dear friends _alone_. Their +chairs--now that my vacant one was the only witness--drawn close +together; he holding her soft, responsive little hand between the soup +and the fish, between the duck and the salad; then continuously over +their dessert and Burgundy--she whom he had held close to his big heart +that night after dinner in that once abandoned house of mine, when they +had gone out together into my courtyard and disappeared in the shadows +of the moonlight. + +Dining alone! The very thing I had tried to bring about. But for the +stern brigadier we should have been that wretched number--three--to-night +at the château. Ah, you dear human children, are you conscious and +grateful that I am lying out like a vagabond, a prisoner, that you +may be alone? + +I began to wonder, too, what the Essence of Selfishness, that spoiled +and adorable cat of mine, would think when it came her bedtime hour. +Would Suzette, in her anxiety over my absence, remember to give her the +saucer of warm milk? Yet I knew the Essence of Selfishness would take +care of herself; she would sleep with Suzette. Catch her lying out on +the bare ground like her master when she could curl herself up at the +foot of two fuzzy blankets in a tiny room next to the warm kitchen. + + * * * * * + +It was after midnight when Pierre crawled over to me again, and pointed +to a black patch of mussel rocks below. + +"There are the two men Gaston saw," he whispered. "They are waiting to +signal the channel to their comrades." + +I strained my eyes in the direction he indicated. + +"I cannot see," I confessed. + +"Here, take the glass," said he. "Those two humps behind the big one are +the backs of men. They have a lantern well hidden--you can see its glow +when the glass is steady." + +I could see it all quite clearly now, and occasionally one of the humps +lift a head cautiously above the rock. + +"She must be lying off close by," muttered Pierre, hoarse with +excitement. Again he hurriedly ran his hand over the breech of my +carbine. "The trigger pulls light," he breathed. "Courage, monsieur! We +have not long to wait now." And again he was gone. + +I felt like a hired assassin weakening on the verge of a crime. The next +instant I saw the lantern hidden on the mussel rocks raised and lowered +thrice. + +It was the signal! + +Again all was darkness save the gleaming line of surf. My heart thumped +in my ears. Ten minutes passed; then again the lantern was raised, the +figures of the two men standing in silhouette against its steady rays. + +I saw now a small sloop rear itself from the breakers, a short, squat +little craft with a ghostly sail and a flapping jib. On she came, +leaping and dropping broadside among the combers. The lantern now shone +as clearly as a beacon. A sea broke over the sloop, but she staggered up +bravely, and with a plunge was swept nearer and nearer the jagged point +of rocks awash with spume. Braced against the tiller was a man in +drenched tarpaulins; two other men were holding on to the shrouds like +grim death. On the narrow deck between them I made out a bale-like +bundle wrapped in tarpaulin and heavily roped, ready to be cast ashore. + +A moment more, and the sloop would be on the rocks; yet not a sound came +from the thicket. The suspense was sickening. I had once experienced +buck-fever, but it was nothing compared to this. The short carbine began +to jump viciously under my grip. + +The sloop was nearly on the rocks! At that critical moment overboard +went the bundle, the two men with the lantern rushing out and dragging +it clear of the swash. + +Simultaneously, with a crackling roar, six tongues of flame spat from +the thicket and we charged out of our ambush and over the crest of the +dunes toward the smugglers' craft and its crew, firing as we ran. The +fellow next to me stumbled and fell sprawling in the sand. + +In the panic that ensued I saw the sloop making a desperate effort to +put to sea. Meanwhile the two accomplices were running like rabbits for +the marsh. Close to the mysterious bundle their lantern lay smashed and +burning luridly in its oil. The brigadier sprang past me swearing like a +pirate, while his now thoroughly demoralized henchmen and myself +stumbled on, firing at random with still a good hundred yards between us +and the abandoned contraband. + +At that instant I saw the sloop's sail fill and then, as if by a +miracle, she slowly turned back to the open sea. Above the general din +the brigadier's voice rang out, bellowing his orders. By the time the +sloop had cleared the breakers his language had become unprintable. He +had reached the mussel rocks and stood shaking his clenched fists at the +departing craft, while the rest of us crowded about the bundle and the +blazing lantern. Every one was talking and gesticulating at once as +they watched the sloop plunge away in the darkness. + +"_Sacré mille tonnerres!_" roared the brigadier, sinking down on the +bundle. Then he turned and glared at me savagely. "Idiot!" he cried, +labouring for his breath. "_Espèce d'imbécile. Ah! Nom d'un petit +bonhomme._ You were on the end. Why did you not head off those devils +with the lantern?" + +I shrugged my shoulders helplessly in reply. He was in no condition to +argue with. + +"And the rest of you----" He choked in his rage, unable to frame his +words. They stood helplessly about, gesticulating their apologies. + +He sprang to his feet, gave the bundle a sound kick, and snarled out an +order. Pierre and another jumped forward, and together they shouldered +it between them. Then the remainder of the valiant guard fell into +single file and started back to the fort, the brigadier and myself +bringing up the rear. As we trudged on through the sand together he kept +muttering to himself. It only occurred to me then that nobody had been +hit. By this time even the accomplices were safe. + +"Monsieur," I ventured, as we regained the trail leading to the fort, +"it is with the sincerest regret of my heart that I offer you my +apologies. True, I might have done better, but I did my best in my +inexperience. We have the contraband--at least that is something, eh?" + +He grew calmer as the thought struck him. + +"Yes," he grumbled, "there are in that bundle at least ten thousand +cigars. It is, after all, not so bad." + +"Might I ask," I returned, "when your excellency intends to honour me +with my liberty?" + +He stopped, and to my delight held out his hand to me. + +"You are free, monsieur," he said roughly, with a touch of his good +nature. "The affair is over--but not a word of the manoeuvre you have +witnessed in the village. Our work here is for the ears of the +Government alone." + +As we reached the gate of the fort I saluted him, handed my carbine to +Pierre in exchange for my shotgun, and struck home in the mist of early +dawn. + + * * * * * + +The morning after, I was leaning over the lichen-stained wall of my +garden caressing the white throat of the Essence of Selfishness, the +events of my night of service still in my mind, when I saw the coast +patrol coming across the marsh in double file. As they drew nearer I +recognized Pierre and his companion, who had shouldered the contraband. +The roped bundle was swung on a stout pole between them. + +Presently they left the marsh and gained the road. As the double file of +uniformed men came past my wall they returned my salute. Pierre shifted +his end of the pole to the man behind him and stood at attention until +the rest had passed. Then the procession went on to inform Monsieur the +Mayor, who lived near the little square where nothing ever happened. + +Pierre turned when they had left and entered my garden. What was he +going to tell me now? I wondered, with sudden apprehension. Was I to +serve another night? + +"I'll be hanged if I will," I muttered. + +He approached solemnly and slowly, his bayonet gleaming at his side, the +warm sunlight glinting on the buttons of his uniform. When he got near +enough for me to look into his eyes he stopped, raised his hand to his +cap in salute, and said with a smile: + +"Now, monsieur, the artichokes." + + [Illustration: bundle of contraband] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: Marianne] + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +MARIANNE + + +Monsieur le Curé slid the long chair up to my fire, bent his straight, +black body forward, and rubbing his chilled hands briskly before the +blazing logs, announced with a smile of content: + +"Marianne is out of jail." + +"_Sacristi!_" I exclaimed, "and in mid-winter! It must be cold enough in +that hut of hers by the marsh--poor old girl." + +"And not a sou to be earned fishing," added the curé. + +"Tell me about this last crime of hers," I asked. + +Monsieur le Curé's face grew serious, then again the smile of content +spread to the corners of his firm mouth. + +"Oh! Nothing very gruesome," he confessed, then after a moment's silence +he continued slowly: "Her children needed shoes and warm things for the +winter. Marianne stole sixty _mètres_ of nets from the fishing crew at +'The Three Wolves'--she is hopeless, my friend." With a vibrant gesture +he straightened up in his chair and flashed his keen eyes to mine. "For +ten years I have tried to reform her," he declared. "Bah!"--and he +tossed the stump of his cigarette into the blaze. + +"You nursed her once through the smallpox," said I, "when no one dared +go near her. The mayor told me so. I should think _that_ would have long +ago persuaded her to do something for you in return." + +"We go where we are needed," he replied simply. "She will promise me +nothing. One might as well try to make a faithful parishioner of a gipsy +as to change Marianne for the better." He brought his fist down sharply +on the broad arm of his chair. "I tell you," he went on tensely, +"Marianne is a woman of no morals and no religion--a woman who allows no +one to dictate to her save a gendarme with a warrant of arrest. Hardly +a winter passes but she goes to jail. She is a confirmed thief, a bad +subject," he went on vibrantly. "She can drink as no three sailors can +drink--and yet you know as well as I do," he added, lowering his voice, +"that there is not a mother in Pont du Sable who is as good to her +children as Marianne." + +"They are a brave little brood," I replied. "I have heard that the +eldest boy and girl Marianne adopted, yet they resemble their mother, +with their fair curly hair and blue eyes, as much as do the youngest +boys and the little girl." + +"Marianne has had many lovers," returned the curé gravely. "There is not +one of that brood of hers that has yet been baptized." An expression of +pain crossed his face. "I have tried hard; Marianne is impossible." + +"Yet you admit she has her qualities." + +"Yes, good qualities," he confessed, filling a fresh cigarette paper +full of tobacco. "Good qualities," he reiterated. "She has brought up +her children to be honest and she keeps them clean. She has never +stolen from her own village--it is a point of honour with her. Ah! you +do not know Marianne as I know her." + +"It seems to me you are growing enthusiastic over our worst vagabond," I +laughed. + +"I am," replied the curé frankly. "I believe in her; she is afraid of +nothing. You see her as a vagabond--an outcast, and the next instant, +_Parbleu!_ she forces out of you your camaraderie--even your respect. +You shake her by the hand, that straight old hag with her clear blue +eyes, her square jaw and her hard face! She who walks with the stride of +a man, who is as supple and strong as a sailor, and who looks you +squarely in the eye and studies you calmly, at times disdainfully--even +when drunk." + + * * * * * + +It was late when Monsieur le Curé left me alone by my fire. I cannot say +"alone," for the Essence of Selfishness, was purring on my chest. + +In this old _normand_ house of mine by the marsh, there comes a silence +at this hour which is exhilarating. Out of these winter midnights come +strange sounds, whirring flights of sea-fowl whistle over my roof, in +late for a lodging on the marsh. A heavy peasant's cart goes by, +groaning in agony under the brake. When the wind is from the sea, it is +like a bevy of witches shrilling my doom down the chimney. "Aye, aye, +'tis he," they seem to scream, "the stranger--the s-t-r-a-n-g-e-r." +One's mind is alert at this hour--one must be brave in a foreign land. + +And so I sat up late, smoking a black pipe that gurgled in unison with +the purring on my chest while I thought seriously of Marianne. + +I had seen her go laughing to jail two months ago, handcuffed to a +gendarme on the back seat of the last car of the toy train. It was an +occasion when every one in the lost village came charitably out to have +a look. I remembered, too, she sat there as garrulous as if she were +starting on a holiday--a few of her old cronies crowded about her. One +by one, her children gave their mother a parting hug--there were no +tears--and the gendarme sat beside her with a stolid dignity befitting +his duty to the _République_. Then the whistle tooted twice--a coughing +puff of steam in the crisp sunlight, a wheeze of wheels, and the toy +train rumbled slowly out of the village with its prisoner. Marianne +nodded and laughed back at the waving group. + +"_Bon voyage!_" croaked a little old woman, lifting her claw. She had +borrowed five francs from the prisoner. + +"_Au revoir!_" laughed back Marianne, but the words were faint, for the +last car was snaking around the bend. + +Thus Marianne went to jail. Now that she is back, she takes her return +as carelessly and unblushingly as a _demi-mondaine_ does her annual +return from Dinard. + +When Marianne was eighteen, they tell me, she was the prettiest girl in +Pont du Sable, that is to say, she was prettier than Emilienne Dagèt at +Bar la Rose, or than Berthe Pavoisiér, the daughter of the miller at +Tocqueville, who is now in Paris. At eighteen, Marianne was slim and +blonde; moreover, she was as bold as a hawk, and smiled as easily as +she lied. At twenty, she was rated as a valuable member of any fishing +crew that put out from the coast, for they found her capable during a +catch, and steady in danger, always doing her share and a little more +for those who could not help themselves. She is still doing it, for in +her stone hut on the edge of the marsh that serves as shelter for her +children and her rough old self, she has been charitable and given a +winter's lodging to three old wrecks of the sea. There are no beds, but +there are bunks filled with marsh-hay; there is no furniture, but there +are a few pots and pans, and in one corner of the dirt floor, a +crackling fire of drift wood, and nearly always enough applejack for +all, and now and then hot soup. Marianne wrenches these luxuries, so to +speak, out of the sea, often alone and single-handed, working as hard as +a gull to feed her young. + +The curé was right; Marianne had her good qualities--I was almost +beginning to wonder to myself as I pulled drowsily at the black pipe if +her good qualities did not outweigh her bad ones, when the Essence of +Selfishness awakened and yawned. And so it was high time to send this +spoiled child of mine to bed. + + * * * * * + +Marianne called her "_ma belle petite_," though her real name was +Yvonne--Yvonne Louise Tournéveau. + +Yvonne kept her black eyes from early dawn until dark upon a dozen of +the Père Bourron's cows in her charge, who grazed on a long point of the +marsh, lush with salt grass, that lay sheltered back of the dunes +fronting the open sea. + +Now and then, when a cow strayed over the dunes on to the hard beach +beyond to gaze stupidly at the breakers, the little girl's voice would +become as authoritative as a boy's. "_Eh ben, tu sais!_" she would shout +as she ran to head the straggler off, adding some sound whacks with a +stick until the cow decided to lumber back to the rest. "_Ah mais!_" +Yvonne would sigh as she seated herself again in the wire-grass, tucking +her firm bronzed legs under a patched skirt that had once served as a +winter petticoat for the Mère Bourron. + +Occasionally a trudging coast guard or a lone hunter in passing would +call "_Bonjour!_" to her, and since she was pretty, this child of +fifteen, they would sometimes hail her with "_Ça va, ma petite!_" and +Yvonne would flush and reply bravely, "_Mais oui, M'sieur, merci._" + +Since she was only a little girl with hair as black as a gipsy's, a +ruddy olive skin, fresh young lips and a well-knit, compact body, +hardened by constant exposure to the sea air and sun, no one bothered +their heads much about her name. She was only a child who smiled when +the passerby would give her a chance, which was seldom, and when she +did, she disclosed teeth as white as the tiny shells on the beach. There +were whole days on the marsh when she saw no one. + +At noon, when the cracked bell in the distant belfry of the gray church +of Pont du Sable sent its discordant note quavering across the marsh, +Yvonne drew forth a sailor's knife from where it lay tucked safe within +the breast of her coarse chemise, and untying a square of blue cotton +cloth, cut in two her portion of peasant bread, saving half the bread +and half a bottle of Père Bourron's thinnest cider for the late +afternoon. + +There were days, too, when Marianne coming up from the sea with her +nets, stopped to rest beside the child and talk. Yvonne having no mother +which she could remember, Marianne had become a sort of transient mother +to her, whom the incoming tide sometimes brought her and whom she would +wait for with uncertain expectancy, often for days. + +One afternoon, early in the spring, when the cows were feeding in the +scant slanting shade of the dunes, Yvonne fell asleep. She lay out +straight upon her back, her brown legs crossed, one wrist over her eyes. +She slept so soundly that neither the breeze that had sprung up from the +northeast, stirring with every fresh puff the stray locks about her +small ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himself +over the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of being +grasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream, +looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave her +a big, motherly hug until she was quite awake and then kissed her +soundly on both cheeks, until Yvonne laughed over her fright. + +"_Oh, mon Dieu!_ but I was frightened," sighed the child, and sat up +straight, smoothing back her tumbled hair. "Oh! la! la!" she gasped. + +"They are beauties, _hein!_" exclaimed Marianne, nodding to an oozing +basketful of mackerel; then, kneeling by the basket, she plunged her red +hands under the slimy, glittering mass of fish, lifting and dropping +them that the child might see the average size in the catch. + +"_Eh ben!_" declared Marianne, "some day when thou art bigger, _ma +petite_, I'll take thee where thou canst make some silver. There's half +a louis' worth there if there's a sou!" There was a gleam of +satisfaction in her eyes, as she bent over her basket again, dressed as +she was in a pair of fisherman's trousers cut off at the knees. + +"One can play the lady on half a louis," she continued, covering her +fish from the sun with her bundle of nets. "My man shall have a full +bottle of the best to-night," she added, wiping her wet hands across her +strong bare knees. + +"How much 'cake' does that old crab of a Bourron pay thee?" she +inquired, turning again to the child. + +"Six sous a day, and then my food and lodging," confessed Yvonne. + +"He won't ruin himself," muttered Marianne. + +"They say the girl at the Three Wolves gets ten," added the child with +awe, "but thou knowest how--she must do the washing besides." + +Marianne's square jaw shut hard. She glanced at Yvonne's patched skirt, +the one that had been the Mère Bourron's winter petticoat, feeling its +quality as critically as a fashionable dressmaker. + +"_Sacristi!_" she exclaimed, examining a rent, "there's one door that +the little north wind won't knock twice at before he enters. Keep still, +_ma petite_, I've got thread and a needle." + +She drew from her trousers' pocket a leather wallet in which lay four +two-sous pieces, an iron key and a sail needle driven through a ball of +linen thread. "It is easily seen thou art not in love," laughed +Marianne, as she cross-stitched the tear. "Thou wilt pay ten sous for a +ribbon gladly some day when thou art in love." + +The child was silent while she sewed. Presently she asked timidly, "One +eats well there?" + +"Where?" + +"But thou knowest--_there_." + +"In the prison?" + +"_Mais oui_," whispered Yvonne. + +"Of course," growled Marianne, "one eats well; it is perfect. _Tiens!_ +we have the good soup, that is well understood; and now and then meat +and rice." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the child in awe. + +"_Mais oui_," assured Marianne with a nod, "and prunes." + +"Where is that, the prison?" ventured the child. + +"It is very far," returned Marianne, biting off the thread, "and it is +not for every one either," she added with a touch of pride--"only I +happen to be an old friend and know the judge." + +"And how much does it cost a day, the prison?" asked Yvonne. + +"Not _that_," replied Marianne, snipping her single front tooth +knowingly with the tip of her nail. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ and they give you all that for nothing?" exclaimed the +child in astonishment. "It is _chic_, that, _hein!_" and she nodded her +pretty head with decision, "_Ah mais oui, alors!_" she laughed. + +"I must be going," said Marianne, abruptly. "My young ones will be +wanting their soup." She flattened her back against her heavy basket, +slipped the straps under her armpits and rose to her feet, the child +passing the bundle of nets to her and helping her shoulder them to the +proper balance. + +"_Au revoir, ma belle petite_," she said, bending to kiss the girl's +cheek; then with her free hand she dove into her trousers' pocket and +drew out a two-sous piece. "_Tiens_," she exclaimed, pressing the +copper into the child's hand. + +Yvonne gave a little sigh of delight. It was not often she had two sous +all to herself to do what she pleased with, which doubles the delight of +possession. Besides, the Mère Bourron kept her wages--or rather, count +of them, which was cheaper--on the back page of a greasy book wherein +were registered the births of calves. + +"_Au revoir_," reiterated Marianne, and turned on her way to the village +down the trail that wound through the salt grass out to the road +skirting the bay. Yvonne watched her until she finally disappeared +through a cut in the dunes that led to the main road. + +The marsh lay in the twilight, the curlews were passing overhead bound +for a distant mud flat for the night. "_Courli! Courli!_" they called, +the old birds with a rasp, the young ones cheerfully; as one says +"_bonsoir_." The cows, conscious of the fast-approaching dark, were +moving toward the child. She stood still until they had passed her, +then drove them slowly back to the Père Bourron's, her two-sous piece +clutched safe in her hand. + +It was dark when she let down the bars of the orchard, leading into the +farm-yard. Here the air was moist and heavy with the pungent odour of +manure; a turkey gobbler and four timid hens roosting in a low apple +tree, stirred uneasily as the cows passed beneath them to their stable +next to the kitchen--a stable with a long stone manger and walls two +feet thick. Above the stable was a loft covered by a thatched roof; it +was in a corner of this loft, in a large box filled with straw and +provided with a patchwork-quilt, that Yvonne slept. + +A light from the kitchen window streamed across the muddy court. The +Père and Mère Bourron were already at supper. The child bolted the +stable door upon her herd and slipped into her place at table with a +timid "_Bonsoir, m'sieur, madame_," to her masters, which was +acknowledged by a grunt from the Père Bourron and a spasm of coughing +from his spouse. + +The Mère Bourron, who had the dullish round eye of a pig that gleamed +suspiciously when she became inquisitive, had supped well. Now and then +she squinted over her fat jowls veined with purple, plying her mate with +short, savage questions, for he had sold cattle that day at the market +at Bonville. Such evenings as these were always quarrelsome between the +two, and as the little girl did not count any more than the chair she +sat in, they argued openly over the day's sale. The best steer had +brought less than the Mère Bourron had believed, a shrewd possibility, +even after a month's bargaining. When both had wiped their plates clean +with bread--for nothing went to waste there--the child got up and +brought the black coffee and the decanter of applejack. They at last +ceased to argue, since the Mère Bourron had had the final word. Père +Bourron sat with closed fists, opening one now and then to strengthen +his coffee with applejack. Being a short, thickset man, he generally sat +in his blouse after he had eaten, with his elbows on the table and his +rough bullet-like head, with its crop of unkempt hair, buried in his +hands. + +When Yvonne had finished her soup, and eaten all her bread, she rose and +with another timid "_Bonsoir_" slipped away to bed. + +"Leave the brindle heifer tied!" shrilled madame as the child reached +the courtyard. + +"_Mais, oui madame_, it is done," answered Yvonne, and crept into her +box beneath the thatch. + + * * * * * + +At sixteen Yvonne was still guarding the cows for the Bourrons. At +seventeen she fell in love. + +He was a slick, slim youth named Jean, with a soapy blond lock plastered +under the visor of his leather cap pulled down to his red ears. On fête +days, he wore in addition a scarlet neck-tie girdling his scrawny +throat. He had watched Yvonne for a long time, very much as the snake in +the fable saved the young dove until it was grown. + +And so, Yvonne grew to dreaming while the cows strayed. Once the Père +Bourron struck at her with a spade for her negligence, but missed. +Another night he beat her soundly for letting a cow get stalled in the +mud. The days on the marsh now became interminable, for he worked for +Gavelle, the carpenter, a good three _kilomètres_ back of Pont du Sable +and the two could see each other only on fête days when he met her +secretly among the dunes or in the evenings near the farm. He would wait +for her then at the edge of the woods skirting the misty sea of pasture +that spread out below the farm like some vast and silent dry lake, +dotted here and there with groups of sleeping cattle. + +She saw Marianne but seldom now, for the latter fished mostly at the +Three Wolves, sharing her catch with a crew of eight fishermen. Often +they would seine the edge of the coast, their boat dancing off beyond +the breakers while they netted the shallow water, swishing up the hard +beach--these gamblers of the sea. They worked with skill and precision, +each one having his share to do, while one--the quickest--was appointed +to carry their bundle of dry clothes rolled in a tarpaulin. + +Marianne seemed of casual importance to her now. We seldom think of our +best friends in time of love. Yvonne cried for his kisses which at +first she did not wholly understand, but which she grew to hunger for, +just as when she was little she craved for all she wanted to eat for +once--and candy. + +She began to think of herself, too--of Jean's scarlet cravat--of his new +shoes too tight for him, which he wore with the pride of a village dandy +on fête days and Sundays--and of her own patched and pitifully scanty +wardrobe. + +"She has nothing, that little one," she had heard the gossips remark +openly before her, time and time again, when she was a child. Now that +she was budding into womanhood and was physically twice as strong as +Jean, now that she was conscious of _herself_, she began to know the +pangs of vanity. + +It was about this time that she bought the ribbon, just as Marianne had +foretold, a red ribbon to match Jean's tie, and which she fashioned into +a bow and kept in a paper box, well hidden in the straw of her bed. The +patched skirt had long ago grown too short, and was now stuffed into a +broken window beyond the cow manger to temper the draught from the neck +of a sick bull. + +She wore now, when it stormed, thick woollen stockings and sabots; and +another skirt of the Mère Bourron's fastened around a chemise of coarse +homespun linen, its colour faded to a delicious pale mazarine blue, +showing the strength and fullness of her body. + + * * * * * + +She had stolen down from the loft this night to meet him at the edge of +the woods. + +"Where is he?" were his first words as he sought her lips in the dark. + +"He has gone," she whispered, when her lips were free. + +"Where?" + +"_Eh ben_, he went away with the Père Detour to the village--madame is +asleep." + +"Ah, good!" said he. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ but you are warm," she whispered, pressing her cheek +against his own. + +"I ran," he drawled, "the patron kept me late. There is plenty of work +there now." + +He put his arm around her and the two walked deeper into the wood, he +holding her heavy moist hand idly in his own. Presently the moon came +out, sailing high among the scudding clouds, flashing bright in the +clear intervals. A white mist had settled low over the pasture below +them, and the cattle were beginning to move restlessly under the chill +blanket, changing again and again their places for the night. A bull +bellowed with all his might from beyond the mysterious distance. He had +evidently scented them, for presently he emerged from the mist and moved +along the edge of the woods, protected by a deep ditch. He stopped when +he was abreast of them to bellow again, then kept slowly on past them. +They had seated themselves in the moonlight among the stumps of some +freshly cut poplars. + +"_Dis donc_, what is the matter?" he asked at length, noticing her +unusual silence, for she generally prattled on, telling him of the +uneventful hours of her days. + +"Nothing," she returned evasively. + +"_Mais si; bon Dieu!_ there _is_ something." + +She placed her hands on her trembling knees. + +"No, I swear there is nothing, Jean," she said faintly. + +But he insisted. + +"One earns so little," she confessed at length. "Ten sous a day, it is +not much, and the days are so long on the marsh. If I knew how to cook +I'd try and get a place like Emilienne." + +"Bah!" said he, "you are crazy--one must study to cook; besides, you are +not yet eighteen, the Père Bourron has yet the right to you for a year." + +"That is true," confessed the girl simply; "one has not much chance when +one is an orphan. Listen, Jean." + +"What?" + +"Listen--is it true that thou dost love me?" + +"Surely," he replied with an easy laugh. + +"Listen," she repeated timidly; "if thou shouldst get steady work--I +should be content ... to be..." But her voice became inaudible. + +"_Allons!_... what?" he demanded irritably. + +"To ... to be married," she whispered. + +He started. "_Eh ben! en voilà_ an idea!" he exclaimed. + +"Forgive me, Jean, I have always had that idea----" She dried her eyes +on the back of her hand and tried hard to smile. "It is foolish, eh? The +marriage costs so dear ... but if thou shouldst get steady work..." + +"_Eh ben!_" he answered slowly with his Normand shrewdness, "I don't say +no." + +"I'll help thee, Jean; I can work hard when I am free. One wins forty +sous a day by washing, and then there is the harvest." + +There was a certain stubborn conviction in her words which worried him. + +"_Eh ben!_" he said at length, "we might get married--that's so." + +She caught her breath. + +"Swear it, Jean, that thou wilt marry me, swear it upon Sainte Marie." + +"_Eh voilà_, it's done. _Oui_, by Sainte Marie!" + +She threw her arms about him, crushing him against her breast. + +"_Dieu!_ but thou art strong," he whispered. + +"Did I hurt thee?" + +"No--thou art content now?" + +"Yes--I am content," she sobbed, "I am content, I am content." + +He had slipped to the ground beside her. She drew his head back in her +lap, her hand pressed hard against his forehead. + +"_Dieu!_ but I am content," she breathed in his ear. + +He felt her warm tears dropping fast upon his cheek. + + * * * * * + +All night she lay in the straw wide awake, flushed, in a sort of fever. +At daylight she drove her cows back to the marsh without having barely +touched her soup. + +Far across the bay glistened the roof of a barn under construction. An +object the size of a beetle was crawling over the new boards. + +It was Jean. + +"I'm a fool," he thought, as he drove in a nail. Then he fell to +thinking of a girl in his own village whose father was as rich as the +Père Bourron. + +"_Sacré Diable!_" he laughed at length, "if every one got married who +had sworn by Sainte Marie, Monsieur le Curé would do a good business." + + * * * * * + +A month later Père Bourron sold out a cartful of calves at the market at +Bonville. It was late at night when he closed his last bargain over a +final glass, climbed up on his big two-wheeled cart, and with a face of +dull crimson and a glazed eye, gathered up the reins and started swaying +in his seat for home. A boy carrying milk found him at daylight the next +morning lying face down in the track of his cart, dead, with a fractured +skull. Before another month had passed, the Mère Bourron had sold the +farm and gone to live with her sister--a lean woman who took in sewing. + +Yvonne was free. + +Free to work and to be married, and she did work with silent ferocity +from dawn until dark, washing the heavy coarse linen for a farm, and +scrubbing the milk-pans bright until often long after midnight--and +saved. Jean worked too, but mostly when he pleased, and had his hair +cut on fête days, most of which he spent in the café and saw Yvonne +during the odd moments when she was free. + +Life over the blacksmith's shop, where she had taken a room, went +merrily for a while. Six months later--it is such an old story that it +is hardly worth the telling--but it was long after dark when she got +back from work and she found it lying on the table in her rough clean +little room--a scrap of paper beside some tiny worsted things she had +been knitting for weeks. + +"I am not coming back," she read in an illiterate hand. + +She would have screamed, but she could not breathe. She turned again, +staring at the paper and gripping the edge of the table with both +hands--then the ugly little room that smelt of singed hoofs rocked and +swam before her. + +When she awoke she lay on the floor. The flame of the candle was +sputtering in its socket. After a while she crawled to her knees in the +dark; then, somehow, she got to her feet and groped her way to the +door, and down the narrow stairs out to the road. She felt the need of a +mother and turned toward Pont du Sable, keeping to the path at the side +of the wood like a homeless dog, not wishing to be observed. Every +little while, she was seized with violent trembling so that she was +obliged to stop--her whole body ached as if she had been beaten. + +A sharp wind was whistling in from the sea and the night was so black +that the road bed was barely visible. + +It was some time before she reached the beginning of Pont du Sable, and +turned down a forgotten path that ran back of the village by the marsh. +A light gleamed ahead--the lantern of a fishing-boat moored far out on +the slimy mud. She pushed on toward it, mistaking its position, in her +agony, for the hut of Marianne. Before she knew it, she was well out on +the treacherous mud, slipping and sinking. She had no longer the +strength now to pull her tired feet out. Twice she sank in the slime +above her knees. She tried to go back but the mud had become ooze--she +was sinking--she screamed--she was gone and she knew it. Then she +slipped and fell on her face in a glaze of water from the incoming tide. +At this instant some one shouted back, but she did not hear. + +It was Marianne. + +It was she who had moored the boat with the lantern and was on her way +back to her hut when she heard a woman scream twice. She stopped as +suddenly as if she had been shot at, straining her eyes in the direction +the sound came from--she knew that there was no worse spot in the bay, a +semi-floating solution of mud veined with quicksand. She knew, too, how +far the incoming tide had reached, for she had just left it at her bare +heels by way of a winding narrow causeway with a hard shell bottom that +led to the marsh. She did not call for help, for she knew what lay +before her and there was not a second to lose. The next instant, she had +sprung out on the treacherous slime, running for a life in the +fast-deepening glaze of water. + +"Lie down!" she shouted. Then her feet touched a solid spot caked with +shell and grass. Here she halted for an instant to listen--a choking +groan caught her ear. + +"Lie down!" she shouted again and sprang forward. She knew the knack of +running on that treacherous slime. + +She leapt to a patch of shell and listened again. The woman was choking +not ten yards ahead of her, almost within reach of a thin point of +matted grass running back of the marsh, and there she found her, and she +was still breathing. With her great strength she slid her to the point +of grass. It held them both. Then she lifted her bodily in her arms, +swung her on her back and ran splashing knee-deep in water to solid +ground. + +"_Sacré bon Dieu!_" she sobbed as she staggered with her burden. "_C'est +ma belle petite!_" + + * * * * * + +For weeks Yvonne lay in the hut of the worst vagabond of Pont du Sable. +So did a mite of humanity with black eyes who cried and laughed when he +pleased. And Marianne fished for them both, alone and single-handed, +wrenching time and time again comforts from the sea, for she would +allow no one to go near them, not even such old friends as Monsieur le +Curé and myself--that old hag, with her clear blue eyes, who walks with +the stride of a man, and who looks at you squarely, at times +disdainfully--even when drunk. + + [Illustration: sabots] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: a Normande] + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +THE BARON'S PERFECTOS + + +Strange things happen in my "Village of Vagabonds." It is not all fisher +girls, Bohemian neighbours, romance, and that good friend the curé who +shoots one day and confesses sinners the next. Things from the outside +world come to us--happenings with sometimes a note of terror in them to +make one remember their details for days. + +Only the other day I had run up from the sea to Paris to replenish the +larder of my house abandoned by the marsh at Pont du Sable, and was +sitting behind a glass of vermouth on the terrace of the Café de la Paix +when the curtain rose. + +One has a desire to promenade with no definite purpose these soft +spring days, when all Paris glitters in the warm sun. The days slip by, +one into another--days to be lazy in, idle and extravagant, to promenade +alone, seeking adventure, and thus win a memory, if only the amiable +glance of a woman's eyes. + +I was drinking in the tender air, when from my seat on the terrace I +recognized in the passing throng the familiar figure of the Brazilian +banker, the Baron Santos da Granja. The caress of spring had enticed the +Baron early this afternoon to the Boulevard. Although he had been +pointed out to me but once, there was no mistaking his conspicuous +figure as he strode on through the current of humanity, for he stood +head and shoulders above the average mortal, and many turned to glance +at this swarthy, alert, well-preserved man of the world with his keen +black eyes, thin pointed beard and moustache of iron gray. From his +patent-leather boots to his glistening silk hat the Baron Santos da +Granja was immaculate. + +Suddenly I saw him stop, run his eyes swiftly over the crowded tables +and then, though there happened to be one just vacated within his +reach, turn back with a look of decision and enter the Government's +dépôt for tobacco under the Grand Hotel. + +I, too, was in need of tobacco, for had not my good little +maid-of-all-work, Suzette, announced to me only the day before: + +"Monsieur, there are but three left of the big cigars in the thin box; +and the ham of the English that monsieur purchased in Paris is no more." + +"It is well, my child," I had returned resignedly, "that ham could not +last forever; it was too good." + +"And if Monsieur le Curé comes to dinner there is no more kümmel," the +little maid had confessed, and added with a shy lifting of her truthful +eyes, "monsieur does not wish I should get more of the black cigars at +the grocery?" + +I had winced as I recalled the last box, purchased from the only store +in Pont du Sable, where they had lain long enough to absorb the pungent +odour of dried herring and kerosene. + +Of course it was not right that our guests should suffer thus from an +empty larder and so, as I have said, I had run up from the sea to +replenish it. It was, I confess, an extravagant way of doing one's +marketing; but then there was Paris in the spring beckoning me, and who +can resist her seductive call at such a time? + +But to my story: I finished my glass of vermouth, and, following the +Baron's example, entered the Government's store, where I discovered him +selecting with the air of a connoisseur a dozen thin boxes of rare +perfectos. He chatted pleasantly with the clerk who served him and upon +going to the desk, opened a Russian-leather portfolio and laid before +the cashier six crisp, new one-hundred-franc notes in payment for the +lot. I have said that the Baron was immaculate, and he _was_, even to +his money. It was as spotless and unruffled as his linen, as neat, in +fact, as were the noble perfectos of his choice, long, mild and pure, +with tiny ends, and fat, comforting bodies that guaranteed a quality fit +for an emperor; but then the least a bank can do, I imagine, is to +provide clean money to its president. + +As the Baron passed out and my own turn at the desk came to settle for +my modest provision of Havanas, I recalled to my mind the current gossip +of the Baron's extravagance, of the dinners he had lately given that +surprised Paris--and Paris is not easily surprised. What if he had "sold +more than half of his vast estate in Brazil last year"? And suppose he +was no longer able or willing "to personally supervise his racing +stable," that he "had grown tired of the track," etc. Nonsense! The +press knows so little of the real truth. For me the Baron Santos da +Granja a was simply a seasoned man of the world, with the good taste to +have retired from its conspicuous notoriety; and good taste is always +expensive. His bank account did not interest me. + + * * * * * + +I knew her well by sight, for she passed me often in the Bois de +Boulogne when I ran up to Paris on just such errands as my present one. +She had given me thus now and then glimpses of her feverish +life--gleams from the facets, since her success in Paris was as +brilliant as a diamond. Occasionally I would meet her in the shaded +alleys, but always in sight of her brougham, which kept pace with her +whims at a safe but discreet distance. + +There was a rare perfection about her lithe, graceful person, an ease +and subtlety of line, an allure which was satisfying--from her trim +little feet gloved in suède, to the slender nape of her neck, from which +sprang, back of the loveliest of little ears, the exquisite sheen of her +blonde hair. + +There were mornings when she wore a faultless tailor-made of plain dark +blue and carried a scarlet parasol, with its jewelled handle held in a +firm little hand secreted in spotless white kid. + +I noticed, too, in passing that her eyes were deep violet and +exceedingly alert, her features classic in their fineness. Once I saw +her smile, not at me, but at her fox terrier. It was then that I caught +a glimpse of her young white teeth--pearly white in contrast to the +freshness of her pink and olive skin, so clear that it seemed to be +translucent, and she blushed easily, having lived but a score of springs +all told. + +In the afternoon, when she drove in her brougham lined with dove-gray, +the scarlet parasol was substituted by one of filmy, creamy lace, +shading a gown of pale mauve or champagne colour. + +I had heard that she was passionately extravagant, that she seldom, if +ever, won at the races--owned a little hotel with a carved façade in the +Avenue du Bois, a villa at Dinard, and three fluffy little dogs, who +jingled their gold bells when they followed her. + +She dined at Paillard's, sometimes at the Café de la Paix, rarely at +Maxim's; skated at the Palais de Glace on the most respectable +afternoons--drank plain water--rolled her own cigarettes--and possessed +a small jewel box full of emeralds, which she seldom wore. + +_Voilà!_ A spoiled child for you! + +There were mornings, too, when, after her tub, as early as nine, she +galloped away on her cob to the _Bois_ for her coffee and hot _brioche_ +at the Pré Catelan, a romantic little farm with a café and a stableful +of mild-eyed cows that provide fresh milk to the weary at daylight, who +are trying hard to turn over a new leaf before the next midnight. Often +she came there accompanied by her groom and the three little dogs with +the jingling bells, who enjoyed the warm milk and the run back of the +fleet hoofs of her saddle-horse. + +On this very morning--upon which opens the second act of my drama, I +found her sitting at the next table to mine, chiding one of the jingling +little dogs for his disobedience. + +"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she exclaimed suddenly, with a savage gleam in her +eyes. + +I turned and gazed at her in astonishment. It was the first time I had +heard her voice. It was her accent that made me stare. + +"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she repeated, in the patois of the Normand peasant, +lifting her riding crop in warning to the ball of fluff who had refused +to get on his chair and was now wriggling in apology. + +"Who is that lady?" I asked the old waiter Emile, who was serving me. + +"Madame is an Austrian," he confided to me, bending his fat back as he +poured my coffee. + +"Austrian, eh! Are you certain, Emile?" + +"_Parbleu_, monsieur" replied Emile, "one is never certain of any one in +Paris. I only tell monsieur what I have heard. Ah! it is very easy to be +mistaken in Paris, monsieur. Take, for instance, the lady in deep +mourning, with the two little girls, over there at the table under the +lilac bush." + +"She is young to be a widow," I interposed, glancing discreetly in the +direction he nodded. + +Emile smiled faintly. "She is not a widow, monsieur," he returned, +"neither is she as Spanish as she looks; she is Polish and dances at the +Folies Parisiennes under the name of _La Belle Gueritta_ from Seville." + +"But her children look French," I ventured. + +"They are the two little girls of her concierge, monsieur." Emile's +smile widened until it spread in merry wrinkles to the corners of his +twinkling eyes. + +"In all that lace and velvet?" I exclaimed. + +"Precisely, monsieur." + +"And why the deep mourning, Emile?" + +"It is a pose, monsieur. One must invent novelties, eh? when one is as +good-looking as that. Besides, madame's reputation has not been of the +best for some time. Monsieur possibly remembers the little affair last +year in the Rue des Mathurins? Very well, it was she who extracted the +hundred thousand francs from the Marquis de Villiers. Madame now gives +largely to charity and goes to mass." + +"Blackmail, Emile?" + +"Of the worst kind, and so monsieur sees how easily one can be mistaken, +is it not so? _Sacristi!_ one never knows." + +"But are you certain you are not mistaken about your Austrian, Emile?" I +ventured. + +He shrugged his shoulders as if in apology for his opinion, and I turned +again to study his Austrian. The noses of her little dogs with the +jingling bells were now contentedly immersed in a bowl of milk. + +A moment later I saw her lift her clear violet eyes and catch sight of +one of the milkers, who was trying to lead a balky cow through the court +by a rope badly knotted over her horns. She was smiling as she sat +watching the cow, who now refused to budge. The boy was losing his +temper when she broke into a rippling laugh, rose, and going over to the +unruly beast, unknotted the rope from her horns and, replacing it by two +half hitches with the ease and skill of a sailor, handed the rope back +to the boy. + +"There, you little stupid!" she exclaimed, "she will lead better now. +_Allez!_" she cried, giving the cow a sharp rap on her rump. "_Allez! +Hup!_" + +A murmur of surprise escaped Emile. "It is not the first time madame has +done that trick," he remarked under his hand, as she crossed the +courtyard to regain her chair. + +"She is Normande," I declared, "I am certain of it by the way she said +'_Eh ben!_' And did you not notice her walk back to her table? Erect, +with the easy, quick step of a fisher girl? The same walk of the race of +fisher girls who live in my village," I continued with enthusiastic +decision. "There is no mistaking it; it is peculiar to Pont du Sable, +and note, too, her _patois_!" + +"It is quite possible, monsieur," replied Emile, "but it does not +surprise me. One sees every one in Paris. There are few _grandes dames_ +left. When one has been a _garçon de café_, as I have, for over thirty +years, one is surprised at nothing; not even----" + +The tap of a gold coin on the rim of a cold saucer interrupted our talk. +The summons was from my lady who had conquered the cow. + +"_Voilà_, madame!" cried Emile, as he left me to hasten to her table, +where he made the change, slipped the _pourboire_ she gave him into his +alpaca pocket, and with a respectful, "_Merci bien_, madame," drew back +her chair as she rose and summoned her groom, who a moment later stood +ready to help her mount. The next instant I saw her hastily withdraw her +small foot from the hollow of his coarse hand, and wave to a passing +horse and rider. The rider, whose features were half hidden under the +turned-down brim of a panama, wheeled his horse, reined up before her, +dismounted, threw his rein to her groom and bending, kissed her on both +cheeks. She laughed; murmured something in his ear; the panama nodded in +reply, then, slipping his arm under her own, the two entered the +courtyard. There they were greeted by Emile. + +"Madame and I will breakfast here to-day, Emile," said the voice beneath +the panama. "The little table in the corner and the same Pommard." + +He threw his riding crop on a vacant chair and, lifting his hat, handed +it to the veteran waiter. + +It was the Baron Santos da Granja! + + * * * * * + +Hidden at the foot of a plateau skirting the desert marshes, two miles +above my village of Pont du Sable, lies in ruins all that remains of the +deserted village known as La Poche. + +It is well named "The Pocket," since for years it served as a safe +receptacle for itinerant beggars and fugitives from justice who found an +ideal retreat among its limestone quarries, which, being long +abandoned, provided holes in the steep hillside for certain vagabonds, +who paid neither taxes to the government, nor heed to its law. + +There is an old cattle trail that leads to La Poche, crossed now and +then by overgrown paths, that wind up through a labyrinth of briers, +rank ferns and matted growth to the plateau spreading back from the +hillside. I use this path often as a short cut home. + +One evening I had shot late on the marshes and started for home by way +of La Poche. It was bright moonlight when I reached a trail new to me +and approached the deserted village by way of a tangled, overgrown road. + +The wind had gone down with the rising of the moon, and the intense +stillness of the place was such that I could hear about me in the tangle +the lifting of a trampled weed and the moving of the insects as my boots +disturbed them. The silence was uncanny. Under the brilliancy of the +moon all things gleamed clear in a mystic light, their shadows as black +as the sunken pits of a cave. + +I pushed on through the matted growth, with the collar of my leather +coat buttoned up, my cap pulled down, and my hands thrust in my sleeves, +hugging my gun under my arm, for the briars made tough going. + +Presently, I got free of the tangle and out to a grassy stretch of road, +once part of the river bed. Here and there emerged, from the matted +tangle of the hillside flanking it, the ruins of La Poche. Often only a +single wall or a tottering chimney remained silhouetted against the +skeleton of a gabled roof; its rafters stripped of tiles, gleaming in +the moonlight like the ribs and breastbone of a carcass. + +If La Poche is a place to be shunned by day--at night it becomes +terrible; it seems to breathe the hidden viciousness of its past, as if +its ruins were the tombs of its bygone criminals. + +I kept on the road, passed another carcass and drew abreast of a third, +which I stepped out of the road to examine. Both its floors had long +before I was born dropped into its cellar; its threshold beneath my feet +was slippery with green slime; I looked up through its ribs, from which +hung festoons of cobwebs and dead vines, like shreds of dried flesh +hanging from a skeleton. + +Still pursuing my way, I came across an old well; the bucket was drawn +up and its chain wet; it was the first sign of habitation I had come +across. As my hand touched the windlass, I instinctively gave it a turn; +it creaked dismally and a dog barked savagely at the sound from +somewhere up the hillside; then the sharp, snappy yelping of other dogs +higher up followed. + +I stopped, felt in my pockets and slipped two shells into my gun, +heavily loaded for duck, with the feeling that if I were forced to shoot +I would hold high over their heads. As I closed the breech of my gun and +clicked back my hammers to be ready for any emergency, the tall figure +of a man loomed up in the grassy road ahead of me, his legs in a ray of +moonlight, the rest of him in shadow. + +"Does this road lead out to the main road?" I called to him, not being +any too sure that it did. + +"Who is there?" he demanded sharply and in perfect French; then he +advanced and I saw that the heavy stick he carried with a firm grip was +mounted in silver. + +"A hunter, monsieur," I returned pleasantly, noticing now his dress and +bearing. + +It was so dark where we stood, that I could not yet distinguish his +features. + +"May I ask you, monsieur, whom I have the pleasure of meeting," I +ventured, my mind now more at rest. + +He strode toward me. + +"My name is de Brissac," said he, extending his hand. "Forgive me," he +added with a good-natured laugh, "if I startled you; it is hardly the +place to meet a gentleman in at this hour. Have you missed your way?" + +"No," I replied, "I shot late and took a short cut to reach my home." I +pointed in the direction of the marshes while I searched his face which +was still shrouded in gloom, in my effort to see what manner of man I +had run across. + +"And have you had good luck?" he inquired with a certain meaning in his +voice, as if he was still in doubt regarding my trespass. + +"Not worth speaking of," I returned in as calm a voice as I could +muster; "the birds are mostly gone. And do you shoot also, may I ask?" + +"It is an incorrigible habit with me," he confessed in a more reassured +tone. "I have, however, not done so badly of late with the birds; I +killed seventeen plovers this morning--a fine lot." + +Here his tone changed. All his former reserve had vanished. "Come with +me," said he; "I insist; I'll show you what I killed; they make a pretty +string, I assure you. You shall see, too, presently, my house; it is the +one with the new roof. Do you happen to have seen it?" + +This came with a certain note of seriousness in his voice. + +"No, but I am certain it must be a luxury in the débris," I laughed; +"but," I added, "I am afraid I must postpone the pleasure until another +time." I was still undecided as to my course. + +Again his tone changed to one of extreme courtesy, as if he had been +quick to notice my hesitation. + +"I know it is late," said he, "but I must insist on your accepting my +hospitality. The main road lies at the end of the plateau, and I will +see you safely out to it and on your way home." + +I paused before answering. Under the circumstances, I knew, I could not +very well refuse, and yet I had a certain dread of accepting too easily. +In France such refusals are sometimes considered as insults. "Thank +you," I said at last, resolved to see the adventure out; "I accept with +pleasure," adding with a laugh and speaking to his shadowy bulk, for I +could not yet see his face: + +"What silent mystery, what an uncanny fascination this place has about +it! Even our meeting seems part of it. Don't you think so?" + +"Yes, there is a peculiar charm here," he replied, in a more cautious +tone as he led me into a narrow trail, "a charm that has taken hold of +me, so that I bury myself here occasionally; it is a rest from Paris." + +From Paris, eh? I thought--then he does not belong to the coast. + +I edged nearer, determined now to catch a glimpse of his features, the +light of the moon having grown stronger. As he turned, its rays +illumined his face and at the same instant a curious gleam flashed into +his eyes. + +Again the Baron da Granja stood before me. + +Da Granja! the rich Brazilian! President of one of the biggest foreign +banks in Paris. Man of the world, with a string of horses famous for +years on a dozen race tracks. What the devil was he doing here? Had the +cares of his bank driven him to such a lonely hermitage as La Poche? It +seemed incredible, and yet there was not the slightest doubt as to his +identity--I had seen him too often to be mistaken. His voice, too, now +came back to me. + +He strode on, and for some minutes kept silent, then he stopped suddenly +and in a voice in which the old doubting tones were again audible said: + +"You are English?" + +Here he barred the path. + +"No," I answered, a little ill at ease at his sudden change of manner. +"American, from New York." + +"And yet, I think I have seen you in Paris," he replied, after a +moment's hesitation, his eyes boring into mine, which the light of the +moon now made clear to him. + +"It is quite possible," I returned calmly; "I think I have seen you +also, monsieur; I am often in Paris." + +Again he looked at me searchingly. + +"Where?" he asked. + +"At the Government's store, buying cigars." I did not intend to go any +further. + +He smiled as if relieved. He had been either trying to place me, or his +suspicions had been again aroused, I could not tell which. One thing was +certain: he was convinced I had swallowed the name "de Brissac" easily. + +All at once his genial manner returned. "This way, to the right," he +exclaimed. "Pardon me if I lead the way; the path is winding. My ruin, +as I sometimes call it, is only a little farther up, and you shall have +a long whiskey and siphon when you get there. You know Pont du Sable, of +course," he continued as I kept in his tracks; the talk having again +turned on his love of sport. + +"Somewhat. I live there." + +This time the surprise was his. + +"Is it possible?" he cried, laying his hand on my shoulder, his face +alight. + +"Yes, my house is the once-abandoned one with the wall down by the +marsh." + +"Ah!" he burst out, "so you are _the_ American, the newcomer, the man I +have heard so much about, the man who is always shooting; and how the +devil, may I ask, did you come to settle in Pont du Sable?" + +"Well, you see, every one said it was such a wretched hole that I felt +there must be some good in it. I have found it charming, and with the +shooting it has become an old friend. I am glad also to find that you +like it well enough to (it was I who hesitated now) to visit it." + +"Yes, to shoot is always a relief," he answered evasively, and then in a +more determined voice added, "This way, to the right, over the rocks! +Come, give me your gun! The stones are slippery." + +"No, I will carry it," I replied. "I am used to carrying it," and though +my voice did not betray me, I proposed to continue to carry it. It was +at least a protection against a walking stick with a silver top. My mind +being still occupied with his suspicions, his inquiries, and most of all +his persistence that I should visit his house, with no other object in +view than a whiskey and siphon and a string of plovers. And yet, despite +the gruesomeness of the surroundings, while alert as to his slightest +move, I was determined to see the adventure through. + +He did not insist, but turned sharply to the left, and the next instant +I stood before the threshold of a low stone house with a new tiled roof. +A squat, snug house, the eaves of whose steep gabled roof came down well +over its two stories, like the snuffer on a candle. He stepped to the +threshold, felt about the door as if in search for a latch, and rapped +three times with the flat of his hand. Then he called softly: + +"Léa!" + +"_C'est toi?_" came in answer, and a small hand cautiously opened a +heavy overhead shutter, back of which a shaded lamp was burning. + +"Yes, it is all right, it is I," said he. "Come down! I have a surprise +for you. I have captured an American." + +There came the sound of tripping feet, the quick drawing of a heavy +bolt, and the door opened. + +My little lady of the Pré Catelan! + +Not in a tea-gown from the Rue de la Paix--nothing of that kind +whatever; not a ruffle, not a jewel--but clothed in the well-worn +garment of a fisher girl of the coast--a coarse homespun chemise of +linen, open at the throat, and a still coarser petticoat of blue, faded +by the salt sea--a fisher girl's petticoat that stopped at her knees, +showing her trim bare legs and the white insteps of her little feet, +incased in a pair of heelless felt slippers. + +For the second time I was treated to a surprise. Really, Pont du Sable +was not so dead a village after all. + +Emile was wrong. She was one of my village people. + +My host did not notice my astonishment, but waved his hand courteously. + +"_Entrez_, monsieur!" he cried with a laugh, and then, turning sharply, +he closed the door and bolted it. + +I looked about me. + +We were in a rough little room, that would have won any hunter's heart; +there were solid racks, heavy with guns, on the walls, a snapping wood +fire, and a clean table, laid for dinner, and lastly, the chair quickly +drawn to it for the waiting guest. This last they laughingly forced me +into, for they both insisted I should dine with them--an invitation +which I gladly accepted, for my fears were now completely allayed. + +We talked of the neighbourhood, of hunting, of Paris, of the new play at +the Nouveautés--I did not mention the Bois. One rarely mentions in +France having seen a woman out of her own home, although I was sure she +remembered me from a look which now and then came into her eyes that +left but little doubt in my mind that she vaguely recalled the incident +at the Pré Catelan with the cow. + +It was a simple peasant dinner which followed. When it was over, he +went to a corner cupboard and drew forth a flat box of long perfectos, +which I recognized instantly as the same brand of rare Havanas he had so +extravagantly purchased from the Government. If I had had my doubt as to +the identity of my man it was at rest now. + +"You will find them mild," said he with a smile, as he lifted the +tinfoil cover. + +"No good cigar is strong," I replied, breaking the untouched row and +bending my head as my host struck a match, my mind more on the scene in +the Government's shop than the quality of his tobacco. And yet with all +the charm that the atmosphere of his place afforded, two things still +seemed to me strange--the absence of a servant, until I realized +instinctively the incident of the balky cow, and the prompt bolting of +the outside door. + +The first I explained to myself as being due to her peasant blood and +her ability to help herself; the second to the loneliness of the place +and the characters it sometimes harboured. As for my host, I had to +admit, despite my mental queries, that his bearing and manner +completely captivated me, for a more delightful conversationalist it +would have been difficult to find. + +Not only did he know the art of eliminating himself and amusing you with +topics that pleased you, but his cleverness in avoiding the personal was +amazingly skilful. His tact was especially accentuated when, with a +significant look at his companion, who at once rose from her seat and, +crossing the room, busied herself with choosing the liqueurs from a +closet in the corner of the room, he drew me aside by the fire, and in a +calm, sotto voce said with intense earnestness: + +"You may think it strange, monsieur, that I invited you, that I was even +insistent. You, like myself, are a man of the world and can understand. +You will do me a great favour if you will not mention to any one having +met either myself or my little housekeeper" (there was not a tremor in +his voice), "who, as you see, is a peasant; in fact, she was born here. +We are not bothered with either friends or acquaintances here, nor do we +care for prowlers; you must excuse me for at first taking you for one. +You, of course, know the reputation of La Poche." + +"You could not have chosen a better place to be lost in," I answered, +smiling as discreetly as one should over the confession of another's +love affair. "Moreover, in life I have found it the best policy to keep +one's mouth shut. You have my word, monsieur--it is as if we had never +met--as if La Poche did not exist." + +"Thank you," said he calmly, taking the tiny liqueur glasses from her +hands; "what will you have--cognac or green chartreuse?" + +"Chartreuse," I answered quietly. My eye had caught the labels which I +knew to be genuine from the Grenoble printer. + +"Ah! you knew it--_Dieu!_ but it is good, that old chartreuse!" +exclaimed my hostess with a rippling laugh as she filled my glass, "we +are lucky to find it." + +Then something happened which even now sends a cold chill down my spine. +Hardly had I raised my glass to my lips when there came a sharp, +determined rap at the bolted door, and my host sprang to his feet. For +a moment no one spoke--I turned instinctively to look at my lady of the +Pré Catelan. She was breathing with dilated eyes, her lips drawn and +quivering, every muscle of her lithe body trembling. He was standing +erect, his head thrown back, his whole body tense. One hand gripped the +back of his chair, the other was outstretched authoritatively toward us +as if to command our silence. + +Again the rapping, this time violent, insistent. + +"Who is there?" he demanded, after what seemed to me an interminable +moment of suspense. + +With this he slipped swiftly through a door leading into a narrow +corridor, closed another door at the end of the passage, broke the key +in the lock and returned on tiptoe as noiselessly as he left the room. +Then picking up the lamp he placed it under the table, thus deadening +its glow. + +Now a voice rang out, "Open in the name of the Law." + +No one moved. + +He again gripped the back of the chair, his face deathly white, his jaw +set, his eyes with a sullen gleam in them. + +I turned to look at her. Her hands were outstretched on the table, her +dilated eyes staring straight at the bolt as if her whole life depended +on its strength. + +Again came the command to open, this time in a voice that allowed no +question as to the determination of the outsider: + +"Open in the name of the Law." + +No one moved or answered. + +A crashing thud, from a heavy beam, snapped the bolt from its screws, +another blow tore loose the door. Through the opening and over the +débris sprang a short, broad-shouldered man in a gray suit, while three +other heavily built men entered, barring the exit. + +The woman screamed and fell forward on the table, her head buried in her +clenched hands. The Baron faced the one in gray. + +"What do you want?" he stammered in the voice of a ghost. + +"You, Pedro Maceiö," said the man in the gray suit, in a low, even tone, +"for the last trick you will pull off in some years; open up things, do +you hear? All of it, and quick." + +The Brazilian did not reply; he stood behind his chair, eyeing sullenly +the man in gray, who now held a revolver at a level with his heart. + +Then the man in gray called to one of his men, his eye still on the +banker. "Break in the door at the end of the passage." + +With the quickness of a cat, the Brazilian grabbed the chair and with a +swinging blow tried to fell his assailant and dash past him. The man in +gray dodged and pocketed his weapon. The next instant he had his +prisoner by the throat and had slammed him against the wall; then came +the sharp click of a pair of handcuffs. The banker tripped and fell to +the floor. + +It had all happened so quickly that I was dazed as I looked on. What it +was all about I did not know. It seemed impossible that my host, a man +whose bank was well known in Paris, was really a criminal. Were the +intruders from the police? Or was it a clever ruse of four determined +burglars? + +I began now to gather my wits and think of myself, although so far not +one of the intruders had taken the slightest notice of my presence. + +One of the men was occupied in breaking open the door at the end of the +corridor, while another stood guard over the now sobbing, hysterical +woman. The fourth had remained at the open doorway. + +As for the prisoner, who had now regained his feet, he had sunk into the +chair he had used in defence and sat there staring at the floor, +breathing in short gasps. + +The man who had been ordered by his chief to break open the door at the +end of the corridor, now returned and laid upon the dinner table two +engraved metal plates, and a handful of new one-hundred-franc notes; +some I noticed from where I sat were blank on one side. With the plates +came the acrid stench of a broken bottle of acid. + +"My God! Counterfeiting!" I exclaimed half aloud. + +The Baron rose from his seat and stretched out his linked hands. + +"She is innocent," he pleaded huskily, lifting his eyes to the woman. I +could not repress a feeling of profound pity for him. + +The man in gray made no reply; instead he turned to me. + +"I shall escort you, too, monsieur," he remarked coolly. + +"Escort me? _Me?_ What have I got to do with it, I'd like to know?" I +cried, springing to my feet. "I wish to explain--to make clear to +you--_clear_. I want you to understand that I stumbled here by the +merest chance; that I never spoke to this man in my life until to-night, +that I accepted his hospitality purely because I did not wish to offend +him, although I had shot late and was in a hurry to get home." + +He smiled quietly. + +"Please do not worry," he returned, "we know all about you. You are the +American. Your house is the old one by the marsh in Pont du Sable. I +called on you this afternoon, but you were absent. I am really indebted +to you if you do but know it. By following your tracks, monsieur, we +stumbled on the nest we have so long been looking for. Permit me to hand +you my card. My name is Guinard--Sous Chief of the Paris Police." + +I breathed easier--things were clearing up. + +"And may I ask, monsieur, how you knew I had gone in the direction of La +Poche?" I inquired. That was still a mystery. + +"You have a little maid," he replied; "and little maids can sometimes be +made to talk." + +He paused and then said slowly, weighing each word. + +"Yes, that no doubt surprises you, but we follow every clue. You were +both sportsmen; that, as you know, monsieur, is always a bond, and we +had not long to wait, although it was too dark for us to be quite sure +when you both passed me. It was the bolting of the door that clinched +the matter for me. But for the absence of two of my men on another scent +we should have disturbed you earlier. I must compliment you, monsieur, +on your knowledge of chartreuse as well as your taste for good cigars; +permit me to offer you another." Here he slipped his hand into his +pocket and handed me a duplicate of the one I had been smoking. + +"Twelve boxes, Maceiö, were there not? Not expensive, eh, when purchased +with these?" and he spread out the identical bank-notes with which his +prisoner had paid for them in the Government store on the boulevard. + +"As for you, monsieur, it is only necessary that one of my men take your +statement at your house; after that you are free. + +"Come, Maceiö," and he shook the prisoner by the shoulder, "you take the +midnight train with me back to Paris--you too, madame." + + * * * * * + +And so I say again, and this time you must agree with me, that strange +happenings, often with a note of terror in them, occur now and then in +my lost village by the sea. + + [Illustration: cigar] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: soldiers] + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +THE HORRORS OF WAR + + +At the very beginning of the straggling fishing-village of Pont du Sable +and close by the tawny marsh stands the little stone house of the mayor. +The house, like Monsieur le Maire himself, is short and sturdy. Its +modest façade is half hidden under a coverlet of yellow roses that have +spread at random over the tiled roof as high as the chimney. In front, +edging the road, is a tidy strip of garden with more roses, a wood-pile, +and an ancient well whose stone roof shelters a worn windlass that +groans in protest whenever its chain and bucket are disturbed. + +I heard the windlass complaining this sunny morning as I passed on my +way through the village and caught sight of the ruddy mayor in his blue +blouse lowering the bucket. The chain snapped taut, the bucket gulped +its fill, and Monsieur le Maire caught sight of me. + +"_Ah bigre!_" he exclaimed as he left the bucket where it hung and came +forward with both hands outstretched in welcome, a smile wrinkling his +genial face, clean-shaven to the edges of his short, cropped gray +side-whiskers, reaching well beneath his chin. "Come in, come in," he +insisted, laying a persuasive hand on my shoulder, as he unlatched his +gate. + +It is almost impossible for a friend to pass the mayor's without being +stopped by just such a welcome. The twinkle in his eyes and the hearty +genuineness of his greeting are irresistible. The next moment you have +crossed his threshold and entered a square, low-ceiled room that for +over forty years has served Monsieur le Maire as living room, kitchen, +and executive chamber. + +He had left me for a moment, as he always does when he welcomes a +friend. I could hear from the pantry cupboard beyond the shivery tinkle +of glasses as they settled on a tray. He had again insisted, as he +always does, upon my occupying the armchair in the small parlour +adjoining, with its wax flowers and its steel engraving of Napoleon at +Waterloo; but I had protested as I always do, for I prefer the kitchen. + +I like its cavernous fireplace with its crane and spit, and the low +ceiling upheld by great beams of rough-hewn oak, and the tall clock in +the corner, and the hanging copper saucepans, kettles and ladles, kept +as bright as polished gold. Here, too, is a generous Norman armoire with +carved oaken doors swung on bar-hinges of shining steel, and a +centre-table provided with a small bottle of violet ink, a scratchy pen +and an iron seal worked by a lever--a seal that has grown dull from long +service in the stamping of certain documents relative to plain justice, +marriage, the official recognition of the recently departed and the +newly born. Above the fireplace hangs a faded photograph of a prize +bull, for you must know that Monsieur le Maire has been for half a +generation a dealer in Norman cattle. + +Presently he returned with the tray, placing it upon the table within +reach of our chairs while I stood admiring the bull. + +He stopped as he half drew the cork from a fat brown jug, and looked at +me curiously, his voice sinking almost to a whisper. + +"You never were a dealer in beef?" he ventured timidly. + +I shook my head sadly. + +"_Hélas! Hélas!_ Never mind," said he. "One cannot be everything. +There's my brother-in-law, Péquin; he does not know a yearling from a +three-year-old. It is he who keeps the little store at Saint Philippe." + +The cork squeaked out. He filled the thimble glasses with rare old +applejack so skilfully that another drop would have flushed over their +worn gilt rims. What a gracious old gentleman he is! If it be a question +of clipping a rose from his tidy garden and presenting it to a lady, he +does it with such a gentle courtliness that the rose smells the sweeter +for it--almost a lost art nowadays. + +"I saw the curé this morning," he remarked, as we settled ourselves for +a chat. "He could not stop, but he waved me an _au revoir_, for he was +in a hurry to catch his train. He had been all night in his +duck-blind--I doubt if he had much luck, for the wind is from the south. +There is a fellow for you who loves to shoot," chuckled the mayor. + +"Some news for him of game?" I inquired. + +The small eyes of the mayor twinkled knowingly. "_Entre nous_," he +confided, "he has gone to Bonvilette to spray the sick roses of a friend +with sulphate of iron--he borrowed my squirt-gun yesterday." + +"And how far is it to Bonvilette?" + +"_Eh ben!_ One must go by the little train to Nivelle," explained +Monsieur le Maire, "and from Nivelle to Bonvilette there lies a good +twenty kilometres for a horse. Let us say he will be back in three +days." + +"And the mass meanwhile?" I ventured. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have? The roses of his old friend are sick. +It is the duty of a curé to tend the sick. Besides----" + +Here Monsieur le Maire leaned forward within reach of my ear, and I +caught in whispers something relative to a château and one of the best +cellars of Bordeaux in France. + +"Naturally," I replied, with a wink, and again my eyes reverted to the +prize bull. It is not wise to raise one's voice in so small a village as +Pont du Sable, even indoors. + +"A pretty beast!" affirmed the mayor, noticing my continued interest in +live stock. "And let me tell you that I took him to England in +'eighty-two. _Ah, mais oui! Hélas! Hélas!_ What a trip!" he sighed. +"Monsieur Toupinet--he that has the big farm at Saint Philippe--and I +sailed together the third of October, in 1882, with forty steers. Our +ship was called _The Souvenir_, and I want to tell you, my friend, it +wasn't gay, that voyage. _Ah, mais non!_ Toupinet was sea-sick--I was +sea-sick--the steers were sea-sick--all except that _sacré_ brute up +there, and he roared all the way from Calais to London. _Eh ben!_ And +would you believe it?" At the approaching statement Monsieur le Maire's +countenance assumed a look of righteous indignation. He raised his fist +and brought it down savagely on the table as he declared: "Would you +believe it? We were _thirty-four hours_ without eating and _twenty-nine +hours, mon Dieu!_ without drinking!" + +I looked up in pained astonishment. + +"And that wasn't all," continued the mayor. "A hurricane struck us three +hours out, and we rolled all night in a dog's sea. The steers were up to +their bellies in water. Aye, but she did blow, and _The Souvenir_ had +all she could do to keep afloat. The captain was lashed to the bridge +all night and most of the next day. Neither Toupinet nor myself ever +expected to see land again, and there we were like calves in a pen on +the floor of the cabin full of tobacco-smoke and English, and not a word +of English could we speak except 'yes' and 'good morning.'" Here +Monsieur le Maire stopped and choked. Finally he dried his eyes on the +sleeve of his blouse, for he was wheezing with laughter, took a sip from +his glass, and resumed: + +"Well, the saints did not desert us. _Ah, mais non!_ For about four +o'clock in the afternoon the captain sighted Su-Tum-Tum." + +"Sighted what?" I exclaimed. + +"_Eh ben!_ Su-Tum-Tum," he replied. + +"Where had you drifted? To the Corean coast?" + +"_Mais non_," he retorted, annoyed at my dullness to comprehend. "We +were saved--_comprenez-vous?_--for there, to starboard, lay Su-Tum-Tum +as plain as a sheep's nose." + +"England? Impossible!" I returned. + +"_Mais parfaitement!_" he declared, with a hopeless gesture. +"_Su-Tum-Tum_," he reiterated slowly for my benefit. + +"Never heard of it," I replied. + +The next instant he was out of his chair, and fumbling in a drawer of +the table extracted a warped atlas, reseated himself, and began to turn +the pages. + +"_Eh, voilà!_" he cried as his forefinger stopped under a word along the +English coast. "That's Su-Tum-Tum plain enough, isn't it?" + +"Ah! Southampton!" I exclaimed. "Of course--plain as day." + +"Ah!" ejaculated the mayor, leaning back in his chair with a broad smile +of satisfaction. "You see, I was right, Su-Tum-Tum. _Eh ben!_ Do you +know," he said gently as I left him, "when you first came to Pont du +Sable there were times then, my poor friend, when I could not understand +a word you said in French." + +Then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, he called me back as he +closed the gate. + +"Are those gipsies still camped outside your wall?" he inquired, +suddenly assuming the dignity of his office. "_Bon Dieu!_ They are a bad +lot, those vagabonds! If I don't tell them to be off you won't have a +duck or a chicken left." + +"Let them stay," I pleaded, "they do no harm. Besides, I like to see the +light of their camp-fire at night scurrying over my wall." + +"How many are there?" inquired his excellency. + +"Seven or eight, not counting the dogs chained under the wagons," I +confessed reluctantly, fearing the hand of the law, for I have a +fondness for gipsies. "But you need not worry about them. They won't +steal from me. Their wagons are clean inside and out." + +"_Ah, mais!_" sighed the mayor. "It's just like you. You spoil your +cat, you spoil your dog, and now you're spoiling these rascals by giving +them a snug berth. Have they their papers of identity?" + +"Yes," I called back, "the chief showed them to me when he asked +permission to camp." + +"Of course," laughed the mayor. "You'll never catch them without +them--signed by officials we never can trace." + +He waved me a cheery _au revoir_ and returned to the well of the +groaning windlass while I continued on my way through the village. + +Outside the squat stone houses, nets were drying in the sun. Save for +the occasional rattle of a passing cart, the village was silent, for +these fisher-folk go barefooted. Presently I reached the public square, +where nothing ever happens, and, turning an iron handle, entered Pont du +Sable's only store. A box of a place, smelling of dried herring, +kerosene, and cheese; and stocked with the plain necessities--almost +everything, from lard, tea, and big nails to soap, tarpaulins, and +applejack. The night's catch of mackerel had been good, and the small +room with its zinc bar was noisy with fisher-folk--wiry fishermen with +legs and chests as hard as iron; slim brown fisher girls as hardy as the +men, capricious, independent and saucy; a race of blonds for the most +part, with the temperament of brunettes. Old women grown gray and +leathery from fighting the sea, and old men too feeble to go--one of +these hung himself last winter because of this. + +It was here, too, I found Marianne, dripping wet, in her tarpaulins. + +"What luck?" I asked her as I helped myself to a package of cigarettes +from a pigeonhole and laid the payment thereof on the counter. + +"_Eh ben!_" she laughed. "We can't complain. If the good God would send +us such fishing every night we should eat well enough." + +She strode through the group to the counter to thrust out an empty +bottle. + +"Eight sous of the best," she demanded briskly of the mild-eyed grocer. +"My man's as wet as a rat--he needs some fire in him and he'll feel as +fit as a marquis." + +A good catch is a tonic to Pont du Sable. Instantly a spirit of good +humour and camaraderie spreads through the village--even old scores are +forgotten. A good haul of mackerel means a let-up in the daily struggle +for existence, which in winter becomes terrible. The sea knows not +charity. It massacres when it can and adds you to the line of dead +things along its edge where you are only remembered by the ebb and flow +of the tide. On blue calm mornings, being part of the jetsam, you may +glisten in the sun beside a water-logged spar; at night you become a +nonentity, of no more consequence along the wavering line of drift than +a rotten gull. But if, like Marianne, you have fought skilfully, you may +again enter Pont du Sable with a quicker eye, a harder body, and a +deeper knowledge of the southwest gale. + + * * * * * + +Within the last week Pont du Sable has undergone a transformation. The +dead village is alive with soldiers, for it is the time of the +manoeuvres. Houses, barns and cow-sheds are filled by night with the +red-trousered infantry of the French _République_. By day, the window +panes shiver under the distant flash and roar of artillery. The air +vibrates with the rip and rattle of musketry--savage volleys, filling +the heavens with shrill, vicious waves of whistling bullets that kill at +a miraculous distance. It is well that all this murderous fire occurs +beyond the desert of dunes skirting the open sea, for they say the +result upon the iron targets on the marsh is something frightful. The +general in command is in a good humour over the record. + +Despatch-bearers gallop at all hours of the day and night through Pont +du Sable's single street. The band plays daily in the public square. +Sunburned soldiers lug sacks of provisions and bundles of straw out to +five hundred more men bivouacked on the dunes. Whole regiments return to +the little fishing-village at twilight singing gay songs, followed by +the fisher girls. + + Ah! Mesdames--voilà du bon fromage! + Celui qui l'a fait il est de son village! + Voilà du bon fromage au lait! + Il est du pays de celui qui l'a fait. + +Three young officers are stopping at Monsieur le Curé's, who has +returned from the sick roses of his friend; and Tanrade has a colonel +and two lieutenants beneath his roof. As for myself and the house +abandoned by the marsh, we are very much occupied with a blustering old +general, his aide-de-camp, and two common soldiers; but I tremble lest +the general should discover the latter two, for you see, they knocked at +my door for a lodging before the general arrived, and I could not refuse +them. Both of them put together would hardly make a full-sized warrior, +and both play the slide-trombone in the band. Naturally their artistic +temperament revolted at the idea of sleeping in the only available place +left in the village--a cow-shed with cows. They explained this to me +with so many polite gestures, mingled with an occasional salute at their +assured gratefulness should I acquiesce, that I turned them over for +safe keeping to Suzette, who has given them her room and sleeps in the +garret. Suzette is overjoyed. Dream of dreams! For Suzette to have one +real live soldier in the house--but to have two! Both of these +red-eared, red-trousered dispensers of harmony are perfect in +deportment, and as quiet as mice. They slip out of my back gate at +daylight, bound for the seat of war and slip in again at sundown like +obedient children, talk in kitchen whispers to Suzette over hot cakes +and cider, and go punctually to bed at nine--the very hour when the +roaring old general and his aide-de-camp are toasting their gold spurs +before my fire. + + * * * * * + +The general is tall and broad-shouldered, and as agile as a boy. There +is a certain hard, compact firmness about him as if he had been cast in +bronze. His alert eyes are either flashing in authority or beaming in +gentleness. The same play between dominant roughness and tenderness is +true, too, of his voice and manner. + +"Madame," he said, last night, after dinner, as he bent and graciously +kissed Alice de Bréville's hand, "forgive an old savage who pays you +homage and the assurance of his profound respect." The next moment my +courtyard without rocked with his reprimand to a bungling lieutenant. + +To-night the general is in an uproar of good humour after a storm, for +did not some vagabonds steal the danger-posts intended to warn the +public of the location of the firing-line, so that new ones had to be +sent for? When the news of the theft reached him his rage was something +to behold. I could almost hear the little slide-trombonists shake as far +back as Suzette's kitchen. Fortunately, the cyclone was of short +duration--to-night he is pleased over the good work of his men during +the days of mock warfare and at the riddled, twisted targets, all of +which is child's play to this veteran who has weathered so many real +battles. + +To-night he has dined well, and his big hand is stroking the Essence of +Selfishness who purrs against his medalled chest under a caress as +gentle as a woman's. He sings his favourite airs from "Faust" and "Aïda" +with gusto, and roars over the gallant stories of his aide-de-camp, who, +being from the south of _La belle France_, is never at a loss for a +tale--tales that make the general's medals twinkle merrily in the +firelight. It is my first joyful experience as host to the military, +but I cannot help being nervous over Suzette and the trombonists. + +"Bah! Those _sacré_ musicians!" exclaimed the general to-night as he +puffed at his cigarette. "If there's a laggard in my camp, you may be +sure it is one of those little devils with a horn or a whistle. _Mon +Dieu!_ Once during the manoeuvres outside of Périgord I found three of +them who refused to sleep on the ground--stole off and begged a lodging +in a château, _parbleu!_" + +"Ah--indeed?" I stammered meekly. + +"Yes, they did," he bellowed, "but I cured them." I saw the muscles in +his neck flush crimson, and tried to change the subject, but in vain. + +"If they do that in time of peace, they'll do the same in war," he +thundered. + +"Naturally," I murmured, my heart in my throat. The aide-de-camp grunted +his approval while the general ran his hand over the gray bristles on +his scarred head. + +"Favours!" roared the general. "Favours, eh? When my men sleep on the +ground in rough weather, I sleep with them. What sort of discipline do +you suppose I'd have if I did not share their hardships time and time +again? Winter campaigns, forced marches--twenty-four hours of it +sometimes in mountain snow. Bah! That is nothing! They need that +training to go through worse, and yet those good fellows of mine, +heavily loaded, never complain. I've seen it so hot, too, that it would +melt a man's boots. It is always one of those imbeciles, then, with +nothing heavier to carry than a clarinet, who slips off to a comfortable +farm." + +"_Bien entendu, mon général!_" agreed his aide-de-camp tersely as he +leaned forward and kindled a fresh cigarette over the candle-shade. + +Happily I noticed at that moment that the cigarette-box needed +replenishing. It was an excuse at least to leave the room. A moment +later I had tiptoed to the closed kitchen door and stood listening. +Suzette was laughing. The trombonists were evidently very much at ease. +They, too, were laughing. Little pleasantries filtered through the +crack in the heavy door that made me hold my breath. Then I heard the +gurgle of cider poured into a glass, followed swiftly by what I took to +be unmistakably a kiss. + +It was all as plain now as Su-Tum-Tum. I dared not break in upon them. +Had I opened the door, the general might have recognized their voices. +Meanwhile, silly nothings were demoralizing the heart of my good +Suzette. She would fall desperately in love with either one or the other +of those _sacré_ virtuosos. Then another thought struck me! One of them +might be Suzette's sweetheart, hailing from her own village, the +manoeuvres at Pont du Sable a lucky meeting for them. A few sentences +that I now hurriedly caught convinced me of my own denseness in not +having my suspicions aroused when they singled out my domain and begged +my hospitality. + +The situation was becoming critical. By the light of the crack I +scribbled the following: + +"Get those two imbeciles of yours hidden in the hay-loft, quick. The +general wants to see the kitchen," and slipped it under the door, +coughing gently in warning. + +There was an abrupt silence--the sound of Suzette's slippered feet--and +the scrap of paper disappeared. Then heavy, excited breathing within. + +I dashed upstairs and was down again with the cigarettes before the +general had remarked my tardiness to his aide. At midnight I lighted +their candles and saw them safely up to bed. Then I went to my room +fronting the marsh and breathed easier. + +"Her sweetheart from her own village," I said to myself as I blew out my +candle. "The other"--I sighed drowsily--"was evidently his cousin. The +mayor was right. I have a bad habit of spoiling people and pets." + +Then again my mind reverted to the general. What if he discovered them? +My only consolation now was that to-day had seen the end of the +manoeuvres, and the soldiers would depart by a daylight train in the +morning. I recalled, too, the awkward little speech of thanks for my +hospitality the trombonists had made to me at an opportune moment +before dinner. Finally I fell into a troubled sleep. + +Suzette brought me my coffee at seven. + +"Luckily the general did not discover them!" I exclaimed when Suzette +had closed the double door of my bedroom. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ What danger we have run!" whispered the little maid. "I +could not sleep, monsieur, thinking of it." + +"You got them safely to the haymow?" I inquired anxiously. + +"Oh! _Mais oui_, monsieur. But then they slept over the cider-press back +of the big casks. Monsieur advised the hay-loft, but they said the roof +leaked. And had it rained, monsieur--" + +"See here," I interrupted, eyeing her trim self from head to foot +savagely. "You've known that little devil with the red ears before." + +I saw Suzette pale. + +"Confess!" I exclaimed hoarsely, with a military gesture of impatience. +"He comes from your village. Is it not so, my child?" + +Suzette was silent, her plump hands twisting nervously at her apron +pocket. + +"I am right, am I not? I might have guessed as much when they came." + +"Oh, monsieur!" Suzette faltered, the tears welling up from the depths +of her clear trustful eyes. + +"Is it not so?" I insisted. + +"Oh! Oh! _Mon Dieu, oui_," she confessed half audibly. "He--he is the +son of our neighbor, Monsieur Jacot." + +"At Saint Philippe?" + +"At Saint Philippe, monsieur. We were children together, Gaston and I. +I--I--was glad to see him again, monsieur," sobbed the little maid. "He +is very nice, Gaston." + +"When are you to be married?" I ventured after a moment's pause. + +"_Ben--eh ben!_ In two years, monsieur--after Gaston finishes his +military service. He--has a good trade, monsieur." + +"Soloist?" I asked grimly. + +"No, monsieur--tailor for ladies. We shall live in Paris," she added, +and for an instant her eyes sparkled; then again their gaze reverted to +the now sadly twisted apron pocket, for I was silent. + +"No more Suzette then!" I said to myself. No more merry, willing little +maid-of-all-work! No more hot mussels steaming in a savory sauce! Her +purée of peas, her tomato farcies, the stuffed artichokes, and her +coffee the like of which never before existed, would vanish with the +rest. But true love cannot be argued. There was nothing to do but to +hold out my hand in forgiveness. As I did so the general rang for his +coffee. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" gasped Suzette. "He rings." And flew down to her kitchen. + +An hour later the general was sauntering leisurely up the road through +the village over his morning cigar. The daylight train, followed rapidly +by four extra sections, had cleared Pont du Sable of all but two of the +red-trousered infantry--my trombonists! They had arrived an hour and +twenty minutes late, winded and demoralized. They sat together outside +the locked station unable to speak, pale and panic-stricken. + +The first object that caught the general's eye as he slowly turned into +the square by the little station was their four red-trousered legs--then +he caught the glint of their two brass trombones. The next instant heads +appeared at the windows. It was as if a bomb had suddenly exploded in +the square. + +The two trombonists were now on their feet, shaking from head to foot +while they saluted their general, whose ever-approaching stride struck +fresh agony to their hearts. He was roaring: + +"_Canailles! Imbéciles!_ A month of prison!" and "_Sacré bon Dieu's!_" +were all jumbled together. "Overslept! Overslept, did you?" he bellowed. +"In a château, I'll wager. _Parbleu!_ Where then? Out with it!" + +"_Pardon, mon général!_" chattered Gaston. "It was in the stone house of +the American gentleman by the marsh." + + * * * * * + +We lunched together in my garden at noon. He had grown calm again under +the spell of the Burgundy, but Suzette, I feared, would be ill. + +"Come, be merciful," I pleaded. + +"He is the fiancé of my good Suzette; besides, you must not forget that +you were all my guests." + +The general shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "They were lucky to have +gotten off with a month!" he snapped. "You saw that those little devils +were handcuffed?" he asked of his aide. + +"Yes, my general, the gendarme attended to them." + +"You were my guests," I insisted. "Hold me responsible if you wish." + +"Hold _you_ responsible!" he exclaimed. "But you are a foreigner--it +would be a little awkward." + +"It is my good Suzette," I continued, "that I am thinking of." + +He leaned back in his chair, and for a moment again ran his hands +thoughtfully over the bristles of his scarred head. He had a daughter of +his own. + +"The coffee," I said gently to my unhappy Suzette as she passed. + +"_Oui! Oui_, monsieur," she sighed, then suddenly mustering up her +courage, she gasped: + +"_Oh, mon général!_ Is it true, then, that Gaston must go to jail? _Ah! +Mon Dieu!_" + +"_Eh bien_, my girl! It will not kill him, _Sapristi!_ He will be a +better soldier for it." + +"Be merciful," I pleaded. + +"_Eh bien! Eh bien!_" he retorted. "_Eh bien!_" And cleared his throat. + +"Forgive them," I insisted. "They overslept. I don't want Suzette to +marry a jail-bird." + +Again he scratched his head and frowned. Suzette was in tears. + +"Um! Difficult!" he grumbled. "Order for arrest once given--" Then he +shot a glance at me. I caught a twinkle in his eye. + +"_Eh bien!_" he roared. "There--I forgive them! Ah, those _sacré_ +musicians!" + +Suzette stood there trembling, unable even to thank him, the colour +coming and going in her peasant cheeks. + +"Are they free, general?" I asked. + +"Yes," he retorted, "both of them." + +"Bravo!" I exclaimed. + +"Understand that I have done it for the little girl--and _you_. Is that +plain?" + +"Perfectly," I replied. "As plain as Su-Tum-Tum!" I added under my +breath as I filled his empty glass in gratefulness to the brim. + +"Halt!" shouted the general as the happiest of Suzettes turned toward +her kitchen. + +"Eh--um!" he mumbled awkwardly in a voice that had suddenly grown thick. +Then he sprang to his feet and raised his glass. + +"A health to the bride!" he cried. + + [Illustration: The general] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: a formal garden] + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +THE MILLION OF MONSIEUR DE SAVIGNAC + + +The bay of Pont du Sable, which the incoming tide had so swiftly filled +at daylight, now lay a naked waste of oozing black mud. The birds had +gone with the receding sea, and I was back from shooting, loafing over +my pipe and coffee in a still corner among the roses of my wild garden, +hidden behind the old wall, when that Customhouse soldier-gardener of +mine, Pierre, appeared with the following message: + +"Monsieur de Savignac presents his salutations the most distinguished +and begs that monsieur will give him the pleasure of calling on him _à +propos_ of the little spaniel." + +What an unexpected and welcome surprise! For weeks I had hunted in vain +for a thoroughbred. I had never hoped to be given one from the kennels +of Monsieur de Savignac's château. + +"Enchanted, Pierre!" I cried--"Present my compliments to Monsieur de +Savignac. Tell him how sincerely grateful I am, and say that he may +expect me to-morrow before noon." + +I could easily imagine what a beauty my spaniel would be, clean-limbed +and alert like the ones in the coloured lithographs. "No wonder," I +thought, as Pierre left me, "that every peasant for miles around spoke +of this good Monsieur de Savignac's generosity. Here he was giving me a +dog. To me, his American neighbour, whom he had never met!" + +As I walked over to the château with Pierre the next morning, I recalled +to my mind the career of this extraordinary man, whose only vice was his +great generosity. + +When Monsieur de Savignac was twenty-one he inherited a million francs, +acquired a high hat with a straight brim, a standing collar, well open +at the throat (in fashion then under Napoleon III.), a flowing cravat--a +plush waistcoat with crystal buttons, a plum-coloured broadcloth coat +and trousers of a pale lemon shade, striped with black, gathered tight +at the ankles, their bottoms flouncing over a pair of patent-leather +boots with high heels. + +He was tall, strong and good-natured, this lucky Jacques de Savignac, +with a weakness for the fair sex which was appalling, and a charm of +manner as irresistible as his generosity. A clumsy fencer, but a good +comrade--a fellow who could turn a pretty compliment, danced better than +most of the young dandies at court, drove his satin-skinned pair of bays +through the Bois with an easy smile, and hunted hares when the shooting +opened with the dogged tenacity of a veteran poacher. + +When he was twenty-one, the Paris that Grévin drew was in the splendour +of an extravagant life that she was never to see again, and never has. +One could _amuse_ one's self then--ah! _Dame, oui!_ + +There is no emperor now to keep Paris gay. + +What suppers at Véfour's! What a brilliant life there was in those days +under the arcades of the dear old Palais Royal, the gay world going +daily to this mondaine cloister to see and be seen--to dine and +wine--to make conquests of the heart and dance daylight quadrilles. + +Paris was ordered to be daily _en fête_ and the host at the Tuileries +saw to it that the gaiety did not flag. It was one way at least from +keeping the populace from cutting one another's throats, which they did +later with amazing ferocity. + +There were in those good old days under Louis Napoleon plenty of places +to gamble and spend the inherited gold. Ah! it was Rabelaisian enough! +What an age to have been the recipient of a million at twenty-one! It +was like being a king with no responsibilities. No wonder de Savignac +left the university--he had no longer any need of it. He dined now at +the Maison Dorée and was seen nightly at the "Bal Mabille" or the +"Closerie des Lilas," focussing his gold-rimmed monocle on the flying +feet and lace _frou-frous_ of "Diane la Sournoise," or roaring with +laughter as he chucked gold louis into the satined lap of some +"Francine" or "Cora" amid the blare of the band, and the flash of +jewels strung upon fair arms and fairer necks of woman who went nightly +to the "Bal Mabille" in smart turnouts and the costliest gowns money +could buy--and after the last mad quadrille was ended, on he went to +supper at Bignon's where more gaiety reigned until blue dawn, and where +the women were still laughing and merry and danced as easily on the +table as on the floor. + +What a time, I say, to have inherited a million! And how many good +friends he had! Painters and musicians, actors and wits (and there +_were_ some in those days)--no king ever gathered around him a jollier +band. + +It was from one of these henchmen of his that de Savignac purchased his +château (long since emptied of its furniture)--from a young nobleman +pressed hard for his debts, like most young noblemen are--and so the +great château close to my Village of Vagabonds, and known for miles +around, became de Savignac's. + +What house parties he gave then!--men and women of talent flocked under +his hospitable roof--indeed there was no lack of talent--some of it +from the Opéra--some of it from the Conservatoire, and they brought +their voices and their fiddles with them and played and sang for him for +days, in exchange for his feudal hospitality--more than that, the +painter Paul Deschamps covered the ceiling of his music room with chubby +cupids playing golden trumpets and violins--one adorable little fellow +in the cove above the grand piano struggling with a 'cello twice as high +as himself, and Carin painted the history of love in eight panels upon +the walls of the old ballroom, whose frescoes were shabby enough, so I +am told, when de Savignac purchased them. + +There were times also when the château was full to overflowing with +guests, so that the late comers were often quartered in a low two-story +manor close by, that nestled under great trees--a cosey, dear old place +covered with ivy and climbing yellow roses, with narrow alleys leading +to it flanked by tall poplars, and a formal garden behind it in the +niches of whose surrounding wall were statues of Psyche and Venus, their +smooth marble shoulders stained by rain and the drip and ooze of +growing things. One of them even now, still lifts its encrusted head to +the weather. + +During the shooting season there were weeks when he and his guests shot +daily from the crack of dawn until dark, the game-keepers following with +their carts that by night were loaded with hares, partridges, woodcock +and quail--then such a good dinner, sparkling with repartee and good +wine, and laughter and dancing after it, until the young hours in the +morning. One was more solid in those days than now--tired as their dogs +after the day's hunt, they dined and danced themselves young again for +the morrow. + +And what do you think they did after the Commune? They made him mayor. +Yes, indeed, to honour him--Mayor of Hirondelette, the little village +close to his estate, and de Savignac had to be formal and dignified for +the first time in his life--this good Bohemian--at the village fêtes, at +the important meetings of the Municipal Council, composed of a dealer in +cattle, the blacksmith and the notary. Again, in time of marriage, +accident or death, and annually at the school exercises, when he +presented prizes to the children spic and span for the occasion, with +voices awed to whispers, and new shoes. And he loved them all--all those +dirty little brats that had been scrubbed clean, and their ruddy cheeks +polished like red apples, to meet "Monsieur le Maire." + +He was nearing middle life now, but he was not conscious of it, being +still a bachelor. There was not as yet, a streak of gray in his +well-kept beard, and the good humour sparkled in his merry eyes as of +old. The only change that had occurred concerned the million. It was no +longer the brilliant solid million of his youth. It was sadly torn off +in places--there were also several large holes in it--indeed, if the +truth be told, it was little more than a remnant of its once splendid +entirety. It had been eaten by moths--certain shrewd old wasps, too, had +nested in it for years--not a sou of it had vanished in speculation or +bad investment. Monsieur de Savignac (this part of it the curé told me) +was as ignorant as a child concerning business affairs and stubbornly +avoided them. He had placed his fortune intact in the Bank of France, +and had drawn out what he needed for his friends. In the first year of +his inheritance he glanced at the balance statement sent him by the +bank, with a feeling of peaceful delight. As the years of his generosity +rolled on, he avoided reading it at all--"like most optimists," remarked +the curé, "he did not wish to know the truth." At forty-six he married +the niece of an impoverished old wasp, a gentleman still in excellent +health, owing to de Savignac's generosity. It was his good wife now, who +read the balance statement. + +For a while after his marriage, gaiety again reigned at the château, but +upon a more economical basis; then gradually they grew to entertain less +and less; indeed there were few left of the moths and old wasps to give +to--they had flown to cluster around another million. + +Most of this Pierre, who was leading me through the leafy lane that led +to de Savignac's home, knew or could have known, for it was common talk +in the country around, but his mind to-day was not on de Savignac's +past, but on the dog which we both were so anxious to see. + + * * * * * + +"Monsieur has never met Monsieur de Savignac?" ventured Pierre as we +turned our steps out of the brilliant sunlight, and into a wooded path +skirting the extensive forest of the estate. + +"Not yet, Pierre." + +"He is a fine old gentleman," declared Pierre, discreetly lowering his +voice. "Poor man!" + +"Why _poor_, Pierre?" I laughed, "with an estate like this--nonsense!" + +"Ah! Monsieur does not know?"--Pierre's voice sunk to a whisper--"the +château is mortgaged, monsieur. There is not a tree or a field left +Monsieur de Savignac can call his own. Do you know, monsieur, he has no +longer even the right to shoot over the ground? Monsieur sees that low +roof beyond with the single chimney smoking--just to the left of the +château towers?" + +I nodded. + +"That is where Monsieur de Savignac now lives. It is called the +garçonnière." + +"But the château, Pierre?" + +"It is rented to a Peruvian gentleman, monsieur, who takes in boarders." + +"Pierre!" I exclaimed, "we go no farther. I knew nothing of this. I am +not going to accept a dog from a gentleman in Monsieur de Savignac's +unfortunate circumstances. It is not right. No, no. Go and present my +deep regrets to Monsieur de Savignac and tell him--tell him what you +please. Say that my rich uncle has just sent me a pair of pointers--that +I sincerely appreciate his generous offer, that--" + +Pierre's small black eyes opened as wide as possible. He shrugged his +shoulders twice and began twisting thoughtfully the waxed ends of his +moustache to a finer point. + +"Pardon, monsieur," he resumed after an awkward pause, "but--but +monsieur, by not going, will grieve Monsieur de Savignac--He will be so +happy to give monsieur the dog--so happy, monsieur. If Monsieur de +Savignac could not give something to somebody he would die. Ah, he +gives everything away, that good Monsieur de Savignac!" exclaimed +Pierre. "I was once groom in his stables--_oui_, monsieur, and he +married us when he was Mayor of Hirondelette, and he paid our +rent--_oui_, monsieur, and the doctor and...." + +"We'll proceed, Pierre," said I. "A man of de Savignac's kind in the +world is so rare that one should do nothing to thwart him." + +We walked on for some distance along the edge of a swamp carpeted with +strong ferns. Presently we came to a cool, narrow alley flanked and +roofed by giant poplars. At the end of this alley a wicket gate barred +the entrance to the courtyard of the garçonnière. + +As we drew nearer I saw that its ancient two-story façade was completely +covered by the climbing mass of ivy and yellow roses, the only openings +being the Louis XIV. windows, and the front door, flush with the +gravelled court, bordered by a thick hedge of box. + +"Monsieur the American gentleman for the dog," announced Pierre to the +boy servant in a blue apron who appeared to open the wicket gate. + +A moment later the door of the garçonnière opened, and a tall, heavily +built man with silver white hair and beard came forth to greet me. + +I noticed that the exertion of greeting me made him short of breath, and +that he held his free hand for a second pressed against his heart as he +ushered me across his threshold and into a cool, old-fashioned sitting +room, the walls covered with steel engravings, the furniture upholstered +in green rep. + +"Have the goodness to be seated, monsieur," he insisted, waving me to an +armchair, while he regained his own, back of an old-fashioned desk. + +"Ah! The--little--dog," he began, slowly regaining his breath. "You are +all the time shooting, and I heard you wanted one. It is so difficult to +get a really--good--dog--in this country. François!" he exclaimed, "You +may bring in the little dog--and, François!" he added, as the boy +servant turned to go--"bring glasses and a bottle of Musigny--you will +find it on the shelf back of the Medoc." Then he turned to me: "There +are still two bottles left," and he laughed heartily. + +"Bien, monsieur," answered the boy, and departed with a key big enough +to have opened a jail. + +The moment had arrived for me to draw forth a louis, which I laid on his +desk in accordance with an old Norman custom, still in vogue when you +accept as a gift a dog from an estate. + +"Let your domestics have good cheer and wine to-night," said I. + +"Thank you," he returned with sudden formality. "I shall put it aside +for them," and he dropped the gold piece into a small drawer of his +desk. + +I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, told +me afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boy +with the blue apron and the cook--an old woman--the last of his faithful +servitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling glasses, followed +by the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and--my dog! + +Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy--very blond--with +ridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach and +four heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate in +a straight line to make my acquaintance. + +"_Voilà!_" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigable +hunter, like his mother--wait until he is two years old--He'll stand to +his day's work beside the best in France----" + +"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac." + +"Gorgon--Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are +getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed +bottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and filled my glass. + +While we sipped and chatted, his talk grew merry with chuckles and +laughter, for he spoke of the friends of his youth, who played for him +and sang to him--the thing which he loved most of all, he told me. +"Once," he confessed to me, "I slipped away and travelled to Hungary. +Ah! how those good gipsies played for me there! I was drunk with their +music for two weeks. It is stronger than wine, that music of the +gipsies," he said knowingly. + +Again our talk drifted to hunting, of the good old times when hares and +partridges were plentiful, and so he ran on, warmed by the rare Musigny, +reminiscing upon the old days and his old friends who were serious +sportsmen, he declared, and knew the habits of the game they were after, +for they seldom returned with an empty game-bag. + +"And you are just as keen about shooting as ever?" I ventured. + +"I shoot no more," he exclaimed with a shrug. "One must be a philosopher +when one is past sixty--when one has no longer the solid legs to tramp +with, nor the youth and the digestion to _live_. Ah! Besides, the life +has changed--Paris was gay enough in my day. I _lived_ then, but at +sixty--I stopped--with my memories. No! no! beyond sixty it is quite +impossible. One must be philosophic, eh?" + +Before I could reply, Madame de Savignac entered the room. I felt the +charm of her personality, as I looked into her eyes, and as she welcomed +me I forgot that her faded silk gown was once in fashion before I was +born, or that madame was short and no longer graceful. As the talk went +on, I began to study her more at my ease, when some one rapped at the +outer door of the vestibule. She started nervously, then, rising, +whispered to François, who had come to open it, then a moment later rose +again and, going out into the hall, closed the door behind her. + +"Thursday then," I heard a man's gruff voice reply brusquely. + +I saw de Savignac straighten in his chair, and lean to one side as if +trying to catch a word of the muffled conversation in the vestibule. The +next instant he had recovered his genial manner to me, but I saw that +again he laboured for some moments painfully for his breath. + +The door of the vestibule closed with a vicious snap. Then I heard the +crunch of sabots on the gravelled court, and the next instant caught a +glimpse of the stout, brutal figure of the peasant Le Gros, the big +dealer in cattle, as he passed the narrow window of the vestibule. + +It was _he_, then, with his insolent, bestial face purple with good +living, who had slammed the door. I half started indignantly from my +chair--then I remembered it was no affair of mine. + +Presently madame returned--flushed, and, with a forced smile, in which +there was more pain than pleasure, poured for me another glass of +Musigny. I saw instantly that something unpleasant had passed--something +unusually unpleasant--perhaps tragic, and I discreetly rose to take my +leave. + +Without a word of explanation as to what had happened, Madame de +Savignac kissed my dog good-bye on the top of his silky head, while de +Savignac stroked him tenderly. He was perfectly willing to come with me, +and cocked his head on one side. + +We were all in the courtyard now. + +"_Au revoir_," they waved to me. + +"_Au revoir_," I called back. + +"_Au revoir_," came back to me faintly, as Pierre and the doggie and I +entered the green lane and started for home. + +"Monsieur sees that I was right, is it not true?" ventured Pierre, as we +gained the open fields. "Monsieur de Savignac would have been grieved +had not monsieur accepted the little dog." + +"Yes," I replied absently, feeling more like a marauder for having +accepted all they had out of their hearts thrust upon me. + +Then I stopped--lifted the roly-poly little spaniel, and taking him in +my arms whispered under his silky ear: "We shall go back often, you and +I"--and I think he understood. + + * * * * * + +A few days later I dropped into Madame Vinet's snug little café in Pont +du Sable. It was early in the morning and the small room of the café, +with barely space enough for its four tables still smelt of fresh soap +suds and hot water. At one of the tables sat the peasant in his black +blouse, sipping his coffee and applejack. + +Le Gros lifted his sullen face as I entered, shifted his elbows, gripped +the clean marble slab of his table with both his red hands, and with a +shrewd glint from his small, cruel eyes, looked up and grunted. + +"Ah!--_bonjour_, monsieur." + +"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Le Gros," I replied. "We seem to be the only ones +here. Where's the patronne?" + +"Upstairs, making her bed--another dry day," he muttered, half to +himself, half to me. + +"She will stay dry for some days," I returned. "The wind is well set +from the northeast." + +"_Sacristi!_ a dirty time," he growled. "My steers are as dry as an +empty cask." + +"I'd like a little rain myself," said I, reaching for a chair--"I have a +young dog to train--a spaniel Monsieur de Savignac has been good enough +to give me. He is too young to learn to follow a scent on dry ground." + +Le Gros raised his bull-like head with a jerk. + +"De Savignac gave you a _dog_, did he? and he has a dog to give away, +has he?" + +The words came out of his coarse throat with a snarl. + +I dropped the chair and faced him. + +(He is the only man in Pont du Sable that I positively dislike.) + +"Yes," I declared, "he gave me a dog. May I ask you what business it is +of yours?" + +A flash of sullen rage illumined for a moment the face of the cattle +dealer. Then he muttered something in his peasant accent and sat +glowering into his empty coffee cup as I turned and left the room, my +mind reverting to Madame de Savignac's door which his coarse hand had +closed with a vicious snap. + + * * * * * + +We took the short cut across the fields often now--my yellow puppy and +I. Indeed I grew to see these good friends of mine almost daily, and as +frequently as I could persuade them, they came to my house abandoned by +the marsh. + +The Peruvian gentleman's boarding house had been a failure, and I +learned from the curé that the de Savignacs were hard pressed to pay +their creditors. + +It was Le Gros who held the mortgage, I further gleaned. + +And yet those two dear people kept a brave heart. They were still giving +what they had, and she kept him in ignorance as best she could, +softening the helplessness of it all, with her gentleness and her +courage. + +In his vague realization that the end was near, there were days when he +forced himself into a gay mood and would come chuckling down the lane to +open the gate for me, followed by Mirza, the tawny old mother of my +puppy, who kept her faithful brown eyes on his every movement. Often it +was she who sprang nimbly ahead and unlatched the gate for me with her +paw and muzzle, an old trick he had taught her, and he would laugh when +she did it, and tell me there were no dogs nowadays like her. + +Thus now and then he forced himself to forget the swarm of little +miseries closing down upon him--forgot even his aches and pains, due +largely to the dampness of the vine-smothered garçonnière whose +old-fashioned interior smelt of cellar damp, for there was hardly a room +in it whose wall paper had escaped the mould. + +It was not until March that the long-gathering storm broke--as quick as +a crackling lizard of lightning strikes. Le Gros had foreclosed the +mortgage. + +The Château of Hirondelette was up for sale. + +When de Savignac came out to open the gate for me late that evening his +face was as white as the palings in the moonlight. + +"Come in," said he, forcing a faint laugh---he stopped for a moment as +he closed and locked the gate--labouring painfully for his breath. Then +he slipped his arm under my own. "Come along," he whispered, struggling +for his voice. "I have found another bottle of Musigny." + +A funeral, like a wedding or an accident, is quickly over. The sale of +de Savignac's château consumed three days of agony. + +As I passed the "garçonnière" by the lane beyond the courtyard on my way +to the last day's sale, I looked over the hedge and saw that the +shutters were closed--farther on, a doctor's gig was standing by the +gate. From a bent old peasant woman in sabots and a white cap, who +passed, I learned which of the two was ill. It was as I had feared--his +wife. And so I continued on my way to the sale. + +As I passed through the gates of the château, the rasping voice of the +lean-jawed auctioneer reached my ears as he harangued in the drizzling +rain before the steps of the château the group of peasants gathered +before him--widows in rusty crêpe veils, shrewd old Norman farmers in +blue blouses looking for bargains, their carts wheeled up on the +mud-smeared lawn. And a few second-hand dealers from afar, in black +derbys, lifting a dirty finger to close a bid for mahogany. + +Close to this sordid crowd on the mud-smeared lawn sat Le Gros, his +heavy body sunk in a carved and gilded arm-chair that had once graced +the boudoir of Madame de Savignac. As I passed him, I saw that his face +was purple with drink. He sat there the picture of insolent ignorance, +this pig of a peasant. + +At times the auctioneer rallied the undecided with coarse jokes, and +the crowd roared, for they are not burdened with delicacy, these Norman +farmers. + +"_Allons! Allons!_ my good ladies!" croaked the auctioneer. "Forty sous +for the lot. A bed quilt for a princess and a magnificent water filter +de luxe that will keep your children well out of the doctor's hands. +_Allons!_ forty sous, forty-one--two?" + +A merchant in hogs raised his red, puffy hand, then turned away with a +leer as the shrill voice of a fisher woman cried, "Forty-five." + +"Sold!" yelped the auctioneer--"sold to madame the widow Dupuis of +Hirondelette," who was now elbowing her broad way through the crowd to +her bargain which she struggled out with, red and perspiring, to the +mud-smeared lawn, where her eldest daughter shrewdly examined the +bedquilt for holes. + +I turned away when it was all over and followed the crowd out through +the gates. Le Gros was climbing into his cart. He was drunk and swearing +over the poor result of the sale. De Savignac was still in his debt--and +I continued on my way home, feeling as if I had attended an execution. + +Half an hour later the sharp bark of my yellow puppy greeted me from +beyond my wall. As I entered my courtyard, he came to me wriggling with +joy. Suddenly I stopped, for my ear caught the sound of a tail gently +patting the straw in the cavernous old stable beyond my spaniel's +kennel. I looked in and saw a pair of eyes gleaming like opals in the +gloom. Then the tawny body of Mirza, the mother, rose from the straw and +came slowly and apologetically toward me with her head lowered. + +"Suzette!" I called, "how did she get here?" + +"The boy of Monsieur de Savignac brought her an hour ago, monsieur," +answered the little maid. "There is a note for monsieur. I have left it +on the table." + +I went in, lighted the fire, and read the following: + + + "THE GARÇONNIÈRE, _Saturday_. + + "Take her, my friend. I can no longer keep her with me. You + have the son, it is only right you should have the mother. + We leave for Paris to-morrow. We shall meet there soon, I + trust. If you come here, do not bring her with you. I said + good-bye to her this morning. + + "Jacques de Savignac." + + +It was all clear to me now--pitifully clear--the garçonnière had gone +with the rest. + + * * * * * + +On one of my flying trips to Paris I looked them up in their refuge, in +a slit of a street. Here they had managed to live by the strictest +economy, in a plain little nest under the roof, composed of two rooms +and a closet for a kitchen. + +One night, early in June, after some persuasion, I forced him to go with +me to one of those sparkling _risquée_ little comedies at the Palais +Royal which he loved, and so on to supper at the Café de la Paix, where +that great gipsy, Boldi, warms the heart with his fiddle. + +The opera was just out, when we reached our table, close to the band. +Beauty and the Beast were arriving, and wraps of sheen and lace were +being slipped from fair shoulders into the fat waiting hands of the +garçons, while the busy maître d'hôtel beamed with his nightly smile and +jotted down the orders. + +The snug supper room glittered with light, clean linen and shining +glass. Now that the theatres were out, it had become awake with the +chatter with which these little midnight suppers begin--suppers that so +often end in confidences, jealousy and even tears, that need only the +merriest tone of a gipsy's fiddle to turn to laughter. + +Boldi is an expert at this. He watches those to whom he plays, singling +out the one who needs his fiddle most, and to-night he was watching de +Savignac. + +We had finished our steaming dish of lobster, smothered in a spiced +sauce that makes a cold dry wine only half quench one's thirst, and were +proceeding with a crisp salad when Boldi, with a rushing crescendo +slipped into a delicious waltz. De Savignac now sat with his chin sunk +heavily in his hands, drinking in the melody with its spirited +accompaniment as the cymballist's flexible hammers flew over the +resonant strings, the violins following the master in the red coat, with +that keen alertness with which all real gipsies play. I realized now, +what the playing of a gipsy meant to him. By the end of the waltz De +Savignac's eyes were shining. + +Boldi turned to our table and bowed. + +"Play," said I, to him in my poor Hungarian (that de Savignac might not +understand, for I wished to surprise him) "a real czardas of your +people--ah! I have it!" I exclaimed. "Play the legend and the mad dance +that follows--the one that Racz Laczi loved--the legend of the young man +who went up the mountain and met the girl who jilted him." + +Boldi nodded his head and grinned with savage enthusiasm. He drew his +bow across the sobbing strings and the legend began. Under the spell of +his violin, the chatter of the supper room ceased--the air now heavy +with the mingled scent of perfume and cigars, seemed to pulsate under +the throb of the wild melody--as he played on, no one spoke--the men +even forgetting to smoke; the women listening, breathing with parted +lips. I turned to look at de Savignac--he was drunk and there was a +strange glitter in his eyes, his cheeks flushed to a dull crimson, but +not from wine. + +Boldi's violin talked--now and then it wept under the vibrant grip of +the master, who dominated it until it dominated those to whom it played. + +The young man in the legend was rushing up the mountain path in earnest +now, for he had seen ahead of him the girl he loved--now the melody +swept on through the wooing and the breaking of her promise, and now +came the rush of the young man down to the nearest village to drown his +chagrin and forget her in the mad dance, the "Czardas," which followed. + +As the czardas quickened until its pace reached the speed of a +whirlwind, de Savignac suddenly staggered to his feet--his breath coming +in short gasps. + +"Sit down!" I pleaded, not liking the sudden purplish hue of his +cheeks. + +"Let--me--alone," he stammered, half angrily. "It--is so good--to--be +alive again." + +"You shall not," I whispered, my eye catching sight of a gold louis +between his fingers. "You don't know what you are doing--it is not +right--this is my dinner, old friend--_all of it_, do you understand?" + +"Let--me--alone," he breathed hoarsely, as I tried to get hold of the +coin--"it is my last--my last--my last!"--and he tossed the gold piece +to the band. It fell squarely on the cymballum and rolled under the +strings. + +"Bravo!" cried a little woman opposite, clapping her warm, jewelled +hands. Then she screamed, for she saw Monsieur de Savignac sway heavily, +and sink back in his seat, his chin on his chest, his eyes closed. + +I ripped open his collar and shirt to give him breath. Twice his chest +gave a great bound, and he murmured something I did not catch--then he +sank back in my arms--dead. + +During the horror and grim reality of it all--the screaming women, the +physician working desperately, although he knew all hope was gone--while +the calm police questioned me as to his identity and domicile, I shook +from head to foot--and yet the worst was still to come--I had to tell +Madame de Savignac. + + [Illustration: spilled bottle of wine] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: The man with the gun] + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +THE MAN WITH THE GUN + + +It is at last decided! The kind and sympathetic Minister of Agriculture +has signed the official document opening the shooting-season for hares +and partridges in _La belle France_, to-morrow, Sunday, the thirtieth of +September. Thrice happy hunters!--they who had begun to grumble in their +cafés over the rumour that the opening of the shooting-season might be +postponed until the second or even third Sunday in October. + +My good friend the mayor of Pont du Sable has just handed me my +hunting-permit for the coming year bearing the stamp of the _République +Française_, the seal of the prefecture, the signature of the préfet, and +including everything, from the colour of my hair and complexion to my +height, age, birth and domicile. On the back of this important piece of +paper I read as follows: + +That the permit must be produced at the demand of all agents authorized +by law. That it is prohibited to shoot without it, or upon lands without +the consent of the proprietor having the right--or outside of the season +fixed by the laws of the préfets. + +Furthermore: + +The father--the mother--the tutor--the masters, and guardians are +civilly responsible for the misdemeanours committed while shooting by +their infants--wards--pupils, or domestics living with them. + +And finally: + +That the hunter who has lost his permit cannot resume again the exercise +of the hunt until he has obtained and paid for a new one, twenty-eight +francs and sixty centimes. + +To-morrow, then, the jolly season opens. + +"_Vive la République!_" + +It is a season, too, of crisp twilights after brilliant days, so short +that my lost village is plunged in darkness as early as seven, and goes +to bed to save the candle--the hour when the grocer's light gleaming +ahead of me across the slovenly little public square becomes the only +beacon in the village; and, guided by it, I pick my way in the dark +along the narrow thoroughfare, stumbling over the laziest of the village +dogs sprawled here and there in the road outside the doorways of the +fishermen. + +Across one of these thresholds I catch a glimpse to-night of a tired +fisher girl stretched on her bed after her long day at sea. Beside the +bed a very old woman in a white cotton cap bends over her bowl of soup +by the wavering light of a tallow dip. + +"_Bonsoir_, monsieur!" croaks a hoarse voice from the dark. It is +Marianne. She has fished late. + +At seven-thirty the toy train rumbles into Pont du Sable, stops for a +barefooted passenger, and rumbles out again through the +village--crawling lest it send one of the laziest dogs yelping to its +home. The headlight on the squat locomotive floods the way ahead, +suddenly illumining the figure of a blinking old man laden with nets +and three barelegged children who scream, "_Bonsoir_, monsieur," to the +engineer. + +What glorious old days are these! The wealth of hedged fields---the lush +green grass, white with hoar frost at daybreak--the groups of mild-eyed +cows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of sea +air, sunshine and Norman country spreading its richness down to the very +edge of the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a sane +exhilaration--he is alive. + +On calm nights the air is pungent and warm with the perfume of tons of +apples lying heaped in the orchards, ready for the cider-making, nights, +when the owls hoot dismally under a silver moon. + +When the wind veers to the north it grows cold. On such nights as these +"the Essence of Selfishness" seeks my fireside. + +She is better fed than many other children in the lost village beyond my +wall. And spoiled!--_mon Dieu!_ She is getting to be hopeless. + +Ah, you queen of studied cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose +of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your +blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death +two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not +discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since +you disdain to dine from my best china, and Suzette takes care of you +like a nurse. + +_Eh bien!_ Some day, do you hear, I shall sell you to the rabbit-skin +man, who has a hook for a hand, and the rest of you will find its way to +some cheap table d'hôte, where you will pass as ragout of rabbit Henri +IV. under a thick sauce. What would you do, I should like to know, if +you were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose four +children sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with what +their mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best of +grasshopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours--Suzette +is coming to put you to bed. + +The trim little maid entered, crossed noiselessly in the firelight to my +chair, and, laying a sealed note from my friend the Baron beneath the +lamp, picked up the sleepy cat and carried her off to her room. + +The note was a delightful surprise. + +"_Cher monsieur_: Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to come +and do the _ouverture_ of the hunt at my château to-morrow, Sunday--my +auto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about ten +guns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares to +make you pass a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, the +assurance of my sentiments the most distinguished?" + +It was nice of the Baron to think of me, for I had made his acquaintance +but recently at one of Tanrade's dinners, during which, I recall, the +Baron declared to me as he lifted his left eyebrow over his cognac, that +the hunt--_la chasse_--"was always amusing, and a great blessing to men, +since it created the appetite of the wolf and was an excuse to get rid +of the ladies." He told me, too, as he adjusted his monocle safely in +the corner of his aristocratic aquiline nose, that his favourite saint +was St. Hubert. He would have liked to have known him--he must have +been a _bon garçon_, this patron saint of hunting. + +"Ah! _Les femmes!_" he sighed, as he straightened his erect torso, that +had withstood so many Parisian years, against the back of his chair. +"Ah! _Les femmes!_ But in zee fields zey cannot follow us? _Hein?_" He +laughed, lapsing into his broken English. "Zey cannot follow us through +zee hedges, ovaire zee rough grounds, in zee rains, in zee muds. Nevaire +take a woman hunting," he counselled me sotto voce beneath his vibrant +hand, for Alice de Bréville was present. "One can _nevaire_ make love +and kill zee agile little game at zee same time. _Par exemple!_ You +whispaire somezing in madame's leetle ear and brrrh! a partridge--_que +voulez-vous, mon cher?_" he concluded, with a shrug. "It is quite +impossible--_quite_ impossible." + +I told him leisurely, as we sipped our liqueur, of the hunting in my own +country, of the lonely tramps in the wilderness following a line of +traps in the deep snow, the blind trails, the pork sandwich melted +against the doughnuts at noon, leaking lean-tos, smoky fires, and bad +coffee. + +"_Parbleu!_" he roared. "You have not zee rendezvous? You have not zee +hunting breakfast? I should be quite ill--you hunt like zee Arabs--like +zee gipsies--ah, yes, I forget--zee warm sandwich and zee native nuts." + +He tapped the table gently with his rings, smiling the while +reminiscently into his glass, then, turning again to me, added +seriously: + +"It is not all zee play--zee hunt. I have had zee legs broken by zee +fatigue. Zee good breakfast is what you say 'indispensable' to break zee +day. Zee good stories, zee camaraderie, zee good kind wine--_enfin +tout!_ But"--and again he leaned nearer--"but _not zee_ +ladies--_nevaire_--only zee memories." + +I repeat, it was nice of the Baron to think of me. I could easily +picture to myself as I reread his note his superb estate, that +stronghold of his ancestors; the hearty welcome at its gates; the +gamekeepers in their green fustians; the pairs of perfectly trained +dogs; the abundance of partridges and hares; and the breakfast in the +old château, a feast that would be replete with wit and old Burgundy. +How splendid are these Norman autumns! What exhilarating old days +during this season of dropping apples, blue skies, and falling leaves! +Days when the fat little French partridges nestle in companies in the +fields, shorn to stubble after the harvest, and sleek hares at sunrise +lift their long ears cautiously above the dew-bejeweled cobwebs along +the ditches to make sure that the green feeding-patch beyond is safe +from the man and the gun. + +Fat, garrulous Monsieur Toupin of the village becomes under the spell of +Madame Vinet's best cognac so uproarious when he has killed one of these +sleek, strong-limbed hares, that madame is obliged to draw the +turkey-red curtain over the window of her small café that Monsieur +Toupin may not be seen by his neighbours. + +"Suzette," I called, "my candle! I must get a good night's sleep, for +to-morrow I shoot with the Baron." + +"_Tiens!_" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand château?" And her +frank eyes opened wide. "Ah, _mais_--but monsieur will not have to work +hard for a partridge there." + +"And so you know the château, my little one?" + +"Ah, _mais oui_, monsieur! Is it not at La Sapinière near Les Roses? My +grandfather was gardener there when I was little. I passed the château +once with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieur +will be content--ah, _mais oui_!" + +"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, _ma petite_!" + +"_Bien_, monsieur." And Suzette passed me my lighted candle, the flame +of which rose brilliantly from its wick. + +"That means good luck, monsieur," said she, pointing to the +candle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs. + +"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief in +superstitions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for the +doctor--Suzette had broken a mirror. + +"Ah, _mais si_," declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her +kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that--ah, _ça!_" And with a +cheery _bonsoir_ she closed the door behind her. + +I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobile +emitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside my +wall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushed +out, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and--could +it be true? Monsieur le Curé. + +"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight. + +"Yes," he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy an +invitation." + +"And I would not let him," added Tanrade. "Quick! Where are your traps? +We have a good forty kilometres ahead of us; we must not keep the Baron +waiting." And the composer of ballets rushed into the house and +shouldered my valise containing a dry change. + +"You shall have enough partridges to fill your larder for a month," I +heard him tell Suzette, and he did not forget to pat her rosy cheek in +passing. Suzette laughed and struggled by him, her firm young arms +hugging my gun and shell-case. + +Before I could stop him, the curé, in his black soutane, had clambered +nimbly to the roof of the big car and was lashing my traps next to +Tanrade's and his own. At this instant I started to take a long breath +of pure morning air--and hesitated, then I caught the alert eye of the +chauffeur, who was grinning. + +"What are you burning? Fish oil?" said I. + +"_Mon Dieu_, monsieur----" began the chauffeur. + +"Cheese," called down the curé, pointing to a round paper parcel on the +roof of the limousine. "Tanrade got it at daylight; woke up the whole +village getting it." + +"Had to," explained Tanrade, as Suzette helped him into his great coat. +"The Baron is out of cheese; he added a postscript to my invitation +praying that I would be amiable enough to bring one. _Eh voilà!_ There +it is, and real cheese at that. Come, get in, quick!" And he opened the +door of the limousine, the interior of which was lined in gray suède and +appointed with the daintiest of feminine luxuries. + +"Look out for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a +farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the curé found his seat. "If you +scratch those monograms the Baroness will never forgive you." + +Then, with a wave to Suzette, we swept away from my house by the marsh, +were hurled through Pont du Sable, and shot out of its narrowest end +into the fresh green country beyond. + +It was so thoroughly chic and Parisian, this limousine. Only a few days +ago it had been shopping along the Rue de la Paix, and later rushing to +the cool Bois de Boulogne carrying a gracious woman to dinner; now it +held two vagabonds and a curé. We tore on while we talked +enthusiastically of the day's shooting in store for us. The curé was in +his best humour. How he does love to shoot and what a rattling good shot +he is! Neither Tanrade nor myself, and we have shot with him day in and +day out on the marsh and during rough nights in his gabion, has ever +beaten him. + +On we flew, past the hamlet of Fourche-la-Ville, past Javonne, past Les +Roses. _Sacristi!_ I thought, what if the gasoline gave out or the spark +refused to sparkle, what if they had----Why worry? That cheese was +strong enough to have gotten us anywhere. + +Suddenly we slowed down, hastily consulted a blue iron sign at the +crossroad, and swung briskly to the right. + +A noble forest and the roofs and _tourelles_ of the château now loomed +ahead of us. We turned into a clean, straight road, flanked by superb +oaks leading to an ancient stone gateway. A final wail from the siren, +the gates swung open, and we came to a dead stop in front of the Baron, +four setter dogs, and a group of gentlemen immaculately attired for the +hunt. From their tan-leather leggings to their yellow dogskin gloves and +gleaming guns, they were faultless. + +While the Baron greeted us, his guests stood waiting to be presented; +their formal bow would have done credit to a foreign embassy during an +imperial audience. The next moment we were talking as naturally together +and with as much camaraderie as if we had known each other for years. + +"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "_Vous êtes +chez vous_; the ladies have gone to Paris." + +It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all. +It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was a +good fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there. +No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but instead +four plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The château itself +was plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of the +little towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing the +snug forest bulged dangerously in places. + +"You will see," explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as our +little party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not get +along very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives us +trouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged aunt +was unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us from +hunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot put +foot in his harvest." + +"I see," I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew the +birds were where the harvest was still uncut. + +"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would rather +lose than have me hunt over," the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall see +what the _canaille_ will do, for only this morning he sent me word +threatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better than +have us all served with a _procès-verbal_ for trespassing." + +I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of the +country-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's pace +and be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a +_procès-verbal_ meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a no +more tranquil state of mind himself. + +"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That _sacré_ +individual will deal with _me_. It is _I_ who am alone responsible," he +generously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let him +bulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, for +what he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest." + +"_Eh bien!_ my dear friends," he called back to the others as we reached +a cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to the +right--half to the left!" + +"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into two +slowly moving companies. + +"Le Bour," returned the Baron grimly as the breech of his gun snapped +shut. + +The vast cultivated plain undulating below us looked like the +patchwork-quilt of a giantess, stitched together with well-knit hedges. +There were rectangles of apple-green clover, canary-yellow squares of +mustard, green pastures of ochre stubble, rich green strips of beets, +and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed. + +Time after time we were obliged to pass around companies of partridges +that had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt. It was +exasperating, for, from the beginning of the shoot, every bird seemed to +know where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the +_messieurs_ in the yellow dogskin gloves. By eleven o'clock there were +barely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been a +hundred. + +At the second cross road, the right and left party convened. It was what +Le Bour had been waiting for. + +A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which he +had hidden himself, and came glowering toward us. As he drew nearer I +saw that his gun swung loosely in his hand and was at full cock, its +muzzle wavering unpleasantly over us as he strode on. His mean old eyes +glittered with rage, his jaw trembled under a string of oaths. His +manner was that of a sullen bull about to charge. + +There was no mistaking his identity--it was Le Bour. + +"_Procès-verbal_ for all of you," he bellowed; "you, Monsieur le Baron, +and you, Monsieur le Vicomte," he snapped, as the Baron advanced to +defend his guests. "I saw you cross my buckwheat," he declared pointing +an ugly finger at the Vicomte. + +"You lie!" shouted the Baron, before the Vicomte could find his words. +"I forbid you to open your head to my guests. Not one of these gentlemen +has set foot in your harvest. What right have _you_ to carry a gun? +Where is your hunting permit?" thundered the Baron. "Where's your +commission as guard, that you should have the insolence to threaten us +with a _procès-verbal_." + +"Ah!" exclaimed the Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought +as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Curé, the fellow has no +permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule. + +"Come, my friends, we shall leave this imbecile to himself," laughed the +Baron. + +Le Bour sprang past him and confronted us. + +"_Eh ben_, my fine gentlemen," he snarled, "you'll not get away so +easily. I demand, in the name of the law, your hunting permits. Come, +_allons_! All of you!" + +At the same instant he tore open his blouse and displayed, to our +dismay, an oval brass plaque bearing his name and the number 1247. + +"There!" cried the old man, white and trembling with rage. "There's my +full commission as guard." + +My companion with the gloves next to me fidgeted nervously and coughed. +I saw the Vicomte turn a little pale. Tanrade shrugged his shoulders. +Monsieur le Curé's face wore an expression of dignified gravity. Not +once, however, had Le Bour's eyes met his own. It was evident that he +reverently excluded the curé from the affair. + +The Vicomte looked uncomfortable enough. The truth was, he was not known +to be at the hunt. The Vicomtesse was shrewd when it came to the +question of his whereabouts. A _procès-verbal_ meant publicity; +naturally the Vicomtesse would know. It might even reach the adorable +ears of Mademoiselle Rosalie, of the _corps de ballet_, who imagined the +Vicomte safe with his family. The Baron was fuming, but he did not +speak. + +"Your permits!" reiterated Le Bour, flourishing his license. + +There was an awkward silence; not a few in the party had left their +permits at home. + +"_Pouf!_" exclaimed the Baron. "Enough of this! _En route_, my friends!" + +"_Eh, bien!_" growled the farmer. "You refuse to produce your permits on +demand of a guard. It shall be stated," he threatened, "in the +_procès-verbal_." Then Le Bour turned on his muddy heel and launched a +parting volley at the Baron denouncing his château and everything +connected with him. + +"Do not forget the time you stole the ducks of my uncle," cried the +Baron, shaking a clenched fist at the old man, "or the morning--" But +his words were lost on Le Bour, who had disappeared in the hedge. + +By eleven-thirty we had killed some two dozen birds and three hares; and +as we were now stricken with "the appetite of the wolf," we turned back +to the château for breakfast. + +Here a sponge and a rub-down sent us in gay spirits down to the +billiard-room, where a bottle of port was in waiting--a rare bottle for +particular occasions. It was "the last of a dozen," explained the Baron +as we touched glasses, sent to the château by Napoleon in payment for a +night's lodging during one of his campaigns. "The very time, in fact," +he added, "when the little towers lost their tops." + +Under the spell of the Emperor's port the Vicomte regained his nerves, +and even the unpleasant incident of the morning was half forgotten while +the piano in the historic salon rang merrily under Tanrade's touch until +we filed in to luncheon. + +It was as every French shooting-luncheon is intended to be--a pleasant +little fête full of good cheer and understanding; the good soup, the +decanters of Burgundy, the clean red-and-white checkered napkins and +cloth, the heavy family silver, the noiseless old servants--and what an +appetite we had! What a _soufflé_ of potatoes, and such chicken +smothered in cream! And always the "good kind wine," until the famous +cheese that Tanrade had waked up Pont du Sable in procuring was passed +quickly and went out to the pantry, never to return. Ah, yes! And the +warm champagne without which no French breakfast is complete. + +Over the coffee and liqueurs, the talk ran naturally to gallantry. + +"Ah, _les femmes_! The memories," as the Baron had said. + +"You should have seen Babette Deslys five years ago," remarked one of +our jolly company when the Baron had left the room in search of some +milder cigars. + +I saw the Vicomte raise his eyebrows in subtle warning to the speaker, +who, like myself, knew the Baron but slightly. If he was treading upon +delicate ground he was unconscious of it, this _bon vivant_ of a +Parisian; for he continued rapidly in his enthusiasm, despite a second +hopeless attempt of the Vicomte to check him. + +"You should have seen Babette in the burlesque as Phryne at the +Variétés--_une merveille, mon cher!_" he exclaimed, addressing the +sous-lieutenant on his right, and he blew a kiss to the ceiling. "The +complexion of a rosebud and amusing! Ah--la! la!" + +"I hear her debts ran close to a million," returned the lieutenant. + +"She was feather-brained," continued the _bon vivant_, with a blasé +shrug. "She was a good little quail with more heart than head! Poor +Babette!" + +"Take care!" cautioned the Vicomte pointblank, as the Baron re-entered +with the box of milder Havanas. + +And thus the talk ran on among these men of the world who knew Paris as +well as their pockets; and so many Babettes and Francines and other +careless little celebrities whose beauty and extravagance had turned +peace and tranquillity into ruin and chaos. + +At last the jolly breakfast came to an end. We rose, recovered our guns +from the billiard-table, and with fresh courage went forth again into +the fields to shoot until sunset. During the afternoon we again saw Le +Bour, but he kept at a safe distance watching our movements with +muttered oaths and a vengeful eye, while we added some twenty-odd +partridges to the morning's score. + + * * * * * + +Toward the end of the afternoon, a week later, at Pont du Sable, Tanrade +and the curé sat smoking under my sketching-umbrella on the marsh. The +curé is far from a bad painter. His unfinished sketch of the distant +strip of sea and dunes lay at my feet as I worked on my own canvas while +the sunset lasted. + +Tanrade was busy between puffs of his pipe in transposing various +passages in his latest score. Now and then he would hesitate, finger the +carefully thought out bar on his knee, and again his stub of a pencil +would fly on through a maze of hieroglyphics that were to the curé and +myself wholly unintelligible. + +Suddenly the curé looked up, his keen gaze rivetted upon two dots of +figures on bicycles speeding rapidly toward us along the path skirting +the marsh. + +"Hello!" exclaimed the curé, and he gave a low whistle. "The gendarmes!" + +There was no mistaking their identity; their gold stripes and white duck +trousers appeared distinctly against the tawny marsh. + +The next moment they dismounted, left their wheels on the path, and came +slowly across the desert of wire-grass toward us. + +"_Diable!_" muttered Tanrade, under his breath, and instantly our minds +reverted to Le Bour. + +The two officials of the law were before us. + +"We regret to disturb you, messieurs," began the taller of the two +pleasantly as he extracted a note-book from a leather case next to his +revolver. "But"--and he shrugged his military shoulders--"it is for the +little affair at Hirondelette." + +"Which one of us is elected?" asked Tanrade grimly. + +"Ah! _Bon Dieu!_" returned the tall one; half apologetically. "A +_procès-verbal_ unfortunately for you, Monsieur Tanrade. Read the +charge," he said to the short one, who had now unfolded a paper, cleared +his throat, and began to read in a monotonous tone. + +"Monsieur Gaston Emile Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, charges +Monsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of the +Thirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in his +buckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion on +the thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in the morning." + +"I was _not_ in his _sacré_ buckwheat!" declared Tanrade, and he +described the entire incident of the morning. + +"Take monsieur's denial in detail," commanded the tall one. + +His companion produced a small bottle of ink and began to write slowly +with a scratchy pen, while we stood in silence. + +"Kindly add your signature, monsieur," said the tall one, when the +bottle was again recorked. + +Tanrade signed. + +The gendarmes gravely saluted and were about to withdraw when Tanrade +asked if he was "the only unfortunate on the list." + +"Ah, _non_!" confessed the tall one. "There is a similar charge against +Monsieur le Vicomte--we have just called upon him. Also against Monsieur +le Baron." + +"And what did they say?" + +"_Eh bien_, monsieur, a general denial, just as monsieur has made." + +"The affair is ridiculous," exclaimed Tanrade hotly. + +"That must be seen," returned the tall one firmly. + +Again we all saluted and they left us, recovered their bicycles, and +went spinning off back to Pont du Sable. + +"_Nom d'un chien!_" muttered Tanrade, while the curé and I stared +thoughtfully at a clump of grass. + +"Why didn't he get me?" I ventured, after a moment. + +"Foreigner," explained Tanrade. "You're in luck, old boy--no record of +identity, and how the devil do you suppose Le Bour could pronounce your +name?" + +Half an hour later I found the Vicomte, who lived close to our village. +He was pacing up and down his salon in a rage. + +"I was _not_ in the buckwheat!" he declared frantically. "Do you suppose +I have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched business +out at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, for +a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He +is the devil! _He_ is responsible for this--naturally." And he fell +again to pacing the room. + +I looked blankly at the Vicomte. + +"Son? What young son?" I asked. + +The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise. + +"Ah! _Sapristi!_ You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know that +Babette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away with +her and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francs +belonged to Le Bour? _Sapristi!_ You did not know _that_?" + + [Illustration: sign: CHASSE GARDEÉ] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: the yellow car] + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +THE BELLS OF PONT DU SABLE + + +The big yellow car came ripping down the road--a clean hard ribbon of a +road skirting the tawny marsh that lay this sparkling August morning +under a glaze of turquoise blue water at high tide. + +With a devilish wail from its siren, the yellow car whizzed past my +house abandoned by the marsh. I was just in time, as I raised my head +above the rambling wall of my courtyard, to catch sight of my good +friend the curé on the back seat, holding on tight to his saucer-like +hat. In the same rapid glance I saw the fluttering ends of a +bottle-green veil, in front of the curé's nose and knew Germaine was +driving. + +"Lucky curé!" I said to myself, as I returned to my half-finished +sketch, "carried off again to luncheon by one of the dearest of little +women." + +No wonder during his lonely winters, when every villa or château of +every friend of his for miles around is closed, and my vagabond village +of Pont du Sable rarely sees a Parisian, the curé longs for midsummer. +It is his gayest season, since hardly a day passes but some friend +kidnaps him from his presbytery that lies snug and silent back of the +crumbling wall which hides both his house and his wild garden from the +gaze of the passer-by. + +He is the kind of curé whom it is a joy to invite--this straight, strong +curé, who is French to the backbone; with his devil-may-care geniality, +his irresistible smile of a comedian, his quick wit of an Irishman, and +his heart of gold. + +To-day Germaine had captured him and was speeding him away to a jolly +luncheon of friends at her villa, some twenty kilometres below Pont du +Sable--Germaine with her trim, lithe figure and merry brown eyes, eyes +that can become in a flash as calm and serious as the curé's, and in +turn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam +with the impulsive devilry of a _gamine_; Germaine, who teases an old +vagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle of +my morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the next +instant embraces me, and begs my forgiveness. + +I cannot conceive of anyone not forgiving Germaine, beneath whose firm +and delicate beauty lies her warm heart, as golden in quality as the +curé's. + +Ah! It is gay enough in midsummer with Germaine and such other good +Bohemians as Alice de Bréville, Tanrade, and his reverence to cheer my +house abandoned by the marsh. + +I heard the yellow car tearing back to Pont du Sable late that night. It +slowed down as it neared my walled domain, and with a wrenching grunt +stopped in front of my gate. The next instant the door of my den opened +and in rushed the curé. + +"All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!" he cried, +flinging his hat on the floor; then bending, with a grin of +satisfaction over the lamp chimney, he kindled the end of a fat +cigarette he had rolled in the dark. His eyes were snapping, while the +corners of his humorous mouth twitched in a satisfied smile. He strode +up and down the room for some moments, his hands clasped behind him, his +strong, sun-tanned face beaming in the glow of the shaded lamplight, +while he listened to my delight over the pleasant news he had brought. + +"Ah! They are good to me, these children of mine," he declared with +enthusiasm. "Germaine tells me there is a surprise in store for me and +that I am not to know until to-morrow, at luncheon. Beyond that, she +would tell me nothing, the little minx, except that I managed to make +her confess that Alice was in the secret." + +He glanced at his watch, "Ah!" he ejaculated, "I must be getting to bed; +you, too, my old one, for we must get an early start in the morning, if +we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon." He recovered his hat from the +floor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashes from the breast of +his long black soutane, shiny from wear, and held out his strong hand. + +"Sleep well," he counselled, "for to-morrow we shall be _en fête_." + +Then he swung open my door and passed out into the night, whistling as +he crossed my courtyard a _café chantant_ air that Germaine had taught +him. + +A moment later, the siren of the yellow car sent forth its warning wail, +and he was speeding back to his presbytery under the guidance of +Germaine's chauffeur. + + * * * * * + +The curé was raking out the oysters; he stood on the sandy rim of a pool +of clear sea-water that lay under the noonday sun like a liquid emerald. +As Monsieur le Curé plunged in his long rake and drew it back heavy with +those excellent bivalves for which the restaurant at The Three Wolves +has long been famous, his tall black figure, silhouetted against the +distant sea and sky, reminded me of some great sea-crow fishing for its +breakfast. + +To the right of him crouched the restaurant, a low wooden structure, +with its back to the breakers. It has the appearance of being cast there +at high tide, its zigzag line of tiled roofs drying in the air and sun, +like the scaled shell of some stranded monster of the sea. There is a +cavernous old kitchen within, resplendent in shining copper--a busy +kitchen to-day, sizzling in good things and pungent with the aroma of +two tender young chickens, basting on a spit, a jolly old kitchen, far +more enticing than the dingy long dining-room adjoining it, whose walls +are frescoed in panels representing bottle-green lobsters, gaping +succulent clams, and ferocious crabs sidling away indignantly from nets +held daintily by fine ladies and their gallants, in costumes that were +in vogue before the revolution. Even when it pours, this cheerless old +dining-room at The Three Wolves is deserted, since there are half a +score of far cosier little round pavilions for lovers and intimate +friends, built over the oyster pools. + +Beyond them, hard by the desolate beach, lie the rocks known as The +Three Wolves. In calm weather the surf smashes over their glistening +backs--at low water, as it happened to be to-day, the seethe of the tide +scurried about their dripping bellies green with hairy sea-weed. + +Now and then came cheery ripples of laughter from our little pavilion, +where Germaine and Alice de Bréville were arranging a mass of scarlet +nasturtiums, twining their green leaves and tendrils amongst the plates +of _hors d'oeuvres_ and among the dust-caked bottles of Chablis and +Burgundy--Alice, whose dark hair and olive skin are in strong contrast +to Germaine's saucy beauty. + +They had banished Tanrade, who had offered his clumsy help--and spilled +the sardines. He had climbed on the roof and dropped pebbles down on +them through the cracks and had later begged forgiveness through the +key-hole. Now he was yelling like an Indian, this celebrated composer of +ballets, as he swung a little peasant maid of ten in a creaky swing +beyond the pool--a dear little maid with eyes as dark as Alice's, who +screamed from sheer delight, and insisted on that good fellow playing +all the games that lay about them, from _tonneau_ to _bilboquet_. + +Together, the curé and I carried the basket, now plentifully filled with +oysters back to the kitchen, while Tanrade was hailed from the pavilion, +much to the little maid's despair. + +"_Dépêchez-vous!_" cried Alice, who had straightway embraced her exiled +Tanrade on his return and was now waving a summons to the curé and +myself. + +"_Bon_," shouted back the curé. "_Allons, mes enfants, à table_--and the +one who has no appetite shall be cast into the sea--by the heels," added +his reverence. + +What a breakfast followed! Such a rushing of little maids back and forth +from the jolly kitchen with the great platters of oysters. What a sole +smothered in a mussel sauce! What a lobster, scarlet as the cap of a +cardinal and garnished with crisp romaine! and the chickens! and the +mutton! and the _soufflé_ of potatoes, and the salad of shrimps--_Mon +Dieu!_ What a luncheon, "sprayed," as the French say, with that rare old +Chablis and mellow Burgundy! And what laughter and camaraderie went +with it from the very beginning, for to be at table with friends in +France is to be _en fête_--it is the hour when hearts are warmest and +merriest. + +Ah, you dear little women! You who know just when to give those who love +you a friendly pressure of the hand, or the gift of your lips if needs +be, even in the presence of so austere a personage as Monsieur le Curé. +You who understand. You who are tender or merry with the mood, or +contrary to the verge of exasperation--only to caress with the subtle +light of your eyes and be forgiven. + +It was not until we had reached our coffee and liqueur, that the +surprise for the curé was forthcoming. Hardly had the tiny glasses been +filled, when the clear tone of the bell ringing from the ancient church +of The Three Wolves made us cease our talk to listen. + +Alice turned to the curé; it was evidently the moment she had been +waiting for. + +"Listen," said Alice softly--"how delicious!" + +"It is the bell of Ste. Marie," returned the curé. + +Even Tanrade was silent now, for his reverence had made the sign of the +cross. As his fingers moved I saw a peculiar look come into his eyes--a +look of mingled disappointment and resignation. + +Again Alice spoke: "Your cracked bell at Pont du Sable has not long to +ring, my friend," she said very tenderly. + +"One must be content, my child, with what one has," replied the curé. + +Alice leaned towards him and whispered something in his ear, Germaine +smiling the while. + +I saw his reverence give a little start of surprise. + +"No, no," he protested half aloud. "Not that; it is too much to ask of +you with all your rehearsals at the Bouffes Parisiennes coming." + +"_Parbleu!_" exclaimed Alice, "it will not be so very difficult--I shall +accomplish it, you shall see what a concert we shall give--we shall make +a lot of money; every one will be there. It has the voice of a frog, +your bell. _Dieu!_ What a fuss it makes over its crack. You shall have a +new one--two new ones, _mon ami_, even if we have to make bigger the +belfry of your little gray church to hang them." + +The curé grew quite red. I saw for an instant his eyes fill with tears, +then with a benign smile, he laid his hand firmly over Alice's and +lifting the tips of her fingers, kissed them twice in gratefulness. + +He was very happy. He was happy all the way back in Germaine's yellow +car to Pont du Sable. Happy when he thrust his heavy key in the rusty +lock of the small door that let him into his silent garden, cool under +the stars, and sweet with the scent of roses. + + * * * * * + +A long winter has passed since that memorable luncheon at The Three +Wolves. Our little pavilion over the emerald pool will never see us +reunited, I fear. A cloud has fallen over my good friend the curé, a +cloud so unbelievable, and yet so dense, if it be true, and so filled +with ominous mutterings of thunder and lightning, crime, defalcation, +banishment, and the like, that I go about my work dazed at the rumoured +situation. + +They tell me the curé still says mass, and when it is over, regains the +presbytery by way of the back lane skirting the marsh. I am also told +that he rarely even ventures into his garden, but spends most of his +days and half of his nights alone in his den with the door locked, and +strict orders to his faithful old servant Marie, who adores him, that he +will see no one who calls. + +For days I have not laid eyes on him--he who kept his napkin tied in a +sailor's knot in my cupboard and came to breakfast, luncheon, or dinner +when he pleased, waking up my house abandoned by the marsh with his good +humour, joking with Suzette, my little maid-of-all-work, until her fair +cheeks grew the rosier, and rousing me out of the blues with his quick +wit and his hearty laugh. + +It seems impossible to me that he is guilty of what he is accused of, +yet the facts seem undeniable. + +Only the good go wrong, is it not so? The bad have become so +commonplace, they do not attract our attention. + +Now the ways of the curé were always just. I have never known him to do +a mean thing in his life, far less a dishonest one. I have known him to +give the last few sous he possessed to a hungry fisherwoman who needed +bread for herself and her brood of children and content himself with +what was left among the few remaining vegetables in his garden. There +are days, too, when he is forced to live frugally upon a peasant soup +and a pear for dinner, and there have been occasions to my knowledge, +when the soup had to be omitted and his menu reduced to a novel, a +cigarette and the pear. + +It is a serious matter, the separation of the state from the church in +France, since it has left the priest with the munificent salary of four +hundred francs a year, out of which he must pay his rent and give to the +poor. + +Once we dined nobly together upon two fat sparrows, and again we had a +blackbird for dinner. He had killed it that morning from his window, +while shaving, for I saw the lather dried on the stock of his duck gun. + +Monsieur le Curé is ingenious when it comes to hard times. + +Again, there are days when he is in luck, when some generous parishioner +has had the forethought to restock his larder. Upon such bountiful +occasions he insists on Tanrade and myself dining with him at the +presbytery as long as these luxuries last, refusing to dine with either +of us until there is no more left of his own to give. + +The last time I saw him, I had noticed a marked change in his reverence. +He was moody and unshaven, and his saucerlike hat was as dusty and +spotted as his frayed soutane. Only now and then he gave out flashes of +his old geniality and even they seemed forced. I was amazed at the +change in him, and yet, when I consider all I have heard since, I do not +wonder much at his appearance. + +Tanrade tells me (and he evidently believes it) that some fifteen +hundred francs, raised by Alice's concert and paid over to the curé to +purchase the bells for his little gray church at Pont du Sable, have +disappeared and that his reverence refuses to give any account. + +Despite his hearty Bohemian spirit, Tanrade, like most musicians, is a +dreamer and as ready as a child to believe anything and anybody. Being a +master of the pianoforte and a composer of rare talent, he can hardly be +called sane. And yet, though I have seen him enthusiastic, misled, moved +to tears over nothing, indignant over an imaginary insult, or ready to +forgive any one who could be fool enough to be his enemy, I have never +known him so thoroughly upset or so positive in his convictions as when +the other morning, as I sat loafing before my fire, he entered my den. + +"It is incredible, _mon vieux_, incredible!" he gasped, throwing himself +disconsolately into my arm-chair. "I have just been to the presbytery. +Not only does he refuse to give an account of the money, but he declines +to offer any explanation beyond the one that he "spent it." Moreover, he +sits hunched up before his stove in his little room off the kitchen, +chewing the end of a cigarette. Why, he didn't even ask me to have a +drink--the curé, _mon ami_--our curé--_Mon Dieu_, what a mess! Ah, _mon +Dieu!_" + +He sank his chin in his hands and gazed at me with a look of utter +despair. + +I regarded him keenly, then I went to the decanter and poured out for +him a stiff glass of applejack. + +"Drink that," said I, "and get normal." + +With an impetuous gesture he waved it away. + +"No, not now!" he exclaimed, "wait until I tell you all--nothing until I +tell you." + +"Go on, then," I returned, "I want to hear all about this wretched +business. Go slow and tell it to me from top to bottom. I am not as +convinced of the curé's guilt as you are, old boy. There may be nothing +in it more than a pack of village lies; and if there is a vestige of the +truth, we may, by putting our heads together, help matters." + +He started to speak, but I held up my hand. + +"One thing before you proceed," I declared with conviction. "I can no +more believe the curé is dishonest than Alice or yourself. It is +ridiculous to presume so for a moment. I have known the curé too well. +He is a prince. He has a heart as big as all outdoors. Look at the good +he's done in this village! There is not a vagabond in it but will tell +you he is as right as rain. Ask the people he helps what they think of +him, they'll tell you 'he's just the curé for Pont du Sable.' _Voilà!_ +That's what they'll tell you, and they mean it. All the gossip in the +world can't hurt him. Here," I cried, forcing the glass into his hand, +"get that down you, you maker of ballets, and proceed with the horrible +details, but proceed gently, merrily, with the right sort of beat in +your heart, for the curé is as much a friend of yours as he is of mine." + +Tanrade shrugged his broad shoulders, and for some moments sipped his +glass. At length, he set it down on the broad table at his elbow, and +said slowly: "You know how good Alice is, how much she will do for any +one she is fond of--for a friend, I mean, like the curé. Very well, it +is not an easy thing to give a concert in Paris that earns fifteen +hundred francs for a curé whom, it is safe to say, no one in the +audience, save Germaine, Alice and myself had ever heard of. It was a +veritable _tour de force_ to organize. You were not there. I'm glad you +were not. It was a dull old concert that would not have amused you +much--Lassive fell ill at the last moment, Delmar was in a bad humour, +and the quartet had played the night before at a ball at the Élysée and +were barely awake. Yet in spite of it the theatre was packed; a chic +audience, too. Frambord came out with half a column in the _Critique des +Arts_ with a pretty compliment to Alice's executive energy, and added +'that it was one of the rare soirées of the season.' He must have been +drunk when he wrote it. I played badly--I never can play when they +gabble. It was as garrulous as a fish market in front. _Enfin!_ It was +over and we telegraphed his reverence the result; from a money +standpoint it was a '_succès fou_.'" + +Tanrade leaned back and for a few seconds gazed at the ceiling of my +den. + +"Where every penny has gone," he resumed, with a strained smile, "_Dieu +sait!_ There is no bell, not even the sound of one, _et voilà!_" + +He turned abruptly and reached for his glass, forgetting he had drained +it. A fly was buzzing on its back in the last drop. And then we both +smiled grimly, for we were thinking of Monsieur le Curé. + +I rang the bell of the presbytery early the next morning, by inserting +my jackknife, to spare my fingers, in a loop at the end of a crooked +wire which dangles over the rambling wall of the curé's garden. The door +itself is of thick oak, and framed by stones overgrown with lichens--a +solid old playground for nervous lizards when the sun shines, and a +favourite sticking place for snails when it rains. I had to tug hard on +the crooked wire before I heard a faint jingle issuing in response from +the curé's cavernous kitchen, whose hooded chimney and stone-paved floor +I love to paint. + +Now came the klop-klop of a pair of sabots--then the creak of a heavy +key as it turned over twice in the rusty lock, and his faithful Marie +cautiously opened the garden door. I do not know how old Marie is, +there is so little left of this good soul to guess by. Her small +shrunken body is bent from age and hard work. Her hands are heavy--the +fingers gnarled and out of proportion to her gaunt thin wrists. She has +the wrinkled, leathery face of some kindly gnome. She opened her eyes in +a sort of mute appeal as I inquired if Monsieur le Curé was at home. + +"Ah! My poor monsieur, his reverence will see no one"--she +faltered--"_Ah! Mais_"--she sighed, knowing that I knew the change in +her master and the gossip thereof. + +"My good Marie," I said, persuasively patting her bony shoulder, "tell +his reverence that I _must_ see him. Old friends as we are--" + +"_Bon Dieu, oui!_" she exclaimed after another sigh. "Such old friends +as you and he--I will go and see," said she, and turned bravely back +down the path that led to his door while I waited among the roses. + +A few moments later Marie beckoned to me from the kitchen window. + +"He will see you," she whispered, as I crossed the stone floor of the +kitchen. "He is in the little room," and she pointed to a narrow door +close by the big chimney, a door provided with old-fashioned little +glass panes upon which are glued transparent chromos of wild ducks. + +I knocked gently. + +"_Entrez!_" came a tired voice from within. + +I turned the knob and entered his den--a dingy little box of a room, +sunk a step below the level of the kitchen, with a smoke-grimed ceiling +and corners littered with dusty books and pamphlets. + +He was sitting with his back to me, humped up in a worn arm-chair, +before his small stove, just as Tanrade had found him. As I edged around +his table--past a rack holding his guns, half-hidden under two +dilapidated game bags and a bicycle tyre long out of service, he turned +his hollow eyes to mine, with a look I shall long remember, and feebly +grasped my outstretched hand. + +"Come," said I, "you're going to get a grip on yourself, _mon ami_. +You're going to get out of this wretched, unkempt state of melancholia +at once. Tanrade has told me much. You know as well as I do, the village +is a nest of gossip--that they make a mountain out of a molehill; if I +were a pirate chief and had captured this vagabond port, I'd have a few +of those wagging tongues taken out and keel-hauled in the bay." + +He started as if in pain, and again turned his haggard eyes to mine. + +"I don't believe there's a word of truth in it," I declared hotly. + +"There--_is_," he returned hoarsely, trembling so his voice faltered--"I +am--a thief." + +He sat bolt-upright in his chair, staring at me like a man who had +suddenly become insane. His declaration was so sudden and amazing, that +for some moments I knew not what to reply, then a feeling of pity took +possession of me. He was still my friend, whatever he had done. I saw +his gaze revert to the crucifix hanging between the steel engravings of +two venerable saints, over the mantel back of the stove--a mantel heaped +with old shot bags and empty cartridge shells. + +"How the devil did it happen?" I blurted out at length. "You don't mean +to say you stole the money?" + +"Spent it," he replied half inaudibly. + +"How spent it? On yourself?" + +"No, no! Thank God--" + +"How, then?" + +He leaned forward, his head sunk in his hands, his eyes riveted upon +mine. + +"There is--so--much--dire--need of money," he said, catching his breath +between his words. "We are all human--all weak in the face of another's +misery. It takes a strong heart, a strong mind, a strong body to resist. +There are some temptations too terrible even for a priest. I wish with +all my heart that Alice had never given it into my hands." + +I started to speak, but he held up his arms. + +"Do not ask me more," he pleaded--"I cannot tell you--I am ill and +weak--my courage is gone." + +"Is there any of the money left?" I ventured quietly, after waiting in +vain for him to continue. + +"I do not know," he returned wearily, "most of it has gone--over there, +beneath the papers, in the little drawer," he said pointing to the +corner; "I kept it there. Yes, there is some left--but I have not dared +count it." + +Again there ensued a painful silence, while I racked my brain for a +scheme that might still save the situation, bad as it looked. In the +state he was in, I had not the heart to worry out of him a fuller +confession. Most of the fifteen hundred francs was gone, that was plain +enough. What he had done with it I could only conjecture. Had he given +it to save another I wondered. Some man or woman whose very life and +reputation depended upon it? Had he fallen in love hopelessly and past +all reasoning? There is no man that some woman cannot make her slave. It +was not many years ago, that a far more saintly priest than he eloped to +Belgium with a pretty seamstress of Les Fosses. Then I thought of +Germaine!--that little minx, badly in debt--perhaps? No, no, impossible! +She was too clever--too honest for that. + +"Have you seen Alice?" I broke our silence with at length. + +He shook his head wearily. "I could not," he replied, "I know the +bitterness she must feel toward me." + +At that moment Marie knocked at the door. As she entered, I saw that her +wrinkled face was drawn, as with lowered eyes she regarded a yellow +envelope stamped with the seal of the _République Française_. + +With a trembling hand she laid it beside the curé, and left the room. + +The curé started, then he rose nervously to his feet, steadying himself +against the table's edge as he tore open the envelope, and glanced at +its contents. With a low moan he sank back in his chair.--"Go," he +pleaded huskily, "I wish to be alone--I have been summoned before the +mayor." + + * * * * * + +Never before in the history of the whole country about, had a curé been +hauled to account. Pont du Sable was buzzing like a beehive over the +affair. Along its single thoroughfare, flanked by the stone houses of +the fishermen, the gossips clustered in groups. From what I caught in +passing proved to me again that his reverence had more friends than +enemies. + +It was in the mayor's kitchen, which serves him as executive chamber as +well, that the official investigation took place. + +With the exception of the Municipal Council, consisting of the baker, +the butcher, the grocer, and two raisers of cattle, none were to be +admitted at the mayor's save Tanrade, myself and Alice de Bréville, +whose presence the mayor had judged imperative, and who had been +summoned from Paris. + +Tanrade and I had arrived early--the mayor greeting us at the gate of +his trim little garden, and ushering us to our chairs in the clean, +well-worn kitchen, with as much solemnity as if there had been a death +in the house. Here we sat, under the low ceiling of rough beams and +waited in a funereal silence, broken only by the slow ticking of the +tall clock in the corner. It was working as hard as it could, its brass +pendulum swinging lazily toward three o'clock, the hour appointed for +the investigation. + +Monsieur le Maire to-day was no longer the genial, ruddy old raiser of +cattle, who stops me whenever I pass his gate with a hearty welcome. He +was all Mayor to-day, clean shaven to the raw edges of his cropped gray +side-whiskers with a look of grave importance in his shrewd eyes and a +firm setting of his wrinkled upper lip, that indicated the dignity of +his office; a fact which was further accentuated by his carefully +brushed suit of black, a clean starched collar and the tri-coloured silk +sash, with gold tassels, which he is forced to gird his fat paunch with, +when he either marries you or sends you to jail. The clock ticked on, +its oaken case reflecting the copper light from the line of saucepans +hanging beside it on the wall. Presently, the Municipal Council filed in +and seated themselves about a centre table, upon which lay in readiness +the official seal, pen, ink and paper. Being somewhat ill at ease in his +starched shirt, the florid grocer coughed frequently, while the two +cattle-raisers in their black blouses, talked in gutteral whispers over +a bargain in calves. Through the open window, screened with cool vines, +came the faint murmur of the village--suddenly it ceased. I rose, and +going to the window, looked up the street. The curé was coming down it, +striding along as straight as a savage, nodding to those who nodded to +him. An old fisherwoman hobbled forth and kissed his hand. Young and +old, gamblers of the sea, lifted their caps as he passed. + +"The census of opinion is with him," I whispered to Tanrade, as I +regained my chair. "He has his old grit with him, too." + +The next instant, his reverence strode in before us--firm, cool, and so +thoroughly master of himself that a feeling of intense relief stole over +me. + +"I have come," he said, in a clear, even voice, "in answer to your +summons, Monsieur le Maire." + +The mayor rose, bowed gravely, waved the curé to a chair opposite the +Municipal Council, and continued in silence the closely written contents +of two official documents containing the charge. The stopping of an +automobile at his gate now caused him to look up significantly. Madame +de Bréville had arrived. As Alice entered every man in the room rose to +his feet. Never had I seen her look lovelier, gowned, as she was, in +simple black, her dark hair framing her exquisite features, pale as +ivory, her sensitive mouth tense as she pressed Tanrade's hand +nervously, and took her seat beside us. For an instant, I saw her dark +eyes flash as she met the steady gaze of the curé's. + +"In the name of the _République Française_," began the mayor in measured +tones. + +The curé folded his arms, his eyes fixed on the open door. + +"Pardon me," interrupted Alice, "I wish it to be distinctly understood +before you begin, Monsieur le Maire, that I am here wholly against my +will." + +The curé turned sharply. + +"You have summoned me," continued Alice, "and there was no alternative +but to come--I know nothing in detail concerning the charge against +Monsieur le Curé, nor do I wish to take any part whatever in this +unfortunate affair. It is imperative that I return to Paris in time to +play to-night, I beg of you that you will let me go at once." + +There was a polite murmur of surprise from the Municipal Council. The +curé sprang to his feet. + +"Alice, my child!" he cried, "look at me." + +Her eyes met his own, her lips twitching nervously, her breast heaving. + +"I wish _you_ to judge me before you go," he pleaded. "They accuse me of +being a thief;" his voice rose suddenly to its full vibrant strength; +"they do not know the truth." + +Alice leaned forward, her lips parted. + +"God only knows what this winter has been," declared his +reverence--"Empty nets--always empty nets." + +He struck the table with his clenched fist. "Empty nets!" he cried, +"until I could bear it no longer. My children were in dire need; they +came to you," he declared, turning to the mayor, "and you refused them." + +The mayor shrugged his shoulders with a grunt of resentment. + +"I gave what I could, while it lasted, from the public fund," he +explained frankly; "there were new roads to be cut." + +"Roads!" shouted the curé. "What are roads in comparison to illness and +starvation? They came to me," he went on, turning to Alice, "little +children--mothers, ill, with little children and not a sou in the house, +and none to be earned fishing. Old men crying for bread for those whom +they loved. I grew to hate the very thought of the bells; they seemed to +me a needless luxury among so much misery." + +His voice rose until it rang clear in the room. + +"I gave it to them," he cried out. "There in my little drawer lay the +power to save those who were near death from sickness, from dirt, from +privation!" + +Alice's ringless white hands were clenched in her lap. + +"And I saw, as I gave," continued the curé, "the end of pain and of +hunger--little by little I gave, hoping somehow to replace it, until I +dared give no more." + +He paused, and drew forth from the breast of his soutane a small cotton +sack that had once held his gun wads. "Here is what is left, gentlemen," +said he, facing the Municipal Council; "I have counted it at last, four +hundred and eighty francs, sixty-five centimes." + +There were tears now in Alice's eyes; dark eyes that followed the curé's +with a look of tenderness and pain. The mayor sat breathing irritably. +As for the Municipal Council, it was evident to Tanrade and myself, that +not one of these plain, red-eared citizens was eager to send a priest to +jail--it was their custom occasionally to go to mass. + +"Marianne's illness," continued the curé, "was an important item. You +seemed to consider her case of typhoid as a malady that would cure +itself if let alone. Marianne needed care, serious care, strong as she +was. The girl, Yvonne, she saved from drowning last year, and her baby, +she still shelters among her own children in her hut. They, too, had to +be fed; for Marianne was helpless to care for them. There was the little +boy, too, of the Gavons--left alone, with a case of measles well +developed when I found him, on the draughty floor of a loft; the mother +and father had been drunk together for three days at Bar la Rose. And +there were others--the Mère Gailliard, who would have been sold out for +her rent, and poor old Varnet, the fisherman; he had no home, no money, +no friends; he is eighty-four years old. Most of the winter he slept in +a hedge under a cast-off sail. I got him a better roof and something for +his stomach, Monsieur le Maire." + +He paused again, and drew out a folded paper from his pocket. "Here is a +list of all I can remember I have given to, and the amounts as near as I +can recall them," he declared simply. Again he turned to Alice. "It is +to you, dear friend, I have come to confess," he continued; "as for you, +gentlemen, my very life, the church I love, all that this village means +to me, lies in your hands; I do not beg your mercy. I have sinned and I +shall take the consequences--all I ask you to do is to judge fairly the +error of my ways." Monsieur le Curé took his seat. + +"It is for you, Madame de Bréville, to decide," said the mayor, after +some moments conference with the Council, "since the amount in question +was given by your hand." + +Alice rose--softly she slipped past the Municipal Council of Pont du +Sable, until she stood looking up into the curé's eyes; then her arms +went about his strong neck and she kissed him as tenderly as a sister. + +"Child!" I heard him murmur. + +"We shall give another concert," she whispered in his ear. + + [Illustration: bell] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: The miser--Garron] + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +THE MISER--GARRON + + +We've had a drowning at Pont du Sable. Drownings are not infrequent on +this rough Norman coast of France. Only last December five able +fishermen went down within plain sight of the dunes in a roaring white +sea that gave no quarter. This gale by night became a cyclone; the sea a +driving hell of water, hail and screaming wind. The barometer dropped to +twenty-eight. The wind blew at one hundred and twenty kilometers an +hour. Six fishing boats hailing from Boulogne perished with their crews. +Their women went by train to Calais, still hoping for news, and returned +weeping and alone. + +At Boulogne the waves burst in spray to a height of forty feet over the +breakwater--small wonder that the transatlantic liner due there to take +on passengers, signalled to her plunging tender already in +danger--"Going through--No passengers--" and proceeded on her way to New +York. + +The sea that night killed with a blow. + +This latest drowning at Pont du Sable was a tragedy--or rather, the +culmination of a series of tragedies. + +"Suicide?" + +"_Non_--_mon ami_--wait until you hear the whole truth of this plain +tale." + +On my return from shooting this morning, Suzette brought me the news. +The whole fishing village has known it since daylight. + +It seems that the miser, Garron--Garron's boy--Garron's woman, Julie, +and another woman who nobody seems to know much about, are mixed up in +the affair. + +Garron's history I have known for months--my good friend the curé +confided to me much concerning the unsavory career of this vagabond of a +miser, whose hut is on the "Great Marsh," back of Pont du Sable. Garron +and I hailed "_bonjour_" to each other through the mist at dawn one +morning, as I chanced to pass by his abode, a wary flight of vignon +having led me a fruitless chase after them across the great marsh. At a +distance through the rifts of mist I mistook this isolated hut of +Garron's for a _gabion_. As I drew within hailing distance of its owner +I saw that the hut stood on a point of mud and wire grass that formed +the forks of the stream that snakes its way through the centre of this +isolated prairie, and so on out to the open sea, two kilometers beyond. + +As shrewd a rascal as Garron needed just such a place to settle on. As +he returned my _bonjour_, his woman, Julie, appeared in the low doorway +of the hut and grinned a greeting to me across the fork of the stream. +She impressed me as being young, though she was well on in the untold +forties. Her mass of fair hair--her ruddy cheeks--her blue eyes and her +thick strong body, gave her the appearance of youthful buxomness. + +Life must be tough enough with a man like Garron. With the sagacity of +an animal he knew the safety of the open places. By day no one could +emerge from the far horizon of low woodland skirting the great marsh, +without its sole inhabitant noting his approach. By night none but as +clever a poacher as Garron could have found his way across the labyrinth +of bogs, ditches and pitfalls. Both the hut and the woman cost Garron +nothing; both were a question of abandoned wreckage. + +Garron showed me his hut that morning, inviting me to cross a muddy +plank as slippery as glass, with which he had spanned the stream, that +he might get a closer look at me and know what manner of man I was. He +did not introduce me to the woman, and I took good care, as I crossed +his threshold and entered the dark living-room with its dirt floor, not +to force her acquaintance, but instead, ran my eye discreetly over the +objects in the gloom--a greasy table littered with dirty dishes, a bed +hidden under a worn quilt and a fireplace of stones over which an iron +pot of soup was simmering. Beyond was another apartment, darker than +the one in which I stood--a sort of catch-all for the refuse of the +former. + +The whole of this disreputable shack was built of the wreckage of honest +ships. It might have been torn down and reassembled into some sort of a +decent craft. Part of a stout rudder with its heavy iron hinges, served +as the door. For years it had guided some good ship safe into port--then +the wreck occurred. For weeks after--months, perhaps--it had drifted at +sea until it found a resting place on the beach and was stolen by Garron +to serve him as a strong barrier. + +Garron had a bad record--you saw this in his small shifty black eyes, +that evaded your own when you spoke to him, and were riveted upon you +the moment your back was turned. He was older than the woman--possibly +fifty years of age, when I first met him, and, though he lived in the +open, there was a ghastly pallor in his hard face with its determined, +square jaw--a visage well seamed by sin--and crowned by a shock of black +hair streaked with gray. In body he was short, with unusually broad +shoulders and unnaturally long arms. Physically he was as strong as an +ape, yet I believe the woman could easily have strangled him with her +bare hands. Garron had been a hard drinker in his youth, a capable thief +and a skilful poacher. His career in civilization ended when he was +young and--it is said--good-looking. + +Some twenty-five years ago--so the curé tells me--Garron worked one +summer for a rich cattle dealer named Villette, on his farm some sixty +kilometers back of the great marsh. Villette was one of those big, +silent Normans, who spoke only when it was worth while, and was known +for his brusqueness and his honesty. He was a giant in build--a man +whose big hands and feet moved slowly but surely; a man who avoided +making intimate friendships and was both proud and rich--proud of his +goods and chattels--of his vast grazing lands and his livestock--proud +too, of his big stone farmhouse with its ancient courtyard flanked by +his stone barns and his entrance gate whose walls were as thick as those +of some feudal stronghold; proud, too, of his wife--a plump little +woman with a merry eye and whom he never suspected of being madly +infatuated with his young farm hand, Garron. + +Their love affair culminated in an open scandal. The woman lacked both +the shrewdness and discretion of her lover; he had poached for years and +had never been caught;--it is, therefore, safe to say he would as +skilfully have managed to evade suspicion as far as the woman was +concerned, had not things gone from bad to worse. + +Villette discovered this too late; Garron had suddenly disappeared, +leaving madame to weather the scandal and the divorce that followed. +More than this, young Garron took with him ten thousand francs belonging +to the woman, who had been fool enough to lend him her heart--a sum out +of her personal fortune which, for reasons of her own, she deemed it +wisest not to mention. + +With ten thousand francs in bank notes next his skin, Garron took the +shortest cut out of the neighbourhood. He travelled by night and slept +by day, keeping to the unfrequented wood roads and trails secreted +between the thick hedges, hidden by-ways that had proved their value +during the guerilla warfares that were so successfully waged in Normandy +generations ago. Three days later Garron passed through the modest +village of Hirondelette, an unknown vagabond. He looked so poor that a +priest in passing gave him ten sous. + +"Courage, my son," counselled the good man--"you will get work soon. Try +the farm below, they are in need of hands." + +"May you never be in want, father," Garron strangled out huskily in +reply. Then he slunk on to the next farm and begged his dinner. The bank +notes no longer crinkled when he walked; they had taken the contour of +his hairy chest. Every now and then he stopped and clutched them to see +if they were safe, and twice he counted and recounted them in a ditch. + +With the Great Marsh as a safe refuge in his crafty mind, he passed by +the next sundown back of Pont du Sable; slept again in a hedge, and by +dawn had reached the marsh. Most of that day he wandered over it looking +for a site for his hut. He chose the point at the forks of the +stream--no one in those days, save a lone hunter ever came there. +Moreover, there was another safeguard. The Great Marsh was too cut up by +ditches and bogs to graze cattle on, hence no one to tend them, and the +more complete the isolation of its sole inhabitant. + +Having decided on the point, he set about immediately to build his hut. +The sooner housed the better, thought Garron, besides, the packet next +his chest needed a safe hiding place. + +For days the curlews, circling high above the marsh, watched him snaking +driftwood from the beach up the crooked stream to the point at the +forks. The rope he dragged them with he stole from a fisherman's boat +picketed for the night beyond the dunes. When he had gathered a +sufficient amount of timber he went into Pont du Sable with three hares +he had snared and traded them for a few bare necessities--an old saw, a +rusty hammer and some new nails. He worked steadily. By the end of a +fortnight he had finished the hut. When it was done he fashioned (for he +possessed considerable skill as a carpenter) a clever hiding place in +the double wall of oak for his treasure. Then he nailed up his door and +went in search of a mate. + + * * * * * + +He found her after dark--this girl to his liking--at the _fête_ in the +neighbouring village of Avelot. She turned and leered at him as he +nudged her elbow, the lights from the merry-go-round she stood watching +illumining her wealth of fair hair and her strong young figure +silhouetted against the glare. Garron had studied her shrewdly, singling +her out in the group of village girls laughing with their sweethearts. +The girl he nudged he saw did not belong to the village--moreover, she +was barefooted, mischievously drunk, and flushed with riding on the +wooden horses. She was barely eighteen. She laughed outright as he +gripped her strong arm, and opened her wanton mouth wide, showing her +even, white teeth. In return for her welcome he slapped her strong waist +soundly. + +"_Allons-y_--what do you say to a glass, _ma belle_?" ventured Garron +with a grin. + +"_Eh ben!_ I don't say no," she laughed again, in reply. + +He felt her turn instinctively toward him--there was already something +in common between these two. He pushed her ahead of him through the +group with a certain familiar authority. When they were free of the +crowd and away from the lights his arm went about her sturdy neck and he +crushed her warm mouth to his own. + +"_Allons-y_--" he repeated--"Come and have a glass." + +They had crossed in the mud to a dingy tent lighted by a lantern; here +they seated themselves on a rough bench at a board table, his arm still +around her. She turned to leer at him now, half closing her clear blue +eyes. When he had swallowed his first thimbleful of applejack he spat, +and wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand, while the girl grew +garrulous under the warmth of the liquor and his rough affection. Again +she gave him her lips between two wet oaths. No one paid any attention +to them--it was what a _fête_ was made for. For a while they left their +glasses and danced with the rest to the strident music of the +merry-go-round organ. + +It was long after midnight when Garron paid his score under the tent. +She had told him much in the meantime--there was no one to care whom she +followed. She told him, too, she had come to the _fête_ from a hamlet +called Les Forêts, where she had been washing for a woman. The moon was +up when they took the highroad together, following it until it reached +the beginning of Pont du Sable, then Garron led the way abruptly to the +right up a tangled lane that ran to an old woodroad that he used to gain +the Great Marsh. They went lurching along together in comparative +silence, the man steadying the girl through the dark places where the +trees shut out the moon. Garron knew the road as well as his pocket--it +was a favourite with him when he did not wish to be seen. Now and then +the girl sang in a maudlin way: + + "_Entrez, entrez, messieurs, + C'est l'amour qui vous attend._" + +It was gray dawn when they reached the edge of the Great Marsh that lay +smothered under a blanket of chill mist. + +"It is over there, my nest," muttered Garron, with a jerk of his thumb +indicating the direction in which his hut lay. Again he drew her roughly +to him. + +"_Dis donc, toi!_" he demanded brusquely: "how do they call you?" It had +not, until then, occurred to him to ask her name. + +"_Eh ben_--Julie," she replied. "It's a _sacré_ little name I never +liked. _Eh, tu sais_," she added slowly--"when I don't like a thing--" +she drew back a little and gazed at him sullenly--"_Eh ben_--I am like +that when I don't like a thing." Her flash of temper pleased him--he had +had enough of the trustful kitten of Villette's. + +"Come along," said he gruffly. + +"_Dis donc, toi_," she returned without moving. "It is well understood +then about my dress and the shoes?" + +"_Mais oui! Bon Dieu!_" replied the peasant irritably. He was hungry and +wanted his soup. He swore at the chill as he led the way across the +marsh while she followed in his tracks, satisfied with his promise of +the dress and shoes. She wanted a blue dress and she had seen the shoes +that pleased her some months before in the grocery at Pont du Sable when +a dog and she had dragged a fisherwoman in her cart for their board and +lodging. + +By the time they reached the forks of the stream the rising sun had +melted the blanket of the mist until it lay over the desolate prairie in +thin rifts of rose vapour. + +It was thus the miser, Garron, found his mate. + + * * * * * + +Julie proved to be a fair cook, and the two lived together, at the +beginning, in comparative peace. Although it was not until days after +the _fête_ at Avelot that she managed to hold him to his promise about +the blue dress, he sent her to Pont du Sable for her shoes the day +after their arrival on the marsh--she bought them and they hurt her. The +outcome of this was their first quarrel. + +"_Sacré bon Dieu!_" he snarled--"thou art never content!" Then he struck +her with the back of his clenched fist and, womanlike, she went +whimpering to bed. Neither he nor she thought much of the blow. Her mind +was on the shoes that did not fit. + +When she was well asleep and snoring, he ran his sinewy arm in the hole +he had made in the double wall--lifted the end of a short, heavy plank, +caught it back against a nail and gripped the packet of bank notes that +lay snug beneath it. Satisfied they were safe and his mate still asleep, +he replaced the plank over his fortune--crossed the dirt floor to his +barrier of a door, dropped an iron rod through two heavy staples, +securely bolting it--blew out the tallow dip thrust in the neck of an +empty bottle, and went to bed. + +Months passed--months that were bleak and wintry enough on the marsh for +even a hare to take to the timber for comfort. During most of that +winter Garron peddled the skins of rabbits he snared on the marsh, and +traded and bought their pelts, and he lived poor that no one might +suspect his wealth. He and his mate rose, like the wild fowl, with the +sun and went to bed with it, to save the light of the tallow dip. Though +I have said she could easily have strangled him with her hands, she +refrained. Twice, when she lay half awake she had seen him run his wiry +arm in the wall--one night she had heard the lifting of the heavy plank +and the faint crinkling sound of the package as he gripped it. She had +long before this suspected he had money hidden. + +Julie was no fool! + +With the spring the marsh became more tenable. The smallest song birds +from the woods flitted along the ditches; there were days, too, when the +desolate prairie became soft--hazy--and inviting. + +At daybreak, the beginning of one of these delicious spring days, +Garron, hearing a sharp cry without, rose abruptly and unbolted his +barrier. He would have stepped out and across his threshold had not his +bare foot touched something heavy and soft. He looked down--still half +asleep--then he started back in a sort of dull amazement. The thing his +foot had touched was a bundle--a rolled and well-wrapped blanket, tied +with a stout string. The sharp cry he had heard he now realized, issued +from the folds of the blanket. Garron bent over it, his thumb and +forefinger uncovering the face of a baby. + +"_Sacristi!_" he stammered--then leaned back heavily against the old +rudder of a door. Julie heard and crawled out of bed. She was peering +over his shoulder at the bundle at his feet before he knew it. + +Garron half wheeled and faced her as her breath touched his coarse ear. + +"_Eh bien!_ what is it?" he exclaimed, searching vainly for something +else to say. + +"_Eh ben! Ça! Nom de Dieu!_" returned his mate nodding to the bundle. +"It is pretty--that!" + +"_Tu m'accuses, hein?_" he snarled. + +"They do not leave bundles of that kind at the wrong door," she retorted +in reply, half closing her blue eyes and her red hands. + +"_Allons! allons!_" he exclaimed with heat, still at a loss for his +words. + +With her woman's instinct she brushed past him and started to pick up +the bundle, but he was too quick for her and drew her roughly back, +gripping her waist so sharply that he felt her wince. + +"It does not pass like that!" he cried sharply. "_Eh ben!_ listen to me. +I'm too old a rat to be made a fool of--to be tricked like that!" + +"Tricked!" she laughed back--"No, my old one--it is as simple as +_bonjour_, and since it is thine thou wilt keep it. Thou'lt--keep what +thou--" + +The pent-up rage within him leaped to his throat: + +"It does not pass like that!" he roared. With his clenched fist he +struck her squarely across the mouth. He saw her sink limp to the +ground, bleeding, her head buried between her knees. Then he picked up +the child and started with it across the plank that spanned the fork of +the stream. A moment later, still dizzy from the blow, she saw him +dimly, making rapidly across the marsh toward a bend in the stream. Then +the love of a mother welled up within her and she got to her feet and +followed him. + +"Stay where thou art!" he shouted back threateningly. + +The child in his arms was screaming. She saw his hand cover its +throat--the next moment she had reached him and her two hands were about +his own in a grip that sent him choking to his knees. The child rolled +from his arms still screaming, and the woman who was strangling Garron +into obedience now sank her knee in his back until she felt him give up. + +"_Assez!_" he grunted out when he could breathe. + +"_Eh ben!_ I am like _that_ when I don't like a thing!" she cried, +savagely repeating her old words. He looked up and saw a dangerous gleam +in her eyes. "_Ah, mais oui alors!_" she shouted defiantly. "Since it is +thine thou wilt keep it!" + +Garron did not reply. She knew the fight was out of him and picked up +the still screaming baby, which she hugged to her breast, crooning over +it while Garron got lamely to his feet. Without another word she started +back to the hut, Garron following his mate and his son in silence. + + * * * * * + +Years passed and the boy grew up on the marsh, tolerated by Garron and +idolized and spoiled by Julie--years that transformed the black-eyed +baby into a wiry, reckless young rascal of sixteen with all the vagabond +nature of his father--straight and slim, with the clear-cut features of +a gypsy. A year later the brother of Madame Villette, a well-known +figure on the Paris Bourse, appeared and after a satisfactory +arrangement with Garron, took the boy with him to Paris to be educated. + +It was hard on Julie, who adored him. Her consent was not even asked, +but at the time she consoled herself with the conviction, however, that +the good fortune that had fallen to the lot of the baby she had saved, +was for the best. The uncle was rich--that in itself appealed strongly +to her peasant mind. That, and her secret knowledge of Garron's fortune, +for she had discovered and counted it herself and, motherlike, told the +boy. + + * * * * * + +In Paris the attempt to educate Jacques Baptiste Garron was an expensive +experiment. When he went to bed at all it was only when the taverns and +cafés along the "Boul-miche" closed before dawn. Even then he and his +band of idle students found other retreats and more glasses in the +all-night cafés near the Halles. And so he ate and drank and slept and +made love to any little outcast who pleased him--one of these amiable +_petites femmes_--the inside of whose pocketbook was well greased with +rouge--became his devoted slave. + +She was proud of this handsome devil-may-care "type" of hers and her +jealousy was something to see to believe. Little by little she dominated +him until he ran heavily in debt. She even managed the uncle when the +nephew failed--she was a shrewd little brat--small and tense as wire, +with big brown eyes and hair that was sometimes golden and sometimes a +dry Titian red, according to her choice. Once, when she left him for two +days, Garron threatened to kill himself. + +"_Pauvre gosse!_" she said sympathizingly on her return--and embraced +him back to sanity. + +The real grain of saneness left in young Garron was his inborn love of a +gun. It was the gun which brought him down from Paris, back to the Great +Marsh now and then when the ducks were on flight. + +He had his own _gabion_ now at the lower end of the bay at Pont du +Sable, in which he slept and shot from nights when the wind was +northeast--a comfortable, floating box of a duck-blind sunk in an outer +jacket of tarred planks and chained to a heavy picket driven in the mud +and wire grass, for the current ran dangerously strong there when the +tide was running out. + +Late in October young Garron left Paris suddenly and the girl with the +Titian hair was with him. He, like his father, needed a safe refuge. +Pressed by his creditors he had forged his uncle's name. The only way +out of the affair was to borrow from Julie to hush up the matter. It did +not occur to him at the time how she would feel about the girl; neither +did he realize that he had grown to be an arrogant young snob who now +treated Julie, who had saved his life, and pampered him, more like a +servant than a foster-mother. + +The night young Garron arrived was at the moment of the highest tides. +The four supped together that night in the hut--the father silent and +sullen throughout the meal and Julie insanely jealous of the girl. Later +old Garron went off across the marsh in the moonlight to look after his +snares. + +When the three were alone Julie turned to the boy. For some moments she +regarded him shrewdly. She saw he was no longer the wild young savage +she had brought up; there was a certain nervous, blasé feebleness about +his movements as he sat uneasily in his chair, his hands thrust in the +pockets of his hunting coat, his chin sunk on his chest. She noticed +too, the unnatural redness of his lips and the haggard pallor about his +thin, sunken cheeks. + +"_Eh ben, mon petit_--" she began at length. "It is a poor place to get +fat in, your Paris! They don't feed you any too well--_hein?_--Those +grand restaurants you talk so much about. Pouf!" + +"_Penses-tu?_" added the girl, since Garron did not reply. Instead he +lighted a fresh cigarette, took two long puffs from it, and threw it on +the floor. + +The girl, angered at his silence and lack of courage, gave him a vicious +glance. + +"_Hélas!_" sighed Julie, "you were quicker with your tongue when you +were a baby." + +"_Ah zut!_" exclaimed the girl in disgust. "He has something to tell +you--" she blurted out to Julie. + +"_Eh ben!_ What?" demanded Julie firmly. + +"I need some money," muttered the boy doggedly. "I _need it!!_" he cried +suddenly, gaining courage in a sort of nervous hysteria. + +Julie stared at him in amazement, the girl watching her like a lynx. + +"_Bon Dieu!_" shouted Julie. "And it is because of _that_ you sit there +like a sick cat! Listen to me, my little one. Eat the good grease like +the rest of us and be content if you keep out of jail." + +The boy sank lower in his chair. + +"It will be jail for me," he said, "unless you help me. Give me five +hundred francs. I tell you I am in a bad fix. _Sacré bon Dieu!_--you +_shall_ give it to me!" he cried, half springing from his chair. + +"Shut up, thou," whispered the girl--"not so fast!" + +"Do you think it rains money here?" returned Julie, closing her red +fists upon the table, "that all you have to do is to ask for it? _Ah, +mais non, alors!_" + +The boy slunk back in his chair staring at the tallow dip +disconsolately. The girl gritted her small teeth--somehow, she felt +abler than he to get it out of Julie in the end. + +"You stole it, _hein?_" cried Julie, "like your father. Name of a dog! +it is the same old trick that, and it brings no good. _Allons!_" she +resumed after a short pause. "_Dépêche toi!_ Get out for your ducks--I'm +going to bed." + +"Give me four hundred," pleaded the boy. + +"Not a sou!" cried Julie, bringing her fist down on the greasy table, +and she shot a jealous glance at the girl. + +Without a word, young Garron rose dejectedly, got into his goatskin +coat, picked up his gun and, turning, beckoned to the girl. + +"Go on!" she cried; "I'll come later." + +"He is an infant," said she to Julie, when young Garron had closed the +door behind him. "He has no courage. You know the fix we are in--the +Commissaire of Police in Paris already has word of it." + +Julie did not reply; she still sat with her clenched fists outstretched +on the table. + +"He has forged his uncle's check," snapped the girl. + +Julie did not reply. + +"_Ah, c'est comme ça!_" sneered the girl with a cool laugh--"and when +he is in jail," she cried aloud, "_Eh, bien--quoi?_" + +"He will not have _you_, then," returned Julie faintly. + +"Ah----" she exclaimed. She slipped her tense little body into her thick +automobile coat and with a contemptuous toss of her chin passed out into +the night, leaving the door open. + +"Jacques!" she called shrilly--"Jacques!--_Attends._" + +"_Bon!_" came his voice faintly in reply from afar on the marsh. + +After some moments Julie got slowly to her feet, crossed the dirt floor +of the hut and closing the door dropped the bar through the staples. +Then for the space of some minutes she stood by the table struggling +with a jealous rage that made her strong knees tremble. She who had +saved his life, who had loved him from babyhood--she told herself--and +what had he done for her in return? The great Paris that she knew +nothing of had stolen him; Paris had given him _her_--that little viper +with her red mouth; Paris had ruined him--had turned him into a thief +like his father. Silently she cursed his uncle. Then her rage reverted +again to the girl. She thought too, of her own life with Garron--of all +its miserly hardships. "They have given me nothing--" she sobbed +aloud--"nothing." + +"Five hundred francs would save him!" she told herself. She caught her +breath, then little by little again the motherly warmth stole up into +her breast deadening for the moment the pain of her jealousy. She +straightened to her full height, squaring her broad shoulders like a man +and stepped across to the wall. + +"It is as much mine as it is his," she said between her teeth. + +She ran her arm into the hole in the wall, lifted the heavy plank and +drew out a knitted sock tied with a stout string. From the toe she drew +out Garron's fortune. + +"He shall have it--the _gosse_--" she said, "and the rest--is as much +mine as it is his." + +She thrust the package in her breast. + +Half an hour later Julie stood, scarcely breathing, her ear to the +locked door of his _gabion_. + +"A pretty lot you came from," she overheard the girl say, "that old cat +would sooner see you go to jail." The rest of her words were half lost +in the rush and suck of the tide slipping out from the _gabion's_ outer +jacket of boards. The heavy chain clinked taut with the pull of the +outgoing tide, then relaxed in the back rush of water. + +"Bah!" she heard him reply, "they are pigs, those peasants. I was a fool +to have gone to them for help." + +"You had better have gone to the old man," taunted the girl, "as I told +you at first." + +"He is made of the same miserly grizzle as she," he retorted hotly. +Again the outrush of the tide drowned their words. + +Julie clenched her red fists and drew a long breath. A sudden frenzy +seized her. Before she realized what she was doing, she had crawled in +the mud on her hands and knees to the heavy picket. Here she waited +until the backward rush again slackened the chain, then she half drew +the iron pin that held the last link. Half drew it! Had the girl been +alone, she told herself, she would have given her to the ebb tide. + +Julie rose to her feet and turned back across the marsh, unconscious +that the last link was nearly free and that the jerk and pull of the +outgoing tide was little by little freeing the pin from the link. + +She kept on her way, towards a hidden wood road that led down to the +marsh at the far end of Pont du Sable and beyond. + +She was done with the locality forever. Garron's money was still in her +breast. + + * * * * * + +At the first glimmer of dawn the next morning, the short, solitary +figure of a man prowled the beach. He was hatless and insane with rage. +In one hand he gripped an empty sock. He would halt now and then and +wave his long, ape-like arms--cursing the deep strip of sea water that +prevented him from crossing to the hard desert of sand beyond--far out +upon which lay an upturned _gabion_. Within this locked and stranded +box lay two dead bodies. Crabs fought their way eagerly through the +cracks of the water-sprung door, and over it, breasting the salt breeze, +slowly circled a cormorant--curious and amazed at so strange a thing at +low tide. + + [Illustration: the upturned gabion] + + + * * * * * + + + [Illustration: game birds on the marsh] + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +MIDWINTER FLIGHTS + + +One dines there much too well. + +This snug Restaurant des Rois stands back from the grand boulevard in a +slit of a street so that its ancient windows peer out askance at the gay +life streaming by the corner. + +The burgundy at "Les Rois" warms the soul, and the Chablis! Ah! where +else in all Paris is there such Chablis? golden, sound and clear as +topaz. Chablis, I hold, should be drank by some merry blonde whose heart +is light; Burgundy by a brunette in a temper. + +The small café on the ground floor is painted white, relieved by a +frieze of gilded garlands and topped by a ceiling frescoed with rosy +nymphs romping in a smoked turquoise sky. + +Between five and seven o'clock these midwinter afternoons the café is +filled with its _habitués_--distinguished old Frenchmen, who sip their +absinthe leisurely enough to glance over the leading articles in the +conservative _Temps_ or the slightly gayer _Figaro_. Upstairs, by means +of a spiral stairway, is a labyrinth of narrow, low-ceiled corridors +leading to half a dozen stuffy little _cabinets particuliers_, about +whose faded lambrequins and green velveted chairs there still lurks the +scent of perfumes once in vogue with the gallants, beaux and belles of +the Second Empire. + +Alice de Bréville, Tanrade, and myself, are dining to-night in one of +these _intime_ little rooms. The third to the left down the corridor. + +_Sapristi!_ what a change in Tanrade. He is becoming a responsible +person---he has even grown neat and punctual--he who used to pound at +the door of my house abandoned by the marsh at Pont du Sable, an hour +late for dinner, dressed in a fisherman's sea-going overalls of brown +canvas, a pair of sabots and a hat that any passing vagabond might have +discarded by the roadside. I could not help noticing carefully to-night +his new suit of black broadcloth, with its standing collar, buttoned up +under his genial chin. His black hair is neatly combed and his +broad-brimmed hat that hangs over my own on the wall, is but three days +old. Thus had this _bon garçon_ who had won the Prix de Rome been +transformed---and Alice was responsible, I knew, for the change. Who +would not change anything for so exquisite and dear a friend as Alice? +She, too, was in black, without a jewel--a gown which her lithe body +wore with all its sveltness--a gown that matched her dark eyes and hair, +accentuating the clean-cut delicacy of her features and the ivory +clearness of her olive skin. She was a very merry Alice to-night, for +her long engagement at the Bouffes Parisiennes was at an end. And she +had been making the best of her freedom by keeping Tanrade hard at work +over the score of his new ballet. They are more in love with each other +than ever--so much so that they insist on my dining with them, and so +these little dinners of three at "Les Rois" have become almost nightly +occurrences. It is often so with those in love to be generous to an old +friend--even lovers have need of company. + +We were lingering over our coffee when the talk reverted to the new +ballet. + +"It is done, _ma chérie_," declared Tanrade, in reply to an imperative +inquiry from Alice. "Bavière shall have the whole of the second act +to-morrow." + +"And the ballet in the third?" she asked sternly, lifting her brilliant +eyes. + +"_Eh, voilà!_" laughed that good fellow, as he drew forth from his +pocket a thin roll of manuscript and spread it out before her, that she +might see--but it was not discreet for me to continue, neither is it +good form to embrace before the old _garçon de café_, who at that moment +entered apologetically with the liqueurs--as for myself, I have long +since ceased to count in such tender moments of reward, during which I +am of no more consequence than a faithful poodle. + +Again the garçon entered, this time with smiling assurance, for he +brought me a telegram forwarded from my studio by my concierge. I opened +the despatch: the next instant I jumped to my feet. + +"Read!" I cried, poking the blue slip under Tanrade's nose, "it's from +the curé." + +"Howling northeast gale"--Tanrade read aloud--"Duck and geese--come +midnight train, bring two hundred fours, one hundred double zeros for +ten bore." + +"_Vive le curé!_" I shouted, "the good old boy to let us know. A +northeast gale at last--a howler," he says. + +"He is charming--the curé," breathed Alice, her breast +heaving--"Charming!" she repeated in a voice full of suppressed emotion. + +Tanrade did not speak. He had let the despatch slip to the floor and sat +staring at his glass. + +"You'll come, of course," I said with sudden apprehension, but he only +shook his head. "What! you're not going?" I exclaimed in amazement. +"We'll kill fifty ducks a night--it's the gale we've been waiting for." + +I saw the sullen gleam that had crept into Alice's eyes soften; she drew +near him--she barely touched his arm: + +"Go, _mon cher_!" she said simply--"if you wish." + +He lifted his head with a grim smile, and I saw their eyes meet. I well +knew what was passing in his mind--his promise to her to work--more than +this, I knew he had not the heart to leave her during her well-earned +rest. + +"_Ah! les hommes!_" Alice exclaimed, turning to me impetuously--"you are +quite crazy, you hunters." + +I bowed in humble apology and again her dark eyes softened to +tenderness. + +"_Non_--forgive me, _mon ami_," she went on, "you are sane enough until +news comes of those wretched little ducks, then, _mon Dieu!_ there is no +holding you. Everything else goes out of your head; you become as mad as +children rushing to a fête. Is it not so?" + +Still Tanrade was silent. Now and then he gave a shrug of his big +shoulders and toyed with his half empty glass of liqueur. _Sapristi!_ +it is not easy to decide between the woman you love and a northeast gale +thrashing the marsh in front of my house abandoned. He, like myself, +could already picture in his mind's eye duck after duck plunge out of +the night among our live decoys. My ears, like his own, were already +ringing with the roar of the guns from the _gabions_--I could not resist +a last appeal. + +"Come," I insisted--"both of you--no--seriously--listen to me. There is +plenty of dry wood in the garret; you shall have the _chambre d'amis_, +dear friend, and this brute of a composer shall bunk in my room--we'll +live, and shoot and be happy. Suzette will be overjoyed at your coming. +Let me wire her to have breakfast ready for us?" + +Alice laughed softly: "You are quite crazy, my poor friend," she said, +laying her white hand on my shoulder. "You will freeze down there in +that stone house of yours. Oh, la! la!" she sighed knowingly--"the leaks +for the wind--the cold bedrooms, the cold stone floors--B-r-r-h-h!" + +Tanrade straightened back in his chair: "No," said he, "it is +impossible; Bavière can not wait. He must have his score. The rehearsals +have been delayed long enough as it is--Go, _mon vieux_, and good luck +to you!" + +Again the old garçon entered, this time with the timetable I had sent +him for in a hurry. + +"_Voilà_, monsieur!" he began excitedly, his thumbnail indicating the +line--"the 12.18, as monsieur sees, is an express--monsieur will not +have to change at Lisieux." + +"_Bon!_" I cried--"quick--a taxi-auto." + +"_Bien_, monsieur--a good hunt to monsieur," and he rushed out into the +narrow corridor and down the spiral stairs while I hurried into my coat +and hat. + +Tanrade gripped my hand: + +"Shoot straight!" he counselled with a smile. Alice gave me her cheek, +which I reverently kissed and murmured my apologies for my insistence in +her small ear. Then I swung open the door and made for the spiral +stairs. At the bottom step I stopped short. I had completely forgotten I +should not return until after New Year's, and I rushed back to wish +them a _Bonne Année_ in advance, but I closed the door of the stuffy +little _cabinet particulier_ quicker than I opened it, for her arms were +about the sturdy neck of a good comrade whose self-denial made me feel +like the mad infant rushing to the fête. + +"_Bonne Année, mes enfants!_" I called from the corridor, but they did +not hear. + +Ten minutes later I reached my studio, dumped three hundred cartridges +into a worn valise and caught the 12.18 with four minutes to spare. + + * * * * * + +_Enfin!_ it is winter in earnest! + +The northeast gale gave, while it lasted, the best shooting the curé and +I have ever had. Then the wind shifted to the southwest with a falling +barometer, and the flights ceased. Again, for three days, the Norman +coast has been thrashed by squalls of driving snow. The wild geese are +honking in V-shaped lines to an inland refuge for the white sea is no +longer tenable. Curlews cry hoarsely over the frozen fields. It is +tough enough lying hidden in my sand pit on the open beach beyond the +dunes, where I crack away at the ricketing flights of fat gray plover +and beat myself to keep warm. Fuel is scarce and there is hardly a sou +to be earned fishing in such cruel weather as this. + +The country back of my house abandoned by the marsh is now stripped to +bare actualities--all things are reduced to their proper size. Houses, +barns and the skeletons of leafless trees stand out, naked facts in the +landscape. The orchards are soggy in mud and the once green feathery +lane back of my house abandoned, is now a rough gash of frozen pools and +rotten leaves. + +Birds twitter in the thin hedges. + +I would never have believed my wild garden, once so full of mystery--gay +flowers, sunshine and droning bees, to be so modest in size. A few +rectangles of bare, frozen ground, and a clinging vine trembling against +the old wall, is all that remains, save the scraggly little fruit trees +green with moss. Beyond, in a haze of chill sea mist, lie the +woodlands, long undulating ribbons of gray twigs crouching under a +leaden sky. + +In the cavernous cider press whose doors creak open within my courtyard +Père Bordier and a boy in eartabs, are busy making cider. If you stop +and listen you can hear the cider trickling into the cask and Père +Bordier encouraging the patient horse who circles round and round a +great stone trough in which revolve two juggernauts of wooden wheels. +The place reeks with the ooze and drip of crushed apples. The giant +screw of oak, the massive beams, seen dimly in the gloomy light that +filters through a small barred window cut through the massive stone +wall, gives the old pressoir the appearance of some feudal torture +chamber. Blood ran once, and people shrieked in such places--as these. + + * * * * * + +To-morrow begins the new year and every peasant girl's cheeks are +scrubbed bright and her hair neatly dressed, for to-morrow all France +embraces--so the cheeks are rosy in readiness. + +"_Tiens_, mademoiselle!" exclaims the butcher's boy clattering into my +kitchen in his sabots. + +_Eh, voilà!_ My good little maid-of-all-work, Suzette, has been kissed +by the butcher's boy and a moment later by Père Bordier, who has left +the cider press for a steaming bowl of _café au lait_; and ten minutes +later by the Mère Péquin who brings the milk, and then in turn by the +postman--by her master, by the boy in eartabs and by every child in the +village since daylight for they have entered my courtyard in droves to +wish the household of my house abandoned a happy new year, and have gone +away content with their little stomachs filled and two big sous in their +pockets. + +And now an old fisherman enters my door. It is the Père Varnet--he who +goes out with his sheep dog to dig clams, since he is eighty-four and +too old to go to sea. + +"_Ah, malheur!_" he sighs wearily, lifting his cap with a trembling hand +as seamed and tough as his tarpaulin. "Ah, the bad luck," he repeats in +a thin, husky voice. "I would not have deranged monsieur, but _bon +Dieu_, I am hungry. I have had no bread since yesterday. It is a little +beast this hunger, monsieur. There are no clams--I have searched from +the great bank to Tocqueville." + +It is surprising how quick Suzette can heat the milk. + +The old man is now seated in her kitchen before a cold duck of the +curé's killing and hot coffee--real coffee with a stiff drink of +applejack poured into it, and there is bread and cheese besides. Like +hungry men, he eats in silence and when he has eaten he tells me his dog +is dead--that woolly sheep dog of his with a cast in one fishy green +eye. + +"_Oui_, monsieur," confided the old man, "he is dead. He was all I had +left. It is not gay, monsieur, at eighty-four to lose one's last +friend--to have him poisoned." + +"Who poisoned him?" I inquired hotly--"was it Bonvin the butcher? They +say it was he poisoned both of Madame Vinet's cats." + +"_Eh, ben!_" he returned, and I saw the tears well up into his watery +blue eyes--"one should not accuse one's neighbours, but they say it was +he, monsieur--they say it was in his garden that Hector found the bad +stuff--there are some who have no heart, monsieur." + +"Bonvin!" I cried, "so it was that pig who poisoned him, eh? and you +saved his little girl the time the _Belle Marie_ foundered." + +"_Oui_, monsieur--the time the _Belle Marie_ foundered. It is true I +did--we did the best we could! Had it not been for the fog and the ebb +tide I think we could have saved them all." + +He fell to eating again, cutting into the cheese discreetly--this fine +old gentleman of the sea. + +It is a pity that some one has not poisoned Bonvin I thought. A short +thick fellow, is Bonvin, with cheeks as red as raw chops and small eyes +that glitter with cruelty. Bonvin, whose youngest child--a male, has the +look and intelligence of a veal and whose mother weighs one hundred and +five kilos--a fact which Bonvin is proud of since his first wife, who +died, was under weight despite the fact that the Bonvins being in the +business, eat meat twice daily. I have always believed the veal +infant's hair is curled in suet. Its face grows purple after meals. + + * * * * * + +A rough old place is my village of vagabonds in winter, and I am glad +Alice did not come. Poor Tanrade--how he would have enjoyed that +northeast gale! + + * * * * * + +Two weeks later there came to my house abandoned by the marsh such +joyful news that my hand trembled as I realized it--news that made my +heart beat quicker from sudden surprise and delight. As I read and +reread four closely written pages from Tanrade and a corroborative +postscript from Alice, leaving no doubt as to the truth. + +"Suzette! Suzette!" I called. "Come quick--_Eh! Suzette!_" + +I heard her trim feet running to me from the garden. The next instant +she opened the door of my den and stood before me, her blue eyes and +pretty mouth both open in wonder at being so hurriedly summoned. + +"What is the matter, monsieur?" she exclaimed panting, her fresh young +cheeks all the rosier from her run. + +"Monsieur Tanrade and Madame de Bréville are going to be married," I +announced as calmly as I could. + +"_Hélas!_" gasped Suzette. + +"_Et voilà--et voilà!_" I cried, throwing the letter back on the table, +while I squared my back to the blazing fire of my den and waited for the +little maid's astonishment to subside. + +Suzette did not speak. + +"It is true, nevertheless," I added with enthusiasm, "they are to be +married in Pont du Sable. We shall have a fête such as there never was. +Ah! you will have plenty of cooking to do, _mon enfant_. Run and find +Monsieur le Curé--he must know at once." + +Suzette did not move--without a word she buried her face in her apron +and burst into tears: + +"Oh, monsieur!" she sobbed. "Oh, monsieur! It is +true--that--I--I--have--no luck!" + +I looked at her in astonishment. + +"_Eh, bien!_ my child," I returned--"and it is thus you take such happy +news?" + +"_Ah, mon Dieu!_" sobbed the little maid--"it is--true--I--have no +luck." + +"What is the matter Suzette--tell me?" I pleaded. Never had I seen her +so brokenhearted, even on the day she smashed the mirror. + +I saw her sway toward me like the child she was. + +"There--there--_mais voyons!_" I exclaimed in a vain effort to stop her +tears--"_mais voyons!_ Come, you must not cry like that." Little by +little she ceased crying, until her sobbing gave way to brave little +hiccoughs, then, at length, she opened her eyes. + +"Suzette," I whispered--the thought flashing through my mind, "is it +possible that _you_ love Monsieur Tanrade?" + +I saw her strong little body tremble: "No, monsieur," she breathed, and +the tears fell afresh. + +"Tell me the truth, Suzette." + +"I have told monsieur the--the--truth," she stammered bravely with a +fresh effort to strangle her sobs. + +"You do not love Monsieur Tanrade, my child?" + +"No, monsieur--I--I--was a little fool to have cried. It was stronger +than I--the news. The marriage is so gay, monsieur--it is so easy for +some." + +"Ah--then you do love some one?" + +"_Oui_, monsieur--" and her eyes looked up into mine. + +"Who?" + +"Gaston, monsieur--as always." + +"Gaston, eh! the little soldier I lodged during the manoeuvres--the +little trombonist whom the general swore he would put in jail for +missing his train. _Sapristi!_ I had forgotten him--and you wish to +marry him, Suzette?" + +She nodded mutely in assent, then with a hopeless little sigh she added: +"_Hélas_--it is not easy--when one has nothing one must work hard and +wait--_Ah, mon Dieu!_" + +"Sit down, my little one," I said. "I have something serious to think +over." She did as I bade her, seating herself in silence before the +fire. I have never regarded Suzette as a servant--she has always been to +me more like a child whom I was responsible for. What would my house +abandoned by the marsh have been without her cheeriness, and her +devotion, I thought, and what would it be when she was gone? No other +Suzette would ever be like her--and her cooking would vanish with the +rest. _Diable!_ these little marriages play the devil with us at times. +And yet, if any one deserved to be happy it was Suzette. I realized too, +all that her going would mean to me, and moreover that her devotion to +her master was such that if I should say "stay" she would have stayed on +quite as if her own father had counselled her. + +As I turned toward her sitting humbly in the chair, I saw she was again +struggling to keep back her tears. It was high time for me to speak. + +I seated myself beside her upon the arm of the chair and took her warm +little hands in mine. + +"You shall marry your Gaston, Suzette," I said, "and you shall have +enough to marry on even if I have to sell the big field and the cow that +goes with it." + +She started, trembling violently, then gave a little gasp of joy. + +"Oh, monsieur! and it is true?" she cried eagerly. + +"Yes, my child--there shall be two weddings in Pont du Sable! Now run +and tell Monsieur le Curé." + + * * * * * + +Monsieur le Curé ran too, when he heard the news--straight to my house +abandoned, by the short cut back of the village. + +"_Eh bien! Eh bien!_" he exclaimed as he burst into my den, his keen +eyes shining. "It is too good to be true--and not a word to us about it +until now! _Ah, les rosses! Ah, les rosses!_" he repeated with a broad +grin of delight as he eagerly read Tanrade's letter, telling him that +the banns were published; that he was to marry them in the little gray +church with the new bells and that but ten days remained before the +wedding. He began pacing the floor, his hands clasped behind him--a +habit he had when he was very happy. + +"And Suzette?" I asked, "has she told you?" + +"Yes," he returned with a nod. "She is a good child--she deserves to be +happy." Then he stopped and inquired seriously--"What will you do +without her?" + +"One must not be selfish," I replied with a helpless shrug. "Suzette has +earned it--so has Tanrade. It was his unfinished opera that was in the +way: Alice was clever." + +He crossed to where I stood and laid his hand on my shoulder, and though +he did not open his lips I knew what was passing in his mind. + +"Charity to all," he said softly at length. "It is so good to make +others happy! Courage, _mon petit_--the price we pay for love, +devotion--friendship, is always a heavy one." Suddenly his +face lighted up. "Have you any idea?" he exclaimed, "how much there is +to do and how little time to do it in? Let us prepare!" + +And thus began the busiest week the house abandoned had ever known, +beginning with the curé and I restocking the garret with dry wood while +Suzette worked ferociously at house cleaning, and every detail of the +wedding breakfast was planned and arranged for--no easy problem in my +lost village in midwinter. If there was a good fish to be had out of the +sea we knew we could rely on Marianne to get it. Even the old fisherman, +Varnet, went off with fresh courage in search for clams and good Madame +Vinet opened her heart and her wine cellar. + +It was the curé who knew well a certain dozen of rare burgundy that had +lain snug beneath the stairs of Madame Vinet's small café--a vintage the +good soul had come into possession of the first year of her own marriage +and which she ceded to me for the ridiculously low price of twenty sous +the bottle, precisely what it had cost her in her youth. + + * * * * * + +It is over, and I am alone by my fire. + +As I look back on to-day--their wedding day--it seems as if I had been +living through some happy dream that has vanished only too quickly and +out of which I recall dimly but half its incidents. + +That was a merry procession of old friends that marched to the ruddy +mayor's where there was the civil marriage and some madeira, and so on +to the little gray church where Monsieur le Curé was waiting--that musty +old church in which the tall candles burned and Monsieur le Curé's voice +sounded so grave and clear. And we sat together, the good old general +and I, and in front of us were Alice's old friend Germaine, chic and +pretty in her sables, and Blondel, who had left his unfinished editorial +and driven hard to be present, and beside him in the worn pew sat the +Marquis and Marquise de Clamard, and the rest of the worn pews were +filled with fisherfolk and Marianne sat on my left, and old Père Varnet +with Suzette beyond him--and every one's eyes were upon Alice and +Tanrade, for they were good to look upon. And it was over quickly, and I +was glad of it, for the candle flames had begun to form halos before my +eyes. + +And so we went on singing through the village amid the booming of +shotguns in honour of the newly wed, to the house abandoned. And all the +while the new bells that Alice had so generously regiven rang lustily +from the gray belfry--rang clear--rang out after us, all the way back to +the house abandoned and were still ringing when we sat down to our jolly +breakfast. + +"Let them ring!" cried the curé. "I have two old salts of the sea taking +turns at the rope," he confided in my ear. "Ring on!" he cried aloud, as +we lifted our glasses to the bride--"Ring loud--that the good God may +hear!" + +And how lovely the room looked, for the table was a mass of roses fresh +from Paris, and the walls and ceiling were green with mistletoe and +holly. Moreover, the old room was warm with the hearts of friends and +the cheer from blazing logs that crackled merrily up the blackened +throat of my chimney. And there were kisses with this feast that came +from the heart; and sound red wine that went to it. And later, the +courtyard was filled with villagers come to congratulate and to drink +the health of the bride and groom. + + * * * * * + +They are gone. + +And the thrice-happy Suzette is dreaming of her own wedding to come, for +it is long past midnight and I am alone with my wise old cat--"The +Essence of Selfishness," and my good and faithful spaniel whom I call +"Mr. Bear," for he looks like a young cinnamon, all save his ears. If +poor de Savignac were alive he would hardly recognize the little spaniel +puppy he gave me, he has grown so. He has crept into my arms, big as he +is, awakening jealousy in "The Essence of Selfishness"--for she hates +him--besides, we have taken her favourite chair. Poor Mr. Bear--who +never troubles her---- + +"And _you_--beast whom I love--another hiss out of you, another +flattening of your ears close to your skull, and you go straight to bed. +There will be no Suzette to put you there soon, and there is now no +Alice, nor Tanrade to spoil you. They are gone, pussy kit." + +One o'clock--and the fire in embers. + +I rose and Mr. Bear followed me out into the garden. The land lay still +and cold under millions of stars. High above my chimney came faintly the +"Honk, honk," of a flock of geese. + +I closed my door, bolted the inner shutter, lighted my candle and +motioned to Mr. Bear. The Essence of Selfishness was first on the creaky +stairs. She paused half way up to let Mr. Bear pass, her ears again flat +to her skull. Then I took them both to my room where they slept in +opposite corners. + + * * * * * + +Lost village by the tawny marsh. Lost village, indeed, to-night! in +which were hearts I loved, good comrades and sound red wine--Hark! the +rush of wings. I must be up at dawn. It will help me forget----Sleep +well, Mr. Bear! + + +THE END + + [Illustration: village] + + + * * * * * + + +Popular Copyright Books + +AT MODERATE PRICES + +Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the +price you paid for this volume + + ANNA THE ADVENTURESS. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. + ANN BOYD. By Will N. Harben. + AT THE MOORINGS. By Rosa N. Carey. + BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE. By Harold Bindloss. + CARLTON CASE, THE. By Ellery H. Clark. + CHASE OF THE GOLDEN PLATE. By Jacques Futrelle. + CASH INTRIGUE, THE. By George Randolph Chester. + DELAFIELD AFFAIR, THE. By Florence Finch Kelly. + DOMINANT DOLLAR, THE. By Will Lillibridge. + ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL, THE. By Baroness Orczy. + GANTON & CO. By Arthur J. Eddy. + GILBERT NEAL. By Will N. Harben. + GIRL AND THE BILL, THE. By Bannister Merwin. + GIRL FROM HIS TOWN, THE. By Marie Van Vorst. + GLASS HOUSE, THE. By Florence Morse Kingsley. + HIGHWAY OF FATE, THE. By Rosa N. Carey. + HOMESTEADERS, THE. 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By Ellen Glasgow. + DIVINE FIRE, THE. By May Sinclair. + EMPIRE BUILDERS. By Francis Lynde. + EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. By A. Conan Doyle. + FIGHTING CHANCE, THE. By Robert W. Chambers. + FOR A MAIDEN BRAVE. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. + FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH, THE. By Chas. D. Stewart. + GOD'S GOOD MAN. By Marie Corelli. + HEART'S HIGHWAY, THE. By Mary E. Wilkins. + HOLLADAY CASE, THE. By Burton Egbert Stevenson. + HURRICANE ISLAND. By H. B. Marriott Watson. + IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. + INDIFFERENCE OF JULIET, THE. By Grace S. Richmond. + INFELICE. By Augusta Evans Wilson. + LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. + LADY OF THE MOUNT, THE. By Frederic S. Isham. + LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING, THE. By Gilbert Parker. + LANGFORD OF THE THREE BARS. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles. + LAST TRAIL, THE. By Zane Grey. + LEAVENWORTH CASE, THE. By Anna Katharine Green. + LILAC SUNBONNET, THE. By S. R. Crockett. + LIN MCLEAN. By Owen Wister. + LONG NIGHT, THE. By Stanley J. Weyman. + MAID AT ARMS, THE. By Robert W. Chambers. + + + * * * * * + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious +typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) have +been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below: + +page 24: typo corrected + + the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice de + Breville's[Bréville's] automobile whined up to my door. The next + +page 201: swapped words fixed + + To-night the general is an in[in an] uproar of good humour + +page 225: spurious quote removed + + this country. ["]François!" he exclaimed, "You may bring in the + little dog--and, François!" + +page 272: typo corrected + + business out at the county-seat? The Vicomtess[e] is furious. We + were to leave, for a little voyage + +page 276: quote added + + "All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!["] he cried, + flinging his hat on + +page 277: quote added + + morning, if we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon.["] He + recovered his hat from the floor, + +page 343: typo corrected + + smiling assurance, for be[he] brought me a telegram forwarded from + my studio by my concierge. + +page 350: spurious comma removed; typo corrected + + gone away content with their little stomachs[,] filled and two big + sous in their pockets. + + and ten minutes later by the Mère Pequin[Péquin] who brings the + milk, and then in turn + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Village of Vagabonds, by F. 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