The roads were so poor that it was impossible to reach Bordeaux that
evening, and Mr. Fabian said it would be better to stop at a small Inn
in a village, should they find a promising one. Consequently they
decided that the clean little inn at Agen would answer their needs that
night.
The two cars were rolled under a shed at the back, and the guests were
shown to the low-ceiled chambers with primitive accommodations. But the
supper was good, and the host a jolly fat man.
While the tourists were finishing their coffee, a little bent man limped
into the public room. He had great hoops of gold in his ears, and his
costume was very picturesque. After he had been given a glass of
home-made wine, he sat down in a corner and began playing softly on an
accordion.
He had a marvelous talent for this instrument, and the girls crowded
about him, listening intently. Soon the host’s grown daughter came out
and danced a folk-dance, and then others danced the old-time French
dances. When the American girls were called upon to add their quota to
the evening’s entertainment, they gladly complied.
Polly and Eleanor, Dodo and Nancy danced the modern steps so popular
with young folks of the present day, and the peasants, watching closely,
laughed at what they considered awkward and ridiculous gambols. But the
dancing suddenly ceased when a young man called upon the musician to
have his fortune told; he held out his palm and waited to hear his
future.
Fully two hours were spent in laughing at the “fortunes” the old gipsy
man told—for he was one of the original Spanish gipsies, who had
wandered to the southern part of France and settled there for life.
The girls giggled and reviewed their fortunes that night long after they
had retired. As they had to occupy the two massive beds in one
guest-room, it gave them the better opportunity to talk when they should
have been fast asleep.
Finally they were ready to sleep and Polly was about to snuff the candle
before jumping into bed, when Nancy suddenly whispered: “S—sh!”
[Illustration: POLLY TIP-TOED TO THE WINDOW.]
The four sat up and strained their sense of hearing. “I heard a queer
noise just outside our door,” whispered Nancy.
“I’ll tip-toe over and see who it is,” whispered Polly, acting as she
spoke.
“No—no! Don’t open the door! That gipsy may be there,” cried Nancy,
fearfully.
But another scratching sound under the low window now drew all attention
to that place. Polly slowly tip-toed silently to the open window and
tried to peer out. The trees and vines made the back of the garden
shadowy and she could not see if anyone were under the window, or trying
to get in somewhere else.
The other three girls now crept out of bed and joined Polly at the
window. They waited silently, and were soon rewarded for their patience.
They distinctly heard voices almost under their window, whispering
carefully, so no one would be awakened.
“I think we ought to rouse Daddy, or Mr. Alexander,” said Nancy,
trembling with apprehension.
“You run and tell your father, while I get Pa out of bed,” said Dodo,
groping about for her negligee.
Meantime Polly and Eleanor watched so no one could get in at their
window, and the two other girls ran across the hall to their parents’
rooms. In a short time both Mr. Fabian and Mr. Alexander came in and
crept over to the window where the girls had heard the burglars
plotting.
Mr. Fabian understood French so now he interpreted what he overheard:
“Drop the bundle and I’ll catch it. Don’t make a noise, and be careful
not to overlook anything valuable.”
“Dear me! If they are burglars where is the one who is told to drop a
bundle? He must be inside, somewhere!” whispered Dodo, excitedly.
There followed a mumbling that no one could understand, and then a
splash,—as if a bundle of soft stuff had dropped into water from a
height. Immediately after this, the voice from below excitedly spoke to
the companion above: “——It fell in the well! Now what is to be done?”
“Goody! Goody!” breathed Polly, eagerly, when she heard how the burglars
had defeated their own purpose.
But no sound came from the other burglar who was working indoors, and
Mr. Alexander had an idea which he suggested to Mr. Fabian.
“You go downstairs softly, while I scout around up here and locate the
room where the helper is working. When I give a whistle it means ‘I’ve
got the other feller under hand’—then you catch your man, red-handed,
out in the garden, and the girls will rouse the house and we will
present our prisoners to the host.”
That sounded fine, so Mr. Alexander hurried to his room for his western
gun, and started out to hunt up the indoor worker. Mrs. Alexander
realized that he was about to do something unusual, or he never would
have taken his big revolver.
“Ebeneezer, what is wrong? Are we in danger of being robbed?”
“I’m going to catch one before we can think if there is any danger, for
anyone,” said her husband, going for the door.
“Listen, Ebeneezer! Don’t you go and risk your life for that! You
promised to take care of me first! Let Mr. Fabian, or some of the
Frenchmen here, try and catch the man!” cried Mrs. Alexander,
hysterically, running after her spouse.
But the little man was spry and he was out of the door and down the
entry before his wife reached the doorway. There was but one alternative
for her, and that was to go to the girls’ room and pour her troubles
forth into their ears.
But the four girls were too intent upon what was going on to sympathize
with Mrs. Alexander. Dodo merely said, in reply to her mother’s
complaints: “Get into my bed, Ma, and pull the covers over your head, if
you’re so frightened.”
All this time, the man down in the garden was directing his associate
above, and at last the girls indistinctly saw someone slowly descend,
what seemed to be a rope hanging close to the side of the house. They
held their breath and waited, for Mr. Fabian surely must have reached
the garden by this time and would be ready to capture the escaping
thieves, before they could get away.
But a loud shouting and a great confusion in the large public room drew
their attention to the upper hall, where they could hear what was going
on below. Mrs. Fabian joined her friends in the entry at the head of the
stairs and they heard the host shout:
“So! You look like a decent gentleman and you creep down here to take my
living from me! Shame, shame!”
Then to the horror of the girls, they heard Mr. Fabian remonstrate
volubly and try to explain his reason for going about the place so
stealthily.
Mrs. Fabian rushed down the stairs, regardless of her curl-papers and
kimono, and the girls followed closely upon her heels. Only Mrs.
Alexander remained upstairs under the bed-covers, thinking discretion to
be the better part of valor.
The host and some other guests were surrounding Mr. Fabian who tried to
explain that Mr. Alexander and he were following burglars who were
looting the place. The host smiled derisively, and told his guest to
prove what he said was true.
Just then Mrs. Alexander screamed, and came pell-mell down the stairs.
“Oh, oh! A gipsy man came out of the _girls’_ room!”
Everyone ran upstairs to catch the trespasser, but he was not to be
found. Then a scuffle, and confused shouts from the garden, reached the
ears of the crowd who stood wondering what next to do. A clear shrill
whistle echoed through the place, and Mr. Fabian turned impatiently.
“Now you’ve spoiled the arrest of those two burglars. I was to get the
outside man when that whistle sounded, to tell me that Mr. Alex had the
inside man safely in hand.”
But the shouting and whistling sounded more confused on the garden-side
of the house, so they all ran downstairs again, and went out to assist
in any way they might.
Someone was hanging on to someone else who clung for dear life to a
thick vine that grew up the side wall and over the roof of the inn. It
was this rope-like vine that the girls had mistaken for a rope of escape
for the thief. Mr. Alexander was in the garden, trying to drag down the
escaping burglar, while that individual was trying to climb back into
the room whence he had recently come.
Just as the others rushed out into the dark garden to assist Mr.
Alexander, another man appeared at the upper window and caught hold of
his associate’s hands to pull him back to safety.
“Wait! I get my ladder!” shouted the host, running for the shed. But a
howl of rage, and French curses tumbling pell-mell from him told the
others that he had gone headlong into a new danger.
Mr. Fabian and the young man-waiter ran to help the poor inn-keeper, and
to their amazement they found he had collided with Mrs. Alexander’s
roadster which was standing behind the bushes, facing towards the road.
“I’ll turn on the lights, in a moment, and see if all is right,” quickly
said Mr. Fabian, jumping up to start the engine.
Before he could switch on the lights, however, a general shout of dismay
came from the people assembled under the window, and the three men ran
back to see what had happened.
The second-story windows were not more than eight feet above the garden
at the rear, as the ground sloped down gradually to the front of the
Inn. The first story was very low, too, so that anyone could climb up at
the rear without difficulty.
When Mr. Fabian and his two companions reached the scene under the
windows, they found three people rolling upon the ground in a tight
clutch. The man from the inside of the room who had been finally pulled
out and over the ledge; the man who had clung to the vine, for some
reason or other, and the third man who had stood at the bottom of the
vine and hung on to the climbing man’s heels.
From this mêlée of three, Mr. Alexander’s voice sounded clear and
threatening. A deep bass voice gurgled as if in extremity, but the third
voice was shrill and hysterical and sounded like a woman’s.
Lights were hurried to the spot, and the three contestants were
separated, then Mr. Alexander had the satisfaction of turning to the
inn-keeper and saying: “I caught them both without help. I saved your
place from being robbed.”
But one of the two captured burglars sat down on the grass and began to
sob loudly. The host seemed distracted for a moment, then tore off the
big soft hat the gypsy wore. Down came a tangle of hair, and his
daughter turned a dirt-streaked face up at her furious father.
“What means this masquerading! And who is the accomplice?” shouted he.
“Oh, father,” wailed the girl. “Pierre and I were married at the Fête
last week, but you would not admit him to the house and I never could
get away, so we said we would _run_ away together and start a home
elsewhere,” confessed the frightened daughter.
Pierre stood by, trembling in fear of his father-in-law, but when
everyone realized that poor Pierre was but trying to secure his bride’s
personal effects which she had tied in several bundles, they felt sorry
for the two.
It had been Pierre’s idea to dress Jeanne in a gypsy’s garb that no one
could recognize her when they escaped, and it was Jeanne who suggested
that they use the roadster to carry all her effects, and then Pierre
could drive it back and leave it near the inn without the owner’s
knowledge.
The father led his two prisoners to the public-room and the guests
trailed behind them, wondering at such an elaborate plan for escape when
the two had been married a week and might have walked out quietly
without disturbing others, at night.
In an open session of the parental court, the inn-keeper was induced to
forgive the culprits and take the undesirable Pierre to his heart and
home. Then everyone smiled, and the waiter proposed that the host open a
bottle of his best old wine to celebrate the reception of the married
pair.
“Why did you object to the young man? He looks like a good boy?” asked
Mr. Fabian, when the young pair were toasted and all had made merry over
the capture of the two.
“He has a farm four miles out, and I want a son who will run this inn
when I am too old. He dislikes this business and I dislike farming. So
there you are!” explained the host.
“But you won’t have to work the farm,” argued Mr. Fabian. “You have the
inn and many years of good health before you to enjoy it, and they have
the farm. I think the two will work together, very nicely, for you can
get all your vegetables and eggs and butter from your daughter, much
cheaper than from strangers.”
“Ah yes! I never thought of that!” murmured the inn-keeper, and a smile
of satisfaction illumed his heavy face.
The next morning the young pair were in high favor with the father, and
he was telling his son-in-law about various things he must raise on his
farm so that both families might save money.
Then the tourists drove away from Agen with the inn-keeper’s blessings
ringing in their ears, and after a long tiresome drive they came to
Bordeaux. Various places of interest were visited in this city, and the
next day they drove on again.
Brittany, with its wealth of old chateaux, was reached next, and time
was spent prodigally, that the girls might view the wonderful old places
where tourists were welcomed.