"What are the rules in this part of the country?"
"Among young fellows," I replied, "there is no ill-will or treachery.
We seize each other round the body, or strike where we can except on
the face. He who takes a stick or a stone is thought a scoundrel."
"That is not exactly our way," he said. "But come on, I shan't spare
you; if I hit harder than I mean to, surrender; for there's a time,
you know, when one can't answer for one's self."
Once outside on the thick sward we off coats (not to spoil them
uselessly), and began to wrestle, clasping thighs and lifting one
another bodily. I had the advantage of him there, for he was taller
than I by a head, and in bending over he gave me a better grip.
Besides, he was not angry, and thinking he would soon get the better
of me, he didn't put forth his strength. So being, I was able to
floor him at the third round, falling on top of him, but there he
recovered himself, and before I had time to strike he wound himself
round me like a snake and squeezed me so closely that I lost my
breath. Nevertheless, I managed to get up first and attack him
again. When he saw that he had to do with a free hitter, and caught
it well in the stomach and on the shoulders, he gave me as good as I
sent, and I must own that his fist was like a sledge-hammer. But I
would have died sooner than show I felt it; and each time that he
cried out, "Surrender!" I plucked up courage and strength to pay him
in his own coin. So for a good quarter of an hour the fight seemed
even. Presently, however, I felt I was getting exhausted while he
was only warming to the work; for if he had less activity than I, his
age and temperament were in his favor. The end of it was that I was
down beneath him and fairly beaten and unable to release myself. But
for all that I wouldn't cry mercy; and when he saw that I would
rather be killed he behaved like a generous fellow.
"Come, enough!" he cried, loosing his grip on my throat; "your will
is stronger than your bones, I see that, and I might break them to
bits before you would give in. That's right! and as you are a true
man let us be friends. I beg your pardon for entering your house;
and now let us talk over the damage my mules have done to you. I am
as ready to pay you as to fight you; and afterwards, you shall give
me a glass of wine so that we may part good friends."
The bargain concluded, I pocketed three crowns which he paid me for
myself and my brother-in-law; then I drew the wine and we sat down to
table. Three flagons of two pints each disappeared, for we were both
thirsty enough after the game we had been playing, and Maître Huriel
had a carcass which could hold as much as he liked to put into it. I
found him a good fellow, a fine talker, and easy to get on with; and
I, not wishing to seem behindhand in words or actions, filled his
glass every two minutes and swore friendship till the roof rang.
Apparently, he felt no effects of the fight. I felt them badly
enough; but not wishing to show it, I proposed a song, and squeezed
one, with some difficulty, from my throat, which was still hot from
the grip of his hands. He only laughed.
"Comrade," said he, "neither you nor yours know anything about
singing. Your tunes are as flat and your wind as stifled as your
ideas and your pleasures. You are a race of snails, always snuffing
the same wind and sucking the same bark; for you think the world ends
at those blue hills which limit your sky and which are the forests of
my native land. I tell you, Tiennet, that's where the world begins,
and you would have to walk pretty fast for many a night and day
before you got out of those grand woods, to which yours are but a
patch of pea-brush. And when you do get out of them you will find
mountains and more forests, such as you have never seen, of the tall
handsome fir-trees of Auvergne, unknown to your rich plains. But
what's the good of telling you about these places that you will never
see? You Berry folks are like stones which roll from one rut to
another, coming back to the right hand when the cart-wheels have
shoved them for a time to the left. You breathe a heavy atmosphere,
you love your ease, you have no curiosity; you cherish your money and
don't spend it, but also you don't know how to increase it; you have
neither nerve nor invention. I don't mean you personally, Tiennet;
you know how to fight (in defence of your own property), but you
don't know how to acquire property by industry as we muleteers do,
travelling from place to place, and taking, by fair means or foul,
what isn't given with a good will."
"Oh! I agree to all that," I answered; "but don't you call yours a
brigand's trade? Come, friend Huriel, wouldn't it be better to be
less rich and more honest? for when it comes to old age will you
enjoy your ill-gotten property with a clear conscience?"
"Ill-gotten! Look here, friend Tiennet," he said, laughing, "you who
have, I suppose, like all the small proprietors about here, a couple
of dozen sheep, two or three goats, and perhaps an old mare that
feeds on the common, do you go and offer reparation if, by accident,
your beasts bark your neighbor's trees and trample his young wheat?
Don't you call in your animals as fast as you can, without saying a
word about it; and if your neighbors take the law of you, don't you
curse them and the law too? And if you could, without danger, get
them off into a corner, wouldn't you make amends to yourself by
belaboring their shoulders? I tell you, it is either cowardice or
force that makes you respect the law, and it is because we avoid both
that you blame us, out of jealousy of the freedom that we have known
how to snatch."
"I don't like your queer morality, Huriel; but what has all this got
to do with music? Why do you laugh at my song? Do you know a
better?"
"I don't pretend to, Tiennet; but I tell you that music, liberty,
beautiful wild scenery, lively minds, and, if you choose, the art of
making money without getting stupefied,--all belong together like
fingers to the hand. I tell you that shouting is not singing; you
can bellow like deaf folks in your fields and taverns, but that's not
music. Music is on our side of those hills, and not on yours. Your
friend Joseph felt this, for his senses are more delicate than yours;
in fact, my little Tiennet, I should only lose my time in trying to
show you the difference. You are a Berrichon, as a swallow is a
swallow; and what you are to-day you will be fifty years hence. Your
head will whiten, but your brain will never be a day older."
"Why, do you think me a fool?" I asked, rather mortified.
"Fool? Not at all," he said. "Frank as to heart and shrewd as to
interest,--that's what you are and ever will be; but living in body
and lively in soul you never can be. And this is why, Tiennet," he
added, pointing to the furniture of the room. "See these big-bellied
beds where you sleep in feathers up to your eyes. You are spade and
pickaxe folk,--toilers in the sun,--but you must have your downy beds
to rest in. We forest fellows would soon be ill if we had to bury
ourselves alive in sheets and blankets. A log hut, a fern
bed,--that's our home and our furniture; even those of us who travel
constantly and don't mind paying the inn charges, can't stand a roof
over our heads; we sleep in the open air in the depth of winter, on
the pack-saddles of our mules, with the snow for a coverlet. Here
you have dresses and tables and chairs and fine china, ground glass,
good wine, a roasting-jack and soup-pots, and heaven knows what? You
think you must have all that to make you happy; you work your jaws
like cows that chew the cud; and so, when obliged to get upon your
feet and go back to work, you have a pain in your chest two or three
times a day. You are heavy, and no gayer at heart than your beasts
of burden. On Sundays you sit, with your elbows on the table, eating
more than your hunger tells you to, and drinking more than your
thirst requires; you think you are amusing yourself by storing up
indigestion and sighing after girls who are only bored with you
though they don't know why,--your partners in those dragging dances
in rooms and barns where you suffocate; turning your holidays and
festivals into a burden the more upon your spirits and stomachs.
Yes, Tiennet, that's the life you live. To indulge your ease you
increase your wants, and in order to live well you don't live at all."
"And how do you live, you muleteers?" I said, rather shaken by his
remarks. "I don't speak now of your part of the country, of which I
know nothing, but of you, a muleteer, whom I see there before me,
drinking hard, with your elbows on the table, not sorry to find a
fire to light your pipe and a Christian to talk with. Are you made
different from other men? When you have led this hard life you boast
of for a score of years, won't you spend your money, which you have
amassed by depriving yourself of everything, in procuring a wife, a
house, a table, a good bed, good wine, and rest at last?"
"What a lot of questions, Tiennet!" replied my guest. "You argue
fairly well for a Berrichon. I'll try to answer you. You see me
drink and talk because I am a man and like wine. Company and the
pleasures of the table please me even more than they do you, for the
very good reason that I don't need them and am not accustomed to
them. Always afoot, snatching a mouthful as I can, drinking at the
brooks, sleeping under the first oak I come to, of course it is a
feast for me to come across a good table and plenty of good wine; but
it is a feast, and not a necessity. To me, living alone for weeks at
a time, the society of a friend is a holiday; I say more to him in
one hour's talk than you would say in a day at a tavern. I enjoy
all, and more, than you fellows do, because I abuse nothing. If a
pretty girl or a forward woman comes after me in the woods to tell me
that she loves me, she knows I have no time to dangle after her like
a ninny and wait her pleasure; and I admit that in the matter of love
I prefer that which is soon found to that you have to search and wait
for. As to the future, Tiennet, I don't know if I shall ever have a
home and a family; but if I do, I shall be more grateful to the good
God than you are, and I shall enjoy its sweetness more, too. But I
swear that my helpmate shall not be one of your buxom, red-faced
women, let her be ever so rich. A man who loves liberty and true
happiness never marries for money. I shall never love any woman who
isn't slender and fair as a young birch,--one of those dainty, lively
darlings, who grow in the shady woods and sing better than your
nightingales."
"A girl like Brulette," I thought to myself. "Luckily she isn't
here, for though she despises all of us, she might take a fancy to
this blackamoor, if only by way of oddity."
The muleteer went on talking.
"And so, Tiennet, I don't blame you for following the road that lies
before you; but mine goes farther and I like it best. I am glad to
know you, and if you ever want me send for me. I can't ask the same
of you, for I know that a dweller on the plains makes his will and
confesses to the priest before he travels a dozen leagues to see a
friend. But with us it isn't so; we fly like the swallows, and can
be met almost everywhere. Good-bye. Shake hands. If you get tired
of a peasant's life call the black crow from the Bourbonnais to get
you out of it; he'll remember that he played the bagpipe on your back
without anger, and surrendered to your bravery."