DE AKTHENAY'S VIGIL.
Was it a _loup-garou_ in the attic? was it a _loup-garou_ that drew
that long, sighing breath, as of a soul in pain; was it a _loup-garou_
that now groped its way to the other staircase, that which led up from
the woodshed, pausing now and then, and going blindly, and breathing
still heavily and slow?
De Arthenay had come up to the attic in search of something, tools,
maybe, or seeds, or the like, for many odd things were stowed away
under the over-hanging rafters. He heard steps, and stood still,
knowing that it must be his wife who was coming up, and thinking to
have pleasure just by watching her as she went on some little household
errand, such as brought himself. She would know nothing of his
presence, and so she would be free, unrestrained by any shyness or--or
fear; if it was fear. So he had stood in his dark corner, and had seen
little, indeed, but heard all; and it was a wild and a miserable man
that crept down the narrow stairway and out into the fresh air.
He did not know where he was going. He wandered on and on, hearing
always that sound in his ears, the soft, sweet tones of the accursed
instrument that was wiling his wife, his own, his beloved, to her
destruction. The child, too, how would it be for him? But the child
was a smaller matter. Perhaps,--who knows? a child can live down sin.
But Mary, whom he fancied saved, cured, the evil thing rooted out of
her heart and remembrance!
Mary; Mary! He kept saying her name over and over to himself,
sometimes aloud, in a passion of reproach, sometimes softly,
broodingly, with love and pathos unutterable. What power there was in
that wicked voice! He had never rightly heard it before, never, save
that instant when she stood playing in the village street, and he saw
her for a moment and loved her forever. Oh, he had heard, to be sure,
this or that strolling fiddler,--godless, tippling wretches, who rarely
came to the village, and never set foot there twice, he thought with
pride. But this, this was different! What power! what sweetness,
filling his heart with rapture even while his spirit cried out against
it! What voices, entreating, commanding, uplifting!
Nay, what was he saying? and who did not know that Satan could put on
an angel's look when it pleased him? and if a look, why not a voice?
When had a fiddle played godly tunes, chant or psalm? when did it do
aught else but tempt the foolish to their folly, the wicked to their
iniquity?
Mary! Mary! How lovely she was, in the faint gleams of light that
fell about her, there in the dim old attic! He felt her beauty,
almost, more than he saw it. And all this year, while he had thought
her growing in grace, silently, indeed, but he hoped truly, she had
been hankering for the forbidden thing, had been planning deceit in her
heart, and had led away the innocent child to follow unrighteousness
with her. He would go back, and do what he should have done a year
ago,--what he would have done, had he not yielded to the foolish talk
of a foolish woman. He would go back, and burn the fiddle, and silence
forever that sweet, insidious music, with its wicked murmurs that stole
into a man's heart--even a man's, and one who knew the evil, and
abhorred it. The smoke of it once gone up to heaven, there would be an
end. He should have his wife again, his own, and nothing should come
between them more. Yes, he would go back, in a little while, as soon
as those sounds had died away from his ears. What was the song she
sung there?
"'Tis long and long I have loved thee!
I'll ne'er forget thee more."
She would forget it, though, surely, surely, when it was gone, breathed
out in flame and ashes: when he could say to her, "There is no more any
such thing in my house and yours, Mary, Mary."
How tenderly he would tell her, though! It would hurt, yes! but not so
much as her look would hurt him when he told her. Ah, she loved the
wooden thing best! He was dumb, and it spoke to her in a thousand
tones! Even he had understood some of them. There was one note that
was like his mother's voice when she lifted it up in the hymn she loved
best,--his gentle mother, dead so long, so long ago. She--why, she
loved music; he had forgotten that. But only psalms, only godly hymns,
never anything else.
What devil whispered in his ear, "She never heard anything else. She
would have loved this too, this too, if she had had the chance, if she
had heard Mary play!" He put his hands to his ears, and almost ran on.
Where was he going? He did not ask, did not think. He only knew that
it was a relief to be walking, to get farther and farther away from
what he loved and fain would cherish, from what he hated and would fain
destroy.
The grass grew long and rank under his feet; he stumbled, and paused
for a moment, out of breath, to look about him. He was in the old
burying-ground, the grey stones rearing their heads to peer at him as
he hurried on. Ah, there was one stone here that belonged to him. He
had not been in the place since he was a child; he cared nothing about
the dead of long ago: but now the memory of it all came back upon him,
and he sought and found the grey sunken stone, and pulled away the
grass from it, and read the legend with eyes that scarcely saw what
they looked at.
"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"
And the place was free from moss, as they always said; the rude
scratch, as of a sharp-pointed instrument. Did it mean anything? He
dropped beside it for a minute, and studied the stone; then rose and
went his way again, still wandering on and on, he knew not whither.
Darkness came, and he was in the woods, stumbling here and there,
driven as by a strong wind, scorched as by a flame. At last he sank
down at the foot of a great oak-tree, in a place he knew well, even in
the dark: he could go no farther.
"D'Arthenay, tenez foi!"
It whispered in his ears, and seemed for a little to drown the haunting
notes of the violin. He, the Calvinist, the practical man, who
believed in two things outside the visible world, a great hell and a
small heaven, now felt spirits about him, saw visions that were not of
this life. His ancestor, the Huguenot, stood before him, in cloak and
band; in one hand a Bible, in the other a drawn dagger. His dark eyes
pierced like a sword-thrust; his lips moved; and though no sound came,
Jacques knew the words they framed.
"Tenez foi! Keep the faith that I brought across the sea, leaving for
it fair fields and vineyards, castle and tower and town. Keep the
faith for which I bled, for which I died here in the wilderness,
leaving only these barren acres, and the stone that bears my last word,
my message to those who should come after me. Keep the faith for which
my fair wife faded and died, far away from home and friends! Let no
piping or jigging or profane sound be in thy house, but let it be the
house of fasting and of prayer, even as my house was. Keep faith! If
thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee!"
Who else was there,--what gentle, pallid ghost, with sad, faint eyes?
The face was dim and shadowy, for he had been a little child when his
mother died. She was speaking too, but what were these words she was
saying? "Keep faith, my son! ay! but keep it with your wife too, the
child you wedded whether she would or no, and from whom you are taking
the joy of childhood, the light of youth. Keep faith as the sun keeps
it, as the summer keeps it, not as winter and the night."
What did that mean? keep faith with her, with his wife? how else should
he do it but by saving her from the wrath to come, by plucking her as a
flower out of the mire?
"What shall I save but her soul, yea, though her body perish?"
He spoke out in his trouble, and the vision seemed to shrink and waver
under his gaze; but the faint voice sighed again,--or was it only the
wind in the pine-trees?--"Care thou for her earthly life, her earthly
joy, for God is mindful of her soul."
But then the deeper note struck in again,--or was it only a stronger
gust, that bowed the branches, and murmured through all the airy depths
above him?
"Keep the faith! Thou art a man, and wilt thou be drawn away by women,
of whom the best are a stumbling-block and a snare for the feet?
Destroy the evil thing! root it out from thy house! What are joys of
this world, that we should think of them? Do they not lead to
destruction, even the flowery path of it, going down to the mouth of
the pit, and with no way leading thence? Who is the woman for whose
sake thou wilt lose thine own soul? If thy right eye offend thee,
pluck it out!"
So the night went on, and the voices, or the wind, or his own soul,
cried, and answered, and cried again: and no peace came.
The night passed. As it drew to a close, all sound, all motion, died
away; the darkness folded him close, like a mantle; the silence pressed
upon him like hands that held him down. Like a log the man lay at the
foot of the great tree, and his soul lay dead within him.
At last a change came; or did he sleep, and dream of a change? A faint
trembling in the air, a faint rustling that lost itself almost before
it reached the ear. It was gone, and all was still once more; yet with
a difference. The darkness lay less heavily: one felt that it hid many
things, instead of filling the world with itself alone.
Hark! the murmur again, not lost this time, but coming and going,
lightly, softly, brushing here and there, soft dark wings fanning the
air, making it ever lighter, thinner. Gradually the veil lifted;
things stood out, black against black, then black against grey;
straight majesty of tree-trunks, bending lines of bough and spray,
tender grace of ferns.
And now, what is this? A sound from the trees themselves,--no
multitudinous murmur this time, but a single note, small and clear and
sweet, breaking like a golden arrow of sound through the cloudy depths.
Chirp, twitter! and again from the next tree, and the next, and now
from all the trees, short triads, broken snatches, and at last the full
chorus of song, choir answering to choir, the morning hymn of the
forest.
Now, in the very tree beneath which the man lay, Chrysostom, the
thrush, took up his parable, and preached his morning sermon; and if it
had been set to words, they might have been something like these:--
"Sing! sing, brothers, sisters, little tender ones in the nest! Sing,
for the morning is come, and God has made us another day. Sing! for
praise is sweet, and our sweetest notes must show it forth. Song is
the voice that God has given us to tell forth His goodness, to speak
gladly of the wondrous things He hath made. Sing, brothers and
sisters! be joyful, be joyful in the Lord! all sorrow and darkness is
gone away, away, and light is here, and morning, and the world wakes
with us to gladness and the new day. Sing, and let your songs be all
of joy, joy, lest there be in the wood any sorrowing creature, who
might go sadly through the day for want of a voice of cheer, to tell
him that God is love, is love. Wake from thy dream, sad heart, if the
friendly wood hold such an one! Sorrow is night, and night is good,
for rest, and for seeing of many stars, and for coolness and sweet
odours; but now awake, awake, for the day is here, and the sun arises
in his might,--the sun, whose name is joy, is joy, and, whose voice is
praise. Sing, sing, and praise the Lord!"
So the bird sang, praising God, and the other birds, from tree and
shrub, answered as best they might, each with his song of praise; and
the man, lying motionless beneath the great tree, heard, and listened,
and understood.
Still he lay there, with wide open eyes, while the golden morning broke
over him, and the light came sifting down, through the leaves,
checkering all the ground with gold. The wood now glowed with colour,
russet and green and brown, wine-like red of the tree-trunks where the
sun struck aslant on them, soft yellow greens where the young ferns
uncurled their downy heads. The air was sweet, sweet, with the smell
of morning; was the whole world new since last night?
Suddenly from the road near by (for he had gone round in a circle, and
the wooded hollow where he lay was out of sight but not out of hearing
of the country road which skirted the woods for many miles), from the
road near by came the sound of voices,--men's voices, which fell
strange and harsh on his ears, open for the first time to the music of
the world, and still ringing with the morning hymn of joy. What were
these harsh voices saying?
"They think she'll live now?"
"Yes, she'll pull through, unless she frets herself bad again about
Jacques. Nobody'd heerd a word of him when I come away."
"Been out all night, has he?"
"Yes! went away without saying anything to her or anybody, far as I can
make out. Been gone since yesterday afternoon, and some say--" The
voices died away, and then the footsteps, and silence fell once more.