HOW ANGELOT CLIMBED A TREE
The police had caught Angelot; but they did not keep him long.
They had to do with a young man who knew every yard of that wild country
far better than they did, and was almost as much a part of it as the
birds and beasts that haunted it.
"Where are you taking me?" he said, as they walked across the high
expanse of the _landes_, dimly lighted by the last glimmer of day. "This
is a very roundabout way to Sonnay-le-Loir."
"It is not the way at all," said the officer who took the lead, "and we
know that as well as you."
"But I demand to be taken to Sonnay," Angelot said, and stopped. "The
warrant for my arrest, if you have such a thing, must be from the
Prefect. Take me to him, and I will soon convince him that there is some
mistake."
"Monsieur le Préfet is ill, as you know. Walk on, if you please."
"Then take me to the sous-Préfet, or whoever is in his place."
"You are going to a higher authority, monsieur, not a lower one."
"What do you mean by that?"
"You are going to Paris. Monsieur le Comte Réal, the head of our branch
of the police, will decide what is to be done with you."
"Mon Dieu! The old Jacobin! He nearly had my uncle in his fangs once,"
said Angelot, half to himself. "But what do they accuse me of?
Chouannerie? But I am not a Chouan, and you know enough of our affairs
to know that, Monsieur Simon!"
The Chouan-catcher laughed sourly.
"I believe this is some private devilry," the prisoner went on, with
careless daring. "The Prefect has nothing to do with it. It is spite
against my uncle--but you are a little afraid of touching him. Don't
imagine, though, that you will annoy him particularly by carrying me
off. We are not on good terms just now, my uncle and I. In truth, I have
offended all my relations, and nobody will be sorry to have me away for
a time."
"Tant mieux, monsieur!" said Simon. "Then you won't object to giving the
Minister of Police a little information about your uncle and the other
Chouan gentlemen, his friends."
"Ah! that is quite another story! That is the idea, is it? Monsieur le
Duc de Rovigo, and Monsieur le Comte Réal, flatter themselves that they
have got hold of a traitor?"
"Pardon, monsieur! It is the Chouans who are traitors."
"I think I could find a few others in our poor France this very night.
But I am not one of them. Again, whose authority have you for arresting
me? Is it Monsieur Réal who has stretched his long arm so far?"
"The authority is sufficient, and you are my prisoner," Simon answered
coolly.
"I suspect you have no authority but your own!"
"They will enlighten you in Paris, possibly."
"Come, tell me, how much are they paying you for this little trick?"
One of the other men laughed suddenly, and Simon became angry.
"Hold your tongue, prisoner, or I shall have you gagged. You need not
speak again till the authorities in Paris take means to make you. Yes, I
assure you, they can persuade rather strongly when they like. Now, quick
march--we have a post-chaise waiting in the road over there."
Angelot saw that his wisest course was to say no more. He was unarmed;
they had taken away the knife he had used for cutting grapes; his
faithful fowling-piece was hanging in the hall at La Marinière. He was
guarded by five men, all armed, all taller and bigger than himself. He
walked along in silence, apparently resigned to his fate, but thinking
hard all the while.
His thoughts, busy and curious as they were, did not hit on the right
origin of his very disagreeable adventure. Knowing a good deal of Simon
by repute, and a little by experience, and having heard legends of such
police exploits in the West within the last ten years, though not since
Monsieur de Mauves took office, he felt almost sure that the spy was
taking advantage of the Prefect's illness to gain a little money and
credit on his own account. And of course his own arrest, a young and
unimportant man, was more easily managed and less likely to have
consequences than that of his uncle, for instance, or Monsieur des
Barres. He did not believe that the Paris authorities knew anything of
it, yet; but he did believe that Simon knew what he was doing; that
Réal, the well-known head of the police in the western _arrondissement_,
trained under Fouché in suspicion, cunning and mercilessness, would make
unscrupulous use of any means of knowing the present state of Royalist
opinion in Anjou. He would be all the more severe, probably, because the
mildness of the Prefect of the Loir had more than once irritated him. So
Angelot thought he saw that Simon might easily drag his chosen victim
into a dangerous place, from which it would be hard to escape with
honour.
They reached the north-east edge of the moor just as the moon was
rising. At first the low light made all things strangely confused,
marching armies of shadows over the wild ground. Every bush might hide
a man, and the ranks of low oaks stood like giants guarding the hollow
black paths that wound between them. Les Chouettes, the only habitation
near, lay a mile away below the vineyards. The high-road to Paris might
be reached by one of the narrow roads that crossed the heath not far
away.
When they came to the edge of the open ground, near a grove of oaks
plunged in bracken, with a few crumbling walls beyond it where a farm
had once stood, Simon halted his party and whistled. He seemed to expect
a reply, but got none. After waiting a few minutes, whistling again,
exclaiming impatiently, he beckoned one of the other men and they walked
away together towards the road.
"Something wrong with the chaise?" said Angelot to the three who were
left. "What will you do if it is not there? You will have to carry me to
Paris, for I promise you I don't mean to walk."
"Monsieur will not be very heavy," one of the men answered,
good-humouredly; the same who had laughed before.
"Lift me then, and see!" said Angelot. "All right, my good fellow, I'll
ride on your shoulders. Voyons! you can carry me down the road."
They were standing in a patch of moonlight, just outside the shadow of
the oaks. The two other men stepped back for an instant, while their
comrade stooped, laughing, to lift Angelot. He was met by a
lightning-like blow worthy of an English training, and tumbled over
into the bracken. One of the two others fell flat in the opposite
direction, and the prisoner vanished into the shadows of the grove. The
third man dashed after him, but came into violent contact, in the
darkness, with the trunk of a tree, and fell down stunned at the foot of
it.
By this time the chaise had slowly climbed the hill from a village in
the further valley, where the post-boy had been refreshing himself and
his horses. Simon stopped to scold him, then left his companion to keep
guard over him, and himself mounted again the precipitous bit of stony
lane which had once been the approach to the farm, and now opened on the
wild moor. He whistled shrilly as he came, and then called in a subdued
voice: "All right, men! Bring him down."
There was no answer. He quickened his pace, and coming up under the oaks
found the two fellows sitting on the ground rubbing their heads, staring
vacantly round with eyes before which all the moonshiny world was
swimming.
Simon swore at them furiously. "What has happened, you fools? Where's
Alexandre? Where is the prisoner? name of all that's--"
"Devil knows, I don't," said the fellow who had paid dear for his
good-humour. "That little gentleman is cleverer than you or me, Master
Simon, and stronger too. He knocked us down like ninepins. Where is he?
Nearly back at La Marinière, I should think, and with Alexandre chasing
after him!"
"Not so far off as that, I suspect," said Simon. "Up with you. He is
hidden in this cover, and you have got to beat it till you find him. How
did you come to let him escape, pair of idiots? You are not fit for your
work."
He went back a few yards, while the men scrambled to their feet, and
whistled sharply for the one he had left in charge of the post-boy. Then
he lighted a lantern, and they pushed at various points into the wood.
The first discovery was that of Alexandre, lying senseless; they dragged
him into the road and left him there to come to himself. Then they
unearthed a wild boar, which rushed out furiously from the depths of the
bracken and charged at the light, then bolted off across the moor.
Smaller animals fled from them in all directions; large birds rustled
and cried, disturbed in the thick foliage of the oaks, impenetrable
masses of shade.
"If we were to shoot into the trees? He may be hidden in one of them."
The suggestion came from Angelot's friend, whose frivolity had given him
his chance, and whose anxiety to put himself on the right side by
catching him again, dead or alive, very nearly brought his young life to
a speedy end. For foolish François was wise this time, so wise, had he
only known it, that Angelot was sitting in the very tree he touched
with his hand as he spoke, a couple of yards above his head.
The boy had courage enough and to spare; but his heart seemed to stop at
that moment, and he felt himself turning white in the darkness. The men
could hardly shoot into the trees without hitting him, though he had
slipped down as far as he could into the hollow trunk. He would be
horribly wounded, if not killed. It was a hard fate, to be shot as a
poacher might shoot a pheasant roosting on a bough. An unsportsmanlike
sort of death, Uncle Joseph would say. He held his breath. Should he
await it, or give himself back to the police by jumping down amongst
them?
The moment of danger passed. Angelot smiled as the men moved on, and hid
himself a little more completely.
"No," Simon said. "No shooting till you are obliged. His uncle lives
only a mile off, and he will come out if he hears a gun."
"So he would, the blessed little man!" muttered Angelot.
The men went on searching the wood, but with such stealthy movements, so
little noise, even so little perseverance, as it seemed to him, that he
was confirmed in his idea of Simon's sole responsibility. These men were
police, supposed to be all-powerful; but somehow they did not act or
talk as if Savary and the Emperor, or even Réal, were behind them.
Angelot watched the light as it glimmered here and there, and listened
to the rustling in the bracken. Presently, when they were far off on the
other side of the little grove, he climbed out of the trunk and slipped
down from his tree. Simon might change his mind about shooting; in any
case it seemed safer to change one's position. Being close to the edge
of the _landes_, Angelot's first thought was to take to his heels and
run; then again that seemed risky, and a shot in the back was
undesirable. He dived in among the bracken, which was taller than
himself, and grew thick on the ground like a small forest. Half
crawling, half walking, stopping dead still to watch the wandering
gleams of light and to hear the steps and voices of the men, then
pushing gently on again, Angelot reached a hiding-place on the other
side of the grove. Here the bracken, taller and thicker than ever, grew
against and partly over the ruined walls of the old farm. In the very
middle of it, where the wall made a sudden turn, there was a hollow,
half sheltered by stones, and a black yawning hole below, the old well
of the homestead. All the top of it was in ruins; a fox had made its
hole halfway down; there was still water at the bottom of the well.
Here, plunged in the darkness, Angelot sat on the edge of the well and
waited. There were odd little sounds about him, the squeaking of young
animals, the sleepy chirp of easily disturbed birds; a frog dived with a
splash into the well, and then in a few unearthly croaks told his story
to his mates down there. The bracken smelt warm and dry; it was not a
bad place to spend a summer night in, for any one who knew wild nature
and loved it.
All was so still that Angelot, after listening intently for a time,
leaned his head against the white stones, fell asleep, and dreamed of
Hélène. If he had carried her off that night, mad fellow as he was, some
such shelter might have been all he had to offer her.
He woke with a start, and saw by the light that he must have been asleep
at least two hours, for the moon was high in the sky. He got up
cautiously, and crept through the bracken to the edge of the grove
towards Les Chouettes.
It was fortunate that he took the precaution to move noiselessly, as if
he were stalking game, for he had hardly reached the edge of the wood
when he saw Simon standing in the moonlight. Evidently he had been
sitting or lying on the bank and had just risen to his feet, for one of
his comrades lay there still.
"He is hidden here. He must be here," said Simon, in a low, decided
voice. "I will not go away without him. Hungry and thirsty--yes, I dare
say you are. You deserve it, for letting him escape."
"I tell you, he is not here," said the other man. "We have been all
round this bit of country; all through it. And look at the moonlight. A
mouse couldn't get away without our seeing it. What's that? a rabbit?"
"I shall walk round again," said Simon. "Those other fellows may be
asleep, if they are as drowsy and discontented as you. Look sharp now,
while I am away."
Simon tramped down the lane. The other police officer stretched himself
and stared after him.
"I'll eat my cap," he muttered, "if the young gentleman's in the wood
still. He deserves to be caught, if he is."
At that moment Angelot was standing under an oak two yards away. In the
broad, deep shadow he was invisible. A longing seized him to knock the
man's cap off his head and tell him to keep his word and eat it. But
Simon was too near, and it was madness to risk the chase that must
follow. Angelot laughed to himself as he slipped from that shadow to the
next, the officer yawning desperately the while.
There was something unearthly about Les Chouettes in the moonlight. It
seemed to float like a fairy dwelling, with its slim tower and high
windows, on a snowy ocean of sand. The woods, dark guarding phalanxes of
tall oaks and firs, seemed marshalled on the slopes for its defence.
Angelot came down upon it by the old steep lane, having slipped across
from the ruined farm to a vineyard, along by a tall hedge into another
wood of low scrub and bracken, then into the road a hundred yards above
the house. Before he reached it he heard the horses kicking in the
stable, then a low bark from the nearest dog which he answered by softly
whistling a familiar tune.
In consequence of this all the dogs about the place came running to meet
him, softly patting over the sand, and it was on this group, standing
under her window in the midnight stillness, that Riette looked out a few
minutes later.
Something woke her, she did not know what, but this little watcher's
sleep was always of the lightest, and she had not long fallen asleep,
her eyelashes still wet with tears for Angelot. The window creaked as
she opened it, leaning out into the moonlight.
"Is it you, my Ange? But they said--"
"I have escaped," said Angelot. "Quick, let me in! They may be following
me."
"But go round to papa's window, dearest! And what business have the dogs
there? Ah--do you hear, you wicked things? Go back to your places."
The dogs looked up, dropped their ears and tails, slunk away each to his
corner. Only the dog who guarded Riette's end of the house remained; he
stretched himself on the sand, slapped it with his tail, lolled out his
tongue as if laughing.
"Don't you think my uncle will shoot me before he looks at me, if I
attack his window?" said Angelot. "And in any case, I dare hardly ask
him to take me in. He has not forgiven me. But you could hide me,
Riette! or at least you could give me something to eat before I take to
the woods again."
"My boy!" the odd little figure in the flannel gown leaned farther out,
and the dark cropped head was turned one way and the other, listening.
"Go round into the north wood and wait as near papa's window as you can.
I will go down to him. I think he cannot be asleep; he must be thinking
of you."
"Merci!" said Angelot, and walked away.
But he did not go into the wood. He stole round very gently to where, in
spite of the moon, he saw a light shining in Monsieur Joseph's
uncurtained window. The guardian dog rubbed himself against his legs as
he stood there.
Monsieur Joseph's room was panelled and furnished with the plainest
wood. His bed was in the alcove at the back; the only ornament was the
portrait of his wife, a dark, Italian-looking woman, which hung
surrounded by guns, pistols, and swords, over the low stone mantelpiece.
It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a
quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a tasselled night-cap, and he sat
at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the
door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically towards a pair of
pistols that lay beside him. Monsieur Joseph did not trust entirely to
his dogs for defence.
In she came, with bare white feet stepping lightly over the polished
floor. Angelot moved back a pace or two that he might not hear what they
said to each other. When Monsieur Joseph hastily opened the window,
Riette had been sent back summarily to her room, and Angelot was waiting
halfway to the wood.
"Come in, Ange! why do you stand there?" the little uncle exclaimed
under his breath. "Sapristi, how do you know that you are not watched?"
"I think not, Uncle Joseph. And I fancy the fellows who caught me will
hardly follow me here," said Angelot, stepping into the room. "You will
forgive me for coming?"
"Where could you go? Come, come, tell me everything. Why--what did those
devils of police want with you? Shut the window and draw the
curtain--there, now we are safe. I was just writing to César d'Ombré. Do
you know--here is a secret--he means to get away to England, and from
there to the Princes. He is right; there is not much to be done here.
You shall go with him!"
"Shall I?" said Angelot, vaguely. "Well, Uncle Joseph--it does not much
matter where I go."
Joseph de la Marinière swore his biggest oath.
"What are you staying here for?" he said. "To be caught on one side by a
young lady, on the other by the police!"
"Give me something to eat, Uncle Joseph, or I shall die of hunger
between you all," said Angelot, smiling at him.
The little gentleman shook his head. Angelot was not forgiven, not at
all; even Riette had hardly been restored to favour, to ordinary meals
in polite society.
"I will give you something to eat if I can find anything without calling
Gigot," he said. "Riette thinks there is a pie in the pantry. Come into
the gun-room; the light will not be seen there. And tell me what you
have done to get yourself arrested, troublesome fellow! Not even a real
honest bit of _Chouannerie_, I am afraid."