The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe BagpipersThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The BagpipersAuthor: George SandIllustrator: Louis MeynellTranslator: Katharine Prescott WormeleyRelease date: October 11, 2021 [eBook #66513]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAGPIPERS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The BagpipersAuthor: George SandIllustrator: Louis MeynellTranslator: Katharine Prescott WormeleyRelease date: October 11, 2021 [eBook #66513]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Al Haines
Title: The Bagpipers
Author: George SandIllustrator: Louis MeynellTranslator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Author: George Sand
Illustrator: Louis Meynell
Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Release date: October 11, 2021 [eBook #66513]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BAGPIPERS ***
Thereupon he blew into his flute.Thereupon he blew into his flute.
Title page
BY
GEORGE SAND
BOSTONLITTLE, BROWNAND COMPANY
Copyright, 1890,BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
TO M. EUGÈNE LAMBERT.
MY DEAR CHILD,—As you like to hear me relate the tales told by the peasants at ourveillées,—I mean the watch-nights of my youth, when I had time to listen to them,—I shall try to recall the story of Étienne Depardieu, and piece together the scattered fragments of it still remaining in my memory. It was told to me by the man himself during several of thebreyageevenings,—a name given, as you know, to the late hours of the night spent in grinding hemp, when those present relate their village chronicles. It is long since Père Depardieu slept the sleep of the just, and he was quite old when he told me this story of the naïve adventures of his youth. For this reason I shall try to let him speak for himself, imitating his manner as closely as I can. You will not blame me for insisting on so doing, because you know from experience that the thoughts and emotions of a peasant cannot be rendered in our own style of language without making them unnatural and giving them a tone of even shocking affectation.
You also know by experience, that the peasantry guess or comprehend much more than we believe them capable of understanding; and you have often been struck with their sudden insight, which, even in matters of art, has an appearance of revelation. If I were to tell you in my language and yours certain things which you have heard and understood in theirs, you would find those very things so unlike what is natural to these people that you would accuse me of unconsciously putting something of my own into the relation, and of attributing to the peasantry reflections and feelings which they could not have. It suffices to introduce into the expression of their ideas a single word that is not in their vocabulary to raise a doubt as to whether the idea itself emanated from them. But when we listen to their speech, we at once observe that although they may not have, like us, a choice of words suited to every shade of thought, yet they assuredly have words enough to formulate what they think and to describe what strikes their senses.
Therefore it is not, as some have reproachfully declared, for the petty pleasure of producing a style hitherto unused in literature, and still less to revive ancient forms of speech and old expressions which all the world knows and is familiar with, that I have bound myself to the humble task of preserving to Étienne Depardieu's tale the local color that belongs to it. It is, rather, because I find it impossible to make him speak as we do without distorting the methods by which his mind worked when he expressed himself on points with which he was not familiar, and as to which he evidently had a strong desire both to understand and to make himself understood.
If, in spite of the care and conscientiousness which I shall put into this task, you find that my narrator sometimes sees too clearly or too deeply into the subjects he takes up, you must blame the weakness of my presentation. Forced as I am to choose among our familiar terms of speech such only as all classes can understand, I voluntarily deprive myself of those that are most original and most expressive; but, at any rate, I shall endeavor to employ none which would be unknown to the peasant who tells the tale, and who (far superior in this to the peasant of to-day) did not pride himself on using words that were unintelligible to both his hearers and himself.
I dedicate this novel to you, my dear Eugène, not to give you a proof of motherly affection, which you do not need to make you feel at home in my family, but to leave with you, after I am gone, a point of contact for your recollections of Berry, which has now become, in a way, the land of your adoption. You will hereafter recall that you said, at the time I was writing it: "By the bye, it will soon be ten years since I came here, intending to spend a month. I must be thinking of leaving." And as I did not see the why and the wherefore, you explained to me that, being a painter, you had worked ten years among us to observe and feel nature, and that it was now necessary you should go to Paris and seek discipline of thought and the experience of others. I let you go; but on condition that you would return to us every summer. Do not forget your promise. I send this book, a distant echo of our bagpipes, to remind you that the trees are budding, the nightingales have come, and the great spring-tide festival of nature is beginning in the fields.
GEORGE SAND.
NOHANT, April, 1853.
CONTENTS.
First EveningSecond EveningThird EveningFourth EveningFifth EveningSixth EveningSeventh EveningEighth EveningNinth EveningTenth EveningEleventh EveningTwelfth EveningThirteenth EveningFourteenth EveningFifteenth EveningSixteenth EveningSeventeenth EveningEighteenth EveningNineteenth EveningTwentieth EveningTwenty-First EveningTwenty-Second EveningTwenty-Third EveningTwenty-Fourth EveningTwenty-Fifth EveningTwenty-Sixth EveningTwenty-Seventh EveningTwenty-Eighth EveningTwenty-Ninth EveningThirtieth EveningThirty-First EveningThirty-Second Evening
THE BAGPIPERS.
I was not born yesterday, said Père Étienne in 1828. I came into the world, as near as I can make out, in the year 54 or 55 of the last century. But not remembering much of my earlier years, I shall only tell you about myself from the time of my first communion, which took place in '70 in the parish church of Saint-Chartier, then in charge of the Abbé Montpéron, who is now very deaf and broken down.
This was not because our own parish of Nohant was suppressed in those days; but our curate having died, the two churches were united for a time under the ministry of the priest of Saint-Chartier, and we went every day to be catechised,—that is, I and my little cousin and a lad named Joseph, who lived in the same house with my uncle, with a dozen other children of the neighborhood.
I say "my uncle" for short, but he was really my great-uncle, the brother of my grandmother, and was named Brulet; hence his little granddaughter and only heir was called Brulette, without any mention whatever of her Christian name, which was Catherine.
Now, to tell you at once about things as they were, I soon felt that I loved Brulette better than I was obliged to do as a cousin; and I was jealous because Joseph lived in the same house, which stood about a stone's throw distant from the last houses in the village and rather more than three quarters of a mile from mine,—so that he could see her at all times, while I saw her only now and then, till the time when we met to be catechised.
I will tell you how it happened that Brulette's grandfather and Joseph's mother lived under the same roof. The house belonged to the old man, and he let a small part of it to the woman, who was a widow with only one child. Her name was Marie Picot, and she was still marriageable, being little over thirty, and bearing traces in her face and figure of having been in her day a very pretty woman. She was still called by some people "handsome Mariton,"—which pleased her very much, for she would have liked to marry again. But possessing nothing except her bright eyes and her honest tongue, she thought herself lucky to pay a low price for her lodging and get a worthy and helpful old man for a landlord and neighbor,—one too who wouldn't worry her, but might sometimes help her.
Père Brulet and the widow Picot, called Mariton, had thus lived in each other's good graces for about a dozen years; that is, ever since the day when Brulette's mother died in giving birth to her, and Mariton had taken charge of the infant with as much love and care as if it had been her own.
Joseph, who was three years older than Brulette, remembered being rocked in the same cradle; and the baby was the first burden ever trusted to his little arms. Later, Père Brulet, noticing that his neighbor had her hands full with the care of the two as they grew stronger, took Joseph into his part of the house; and so it came to pass that the little girl slept with the widow, and the little boy with the old man.
All four, however, ate together. Mariton cooked the meals, kept the house, made over and darned the clothes, while the old man, who was still sturdy enough to work, went out by the day and paid the greater part of the household expenses. He did not do this because he was well-off and his living was bound to be good accordingly, but because the widow was kind and amiable, and excellent company; and Brulette considered her so much like a mother that my uncle grew to treat her as a daughter, or at any rate as a daughter-in-law.
Nothing in the world was ever prettier or sweeter than the little girl under Mariton's bringing up. The woman loved cleanliness, and kept herself as spick and span as her means allowed; and she had early taught Brulette to do the same. At the age, therefore, when children usually roll in the dirt like little animals, the darling was so clean and dainty in all her ways that everybody wanted to kiss her; but she was already very chary of her favors, and would never be familiar unless quite sure of her company.
When she was twelve years old she was really, at times, like a little woman; and if, carried away by the liveliness of her years, she did forget herself so far as to play while being catechised, she soon caught herself up, even more, it seemed to me, out of self-respect than for the sake of religion.
I don't know if any of us could have told why, but all of us lads, unlike enough when it came to catechising, felt the difference that there was between Brulette and the other little girls.
I must own that some in the class were rather big boys. Joseph was fifteen and I was sixteen, which our parents and the curate declared was a disgrace to us. Such backwardness certainly did prove that Joseph was too lazy to study, and I too lively to give my mind to it. In fact, for three years he and I had been rejected from the class; and if it had not been for the Abbé Montpéron, who was less particular than our old curate, I suppose we might have continued so to this day.
However, it is only fair to confess that boys are always younger in mind than girls; and you will find in every Confirmation class just this difference between the two species,—the males being already strong, grown lads, and the females still small, hardly old enough to wear the coif.
As for knowledge, we were all about alike; none of us knew how to read, still less to write, and we only learned what we did just as the little birds learn to sing, without knowing either notes or Latin, by dint only of using their ears. But all the same, Monsieur le curé knew very well which of the flock had the quickest minds, and which of them remembered what he said. The cleverest head among the girls was little Brulette's, and the stupidest of all the stupid boys was Joseph.
Not that he was really duller than the rest, but he was quite unable to listen and so get a smattering of things he did not understand; and he showed so little liking for instruction that I was surprised at him,—I who could take hold of my lessons fast enough when I managed to keep still, and quiet down my lively spirits.
Though Brulette scolded him for it sometimes, she never got anything out of him but tears of vexation.
"I am not worse than others," he would say; "I don't want to offend God; but words don't come right in my memory, and I can't help it."
"Yes, you can," replied the little one, who already took a tone of ordering him about; "you can if you choose. You can do whatever you like; but you let your mind run after all sorts of things,—it is no wonder Monsieur l'abbé calls you 'Joseph the absent-minded.'
"He can call me so if he likes," answered Joseph. "I don't understand what it means."
But the rest of us understood very well, and turned it into our own childish language by calling him José l'ébervigé [literally, the bewildered, the staring-eyed]; a name which stuck to him, to his great disgust.
Joseph was a melancholy child, with a puny body and a mind turned inward. He never left Brulette, and was very submissive to her; nevertheless, she said he was as obstinate as a mule, and found fault with him all the time. Though she did not say much to me about my lawless, do-nothing ways, I often wished she would take as much notice of me as she did of him. However, in spite of the jealousy he caused me, I cared more for José than for my other comrades, because he was one of the weakest, and I one of the strongest. Besides, if I had not stood up for him, Brulette would have blamed me. When I told her that she loved him more than she did me, who was her cousin, she would say,—
"It is not on his account; it is because of his mother, whom I love better than I do either of you. If anything happened to him, I should not dare go home; for as he never thinks of what he is about, she charged me to think for both, and I try not to forget it."
I often hear our betters say: "I went to school with such a one; he was my college companion." We peasants, who never went to school in my young days, we say, "I was catechised with such a one; that's my communion comrade." Then is the time we make our youthful friendships, and sometimes, too, the hatreds that last a lifetime. In the fields, at work, or at the festivals, we talk and laugh together, and meet and part; but at the catechism classes, which last a year, and often two, we must put up with each other's company, and even help each other five or six hours a day. We always started off together in a body every morning across the fields and meadows, beside the coverts and fences, and along the foot-paths; and we came back in the evening anyhow, as it pleased the good God, for we took advantage of our liberty to run where we chose, like frolicking birds. Those who liked each other's company stayed together; the disagreeable ones went alone, or banded in twos and threes to tease and frighten the rest.
Joseph had his ways; they were neither horrid nor sulky, and yet they were not amiable. I never remember seeing him really enjoying himself, nor really frightened, nor really contented, nor really annoyed with anything that ever happened to us. In our fights he never got out of the way, and he usually received blows which he did not know how to return; but he made no complaint. You might have supposed he did not feel them.
When we loitered to play some game, he would sit or lie down at a little distance and say nothing, answering wide of the mark if we spoke to him. He seemed to be listening or looking at something which the others could not perceive; that's why he was thought to be one of those who "see the wind." Sometimes, when Brulette, who knew his crotchets, but would not explain them, called him, he did not answer. Then she would begin to sing,—that was sure to wake him up, as a whistle is sure to stop people from snoring.
To tell you why I attached myself to a fellow who was such poor company is more than I am able to do; for I was just the opposite myself. I could not do without companions, and I was always listening and observing others; I liked to talk and question, felt dull when I was alone, and went about looking for fun and friendship. Perhaps that was the reason why, pitying the serious, reserved boy, I imitated Brulette, who would shake him up sometimes,—which did him more good than it did her, for in fact she indulged his whims much more than she controlled them. As far as words went she ordered him about finely, but as he never obeyed her it was she (and I through her) who followed in his wake and had patience with him.
The day of our first communion came at last; and, returning from church, I made such strong resolutions not to give way to my lawlessness any more that I followed Brulette home to her grandfather's house, as the best example I could lay hold of to guide me.
While she went, at Mariton's bidding, to milk the goat, Joseph and I stayed talking with his mother in my uncle's room.
We were looking at the devotional images which the curate had given us in remembrance of the sacrament,—or rather I was, for Joseph was thinking of something else, and fingered them without seeing what they were. So the others paid no attention to us; and presently Mariton said to her old neighbor, alluding to our first communion,—
"Well, it is a good thing done, and now I can hire my lad out to work. I have decided to do what I told you I should."
My uncle shook his head sadly, and she continued:
"Just listen to one thing, neighbor. My José has got no mind. I know that, worse luck! He takes after his poor deceased father, who hadn't two ideas a week, but who was a well-to-do and well-behaved man, for all that. Still, it is an infirmity to have so little faculty in your head, because if ill-luck has it that a man marries a silly wife, everything goes to the bad in a hurry. That's why I said to myself, when I saw my boy growing so long in the legs, that his brain would never feed him; and that if I could only leave him a little sum of money I should die happy. You know the good a few savings can do. In our poor homes it is everything. Now, I have never been able to lay by a penny, and I do suppose I'm not young enough to please a man, for I have not remarried. Well, if that's so, God's will be done! I am still young enough to work; and so I may as well tell you, neighbor, that the innkeeper at Chartier wants a servant. He pays good wages,—thirty crowns a year! besides perquisites, which come to half as much again. With all that, strong and lively as I know I am, I shall have made my fortune in ten years. I can take my ease in my old days, and leave a little something to my poor boy. What do you say to that?"
Père Brulet thought a little, and then replied,—
"You are wrong, neighbor; indeed you are wrong!"
Mariton thought too; and then, understanding what the old man meant, she said,—
"No doubt, no doubt. A woman is exposed to blame in a country inn; even if she behaves properly, people won't believe it. That's what you meant, isn't it? Well, but what am I to do? Of course it deprives me of all chance of re-marrying; but we don't regret what we suffer for our children,—indeed, sometimes we rejoice in it."
"There is something worse than suffering," said my uncle,—"there is shame; and that recoils upon the children."
Mariton sighed.
"Yes," she said, "a woman is exposed to daily insults in a house of that kind. She must always be on the look-out to defend herself. If she gets angry, that injures the custom, and her masters don't like it."
"Some of them," said the old man, "try to find handsome and good-humored women like you to help sell their liquors; a saucy maid is often all an inn-keeper needs to do a better business than his neighbors."
"I know that," said Mariton; "but a woman can be gay and lively, and quick to serve the guests, without allowing herself to be insulted."
"Bad language is always insulting," said Père Brulet; "and it ought to cost an honest woman dear to get accustomed to such ways. Think how mortified your son will be when he hears the carters and the bagmen joking with his mother."
"Luckily he's simple," said Mariton, looking at Joseph.
I looked at him too, and I was surprised that he did not hear a word of what his mother was saying in a voice loud enough for me to catch every word. I gathered from that that he was "hearing thick," as we said in those days, meaning one who was hard of hearing.
Joseph got up presently and went after Brulette, who was in her little goat-pen, which was nothing more than a shed made of planks stuffed with straw, where she kept about a dozen animals.
He flung himself on a pile of brushwood; and having followed him (for fear of being thought inquisitive if I stayed behind), I saw that he was crying inside of him, though there were no tears in his eyes.
"Are you asleep, José?" said Brulette; "if not, why are you lying there like a sick sheep? Come, give me those sticks you are lying on; I want the leaves for my goats."
So saying, she began to sing,—but very softly, because it wasn't the thing to make a racket on the day of her first communion.
I fancied her song had the usual effect of drawing Joseph from his dreams, for he rose, and went away. Then Brulette said to me,—
"What is the matter? He seems worse than usual."
"I think he must have heard that he is to be hired out and leave his mother," I replied.
"He expected it," said Brulette; "isn't it the custom for all of us to go out to service as soon as we have received the sacrament? If I were not lucky enough to be my grandfather's only child, I should have to leave home and earn my living as others do."
Brulette did not seem much distressed at the thought of parting from Joseph; but when I told her that Mariton was also going to hire herself out and live far away, she began to sob, and rushing into the house, she flung herself on Mariton's neck, drying out,—
"Is it true, darling, that you are going to leave me?"
"Who told you that?" asked Mariton. "It is not decided."
"Yes, it is," cried Brulette; "you said so, and you want to hide it from me."
"As some inquisitive boys don't know how to hold their tongue," said Mariton, with a severe glance at me, "I must tell you all. Yes, my child, you must bear it like a brave and sensible girl who has given her soul to the good God this very day."
"Papa," said Brulette, turning to her grandfather, "how can you consent to let her go? Who is to take care of you?"
"You, my child," replied Mariton; "you are now old enough to do your duty. Listen to me,—and you too, neighbor; for here is something I have not yet told you."
Taking the little girl on her knee, while I stood between my uncle's legs (for his grieved look drew me to him), Mariton continued to reason, first with one, and then with the other.
"If it had not been for the friendship I owe you," she said, "I ought long ago to have left Joseph here and paid his board while I went out to service and laid by a little money. But I felt I was bound to bring you up, my Brulette, till you made your first communion, because you are the youngest, and because a girl wants a mother longer than a boy. I hadn't the heart to leave you as long as you couldn't do without me. But now, you see, the time has come; and if anything can reconcile you to losing me, it is that you will soon feel useful to your grandfather. I have taught you how to manage a household and all that a good girl ought to know for the service of her parents and family. You'll practise it for my sake and to do credit to my teaching. It will be my pride and consolation to hear people tell how my Brulette takes good care of her grandfather, and manages his money like a little woman. Come, be brave, and don't deprive me of the little courage that I have got; for if you feel badly at my departure, I feel worse than you. Remember that I am leaving Père Brulet, who has been the best of friends to me, and my poor José, who will hear hard things said of his mother and his home. But my duty bids me do it, and you wouldn't wish me to go against that?"
Brulette cried till evening, and could not help Mariton in anything; but when she saw her hiding her tears as she cooked the supper, the girl flung her arms round her foster-mother's neck and vowed to do as she had taught her; and thereupon set to work with a will.
They sent me to find Joseph, who had forgotten (not for the first time, nor for the last either) that he ought to come home and get his supper like other people.
I found him in a corner all alone, dreaming and gazing at the ground as if his eyes would take root in it. Contrary to his usual custom, he did let me drag a few words out of him, in which, as I thought, there was more annoyance than grief. He was not surprised at having to go out to service, knowing that he was now old enough, and could not do otherwise; but without showing that he had overheard his mother's plans, he complained that nobody loved him or thought him capable of doing good work.
I could not get him to explain himself any farther; and all that evening—for I stayed to say my prayers with him and with Brulette—he seemed to sulk, while Brulette, on the contrary, was full of kindness and caresses for everybody.
Soon after this, Joseph was hired out as a laborer to Père Michel on the estate of Aulnières.
Mariton went to work at an inn called the Bœuf Couronné, kept by Benoit at Saint-Chartier.
Brulette remained with her grandfather, and I with my parents, who had a small property and kept me at home to help them cultivate it.
The day of my first communion affected my spirits. I had made great efforts to bring myself into thoughts that were suitable to my age; and the catechising with Brulette had also changed me. Thoughts of her were always mixed up, I don't know how, with those I tried to give to the good God; and all the while that I was growing in grace as to my behavior, my head was running on follies of love which were beyond her years, and even for mine they were a little ahead of the proper season.
About this time my father took me to the fair at Orval, near Saint-Armand, to sell a brood-mare; and for the first time in my life I was away from home. My mother observed that I did not sleep or eat enough to support my growth, which was faster than customary in our part of the country, and my father thought a little amusement would do me good. But I did not find as much in seeing the world and new places as I should have done six months earlier. I had a foolish, languishing desire to look at the girls, without daring to say a word to them; then I thought of Brulette, whom I fancied I could marry, for the sole reason that she was the only one I was not afraid of, and I reckoned her age and mine over and over again,—which didn't make the time go any faster than the good God had marked it on his clock.
As I rode back on the crupper behind my father on another mare which we had bought at the fair, we met, in a dip of the road, a middle-aged man who was driving a little cart laden with furniture, the which, being drawn by nothing better than a donkey, had stuck fast in the mud, and couldn't go on. The man was beginning to lighten the load by taking off part of it; and my father, seeing this, said to me,—
"Let us get down, and help a neighbor out of his trouble."
The man thanked us; and then, as if speaking to his cart, he said,—
"Come, little one, wake up; I shouldn't like to upset you."
When he said that, I saw, rising from a mattress, a pretty little girl, apparently about fifteen or sixteen years old, who rubbed her eyes, and asked what had happened.
"The road is bad, daughter," said the man, taking her up in his arms. "Come, I can't let you get your feet wet,—for you must know," he added, turning to my father, "she is ill with fever from having grown so fast. Just see what a rampant vine she is for a girl of eleven and a half!"
"True as God," said my father; "she is a fine sprig of a girl, and pretty as the sunshine, though the fever has rather paled her. But that will go off; feed her up, and she won't sell the worse for it."
When my father said this his head was still full of the talk of the horse-dealers at the fair. But seeing that the girl had left her sabots in the cart, and that it would be no easy matter to find them, he said to me,—
"Here! you are strong enough to hold the little girl for a while."
Then, putting her into my arms, he harnessed our mare into the place of the useless donkey, and pulled the cart out of the mud-hole. But there was another quagmire farther on, as my father knew, having gone that road several times; so calling to me to come on, he walked in front with the peasant, who was twisting his ass's ears.
I carried the great girl and looked at her with amazement; for though she was a head taller than Brulette, I could see by her figure that she was no older.
She was white and slender as a wax taper, and her black hair, breaking loose from a little cap made in the fashion of other parts, which had been rumpled as she slept, fell over my breast and almost down to my knees. I had never seen anything so perfect as her pale face, her clear blue eyes fringed with thick lashes, her gentle, tired air, and even a perfectly black mark at one corner of her mouth, which made her beauty something strange and never to be forgotten.
She seemed so young that my heart said nothing to me, though it was close to hers; yet it was not so much her want of years, perhaps, as the languor of her illness that made her appear so childish. I did not speak to her, and walked along without thinking her heavy; but I took pleasure in looking at her, the same pleasure that one feels at the sight of any fine thing, whether it be a girl or a woman, a flower or a fruit.
As we neared the second mud-hole, where her father and mine began, the one to urge his horse, the other to shove the wheel, the little girl spoke to me in a language which made me laugh, for I did not understand a word of it. She was surprised at my surprise, and then she spoke in the language we all speak.
"Don't strain yourself carrying me," she said; "I can walk very well without sabots; I am as much used to it as others."
"Yes, but you are ill," said I; "and I could carry four like you. What country do you belong to? That was a queer language you spoke just now."
"What country?" she said. "I don't belong to any country; I come from the woods, that's all. And you, where do you come from?"
"Ah! my little fairy, if you belong to the woods, I belong to the fields," I answered, laughing.
I was going to question her further, when her father came and took her from me.
"Well," he said, shaking hands with my father, "I thank you, my good people. And you, little one, kiss the kind lad who has carried you like a load of game."
The child did as she was bid; she was not old enough to be coy, and thinking no harm, she made no difficulty. She kissed me on both cheeks, saving: "Thanks to you, my fine carrier;" then, passing into her father's arms, she was laid on her mattress, and seemed about to go to sleep again, without minding the jolts or thinking about the risks of the journey.
"Good-bye again!" said her father, taking me by the knee, to mount me on the mare's crupper. "A fine lad!" he remarked to my father, looking me over, "and as forward for the age you say he is as my little girl is for hers."
"He is a little the worse for it in the way of health," answered my father; "but, God willing, work will soon cure him. Excuse us if we go on before you; we have far to go, and I want to get home before night."
Thereupon my father struck his heels into the mare, which trotted off, while I, looking back, saw the man turn his cart to the right, and go off in another direction.
I was soon thinking of something else, but a recollection of Brulette coming into my head, I remembered the free kisses the little girl had given me, and wondered why Brulette always slapped me when I tried to get a kiss from her; then, as the ride was long, and I had got up before daylight, I fell asleep behind my father, mixing up in my tired head, I'm sure I don't know how, the faces of the two little girls.
My father pinched me to wake up, for he felt my weight on his shoulders, and was afraid I should tumble off. I asked him who those people we had met were.
"Which of them do you mean?" he said, laughing at my sleepy way. "We have met more than five hundred since morning."
"Those with the cart and donkey," I replied.
"Oh!" said he, "well, faith, I don't know; I never thought to ask. Probably they come from either La Marche or Champagne, for they speak with a foreign accent; but I was so busy watching to see if the mare was good at the collar that I didn't take notice of much else. She does pull very well, and didn't hang back at all; I think she will prove serviceable, and that I have not paid too dear for her."
From that time on (the trip having certainly done me good) I got better and better, and took a liking for work. My father gave me first the care of the mare, then that of the garden, and finally that of the field; and, little by little, I came to take pleasure in digging, planting, and harvesting.
By that time my father was a widower, and seemed anxious to let me benefit by the property my mother had left me. So he gave me a share in all our little profits, and wished for nothing so much as to see me turn out a good farmer. It was not long before he found I had a relish for the life; for if youth needs courage to deprive itself of pleasure in the service of others, it needs none at all to work for its own interests, above all when they are in common with those of a worthy family, honest in the division of profits, and agreeing well as to the work.
I still continued rather fond of gossiping and amusing myself on Sundays. But no one blamed me for that at home, because I was a good worker during the week. Such a life brought me health of body and good-humor, and a little more sense in my head than I gave promise of at first. I forgot all the vaporings of love, for nothing keeps you so quiet as to sweat with a spade from sunrise to sunset; and when night comes, those who have had to do with the heavy, rich soil of our parts (the hardest mistress there is), amuse themselves best by going to sleep, to be ready for the morrow.
That is how I peacefully reached the age when it is allowable to think, not of little girls, but of grown-up ones; and at the very first stirring of such ideas, I found my cousin Brulette still fixed, above all others, in my inclinations.
Living alone with her grandfather, Brulette had done her best to be older than her years in sense and courage. But some children are born with the gift or the fate of being always petted and cared for. Mariton's former lodging was let to Mère Lamouche, of Vieilleville, who was poor, and was therefore ready to serve the Brulets as though they paid her wages, hoping thereby to get a hearing when she declared herself unable to pay the rent. It so turned out; and Brulette, finding that the new neighbor helped her, forestalled her, and made things comfortable for her, had time and ease to grow in mind and beauty without much effort of soul or body.
Little Brulette was now called "handsome Brulette," and was much talked of in our country-side; for within the memory of man no prettier girl or finer eyes or slimmer waist or rosier cheek or hair of brighter gold had ever been seen; her hand was like satin, and her foot as dainty as a young lady's.
All that tells you plain enough that my cousin did not work very hard; she never went out in bad weather, took care to shade herself from the sun, did not wash the clothes, and made no use of her limbs to tire them.
Perhaps you will think she was idle? Not at all. She did everything that she could not help doing fast and well. She had too much good sense not to keep order and neatness in the household and take the best care of her grandfather, as in duty bound. Moreover, she liked finery too well not to do a good bit of sewing; but as to hard work, she never so much as heard of it. There was no occasion that she should, and therefore it can't be said she was to blame.
There are some families where toil and nothing else comes early to warn young people that life is not so much a question of amusement in this low world as of earning a living among their fellows. But in Père Brulet's home there was little to do to make both ends meet. The old man was only in the seventies, and being a good workman, very clever at cutting stone (which, you know, is quite a science in these parts), steady, and much in demand by every one, he earned a good living; and, thanks to the fact of being a widower with no one to support but his granddaughter, he had laid by quite a little sum against illness or accident. Fortunately he kept his health, so that, without riches, he was never in want.
My father, however, declared that Brulette loved ease and comfort too well; meaning by that, that she might have to come down to other things when it was time for her to marry. He agreed with me that she was as sweet and amiable in her ways as in her person; but he would not encourage me to court her in marriage. She was too poor, he said, to be a lady, and he often declared that a wife should be either rich or very full of energy. "At first sight, I like one as well as the other," he would say; "though perhaps, on second thoughts, I would rather have the energy than the money. But Brulette has not enough of either to tempt a wise man."
I knew my father was right; but my cousin's sweet eyes and gentle speech had more influence over me than he could have, and over other young fellows too,—for you must know that I was not the only one. From the time she was fifteen she was surrounded with striplings like me, whom she knew how to restrain and order about as she had done in her childish days. You might say she was born proud, and knew her value long before compliments had given her an idea of it. She loved praise and submission, and while she never allowed any one to make free with her, she was very willing they should love her timidly. I, like a good many others, was filled with the strongest desire to please her, and at the same time I was often annoyed to find myself only one of a crowd.
Two of us, however, were privileged to talk to her rather more intimately, and to walk home with her when we met at a dance, or after church. I mean Joseph Picot and I. But we gained little or nothing by that; and perhaps, without saying so, we laid the blame to each other.
Joseph was still on the farm at Aulnières, about a mile and a half from Brulette's house, and half that distance from mine. He was a mere laborer. Though he was not really handsome, some, who did not object to a melancholy face, might think him so. His face was lean and yellow, and his brown hair, falling straight from his head and down his cheeks, made him even more puny in appearance. Nevertheless, he was not ill-made, nor ungraceful in body, and there was something in his closed jaw which always seemed to me the reverse of weakness. He was thought ill because he moved slowly and had none of the gayety of youth; but seeing him often, as I did, I knew it was his nature to be so, and that he really was not suffering at all.
He was, however, a very poor laborer of the soil, not over careful with cattle, and far from agreeable in temper. His wages were the lowest that were ever paid to a plough-boy, and people were surprised that his master still kept him; for nothing prospered with him, either in the stable or the fields, and he was so sullen when reproved that no one could do anything with him. But Père Michel declared that he never gave any angry answer, and he preferred those who submitted without a word, even if they did have sulky looks, to those who deceived you with flattery.
His faithfulness and the contempt he showed at all times for injustice made his master respect him, though he often remarked what a pity it was that an honest, upright lad had such soft muscles and a mind so indifferent to his work. But he kept him for what he was worth, from habit, and also out of consideration for Père Brulet, who was one of Père Michel's earliest friends.
In what I have said of Joseph you will readily see that he could not please the girls. Indeed, they never looked at him, except to wonder why they never caught his eye, which was large and clear as an owl's and never seemed to see anything.
Yet I was always jealous of him, because Brulette paid him more attention than she gave to any one else, and obliged me to do the same. She no longer lectured him, and openly accepted his temper as God made it, without getting angry or seeming at all annoyed. She forgave him his want of gallantry, and even politeness,—two things which she exacted from the rest of us. He might do all sorts of stupid things,—such as sit down on a chair if she left it for a moment, and oblige her to find another; or neglect to pick up her balls of wool when they rolled away; or break a bodkin or some other sewing utensil,—he might do all such things, and she would never say an impatient word to him; whereas she scolded and ridiculed me if I did a tenth part of them.
Then, she took care of him as if he were a brother. She kept a bit of meat put by for him when he came to see her, and made him eat it whether he was hungry or not, telling him he ought to strengthen his stomach and make blood. She had an eye to his clothes just like Mariton, and even took upon herself to make him new ones, saying that his mother had not time to cut and sew them. Sometimes she would lead her cattle to pasture over where he was at work, and talked to him; though he talked very little, and very badly when he tried to do so.
Besides all this, she would not allow any one to treat him with contempt, or to make fun of his melancholy face and his staring eyes. To all such remarks she replied that his health was not good; also that he was not more stupid than other people; if he talked little, it was not that he did not think; and, in short, that it was better to be silent than to talk a great deal with nothing to say.
Sometimes I was tempted to contradict her; but she quickly cut me short by saying,—
"You must have a very bad heart, Tiennet, to abandon that poor lad to the jeers of others, instead of defending him when they torment him. I thought better of you than that."
Then of course I did her will, and defended Joseph; though for my part I could not see what illness or affliction he had, unless laziness and distrust were infirmities of nature,—which might be possible; though it certainly seemed to me in the power of man to subdue them.
On his side, Joseph, without showing an aversion for me, treated me just as coldly as he did the rest, and never appeared to remember the assistance he got from me in his various encounters. Whether he cared for Brulette, like all the others, or whether he cared only for himself, he smiled in a strange manner and with an air of contempt whenever she gave me the most trifling mark of friendship.
One day, when he had pushed the thing so far as to shrug his shoulders, I resolved to have an explanation with him,—as quietly as possible, so as not to displease my cousin, but frankly enough to make him feel that if I put up with him in her presence with great patience, I expected him to treat me in the same way. But as on that occasion a number of Brulette's other lovers were present, I put off doing this until the first time I should find him alone. Accordingly, I went the next day to join him in a field where he was at work.
I was a good deal surprised to find Brulette with him, sitting on the roots of a big tree by the side of a ditch, where he was supposed to be cutting brush to make pegs. But in fact he was cutting nothing at all; though by way of work he was whittling something which he quickly put in his pocket as soon as he saw me, closing his knife and beginning to talk as if I had been his master and had caught him in a fault, or as if he had been saying secret things to my cousin which I had interrupted.
I was so troubled and vexed that I was going away without a word, when Brulette called to me, and beginning to knit (for she too had laid aside her work while talking to him), she told me to sit down beside her.
It struck me it was only a sop to soothe my vexation, so I refused, saying that the weather was not pleasant enough to sit about in ditches. And truly, though not cold, it was very damp; the thaw had made the brook full and the grass muddy. There was still a little snow in the furrows, and the wind was disagreeable. According to my notions, Brulette must have thought Joseph very interesting to make her lead her flock out there in such weather—she who so often and so readily turned them over to the care of her neighbor.
"José," said Brulette, "our friend Tiennet is sulky because he sees we have a secret between us. Won't you let me tell it to him? His advice will do no harm, and he will tell you just what he thinks of your idea."
"He!" said Joseph, beginning to shrug his shoulders just as had done the night before.
"Does your back itch whenever you see me?" I said to him, spitefully. "I can scratch you in a way that will cure you once for all."
He looked at me from under his lids as if ready to bite me; but Brulette touched him gently on the shoulder with the end of her distaff, and calling him to her, she whispered in his ear.
"No, no!" he answered, without taking the trouble to hide his answer. "Tiennet is no good at all to advise me,—he knows no more than your goat; and if you tell him the least thing, I won't tell you anything more."
Thereupon he picked up his shears and his chopper, and went to work at some distance.
"There!" said Brulette, rising to call in her flock, "now he is cross. But never mind, Tiennet, it is nothing serious,—I know his fancies; there is nothing to be done, and indeed the best way is to let him alone. He's a lad who has had a bee in his bonnet ever since he came into the world. He doesn't know how to express what he feels, and he really can't. It is better, therefore, to leave him to himself; for if one worries him with questions, he only cries, and then we have hurt his feelings for nothing."
"It is my opinion, though," I said to Brulette, "that you know how to make him confess himself."
"I was mistaken," she answered; "I thought he had some much worse trouble. It would make you laugh if I could tell you what the trouble really is; but as he chooses to tell no one but me, let us think no more about it."
"If it is such a little thing," I persisted, "you would not take so much interest in it."
"Do you think I take too much?" she said. "Don't I owe it to the woman who brought him into the world and who brought me up with more care and kindness than she gave to her own child?"
"That's a good reason, Brulette. If it is Mariton you love in her son, very good; in that case, I wish Mariton was my mother,—it would be better for me than being your cousin."
"Leave that sort of nonsense to my other sweethearts," answered Brulette, blushing a little. But no compliments ever came amiss to her, though she pretended to laugh at them.
As we left the fields just opposite to my house she came in with me to say good-evening to my sister.
But my sister was out, and Brulette could not wait, because her sheep were in the road. In order to keep her a moment, I bethought me of taking off her sabots, to remove the lumps of snow, and drying them. And so, holding her as it were by the paws,—for she was obliged to sit down while she waited for me to finish,—I tried to tell her, better than I had ever yet dared to do, the trouble my love for her was piling up in my heart.
But there! see the devilish thing,—I couldn't get out the crowning word of it. I managed the second and the third, but the first wouldn't come. My forehead was sweating. The girl could have helped me out, if she only would, for she knew the tune of my song well enough; others had sung it to her already. But with Brulette, one had to have patience and discretion; and though I was not altogether new at gallant speeches, those I had exchanged with others who were less difficult than Brulette (just by way of getting my hand in) had taught me nothing that was proper to say to a high-priced young girl like my cousin.
All that I could manage was to hark back to the subject of her favorite, Joseph. At first she laughed; then, little by little, seeing that I was seriously finding fault with him, she became herself serious. "Let the poor lad alone," she said; "he is much to be pitied."
"But why and wherefore? Is he consumptive, or crazy, that you are so afraid of his being meddled with?"
"He is worse than that," answered Brulette; "he is an egotist."
"Egotist" was one of the curate's words which Brulette had picked up, though it was not used among us in my day. Brulette had a wonderful memory; and that was how she sometimes came out with words which I might have recollected too, only I did not, and consequently I could not understand them.
I was too shy to ask her for an explanation and admit my ignorance. Besides, I imagined it was a mortal illness; and I felt that such a great affliction convicted me of injustice. I begged Brulette's pardon for having annoyed her, adding,—
"If I had known what you tell me sooner, I shouldn't have felt any bitterness or rancor for the poor fellow."
"How came you never to notice it?" she said. "Don't you see how he makes every one give way to him and oblige him, without ever dreaming of thanking them; how the least neglect affronts him, and the slightest joke angers him; how he sulks and suffers about things nobody else would ever notice; and how one must put one's best self into a friendship with him without his ever comprehending that it is not his due, but an offering made to God of love to our neighbor?"
"Is that the effect of illness?" I asked, a little puzzled by Brulette's explanation.
"Isn't it the very worst thing he can have in his heart?" she replied.
"Does his mother know he has something the matter with his heart?"
"She guesses at it; but, you see, I can't talk to her about it for fear of grieving her."
"Has no one tried to cure him?"
"I have done, and I mean to do, my best," she answered, continuing a topic on which we didn't understand each other; "but I think my way of managing him only makes him worse."
"It is true," I said, after reflecting awhile, "that the fellow always did have something queer about him. My grandmother, who is dead,—and you know how she piqued herself on foretelling the future,—said he had misfortune written on his face; that he was doomed to live in misery or to die in the flower of his age, because of a line he has on his forehead. Ever since then, I declare to you that when Joseph is gloomy I see that line of ill-luck, though I never knew where my grandmother saw it. At such times I'm afraid of him, or rather of his fate, and I feel led to spare him blame and annoyance as if he was not long for this world."
"Bah!" said Brulette, laughing, "nothing but my great-aunt's fancies! I remember them very well. Didn't she also tell you that light eyes, like Joseph's, can see spirits and hidden things? As for me, I don't believe a word of it, neither do I think he is in danger of dying. People live a long time with a mind like his; they take their comfort in worrying others, though perhaps, while threatening to die, they will live to bury all about them."
I could not understand what she said, and I was going to question her further, when she asked for her sabots and slipped her feet easily into them, though they were so small I couldn't get my hand in. Then, calling to her dog and shortening her petticoat, she left me, quite anxious and puzzled by all she said, and as little advanced as ever in my courtship.
The following Sunday, as she was starting for mass at Saint-Chartier, where she liked better to go than to our own parish church, because there was dancing in the market-place between mass and vespers, I asked if I could go with her.
"No," she said. "I am going with my grandfather; and he does not like a crowd of sweethearts after me along the roads."
"I am not a crowd of sweethearts," I said. "I am your cousin, and my uncle never wanted me out of his way."
"Well, keep out of mine now," she said,—"only for to-day. My father and I want to talk with José, who is in the house and is going to mass with us."
"Then he has come to propose marriage; and you are glad enough to listen to him."
"Are you crazy, Tiennet? After all I told you about José!"
"You told me he had an illness that would make him live longer than other people; and I don't see what there is in that to quiet me."
"Quiet you for what?" exclaimed Brulette, astonished. "What illness? Where are your wits? Upon my word, I think all the men are crazy!"
Then, taking her grandfather's arm, who just then came out of the house with José, she started, as light as a feather and gay as a fawn, while my good uncle, who thought there was nothing like her, smiled at the passers-by as much as to say, "You have no such girl as that to show!"
I followed them at a distance, to see if Joseph drew any closer to her on the way, and whether she took his arm, and whether the old man left them together. Nothing of the kind. Joseph walked all the time at my uncle's left, and Brulette on his right, and they seemed to be talking gravely.
After the service I asked Brulette to dance with me.
"Oh, you are too late!" she said; "I have promised at least fifteen dances. You must come back about vesper time."
This annoyance did not include Joseph, for he never danced; and to avoid seeing Brulette surrounded by her other swains, I followed him into the inn of the "Bœuf Couronné," where he went to see his mother, and I to kill time with a few friends.
I was rather a frequenter of wine-shops, as I have already told you,—not because of the bottle, which never got the better of my senses, but from a liking for company and talk and songs. I found several lads and lasses whom I knew and with whom I sat down to table, while Joseph sat in a corner, not drinking a drop or saying a word,—sitting there to please his mother, who liked to look at him and throw him a word now and then as she passed and repassed. I don't know if it ever occurred to Joseph to help her in the hard work of serving so many people, but Benoit wouldn't have allowed such an absent-minded fellow to stumble about among his dishes and bottles.
You have heard tell of the late Benoit? He was a fat man with a topping air, rather rough in speech, but a good liver and a fine talker when occasion served. He was upright enough to treat Mariton with the respect she deserved; for she was, to tell the truth, the queen of servants, and Benoit's house had never had so much custom as while she reigned over it.
The thing Père Brulet warned her of never happened. The danger of the business cured her of coquetry, and she kept her own person as safe as she did the property of her master. The truth is, it was chiefly for her son's sake that she had brought herself down to harder work and greater discretion than was natural to her. In that she was seen to be so good a mother that instead of losing the respect of others, she had gained more since she served at the inn; and that's a thing which seldom happens in our country villages,—nor elsewhere, as I've heard tell.
Seeing that Joseph was paler and gloomier than usual, the thought of what my grandmother had said of him, together with the illness (very queer, it seemed to me) which Brulette imputed to him, somehow struck my mind and touched my heart. No doubt he was still angry with me for the harsh words I had used to him. I wanted to make him forget them, and to force him to sit at our table, thinking I could unawares make him a trifle drunk; for, like others of my age, I thought the fumes of a little good white wine a sovereign cure for low spirits.
Joseph, who paid little attention to what was going on around him, let us fill his glass and nudge his elbow so often that any one but he would soon have felt the effects. Those who were inciting him to drink, and thoughtlessly setting him the example, soon had too much; but I, who wanted my legs for the dance, stopped short as soon as I felt that I had had enough. Joseph fell into a deep cogitation, leaned his two elbows on the table, and seemed to me neither brighter nor duller than he was before.
No one paid any attention to him; everybody laughed and chattered on their own account. Some began to sing, just as folks sing when they have been drinking, each in his own key and his own time, one fellow trolling his chorus beside another who trolls his, the whole together making a racket fit to split your head, while the whole company laughed and shouted so that nobody could hear anything at all.
Joseph sat still without flinching, and looked at us in his staring way for quite a time. Then he got up and went away, without saying anything.
I thought he might be ill, and I followed him. But he walked straight and fast, like a man who was none the worse for wine; and he went so far up the slope of the hill above the town of Saint-Chartier that I lost sight of time, and came back again, for fear I should miss my dance with Brulette.
She danced so prettily, my dear Brulette, that every eye was upon her. She adored dancing and dress and compliments, but she never encouraged any one to make serious love to her; and when the bell rang for vespers, she would walk away, dignified and serious, into church, where she certainly prayed a little, though she never forgot that all eyes were on her.
As for me, I remembered that I had not paid my score at the Bœuf Couronné, and I went back to settle with Mariton, who took occasion to ask me where her son had gone.
"You made him drink," she said; "and that's not his habit. You might at least not have let him wander off alone; accidents happen so easily."
I went back to the slope and followed the road Joseph had taken, inquiring for him as I went along, but could hear nothing except that he had been seen to pass, and had not returned. The road led me to the right of the forest, and I went in to question the forester, whose house, a very ancient building, stands at the top of a large tract of heathland lying on the hillside. It is a melancholy place, though you can see from there to a great distance; and nothing grows there at the edge of the oak-copses but brake and furze.
The forester of those days was Jarvois, a relation of mine, born in Verneuil. As soon as he saw me, and because I did not often walk that way, he was so friendly and hospitable that I could not get away.
"Your comrade, Joseph, was here about an hour ago," he said, "and asked if the charcoal-burners were in the woods; his master probably told him to inquire. He spoke clear enough and was steady on his legs, and he went on up to the big oak; you need not be uneasy. And now you are here, you must drink a bottle with me, and wait till my wife comes back with the cows, for she will be hurt if you go away without seeing her."
Thinking there was no reason to worry, I stayed with my relations till sunset. It was about the middle of February; and when it got to be nearly dark I said good-night, and took the upper road, intending to cross to Verneuil and go home by the straight road, without returning to Saint-Chartier, where I had nothing further to do.
My relative explained the road, as I had never been in the forest more than once or twice in my life. You know that in these parts we seldom go far from home, especially those of us who till the ground, and keep near our dwellings like chicks round a coop.
So, in spite of a warning, I kept too far to the left; and instead of striking a great avenue of oaks, I got among the birches, at least a mile and a half from where I ought to have been.
The night was dark, and I could not see a thing; for in those days the forest of Saint-Chartier was still a fine one,—not as to size, for it was never very large, but from the age of the trees, which allowed no light from the sky to get through them. What it thus gained in grandeur and greenery it made you pay for in other ways. Below it was all roots and brambles, sunken paths and gullies full of spongy black mud, out of which you could hardly draw your feet, and where you sank knee-deep if you got even a little way off the track. Presently, getting lost in the forest and scratched and muddied in the opens, I began to curse the luckless time and the luckless place.
After struggling and wading till I was overheated, though the night was chilly, I got among some dry brake which were up to my chin; and looking straight before me, I saw in the gray of the night something like a huge black mass in the middle of an open tract. I felt sure it was the big oak, and that I had reached the end of the forest. I had never seen the tree, but I had heard tell of it, for it was famous as one of the oldest in the country; and from the talk of others I knew pretty well how it was shaped. You must surely have seen it. It is a gnarled tree, topped in its youth by some accident so that it grew in breadth and thickness; its foliage, shrivelled by the winter, still clung to it, and it stood up there like a rock looking to heaven.
I was about to go towards it, thinking I should find the path, which made a straight line through the woods, when I heard a sound of music that was something like bagpipes, but so loud you might think it thunder.
Don't ask me why a thing which ought to have comforted me, by showing the presence of a human being, did actually frighten me like a child. I must honestly tell you that in spite of my nineteen years and a good pair of fists, I had not felt easy after I found I had lost my way. It was not because wolves do come down sometimes into that forest from the great woods of Saint-Aoust that I lost heart, nor yet that I feared any evil-intentioned Christian; but I was chilled through with the kind of fear that you can't explain to your own self, because you don't really know the cause of it. The dark night; the wintry fog; a jumble of noises heard in the woods, with others coming from the plain; a crowd of foolish stories which you have heard, and which now start up in your head; and finally the idea of being all alone far from your own belongings,—there's enough in all that to upset your mind when you are young, and, indeed, when you are old.
You can laugh at me if you like; but that music, in that lonely place, seemed to me devilish. It was too loud and strong to be natural, and the tune was so sad and strange that it was not like any other known music on this Christian earth. I quickened my steps; then I stopped, amazed at another sound. While the music clashed on one side, a bell chimed on the other; and the two sounds came at me, as if to prevent me from going forward or back.
I jumped to one side and hid in the brake; and as I did so, there was a flash of light about four feet from me, and I saw a large black animal, that I couldn't make out distinctly, spring up and disappear at a run.
Instantly from all parts of the undergrowth a crowd of the same animals sprang out, stamping, and running towards the bell and towards the music, which now seemed to be getting nearer to each other. There might have been two hundred of these animals, but I saw at least thirty thousand; for terror got hold of me, and I began to see sparks and white specks in my eyes, such as fear produces in those who can't defend themselves.
I don't know whose legs carried me to the oak; I seemed to have none of my own. But I got there, quite astonished to have crossed that bit of ground like a whirlwind; and when I recovered breath I heard nothing, neither far nor near, and could see nothing under the tree nor yet in the brake, and was not quite sure that I hadn't dreamed a pandemonium of crazy music and evil beasts.
I began to look about me and find out where I was. The oak-branches overhung a large piece of grassy ground; it was so dark under them that I could not see my feet, and I stumbled over a big root and fell, hands forward, upon the body of a man who was lying there as if asleep or dead. I don't know what fear made me say or shout, but at any rate my voice was recognized, and that of Joseph replied, saying,—
"Is that you, Tiennet? What are you doing here at this time of night?"
"And you yourself, what are you doing, old fellow?" I replied, much pleased and comforted to have found him. "I have looked everywhere for you. Your mother was worrying, and I hoped you had got back to her long ago."
"I had business over here," he replied, "and before starting back I wanted to rest, that's all."
"Were not you afraid of being here alone at night in this hideous, gloomy place?"
"Afraid of what? Why should I be afraid, Tiennet? I don't understand you."
I was ashamed to confess what a fool I had been. Still, I did venture to ask if he hadn't seen people and animals in the open.
"Yes, yes," he said, "I have seen plenty of animals, and people too; but they are not mischievous, and we can go away together without their harming us."