Le Père Séguin's collation--The young sportsman and the hare--The
quarrel--The apology--The reconciliation--The cemetery--Bait for
barbel--Le Père Séguin's deceased friends--The return home.
The extraordinary personage in whose presence I so suddenly found myself
was the celebrated Père Séguin, who, tired with his morning's sport, was
taking his noontide meal; that is, appeasing his appetite, always
enormous, with a loaf of black rye bread, into which he plunged his
ivory teeth with hearty rapidity, now and then taking a mouthful out of
a turnip he had pulled in a field hard by. The abominable quadruped was
there too, planted on his haunches, just in front of his master, looking
as innocent as a lamb, though still holding my hare between his teeth,
probably not daring to lay it down without permission.
Père Séguin ate, drank, twisted his wiry moustache, dipped his turnip in
the coarse salt, and from time to time cast a glance at his vile dog,
without deigning to speak a word, or even to acknowledge my presence.
Furious at this behaviour, I bowed and said to him, "So, you are the
owner of this precious cur?"
The poacher signified his assent by a slight movement of the head.
"Well, if the dog belongs to you, the hare in his mouth belongs to me."
"Does it?" said the Père Séguin, and he looked at his dog, who winked
his eye and shook his paw: "my dog tells me he caught this hare
running."
"I know it, the rascally vagabond! and with no great trouble either,
seeing that the hare was half dead, and had but three legs to go upon."
Père Séguin threw his yellow eye on the cur again, and, as if he had
understood all we said, he once more shook his paw, and gave a sort of
sneeze.
"My dog repeats, he coursed the hare well, and has a right to her."
"What do you mean by saying he has a right to her, when I tell you the
hare belongs to me?"
"And my dog says the reverse."
"Go to Dijon with your dog!" I exclaimed, "I tell you the hare is mine."
"My dog never told a lie," rejoined the _braconnier_, and he dipped the
remnant of his turnip for the twentieth time in the salt. "Never."
"Then _I_ am the liar," said I, beginning to feel hot, "I am the liar,
ah! am I? By Jupiter! your dog, you bearded fool--your cur of a dog? I
do not care a _sous_ for his carcass any more than I do for yours. I'll
have my hare."
"Don't get excited, young man--don't be savage, I beg of you; for, as
sure as I am a sinner, you'll have a crop of pimples on your nose
to-morrow,--and red pimples on the nose are not pretty."
"Keep your jokes to yourself, old man, or on my honour you shall repent
it!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" grinned the Père Séguin, "Ha! ha! ha! capital turnip."
"Houp! houp! houp!" went the dog.
I was bewildered; such a strange adventure had never befallen me before.
"Once, twice--will you give me my hare?"
"Have I any hare of yours?"
"You? No, but your dog."
"Ha! that's another affair. You must settle that with him. Take your
hare, and let me eat my turnip in peace."
Enraged at this, I rushed at the carroty dog, but he was off in an
instant, jumping first behind the tree, and then behind his master,
keeping my hare all the time fast in his mouth till I was fairly out of
breath, and aggravated beyond expression.
I looked towards the poacher. He was quietly plucking the top off a
fresh turnip, but under the air of icy indifference which pervaded his
whole exterior I detected a sarcastic smile, which fully convinced me
that I was the laughing-stock of man and beast. I took my resolution,
and Père Séguin, who had followed my movements with his eye, said drily,
as I was going to put a cap on, "What are you going to do young man?"
"Oh, nothing! just to kill your dog for taking my hare."
"Bah! you're joking."
"Joking! am I? You shall see;" and I proceeded quietly to raise my gun.
"Gently, my lad," roared the Père Séguin, and he seized the weapon in
his iron grasp.
"I may be but a 'lad,' but I'll not give up my rights; the hare is mine,
and I'll have her. Let go my gun!"
"No!"
"By----"
"No!"
"Then look out for yourself," said I, and with a rapid movement I
attempted to draw my _couteau de chasse_; but long before I could get
it out, he had seized me with both hands, and in a twinkling I measured
my length upon the turf, and the knife was in his possession.
"Child of violence!" he said, as he set me again on my legs, and pushed
me from him, "Do you then already love to shed blood? Would you kill a
man for a hare? Have you not the sense to distinguish a joke from an
insult? There," he added, giving me back my knife, which had fallen from
its sheath in the struggle, "young man, do your worst!"
But I was now as angry with myself as I had been with the old man, and
heartily ashamed of my conduct. I turned on my heel, and walked off,
vexed beyond expression at my intemperate folly.
The very next day, as good fortune would have it, I met him again in the
forest, and lost not a moment in asking his forgiveness for my brutal
conduct of the previous day.
"Ah! you acknowledge your fault, do you?" replied the Père Séguin,
"enough, that shows you have a heart. I bear you no ill-will; you are
_vif_ as the mountain breeze, but that comes of being young. Give me
your hand, and when you want a dove or lilies of the valley for your
sister, venison or wild boar for your friends, I, my gun, and my dog,
are at your service; but"--and he whispered in my ear--"no more knives."
"See! see!" and I opened my jacket, "it is gone. I threw it into the
moat this morning."
"'Tis well! very well! You have had a happy escape, young man. _Au
revoir._ Now, Faro, take your leave of Monsieur;" and instantly obeying
a sign from his master, the red dog licked my boots. A moment more, and
they were both lost to view in the forest.
From that time I was frequently with the Père Séguin, for he seemed to
have a fancy--a sort of affection for me, and on my part I had an
incomprehensible pleasure in his society, though in the early part of
our acquaintance I could not divest myself of an undefined dread of him;
and had some difficulty in reconciling myself to the harsh and guttural
tones of his voice, and his peculiarly severe physiognomy. Nevertheless,
many an evening did I slip away from the paternal hearth, much to the
distress of my poor mother, to seat myself on one of his wooden stools,
and eat the chestnuts he was roasting in the embers, while he related,
by the pale light of his small charcoal fire, which but dimly showed the
extent even of his small room, frightful stories of ghosts, suicides,
drownings, and fearful murders, with which he delighted to terrify me;
and, dear reader, he succeeded to perfection, for all the time I sat
listening to them I was cold, and trembled like a leaf in the northern
blast.
Well do I remember--yes, as well as if it had been yesterday--going out
with him to fish for barbel, and joining him over-night to go in search
of bait. I found him crouched by his fire, eating potatoes out of the
same plate with his dog. This frugal meal over, he took up a small
lantern, a large box, and a long spade, and beckoned me to follow him.
The moon was rising as we left the hut, but red as blood, lightning
streaked the sky at short intervals, and the wind howled as if a storm
was approaching. Père Séguin rubbed his hands, and an expression of
satisfaction passed across his extraordinary countenance; for, living as
he did a lonely wandering life, he had become superstitious, and firmly
believed that worms caught at certain hours of the night, and in a
breeze that foretold an approaching tempest, were more likely to attract
the fish than those taken in the daylight. To this article of his creed
I offered no objection, but I own my heart shrunk within me when I
observed that he took the direct road to the burial-ground. "Père
Séguin," said I, "we need go no further; the turf in this lane is
capital; we shall find all we want here without a longer walk." "Since
when," he inquired in a voice that seemed to come from between his
shoulders, "since when have young fawns taught the old roebuck the way
to the forest-glades?" And he strode on without a word more, still in
the direction I so much abhorred.
Arriving at the cemetery, Père Séguin walked leisurely round it, paying
as much attention to me as if I had not been with him, and I followed
like a criminal going to the scaffold. After having made a careful
examination of the wall, he stopped suddenly, gave me the lantern and
the spade, and leaped upon the top, desiring me to do the same. I
hesitated, and fell back, for I felt more inclined to throw them down
and run away, and Père Séguin saw it.
"Ha! ha!" he exclaimed, fixing his yellow eye upon me. "I thought you
were heart of oak, young Sir; are you only a man of straw?"
I gave no answer, but I leaped on to the wall like a rope-dancer.
"Hum!" he muttered; "good legs, but a faint heart." And he begun rapidly
to turn up the rank grass, and pick the large red worms from amongst the
roots, when, looking up in my face, he said, with infinite coolness,
"Why, you are as pale as my mother was on the day of her death! What
ails you?"
"Ails me!" I replied, repressing my fears, "why to tell you the truth,
I'd just as soon be anywhere else as here."
"Pooh! pooh! young man; one must accustom one's self to everything in
this world. We must learn--be always learning. Remember, for instance,
for I'll be bound that you never heard of such a thing before, that
worms taken in a burial-ground are the finest possible bait for barbel,
do you hear?--taken by moonlight from the roots of the hemlock."
"Good heavens! Père Séguin, I would rather never catch a fish for the
rest of my days than touch one of those worms!"
"Nonsense, my lad--nonsense; they are admirable bait--fine fat
fellows--sure to take. We shall have a wonderful day to-morrow. You will
soon see how the giants and gourmands of the streams will snap at these
beauties."
"Hang the barbel, Père Séguin!--let us leave this cold churchyard. I
feel sick, and a clammy cold creeping over me already--do let us be
gone;" but he would not move.
"Don't feel unwell, pray don't; it is a well-known fact, that any person
who feels ill in a churchyard is sure to die within the year."
"Let us leave then, for I do feel very ill;" but the purveyor of worms
was now too much occupied to listen to me.
Hopeless, therefore, of inducing him to leave till he had filled his
box, I sat down on a tombstone, and the noise he made with the spade in
the silence, the darkness, and the peculiar and sickening odour of the
place, filled me with an indescribable sense of fear and horror.
At length the poacher paused, and having disentangled a very long worm
from the twisted roots of a large clod, he said, "This makes one hundred
and thirteen--a holy number. Now I've done, my lad; let us be off."
"Yes--oh, yes!"--for the minutes seemed hours--"let us go instantly;"
and I sprang from the tombstone, while Père Séguin proceeded
deliberately to fill up the holes, and replace the turf, whistling
through his moustache just as if he had been in the middle of his
garden.
"One hundred and thirteen!--I like that number."
"So do I, Père Séguin; but do let us be going. If we remain here, they
will think that we have killed and buried some one. Do, pray, be off;"
and I made for the wall.
"Stop!" he said suddenly, drawing himself up to his full height, six
feet three, "Stop!" and throwing out his long arms, which made his
shadow on the stones resemble an immense black cross, "Hold there! Look!
Do you see that tomb--that large gray stone?"
"I see nothing, Père Séguin, I will see nothing. I close my eyes, and
only desire to be gone."
"As you please," said the poacher; "but you are wrong. I could have told
you a curious history--a most interesting history."
"Thanks for your histories--much obliged to you; but I have had enough
of them." Still Père Séguin would persevere: "A woman, who has appeared
to me three times--yes, three following days--spoken to me, pulled me by
the fingers and by the beard eight days after her death."
"Yes! yes! I know; but which way are we to get out of this infernal
place?"
"Why, what a hurry you are in!--I say stop, and let me say good night to
her!"--and Père Séguin approached the tall gray stone, the moon shining
full upon it, and struck it with the handle of his spade, calling each
time in a solemn voice, "Madeleine! Madeleine! Madeleine!"
Had I been at that frightful moment cut in four quarters, not one drop
of blood would have been found in my veins; my teeth chattered with
terror, and I would have given every acre of my inheritance for strength
enough to run away. "Madeleine! Madeleine!" le Père Séguin continued in
a low and churchyard tone, "Madeleine!" he cried, leaning on the gray
tomb, "'tis me, Séguin--le Père Séguin; good night, good night,
Madeleine!"
I could not speak, I could not move; and certainly had the lady
whispered only one single little word in reply, I should have fainted.
"Well, it is all over; she is dead for certain now!" said the poacher,
shaking his head. "Alas! poor Madeleine! Gone in the flower of her age!
Dead at two-and-twenty, for having offered me a violet! Dead! Let us
begone."
I beg you to understand I did not put him to the necessity of repeating
his words, but found my legs in excellent running order in a moment.
"Hold! not so fast!" said my companion, just as I was springing at the
wall, and thought myself out of danger, "Hold! Down there, my young
gentleman, in that dark corner amongst the brambles. You see that little
heap of earth, which one might fancy a dead man alive had pushed up
with his knees; well, there also is one of my comrades. Ho! halloo,
Jerome!"
"Père Séguin," said I, "this is unworthy of you; you have no right thus
to mock at and disturb the dead; you only want to torment me; and I have
already told you, and I repeat it, I feel exceedingly ill."
"Come, come along then--let us go. I shall return here presently to
sleep. Good night, Madeleine!--good night, Jerome!--good night, all of
you who are sleeping so quietly under the green turf!"--and it seemed to
me, as these adieus were uttered, that icy breezes passed from every
tomb across my face, whispering in my ears, "Good night!" and that the
firs, the yews, the cypress bending across our path seemed to salute us
as we left the horrible precincts.
We soon regained the town, and on the road there I would not have turned
my head for a crown of rubies; Père Séguin, meanwhile, coolly carrying
his box of worms, which I would not have touched for the best place in
Paradise.
The next morning, instead of fishing for barbel, I was unable to rise
from my bed; and for fifteen nights I never closed my eyes without
seeing in my dreams ghosts, and all the horrid details of the churchyard
and the charnel-house.