"Luckily, you can rest them to-night," I said; "to-morrow will be time enough to discuss matters. But are you really anxious for what may happen if the two gallants meet? Joseph was never quarrelsome, to my knowledge; in fact, I have always seen him hold his tongue when people showed him their teeth."
"Yes, yes," answered Père Bastien; "but that was in the days when he was a sickly child and doubted his strength. There is no more dangerous water than still water; it is not always healthy to stir the depths."
"Don't you want to come in to your new abode and see your daughter?"
"No, you said she was resting; I am not anxious about her, I am much more desirous to know the truth about Brulette; for, though my heart defends her, still my reason tells me that there may have been some little thing in her conduct which lays her open to blame; and I feel I ought to know more before going too far."
I was about to tell him what had happened an hour before, under my very eyes, between Huriel and my aunt, when Huriel himself appeared, sent by Brulette, who was afraid Thérence might be unable to get Charlot to sleep. Father and son had an explanation, in which Huriel, begging his father not to ask for a secret he was bound not to tell, and which Brulette herself was not aware that he knew, swore on his baptism that Brulette was worthy of his father's blessing.
"Come and see her, dear father," he added; "you can do it very easily because we are now dancing out of doors, and you need no invitation to be present. By the very way she kisses you, you will know that no girl so sweet and amiable was ever more pure in heart."
"I do not doubt it, my son; and I will go to please you, and also for the pleasure of seeing her. But wait a moment, for I want to speak to you of Joseph."
I thought I had better leave them alone, so I went off to tell my aunt of Père Bastien's arrival, knowing she would welcome him heartily and not let him stay outside. But I found no one in the house but Brulette. The whole wedding party, with the music at their head, had gone to carry the roast to the newly married couple, who had retired to a neighboring house, for it was past eleven o'clock at night. It is an ancient custom, which I have never thought very nice, to shame a young bride by a visit and joking songs. Though the other girls had all gone, with or without malicious intention, Brulette had had the decency to stay in the chimney-corner, where I found her sitting, as if keeping watch in the kitchen, but really taking the sleep she so much needed. I did not care to disturb her nor to deprive her of the fine surprise she would feel on waking, at sight of the Head-Woodsman.
Very tired myself, I sat down at a table, laid my arms on it and my head on my arms, as you do when you mean to take a five minutes' nap; but I thought of Thérence and did not sleep. For a moment only my thoughts were hazy, and just then a trifling noise made me open my eyes without lifting my head, and I saw a man enter and walk up to the chimney. Though the candles had all been carried off for the visit to the bride, the fire of fagots which flamed on the hearth gave light enough to enable me to recognize at once who it was. It was Joseph, who no doubt had met some of the wedding guests on his way to Nohant, and finding where we were, had retraced his steps. He was dusty with his journey and carried a bundle on the end of his stick, which he threw into a corner and then stood stock still like a mile-stone, looking at Brulette asleep, and taking no notice of me.
The year during which I had not seen him had made as great a change in him as it had in Thérence. His health being better than it ever was, it was safe to call him a handsome man, whose square shoulders and wiry figure were more muscular than thin. His face was sallow, partly from a bilious constitution and partly from the heat of the sun; and this swarthy tint went singularly well with his large light eyes, and his long straight hair. It was still the same sad and dreamy face; but something bold and decided, showing the harsh will so long concealed, was mingled in it.
I did not move, wishing to observe the manner in which he approached Brulette and so judge of his coming meeting with Huriel. No doubt he did study the girl's face seeking for truth; and perhaps beneath the eyelids, closed in quiet slumber, he perceived her peace of heart; for the girl was sweetly pretty seen at that moment in the blaze from the hearth. Her complexion was still bright with pleasure, her mouth smiled with contentment, and the silken lashes of her closed eyes cast a soft shadow on her cheeks, which seemed to quiver beneath them like the sly glances that girls cast on their lovers. But Brulette was sound asleep, dreaming no doubt of Huriel, and thinking as little of alluring Joseph as of repelling him.
I saw that he felt her beauty so much that his wrath hung by a thread, for he leaned over her and, with a courage I did not give him credit for, he put his lips quite close to hers and would have touched them if I, in a sudden rage, had not coughed violently and stopped the kiss on its way.
Brulette woke up with a start; I pretended to do the same, and Joseph felt a good deal of a fool between the pair of us, who both asked what he was doing, without any appearance of confusion on Brulette's part or of malice on mine.
Joseph recovered himself quickly, and showing plainly that he did not mean to be put in the wrong, he said to Brulette, "I am glad to find you here. After a year's absence don't you mean to kiss an old friend?"
He approached her again, but she drew back, surprised at his singular manner, and said, "No, José, it is not my way to kiss any lad, no matter how old a friend he is or how glad I am to see him."
"You have grown very coy!" he said, in an angry and scoffing tone.
"I don't think I have ever been coy with you, Joseph; you never gave me any reason to be; and as you never asked me to be familiar, I never had occasion to forbid your kissing me. Nothing is changed between us and I do not know why you should now lay claim to what has never entered into our friendship."
"What an amount of talk and wry faces, all about a kiss," said Joseph, his anger rising. "If I never asked for what you were ready enough to give others it was because I was a young fool. I thought you would receive me better now that I am neither a ninny nor a coward."
"What is the matter with him?" asked Brulette, surprised and even frightened, and coming close up to me. "Is it really he, or some one who looks like him? I thought I saw our José, but this is not his speech nor his face nor his friendship."
"How have I changed, Brulette?" began José, a little disconcerted and already repentant. "Is it that I now have the courage I once lacked to tell you that you are to me the loveliest in the world, and that I have always longed for your good graces? There's no offence in that, I hope; and perhaps I am not more unworthy of them than others whom you allow to hang round you."
So saying, with a return of his vexation, he looked me in the face, and I saw he was trying to pick a quarrel with whoever would take him up. I asked nothing better than to draw his first fire. "Joseph," I said, "Brulette is right in thinking you changed. There is nothing surprising in that. We know how we part, but not how we meet again. You need not be surprised, either, if you find a little change in me. I have always been quiet and patient, standing by you in all your difficulties and consoling your vexations; but if you have grown more unjust than you used to be, I have grown more touchy, and I take it ill that you should say to my cousin before me that she is prodigal of her kisses and allows too many young men about her."
Joseph eyed me contemptuously, and put on a really devilish look of malice as he laughed in my face. Then he said, crossing his arms, and looking at me as though he were taking my measure, "Well, is it possible, Tiennet? Can this be you? However, I always did doubt you, and the friendship you professed—to deceive me."
"What do you mean by that, José?" said Brulette, much affronted and fancying he had lost his mind. "Where did you get the right to blame me, and why are you trying to see something wrong or ridiculous between my cousin and me? Are you ill or drunken, that you forget the respect you owe me and the affection that you know I deserve?"
Joseph drew in his horns, and taking Brulette's hand in his, he said to her, with his eyes full of tears, "I am to blame, Brulette; yes, I'm irritable from fatigue and the desire to get here; but I feel nothing but devotion for you, and you ought not to take it in bad part. I know very well that your manners are dignified and that you exact the respect of everybody. It is due to your beauty, which, I see, is greater, not less, than ever. But you surely will allow that you love pleasure, and that people often kiss each other when dancing. It is the custom, and I shall think it a very good one when I profit by it; which will be now, for I have learned how to dance like others, and for the first time in my life I am going to dance with you. I hear the bagpipes returning. Come, you shall see that all my ill-humor will clear off under the happiness of being your sweetheart."
"José," replied Brulette, not more than half pleased at this speech, "you are very much mistaken if you think I still have sweethearts; I may have been coquettish,—that's my way, and I am not bound to give account of my actions; but I have also the right and the will to change my ways. I no longer dance with everybody, and to-night I shall not dance again."
"I should have thought," said Joseph, piqued, "that I was not 'everybody,' as you say, to an old friend with whom I made my first communion, and under whose roof I lived."
The music and the wedding guests returning with a great racket, cut short their words, and Huriel, also entering, full of eagerness and taking no notice of Joseph, caught Brulette on his arm and carried her like a feather to his father, who was waiting outside, and who kissed her joyously, to the great annoyance of Joseph, who clenched his fists as he watched her paying the old man the filial attentions of a daughter.
Creeping up to the Head-Woodsman I whispered that Joseph was there, in a bad temper, and I proposed that he should draw Huriel aside while I persuaded Brulette to go to bed. Joseph, who was not invited to the wedding, would thus be obliged to go off and sleep at Nohant or at some other house in Chassin. The Head-Woodsman thought the suggestion good, and pretending not to see Joseph, who kept in the background, he talked apart with Huriel, while Brulette went away to see in what part of the house she could stow herself for the night. But my aunt, who had counted on lodging us, did not expect that Brulette would take it into her head to go to bed before three or four in the morning. The young men never go to bed at all on the first night of a wedding, and do their best to keep up the dance for three days and three nights running. If one of them gets tired, he goes into the hayloft and takes a nap. As to the girls and women, they all retire into one room; but generally it is only the old women and the ugly ones who abandon the dance.
So, when Brulette went up to the room where she expected to find a place next to some of her relatives, she came upon a crowd of snorers, among whom not a corner as big as the palm of her hand was vacant; and the few who woke up told her to come again towards morning, when they would be ready to go down and serve the tables. She came back to us and told her difficulty.
"Well, then," said Père Bastien, "you must go and sleep with Thérence. My son and I will spend the night here so that no talk can be made about it."
I declared that in order to avoid giving a pretext for Joseph's jealousy Brulette could easily slip out with me without saying a word; and Père Bastien going up to him and plying him with questions, I took my cousin to the old castle by a back way through my aunt's garden.
When I returned I found the Head-Woodsman, Joseph, and Huriel at table together. They called me, and I sat down to supper with them, eating, drinking, talking, and singing to avoid an explosion of anger which might follow on any talk about Brulette. Joseph, seeing us determined to keep the peace, controlled himself at first, and even seemed gay; but he could not help biting as he caressed, and every joke he made had a sting at the end of it. The Head-Woodsman tried to keep down his bile with a measure of wine, and I think Joseph might willingly have yielded in order to forget himself, if it were not that wine never affected him. He drank four times as much as the rest of us, who had no reason to wish to drown our intelligence, and yet his ideas were all the clearer and his speech, too.
At last, after some particularly spiteful remarks on the slyness of women and the treachery of friends, Huriel, striking his fist on the table and grasping his father's elbow, which for some time past had been nudging him to keep quiet, said in a decided tone:—
"No, father, excuse me, but I cannot stand any more of this, and it is much better to say so openly. I know very well that Joseph's teeth will be as sharp a year hence as they are now, and though I have closed my ears to his sayings up to this time, it is right that they should open now to his unjust remarks and reproaches. Come, Joseph, for the last hour I have seen what you mean; you have wasted a great deal of wit. Talk plain, I'm listening; say what you have on your mind, with the whys and the wherefores. I will answer you frankly."
"Well, so be it; come to an explanation," said the Head-Woodsman, reversing his glass and deciding the situation, as he well knew how to do when it became necessary; "we will have no more drinking if it is not to be in friendship, for it is ill mixing the devil's venom with the good God's wine."
"You surprise me, both of you," said Joseph, who had grown yellow to the whites of his eyes, though he still continued to laugh vindictively. "What the devil are you angry about, and why do you scratch yourselves when nothing is biting you? I have nothing against anybody; only I happen to be in the humor to jeer at everything, and I don't think you are likely to rid me of it."
"Perhaps I could," said Huriel, provoked.
"Try," said Joseph, sneering.
"That's enough!" said the Head-Woodsman, striking the table with his heavy hand, "Hold your tongues, both of you, and as there is no frankness in you, Joseph, I shall have enough for the two. You misjudged in your heart the woman you wished to love; that is a wrong that God can pardon, for it is not always easy for a man to be trustful or distrustful in his friendships; but it is, unfortunately, a wrong that cannot be repaired. You fell into that blunder; you must accept the consequences and submit to them."
"Why so, master?" said Joseph, setting up his back like an angry cat, "who will tell the wrong to Brulette? she has not known or suffered from it."
"No one," said Huriel, "I am not a blackguard."
"Then who will tell it?" demanded Joseph.
"Yourself," said Père Bastien.
"What can make me?"
"The consciousness of your love for her. Doubt never comes singly. You may get over the first twinge, but there comes a second, which will issue from your lips at the first words you say to her."
"In fact, I think it has happened already, Joseph," said I, "for this very evening you offended the person we are speaking of."
"Perhaps I did," he said haughtily, "but that is between her and me. If I choose that she shall return to me what makes you think she will not return? I remember my master's song,—the music is beautiful and the words are true,—'Gifts are for those who pray.' Well, Huriel, go ahead. Ask in words and I will ask in music, and we will see whether or no I can't win her back again. Come, play fair, you who blame what you call my crooked ways. The game is between us, and we'll have no shuffling. A fine house has more than one door, and we'll each knock at the one that suits us."
"I am willing," said Huriel, "but you will please to remember one thing. I will stand no more fault-finding, whether in jest or earnest. If I overlook the past, my good-nature does not go so far as to allow any more of it."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Joseph, whose bile interfered with his memory.
"I forbid you to ask," said the Head-Woodsman, "and I command you to bethink yourself. If you fight my son you will be none the more innocent for that, and it will not add to your credit if I withdraw the forgiveness which, without a word of explanation, my heart has already granted you."
"Master!" cried Joseph, hot with excitement, "if you think you have anything to forgive I thank you for your forgiveness; but, in my opinion, I have done you no wrong. I never dreamed of deceiving you; and if your daughter had said yes, I should not have backed down from my offer. She is a girl without an equal for sense and uprightness; I should have loved her, ill or well, but at any rate sincerely and without betraying her. She might perhaps have saved me from much evil and much suffering; but she did not think me worthy of her. Therefore I am at liberty to court whom I will; and I consider that the man I trusted and who promised me his help has made haste to take advantage of my momentary pique to supplant me."
"Your momentary pique lasted a month, Joseph," said Huriel; "be fair about it,—one month, during which you asked my sister in marriage three times. I am forced to believe that you held her in derision; if you wish to clear yourself of that insult you must admit that I was not to blame in the matter. I believed your word; that is the only wrong I have done; don't give me reason to think it is one I must repent of."
Joseph kept silence; then, rising, he said, "Yes, you are good at argument; you are both cleverer than I at that; I have spoken and acted like a man who does not know what he wants; but you are greater fools than I if you don't know that, without being mad, we may wish for two opposite things. Leave me to be what I am, and I will leave you to be what you wish to be. If your heart is honest, Huriel, I shall soon know it, and if you win the game fairly, I will do you justice and withdraw without resentment."
"How can you tell if my heart is honest when you have been unable to judge it rightly hitherto??
"I can tell by what you now say of me to Brulette," replied Joseph. "You are in a position to prejudice her against me and I cannot do the same by you."
"Stop!" I said to Joseph, "don't blame any one unjustly. Thérence has already told Brulette that you asked her in marriage not a fortnight ago."
"But nothing further has been or will be told," added Huriel; "Joseph, we are better than you think us. We do not want to deprive you of Brulette's friendship."
The words touched Joseph, and he put out his hand as if to take Huriel's; but the good intention stopped half-way, and he went off without another word to any one.
"A hard heart!" cried Huriel, who was too kind himself not to suffer from this ingratitude.
"No, an unhappy one," said his father.
Struck by the words, I followed Joseph to either scold him or console him, for he looked as if death were in his eyes. I was quite as much displeased with him as Huriel was, but the old habit of pitying and protecting him was so strong that it carried me after him whether I would or no.
He walked so rapidly along the road to Nohant that I soon lost sight of him; but he stopped at the edge of the Lajon, a little pond on a barren heath. The place is very dreary, and without shade, except that of a few stunted trees ill-fed in the poor soil; but the swampy land around the pond abounded with wild-flowers, and as the white water-lily and other marsh plants were now in bloom, the place smelt as sweet as a garden.
Joseph had flung himself down among the reeds, and not knowing that he was followed but believing himself all alone, he was groaning and growling at the same time, like a wounded wolf. I called him, merely to let him know I was there, for I knew he would not answer me, and I went straight up to him.
"This is not the right thing at all," I said to him; "you ought to take counsel with yourself; tears are not reasons."
"I am not weeping, Tiennet," he answered, in a steady voice. "I am neither so weak nor so happy that I can find comfort that way. It is seldom, in my worst moments, that a tear gets out of my eyes, and it is fire, not water, that is forcing its way now, for it burns like live coal. But don't ask me why; I can't tell why, and I don't want to seek for the cause of it. The day of trusting in others is over with me. I know my strength, and I no longer need their help. It was only given out of pity, and I want no more of it; I can rely in future on myself. Thank you for your good intentions. Thank you, and please leave me."
"But where are you going to spend the night?"
"I am going to my mother's."
"It is very late, and it is so far from here to Saint-Chartier."
"No matter," he said, rising, "I can't stay here. We shall meet to-morrow, Tiennet."
"Yes, at home; we go back tomorrow."
"I don't care where," he said. "Wherever she is—your Brulette—I shall find her, and perhaps it will be seen that she has not made her final choice!"
He went off with a determined air, and seeing that his pride supported him I offered no further consolation. Fatigue, and the pleasure of seeing his mother, and a day or two for reflection might, I hoped, bring him to reason. I planned, therefore, to advise Brulette to stay at Chassin over the next day, and making my way back to the village with this idea in my head I came upon the Head-Woodsman and his son, in a corner of the field through which I was making a short cut. They were preparing what they called their bed-clothes; in other words, making ready to sleep on the ground, not wishing to disturb the two girls in the castle, and really preferring to lie under the stars at this sweet season of the year. I liked the idea, too, for the fresh grass seemed much nicer than the hay of a barn heated by the bodies of a score of other fellows. So I stretched myself beside Huriel, looked at the little white clouds in the clear sky, smelt the hawthorn odors, and fell asleep, thinking of Thérence in the sweetest slumber I ever had in my life.
I have always been a good sleeper, and in my youth I seldom wakened of myself. My two companions, who had walked a long distance the day before, let the sun rise without their knowing it, and woke up laughing to find him ahead of them, which didn't happen very often. They laughed still more to see how cautious I was not to tumble out of bed when I opened my eyes and looked about to see where I was.
"Come, up, my boy!" said Huriel; "we are late enough already. Do you know something? It is the last day of May, and it is the fashion in our parts to tie a nosegay to our sweetheart's door when there was no chance to do it on the first of the month. There is no fear that any one has got ahead of us, because, for one thing, no one knows where my sister and your cousin are lodging, and for another, it isn't the custom in this part of the country to leave, as we say, thecall-againbunch. But we are so late I fear the girls are up, and if they leave their rooms before the May-bunch is hung to the door they will cry out upon us for laziness."
"As cousin," I answer, laughing, "I permit you to hang your bunch, and, as brother, I ask your permission to hang mine; but perhaps the father won't hear of it with your ears."
"Yes, he will," said Père Bastien. "Huriel said something to me about it. There's no difficulty in trying; succeeding is another thing. If you know how to manage it, so much the better, my lad. It is your affair."
Encouraged by his friendliness, I rushed into the adjoining copse with a light heart, and cut off the whole branch of a wild cherry-tree in full bloom, while Huriel, who had already provided himself with one of those beautiful silk and gold ribbons which the women of his country wear beneath their lace coifs, gathered a bunch of white hawthorn and a bunch of pink and tied them in a nosegay that was worthy of a queen.
We made but three strides from the field to the castle, where the silence assured us that the beauties still slept,—no doubt from having talked half the night. But imagine our amazement when, on entering the courtyard, our eyes lighted on a superb nosegay, decked with silver and white ribbons, hanging to the door we intended to garland.
"The devil!" cried Huriel, preparing to tear away the offending bunch, and looking askance at his dog whom he had stationed in the courtyard. "Is this the way you guard the house, master Satan? Have you made acquaintances already? why didn't you bite the legs of this Mayday prowler?"
"Stop," said the Head-Woodsman, preventing his son from taking down the nosegay. "There is but one person in these parts whom Satan knows and who also knows our custom of the call-again bunch, for he has seen it practised among us. Now, you pledged your word to that person not to interfere with him. You must be satisfied to make yourself acceptable and not undermine him; respect his offering, just as he, no doubt, would have respected yours."
"Yes, father," replied Huriel, "if I were sure it was he; but it may be some one else, and the bunch may be intended for Thérence."
I remarked that no one knew Thérence or had even seen her, and looking closer at the flowers I saw that a mass of white pond-lilies had been freshly gathered and tied in bunches, and I remembered that these plants were not common in the neighborhood and grew only in the Lajon, on the banks of which I had found Joseph lying. No doubt, instead of going to Saint-Chartier he had returned upon his steps; and he must even have waded into the water on the shifting sand of the pond, which is dangerous, before he could gather such an armful.
"Well, the battle has begun," said Huriel, sighing, as he fastened his May-bunch to the door with an anxious look that seemed to me very modest, for he might well have felt sure of success and feared no one. I wished I could feel as certain of his sister, and I hung up my cherry-bough with a beating heart, as if she were just behind the door all ready to fling it in my face.
And pale I was when the door opened; but it was Brulette who came first, and gave a kiss for good-morning to Père Bastien, a hand-shake to me, and a rosy blush of pleasure to Huriel, though she did not venture to speak to him.
"Oh, father!" cried Thérence, following her and clasping the Head-Woodsman in her arms; "have you been playing the young man all night? Come, come in, and let me give you some breakfast. But first, let me look at those nosegays. Three, Brulette! oh, what a girl you are! is the procession to last all day?"
"Only two for Brulette," said Huriel; "the third is for you, sister;" and he gave her my cherry-bough, so full of bloom that it had rained a white shower all round the door.
"For me?" said Thérence, surprised. "Then you did it, brother, to prevent my being jealous of Brulette?"
"Brothers are not so gallant," said Père Bastien. "Have you no suspicion of a timid and discreet lover who keeps his mouth shut instead of declaring himself?"
Thérence looked all round her as if she were trying to see some one beside me, and when at last her black eyes rested on my discomfited and idiotic face I thought she was going to laugh, which would have stabbed me to the heart. But she did nothing of the kind, and even blushed a little. Then, holding out her hand she said: "Thank you, Tiennet; you have shown that you remember me, and I accept the gift without giving it other meaning than belongs to a nosegay."
"Well," said Père Bastien, "if you accept it, my daughter, you must follow the usual custom, and fasten a spray of it to your coif."
"No," said Thérence, "that might displease some of the girls hereabouts, and I don't want my good Tiennet to repent of having done me a kindness."
"Oh, that won't displease anybody," I cried; "if it does not annoy you, it would hugely please me."
"So be it!" she said, breaking off a little twig of my flowers, which she fastened with a pin to her head. "We are here in the Chassin, Tiennet; if we were in your part of the country I should be more careful, for fear of getting you into trouble with some compatriot."
"You can get me into trouble with all of them, Thérence," I said; "I ask nothing better."
"As for that," she replied, "you go too fast. I don't know you well enough, Tiennet, to say if it would be well for either of us." Then changing the subject with that forgetfulness of herself which came so naturally to her, she said to Brulette: "It is your turn, darling; what return are you going to make for your two May bunches? which of them is to deck your cap?"
"Neither, till I know where they came from," replied my prudent cousin. "Tell me, Huriel, and keep me from making a mistake."
"I can't tell you," said Huriel, "except that this is mine."
"Then I shall carry it whole," she said, taking it down, "and as to that bunch of water-flowers, they must feel very much out of place on a door. I think they will be happier in the moat."
So saying, she adorned her cap and the front of her dress with Huriel's flowers, and took the rest into her room; then, returning, she was about to throw the lilies into the old moat which separated the courtyard from the park, when Huriel, unwilling that such an insult should be offered to his rival, stopped her hand. At this moment the sound of a bagpipe came from the shrubbery which closed the little court in front of us, and some one, who had been near enough to hear every word that had passed, played Père Bastien's air of the "Three Woodsmen."
He played it first as we knew it, next a little differently, in a softer and sadder way, then changing it throughout, varying the keys, adding music of his own, which was not less beautiful, and even seemed to sigh and to entreat in so tender a manner that we who heard it could hardly help being touched with compassion. At last the player took a stronger and louder tone,—as though it were a song of reproach and authority, and Brulette, who had gone to the edge of the moat intending to ding away the lilies, drew back as if terrified by the anger which was expressed in the sounds. Then Joseph, shoving aside the bushes with his feet and shoulders, appeared on the other side of the moat, still piping, his eyes blazing, and seeming, both by his looks and by his music, to threaten Brulette with some great disaster if she did not desist from the insult she was about to offer him.
"Noble music and a fine player," cried Père Bastien, clapping his hands when the sounds ceased. "That is both good and beautiful, Joseph; it is easy to console yourself for everything when you have the ball at your feet in that way. Come over here, and let us compliment you."
"Nothing consoles for an insult, master," replied Joseph; "and for the rest of my days there will be a ditch full of thorns between Brulette and me if she throws my offering into that moat."
"Heaven forbid," cried Brulette, "that I should make such an ill return for the beautiful nosegay. Come over here, José; there need be no thorns between us but those you plant yourself."
Joseph sprang into the courtyard, bursting like a wild boar through the line of thick-set brambles which divided him from the moat, and darting across the green slime which filled the bottom of it; then snatching the flowers from Brulette's hand, he pulled out several, which he tried to fasten on her head beside Huriel's pink and white hawthorn-blossoms. He did it with an air of authority, as though he had a right to exercise his will. But Brulette stopped him, saying:—
"One moment, Joseph; I have an idea of my own, and you must submit to it. You will soon be received into the bagpipers' guild; now God has given me a sense of music, enough to let me understand something of it without ever having learned. I've a fancy to have a competition here, and to reward the one who plays best. Give your bagpipe to Huriel, and let him make his trial just as you have now made yours."
"Yes, yes, I agree to that entirely," cried Joseph, whose face shone with defiance. "It is your turn, Huriel; make the buck-skin warble like the throat of a nightingale, if you can!"
"That was not in our agreement, Joseph," answered Huriel. "You agreed that I should speak, and I have spoken. I agreed to leave music, in which you excel me, to you. Take back your bagpipe, and speak again in your own language; no one here will weary of hearing you."
"As you own yourself vanquished," returned Joseph, "I shall play no more, unless Brulette requests it."
"Play," she said; and while he played in a marvellous way, she wove a garland of white lilies and tied it with the silver ribbon that bound the bunch. When the music ended she went up to Joseph and twisted the wreath about the pipe of his instrument, saying,—
"José, noblest piper, I receive thee into the guild, and give thee the prize. May this wreath bring thee happiness and glory, and prove to thee the high esteem in which I hold thy great talents."
"Yes, that's all very well," said Joseph. "Thank you, my Brulette; now complete my happiness and make me prouder still by wearing one of the flowers you give me. Select the finest and put it next your heart, if you will not wear it on your head."
Brulette smiled and blushed, beautiful as an angel; then she looked at Huriel, who turned pale, thinking it was all over with him.
"Joseph," she answered, "I have granted you the first of all triumphs, that of music. You must be satisfied, and cease to ask for that of love, which is not won by strength or knowledge, but by the will of the good God."
Huriel's face lighted, Joseph's darkened.
"Brulette," he cried, "God's will must be as my will!"
"Gently," she said, "He alone is master; and here is one of his little angels, who must not hear words against our holy religion."
As she spoke she took Charlot, who came bounding after her like a lamb to its mother, into her arms. Thérence, who returned to her room while Joseph was playing, had just taken him up, and the child, without letting himself be dressed, had run out half-naked to kiss his darling, as he called Brulette, with a jealous and masterful air which contrasted amusingly with that of the lovers.
Joseph, who had forgotten his suspicions, concluding he was duped by young Carnat's letter, drew back on seeing Charlot as though the child were a snake; and as he watched him kissing Brulette eagerly and calling her "mamma" and "Charlot's darling," a mist came over his eyes and he well-nigh swooned away; but almost immediately he sprang in a burst of anger toward the child, and clutching him brutally, cried out in a choking voice: "Here's the truth at last! This is the trick that has been played upon me, and the mastery of love that has defeated me!"
Brulette, frightened by Joseph's violence and Charlot's cries, tried to rescue the child; but Joseph, quite beside himself, pulled him away, laughing savagely and saying he wanted to look at him with all his eyes and see the resemblance; so doing he nearly choked the child, without meaning it, to Brulette's horror, and she, not daring to add to the boy's danger by attempting to rescue him, turned back to Huriel, crying,—
"My child, my child! he is killing my poor child!"
Huriel made but one stride; catching Joseph by the nape of the neck, he held him so tightly and firmly that his arms relaxed and I caught Charlot from him and gave the half unconscious child back to Brulette.
Joseph nearly fainted too, as much from the violence of his anger as from the way in which Huriel had handled him. A fight would certainly have followed (and the Head-Woodsman had already flung himself between them) if Joseph had understood what was happening; but he was unable to consider anything except that Brulette was a mother, and that both she and we had deceived him.
"You no longer hide it?" he said to her, in a choking voice.
"What are you saying to me?" asked Brulette, who was sitting on the grass, all in tears, and trying to ease the bruises on Charlot's arms; "you are a wicked madman, I know that. Don't come near me, and never harm this child again or God will curse you."
"One word, Brulette," said Joseph; "if you are his mother, confess it. I will pity and forgive you; in fact, I will even defend you, if necessary. But if you can only deny it by a lie—I shall despise you, and forget you."
"His mother? I, his mother?" cried Brulette, springing up as if to cast off Charlot. "You think I am his mother?" she said again, taking back the poor child, the cause of all the trouble, and pressing him to her heart. Then she looked about her with a bewildered air, and her eyes sought Huriel. "Can it be possible," she cried, "that any one could think such a thing of me?"
"The proof that no one thinks it," cried Huriel, going up to her and kissing Charlot, "is that we love the child whom you love."
"Say something better than that, brother," cried Thérence, eagerly. "Say what you said to me yesterday: 'Whether the child is hers or not, he shall be mine, if she will be mine.'"
Brulette flung both arms round Huriel's neck and hung there like a vine to an oak.
"Be my master, then," she said; "I never had, and I never will have another than you."
Joseph watched this sudden understanding, of which he was the cause, with an anguish and regret that were terrible to see. The cry of truth in Brulette's words had convinced him, and he fancied he had dreamed the wrong he had just done her. He felt that all was over between them, and without a word he picked up his bagpipe and fled away.
Père Bastien ran after him and brought him back, saying:—
"No, no, that is not the way to part after a lifelong friendship. Bring down your pride, Joseph, and ask pardon of this honest girl. She is my daughter, their word is now pledged, and I am glad of it; but she must remain your sister. A woman forgives a brother for what she could never pardon in a lover."
"She may pardon me if she can and if she will," said Joseph; "but if I am guilty, I can receive no absolution but my own. Hate me, Brulette; that may be best for me. I see I have done the one thing that was needed to lose your regard. I can never get it back; but if you pity me, don't tell me so. I ask nothing further of you."
"All this would not have happened," said Brulette, "if you had done your duty, which was to go and see your mother. Go now, Joseph; but, above all, don't tell her what you have accused me of. She would die of grief."
"My dear daughter," said the Head-Woodsman, still detaining Joseph, "I think we do better not to scold children until their minds are quiet. Otherwise, they take things crookedly and do not profit by rebuke. To my thinking Joseph has times of aberration; and if he does not make honorable amends as readily as others do, it is perhaps because he feels his wrong-doing and suffers more from his own self-blame than from the blame of others. Set him an example of good sense and kindness. It is not difficult to forgive when we are happy, and you ought to be content to be loved as you are here. More love you could not have; for I now know things of you which make me hold you in such esteem that here are a pair of hands that will wring the neck of whoever insults you deliberately. But that was not the nature of Joseph's insult, which came from excitement, not reflection, and shame followed so swiftly that his heart is now making you full reparation. Come, Joseph, add your word to mine; I ask no more than that of you; and Brulette too, will be satisfied, will you not, my daughter?"
"You don't know him, father, if you think he will say that word," replied Brulette; "but I won't exact it, because I want, above all things, to satisfy you. And so, Joseph, I forgive you, though you don't care much about that. Stay and breakfast with us, and talk about something else; what has happened is forgotten."
Joseph said not a word, but he took off his hat and laid down his stick as if meaning to stay. The two girls re-entered the house to prepare the meal, and Huriel, who took great care of his horse, began to groom and currycomb him. I looked after Charlot, whom Brulette handed over to my keeping; and the Head-Woodsman, wishing to divert Joseph's mind, talked music, and praised the variations he had given to his song.
"Never speak to me of that song again," said Joseph; "it can only remind me of painful things, and I wish to forget it."
"Well then," said Père Bastien, "play me something of your own composition, here and now, just as the thought comes to you."
Joseph led the way into the park, and we heard him in the distance playing such sad and plaintive airs that his soul seemed really prostrate with contrition and repentance.
"Do you hear him?" I said to Brulette; "that is certainly his way of confessing, and if sorrow is a reparation, he gives you of his best."
"I don't think there is a very tender heart beneath that rough pride of his," replied Brulette. "I feel, just now, like Thérence; a little tenderness is more attractive to me than much talent. But I forgive him; and if my pity is not as great as Joseph wants to make it by his music, it is because I know he has a consolation of which my indifference cannot deprive him,—I mean the admiration which he and others feel for his talents. If Joseph did not care for that more than for love or friendship, his tongue would not now be dumb and his eye dry to the reproof of friendship. He is quite capable of asking for what he wants."
"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, returning alone from the park, "did you hear him, my children? He said all he could and would say, and, satisfied to have drawn tears from my old eyes, he has gone away tranquillized."
"But you could not keep him to breakfast," said Thérence, smiling.
"No," answered her father; "he played too well not to be three parts comforted; and he prefers to go away in that mood, rather than after some folly he might be led into saying or doing at table."
We ate our meal in peace, feeling relieved of the apprehensions of the night before as to the quarrel between Joseph and Huriel: and, as Thérence plainly showed, both in Joseph's presence and in his absence, that she had no feeling, good or ill, about the past, I indulged, as did Huriel and Fere Bastien, in tranquil and joyous thoughts. Charlot, finding that everybody petted him, began to forget the man who had frightened and bruised him. Every now and then he would start and look behind him at some trifling noise, but Thérence laughingly assured him the man was safely gone and would not return. We seemed like a family party, and I thought to myself, while courting Thérence with the utmost deference, that I would make my love less imperious and more patient than Joseph's.
Brulette seemed anxious and overcome, as though cut to the heart by a foul blow. Huriel was uneasy about her, but the Head-Woodsman, who knew the human soul in all its windings, and who was so good that his face and his words poured balm into every wound, took her little hands in his and drew her pretty head to his breast, saying, at the end of the meal:—
"Brulette, we have one thing to ask of you, and though you look so sad and distressed, my son and I will venture to make our request now. Won't you give us a smile of encouragement?"
"Tell me what it is, father, and I will obey you," answered Brulette.
"Well, my daughter, it is that you will present us to-morrow to your grandfather, so that he may be asked to accept Huriel as a grandson."
"Oh, it is too soon, father," cried Brulette, shedding a few more tears, "or rather, it is too late; if you had told me to do so an hour ago, before Joseph uttered those words, I would gladly have consented. But now, I confess, I should be ashamed to accept so readily the love of an honest man, when I find I am no longer supposed to be an honest girl. I knew I had been blamed for coquetry. Your son himself twitted me about it a year ago. Thérence blamed me,—though, for all that, she gave me her friendship. So, seeing that Huriel had the courage to leave me without asking for anything, I made a great many reflections in my own mind. The good God helped me by sending me this child, whom I did not like at first and might possibly have rejected, if my sense of duty had not been mixed with a sort of idea that I should be better worthy of being loved through a little suffering and self-denial than for my chatter and my pretty clothes. I thought I could atone for my thoughtless years and trample my love for my own little person underfoot. I knew that I was criticised and neglected, but I consoled myself with the thought: 'If he comes back to me he will know that I do not deserve to be blamed for getting serious and sensible.' But now I have heard something very different, partly through Joseph's conduct, partly by Thérence's remark. It was not Joseph only who thought I had gone astray, but Huriel also, or his great heart and his strong love would have had no need to say to his sister yesterday: 'Guilty or not guilty, I love her, and will take her as she is.' Ah, Huriel! I thank you; but I will not let you marry me till you know me. I should suffer too much to see you blamed, as you doubtless would be, on my account. I respect you too much to let it be said that you take upon yourself the paternity of a foundling. I must indeed have been light in my behavior, or such an accusation could never have been made against me! Well, I wish you to judge me now by my every-day conduct; I want you to be sure that I am not only a gay dancer at a wedding but the good guardian of my duty in my home. We will come and live here, as you desire it; and in a year from now, if I am not able to prove to you that my care of Charlot need not cause me to blush, I shall at least have given you by my actions a proof that I am reasonable in mind and sound in conscience."
Huriel snatched Brulette from his father's arms, and reverently kissed the tears that were flowing from her beautiful eyes; then he gave her back to Père Bastien, saying:—
"Bless her, my father; for you can now judge if I told you false when I said she was worthy of your blessing. The dear golden tongue has spoken well, and there is no answer to make to it, unless it be that we want neither year nor day of trial, but desire to go this very evening and ask her of her grandfather; for to pass another night still doubtful of his consent is more than I can bear, and to get it is all I need to make me sovereign of the world."
"See what has happened to you by asking for a respite," said Père Bastien to Brulette. "Instead of asking your grandfather to-morrow, it seems it must be to-night. Come, my child, you must submit; it is the punishment of your naughty conduct in times gone by."
Contentment overspread her sweet face, and the hurt she had received from Joseph was forgotten. However, just as we left the table, another hesitation seized her. Charlot, hearing Huriel address the Head-Woodsman as father, called him so himself, and was kissed and fondled for it, but Brulette was a trifle vexed.
"Wouldn't it be best," she said, "to take the trouble to invent parents for the poor child; every time he calls me mother it seems like a stab to those I love."
We were beginning to reassure her on this point when Thérence said: "Speak low; some one is listening to us;" and following her glance toward the porch, we saw the end of a stick resting on the ground, and the bulging side of a full sack, showing that a beggar was there, waiting till some one took notice of him, and hearing things that he ought not to hear.
I went up to the intruder and recognized Brother Nicolas, who came forward at once and admitted without hesitation that he had been listening for the last quarter of an hour, and had been very well pleased with what he had heard.
"I thought I knew Huriel's voice," he said, "but I so little expected to find him on my rounds that I should not have been certain, my dear friends, that it was he, but for some things which you have been saying, in which, as Brulette knows, I have a right to intrude."
"We know it too," said Huriel.
"Do you?" exclaimed the monk. "Well, that's as it should be."
"And the reason is," said Huriel to Brulette, "that your aunt told me everything last night. So you see, dearest, I don't deserve all the credit you give me."
"Yes," said Brulette, much comforted, "but yesterday morning! Well, since everything is known," she added, turning to the monk, "what do you advise me to do, Brother Nicolas? You have been employed on Charlot's account; can't you find some story to spread about to cover the secret of his parentage and repair the harm done to my reputation?"
"Story?" said the friar. "I, advise and abet a lie? I am not one of those who damn their souls for the love of the young girls, my little one. I should gain nothing by it. You must be helped some other way; and I have already been working at it more than you think. Have patience; all will come out right, as it did in another matter, where, as Maître Huriel knows, I have not been a bad friend to him."
"I know that I owe you the peace and safety of my life," said Huriel. "People may say what they like of monks, I know one, at least, for whom I would be drawn and quartered. Sit down, Brother, and spend the day with us. What is ours is yours, and the house we are in is yours too."
Thérence and the Head-Woodsman were showing their hospitality to the good friar, when my aunt Marghitonne came hurrying up, and would not let us stay anywhere but with her. She said the wedding party were going to perform the "cabbage ceremony;" which is an old-fashioned foolery practised the day after the marriage; the procession, she said, was already forming and was coming round our way. The company drank, and sang, and danced at each stopping-place. It was impossible for Thérence now to keep aloof, and she accepted my arm to go and meet the crowd, while Huriel escorted Brulette. My aunt took charge of the little one, and the Head-Woodsman marched off with the monk, who was easily persuaded into joining a jovial company.
The fellow who played the part of gardener, or as we still say among us, the pagan, seated on a hand-barrow, was decorated in a style that astonished everybody. He had picked up near the park a beautiful garland of waterlilies tied with a silver ribbon, which he had bound about his flaxen poll. It didn't take us much time to recognize Joseph's bunch, which he had dropped or thrown away on leaving us. The ribbons were the envy of all the girls of the party, who deliberated how to get possession of them unspoiled; at last, flinging themselves on the pagan, they snatched them away from him and divided the booty, though in defending himself he managed to kiss more than one with a mouth that was covered with foam. So scraps of Joseph's ribbon glittered all day in the caps of the prettiest girls in the neighborhood, and came to a much better end than their owner thought for when he left his bunch in the dust of the road.
This farce, played from door to door through the village, was as crazy as usual, ending with a fine repast and dancing till twilight. After which, we all took leave, Brulette and I, the Head-Woodsman, Thérence, and Huriel, and started for Nohant, with the monk at our head, leading theclairin, on which Charlot was perched, tipsy with excitement at what he had seen, laughing like a monkey, and trying to sing as he had heard others do all that day.
Though the young people of the present age have degenerated wofully, you must often have seen girls in their teens tramping fifteen miles in the morning and as much more in the evening in the hottest weather, for a day's dancing, and so you can easily believe that we arrived at home without fatigue. Indeed, we danced part of the way along the road, we four; the Head-Woodsman playing his bagpipe, and the friar declaring we were crazy, but clapping his hands to excite us on.
We reached Brulette's door about ten at night, and found Père Brulet sound asleep in his bed. As he was quite deaf and slept hard, Brulette put the baby to bed, served us a little collation, and consulted with us whether to wake him before he had finished his first nap. However, turning over on his side, he saw the light, recognized his granddaughter and me, seemed surprised at the others, and sitting up in bed as sober as a judge, listened to a statement the Head-Woodsman made to him in a few words, spoken rather loud but very civilly. The monk, in whom Père Brulet had the utmost confidence, followed in praise of the Huriel family, and Huriel himself declared his wishes and all his good intentions both present and to come.
Père Brulet listened without saying a word, and I began to fear he had not understood; but no such thing; though he seemed to be dreaming, his mind was really quite clear, and he presently answered discreetly that he recognized in the Head-Woodsman the son of a former friend; that he held the family in much esteem, and considered Brother Nicolas as worthy of all confidence; and, above all, he trusted in the sense and good judgment of his granddaughter. Then he went on to say that she had not delayed her choice and refused the best offers of the neighborhood to commit a folly in the end, and that if she wished to marry Huriel, Huriel would certainly be a good husband.
He spoke in a collected manner: yet his memory failed him on one point, which he recalled soon after, as we were about to take leave, namely, that Huriel was a muleteer.
"That is the only thing that troubles me," he said. "My girl will be so lonely at home by herself for three-quarters of the year."
We satisfied him at once with the news that Huriel had left the craft and become a woodsman; and thereupon he readily agreed to the plan of working in the woods of Chassin during the summer months.
We parted, all well pleased with one another. Thérence stayed with Brulette, and I took the others to my own house.
We learned the next evening, through the monk, who had been begging about all day, that Joseph had not gone near the village of Nohant, but had spent an hour with his mother at Saint-Chartier, after which he started to go round the neighborhood and collect all the bagpipers for a meeting, at which he would demand a competition for admission to the craft and the right to practise the calling. Mariton was much troubled by this determination, believing that the Carnats, father and son, and all the bagpipers of the country round, who were already more in number than were needed, would oppose it and cause him both trouble and injury. But Joseph would not listen to her, still saying that he was resolved to get her out of service and take her to some distant place to live with him, though she seemed not as much inclined to that idea as he had hoped.
On the third day, all our preparations having been made, and Huriel and Brulette's first banns published in the parish church, we started to return to Chassin. It was like departing on a pilgrimage to the ends of the earth. We were obliged to carry furniture, for Brulette was determined that her grandfather should lack for nothing; so a cart was hired and the whole village opened its eyes very wide to see the entire contents of the house going off, even to the baskets. The goats and the hens went too, for Thérence was delighted at the idea of taking care of them; never having known how to manage animals, she wanted to learn, as she said, when the opportunity offered. This gave me the chance to propose myself in jest for her management, as the most docile and faithful animal of the flock. She was not annoyed, but gave me no encouragement to pass from jest to earnest. Only, it did seem to me that she was not displeased to find me cheerfully leaving home and family to follow her; and that if she did little to attract me she certainly did still less to repulse me.
Just as old Brulet and the women, with Charlot, were getting into the cart (Brulette very proud of going off with such a handsome lover, in the teeth of all the lovers who had misjudged her), the friar came up to say good-bye, adding for the benefit of inquisitive ears: "As I am going over to your parts, I'll ride a bit of the way with you."
He got up beside Père Brulet, and at the end of the third mile, in a shady road, he asked to be set down. Huriel was leading theclairin, which was a good draught horse as well as a pack horse, and the Head-Woodsman and I walked in front. Seeing that the cart lagged behind, we turned back, thinking there might have been an accident, and found Brulette in tears, kissing Charlot, who clung to her screaming because the friar was endeavoring to carry him off. Huriel interceded against it, for he was so troubled at Brulette's tears that he came near crying himself.
"What is the matter?" said Père Bastien. "Why do you wish to send away the child, my daughter? Is it because of the notion you expressed the other day?"
"No, father," replied Brulette, "his real parents have sent for him, and it is for his good to go. The poor little fellow can't understand that; and even I, though I do understand it, my heart fails me. But as there are good reasons why the thing should be done without delay, give me courage instead of taking it away from me."
Though talking of courage she had none at all against Charlot's tears and kisses, for she had really come to love him with much tenderness; so Thérence was called in to help her. Every look and tone of the woodland girl conveyed such a sense of her loving-kindness that the stones themselves would have been persuaded, and the child felt it, though he did not know why. She succeeded in pacifying him, making him understand that Brulette was leaving him for a short time only, so that Brother Nicolas was able to carry him off without using force; and the pair disappeared to the tune of a sort of rondo which the monk sang to divert his charge, though it was more like a church chant than a song. But Charlot was pleased, and when their voices were lost in the distance that of the monk had drowned his expiring moans.
"Come, Brulette, start on," said Père Bastien. "We love you so well we can soon console you."
Huriel jumped on the shaft to be near her, and talked to her so gently all the way that she said to him just before we arrived: "Don't think me inconsolable, my true friend. My heart failed me for a second; but I know where to turn the love I felt for that child, and where I shall find the happiness he gave me."
It did not take us long to settle down in the old castle and even to feel at home in it. There were several habitable chambers, though they hardly looked so, and at first we thought them likely to fall about our heads. But the ruins had so long been shaken by the wind without collapsing that we felt they might outlast our time.
Aunt Marghitonne, delighted to have us near her, furnished the household with the various little comforts to which we were accustomed, and which the Huriel family were coaxed with some difficulty into sharing with us, for they were not used to such things and cared very little for them. The Bourbonnais wood-cutters, whom the Head-Woodsman had engaged, arrived duly, and he hired others in the neighborhood. So that we made quite a colony, quartered partly in the village and partly in the ruins, working cheerfully under the rule of a just man, who knew what it was to spare over-work and to reward the willing workman, and assembling every night in the courtyard for the evening meal; relating stories and listening to them; singing and frolicking in the open air, and dancing on Sundays with all the lads and lasses of the neighborhood, who were glad enough to get our Bourbonnais music, and who brought us little gifts from all parts, showing us a deal of attention.
The work was hard on account of the steep slopes on which the forest grew, which rose straight from the river, and made the felling a very dangerous matter. I had had experience of the quick temper of the Head-Woodsman in the woods of Alleu. As he was employing none but choice workmen for the felling, and the choppers understood the cutting up, nothing happened to irritate him; but I was ambitious to become a first-class chopper in order to please him, and I dreaded lest my want of practice should once more make him call me unhandy and imprudent, which would have mortified me cruelly in presence of Thérence. So I begged Huriel to take me apart and show me how to work and to let me watch him at the business. He was quite willing to oblige me, and I went at it with such a will that before long I surprised the master himself by my ability. He praised me, and even asked me before his daughter why I took hold so valiantly of a business I had no occasion for in my own country. "Because," I replied, "I am not sorry to know how to earn my living wherever I am. Who knows what may happen? If I loved a woman who wanted me to live in the depths of the woods, I could follow her, and support her there as elsewhere."
To prove to Thérence I was not so self-indulgent as perhaps she thought, I practised sleeping on the bare ground, and living frugally; trying to become as hardy a forester as the rest of them. I did not find myself any the worse for it; in fact I felt that my mind grew more active and my thoughts clearer. Many things that I did not at first understand without long explanations, unravelled themselves little by little, of their own accord, so that Thérence had no longer any occasion to smile at my stupid questions. She talked to me without getting weary and appeared to feel confidence in my judgment.
Still, a full fortnight went by before I felt the slightest hope of success; though when I bemoaned myself to Huriel that I dared not say a word to a girl who seemed so far above me that she could never so much as look at me, he replied,—
"Don't worry, Tiennet; my sister has the truest heart in existence; and if, like all young girls, she has her fanciful moments, there is no fancy in her head which will not yield to the love of a noble truth and an honest devotion."
His father said the same, and together they lent me courage; and Thérence found me so good an attendant, I watched so closely that no pain, fatigue, or annoyance should touch her from any cause within my power to control, and I was so careful never to look at another girl,—indeed I had little desire to,—in short, I behaved myself with such honest respect, showing her plainly on what a pinnacle I set her, that her eyes began to open; and several times I saw her watch how I went beforehand of her wishes with a softened, reflective look, and then reward me with thanks of which, I can tell you, I was proud enough. She was not accustomed, like Brulette, to have her wishes anticipated, and would never have known, like her, how to encourage it prettily. She seemed surprised that any one thought of her; and when it did happen, she showed such a sense of obligation that I never felt at my ease when she said to me with her serious air and guileless frankness, "Really, Tiennet, you are too kind," or perhaps, "Tiennet, you take too much trouble for me; I wish I could take as much for you some day."
One morning she was speaking to me in this way before a number of woodcutters, and one of them, a handsome Bourbonnais lad, remarked in a low tone that she showed a deal of interest in me.
"Certainly I do, Leonard," she replied, looking at him with a confident air. "I feel the interest that is due to him for all his kindness and friendship to me and mine."
"Don't you know that every one would do as he does," remarked Leonard, "if they thought they would be paid in the same coin?"
"I would try to be just to everybody," she replied, "if I felt a liking or a need for everybody's attentions. But I don't; and to one of my disposition the friendship of one person suffices."
I was sitting on the turf beside her as she said this, and I took her hand in mine, without daring to retain it more than a second. She drew it away, but as she did so she let it rest a moment on my shoulder in sign of confidence and relationship of soul.
However, things still went on in this way, and I began to suffer greatly from the reserve between us,—all the more because the lovers Huriel and Brulette were so tender and happy, and the contrast grieved my heart and troubled my spirit. Their day of joy was coming, but mine was not within sight.
One Sunday—it was that of the last publication of Brulette's banns—the Head-Woodsman and his son, who had seemed all day to be consulting privately, went off together, saying that a matter connected with the marriage called them to Nohant. Brulette, who knew all about the arrangements for her wedding, was a good deal surprised at their sudden activity, and still more that they told her nothing about it. She was even inclined to pout at Huriel, who said he should be absent for twenty-four hours; but he would not yield, and managed to pacify her by letting her think he was only going on her business and planning to give her some pleasant surprise.
But Thérence, whom I watched narrowly, seemed to me to make an effort to hide her uneasiness, and as soon as her father and Huriel had started, she carried me off into the little park and said:—
"Tiennet, I am worried to death, and I don't know what can be done to remedy matters. Listen to what has happened, and tell me if we can do anything to prevent harm. Last night as I lay awake I heard my father and brother agreeing to go and protect Joseph, and from what they said I made out that Joseph, though very ill-received by the bagpipers of your parts, to whom he applied for admission to the guild, is determined to insist on admittance,—a thing that they dare not refuse him openly without having put his talents to the test. It appears that the younger Carnat has also applied for admittance in place of his father, who retires; and his trial was to take place before the corporation this very day; so that Joseph has put himself forward to interfere with a claim that was not to be contested, and which was promised and half-granted in advance. Now, some of our wood-cutters who frequent the wine-shops have overheard certain wicked plans which the bagpipers of your neighborhood are making; for they are resolved to eject Joseph, if they can, by sneering at his music. If there was no greater risk than his having to bear injustice and defeat, I should not be so uneasy as you see me; but my father and brother, who belong to the guild and have a voice in all proceedings, feel it their duty to be present at this competition solely to protect Joseph. And, more than that, there was something I could not make out, because the guild have certain secret terms among themselves which my father and brother used, and which I did not understand. But however one looks at it, I am sure they are going into danger, for they carried under their blouses those little single-sticks, the harm of which you have already seen, and they even sharpened their pruning-hooks and hid them under their clothes, saying to each other early this morning, 'The devil is in that lad; he can neither be happy himself nor let others be. We must protect him, however; though he is obstinately rushing among the wolves, without thinking of his own skin or that of others.' My brother complained, saying he did not want to break anybody's head or have his own broken just as he was going to be married. To which my father replied that there was no use in anticipating evil; what one had to do was to go where humanity required us to help our neighbor. As they named Leonard among those who had overheard the malicious talk, I questioned him hastily just now, and he told me that Joseph, and consequently those who support him, have been threatened for a week or more, and that your bagpipers talk of not only refusing him admittance at this competition, but also of depriving him of the wish and the power to try again. I know, from having heard it spoken of as a child when my brother was admitted, that the candidates must behave boldly and endure all sorts of trials of their strength and courage. With us, the bagpipers lead a wandering life and do not make their music so much of a business as yours do; therefore they don't stand in each other's way and never persecute the candidates. It seems, from what Leonard told me and from my father's preparations, that here it is different, and that such matters end in fights which last till one or the other side gives up. Help me, Tiennet, for I am half-dead with fear and anxiety. I dare not rouse our wood-cutters; if my father thought I had overheard and betrayed the secrets of the guild he would deny me all trust and confidence in future. He expects me to be as brave as any woman can be in danger; but ever since that dreadful Malzac affair, I own to you I have no courage at all, and that I am tempted to fling myself into the middle of the fight, so much do I dread the results for those I love."
"And you call that want of courage, my brave girl?" I replied. "Now don't be troubled and leave me to act. The devil will be very cunning if I can't discover for myself, without suspicion falling on you, what those bagpipers are about; and if your father blames me, if he even drives me away and refuses the happiness I have been hoping to win,—I shall not care, Thérence! So long as I bring him or send him safe back to you, and Huriel also, I shall have my reward even if I never see you again. Good-bye; don't give way to anxiety; say nothing to Brulette, for she would lose her head. I know what should be done. Look as if you knew nothing. I take it all on my shoulders."
Thérence flung herself on my breast and kissed me on both cheeks with the innocence of a pure girl; so, filled to the brim with courage and confidence, I went to work.
I began by finding Leonard, whom I knew to be a good fellow, very bold and strong, and much attached to Père Bastien. Though he was rather jealous of me on the score of Thérence, he entered into my scheme, and I questioned him as to the number of bagpipers who were to meet for the competition, and the place where we could watch the assembly. He could not tell me anything under the first head; as to the second he knew that the trial was not to be in secret, and the place appointed was Saint-Chartier, in Benoît's tavern, an hour after vespers. The deliberation on the merits of the candidates was all that was to be held in secret, and even that was to be in the same house, and the decision was to be rendered in public.
I thought of half a dozen resolute lads fully able to keep the peace if, as Thérence feared, the matter should end in a quarrel; and I felt that justice being on our side, plenty of other fellows would come forward to support us. So I chose four who consented to follow me,—making, with Leonard and myself, six in all. They hesitated only on one point,—the fear of displeasing their master, the Head-Woodsman, by giving him help he had never asked for; but I swore to them that he should never know that they gave it deliberately, for we could easily pretend we were there by accident, and then, if any one were blamed, they could throw it all on me, who had asked them there to drink without their knowing what was going on.