From the French of ANDRÉ THEURIET.
Christmas Eve that year was bleak and cold, and the village seemed
benumbed. The houses were closed hermetically, and so were the
stables, from which came the muffled sound of animals chewing the
cud. From time to time the clacking of wooden shoes on the hardened
ground resounded through the deserted streets, then a door was
hastily opened and closed, and all relapsed into silence. It was
evident from the thick smoke rising through the chimneys into the
gray air that every family was huddled around its hearth while the
housewife prepared the Christmas supper. Stooping forward, with their
legs stretched out to the fire, their countenances beaming with
pleasure at the prospect of the morrow's festival and the foretaste
of the fat and juicy blood-sausages, the peasants laughed at the
north wind that swept the roads, at the frost that powdered the
trees of the forest, and the ice that seemed to vitrify the streams
and the river. Following their example, my friend Tristan and I spent
the livelong day in the old house of the Abbatiale at the corner of
the hearth, smoking our pipes and reading poetry. At sundown we had
grown tired of seclusion and determined to venture out.
"The forest must be a strange sight with this heavy frost," said I
to Tristan. "Suppose we take a turn through the wood after supper;
besides, I must see the sabotiers from Courroy about a little matter."
So we pulled on our gaiters, stuffed our pipes, wrapped ourselves in
our cloaks and mufflers, and penetrated into the wood.
We walked along cheerfully over the rugged, hardened soil of the
trenches furrowed with deep, frozen ruts. Through the copse on either
side we saw mysterious white depths. After a damp night the north
wind had transformed the mists and vapors that overhung the branches
into a tangle of snowy lace. In the half light of the gloaming we
could still distinguish the sparkling needles of the junipers, the
frosted puffs of the clematis, the bluish crystallizations of the
beech, and the silver filigree of the nut-trees. The silence was
broken by the occasional creaking of the frozen limbs, and every now
and then a breath of impalpable white dust dampened our cheeks as it
melted there.
We walked along at a steady pace, and in less than an hour caught
sight of the red and flickering glow of the sabotiers' camp pitched
on the edge of the forest above a stream that flowed down toward
the valley of Santonge. The settlement consisted of a spacious,
cone-shaped, dirt-coated hut and a cabin with board walls carefully
sealed with moss. The hut answered the combined purposes of
dormitory and kitchen; the cabin was used for the stowing away of
tools and wooden shoes, and also for the two donkeys employed in
the transportation of goods. The sabotiers, masters, apprentices,
friends, and children were seated on beech logs around the fire in
front of the hut, and their mobile silhouettes formed intensely black
profiles against the red of the fire. Three short posts driven into
the ground and drawn together at the top formed the crane, from which
hung an iron pot that simmered over the coals. An appetizing odor
of stewed hare escaped from the tin lid as it rose and fell under
the puffs of vapor. The master, a lively, nervous, hairy little man,
welcomed us with his usual cordiality.
"Sit down and warm yourselves," said he. "You find us preparing the
Christmas supper. I'm afraid we'll not sleep over soundly to-night.
My old woman is ill. I've fixed her a bed in the cabin where she'll
be more comfortable, and warmer on account of the animals. My boy has
gone to Santonge to get the doctor. There's no time to be lost. My
little girl is kept busy running from the cabin to the hut."
We had no sooner taken our seats around the fire than the snowflakes
began to whirl about in the stillness above us. They fell so thick
and fast that in less than a quarter of an hour we were compelled to
protect the fire with a hurdle covered with sackcloth.
"By my faith! gentlemen," said the sabotier, "you'll not be able to
start out again in this storm. You'll have to stay and have your
Christmas supper with us,--and taste of our stew."
The weather was certainly not tempting, and we accepted the
invitation. Besides, the adventure amused us, and we were delighted
at the prospect of a Christmas supper in the heart of the forest. An
hour later we were in the hut, and by the light of a miserable little
candle-end we had our Christmas supper, devouring our hare-stew with
a sharp appetite and washing it down with a draught of unfermented
wine that scraped our throats. The snow fell thicker and thicker,
wrapping the forest in a soft white wadding that deadened every
sound. Now and then the sabotier rose and went into the cabin, then
came back looking worried, listening anxiously for the good woman
from Santonge. Suddenly a few metallic notes, muffled by the snow,
rose softly from the depth of the valley. A similar sound from an
opposite direction rang out in answer, then followed a third and a
fourth, and soon a vague confusion of Christmas chimes floated over
the forest.
Our hosts, without interrupting the process of mastication and while
they passed around the wine-jug, tried to recognize the various
chimes by the fulness of the sounds.
"Those--now--those are the bells from Vivey. They are hardly any
louder than the sound of the donkey's hoofs on the stones."
"That is the bell of Auberive!"
"Yes; and that peal that sounds like the droning of a swarm of
beetles, that's the Grancey chimes."
During this discussion Tristan and I began to succumb to the combined
action of warmth and fully satisfied appetite. Our eyes blinked, and
before we knew it we fell asleep on the moss of the hut, lulled by
the music of the Christmas chimes. A piercing shriek followed by a
sound of joyful voices woke us with a start.
It had ceased snowing. The night was growing pale, and through the
little skylight we could see above the fleecy trees a faint light in
the sky, where a belated star hung quivering.
"It is a boy!" shouted the master, bursting in upon us. "Gentlemen,
if you think you would like to see him, why, I should be very glad;
and it might bring him luck."
We went crunching over the snow after him to the cabin, lighted by a
smoky lamp. On her bed of laths and moss lay the young mother, weak
and exhausted, her head thrown back, her pale face framed in by a
mass of frowzy auburn hair. The "good woman," assisted by the little
girl, was bundling up the new-comer, who wailed feebly. The two
donkeys, amazed at so much stir and confusion, turned their kindly
gray faces toward the bed, shook their long ears, and gazed around
them with wide, intelligent eyes, blowing through their nostrils
puffs of warm vapor that hung like a thin mist on the air. At the
foot of the bed stood a young shepherd, with a black and white
she-goat and a new-born kid.
"I have brought you the she-goat, Ma'am Fleuriot," said he, in his
Langrois drawl. "You can have her for the boy as long as you wish."
The goat was baaing, the new-born child wailed, and the donkeys
breathed loudly. There was something primitive and biblical about the
whole scene.
Without, in the violet light of the dawn, while a distant church-bell
scattered its early notes through the air, one of the young
apprentices, dancing in the snow to keep warm, sang out at the top
of his lungs that old Christmas carol, which seemed then full of new
meaning and poetry,--
"He is born, the little Child.
Ring out, hautbois! ring out, bagpipes!
He is born, the little Child;
Let us sing the happy news."
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