It was high holiday at Father Merlier’s mill on that pleasant summer
afternoon. Three tables had been brought out into the garden and placed
end to end in the shadow of the great elm, and now they were awaiting
the arrival of the guests. It was known throughout the length and
breadth of the land that that day was to witness the betrothal of old
Merlier’s daughter, Françoise, to Dominique, a young man who was said
to be not overfond of work, but whom never a woman for three leagues
of the country around could look at without sparkling eyes, such a
well-favoured young fellow was he.
That mill of Father Merlier’s was truly a very pleasant spot. It was
situated right in the heart of Rocreuse, at the place where the main
road makes a sharp bend. The village has but a single street, bordered
on either side by a row of low, whitened cottages, but just there,
where the road curves, there are broad stretches of meadow-land, and
huge trees, which follow the course of the Morelle, cover the low
grounds of the valley with a most delicious shade. All Lorraine has no
more charming bit of nature to show. To right and left dense forests,
great monarchs of the wood, centuries old, rise from the gentle slopes
and fill the horizon with a sea of verdure, while away toward the
south extends the plain, of wondrous fertility and checkered almost to
infinity with its small inclosures, divided off from one another by
their live hedges. But what makes the crowning glory of Rocreuse is
the coolness of this verdurous nook, even in the hottest days of July
and August. The Morelle comes down from the woods of Gagny, and it
would seem as if it gathered to itself on the way all the delicious
freshness of the foliage beneath which it glides for many a league; it
brings down with it the murmuring sounds, the glacial, solemn shadows
of the forest. And that is not the only source of coolness; there
are running waters of all kinds singing among the copses; one cannot
take a step without coming on a gushing spring, and as he makes his
way along the narrow paths he seems to be treading above subterranean
lakes that seek the air and sunshine through the moss above and profit
by every smallest crevice, at the roots of trees or among the chinks
and crannies of the rocks, to burst forth in fountains of crystalline
clearness. So numerous and so loud are the whispering voices of these
streams that they silence the song of the bullfinches. It is as if one
were in an enchanted park, with cascades falling on every side.
The meadows below are never athirst. The shadows beneath the gigantic
chestnut trees are of inky blackness, and along the edges of the
fields long rows of poplars stand like walls of rustling foliage.
There is a double avenue of huge plane trees ascending across the
fields toward the ancient castle of Gagny, now gone to rack and ruin.
In this region, where drought is never known, vegetation of all kinds
is wonderfully rank; it is like a flower garden down there in the low
ground between those two wooded hills, a natural garden, where the
lawns are broad meadows and the giant trees represent colossal beds.
When the noonday sun pours down his scorching rays the shadows lie blue
upon the ground, the glowing vegetation slumbers in the heat, while
every now and then a breath of icy coldness passes under the foliage.
Such was the spot where Father Merlier’s mill enlivened with its
cheerful clack nature run riot. The building itself, constructed of
wood and plaster, looked as if it might be coeval with our planet. Its
foundations were in part washed by the Morelle, which here expands into
a clear pool. A dam, a few feet in height, afforded sufficient head of
water to drive the old wheel, which creaked and groaned as it revolved,
with the asthmatic wheezing of a faithful servant who has grown old in
her place. Whenever Father Merlier was advised to change it, he would
shake his head and say that like as not a young wheel would be lazier
and not so well acquainted with its duties, and then he would set to
work and patch up the old one with anything that came to hand, old
hogshead-staves, bits of rusty iron, zinc, or lead. The old wheel only
seemed the gayer for it, with its odd profile, all plumed and feathered
with tufts of moss and grass, and when the water poured over it in a
silvery tide its gaunt black skeleton was decked out with a gorgeous
display of pearls and diamonds.
That portion of the mill which was bathed by the Morelle had something
of the look of a barbaric arch that had been dropped down there by
chance. A good half of the structure was built on piles; the water
came in under the floor, and there were deep holes, famous throughout
the whole country for the eels and the huge crawfish that were to be
caught there. Below the fall the pool was as clear as a mirror, and
when it was not clouded by foam from the wheel one could see troops of
great fish swimming about in it with the slow, majestic movements of a
squadron. There was a broken stairway leading down to the stream, near
a stake to which a boat was fastened, and over the wheel was a gallery
of wood. Such windows as there were were arranged without any attempt
at order. The whole was a quaint conglomeration of nooks and corners,
bits of wall, additions made here and there as afterthoughts, beams and
roofs, that gave the mill the aspect of an old dismantled citadel, but
ivy and all sorts of creeping plants had grown luxuriantly and kindly
covered up such crevices as were too unsightly, casting a mantle of
green over the old dwelling. Young ladies who passed that way used to
stop and sketch Father Merlier’s mill in their albums.
The side of the house that faced the road was less irregular. A
gateway in stone afforded access to the principal courtyard, on the
right and left hand of which were sheds and stables. Beside a well
stood an immense elm that threw its shade over half the court. At
the further end, opposite the gate, stood the house, surmounted by a
dovecote, the four windows of its first floor in a symmetrical line.
The only vanity that Father Merlier ever allowed himself was to paint
this façade every ten years. It had just been freshly whitened at the
time of our story, and dazzled the eyes of all the village when the sun
lighted it up in the middle of the day.
For twenty years had Father Merlier been mayor of Rocreuse. He was held
in great consideration on account of his fortune; he was supposed to
be worth something like eighty thousand francs, the result of patient
saving. When he married Madeleine Guillard, who brought him the mill as
her dowry, his entire capital lay in his two strong arms, but Madeleine
had never repented of her choice, so manfully had he conducted their
joint affairs. Now his wife was dead, and he was left a widower with
his daughter Françoise. Doubtless he might have sat himself down to
take his rest and suffered the old mill-wheel to sleep among its moss,
but he would have found idleness too irksome and the house would have
seemed dead to him. He kept on working still, for the pleasure of it.
In those days Father Merlier was a tall old man, with a long, silent
face, on which a laugh was never seen, but beneath which there lay,
none the less, a large fund of good-humour. He had been elected mayor
on account of his money, and also for the impressive air that he knew
how to assume when it devolved on him to marry a couple.
Françoise Merlier had just completed her eighteenth year. She was
small, and for that reason was not accounted one of the beauties of
the country. Until she reached the age of fifteen she had been even
homely; the good folks of Rocreuse could not see how it was that the
daughter of Father and Mother Merlier, such a hale, vigorous couple,
had such a hard time of it in getting her growth. When she was fifteen,
however, though still remaining delicate, a change came over her and
she took on the prettiest little face imaginable. She had black hair,
black eyes, and was red as a rose withal; her mouth was always smiling,
there were delicious dimples in her cheeks, and a crown of sunshine
seemed to be ever resting on her fair, candid forehead. Although small
as girls went in that region, she was far from being thin; she might
not have been able to raise a sack of wheat to her shoulder, but she
became quite plump as she grew older, and gave promise of becoming
eventually as well-rounded and appetising as a partridge. Her father’s
habits of taciturnity had made her reflective while yet a young girl;
if she always had a smile on her lips it was in order to give pleasure
to others. Her natural disposition was serious.
As was no more than to be expected, she had every young man in the
countryside at her heels as a suitor, more even for her money than
for her attractiveness, and she had made a choice at last, a choice
that had been the talk and scandal of the entire neighbourhood. On
the other side of the Morelle lived a strapping young fellow who went
by the name of Dominique Penquer. He was not to the manor born; ten
years previously he had come to Rocreuse from Belgium to receive the
inheritance of an uncle who had owned a small property on the very
borders of the forest of Gagny, just facing the mill and distant
from it only a few musket-shots. His object in coming was to sell
the property, so he said, and return to his own home again; but he
must have found the land to his liking, for he made no move to go
away. He was seen cultivating his bit of a field and gathering the
few vegetables that afforded him an existence. He fished, he hunted;
more than once he was near coming in contact with the law through the
intervention of the keepers. This independent way of living, of which
the peasants could not very clearly see the resources, had in the end
given him a bad name. He was vaguely looked on as nothing better than
a poacher. At all events he was lazy, for he was frequently found
sleeping in the grass at hours when he should have been at work. Then,
too, the hut in which he lived, in the shade of the last trees of the
forest, did not seem like the abode of an honest young man; the old
women would not have been surprised at any time to hear that he was
on friendly terms with the wolves in the ruins of Gagny. Still, the
young girls would now and then venture to stand up for him, for he
was altogether a splendid specimen of manhood, was this individual
of doubtful antecedents, tall and straight as a young poplar, with a
milk-white skin and ruddy hair and beard that seemed to be of gold
when the sun shone on them. Now one fine morning it came to pass that
Françoise told Father Merlier that she loved Dominique, and that
never, never would she consent to marry any other young man.
It may be imagined what a knockdown blow it was that Father Merlier
received that day! As was his wont, he said never a word; his
countenance wore its usual reflective look, only the fun that used to
bubble up from within no longer shone in his eyes. Françoise, too, was
very serious, and for a week father and daughter scarcely spoke to each
other. What troubled Father Merlier was to know how that rascal of a
poacher had succeeded in bewitching his daughter. Dominique had never
shown himself at the mill. The miller played the spy a little, and was
rewarded by catching sight of the gallant, on the other side of the
Morelle, lying among the grass and pretending to be asleep. Françoise
could see him from her chamber window. The thing was clear enough; they
had been making sheep’s eyes at each other over the old mill-wheel, and
so had fallen in love.
A week slipped by; Françoise became more and more serious. Father
Merlier still continued to say nothing. Then, one evening, of his own
accord, he brought Dominique to the house, without a word. Françoise
was just setting the table. She made no demonstration of surprise; all
she did was to add another plate, but her laugh had come back to her,
and the little dimples appeared again upon her cheeks. Father Merlier
had gone that morning to look for Dominique at his hut on the edge of
the forest, and there the two men had had a conference, with closed
doors and windows that lasted three hours. No one ever knew what they
said to each other; the only thing certain is that when Father Merlier
left the hut he already treated Dominique as a son. Doubtless the old
man had discovered that he whom he had gone to visit was a worthy young
fellow, even though he did lie in the grass to gain the love of young
girls.
All Rocreuse was up in arms. The women gathered at their doors, and
could not find words strong enough to characterise Father Merlier’s
folly in thus receiving a ne’er-do-well into his family. He let them
talk. Perhaps he thought of his own marriage. Neither had he possessed
a penny to his name at the time he married Madeleine and her mill,
and yet that had not prevented him from being a good husband to her.
Moreover, Dominique put an end to their tittle-tattle by setting to
work in such strenuous fashion that all the countryside was amazed. It
so happened just then that the boy of the mill drew an unlucky number
and had to go for a soldier, and Dominique would not hear of their
engaging another. He lifted sacks, drove the cart, wrestled with the
old wheel when it took an obstinate fit and refused to turn, and all so
pluckily and cheerfully that people came from far and near merely for
the pleasure of seeing him. Father Merlier laughed his silent laugh.
He was highly elated that he had read the youngster aright. There is
nothing like love to hearten up young men.
In the midst of all that laborious toil Françoise and Dominique fairly
worshipped each other. They had not much to say, but their tender
smiles conveyed a world of meaning. Father Merlier had not said a
word thus far on the subject of their marriage, and they had both
respected his silence, waiting until the old man should see fit to
give expression to his will. At last, one day along toward the middle
of July, he had had three tables laid in the courtyard, in the shade
of the big elm, and had invited his friends of Rocreuse to come that
afternoon and drink a glass of wine with him. When the courtyard was
filled with people, and every one there had a full glass in his hand,
Father Merlier raised his own high above his head, and said:
“I have the pleasure of announcing to you that Françoise and this lad
will be married in a month from now, on Saint Louis’ fête-day.”
Then there was a universal touching of glasses, attended by a
tremendous uproar; every one was laughing. But Father Merlier, raising
his voice above the din, again spoke:
“Dominique, kiss your wife that is to be. It is no more than customary.”
And they kissed, very red in the face, both of them, while the company
laughed louder still. It was a regular fête; they emptied a small
cask. Then, when only the intimate friends of the house remained,
conversation went on in a calmer strain. Night had fallen, a starlit
night, and very clear. Dominique and Françoise sat on a bench, side
by side, and said nothing. An old peasant spoke of the war that the
Emperor had declared against Prussia. All the lads of the village were
already gone off to the army. Troops had passed through the place only
the night before. There were going to be hard knocks.
“Bah!” said Father Merlier, with the selfishness of a man who is quite
happy, “Dominique is a foreigner; he won’t have to go--and if the
Prussians come this way, he will be here to defend his wife.”
The idea of the Prussians coming there seemed to the company an
exceedingly good joke. The army would give them one good conscientious
thrashing, and the affair would be quickly ended.
“I have seen them before, I have seen them before,” the old peasant
repeated, in a low voice.
There was silence for a little, then they all touched glasses once
again. Françoise and Dominique had heard nothing; they had managed to
clasp hands behind the bench in such a way as not to be seen by the
others, and this condition of affairs seemed so beatific to them that
they sat there, mute, their gaze lost in the darkness of the night.
What a magnificent, balmy night! The village lay slumbering on either
side of the white road as peacefully as a little child. The deep
silence was undisturbed save by the occasional crow of a cock in some
distant barnyard acting on a mistaken impression that dawn was at
hand. Perfumed breaths of air, like long-drawn sighs, came down from
the great woods that lay around and above, sweeping softly over the
roofs, as if caressing them. The meadows, with their black intensity of
shadow, took on a dim, mysterious majesty of their own, while all the
springs, all the brooks and watercourses that gurgled in the darkness,
might have been taken for the cool and rhythmical breathing of the
sleeping country. Every now and then the old dozing mill-wheel seemed
to be dreaming like a watch-dog that barks uneasily in his slumber; it
creaked, it talked to itself, rocked by the fall of the Morelle, whose
current gave forth the deep, sustained music of an organ-pipe. Never
was there a more charming or happier nook, never did a deeper peace
came down to cover it.