The Marquis de Souday went to bed repeating to himself the old
proverb, "Night brings counsel." With that hope he fell asleep. When
asleep, he dreamed.
He dreamed of his old wars in La Vendée with Charette,--of the days
when he was aide-de-camp; and, more especially, he dreamed of Jean
Oullier, his attendant, of whom he had never thought since the day
when they left Charette dying, and parted in the wood of Chabotière.
As well as he could remember, Jean Oullier before joining Charette's
army had lived in the village of La Chevrolière, near the lake of
Grand-Lieu. The next morning the Marquis de Souday sent a man of
Machecoul, who did his errands, on horseback with a letter, ordering
him to go to La Chevrolière and ascertain if a man named Jean Oullier
was still living and whether he was in the place. If he was, the
messenger was to give him the letter and, if possible, bring him back
with him. If he lived at a short distance the messenger was to go
there. If the distance was too great he was to obtain every
information as to the locality of his abode. If he was dead the
messenger was to return at once and say so.
Jean Oullier was not dead; Jean Oullier was not in distant parts; Jean
Oullier was in the neighborhood of La Chevrolière; in fact, Jean
Oullier was in La Chevrolière itself.
Here is what had happened to him after parting with the marquis on the
day of Charette's last defeat. He stayed hidden in the bush, from
which he could see all and not be seen himself. He saw General Travot
take Charette prisoner and treat him with all the consideration a man
like General Travot would show to a man like Charette. But,
apparently, that was not all that Jean Oullier expected to see, for
after seeing the republicans lay Charette on a litter and carry him
away, Jean Oullier still remained hidden in his bush.
It is true that an officer with a picket of twelve men remained in the
wood. What were they there for?
About an hour later a Vendéan peasant passed within ten paces of Jean
Oullier, having answered the challenge of the sentinel with the word
"Friend,"--an odd answer in the mouth of a royalist peasant to a
republican soldier. The peasant next exchanged the countersign with
the sentry and passed on. Then he approached the officer, who, with an
expression of disgust which it is quite impossible to represent, gave
him a bag that was evidently full of gold. After which the peasant
disappeared, and the officer with his picket guard also departed,
showing that in all probability they had only been stationed there to
await the coming of the peasant.
In all probability, too, Jean Oullier had seen what he wanted to see,
for he came out of his bush as he went into it,--that is to say,
crawling; and getting on his feet, he tore the white cockade from his
hat, and, with the careless indifference of a man who for the last
three years had staked his life every day on a turn of the dice, he
buried himself still deeper in the forest.
The same night he reached La Chevrolière. He went straight to his own
home. On the spot where his house had stood was a blackened ruin,
blackened by fire. He sat down upon a stone and wept.
In that house he had left a wife and two children.
Soon he heard a step and raised his head. A peasant passed. Jean
Oullier recognized him in the darkness and called:--
"Tinguy!"
The man approached.
"Who is it calls me?" he said.
"I am Jean Oullier," replied the Chouan.
"God help you," replied Tinguy, attempting to pass on; but Jean
Oullier stopped him.
"You must answer me," he said.
"Are you a man?"
"Yes."
"Then question me and I will answer."
"My father?"
"Dead."
"My wife?"
"Dead."
"My two children?"
"Dead."
"Thank you."
Jean Oullier sat down again, but he no longer wept. After a few
moments he fell on his knees and prayed. It was time he did, for he
was about to blaspheme. He prayed for those who were dead.
Then, restored by that deep faith that gave him hope to meet them in a
better world, he bivouacked on those sad ruins.
The next day, at dawn, he began to rebuild his house, as calm and
resolute as though his father were still at the plough, his wife
before the fire, his children at the door. Alone, and asking no help
from any one, he rebuilt his cottage.
There he lived, doing the humble work of a day laborer. If any one had
counselled Jean Oullier to ask a reward from the Bourbons for doing
what he, rightly or wrongly, considered his duty, that adviser ran
some risk of insulting the grand simplicity of the poor peasant.
It will be readily understood that with such a nature Jean Oullier, on
receiving the letter in which the marquis called him his old comrade
and begged him to come to him, he did not delay his going. On the
contrary, he locked the door of his house, put the key in his pocket,
and then, as he lived alone and had no one to notify, he started
instantly. The messenger offered him his horse, or, at any rate, to
take him up behind him; but Jean Oullier shook his head.
"Thank God," he said, "my legs are good."
Then resting his hand on the horse's neck, he set the pace for the
animal to take,--a gentle trot of six miles an hour. That evening Jean
Oullier was at the castle. The marquis received him with visible
delight. He had worried all day over the idea that Jean Oullier might
be absent, or dead. It is not necessary to say that the idea of that
death worried him not for Jean Oullier's sake but for his own. We have
already informed our readers that the Marquis de Souday was slightly
selfish.
The first thing the marquis did was to take Jean Oullier apart and
confide to him the arrival of his children and his consequent
embarrassment.
Jean Oullier, who had had his own two children massacred, could not
understand that a father should voluntarily wish to part with his
children. He nevertheless accepted the proposal made to him by the
marquis to bring up the little girls till such a time as they were of
age to go to school. He said he would find some good woman at La
Chevrolière who would be a mother to them,--if, indeed, any one could
take the place of a mother to orphaned children.
Had the twins been sickly, ugly, or disagreeable, Jean Oullier would
have taken them all the same; but they were, on the contrary, so
prepossessing, so pretty, so graceful, and their smiles so engaging,
that the good man instantly loved them as such men do love. He
declared that their fair and rosy faces and curling hair were so like
those of the cherubs that surrounded the Madonna over the high altar
at Grand-Lieu before it was destroyed, that he felt like kneeling to
them when he saw them.
It was therefore decided that on the morrow Jean Oullier should take
the children back with him to La Chevrolière.
Now it so happened that, during the time which had elapsed between the
departure of the nurse and the arrival of Jean Oullier, the weather
had been rainy. The marquis, confined to the castle, felt terribly
bored. Feeling bored, he sent for his daughters and began to play with
them. Putting one astride his neck, and perching the other on his
back, he was soon galloping on all fours round the room, like Henri of
Navarre. Only, he improved on the amusement which his Majesty afforded
his progeny by imitating with his mouth not only the horn of the
hunter, but the barking and yelping of the whole pack of hounds. This
domestic sport diverted the Marquis de Souday immensely, and it is
safe to say that the little girls had never laughed so much in their
lives.
Besides, the little things had been won by the tenderness and the
petting their father had lavished upon them during these few hours, to
appease, no doubt, the reproaches of his conscience at sending them
away from him after so long a separation. The children, on their side,
showed him a frantic attachment and a lively gratitude, which were not
a little dangerous to the fulfilment of his plan.
In fact, when the carriole came, at eight o'clock in the morning, to
the steps of the portico, and the twins perceived that they were about
to be taken away, they set up cries of anguish. Bertha flung herself
on her father, clasped his knees, clung to the garters of the
gentleman who gave her sugar-plums and made himself such a capital
horse, and twisted her little hands into them in such a manner that
the poor marquis feared to bruise her wrists by trying to unclasp
them.
As for Mary, she sat down on the steps and cried; but she cried with
such an expression of real sorrow that Jean Oullier felt more touched
by her silent grief than by the noisy despair of her sister. The
marquis employed all his eloquence to persuade the little girls that
by getting into the carriage, they would have more pleasure and more
dainties than by staying with him; but the more he talked, the more
Mary cried and the more Bertha quivered and passionately clung to him.
The marquis began to get impatient. Seeing that persuasion could do
nothing, he was about to employ force when, happening to turn his
eyes, he caught sight of the look on Jean Oullier's face. Two big
tears were rolling down the bronzed cheeks of the peasant into the
thick red whiskers which framed his face. Those tears acted both as a
prayer to the marquis and as a reproach to the father. Monsieur de
Souday made a sign to Jean Oullier to unharness the horse; and while
Bertha, understanding the sign, danced with joy on the portico, he
whispered in the farmer's ear:--
"You can start to-morrow."
As the day was very fine, the marquis desired to utilize the presence
of Jean Oullier by taking him on a hunt; with which intent he carried
him off to his own bedroom to help him on with his sporting-clothes.
The peasant was much struck by the frightful disorder of the little
room; and the marquis continued his confidences with bitter complaints
of his female servitor, who, he said, might be good enough among her
pots and pans, but was odiously careless as to all other household
comforts, particularly those that concerned his clothes. On this
occasion it was ten minutes before he could find a waistcoat that was
not widowed of its buttons, or a pair of breeches not afflicted with a
rent that made them more or less indecent. However, he was dressed at
last.
Wolf-master though he was, the marquis, as we have said, was too poor
to allow himself the luxury of a huntsman, and he led his little pack
himself. Therefore, having the double duty of keeping the hounds from
getting at fault, and firing at the game, it was seldom that the poor
marquis, passionate sportsman that he was, did not come home at night
tired out.
With Jean Oullier it was quite another thing. The vigorous peasant, in
the flower of his age, sprang through the forest with the agility of a
squirrel; he bounded over bushes when it took too long to go round
them, and, thanks to his muscles of steel, he never was behind the
dogs by a length. On two or three occasions he supported them with
such vigor that the boar they were pursuing, recognizing the fact that
flight would not shake off his enemies, ended by turning and standing
at bay in a thicket, where the marquis had the happiness of killing
him at one blow,--a thing that had never yet happened to him.
The marquis went home light-hearted and joyful, thanking Jean Oullier
for the delightful day he owed to him. During dinner he was in fine
good-humor, and invented new games to keep the little girls as gay as
himself.
At night, when he went to his room, the marquis found Jean Oullier
sitting cross-legged in a corner, like a Turk or a tailor. Before him
was a mound of garments, and in his hand he held a pair of old velvet
breeches which he was darning vigorously.
"What the devil are you doing there?" demanded the marquis.
"The winter is cold in this level country, especially when the wind is
from the sea; and after I get home my legs will be cold at the very
thought of a norther blowing on yours through these rents," replied
Jean Oullier, showing his master a tear which went from knee to belt
in the breeches he was mending.
"Ha! so you're a tailor, too, are you?" cried the marquis.
"Alas!" said Jean Oullier, "one has to be a little of everything when
one lives alone as I have done these twenty years. Besides, an old
soldier is never at a loss."
"I like that!" said the marquis; "pray, am not I a soldier, too?"
"No; you were an officer, and that's not the same thing."
The Marquis de Souday looked at Jean Oullier admiringly. Then he went
to bed and to sleep, and snored away, without in the least
interrupting the work of his old Chouan. In the middle of the night he
woke up. Jean Oullier was still at work. The mound of garments had not
perceptibly diminished.
"But you can never finish them, even if you work till daylight, my
poor Jean," said the marquis.
"I'm afraid not."
"Then go to bed now, old comrade; you needn't start till you have
mended up all my old rags, and we can have another hunt to-morrow."