From the depths where Elise was cast, it was not for her to see that her
disaster had brought light to others; that out of the pitiful confusion
of her life had come order and joy. A half-mad woman, without memory,
knew again whence she came and whither she was going; and bewildered and
happy, with a hungering tenderness, moved her hand over the head of her
poor dwarf, as though she would know if he were truly her own son. A
new spirit also had come into Parpon’s eyes, gentler, less weird, less
distant. With the advent of their joy a great yearning came to save
Elise. They hung watchful, solicitous, over her bed.
It must go hard with her, and twenty-four hours would see the end or a
fresh beginning. She had fought back the fever too long, her brain
and emotions had been strung to a fatal pitch, and the disease, like a
hurricane, carried her on for hours, tearing at her being.
Her own mother sat in a corner, stricken and numb. At last she fell
asleep in her chair, but Parpon and his mother slept not at all. Now and
again the dwarf went to the door and looked out at the night, so still,
and full of the wonder of growth and rest.
Far up on Dalgrothe Mountain a soft brazen light lay like a shield
against the sky, a strange, hovering thing. Parpon knew it to be the
reflection of the campfires in the valley, where Lagroin and his men
were sleeping. There came, too, out of the general stillness, a long,
low murmur, as though nature were crooning: the untiring rustle of the
river, the water that rolled on and never came back again. Where did
they all go--those thousands of rivers for ever pouring on, lazily or
wildly? What motive? What purpose? Just to empty themselves into
the greater waters, there to be lost? Was it enough to travel on so
inevitably to the end, and be swallowed up?
And these millions of lives hurrying along? Was it worth while living,
only to grow older and older, and, coming, heavy with sleep, to the
Homestead of the Ages, enter a door that only opened inwards, and be
swallowed up in the twilight? Why arrest the travelling, however swift
it be? Sooner or later it must come--with dusk the end of it.
The dwarf heard the moaning of the stricken girl, her cry, “Valmond!
Valmond!” the sobs that followed, the woe of her self-abnegation, even
in delirium.
For one’s self it mattered little, maybe, the attitude of the mind,
whether it would arrest or be glad of the terrific travel; but for
another human being, who might judge? Who might guess what was best for
the other; what was most merciful, most good? Destiny meant us to prove
our case against it, as well as we might; to establish our right to
be here as long as we could, so discovering the world day by day, and
ourselves to the world, and ourselves to ourselves. To live it out,
resisting the power that destroys so long as might be--that was the
divine secret.
“Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!”
The voice moaned out the words again and again. Through the sounds
there came another inner voice, that resolved all the crude, primitive
thoughts here defined; vague, elusive, in Parpon’s own brain.
The girl’s life should be saved at any cost, even if to save it meant
the awful and certain doom his mother had whispered to him over the bed
an hour before.
He turned and went into the house. The old woman bent above Elise,
watching intently, her eyes straining, her lips anxiously compressed.
“My son,” she said, “she will die in an hour if I don’t give her more.
If I do, she may die at once. If she gets well, she will be--” She made
a motion to her eyes.
“Blind, mother, blind!” he whispered, and he looked round the room. How
good was the sight of the eyes! “Perhaps she’d rather die,” said the old
woman. “She is unhappy.” She was thinking of her own far, bitter past,
remembered now after so many years. “Misery and blindness too--ah! What
right have I to make her blind? It’s a great risk, Parpon, my dear son.”
“I must, I must, for your sake. Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!” cried
Elise again out of her delirium.
The stricken girl had answered for Parpon. She had decided for herself.
Life! that was all she prayed for: for another’s sake, not her own.
Her own mother slept on, in the corner of the room, unconscious of the
terrible verdict hanging in the balance.
Madame Degardy quickly emptied into a cup of liquor the strange brown
powder, mixed it, and held it to the girl’s lips, pouring it slowly
down.
Once, twice, during the next hour, a low, anguished voice filled the
room; but just as dawn came, Parpon stooped and tenderly wiped a soft
moisture from the face, lying so quiet and peaceful now against the
pillow.
“She breathes easy, poor pretty bird!” said the old woman gently.
“She’ll never see again?” asked Parpon mournfully. “Never a thing while
she lives,” was the whispered reply.
“But she has her life,” said the dwarf; “she wished it so.”
“What’s the good!” The old woman had divined why Elise had wanted to
live.
The dwarf did not answer. His eyes wandered about abstractedly, and
fell again upon Elise’s mother sleeping, unconscious of the awful peril
passed, and the painful salvation come to her daughter.
The blue-grey light of morning showed under the edge of the closed
window-blind. In the room day was mingling incongruously with night,
for the candle looked sickly, and the aged crone’s face was of a leaden
colour, lighted by the piercing eyes that brooded hungrily on her
son--her only son: the dwarf had told her of Gabriel’s death.
Parpon opened the door and went out. Day was spreading over the drowsy
landscape. There was no life as yet in all the horizon, no fires, no
animals stirring, no early workmen, no anxious harvesters. But the birds
were out, and presently here and there cattle rose up in the fields.
Then, over the foot-hills, he saw a white horse and its rider show up
against the grey dust of the road. Elise’s sorrowful words came to him:
“Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!”
His duty to the girl was done; she was safe; now he must follow that
figure to where the smoke of the campfires came curling up by Dalgrothe
Mountain. There were rumours of trouble; he must again be minister,
counsellor, friend, to his master.
A half hour later he was climbing the hill where he had seen the white
horse and its rider. He heard the sound of a drum in the distance. The
gloom and suspense of the night just passed went from him, and into the
sunshine he sang:
“Oh, grand to the war he goes,
O gai, vive le roi!”
Not long afterwards he entered the encampment. Around one fire, cooking
their breakfasts, were Muroc the charcoalman, Duclosse the mealman, and
Garotte the lime-burner. They all were in good spirits.
“For my part,” Muroc was saying, as Parpon nodded at them, and passed
by, “I’m not satisfied.”
“Don’t you get enough to eat?” asked the mealman, whose idea of
happiness was based upon the appreciation of a good dinner.
“But yes, and enough to drink, thanks to His Excellency, and the buttons
he puts on my coat.” Muroc jingled some gold coins in his pocket. “It’s
this being clean that’s the devil! When I sold charcoal, I was black and
beautiful, and no dirt showed; I polished like a pan. Now if I touch a
potato, I’m filthy. Pipe-clay is hell’s stuff to show you up as the
Lord made you.” Garotte laughed. “Wait till you get to fighting.
Powder sticks better than charcoal. For my part, I’m always clean as a
whistle.”
“But you’re like a bit of wool, lime-burner, you never sweat. Dirt don’t
stick to you as to me and the meal man. Duclosse there used to look like
a pie when the meal and sweat dried on him. When we reach Paris, and
His Excellency gets his own, I’ll take to charcoal again; I’ll fill the
palace cellars. That suits me better than chalk and washing every day.”
“Do you think we’ll ever get to Paris?” asked the mealman, cocking his
head seriously.
“That’s the will of God, and the weather at sea, and what the Orleans
do,” answered Muroc grinning.
It was hard to tell how deep this adventure lay in Muroc’s mind. He had
a prodigious sense of humour, the best critic in the world.
“For me,” said the lime-burner, “I think there’ll be fighting before we
get to the Orleans. There’s talk that the Gover’ment’s coming against
us.”
“Done!” said the charcoalman. “We’ll see the way our great man puts
their noses out of joint.”
“Here’s Lajeunesse,” broke in the mealman, as the blacksmith came near
to their fire. He was dressed in complete regimentals, made by the
parish tailor.
“Is that so, monsieur le capitaine?” said Muroc to Lajeunesse. “Is the
Gover’ment to be fighting us? Why should it? We’re only for licking the
Orleans, and who cares a sou for them, hein?”
“Not a go-dam,” said Duclosse, airing his one English oath. “The English
hate the Orleans too.” Lajeunesse looked from one to the other, then
burst into a laugh. “There’s two gills of rum for every man at twelve
o’clock to-day, so says His Excellency; and two yellow buttons for the
coat of every sergeant, and five for every captain. The English up there
in Quebec can’t do better than that, can they? And will they? No. Does a
man spend money on a hell’s foe, unless he means to give it work to do?
Pish! Is His Excellency like to hang back because Monsieur De la Riviere
says he’ll fetch the Government? Bah! The bully soldiers would come
with us as they went with the Great Napoleon at Grenoble. Ah, that! His
Excellency told me about that just now. Here stood the soldiers,”--he
mapped out the ground with his sword, “here stood the Great Napoleon,
all alone. He looks straight before him. What does he see? Nothing less
than a hundred muskets pointing at him. What does he do? He walks up to
the soldiers, opens his coat, and says, ‘Soldiers, comrades, is there
one of you will kill your Emperor?’ Damned if there was one! They
dropped their muskets, and took to kissing his hands. There, my dears,
that was the Great Emperor’s way, our Emperor’s father’s little way.”
“But suppose they fired at us ‘stead of at His Excellency?” asked the
mealman.
“Then, mealman, you’d settle your account for lightweights sooner than
you want.”
Duclosse twisted his mouth dubiously. He was not sure how far his
enthusiasm would carry him. Muroc shook his shaggy head in mirth.
“Well, ‘tis true we’re getting off to France,” said the lime-burner. “We
can drill as we travel, and there’s plenty of us for a start.”
“Morrow we go,” said Lajeunesse. “The proclamation’s to be out in an
hour, and you’re all to be ready by ten o’clock in the morning. His
Excellency is to make a speech to us to-night; then the General--ah,
what a fine soldier, and eighty years old!--he’s to give orders,
and make a speech also; and I’m to be colonel,”--he paused
dramatically,--“and you three are for captains; and you’re to have five
new yellow buttons to your coats, like these.” He drew out gold
coins and jingled them. Every man got to his feet, and Muroc let the
coffee-tin fall. “There’s to be a grand review in the village this
afternoon. There’s breakfast for you, my dears!”
Their exclamations were interrupted by Lajeunesse, who added: “And so my
Madelinette is to go to Paris, after all, and Monsieur Parpon is to see
that she starts right.”
“Monsieur” Parpon was a new title for the dwarf. But the great comedy,
so well played, had justified it. “Oh, His Excellency ‘ll keep his
oath,” said the mealman. “I’d take Elise Malboir’s word about a man
for a million francs, was he prince or ditcher; and she says he’s the
greatest man in the world. She knows.”
“That reminds me,” said Lajeunesse gloomily, “Elise has the black
fever.”
The mealman’s face seemed to petrify, his eyes stood out, the bread he
had in his teeth dropped, and he stared wildly at Lajeunesse. All were
occupied in watching the mealman, and they did not see the figure of a
girl approaching.
Muroc, dumfounded, spoke first. “Elise--the black fever!” he gasped,
thoroughly awed.
“She is better, she will live,” said a voice behind Lajeunesse. It
was Madelinette, who had come to the camp early to cook her father’s
breakfast.
Without a word, the mealman turned, pulled his clothes about him with a
jerk, and, pale and bewildered, started away at a run down the plateau.
“He’s going to the village,” said the charcoalman. “He hasn’t leave.
That’s court-martial!”
Lajeunesse shook his head knowingly. “He’s never had but two ideas in
his nut-meal and Elise; let him go.”
The mealman was soon lost to view, unheeding the challenge that rang
after him.
Lagroin had seen the fugitive from a distance, and came down,
inquiring. When he was told he swore that Duclosse should suffer divers
punishments.
“A pretty kind of officer!” he cried in a fury. “Damn it, is there
another man in my army would do it?”
No one answered; and because Lagroin was not a wise man, he failed to
see that in time his army might be entirely dissipated by such
awkward incidents. When Valmond was told, he listened with a better
understanding.
All that Lajeunesse had announced came to pass. The review and march and
show were goodly, after their kind; and, by dint of money and wine, the
enthusiasm was greater than ever it had been; for it was joined to the
pathos of the expected departure. The Cure and the avocat kept within
doors; for they had talked together, and now that the day of fate was at
hand, and sons, brothers, fathers, were to go off on this far crusade,
a new spirit suddenly thrust itself in, and made them sad and anxious.
Monsieur De la Riviere was gloomy. Medallion was the one comfortable,
cool person in the parish. It had been his conviction that something
would occur to stop the whole business at the critical moment. He was
a man of impressions, and he lived in the light of them continuously.
Wisdom might have been expected of Parpon, but he had been won by
Valmond from the start; and now, in the great hour, he was deep in
another theme--the restoration of his mother to himself, and to herself.
At seven o’clock in the evening, Valmond and Lagroin were in the
streets, after they had marched their men back to camp. A crowd had
gathered near the church, for His Excellency was on his way to visit the
Cure.
As he passed, they cheered him. He stopped to speak to them. Before he
had ended, some one came crying wildly that the soldiers, the red-coats
were come. The sound of a drum rolled up the street, and presently,
round a corner, came the well-ordered troops of the Government.
Instantly Lagroin wheeled to summon any stray men of his little army,
but Valmond laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. It would have been
the same in any case, for the people had scattered like sheep, and stood
apart.
They were close by the church steps. Valmond mechanically saw the
mealman, open-mouthed and dazed, start forward from the crowd; but,
hesitating, he drew back again almost instantly, and was swallowed up
in the safety of distance. He smiled at the mealman’s hesitation, even
while he said to himself: “This ends it--ends it!”
He said it with no great sinking of heart, with no fear. It was the
solution of all; it was his only way to honour.
The soldiers were halted a little distance from the two; and the
officer commanding, after a dull mechanical preamble, in the name of
the Government, formally called upon Valmond and Lagroin to surrender
themselves, or suffer the perils of resistance.
“Never!” broke out Lagroin, and, drawing his sword, he shouted: “Vive
Napoleon! The Old Guard never surrenders!”
Then he made as if to rush forward on the troops. “Fire!” called the
officer.
Twenty rifles blazed out. Lagroin tottered back, and fell at the feet of
his master.
Raising himself, he clasped Valmond’s knee, and, looking up, said
gaspingly:
“Adieu, sire! I love you; I die for you.” His head fell at his Emperor’s
feet, though the hands still clutched the knee.
Valmond stood over his body, one leg on either side, and drew a pistol.
“Surrender, monsieur,” said the officer, “or we fire!”
“Never! A Napoleon knows how to die!” was the reply, and he raised his
pistol at the officer.
“Fire!” came the sharp command.
“Vive Napoleon!” cried the doomed man, and fell, mortally wounded.
At that instant the Cure, with Medallion, came hurrying round the corner
of the church.
“Fools! Murderers!” he said to the soldiers. “Ah, these poor children!”
Stooping, he lifted up Valmond’s head, and Medallion felt Lagroin’s
pulseless heart.
The officer picked up Valmond’s pistol. A moment afterwards he looked at
the dying man in wonder; for he found that the weapon was not loaded!