We ate our meal in peace, feeling relieved of the apprehensions of
the night before as to the quarrel between Joseph and Huriel: and, as
Thérence plainly showed, both in Joseph's presence and in his
absence, that she had no feeling, good or ill, about the past, I
indulged, as did Huriel and Fere Bastien, in tranquil and joyous
thoughts. Charlot, finding that everybody petted him, began to
forget the man who had frightened and bruised him. Every now and
then he would start and look behind him at some trifling noise, but
Thérence laughingly assured him the man was safely gone and would not
return. We seemed like a family party, and I thought to myself,
while courting Thérence with the utmost deference, that I would make
my love less imperious and more patient than Joseph's.
Brulette seemed anxious and overcome, as though cut to the heart by a
foul blow. Huriel was uneasy about her, but the Head-Woodsman, who
knew the human soul in all its windings, and who was so good that his
face and his words poured balm into every wound, took her little
hands in his and drew her pretty head to his breast, saying, at the
end of the meal:--
"Brulette, we have one thing to ask of you, and though you look so
sad and distressed, my son and I will venture to make our request
now. Won't you give us a smile of encouragement?"
"Tell me what it is, father, and I will obey you," answered Brulette.
"Well, my daughter, it is that you will present us to-morrow to your
grandfather, so that he may be asked to accept Huriel as a grandson."
"Oh, it is too soon, father," cried Brulette, shedding a few more
tears, "or rather, it is too late; if you had told me to do so an
hour ago, before Joseph uttered those words, I would gladly have
consented. But now, I confess, I should be ashamed to accept so
readily the love of an honest man, when I find I am no longer
supposed to be an honest girl. I knew I had been blamed for
coquetry. Your son himself twitted me about it a year ago. Thérence
blamed me,--though, for all that, she gave me her friendship. So,
seeing that Huriel had the courage to leave me without asking for
anything, I made a great many reflections in my own mind. The good
God helped me by sending me this child, whom I did not like at first
and might possibly have rejected, if my sense of duty had not been
mixed with a sort of idea that I should be better worthy of being
loved through a little suffering and self-denial than for my chatter
and my pretty clothes. I thought I could atone for my thoughtless
years and trample my love for my own little person underfoot. I knew
that I was criticised and neglected, but I consoled myself with the
thought: 'If he comes back to me he will know that I do not deserve
to be blamed for getting serious and sensible.' But now I have heard
something very different, partly through Joseph's conduct, partly by
Thérence's remark. It was not Joseph only who thought I had gone
astray, but Huriel also, or his great heart and his strong love would
have had no need to say to his sister yesterday: 'Guilty or not
guilty, I love her, and will take her as she is.' Ah, Huriel! I
thank you; but I will not let you marry me till you know me. I
should suffer too much to see you blamed, as you doubtless would be,
on my account. I respect you too much to let it be said that you
take upon yourself the paternity of a foundling. I must indeed have
been light in my behavior, or such an accusation could never have
been made against me! Well, I wish you to judge me now by my
every-day conduct; I want you to be sure that I am not only a gay
dancer at a wedding but the good guardian of my duty in my home. We
will come and live here, as you desire it; and in a year from now, if
I am not able to prove to you that my care of Charlot need not cause
me to blush, I shall at least have given you by my actions a proof
that I am reasonable in mind and sound in conscience."
Huriel snatched Brulette from his father's arms, and reverently
kissed the tears that were flowing from her beautiful eyes; then he
gave her back to Père Bastien, saying:--
"Bless her, my father; for you can now judge if I told you false when
I said she was worthy of your blessing. The dear golden tongue has
spoken well, and there is no answer to make to it, unless it be that
we want neither year nor day of trial, but desire to go this very
evening and ask her of her grandfather; for to pass another night
still doubtful of his consent is more than I can bear, and to get it
is all I need to make me sovereign of the world."
"See what has happened to you by asking for a respite," said Père
Bastien to Brulette. "Instead of asking your grandfather to-morrow,
it seems it must be to-night. Come, my child, you must submit; it is
the punishment of your naughty conduct in times gone by."
Contentment overspread her sweet face, and the hurt she had received
from Joseph was forgotten. However, just as we left the table,
another hesitation seized her. Charlot, hearing Huriel address the
Head-Woodsman as father, called him so himself, and was kissed and
fondled for it, but Brulette was a trifle vexed.
"Wouldn't it be best," she said, "to take the trouble to invent
parents for the poor child; every time he calls me mother it seems
like a stab to those I love."
We were beginning to reassure her on this point when Thérence said:
"Speak low; some one is listening to us;" and following her glance
toward the porch, we saw the end of a stick resting on the ground,
and the bulging side of a full sack, showing that a beggar was there,
waiting till some one took notice of him, and hearing things that he
ought not to hear.
I went up to the intruder and recognized Brother Nicolas, who came
forward at once and admitted without hesitation that he had been
listening for the last quarter of an hour, and had been very well
pleased with what he had heard.
"I thought I knew Huriel's voice," he said, "but I so little expected
to find him on my rounds that I should not have been certain, my dear
friends, that it was he, but for some things which you have been
saying, in which, as Brulette knows, I have a right to intrude."
"We know it too," said Huriel.
"Do you?" exclaimed the monk. "Well, that's as it should be."
"And the reason is," said Huriel to Brulette, "that your aunt told me
everything last night. So you see, dearest, I don't deserve all the
credit you give me."
"Yes," said Brulette, much comforted, "but yesterday morning! Well,
since everything is known," she added, turning to the monk, "what do
you advise me to do, Brother Nicolas? You have been employed on
Charlot's account; can't you find some story to spread about to cover
the secret of his parentage and repair the harm done to my
reputation?"
"Story?" said the friar. "I, advise and abet a lie? I am not one of
those who damn their souls for the love of the young girls, my little
one. I should gain nothing by it. You must be helped some other
way; and I have already been working at it more than you think. Have
patience; all will come out right, as it did in another matter,
where, as Maître Huriel knows, I have not been a bad friend to him."
"I know that I owe you the peace and safety of my life," said Huriel.
"People may say what they like of monks, I know one, at least, for
whom I would be drawn and quartered. Sit down, Brother, and spend
the day with us. What is ours is yours, and the house we are in is
yours too."
Thérence and the Head-Woodsman were showing their hospitality to the
good friar, when my aunt Marghitonne came hurrying up, and would not
let us stay anywhere but with her. She said the wedding party were
going to perform the "cabbage ceremony;" which is an old-fashioned
foolery practised the day after the marriage; the procession, she
said, was already forming and was coming round our way. The company
drank, and sang, and danced at each stopping-place. It was
impossible for Thérence now to keep aloof, and she accepted my arm to
go and meet the crowd, while Huriel escorted Brulette. My aunt took
charge of the little one, and the Head-Woodsman marched off with the
monk, who was easily persuaded into joining a jovial company.
The fellow who played the part of gardener, or as we still say among
us, the pagan, seated on a hand-barrow, was decorated in a style that
astonished everybody. He had picked up near the park a beautiful
garland of waterlilies tied with a silver ribbon, which he had bound
about his flaxen poll. It didn't take us much time to recognize
Joseph's bunch, which he had dropped or thrown away on leaving us.
The ribbons were the envy of all the girls of the party, who
deliberated how to get possession of them unspoiled; at last,
flinging themselves on the pagan, they snatched them away from him
and divided the booty, though in defending himself he managed to kiss
more than one with a mouth that was covered with foam. So scraps of
Joseph's ribbon glittered all day in the caps of the prettiest girls
in the neighborhood, and came to a much better end than their owner
thought for when he left his bunch in the dust of the road.
This farce, played from door to door through the village, was as
crazy as usual, ending with a fine repast and dancing till twilight.
After which, we all took leave, Brulette and I, the Head-Woodsman,
Thérence, and Huriel, and started for Nohant, with the monk at our
head, leading the _clairin_, on which Charlot was perched, tipsy with
excitement at what he had seen, laughing like a monkey, and trying to
sing as he had heard others do all that day.
Though the young people of the present age have degenerated wofully,
you must often have seen girls in their teens tramping fifteen miles
in the morning and as much more in the evening in the hottest
weather, for a day's dancing, and so you can easily believe that we
arrived at home without fatigue. Indeed, we danced part of the way
along the road, we four; the Head-Woodsman playing his bagpipe, and
the friar declaring we were crazy, but clapping his hands to excite
us on.
We reached Brulette's door about ten at night, and found Père Brulet
sound asleep in his bed. As he was quite deaf and slept hard,
Brulette put the baby to bed, served us a little collation, and
consulted with us whether to wake him before he had finished his
first nap. However, turning over on his side, he saw the light,
recognized his granddaughter and me, seemed surprised at the others,
and sitting up in bed as sober as a judge, listened to a statement
the Head-Woodsman made to him in a few words, spoken rather loud but
very civilly. The monk, in whom Père Brulet had the utmost
confidence, followed in praise of the Huriel family, and Huriel
himself declared his wishes and all his good intentions both present
and to come.
Père Brulet listened without saying a word, and I began to fear he
had not understood; but no such thing; though he seemed to be
dreaming, his mind was really quite clear, and he presently answered
discreetly that he recognized in the Head-Woodsman the son of a
former friend; that he held the family in much esteem, and considered
Brother Nicolas as worthy of all confidence; and, above all, he
trusted in the sense and good judgment of his granddaughter. Then he
went on to say that she had not delayed her choice and refused the
best offers of the neighborhood to commit a folly in the end, and
that if she wished to marry Huriel, Huriel would certainly be a good
husband.
He spoke in a collected manner: yet his memory failed him on one
point, which he recalled soon after, as we were about to take leave,
namely, that Huriel was a muleteer.
"That is the only thing that troubles me," he said. "My girl will be
so lonely at home by herself for three-quarters of the year."
We satisfied him at once with the news that Huriel had left the craft
and become a woodsman; and thereupon he readily agreed to the plan of
working in the woods of Chassin during the summer months.
We parted, all well pleased with one another. Thérence stayed with
Brulette, and I took the others to my own house.
We learned the next evening, through the monk, who had been begging
about all day, that Joseph had not gone near the village of Nohant,
but had spent an hour with his mother at Saint-Chartier, after which
he started to go round the neighborhood and collect all the bagpipers
for a meeting, at which he would demand a competition for admission
to the craft and the right to practise the calling. Mariton was much
troubled by this determination, believing that the Carnats, father
and son, and all the bagpipers of the country round, who were already
more in number than were needed, would oppose it and cause him both
trouble and injury. But Joseph would not listen to her, still saying
that he was resolved to get her out of service and take her to some
distant place to live with him, though she seemed not as much
inclined to that idea as he had hoped.
On the third day, all our preparations having been made, and Huriel
and Brulette's first banns published in the parish church, we started
to return to Chassin. It was like departing on a pilgrimage to the
ends of the earth. We were obliged to carry furniture, for Brulette
was determined that her grandfather should lack for nothing; so a
cart was hired and the whole village opened its eyes very wide to see
the entire contents of the house going off, even to the baskets. The
goats and the hens went too, for Thérence was delighted at the idea
of taking care of them; never having known how to manage animals, she
wanted to learn, as she said, when the opportunity offered. This
gave me the chance to propose myself in jest for her management, as
the most docile and faithful animal of the flock. She was not
annoyed, but gave me no encouragement to pass from jest to earnest.
Only, it did seem to me that she was not displeased to find me
cheerfully leaving home and family to follow her; and that if she did
little to attract me she certainly did still less to repulse me.
Just as old Brulet and the women, with Charlot, were getting into the
cart (Brulette very proud of going off with such a handsome lover, in
the teeth of all the lovers who had misjudged her), the friar came up
to say good-bye, adding for the benefit of inquisitive ears: "As I am
going over to your parts, I'll ride a bit of the way with you."
He got up beside Père Brulet, and at the end of the third mile, in a
shady road, he asked to be set down. Huriel was leading the
_clairin_, which was a good draught horse as well as a pack horse,
and the Head-Woodsman and I walked in front. Seeing that the cart
lagged behind, we turned back, thinking there might have been an
accident, and found Brulette in tears, kissing Charlot, who clung to
her screaming because the friar was endeavoring to carry him off.
Huriel interceded against it, for he was so troubled at Brulette's
tears that he came near crying himself.
"What is the matter?" said Père Bastien. "Why do you wish to send
away the child, my daughter? Is it because of the notion you
expressed the other day?"
"No, father," replied Brulette, "his real parents have sent for him,
and it is for his good to go. The poor little fellow can't
understand that; and even I, though I do understand it, my heart
fails me. But as there are good reasons why the thing should be done
without delay, give me courage instead of taking it away from me."
Though talking of courage she had none at all against Charlot's tears
and kisses, for she had really come to love him with much tenderness;
so Thérence was called in to help her. Every look and tone of the
woodland girl conveyed such a sense of her loving-kindness that the
stones themselves would have been persuaded, and the child felt it,
though he did not know why. She succeeded in pacifying him, making
him understand that Brulette was leaving him for a short time only,
so that Brother Nicolas was able to carry him off without using
force; and the pair disappeared to the tune of a sort of rondo which
the monk sang to divert his charge, though it was more like a church
chant than a song. But Charlot was pleased, and when their voices
were lost in the distance that of the monk had drowned his expiring
moans.
"Come, Brulette, start on," said Père Bastien. "We love you so well
we can soon console you."
Huriel jumped on the shaft to be near her, and talked to her so
gently all the way that she said to him just before we arrived:
"Don't think me inconsolable, my true friend. My heart failed me for
a second; but I know where to turn the love I felt for that child,
and where I shall find the happiness he gave me."
It did not take us long to settle down in the old castle and even to
feel at home in it. There were several habitable chambers, though
they hardly looked so, and at first we thought them likely to fall
about our heads. But the ruins had so long been shaken by the wind
without collapsing that we felt they might outlast our time.
Aunt Marghitonne, delighted to have us near her, furnished the
household with the various little comforts to which we were
accustomed, and which the Huriel family were coaxed with some
difficulty into sharing with us, for they were not used to such
things and cared very little for them. The Bourbonnais wood-cutters,
whom the Head-Woodsman had engaged, arrived duly, and he hired others
in the neighborhood. So that we made quite a colony, quartered
partly in the village and partly in the ruins, working cheerfully
under the rule of a just man, who knew what it was to spare over-work
and to reward the willing workman, and assembling every night in the
courtyard for the evening meal; relating stories and listening to
them; singing and frolicking in the open air, and dancing on Sundays
with all the lads and lasses of the neighborhood, who were glad
enough to get our Bourbonnais music, and who brought us little gifts
from all parts, showing us a deal of attention.
The work was hard on account of the steep slopes on which the forest
grew, which rose straight from the river, and made the felling a very
dangerous matter. I had had experience of the quick temper of the
Head-Woodsman in the woods of Alleu. As he was employing none but
choice workmen for the felling, and the choppers understood the
cutting up, nothing happened to irritate him; but I was ambitious to
become a first-class chopper in order to please him, and I dreaded
lest my want of practice should once more make him call me unhandy
and imprudent, which would have mortified me cruelly in presence of
Thérence. So I begged Huriel to take me apart and show me how to
work and to let me watch him at the business. He was quite willing
to oblige me, and I went at it with such a will that before long I
surprised the master himself by my ability. He praised me, and even
asked me before his daughter why I took hold so valiantly of a
business I had no occasion for in my own country. "Because," I
replied, "I am not sorry to know how to earn my living wherever I am.
Who knows what may happen? If I loved a woman who wanted me to live
in the depths of the woods, I could follow her, and support her there
as elsewhere."
To prove to Thérence I was not so self-indulgent as perhaps she
thought, I practised sleeping on the bare ground, and living
frugally; trying to become as hardy a forester as the rest of them.
I did not find myself any the worse for it; in fact I felt that my
mind grew more active and my thoughts clearer. Many things that I
did not at first understand without long explanations, unravelled
themselves little by little, of their own accord, so that Thérence
had no longer any occasion to smile at my stupid questions. She
talked to me without getting weary and appeared to feel confidence in
my judgment.
Still, a full fortnight went by before I felt the slightest hope of
success; though when I bemoaned myself to Huriel that I dared not say
a word to a girl who seemed so far above me that she could never so
much as look at me, he replied,--
"Don't worry, Tiennet; my sister has the truest heart in existence;
and if, like all young girls, she has her fanciful moments, there is
no fancy in her head which will not yield to the love of a noble
truth and an honest devotion."
His father said the same, and together they lent me courage; and
Thérence found me so good an attendant, I watched so closely that no
pain, fatigue, or annoyance should touch her from any cause within my
power to control, and I was so careful never to look at another
girl,--indeed I had little desire to,--in short, I behaved myself
with such honest respect, showing her plainly on what a pinnacle I
set her, that her eyes began to open; and several times I saw her
watch how I went beforehand of her wishes with a softened, reflective
look, and then reward me with thanks of which, I can tell you, I was
proud enough. She was not accustomed, like Brulette, to have her
wishes anticipated, and would never have known, like her, how to
encourage it prettily. She seemed surprised that any one thought of
her; and when it did happen, she showed such a sense of obligation
that I never felt at my ease when she said to me with her serious air
and guileless frankness, "Really, Tiennet, you are too kind," or
perhaps, "Tiennet, you take too much trouble for me; I wish I could
take as much for you some day."
One morning she was speaking to me in this way before a number of
woodcutters, and one of them, a handsome Bourbonnais lad, remarked in
a low tone that she showed a deal of interest in me.
"Certainly I do, Leonard," she replied, looking at him with a
confident air. "I feel the interest that is due to him for all his
kindness and friendship to me and mine."
"Don't you know that every one would do as he does," remarked
Leonard, "if they thought they would be paid in the same coin?"
"I would try to be just to everybody," she replied, "if I felt a
liking or a need for everybody's attentions. But I don't; and to one
of my disposition the friendship of one person suffices."
I was sitting on the turf beside her as she said this, and I took her
hand in mine, without daring to retain it more than a second. She
drew it away, but as she did so she let it rest a moment on my
shoulder in sign of confidence and relationship of soul.
However, things still went on in this way, and I began to suffer
greatly from the reserve between us,--all the more because the lovers
Huriel and Brulette were so tender and happy, and the contrast
grieved my heart and troubled my spirit. Their day of joy was
coming, but mine was not within sight.