THE END OF THE JOURNEY
Throughout the day which followed, and throughout the night, and
throughout the succeeding days and nights, Bertie wandered among the
wilds of Finistere, and among its lanes and villages. How he lived he
himself could have scarcely told. The misfortunes which had befallen
him since he had set out on his journey to the Land of Golden Dreams
had told upon him. He became ill in body and in mind. He needed rest
and care, good food and careful nursing. What he got was no food, or
scarcely any, strange skies to shelter him, a strange land to serve
him as his bed.
It was fortunate that summer was at hand. Had it been winter he would
have lain down at night, and in the morning they would have found him
dead. But he was at least spared excessive cold. The winds were
not invariably genial. The occasional rain was not at all times
welcome--to him at least, whatever it might have been to the thirsty
earth--but there was no frost. If frost had come he would certainly
have died.
What he ate he scarcely knew. Throughout the whole of his wanderings
he never received food from any human being. He found his breakfast,
dinner, tea, and supper in the fields and on the hedges. A patch of
turnips was a godsend. There was one field in particular in which grew
both swedes and turnips. It was within a stone's-throw of a village;
to reach it from the road you had to scramble down a bank. To this he
returned again and again. He began to look upon it almost as his own.
Once, towards evening, the farmer saw him getting his supper. The
farmer saw the lad before the lad saw him. He stole upon him unawares,
bent upon capturing the thief. He had almost achieved his purpose, and
was within half a dozen yards of the miscreant, when, not looking
where he was going in his anxiety to keep his eyes upon the pilferer,
he caught his sabot in a hole, and came down upon his knees. As he
came he gave vent to a deep Breton execration.
Startled, Bertie looked behind and saw the foe. He was off like the
wind. When the farmer had regained, if not his temper, at least his
perpendicular, he saw, fifty yards ahead, a wild-looking, ragged
figure tearing for his life. The Breton was not built for speed. He
perceived that he might as well attempt to rival the swallow in its
flight as outrun the boy. So he contented himself with shaking his
fists and shouting curses after the robber of his turnip field.
Never washing, never taking his clothes from his back nor his shoes
from his feet, in appearance Bertie soon presented a figure which
would have discredited a scarecrow. Scrambling through hedges,
constant walking over stony ways, beds on dampish soil--these things
told upon his garments; they soon began to drop away from him in
shreds. His face went well with his clothing. Very white and drawn,
very thin and dirty, his ravenous eyes looked out from under a tangled
shock of hair. One night he had been startled in his sleep, as he
often was, and he had sprung up, as a wild creature springs, and run
for his life, not waiting to inquire what it was that had startled
him, whether it was the snapping of a twig or the movement of a rabbit
or a bird. In his haste he left his hat behind him, and as he never
returned to get it, afterwards he went with his head uncovered.
It began to be rumoured about those parts that some strange thing had
taken up its residence in the surrounding country. The Breton peasants
and small farmers are ignorant, credulous, superstitious. The
slightest incident of an unusual character they magnify into a
mystery.
It was told in the hamlets that some wild creature had made its
appearance in their neighbourhood. Some said it was a boy, some said
it was a man, some said it was a woman; some said it was neither one
thing nor the other, but a monster which had taken human shape.
Bertie lent an air of veracity to the different versions by his own
proceedings. He was not in his own right mind. Had care been taken,
and friends been near, all might have been well; as it was, fever
was taking more and more possession of his brain. He shunned his
fellow-creatures. At the sight of a little child he would take to his
heels and run. He saw an enemy in every bush, in every tree; in a man
or a woman he saw his worst enemy of all.
In consequence the tales gained ground and grew. A lout, returning
from his labour in the fields, saw on a distant slope in the gathering
twilight a wild-looking figure, who, at sight of him, turned and ran
like the wind. The lout ran too. The tale did not lose by being told.
Bertie was magnified into a giant, his speed into speed of the
swiftest bird. The lout declared that he uttered mysterious sounds as
he ran. He became a mysterious personage altogether--and a horrible
one.
Others saw this thing of evil, for that it was a thing of evil all
were agreed. The farmer who saw him in his turnip field had a wondrous
tale to tell.
He had not tripped through his own stupidity and clumsiness. On the
contrary, it was all owing to the influence of the evil eye. Bertie,
being a thing of evil, had seen him--as things of evil have doubtless
the power of doing--although his approach was made from the rear; and,
seeing him, had glanced at him with his evil eye through the back of
his head, as things possessing that fatal gift have, we may take it
for granted, the power of doing. Nay, who shall decide that the evil
eye is not itself located in the back of the head?
Anyhow, under its influence the farmer tripped. This became clearer to
his mind the more he thought of it, and, it may be also added, the
farther off the accident became. The next morning he remembered that
he had been conscious of a mysterious something in his joints as he
approached the turnip stealer--a something not to be described, but
altogether mysterious and horrible. In the afternoon he declared that
he had not followed the plunderer because he had been rooted to the
ground, he knew not how nor why--rooted in the manner of his own
turnips, which he had seen disappearing from underneath his eyes.
That night the tale grew still more horrible. He had a couple of
glasses of brandy, at two sous a glass, with a select circle of his
friends, and under the influence of conviviality the farmer made his
neighbours' hair stand on end. He went to bed with the belief
impressed firmly on his mind that he had encountered Old Nick in
person, engaged in the nefarious and characteristic action of stealing
turnips from his turnip field.
Thus it came about that while Bertie avoided aboriginals, the
aboriginals were equally careful in avoiding him. One day some one
heard him speak. That was the climax. The tongue he spoke was neither
Breton nor French. Delirium was overtaking the lad, and under its
influence he was beginning to spout all sorts of nonsense in his
feverish wanderings here and there.
The aboriginal in question had seen him running across the field and
shouting as he ran. He declared, probably with truth, that never had
he heard the like before. It was undoubtedly the language which was in
common use among things of evil. This conclusion was not flattering to
English-speaking people, but there are occasions on which ignorance is
not bliss, and it is not folly to be wise. Being a Breton peasant of
average education, this aboriginal decided that Bertie's English was
the language in common use among things of evil.
That settled the question. There are possibly Beings--Beings in this
case should be written with a capital letter--of indifferent, and
worse than indifferent character, who have at least some elementary
acquaintance with the Breton tongue. Let so much be granted. But it
cannot be doubted--at any rate no one did doubt it--that the fact of
this stranger speaking in a strange tongue made it as plain as a
pike-staff that he was the sort of character which is better left
alone.
So, as a rule, they left him alone in the severest manner.
Of course this could not endure for ever. Bertie was approaching the
Land of Golden Dreams in a sense of which he had not dreamed even in
his wildest dreams. One cannot subsist on roots alone. Nor can a young
gentleman, used to cosy beds and well-warmed rooms and regular meals,
exist for long on such a diet, under ever-changing skies, in an
inhospitable country, in the open air. Bertie was worn to a shadow. He
was wasted not only physically, but mentally and morally. He was a
ghost of what he once had been, enfeebled in mind and body.
If something did not happen soon to change his course of living, he
would soon bring his journeying to an untimely end, and reach the Land
of Dreams indeed.
Something did happen, but it was not by any means the sort of thing
which was required.
One day a great hunt took place in that district. It was first-rate
sport. They occasionally hunt wolves, and even wild boars in
Finistere, but this time what was hunted was a boy. And the boy was
Bertie.
The mayor of St. Thegonnec was a wise man. All mayors are of
necessity, and from the nature of their office, wise, especially the
mayors of rural France; and this mayor was the wisest of wise mayors.
He was a miller by trade, honest as millers go, and as pig-headed a
rustic as was ever found in Finistere. His name was Baudry--Jean
Baudry.
It was reported to M. Baudry by his colleague, the mayor of the
commune of Plouigneau, which lies on the other side of Morlaix, that
there was a Being--with a capital B--which had come no one knew from
whence, and which was plundering the fields in a way calculated to
make the blood of all honest men turn cold--or hot, as might accord
best with the natural disposition of the blood of the man in question.
The mayor of St. Thegonnec had told this story to the mayor of
Morlaix; and the mayor of Morlaix, being the mayor of the
_arrondissement_, had thought it an excellent opportunity to snub the
mayor of a mere commune, and had snubbed the mayor of St. Thegonnec
accordingly; who, coming fresh from the snubbing, had encountered his
colleague in the market-place, and then and there told his wrongs.
The two worthies agreed that, at the first opportunity, they would lay
violent hands upon this plunderer of the fields of honest men, and
make him wish that he had left such fields alone.
Such an opportunity, or what looked like such an one, was not long in
offering itself to M. Baudry.
One afternoon he was engaged in his occupation of grinding flour,
standing in an atmosphere which would have rendered life disagreeable,
if not altogether unsupportable, to any one but a miller, when Robert,
Madame Perchon's eldest born, put his head inside the open door of the
mill.
"This creature, M. le Maire; this creature!"
Robert Perchon was an undersized youth of some twenty years of age,
who had escaped military service not only as being the eldest son of a
widow, but as being in possession of an unrivalled squint, which would
have excluded him in any case, and which would have rendered it really
difficult for a drill sergeant to have ascertained to his own
satisfaction whether, at any given moment, the recruit had his "eyes
front" or behind.
"Ah, at last! Where is this vagabond? We will settle his business in a
trice!"
Having shouted instructions to his assistant to keep his eyes upon the
stones, M. le Maire came forth.
"He is in the buck-wheat field! I was going to the little field by the
river, when, behold! what should I see in the buck-wheat field, lying
close to the hedge, and yet among the wheat, what but this creature,
fast asleep! It is so, I give you my word. At this time of day, when
all honest people are at work, in the middle of my field there was
this creature, fast asleep. I knew him at once, although I have not
seen the wretch before; but I have heard him described, and there is
indeed something absolutely diabolical in his aspect even as he lies
among my buck-wheat fast asleep!"
"You did not wake him?"
"Ah, no! Why should I wake him? Who knows what injury the creature
might have done me when he found himself disturbed?"
"Then we will wake him, I give you my word. We will capture this
vagabond. We will discover what there is about him diabolical."
The mayor's courage was applauded. There was Robert Perchon, his
mother--in tears, at the thought of the peril which her son had only
just escaped--a select assembly of the villagers, and the two gorgeous
gendarmes from the St. Thegonnec gendarmerie. All these people
perceived that the mayor was brave.
The assembly started, with the intention of making an example of the
plunderer of the fields of honest men.
In front was the mayor, not looking particularly dignified, for he was
white with flour, though void of fear.
In his hand he carried a mighty stick. Behind him came the gendarmes,
as was befitting. They had forgotten to buckle on their swords, but
in their case dignity was everything, and it was just possible that
the stick of the mayor would render more deadly weapons needless.
Behind--a pretty good distance behind--came the villagers. Some of
them carried pitchforks, others spades. One gallant lady carried a
kettle full of boiling water. It did not occur to her, perhaps, that
the water would have time to cool before they reached their quarry.
Madame Perchon brought up the rear, and behind her sneaked the
gallant Robert.
It occurred to the mayor that this was not exactly as it ought to be.
He suggested to M. Robert that as he alone knew exactly where the
vagabond lay, it befitted him to lead the van. This, however, M.
Robert did not see; he preferred to shout out his directions from the
rear.
They entered the buck-wheat field. No persuasions would induce him to
enter with the rest. He insisted on remaining outside, guiding them
from a post of safety. His mother stayed to keep him company.
"By there! a little to the left! Keep straight on! If he has not gone,
M. le Maire, which is always possible, you can touch him with your
stick from where you are now standing!"
He had not gone.
The journey was almost done. The end was drawing near. Delirious,
beside himself, fever-racked, hunger-stricken, not knowing what he was
doing, the boy had sunk down in Madame Perchon's buck-wheat field to
sleep. And he had slept--a mockery of sleep! A thousand hideous
imaginations passed through his fevered mind. M. Robert Perchon, who
had been contented with a single glance at the sleeping lad, had some
warranty for his declaration that in his aspect there was something
diabolical, for his limbs writhed and his countenance was distorted by
the paroxysms of his fever.
Dreaming some horrible dream, the noise made by the advancing brave
fell upon his fevered ear. Starting upright at M. Baudry's feet, with
a shriek which horrified all who heard him, he rushed across the
field, and flew as if all the powers of evil were treading on his
heels. And, indeed, in a sense the powers of evil were, for he was
delirious with fever.
The first impulse of the champions of the fields of honest men was to
do, with one accord, what the boy had done, to turn and flee--the
other way. Some, believing Bertie's delirious shriek to be the
veritable voice of Satan, acted on this first impulse and fled.
Notable among them were M. Robert and his mother. That gallant pair
raced each other homewards, shrieking with so much vigour that it
almost seemed that in that direction they had made up their minds to
outdo the plunderer of the fields of honest men. But there were braver
spirits abroad that day. Among them was the mayor. Besides, the public
eye was upon him, and behind him were the two gendarmes. In France the
representative of authority never runs--at least, he never runs away.
It is true that when Bertie sprang with such startling suddenness from
right underneath his feet, and gave utterance to that ear-alarming
shriek, M. Baudry thought of running. But he only thought; it went no
further. He would certainly have denied that he had even allowed
himself to think of such an ignominious contingency a moment
afterwards.
The creature was running away. That was evident. It would be absurd
for the champions of those fields to run away from him, when the
rascal had been sensible enough to run away from them. M. Baudry
perceived this fact at once.
"After him!" he cried. "I give you my word we shall catch him yet!"
Off went the assembly, helter-skelter, after the delirious boy.
"Forward! forward! We will teach this rogue a lesson! We will teach
him to rob the fields of honest men! We will learn the stuff that he
is made of--this vagabond!"
Courage revived. They all shouted, and they all ran.
If the mayor was in the habit of giving his word as lightly as he gave
it then, it could not have been worth having. It was soon evident that
they had about as much chance of catching the fugitive as they had of
catching the clouds which wandered above their heads.
M. Baudry was not built for violent exercise. He had probably not run
thirty yards in the last thirty years. He was in his sabots, and
sabots are not good things for running. Fifty paces in Madame
Perchon's buck-wheat field was quite enough for him. He perceived that
it is not a proper thing for mayors to run; so he ran no more. Instead
of running he sat down to think, and to encourage, of course, his
friends.
The gendarmes kept on. It was evidently their duty to keep on. But
they were not much fonder of running than the mayor, and a gendarme's
boots, when it comes to running, are not much more satisfactory,
regarded as aids to progress, than sabots. Especially are gendarmes
not built to run across ploughed fields.
In fact the chase was prolonged for almost, if not quite, a hundred
yards. Then it ceased. Most of the champions of the fields of honest
men sat down upon the fields they championed; those who didn't gasped
for breath upon their feet.
The affair was, perhaps, something of a fiasco, but they consoled
themselves with the reflection that they would catch the vagabond next
time, when they could run a little better and a little further, and he
could run a little worse--or a good deal worse, in fact.
But for Bertie the chase was very far from done. He fled, not from
things of flesh and blood, but from things of air--the wild imaginings
of fever. On and on and on--over fields and hedges, dykes and
ditches--on and on and on, until the day waned and the night had come.
And in the night his journey ended. Even delirium would no longer give
strength unto his limbs. His style of going changed. Instead of
running, like a maddened animal, straight forward, he went reeling,
reeling, reeling, staggering from side to side.
Then he staggered down.
He rose no more. It was the end of the journey.