after I have seen her. I am not suspicious. When people say nice
things to me, I believe them, but more than once I have had good
reason to repent, for words are not deeds.”
“They say that she is a very good woman.”
“Who says so? Father Maurice?”
“Yes, your father-in-law.”
“That is all very well. But he knows her no more than I.”
“Well, you will soon see. Pay close attention, and let us hope that
you will not be deceived.”
“I have it. Little Marie, I should be very much obliged if you
would come into the house for a minute before you go straight on
to Ormeaux. You are quick-witted; you have always shown that you
are not stupid, and nothing escapes your notice. Should you see
anything to rouse your suspicions, you must warn me of it very
quietly.”
“Oh! no, Germain, I will not do that; I should be too much afraid
of making a mistake; and, besides, if a word lightly spoken were to
turn you against this marriage, your family would bear me a grudge,
and I have plenty of troubles now without bringing any more on my
poor dear mother.”
As they were talking thus, the gray pricked up her ears and shied;
then returning on her steps, she approached the bushes, where she
began to recognize something which had frightened her at first.
Germain cast his eye over the thicket, and in a ditch, beneath the
branches of a scrub-oak, still thick and green, he saw something
which he took for a lamb.
“The little creature is strayed or dead, for it does not move.
Perhaps some one is looking for it; we must see.”
“It is not an animal,” cried little Marie; “it is a sleeping child.
It is your Petit-Pierre.”
“Heavens!” exclaimed Germain; “see the little scamp asleep so far
away from home, and in a ditch where a snake might bite him!”
He lifted up the child, who smiled as he opened his eyes and threw
his arms about his father’s neck, saying: “Dear little father, you
are going to take me with you.”
“Oh, yes; always the same tune. What were you doing there, you
naughty Pierre?”
“I was waiting for my little father to go by. I was watching the
road, and I watched so hard that I fell asleep.”
“And if I had passed by without seeing you, you would have been out
of doors all night, and a wolf would have eaten you up.”
“Oh, I knew very well that you would see me,” answered
Petit-Pierre, confidently.
“Well, kiss me now, bid me good-by, and run back quickly to the
house, unless you wish them to have supper without you.”
“Are you not going to take me, then?” cried the little boy,
beginning to rub his eyes to show that he was thinking of tears.
“You know very well that grandpapa and grandmama do not wish it,”
said Germain, fortifying himself behind the authority of his
elders, like a man who distrusts his own.
The child would not listen. He began to cry with all his might,
saying that as long as his father was taking little Marie, he might
just as well take him too. They replied that they must pass through
great woods filled with wicked beasts who eat up little children.
The gray would not carry three people; she had said so when they
were starting, and in the country where they were going there was
no bed and no supper for little boys. All these good reasons could
not persuade Petit-Pierre; he threw himself on the ground, and
rolled about, shrieking that his little father did not love him any
more, and that if he did not take him he would never go back to the
house at all, day or night.
Germain had a father’s heart, as soft and weak as a woman’s. His
wife’s death, and the care which he had been obliged to bestow
all alone on his little ones, as well as the thought that these
poor motherless children needed a great deal of love, combined to
make him thus. So such a sharp struggle went on within him, all
the more because he was ashamed of his weakness and tried to hide
his confusion from little Marie, that the sweat started out on his
forehead, and his eyes grew red and almost ready to weep. At last
he tried to get angry, but as he turned toward little Marie in
order to let her witness his strength of mind, he saw that the good
girls face was wet with tears; all his courage forsook him and he
could not keep back his own, scold and threaten as he would.
“Truly your heart is too hard,” said little Marie at last, “and for
myself I know that I never could refuse a child who felt so badly.
Come, Germain, let’s take him. Your mare is well used to carrying
two people and a child, for you know that your brother-in-law and
his wife, who is much heavier than I, go to market every Saturday
with their boy on this good beast’s back. Take him on the horse in
front of you. Besides, I should rather walk on foot all alone than
give this little boy so much pain.”
“Never mind,” answered Germain, who was dying to allow himself to
give way. “The gray is strong, and could carry two more if there
were room on her back. But what can we do with this child on the
way? He will be cold and hungry, and who will take care of him
to-night and to-morrow, put him to bed, wash him, and dress him?
I don’t dare give this trouble to a woman I don’t know, who will
think, doubtless, that I am exceedingly free and easy with her to
begin with.”
“Trust me, Germain, you will know her at once by the kindness or
the impatience that she shows. If she does not care to receive your
Pierre, I will take charge of him myself. I will go to her house
and dress him, and I will take him to the fields with me to-morrow.
I will amuse him all day long, and take good care that he does not
want for anything.”
“He will tire you, my poor girl, and give you trouble. A whole day
is a long time.”
“Not at all; it will give me pleasure; he will keep me company, and
that will make me less sad the first day that I must pass in a new
place. I shall fancy that I am still at home.”
Seeing that little Marie was pleading for her, the child seized
upon her skirt and held it so tight that they must have hurt him
in order to tear it away. When he perceived that his father was
weakening, he took Marie’s hand in both his tiny sunburned fists
and kissed her, leaping for joy, and pulling her toward the mare
with the burning impatience children feel in their desires.
“Come along,” said the young girl, lifting him in her arms; “let us
try to quiet his poor little heart. It is fluttering like a little
bird; and if you feel the cold when night comes on, tell me, my
Pierre, and I will wrap you in my cape. Kiss your little father,
and beg his pardon for being naughty. Tell him that you will never,
never be so again. Do you hear?”
“Yes, yes, provided that I always do just as he wishes. Isn’t
it so?” said Germain, drying the little boy’s eyes with his
handkerchief. “Marie, you are spoiling the little rascal. But
really and truly, you are too good, little Marie. I don’t know why
you did not come to us as shepherdess last Saint John’s Day. You
would have taken care of my children, and I should much rather
pay a good price for their sake than try to find a woman who will
think, perhaps, she is doing me a great kindness if she does not
detest them.”
“You must not look on the dark side of things,” answered little
Marie, holding the horse’s bridle while Germain placed his son in
front of the big pack-saddle covered with goatskin. “If your wife
does not care for children, take me into your service next year,
and you may be sure I shall amuse them so well that they will not
notice anything.”
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
VI
On the Heath
“Dear me,” said Germain, after they had gone a few steps farther,
“what will they think at home when they miss the little man? The
family will be worried, and will be looking everywhere for him.”
“You can tell the man who is mending the road up there that you are
taking him along, and ask him to speak to your people.”
“That is very true, Marie; you don’t forget anything. It never
occurred to me that Jeannie must be there.”
“He lives close to the farm, and he will not fail to do your
errand.”
When they had taken this precaution, Germain put the mare to a
trot, and Petit-Pierre was so overjoyed that for a time he forgot
that he had gone without his dinner; but the motion of the horse
gave him a hollow feeling in his stomach, and at the end of a
league, he began to gape and grow pale, and confessed that he was
dying of hunger.
“This is the way it begins,” exclaimed Germain. “I was quite sure
that we should not go far without this young gentleman crying with
hunger or thirst.”
“I am thirsty, too!” said Petit-Pierre.
“Very well, then, let’s go to Mother Rebec’s tavern at Corlay, the
sign of ‘The Dawn’--a pretty sign, but a poor lodging. You will
take something to drink, too, will you not, Marie?”
“No, no; I don’t want anything. I will hold the mare while you go
in with the child.”
“But I remember, my good girl, that this morning you gave the bread
from your own breakfast to my Pierre. You have had nothing to eat.
You would not take dinner with us at home; you would do nothing but
cry.”
“Oh, I was not hungry; I felt too sad, and I give you my word that
even now I have no desire to eat.”
“You must oblige yourself to eat, little girl, else you will fall
sick. We have a long way to go, and it will not do to arrive
half-starved and beg for bread before we say how d’ ye do. I shall
set you a good example myself, although I am not very hungry: and
I am sure that I can, for, after all, I did not eat any dinner. I
saw you crying, you and your mother, and it made me feel sad. Come
along. I am going to tie the gray at the door. Get down; I wish you
to.”
All three entered the inn, and in less than fifteen minutes the
fat, lame hostess was able to place before them a nice-looking
omelette, some brown bread, and a bottle of light wine.
Peasants do not eat quickly, and little Pierre had such a good
appetite that a whole hour passed before Germain could think of
starting out again. At first little Marie ate in order to be
obliging; then little by little she grew hungry. For, at sixteen, a
girl cannot fast for long, and country air is dictatorial.
The kind words with which Germain knew how to comfort her and
strengthen her courage, produced their effect. She tried hard to
persuade herself that seven months would soon be over, and to think
of the pleasure in store for her when she saw once more her family
and her hamlet; for Father Maurice and Germain had both promised to
take her into their service. But just as she began to cheer up and
play with little Pierre, Germain was so unfortunate as to point out
to her from the inn window the lovely view of the valley which can
all be seen from this height, and which looks so happy and green
and fertile.
Marie looked and asked if the houses of Belair were in sight.
“No doubt,” said Germain, “and the farm, too, and even your
house--see! that tiny gray spot not far from Godard’s big poplar,
below the belfry.”
“Ah, I see it,” said the little girl; and then she began to cry.
“I ought not to have made you think of it,” said Germain. “I can do
nothing but stupid things to-day. Come along, Marie; let’s start,
and in an hour, when the moon rises, it will not be hot.”
They resumed their journey across the great heath, and for fear of
tiring the young girl and the child by too rapid a trot, Germain
did not make the gray go very fast. The sun had set when they left
the road to enter the wood.
Germain knew the way as far as Magnier, but he thought it would be
shorter to avoid the Chantaloube road and descend by Presles and La
Sépulture, a route he was not in the habit of taking on his way to
the fair. He lost his way, and wasted more time before he reached
the wood. Even then he did not enter it on the right side, although
he did not perceive his mistake, so that he turned his back on
Fourche, and took a direction higher up on the way to Ardente.
He was prevented still further from finding his way by a thick
mist which rose as the night fell; one of those mists which come
on autumn evenings when the whiteness of the moonlight renders
them more undefined and more treacherous. The great pools of water
scattered through the glades gave forth a vapor so dense that when
the gray crossed them, their presence was known only by a splashing
noise, and the difficulty with which she drew her feet from the mud.
At last they found a good straight road, and when they came to the
end of it, and Germain tried to discover where he was, he saw that
he was lost. For Father Maurice had told him, when he explained
the way, that on leaving the wood he must descend a very steep
hillside, cross a wide meadow, and ford the river twice. He had
even warned him to cross this river carefully; for, early in the
season, there had been great rains, and the water might still
be higher than usual. Seeing neither hillside nor meadows, nor
river, but a heath, level and white as a mantle of snow, Germain
stopped, looked about for a house, and waited for a passer-by,
but could find nothing to set him right. Then he retraced his
steps and reentered the wood. But the mist thickened yet more,
the moon was completely hidden, the roads were execrable, and the
quagmires deep. Twice the gray almost fell. Her heavy load made
her lose courage, and although she kept enough sagacity to avoid
the tree-trunks, she could not prevent her riders from striking
the great branches which overhung the road at the height of their
heads and caused them great danger. In one of these collisions
Germain lost his hat, and only recovered it after much difficulty.
Petit-Pierre had fallen asleep, and, lying like a log in his
father’s arms, hampered him so that he could no longer hold up nor
direct the horse.
“I believe we are bewitched,” exclaimed Germain, stopping; “for the
wood is not large enough to get lost in, if a man is not drunk,
and here we have been turning round and round for two hours at
least, without finding a way out. The gray has but one idea in her
head, and that is to get home. It is she who is deceiving me. If we
wish to go home, we have only to give her the bit. But when we are
perhaps but two steps from our journey’s end, it would be foolish
to give up and return such a long road; and yet I am at a loss what
to do. I can’t see sky or earth, and I am afraid that the child
will catch the fever if we remain in this cursed fog, or that he
will be crushed beneath our weight if the horse falls forward.”
“We must not persist longer,” said little Marie. “Let’s dismount,
Germain. Give me the child; I can carry him perfectly well, and I
know better than you how to keep the cloak from falling open and
leaving him exposed. You lead the mare by her bridle. Perhaps we
shall see more clearly when we are nearer the ground.”
This precaution was of service only in saving them from a fall, for
the fog hung low and seemed to stick to the damp earth.
Their advance was painfully slow, and they were soon so weary that
they halted when they reached a dry spot beneath the great oaks.
Little Marie was in a violent sweat, but she uttered not a word of
complaint, nor did she worry about anything. Thinking only of the
child, she sat down on the sand and laid it upon her knees, while
Germain explored the neighborhood, after having fastened the gray’s
reins to the branch of a tree.
But the gray was very dissatisfied with the journey. She reared
suddenly, broke the reins loose, burst her girths, and giving,
by way of receipt, half a dozen kicks higher than her head, she
started across the clearing, showing very plainly that she needed
no one to show her the way home.
“Well, here we are afoot,” said Germain, after a vain attempt to
catch the horse, “and it would do us no good now if we were on the
good road, for we should have to ford the river on foot, and since
these paths are filled with water, we may be sure that the meadow
is wholly submerged. We don’t know the other routes. We must wait
until this fog clears. It can’t last more than an hour or two; as
soon as we can see clearly, we shall look about for a house, the
first we come to near the edge of the wood. But for the present
we can’t stir from here. There is a ditch and a pond over there.
Heaven knows what is in front of us, and what is behind us is more
than I can say now, for I have forgotten which way we came.”
[Illustration: (Ornament)]
VII
Underneath the Big Oaks
“Well, we must be patient, Germain,” said little Marie. “We are
not badly off on this little hillock. The rain does not pierce the
leaves of these big oaks, and we can light a fire, for I can feel
old stumps which stir readily and are dry enough to burn. You have
a light, Germain, have you not? You were smoking your pipe a few
minutes ago.”
“I did have; my tinderbox was in my bag on the saddle with the game
that I was bringing to my bride that is to be, but that devilish
mare has run away with everything, even with my cloak, which she
will lose and tear to bits on every branch she comes to.”
“No, no, Germain; saddle and cloak and bag are all there on the
ground at your feet. The gray burst her girths, and threw off
everything as she ran away.”
“That’s true, thank God,” exclaimed the laborer; “if we can
grope about and find a little dead wood, we shall be able to dry
ourselves and get warm.”
“That’s not difficult,” said little Marie; “dead wood always
cracks when you step on it. But will you give me the saddle?”
“What do you want of it?”
“To make a bed for the child. No, not that way. Upside down. He
will not roll off into the hollow, and it is still very warm from
the horse’s back. Prop it up all around with the stones that you
see there.”
“I can’t see a stone; you must have cat’s eyes.”
“There, it is all done, Germain. Hand me your cloak so that you can
wrap up his little feet, and throw my cape over his body. Just see
if he is not as comfortable as though he were in his own bed, and
feel how warm he is.”
“You certainly know how to take care of children, Marie.”
“I need not be a witch to do that; now get your tinderbox from your
bag, and I will arrange the wood.”
“This wood will never catch fire; it is too damp.”
“You are always doubting, Germain. Don’t you remember when you were
a shepherd, and made big fires in the fields right in the midst of
the rain?”
“Yes, that is a knack that belongs to children who take care of
sheep; but I was made to drive the oxen as soon as I could walk.”
“That is what has made your arms strong and your hands quick! Here,
the fire is built; you shall see whether it does not burn. Give me
the light and a handful of dry ferns. That is all right. Now blow;
you are not consumptive, are you?”
“Not that I know of,” said Germain, blowing like a smith’s bellows.
In an instant the flame leaped up, and throwing out a red glare,
it rose finally in pale blue jets under the oak branches, battling
with the fog, and gradually drying the atmosphere for ten feet
around.
“Now I am going to sit by the child, so that the sparks may not
fall on him,” said the young girl. “Pile on the wood and stir up
the fire, Germain; we shall not catch cold nor fever here, I will
answer for it.”
“Upon my word, you are a clever girl,” said Germain; “and you know
how to make a fire like a little fairy of the night. I feel quite
revived, and my courage has come back again; for with my legs
drenched up to the knees, and with the thought of staying this way
till daylight, I was in a very bad temper just now.”
“And when people are in a bad temper they don’t think of anything,”
answered little Marie.
“And are you never bad-tempered?”
“No, never; what is the good of it?”
“Oh, of course, there is no good; but how can you help it when you
have troubles? Yet Heaven knows that you have not lacked them, my
little girl; for you have not always been happy.”
“It is true that my mother and I have suffered. We have had
sorrows, but we have never lost heart.”
“I should never lose heart, no matter how hard my work was,” said
Germain, “but poverty would make me very sad; for I have never
wanted for anything. My wife made me rich, and I am rich still; I
shall be so as long as I work on the farm; and that will be always,
I hope. But everybody must suffer his share! I have suffered in
another way.”
“Yes; you have lost your wife. That is very sad.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Oh! Germain, I have wept for her many a time. She was so very
kind! But don’t let us talk about her longer, for I shall burst out
crying. All my troubles are ready to come back to me to-day.”
“It is true, she loved you dearly, little Marie. She used to make a
great deal of you and your mother. Are you crying? Come, my girl, I
don’t want to cry....”
“But you are crying, Germain! You are crying as hard as I. Why
should a man be ashamed to weep for his wife? Don’t let me trouble
you. That sorrow is mine as well as yours.”
“You have a kind heart, Marie, and it does me good to weep with
you. Put your feet nearer the fire; your skirts are all soaked,
too, poor little girl. I am going to take your place by the boy.
You move nearer the fire.”
“I am hot enough,” said Marie; “and if you wish to sit down, take a
corner of the cloak. I am perfectly comfortable.”
“The truth is that it is not so bad here,” said Germain, as he sat
down beside her. “Only I feel very hungry again. It is almost nine
o’clock, and I have had such hard work in walking over these vile
roads that I feel quite tired out. Are you not hungry, too, little
Marie?”
“I?--not at all. I am not accustomed like you to four meals a day,
and I have been to bed so often without my supper that once more
does not trouble me.”
“A woman like you is very convenient; she costs nothing,” said
Germain, smiling.
“I am not a woman,” exclaimed Marie, naïvely, without perceiving
the direction the husbandman’s ideas had taken. “Are you dreaming?”
“Yes, I believe I must be dreaming,” answered Germain. “Perhaps
hunger is making my mind wander.”
“How greedy you are,” answered she, brightening in her turn. “Well,
if you can’t live five or six hours without eating, have you not
game in your bag and fire to cook it?”
“By Jove, that’s a good idea! But how about the present to my
future father-in-law?”
“You have six partridges and a hare! I suppose you do not need all
of them to satisfy your appetite.”
“But how can we cook them without a spit or andirons. They will be
burned to a cinder!”
“Not at all,” said little Marie; “I warrant that I can cook them
for you under the cinders without a taste of smoke. Have you never
caught larks in the fields, and cooked them between two stones?
Oh! that is true--I keep forgetting that you have never been a
shepherd. Come, pluck the partridge. Not so hard! You will tear the
skin.”
“You might be plucking the other to show me how!”
“Then you wish to eat two? What an ogre you are! They are all
plucked. I am going to cook them.”
“You would make a perfect little sutler’s girl, Marie, but
unhappily you have no canteen, and I shall have to drink water from
this pool!”
“You would like some wine, would you not? Possibly you might prefer
coffee. You imagine yourself under the trees at the fair. Call out
the host. Some wine for the good husbandman of Belair!”
“You little witch, you are making fun of me! Would not you drink
some wine if you had it?”
“I? At Mother Rebec’s, with you to-night, I drank some for the
second time in my life. But if you are very good, I shall give you
a bottle almost full, and excellent too.”
“What? Marie, I verily believe you are a witch!”
“Were you not foolish enough to ask for two bottles of wine at the
inn? You and your boy drank one, and the other you set before me. I
hardly drank three drops, yet you paid for both without looking.”
“What then?”
“Why, I put the full one in my basket, because I thought that you
or your child would be thirsty on the journey. And here it is.”
“You are the most thoughtful girl I have ever met. Although the
poor child was crying when we left the inn, that did not prevent
her from thinking of others more than of herself. Little Marie, the
man who marries you will be no fool.”
“I hope not, for I am not fond of fools. Come, eat up your
partridges; they are done to a turn; and for want of bread, you
must be satisfied with chestnuts.”
“Where the deuce did you find chestnuts, too?”
“It is extraordinary! All along the road I picked them off the
branches as we went along, and filled my pockets.”
“And are they cooked, too?”
“Where would my wits have been had I not had sense enough to put
the chestnuts in the fire as soon as it was lighted? That is the
way we always do in the fields.”
“So we are going to take supper together, little Marie. I want to
drink your health and wish you a good husband, just the sort of a
man that will suit you. Tell me what kind you want.”
“I should find that very difficult, Germain, for I have not thought
about it yet.”