That night Valmond and his three new recruits, to whom Garotte the
limeburner had been added, met in the smithy and swore fealty to the
great cause. Lajeunesse, by virtue of his position in the parish, and
his former military experience, was made a captain, and the others
sergeants of companies yet unnamed and unformed. The limeburner was a
dry, thin man of no particular stature, who coughed a little between his
sentences, and had a habit, when not talking, of humming to himself, as
if in apology for his silence. This humming had no sort of tune or
purpose, and was but a vague musical sputtering. He almost perilled the
gravity of the oath they all took to Valmond by this idiosyncrasy. His
occupation gave him a lean, arid look; his hair was crisp and straight,
shooting out at all points, and it flew to meet his cap as if it were
alive. He was a genius after a fashion, too, and at all the feasts and
on national holidays he invented some new feature in the entertainments.
With an eye for the grotesque, he had formed a company of jovial blades,
called Kalathumpians, after the manner of the mimes of old times in his
beloved Dauphiny.
"All right, all right," he said, when Lagroin, in the half-lighted
blacksmith shop, asked him to swear allegiance and service. "'Brigadier,
vous avez raison,'" he added, quoting a well-known song. Then he hummed
a little and coughed. "We must have a show"--he hummed again--"we must
tickle 'em up a bit--touch 'em where they're silly with a fiddle and
fife-raddy dee dee, ra dee, ra dee, ra dee!" Then, to Valmond: "We gave
the fools who fought the Little Corporal sour apples in Dauphiny, my
dear!"
He followed this extraordinary speech with a plan for making an ingenious
coup for Valmond, when his Kalathumpians should parade the streets on the
evening of St. John the Baptist's Day.
With hands clasped the new recruits sang:
"When from the war we come,
Allons gai!
Oh, when we ride back home,
If we be spared that day,
Ma luronne lurette,
We'll laugh our scars away,
Ma luronne lure,
We'll lift the latch and stay,
Ma luronne lure."
The huge frame of the blacksmith, his love for his daughter, his simple
faith in this new creed of patriotism, his tenderness of heart, joined to
his irascible disposition, spasmodic humour, and strong arm, roused in
Valmond an immediate liking, as keen, after its kind, as that he had for
the Cure; and the avocat. With both of these he had had long talks of
late, on everything but purely personal matters. They would have thought
it a gross breach of etiquette to question him on that which he avoided.
His admiration of them was complete, although he sometimes laughed half
sadly, half whimsically, as he thought of their simple faith in him.
At dusk on the eve of St. John the Baptist's Day, after a long conference
with Lagroin and Parpon, Valmond went through the village, and came to
the smithy to talk with Lajeunesse. Those who recognised him in passing
took off their bonnets rouges, some saying, "Good-night, your Highness;"
some, "How are you, monseigneur?" some, "God bless your Excellency;" and
a batch of bacchanalian river-men, who had been drinking, called him
"General," and insisted on embracing him, offering him cognac from their
tin flasks.
The appearance among them of old Madame Degardy shifted the good-natured
attack. For many a year, winter and summer, she had come and gone in the
parish, all rags and tatters, wearing men's kneeboots and cap, her grey
hair hanging down in straggling curls, her lower lip thrust out fiercely,
her quick eyes wandering to and fro, and her sharp tongue, like Parpon's,
clearing a path before her whichever way she turned. On her arm she
carried a little basket of cakes and confitures, and these she dreamed
she sold, for they were few who bought of Crazy Joan. The stout stick
she carried was as compelling as her tongue, so that when the river-men
surrounded her in amiable derision, it was used freely and with a heart
all kindness: "For the good of their souls," she said, "since the Cure
was too mild, Mary in heaven bless him high and low!"
She was the Cure's champion everywhere, and he in turn was tender towards
the homeless body, whose history even to him was obscure, save in the few
particulars that he had given to Valmond the last time they had met.
In her youth Madame Degardy was pretty and much admired. Her lover had
deserted her, and in a fit of mad indignation and despair she had fled
from the village, and vanished no one knew where, though it had been
declared by a wandering hunter that she had been seen in the far-off
hills that march into the south, and that she lived there with a
barbarous mountaineer, who had himself long been an outlaw from his kind.
But this had been mere gossip, and after twenty-five years she came back
to Pontiac, a half-mad creature, and took up the thread of her life
alone; and Parpon and the Cure saw that she suffered nothing in the hard
winters.
Valmond left the river-men to the tyranny of her tongue and stick, and
came on to where the red light of the forge showed through the smithy
window. As he neared the door, he heard a voice singularly sweet, and
another of commoner calibre was joining in the refrain of a song:
"'Oh, traveller, see where the red sparks rise,'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
But dark is the mist in the traveller's eyes.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
'Oh, traveller, see far down the gorge,
The crimson light from my father's forge.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
"'Oh, traveller, hear how the anvils ring.'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
But the traveller heard, ah, never a thing.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
'Oh, traveller, loud do the bellows roar,
And my father waits by the smithy door.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
"'Oh, traveller, see you thy true love's grace.'
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
And now there is joy in the traveller's face.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)
Oh, wild does he ride through the rain and mire,
To greet his love by the smithy fire.
(Fly away, my heart, fly away!)"
In accompaniment, some one was beating softly on the anvil, and the
bellows were blowing rhythmically.
He lingered for a moment, loath to interrupt the song, and then softly
opened the upper half of the door, for it was divided horizontally, and
leaned over the lower part.
Beside the bellows, her sleeves rolled up, her glowing face cowled in her
black hair, comely and strong, stood Elise Malboir, pushing a rod of
steel into the sputtering coals. Over the anvil, with a small bar caught
in a pair of tongs, hovered Madelinette Lajeunesse, beating, almost
tenderly, the red-hot point of the steel. The sound of the iron hammer
on the malleable metal was like muffled silver, and the sparks flew out
like jocund fireflies. She was making two hooks for her kitchen wall,
for she was clever at the forge, and could shoe a horse if she were let
to do so. She was but half-turned to Valmond, but he caught the pure
outlines of her face and neck, her extreme delicacy of expression, which
had a pathetic, subtle refinement, in acute contrast to the quick,
abundant health, the warm energy, the half defiant look of Elise. It was
a picture of labour and life.
A dozen thoughts ran through Valmond's mind. He was responsible, to an
extent, for the happiness of these two young creatures. He had promised
to make a songstress of the one, to send her to Paris; had roused in her
wild, ambitious hopes of fame and fortune--dreams that, in any case,
could be little like the real thing: fanciful visions of conquest and
golden living, where never the breath of her hawthorn and wild violets
entered; only sickly perfumes, as from an odalisque's fan, amid the
enervating splendour of voluptuous boudoirs--for she had read of these
things.
Valmond had, in a vague, graceless sort of way, worked upon the quick
emotions of Elise. Every little touch of courtesy had been returned to
him in half-shy, half-ardent glances; in flushes, which the kiss he had
given her the first day of their meeting had made the signs of an
intermittent fever; in modest yet alluring waylayings; in restless
nights, in half-tuneful, half-silent days; in a sweet sort of petulance.
She had kept in mind everything he had said to her; the playfully
emotional pressure of her hand, his eloquent talks with her uncle, the
old sergeant's rhapsodies on his greatness; and there was no place in the
room where he had sat or stood, which she had not made sacred--she, the
mad cap, who had lovers by the dozen. Importuned by the Cure and her
mother to marry, she had threatened, if they worried her further, to wed
fat Duclosse, the mealman, who had courted her in a ponderous way for at
least three years. The fire that corrodes, when it does not make
glorious without and within, was in her veins, and when Valmond should
call she was ready to come. She could not, at first, see that if he
were, in truth, a Napoleon, she was not for him. Seized of that wilful,
daring spirit called Love, her sight was bounded by the little field
where she strayed.
Elise's arm paused upon the lever of the bellows, when she saw Valmond
watching them from the door. He took off his hat to them, as Madelinette
turned towards him, the hammer pausing in the stroke.
"Ah, monseigneur!" she said impulsively, and then paused, confused.
Elise did not move, but stood looking at him, her eyes all flame, her
cheeks going a little pale, and flushing again. With a quick motion she
pushed her hair back, and as he stepped inside and closed the door behind
him, she blew the bellows, as if to give a brighter light to the place.
The fire flared up, but there were corners in deep shadow. Valmond
doffed his hat again and said ceremoniously: "Mademoiselle Madelinette,
Mademoiselle Elise, pray do not stop your work. Let me sit here and
watch you."
Taking from his pocket a cigarette, he came over to the forge and was
about to light it with the red steel from the fire, when Elise, snatching
up a tiny piece of wood, thrust it in the coals, and, drawing it out,
held it towards the cigarette, saying:
"Ah, no, your Excellency--this!"
As Valmond reached to take it from her, he heard a sound, as of a hoarse
breathing, and turned quickly; but his outstretched hand touched Elise's
fingers, and it involuntarily closed on them, all her impulsive
temperament and warm life thrilling through him. The shock of feeling
brought his eyes to hers with a sudden burning mastery. For an instant
their looks fused and were lost in a passionate affiance. Then, as if
pulling himself out of a dream, he released her fingers with a "Pardon--
my child!"
As he did so, a cry ran through the smithy. Madelinette was standing,
tense and set with terror, her eyes riveted on something that crouched
beside a pile of cart-wheels a few feet away; something with shaggy head,
flaring eyes, and a devilish face. The thing raised itself and sprang
towards hers with a devouring cry. With desperate swiftness leaping
forward, Valmond caught the half man, half beast--it seemed that--by the
throat. Madelinette fell fainting against the anvil, and, dazed and
trembling, Elise hurried to her.
Valmond was in the grasp of a giant, and, struggle as he might, he could
not withstand the powerful arms of his assailant. They came to their
knees on the ground, where they clutched and strained for a wild minute,
Valmond desperately fighting to keep the huge bony fingers from his neck.
Suddenly the giant's knee touched the red-hot steel that Madelinette had
dropped, and with a snarl he flung Valmond back against the anvil, his
head striking the iron with a sickening thud. Then, seizing the steel,
he raised it to plunge the still glowing point into Valmond's eyes.
Centuries of doom seemed crowded into that instant of time. Valmond
caught the giant's wrist with both hands, and with a mighty effort
wrenched himself aside. His heart seemed to strain and burst, and just
as he felt the end was come, he heard something crash on the murderer's
skull, and the great creature fell with a gurgling sound, and lay like a
parcel of loose bones across his knees. Valmond raised himself, a
strange, dull wonder on him, for as the weapon smote this lifeless
creature, he had seen another hurl by and strike the opposite wall. A
moment afterwards the dead man was pulled away by Parpon. Trying to rise
he felt blood trickling down his neck, and he turned sick and blind. As
the world slipped away from him, a soft shoulder caught his head, and out
of a vast distance there came to him the wailing cry: "He is dying! my
love! my love!"
Peril and horror had brought to Elise's breast the one being in the world
for her, the face which was etched like a picture upon her eyes and
heart.
Parpon groaned with a strange horror as he dragged the body from Valmond.
For a moment he knelt gasping beside the shapeless being, his great hands
spasmodically feeling the pulseless breast.
Soon afterwards in the blacksmith's house the two girls nestled in each
other's arms, and Valmond, shaken and weak, returned to the smithy.
In the dull glare of the forge fire knelt Parpon, rocking back and forth
beside the body. Hearing Valmond, he got to his feet.
"You have killed him," he said, pointing.
"No, no, not I," answered Valmond. "Some one threw a hammer."
"There were two hammers."
"It was Elise?" asked Valmond, with a shudder. "No, not Elise; it was
you," said the dwarf, with a strange insistence.
"I tell you no," said Valmond. "It was you, Parpon."
"By God, it is a lie!" cried the dwarf, with a groan. Then he came
close to Valmond. "He was--my brother! Do you not see?" he demanded
fiercely, his eyes full of misery. "Do you not see that it was you?
Yes, yes, it was you."
Stooping, Valmond caught the little man in an embrace. "It was I that
killed him, Parpon. It was I, comrade. You saved my life," he added
significantly. "The girl threw, but missed," said Parpon. "She does not
know but that she struck him."
"She must be told."
"I will tell her that you killed him. Leave it to me--all to me, my
grand seigneur."
A half-hour afterwards the avocat, the Cure, and the Little Chemist, had
heard the story as the dwarf told it, and Valmond returned to the Louis
Quinze a hero. For hours the habitants gathered under his window and
cheered him.
Parpon sat long in gloomy silence by his side, but, raising his voice,
he began to sing softly a lament for the gross-figured body, lying alone
in a shed near the deserted smithy:
"Children, the house is empty,
The house behind the tall hill;
Lonely and still is the empty house.
There is no face in the doorway,
There is no fire in the chimney.
Come and gather beside the gate,
Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills.
"Where has the wild dog vanished?
Where has the swift foot gone?
Where is the hand that found the good fruit,
That made a garret of wholesome herbs?
Where is the voice that awoke the morn,
The tongue that defied the terrible beasts?
Come and listen beside the door,
Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills."
The pathos of the chant almost made his listener shrink, so immediate and
searching was it. When the lament ceased, there was a long silence,
broken by Valmond.
"He was your brother, Parpon--how? Tell me about it."
The dwarf's eyes looked into the distance.
"It was in the far-off country," he said, "in the hills where the Little
Good Folk come. My mother married an outlaw. Ah, he was cruel, and an
animal! My brother Gabriel was born--he was a giant, his brain all
fumbling and wild. Then I was born, so small, a head as a tub, and long
arms like a gorilla. We burrowed in the hills, Gabriel and I. One day
my mother, because my father struck her, went mad, left us and came to--"
He broke off, pausing an instant. "Then Gabriel struck the man, and he
died, and we buried him, and my brother also left me, and I was alone.
By and by I travelled to Pontiac. Once Gabriel came down from the hills,
and Lajeunesse burnt him with a hot iron, for cutting his bellows in the
night, to make himself a bed inside them. To-day he came again to do
some terrible thing to the blacksmith or the girl, and you have seen--ah,
the poor Gabriel, and I killed him!"
"I killed him," said Valmond--"I, Parpon, my friend."
"My poor fool, my wild dog!" wailed the dwarf mournfully.
"Parpon," asked Valmond suddenly, "where is your mother?"
"It is no matter. She has forgotten--she is safe."
"If she should see him!" said Valmond tentatively, for a sudden thought
had come to him that the mother of these misfits of God was Madame
Degardy.
Parpon sprang to his-feet. "She shall not see him. Ah, you know!
You have guessed?" he cried. "She is all safe with me."
"She shall not see him. She shall not know," repeated the dwarf, his
eyes huddling back in his head with anguish.
"Does she not remember you?"
"She does not remember the living, but she would remember the dead. She
shall not know," he said again.
Then, seizing Valmond's hand, he kissed it, and, without a word, trotted
from the room--a ludicrously pathetic figure.