THE CONSCRIPTS OF SALLERTAINE.
The afternoon of that autumn Sunday was marked by a deeper
peacefulness than usual. The air was warm, the light veiled, the wind,
which, rising with the tide, had outstripped it, sweeping over the
vast grassy plain, brought no sound of work in its train, no creak of
plough, no ring of hammer, spade, or axe. The bells alone were heard
answering each other from Sallertaine, Perrier, Saint Gervais, Chalons
with its new church, vast as a cathedral, and Seullans hidden among
the trees on the hill. Chimes for High Mass, ringing for Angelus, the
three strokes for vespers left the bells but little rest; far and near
they told out the familiar tones, understood for centuries past.
Adoration of the Holy One; forgetfulness of earth; pardon for sin;
union in prayer; equality of all men in the light of eternal promises.
The tones rang out into space and interlocked with a vibration, and
were as garlands flung from one belfry to another. Among the toilers
of the fields, cattle drivers, sowers, there were but few who did not
obey the summons. Along roads deserted all the week were to be seen
families hastening, passing and repassing one another, of those who
lived at the remotest portions of the parish; while those who lived
nearer took it more leisurely. On the canal, which, broadening at the
foot of the church, forms the quay of Sallertaine, boats were
constantly moving hither and thither.
Towards evening the bells had ceased; the frequenters of inn parlours
too had betaken themselves to their farms, lying peacefully in the
light of the setting sun. Universal silence reigned over the land.
Quiet as it was on working-days, at the close of the week it seemed
sunk in meditation and silence; dominical truce that had its great
significance, when weary souls refresh themselves, and whole families
unite in calm and meditation to review their living and their dead.
But to-day the quiet was to be of short duration.
Mathurin and Andre were lying under the shade of the elms that
afforded provisional shelter to the harrows and ploughs close by the
old stonework gateway. The cripple, leaning against the cross-bars of
a harrow, was resting after the fatigue and excitement of the morning.
Andre, from concern for him, had not gone into town again with his
father, but lying at full-length on the grass was reading the paper
aloud, pausing every now and then to make his comments on the news,
and, as a travelled man, to explain the whereabouts of places and
countries--Clermont Ferrand, India, Japan, the while twirling his
little fair moustache, a very youthful and ingenuous self-sufficiency
showing itself in his frank, merry face. At about four o'clock, to the
left of Sallertaine, was heard the sound of a bugle, coming apparently
from the open marsh between the parishes of Lumineau and Seullans.
Mathurin roused from the torpor into which he had sunk, looked at
Andre, who at the first sound of the bugle had let fall the paper, and
with uplifted face and straining ears was listening to the call.
"It is the cadets," said his brother, "they are out this afternoon.
Soon they will be leaving."
"They are playing the call of the 'Chasseurs d'Afrique,'" returned
Andre, a light in his eyes. "I recognise it. Is there anyone of our
old regiment in the Marais?"
"Yes, the son of a gooseherd in Fief; he served his time with the
Zouaves."
They were silent, both men listening to the bugling of the ex-Zouave,
their thoughts very different. Andre with eyes fixed on the distant
marshland was seeing in imagination a white town, with narrow streets,
and a troop of horsemen emerging from a crenulated gateway, its arches
echoing with the ring of their horses' hoofs.
Mathurin, watching the expression on his brother's face, thought: "His
heart is still with the regiment." For an instant his features
distended, his eyes dilated as those of a wild beast detecting its
prey, then he returned to his one idea.
"Driot," he exclaimed after a while, "you like that music?"
"I should think so."
"Do you regret the regiment?"
"No, that I don't. No one does."
"Then what was the attraction out there?"
The young man looked inquiringly into his brother's face as though to
say, why should he want to know, then answered:
"The country----Hark! that's the reveille now."
The sounds of the bugle, sharp, incisive, stopped. Now five or six
strong untrained voices struck up "Le chant du depart." Occasional
words reached the listeners where they lay. "Mourir pour la patrie ...
le plus beau ... d'envie." The rest was lost in space.
Meanwhile the sounds were approaching; the two brothers motionless
under the elms, each pursuing the train of thought evoked by the first
notes of the bugle, could hear the conscripts of Sallertaine coming up
the hill towards them.
Toussaint Lumineau, on his way home from vespers with his friend
Massonneau, heard them also. Massonneau, an old tenant farmer, tall
and thin, with skin as dark as a ripe ear of corn, the cartilages of
his neck standing out like the breast-bone of a fowl, had acquired his
name of "Le Glorieux" from a nervous twitch he had, which caused his
chin to jerk upwards at every instant; Lumineau and he were discussing
the latest events of La Fromentiere. The two men represented the age
and wisdom of the Marais; moreover, they could tell the names and
nicknames of every living soul at Sallertaine, their history and
parentage. As they reached the last houses of the town, both
simultaneously stopped and turned their faces windward.
"Do you hear, Glorieux?" exclaimed Lumineau. "They are bugling and
singing, poor boys! But the parents of those who are going may well
weep."
"Yes," returned Massonneau, with a twitch of the chin, "the parents
are to be pitied."
"I could name them, everyone, from only hearing their lad's voices,"
continued Lumineau. "You, good people of La Bounellerie, and you, of
Grand Paiement; you, of Juch-Pie; you, of Linotteries; and you, of
Belle-Blanche, I recognise your boys' voices. May it not do the same
work for them that it did for my Francois! They are going to the place
that changed my boy's heart--to the town that robbed me of him."
"As it robbed La Pinconniere," said his companion.
"And Leverells."
"And Paree-du-Mont."
The litany might have been prolonged; Massonneau hearing the voices at
the edge of the Marais broke in with:
"They are singing again," he said, "they are going up the hill to you,
Lumineau."
And in truth the young conscripts had begun the ascent towards La
Fromentiere; soon the bugle call, soon their voices, resounded over
the silent Marais, carried afar by the wind, like grains of seed
falling everywhere. And everywhere, without apparent reason, emotions
were stirred, old sorrows awoke, and the humble occupants of isolated
farms or remote villages listened with a tightening of the heart to
the tramp of the conscripts of Sallertaine.
As they reached the meadow-land of La Fromentiere, Mathurin, who had
been following the sounds, and with his marvellous sense of
observation had marked every step of their way, said to Andre:
"They have already halted at three farms. I think they must be
collecting for their class. You did not do that? For the last two
years they have started calling at all the houses where there is a
young girl of their own age, to ask her for a fowl as compensation for
having to serve. Rousille is drawn among the other girls. You should
catch a fowl to give them when they come."
"So I will," returned Andre, laughing and springing up with a bound.
"I'm off. What do they do with all the fowls?"
"Eat them. They get three or four farewell dinners out of them. Be
quick! they are coming!"
Andre disappeared within the courtyard. Soon could be heard his merry
laugh, and a rush in the direction of the barn, then the terrified
cries of the fowl he had evidently caught; and soon he reappeared
holding his prize by the legs, its round spotted wings, grey and
white, rising and falling on the grass as he walked. At the same
moment a blast on the bugle was heard at the foot of the dwarf
orchard; Mathurin half-raised himself upon the harrow, his hands
clasping the cross-bars, his arms extended, his shaggy head bent
forward, awaited the arrival of the troop, Andre standing beside him.
Opposite them, just at the opening of the road leading down to the
Marais, the setting sun, an enormous ball tinted orange by the mist,
filled the entire space between the two treeless banks.
In this sun-bathed glory three girls advanced, arm-in-arm, up the
ascent, the tallest in the middle; all were dressed in black with lace
coifs; the jet on their velvet kerchiefs sparkling in the light. As
they walked they rhythmically swayed their heads; they were girls from
Sallertaine, but the light was behind them, and only Mathurin could
recognise in the centre one Felicite Gauvrit. A few paces in the rear
came the bugler, a standard-bearer, and five young men walking
abreast, carrying either in their arms or suspended from a hempen cord
the fowls collected from the farmhouses. The procession advanced some
hundred yards along the road, then pulled up between the elms and the
ruined wall of La Fromentiere.
"Good day, brothers Lumineau!" said a voice.
There was a burst of laughter from the band, excited by their march
and the muscadet they had drunk on the way. The cripple's hands gave
way, he glanced up at Andre.
Felicite Gauvrit, without leaving hold of her companions, had advanced
slightly in front of them, and was gazing with a pleased expression at
the youngest Lumineau, who held out the grey fowl to her.
"You guessed then, Andre?" she said. "Ah, that's what it is to have to
do with intelligent boys. Here, Sosthene Pageot, come and take
Rousille's fowl."
A sturdy lad with ruddy face, and the stupefied air of one beginning
to feel the effects of drink, stepped out from among the others and
took the fowl. But from the mocking attitude of Andre, and his studied
silence, Felicite guessed that he was surprised to see a girl of her
position in such company, therefore she added carelessly:
"You may be satisfied that I do not range the Marais every day with
conscripts. My doing it to-day is out of kindness. My two friends
here, who belong to the class, were called upon to go the round to
collect; they are shy and dared not go alone, and so it must have been
given up, had I not come to the rescue." She expressed herself well,
with a certain refinement that came with the habit of reading.
"That would have been a pity!" said the young man coldly.
"Yes, would it not? The more so, that I am not often seen in your part
of the world."
She turned her head towards the windows of La Fromentiere, the
stables, the hayricks, sighed, then immediately remarked in a playful
tone:
"You will come to one of our dances, will you not, Andre? The
Maraichines hope so."
At this there were signs of approval to the right and left of her.
"Perhaps," replied Andre. "It is so long since I was at a dance in
Sallertaine; inclination may return."
She thanked him with a knowing wink; then for the first time seemed to
be aware of the presence of Mathurin, who was looking at her with an
air of mingled passion and grief.
A look of pity and embarrassment, not altogether feigned, came into
her face as she said:
"You understand, Mathurin, what I say to one I say to all in your
house.... If it were not too fatiguing for you?... I was glad to see
you at mass again this morning ... it shows that you are feeling
better...."
The cripple, only able to express himself clearly when he had time to
think over his words, stammered out:
"Thank you, Felicite ... you are very kind, Felicite," and he uttered
her name with a kind of adoration that seemed to touch two or three of
the conscripts, stupefied as they were.
"What was your regiment, Mathurin?" asked the standard-bearer.
"The third Cuirassiers."
"Bugler, a _fanfare_ of the Cuirassiers in honour of Mathurin
Lumineau! Forward, march!"
The three girls, the bugler, the standard-bearer, and the five young
men bringing up the rear, left the shade of the elms, and went on
their way towards Quatre-Moulins, raising clouds of dust crossed by
the slanting rays of the sun. The _fanfare_ shook the walls of the old
farmhouse.
When the last lace coif had disappeared among the furze-bushes and
willows that bordered the road, Mathurin said to his brother, who had
taken up the paper again and was absently reading:
"Would you believe it, Driot, this is the first time for six years
that she has been here!"
Andre replied, too abruptly:
"She did for you once, old man. Better take care that she does not do
it a second time."
With muttered words of anger Mathurin Lumineau picked up his crutches,
and moving away to a little distance, leant up against a tree. The two
brothers spoke no more to each other; both were absently gazing out
over the marshland, where the daylight was dying away. The sun was
rapidly sinking in the lowland, only a red crescent broken by shadows
remained of the fiery globe, against which some dark object in the
horizon, a willow, or a group of rushes, stood out like a crown of
thorns. It faded away; a fresh breeze rose on the hills; the sounds of
the bugle and of voices were no longer heard. Profound silence was
over the country, here and there in the grey distance was the glimmer
of a fire. Peace had returned; sorrows, one by one, were ending in
sleep or in prayer.
Old Lumineau coming back from the town saw his two sons standing
motionless among the trees wrapt in contemplation of the quiet scene,
and not knowing their thoughts, said brightly:
"A fine sight, our Marais, eh, boys? Now let us go in together; supper
will be waiting." Then as, in the darkness, Andre came first, he
added:
"How glad I am to have you home again from the regiment, my Driot!"