"Somewhere in France."My dear Girl,—In a couple of hours we are going over the parapet to reach the German lines or gain oblivion—or worse. All around me the men I have worked with, slept with, fought with, are writing to, or thinking of, some loved one at home. I do not know whether the love you once felt for me has died or not, but it was once strong enough to hurt me as no one had ever done before—to tear my soul out to where I could see its rottenness with my own eyes. I could not live with myself after that, and as you must have heard, for I believe it was a drawing-room jest for some time, I joined a battalion composed almost entirely of men from the factories, the workshops, and the streets."It was partly a spirit of bravado made me do it, and partly a desire to wrestle with truth. I cannot say how hard it was at first to endure their company, their incessant, meaningless profanity. I hated every one of them. To salute an officer in the street caused me such humiliation that I thought of desertion a dozen times. From my contempt of my fellow-soldiers to an understanding of their nobility has been a hard, cruel road to travel; but I have traveled it, and I think that somewhere on the road there is a cross whereon my pride was crucified. Vera, my prayer is no longer that of the Pharisee, but of the Publican. I was offered a commission; I was urged to join the signalers or the machine-gun section, because there I should find men more after my own stamp; but I refused—the memory of your words made me stick with the men I started with."I have found them crude, uneducated, unambitious, but true as steel, and asking no better reward for their heroism than that their 'missus and kids' will be looked after at home. I tell you, Vera, that when the war is over we shall have to realize that it is not only the consumptive and the imbecile that deserve care and thought. There is a grandeur, a manhood, in the ordinary, unlovely, unkempt man of the streets that our civilization has failed to bring out, but war has done it. So much has war given to us; so much has peace failed to give."Life has become a riddle to me, still fascinating, but fascinatingly puzzling. Perhaps I shall find the answer in No Man's Land."Good-bye, dear girl. Don't think from the tone of my letter that I have forgotten how to smile (this is where real humor is found, for humor was always a twin to tragedy). But I am forgetting how to scoff. I suppose, though, that I haven't changed beyond recognition, for I believe behind my back I am called 'The Duke.'"Like my comrades, I have written to a loved one at home."I trust, Vera, that it isau revoir."Dennis."D. O. Montague, Pte. No. 67,895,"Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F."
"Somewhere in France.
"My dear Girl,—In a couple of hours we are going over the parapet to reach the German lines or gain oblivion—or worse. All around me the men I have worked with, slept with, fought with, are writing to, or thinking of, some loved one at home. I do not know whether the love you once felt for me has died or not, but it was once strong enough to hurt me as no one had ever done before—to tear my soul out to where I could see its rottenness with my own eyes. I could not live with myself after that, and as you must have heard, for I believe it was a drawing-room jest for some time, I joined a battalion composed almost entirely of men from the factories, the workshops, and the streets.
"It was partly a spirit of bravado made me do it, and partly a desire to wrestle with truth. I cannot say how hard it was at first to endure their company, their incessant, meaningless profanity. I hated every one of them. To salute an officer in the street caused me such humiliation that I thought of desertion a dozen times. From my contempt of my fellow-soldiers to an understanding of their nobility has been a hard, cruel road to travel; but I have traveled it, and I think that somewhere on the road there is a cross whereon my pride was crucified. Vera, my prayer is no longer that of the Pharisee, but of the Publican. I was offered a commission; I was urged to join the signalers or the machine-gun section, because there I should find men more after my own stamp; but I refused—the memory of your words made me stick with the men I started with.
"I have found them crude, uneducated, unambitious, but true as steel, and asking no better reward for their heroism than that their 'missus and kids' will be looked after at home. I tell you, Vera, that when the war is over we shall have to realize that it is not only the consumptive and the imbecile that deserve care and thought. There is a grandeur, a manhood, in the ordinary, unlovely, unkempt man of the streets that our civilization has failed to bring out, but war has done it. So much has war given to us; so much has peace failed to give.
"Life has become a riddle to me, still fascinating, but fascinatingly puzzling. Perhaps I shall find the answer in No Man's Land.
"Good-bye, dear girl. Don't think from the tone of my letter that I have forgotten how to smile (this is where real humor is found, for humor was always a twin to tragedy). But I am forgetting how to scoff. I suppose, though, that I haven't changed beyond recognition, for I believe behind my back I am called 'The Duke.'
"Like my comrades, I have written to a loved one at home.
"I trust, Vera, that it isau revoir.
"Dennis.
"D. O. Montague, Pte. No. 67,895,"Brindle's Battalion, C.E.F."
IX
"Four minutes!" A subaltern, who had reached the Brindle's Battalion only the night before, stood with his back to the parapet, his wrist turned so that he could study the face of his watch. Half-a-dozen rifles spat at the German trench opposite. The attack was to be a surprise, without preliminary artillery fire.
"Three minutes!" There was a slight catch in the lieutenant's voice as he watched the ominous course of the hand of his watch ticking off the seconds. Dennis Montague turned to look at him, wondering where he had seen him before, and idly conjecturing how he had earned that little splash of color on his breast.
A signaler looked up from his phone. "O.C. wants to know if everything is ready, sir."
"Two minutes! Has every man his gas-helmet, water-bottle, iron ration? Right. Tell the O.C. everything's O.K."
There was a coarse jest from a grizzled corporal; a few laughed nervously. A little chap, who had lied about his age, caught his breath in a sob he could not stifle. The young officer, who was beside him, reached out his hand and patted the lad's shoulder.
"One minute!" Every man crouched for the spring—there was a mumbled prayer—a curse—a laugh. Montague took a deep, quivering breath, and his trembling hand felt for the bayonet-stud to see that it was firm.
"Come on, Brindles! Give 'em hell!" The subaltern leaped to the parapet, stood silhouetted a moment against the dull, cloudy sky, and, without a word, fell back into the trench—a corpse. And in that moment Montague remembered him. He was the "decent enough fellow"—"lacking in initiative."
Cursing, shouting, laughing, the men scrambled over the breastwork, and were met by a torrent of machine-gun fire that swept through their ranks with pitiless accuracy.
"Something's wrong!" yelled Major Watson from the center. "They knew we were coming;" and he whirled around twice and dropped in his tracks. Montague leaped forward with a hoarse, inarticulate shout, when he felt a blow on his arm as though it had been struck by a red-hot iron. He fell, but rose immediately, madly excited, muttering words that meant nothing. The charge had stopped halfway, and all about him his comrades stood irresolute, desperate, unable to advance, determined not to retreat.
"Come on," shrieked the adjutant, "for God's sake!" And he fell, choking, vomiting blood, with a bullet in his throat.
Without an officer left, the men looked wildly about, the bullets spitting around them and taking their steady, merciless toll. With a great feeling of ecstasy, Montague staggered to the front.
"Steady, the Brindles!" he yelled hoarsely. "Shake out the line to the left—cold steel, Brindles! Come on!"
"Follow the Duke!" roared a dozen voices; and they hurled themselves forward.
They hacked their way into the trench, but their triumph was short-lived. Things had gone badly on the left, and the signal to retire flashed along the line. With horrible blaspheming, the Brindles gave up their trench and started back for their own line. When he was half-way across a bullet struck Montague in the shoulder, then another in the thigh, and he sank to the ground unconscious.
When he awoke the moonlight was streaming over the stricken field. He bit his lip to keep from crying out at the sudden spasm of pain in his shoulder, and then something he saw almost stopped the beating of his heart. A figure was slowly crawling towards him, inch by inch, but steadily, ominously coming nearer with every moment. His left arm was helpless, and he tried to reach for his bayonet by turning over.
"Pard, are you dead?"
Never did sounds of sweetest music fall more gratefully on human ears than the words uttered by Private Waller on the night of October 16, 1916, on No Man's Land, Somewhere in France.
"Thank God!" cried Montague, his voice weak and quavering. "Waller—old—boy."
"Damn!" muttered Private Waller. The Germans, with customary fiendishness, were searching the ground with rifle-fire to prevent any attempt at rescue. "Are you much hurt, pard?"
"I'm used up pretty bad," Montague answered weakly, and in incorrect English. Things change in No Man's Land.
"I'm the third as has come after you," whispered Waller; "Sykes and Thompson got theirs."
"Coming—for me?" Montague's voice trailed off into a querulous sob.
"Sure—those of us as got back shook hands on it that we'd get the Duke back dead or alive."
Montague tried to speak, but only two scalding tears slowly trickled down his cheeks. He was weak from loss of blood, and he was learning a bitter lesson in the moonlight on the stricken field.
"I'll hoist you up as easy as I can," whispered Private Waller eagerly, "and I'll sort of crawl; and if they spot us, I'll let you down easy. Come on, pard."
Fifty yards—that was all—but fifty yards of unspeakable agony. The blood flowed again from Dennis's wounds and matted over Waller's hair. A dozen times he would have fainted, but he grit his teeth, and crawling, grasping, falling, Waller took him to the edge of the trench. And then a bullet caught the little man, and he dropped.
"Good-bye, pard," he said.
So died Private W. Waller, of His Majesty's Canadian Expeditionary Force.
X
Almost a year later, a one-armed man was walking along a quiet street in the northern suburbs of a great Canadian city. He paused at a pretty little cottage that nestled in a well-kept garden to speak to a young woman whose black dress was mute testimony to her tragic bereavement.
"'Ow can I ever thank you, Mr. Montague," she said, "for giving me this cottage and going guardian to little 'Arry? And your wife, too, is that kind and beautiful that after she comes—and she is in and out nearly hevery day—I feel as if an angel had been 'ere. Well, if here ain't little 'Arry with his face all dirty!"
A sturdy urchin stumbled forward, and in some way the one-armed man hoisted him to his shoulder.
"Hello, pard!" said Montague.
The little chap chuckled and pulled at his hat.
"I often wonders," said the little mother, "why you always calls him 'pard.' Bill used to call you his pard, but I knew all along you wasn't. You was a gentleman, Mr. Montague."
"Mrs. Waller," said Montague, and his voice was very low and soft, "I lay one night, wounded and dying, on No Man's Land. Your husband came for me, and he called me 'pard,' and he died for me. Perhaps you may understand a little of—what it means to me now."
Tears, bitter tears, the heritage of war. Mrs. Waller wept silently, and Montague's eyes looked past the garden, past the countryside, and saw neither trees nor houses, but a strip of land guarded by wire entanglements, and two lines of trenches where men lived, and laughed, and learned, and died.
A little later the same one-armed man stood at a gate that gave entrance to a splendid lawn. It was his home, and as he stood for a moment drinking in the calm and peace of Nature at sundown, a girl emerged from the house and came towards him with outstretched hands.
Wonderfully happy, maimed, but filled with deep content, Dennis Montague, the man who had scoffed, went forward to meet his wife, the girl who had had the courage to hurt the thing she loved. And the deepening rays of the setting sun spread a golden carpet for them to walk upon.
THE AIRY PRINCE
I
On a hillock that overlooked a mill-stream in Picardy, a girl of sixteen was lying, face downwards, reading a book. The noise of the water tumbling over the chute was a song to which her ears had grown accustomed, but more than once she looked up as the October wind rose and fell in a chromatic whine. A dark, thickening cloud crept sullenly towards the earth, throwing its shadow on her book.
She gazed up at it and sighed.
A black cat, his green eyes glowing suspiciously in the fading light, stalked from the mill-house and furtively watched a wanton leaf that was flirting hilariously with the autumn breeze, until, still coquetting, it was caught by the stream and carried to destruction.
The cat's teeth showed for a moment in a sinister grin. Cautiously measuring each step, he climbed to the top of the hillock, crouched suspiciously as a blade of grass moved in the wind, then scampered boldly up to the girl and settled ostentatiously upon the open pages of the book, for a siesta.
"Tiens!" The girl started, laughingly caught the offender by the ear, and pulled him to one side. "Louis, you have very bad manners," she said, speaking in French. "You come so, without asking permission, and you go to sleep onThe Fairy Prince. Wake up, Louis! To you I am speaking."
The cat opened his eyes, bent them on her with a reproving look, and slowly closed them once more.
"Louis! Wake up—listen! I will read to youThe Fairy Prince, and if you go to sleep I'll have you gr-r-r-r-ound into black flour. See there now!"
Louis scratched his ear with a hind paw, rubbed his nose with a fore one, sneezed, opened his eyes to their widest, and generally indicated that he was thoroughly awake—in fact, was not likely ever to sleep again in this world. His little mistress gathered her shawl more tightly about her shoulders, and, crossing one foot over the other, shifted her position to secure the acme of comfort.
"Now then, my friend, attention! This is all about a little girl—like me, Louis, only she was pretty. Tell me, Louis, am I pretty, eh? Stop yawning when I ask you a question. You sleep almost all day and all night, and when you do wake up—you yawn. Pouf! Such laziness! So—this is the story. This little girl, she lived like me in a house away, ever so far away, from everything, and she was very unhappy. You understand, Louis, she wassolonesome. And every night she would cry herself to sleep—as I do sometimes, because—because——Wake up, you wicked cat!"
The feline culprit stretched his paws and sat up rigidly, like a slumbering worshiper in church who has been detected in the act, but tries to indicate that he has merely been lost in contemplation of the preacher's theme. The girl frowned at Louis, and, laughing gaily, rubbed her cheek against his head.
Her laugh had hardly ended when, as her ear caught the note of melancholy in the wind, she looked up, and her face, which had hovered a moment before between a frown and a smile, was shadowed by a musing expression that left her eyes dreamy and her lips drooping in the slightest and most sensitive of curves. Her dark hair, rippling into curls, fell back from a forehead whose fullness and whiteness added to the spiritual innocence of her countenance. Without being faultless, her face had an elusive mobility of expression that altered with each mood as swiftly as the surface of a pool lying exposed to the caprices of an April morning.
"Is it not a pretty story, Louis?" Of a sudden the filmy dreaminess of her eyes had lifted, and their dark-brown depths sparkled with life. "I am so glad at the convent they made me learn to read. But it is dreadfully difficult, my friend—there are such big words, you see. Well, Louis, this little girl went one day for a walk to the top of a hill—but you shall hear exactly how it is."
She carefully found the place in the book, and, with a finger following each line in case she should miss any of it, proceeded to read in that ecstatic and unreal style of voice inevitable to young people when uttering other thoughts than their own.
"'… Reaching the top of the hill, the most beautiful little girl in the world, whose eyes were brighter than stars, and whose lips were redder than the heart of a rose' (like me, Louis—yes?) 'sat down on a fallen tree and started to sing a song which she had learned from a solitary shepherd near her home.'—It does not say, Louis, but I think, perhaps, the music goes like this:
"'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.Si quelqu'un près….
"'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.Si quelqu'un près….
"'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.
Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?
Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,
Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.
Si quelqu'un près….
"'And just then she saw a handsome cavalier approaching on foot.' (Is it not exciting, Louis?) 'He was tall and young, and was the bravest soldier in all France. He was so brave and handsome that every one called him "The Fairy Prince"'—Listen, Louis, to the wind."
The lowering clouds threw black shadows over the fields; the hurrying water of the mill-stream turned the color of ink as it made, shudderingly, for the fall of the chute. Through the ominous rise and fall of the October wind came the sound of an aeroplane in the clouds, to be lost a moment later in a boisterous rush of wind that swept the girl's tresses.
"Come, Louis, under my shawl—so! It is cold, is it not? As soon as we finish this part of the story, we shall go in by the stove and work until bed-time, then…. Do you ever dream, Louis?"
The black cat opened one green eye and closed it with the solemnity of an all-understanding wink.
"I often dream, my cat"—again the wistfulness lingered about her face—"and always it is of the world that is past the village…. Is it that I must stay here and never, never, see that world but when I dream?Voyons—what has all this to do with the Fairy Prince? I continue, Louis: 'As soon as the handsome cavalier saw the loveliest little girl in all the country, he came towards her….'"
The droning sound grew louder. She looked up and watched the dark billows of clouds hovering over the fields, when, suddenly, through the heavy, underhanging mist, an aeroplane appeared, descended swiftly towards the earth, straightened out its course, and soared into the clouds again.
She could hear the whirring of the machine as it circled round and round, like an angry hornet outside its nest that has been entered by an invader. The sound of the engine grew increasingly loud; again the mists parted as foam from the prow of a ship, and again the aeroplane swooped towards the earth. She could almost make out the features of the helmeted occupant, when, with a deafening roar, the machine checked its downward flight, and rose once more until the clouds took it to their bosom and hid it from sight.
"Louis!" Her voice shook. "I am frightened. Louis, we will go in and pray to the Virgin, you and I. It may be anAllemand, and, so 'tis said, they eat little girls—and black cats too."
The whir-r of the engines grew angry with intensity, then fainter as the machine rose to a greater height. Suddenly the droning ceased. The tumbling waters of the chute seemed insistently loud, as though jealous of the brawling monster that had dared to challenge its incessant song. The girl had just stooped to resume her book when, above the whining breeze, there was a sound like that of a saw-mill she had once heard in Étrun—but it came from the air—far over by the village road.
With a catch of her breath, she saw the aeroplane pierce the mists once more, and realized that it was pointing towards her as it descended. Rising to her feet, she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from screaming, while ominously, noiselessly (but for an occasional hum such as wires give on a frosty night), the giant bird sped lower and nearer.
"Louis!" she cried. "Louis!"
Weak with terror, she grasped for the cat, to find that that ungallant protector had bolted ingloriously to the mill-house. Unable to move, she watched the monster as it touched the earth, bounded lightly, felt the ground a second time, and staggered unevenly over a rise in the ground. There was a final Wagnerian crescendo of the engines, and the aeroplane stopped, motionless, less than fifty yards from her.
The aviator climbed from the pilot's seat and looked about with a puzzled air. He was dressed in a leather coat which reached to the top of his riding-boots, and his head was encased in a leather helmet. Raising his goggles, he looked toward the mill-house, and, for the first time, caught sight of the girl.
For a moment he hesitated, then made towards her, taking an extraordinary length of pace for one of his medium build, and raising his knees, as a bather will do when wading through surf. He paused, irresolute, about five yards from her, saluted, unbuckled a strap, and removed his helmet with a carelessness that left his generous supply of light-brown hair standing straight up like the quills of a porcupine. His face was rather long, and, except for his eyes, which twinkled humorously, bore a look of exaggerated solemnity. Constant exposure to the sun had tanned his face a vigorous brown, but his moustache and eyebrows, which were of a size, appeared to have completely faded, and stood out, glow-worm-like, against the background of tan.
For a full minute they gazed at each other, the girl with parted lips and heightened color, the new-comer's gravity slowly giving way to the good-humored persistence of his light-blue eyes, until with a smile he ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.
"Phew!" he said.
With something between a sob and an exclamation of delight, she clapped her hands together twice, "Ciel!" she cried, "but I am so happy!"
The mill-stream had ceased to shudder and had resumed its song…. With an air of furtive preoccupation, Louis emerged from concealment and proceeded towards them after the manner of an unpopular Mexican President walking down the main street of an unfriendly city…. The darkening shadows blended with the early approach of night…. And her heart was beating wildly, joyously.
Adventure had come to the lonely mill-house in Picardy—and, after all, one is not always sixteen.
II
"Will you please tell me where I am?" The young man spoke in French with ease, but more than a trace of an English accent.
"This is my uncle's mill."
"Of course. And that road?——"
"But the village road, monsieur—what else?"
"And, Mademoiselle Elusive, what village may it be?"
"'Tis where the church is, monsieur; and every Sunday I go there to mass."
The pilot produced a pipe and, extracting a pouch, proceeded to fill it with tobacco.
"I am lost," he said complacently. "My compass was shot away, and the clouds are hanging too low for me to follow any landmarks."
He looked about at the steadily thickening twilight. "How far is it to the village?" he asked.
"Five kilometers—and a little better."
"The Devil!" He made a screen from the wind with the flap of his coat, and lighting his pipe, puffed it with evident satisfaction. "I shall have to leave the old 'bus' here. As a matter of fact, she's so nearly 'napoo' that I rather expected to come riding home on one plane, like the old woman with the broom. But, mademoiselle——"
"Monsieur?"
"I am very tired and distinctly hungry, and I know of a mill-house with a cosy fire in the kitchen, where a pretty little fairy that——"
"There is no fairy—only Louis."
"And who the deuce may he be?"
"The cat—le voici!"
He surveyed the feline with an air of tolerant gravity. "Do you think Louis may object if I remain for supper?"
"Ah—but no!" She laughed gaily, but a look of doubt changed the expression of her features in a moment. "But my uncle—he never has any one in the house. For many years I have lived alone with him. Only when the curé comes, perhaps once a month, does any one visit the mill. My uncle is very surly, a perfect bear, and often he gets drunk as well."
The young man raised his absurdly light eyebrows. "A pleasant relative, mademoiselle. And, pray, what is his grievance against his fellowmen?"
"I know not, monsieur. All week he works alone, except when he takes the flour to sell, but on Sundays he always goes to church and leads the chanting. He was taught Latin by his father, who was a gravedigger in Paris and learned it from the tombstones. So on Sundays my uncle, from his seat in the chancel, performs the chants in such a terrible voice that almost always some children scream with terror, and once Madame La Comtesse fainted."
The aviator relit his pipe, which had gone out, but did not remove his eyes from hers.
"Once," went on the girl, plucking a blade of grass and making a knot with it about her finger, "two villagers, Simon Barit and Armand Cartier, were requested by the curé, who is very small and weak, to tell my uncle to sing no more. Ah monsieur, it was terrible!"
"Yes?"
"My uncle he is a very strong man; he threw Simon Barit into the stream, and the other he chased almost to the village."
"And so, like the mill-stream, he goes on forever?"
"Ah, yes, monsieur, like the war—forever. Listen!"
A great voice, sonorous as that of the fabled giant calling for his evening meal of an Englishman, rent the air. The October wind seemed to quiver to its lowest note, and the water racing over the chute was quieter than it had been for hours.
"I must go, monsieur. It is his supper he wants."
"And may I not come too?"
"Ah—but no! I am frightened."
"Of me?"
She raised her wide brown eyes to his, and her eyelashes, which so jealously guarded those guileless depths, parted grudgingly, revealing to him their full beauty…. Another roar shattered the air, and she laid her hand upon his wrist. "You must not come," she said earnestly. "He would throw you into the stream."
His melancholy face gave way to a boyish grin. "If he did, mademoiselle, my ghost would haunt him forever. All night it would sing outside his window—and, in truth, my singing is no less terrible than his."
There was another roar, followed by a reference to the untimely decease of ten thousand devils.
Without a word, she reached for her book, and, throwing her shawl over her left shoulder, hurried away. The aviator watched her girlish figure with its unconscious grace, then, turning about, he strolled to the machine, and, sitting on the side of the fuselage, surveyed its bullet-punctured carcass.
"Five kilometers and a little better," he soliloquized in English, "and a doubtful prospect of a meal…. Contrast that with what the gods offer here—a cosy fire, coffee, eggs and chips, I warrant, and the daintiest of little maids—to say nothing of a musical uncle with an amiable propensity for throwing visitors into the stream. By Jove, it is chilly…. Over in dear old England they'll be roasting nuts and telling ghost-stories to-night."
The fast-thickening shadows deepened into the blackness of an October night; the wind grew quieter, but there was a bite in the air that made him draw his fur collar about his ears.
"What excellent French the little lady uses," he went on. "I wonder who her parents were, and why the deuce she has to live with this ogre. And what eyes! Enough to make one invent new songs of Araby just to see them sparkle and soften…. One moment sad, another tender—and always lovely. Steady, the Air Force—you're becoming sentimental."
He looked at the battered machine and shook his head; a solitary raindrop lit on his face and slid down its surface like a tear.
A belated gust of wind smote his face and left it moist. He rose in a determined manner and adjusted his helmet.
"Adieu, my Camel!" He took a last survey of the machine. "The kitchen is calling to my appetite; a storm is brewing in the heavens; a pair of dark eyes is urging all the romance within me; so—mill-stream or no mill-stream—mon oncle, I come."
He squared his shoulders and, with the rather absurd long stride and the odd raising of the knee, made for the cottage door, from underneath which a faint glow of light was timidly emerging.
III
In response to his knock there was a roar from within, and the door opened enough to show the young lady in the doorway.
"Good evening," he said gravely. "I saw the light in here and decided to accept its kindly invitation."
She glanced over her shoulder; but the airman, gently putting her to one side, entered and looked serenely about the room, which appeared to be kitchen, dining-room, and parlor in one. Beside the stove he noticed the stooped figure of a man, whose huge black beard straggled over a suit of overalls that had once been dark blue, but had become a dirty white from constant association with flour.
"Good evening, monsieur." The airman handed his helmet to the girl and proceeded to unbutton his coat. The miller's blotched eyes rose sulkily to the visitor's face.
"What do you want here?" His voice was nasal and slovenly, and there was a hoarse growl in the words, as though his throat was parched and rusted.
"I am doing myself the honor of taking supper with you, monsieur." The airman's face was full of melancholy dignity as he divested himself of his coat.
The miller's mouth opened, and a rasping, deep snarl resonated disagreeably. "There is the village, five kilometers that way."
"Ah—but that is five kilometers too far."
"You cannot stay here"—the miller's voice rose angrily—"there is but food for two."
The Englishman tapped his pipe against his heel, and blew through it to ensure its being empty. "Then, monsieur," he said, "you must go hungry."
The Frenchman rose to his feet and brandished both arms above his head. "Go!" he bellowed, and swore an oath that comprised a reference to the sacred name of one dog and the sudden demise of the afore-mentioned ten thousand devils who, it appeared, rested heavily on his conscience.
"Mademoiselle"—the young man turned politely to the girl—"I apologize for this gentleman. Shall I throw him into the stream, or would a cleansing spoil his particular style of mottled beauty?"
The miller became eloquent. His language was threatening, blasphemous, and deafening. His whole ungainly body vibrated with a fury which, at certain moments, grew to such a pitch that he would raise his chin upwards until all that could be seen was a forest of beard, the while he emitted an unearthly roar that could have been clearly heard on the village road. The girl, who had been making preparations for supper, glanced timidly at him, but continued her work. The cat, slumbering by the stove, opened his eyes dreamily as if some sweet strain had come to his ears then settled to slumber once more.
And the whole room resounded and quivered to the hurricane of sound.
With an air of complete imperturbability, the intruding guest slowly backed towards the table and became engrossed in the task of refilling his pipe, though beneath the glow-worm eyebrows his eyes (which were very clear and blue, as though his excursions into the last free element of nature had blown all the dust and grime away) held the orator in a steady look.
"Fill your pipe?" he said cryptically, choosing a moment when his host was swelling up with a breath that promised to burst his ribs.
The response was startling.
Exhausting the air from his lungs with the noise of steam escaping from an overcharged boiler, the miller rushed blindly forward, crouching so low that his beard against his discolored clothes suggested an ugly bush against a background of slushy snow.
With the precision of a guardsman forming fours, the airman took one pace to the rear with his left foot and one to the right with his right foot. This maneuver, successfully completed, placed the table between himself and his assailant, and, tilting it dexterously, he swiftly thrust that article of furniture forward, where it came into violent contact with the irate miller's knees and shins. With an indescribable howl the worthy man fell back in a paroxysm of agony, grasping his knees with both hands, and rocking to and fro like a demented dervish.
The airman bowed gravely to the girl. "I learned that," he said, "from a gentleman by name of Charlie Chaplin. If you can oblige me with a custard pie I shall hurl it at your uncle and thus complete the Chaplinesque method of discounting violence."
The young woman's brows puckered. The spectacle of her uncle's discomfiture had not disturbed her so much as this new kind of a person who could bow so courteously, whose eyes twinkled humorously, and whose words were full of gravity on the subject of custard pies. She came of a race that coordinated gestures and the play of features with speech; but this stranger of the air—Sapristi!
The moaning of the uncle grew less and his figure stopped its rocking; but his red, blotchy eyes looked furtively at the young man, biding their owner's time for a renewal of hostilities.
With an air of deep dejection the airman gazed at the unlovely spectacle, then, very slowly, unfastened his holster and drew a revolver.
"Monsieur," he said, "I offer peace. The alternative is—that I fill you full of holes—which would interfere with your singing. I intend to have supper here, because I saw hens outside. If they have given no eggs, we shall eat the hens themselves as a punishment. We are allies, you and I; let us be friends as well. Monsieur"—he struck a Napoleonic attitude—"Vive l'Entente!"
The swarthy face of the miller, who had retained his posture on the floor throughout, wrinkled hideously into a grin, which developed into a roaring laugh that set a solitary vase jingling.
With a doubtful air of appreciation, the airman surveyed him, his head inclining dubiously to one side. "Come, monsieur," he said, after the miller's unpleasant mirth had subsided, "you sit there—at the far end of the table; mademoiselle—when you have given us the supper things—here; and I, at this end. Just to show how completely I trust you, my host, I will keep my revolver beside my plate; and should it be necessary for me to blow your brains out during the meal, it will be with the very keenest regret that I lose a friend for whom I have acquired such an instantaneous and profound affection."
Thus the young lady with the guileless eyes, the youth who had descended from the clouds, and the stentorian miller with the painful knees, sat down together for their evening repast.
And the mill-stream, chuckling as it sportively tumbled over the chute, made a pleasant serenade.
IV
The airman glanced at his wrist-watch; it was half-past nine. The miller slept by the side of the stove, his chin crushing his beard against his chest. Louis also slept, having curled himself into a black, furry ball, apparently possessed of neither head nor tail. A clock brazenly stating the time to be five-thirty, ticked lazily as though finding itself four hours behind the correct hour, there was no chance of its ever catching up, and it only kept going because it was the sporting thing to do. Just over the clock a picture of Marshal Joffre gazed paternally on the quiet scene.
Seated at the table, which was covered by a geranium-colored cloth, the girl and the airman sat silent, while a shaded lamp lent a crimson glow through which her deep eyes gleamed, like the first stars of a summer evening.
To her romance had come.
She was no longer the miller's niece, but the girl who had seen the Fairy Prince. All the sighs, all the questionings, all the longings of her girlhood had culminated in this amazing adventure of a fair-haired knight who, descending from the clouds, had proceeded to terrorize her uncle who was feared for miles around. It was wonderful. And he was so droll, this young man; and his voice had a little soothing drop in it, at times, that left a fluttering echo in her heart.
She had left the convent when ten years of age, on the death of her mother. Her father—but then gossip was never kind. He was an officer who had deserted his pretty little wife for another woman—or so rumor had it; and her mother had died, a flower stricken by a frost. The daughter had been taken by a relative, the owner of a lonely mill, and for six years had lived in solitude, her horizon of life limited to the adjacent village, her knowledge of women gained from the memory of a sad, yearning face, paler than the pillow on which it rested, and an occasional visit to the curé's sister. Of men she knew only her uncle and the few villagers that had not gone to fight for La Belle France.
From unquestioning childhood she had passed to that stage in a girl's life when the emotions leap past the brain, fretful of the latter's plodding pace. Her mind untutored, unsharpened by contact with other minds, left her the language and the reasonings of a child; but her imagination, feeding on the strange longings and dreams which permeated her life, pictured its own world where romance held sway over all the creatures that inhabited its realm.
It is the instinct of a little child to picture unreal things—the unconscious protest of immaturity against the commonplaceness of life. But with the education of to-day and the labyrinth of artificiality which characterizes modern living, the imaginativeness of childhood disappears, except in a few great minds who, retaining it, are hailed by the world as possessors of genius.
Unhampered (or unhelped, as the case may be) by association with the patchwork pattern of society, the miller's niece had retained her gift of imagination, without which the solitude and the monotony of her days would have been unendurable; until, blending it with the budding flower of womanhood, she found mystery in the moaning of the wind. While the sun danced upon the grass her spirit mingled with the sunlight; and when the moon exercised her suzerainty of the heavens the poetry in her soul thrilled to sweet dreams of lover's wooings (though her unreasoned rapture often ended in unreasoned tears upon the pillow)…. She found melancholy in the coloring of an autumn leaf, and laughter in the music of the mill-stream…. There were smugglers' tales in a northeast gale, and fairy stories in a summer's shower.
The doctrine of pleasure so feverishly followed by her sisters to-day was unknown to her—as was its insidious reaction which comes to so many women, with the dulling of the perceptions, the blinding of eyes to the colors of life, the deadening of ears to the music of nature, until they cannot hear the subtle melody of happiness itself, so closely allied to the somber beauty of sorrow.
"Little one"—the aviator's voice was very soft, so that the ticking of the clock sounded clearly above it—"in a few minutes I must go. It is a dark night, and of necessity I must get to the village to-night, and be on my way before dawn."
Her eyes were hidden by her drooping eyelashes. "You will return—yes?" she asked, without looking up.
He smiled rather wistfully. "'When the red-breasted robins are nesting,'" he quoted slowly, "'I shall come.'"
The clock ticked wearily on…. A few drops of rain fell upon the roof.
"Monsieur"—the crimson in her cheeks deepened—"you must not smile; but it is in my book, here."
She took from the tableThe Fairy Prince, and handed it to him. He gazed at it with a seriousness he might have shown towards a book of Scottish theology.
"You know, monsieur"—she appeared deeply concerned in the design of the geranium table-cover—"I never leave the mill-house unless to attend mass, and sometimes—perhaps you would think so, too—it is very lonesome; no brother, no sister, just Louis and my uncle."
He nodded, and, with an air of abstraction, his brow wrinkled sympathetically, and his fingers strummed five-finger exercises on the table.
"It must be very dull," he said.
"But no, monsieur"—her eyes looked up in protest—"not dull—just lonesome."
He sustained an imaginary note with his little finger, frowned thoughtfully until his eyebrows almost obscured his eyes, then came down the scale with slow and measured pace.
"Well, little lady who is never dull, and what has all this to do withThe Fairy Prince?"
"It is because I have no sisters, no friends, that—that I pretend. But you do not understand."
He played some chord with both hands.
"Very young people and very old ones pretend," he said, with dreamy sententiousness; "pretending is what makes them happy. But the Prince——?"
She smiled deprecatingly. "When I read, monsieur, I think that the girl—there is always a girl, is there not?" He nodded gravely. "I do not think it is she," she went on, "but myself; and when the book is finished, and she marries her lover, then I am happy … and dream…."
"'We are such stuff as dreams are made of,'" he murmured, and trilled with his first and second fingers.
"So, monsieur," she continued, glancing shyly at him, "in that book——"
"There is a girl."
"Yes. And a Fairy Prince who was very handsome."
"Like me?"
"It does not say, monsieur."
"Ah!"
"But I think so," she said earnestly, "for he was the handsomest man in all France."
"It said nothing of England?"
"No, monsieur, only France."
He nodded with great dignity, and motioned her to proceed. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her interlocked fingers.
"To-day I was reading it to Louis," she said, "when, just at the moment that they met—vous voilà!—you came. Monsieur," she said naïvely, "are you a fairy prince?"
He considered, with head characteristically on one side.
"N-no," he said, "I cannot claim that, but——"
"Ah, yes?" Her face lit up with delighted anticipation.
"I am a prince of the air." He struck an attitude and held it.
"Oh!" Her lips parted in ecstasy and her cheeks, which had been crimson, became scarlet. "You—are really a prince?"
"Of the air, mademoiselle." He folded his arms and tilted his chair back. His face was still grave, but his voice had a sense of distance in it, and his light eyes widened as though they saw the world his words were picturing. "My kingdom is greater than all the kingdoms of the earth, and when I ride, my steed with wings takes me towards the stars. For sport I play with clouds and race the wind; at night the moon gives me light; and when I travel there are no mountains to climb, no lakes to cross. I go faster than the swiftest horse, and ride from villages to cities, out into the country, and over the sea with a steed that never tires."
"But, monsieur," she cried, "this is wonderful!"
He looked frankly into her eyes. "Itiswonderful," he said.
For a few minutes neither spoke, and the soft symphony of raindrops played through the quietness of the night.
"Your Majesty," she said timorously, "are you very brave? You understand," she hurried on as a slight blush darkened the tan of his cheeks, "in fairy books the prince always fights a dragon or a wicked giant."
"Don't uncles count?"
She made a prettymoue.
"As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "there was a wicked Emperor—a blustering popinjay with a madman's vanity—who decreed that all the world should be his slaves, and sent his armies into France and Belgium to enforce his will. My brothers heard of this, and came from countries and dominions thousands of miles away. Across great continents of water they sailed, and, with their brothers from the little Islands of the North Sea, came to France…."
"Your voice is very sad," she said tenderly. Her nature, that knew every mood of a summer breeze, had caught the inflection of his words, understanding by their tone what the vagueness of his words hid from her mind.
"So many have died," he said, looking away from her. "Almost every day some one rides out into the sunlight to his death, young, brave, and smiling…. Mademoiselle, it is wonderful how they smile."
Tick—tick—tick.
For more than a minute neither spoke, then, with a smile that was strangely boyish, he squared his shoulders and ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.
"Ha!" he laughed; "what fancies get into a scatter-brain like mine when the rain's a-pattering on the roof. If you will allow me, little Pippa, I shall smoke."
"Little Peepa?" she laughed delightedly.
"Pippa," he assented, puffing smoke as he lighted the pipe. "I think I shall call you that. You see, according to her biographer, Mr. Browning, she worked in the silk-mills all the year, but one day she had to herself, from dawn to midnight, and so as to enjoy it to the full she—well, she pretended, like you."
"But that is droll," she said eagerly, "for every Easter after Sunday, my uncle, who is fatigued from so much chanting in the church, always goes to Boulogne and becomes drunk for one whole day. On Wednesday he returns. These six years he has done it always the same; and on the Tuesday it is wonderful. I am alone with Louis, and we ask all the people in our books to visit us."
A sudden gleam of excitement lit his eyes.
"The Tuesday after Easter?"
"Always it is so."
"Pippa," he said—but checked the remainder of his words. He placed the pipe in his mouth and ran five-finger exercises at a terrific speed.
"Pippa," he said again, then, ceasing his display of virtuosity, leaned back and gazed at her from beneath his eyebrows. "Next spring, on the Tuesday after Easter, I will come for you."
She caught her breath deliriously.
"Beyond the village road," he went on, speaking slowly and distinctly, "I saw a big pasture-field at the top of the hill. Be there as the sun is just above the horizon, and I will come in an aeroplane."
"And, your Majesty, you will take me to your kingdom?"
"For one day, Pippa, to the great city of London—the city that is open to all who possess a golden key. We shall return by the stars at night."
"Then"—her voice shook, and the brilliancy of her eyes was softened by sudden tears, as the rays of an August sun are sometimes tempered by a shower, "then—at last—I am to see the world—boys and girls and palaces and——"
"To say nothing of prunes and potentates."
"Oh, but, your Majesty, it is too wonderful. I am certain it will not come true."
He rose and quietly placed his chair against the wall. "Pippa," he said, "there are only two things that could prevent it. One, if there is a storm and—the other——" he shook his head impatiently.
The girl took down a work-basket, and after searching its contents extracted a tiny trinket.
"You mean," she said, stepping lightly over to him, "that you might go to join your brothers—those who smiled so bravely?"
"We never know, Pippa," he answered.
She reached for the lapel of his coat and pinned the little keepsake on it. "'Tis a black cat," she said. "I saw it in the village store, so small and funny, like Louis. It is a gift from little Pippa, who will pray to the Virgin every night that her Prince may not be killed—unless——"
He looked at the little mascot, which dangled above a couple of ribbons.
"Unless?" he said.
For a moment there was a flash in her eyes and a sudden crimson flush in her cheeks that startled him. For the first time in her life she felt the instinct of a tigress; that strange fusion of passion and timidity that comes to women of her kind when it seems they may lose the object of their love.
"Unless he—forgets." The words were spoken between lips that hardly moved.
"By the sacred bones of my ancestors," he said, with a sort of sincere grandiloquence, "I promise to come. So that I shall always think of you, my Pippa, I will paint a black cat upon the machine, and woe to the Hun who dares to singe its whiskers!"
A few minutes later, the heavily coated figure of an aviator was plowing its way through a drizzling rain, along a dark and solitary road. His pace was extraordinarily long for his height, and he appeared to be stepping over a perpetual array of obstacles at least one foot high.
By a casement window a girl, with hair like the dusk, stood gazing towards the road that was hidden in darkness. Silently and motionless she watched the melancholy drops of rain as they fell upon the glass, until, unconsciously, her lips parted and she sang, very softly, the little song taught to the maiden in the story by the lonely shepherd: