At the house in the garden the new servants stood ready, neat and smiling. My father had written to a Protestant pastor at Grenoble to send him two maids of his religion. Accordingly two sisters had arrived, Claire and Hermance Tessier, reliable pleasant-faced girls with no family ties in Aramon and with the difference of religion to keep them apart from indiscriminate gossipry. The wing of the house where they were to sleep had formed a part of the wall, possibly even it may have been an ancient gateway in the time of the Montmorencies. My father had joined it to the main building by a flying bridge of iron roofed with zinc—which was Dennis Deventer's own private contribution to Garden Cottage. I had warned him of the nocturnal habits of Linn and her husband, and he agreed with me that while for Alida's sake they must be served according to the French fashion, they need not be deprived of the nightly freedom of their own house which was their greatest luxury.
So at the Cottage door we judged it best to leave them. Rhoda Polly and her mother drove home. My father and I withdrew, I to my den, he to his study. If the new tenants of the Garden Cottage had any changes to make or any fault to find with what had been prepared for them, the alterations could be done quietly and by degrees. Besides, the pale face of Alida haunted me and I thought that a night's rest would be for her the surest medicine.
But the general joyousness of the journey up the hill was our best hope that all would be well. The Bey was gay. Even Linn relaxed when she saw the noble prospect of the blue Rhône and the little white and green house among the laurels, walled in like a fortress. Hand in hand but silent Rhoda Polly sat beside Alida as the coachman drove over the bridge and up the winding road, St. André looming up a crenellated wall of red and gold above them.
This was the beginning of a wonderful week which, lived in the unseen and unsuspected shadow of disaster, now shines the brighter for the contrast with what was to come after. The last week of the theatres and baths of Pompeii was not more memorable, and we who sunned ourselves upon the limestone slopes of Mont St. André thought as little of the future as the many tinted crowd of merry-makers who thronged the beaches between the city gate and the white sands of Torre del Greco.
They came on the 11th of March, and one week after fell the 18th, a date ever memorable in the history of the cities of France.
Yet how much happiness did we manage to put in between the one day and the other.
Next morning, that is on the 12th, I was up early, so early that no one was visible about the Garden Cottage except the two Grenoble maids, who had settled down to their duties as if they had been on the spot for months. They were indeed lucky, for few newbonnescome to so clean a house—"shining like a soldier's button," averred Claire.
Linn and her husband had doubtless spent the night in making an exhaustive survey of the dwelling, and Linn especially would be full of discoveries. At present they were retired in their own chamber, dozing doubtless, after their long nocturnal expeditions, and also probably because after the awakening of the maids they felt the house no more their own.
It was a morning when the chill gusting of the mistral wind hurtled and raved about St. André. I had already made friends with the sisters Tessier, of whom Claire was housemaid and Hermance cook. Rhoda Polly had introduced us and that curious and almost affectionate regard which springs up between good servants and friends of the house soon made my visits very agreeable to them.
They asked counsels of me—as for example, how Monsieur liked his coffee, if Madame was more set upon the kitchen or the "lingerie," and how best to serve Mademoiselle, who, as they had been given to understand (probably by Linn), was of chief standing in the house.
I told them that they needed no more than to be good brave girls and all would go well. But I warned them that both Madame and her husband had been accustomed to many things in the wild countries where they had dwelt, which would be looked upon as strange by a burgher who had never set a head outside his own wall.
I prepared them for the Bey's occasional absences, and for Linn's restless wanderings and perpetual rangings of cupboards. They were quite contented, thanked me blithely, and Claire took up the morning breakfast of rolls andcafé au laitwith shining success. All that she had to tell when she came down was that Mademoiselle had asked her to rub her feet in order to awaken her.
Whereupon I pointed the not unuseful moral that what I had said applied to Mademoiselle also. She had spent her childhood in Africa and though the best and sweetest lady in the world, might do or ask for things that need not be repeated outside the house. The Tessiers quite saw the necessity.
"They are all tattlers in the south," said Claire, "I have heard it from my friend who had service here. It is different at Nîmes or Grenoble, where the families are mostly Protestant."
They knew somehow that my father had once been apasteurand they had all the Scottish weakness for a "son of the manse."
When at last Linn began to make her presence heard in the upper story, I retreated without being discovered, extremely satisfied with my diplomacy. After all, this transplantation was a hazardous experiment, and all who had taken part in the business must see to it that the little foxes did not spoil the vineyard by any side entrance.
I had scarcely begun my task of writing for the day, when I was called from my desk by a message from Alida. It was a cunningly folded note, sealed with the great seal which had been her father's. The bright splash of red wax occupied quite a third of the back. So, not to tear the paper, I laid it a moment on the hob, and then with the thinnest blade of my knife, I lifted it cleanly away in one piece. After which I unfolded the rustling sheet.
"Come and see me before anyone else."
That was all and indeed quite enough, for with quick beating pulses I hastened to obey. Linn was waiting for me at the first turn of the wooded path, and as we paced along together towards Garden Cottage I could feel the "gleg" inquisitorial eyes of Saunders McKie boring into my back. I wished Linn had sent over one of the Tessiers on this first occasion, but I do not suppose it ever occurred to her to let another do for Alida what she could do herself.
The Bey was within the walled garden, pacing up and down, revolving in his mind something which pleased him but little.
"What is it, Keller Bey?" I asked sharply. "Do you not find yourself comfortable among us?"
"Too comfortable by half," he grunted, "here are many things which must have cost much money, and yet I am told by Alida that they are presents of welcome for which I must not pay—whereupon, of course, Linn agrees with her, and I who was the right hand of Abd-el-Kader and thought myself indebted to no man, am made in my own eyes a veritable pauper!"
"Keller Bey," I said, "you speak in ignorance of our English customs. At a house-warming or the taking possession of a new residence, all your friends are under obligation to bring their contribution to the home. It is our way of wishing you good luck and a happy tenancy. Nothing could be more unfortunate than any offer of payment for such a service."
"Yes—yes—I understand," he broke in testily, "I suppose I have been too long among the black tents. I learn your ways with difficulty. I am sure every one means well, but how am I to do all that thanking? Can I bow backs at my age and say grace for what I would rather have done without?"
"You cannot," I said, laughing at his perturbed face, "for we do not tell the name of the givers lest it should bring ill-luck. But where is Alida?"
Alida, it seemed, was in the pleasant gable parlour which, with so much anxious forethought, we had fitted up for her. She had been arranging her books on the shelves, and was now going from picture to picture and from window to window.
She gave me both hands when she saw me and said immediately, "Angoos, who would have thought that we had among us at Autun such an observant boy! You have reproduced my room there with hardly a change, save the pictures and the pottery. Has your father let them to us along with the house?"
"No," I said, "they are loving gifts from Madame Deventer, and as for the arrangement, Rhoda Polly did that, questioning me as she went, and forcing me to recall exactly whether I would or not."
"I sent for you," said Alida, "to tell me all about this family who have been so kind, so that I may make no mistake. And first, why did only the women come?—where was Monsieur Hugh, who dwelt with us at Autun?"
I explained to her the mystery of a great factory, where were thousands of men all doing different things, and how Hugh, though but a small wheel in such a mechanism, could not leave his post at will without interfering with the work of many others.
I sketched rough, strong, imperious Dennis to her. Rhoda Polly purposely somewhat vague, because I knew that she would soon enough find out about Rhoda Polly for herself. But I made word cameos of Hannah and Liz and concluded with a full-length portrait of Mrs. Deventer, in whom I hoped (though I took care not to say so) Alida would find the mother her youth had lacked.
She listened with lowered eyes and a silent attention as if she were weighing every word.
"Yes," she said, "I shall like them all. I feel sure—or almost."
Then she asked suddenly, "Does Rhoda Polly sing? Can she play?"
"In a way," I answered lamely enough; "she has had the usual lessons before she went to college, but her voice has never been trained."
"Is she very clever?"
"Yes, at driving nails, hanging pictures, laying down carpets, and getting a house ready—I never saw anyone to match her."
"But I mean—she is very learned—will she look down upon me who have to step carefully among abysses of ignorance?"
"Alida," I said earnestly, "she is likely to spoil you far more than is good for you. The others will do so also, but you will find that Rhoda Polly will win your heart more than all of us put together."
"I do not think so," said Alida composedly.
And then, struck by the astonishment in my face, she continued, "I shall not like her if you praise her so much!"
"Do not be foolish, Alida," I said, "you should have heard me praising you to Rhoda Polly when I got back from Autun. It took me nearly one whole day, and ever since she has been painting, varnishing, and scrubbing, that the nest should be worthy of such a bird of Paradise as I described."
"Oh, I know," pouted Alida, "she is infinitely better than I, more unselfish, and—and—you love her!"
"She is certainly more unselfish," I said, firing up; "you have yet to learn what the word means. Perhaps that partly explains your charm, but all the same you must love Rhoda Polly."
"Becauseyoudo?"
I was tempted to deny my gods and declare that I did not love Rhoda Polly, when the remembrance of a particular smear on her nose one day of mutual paintwork on opposite sides of a fireplace, and a way she had of throwing her head back to toss the blonde curls out of her eyes, stopped me.
"Of course I love Rhoda Polly, and so will you (and more than I love her) when your eyes are opened!"
And with that I left Alida to digest the fact of her own selfishness. At the time I considered myself a kind of hero for having so spoken. Now I am not so sure. She was what Keller and Linn had made her, and I ought to have remembered the snubs and rebuffs which she must have suffered from Sous-Préfecture dames and other exacting though respectable ladies of Autun.
* * * * *
This week held many other matters and the seeds of more. Rhoda Polly came to take Alida out in her mother's Victoria, and spent a long day in the garden instead, sending back the coachman to be ready to take Mrs. Deventer to the works to drive her husband home to lunch, as was her daily custom.
I do not know what the girls said to one another. I kept out of the way, but when I came into the dining-room with my father a little before noon, I was certain that Alida had been crying and that Rhoda Polly had been dabbing her eyes with hasty inexperienced fingers.
I thought this no ill sign of coming friendship, and indeed it was not an hour before I received a first confidence on the subject from Alida.
"She is all you say and more. She makes me so ashamed of myself!"
"So she does me!" I answered, thinking of my dealings with Jeanne and our walk home from the restaurant of Mère Félix.
Alida held out her hand quickly.
"Does she make you feel that too?—I am glad," she said, and smiled gratefully like a child consoled.
Then came Rhoda Polly's mother, and my father, who had been talking to Rhoda Polly by the sundial, rose and with a word and smile excused himself and went indoors. The interview that followed I should have loved well to watch and hear. But after all I doubt if any great part of the gentle influences which rained from Mrs. Deventer could have been written down. No stenographer could take note of those captivating intonations, the soft subtle pauses of speech, the lingering tender understanding in her motherly eyes, the way she had of laying her hand upon Alida's.
She had been a counsellor to many, and had never forgotten a sore heart even when healed, nor told a tale out of that gracious confessional.
Certain it is that the conquest of Alida was soon made, in so far as Mrs. Deventer could make it. They saw each other every day, and the sight of Rhoda Polly and Alida striking across the big bridge with the wind right in their faces—or of Alida, with Linn, like a gaunt watch-dog, thrusting a combative shoulder into the mistral to fend a way for her charge—became familiar on the windy sidewalks of the great suspension bridge.
All went as we could have wished it, till one day I took the Bey across to go over the works. Dennis Deventer was to afford enough time to conduct us in person. It was no small honour, for visitors were generally either refused altogether, or handed over to Jack Jaikes with instructions that they should see as little as possible.
I was wholly at ease about the meeting of the Bey and Dennis Deventer. Two such fighters, I thought, could not but be delighted with one another.
I was only partly right. They met with mutual respect. Dennis had been in Algeria at a more recent date than the Bey, and could give news of deaths of chiefs, of successions disputed and consequently bloody, and of all the tangled politics of the South Oran.
But once in the hum and turmoil of the works, the power-straps running overhead like lightning flashes, the spinning lathes, the small busy mechanisms installed on tables and set going by tiny levers, the Bey's attention wandered. Instead of attending to the wonderful fittings and the constant jingle of the finished parts, he seemed to search out each man's face, in a manner to compel their attention. Usually when a visitor goes round with the "chief," the men make it a point of honour to turn away their eyes almost disdainfully. But it was different with the personally conducted trip of Keller Bey. At him the men gazed with sudden evident respect, and we were not half-way through the first room before the whisper of our coming ran far ahead of us through the workshops.
I could see nothing about Keller Bey to explain this sudden interest. He did not make masonic signs with his hands. He hardly spoke a word. He never looked at the men who were devouring him with their eyes. All I could see was that he wore the red tie habitual to him, clasped by a little pin made of two crossed standards drooped upon theirhampes, one red with rubies and the other formed of black diamonds. It was the only jewellery Keller Bey ever wore and naturally, since I had never seen him without it, it seemed a part of him like his collar-stud or his sleeve-links.
Dennis Deventer, who never missed anything in the works, noted the men's behaviour, but continued his exposition of the secret of preventing the jamming of the mitrailleuses.
"I am a little late with my invention," he said, "I shall have to wait for the next war to make my demonstration complete."
"You may not have to wait so long as you think!" said the Bey quietly. "Had you not a little private war of your own a month ago?"
The time was so ill chosen as to make Keller's reference almost a disaster. There were men within earshot who had driven the troops of the Republic out of Aramon, perhaps even some who had assaulted the house of the Chief Director.
"We had some little trouble like other folks," said Dennis Deventer lightly, "but we have forgotten all about that!"
"Ah!" said the Bey reflectively, as they passed on. In the big gun foundry a huge Hercules of a fellow, naked to the waist, thrust his way through the little crowd about us, seized Keller Bey by the hand, murmured something to us unintelligible. The Bey took no notice beyond nodding briefly to the man. Then turning to Deventer he continued unconcernedly, "About that feeding gear, you were saying——?"
But Dennis Deventer looked at Keller Bey curiously.
"Did you know that man?" he asked earnestly.
"No, I never set eyes on him before," said the Bey carelessly as before; "is there anything against him?"
"Not exactly," replied Deventer, "but he is one of the most dangerous men in the works—almost as strong in body as I am myself, and much listened to by the men. I wish I could say he leads them wisely."
Keller Bey shook his head gravely, but except repeating that he knew nothing whatever about the foundryman, he uttered no word of excuse or commendation. However, Dennis Deventer was in no mind to let him off so easily.
"You are having such a success among the men as I never saw the like of, and would not have believed if I had not seen with my own eyes. Have you been to St. Etienne or Creusot? Many of our fellows come from there. It is possible that they may recognise you."
"I have never been in either place in my life," said Keller Bey simply, and so cut off discussion.
But I could see that a doubt remained and brooded upon the spirit of Dennis Deventer. He brought the visit abruptly and rather disappointingly to a close, by saying that there was a man waiting for him in his office. But as men were always waiting to see Dennis Deventer at any hour of the day, his taking himself off must have been an excuse. I felt vaguely to blame. Indeed, I was wholly at sea, the more so when just outside the great gates of the Small Arms Company's yards Keller was met by half a dozen workmen of a superior sort, who saluted him respectfully and asked for a private interview.
I said I should go and wait for him at the bridge-end, and he kept me waiting for an hour and a half, which I would much rather have spent with Rhoda Polly. Keller Bey was altogether too much of a responsibility in Aramon-les-Ateliers. If he had further visits to pay on this side, he could find his way himself, so far as I was concerned. I would not waste a whole morning only to get myself suspected by Rhoda Polly's father.
I sat down on the parapet and watched the drowsydouaniersat the receipt of custom, or the still drowsier fishermen dropping baited lines into a seven-knot current, which banked itself up and then swirled high between the piers.
And lazying thus in the sunshine, I cast my mind over many things, but particularly I thought of Hugh. Had I indeed lost Hugh Deventer? Why was he no longer my faithful confidant and comrade as of old? Had we gone together to the wars, slept under one blanket, only to bring about this separation? Even to-day I had not seen him. Had he of set purpose hid himself away?
Certainly he was no more the dreamily affectionate companion, a little slow in comprehension but rapid and accurate in execution, upon whose thews and muscles I had been wont to depend. Hugh Deventer was lost to me. More than that, he could hardly any more be said to belong to the family circle at Château Schneider. He had furnished a room for himself down at the works, where he read and slept. His meals were cooked by the wife of the chief night-watchman and at home no one was surprised. For the Deventers were, even before coming of age, in fact as soon as they had left school, a law to themselves. And I think that Dennis was secretly pleased at his boy's setting up for himself.
But I knew that Hugh was not driven by any noble desire for independence. Sitting there in the warm sun which beat upon the bridge parapet, I set aside one possible cause for our estrangement after another.
It was not on account of Jeanne or Rhoda Polly. No jealousy possessed Hugh Deventer because I sat at his father's table far oftener than he did. One reason only could explain all the circumstances. He had been at Autun and had supposed that Alida's idea of coming to the Garden Cottage had originated with me. Evidently he had resented this, and since our return he had kept himself, in all save the most formal fashion, apart from all the rejoicing over the new tenants.
Obviously he must consider himself in love with Alida, which was, of course, wholly natural and within his right. But why vent his humour upon me? I could not make Alida return his love, and certainly sulking in the holes and corners of a factory would do nothing to soften the heart of that imperious little lady. He had indeed become little more than a memory to Alida.
"I don't think Hugh likes me," she said, more than once. "He never comes to see me—not even to tell me how selfish I am!"
The 18th of March dawned clear and bright, the wind still a little chill, but the whole land, as we looked down upon it from our Gobelet watch-tower on the front of St. Andre's hill, tinted white and pink with blossom, almond, peach, pear, plum, and cherry. It was wonderful to see them running up, as it were scrambling over fence and rock scarp, till they broke in a sunshiny spray of hawthorn blossom against the grey walls of thelycéeof St. André.
Never was there a quieter day nor one that seemed filled with more happy promise. For the first time Linn and Alida had resumed their old understanding. For there is no doubt that Linn had been somewhat jealous of the absorbing commerce between the house of Deventer and the cottage in the laurel bushes beyond the garden of Gobelet.
Keller had gone to Aramon, Linn said. He might be away all night, for he had it in his mind to push as far as Marseilles. I knew of the Bey's absences from Autun, and so thought no more of the matter. Linn, put in good humour by having Alida to herself (for me she did not count), talked freely of the beauties of their installation. The Basse Cour and the poultry especially delighted her, and she had already prepared a ruled book which was to show in parallel columns the cost of feeding as compared with the result in chickens and eggs.
All that day no one crossed over the bridge from Château Schneider and the time was blessed for Linn. She knew very well that it was for just such companionship that Alida had come to Aramon. She had herself supported the necessity for change, even against her husband. But all the same, now when she got her Princess a day to herself she made the most of it, falling back into her old caressing habits and ready to treat Alida as the little girl who long ago had been put in her hands with all a queen's habits of command and the sweet waywardness of a child.
I helped when I could and fetched huge stuffed buffets and cushions, so that Alida could install herself beside my father at the fishpond, and then I left him to make his usual conquest. He was smiling and tranquil as I remember, but with an unwonted eagerness in his eye, which did not by any means come from the anticipation of a morning with Alida. I remembered afterwards that he had had an interview the night before with Keller Bey in which they had talked much Arabic, and early this morning he had dispatched Saunders McKie over the water with a letter to Dennis Deventer. But these things did not fall into place in my mind, at least not till long afterwards.
We had a happy day among the sunflecked glades of Gobelet—that is, Alida, my father and I. When they two were alone, they talked Arabic, but ceased as soon as I joined them.
Conscious of the awkwardness Alida renewed her offer to teach me colloquially if my father would put me in the way of learning the grammar, while I regretted bitterly having wasted my time at St. André. Finally to change the subject we fell to talking over the Montmorencies and theirTour Carréeon the heights of Aramon le Vieux. Here at hand, where the Tessiers slept at the far side of Dennis Deventer's flying bridge of steel, was their gateway tower, still pitted by the balls of Mazarin's troops. For a Montmorency of those days, probably held in leash by his wife, had taken the popular side in the wars of the Fronde.
Down there on that islet in the reign of Louis XII (said my father) a great tournament was held in which the knights of France, light and lissom, overwhelmed the weightier champions of Burgundy.
If we had been more watchful as we talked, we might have seen the smoke die out of the tall chimneys of Aramon-les-Ateliers, the blast furnaces withdraw their crowns of pale flame, and an unnatural quiet settle down upon the busy city.
But our minds were bent wholly on giving pleasure to Alida. She must be taken through this glade, climb this steep path, and see the marvellous spectacle of the Rhône delta with its wide wastes wandered over by fierce cattle, its sinuous waterways blocked by the only beavers remaining in Europe, and far away beyond it the violet-blue bar of the Midland Sea.
We did indeed conduct Alida from admiration to admiration, and she had what I fear Rhoda Polly would have called "the time of her life." It did strike me several times how strange it was that since my father had sent his morning message to Dennis Deventer, we had had no news of the household at Château Schneider.
I sounded Saunders on the subject, but he knew nothing, or at least would tell nothing.
"The letter? Oh, Maister Dennis just read it and put it in his waistcoat pooch. Syne, says he, 'Saunders, will ye drink?' 'No,' says I; for if I did, when I gaed hame I micht smell! So he gied me yin o' thae French sovereigns as easy as puttin' a penny in the plate. Oh, a grand man is Maister Deventer when ye get the richt side o' him, but as they tell me the very deevil and a' when his monkey is up. Do you ken, Maister Aängus, he was just trying me on, by asking me to drink? For if I had ta'en as muckle as a sup frae his hand, I micht hae whistled for the wee French sovereign—whilk is only barely worth saxteen shillings when a' is said and done!"
Nevertheless in the full bliss of ignorance we idled away the day while about us the flowers grew as we looked at them, so keen an edge was on that spring day. Linn ranged her napery cupboards to her most perfect content, not that she could do it better than Mrs. Deventer had done, but simply for the satisfaction of, as it were, expressing her mind and doing it differently.
The shadows passed steadily across the sundial. The underneath inscription became more strongly incised as the sun dipped westward. The rock plants on the little island in the pond fell into shadow and some closed up their petals for the night. And still in the midst of a great silence we moved and smiled and were happy. Aramon le Vieux drowsed beneath us. The good wives at their doors were out gossiping their hardest, but in undertones which must not pass from one group to another. Cats sunned themselves in window sills beyond the reach of the prowling cur, and the majestic river, so soon to be split and worried into a hundred waterways,étangsand backwaters, passed noiselessly in front of us in one noble rush, level, calm, and swift.
I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Professor Renard, coming from the post office, where the telegraph had been recently installed, brought tidings.
"There is a revolt in Paris," he said, "the soldiers and the National Guard have expelled the Government. That is the news they have received, but no one knows whether it is false or true."
Nor in the midst of our quiet park with the fruit trees in blossom everywhere could we have any guess at the turmoil, the riding of orderlies, and the hasty ordering of official carriages in Paris.
Indeed, the talk passed to other matter and on the surface, and the tidings seemed to affect us little. So having left Linn still busy with her linen, Alida and I took our way to the look-out summer-house above the aerial swing of the suspension bridge, leaving the elders talking very soberly together.
"Surely there is no danger here?" the girl asked when we had seated ourselves. She spoke not from any fear but that she might contrive means of helping her friends the Deventers if they needed it.
"Not that I know of," I answered, "but the workmen of Aramon are always fiery and hard to handle. Wehavehad battles and sieges, yet things were smoothed over and the works went on as before—the men who had been busily shooting each other down talking over details of work and taking orders from one another as if nothing had happened."
"How long ago was that?"
"Only about two months," I explained, "but you need expect nothing of that kind on this side. The workmen never cross the bridge save when on pleasure bent, or when our July fair-time fills the green yonder with the din of booths, circuses, and penny theatres."
Nevertheless, Alida's face continued to express trouble.
"But Rhoda Polly, her mother, and the others—are they in danger?"
"Not, I think, for the moment. The more serious the news from Paris, the less will the men think of their grievances against the Company and the Company's manager. Last time the siege was bitter and determined on both sides. Many were killed. Yet it was no more than a trade dispute which Mr. Deventer could have settled in half an hour if the men had brought their grievances directly to him, instead of trying to wreck the works for the safety of which he is responsible."
"We must go and see for ourselves," said Alida imperiously. "If there is danger for my friends, I must be there to share it."
"You must not do anything of the kind," I cried, "you do not understand the fierce blindness which comes upon men at such times. I shall go, if necessary, and you shall stay with my father and Linn in the refuge which those who love you have chosen for you."
"Then if I let you go, you will come back and tell me all—remember, do not put me off with lies such as they tell to ordinary women."
I promised, and as we stood looking across the glistening waters I saw for the second time in my life the tricolour flutter down from its staff, and after a pause the shining "Tatter of Scarlet" of the red revolution blow out on the valley wind.
The street lamps had not been lighted when I landed on the left bank of the river, well above any outposts of the new revolt. I pulled my skiff safely under shelter of some bushes. The spot I had chosen was one well known to me, and exceedingly safe. My father often sent me over to bring plants and seeds from Arcadius, the gardener at Les Linottes, whose extensive grounds ran right down to the river's edge. A soft, rather hulking, good-natured man was Arcadius, who went through the world apparently breathing to the full ease of life. His body somewhat resembled a large slug supported on two smaller slugs, which were his legs. He worked in his garden, his pipe continually between his lips. At a first glance the slowness of his movements seemed laughable and ridiculous. But leave him half an hour and then see what he had accomplished. There was no man in Aramon who could get through so much work as Arcadius the Slug. By a kind of instinct he saw exactly where every stroke ought to fall, how much or how little was to be done, and the completed task ran out behind him like the wake from a well-rowed boat.
It was in a little bay behind a promontory filled with the Slug's sapling pines that I landed. I knew the place well, I knew also that Arcadius would almost certainly be in his potting house, putting things to rights after the labours of the day (the middle of March is high season for every gardener in the Midi). There indeed I found him surrounded with repaired hoes and rakes, and at that moment putting a new handle into the small gardener'sbêche(or mattock) which was hardly ever out of his hands while in the open air.
Arcadius was not a man of politics.
"I have never known politics to improve the weather or keep off frosts!" he said. "I have yet to learn what good they do to a working gardener!"
I asked about the works and the town.
"Oh," he said, "my 'prentice lads stayed with me till six o'clock because I had put the fear of death on them if they tried to run. Yet I could see that they were itching to be off, and as soon as six struck from the Mairie, they dropped their tools and were over the wall. Only my Italians stayed and went soberly to bed. More I do not know. But, though there has been much noise of cheering in the square, there has been no shooting."
I told Arcadius of the skiff fastened up behind his sapling copse. He nodded easily and looked out of doors to examine the weather signs.
"It is not likely to rain, but it will hurt nothing to turn her upside down and stay her with a rope and a pair of stones. She will be ready when you want her. If you are bound on going into Aramon to-night, you may want her with great suddenness."
I left him at the upper gate of his garden opposite to the waste ground where the harmless bull fights of Provence took place.
"Now," he said, "there is a key for you. Put it in your pocket. Cross that bull yard and go through the passage, at the end of which you will come upon a door. When you open it you will find yourself in the narrow street by the new Lay Schools of the town."
Then my kindly Slug took himself off without waiting for thanks, shaking all over like a jelly, and his lantern making a trickle of clear yellow light on the pathway in front of him. His wife was calling him in to supper, "Arcad-arcad-ar-cad-i-oos!"
I crossed the road hastily. All was empty and desolate, and in a moment more I was fronted by the barricade over which every Sunday the "amateurs" of this innocent bull-baiting leaped back to safety and the applause of their friends.
Almost I had lost my way among piled benches, when a faint light showed through a much barred door. I passed through the money-taker's box with double doors and found myself facing the dark tunnel of which Arcadius had spoken. It looked dismal and uninviting enough, but at least there was no reason to suppose that any revolutionaries would be skulking there. Even if there were, what had I, an old Garibaldian, to fear? The passage had evidently been used for bringing the bull into the arena, and I was glad enough when the massive double portal stopped me, even though it was the bump on my forehead which first acquainted me with its position.
I felt for the keyhole and found that it took all my strength to turn the wards of the ancient lock which in that damp place creaked dismally. The half of the heavy door swung back ponderously. The street without seemed dim and forlorn in front of me, glimmering with a kind of bluish light. I was glad that I had not to step at once into the bright illumination of the Cours or the more restrained golden glow which distinguished the Place de la Mairie. I made what slight toilet I could, carefully wiping my muddy boots on the door-mat of a perfect stranger to whom in days to come I make belated acknowledgments.
I peered out and it was well I did so, for not ten yards from the end of the passage a sentry was posted in the dress of the National Guard of Aramon, blue breeches, blue coat liberally faced with red, and a redképi. I could see the light from an unseen lamp shining on the flat of his sword-bayonet, no doubt fresh from the storehouse of Dennis Deventer.
For since the ignominious retreat of the military two months ago, the Government had insisted that a National Guard on the Paris model should be established in Aramon and, for that matter, in all the larger towns of the Midi. Dennis Deventer warned the prefect of the department of Rhône-et-Durance that they were laying up trouble for themselves. He told them that if they armed the workmen of the Arms Factories on the slightest outbreak in Paris, all power in Aramon-les-Ateliers would pass instantly into their hands. The like would also happen in every town of the Midi.
"You of the South are afraid when a mouse squeaks," the Secretary of the Interior had replied (for Dennis and he were closeted together). "We accounted for the Reds easily enough in October and again in January. They have lost both in power and numbers since then. If anything grave does happen, we can always take Cavaignac's way—isolate suburb from suburb and—shoot!"
"Very well," said Dennis, "if you are sure of your regular army that may do for Paris—but at Aramon, at Marseilles, our suburbs are our rich quarters. The men of the revolt live in the city, and to put arms into their hands is to centralise all power there."
But the watchword of the Government for the moment was "trust of the people," and it was not till its generals were being shot down under the bloody apple blossom of the Rue des Rosiers, its army fraternising with the revolutionaries, and the chiefs of the Government clattering with foaming steeds and strained harness on the way to Versailles, that they became aware that Dennis Deventer had been right.
At any rate, there was I, who had not been consulted in the affair, almost within arms' length of a National Guard, my refuge in the doorway liable to be intruded upon at any moment, and all exit blocked. I began to ask myself what I was doing there.
Yet I had no idea of going back. I must know what had happened at Château Schneider. I must see Rhoda Polly. There was no sound except a confused murmur like wind overhead in high trees. No shots were fired, and except the erect sentinel in his blue coat, his redkêpitipped rakishly over one ear, and his shining rifle and sword-bayonet, I heard no sound of civil strife.
I watched him carefully. He was new to his work and fidgeted constantly, now coming a little down the street and then going a little way up, but never a moment losing sight of my alley arch, which seemed to attract him like a sort of black hole into the unknown.
Twice or thrice he fumbled in his pockets, and once he drew out a short pipe which he eyed with longing. But apparently he had had his orders, for he put it back again, changed his piece from one shoulder to another, and resumed his uneasy guard.
I think that it must have been a good hour that I stood there watching the shining of that fellow's broad bayonet. So we might have stood indefinitely had not the pipe in my gentleman's pocket proved in time too much for him. He looked this way and that, ducked suddenly under my archway, bayonet and all, and then proceeded to strike a match. I can affirm in excuse for what followed that I had no time to form plans. The most natural defence was that which most concerned me. My opponent was armed and strong, I only agile, young, and unarmed. So while the vile governmental match still stank and hissed with its blue flame, I leaped upon him like a cat.
He screamed, dropped his pipe, and made immediately for the street. If he reached it I was a dead man. So I throttled him, pulling back his head till I feared his neck might crack. He fell, and in a twinkling I had tossed aside his gun and revolver, strapped his hands with my waistbelt and thrust a handkerchief into his mouth, fastening it in with another which I found in his own pocket.
Then I dragged him backwards towards the door and after some difficulty opened it. I lifted him as well as I could upon my shoulders so that only his feet trailed. But he must have received some stunning blow about the head, for he never moved, though it was with relief that I felt him breathing when I laid him down. I extended him comfortably on a fodder crib in the bull enclosure, for which luckily my key was also good.
Then I hastily reckoned the chances such as they were. It was clear I could not go about the streets of Aramon as I was, with armed sentinels at every corner. The man's redképigave me an idea. It had fallen off. I picked it up, cleaned it, and was about to replace it, when I suddenly snatched it away again. I lifted the man up and took off his cloak and blue uniform coat. I would be a National Guard for the night, and I felt sure that with my experience of soldiering I could look the part. I bestowed my coat upon him, and gazed with longing at his blue breeches, but gave up that exchange as too long and perilous an undertaking. Dark brown must serve in place of the regulation blue pattern on the principle that at night all cats are grey. But I put on the coat which was considerably too big. I carefully cleaned the skirts of the cloak, and then added to my array the redképi.
The door once locked upon my prisoner, I left him to come to himself at his own time and as he would. On my way out I gathered up the arms that were missing. Already I had provided myself with his cartridge belt, his haversack and all accessories. The revolver was safe in its case near the door-mat and the rifle and sword-bayonet were soon polished on one of the tails of the coat. I kept the cloak open a little so that the broad red facings might show.
With a beating heart I peeped out. The street was empty, and it struck me forcibly that the sooner I got away from there the better.
The military organisation of the Revolt might be more complete than I supposed. They might send out Grand Rounds to visit their sentinels, or the guard might be changed—-both of which events would be exceedingly awkward for me, especially as I was wholly without knowledge of the password.
Not more than an instant did I hesitate on the threshold. Then with (I admit) my heart in my mouth, I stepped out and marched directly for the end of the alley.
The broad Place de la République (as it had been named for six months, vice "Imperial" superseded) was filled with a dim but pervading illumination. The resinous smell of many torches filled the air, and as I turned towards the Hôtel de Ville I saw the reason. On the broad platform over the doorway, many men were standing bareheaded, and a little in advance of the others one was holding a document in his hand.
Flags that certainly were not tricolour drooped on either hand of this balcony and cascaded down the front of the building, hiding the first-floor windows and reaching the ground.
I saw many National Guards hurrying from their places, some singly, some in little groups of three and four. I let myself be carried along till I reached the press in front of the ceremony. Discreetly I did not try to penetrate, but kept well on the outskirts, as far from the hundred torches as possible. Mine was not a popular position, for the reek of the tar set people coughing, and most were not slow to move away. But I stood as if on faction, and as such was saluted and passed by a hurrying officer, who, barely saluting, barked at me the single word "Marx," shooting it in my direction like a missile. I saluted in return and he went his way, leaving me in possession of the password for the night. It was no immediate service, for all there were too intent on the ceremony in front of the town hall to look at one National Guard more or less.
When I had accustomed my eyes to the acrid sting of the smoke, I moved nearer in order to hear better, and then for the first time I became aware that the man who was proclaiming the Commune in Aramon was—Keller Bey himself!
The accents of the voice, falling clamorously on my ear, had indeed sounded familiar, but I had rather thought of Père Félix, Pipe-en-Bois, Soult or any other valiants of the former revolutions. What was Keller doing here?
Suppositions crowded dizzily about me. Of course, there had always been an unknown side to Keller Bey, and his hatred of the priests and the bourgeoisie had been things to reckon with.
"Who is the speaker?" I asked of a man beside me, still in the blouse of his daily work, his eyes red with tending furnaces and his hands grimy with coal. He cast one look of contempt on me.
"Where have you come from," he demanded, "that you do not know Keller Chief of the Secret Council of the Internationale?"
"I have been fighting along with Garibaldi," I answered truthfully enough, "I have not been long in the National Guard."
Which in its way was still truer.
"Ah," he answered carelessly, "the Italian! I have heard of him. What sort of a fellow was he?"
I explained enthusiastically, but as usual quite in vain.
"Well," said the man, cursing the smoke and beginning to move off, "he might as well have stopped at home for all the good he did. That's my way of it!"
And I will not conceal from the reader that this summed up pretty fairly the bulk of French opinion upon the great leader.
As may well be imagined I stood far back, shrouded in shadow and smoke till Keller Bey had finished his speech. He told how in Paris the revolt of the proletariat had been completely successful, how the army had gone over to the cause of the people, how the bourgeois Government had fled to Versailles with hardly one to do them honour—how in all the great cities of France the new Commune was being declared and established. At Marseilles Gambetta's young Procureur-Général, the citizen Gaston Cremieux, headed the movement. He read a dispatch that moment received, urging Aramon to send a thousand men to help their brothers in Marseilles, threatened with troops from overseas and exposed to daily attacks from the still untaken forts.
"We shall be glad to aid our brothers in Marseilles if we are let alone here. We desire no fighting. The troops of the tricolour are not within our gates, and though there are some left who think differently from us, we can, I believe, live on excellent terms with them, until our Government is solidified and the Company of Arms is ready to nationalise its works. Till that day we must deal prudently, rule well, allow no attempts on private property, and behave as if we were all in reality as well as in name comrades and brothers."
So far as I could judge, I think Keller Bey carried the audience with him. I did not hear a murmur of dissent. Only, on the other hand, the plaudits could not be called long-continued or well-nourished. The workers of Aramon-les-Ateliers cherished a secret doubt—a doubt which they wished set at rest.
"What of Dennis?" they cried. "Dennis Deventer? Are the works to be closed? Where is the week's wage to come from?"
Keller Bey rose again, brushing aside the Père Félix.
"To-morrow," he said "you shall elect your Commune—twenty citizens of weight and mark to take the place of the present provisional government which has declared Aramon a city of liberty. Choose you good strong men who can deal with the Company and the Company's agent. Have no fear. Our cause is just. Marseilles and the great cities are with us. And to-morrow, doubt it not, France shall be with us also. We have inaugurated the reign of international peace. Let us begin by keeping the peace within our own borders. If we are to govern at all, we must show an example of good government, so that every city, town, and hamlet shall desire to throw in its lot with us. There is to be no wrecking of machinery, which we know must one day belong to the workers. We shall make friends with the foremen of departments, and when we come to restarting the works on the Communist plan we shall pay every man his wage according to his deserts—aye, and to Dennis Deventer his, for a head we must have. A business without a head is like an army without a general."
At this moment I was suddenly gripped solidly from behind, my weapons snatched away from me, and with the butt of the rifle such a blow was delivered on the back of my head that the marvel is I am here writing of it to-day. My gentleman of the bull enclosure had been cleverer than I had anticipated. Most likely he had been shamming dead, and now, having loosened himself, he had leaped the fence, made a detour of the boulevard and appeared from behind me at the moment when I was expecting him as little as he had looked for me in the archway.
That gun-butt was enough for me. I sank swooning on the ground under the low smoke drift from the dim torches and with the words of Keller Bey as to universal peace and concord still in my ears.
Among the panelled mirrors and gilt splendours of the Hôtel de Ville of Aramon I opened my eyes. A doctor had been attending me. My head was tightly bandaged and my left hand was also bound up. From many aches and pains I judged that in my quality of detected spy I had been somewhat severely dealt with, by the crowd, or perhaps my own man had remembered the taste of the gag and had perpetrated some little personal atrocities on his own account, before delivering me up to justice, in order to square the account.
The doctor was talking to Keller Bey. It was broad day, and abundant light, filtering through the plane trees, flooded the great room. It was usually the Salle des Mariages, but for the time being it had been converted into a lounging place for the people of Aramon. I had in fact awakened on election day, and in the new Commune my vote was as good as that of any other man. At one end was a space boarded off in the regular way, into which one elector after another passed with his voting ticket, and having deposited it under the eyes of the four watchful questors, walked immediately out by the opposite door.
Presently Keller Bey passed into an inner room, which, from the gilding upon the door and the allegorical figures above holding swords of justice and ill-adjusted balances, I took to be a court room. It was in fact the mayoral parlour, and the comfortable office coat and even the dressing-gown of the late occupant still hung on the pegs behind the door.
Keller Bey gave an order and I was immediately brought in and laid upon a wide and springy sofa which furnished one whole side of the apartment. I noticed the device of the crossed red and black flags had been removed from his tie, and was now worn upon the lapel of his coat like a decoration.
As soon as the room was clear he came over and sat down beside me. At sight of me his grim face softened almost as it was wont to do when Linn or Alida spoke to him.
"All this may seem very strange to you," he said, with a faint feeling of apology in his voice, "you who have only seen me going about the house like a tame cat. But since I was raised to high place and consideration in the Internationale, the old fighting spirit rose within me. I could not deny the appeal of my brothers to stand by them, and so you find me here, at the head of the Commune of Aramon—at least till the will of the voters is ascertained. The men who are with me are honest fellows, but, so far as I see, quite incapable of leadership. I do not believe that the vote will strip me of any authority or responsibility."
I thought that he was talking straight on without stopping in order to escape the question which he must have seen on my lips.
"And your duty to Linn and Alida?" I demanded abruptly. I could see him flush and pale.
"Personal and private interests must give way at such times," he answered firmly enough, but his tones did not carry conviction, not even, I think, to himself.
"Besides," he added, after a pause, "Linn knew that it would have to come. I dare not refuse a call of duty because of the danger."
"It is lucky for Linn and Alida," I said with the studied cruelty only attained by boys, "that they have friends who put them before all public duties."
"Sir," said Keller Bey, his cheek blanching to a kind of cadaveric rigidity, so great was the intensity of his anger, "I do not allow anyone to call my actions into question."
"Call in your soldiers, Monsieur of the Internationale," I said tauntingly, "you can soon get even with me. There are many walls between here and the cottage in my father's garden. My shooting will not have theéclatof the assassination of the Paris generals, but it will come as blithe news for the three left wondering in the garden of Gobelet."
I spoke like a bad, spiteful boy, conscious of a power to wound to the quick and thoroughly enjoying my triumph.
Keller Bey did not answer directly to my railings. He felt instinctively that he could not meet me along these lines.
"How did you come here?" he demanded abruptly, "and why in the coat of a Garde Nationale?"
"Because," I said, looking at him with my bandaged head lifted on my hand, "Ido not forget old kindnesses. Nor yet new ones—thoughmyhouse had not been set in order and largely furnished by the kindness of the Deventers. I crossed the river in a boat and was going to find them—to help them if I could, if necessary to fight and die with them, if your people should besiege them as they have done before."
Keller Bey threw out his arms suddenly with the gesture of a tortured man who seeks something to grip in his agony.
"I had not thought youth so cruel," he moaned. "Do you not understand that I am here to prevent all that? I stand between the hotheads and Dennis Deventer. His wife and family are as safe here as mine in your father's garden, of which you are so good as repeatedly to remind me!"
I am afraid that my expression expressed unbelief.
"You must pardon me," I said suavely and still provocatively, "but I have been among the chimneys of the Château Schneider when the mitrailleuses were talking. You intend to rule justly and love mercy, but what of the men about you? I have seen them streaming across the open court wrecking and destroying."
"Exactly," said Keller Bey, with suddenly recovered dignity, "but then I was not at the direction of affairs. If any man now disobeys he shall be made to feel the vengeance of the Internationale! We shall sow fear among them as corn is sown on a windy day."
At this moment Keller was summoned outside, and I could hear his voice dominating and allaying a quarrel between functionaries, as I lay back listening and determined to find out what he intended to do with myself as soon as he came back. But one thing and another was referred to him for judgment, and it was the better part of an hour before he came in holding a sheaf of telegrams in his hand. A secretary accompanied him, and I had perforce to put off my demand.
Keller Bey had evidently regained some of the old military readiness which had made him the favourite lieutenant of the great Emir. He dictated telegrams and dispatches to Paris, to St. Etienne, to Narbonne, and especially a long communication to Gaston Cremieux at Marseilles.
There were (he said) certainly men at Aramon and to spare, but for the moment each Commune in revolt must depend upon itself. When the provisional Government of Aramon, of which he was the head, had handed over its powers to a properly elected Commune, then would be the time to speak of sending reinforcements to a greater neighbour. It was true that there were no troops belonging to the expelled Government of Versailles in the city of Aramon itself, but to the north the ancient, highly clerical Avignon offered an excellent centre for collecting an army corps. The Government of the Assembly, exiled to Versailles, had its hands tied by the marvellous success of the Paris revolt. But save that the Commune of Paris was sending a pair of delegates to arrange terms of association, no help need be looked for from that quarter.
At last Keller Bey made an end and dismissed the secretary. Then he sat a while with his head upon his hands in deep thought.
I interrupted his meditation with my question.
"And now, Keller Bey, what do you mean to do with me?"
He did not reply instantly, but continued his meditations in silence. I was compelled to put the question three times, and the third time with some heat, before he raised his head to answer.
"In the meantime I shall keep you by me as a hostage. The voting is not yet over, and, though I do not anticipate any violent change, there is always a possibility that the fiery spirits may urge violent measures. In that case I shall use you for a messenger to our friends at Château Schneider. In any case, you have come to me and here you had better stay. It may be necessary also to communicate with my family and in that matter I could trust only you."
This was a great disappointment to me, who had thought that an hour would see me inside the walls of the Château Schneider, talking with Mrs. Deventer or sneaking off into the conservatory or out upon the roof with Rhoda Polly for one of our long talks about everything in heaven above and on the earth beneath.
But it was very evident that Keller Bey had made up his mind, and, at any rate, I had galled him too bitterly in the beginning of our conversation to admit of my finishing it by asking a favour. I only shrugged my shoulders and said mockingly:
"Perhaps you would like me to lead your thousand men to Marseilles as well?"
"Indeed," he replied unexpectedly, "I am not sure but that it is an excellent idea—you are a friend of Gaston Cremieux. I could send you as civil delegate without awakening any jealousy among the chiefs of battalion. It is a suggestion which will bear thinking over—certainly not to be lost sight of."
* * * * *
I had many and excellent opportunities of watching Keller Bey in his new character of insurrectional leader during the days which followed. As every one anticipated, his name led the list of the new Commune by many thousands majority. The others came meekly behind, even the Père Félix only emerging from the crowd by a head.
What specially gratified Keller Bey was that no member of the noisy gang of wreckers had been chosen.
"What did I tell you?" he cried, patting me on the shoulder; "our Government is to be a model of firmness and sobriety."
And so it was, as far as Keller Bey could make it. But there remained dangerous elements of which he was ignorant, but which were very clear to Dennis Deventer, who had seen the leaven of evil at work for many years.
On the morrow began the organisation of the services of the new Government. It was a strange installation, and I sat there like a spectator in a good seat at a theatre and watched the play. None of those who were on the stage seemed to have any idea of the ridiculousness of the performance. Only I, outside all wire-pulling, saw the truth. The rest were hypnotised by the wonderful thing which had happened—a Commune at Aramon!
Hour by hour I saw Aramon being cut off from the world. At the first news of the election of a Commune the officials of the post office had disappeared. Piles of letters accumulated on the desks and before the ranged pigeon-holes. Sacks arrived by train so long as these were running, and were heaped in corners. The telegraphic machines were set down where the operators had abandoned them. I amused myself by calling up the different towns in our neighbourhood, but received answers only from Marseilles and Narbonne. The rest had nothing to say to a revolted city like ours. By and by Narbonne was abruptly cut off, probably at Cette or some intervening town favourable to the Government of Versailles.
Half of Keller Bey's time was taken up with such matters as the choice of a new post office staff. Where they came from I cannot imagine, these seekers after office. And their credentials! One highly recommended claimant for the office of receiver of contributions had been expelled by the brutal tyranny of Napoleon from a Tobacco Bureau. He had thereafter languished in prison, not, as he gave Keller to understand, as a political victim, but as a good, solid embezzler of Government money. Yet he was supported by a Commandant of the National Guards, a relative of his own, and but for my chance recognition of him, would doubtless have been appointed.
The post office staff was soon complete—director, assistants, money-order clerks, telegraph clerks, and messengers—postmen for the district town deliveries, postmen for the rural rounds—but after the first solemn sorting of thedébrisleft behind by the old staff, not so much as a letter or a newspaper, to pass from hand to hand, even as a curiosity!
The civil services, the mayoral staff, the judges of the tribunal, judges of the commercial court, Procureur of the Republic and so forth gave a little more trouble. Père Félix was appointed President of the Tribunal, and his good nature and popularity promised easy sentences for the malefactors of Aramon. But they gave him for public prosecutor one Raoux, a little wizened wisp of a man, a shoemaker and bold orator of the bars, who in his readiness of denunciation threw Fouquier-Tinville into the shade, and in irreverence and insolence approached Raoul Rigault himself. Raoux was high in the National Guards, which Keller Bey had not yet begun to recognise as the power behind his throne. Consequently he had a real influence and soon aspired to nothing less than a ministry of justice, both making denunciations and by his authority sending the denounced to prison.
The officers of the city gaol were almost the only ones who remained of the civil servants of the Empire. They were mostly Corsicans, and as their chief Calvi said: "They had come to France to keep prisoners safely." He would give a receipt for each on arrival, and exact a similar receipt on his leaving the Château du Monsieur le Duc. But he would take the same pains with the prisoners of the new Government as with those of the old—and so, since, in fact, no Communard wished to become a turnkey, agarde-chiourme, Calvi and his staff were left in undisputed possession of the Central Prison and House of correction of the department of Rhône-et-Durance.
Some of the happenings were curious. The prisoners within, sentenced to various terms of reclusion and imprisonment under the Empire, found themselves on their release walking about in a world which knew not Joseph. Some were rearrested as spies, but even the vibrant little cobbler Raoux could not break down the excellence of the alibi which they had ready to hand.
Some alarmed good women by asking news of the Emperor, or loudly expressing disbelief in acaféwhen the disasters of the war were hinted at. A ruffianly fellow, excited by his first cup of spirits for some years, offered to fight any man who dared to say that the Germans had entered Paris. So fiercely did he assault the original patriot who had mentioned the fact, that the rest of the party, gathered over their cards and mulled wine in the Café Jacquard, denied one by one that they had ever heard of such a thing. Finally the tyranny of the "nervi" or ticket-of-leave man became so overbearing that it took half a company of National Guards with fixed bayonets to convey him to the "gendarmerie," and from thence, after due committal, to the gloomy prison-house of Monsieur le Duc, from which he had been but three hours released. He had struggled gallantly against bayonet prick and rifle butt. The escort, amateurs at this kind of work, had pitied the few wardens who must handle such a desperado.
But when the first policeman appeared he merely bade the "nervi" lay his thumbs together, and in an instant he was leading the formidable warrior whither he would as submissive and obedient as a child. Calvi was called and came hastily in, donning a uniform coat, and leaving a half-played game of "dames" behind him.
He examined the order of the new Procureur. The stamp was as usual. The signature mattered nothing to Calvi, who looked up at the rioter with a kind of reproach.
"Number 333," he said, with severity, "if you had told us that we were to be honoured with your custom so soon again, you would have saved us the trouble of whitewashing your cell. Take care not to overturn the materials which have been left, make yourself as comfortable as you can to-night, and you can do the rest of the work to-morrow. Good night, gentlemen of the National Guard!"
He should have said "citizens," and every man knew it; but after all he was a miserable child of the Isle of Despots, and besides, no citizen, however loyal, objects to being called a gentleman once in a way.
Keller gave me work to do occasionally. I drafted proclamations and, after rounding the sentences to make them more sonorous, I carried them to the Communal printing office, which did not differ from other printing offices, save that, in the absence of a master, each printer lounged and smoked about the cases, or took himself off to the nearest grog-shop in the intervals of labour. Often I had to work Keller Bey's name for all it was worth, and threaten a guard and the Bastille of Aramon before I could get anything done.
Sometimes, during my long hours of waiting at the printing office of the Commune, I strolled up to the Aramon station. Only a stray lamp-cleaner sat with his legs dangling from the platform and spat upon the quickly rusting rails, looking over his shoulder occasionally to throw a remark to the single Garde National, who, though on duty, had laid his rifle and cartridge-belt upon a luggage-barrow, sought out a pile of "returned empty" sacks of coarse jute, arranged these to his mind, and finally had laid himself down on them, only rolling over occasionally to refill his pipe or to wheel his couch into a shady place or one more convenient for a friendly gossip. On the whole this was the man I liked best. His "relief," a burly fellow from the Hard Stone Quarries above the town, calmly divested himself of his coat, wrapped his feet in his cloak, drew his coat loosely over him, put his head on his knapsack, and slept his watch out on the green velvet cushions of the first-class waiting-room.
Above, the man really responsible, the station-master of Aramon Junction, was supposed to be busying himself with a report of the reopening of the line between Lyons and Marseilles. This news had been brought to Keller Bey by my friend of the travelling bed on the luggage truck. He considered it hard that Monsieur Weyse never came down to patrol the platform and pass the time of day. He yearned for society, and one of the comfortable arm-chairs in the station-master's room would have appealed to him strongly. It was the unseen official's own fault if a man so naturally companionable as he of the luggage-barrow were driven by neglect to prefer a complaint against him.
The expanse of empty quays and innumerable parallels of iron rails preyed on his spirits. He tired of the man who cleaned lamps and sat upon the stone parapet. He had already heard all his opinions, knew where he was going to place his oaths, and scented his grotesque and improper anecdotes afar off—with a sense of loathing because, in addition to all, the lamp-man spat with a regularity and vigour singularly disgustful to a Frenchman, who does not use his tobacco in the "plug" form.
I was sent to interview the station-master as to the famous report. I found him comfortably ensconced at his fireside, his legs embracing one side and the other of the hearth, a huge pile of the complete works of Victor Hugo, the Brussels edition, on a chair by his side. He was fathoms deep in the third volume of "Les Misérables." I never saw a man more enraptured nor one more enviable. I stood and looked at him, a broad, beefy man with a shrewd Scottish countenance. His uniformed coat and gold-broidered cap were neatly placed on a chair behind him. But the man himself, in a long blouse drawn well above his knees, so that he might feel the comforting of the fire, continued his reading without a pause, stirring the logs occasionally with his toe.
I was sorry to interrupt him, but I was resolved to make a friend, for here was a man with a set of Hugo. I had already been at the Municipal Library, but there, the collection dating entirely from the times of the Empire, it of course contained nothing of Hugo's later than "Hernani."
"Your servant, sir!"
Already at a mere waft of my entrance he had sprung to his feet and laid down his book.
"You take me a little by surprise—ah—from Keller Bey? Are you a Communard, young man?"
I reassured him. Keller Bey's family lived with my father across the water in Languedoc. I had been captured and had given my parole, but I was no partisan. I acted as occasional secretary to Keller Bey, that was all.
He shook his head sorrowfully, for I think the verdancy of my youth appealed to him.
"Do not run with the wolves too long or the wolf-hunters may not stop to ask the difference. There is a fable about that—which I have read somewhere—in Perrault or La Fontaine. Take back your parole and get out of Aramon. All this foolishness will go like that——" (he snapped his finger and thumb in the air), "and I only hope that I shall have time to read Hugo once through before I have again to think of a train every five minutes pouring north and south, east and west, through Aramon Junction!"
I put the question of the report as delicately as possible. I have rarely seen a Frenchman laugh more boisterously.
"But I have made no report. Why should I? I have received none and written none. The wires are cut in all directions. I have not a telegraphist on the place. There are my files if you want to look. Everything is going by the branch lines on the other side, but even of that I know only what I can see from my bedroom window, the white steam of trains trailing off among the green woods, and sometimes the dull rumble of a heavily laden goods convoy crossing a bridge. Of positive knowledge concerning railway affairs I have none. I sit and read Hugo and wait for the end of things. The old life will come back soon enough. Meanwhile I am earning my salary, and when traffic opens a pretty sum will be owing to me on the books of the company.
"See here," he said, chuckling, "this is my only report. I will write it before your eyes."