Among the hedges of Lower Poitou (constructed, like the Breton hedges,
with bent and twisted branches interlacing each other) it is no
reason, because a hare and six hounds have passed through, that
the opening they make should be considered in the light of a
_porte-cochère_; on the contrary, the luckless young man was held fast
as though his neck were in the collar of the guillotine. In vain he
pushed and struggled violently, and tore his hands and face till both
were bloody; it was impossible for him to advance one inch.
And yet he did not lose courage; he fought on with might and main,
until suddenly two peals of girlish laughter arrested his struggles.
He looked round, and saw the two riders bending over the pommels of
their saddles, and making no effort either to restrain their amusement
or conceal the cause of it.
Ashamed of being laughed at by two such pretty girls (he was only
twenty), and perceiving how really grotesque his appearance must be,
the young man tried to withdraw his head from the hole; but it was
written above that that unlucky hedge should be fatal to him either
way. The thorns hooked themselves into his clothing and the branches
into his game-bag, so that it was literally impossible for him to get
back. There he was, caught in the hedge as if in a trap; and this
second misfortune only increased the convulsive hilarity of the two
spectators.
The luckless youth no longer used mere vigorous energy to free himself
from the thicket. His struggles became furious, almost frenzied, and
in this last and desperate attempt his face assumed an expression of
such pitiable despair that Mary, the gentle one, felt touched.
"We ought not to laugh, Bertha," she said; "don't you see it hurts
him?"
"Yes, I see," replied Bertha; "but how can we help it? I can't stop
myself."
Then, still laughing, she jumped off her horse and ran to the poor
fellow to help him.
"Monsieur," she said, "I think a little assistance may be useful in
getting you out of that hedge. Pray accept the help my sister and I
are most ready to offer."
But the girl's laughter had pricked the vanity of the youth even more
than the thorns had pricked his body; so that no matter how
courteously Bertha worded her proposal, it did not make the
unfortunate captive forget the hilarity of which he had been the
object. So he kept silence; and, with the air of a man resolved to get
out of his troubles without the help of any one, he made a last and
still more strenuous effort.
He lifted himself by his wrists and endeavored to propel himself
forward by the sort of diagonal motion with the lower part of his body
that all animals of the snake genus employ. Unluckily, in making this
movement his forehead came in contact with the branch of a wild
apple-tree, which the shears of the farmer who made the hedge had
sharpened like the end of a pike. This branch cut and scraped the skin
like a well-tempered razor; and the young man, feeling himself
seriously wounded, gave a cry as the blood, spurting freely, covered
his whole face.
When the sisters saw the accident, of which they were involuntarily
the cause, they ran to the young man, seized him by the shoulders, and
uniting their efforts, with a vigor and strength not to be met with
among ordinary women, they managed to drag him through the hedge and
seat him on the bank. Mary, who could not know that the wound was
really a slight one, and only judged by appearances, became very pale
and trembling, as for Bertha, less impressionable than her sister, she
did not lose her head for a single moment.
"Run to that brook," she said to Mary, "and wet your handkerchief, so
that I may wash off the blood that is blinding the poor fellow."
When Mary had done as she was told and had returned with the moistened
handkerchief, she asked the young man in her gentle way:--
"Do you suffer much, monsieur?"
"Excuse me, mademoiselle," replied the young man, "but I have so much
on my mind at this moment that I do not know whether I suffer most on
the inside or the outside of my head." Then suddenly bursting into
sobs, with difficulty restrained till then, he cried out, "Ah! the
good God has punished me for disobeying mamma!"
Although the youth who spoke was certainly young,--for, as we have
said, he was only twenty,--there was something so infantine in his
accent and so ludicrously out of keeping with his height and his
huntsman's dress in his words, that the sisters, in spite of their
compassion for his wound, could not restrain another peal of laughter.
The poor lad cast a look of entreaty and reproach, upon them, while
two big tears rolled down his cheeks; then he tore from his head,
impatiently, the handkerchief wet with water from the brook, which
Mary had laid upon his forehead.
"Don't do that!" said Bertha.
"Let me alone!" he cried. "I don't choose to receive attentions I have
to pay for in ridicule. I am sorry now I did not follow my first idea
and run away, at the risk of getting a worse wound."
"Yes; but as you had the sense not to do so," said Mary, "have sense
enough now to let me put that bandage back upon your head."
Picking up the handkerchief she went to him with such a kindly
expression of interest that he, shaking his head, not in sign of
refusal but of utter depression, said:--
"Do as you please, mademoiselle."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Bertha, who had not lost a single expression on
the countenance of the young man; "for a hunter you seem to me rather
easily upset, monsieur."
"In the first place, mademoiselle, I am not a hunter, and after what
has just happened to me I don't wish ever to become one."
"I beg your pardon," said Bertha, in the same laughing tone which had
already provoked the youth, "but judging by the fury with which you
assaulted the briers and thorns, and especially by the eagerness with
which you urged on our dogs, I think I had every right to at least
imagine you a hunter."
"Oh, no, mademoiselle; I am not a hunter. I was carried away by a
momentary excitement, which I cannot now at all understand. At present
I am perfectly cool, and I know how right my mother was to call the
amusement of hunting, which consists in finding pleasure and gratified
vanity in the agony and death of a poor, defenceless, dumb animal,
ridiculous and degrading."
"Take care, monsieur!" cried Bertha. "To us, who are ridiculous and
degraded enough to like that amusement, you seem a good deal like the
fox in the fable."
Just then Mary, who had gone a second time to the brook to wet her
handkerchief, was about to re-bandage the young man's forehead. But he
pushed her away from him angrily.
"In Heaven's name, mademoiselle," he cried, "spare me your attentions!
Don't you hear how your sister continues to laugh at me?"
"No, let me tie this on, I beg of you," said Mary.
But he, not allowing himself to be persuaded by the sweetness of her
voice, rose to his knees, with the evident intention of escaping
altogether. Such obstinacy, which was more that of a child than of a
man, exasperated the irascible Bertha; and her irritation, though
inspired by the purest feelings of humanity, was none the less
expressed in rather too energetic a way for one of her sex.
"Confound it!" she cried, as her father might have done under similar
circumstances, "the provoking little fellow won't hear reason! Put on
the bandage, Mary; I'll hold his hands, and we'll see if he stirs
then."
And Bertha, seizing the young man's wrists with a muscular strength
which paralyzed all his efforts to get away, managed to facilitate
Mary's task so that she was able to bind the wound and tie the
handkerchief, which she did with a nicety that might have done honor
to a pupil of Dupuytren or Jobert.
"Now, monsieur," said Bertha, "you are in a fit state to go home, and
get away from us, as you are longing to do, without so much as thank
you. You can go."
But in spite of this permission and his restored liberty, the youth
did not budge. He seemed surprised and also deeply humiliated at
having fallen into the hands of two such strong women; his eyes turned
from Bertha to Mary and from Mary to Bertha, and still he was unable
to find a word to say. At last, seeing no other way out of his
embarrassment, he hid his face in his hands.
"Oh!" said Mary, kindly; "do you feel ill?"
The youth made no answer. Bertha gently moved his hands from his face,
and finding that he was really weeping, she became as compassionate
and gentle as her sister.
"You are more hurt than you seemed to be; is it the pain that makes
you cry?" she said. "If so, get on my horse or my sister's, and we
will take you home."
But to this the young man eagerly made a sign in the negative.
"Come," said Bertha, "enough of this childish nonsense! We have
affronted you; but how could we know that the skin of a girl was under
your hunting-jacket. Nevertheless, we were wrong; we admit it, and we
beg your pardon. You may not think we do so in a proper manner; but
remember the situation, and say to yourself that sincerity is all you
can expect from two girls so neglected by Heaven as to spend their
time in the ridiculous amusement which your mother unfortunately
disapproves. Now, do you mean to be unforgiving?"
"No, mademoiselle," replied the youth; "it is only with myself that I
am annoyed."
"Why so?"
"I can hardly tell you. Perhaps it is that I am ashamed to be weaker
than you,--I, a man; perhaps, too, I am all upset at the thought of
going home. What can I say to my mother to explain this wound?"
The two girls looked at each other. Women as they were, they would
have cared little for such a trifle; but they refrained from laughing,
strong as the temptation was, seeing by this time the extreme nervous
susceptibility of the young man.
"Well, then," said Bertha, "if you are no longer angry with us, let us
shake hands and part friends."
And she held out her hand as a man might have done. The youth was
about to reply with a like gesture, when Mary made a sign to call
their attention, by lifting her finger in the air.
"Hush!" said Bertha, listening as her sister did, one hand half
extended toward that of the young man.
In the distance, but coming rapidly nearer, they heard the sharp,
eager, prolonged yelping of hounds,--of hounds that were scenting
game. It was the Marquis de Souday's pack, still in pursuit of the
wounded hare, which had now doubled on them. Bertha pounced on the
young man's gun, the right barrel of which was still loaded. He made a
gesture as if to stop a dangerous imprudence, but the young girl only
smiled at him. She ran the ramrod hastily down the loaded barrel, as
all prudent hunters do when about to use a gun they have not loaded
themselves, and finding that the weapon was in proper condition, she
advanced a few steps, handling the gun with an ease which showed she
was perfectly familiar with the use of it.
Almost at the same moment the hare darted from the hedge, evidently
with the intention of returning the way it came; then, perceiving the
three persons who stood there, it made a rapid somersault and doubled
back. Quick as the movement was Bertha had time to aim; she fired, and
the animal, shot dead, rolled down the bank into the middle of the
road.
Mary had, meantime, advanced like her sister to shake hands with the
young man, and the two stood looking on at what was happening with
their hands clasped. Bertha picked up the hare, and returning to the
unknown young man who still held Mary's hand, she said, giving him the
game:--
"There, monsieur, there's an excuse for you."
"How so?" he asked.
"You can tell your mother that the hare ran between your legs and your
gun went off without your knowledge; and you can swear, as you did
just now, that it shall never happen again. The hare will plead
extenuating circumstances."
The young man shook his head in a hopeless way.
"No," he said, "I should never dare tell my mother I have disobeyed
her."
"Has she positively forbidden you to hunt?"
"Oh, dear, yes!"
"Then you are poaching!" said Bertha; "you begin where others finish.
Well, you must admit you have a vocation for it."
"Don't joke, mademoiselle. You have been so good to me I don't want to
get angry with you; I should only be twice as unhappy then."
"You have but one alternative, monsieur," said Mary; "either tell a
lie--which you will not do, neither do we advise it--or acknowledge
the whole truth. Believe me, whatever your mother may think of your
amusing yourself in defiance of her wishes, your frankness will disarm
her. Besides, it is not such a great crime to kill a hare."
"All the same I should never dare to tell her."
"Is she so terrible as all that?" inquired Bertha.
"No, mademoiselle; she is very kind and tender. She indulges all my
wishes and foresees my fancies; but on this one matter of guns she is
resolute. It is natural she should be," added the young man, sighing;
"my father was killed in hunting."
"Then, monsieur," said Bertha, gravely, "our levity has been all the
more misplaced, and we regret it extremely. I hope you will forget it
and remember only our regrets."
"I shall only remember, mademoiselle, the kind care you have bestowed
upon me; and I, in turn, hope you will forget my silly fears and
foolish susceptibility."
"No, no, we shall remember them," said Mary, "to prevent ourselves
from ever hurting the feelings of others as we hurt yours; for see
what the consequences have been!"
While Mary was speaking Bertha had mounted her horse. Again the youth
held out his hand, though timidly, to Mary. She touched it with the
points of her fingers and sprang into her own saddle. Then, calling in
the dogs, who came at the sound of their voices, the sisters gave rein
to their horses and rode rapidly away.
The youth stood looking after them, silent and motionless, until they
had disappeared round a curve of the road. Then he dropped his head on
his breast and continued thoughtful. We will remain a while with this
new personage, for we ought to become fully acquainted with him.