to-morrow I shoot with the Baron."
"_Tiens!_" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand chateau?" And her
frank eyes opened wide. "Ah, _mais_--but monsieur will not have to work
hard for a partridge there."
"And so you know the chateau, my little one?"
"Ah, _mais oui_, monsieur! Is it not at La Sapiniere near Les Roses? My
grandfather was gardener there when I was little. I passed the chateau
once with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieur
will be content--ah, _mais oui_!"
"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, _ma petite_!"
"_Bien_, monsieur." And Suzette passed me my lighted candle, the flame
of which rose brilliantly from its wick.
"That means good luck, monsieur," said she, pointing to the
candle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs.
"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief in
superstitions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for the
doctor--Suzette had broken a mirror.
"Ah, _mais si_," declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her
kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that--ah, _ca!_" And with a
cheery _bonsoir_ she closed the door behind her.
I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobile
emitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside my
wall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushed
out, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and--could
it be true? Monsieur le Cure.
"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight.
"Yes," he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy an
invitation."
"And I would not let him," added Tanrade. "Quick! Where are your traps?
We have a good forty kilometres ahead of us; we must not keep the Baron
waiting." And the composer of ballets rushed into the house and
shouldered my valise containing a dry change.
"You shall have enough partridges to fill your larder for a month," I
heard him tell Suzette, and he did not forget to pat her rosy cheek in
passing. Suzette laughed and struggled by him, her firm young arms
hugging my gun and shell-case.
Before I could stop him, the cure, in his black soutane, had clambered
nimbly to the roof of the big car and was lashing my traps next to
Tanrade's and his own. At this instant I started to take a long breath
of pure morning air--and hesitated, then I caught the alert eye of the
chauffeur, who was grinning.
"What are you burning? Fish oil?" said I.
"_Mon Dieu_, monsieur----" began the chauffeur.
"Cheese," called down the cure, pointing to a round paper parcel on the
roof of the limousine. "Tanrade got it at daylight; woke up the whole
village getting it."
"Had to," explained Tanrade, as Suzette helped him into his great coat.
"The Baron is out of cheese; he added a postscript to my invitation
praying that I would be amiable enough to bring one. _Eh voila!_ There
it is, and real cheese at that. Come, get in, quick!" And he opened the
door of the limousine, the interior of which was lined in gray suede and
appointed with the daintiest of feminine luxuries.
"Look out for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a
farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the cure found his seat. "If you
scratch those monograms the Baroness will never forgive you."
Then, with a wave to Suzette, we swept away from my house by the marsh,
were hurled through Pont du Sable, and shot out of its narrowest end
into the fresh green country beyond.
It was so thoroughly chic and Parisian, this limousine. Only a few days
ago it had been shopping along the Rue de la Paix, and later rushing to
the cool Bois de Boulogne carrying a gracious woman to dinner; now it
held two vagabonds and a cure. We tore on while we talked
enthusiastically of the day's shooting in store for us. The cure was in
his best humour. How he does love to shoot and what a rattling good shot
he is! Neither Tanrade nor myself, and we have shot with him day in and
day out on the marsh and during rough nights in his gabion, has ever
beaten him.
On we flew, past the hamlet of Fourche-la-Ville, past Javonne, past Les
Roses. _Sacristi!_ I thought, what if the gasoline gave out or the spark
refused to sparkle, what if they had----Why worry? That cheese was
strong enough to have gotten us anywhere.
Suddenly we slowed down, hastily consulted a blue iron sign at the
crossroad, and swung briskly to the right.
A noble forest and the roofs and _tourelles_ of the chateau now loomed
ahead of us. We turned into a clean, straight road, flanked by superb
oaks leading to an ancient stone gateway. A final wail from the siren,
the gates swung open, and we came to a dead stop in front of the Baron,
four setter dogs, and a group of gentlemen immaculately attired for the
hunt. From their tan-leather leggings to their yellow dogskin gloves and
gleaming guns, they were faultless.
While the Baron greeted us, his guests stood waiting to be presented;
their formal bow would have done credit to a foreign embassy during an
imperial audience. The next moment we were talking as naturally together
and with as much camaraderie as if we had known each other for years.
"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "_Vous etes
chez vous_; the ladies have gone to Paris."
It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all.
It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was a
good fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there.
No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but instead
four plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The chateau itself
was plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of the
little towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing the
snug forest bulged dangerously in places.
"You will see," explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as our
little party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not get
along very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives us
trouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged aunt
was unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us from
hunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot put
foot in his harvest."
"I see," I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew the
birds were where the harvest was still uncut.
"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would rather
lose than have me hunt over," the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall see
what the _canaille_ will do, for only this morning he sent me word
threatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better than
have us all served with a _proces-verbal_ for trespassing."
I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of the
country-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's pace
and be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a
_proces-verbal_ meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a no
more tranquil state of mind himself.
"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That _sacre_
individual will deal with _me_. It is _I_ who am alone responsible," he
generously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let him
bulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, for
what he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest."
"_Eh bien!_ my dear friends," he called back to the others as we reached
a cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to the
right--half to the left!"
"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into two
slowly moving companies.
"Le Bour," returned the Baron grimly as the breech of his gun snapped
shut.
The vast cultivated plain undulating below us looked like the
patchwork-quilt of a giantess, stitched together with well-knit hedges.
There were rectangles of apple-green clover, canary-yellow squares of
mustard, green pastures of ochre stubble, rich green strips of beets,
and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed.
Time after time we were obliged to pass around companies of partridges
that had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt. It was
exasperating, for, from the beginning of the shoot, every bird seemed to
know where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the
_messieurs_ in the yellow dogskin gloves. By eleven o'clock there were
barely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been a
hundred.
At the second cross road, the right and left party convened. It was what
Le Bour had been waiting for.
A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which he
had hidden himself, and came glowering toward us. As he drew nearer I
saw that his gun swung loosely in his hand and was at full cock, its
muzzle wavering unpleasantly over us as he strode on. His mean old eyes
glittered with rage, his jaw trembled under a string of oaths. His
manner was that of a sullen bull about to charge.
There was no mistaking his identity--it was Le Bour.
"_Proces-verbal_ for all of you," he bellowed; "you, Monsieur le Baron,
and you, Monsieur le Vicomte," he snapped, as the Baron advanced to
defend his guests. "I saw you cross my buckwheat," he declared pointing
an ugly finger at the Vicomte.
"You lie!" shouted the Baron, before the Vicomte could find his words.
"I forbid you to open your head to my guests. Not one of these gentlemen
has set foot in your harvest. What right have _you_ to carry a gun?
Where is your hunting permit?" thundered the Baron. "Where's your
commission as guard, that you should have the insolence to threaten us
with a _proces-verbal_."
"Ah!" exclaimed the Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought
as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Cure, the fellow has no
permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule.
"Come, my friends, we shall leave this imbecile to himself," laughed the
Baron.
Le Bour sprang past him and confronted us.
"_Eh ben_, my fine gentlemen," he snarled, "you'll not get away so
easily. I demand, in the name of the law, your hunting permits. Come,
_allons_! All of you!"
At the same instant he tore open his blouse and displayed, to our
dismay, an oval brass plaque bearing his name and the number 1247.
"There!" cried the old man, white and trembling with rage. "There's my
full commission as guard."
My companion with the gloves next to me fidgeted nervously and coughed.
I saw the Vicomte turn a little pale. Tanrade shrugged his shoulders.
Monsieur le Cure's face wore an expression of dignified gravity. Not
once, however, had Le Bour's eyes met his own. It was evident that he
reverently excluded the cure from the affair.
The Vicomte looked uncomfortable enough. The truth was, he was not known
to be at the hunt. The Vicomtesse was shrewd when it came to the
question of his whereabouts. A _proces-verbal_ meant publicity;
naturally the Vicomtesse would know. It might even reach the adorable
ears of Mademoiselle Rosalie, of the _corps de ballet_, who imagined the
Vicomte safe with his family. The Baron was fuming, but he did not
speak.
"Your permits!" reiterated Le Bour, flourishing his license.
There was an awkward silence; not a few in the party had left their
permits at home.
"_Pouf!_" exclaimed the Baron. "Enough of this! _En route_, my friends!"
"_Eh, bien!_" growled the farmer. "You refuse to produce your permits on
demand of a guard. It shall be stated," he threatened, "in the
_proces-verbal_." Then Le Bour turned on his muddy heel and launched a
parting volley at the Baron denouncing his chateau and everything
connected with him.
"Do not forget the time you stole the ducks of my uncle," cried the
Baron, shaking a clenched fist at the old man, "or the morning--" But
his words were lost on Le Bour, who had disappeared in the hedge.
By eleven-thirty we had killed some two dozen birds and three hares; and
as we were now stricken with "the appetite of the wolf," we turned back
to the chateau for breakfast.
Here a sponge and a rub-down sent us in gay spirits down to the
billiard-room, where a bottle of port was in waiting--a rare bottle for
particular occasions. It was "the last of a dozen," explained the Baron
as we touched glasses, sent to the chateau by Napoleon in payment for a
night's lodging during one of his campaigns. "The very time, in fact,"
he added, "when the little towers lost their tops."
Under the spell of the Emperor's port the Vicomte regained his nerves,
and even the unpleasant incident of the morning was half forgotten while
the piano in the historic salon rang merrily under Tanrade's touch until
we filed in to luncheon.
It was as every French shooting-luncheon is intended to be--a pleasant
little fete full of good cheer and understanding; the good soup, the
decanters of Burgundy, the clean red-and-white checkered napkins and
cloth, the heavy family silver, the noiseless old servants--and what an
appetite we had! What a _souffle_ of potatoes, and such chicken
smothered in cream! And always the "good kind wine," until the famous
cheese that Tanrade had waked up Pont du Sable in procuring was passed
quickly and went out to the pantry, never to return. Ah, yes! And the
warm champagne without which no French breakfast is complete.
Over the coffee and liqueurs, the talk ran naturally to gallantry.
"Ah, _les femmes_! The memories," as the Baron had said.
"You should have seen Babette Deslys five years ago," remarked one of
our jolly company when the Baron had left the room in search of some
milder cigars.
I saw the Vicomte raise his eyebrows in subtle warning to the speaker,
who, like myself, knew the Baron but slightly. If he was treading upon
delicate ground he was unconscious of it, this _bon vivant_ of a
Parisian; for he continued rapidly in his enthusiasm, despite a second
hopeless attempt of the Vicomte to check him.
"You should have seen Babette in the burlesque as Phryne at the
Varietes--_une merveille, mon cher!_" he exclaimed, addressing the
sous-lieutenant on his right, and he blew a kiss to the ceiling. "The
complexion of a rosebud and amusing! Ah--la! la!"
"I hear her debts ran close to a million," returned the lieutenant.
"She was feather-brained," continued the _bon vivant_, with a blase
shrug. "She was a good little quail with more heart than head! Poor
Babette!"
"Take care!" cautioned the Vicomte pointblank, as the Baron re-entered
with the box of milder Havanas.
And thus the talk ran on among these men of the world who knew Paris as
well as their pockets; and so many Babettes and Francines and other
careless little celebrities whose beauty and extravagance had turned
peace and tranquillity into ruin and chaos.
At last the jolly breakfast came to an end. We rose, recovered our guns
from the billiard-table, and with fresh courage went forth again into
the fields to shoot until sunset. During the afternoon we again saw Le
Bour, but he kept at a safe distance watching our movements with
muttered oaths and a vengeful eye, while we added some twenty-odd
partridges to the morning's score.
* * * * *
Toward the end of the afternoon, a week later, at Pont du Sable, Tanrade
and the cure sat smoking under my sketching-umbrella on the marsh. The
cure is far from a bad painter. His unfinished sketch of the distant
strip of sea and dunes lay at my feet as I worked on my own canvas while
the sunset lasted.
Tanrade was busy between puffs of his pipe in transposing various
passages in his latest score. Now and then he would hesitate, finger the
carefully thought out bar on his knee, and again his stub of a pencil
would fly on through a maze of hieroglyphics that were to the cure and
myself wholly unintelligible.
Suddenly the cure looked up, his keen gaze rivetted upon two dots of
figures on bicycles speeding rapidly toward us along the path skirting
the marsh.
"Hello!" exclaimed the cure, and he gave a low whistle. "The gendarmes!"
There was no mistaking their identity; their gold stripes and white duck
trousers appeared distinctly against the tawny marsh.
The next moment they dismounted, left their wheels on the path, and came
slowly across the desert of wire-grass toward us.
"_Diable!_" muttered Tanrade, under his breath, and instantly our minds
reverted to Le Bour.
The two officials of the law were before us.
"We regret to disturb you, messieurs," began the taller of the two
pleasantly as he extracted a note-book from a leather case next to his
revolver. "But"--and he shrugged his military shoulders--"it is for the
little affair at Hirondelette."
"Which one of us is elected?" asked Tanrade grimly.
"Ah! _Bon Dieu!_" returned the tall one; half apologetically. "A
_proces-verbal_ unfortunately for you, Monsieur Tanrade. Read the
charge," he said to the short one, who had now unfolded a paper, cleared
his throat, and began to read in a monotonous tone.
"Monsieur Gaston Emile Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, charges
Monsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of the
Thirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in his
buckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion on
the thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in the morning."
"I was _not_ in his _sacre_ buckwheat!" declared Tanrade, and he
described the entire incident of the morning.
"Take monsieur's denial in detail," commanded the tall one.
His companion produced a small bottle of ink and began to write slowly
with a scratchy pen, while we stood in silence.
"Kindly add your signature, monsieur," said the tall one, when the
bottle was again recorked.
Tanrade signed.
The gendarmes gravely saluted and were about to withdraw when Tanrade
asked if he was "the only unfortunate on the list."
"Ah, _non_!" confessed the tall one. "There is a similar charge against
Monsieur le Vicomte--we have just called upon him. Also against Monsieur
le Baron."
"And what did they say?"
"_Eh bien_, monsieur, a general denial, just as monsieur has made."
"The affair is ridiculous," exclaimed Tanrade hotly.
"That must be seen," returned the tall one firmly.
Again we all saluted and they left us, recovered their bicycles, and
went spinning off back to Pont du Sable.
"_Nom d'un chien!_" muttered Tanrade, while the cure and I stared
thoughtfully at a clump of grass.
"Why didn't he get me?" I ventured, after a moment.
"Foreigner," explained Tanrade. "You're in luck, old boy--no record of
identity, and how the devil do you suppose Le Bour could pronounce your
name?"
Half an hour later I found the Vicomte, who lived close to our village.
He was pacing up and down his salon in a rage.
"I was _not_ in the buckwheat!" he declared frantically. "Do you suppose
I have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched business
out at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, for
a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He
is the devil! _He_ is responsible for this--naturally." And he fell
again to pacing the room.
I looked blankly at the Vicomte.
"Son? What young son?" I asked.
The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise.
"Ah! _Sapristi!_ You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know that
Babette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away with
her and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francs
belonged to Le Bour? _Sapristi!_ You did not know _that_?"
[Illustration: sign: CHASSE GARDEE]
* * * * *
[Illustration: the yellow car]
CHAPTER TEN
THE BELLS OF PONT DU SABLE
The big yellow car came ripping down the road--a clean hard ribbon of a
road skirting the tawny marsh that lay this sparkling August morning
under a glaze of turquoise blue water at high tide.
With a devilish wail from its siren, the yellow car whizzed past my
house abandoned by the marsh. I was just in time, as I raised my head
above the rambling wall of my courtyard, to catch sight of my good
friend the cure on the back seat, holding on tight to his saucer-like
hat. In the same rapid glance I saw the fluttering ends of a
bottle-green veil, in front of the cure's nose and knew Germaine was
driving.
"Lucky cure!" I said to myself, as I returned to my half-finished
sketch, "carried off again to luncheon by one of the dearest of little
women."
No wonder during his lonely winters, when every villa or chateau of
every friend of his for miles around is closed, and my vagabond village
of Pont du Sable rarely sees a Parisian, the cure longs for midsummer.
It is his gayest season, since hardly a day passes but some friend
kidnaps him from his presbytery that lies snug and silent back of the
crumbling wall which hides both his house and his wild garden from the
gaze of the passer-by.
He is the kind of cure whom it is a joy to invite--this straight, strong
cure, who is French to the backbone; with his devil-may-care geniality,
his irresistible smile of a comedian, his quick wit of an Irishman, and
his heart of gold.
To-day Germaine had captured him and was speeding him away to a jolly
luncheon of friends at her villa, some twenty kilometres below Pont du
Sable--Germaine with her trim, lithe figure and merry brown eyes, eyes
that can become in a flash as calm and serious as the cure's, and in
turn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleam
with the impulsive devilry of a _gamine_; Germaine, who teases an old
vagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle of
my morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the next
instant embraces me, and begs my forgiveness.
I cannot conceive of anyone not forgiving Germaine, beneath whose firm
and delicate beauty lies her warm heart, as golden in quality as the
cure's.
Ah! It is gay enough in midsummer with Germaine and such other good
Bohemians as Alice de Breville, Tanrade, and his reverence to cheer my
house abandoned by the marsh.
I heard the yellow car tearing back to Pont du Sable late that night. It
slowed down as it neared my walled domain, and with a wrenching grunt
stopped in front of my gate. The next instant the door of my den opened
and in rushed the cure.
"All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!" he cried,
flinging his hat on the floor; then bending, with a grin of
satisfaction over the lamp chimney, he kindled the end of a fat
cigarette he had rolled in the dark. His eyes were snapping, while the
corners of his humorous mouth twitched in a satisfied smile. He strode
up and down the room for some moments, his hands clasped behind him, his
strong, sun-tanned face beaming in the glow of the shaded lamplight,
while he listened to my delight over the pleasant news he had brought.
"Ah! They are good to me, these children of mine," he declared with
enthusiasm. "Germaine tells me there is a surprise in store for me and
that I am not to know until to-morrow, at luncheon. Beyond that, she
would tell me nothing, the little minx, except that I managed to make
her confess that Alice was in the secret."
He glanced at his watch, "Ah!" he ejaculated, "I must be getting to bed;
you, too, my old one, for we must get an early start in the morning, if
we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon." He recovered his hat from the
floor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashes from the breast of
his long black soutane, shiny from wear, and held out his strong hand.
"Sleep well," he counselled, "for to-morrow we shall be _en fete_."
Then he swung open my door and passed out into the night, whistling as
he crossed my courtyard a _cafe chantant_ air that Germaine had taught
him.
A moment later, the siren of the yellow car sent forth its warning wail,
and he was speeding back to his presbytery under the guidance of
Germaine's chauffeur.
* * * * *
The cure was raking out the oysters; he stood on the sandy rim of a pool
of clear sea-water that lay under the noonday sun like a liquid emerald.
As Monsieur le Cure plunged in his long rake and drew it back heavy with
those excellent bivalves for which the restaurant at The Three Wolves
has long been famous, his tall black figure, silhouetted against the
distant sea and sky, reminded me of some great sea-crow fishing for its
breakfast.