DOMESTIC SERVICE.
The dream curtains were closed in darkness, but I saw the white wings
of the angels shining above me, and I heard a soft thrilling voice
speaking, and saying, “Will you see more?”
“If I may,” I said as I knelt. “I deserve nothing, but grant to me the
honour of recording such deeds as these, that the memory of them may
touch nobler hearts and stronger pens to carry on the stimulus of such
examples and arouse others to like actions.”
The curtains slowly rose, and I saw a poor cottage in France, in a wide
open country, long rows of poplars along straight roads going off into
the distance—it was a disturbed country—time of the Revolution. I saw
a poor man like his and our Master also a carpenter—like Him. He had
been fostered and educated by the care and at the cost of a kind lord.
One day in those troubled years, he saw standing at the door of his
cottage his lord, with three little motherless children, fugitives and
outcasts. The little fair Angélique of five years, Josephine of only
four, and the little Count Louis, scarcely a year old. The Count was
forced to fly from the country (it was for his life), and there was no
living soul but Alexandre Martin to whom he could trust his children.
So much of the family distress was known to Martin that he did not
wonder there was no mention of any possible repayment, and he had three
children of his own, and only one, was old enough to help. But in that
poor home the lord’s children must find a home of love and reverence,
and all who could work worked doubly hard, day and often night, that
the children might be served and treated as their faithful loyalty
inspired.
I saw the table of the Chief’s children served according to their
rank; they were seated at table where white bread was given them, and
Alexandre waited on them as respectfully as if they had been in their
own castle—alas! destroyed—while his children had the scanty brown
bread of the country and they wore their poor coarse clothes to rags,
whereas the young d’Aubespinés were dressed neatly. And the carpenter’s
family slept on the floor that the lord’s children might enjoy the only
beds the poor home could furnish.
“And all for love and nothing for reward.”
Like other great and noble actions, it was all carried out perfectly
simply from the grateful loyalty of the family towards their master’s
grandchildren. As time went on two noble ladies of Chartres took charge
of the young girls as they grew up, and the young Count was, as he grew
older, educated at a foundation endowed by his great ancestor Sully at
Nogent-le-Rotrou.[1]
Years passed by, and I saw a great meeting of the Academy in Paris
where the young Count and Alexandre Martin were present, and heard a
voice which said—
“Martin, your task is over, you have deserved well from all good men.
You have shown our age a sight only too rare—gratitude, fidelity,
respect. And you, Louis d’Aubespiné, since you are present at this
solemnity, may it make a deep and lasting impression on your young
heart. You are entering life, as persons are now and then forced to
appear on a later age, with all eyes upon you. Learn that the first of
earthly blessings is to be honoured by one’s country, and pray the God
who has watched over your infancy to enable you to win that blessing
that depends on ourselves and that no event can rob us of. One day you
will be told that illustrious blood flows in your veins, but never
forget that you must trace your line as far back as Sully before you
find a name worthy to stand beside that of Martin. Grow up, then, to
show yourself worthy of the memory of your ancestor, the devotion of
your benefactor, and the patronage of the King!”
And then the vision faded, the crowded audience disappeared and the
only figure left radiant, as the curtains of my dream closed, was that
of the French peasant—the Carpenter—the redresser of one of the
mighty wrongs of the French Revolution.
(_To be continued._)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The great minister of King Henri Quatre.
“OUR HERO.”
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the
Dower House,” etc.