"Oui, M'sieur Laferte."
"Tire moi une gamme."
"Doremifasollasido--Dosilasolfamiredo!" sang Josselin, up and down,
in beautiful tune, with his fresh bird-like soprano.
"Ah! q' ca fait du bien!" says M. L.; then a pause, and puffs of
smoke and grunts and sighs of satisfaction.
"Josselin?"
"Oui, M'sieur Laferte!"
"'La brune Therese!'"
And Josselin would sing about the dark-haired Theresa--three verses.
"Tu as change la fin du second couplet--tu as dit '_des comtesses_' au
lieu de dire '_des duchesses_'--recommence!" (You changed the end of the
second verse--you said "countesses" instead of "duchesses"--begin
again.)
And Barty would re-sing it, as desired, and bring in the duchesses.
"Maintenant, 'Colin, disait Lisette!'"
And Barty would sing that charming little song, most charmingly:
"'Colin,' disait Lisette,
'Je voudrais passer l'eau!
Mais je suis trop pauvrette
Pour payer le bateau!'
'Entrez, entrez, ma belle!
Entrez, entrez toujours!
Et vogue la nacelle
Qui porte mes amours!"
And old L. would smoke and listen with an air of heavenly beatitude
almost pathetic.
"Elle etait bien gentille, Lisette--n'est-ce pas,
petiot?--recommence!" (She was very nice, Lisette; wasn't she,
sonny?--being again!)
"Now both get up and wash and go to breakfast. Come here,
Josselin--you see this little silver dagger" (producing it from
under his pillow). "It's rather pointy, but not at all dangerous.
My mother gave it me when I was just your age--to cut books with;
it's for you. Allons, file! [cut along] no thanks!--but look
here--are you coming with us a la chasse to-day?"
"Non, M. Laferte!"
"Pourquoi?--t'as pas peur, j'espere!"
"Sais pas. J' n'aime pas les choses mortes--ca saigne--et ca n' sent
pas bon--ca m'fait mal au coeur." (Don't know. I'm not fond of dead
things. They bleed--and they don't smell nice--it makes me sick.)
And two or three times a day would Barty receive some costly token
of this queer old giant's affection, till he got quite unhappy about
it. He feared he was despoiling the House of Laferte of all its
treasures in silver and gold; but he soothed his troubled conscience
later on by giving them all away to favorite boys and masters at
Brossard's--especially M. Bonzig, who had taken charge of his white
mouse (and her family, now quite grown up--children and
grandchildren and all) when Mlle. Marceline went for her fortnight's
holiday. Indeed, he had made a beautiful cage for them out of wood
and wire, with little pasteboard mangers (which they nibbled away).
Well, the men of the party and young Laferte and I would go off with the
dogs and keepers into the forest--and Barty would pick filberts and
fruit with Jeanne and Marie, and eat them with bread-and-butter and jam
and _cernaux_ (unripe walnuts mixed with salt and water and
verjuice--quite the nicest thing in the world). Then he would find his
way into the heart of the forest, which he loved--and where he had
scraped up a warm friendship with some charcoal-burners, whose huts were
near an old yellow-watered pond, very brackish and stagnant and deep,
and full of leeches and water-spiders. It was in the densest part of the
forest, where the trees were so tall and leafy that the sun never fell
on it, even at noon. The charcoal-burners told him that in '93 a young
de la Tremblaye was taken there at sunset to be hanged on a giant
oak-tree--but he talked so agreeably and was so pleasant all round that
they relented, and sent for bread and wine and cider and made a night of
it, and didn't hang him till dawn next day; after which they tied a
stone to his ankles and dropped him into the pond, which was called "the
pond of the respite" ever since; and his young wife, Claire Elisabeth,
drowned herself there the week after, and their bones lie at the bottom
to this very day.
And, ghastly to relate, the ringleader in this horrible tragedy was
a beautiful young woman, a daughter of the people, it seems--one
Seraphine Doucet, whom the young viscount had betrayed before
marriage--le droit du seigneur!--and but for whom he would have been
let off after that festive night. Ten or fifteen years later,
smitten with incurable remorse, she hanged herself on the very
branch of the very tree where they had strung up her noble lover;
and still walks round the pond at night, wringing her hands and
wailing. It's a sad story--let us hope it isn't true.
Barty Josselin evidently had this pond in his mind when he wrote in
"Ames en peine":
Sous la berge hantee
L'eau morne croupit--
Sous la sombre futaie
Le renard glapit,
Et le cerf-dix-cors brame, et les daims viennent boire a l'Etang du
Repit.
"Lachez-moi, Loupgaroux!"
Que sinistre est la mare
Quand tombe la nuit;
La chouette s'effare--
Le blaireau s'enfuit!
L'on y sent que les morts se reveillent--qu'une ombre sans nom vous
poursuit.
"Lachez-moi, Loup-garoux!"
Foret! foret! what a magic there is in that little French
dissyllable! Morne foret! Is it the lost "s," and the heavy "^" that
makes up for it, which lend such a mysterious and gloomy
fascination?
Forest! that sounds rather tame--almost cheerful! If _we_ want a
forest dream we have to go so far back for it, and dream of Robin
Hood and his merrie men! And even then Epping forces itself into our
dream--and even Chingford, where there was never a were-wolf within
the memory of man. Give us at least the _virgin_ forest, in some far
Guyana or Brazil--or even the forest primeval--
"... where the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar"--
that we may dream of scalp-hunting Mingoes, and grizzly-bears, and
moose, and buffalo, and the beloved Bas-de-cuir with that magic
rifle of his, that so seldom missed its mark and never got out of
repair.
"Prom'nons nous dans les bois
Pendant que le loup n'y est pas...."
That's the first song I ever heard. Celine used to sing it, my
nurse--who was very lovely, though she had a cast in her eye and
wore a black cap, and cotton in her ears, and was pitted with the
smallpox. It was in Burgundy, which was rich in forests, with plenty
of wolves in them, and wild-boars too--and that was only a hundred
years ago, when that I was a little tiny boy. It's just an old
nursery rhyme to lull children to sleep with, or set them
dancing--pas aut' chose--but there's a deal of Old France in it!
There I go again--digressing as usual and quoting poetry and trying
to be literary and all that! C'est plus fort que moi....
One beautiful evening after dinner we went, the whole lot of us,
fishing for crayfish in the meadows beyond the home farm.
As we set about waiting for the crayfish to assemble round the bits
of dead frog that served for bait and were tied to the wire scales
(which were left in the water), a procession of cows came past us
from the farm. One of them had a wound in her flank--a large tumor.
"It's the bull who did that," said Marie. "Il est tres mechant!"
Presently the bull appeared, following the herd in sulky dignity. We
all got up and crossed the stream on a narrow plank--all but
Josselin, who remained sitting on a camp-stool.
"Josselin! Josselin! venez donc! il est tres mauvais, le taureau!"
Barty didn't move.
The bull came by; and suddenly, seeing him, walked straight to
within a yard of him--and stared at him for five minutes at least,
lashing its tail. Barty didn't stir. Our hearts were in our mouths!
Then the big brindled brute turned quietly round with a friendly
snort and went after the cows--and Barty got up and made it a
courtly farewell salute, saying, "Bon voyage--au plaisir!"
After which he joined the rest of us across the stream, and came in
for a good scolding and much passionate admiration from the ladies,
and huggings and tears of relief from Madame Laferte.
"I knew well he wouldn't be afraid!" said M. Laferte; "they are all
like that, those English--le sang-froid du diable! nom d'un
Vellington! It is we who were afraid--we are not so brave as the
little Josselin! Plucky little Josselin! But why did you not come
with us? Temerity is not valor, Josselin!"
"Because I wanted to show off [_faire le fanfaron_]!" said Barty,
with extreme simplicity.
"Ah, diable! Anyhow, it was brave of you to sit still when he came
and looked at you in the white of the eyes! it was just the right
thing to do; ces Anglais! je n'en reviens pas! a quatorze ans! hein,
ma femme?"
"Pardi!" said Barty, "I was in such a blue funk [j'avais une venette
si bleue] that I couldn't have moved a finger to save my life!"
At this, old Polyphemus went into a Homeric peal of laughter.
"Ces Anglais! what originals--they tell you the real truth at any
cost [ils vous disent la vraie verite, coute que coute]!" and his
affection for Barty seemed to increase, if possible, from that
evening.
[Illustration: FANFARONNADE]
Now this was Barty all over--all through life. He always gave
himself away with a liberality quite uncalled for--so he ought to
have some allowances made for that reckless and impulsive
indiscretion which caused him to be so popular in general society,
but got him into so many awkward scrapes in after-life, and made him
such mean enemies, and gave his friends so much anxiety and distress.
(And here I think it right to apologize for so much translating of
such a well-known language as French; I feel quite like another
Ollendorf--who must have been a German, by-the-way--but M. Laferte's
grammar and accent would sometimes have puzzled Ollendorf himself!)
* * * * *
Towards the close of September, M. Laferte took it into his head to
make a tour of provincial visits _en famille_. He had never done
such a thing before, and I really believe it was all to show off
Barty to his friends and relations.
It was the happiest time I ever had, and shines out by itself in
that already so unforgettably delightful vacation.
We went in a large charabancs drawn by two stout horses, starting at
six in the morning, and driving right through the Forest of la
Tremblaye; and just ahead of us, to show us the way, M. Laferte
driving himself in an old cabriolet, with Josselin (from whom he
refused to be parted) by his side, singing or talking, according to
order, or cracking jokes; we could hear the big laugh of Polyphemus!
We travelled very leisurely; I forget whether we ever changed horses
or not--but we got over a good deal of ground. We put up at the
country houses of friends and relations of the Lafertes; and visited
old historical castles and mediaeval ruins--Chateaudun and
others--and fished in beautiful pellucid tributaries of the
Loire--shot over "des chiens anglais"--danced half the night with
charming people--wandered in lovely parks and woods, and beautiful
old formal gardens with fishponds, terraces, statues, marble
fountains; charmilles, pelouses, quinconces; and all the flowers and
all the fruits of France! And the sun shone every day and all day
long--and in one's dreams all night.
And the peasants in that happy country of the Loire spoke the most
beautiful French, and had the most beautiful manners in the world.
They're famous for it.
It all seems like a fairy tale.
If being made much of, and petted and patted and admired and
wondered at, make up the sum of human bliss, Barty came in for as
full a share of felicity during that festive week as should last an
ordinary mortal for a twelvemonth. _Figaro qua, Figaro la_, from
morning till night in three departments of France!
But he didn't seem to care very much about it all; he would have
been far happier singing and tumbling and romancing away to his
charbonniers by the pond in the Forest of la Tremblaye. He declared
he was never quite himself unless he could feel the north for at
least an hour or two every day, and all night long in his sleep--and
that he should never feel the north again--that it was gone forever;
that he had drunk it all away at that fatal breakfast--and it made
him lonely to wake up in the middle of the night and not know which
way he lay! "depayse," as he called it--"desoriente--perdu!"