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AUTUMN GLORY
* * * * *
Jarrold & Sons'
New Six-Shilling Fiction.
By MAURUS JOKAI.
_Halil the Pedlar._
(The White Rose.)
By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI.
_Tales From Tolstoi._
Translated from the Russian by R. NISBET
BAIN, and with Biography of the Author.
By the Author of "ANIMA VILIS."
_Distaff._
By MARYA RODZIEWICZ.
Translated from the Polish by COUNT STANISLAUS
C. DE SOISSONS.
By RENE BAZIN.
_Autumn Glory._
Translated by MRS. ELLEN WAUGH.
By the Author of
"DUKE RODNEY'S SECRET."
_Ivy Cardew._
By PERRINGTON PRIMM.
By HULBERT FULLER.
_God's Rebel._
By MARTHA BAKER DUNN.
_Memory Street._
London:
JARROLD & SONS,
Publishers,
10 & 11, Warwick Lane,
E.C.
At the Libraries.
And of all Booksellers.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Rene Bazin]
AUTUMN GLORY
Or
The Toilers of the Field
by
RENE BAZIN
Author of "A Blot of Ink," etc.
Translated by Mrs. Ellen Waugh
With Photogravure Portrait of the Author
SANS PEUR ET
SANS REPROCHE
[Illustration]
Authorised Edition
London
Jarrold & Sons All Rights Reserved
10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C. 1901
Translated from the French, "La Terre qui Meurt,"
by Mrs. Ellen Waugh.
Copyright
London: Jarrold & Sons
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LA FROMENTIERE 7
II. THE FAMILY LUMINEAU 24
III. THE DWARF ORCHARD 48
IV. THE MICHELONNES 65
V. PLOUGHING IN SEPTEMBER 77
VI. THE APPEAL TO THE MASTER 102
VII. DRIOT'S RETURN 116
VIII. IN THE PLACE DE L'EGLISE 133
IX. THE CONSCRIPTS OF SALLERTAINE 147
X. THE UPROOTED VINEYARD 158
XI. THE DANCE AT LA SEULIERE 178
XII. ROUSILLE'S LOVE DREAM 196
XIII. THE AUCTION 208
XIV. DWELLERS IN TOWNS 240
XV. THE EMIGRANT 255
XVI. HER FATHER'S BIDDING 264
XVII. A FEBRUARY NIGHT 274
XVIII. SPRINGTIDE 289
AUTUMN GLORY.
CHAPTER I.
LA FROMENTIERE.
"Quiet! Bas-Rouge, down! Don't you know folk born and bred here?"
The dog thus addressed, a mongrel in which some twenty breeds were
mixed, with grey long-haired coat changing to auburn silky fleece
about the paws, at once left off barking at the gate, trotted along
the grassy path bordering the field, and, content at having done his
duty, sat down at the extreme edge of the line of cabbages which the
farmer was trimming. Along the same path a man was approaching, clad
in gaiters and a suit of well-worn corduroys. His pace was the even
steady gait of a man accustomed to tramp the country. The face in its
setting of black beard was drawn and pale, the eyes, accustomed to
roam the hedges and rest nowhere, bore an expression of weariness and
mistrust, the contested authority of an agent. He was the head-keeper
and steward to the Marquis de la Fromentiere.
He came to a halt behind Bas-Rouge, whose eyelids gave a furtive
quiver, though his ears made not the slightest movement.
"Good day, Lumineau."
"Good day."
"I have a word to say to you. M. le Marquis has written."
Probably he expected the farmer to leave his cabbages and come towards
him. Not a bit of it. The yeoman of the Marais bending double, a huge
bundle of green leaves in his arms, stood some thirty feet off,
looking askance at the keeper waiting motionless in the path. What did
he want of him? His well-fed cheeks broadened into a smile, his clear,
deep-set eyes lengthened. In order to show his independence, he bent
down and resumed his labours for a moment without reply. He felt
himself upon the ground that he looked upon as his own, which his race
had cultivated by virtue of a contract indefinitely renewed. Around
him, his cabbages formed an immense square, a billowy mass of superb
growth, firm and heavy, their colour comprising every imaginable shade
of green, blue, and violet, tinting in harmony with the hues of the
setting sun. Of huge stature though he was, the farmer plunged to his
middle, like a ship, in this compact sea of vegetation. All that was
to be seen above it was the short coat and round felt hat, set well
back on his head, from which hung velvet streamers, the headgear of La
Vendee.
When by this period of silence and labour he had sufficiently marked
the superiority of a tenant farmer over a hired labourer, Lumineau
straightening himself, said:
"You can talk on; there's no one here but me and my dog."
Nettled, the man replied,
"M. le Marquis is displeased that you did not pay your rent at
Midsummer. It will soon be three months in arrears."
"But he knows that I have lost two oxen this year; that the wheat is
poor; and that one must live, I and my sons, and the 'Creatures.'"
By "Creatures" the farmer meant, as is customary in the Marais, his
two daughters, Eleonore and Marie-Rose.
"Tut, tut," replied the keeper, "it is not reasons he wants from you,
my good man, it's the money."
The farmer shrugged his shoulders.
"Were he here at the Chateau the Marquis would not require it; I would
soon explain how things stand. He and I were friends, I may say, as
his father and mine were before us. I could show him what changes time
has brought about with me. He would understand. But now one only has
to do with paid agents, no longer the Master; he is no more to be
seen, and some folks say we shall never see him at La Fromentiere any
more. It is a bad thing for us."
"Very likely," returned the keeper, "but it is not my place to discuss
orders. When will you pay?"
"It's easy to ask when will you pay, but it's another thing to find
the money."
"Well then, I am to answer, No."
"You will answer, Yes, as it must be. I will pay at Michaelmas, which
is not far off now."
The farmer was about to stoop to resume his work when the keeper
added:
"You will do well, too, Lumineau, to look after your man. I found some
snares the other day in the preserves of La Cailleterie, which could
only have been laid by him."
"Had he written his name upon them?"
"No. But he is known to be the most desperate poacher in the country
round. You beware! The Marquis has written to me that you were to go
out, bag and baggage, if I caught any one of you poaching again."
The farmer let fall his armful of cabbage leaves, and extending his
two fists, cried:
"You liar! He cannot have said that. I know him better than you do,
and he knows me. And it's not to a fellow of your sort that he would
give any such instructions. M. le Marquis to turn me off his land, me,
his old Lumineau! It is false."
"Those were his written instructions."
"Liar!" repeated the farmer.
"All very well; we shall see," quoth the agent, turning to resume his
way. "You have been warned. That Jean Nesmy will pay you a bad turn
one of these days; without taking into account, that for a penniless
lad from the Bocage, he is rather too sweet on your daughter. People
are talking, you know."
Ramming his hat down on his head, with crimsoned face and inflated
chest, the farmer advanced a few steps, as though to fall upon the man
who had insulted him; but he, leaning on his stout thorn stick, had
already walked on, and his discontented face was seen outlined against
the hedge as he rapidly receded. He had a certain dread of the
colossal farmer whose strength was still formidable despite his years,
and, moreover, an uneasy sense of the past ill success of his threats,
a recollection of having been, more than once, disavowed by the
Marquis de la Fromentiere, their joint master, whose leniency towards
the Lumineau family he never could understand.
The farmer stopped short, following with his eyes the head-keeper's
receding figure. He watched as it passed along the fence in the
opposite corner to the gate, scaled it, and disappeared to the left of
the farm buildings along the green path leading to the Chateau. When
he had watched the man finally out of sight:
"No," the farmer exclaimed aloud. "No, the Marquis did not say it!
Turn us out!"
For the moment the agent's evil insinuations against Marie-Rose, his
youngest daughter, were completely forgotten, his mind wholly absorbed
in the threat of being turned out. Slowly, with a harder look in them
than was their wont, he suffered his eyes to wander around, as if to
call all the familiar objects to witness that the man had lied; then,
stooping down, he resumed his labours.
The sun, already low in the heavens, had nearly reached the row of
young elms which bordered the field to the west, their lopped branches
that ended in tufts of leaves resembling huge marguerites were bending
to the strong sea breeze. It was the beginning of September, the time
of evening when a glow of heat seems to traverse the descending chills
of night. The farmer worked on as quickly and unremittingly as any
younger man; his outstretched hand snapped off the crisp leaves close
down to the stem of the cabbages with a noise as of breaking glass,
where they lay in heaps along the furrows beneath the over-arching
rows of plants. Hidden in the gloom, whence was emitted the warm,
moist smell of earth, he was lost amid the huge velvety leaves
intersected with their purple veins of colour. In truth he made one
with the vegetation, and it would have been difficult to discern which
was corduroy and which cabbage in the billowy expanse of the
blue-green field.
Withal, close to earth as was his bent body, his soul was agitated and
deep in thought; and as he worked, the farmer continued to ponder
many things. The irritation caused by the keeper's threats had
subsided; it only needed reflection to dismiss all fear of hard
treatment from the Marquis. Did they not both come of a good stock;
and did they not acknowledge it, one of the other? For the yeoman's
ancestor was a Lumineau who had fought in the great war; and although
now in these changed times he never mentioned past glories, neither
the nobles nor the peasants were ignorant that his ancestor, a giant,
surnamed Brin d'Amour, in the war of La Vendee, had taken the generals
of the insurrection across the marshes in his own punt, had fought
brilliantly, and had received a sword of honour, which now hung, eaten
with rust, behind one of the farm presses. The family was one of the
most widely connected in the country side. He claimed cousinship with
thirty farmers, spread over that district which formed the Marais,
extending from Saint Gilles to the Ile de Bouin. No one, himself
included, could tell at what period his forefathers had begun to till
the fields of La Fromentiere. They had been there of right for
generations, the Marquis in his Castle, the Lumineaus in their farm,
united through long custom, each knowing the land and alike loving it;
drinking the vintage of the soil together when they met; never
dreaming that one or the other could ever forsake Chateau or farm
bearing one and the same name.
And, in truth, eight years ago, great had been the astonishment when
one Christmas morning, amid falling sleet, M. Henri, the present
Marquis, a man of forty, a greater hunter, harder drinker, and more
boorish mannered than any of his predecessors, had said to Toussaint
Lumineau, "My Toussaint, I am going to live in Paris. My wife cannot
accustom herself to this place; it is too dull and too cold for her.
But do not worry; I shall come back." He had never come back, save on
rare occasions for a day or two. But, of course, he had not forgotten
the past. He still remained the same uncouth, kindly master known of
old, and the keeper had lied when he talked of their being turned out.
No, the more Toussaint Lumineau thought of it the less did he believe
that a master so rich, so liberal, so good at heart, could have
written such words. Only the rent must be paid. Well, so it should.
The farmer himself did not possess two hundred francs ready-money in
the walnut wood chest beside his bed; but his children were rich,
having inherited over two thousand francs apiece from their mother, La
Luminette, dead now these three years past. So he would ask Francois,
his second son, to lend him the sum due to the master. Francois was
not a lad without heart, he would not let his old father be in
difficulties. Once again anxiety for the morrow would be dispelled,
good harvests would come, prosperous years which should make all
hearts light again.
Weary of his stooping posture, the farmer straightened himself, passed
his flannel shirt sleeve over his perspiring face, then turned his
eyes to the roof of La Fromentiere with the expression of one gazing
on some well beloved object. To wipe his brow he had taken off his
hat; now, in the oblique ray of sunshine which no longer reached the
grass or the cabbages, in the soft declining light like that of a
happy old age, he raised his firm, square-cut face. His complexion,
unlike the cadaverous hue of peasants accustomed to scant living, was
clear and healthy; the full cheeks with their narrow line of black
whisker, straight nose, broad at the base, square jaw, in fact the
whole face and clear grey eyes--eyes that always looked a man full in
the face, betokened health, vigour, and the habit of command, while
the long lips, refined-looking despite the weather-beaten skin,
drooping at the corners, bespoke the ready fluency and somewhat
haughty spirit of a son of the Marshes, who looks down upon everyone
not belonging to that favoured spot. The perfectly white hair,
dishevelled and fine, formed a fitting setting to the head, and shone
with a silvery sheen.
Standing thus motionless with head uncovered in the waning light, the
farmer of La Fromentiere presented an imposing appearance, making it
easy to understand the distinction of _la Seigneurie_ commonly given
him in the neighbourhood. He was called Lumineau l'Eveque, to single
him out from others of the name, Lumineau le Pauvre; Lumineau
Barbefine; Lumineau Tournevire.
He was looking at his beloved La Fromentiere. Some hundred yards away
to the south, among the stems of elms, the pale red tiles stood out
like rough enamels. Borne on the evening wind there came the sound of
the lowing of cattle going home to their sheds, the smell of the
stables, the pungent aroma of camomile and fennel stored up in the
barn. Nor was that all that presented itself to the farmer's mind as
he gazed on his roof illuminated by the last rays of the declining
sun; he called to his mental vision the two sons and two daughters
living under that roof, Mathurin, Francois, Eleonore, and Marie-Rose,
the heavy burdens, yet mixed with how much sweetness of his life. The
eldest, his splendid eldest, doomed by a terrible misfortune to be a
cripple, only to see others work, never to share it himself; Eleonore,
who took the place of her dead mother; Francois, weak of nature, in
whom could be seen but the incomplete, uncertain future master of the
farm; Rousille, the youngest girl, just twenty.... Had the keeper lied
again when speaking of the farm-servant's love-making? Not unlikely.
How could a servant, the son of a poor widow in the Bocage, that
heavy, unproductive land, how could he dare to pay court to the
daughter of a farmer of the Marais? He might feel friendship and
respect for the pretty girl, whose smiling face attracted many a
remark on the way back from Mass on Sundays at Sallertaine; but
anything more?... Well, one must watch.... It was but for a moment
that Toussaint Lumineau pondered the man's insinuations; then with a
sense of tenderness and comfort his thoughts flew to the absent one,
the son next in age to Rousille, Andre, the Chasseur d'Afrique, now in
Algiers as orderly to his Colonel, a brother of the Marquis de la
Fromentiere. But one month more and that youngest son would be home,
his time of service expired. They would see him again, the fair,
handsome young fellow, so tall, the living portrait of his father
grown young again, full of noble vigour and love for Sallertaine and
the farmstead. And all anxieties would be forgotten and merged in the
joy of having the son home again, who used to make the ladies of
Chalons turn as he passed, to say to each other: "That is a handsome
lad, Lumineau's youngest son!"
The farmer often remained thus, the day's work done, sunk in thought
before his farmstead. This time he remained longer than usual in the
midst of the swaying masses of leaves, now grown grey, indistinct
looking in the gathering darkness like some unfamiliar ground. The
trees themselves had become but vague outlines bordering the fields.
The large expanse of clear sky overhead, still bright with golden
glory, suffered but faint rays to fall to earth, making objects
visible but only dimly. Lumineau, putting both hands to his mouth to
carry the sound, turned towards the farm, and called out lustily:
"Ohe! Rousille?"
The first to respond to the call was the dog, Bas-Rouge, who, at the
sound of his master's voice, flew like an arrow from the far end of
the field. Then a young, clear voice was heard in the distance:
"Yes, father, I am coming."
The farmer stooped, took a cord, and bound a huge mass of leaves
together, loaded it on his shoulder, and staggering under its weight,
with arms raised to steady it, his head buried in the soft burden,
followed the furrow, turned, and proceeded down the trodden path. As
he reached the corner of the field a girl's slender form rose up
before a break in the hedge. With agile movement Rousille cleared the
fence; as she alighted her short petticoats revealed a pair of black
stockings and sabots turned up at the toes.
"Good evening, father."
He could not refrain from thinking of what the keeper had said, and
made no reply.
Marie-Rose, her two hands on her hips, nodding her little head as if
meditating something grave, watched him go. Then entering in among the
furrows she gathered together the remainder of the fallen leaves,
knotted them with the cord she had brought, and, as her father had
done, raised the green mass, and though bending beneath the weight,
proceeded with light step down the grassy path.
To go into the field, collect, and bind together the leaves must have
taken some ten minutes; her father should have reached the farm by
now. She neared the fence, when suddenly from the top of the slope,
the foot of which she was skirting, came a whistle like that of a
plover. She was not frightened. Now a man jumped over the brambles
into the field. Rousille threw down her burden. He approached no
nearer, and they began to talk in brief sentences.
"Oh, Rousille, what a heavy load you are carrying."
"I am strong enough. Have you seen my father?"
"No, I have only just come. Has he said anything against me?"
"He did not say a word. But he looked at me.... Believe me, Jean, he
mistrusts us. You ought not to stay out to-night, for he dislikes
poaching and you will be scolded."
"What can it matter to him if I shoot at night, so long as I am as
early next morning at my work as anyone else? Do I grumble over my
work? Rousille, I was told at La Seuliere, and the miller of
Moque-Souris told me too, that plovers have been seen on the Marais.
It will be full moon to-night, I mean to go out, and you shall have
some to-morrow morning."
"Jean," she returned, "you ought not.... I assure you."
The young man was carrying a gun slung across his shoulder; over his
brown coat he wore a short blouse scarcely reaching to his waist-belt.
He was slim, about the same height as Rousille, dark, sinewy, pale,
with regular features, and a small moustache, slightly curled at the
corners of the mouth. The complexion alone served to show that he was
not a native of the Marais, where the mists soften and tint the skin,
but of a district where the soil is poor and chalky, and where small
holdings and penury abound. Withal, from his lean, self-possessed
countenance, straight-pencilled eyebrows, the fire and vivacity of the
eyes, one could discern a fund of indomitable energy, a tenacity of
purpose that would yield to no opposition.
Not for an instant did Rousille's fears move him. A little for love of
her, but far more for the pleasure of sport and of nocturnal marauding
so dear to the heart of primitive man, he had made up his mind to go
shooting that night on the Marais. That being the case, nothing would
have made him desist, not even the thought of displeasing Marie-Rose.
She looked but a child. Her girlish figure, her fresh young
complexion, the full oval of her face, the pure brow with its bands of
hair smoothly parted on either side, straight lips, which one never
knew were they about to part in a smile or to droop for tears, gave
her the appearance of a virgin in some sacred procession wearing a
broad band across the shoulders. Her eyes alone were those of a
woman, dark chestnut eyes the colour of the hair, wherein lay and
shone a tenderness youthful yet grave, noble and enduring.
Without having known it, she had been loved for a long time by her
father's farm-servant. For a year now they had been secretly engaged.
On Sundays, as she returned from Mass, wearing the flowered muslin
coif in the form of a pyramid, the coif of Sallertaine, many a
farmer's, or horse and cattle breeder's son, tried to attract her
gaze. But she paid no attention to them; had she not betrothed herself
to Jean Nesmy, the taciturn stranger, poor and friendless, who had no
place, no authority, no friendship save in her young heart? Already
she obeyed him. In her home they never spoke to each other.
Out-of-doors when they could meet their talk was always hurried on
account of her brothers' watchfulness, that of Mathurin especially,
the cripple, who was ever jealously prowling about. This time, too,
they must avoid being surprised.
Jean Nesmy, therefore, without stopping to consider Rousille's cause
for uneasiness, asked abruptly:
"Have you brought everything?"
Without further insistence she gave in.
"Yes," she answered; and producing from her pocket a bottle of wine
and slice of coarse bread, she held them out to him with a smile that
irradiated her whole face, despite the darkness. "Here, my Jean," she
said, "it was not easy; Lionore is always on the watch, and Mathurin
follows me about everywhere;" there was melody in her voice, as though
she was saying, "I love you."
"When will you be back?" she added.
"At dawn. I shall come by the dwarf orchard."
As he spoke, the youth raising his blouse had opened a linen ration
bag, brought back from his military service, and which he wore hung
round his neck. In it he stored the wine and bread.
Absorbed in the action, intent on the thing of the moment, he did not
notice that Rousille was bending forward listening to a sound from the
farm. When he had finished fastening the two buttons of the ration
bag, the girl was still listening.
"What am I to answer," she gravely said, "if father asks for you
presently? He is now shutting the door of the barn."
With a smile that displayed two rows of teeth white as milk, Jean
Nesmy, touching his hat, unadorned and wider than those worn in the
Marais, said:
"Good night, Rousille. Tell your father that I am going to be out all
night, and hope to bring back some plovers for my little sweetheart!"
He turned, sprang up the slope, jumped down into the neighbouring
field, and the next second the barrel of his gun caught the light as
it disappeared among the branches.
Rousille still stood before the break in the hedge, her heart had
gone forth with the wanderer. Then, for the second time, a noise broke
the stillness of evening. Now it was the sound of frightened fowls,
the flapping of wings, the noise of a key turning in the lock--the
sign that Eleonore, as always before supper, was locking the door of
the fowl-house; Marie-Rose would be late. Hurriedly she caught up her
load of leaves, cleared the fence, and hastened back to the farm. Soon
she had reached the uneven grassy path, which, coming from the high
lands, makes a bend ere, a little further on, it reaches the edge of
the Marais. Crossing it, she pushed open the side entrance of a large
gate, followed a half-fallen wall covered with creepers, and passing
through a ruined archway, whose gaping interstices had once formed the
imposing centre of the ancient walls, she entered a courtyard,
surrounded with farm buildings. The barn wherein was piled the green
forage stood to the left beside the stables. The girl threw in the
bundle of leaves she had brought, and shaking her damp dress, went
towards the long, low, tiled dwelling-house forming the end of the
courtyard. Arrived at the last door on the right, where light shone
through chinks and keyhole, she paused a little. A feeling of dread,
often experienced, had come over her. From inside could be heard the
sound of spoons clinking against the sides of plates; men's voices, a
dragging step along the floor. Softly as she could she opened the door
and slipped in.