THE COBBLER OF NÎMES
BY
M. IMLAY TAYLOR
On the Red Staircase. 12mo $1.25
An Imperial Lover. 12mo 1.25
A Yankee Volunteer. 12mo 1.25
The House of the Wizard. 12mo 1.25
The Cardinal’s Musketeer. 12mo 1.25
The Cobbler of Nîmes. 12mo 1.25
THE
COBBLER OF NÎMES
BY
M. IMLAY TAYLOR
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1900
COPYRIGHT
BY A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
A.D. 1900
_All rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BODY OF A DAMNED PERSON 7
II. THE SHOP OF TWO SHOES 20
III. MADEMOISELLE’S SLIPPERS 31
IV. ROSALINE 44
V. THE COBBLER’S GUEST 52
VI. A MILITARY SUITOR 64
VII. A STRING OF TROUT 75
VIII. BABET VISITS THE COBBLER 86
IX. CHARLOT BURNS A CANDLE 97
X. A DANGEROUS SUIT 106
XI. FRANÇOIS MAKES A PLEDGE 119
XII. THE FINGER OF FATE 130
XIII. THE BATTLE HYMN 140
XIV. “AND ALL FOR LOVE” 151
XV. THE TEMPTATION OF LE BOSSU 164
XVI. A BRIEF DELAY 178
XVII. M. DE BAUDRI’S TERMS 189
XVIII. ROSALINE’S HUMBLE FRIENDS 203
XIX. “MORTIS PORTIS FRACTIS!” 213
XX. THE COBBLER’S FAITH 225
XXI. IN THE WOODS OF ST. CYR 237
XXII. THE OLD WINDMILL 249
XXIII. THE COBBLER’S BARGAIN 260
XXIV. “O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?” 269
XXV. THE SHIP AT SEA 275
The Cobbler of Nîmes
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE BODY OF A DAMNED PERSON
It was the month of June, 1703, and about noontide on the last day
of the week. The fair in the market-place at Nîmes was therefore
at its height. A juggler was swallowing a sword in the midst of an
admiring circle. Mademoiselle Héloïse, the _danseuse_, was walking the
tight-rope near at hand, and the pick-pockets were plying their trade
profitably on the outskirts of the throng. There was a dancing bear,
and beyond him--a rival attraction--a monkey in scarlet breeches,
with a blouse or camisole over them. The little creature’s antics
were hailed with shouts of derisive laughter and cries of “Camisard!”
“Barbet!” “Huguenot!” the monkey’s little blouse being an unmistakable
caricature of the dress of the Camisards. It therefore behooved the
wise to laugh, and they did, and that loudly,--though many a heart
was in secret sympathy with the Huguenot rebels of the Cévennes; but
were they not in Nîmes? And the Intendant Bâville was there, and
the dragoons of King Louis XIV.; so it was that the monkey gathered
many a half-crown, and sous and deniers in profusion, in his little
cap, and carried them--chattering--to the showman. It was a motley
throng: broad, red-faced market-women, old crones with bearded lip
and toothless gums, little gamins of the market with prematurely aged
faces, countrymen who glanced askance at the monkey while they laughed,
pretty peasant girls who had sold their eggs and their poultry, and
come to spend their newly acquired riches in ribbons and trinkets, and
to have their fortunes told by the old gypsy in the yellow pavilion.
Some strolling musicians were playing a popular air, two drunken men
were fighting, and a busy tradesman was selling his wares near the
entrance of a tent that was manifestly the centre of attraction. It was
of white canvas and decorated with numerous images of the devil,--a
black figure with horns, hoofs, and tail, engaged in casting another
person into the flames; the whole being more startling than artistic.
At the door of this tent was a man mounted on a barrel, and dressed
fantastically in black, with a repetition of the devils and flames,
in red and yellow, around the edge of his long gown, which flapped
about a pair of thin legs, set squarely in the centre of two long,
schooner-shaped feet. This person, whose face was gross and dull rather
than malicious, kept calling his invitation and bowing low as each new
visitor dropped a half-crown into the box fastened on the front of the
barrel beneath his feet.
“Messieurs et mesdames!” he cried, “only a half-crown to see the body
of a damned person!”
He raised his voice almost to a scream, to be heard in the babel of
tongues; he clapped his hands to attract notice; he swayed to and fro
on his barrel.
“Here is the body of a damned person!” he shouted. “_Dieu!_ what an
opportunity for the good of your soul! Too much, madame?” he said to
a fishwife who grumbled at the price, “too much! ’Tis a chance in a
thousand! The body came from the Tour de Constance! Madame will have
her money’s worth.”
Madame went in, licking her lips like a wolf. The curtain of the tent
swung to behind her. A peasant lad followed her, hesitating too over
the half-crown, but then the spectacle was worth money. A soldier
followed, then a butcher, and two stupid-looking servant-girls, with
frightened faces, but still eager to see. Then there was a pause, and
the showman began to shout once more; he had need to, for the bear was
performing with unusual vivacity, and the _danseuse_ displayed her
pretty legs as she tripped on the rope.
“Half a crown, messieurs et mesdames,” cried the man of the black robe;
“half a crown to see a dead and damned Huguenot!”
“Too much, monsieur!” said a voice behind him.
He started and looked back into the face of a little hunchbacked man
who had been watching him curiously.
“You are not a good Catholic, M. le Bossu!” replied the showman,
mocking, for the hunchback wore a poor suit of brown and a frayed hat.
“I am a good Catholic,” he replied calmly, “but your price is
high--’tis only a dead Huguenot.”
“_Dame!_ but live ones are too plenty,” retorted the other, with
a loud laugh. “What are you to complain?” he added gayly,--“the
hunchback!--_le bossu_!”
“_Le Bossu_--yes,” replied the hunchback, calmly; “that is what men
call me.”
Again the showman mocked him, doffing his cap and grinning.
“Your Excellency’s name?” he demanded.
The hunchback took no notice of him; he had his hand in his wallet
feeling for a half-crown; he had determined to see the damned person.
But the other got his answer; a little gamin piped up on the edge of
the crowd, pointing his finger at the cripple.
“’Tis only Charlot,” he said, “the shoemaker of the Rue St. Antoine.”
The showman laughed again.
“Enter, Maître Savetier!” he said derisively, “and see the dead
Huguenot. _Dame!_ but I believe he is one himself,” he added, under his
breath, peering sharply at the pale face of le Bossu as he entered the
tent.
But a minute later the hunchback was forgotten and the showman was
screaming again.
“This way, mesdames! This way, to see a damned person! Half a crown!
half a crown!”
Within, the tent was lighted solely by a small aperture at the top, and
the effect was rather of a murky twilight than of broad noonday. It
was draped with cheap red cloth, and in the centre--directly under the
opening in the top--was a rough bier constructed of bare boards, and on
this lay a body only partially covered with a piece of coarse serge;
images of the devil--cut out of black stuff--were sewed on the corners
of this wretched pall. The visitors, the sight-seers, who had paid
their half-crowns to enjoy this gruesome spectacle, moved slowly past
it, making the circuit of the tent and finally passing out at the door
by which they had entered. When the hunchback came in, he paused long
enough to become accustomed to the swift transition from sunlight to
shadow, and then he too proceeded to join the circle around the corpse.
There were many comments made, the sight affected the spectators
differently. The two servant-girls clung together, whispering
hysterical confidences; the peasant youth stared open-mouthed, fright
showing plainly in his eyes; the soldier looked down with brutal
indifference; the old fishwife showed satisfaction, her wolf mouth was
slightly opened by a grin that displayed three long yellow teeth--all
she possessed; a red handkerchief was tied around her head and from
below it hung her long gray locks. Her short petticoat and bodice
revealed a withered, lean form, and her fingers were like talons. She
feasted her eyes on the dead face, and then she squinted across the
body at the man who stood like a statue opposite. He was young, with a
sad, dark countenance and was poorly, even shabbily dressed. But it was
none of these things that the old crone noted, it was the expression
of grief and horror that seemed frozen on his features. He did not
see her, he did not see the others passing by him--with more than one
curious glance; he seemed like a man in a trance, deaf, blind, dumb,
but yet gazing fixedly at the inanimate figure on the bier. It was the
corpse of a young woman, who had been handsome; the features were still
so, and her long black hair fell about her shoulders like a mourning
pall.
“_Dieu!_” said the fishwife, licking her lips, “what a white throat she
had; ’twould have been a pity to hang her. See, there is a mark there
on her arm where ’twas bound! Is she not pretty, Bossu?”
The hunchback had approached the corpse, and at this appeal he nodded
his head.
“_Diable!_” ejaculated the soldier turning on the old crone, “’tis
heresy to call a damned person pretty, Mère Tigrane.”
Mère Tigrane leered at him with horrible intelligence.
“No one is to think a heretic pretty but the dragoons, eh?” she said
grinning. “_Dame!_ we know what you think, monsieur.”
The man laughed brutally, and she edged up to him, whispering in his
ear, her narrow eyes on the silent visitor opposite. The dragoon looked
over too at her words, and broke out with an oath.
“You are a witch, Mère Tigrane,” he said uneasily; “let me alone!”
Again she whispered, but laughed this time, showing her yellow teeth.
Meanwhile the showman had been fortunate and a dozen new-comers crowded
into the tent, pressing the others aside. This afforded an opportunity
for the hunchback to approach the young man, who had remained by the
bier as if chained to the ground. Le Bossu touched his arm, at first
lightly, but finding himself unheeded, he jerked the other’s sleeve.
The stranger started and stared at him as if he had just awakened from
sleep.
“A word with you, friend,” said the hunchback, softly.
The man hesitated, started, paused and cast another long look at the
dead face, and then followed the cripple through the group at the door,
out into the sunshine and uproar of the market-place. They were not
unobserved by Mère Tigrane, but she made no effort to follow them; she
was watching the new arrivals as they approached the corpse. As she saw
their faces of curiosity and horror, she laughed.
“_Mère de Dieu!_” she said, “’tis worth a half-crown after all--and I
paid Adolphe in false coin too, _pauvre garçon_!”
In the market-place, the stranger had halted with the hunchbacked
cobbler.
“What do you want?” he demanded of le Bossu; “I do not know you.”
“You were in danger,” replied the hunchback, quietly, “and you are in
trouble; the _bon Dieu_ knows that I also am in trouble.”
The little man’s tone, his deformity, his kind eyes appealed to the
other.
“We should be friends,” he said grimly. “_Dieu!_ I am indeed in
trouble.”
The hunchback made a sign to him to be cautious, the crowd hemmed them
in, the monkey chattered, the bear danced, Mademoiselle Héloïse was
singing a savory song from Paris. The whole square was white with the
sunshine; above, the sky was deeply blue.
“Follow me, friend,” said le Bossu again, and commenced to thread his
way through the crowd.
His new acquaintance hesitated a moment, cast a backward glance at the
tent he had just quitted, and then quietly followed the hunchback. They
had to cross the market-place, and the little cobbler seemed to be
widely known. Goodwives greeted him, young girls giggled heartlessly
before the misshapen figure passed, men nodded indifferently, the
maliciously disposed children calling out “_le Bossu!_” at him as he
went. A heartless rabble out for a gala day; what pity had they for
the hunchbacked shoemaker of the St. Antoine? The man who followed
him escaped notice; he was straight-limbed and erect, and his shabby
dress disguised him as completely as any masquerade. When they had left
the crowd behind, they walked together, but still silently, along the
thoroughfare.
The groups of pleasure-seekers grew more rare as they advanced,
and they were almost alone when they passed the Garden of the
Récollets--the Franciscan Convent--and entered the Rue St. Antoine.
Here it was that the stranger roused himself and addressed his
companion.
“Where are we going?” he asked sharply.
“To my shop,” replied le Bossu; “’tis but ten yards ahead now. Have no
fear,” he added kindly; “the _bon Dieu_ made me in such shape that my
heart is ever with the sorrowful.”
“I do not understand you,” said the other. “I do not know your
name--you do not ask mine--why do you seek me out?”
“My name is Charlot,” returned the cripple, simply. “I make shoes, and
they call me by more than one name. My rich patrons say Charlot, my
poor ones call me _le Savetier_, others mock me as the hunchback--_le
Bossu_! It does not matter. As for your name, I will know it when you
please, monsieur.”
They had come to an arched gateway between two houses, and the cobbler
entered, followed by the other man. They stood in a court, and on
three sides of it were the faces of three houses; it was a veritable
_cul-de-sac_. A small square of sunshine marked the centre of the
opening, and in this a solitary weed had bloomed, springing up between
the crevices in the stone pavement. To the left was an arched door
with three steps leading to it, and over it hung a sign with two shoes
painted upon it. The hunchback pointed at this.
“Behold my shop,” he said, “the sign of the Two Shoes.”
He took a key out of his wallet, and ascending the steps, opened the
door and invited his new acquaintance to enter.