THE DWARF ORCHARD.
Towards four o'clock the stars began to fade in the sky, the first
signs of daybreak to appear. A cock crowed. It was the same
golden-feathered cock, with fiery eyes under his red crest, that
crowed every morning. Marie-Rose had reared him. Now hearing it she
thought, "Thank you, little cock!" Then began to dress quietly, for
fear of rousing Eleonore, who still slept soundly.
She was quickly ready, and crossing the courtyard, turned to the left
past the ruined wall by a grassy path on the farm property, strewn
with fallen branches, which led down to the Marais. About some hundred
yards from La Fromentiere all vegetation abruptly ceased, and one came
upon a low wall grown with lichen and moss, surrounding an orchard of
about an acre in extent. Rousille, pushing open a gate in the middle
of the wall, entered.
It was a curious sight, this dwarf orchard. The cider apple and pear
trees with which it was planted had never been able to grow higher
than the top of the wall on account of the strong winds that blew
from the sea. Their stems were thick and gnarled, their branches all
bent and driven towards the east; leafless above, they met and
over-arched beneath. Looking at it from outside one simply saw a
billowy mass of bare branches; but on making one's way down the
central path, one found oneself in a leafy shade some four feet high,
safe from inquisitive eyes, from rain and heat, and from the gales
which sweep over the Marais. It was a sailor's folly, such as might be
found in far-off isles. As a child, it had been Rousille's playground;
now grown up, it was here she had come to meet her betrothed.
Entering, she stooped and made a path for herself towards the western
wall, then sitting upon the forked branch of an apple-tree, hidden
among them like a partridge in a corn-field, she gazed out upon the
vast plain along which Jean Nesmy must come.
At this early hour the Marais was covered with mists which did not
rise, but parted ever and anon, undulating in the breeze. The solitude
was unbroken, the atmosphere light, sensitive, nervous, carrying the
faintest sound without diminution. The bark of a dog at Sallertaine
came to her ears as if it were beside her. Great square corn-fields
that looked like patches of grey fur stitched together faded away into
nothing in the distance. Here and there canals, cutting each other at
right angles, looked like tarnished mirrors, the mist curling in smoke
above them. Then vaguely from out the fog darker outlines began to
appear, like oases in the desert; they were farmhouses built on the
low-lying ground of the marshland, with their outbuildings and groups
of poplars to lend shade. Now the undulating veil of mist began to
rise, rays of light touched the grasses, sheets of water sparkled like
windows in a setting sun. For many a league, from the bay of Bourgneuf
to Saint Gilles, the Marais of La Vendee had awakened to the light of
a fresh day.
Rousille rejoiced in it. She loved her native soil, faithful, true,
generous soil, ever yielding its increase whether in rain or sunshine;
where one would sleep one's last sleep to the sighing of the wind,
under the shelter of the Cross. She loved nothing better than that
horizon where every tiniest road was familiar to her, from the fence
that ran along the first meadow of La Fromentiere close at hand, to
the paths on the embankment which must be traversed pole in hand to
jump the dykes.
"Four o'clock," she said to herself, "and he has not come back yet!
What will father say?" She was beginning to grow uneasy, when, as she
was gazing into the distance towards the pointed clock tower of
Sallertaine, a voice startled her with:
"Rousille!" On the rising path, the marshland behind him, standing
looking at her in the light of the early morning, was Jean Nesmy.
"I did not see you come," she said.
He laughed, and with a proud air raised above his head a bundle of
feathers, four plovers and a teal tied together. The next moment,
resting the gun he carried against the inside of the wall, and
flinging over the birds, he dropped down beside Rousille.
"Rousille," he said, taking her hand under the arching apple-trees, "I
have had luck! Four plovers and such fine ones! I had a couple of
hours' sleep in the barn at La Pinconniere, and if the farmer had not
dragged me out this morning, I should have been late, I was so sound
asleep. And you?"
"I," replied Marie-Rose, as he sat opposite to her, "I am afraid.
Father spoke to me so angrily last night--he had been talking to
Mathurin in the courtyard--they must know."
"Well, and if they do? I am doing nothing to anger them. I mean to win
you by my work, to ask your father for your hand, and take you home as
my wife."
She looked at him, happy, despite her fears, at the determination she
read in the lad's face. And reserving her thought which answered yes,
she said without direct reply:
"What is it like in your home?"
"In my home," replied Jean Nesmy, contracting his eyes as if to fix
the picture thus evoked, and looking over Rousille's head--"in my home
is my mother, who is old and poor. The house she lives in is called
the Chateau, as I have told you before, in the parish of Chatelliers;
but it is not by any means a castle, Rousille, only two rooms, in
which live six little Nesmys besides myself, who am the eldest ... it
was, as you know, on account of our poverty and the number of children
that I could only serve one year in the army."
"Oh, yes, I remember," she answered, laughing, "that year seemed to me
longer than any other."
"I am the eldest; then come two girls, who are growing up. They are
not dressed altogether like you, for instance...."
An idea seized him, and with his hand quite near yet without touching
Rousille, he sketched about the young girl's shoulders and waist, the
little shawl and the long velvet ribbons encircling the bust. "All
round there two rows of velvet; rich girls have even three. You would
be charming, Rousille, in the costume of the Chatelliers and La
Flocelliere, for they dress in the same manner, the villages are quite
close."
She laughed, as if caressed by the hand which never touched her,
following its action with half-closed eyes.
"As you may suppose," he continued, "they only dress like that on
Sundays! There would not be bread in the house every day if I did not
send home the wages that your father gives me. Then I have two
brothers who have finished their schooling, and look after cows and
begin to do little odd jobs. The farmer who hires them gives them
each one row of potatoes to dig up for their own. It is a great help!"
"So I should think!" returned Rousille, with an air of conviction
"But above all," continued the lad, "our air is superb. We have plenty
of rain, indeed it rains without ceasing when the wind blows from
Saint Michael, a place about one league from us. But immediately after
we are in full sunshine; and as we have plenty of trees and moss and
ferns about us, the air is a very joy to breathe, quite different from
here; for our country is not at all like that of the Marais; it is all
hills, here, there, and everywhere, big and little; there is no
getting away from them. From any height it looks a perfect paradise.
Ah, Rousille, if you only knew Le Bocage, and the moors of Nouzillac,
you would never want to leave them!"
"And is the land tilled like this?"
"Very nearly, but much deeper. It takes strong oxen, sometimes six or
eight to plough."
"Father uses as many, when it pleases him."
"Yes, for the honour of it, Rousille, because your father is a rich
man. But down there, believe me, the soil has more granite and is
harder to turn."
She hesitated a little, the smile left her face as she asked:
"Do the women work in the fields?"
"Oh, no, of course not," answered the lad warmly. "We respect and
care for them as much as men do here in your Marais. Even my mother,
who goes gleaning at harvest-time and when the chestnuts are gathered,
is never seen working in the fields like a man. No, you may depend on
it, our women are more indoors spinning, than doing out-of-door work."
Recalled to the stern conditions of his daily life, the young man grew
grave, and added slowly:
"Rest assured, I will never slacken in my work. I am known for more
than two leagues round Chatelliers as a lad who has no fear of hard
work. We will have our own little house to ourselves, and if only I
have your love, Rousille, like my father and mother, I will never
complain of any hardships."
He had scarcely ended his speech of humble love-making when a voice
from the road called:
"Rousille!"
"We are betrayed!" she said, turning pale. "It is father."
They both remained motionless, with beating hearts, thinking only of
the voice that would call again.
And, in truth, it was now heard nearer.
"Rousille!"
She did not resist. Signing to Jean Nesmy to remain under cover of the
trees, and bending half double, she made her way out to the path that
divided the orchard. There straightening herself, she saw her father
standing before her in the road. He looked at his daughter for a
moment, as she presented herself, pale, breathless, dishevelled by the
branches, then said:
"What were you doing there?"
She would not lie; she felt herself lost. In her trouble involuntarily
she turned her head as if to invoke the protection of him in hiding,
and there just behind, erect, quite close to her, Rousille saw her
lover, who had come to her aid in the moment of danger. With an air of
defiance he drew himself up, and strode in front of her. Then the girl
ventured to look again at her father. He was no longer occupied with
her, nor had he the angry aspect she expected to see; his expression
was grave and sad, and he looked steadily at Jean Nesmy, who, pressing
forward on the grassy walk, had stopped at the opening, within three
feet of him:
"You here, my farm-servant!" he said.
Jean Nesmy made answer:
"Yes, I am here."
"You have been with Rousille, then?"
"And what is the harm?" inquired the lad, with a slight tremor, which
he could not control, not of fear, but of the hot blood of youth.
There was no anger in the farmer's voice. With head bent on his
breast, as of a master whose kindness has been abused, and who is
sorrowing, he said with a sigh:
"Come you here, at once, with me."
Not a word to Marie-Rose, not one look. It was a matter to be settled
among men first; the daughter did not count at present.
The farmer was already retracing his steps, walking with leisurely
stride towards La Fromentiere; Jean Nesmy followed at a short
distance, his gun slung on his back, swinging the birds he had shot in
one hand. Far behind them came Rousille in sore distress, sometimes
looking at Jean Nesmy, sometimes at the master who was to decide his
fate.
When the two men had gone into the courtyard, she did not dare to
follow them in, but leaning against a pillar of the ruined gateway,
half hidden behind it, her head on her arm, she waited to see what
would happen.
Her father and his man, crossing the yard, proceeded to Jean Nesmy's
room, which was to the left beyond the stables. There was no sound but
the noise of wooden shoes on the gravel; but Rousille had seen the
cripple crouching down in the first rays of the sun, beyond the
stables; he was nodding his head with an air of satisfaction, his
malicious eyes never leaving the stranger he had denounced, who,
yesterday so happy, was now the culprit.
Not far off, Francois, on a ladder, was cutting out a wedge of hay
from a rick, firm and compact as a wall; he, too, was watching slyly
from under the brim of his hat, but there was no malice upon his
phlegmatic countenance, nothing more than a mild curiosity broadening
his lips into a half smile under the heavy yellow moustache. He did
his work as slowly as possible so as to be able to remain there and
see the end of it.
Toussaint Lumineau and his man had soon reached the shed piled with
empty casks, baskets, spades, and pickaxes, that had for many a year
served as sleeping-place for the farm-servants. The master sat down on
the foot of the bed. The look on his face had not changed; it was
still the dignified paternal look of one who regrets parting from a
good servant, and yet is resolutely determined to suffer no
encroachment upon his authority, no disrespect to his position.
Leaning his elbow upon an old cask showing marks of tallow, on which
Jean Nesmy used to rest his candle at night, he slowly raised his
head, and in the daylight that streamed in at the open door, he at
length addressed the young man, who was standing bare-headed in the
middle of the shed.
"I hired you for forty pistoles," he said. "You received your wages at
Midsummer; how much is now owing to you?"
The lad, absorbed, began counting and recounting with his fingers on
his blouse, the veins of his forehead swelling with the effort; his
eyes were fixed on the ground, and not another thought disturbed the
complicated operation of the countryman calculating the price of his
labour. During this time, the farmer mentally went over the brief
history of his connection with the lad, who, come by chance to the
Marais in search of burnt cow-dung, used by the Vendeens for manure,
had been then and there hired by him, and had quickly fallen into the
ways of his new master. The farmer thought of the three years that the
stranger lad had lived under the roof of La Fromentiere, one before
his military training, two since; years of hard, thorough work, of
good conduct, without having once given cause for serious reproof, of
astonishing gentleness and submission despite his sons' hostility,
which, manifested on the very first day, had never lessened.
"It should make ninety-five francs," said Jean Nesmy.
"That is what I make it," said the farmer. "Here is the money. Count
and see if it is right." From his coat pocket where he had already
placed them, Toussaint Lumineau drew out a number of silver pieces
which he threw on the top of the cask. "Take it, lad."
Without touching the money Jean Nesmy had drawn back.
"You will not have me any longer at La Fromentiere?"
"No, my lad, you are going." The old man's voice faltered, and he
continued: "I am not sending you away because you are idle, nor even,
though it did annoy me, because you are too fond of shooting
wild-fowl. You have served me well. But my daughter is my own, Jean
Nesmy, and I have not given my consent to your courting her."
"If she likes me, and I like her, Maitre Lumineau?"
"You are not one of us, my poor boy. That a _Boquin_ should marry a
girl like Rousille is an impossibility, as you know. You should have
thought of it before."
For the first time Jean Nesmy's face grew a shade paler, he half
closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth drooped as though he were
about to burst into tears. In a low voice he said:
"I will wait for her as long as you think fit. She is young, and so am
I. Only say how long it must be, and I will submit."
But the farmer answered:
"No, it cannot be. You must go."
The young man quivered from head to foot. He hesitated for a moment,
with knitted brows, his eyes fixed on the ground, then decided not to
speak his thought: I will not give her up. I will come back. She shall
be mine. True to the taciturn race from which he sprang, he said
nothing, took up the money, counted it, dropping the pieces one by one
into his pocket as he did so. Then without another word, as though the
farmer were not in existence, he began to collect his clothes and
belongings. The blue blouse that he knotted by the sleeves to the
barrel of his gun held them all, save a pair of boots that he slung
on to a piece of string. When he had finished, he raised his hat, and
went out.
It was broad sunshine. Jean Nesmy walked slowly; the strong will that
dominated the slight youth made him hold his head high, and his eyes
scanned the windows of the house seeking Rousille. She was nowhere to
be seen. Then in the middle of the great courtyard, he, the hired
servant, who had been dismissed, who had but another moment to tread
the ground of La Fromentiere, called:
"Rousille!"
A pointed coif appeared at the angle of the gateway; Rousille came
forth from her shelter and ran to him, tears streaming down her face.
But almost at the same moment she stopped, intimidated by the sight of
her father on the threshold of the shed, and stricken with terror at a
cry which, rising from that side of the courtyard, some fifty paces
off, had caused Nesmy to turn his head:
"_Dannion!_"
A monstrous apparition came out from the stables. The cripple,
bare-headed, with eyes bloodshot, inspired by impotent rage, had
rushed out, with arms rigid on his crutches, his huge body shaking
with the effort. Roaring like some wild beast with wide-open mouth he
hurled the old cry of hatred at the stranger, the cry with which the
children of the Marais greet the despised dwellers of the Bocage.
"_Dannion! Dannion Sarraillon_--look to yourself!"
Rushing with a speed that betokened the violence and strength of the
man, he neared Nesmy. The rage in his heart, the jealousy that
tortured him, the agony caused by the effort he was making, rendered
the convulsed face terrible to behold, as it was projected forward by
jerks; while onlookers could not but think, with a shudder, what a
powerful man this deformed, unearthly looking creature had once been.
Seeing him come close up to the farm-servant, Rousille was terrified
for the man she loved. She ran to Jean Nesmy, put her two hands on his
arms, and drew him backward towards the road.
And, on her account, Jean Nesmy began to draw back, slowly, step by
step, while the cripple, growing still more furious, shouted
insultingly:
"Let go of my sister, _Dannion_!"
The farmer's loud voice interposed from the depths of the courtyard:
"Stop where you are, Mathurin; and you, Nesmy, loose your hold of my
daughter!"
And he advanced to them, without haste, as a man not desiring to
compromise his dignity. The cripple stopped short, let go of his
crutches, and sank exhausted to the ground.
But Jean Nesmy continued to retreat. He had placed his hand in
Rousille's; and soon they were within the portal of the gateway,
framed in sunshine. There lay the road. The young man bent towards
Rousille and kissed her cheek.
"Farewell, my Rousille," he said.
And she, running across the courtyard without looking back, her hands
to her face, wept bitterly.
Having watched her disappear round the corner of the house by the
barn, Nesmy called out:
"Mathurin Lumineau, I shall come back!"
"Only try!" retorted the cripple.
The whilom farm-servant of La Fromentiere began to mount the hill
beside the farm; clad in his russet work-day clothes he walked with
difficulty as if worn out with fatigue. His whole wardrobe, slung on
to his gun, consisted of but one coat, a blouse, three shirts, a
couple of boxwood bird calls for quails that clapped together as he
walked, and yet the load seemed heavy. A feeling of dismay at having
to go back to the daily seeking of employment had come over him while
making up the modest bundle. He was already thinking of his mother's
alarm at this sudden return. Every step was a wrench from some loved
object, for he had lived three years in this Fromentiere. His heart
was heavy with memories; he walked on slowly, looking at nothing yet
seeing every stick and stone. The trees he brushed past had all been
pruned by him, or flicked by his whip; every inch of ground had been
ploughed and reaped by him; he knew how every furrow was to be sown on
the morrow.
Having reached the back of the farm, at the rise of the road where
formerly four mills had been busily grinding corn and now only two
were at work, he turned to look back that he might increase the pain
of parting.
Below him, bathed in sunlight, lay the plain of the Marais, where
rushes, taking on their autumn array, formed golden circles round the
meadows; there were farms distinguishable by their groups of poplars,
inhabited islands in the desert of marshland, where he was leaving
good friends, and the recollection of happy hours that come back in
sorrow; his eyes scanned the crowded houses of Sallertaine and its
church dominating them all, recalling bygone Sundays. Then, with his
soul in his eyes, he bent them upon La Fromentiere, as a bird would
hover with wide extended wings.
From the height on which he stood the lad could discern the whole of
the farm, even to its slightest details. One by one he counted the
windows, the doors and gates, the paths round the fields along which
every evening, for the last two years especially, he had never failed
to sing as he drove the cattle homewards. When his eyes lighted on the
dwarf orchard, so distant that it looked no larger than a pea-pod, he
quickly turned away; as he did so, his foot struck against something
in the path, it was a dog lying down, quite still.
"What, you, Bas-Rouge?" said Jean. "My poor doggie, you cannot follow
me where I am going;" and, walking on, he stroked the dog's head
between his ears, in the place where Rousille loved to fondle him.
After some twenty paces, he said again:
"You must go back, Bas-Rouge. I do not belong to you any more."
Bas-Rouge trotted on a little further with his friend; but when they
had reached the last hedge of La Fromentiere, he stopped, and turned
slowly homewards.