During the week which had just elapsed Maître Courtin kept prudently
quiet and out of sight in his farmhouse at La Logerie. Like all
diplomatists, Courtin had no great fancy for war; he calculated, very
justly, that the period of pistol-shots and sabre-cuts must soon pass
by, and he wished to be fresh and lively for the succeeding period,
when he might be useful to the cause--and to himself--according to the
petty means which Nature allotted to him.
He was not without some uneasiness, the cautious farmer, as to the
consequences which might result to him from the part he had taken in
the arrest of Jean Oullier and the death of Bonneville; and at this
moment when hatred, rancor, vengeance of all kinds had put the country
under arms, he thought it wisest not to foolishly risk his person
within their range. He was even afraid of meeting his young master,
Baron Michel (inoffensive as he knew him to be), ever since a certain
night when he had cut the girths of the baron's saddle.
In fact, the day after that performance, thinking that the best way to
escape being killed was to seem half dead, he took to his bed and gave
out, by his servant-woman, to his neighbors and administrators that a
malignant fever like that of poor old Tinguy had brought him to
death's door.
Madame de la Logerie, in her distress at Michel's flight, had sent
twice for her farmer; but danger paralyzed Courtin's desire to please
her, and the proud baroness, goaded by anxiety, was forced to go
herself to the peasant's house.
She had heard that Michel was a prisoner, and was about to start for
Nantes to use all her influence with the authorities to get him
released, and all her authority as a mother to take him far away from
this disastrous neighborhood. Under no circumstances would she return
to La Logerie, where further sojourn seemed to her dangerous by reason
of the conflict about to take place; and she was anxious to see
Courtin and leave him in charge of the château and her interests.
Courtin promised to be worthy of her confidence, but in so weak and
dolorous a voice that the baroness left the farmhouse with a heart
full of pity for the poor devil, even in the midst of her own personal
anxieties.
After this came the fights at Chêne and La Pénissière. On the days of
their occurrence the noise of the musketry, as it reached the farmer's
ears, caused a relapse in his illness. But no sooner had he heard of
the result of those fights than he rose from his bed entirely cured.
The next day he felt so vigorous that, in spite of his woman's
remonstrance, he determined to go to Montaigu, his market-town, and
get the orders of the sub-prefect as to his future course. The vulture
smelt the carnage, and wanted to be sure of his little share of the
spoil.
At Montaigu Maître Courtin learned that his trip was useless; the
department had just been placed under military authority. The
sub-prefect advised the mayor of La Logerie to go to Aigrefeuille and
get his instructions from the general, who was there at that moment.
Dermoncourt, fully occupied with the movement of his columns, and
having, as a brave and loyal soldier, little liking for men of
Courtin's character, received the latter's denunciations, made under
the guise of necessary information, with an abstracted air, and, in
fact, showed a coldness to the mayor of La Logerie which greatly
chilled that functionary's hopes. Nevertheless the general accepted a
proposal which Courtin made him, to put a garrison in the château de
la Logerie; for the position seemed to him an excellent one from which
to hold the whole region in hand, from Machecoul to Saint Colombin.
Heaven owed the farmer some compensation for the general's want of
sympathy, and, with its usual justice, soon bestowed it.
As he left the house which served as headquarters, Maître Courtin was
approached by a man whom he had no recollection of ever having met,
but who, nevertheless, showed him the utmost civility and a
friendliness that was altogether touching. This individual was a man
about thirty years of age, dressed in black clothes, the cut of which
resembled that of priestly garments worn in a city. His forehead was
low, his nose hooked like the beak of a bird of prey. His lips were
thin; and yet, in spite of their thinness, they were prominent, owing
to a peculiar formation of the jaw; his pointed chin protruded at an
angle which was more than sharp; his hair, of a leaden black, was
plastered along his temples, and his gray eyes, often dropped, seemed
to see through his winking eyelids. It was the countenance of a Jesuit
grafted on the face of a Jew.
A few words said by this unknown man to Courtin appeared to remove the
distrust with which the latter was inclined to receive advances which
seemed to him at first suspicious. He even accepted with a good grace
an invitation to dinner at the hôtel Saint-Pierre, which the stranger
gave him; and after two hours passed _tête-à-tête_ in a private room,
where the individual we have described ordered the table to be laid,
such mutual sympathy had been developed that they treated each other,
Courtin and he, as old friends; exchanging, when they parted, many
shakings of the hand, while the mayor of La Logerie, as he struck his
spurs into his pony's flanks, promised his new acquaintance that he
should not be long without hearing from him.
Toward nine o'clock that evening Maître Courtin was jogging along,
with the tail of his beast toward Aigrefeuille and its nose toward La
Logerie; he seemed quite lively and joyous, and was flirting his whip
by its leather handle right and left on the flanks of his little
steed, with a jollity and ease that were not characteristic of him.
Maître Courtin's brain was evidently larded with _couleur-de-rose_
ideas. He was thinking how on the morrow he should have, at a stone's
throw from his farm, a detachment of fifty soldiers, whose presence
would relieve him of anxiety, not only about the consequences of what
he had done, but also about those of certain things that he wanted to
do; he was thinking, too, that in his capacity as mayor he could use
those fifty bayonets according to the needs of his private
animosities. This idea gratified his self-love and his hatred
together.
But, seductive as this idea of a Pretorian guard which could, if
cleverly managed, be turned into his private guard, might be, it was
surely not sufficient to give Maître Courtin--a practical man if ever
there was one--his present exuberant satisfaction.
The mysterious unknown had no doubt dazzled his eyes with something
more than the glitter of an ephemeral glory,--in fact, it was neither
more nor less than piles of gold and silver which Maître Courtin was
beholding in his mind's eye through the mists of the future, and
toward which he was mechanically stretching out his hand with a smile
of covetousness.
Under the control of these agreeable hallucinations, and somewhat hazy
from the fumes of wine which his is new friend had poured for him
generously, Maître Courtin let himself drop into a state of gentle
somnolence; his body swayed to right and left, according to the
caprices of his ambling pony, until at last, the quadruped having
stumbled over a stone, Maître Courtin pitched forward and remained
doubled over on the pommel of his saddle.
The position was uncomfortable, but Maître Courtin was careful not to
change it; he was then in the midst of so delightful a dream that, for
all the world, he would not lose it by awaking. He thought he was
meeting his young master, who said to him, waving his hand over the
domain of La Logerie, "All this is thine!"
The gift was proving more considerable than Courtin at first thought
it; untold riches were developing. The trees in the orchard were laden
down with gold and silver fruit; all the poles in the neighborhood
would not suffice to hinder the branches from breaking under the
weight of such wealth. The wild-roses and hawthorns were bearing,
instead of their usual haws, jewels of all colors, which sparkled in
the sun like so many carbuncles; and there was such a quantity of them
that, although he knew they were precious stones, Courtin saw, with an
eye of equanimity, a small marauder filling his pockets with them.
The farmer entered his own stable. In that stable he beheld a file of
fat and well-fed cows extending out of sight so far, so far, that the
one which was nearest the door seemed to be of the size of an
elephant, while the one in the farthest distance was no bigger than a
worm. Under each of these cows was a young girl milking. The first two
had the features of the "she-wolves," the daughters of the Marquis de
Souday. From the teats of the cows they were milking ran a white and
yellow liquid, brilliant as two metals in fusion. As it fell into the
copper pails of the two girls it produced that delightful sound which
is music to the ear,--the sound of gold and silver coins piling one
above the other.
As he looked into the pails the happy farmer saw that they were more
than half full of rare and precious coins of various effigies. He
stretched out his eager, grasping, quivering hands to seize these
treasures, and as he did so a violent shock accompanied by a cry of
agony put to flight his soft illusions.
Courtin opened his eyes and saw in the darkness a peasant-woman with
torn clothes and dishevelled hair stretching out her hands to him.
"What do you want?" cried Maître Courtin, assuming a gruff voice and
raising his stick in a threatening manner.
"Your help, my good man; I implore it in God's name!"
Finding that pity alone was asked for, and certain now that he had
only a woman to deal with, Maître Courtin, who at first had looked
about him in a terrified manner, was completely reassured.
"You are committing a misdemeanor, my dear," he said. "You have no
right to stop persons on the high-road and ask for alms!"
"Alms! who said anything about alms?" returned the woman, in a refined
and haughty tone of voice which arrested Courtin's attention. "I want
you to help in rescuing an unfortunate man who is dying of fatigue and
exposure! I want you to lend me your horse to take him to some
farmhouse in the neighborhood."
"Who is it I am to help?"
"You seem by your dress to belong to the country people. I shall
therefore not hesitate to tell you the truth, for I am sure, whatever
your political opinions may be, you will not betray us,--he is a
royalist officer."
The voice of the unknown woman excited Courtin's curiosity to the
utmost. He leaned from his saddle striving to see in the darkness the
face of her to whom the voice belonged; but he did not succeed in
doing so.
"Who are you, yourself?" he asked.
"What is that to you?"
"Do you expect me to lend my horse to persons I don't know?"
"I have made a mistake; your answer proves that I was wrong to treat
you as a friend or a generous enemy. I had better have employed
another means. Give me your horse at once!"
"Indeed!"
"You have two minutes for decision."
"And if I refuse?"
"I will blow your brains out!" said the woman, pointing a pistol at
Courtin and clicking the trigger to let him know the execution of the
threat would follow promptly.
"Ah, good! I recognize you now," said Courtin. "You are Mademoiselle
de Souday."
Then, without allowing his questioner time to say more, the mayor of
La Logerie got off his pony.
"Very good!" said Bertha, for it was she. "Now tell me your name, and
to-morrow the horse shall be sent home to you."
"No need, for I'll go with you and help you."
"You! why this sudden change?"
"Because I take it the person you want me to help is the owner of my
farm."
"His name?"
"Monsieur Michel de la Logerie."
"Ah! you are one of his tenants. Then we can go to your farmhouse for
concealment."
"But," stammered Courtin, who was far from comfortable at the thought
of meeting the young baron, especially when he reflected that if he
took him with Bertha under his roof Jean Oullier would be certain to
come there after them, "you see I am the mayor, and--"
"You are afraid of compromising yourself in serving your master!"
exclaimed Bertha, in a tone of the deepest contempt.
"Oh, no, not that! I'd give my blood for the young man; but we are to
have a garrison of soldiers in the château de la Logerie."
"So much the better; they will never suspect that Vendéans,
insurgents, would take refuge so near them."
"But I think, in the interest of Monsieur le baron, that Jean Oullier
could find you a safer retreat than my house, where the soldiers are
likely to be, morning, noon, and night."
"Alas! poor Jean Oullier is not likely to help any of his friends in
future."
"How so?"
"We heard this morning some brisk firing in the direction of the moor;
we did not stir from where we were, as he told us to wait till he
returned. But we waited, and waited, in vain! Jean Oullier is either
dead or a prisoner, for he is not one of those who desert their
friends."
If it had been daylight Courtin could not have concealed the joy this
news, which relieved him of his worst anxieties, caused him. But,
though he was not master of his countenance, he was of his words; and
he answered Bertha, who had spoken in an agitated voice full of
feeling, with a mournful ejaculation which rather reconciled her to
him.
"Let us walk faster," said Bertha.
"I'm willing. What a smell of burning there is here!"
"Yes, they set fire to the heath."
"Ah! How came Monsieur le baron to escape the fire? He is in the
direction of it."
"Jean Oullier put us among the reeds in the Fréneuse pond."
"Ah! that's why when I touched you just now I felt you were all wet?"
"Yes; as Jean Oullier did not return I crossed the pond to seek for
help. Finding no one, I took Baron Michel on my shoulders and brought
him ashore. I hoped to carry him to the nearest house, but I have not
the strength. I have been obliged to leave him among the bushes
and come to the high-road myself. We have had nothing to eat for
twenty-four hours."
"Ha! you're a stalwart girl!" cried Courtin, who, in the uncertainty
he felt as to how his young master might receive him, was not sorry to
conciliate Mademoiselle Bertha's good-will. "You are just the helpmate
Monsieur le baron needs in these stirring times."
"It is my duty to give my life for him," said Bertha.
"Yes," said Courtin, emphatically; "and that duty no one, I swear to
God, understands as you do. But be calm and don't walk so fast!"
"But he suffers! he may be calling for me--if he comes out of his
swoon."
"Did he swoon?" cried Courtin, eagerly, seeing in that small detail
the chance of escaping an immediate explanation.
"Yes, poor fellow! he is badly wounded, too."
"Good God!"
"Just think! for twenty-four hours, in his state, he has had no proper
care! for my help has been powerless, I may say."
"Good heavens!"
"And think, too! he has been all day in the burning sun in the middle
of the reeds; and to-night, in spite of my precautions, the fog has
wet him through and through, and he has had a chill.
"Good Lord!"
"Ah! if evil happens to him I'll expiate my fault in penance all my
life for having urged him into dangers for which he was unfit!" cried
Bertha, whose political sentiments vanished before the loving anguish
Michel's sufferings caused her.
As for Courtin, Bertha's assurance that Michel was not in a state to
talk to him seemed to double the length of his legs. The girl no
longer needed to hasten him on; he walked at his top speed, with a
vigor he seldom showed, pulling the pony after him by the bridle, the
beast being recalcitrant over the rough and heated road.
Believed for ever and aye of Jean Oullier, Courtin believed it would
be easy to excuse himself to his young master,--in fact, that the
matter would settle itself.
They soon reached the spot where the girl had left Michel. He, with
his back against a stone, his head dropped on his breast, was, if not
actually unconscious, in such a state of utter prostration that he had
only a dim and confused sense of what was passing about him. He paid
no heed to Courtin; and when the latter, with Bertha's help, hoisted
him on the pony, he pressed Courtin's hand, as he did that of Bertha,
without knowing what he was about.
Courtin and Bertha walked on either side of the pony to support
Michel, who, without their help, would have fallen to left or right.
They reached the farmhouse. Courtin woke up his servant-woman, on whom
he knew he could rely, took his own mattress (the only one the house
afforded) into a sort of lean-to above his bedroom, where he installed
his young master with such zeal, self-devotion, and eager
protestations that Bertha ended by regretting the opinion she had
formed of him on the high-road.
When Michel's wound was dressed, and he was safely in the bed
improvised for him, Bertha went to the servant's room to seek her
rest.
Left alone, Maître Courtin rubbed his hands; he had done a good
night's work. Violent behavior had not answered hitherto; gentleness,
he was sure, was more likely to succeed. He had done better than enter
the enemy's camp--he had brought the enemy's camp into his own house,
which gave him every likelihood of detecting the secrets of the
Whites, especially those concerning Petit-Pierre.
He went over in his brain all the injunctions given to him by the
mysterious man at Aigrefeuille; the most important of which was to
send him immediate information if he contrived to discover the retreat
of the heroine of La Vendée, and not to communicate any facts to the
generals,--men who cared nothing for the art of diplomacy, and were
altogether below the level of great political machinations.
Courtin now thought it possible, through Michel and Bertha, to
discover Madame's retreat; he began to believe that dreams were not
always lies, and that, thanks to the two young people, the wells of
gold and silver and precious stones, the streams of metallic milk,
would become to him a reality.