DIAN
Dian the shepherd was always welcome at Mother Barbette’s fire. He sat
before it on a chilly December afternoon, warming his hands at a
piled-up heap of briskly-burning fagots. Jean had gathered them during
the autumn months, and they were stacked in neat piles in the back of
the room. Rows of onions were strung on lines along the ceiling, and
there were bowls of good fig jam on a shelf by the door. Mother Barbette
was prepared for what she felt would be a hard winter.
She was making a stew for supper and she was wishing that it might have
been a good one. She peered into the stock pot above the fire and
sighed. It was not a savory mixture that met her eyes. The stew was made
mostly of hot water and pieces of bread, to which she had added a cup of
milk, some salt, and a bit of garlic. She had eaten the stew all her
life, but always before she had had a piece of veal or pork to add to
it.
Dian the shepherd sniffed the stew delightedly.
“It’s good to know that there will soon be food,” he said. He often
shared the Barbettes’ supper and sometimes brought them meat which he
obtained from a near-by farmer in exchange for some of the cheese for
which he himself was famous. He never ate meat but seemed content always
with a cup of milk and a piece of bread.
“You are always of good heart and seem content with anything that comes
your way, Dian.” Mother Barbette poured some soup into a blue bowl as
she spoke and handed it to the shepherd. He took it, bowing his head
over it and closing his eyes for a moment. Then he ate it slowly, the
firelight playing on his long, straggling, red locks and work-worn hands
and lighting up his earnest, bronzed face.
“There’s a quietness about you, Dian. You are one of few words, but, if
I mistake not, you think more than the most of us,” Mother Barbette
continued. She sat down on a stool by the fire and began to mend Jean’s
little coat.
“There will be snow soon,” the shepherd gave answer. He ate his stew
slowly, for he was thinking deeply. He did not notice that Jean had come
into the room until the boy came close to the fire. Then he made room
for him on the settle.
“Tell us a good tale, please, Dian,” pleaded Jean, snuggling up to the
shepherd, for the cold wind blew through the little house and, even by
the fire, it searched out one’s toes and ears.
Mother Barbette eyed her son severely.
“There is never a moment of the day that you think of aught but to amuse
yourself. You can do little more than read and write, and you can thank
Dian that you accomplish even that much.” Mother Barbette spoke with
feeling. It seemed as though Jean would never grow up, he was so merry
of heart and so untouched by trouble. Her heart was sad enough, for she
knew that, since Neville had come back two months previous, there had
been no message from Madame Saint Frère and Lisle. They were hoping
daily for the coming of another messenger. Dian had spoken of snow. That
would mean bad traveling! Mother Barbette sighed as she patched the
little coat. She knew that, though there were stores in the cellars at
Les Vignes, there was very little ready money.
There was a sudden rap on the door. An instant later it opened, and in
ran Marie Josephine. Mother Barbette rose to her feet and came toward
the child, a look of concern on her broad face.
“Little Mademoiselle, what is it? You have come alone through the wood!”
she exclaimed.
Dian stood up, and Jean jumped about the room in sheer delight, for
Marie Josephine laughed as she gave Mother Barbette a hug.
“I came for some fun,” she said, “and because I was tired of them all,
even of Cécile, that is, not of her, but of her long face. You are not
to scold me, dear Mother Barbette, because I ran alone through the
woods.” She danced over to Dian and went on speaking eagerly. “I am glad
that you are here, Dian. Jean and I were saying only the other day that
it was so long since you had told us a story, not since we went last to
meet you when you came home from the pasture. I will sit on one side of
you and Jean on the other, and if we are very good, will you not tell us
something?”
Dian smiled a slow smile that lighted up his face and sat down again on
the settle. Marie Josephine and Jean snuggled down on each side of him,
and Mother Barbette went over to her stool, took up the coat and her
needle and darning cotton, and smiled across at them. The Little
Mademoiselle could only stay with them a short time, for she would soon
be missed at Les Vignes, but it was a blessing to have her there with
them. Mother Barbette’s kind heart swelled with love for the two
playmates sitting beside the good shepherd. She had been right when she
had said that Dian was a man of few words, but one who thought a great
deal. Many of his thoughts he told to the children when they walked back
with him to the sheepfold. Marie Josephine often thought of these walks
with Dian during the long, sedate months in Paris in the winter.
Sometimes she could almost smell the sweetness of the tufted meadow and
hear the evening call of the larks.
Dian sat quietly in the firelight, his black, smocklike apron falling
about his knees.
“You would have a tale, would you, Little Mademoiselle, you and Jean?
Then it shall be as you will. I will tell you of what I was thinking as
I walked back from the hill crest to-night and while I was fastening the
sheepfold gate.” He paused a moment and, as he sat gazing into the
flames, there was a look of great earnestness in his eyes, and of great
sadness, too.
“Yes, yes! tell us, good Dian, tell us. We love your stories, Jean and
I. We often talk of them together and we never forget any of them—'The
Purple Sun’ and 'The Grey Hill’ and 'The Waterfall That Sang’—we love
every one of them.”
Marie Josephine sat back contentedly. Nothing could happen to Lisle,
nothing in the world. They would all be together in the spring. She knew
that the governess and the older girls talked together very seriously
when she was not present. Even her beloved Cécile seemed grave and
preoccupied, and she felt that she did not confide in her any more.
Denise and Bertran still rode gaily through the demesne and danced in
the great drawing-room at Les Vignes in the evening. She was more and
more with Jean. She knew that Lisle would be disgusted with her if she
moped about, so she tried to be as happy as she could. She was really
happy this cold November night, enjoying the little adventure of having
run away to the cottage.
“I hope they will worry and fuss about me,” she thought to herself,
which was of course very naughty of her. Then she closed her eyes there
in the soft firelight and listened to Dian’s story.
“This isn’t a real story, Little Mademoiselle; it is only a fancy of
mine. I was thinking to-night, as I walked home in the sunset, of a
young lad of noble birth, who lived many years ago, here in France, in
the time of the long-ago King Louis XI. It was the time of knights in
armor and of deep dungeons. It was a time like the present, when every
man’s hand was raised against his brother. All the long way home it
seemed as though this young lad walked beside me. He was clothed in blue
and silver and his hair was like the corn when it is ripe. There was a
falcon on his wrist because he was one of the king’s pages of the hunt.
Many a night he had held a torchlight for the king and had shouted,
'Hallali!’ when the greedy pack caught the poor stag. He was a gallant
youth and a brave one, though he was so young that he had never seen
sixteen years. He loved to run with his fellow pages through the forest
at dawn and to throw the javelin with them at sunset. He was also a true
and loyal knight. One day, because he loved his king, he was carried
away to a dungeon and no one knew where he had gone.”
Dian stopped speaking and sat looking into the dying fire, his hands
spread out upon his knees. Jean ran over to a wooden box by the door and
came back with his arms filled with fagots. He threw them on the fire
and the sudden burst of flames made the pewter utensils above the mantel
shine like diamonds and brought out the crimson gleam of the woven rug
that covered Mother Barbette’s four-poster bed. Pince Nez, the crow, who
had been asleep with his head cocked on one side, woke suddenly and gave
a solemn croak. When he croaked Mother Barbette gave a little start and
sat up. She had been fast asleep and had not heard more than a word or
two of what Dian had been saying. [Illustration: Pince Nez] Jean ran
back to the settle after he had put on the wood and sat down in his
place by the shepherd’s side. He smiled across at Marie Josephine with
his merry black eyes. “We like the story, do we not, Little
Mademoiselle?” he asked her. She sat looking down at her hands which
were folded in her lap. She did not answer him or look up at him, for
there were tears in her eyes and she did not want any one to see them.
While Dian had been talking she had been thinking with all her might.
She had begun to suspect that he was speaking of Lisle, and as he went
on she became sure of it.
“There was a cowherd on the lands where the young page lived,” Dian went
on. “This cowherd was sorely grieved at the trouble that had come to his
master. He thought of the page night and day. He wished more than he had
ever wished anything that he might find a way to rescue him, and he
whispered the wish as a prayer to the sun and the stars.”
A knock broke in on the quiet earnestness of the shepherd’s voice and
the next instant the door opened and Neville came inside. He was
wind-blown and breathless.
“You are here, Little Mademoiselle, and that is well. The young ladies
and Madame le Pont were uneasy about you. Madame le Pont requested me to
say that you were to come at once.”
The shepherd stood up and reached for his cloak from the back of the
settle. He was a taller man than Neville and had the look of one who had
lived always in the open, close to the secrets of beasts and birds.
Neville wore again his wig and his familiar house uniform of red and
gold. It did not seem possible that he could ever have worn the queer,
shabby disguise in which he had come back from Paris. He looked very
pale and ill. No one but the shepherd knew of the dire peril through
which the faithful man had passed in order to return with the message
from the comtesse and to protect the little group at Les Vignes. Dian
knew, and there was something he had to say to him, so he put on his
cloak and went with them.
The wind shrieked eerily as Marie Josephine walked through the forest,
with Neville and Dian on each side of her. Mother Barbette had wrapped
her cloak about her and pulled the cape up over her curls. She walked
quietly, holding Dian’s hand so that he might steady her steps over the
fallen branches of trees or the sudden twists of roots here and there.
Neville’s lanthorn cast a dancing light ahead of them.
Marie Josephine was thinking deeply. Could it be that she was the same
laughing, mischievous girl who had run away after dinner, leaving the
others in the great firelit drawing-room? She had tried to be happy
because she could not believe that anything could happen to those she
loved. Now, suddenly, she was awake, and because it was her nature to do
things thoroughly she was very much awake indeed. She knew, as she
walked back under the moonless sky toward Les Vignes, where the lights
shone faintly, that she would never be the same little girl again. Dian
had been speaking of Lisle. He had not said so, but she knew it. Dian
felt that Lisle was in danger. There was no use in being happy or
playing in the woods with Jean any longer. She must be awake. It might
be that there was something she could do!
She heard the clock strike eleven that night, and then twelve. She had
lain awake for three hours listening to the thin branches of walnut
trees swishing and flapping against her windows. When the clock struck
twelve she sat up in bed and listened. She had opened the window a
little way because she loved to feel the sweet, chill wind. She heard
voices quite distinctly by the side of the house. Some one spoke in a
low tone, and a voice answered that she knew right away was Dian’s.
“It is right that I should be the one to go. I have left a message for
the governess. Tell her not to fear. I shall reach them sometime
safely.” Whether because the wind changed freakishly, or because the
voices had gone on down the driveway, Marie Josephine did not hear
another word. She jumped out of bed and ran to the window and, kneeling,
peered out. There was no one about, and she did not hear anything now,
except the moan of the forest and the wail of the wind.
She turned her head as she knelt against the window casement and there,
coming toward her, was Cécile. How it happened Marie Josephine did not
quite know, but the next moment she was sobbing with Cécile’s arms about
her. Before she realized it she was in bed, tucked up warmly, with
Cécile close beside her. She told Cécile of Dian’s story and then of the
words she had just overheard, and she knew that Cécile was very excited
though she spoke quietly.
“Do you think it can be that Dian has gone to-night to Paris? Do you
think that is what I overheard, Cécile?” Marie Josephine asked her
friend, who answered steadily:
“I think that Dian has gone, and we must pray that he can help them.”
Cécile’s long braid of fair hair fell across her shoulders over her
velvet robe. She put her face down on the pillow beside Marie Josephine
and they both lay looking out at the late moon which showed fleetingly
through white clouds.
“I thought you had deserted me for your little friend Jean. You seemed
happy, just playing with him, and I was glad for you, but I have missed
your company so much of late,” Cécile said softly.
“I thought you’d rather be with the others, and that you look upon me as
a baby, the way the rest do,” Marie Josephine answered with a sob,
putting her arms around Cécile.
“No, Marie, I sometimes think of you as being the oldest of us all, and
the wisest. You think and dream when we are only sitting by and sewing.
Perhaps it is because you are so close to the wild wood things—perhaps
that is what makes you wise,” Cécile said.
“I’m not wise, but Dian is. He will take care of Lisle, I know he will.”
Marie Josephine smiled confidently in the dark as she spoke.
She lay awake beside Cécile for a long time, Great-aunt Hortense’s
tapestry covering them both. Dian was on his way through the wind-swept
night. Cécile, too, was awake. She was thinking of Lisle in his blue
velvet and diamonds and his jeweled sword, of the minuet which they had
danced together at the bal masqué on that last strange, happy evening.
Dian was on his way to help; for that she was thankful. Had she known of
Humphrey Trail, in the dingy Paris alley room, she would have been more
thankful still. Had she known of some of the plans in the mind of the
friend who lay beside her in the great four-poster bed, she would have
been astounded and alarmed!