A STRANGER OF INFLUENCE TURNS UP.
Out I set at once, taking my book with me, to read on the way; and so
interesting did I find the adventures of “Emile,” that I found myself
near my friend’s house actually without being aware of it.
In the distance I could see M. Jean Baptiste superintending some
postilions, who were putting fresh horses to a carriage. He was
standing on the threshold of his door.
Running up in a state of great excitement, I cried out, “Monsieur
Jean Baptiste, it’s I!”
“Well,” he said, laughing; “I am quite aware of the fact. What do you
want, my boy?”
“What do I want? Oh, I want to thank you, and to tell you that I will
never be a keeper. The only calling worth following is that of a
carpenter, and I mean to be one, Monsieur Drouet.”
The carriage went off.
“So you have been reading ‘Emile?’” he asked, taking me inside.
“Yes; up to here.” And I showed him page 160 of the work.
“Bravo!” said Monsieur Drouet. “But it is not enough to read; you
must also understand.”
“Of course, M. Jean Baptiste,” said I. “There are many things that I
cannot understand, but I always look to you for an explanation.”
“So you are come expressly for that?”
“No, M. Jean Baptiste. Not expressly for that, but to thank you for
your kindness. After my father, who gave me life—after my aunt and my
uncle, who have fed me, I owe more to you than to any other person in
the world; for has not Rousseau himself said that every man is born
twice—first, physically, then intellectually? And it is you who have
successfully brought me through this second birth.”
I must pass over that afternoon of familiar intercourse with my
mentor and my friend. Suffice it to say, that my new-born resolutions
were strengthened, my eyes still more widely opened to my own wants
and requirements; and when I set out on my return, I felt that,
indeed, a path had been tracked for me across the yet untrodden
wilderness of life.
There are few landscapes so pretty in the middle of France as that
which presents itself to the eye on arriving at the Forest of Argonne.
This struck me as it had never done before, and I paused
involuntarily to gaze at the scene.
At this moment two travellers came towards me, followed by a carriage
slowly toiling up the ascent.
One of these strangers particularly attracted my attention. He might
be about fifty years of age, of no great stature, but wiry and
strongly built. He had a noble head, and his weather-beaten face was
lit by the glance of an eagle. Had not the scar of a sabre wound
sufficiently indicated his profession, I could have told he was a
soldier from the unmistakable way in which he wore his civilian’s
suit.
His companion, younger and stouter, was likewise a soldier; but
evidently not of the same standing.
These two men halted a moment near me, less to look at the landscape
than to continue an animated conversation, in which the elder
sustained the principal part.
“Yes, my dear Thévenot,” he said; “I will never give in on this
point. If ever France is invaded by Montmedy and Verdun, it is here
that we must meet the enemy; with 20,000 soldiers I’ll engage to
stop a foe 80,000 strong. The Forest of Argonne is the Thermopylæ of
France.”
“That is to say. General,” replied the other, who looked like his
aide-de-camp, “if the two or three roads through the forest could
be defended as easily as this one; for it is quite evident that
a couple of batteries with six guns each would make this defile
impracticable.”
“There are only two roads,” returned the General; “the one we are now
pursuing, leading to Islettes; and the other, the Grand Prés road.
Both these routes conjoin at Verdun.”
“I thought there was a third—namely, the Chéne-Populeux road.”
“I don’t think that road leads through the forest at all; but I will
ask our driver.”
The General did so.
The bumpkin only shook his head.
“I only know,” he said, “the road I’m accustomed to travel, and
that’s not it. Beyond that, I can’t tell you anything; but,” he
added, nodding towards me, “if you want to know all about this
part of the country, why, there’s the nephew of Father Descharmes,
who knows it all blindfold. Hilloa, boy! come and speak to these
gentlemen!”
I approached, cap in hand, for the look of the elder traveller
inspired me with respect.
“Friend,” said the General, seeing that I waited till he spoke to me;
“we want to know where the Chéne-Populeux road leads from, and if it
takes you through the forest, or round by the outskirts?”
“It leads from Stenay, monsieur, takes round by the forest, and opens
upon Voneg, at the River Aisne.”
“Ah, now we have it, Thévenot; but as, so far as I can remember, the
Chéne-Populeux road is only a narrow defile, I still hold my original
opinion.”
“Will you get in now, gentlemen?” asked the postilion. “My horses are
well breathed by this time.”
“Thank you, my young friend,” said the General, waving his hand
towards me. But just as he had his foot on the step the distant sound
of an alarm-bell, violently rung, came through the stillness.
“What is that?” cried the General.
“A fire at the village of Islettes,” said I. “Look! you can see the
smoke above the trees!”
And, without any further speculation, off I ran towards the village.
The General called after me, but I did not stop to listen.
However, before I had gone a hundred yards, the carriage rattled past
me at a gallop. The General, evidently moved by a humane motive, was
hastening, like myself, towards the scene of the catastrophe, where I
soon arrived.
All the village was astir, and I found the General and his companion
had taken command of the rustics, just as they would of an army on
the field of battle.
The fire had broken out in the workshop of a cart-wright. The fiery
element had attacked an adjacent shed full of wood, and threatened to
reduce the neighboring house to ashes.
Now, at Islettes, fire-engines were unknown, and I need scarcely say
that handing along little buckets of water from the river was by no
means an effectual remedy.
“We must cut off the fire!” shouted the General.
“But how?” returned the peasants.
“I want somebody,” cried the General, “who will get up upon the roof
of that shed, and cut away the principal support. The post will fall,
and carry the roof with it.”
“Oh, yes!” said a voice; “and the somebody in question will go down
with the roof!”
“Very likely!” acquiesced the General, calmly; “but the fire will be
smothered, and the rest of the village saved.”
At that moment, a certain passage from “Emile” flashed across my mind.
“Give me an axe!” I cried. As I spoke, I saw one leaning against a
house near which I was standing.
I laid down my “Emile” and a dictionary which M. Jean Baptiste had
given me; seized the axe, and rushed into the house adjacent to
the shed. Already its inmates were carrying out all their little
property, expecting every instant that their cottage would be in
flames.
Up the little wooden stairs I rushed, and scrambled out on the roof
through a sort of trap-door.
It was my first experience upon roofs; but as I had been accustomed
to climbing trees up to any height, a promenade on the thatch was
only child’s play.
Below, all was hushed in anxiety. I could only hear the peculiar
billow-like sounds of the flames, and the fall of the burning
fragments as they gave way under the fire.
Presently I found myself in a dense atmosphere of smoke and sparks.
I was nearly stifled; but I knew that all eyes and hearts were fixed
upon me, and that gave me strength to succeed or to die, as it might
be.
Supporting myself by the chimney, I commenced to cut away a hole
round about the roof-tree.
I was strong of my age, and could wield with dexterity the axe—that
instrument of my adopted calling; but though at every blow the
upright beam trembled—on the other hand, the advancing flame seemed
to increase in volume.
There was, in a word, a battle between me and the flame, and I felt
proud to have an element for my foe. All at once, the gable-end
fell in with a terrible crash; the other supports of the roof being
weakened by my blows, gave way, and the roof itself fell, smothering,
beneath the raging flames. I flung the axe away from me, and held on
like grim death to my chimney. A whirlwind of smoke and fire blotted
me from the crowd below, and, half suffocated as I was, I could still
hear and understand their murmur of pain and anxiety.
The crisis was over. With one last effort I struggled to my
trap-door, and in another moment—I know not how—found myself safe and
sound in the open air.
Friendly arms embraced me, and looking up, I saw it was the General,
who held in one hand my precious books. “My boy,” he said, “you are
brave, and you read Rousseau: therefore I do not offer you a reward.
But you will be a true man, and I embrace you.”
And again he pressed me in his arms.
By this time, my uncle, and, indeed, all the village, were at my
side; and whilst I was receiving their congratulations, the General
and his friend had departed. No one knew who they were.
This was an important day in my life; for I had learnt to
understand what was conveyed in that most beautiful of all human
words—self-devotion.