THERE was a house on the outskirts of Viger called, by courtesy, the
Seigniory. Passing down one of the side-streets you caught sight of it,
set upon a rise, having nothing to do with the street, or seemingly with
any part of the town. Built into the bank, as it was, the front had
three stories, while the back had but two. The lower flat, half cellar,
half kitchen, was lighted from a broad door and two windows facing the
southeast. Entrance to the second floor was had by a flight of steps to
a wide gallery running completely across the front of the house. Then,
above this second story, there was a sharply-peaked roof, with
dormer-windows. The walls of the kitchen story were rough stone, while
the upper part had been plastered and overlaid with a buff-colored wash;
but time had cracked off the plaster in many places, and showed the
solid stones.
With all the ravages of time upon it, and with all its old surroundings
gone, it yet had an air of some distinction. With its shoulder to the
street, and its independent solidity, it made men remember days gone by,
when it was only a farm-house on the Estate of the Rioux family. Yet of
that estate this old house, with its surrounding three acres of land,
was all that remained; and of the retainers that once held allegiance to
this proud name, Louis Bois was the last.
Living alone in the old house, growing old with it, guarding some secret
and keeping at a proper distance the inquisitive and loquacious
villagers, had given Louis also some distinction. He was reported an old
soldier, and bore about the witness of it in a wooden leg. He swore,
when angry, in a cavalier fashion, using the heavier English oaths with
some freedom. His bravery, having never been put to proof, rested
securely upon these foundations. But he had a more definite charm for
the villagers; he was supposed to have money of his own, and afforded
the charming spectacle of a human being vegetating like a plant, without
effort and without trouble. Louis Bois had grown large in his indolence,
and towards the end of his career he moved with less frequency and
greater difficulty. His face was round and fat; the hair had never grown
on it, and the skin was fine and smooth as an orange, without wrinkles,
but marked with very decided pores. The expression of amiability that
his mouth promised was destroyed by an eye of suspicious restlessness.
About fifteen years before the time of his release Louis had been sworn
to his post by the last of the Rioux family—Hugo Armand Theophile.
This young man, of high spirit and passionate courage, found himself, at
the age of twenty-five, after two years of intermittent study at a
Jesuit College, fatherless, and without a sou to call his own. Of the
family estate, the farm-house, round which Viger had closed, was all
that remained, and from its windows this fiery youth might look across
the ten acres that were his, over miles of hill and wood to which his
grandfather had been born. This vista tortured him for three days, when
he sold seven of his acres, keeping the rest from pride. Then he shook
off the dust of Viger, but not before swearing Louis Bois, who was old
enough to be his father, and loved him as such, to stay and watch the
forlorn hope of the Rioux Estate until he, the last of the line, should
return and redeem his ancient heritage. He would be gone ten years, he
said; and Louis reflected with pride that his own money would keep him
that long, and longer.
At first he kept the whole house open, and entertained some of his
friends; but he soon discovered that he lost money by that, and
gradually he boarded up the windows and lived in the kitchen and one
room of the upper flat.
He was a sensitive being, this, and his master’s idea had taken hold
upon him. His burly frame contained a faint heart; he had no physical
courage; and he was as suspicious as a savage. Moreover, he was
superstitious, as superstitious as an old wife, and odd occurrences made
him uneasy. If he could have been allowed to doze on his gallery in the
sun all his days, and sleep secure of dreams and visitations all his
nights, his life might have been bearable. The first three years of his
stewardship were comparatively uneventful. He traced his liege’s
progress through the civilized world by the post-mark on his letters,
which sometimes contained a bill of exchange, of which the great and
safe bank of Bardé Brothers took charge. As yet his master had not
captured a treasure ship; but seven years remained.
At the beginning of his fourth year something happened which disturbed
Louis’ existence to its centre. An emissary of the devil, in the guise
of a surveyor, planted his theodolite, and ran a roadway which took off
a corner of his three acres, and for this he received only an
arbitrator’s allowance. In vain he stumped up and down his gallery, and
in vain his English oaths—the roadway went through. To add to his
trouble, the letters from the wanderer ceased. Was he dead? Had he
forgotten? No more money was coming in, and Louis had the perpetual
sight of the alienated lands before his eyes.
One day, when he was coming home from the bank, his eye caught a poster
that made him think; it was an announcement of a famous lottery. Do what
he would he could not get it out of his head; and that evening, when he
was cooking his supper, he resolved to make money after a fashion of his
own. He saw himself a suddenly rich man, the winner of the
seventy-five-thousand-dollar prize. He felt his knee burn under him, and
felt also what a dead thing his wooden leg was.
He began to venture small sums in the lottery, hoarding half his monthly
allowance until he should have sufficient funds to purchase a ticket.
Waiting for the moment when he could buy, and then waiting for the
moment when he could receive news of the drawing, lent a feverish
interest to his life. But he failed to win. With his failure grew a sort
of exasperation—he would win, he said, if he spent every cent he owned.
He had moments when he suspected that he was being duped, but he was
always reassured upon spelling out the lottery circular, where the
drawing by the two orphan children was so touchingly described.
At last, after repeated failures, he drew every cent of his own that he
could muster, and bought a whole ticket. He never rested a moment until
the returns came. He had days of high spirits, when he touched his gains
and saw them heaped before him, and other days of depression when he
cursed his ill luck, and saw blanks written everywhere. When he learned
the result his last disappointment was his greatest. He had drawn a
blank.
He was in a perfect fury of rage, and went off to bed cursing like a
sea-pirate. When he took off his wooden leg, he took it by the foot and
beat the floor with the knee-end until he got some relief. Could he have
captured, he would have murdered the innocent orphan children. He swore
never to be tempted again, but the morning when he took that oath, April
was bleak on the hills, and a tardy spring circled in cold sunshine,
leaving the buds suspended.
When May came, his hope again blossomed. Slowly and certainly his mind
approached that money he had in trust for his master, until, one sultry
day in June, he saw his way to success, and felt his conscience lulled.
That afternoon he dozed on the gallery and dreamed. He felt he was in
Heaven, and the heaven of his dreams was a large Cathedral whose nave he
had walked somewhere in his journeyings. He saw the solemn passages, the
penetrating shafts of light, the obscure altar rising dimly in the
star-hung alcove; and from the glamour round the altar floated down a
magnificent angel, and with a look of perfect knowledge in his eyes
shamed him for his base resolve. Slowly, as Louis quailed before him, he
dwindled, shimmering in the glory shaken from his vesture, until he grew
very faint and indistinct, and dissolved slowly into light. Then his
vision swayed aside, and he saw his own gallery, and a little
cream-colored dog, that sat with his back half-turned towards him, eying
him over his shoulder. Superstitious Louis shuddered when he saw this
dog. He thought there was something uncanny about him; but to a casual
observer he was an ordinary dog of mixed blood. He had a sharp nose and
ears, piercing eyes, straight, cream-colored hair rather white upon the
breast, and a tail curled down upon his back. He was a small dog; an
intense nervousness animated his every movement.
Louis was afraid to drive him away, and so long as he saw him he could
not forget his dream and the reproof he had had from heaven; gradually
he came to believe the animal was a spirit in canine form. His reasons
for this were that the dog never slept, or at least never seemed to
sleep. All day long he followed Louis about. If he dozed in his chair
the dog laid his nose between his paws and watched him. If he woke at
night his eyes burned in the darkness. Again, he never seemed to eat
anything, and he was never heard to utter a sound.
Louis, half-afraid of him, gave him a name; he called him Fidele. He
also tried to coax him, but to no purpose. The dog never approached him
except when he went to sleep; then he would move nearer to him. At last
he got greater confidence; and Louis awoke from a doze one day to find
him gnawing his wooden leg. He tried to frighten him off; but Fidele had
acquired the habit and stuck to it. Whenever Louis would fall asleep,
Fidele would approach him softly and chew his leg. Perhaps it was the
soft tremor that was imparted to his fleshy leg from the gnawing of the
wooden one; but Louis never slept more soundly than when this was
progressing. He saw, however, with dismay, his hickory support
vanishing, and to avoid wasting his money on wooden legs he covered the
one he had with brass-headed tacks. In the end the dog came to be a sort
of conscience for him. He could never look at his piercing eyes without
thinking of the way he had been warned.
To pay for his recklessness Louis had to live on a pittance for years;
just enough to keep himself alive. He might have lost his taste for
gambling, through this rigor, and his temptation to use his master’s
money might never have returned; but in his lottery business he had made
a confidant of one of the messengers of the Bardé Bank. The fellow’s
name was Jacques Potvin. He was full of dissimulation; he loved a lie
for its own sake; he devoured the simple character of Louis Bois.
Whenever they met, Louis was treated to a flushed account of all sorts
of escapades,—thousands made in a night—tens of thousands by a
pen-stroke.
At last, as a crowning success, Jacques Potvin himself had won a
thousand dollars in a drawing that Louis could not participate in. This
was galling. To have that money lying idle; never to hear from his
master Rioux, who was probably dead, and to see chance after chance slip
by him. He gave his trouble to Potvin! Potvin took the weight lightly
and threw it over his shoulder.
“Bah!” he said. “If I had that money under my fingers, I would be a rich
man before the year was out.”
The fever was in Louis’ blood again. He tossed a sleepless night, and
then resolved desperately. He shut Fidele up in the attic, and went off
and bought a ticket with his master’s money. When he came back from the
bank, the first thing he saw was Fidele seated in one of the
dormer-windows, watching him. It would be six months before he could get
any news of his venture; six months of Fidele and an accusing
conscience.
Half the time was scarcely over when, to his horror and joy, came a
letter from his master. It was dated at Rio. He was on his way home; he
would arrive in about six months. The probable failure of his scheme
gave Louis agony now. He would have to face his master, who would arrive
at Christmas if his plans were discharged, with a rifled bank account.
On the other hand, if he should be successful!—Oh! that gold, how it
haunted him!
One night, on the eve of his expectation, Louis fell asleep as he was
cooking his supper. He slept long, and when he awoke his stove was
red-hot. He started up, staring at something figured on the red stove
door.
It was only the number of the stove, but it was also the number of his
ticket. He waited, after that, in perfect serenity, and when his notice
came he opened it with calmness. He had won the
seventy-five-thousand-dollar prize.
He went off hot foot to Potvin.
“Of course,” he said, “I’ll have them send it to the Bardé Bank.”
“Just keep cool,” said Potvin. “Of course you’ll do nothing of the
sort.”
“But why?”
“Why? Wait and see. The Imperial Bank is safe enough for you.”
Louis had the money sent to the Imperial Bank.
A short time after this, when Louis passed the Bardé Bank, a crowd of
people were besieging the doors and reading the placards; the Bank had
suspended payment. The shrewdness of Potvin had saved his seventy-five
thousand.
When he next met Jacques, he hugged him to his heart. Jacques laid his
finger on his nose:
“Deeper still,” he said. “I know, I _know_ that the Imperial itself is
totterish. This affair of the Bardés has made things shaky; see?
Everything is on three legs. If I were you, now; if _I_ were you, I’d
just draw that seventy-five thousand dollars and lay it away in a
strong-box till this blows over.”
“But,” said Louis, in a panic, “I have no strong-box.”
“But _I_ have,” said Jacques.
Louis laid his hands on his shoulders, and could have wept.
Christmas passed, but no sign of Hugo Armand Theophile. But the second
week in January brought a letter, two days old, from New York. Rioux
would be in Viger in a week at the latest. Louis was in great spirits.
He planned a surprise for his master. He went off to find Jacques
Potvin, but Jacques was not to be found.
Louis arranged that Jacques was to meet him at a tavern called “The Blue
Bells” the next day.
“But,” said Jacques, when they met, “this is absurd. What do you want
the money for?”
“Never mind, I want it, that’s all.”
“But think; seventy-five thousand dollars!”
“I want it for a few days. Just the money—myself—I—is it not mine?”
Some one in the next compartment rose, and put his ear to the partition.
The voices were low, but he could hear them well. Listening intently,
his eyes seemed to sink into his head, and burn there darkly.
“Well, so it is,” concluded Jacques. “I will get it for you. But we’ll
have to do the thing quietly, very quietly. I’ll drive out to Viger
to-morrow night, say. I’ll meet you at that vacant field next the
church, at eleven, and the money will be there.”
The listener in the next compartment withdrew hastily, and mingled with
the crowd at the bar. That night he wandered out to Viger. He observed
the church and the vacant lot, and saw that there were here and there
hollows under the sidewalk, where a man might crouch.
He afterward wandered about for a while, and found himself in front of
the old farm-house. A side window of the second story was filled with
the flicker of a fire. A ladder leaned against the wall and ran up past
the window. He hesitated whether to ascend the gallery-steps or the
ladder. He chose the ladder. With his foot on the lowest rung, he said:
“If I hadn’t this little scheme on hand I would go in, but—”
He went up the ladder and looked in at the window. Louis Bois was asleep
before the fire. Fidele lay by his side. The man caught the dog’s eye.
Louis woke nervously, and saw a figure at the window. The only thing he
discerned distinctly was a white sort of cap. In his sudden fear,
seeking something to throw, he touched Fidele, and without thinking, he
hurled him full at the man.
The dog’s body broke the old sash and crashed through the glass. The
fellow vanished. When Louis had regained his courage, he let Fidele in.
There was not a scratch on him. He lay down about ten yards from Louis,
and looked at him fixedly.
The old soldier had no sleep that night, and no peace the next day.
The next night was wild. Louis looked from his window. The moon was
shining brightly on the icy fields that glared with as white a radiance;
over the polished surface drifted loose masses of snow, and clouds
rushed across the moon.
He took his cloak, his stick, and a dirk-knife, and locking Fidele in,
started forth. A few moments after he reached the rendezvous, Jacques
drove up in a berlin.
“Here it is,” Jacques said, pressing a box into his hands, “the key that
hangs there will open it. I must be off. Be careful!”
Jacques whirled away in the wind. There was not a soul to be seen. Louis
clutched his knife, and turned toward home. He had not left the church
very far behind, when he thought he heard something moving. A cloud
obscured the moon. A figure leaned out from under the sidewalk and
observed him. A moment later it sprang upon the pathway and leaped
forward.
Louis was sure some one was there; half looking round, he made a swipe
in the air with his knife. It encountered something. Looking round
fairly he saw a man with a whitish cap stagger off the sidewalk and fall
in the snow.
Hurrying on, he looked back a moment later, and saw the figure of the
man, receding, making with incredible swiftness across the vacant space.
Louis once out of sight, the man doubled with the rapidity of a wounded
beast, and after plunging through side-streets was again in front of the
farm-house. He ascended the ladder with some difficulty, and entered the
room by the window. Where he expected to find his faithful steward,
there was only a white dog that neither moved nor barked, and that
watched him fixedly as he fell, huddled and fainting, on the bunk.
A few minutes later Louis reached home. The sickness of fear possessed
him. He staggered into the room and sat before the fire, trying to
control himself. When he was calmer, he found himself clutching the box.
He threw off his cloak and took the key to fit it into the lock. The key
was too large. In vain he fussed and turned—it would not go in. He
shook the box; nothing rattled or moved. A horrid suspicion crossed his
mind. What if Jacques had stolen the money! What if there was nothing in
the box!
He seized the poker in a frenzy and beat the box open. It was
empty—empty—empty!
His hand went round in it mechanically, while he gazed, wild with
conjecture. Then, with an oath he flung the box on the fire and turned
away. The disturbed brands shot a glow into every part of the room, and
Louis saw by one flash a gray Persian-lamb cap, which he recognized,
lying on the floor. By the next, he saw the head, from which it had
rolled, pillowed on his bunk.
He tried to utter a cry, but sank into his chair stricken dumb; for
death had not yet softened the lines of desperate cunning on the face,
which, in spite of the scars of a wild life, he recognized as that of
Hugo Armand Theophile Rioux.
The look of that cap as he had seen it through the window; the glimpse
he had of it a few minutes ago, when he swept his knife back through the
air; the face of his master—dead; the thought of himself, duped and
robbed, fixed him in his chair, where he hung half-lifeless.
Everything reeled before him, but in a dull glare he saw Fidele, his
nose between his extended paws, and his eyes fixed keenly upon him. They
seemed to pierce him to the soul, until their gleam, which had followed
him for so many years, faded out with all the familiar lines and corners
of his room, engulfed in one intense, palpitating light.
The people who broke open the house saw the unexplained tragedy of the
Seigniory, but they did not find Fidele, nor was he ever seen again.