I
On a hillock that overlooked a mill-stream in Picardy, a girl of
sixteen was lying, face downwards, reading a book. The noise of the
water tumbling over the chute was a song to which her ears had grown
accustomed, but more than once she looked up as the October wind rose
and fell in a chromatic whine. A dark, thickening cloud crept sullenly
towards the earth, throwing its shadow on her book.
She gazed up at it and sighed.
A black cat, his green eyes glowing suspiciously in the fading light,
stalked from the mill-house and furtively watched a wanton leaf that
was flirting hilariously with the autumn breeze, until, still
coquetting, it was caught by the stream and carried to destruction.
The cat's teeth showed for a moment in a sinister grin. Cautiously
measuring each step, he climbed to the top of the hillock, crouched
suspiciously as a blade of grass moved in the wind, then scampered
boldly up to the girl and settled ostentatiously upon the open pages of
the book, for a siesta.
"_Tiens!_" The girl started, laughingly caught the offender by the ear,
and pulled him to one side. "Louis, you have very bad manners," she
said, speaking in French. "You come so, without asking permission, and
you go to sleep on _The Fairy Prince_. Wake up, Louis! To you I am
speaking."
The cat opened his eyes, bent them on her with a reproving look, and
slowly closed them once more.
"Louis! Wake up--listen! I will read to you _The Fairy Prince_, and if
you go to sleep I'll have you gr-r-r-r-ound into black flour. See there
now!"
Louis scratched his ear with a hind paw, rubbed his nose with a fore
one, sneezed, opened his eyes to their widest, and generally indicated
that he was thoroughly awake--in fact, was not likely ever to sleep
again in this world. His little mistress gathered her shawl more
tightly about her shoulders, and, crossing one foot over the other,
shifted her position to secure the acme of comfort.
"Now then, my friend, attention! This is all about a little girl--like
me, Louis, only she was pretty. Tell me, Louis, am I pretty, eh? Stop
yawning when I ask you a question. You sleep almost all day and all
night, and when you do wake up--you yawn. Pouf! Such laziness! So--this
is the story. This little girl, she lived like me in a house away, ever
so far away, from everything, and she was very unhappy. You understand,
Louis, she was _so_ lonesome. And every night she would cry herself to
sleep--as I do sometimes, because--because----Wake up, you wicked cat!"
The feline culprit stretched his paws and sat up rigidly, like a
slumbering worshiper in church who has been detected in the act, but
tries to indicate that he has merely been lost in contemplation of the
preacher's theme. The girl frowned at Louis, and, laughing gaily,
rubbed her cheek against his head.
Her laugh had hardly ended when, as her ear caught the note of
melancholy in the wind, she looked up, and her face, which had hovered
a moment before between a frown and a smile, was shadowed by a musing
expression that left her eyes dreamy and her lips drooping in the
slightest and most sensitive of curves. Her dark hair, rippling into
curls, fell back from a forehead whose fullness and whiteness added to
the spiritual innocence of her countenance. Without being faultless,
her face had an elusive mobility of expression that altered with each
mood as swiftly as the surface of a pool lying exposed to the caprices
of an April morning.
"Is it not a pretty story, Louis?" Of a sudden the filmy dreaminess of
her eyes had lifted, and their dark-brown depths sparkled with life. "I
am so glad at the convent they made me learn to read. But it is
dreadfully difficult, my friend--there are such big words, you see.
Well, Louis, this little girl went one day for a walk to the top of a
hill--but you shall hear exactly how it is."
She carefully found the place in the book, and, with a finger following
each line in case she should miss any of it, proceeded to read in that
ecstatic and unreal style of voice inevitable to young people when
uttering other thoughts than their own.
"'... Reaching the top of the hill, the most beautiful little girl in
the world, whose eyes were brighter than stars, and whose lips were
redder than the heart of a rose' (like me, Louis--yes?) 'sat down on a
fallen tree and started to sing a song which she had learned from a
solitary shepherd near her home.'--It does not say, Louis, but I think,
perhaps, the music goes like this:
"'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.
Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?
Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,
Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.
Si quelqu'un près....
"'And just then she saw a handsome cavalier approaching on foot.' (Is
it not exciting, Louis?) 'He was tall and young, and was the bravest
soldier in all France. He was so brave and handsome that every one
called him "The Fairy Prince"'--Listen, Louis, to the wind."
The lowering clouds threw black shadows over the fields; the hurrying
water of the mill-stream turned the color of ink as it made,
shudderingly, for the fall of the chute. Through the ominous rise and
fall of the October wind came the sound of an aeroplane in the clouds,
to be lost a moment later in a boisterous rush of wind that swept the
girl's tresses.
"Come, Louis, under my shawl--so! It is cold, is it not? As soon as we
finish this part of the story, we shall go in by the stove and work
until bed-time, then.... Do you ever dream, Louis?"
The black cat opened one green eye and closed it with the solemnity of
an all-understanding wink.
"I often dream, my cat"--again the wistfulness lingered about her
face--"and always it is of the world that is past the village.... Is it
that I must stay here and never, never, see that world but when I
dream? _Voyons_--what has all this to do with the Fairy Prince? I
continue, Louis: 'As soon as the handsome cavalier saw the loveliest
little girl in all the country, he came towards her....'"
The droning sound grew louder. She looked up and watched the dark
billows of clouds hovering over the fields, when, suddenly, through the
heavy, underhanging mist, an aeroplane appeared, descended swiftly
towards the earth, straightened out its course, and soared into the
clouds again.
She could hear the whirring of the machine as it circled round and
round, like an angry hornet outside its nest that has been entered by
an invader. The sound of the engine grew increasingly loud; again the
mists parted as foam from the prow of a ship, and again the aeroplane
swooped towards the earth. She could almost make out the features of
the helmeted occupant, when, with a deafening roar, the machine checked
its downward flight, and rose once more until the clouds took it to
their bosom and hid it from sight.
"Louis!" Her voice shook. "I am frightened. Louis, we will go in and
pray to the Virgin, you and I. It may be an _Allemand_, and, so 'tis
said, they eat little girls--and black cats too."
The whir-r of the engines grew angry with intensity, then fainter as
the machine rose to a greater height. Suddenly the droning ceased. The
tumbling waters of the chute seemed insistently loud, as though jealous
of the brawling monster that had dared to challenge its incessant song.
The girl had just stooped to resume her book when, above the whining
breeze, there was a sound like that of a saw-mill she had once heard in
Étrun--but it came from the air--far over by the village road.
With a catch of her breath, she saw the aeroplane pierce the mists once
more, and realized that it was pointing towards her as it descended.
Rising to her feet, she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from
screaming, while ominously, noiselessly (but for an occasional hum such
as wires give on a frosty night), the giant bird sped lower and nearer.
"Louis!" she cried. "Louis!"
Weak with terror, she grasped for the cat, to find that that ungallant
protector had bolted ingloriously to the mill-house. Unable to move,
she watched the monster as it touched the earth, bounded lightly, felt
the ground a second time, and staggered unevenly over a rise in the
ground. There was a final Wagnerian crescendo of the engines, and the
aeroplane stopped, motionless, less than fifty yards from her.
The aviator climbed from the pilot's seat and looked about with a
puzzled air. He was dressed in a leather coat which reached to the top
of his riding-boots, and his head was encased in a leather helmet.
Raising his goggles, he looked toward the mill-house, and, for the
first time, caught sight of the girl.
For a moment he hesitated, then made towards her, taking an
extraordinary length of pace for one of his medium build, and raising
his knees, as a bather will do when wading through surf. He paused,
irresolute, about five yards from her, saluted, unbuckled a strap, and
removed his helmet with a carelessness that left his generous supply of
light-brown hair standing straight up like the quills of a porcupine.
His face was rather long, and, except for his eyes, which twinkled
humorously, bore a look of exaggerated solemnity. Constant exposure to
the sun had tanned his face a vigorous brown, but his moustache and
eyebrows, which were of a size, appeared to have completely faded, and
stood out, glow-worm-like, against the background of tan.
For a full minute they gazed at each other, the girl with parted lips
and heightened color, the new-comer's gravity slowly giving way to the
good-humored persistence of his light-blue eyes, until with a smile he
ran his fingers through his rumpled hair.
"Phew!" he said.
With something between a sob and an exclamation of delight, she clapped
her hands together twice, "_Ciel!_" she cried, "but I am so happy!"
The mill-stream had ceased to shudder and had resumed its song.... With
an air of furtive preoccupation, Louis emerged from concealment and
proceeded towards them after the manner of an unpopular Mexican
President walking down the main street of an unfriendly city.... The
darkening shadows blended with the early approach of night.... And her
heart was beating wildly, joyously.
Adventure had come to the lonely mill-house in Picardy--and, after all,
one is not always sixteen.