RUNNING AWAY.
FOR another hour or two Pierre lay still in the sun, munching his black
bread slowly, and keeping a watchful eye on Nanette; then he suddenly
bethought himself that if he went to the top of the hill he would be
able to see the high road which he knew lay on the other side, and
which ran from Carhaix to Londéac. He had only twice caught a glimpse
of it: once when he had been sent up the hillside after some goats
which had strayed, and another time when the old woman had gone with
the post-cart to Carhaix, and he had walked to meet the cart with her,
to help her to carry her butter and eggs.
As a rule he was so closely watched that he had never had time to
wander so far alone; but to-day he saw his opportunity, for if he lay
just on the top of the hill he would still be in sight of the cottage,
and he could keep one eye on Nanette, while he watched the road with
the other in the hope of seeing something unusual to break the dreary
monotony of his life.
He climbed up to his point of vantage, and found it was as he had
thought. While he could see the whole length of the secluded little
valley in which the cottage stood, he could also see, on the other
side, a long range of hills over which the highway ran, white, and
winding like a serpent, until it was lost in a richly wooded plain far
in the distance.
Pierre followed its course with longing eyes.
‘If one follows that road one comes to Carhaix,’ he thought, ‘then from
Carhaix one can go to St Brieuc, and after that one can go to England.
I wonder how long it would take me to walk to St Brieuc?’
Just then his attention was arrested by a couple of cyclists who came
spinning along the smooth road. Evidently they were making their way to
Londéac, for their faces were set in the other direction from that in
which the post-cart went to Carhaix.
The sight of them brought back a flood of the ghost-like memories which
always puzzled Pierre. It seemed to him that sometime, long ago, he
too had ridden a bicycle, but he could not remember where or when.
He was puzzling over this, in a dreamy way, when a shout from one
of the men made him start, and brought his mind quickly back to the
present. Something had plainly happened to the travellers, for they had
both dismounted, and one of them had noticed him and was waving to him.
Here indeed was a piece of good luck—a great adventure, in fact—for
Madame Genviève could not scold him for going down to the road, seeing
that the men had called to him.
With a hurried look to see that Nanette was grazing quietly, he slid
from the rock on which he had been lying, and ran down the hillside.
The strangers were two young Frenchmen, artists from Paris apparently,
for they carried paint-boxes and canvas strapped to their bicycles.
Their pure Parisian French smacked of the capital. It was lost on
Pierre, however, for he only spoke the patois of the district, which is
as distinct from French as Welsh is from English.
No words were needed to show what had happened, however. A great
broad-headed nail from a passing peasant’s sabot had pierced the back
wheel of one of the bicycles, and the tire was flat and useless, every
bit of air having escaped. The owner of the bicycle had got out all his
appliances for mending the puncture, but had been unable to locate it,
and he was looking round in despair for water.
With lively gestures and torrents of voluble French he tried to make
Pierre understand what was wanted, and patted him gratefully on the
back when the boy led him to a little spring which he had noticed on
his way down the hill.
Alas! the first difficulty had been overcome, only to be followed by a
second; for how was the water to be conveyed to the roadside?
Taking off his cap, the gentleman tried to use it as a basin, but the
water ran through it as if it were a sieve, and with a gesture of
despair he shouted to his friend to carry the injured bicycle over the
grass to the spring.
‘Stop! this will do,’ said Pierre suddenly in such good English that
the artist started. He had studied art in a London studio, and knew the
language fairly well.
‘Do you talk English?’ he asked in surprise.
But Pierre did not seem to hear the question. He had taken off one of
his wooden sabots, and had filled it with water, and, giving it to the
gentleman to carry, he proceeded to fill the other also.
‘Capital!’ said the cyclist. ‘Thou art a boy of understanding. True, a
sabot doth not hold much water, but there may be enough;’ and, shouting
to his companion to leave his machine where it was, he proceeded to
pick his way carefully over the rough grass, carrying one of the sabots
with its precious contents, while Pierre followed behind him with the
other.
‘Curious that the boy talks English,’ he remarked to his companion
in his native tongue as they bent over the punctured tire; ‘and good
English too. I wonder where he picked it up?—Here, my lad,’ he went on
in the Breton patois, ‘where hast thou learned to talk English?’
Pierre hesitated; his life for the last five months had made him
strangely suspicious.
‘I am an English boy,’ he said at last slowly; ‘and some day I go to
England.’
The strangers glanced at one another. Certainly no one could look less
English than Pierre did at that moment, with his closely cropped head
and his blue tunic and trousers.
‘Poor child! his brain is touched,’ they whispered; ‘he must have
picked up the phrases from some travellers. Many English artists come
to live in the summer at Pont Aven, down on the way to Quimper. Perhaps
he has lived there at some time. It is sad, is it not? And he is such a
handsome child if he did not look so ill.’
Poor Pierre! if he had understood what they said he might have tried
to talk to them, and tell them of the memories which haunted him. But
their French was unintelligible; and, as he gathered from the glances
that they stole at him that they were talking about him, he only grew
more suspicious, and relapsed into silence, and stood rubbing one foot
against the other, pretending not to hear when the strangers plied him
with more questions, talking the patois as best they could.
‘Ah yes, he is quite silly,’ said the man who had spoken to him first,
when at last the puncture was mended and he was blowing up his tire.
‘It is no use trying to talk to him any more. But doubtless he knows
the value of money—most people do, whether their brains are strong
or not; and, after all, he was marvellously quick to understand what
I needed.—Here is thy sabot, my child,’ he went on, ‘and here is
something inside it;’ and to Pierre’s amazement he handed him back his
wooden shoe with two bright silver francs inside it.
The look of delight on the little boy’s face made both the men laugh.
He had not had even a sou in his possession all the time he had been at
the cottage. The time when he had had money of his own seemed to belong
to the vague, shadowy life—not to the present.
‘And here is thy other sabot,’ said the second stranger, shaking the
water out of it, and handing it back to the boy; and lo! in it also
there were two shining silver francs.
Pierre turned a couple of somersaults on the grass. A little Italian
boy with a monkey, tramping his way from Cherbourg to sunny Savoy,
had called at the cottage one cold April day, and had turned a series
of such somersaults on the turf, in the hope of softening Madame
Genviève’s heart and inducing her to let him sleep beside Nanette all
night. Madame Genviève had refused his request, but Pierre had seen
the somersaults and had practised them in private ever since.
Both the artists laughed heartily at the little amateur acrobat, and
then, making signs to him not to lose the money, they mounted their
bicycles once more, and rode away, leaving the little blue-clad figure
standing motionless by the roadside, staring down at the bright silver
coins which he held in his hand. Little they knew what hopes had been
raised in the poor little clouded brain by the mere sight of the money,
or what a sudden determination Pierre had arrived at.
He would run away. Yes, he would, this very day. Had he not the money
now? And with care it would take him to England. He had still half of
his sandwich, and that would last quite a long time, so he need not
buy very much food. Such a chance might never come again. Had he not
the whole of the long afternoon before him before madame would expect
him home? And then she would have Nanette to look for, for probably by
that time Nanette would have strayed a bit away, and she would have
to be found and taken home before madame had any time to think of
him. And then it would grow dark, and she must needs wait until the
morning before setting out to go after him. Yes, assuredly this was
the opportunity to try to run away, and go to England; and when he got
there his head would not feel so queer, and he would remember.
Taking up his sabots, he hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should
take them with him or not. He would walk quicker without them, and the
sun was very hot, so he decided to leave them. He took them over to the
little spring and pressed them down out of sight in the soft mud which
surrounded it, and then, glancing all round to see that there was no
one within sight, he set off, running as hard as he could along the
road, in the direction in which he knew Carhaix lay.