"The Garçonnière,Saturday."Take her, my friend. I can no longer keep her with me. You have the son, it is onlyright 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."
"The Garçonnière,Saturday.
"Take her, my friend. I can no longer keep her with me. You have the son, it is onlyright 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 sparklingrisquéelittle 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 andlace 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 evenforgetting 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.
spilled bottle of wine
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 inLa 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 theRépublique 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 isplunged 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, suddenlyillumining 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 beneaththe 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 theouvertureof 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 knownhim—he must have been abon 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 cannevairemake 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—quiteimpossible."
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—"butnot zeeladies—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. Howsplendid 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 cheerybonsoirshe 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 theroof 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 youscratch 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 andtourellesof 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 thecanaillewill 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 aprocès-verbalfor 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 aprocès-verbalmeant. 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. "Thatsacréindividual will deal withme. It isIwho 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 hedemands 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 soskilfully by themessieursin 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-verbalfor 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 haveyouto 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 aprocès-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 andtrembling 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. Aprocès-verbalmeant publicity; naturally the Vicomtesse would know. It might even reach the adorable ears of Mademoiselle Rosalie, of thecorps 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 theprocès-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 touchedglasses, 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 asouffléof 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, thisbon vivantof 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 thebon 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 onthe 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 hisbreath, 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. "Aprocès-verbalunfortunately 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 wasnotin hissacrébuckwheat!" 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 wasnotin 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? TheVicomtesseis furious. We were to leave, for a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He is the devil!Heis responsiblefor 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 knowthat?"
sign: CHASSE GARDEÉ
the yellow car
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 returnedto 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 seriousas the curé's, and in turn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam with the impulsive devilry of agamine; 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 ThreeWolves!"he cried, flinging his hat onthe 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 bynoon."He recovered his hat from the floor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashesfrom 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 been fête."
Then he swung open my door and passed out into the night, whistling as he crossed my courtyard acafé chantantair 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 theirglistening 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 ofhors d'œuvresand 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 allthe games that lay about them, fromtonneautobilboquet.
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 thesouffléof 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 been 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 bethere. 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 fromhis 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 topurchase 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 theend 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 thecuré 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 concertin 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 veritabletour de forceto 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 theCritique des Artswith 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 notknow 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 Imustsee 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 crossedthe 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 theRépublique 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, flankedby 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 towardthree 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 theirblack 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.