TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Every effort has been made to replicate this text asfaithfully as possible; please see detailed list of printing issues at theend of the text. 

A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS

By F. BERKELEY SMITH

Author of "The Lady of Big Shanty. "

 A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY PUBLISHED MAY, 1910

 COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1910, BY SMITH PUBLISHING HOUSE

 * * * * *

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I. The House by the Marsh 3

 II. Monsieur le Curé 35

 III. The Exquisite Madame de Bréville 63

 IV. The Smugglers 91

 V. Marianne 120

 VI. The Baron's Perfectos 151

 VII. The Horrors of War 186

 VIII. The Million of Monsieur de Savignac 213

 IX. The Man with the Gun 245

 X. The Bells of Pont du Sable 274

 XI. The Miser--Garron 308

 XII. Midwinter Flights 339

 * * * * *

A VILLAGE OF VAGABONDS

 [Illustration: house by the marsh]

A Village of Vagabonds

CHAPTER ONE

THE HOUSE BY THE MARSH

It was in fat Madame Fontaine's little café at Bar la Rose, that Normanvillage by the sea, that I announced my decision. It being market-daythe café was noisy with peasants, and the crooked street without jammedwith carts. Monsieur Torin, the butcher, opposite me, leaned backheavily from his glass of applejack and roared. 

Monsieur Pompanet, the blacksmith, at my elbow, put down his cup ofblack coffee delicately in its clean saucer and opened his honest grayeyes wide in amazement. Simultaneously Monsieur Jaclin, the mayor, inhis freshly ironed blouse, who for want of room was squeezed next toTorin, choked out a wheezy "_Bon Dieu!_" and blew his nose in derision. 

"Pont du Sable--_Bon Dieu!_" exclaimed all three. "Pont du Sable--_BonDieu!_"

"_Cristi!_" thundered Torin. "You say you are going to _live_ in Pont duSable? _Hélas!_ It is not possible, my friend, you are in earnest!"

"That lost hole of a village of _sacré_ vagabonds, " echoed Pompanet. "Why, the mud when the tide is out smells like the devil. It isunhealthy. "

"Père Bordier and I went there for ducks twenty years ago, " added themayor. "We were glad enough to get away before dark. B-r-r! It waslonely enough, that marsh, and that dirty little fishing-village nolonger than your arm. Bah! It's a hole, just as Pompanet says. "

Torin leaned across the table and laid a heavy hand humanely on myshoulder. 

"Take my advice, " said he, "don't give up that snug farm of yours herefor a lost hole like Pont du Sable. "

"But the sea-shooting is open there three hundred and sixty-five days inthe year, " I protested, with enthusiasm. "I'm tired of tramping my legsoff here for a few partridges a season. Besides, what I've been lookingfor I've found--a fine old abandoned house with a splendid old courtyardand a wild garden. I had the good luck to climb over a wall and discoverit. "

"I know the place you mean, " interrupted the mayor. "It was apost-tavern in the old days before the railroad ran there. "

"And later belonged to the estate of the Marquis de Lys, " I addedproudly. "Now it belongs to me. "

"What! You've bought it!" exclaimed Torin, half closing his veal-likeeyes. 

"Yes, " I confessed, "signed, sealed, and paid for. "

"And what the devil do you intend to do with that old stone pile nowthat you've got it?" sneered Jaclin. "Ah! You artists are queerfellows!"

"Live in it, messieurs, " I returned as happily as I could, as I droppedsix sous for my glass into Madame Fontaine's open palm, and took myleave, for under the torrent of their protest I was beginning to feel Ihad been a fool to be carried away by my love of a gun and thepicturesque. 

The marsh at Pont du Sable was an old friend of mine. So were the desertbeach beyond the dunes, and the lost fishing-village--"no longer thanyour arm. " I had tramped in wind and rain and the good sunlight overthat great desert of pasty black clay at low tide. I had lain at hightide in a sand-pit at the edge of the open sea beyond the dunes, waitingfor chance shots at curlew and snipe. I had known the bay at the firstglimmer of dawn with a flight of silver plovers wheeling for a rush overmy decoys. Dawn--the lazy, sparkling noon and the golden hours beforethe crisp, still twilight warned me it was high time to start back toBar la Rose fourteen kilometres distant. All these had become enchantingmemories. 

Thus going to Pont du Sable for a day's shooting became a weeklydelight, then a biweekly fascination, then an incorrigible triweeklyhabit. There was no alternative left me now but to live there. Thecharm of that wild bay and its lost village had gotten under my skin. And thus it happened that I deserted my farm and friends at Bar la Rose, and with my goods and chattels boarded the toy train one spring morning, bound for my abandoned house, away from sufficient-unto-itself Bar laRose and its pigheaded inhabitants, the butcher, the blacksmith, and themayor. 

 * * * * *

It is such a funny little train that runs to my new-found Paradise, rocking and puffing and grumbling along on its narrow-gauge track withits cars labelled like grown-up ones, first, second, and third class;and no two painted the same colour; and its noisy, squat engine like thereal ones in the toy-stores, that wind up with a key and go rushing offfrantically in tangents. No wonder the train to my lost village iscalled "_Le petit déraillard_"--"The little get-off-the-track. " And so Isay, it might all have come packed in excelsior in a neat box, complete, with instructions, for the sum of four francs sixty-five centimes, hadit not been otherwise destined to run twice daily, rain or shine, toPont du Sable, and beyond. 

Poor little train! It is never on time, but it does its best. It is atleast far more prompt than its passengers, for most of them come runningafter it out of breath. 

"Hurry up, mademoiselle!" cries the engineer to a rosy-cheeked girl insabots, rushing with a market-basket under one arm and a live gooseunder the other. "Eh, my little lady, you should have gotten out of bedearlier!" laughs the conductor as he pulls her aboard. 

"Toot! Toot!" And off goes the little get-off-the-track again, rockingand rumbling along past desert stretches of sand dunes screening theblue sea; past modern villas, isolated horrors in brick, pink, and babyblue, carefully planted away from the trees. Then suddenly the desert isleft behind! Past the greenest of fields now, dotted with sleek, grazingcattle; past groves of pine; past snug Norman farms with low-thatchedroofs half-smothered in yellow roses. Again the dunes, as the toy trainswings nearer the sea. They are no longer desert wastes of sand andwire-grass, but covered now with a riot of growing things, running inone rich congested sweep of orchards, pastures, feathery woodlands andmatted hedges down to the very edge of the blue sea. 

A sudden turn, and the toy train creeps out of a grove of pines to theopen bay. It is high tide. A flight of plover, startled by the engine, go wheeling away in a silver streak to a spit of sand running out fromthe marsh. A puff of smoke from the sand-spit, and the band leaves twoof its members to a gentleman in new leather leggings; then, whistlingover the calamity that has befallen them, they wheel again and strikefor the open sea and safety. 

Far across the expanse of rippling turquoise water stands a whitelighthouse that at dusk is set with a yellow diamond. Snug at the lowerend of the bay, a long mile from where the plovers rise, lies the lostvillage. Now the toy train is crawling through its crooked singlestreet, the engine-bell ringing furiously that stray dogs and children, and a panicky flock of sheep may have time to get out of the way. Thesheep are in charge of a rough little dog with a cast in one eye and aslim, barelegged girl who apologizes a dozen times to monsieur theengineer between her cries to her flock. 

"They are not very well brought up, my little one--those sacred muttonof yours, " remarks the engineer as he comes to a dead stop, jumps out ofhis cab, and helps straighten out the tangle. 

"Ah, monsieur!" sighs the girl in despair. "What will you have? It isthe little black one that is always to blame!"

The busy dog crowds them steadily into line. He seems to be everywhereat once, darting from right to left, now rounding up a stubborn ewe andher first-born, now cornering the black one. 

"Toot! Toot!" And the little get-off-the-track goes rumbling on throughthe village, past the homes of the fishermen--a straggling line of lowstone houses with quaint gabled roofs, and still quainter chimneys, andold doorways giving glimpses of dark interiors and dirt floors. Past themodest houses of the mayor, the baker, the butcher and Monsieur leCuré; then through the small public square, in which nothing everhappens, and up to a box of a station. 

"Pont du Sable!" cries the conductor, with as much importance as if hehad announced Paris. 

I have arrived. 

 * * * * *

There was no doubt about my new-found home being abandoned! The lowstone wall that tempered the wind from courtyard and garden was greenwith lichens. The wide stone gateway, with its oaken doors barred withinby massive cross-hooks that could have withstood a siege; the courtyard, flanked by the house and its rambling appendages that contained withintheir cavernous interiors the cider-press and cellars; the stable withits long stone manger, and next it the carved wooden bunk for the groomof two centuries ago; the stone pig-sty; the tile-roofed sheds--all hadabout them the charm of dignified decay. 

But the "château" itself!

Generations of spiders had veiled every nook and corner within, and thenooks and corners were many. These cobwebs hung in ghostly festoons fromthe low-beamed ceiling of the living room, opening out upon the wildgarden. They continued up the narrow stone stairway leading to theold-fashioned stone-paved bedrooms; they had been spun in a labyrinthall over the generous, spooky, old stone-paved attic, whose single eyeof a window looked out over the quaint gables and undulating tiled roofsof adjoining attics, whose dark interiors were still pungent with thetons of apples they had once sheltered. Beyond my rambling roofs wererich orchards and noble trees and two cool winding lanes running up tothe green country beyond. 

Ten days of strenuous settling passed, at the end of which my abandonedhouse was resuscitated, as it were. Without Suzette, my littlemaid-of-all-work, it would have been impossible. I may say we attackedthis seemingly superhuman task together--and Suzette is so human. Shehas that frantic courage of youth, and a smile that is irresistible. 

"To-morrow monsieur shall see, " she said. "My kitchen is clean--that issomething, eh? And the beds are up, and the armoires, and nearly all ofmonsieur's old studio furniture in place. _Eh, ben!_ To-morrow nightshall see most of the sketches hung and the rugs beaten--that is againsomething, eh? Then there will be only the brass and the andirons andthe guns to clean. "

Ten days of strenuous attack, sometimes in the rain, and when I hammermy fingers in the rain I swear horribly; the average French saw, too, would have placed Job in a sanitarium. Suzette's cheery smile is adelight, and how her sturdy, dimpled arms can scrub, and dust, and cook, and clean. When she is working at full steam she invariably sings; butwhen her soufflé does not soufflé she bursts into tears--this goodlittle peasant maid-of-all-work!

And so the abandoned house by the marsh was settled. Now there is charm, and crackling fires o' nights within, and sunny breakfasts in the gardenwithout--a garden that grew to be gay with flowers, and is still in anywind, thanks to my friend the lichen-stained wall over which clambervines and all manner of growing things; and sometimes my kitten with hersnow-white breast, whose innocent green eyes narrow to slits as shewatches for hours two little birds that are trying to bring up a smallfamily in the vines. I have told her plainly if she even touches them Iwill boil her in oil. "Do you hear, Miquette?" and she turns away andlicks her pink paw as if she had not heard--you essence of selfishnessthat I love!

Shall I tell you who is coming to dine to-night, Green-eyes? Ourneighbours! Madame Alice de Bréville who spoils you, and the Marquis deClamard who does not like pussy-cats, but is too well-bred to tell youso, and the marquise who flatters you, and Blondel! Don't struggle--youcannot get away, I've got you tight. You are not going to have your wayall the time. Look at me! Claws in and your ears up! There! And Tanrade, that big, whole-souled musician, with his snug old house and his two bigdogs, either one of which would make mince-meat of you should you havethe misfortune to mistake his garden for your own. Madame deBréville--do you hear?--who has but to half close her eyes to makeTanrade forget his name. He loves her madly, you see, pussy-kit!

Ah, yes! The lost village! In which the hours are never dull. Lostvillage! With these Parisian neighbours, whose day of discoveryantedated mine by several years. Lost village! In which there are jollyfishermen and fishergirls as pretty as some gipsies--slim and fearless, a genial old mayor, an optimistic blacksmith, and a butcher who is aseigneur; gentle old women in white caps, blue-eyed children, kind dogs, fresh air, and _life_!

There is a mysterious fascination about that half-hour before the firstglimmer of dawn. The leaves, this September morning, are shivering inthe dusk of my garden; the house is as silent as my sleeping cat savefor the resonant tick-tock, tick-tock, of the tall Norman clock in thekitchen, to which I tiptoe down and breakfast by candle-light. 

You should see the Essence of Selfishness then as she purrs around asimmering saucepan of milk destined for my coffee, and inspects thetoast and jam, and sniffs at my breech-loader, well greased withneatsfoot-oil, and now the ghostly light in the courtyard tells me tohurry out on the bay. 

Low tide. Far out on the desert of black clay a colony of gulls havespent the night. Their quarrelsome jargon reaches me as I cautiouslyraise my head over the dunes, for often a band of plover is feeding atdawn out on the mud, close enough for a shot. Nothing in view save thegulls, those gossiping concierges of the bay, who rise like a squall ofsnow as I make a clean breast of my presence, and start across thesoggy, slippery mud toward the marsh running out to the open sea. Acurlew, motionless on his long legs, calls cheerfully from the point ofsand: "Curli--Curli!" Strong, cheerful old bird. The rifts of white mistare lifting from the bay, thinned into rose vapour now, as the suncreeps above the green hillsides. 

Swish! Three silver plovers flash back of me--a clean miss. If we nevermissed we should never love a gun. It is time now to stalk the bottomsof the narrow, winding causeways that drain the bay. Their beds at lowtide are full of dead mussels, dormant clams, and awkward sputteringcrabs; the old ones sidling away from you with threatening claws wideopen for combat; the young ones standing their ground bravely, inignorance. 

Swish again! But this time I manage to kill them both--two fat goldenplovers. The Essence of Selfishness shall have her fill at noon, and thepupils of her green eyes will contract in ecstasy as she crunches andgnaws. 

Now all the bay is alive. Moreover, the sea is sweeping in, filling thebay like a bath-tub, obliterating the causeways under millions ofdancing ripples of turquoise. Soon my decoys are out, and I am sunk in asand-pit at the edge of the sea. The wind holds strong from thenortheast, and I am kept busy until my gun-barrels are too hot to bepleasant. All these things happen between dawn and a late breakfast inmy garden. 

Suzette sang all day. It is always so with Suzette upon the days whenthe abandoned house is giving a dinner. The truth is, Suzette loves tocook; her pride and her happiness increase as the hour appointed for myguests to arrive approaches. With Suzette it is a delightful event. 

The cracked jingle-bell over my stone gateway had jingled incessantlysince early morning, summoning this good little Norman maid-of-all-workto slip her trim feet into her sabots and rush across the court to openthe small door piercing my wall beside the big gates. Twice for beggars, once for the grocer's boy, three times for the baker--who had, afterall, forgotten the _brioche_; again for the baker's boy, who invariablyforgets if he thinks there is another chance in his forgetting, ofpaying a forgotten compliment to Suzette. I heard his mother scoldinghim yesterday. His bread, which he kneads and bakes himself before dawn, is losing its lightness. There is little harmony between rising yeastand a failing heart. Again the bell jingles; this time it is the MèreMarianne, with a basket of quivering, iridescent mackerel just in fromthe night's fishing. 

Mère Marianne, who once was a village belle, is now thirty-three yearsof age, strong as a man, fair-haired, hatless, bronzed by the sun, salt-tanned, blue-eyed, a good mother to seven fair-haired, blue-eyedchildren; yet a hard, amiable drinker in her leisure hours after a goodcatch. 

"_Bonjour_, my all beautiful!" she greets Suzette as the door opens. 

"_Bonjour_, madame!" returns Suzette, her cheeks flushed from herkitchen fire. 

The word "madame" seems out of place, for Mère Marianne wears her man'sshort tarpaulin coat cinched about her waist with a thin tarred rope. Her sinewy legs, bare to the knees, are tightly incased in a pair ofsea-soaked trousers. 

"So monsieur is having his friends to dinner, " she rattles ongarrulously, swinging her basket to the ground and kneeling before it. "I heard it as I came up the road from Blancheville's girl, who had itfrom the Mère Taurville. _Eh ben!_ What do you think of these?" she addsin the same breath, as she turns up two handsful of live mackerel. "Sixsous apiece to you, my pretty one. You see I came to you first; I'mgiving them to you as cheap as if you were my own daughter. "

"Come, be quick, " returns Suzette. "I have my lobster to boil and myroast to get ready; four sous if you like, but not a sou more. "

"Four sous! _Bon Dieu!_ I would rather eat them myself. They only lackspeech to tell you themselves how fresh they are. Look at them!"

"Four sous, " insists Suzette. "Do you think monsieur is rich enough tobuy the _république_. "

"_Allez!_ Then, take them at four sous. " And Mère Marianne laughs, slipsthe money into her trousers pocket, and goes off to another bargain inthe village, where, if she gets two sous for her mackerel she will belucky. 

At six Suzette lifts the Burgundy tenderly from its resting-place in acloset beneath the winding stone stairs--a stone closet, low, sinister, and dark, that suggests the solitary dungeons of feudal times. Threecobwebbed bottles of Burgundy are now carefully ranged before thecrackling blaze in the living room. At six-thirty Suzette lays thegenerous dark-oak table in lace and silver, thin glasses, red-shadedcandles, and roses--plenty of roses from the garden. Her kitchen by thistime is no longer open to visitors. It has become a sacred place, teeming with responsibility--a laboratory of resplendent shining coppersauce-pans, pots and casseroles, in which good things steam and stew andbubble under lids of burnished gold, which, when lifted, give one arousing appetite. 

 * * * * *

I knew Tanrade's ring--vigorous and hearty, like himself. You wouldnever guess this sturdy, broad-shouldered man has created deliciousmusic--fairy ballets, pantomimes, and operettas. All Paris has applaudedhim for years, and his country has rewarded him with a narrow redribbon. Rough-bearded, bronzed like a sailor, his brown eyes gleam withkindness and intelligence. The more I know this modest great man themore I like him, and I have known him in all kinds of wind and weather, for Tanrade is an indefatigable hunter. He and I have spent nightstogether in his duck-blind--a submerged hut, a murderous deceit sunk farout on the marsh--cold nights; soft moonlight nights--the marsh a mysticfairy-land; black nights---mean nights of thrashing rain. Nights thatpaled to dawn with no luck to bring back to Suzette's larder. Sunnymornings after lucky nights, when Tanrade and I would thaw out over ourcoffee in the garden among the roses. 

Tanrade had arrived early, a habit with this genial gourmand when theabandoned house is giving a dinner, for he likes to supervise the finaltouches. He was looking critically over the three cobwebbed bottles ofhis favourite Burgundy now warming before my fire, and having tenderlylifted the last bottle in the row to a place which he considered a safertemperature, he straightened and squared his broad shoulders to theblaze. 

"I'll send you half a dozen more bottles to-morrow, " he said. 

"No, you won't, my old one, " I protested, but he raised his hand andsmiled. 

"The better the wine the merrier shall be the giver. Eighteen bottlesleft! _Eh bien!_ It was a lucky day when that monastery was forced todisband, " he chuckled, alluding to the recent separation of the churchfrom the state. "_Vive la République!_" He crossed the room to thesideboard and, having assured himself the Camembert was of the rightage, went singing into Suzette's kitchen to glance at the salad. 

"Bravo, my little one, for your romaine!" I heard him exclaim. 

Then a moment's silence ensued, while he tasted the dressing. "_Sacristi!_ My child, do you think we are rabbits. _Hélas!_ Not a bitof astragon in your seasoning! A thousand thunders! A salad is not asalad without astragon. Come, be quick, the lantern! I know where thebed is in the garden. "

"Ah, monsieur Tanrade! To think I should have forgotten it!" sighed thelittle maid. "If monsieur will only let me hold the lantern for him!"

"There, there! Never mind! See, you are forgiven. Attend to yourlobster. Quick, your soup is boiling over!" And he went out into thegarden in search of the seasoning. 

Suzette adores him--who does not in the lost village? He had rewardedher with a two-franc piece and forgiven her with a kiss. 

I had hardly time to open the big gates without and light the candleswithin under their red shades glowing over the mass of roses still wetfrom the garden, before I heard the devilish wail of a siren beyond thewall; then a sudden flash of white light from two search-lightsillumined the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice deBréville's automobile whined up to my door. The next instant the tip ofa little patent-leather slipper, followed by the trimmest of silkenankles framed in a frou-frou of creamy lace, felt for the steel step ofthe limousine. At the same moment a small white-gloved hand wasoutstretched to mine for support. 

"_Bonsoir_, dear friend, " she greeted me in her delicious voice. "Yousee how punctual I am. _L'heure militaire_--like you Americans. " Andshe laughed outright, disclosing two exquisite rows of pearls, her soft, dark eyes half closing mischievously as she entered my door--eyes asblack as her hair, which she wore in a bandeau. The tonneau growled toits improvised garage under the wood-shed. 

She was standing now in the hall at the foot of the narrow stone stairs, and as I slipped the long opera-cloak of dove-gray from her shoulders aswhite as ivory, she glided out of it, and into the living room--a roomwhich serves as gun room, dining room and salon. 

"Stand where you are, " I said, as madame approached the fire. "What aportrait!"

She stopped, the dancing light from the flames playing over her lithe, exquisite figure, moulded in a gown of scintillating scales of blackjet. Then, seeing I had finished my mental note of line and composition, she half turned her pretty head and caught sight of the ruby, cobwebbedrow of old Burgundy. 

"Ah! Tanrade's Burgundy!" she exclaimed with a little cry of delight. 

"How did you guess?"

"Guess! One does not have to guess when one sees as good Burgundy asthat. You see I know it. " She stretched forth her firm white arms to theblaze. 

"Where is he, that good-for-nothing fellow?" she asked. 

"In the garden after some astragon for the salad. "

She tripped to the half-open door leading to the tangled maze of paths. 

"Tanrade! Tanrade! _Bonsoir, ami!_" she called. 

"_Bonsoir_, Madame Punctual, " echoed his great voice from the end of thegarden, and again he broke forth in song as he came hurrying back to thehouse with his lantern and his bunch of seasoning. Following at hisheels trotted the Essence of Selfishness. 

"Oh, you beauty!" cried Alice. She nodded mischievously to Tanrade, whorushed to the piano, and before the Essence of Selfishness had time toelude her she was picked up bodily, held by her fore paws and forced todance upon her hind legs, her sleek head turned aside in hate, hervelvety ears flattened to her skull. 

"Dance! Dance!" laughed Alice. "One--two, one--two! _Voilà!_" The nextinstant Miquette was caught up and hugged to a soft neck encircled withjewels. "There, go! Do what you like, Mademoiselle Independent!"

And as Miquette regained her liberty upon her four paws, the Marquis andMarquise de Clamard announced their arrival by tapping on the window, sothat for the moment the cozy room was deserted save by Miquette, whoprofited during the interval by stealing a whole sardine from thehors-d'oeuvres. 

Another good fellow is the marquis--tall, with the air of a diplomat, the simplicity of a child, and the manners of a prince. Another goodfriend, too, is the marquise. They had come on foot, these near-byneighbours, with their lantern. Was there ever such a marquise? Thisonce famous actress, who interpreted the comedies of Molière. Was thereever a more charming grandmother? Ah! You do not look it even now withyour gray hair, for you are ever young and witty and gracious. Sheclapped her hands as she peered across the dinner-table to the rowbefore the chimney. 

"My Burgundy, I see!" she exclaimed, to my surprise; Tanrade was gazingintently at a sketch. "Oh, you shall see, " added the marquise seriously. "You are not the only one, my friend, the gods have blessed. Did you notsend me a dozen bottles this morning, Monsieur Tanrade? Come, confess!"

He turned and shrugged his shoulders. 

"Impossible! I cannot remember. I am so absent-minded, madame, " and hebent and kissed her hand. 

"Where's Blondel?" cried Clamard, as he extracted a thin cigarette-casefrom his waistcoat. 

"He'll be here presently, " I explained. 

"It's a long drive for him, " added the marquise, a ring of sympathy inher voice. "Poor boy, he is working so hard now that he is editor of _LaRevue Normande_. Ah, those wretched politics!"

"He doesn't mind it, " broke in Tanrade, "he has a skin like abear--driving night and day all over the country as he does. Whatenergy, _mon Dieu_!"

"Oh!" cried Madame de Bréville, "Blondel shall sing for us 'L'Histoirede Madame X. ' You shall cry with laughter. "

"And 'Le Brigadier de Tours, '" added Tanrade. 

The sound of hoofs and the rattle of a dog-cart beyond the wall sent ushurrying to the courtyard. 

"_Eh, voilà!_" shouted Tanrade. "There he is, that good Blondel!"

"Suzette!" I cried as I passed the kitchen. "The vermouth!"

"_Bien_, monsieur. "

"Eh, Blondel, there is nothing to eat, you late vagabond!"

A black mare steaming from her hot pace of twelve miles, drawing ared-wheeled dog-cart, entered the courtyard. 

"A thousand pardons, " came a voice out of a bearskin coat, "my editorialhad to go to press early, or I should have been here half an hour ago. "

Then such a greeting and a general rush to unharness the tired mare, themarquis tugging at one trace and I at the other, while Tanrade backedthe cart under the shed next to the cider-press, Alice de Bréville andthe marquise holding the mare's head. All this, despite the pleadings ofBlondel, who has a horror of giving trouble--the only man servant to theabandoned house being Pierre, who was occupied at that hour inpatrolling the coast in the employ of the French République, looking outfor possible smugglers, and in whose spare hours served me as gardener. And so the mare was led into the stable with its stone manger, whereevery one helped with halter, blanket, a warm bed, and a good supper;Alice de Bréville holding the lantern while the marquise bound on themare's blanket with a girdle of straw. 

"Monsieur, dinner is served, " announced Suzette gently as she enteredthe stable. 

"Vive Suzette!" shouted the company. "_Allons manger, mes enfants!_"

They found their places at the table by themselves. In the abandonedhouse there is neither host nor formality, but in their steadcomradeship, understanding, and good cheer. 

Blondel is delightful. You can always count on him for the currentevents with the soup, the latest scandal with the roast, and a song ofhis own making with the cheese. What more can one ask? It all rolls fromhim as easily as the ink from his clever pen; it is as natural with himas his smile or the merriment in his eyes. 

During the entire dinner the Essence of Selfishness was busy visitingfrom one friendly lap to another, frequently crossing the table to doso, and as she refuses to dine from a saucer, though it be of the finestporcelain of Rouen, she was fed piecemeal. It was easily seen Tanradewas envious of this charity from one shapely little hand. 

What a contrast are these dinners in the lost village to some I haveknown elsewhere! What refreshing vivacity! How genuine and merry theyare from the arrival of the first guest to the going of the last! Whenat last the coffee and liqueurs were reached and six thin spirals ofblue smoke were curling lazily up among the rafters of the low ceiling, the small upright piano talked under Tanrade's vibrant touch. He sangheartily whatever came into his head; now a quaint peasant song, againthe latest success of the café concert. 

Alice de Bréville, stretched out in the long chair before the fire, waslistening intently. 

And so with song and story the hands of the tall clock slipped by thehours. It was midnight before we knew it. Again Tanrade played--thistime it was the second act of his new operetta. When he had finished hetook his seat beside the woman in the long chair. 

"Bravo!" she murmured in his ear. Then she listened as he talked to herearnestly. 

"Good!" I overheard her say to him with conviction, her eyes gleaming. "And you are satisfied at last with the second act?"

"Yes, after a month's struggle with it. "

"Ah, I am so glad--so glad!" she sighed, and pressed his hand. 

"I must go to Paris next week for the rehearsals. "

"For long?" she asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "For weeks, perhaps. Come, " hesaid, "let us go out to the wall--the moon is up. The marsh is sobeautiful in the moonlight. "

She rose, slipped on the dove-gray cloak he brought her, and togetherthey disappeared in the courtyard. The marquise raised her eyes to mineand smiled. 

"_Bonne promenade_, dear children, " she called after them, but they didnot hear. 

An hour later Alice de Bréville was speeding back to her château;Blondel and his mare were also clattering homeward, for he had still anarticle to finish before daylight. I had just bid the marquis and themarquise good night when Tanrade, who was about to follow, suddenlyturned and called me aside in the shadow of the gateway. What he said tome made my heart leap. His eyes were shining with a strange light; hishands, gripping me by both shoulders, trembled. 

"It is true, " he repeated. "Don't tell me I am dreaming, old friend. Yes, it is true. Alice--yes, it is Alice. Come, a glass of wine! I feelfaint--and happy!"

We went back to the dying fire, and I believe he heard all mycongratulations, though I am not sure. He seemed in a dream. 

When he had gone Suzette lighted my candle. 

"Suzette, " I said, "your dinner was a success. "

"Ah, but I am content, monsieur. _Mon Dieu_, but I do love to cook!"

"Come, Miquette! It's past your bedtime, you adorable egoist. "

"_Bonsoir_, Suzette. "

"_Bonsoir_, monsieur. "

Village of Vagabonds! In which the hours are never dull! Lost village bythe Normand sea! In which lies a paradise of good-fellowship, romance, love, and sound red wine!

 [Illustration: train]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: the little stone church]

CHAPTER TWO

MONSIEUR LE CURÉ

The sun had just risen, and the bell of the little stone churchchattered and jangled, flinging its impatient call over the sleepingvillage of Pont du Sable. In the clear morning air its voice could beheard to the tops of the green hills, and across the wide salt marshthat stretched its feathery fingers to the open sea. 

A lone, wrinkled fisherman, rolling lazily on the mighty heave of theincoming tide, turned his head landward. 

"_Sapristi!_" he grinned, as he slipped a slimy thumb from the meshes ofa mackerel-net and crossed himself. "She has a hoarse throat, thatlittle one. "

Far up the hillside a mile back of the churchyard, a barelegged girldriving a cow stopped to listen, her hood pushed back, her brown handscrossed upon her breast. 

Lower down, skirting the velvet edge of the marsh, filmy rifts of mistbroke into shreds or blended with the spirals of blue smoke mountingskyward from freshly kindled fires. 

Pont du Sable was awake for the day. 

It is the most unimportant of little villages, yet it is four centuriesold, and of stone. It seems to have shrivelled by its great age, likeits oldest inhabitants. One-half of its two score of fishermen's houseslie crouched to the rambling edge of its single street; the other halfmight have been dropped at random, like stones from the pocket of somehurrying giant. Some of these, including the house of the ruddy littlemayor and the polite, florid grocer, lie spilled along the edge of themarsh. 

As for Monsieur le Curé, he was at this very moment in the small stonechurch saying mass to five fishermen, two devout housewives, a littlechild, an old woman in a white cap, and myself. Being in myshooting-boots, I had tiptoed into a back seat behind two of thefishermen, and sat in silence watching Monsieur le Curé's gaunt figureand listening to his deep, well-modulated, resonant voice. 

What I saw was a man uncommonly tall and well built, dressed in a rustyblack soutane that reached in straight lines from beneath his chin tohis feet, which were encased in low calf shoes with steel buckles. Inoticed, too, that his face was angular and humorous; his eyes keen andmerry by turns; his hair of the colourless brown one sees amongfisherfolk whose lives are spent in the sun and rain. I saw, too, thathe was impecunious, for the front edges of his cassock were frayed andthree buttons missing, not to be wondered at, I said to myself, as Iremembered that the stone church, like the village it comforted, hadalways been poor. 

Now and then during the mass I saw the curé glance at the small leadedwindow above him as if making a mental note of the swaying tree-topswithout in the graveyard. Then his keen gray eyes again reverted to thepage he knew by heart. The look evidently carried some significance, for the gray-haired old sea-dog in front of me cocked his blue eye tohis partner--they were both in from a rough night's fishing--andmuttered:

"It will be a short mass. "

"_Ben sûr_, " whispered back the other from behind his leathery hand. "The wind's from the northeast. It will blow a gale before sundown. " Andhe nodded toward the swaying tree-tops. 

With this, the one with the blue eyes straightened back in the woodenpew and folded his short, knotty arms in attention; the muscles of hisbroad shoulders showing under his thick seaman's jersey, the collarencircling his corded, stocky neck deep-seamed by a thousand winds andseas. The gestures of these two old craftsmen of the sea, who had workedso long together, were strangely similar. When they knelt I could seethe straw sticking from the heels of their four wooden sabots and therolled-up bottoms of their patched sail-cloth trousers. 

As the mass ended the old woman in the white cap coughed gently, thecuré closed his book, stepped from the chancel, patted the child's headin passing, strode rapidly to the sacristy, and closed the door behindhim. 

I followed the handful of worshippers out into the sunlight and down thehill. As I passed the two old fishermen I heard the one with the blueeyes say to his mate with the leathery hand:

"_Allons, viens t'en!_ What if we went to the café after that dog'snight of a sea?"

"I don't say no, " returned his partner; then he winked at me and pointedto the sky. 

"I know, " I said. "It's what I've been waiting for. "

I kept on down the crooked hill to the public square where nothing everhappens save the arrival of the toy train and the yearly fête, anddeciding the two old salts were right after their "dog's night" (and ithad blown a gale), wheeled to the left and followed them to the tiniestof cafés kept by stout, cheery Madame Vinet. It has a box of a kitchenthrough which you pass into a little square room with just space enoughfor four tables; or you may go through the kitchen into a snug gardengay in geraniums and find a sheltered table beneath a rickety arbour. 

"Ah, _mais_, it was bad enough!" grinned the one with the leathery handas he drained his thimbleful of applejack and, Norman-like, tossed thelast drop on the floor of the snug room. 

"Bad enough! It was a sea, I tell you, monsieur, like none since thenight the wreck of _La Belle Marie_ came ashore, " chimed in the one withthe blue eye, as he placed his elbows on the clean marbletop table andmade room for my chair. "_Mon Dieu!_ You should have seen the duckssouth of the Wolf. Aye, 'twas a sight for an empty stomach. "

The one with the leathery hand nodded his confirmation sleepily. 

"_Hélas!_" continued the one with the blue eye. "If monsieur could onlyhave been with us!" As he spoke he lifted his shaggy eyebrows in thedirection of the church and laughed softly. "He's happy with hisnortheast wind; I knew 'twould be a short mass. "

"A good catch?" I ventured, looking toward him as Madame Vinet broughtmy glass. 

"Eight thousand mackerel, monsieur. We should have had ten thousand hadnot the wind shifted. "

"_Ben sûr!_" grumbled the one with the leathery hand. 

At this Madame Vinet planted her fists on her ample hips. "_Hélas!_There's the Mère Coraline's girl to be married Thursday, " she sighed, "and Planchette's baby to be christened Tuesday, and the wind in thenortheast, _mon Dieu!_" And she went back to her spotless kitchen for asou's worth of black coffee for a little girl who had just entered. 

Big, strong, hearty Madame Vinet! She has the frankness of a man and thetenderness of a mother. There is something of her youth still left atforty-six; not her figure--that is rotund simplicity itself--but in theclearness of her brown eyes and the finely cut profile before it reachesher double chin, and the dimples in her hands, well shaped even to-day. 

And so the little girl who had come in for the sou's worth of coffeereceived an honest measure, smoking hot out of a dipper and into thebottle she had brought. In payment Madame Vinet kissed the child, andadded a lump of sugar to the bargain. From where I sat I could see thetears start in the good woman's eyes. The next moment she came back tous laughing to disguise them. 

"Ah, you good soul!" I thought to myself. "Always in a good humour;always pleasant. There you go again--this time it was the wife of a poorfisherman who could not pay. How many a poor devil of a half-frozensailor you have warmed, you whose heart is so big and whose gains are sosmall!"

I rose at length, bade the two old salts good morning, and with ablessing of good luck, recovered my gun from the kitchen cupboard, whereI had reverently left it during mass, and went on my way to shoot. I, too, was anxious to make the most of the northeast wind. 

 * * * * *

There being no street in the lost village save the main thoroughfare, one finds only alleys flanked by rambling walls. One of these runs up toTanrade's house; another finds its zigzag way to the back gate of themarquis, who, being a royalist, insists upon telling you so, for thekeystone of his gate is emblazoned with a bas-relief of two carvedeagles guarding the family crest. Still another leads unexpectedly tothe silent garden of Monsieur le Curé. It is a protecting little by-waywhose walls tell no tales. How many a suffering heart seeking humansympathy and advice has the strong figure in the soutane sent home withfresh courage by way of this back lane. Indeed it would be a lostvillage without him. He is barely over forty years old, and yet no curéwas ever given a poorer parish, for Pont du Sable has been bankrupt forgenerations. Since a fortnight--so I am told--Monsieur le Curé has hadno _bonne_. The reason is that no good Suzette can be found to replacethe one whom he married to a young farmer from Bonville. The result isthe good curé dines many times a week with the marquis, where he is soentertaining and so altogether delightful and welcome a guest that themarquise tells me she feels ten years younger after he has gone. 

"Poor man, " she confided to me the other day, "what will you have? Hehas no _bonne_, and he detests cooking. Yesterday he lunched at thechâteau with Alice de Bréville; to-morrow he will be cheering up two oldmaiden aunts who live a league from Bar la Rose. Is it not sad?" And shelaughed merrily. 

"Monsieur le Curé has no _bonne_!" _Parbleu!_ It has become a householdphrase in Pont du Sable. It is so difficult to get a servant here; thegirls are all fishing. As for Tanrade's maid-of-all-work, like thenoiseless butler of the marquis and the _femme de chambre_ of Alice deBréville, they are all from Paris; and yet I'll wager that no larder inthe village is better stocked than Monsieur le Curé's, for everyhousewife vies with her neighbour in ready-cooked donations since theyoung man from Bonville was accepted. 

But these good people do not forget. They remember the day when the farmof Père Marin burned; they recall the figure in the black soutanestumbling on through flame and smoke carrying an unconscious little girlin his strong arms to safety. Four times he went back where no mandared go--and each time came out with a life. 

Again, but for his indomitable grit, a half-drowned father and daughter, clinging to a capsized fishing-smack in a winter sea, would not bealive--there are even fisherfolk who cannot swim. Monsieur le Curé sawthis at a glance, alone he fought his way in the freezing surf out tothe girl and the man. He brought them in and they lived. 

 * * * * *

But there is a short cut to the marsh if you do but know it--one thathas served me before. You can easily find it, for you have but to followyour nose along the wall of Madame Vinet's café, creep past the modestrose-garden of the mayor, zigzag for a hundred paces or more amongcrumbling walls, and before you know it you are out on the marsh. 

 * * * * *

The one with the blue eye was right. 

The wind _was_ from the northeast in earnest, and the tide racing in. Half a mile outward a dozen long puntlike scows, loaded to their brimswith sand, were being borne on the swirling current up the river'schannel, each guided at the stern by a ragged dot of a figure strainingat an oar. 

As I struck out across the desolate waste of mud, bound for the point ofdry marsh, the figure steering the last scow, as he passed, waved awarning to me. With the incoming sweep of tide the sunlight faded, thebay became noisy with the cries of sea-fowl, and the lighthouse beyondthe river's channel stood out against the ominous green sky like a stickof school-chalk. 

I jerked my cap tighter over my ears, and lowering my head to the windkept on. I had barely time to make the marsh. Over the black desolatewaste of clay-mud the sea was spreading its hands--long, dangeroushands, with fingers that every moment shot out longer and nearer mytracks. The wind blew in howling gusts now, straight in from the opensea. Days like these the ducks have no alternative but the bay. Only ablack diver can stand the strain outside. Tough old piratesthese--diving to keep warm. 

I kept on, foolish as it was. A flight of becassines were whirled pastme, twittering in a panic as they fought their way out of suddensqualls. I turned to look back. Already my sunken tracks wereobliterated under a glaze of water, but I felt I was safe, for I hadgained harder ground. It was a relief to slide to the bottom of one ofthe labyrinth of causeways that drain the marsh, and plunge on shelteredfrom the wind. 

Presently I heard ducks quacking ahead. I raised my head cautiously tothe level of the wire-grass. A hundred rods beyond, nine black duckswere grouped near the edge of a circular pool; behind them, from where Istood, there rose from the level waste a humplike mound. I could nolonger proceed along the bottom of the causeway, as it was being rapidlyfilled to within an inch below my boot-tops. The hump was my onlysalvation, so I crawled to the bank and started to stalk the nine blackducks. 

It was difficult to keep on my feet on the slimy mud-bank, for the wind, true to the fishermen's prediction, was now blowing half a gale. Besides, this portion of the marsh was strange to me, as I had onlyseen it at a distance from the lower end of the bay, where I generallyshot. I was within range of the ducks now, and had raised my hammers--Istill shoot a hammer-gun--when a human voice rang out. Then, like someweird jack-in-the-box, there popped out from the mound a straight, long-waisted body in black waving its arms. 

It was the curé!

"Stay where you are, " he shouted. "Treacherous ground! I'll come andhelp you!" Then for a second he peered intently under his hand. "Ah! Itis you, monsieur--the newcomer; I might have guessed it. " He laughed, leaping out and striding toward me. "Ah, you Americans! You do not mindthe weather. "

"_Bonjour_, Monsieur le Curé, " I shouted back in astonishment, trying tosteady myself across a narrow bridge of mud spanning the causeway. 

"Look out!" he cried. "That mud you're on is dangerous. She's sinking!"

It was too late; my right foot barely made another step before down Iwent, gun, shells, and all, up to my chin in ice-cold water. The nextinstant he had me by the collar of my leather coat in a grip of steel, and I was hauled out, dripping and draining, on the bank. 

"I'm all right, " I sputtered. 

"Come inside _instantly_, " he said. 

"Inside? Inside where?" I asked. 

He pointed to the hump. 

"You must get your wet things off and into bed at once. " This came as acommand. 

"Bed! Where? Whose bed?" Was he an Aladdin with a magic lamp, that couldsummon comfort in that desolation? "Monsieur, " I choked, "I owe you athousand apologies. I came near killing one of your nine decoys. Imistook them for wild mallards. "

He laughed softly. "They are not mine, " he explained. "They belong tothe marquis; it is his gardener who pickets them out for me. I could notafford to keep them myself. They eat outrageously, those nine deceivers. They are well placed to-day; just the right distance. " And he called thethree nearest us by name, for they were quacking loudly. "Be still, Fannine! There, Pierrot! If your cord and swivel does not work, my gooddrake, I'll fix it for you, but don't make such a fuss; you'll havenoise enough to make later. " And gripping me by the arm, he pushed mefirmly ahead of him to a small open door in the mound. I peered into thedarkness within. 

"Get in, " said he. "It's small, but it's warm and comfortable inside. After you, my friend, " he added graciously, and we descended into anarrow ditch, its end blocked by a small, safe-like door leading into asubterranean hut, its roof being the mound, shelving out to asemicircular, overhanging eyebrow skirting the edge of the circular poolsome ten yards back of the line of live decoys. 

"Ah!" exclaimed Monsieur le Curé, "you should have seen the duck-blind Ihad three years ago. This _gabion_ of mine is smaller, but it is inbetter line with the flights, " he explained as he opened the door. "Lookout for the steps--there are two. "

I now stood shivering in the gloom of a box-like, underground anteroom, provided with a grated floor and a low ribbed ceiling; beyond this, through another small door, was an adjoining compartment deeper than theone in which we stood, and in the darkness I caught the outline of acot-bed, a carved, high-backed, leather-seated chair, and the blue glintof guns lying in their racks. The place was warm and smelled, like thecabin of some fishing-sloop, of sea-salt and tar. 

It did not take me long to get out of my clothes. When the last of themlay around my heels I received a rubbing down with a coarse sailor'sshirt, that sent the blood back where it belonged. 

"_Allons!_ Into bed at once!" insisted the curé. "You'll find those armyblankets dry. "

I felt my way in while he struck a match and lighted a candle upon anarrow shelf strewn with empty cartridges. The candle sputtered, sunk toa blue flame, and flared up cheerfully, while the curé poured me out astiff glass of brandy, and I lay warm in the blankets of the _ArméeFrançaise_, and gazed about me at my strange quarters. 

Back of my pillow was, tightly closed, in three sections, a narrowfiring-slit. Beside the bed the candle's glow played over the carvedback of the leather-seated chair. Above the closed slit ran a shelf, andranged upon it were some fifty cartridges and an old-fashioned fatopera-glass. This, then, was Monsieur le Curé's duck-blind, or rather, in French, his _gabion_. 

The live decoys began quacking nervously. The curé, about to speak, tip-toed over to the firing-slit and let down cautiously one of itscompartments. 

"A flight of plovers passing over us, " he remarked. "Yes, there they go. If the wind will only hold you shall see--there will be ducks in, " hisgray eyes beaming at the thought. 

Then he drew the chair away from the firing-slit and seated himself, facing me. 

"If you knew, " he began, "how much it means to me to talk to one of theoutside world--your country--America! You must tell me much about it. Ihave always longed to see it, but----" He shrugged his shouldershelplessly. "Are you warm?" he asked. 

"Warm?" I laughed. "I never felt better in my life. " And I thanked himagain for his kindness to a stranger in distress. "A stranger in luck, "I added. 

"I saw you at mass this morning, " he returned bending over, his hands onhis knees. "But you are not a Catholic, my friend? You are alwayswelcome to my church, however, remember that. "

"Thank you, " I said. "I like your little church, and--I like you, Monsieur le Curé. "

He put forth his hand. "Brother sportsmen, " he said. "It _is_ abrotherhood, isn't it? You are a Protestant, is it not so?" And hisvoice sank to a gentle tone. 

"Yes, I am what they call a blue Presbyterian. "

"I have heard of that, " he said. "'A _blue_ Presbyterian. '" He repeatedit to himself and smiled. Suddenly he straightened and his finger wentto his lips. 

"Hark!" he whispered. "Hear their wings!"

Instantly the decoys set up a strenuous quacking. Then again all wassilent. 

"Too high, " muttered the curé. "I do not expect much in before the lateafternoon. Do you smoke?"

"Yes, gladly, " I replied, "but my cigarettes are done for, I am afraid;they were in the pocket of my hunting coat. "

"Don't move, " he said, noticing my effort to rise. "I've gotcigarettes. " And he fumbled in the shadow of the narrow shelf. 

I had hardly lighted my own over the candle-flame, which he held for me, when I felt a gentle rocking and heard the shells rattle as they rolledto the end of the shelf, stop, and roll back again. 

"Do not be alarmed, " he laughed, "it's only the water filling the outerjacket of my _gabion_. We shall be settled and steady in a moment, andafloat for the night. "

"The night!" I exclaimed in amazement. "But, my good friend, I have nointention of wearing out my welcome; I had planned to get home forluncheon. "

"Impossible!" he replied. "We are now completely surrounded by water. Itis always so at high tide at this end of the bay. Come, see foryourself. Besides, you don't know how glad I am that we can have thechance to shoot together. I've been waiting weeks for this wind. "

He blew out the candle, and again opened the firing-slit. As far as onecould see the distant sea was one vast sweep of roaring water. 

"You see, " he said, closing the firing-slit and striking a match--"you_must_ stay. I have plenty of dry clothes for you in the locker, and weshall not go hungry. " He drew out a basket from beneath the cot and tookfrom it a roasted chicken, two litres of red wine, and some bread andcheese, which he laid on the shelf. "A present, " he remarked, "from oneof my parishioners. You know, I have no _bonne_. "

"I have heard so, " said I. 

He laughed softly. "One hears everything in the village. Ah! But whatgood children they are! They even forgive my love of shooting!" Hecrossed his strong arms in the rusty black sleeves of his cassock, andfor some moments looked at me seriously. "You think it strange, nodoubt, irreverent, for a curé to shoot, " he continued. "Forgive me if Ihave shocked the ideas of your faith. "

"Nonsense!" I returned, raising my hand in protest. "You are only human, an honest sportsman. We understand each other perfectly. "

"Thank you, " he returned, with sincerity. "I was afraid you might notunderstand--you are the first American I have ever met. "

He began taking out an outfit of sailor's clothes from the locker--warmthings--which I proceeded to get into with satisfaction. I had justpoked my head through the rough jersey and buckled my belt when ourdecoys again gave warning. 

Out went the candle. 

"Mallards!" whispered the curé. "Here, take this gun, quick! It is themarquis's favourite, " he added in a whisper. 

He reached for another breech-loader, motioned me to the chair, let downthe three compartments of the firing-slit, and stretched himself outfull length on the cot, his keen eyes scanning the bay at a glance. 

We were just in time--a dozen mallards were coming straight for ourdecoys. 

Bang! thundered the curé's gun. 

Bang! Bang! echoed my own. Then another roar from the curé's leftbarrel. When the smoke cleared three fat ducks were kicking beyond ourdeceivers. 

"Take him!" he cried, as a straggler--a drake--shot past us. I snappedin a shell and missed, but the curé was surer. Down came the straggler, a dead duck at sixty yards. 

"Bravo, Monsieur le Curé!" I cried. 

But he only smiled modestly and, extracting the empty shell, blew thelurking smoke free from the barrels. It was noon when we turned to halfthe chicken and a bottle of _vin ordinaire_ with an appetite. 

The northeast wind had now shifted to the south; the bay became likeglass, and so the afternoon passed until the blood-red sun, like somehuge ribbed lantern of the Japanese, slowly sank into the sea. It grewdusk over the desolate marsh. Stray flights of plovers, now that thetide was again on its ebb, began to choose their resting places for thenight. 

"I'm going out to take a look, " said the curé. Again, like some gopherof the prairie, he rose up out of his burrow. 

Presently he returned, the old enthusiastic gleam in his eyes. 

"The wind's changing, " he announced. "It will be in the north againto-night; we shall have a full moon and better luck, I hope. Do youknow, " he went on excitedly, "that one night last October I killedforty-two ducks alone in this old _gabion_. _Forty-two!_ Twenty mallardsand the rest Vignon--and not a shot before one o'clock in the morning. Then they came in, right and left. I believe my faithful decoys willremember that night until their dying day. Ah, it was glorious!Glorious!" His tanned, weather-beaten features wrinkled with delight; hehad the skin of a sailor, and I wondered how often the marsh had hidhim. "Ah, my friend, " he said, with a sigh, as we sat down to theremainder of the chicken and _vin ordinaire_ for supper, this timeincluding the cheese, "it is not easy for a curé to shoot. My goodchildren of the village do not mind, but----" He hesitated, running hislong, vibrant fingers through his hair. 

"What then? Tell me, " I ventured. "It will go no further, I promiseyou. "

"Rome!" he whispered. "I have already received a letter, a gentlewarning from the palace; but I have a good friend in Cardinal Z. Heunderstands. "

During the whole of that cold moonlight we took turns of two hours each;one sleeping while the other watched in the chair drawn up close to thefiring-slit. 

What a night!

The marsh seen through the firing-slit, with its overhanging eyebrow ofsod, seemed not of this earth. The nine black decoys picketed before usstraining at their cords, gossiping, dozing for a moment, preening theirwings or rising up for a vigorous stretch, appeared by some curiousoptical illusion four times their natural size; now they seemed to beblack dogs, again a group of sombre, misshapen gnomes. 

While I watched, the curé slept soundly, his body shrouded in theblankets like some carved Gothic saint of old. The silence wasintense--a silence that could be heard--broken only by the briskticking of the curé's watch on the narrow shelf. Occasionally awater-rat would patter over the sunken roof, become inquisitive, andpeer in at me through the slit within half a foot of my nose. Once in awhile I took down the fat opera-glass, focussing it upon the dim shapesthat resembled ducks, but that proved to be bits of floating seaweed ora scurrying shadow as a cloud swept under the moon--all illusions, untilmy second watch, when, with a rush, seven mallards tumbled among ourdecoys. Instantly the curé awakened, sprang from his cot, and with sharpwork we killed four. 

"Stay where you are, " he said as he laid his gun back in its rack. "I'llget into my hip-boots and get them before the water-rats steal whatwe've earned. They are skilled enough to get a decoy now and then. Themarsh is alive with them at night. "

Morning paled. The village lay half hidden behind the rifts of mist. Then dawn and the rising sun, the water like molten gold, the blackdecoys churning at their pickets sending up swirls of turquoise in thegold. 

Suddenly the cracked bell rang out from the distant village. At thatmoment two long V-shaped strings of mallards came winging toward us fromthe north. I saw the curé glance at them. Then he held out his hand tome. 

"You take them--I cannot, " he said hurriedly. "I haven't a moment tolose--it is the bell for mass. Here's the key. Lock up when you leave. "

"Dine with me to-night, " I insisted, one eye still on the incomingducks. "You have no _bonne_. "

His hand was on the _gabion_ door. "And if the northeast wind holds, " hecalled back, "shall we shoot again to-night?"

"Yes, to-night!" I insisted. 

"Then I'll come to dinner. " And the door closed with a click. 

Through the firing-slit I could see him leaping across the marsh towardthe gray church with the cracked bell, and as he disappeared by theshort cut I pulled the trigger of both barrels--and missed. 

An hour later Suzette greeted me with eyes full of tears and anxiety. 

"Ah! Mother of Pity! Monsieur is safe!" she cried. "Where has monsieurbeen, _mon Dieu!_"

"To mass, my child, " I said gravely, filling her plump arms with theducks. "Monsieur le Curé is coming to dinner!"

 [Illustration: flying ducks]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: a château]

CHAPTER THREE

THE EXQUISITE MADAME DE BRÉVILLE

Poor Tanrade! Just as I felt the future was all _couleur de rose_ withhim it has changed to gloom unutterable. 

_Ah, les femmes!_ I should never dare fall in love with a woman asexquisite as Alice de Bréville. She is too beautiful, too seductive, with her olive skin, her frank smile, and her adorable head poised upona body much too well made. She is too tender, too complex, toointelligent. She has a way of mischievously caressing you with her eyesone moment and giving an old comrade like myself a platonic little paton the back the next, which is exasperating. As a friend I adore her, but to fall in love with her! _Ah, non, merci!_ I have had a checkeredchildhood and my full share of suffering; I wish some peace in my oldage. At sixteen one goes to the war of love blindly, but at forty it isdifferent. Our chagrins then plunge us into a state of dignifieddesolation. 

Poor Tanrade! I learned of the catastrophe the other night when hesolemnly entered my abandoned house by the marsh and sank his big framein the armchair before my fire. He was no longer the genial bohemian ofa Tanrade I had known. He was silent and haggard. He had not slept muchfor a week; neither had he worked at the score of his new opera orhunted, but he had smoked incessantly, furiously--a dangerous remedywith which to mend a broken heart. 

My poor old friend! I was so certain of his happiness that night afterdinner here in the House Abandoned, when he and Alice had lostthemselves in the moonlight. Was it the moonlight? Or the kiss she gavehim as they stood looking out over the lichen-stained wall of thecourtyard to the fairy marsh beyond, still and sublime--wedded to theopen sea at high tide--like a mirror of polished silver, its surfaceruffled now and then by the splash of some incoming duck. He had pouredout his heart to her then, and again over their liqueur and cigarettesat that fatal dinner of two at the château. 

All this he confessed to me as he sat staring into the cheery blaze onmy hearth. Under my friendly but somewhat judicial cross-examinationthat ensued, it was evident that not a word had escaped Alice's lipsthat any one but that big optimistic child of a Tanrade could haveconstrued as her promise to be his wife. He confided her words to mereluctantly, now that he realized how little she had meant. 

"Come, " said I, in an effort to cheer him, "have courage! A woman'sheart that is won easily is not worth fighting for. You shall see, oldfellow--things will be better. "

But he only shook his head, shrugged his great shoulders, and puffeddoggedly at his pipe in silence. My tall clock in the corner ticked thelouder, its brass pendulum glinting as it swung to and fro in the lightof the slumbering fire. I threw on a fresh log, kicked it into a blaze, and poured out for him a stiff glass of applejack. I had faith in thatapplejack, for it had been born in the moonlit courtyard years ago. Itroused him, for I saw something of his old-time self brighten withinhim; he even made an attempt at a careless smile--the reminiscent smileof a philosopher this time. 

"What if I went to see her?" I remarked pointblank. 

"You! _Mon Dieu!_" He half sprang out of the armchair in his intensity. "Are you crazy?"

"Forgive me, " I apologized. "I did not mean to hurt you. I onlythought--and you are in no condition to reason--that Alice may havechanged her mind, may regret having refused you. Women change theirminds, you know. She might even confess this to me since there isnothing between us and we are old friends. "

"No, no, " he protested. "You are not to speak of me to Madame deBréville--do you understand?" he cried, his voice rising. "You are notto mention my name, promise me that. "

This time it was I who shrugged my shoulders in reply. He sat grippingthe arms of his chair, again his gaze reverted stolidly to the fire. Theclock ticked on past midnight, peacefully aloof as if content to be wellout of the controversy. 

"A drop more?" I ventured, reaching for the decanter; but he stayed myarm. 

"I've been a fool, " he said slowly. "_Ah! Mon Dieu! Les femmes! Lesfemmes! Les femmes!_" he roared. "Very well, " he exclaimed hotly, "it iswell finished. To-morrow I must go to Paris for the new rehearsals. Ihave begged off for a week. Duclos is beside himself with anxiety--twotelegrams to-day, the last one imperative. The new piece must open atthe Folies Parisiennes the eighth. "

I saw him out to the gate and there was a brave ring in his "_bonsoir, mon vieux_, " as he swung off in the dusk of the starlit road. 

He left the village the next day at noon by the toy train, "the littleget off-the-track, " as we call it. Perhaps he wished it would and endeverything, including the rehearsals. 

Bah! To be rehearsing lovelorn shepherds and shepherdesses in sylvandells. To call a halt eighteen times in the middle of the romantic duetbetween the unhappy innkeeper's daughter and the prince. To marry themall smoothly in B flat in the finale, and keep the brass down and thestrings up in the apotheosis when the heart of the man behind the batonhas been cured of all love and illusion--for did he not tell me "It iswell finished"? Poor Tanrade!

Though it is but half a fortnight since he left, it seems years since heused to come into my courtyard, for he came and went as freely at allhours as the salt breeze from the marsh. Often he would wake me atdaybreak, bellowing up to my window at the top of his barytone lungssome stirring aria, ending with: "Eh, _mon vieux!_ Stop playing theprince! Get up out of that and come out on the marsh. There are ducksoff the point. Where's Suzette? Where's the coffee? _Sacristi!_ What ahouse. Half-past four and nobody awake!"

And he would stand there grinning; his big chest encased in afisherman's jersey, a disreputable felt hat jammed on his head, and hisfeet in a pair of sabots that clattered like a farm-horse as he wentforaging in the kitchen, upsetting the empty milk-tins and making such abedlam that my good little maid-of-all-work, Suzette, would hurry interror into her clothes and out to her beloved kitchen to save the restfrom ruin. 

Needless to say, nothing ever happened to anything. He could make morenoise and do less harm than any one I ever knew. Then he would sing usboth into good humour until Suzette's peasant cheeks shone like ripeapples. 

"It is not the same without Monsieur Tanrade, " Suzette sighed to-day asshe brought my luncheon to my easel in a shady corner of my wildgarden--a corner all cool roses and shadow. 

"Ah, no!" I confessed as I squeezed out the last of a tube of vermilionon the edge of my palette. 

"Ah, no!" she sighed softly, and wiped her eyes briskly with the back ofher dimpled red hand. "Ah, no! _Parbleu!_"

And just then the bell over my gate jingled. "Some one rings, " whisperedSuzette and she ran to open the gate. It was the _valet de chambre_ fromthe château with a note from Alice, which read:

 DEAR FRIEND: It is lonely, this big house of mine. Do come and dine with me at eight. Hastily, A. De B. 

Added to this was the beginning of a postscript crossed out. 

Upon a leaf torn from my sketchbook I scribbled the answer:

 GOOD DEAR CHARITABLE FRIEND: The House Abandoned is a hollow mockery without Tanrade. I'll come gladly at eight. 

And Suzette brought it out to the waiting _valet de chambre_ whom sheaddressed respectfully as "monsieur, " half on account of hisyellow-striped waistcoat and half because he was a Parisian. 

Bravo, Alice! Here then was the opportunity I had been waiting for, andI hugged myself over the fact. It was like the first ray of sunshinebreaking through a week of leaden sky. For a long time I paced back andforth among the paths of the snug garden, past the roses and theheliotrope down as far as the flaming geraniums and the hollyhocks andthe droning bees, and back again by way of some excellent salads and thebed of artichokes, while I turned over in my mind and rehearsed tomyself all I intended to say to her. 

Alice lonely! With a château, two automobiles, and all Paris at herpretty feet! Ha! ha! The symptoms were excellent. The patient was doingwell. To-night would see her convalescent and happily on the road torecovery. This once happy family of comrades should be no longer underthe strain of disunion, we should have another dinner soon and the HouseAbandoned would ring with cheer as it had never rung before. Japaneselanterns among the fruit-trees of the tangled garden, the courtyard fullof villagers, red and blue fire, skyrockets and congratulations, aNormand dinner and a keg of good sound wine to wish a long and happylife to both. There would be the same Tanrade again and the same Alice, and they would be married by the curé in the little gray church with thecracked bell, with the marquis and the marquise as notables in the frontpew. In my enthusiasm I saw it all. 

 * * * * *

The lane back of the House Abandoned shortens the way to the château byhalf a kilometre. It was this lane that I entered at dusk by crawlingunder the bars that divided it from the back pasture full of gnarledapple-trees, under which half a dozen mild-eyed cows had settledthemselves for the night. They rose when they caught sight of me andcame toward me blowing deep moist breaths as a quiet challenge to theintruder, until halted by the bars they stood in a curious groupwatching me until I disappeared up the lane, a lane screened from thesuccessive pastures on either side by an impenetrable hedge and flankedits entire length by tall trees, their tops meeting overhead like theGothic arches of a cathedral aisle. This roof of green made the lane atthis hour so dark that I had to look sharp to avoid the muddy places, for the lane ascended like the bed of a brook until it reached theplateau of woodlands and green fields above, commanding a sweeping viewof marsh and sea below. 

Birds fluttered nervously in the hedges, frightened at my approachingfootsteps. A hare sniffing in the middle of the path flattened his longears and sprang into the thicket ahead. The nightingales in the forestabove began calling to one another. Two doves went skimming out of theleaves over my head. Even a peacemaker may be mistaken for an enemy. Andnow I had gained the plateau and it grew lighter--that gentle light withwhich night favours the open places. 

There are two crossroads at the top of the lane. The left one leads tothe hamlet of Beaufort le Petit, a sunken cluster of farms ten goodleagues from Pont du Sable; the right one swings off into the highroadhalf a mile beyond, which in turn is met by the private way of thechâteau skirting the stone wall surrounding the park, which, as earlyas 1608, served as the idle stronghold of the Duc de Rambutin. It hasseen much since then and has stood its ground bravely under the stressof misfortune. The Prussians hammered off two of its towers, and anartillery fire once mowed down some of its oldest trees and wrecked thefrescoed ceiling and walls of the salon, setting fire to the south wing, which was never rebuilt and whose jagged and blackened walls the rosesand vines have long since lovingly hidden from view. 

Alice bought this once splendid feudal estate literally for a song--thesong in the second act of Fremier's comedy, which had a long run at theVariétés three years ago, and in which she earned an enviable successand some beautiful bank-notes. Were the Duc de Rambutin alive I am surehe would have presented it to her--shooting forest, stone wall, and all. They say he had an intolerable temper, but was kind to ladies andlap-dogs. 

It was not long before I unlatched a moss-covered gate with one hingelost in the weeds--a little woebegone gate for intimate friends, thatcroaked like a night-bird when it opened, and closed with a whine. Beyond it lay a narrow path through a rose-garden leading to thechâteau. This rose-garden is the only cultivated patch within theconfines of the wall, for on either side of it tower great trees, theiraged trunks held fast in gnarled thickets of neglected vines. It is onlyanother "house abandoned, " this château of Alice's, save that its bygonesplendour asserts itself through the scars, and my own by the marshnever knew luxury even in its best days. 

"Madame is dressing, " announced that most faithful of old servitors, Henri, who before Alice conferred a full-fledged butlership upon him inhis old age was since his youth a stage-carpenter at the ThéâtreFrançais. 

"Will monsieur have the goodness to wait for madame in the library?"added Henri, as he relieved me of my hat and stick, deposited themnoiselessly upon an oak table, and led me to a portière of worn Gobelinwhich he lifted for me with a bow of the Second Empire. 

What a rich old room it is, this silent library of the choleric duke, with its walls panelled in worm-eaten oak reflecting the firelight andits rows of volumes too close to the grave to be handled. Here and thereabove the high wainscoting are ancestral portraits, some of them asblack as a favourite pipe. Above the great stone chimney-piece is afull-length figure of the duke in a hunting costume of green velvet. Thecandelabra that Henri had just lighted on the long centre-table, littered with silver souvenirs and the latest Parisian comedies, nowillumined the duke's smile, which he must have held with bad graceduring the sittings. The rest of him was lost in the shadow above thechimney-piece of sculptured cherubs, whose missing noses have been badlyrestored in cement by the gardener. 

I had settled myself in a chintz-covered chair and was idly turning thepages of one of the latest of the Parisian comedies when I heard theswish of a gown and the patter of two small slippered feet hurryingacross the hall. I rose to regard my hostess with a feeling of tendercuriosity mingled with resentment over her treatment of my old friend, when the portière was lifted and Alice came toward me with both whitearms outstretched in welcome. She was so pale in her dinner gown ofblack tulle that all the blood seemed to have taken refuge in herlips--so pale that the single camellia thrust in her corsage was lesswaxen in its whiteness than her neck. 

I caught her hands and she stood close to me, smiling bravely, the tipsof her fingers trembling in my own. 

"You are ill!" I exclaimed, now thoroughly alarmed. "You must gostraight to bed. "

"No, no, " she replied, with an effort. "Only tired, very tired. "

"You should not have let me come, " I protested. 

She smiled and smoothed back a wave of her glossy black hair and I sawthe old mischievous gleam flash in her dark eyes. 

"Come, " she whispered, leading me to the door of the dining room. "It isa secret, " she confided, with a forced little laugh. "Look!" And shepinched my arm. 

I glanced within--the table with its lace and silver under the glow ofthe red candle-shades was laid for two. 

"It was nice of you, " I said. 

"We shall dine alone, you and I, " she murmured. "I am so tired ofcompany. "

I was on the point of impulsively mentioning poor Tanrade's absence, butthe subtle look in her eyes checked me. During dinner we should have ourserious little talk, I said to myself as we returned to the librarytable. 

"It's so amusing, that little comedy of Flandrean's, " laughed Alice, picking up the volume I had been scanning. "The second act is a jewelwith its delicious situation in which François Villers, the husband, andThérèse, his wife, divorce in order to carry out between them a secretlove-affair--a series of mysterious rendezvous that terminate in anamusing elopement. _Très chic_, Flandrean's comedy. It should have a_succès fou_ at the Palais Royal. "

"Madame is served, " gravely announced Henri. 

Not once during dinner was Alice serious. Over the soup--an excellentbisque of _écrevisses_--she bubbled over with the latest Parisiangossip, the new play at the Odéon, the fashion in hats. With the fishshe prattled on over the limitations of the new directoire gowns and thescandal involving a certain tenor and a duchess. Tanrade's defence, which I had so carefully thought out and rehearsed in my garden, seemeddoomed to remain unheard, for her cleverness in evading the subject, hersudden change to the merriest of moods, and her quick wit left mehelpless. Neither did I make any better progress during the pheasant andthe salad, and as she sipped but twice the Pommard and scarcelymoistened her lips with the champagne my case seemed hopeless. Henrifinally left us alone over our coffee and cigarettes. I had becomedesperate. 

"Alice, " I said bluntly, "we are old friends. I have some things to sayto you of--of the utmost importance. You will listen, my friend, willyou not, until I am quite through, for I shall not mention it again?"

She leaned forward with a little start and gazed at me suddenly, withdilated eyes--eyes that were the next minute lowered in painfulsubmission, the corners of her mouth contracting nervously. 

"_Mon Dieu!_" she murmured, looking up. "_Mon Dieu!_ But you are cruel!"

"No, " I replied calmly. "It is you who are cruel. "

"No, no, you shall not!" she exclaimed, raising both ringless hands inprotest, her breath coming quick. "I--I know what you are going to say. No, my dear friend--I beg of you--we are good comrades. Is it not so?Let us remain so. "

"Listen, " I implored. 

"Ah, you men with your idea of marriage!" she continued. "The wedding, the aunts, the cousins, who come staring at you for a day and giving youadvice for years. A solemn apartment near the Etoile--madame with herafternoons--monsieur with his club, his maîtresse, his gambling and hisdebts--the children with their English governess. A villa by the sea, tennis, infants and sand-forts. The annual stupid _voyage en Suisse_. The inane slavery of it all. _You_ who are a bohemian, you who_live_--with all your freedom--all my freedom! _Non, merci!_ I have seenall that! Bah! You are as crazy as Tanrade. "

"Alice, " I cried, "you think----"

"Precisely, my friend. "

She rose swiftly, crossed the room, and before I knew it slipped back ofmy chair, put both arms about my neck, kissed me, and burst into tears. 

"There, there, _mon pauvre petit_, " she whispered. "Forgive me--I wasangry--we are not so stupid as all that--eh? We are not like the stupid_bourgeoisie_. "

"But it is not I----" I stammered. 

She caught her breath in surprise, straightened, and slowly retraced hersteps to her vacant chair. 

"Ah! So it is that?" she said slowly, drawing her chair close to my own. Then she seated herself, rested her chin in her hands, and regarded mefor some moments intently. 

"So you have come for--for him?" she resumed, her breast heaving. "I amright, am I not?"

"He loves you, " I declared. "Do you think I am blind as to your love forhim? You who came to greet me to-night out of your suffering?"

For some moments she was silent, her fingers pressed over her eyes. 

"Do you love him?" I insisted. 

"No, no, " she moaned. "It is impossible. "

"Do you know, " I continued, "that he has not slept or hunted or smokedfor a week before he was forced to go to Paris? Can you realize what hesuffers now during days of exhausting rehearsals? He came to me awreck, " I said. "You have been cruel and you have----"

Again she had become deathly pale. Then at length she rose slowly, lifted her head proudly, and led the way back to the library fire. 

"You must go, " she said. "It is late. "

 * * * * *

When the little boy of the fisherman, Jean Tranchard, was not to befound playing with the other barelegged tots in the mud of the villagealleys, or wandering alone on the marsh, often dangerously near thesweep of the incoming tide, one could be quite sure he was safe withTanrade. Frequently, too, when the maker of ballets was locked in hisdomain and his servant had strict orders to admit no one--neitherMonsieur le Curé nor the mayor, nor so intimate a comrade asmyself--during such hours as these the little boy was generally besidethe composer, his chubby toes scarcely reaching to the rungs of thechair beside Tanrade's working desk. 

Though the little boy was barely seven he was a sturdy little chap withfair curly hair, blue eyes, and the quick gestures of his father. He hada way of throwing out his chest when he was pleased, and gesticulatingwith open arms and closed fists when excited, which is peculiar to therace of fishermen. The only time when he was perfectly still was whenTanrade worked in silence. He would then often sit beside him for hourswaiting until the composer dropped his pen, swung round in his chair tothe keyboard at his elbow, and while the piano rang with melody thelittle boy's eyes danced. He forgot during such moments of ecstasy thathis father was either out at sea with his nets or back in the villagegood-naturedly drunk, or that his mother, whom he vaguely remembered, was dead. 

Tanrade was a so much better father to him than his own that the rest ofhis wretched little existence did not count. When the father wasfishing, the little boy cared for himself. He knew how to heat the potand make the soup when there was any to make. He knew where to dig forclams and sputtering crabs. It was the bread that bothered him most--itcost two sous. It was Tanrade who discovered and softened these harddetails. 

The house in which the fisherman and the little boy live is tucked awayin an angle of the walled lane leading out to the marsh. This stonehouse of Tranchard's takes up as little room as possible, since itsfront dare not encroach upon the lane and its back is hunched upapologetically against the angle of the wall. The house has but twocompartments--the loft above stored with old nets and broken oars, andthe living room beneath, whose dirt floor dampens the feet of an oakcupboard, a greasy table, a chair with a broken leg, and a mahogany bed. Over the soot-blackened chimney-piece is a painted figure of the Virgin, and a frigate in a bottle. 

Monsieur le Curé had been watching all night beside the mahogany bed. Now and then he slipped his hand in the breast of his soutane of rustyblack, drew out a steel watch, felt under a patchwork-quilt for a smallfeverish wrist, counted its feeble pulse, and filling a pewter spoonwith a mixture of aconite, awakened the little boy who gazed at him withhollow eyes sunken above cheeks of dull crimson. 

In the corner, his back propped against the cupboard, his bare feettucked under him, dozed Tranchard. There was not much else he could do, for he was soaked to the skin and half drunk. Occasionally he shiftedhis feet, awakened, and dimly remembered the little boy was worse; thatthis news had been hailed to him by the skipper of the mackerel smack, _La Belle Élise_, and that he had hauled in his empty nets and comehome. 

As the gray light of dawn crept into the room, the little boy again grewrestless. He opened the hollow eyes and saw dimly the black figure ofthe curé. 

"Tanné, " he whimpered. "Where is he, Tanné?"

"Monsieur Tanrade will come, " returned the curé, "if you go to sleeplike a brave little man. "

"Tanné, " repeated the child and closed his eyes obediently. 

A cock crowed in a distant yard, awakening a sleek cat who emerged frombeneath the bed, yawned, stretched her claws, and walked out of thenarrow doorway into the misty lane. 

The curé rose stiffly, went over to the figure in the corner and shookit. Tranchard started up out of a sound sleep. 

"Tell madame when she arrives that I have gone for Doctor Thévenet. Ishall return before night. "

"I won't forget, " grumbled Tranchard. 

"I have left instructions for madame beside the candle. See that youkeep the kettle boiling for the poultices. "

The fisherman nodded. "_Eh ben!_ How is it with the kid?" he inquired. "He does not take after his mother. _Parbleu!_ She was as strong as ahorse, my woman. "

Monsieur le Curé did not reply. He had taken down his flat black hatfrom a peg and was carefully adjusting his square black cravat edgedwith white beneath his chin, when Alice de Bréville entered the doorway. 

"How is his temperature?" she asked eagerly, unpinning a filmy greenveil and throwing aside a gray automobile coat. 

Monsieur le Curé graciously uncovered his head. "There has been nochange since you left at midnight, " he said gravely. "The fever is stillhigh, the pulse weaker. I am going for Doctor Thévenet after mass. Thereis a train at eight. "

Tranchard was now on his knees fanning a pile of fagots into a blaze, the acrid smoke drifting back into the low-ceiled room. 

"I will attend to it, " said Alice, turning to the fisherman. "Tell mychauffeur to wait at the church for Monsieur le Curé. The auto is at theend of the lane. "

For some minutes after the clatter of Tranchard's sabots had died awayin the lane, Alice de Bréville and Monsieur le Curé stood in earnestconversation beside the table. 

"It may save the child's life, " pleaded the priest. There was a ring ofinsistence in his voice, a gleam in his eyes that made the woman besidehim tremble. 

"You do not understand, " she exclaimed, her breast heaving. "You do notrealize what you ask of me. I cannot. "

"You must, " he insisted. "He might not understand it coming from me. Youand he are old friends. You _must_, I tell you. Were he only here thechild would be happy, the fever would be broken. It must be broken andquickly. Thévenet will tell you that when he comes. "

Alice raised her hands to her temples. 

"Will you?" he pleaded. 

"Yes, " she replied half audibly. 

Monsieur le Curé gave a sigh of relief. 

"God be with you!" said he. 

He watched her as she wrote in haste the following telegram in pencilupon the back of a crumpled envelope:

 MONSIEUR TANRADE, Théâtre des Folies Parisiennes, Paris. 

 Tranchard's child very ill. Come at once. 

 A. De Bréville. 

This she handed to the priest in silence. Monsieur le Curé tucked itsafely in the breast of his cassock. "God be with you!" he repeated andturned out into the lane. He ran, for the cracked bell for mass hadceased ringing. 

The woman stood still by the table as if in a dream, then she staggeredto the door, closed it, and throwing herself on her knees by the bedsideof the sleeping boy, buried her face in her hands. 

The child stirred, awakened by her sobbing. 

"Tanné, " he cried feebly. 

"He will come, " she said. 

Outside in the mist-soaked lane three toothless fisherwomen gossiped inwhispers. 

Almost any day that you pass through the village you will see a chubbylittle rascal who greets you with a cheery "_Bonjour_" and runs away, dragging a tin horse with a broken tail. Should you chance to glanceover my wall you will discover the tattered remnants of two Japaneselanterns hanging among the fruit-trees. They are all that remain of afête save the memory of two friends to whom the whole world now seems_couleur de rose_. 

 * * * * *

"Hi, there! wake up! Where's Suzette? Where's the coffee! Daylight andnot a soul up! _Mon Dieu_, what a house! Hurry up, _Mon vieux!_ Alice iswaiting!"

 [Illustration: three toothless fisherwomen]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: smuggler ship]

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SMUGGLERS

Some centuries ago the windows of my house abandoned on the marsh lookedout upon a bay gay with the ships of Spanish pirates, for in those daysPont du Sable served them as a secret refuge for repairs. Hauled up tothe tawny marsh were strange craft with sails of apple-green, rose, vermilion and sinister black; there were high sterns pierced by carvedcabin-windows--some of them iron-barred, to imprison ladies of high orlow degree and unfortunate gentlemen who fought bravely to defend them. From oaken gunwales glistened slim cannon, their throats swabbed cleanafter some wholesale murder on the open seas. Yes, it must have been alively enough bay some centuries ago!

To-day Pont du Sable goes to bed without even turning the key in thelock. This is because of a vast army of simple men whose word, inFrance, is law. 

To begin with, there are the President of the République and theMinisters of War and Agriculture, and Monsieur the Chief of Police--akind little man in Paris whom it is better to agree with--and the préfetand the sous-préfet--all the way down the line of authority to thered-faced, blustering _chef de gare_ at Pont du Sable--and Pierre. 

On off-duty days Pierre is my gardener at eleven sous an hour. On theseoccasions he wears voluminous working trousers of faded green corduroygathered at the ankles; a gray flannel shirt and a scarlet cravat. Onother days his short, wiry body is encased in a carefully brusheduniform of dark blue with a double row of gold buttons gleaming down hissolid chest. When on active duty in the Customs Coast Patrol of theRépublique Française at Pont du Sable, he carries a neatly folded capewith a hood, a bayonet, a heavy calibred six-shooter and a trustyfield-glass, useful in locating suspicious-looking objects on marsh orsea. 

On this particular morning Pierre was late! I had been leaning over thelichen-stained wall of my wild garden waiting to catch sight of him ashe left the ragged end of the straggling village. Had I mistaken theday? Impossible! It was Thursday and I knew he was free. Finally Icaught sight of him hurrying toward me down the road--not in his workingclothes of faded green corduroy, but in the full majesty of hislaw-enforcing uniform. What had happened? I wondered. Had his sternbrigadier refused to give him leave?

"_Bonjour_, Pierre!" I called to him as he came within hailing distance. 

He touched the vizor of his cap in military salute, and a moment laterentered my garden. 

"A thousand pardons, monsieur, " he apologized excitedly, labouring tocatch his breath. 

"My artichokes have been waiting for you, " I laughed; "they are nearlystrangled with weeds. I expected you yesterday. " He followed me througha lane of yellow roses leading to the artichoke bed. "What has kept you, Pierre?"

He stopped, looked me squarely in the eyes, placed his finger in themiddle of his spiked moustache, and raised his eyebrows mysteriously. 

"Monsieur must not ask me, " he replied. "I have been on duty forforty-eight hours; there was not even time to change my uniform. "

"A little matter for headquarters?" I ventured indiscreetly, with a nodin the direction of Paris. 

Pierre shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Monsieur must ask thesemaphore; my lips are sealed. "

Had he been the chief of the Secret Service just in possession of thewhereabouts of an international criminal, he could not have been moreuncommunicative. 

"And monsieur's artichokes?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject. 

Further inquiry I knew was useless--even dangerous. Indeed I swallowedmy curiosity whole, for I was aware that this simple gardener of mine, in his official capacity, could put me in irons, drag me before myfriend the ruddy little mayor, and cast me in jail at Bar la Rose, hadI given him cause. Then indeed, as Pompanet said, I would be "A _sacré_vagabond from Pont du Sable. "

Was it not only the other day a well-dressed stranger hanging about mylost village had been called for by two gendarmes, owing to Pierre'swatchful eye? And did not the farmer Milon pay dearly enough for theapplejack he distilled one dark night? I recalled, too, a certainmorning when, a stranger on the marsh, I had lighted Pierre's cigarettewith an honest wax-match from England. He recognized the brandinstantly. 

"They are the best in the world, " I had remarked bravely. 

"Yes, " he had replied, "but dear, monsieur. The fine is a franc apiecein France. "

We had reached the artichokes. 

"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Pierre, glancing at the riot of weeds as hestripped off his coat and, unbuckling his belt with the bayonet, thesix-shooter and the field-glass, hung them in the shade upon aconvenient limb of a pear tree. He measured the area of the unrulypatch with a military stride, stood thinking for a moment, and then, asif a happy thought had struck him, returned to me with a gesture ofenthusiasm. 

"If monsieur will permit me to offer a suggestion--that is, if monsieurapproves--I should like to make a fresh planting. Ah! I will explainwhat I mean to monsieur, so monsieur may see clearly my ideas. _Voilà!_"he exclaimed. "It is to have the new artichokes planted in threecircles--in three circles, monsieur, " he went on excitedly, "crossedwith the star of the compass, " he continued, as the idea rapidlydeveloped in his peasant brain. "Then in the centre of the star to plantmonsieur's initials in blue and red flowers. _Voilà!_ It will besomething for monsieur's friends to admire, eh?"

He stood waiting tensely for my reply, for I shivered inwardly at thethought of the prospective chromo. 

"Excellent, my good Pierre, " I returned, not wishing to hurt hisfeelings. "Excellent for the gardens of the Tuileries, but my garden issuch a simple one. "

"Pardon, monsieur, " he said, with a touch of mingled disappointment andembarrassment, "they shall be replanted, of course, just as monsieurwishes. " And Pierre went to digging weeds with a will while I went backto my own work. 

At noon Pierre knocked gently at my study door. 

"I must breakfast, monsieur, " he apologized, "and get a little sleep. Ihave promised my brigadier to get back at three. "

"And to-morrow?" I asked. 

Again the shoulders shrugged under the uniform. 

"Ah, monsieur!" he exclaimed helplessly. "_Malheureusement_, to-morrow Iam not free; nor the day after. _Parbleu!_ I cannot tell monsieur _when_I shall be free. "

"I understand, Pierre, " said I. 

 * * * * *

Before sundown the next afternoon I was after a hare through a maze ofthicket running back of the dunes fronting the open sea. I kept onthrough a labyrinth of narrow trails--crossing and recrossing eachother--the private by-ways of sleek old hares in time of trouble, forthe dunes were honeycombed with their burrows. Now and then I cameacross a tent-shaped thatched hut lined with a bed of straw, serving assnug shelters for the coast patrol in tough weather. 

I had just turned into a tangle of scrub-brush, and could hear thebreakers pound and hiss as they swept up upon the hard smooth beachbeyond the dunes, when a low whistle brought me to a leisurely halt, andI saw Pierre spring up from a thicket a rod ahead of me--a Governmentcarbine nestled in the hollow of his arm. 

I could scarcely believe it was the genial and ever-willing Pierre of mygarden. He was the hard-disciplined soldier now, under orders. I wasthankful he had not sent a bullet through me for not halting morepromptly than I did. 

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, coming briskly toward me along atrail no wider than his feet. 

Instantly my free hand went to my hunting-cap in salute. 

"After--a--hare!" I stammered innocently. 

"Not so loud, " he whispered. "_Mon Dieu!_ If the brigadier should hearyou! Come with me, " he commanded, laying his hand firmly upon my arm. "There are six of us hidden between here and the fortress. It is wellthat you stumbled upon me first. They must know who you are. It is notsafe for you to be hunting to-day. "

I had not followed him more than a dozen rods before one of hiscompanions was at my side. "The American, " said Pierre in explanation, and we passed on down through a riot of stunted growth that choked thesides of a hollow. 

Beyond this rose the top of a low circular fort overgrown withwire-grass--the riot of tangle ceasing as we reached the bottom of thehollow and stood in an open patch before an ancient iron gate piercingthe rear of the fort. 

Pierre lifted the latch and we passed through a wall some sixteen feetthick and into a stone-paved courtyard with a broad flight of steps atits farther end sweeping to the top of the circular defence. Flankingthe sunken courtyard itself were a dozen low vaultlike compartments, some of them sealed by heavy doors. At one of these, containing anarrow window, Pierre knocked. The door opened and I stood in thepresence of the Brigadier Bompard. 

"The American gentleman, " announced Pierre, relieving me of my gun. 

The brigadier bowed, looked me over sharply, and bade me enter. 

"At your service, monsieur, " he said coldly, waving his big freckledhand toward a chair drawn up to a fat little stove blushing under aforced draft. 

"At yours, monsieur, " I returned, bowed, and took my seat. 

Then there ensued a dead silence, Pierre standing rigid behind my chair, the brigadier reseated back of a desk littered with official papers. 

For some moments he sat writing, his savage gray eyes scanning the page, the ends of his ferocious moustache twitching nervously as his penscratched on. Back of his heavy shoulders ran a shelf supporting a rowof musty ledgers, and above a stout chest in one corner was a rack ofgleaming carbines. 

The silence became embarrassing. Still the pen scratched on. Was hewriting my death-warrant, I wondered nervously, or only a milder orderfor my arrest? It was a relief when he finally sifted a spoonful of fineblue sand over the document, poured the remaining grains back into theirreceptacle, puffed out his coarse red jowls, emitted a grunt ofapproval, and raised his keen eyes to mine. 

"A thousand pardons, monsieur, " I began, "for being where I assure you Iwould not have been had I known exactly where I was. "

"So monsieur is fond of the chase of the hare?" he asked, with a grimsmile. 

"So fond, Monsieur le Brigadier, " I replied, "that my enthusiasm has, asyou see, led me thoughtlessly into your private territory. I beg of youto accept my sincere apologies. "

He reached back of him, took down one of the musty ledgers, and began toturn the leaves methodically. From where I sat I saw his coarseforefinger stop under a head-line. 

"Smeeth, Berkelek, " he muttered, and read on down the page. "Citizen of_Amérique du Nord_. 

"Height--medium. 

"Age--forty-one. 

"Hair--auburn. 

"Eyes--brown. 

"Chin and frontal--square. 

"No scars. "

"Would your excellency like to see my hunting permit and description?" Iventured. 

"Unnecessary--it is in duplicate here, " he returned curtly, and his eyesagain reverted to the ledger. Then he closed the book, rose, and drawinghis chair to the stove planted his big fists on his knees. 

I began to breathe normally. 

"So you are a painter?" said he. 

"Yes, " I confessed, "but I do not make a specialty of fortresses, yourexcellency, even in the most distant landscapes. "

I was grateful he understood, for I saw a gleam of merriment flash inhis eyes. 

"_Bon!_" he exclaimed briskly--evidently the title of "excellency"helped. "It is not the best day, however, for you to be hunting hares. Are you a good shot, monsieur?"

"That is an embarrassing question, " I returned. "If I do not miss Igenerally kill. "

Pierre, who, during the interview, had been standing mute in attention, now stepped up to him and bending with a hurried "Pardon, " whisperedsomething in his coarse red ear. 

The brigadier raised his shaggy eyebrows and nodded in assent. 

"Ah! So you are a friend of Monsieur le Curé!" he exclaimed. "You wouldnot be Monsieur le Curé's friend if you were not a good shot. _Sapristi!_" He paused, ran his hand over his rough jowls, and resumedbluntly: "It is something to kill the wild duck; another to kill a man. "

"Has war been suddenly declared?" I asked in astonishment. 

A gutteral laugh escaped his throat, he shook his grizzled head in thenegative. 

"A little war of my own, " said he, "a serious business, _parbleu!_"

"Contraband?" I ventured. 

The coarse mouth under the bristling moustache, four times the size ofPierre's, closed with a snap, then opened with a growl. 

"_Sacré mille tonnerres!_" he thundered, slamming his fist down on thedesk within reach of him. "They are the devil, those Belgians! It is forthem my good fellows lose their sleep. " Then he stopped, and eyeing meshrewdly added: "Monsieur, you are an outsider and a gentleman. I cantrust you. Three nights ago a strange sloop, evidently Belgian, from thecut of her, tried to sneak in here, but our semaphore on the point heldher up and she had to run back to the open sea. Bah! Those _sacré_Belgians have the patience of a fox!"

"She was painted like one of our fishing-smacks, " interposed Pierre, nowtoo excited to hold his tongue, "but she did not know the channel. "

"Aye, and she'll try it again, " growled the brigadier, "if the night bedark. She'll find it clear sailing in, but a hot road out. "

"Tobacco?" I asked, now fully alive to the situation. 

The brigadier spat. 

"Of course, as full as she'll float, " he answered. He leaned forward andtouched me good-humouredly on the shoulder. "I'm short of men, " he saidhurriedly. 

"Command me, " I replied. "I'll do my best. I shall return to-night. " AndI rose to take my leave, but he instantly raised his hand in protest. "You are under arrest, monsieur, " he declared quietly, with a shrug ofhis shoulders. 

I looked at him wide-eyed in astonishment. 

"Arrest!" I gasped. 

"Do not be alarmed, " he replied. "It will only be temporary, I assureyou, but since you have so awkwardly stumbled among us there is noalternative but for me to detain you until this _sacré_ affair is wellover. I cannot, at all events, let you return to the village to-night. "

"But I give you my word of honour, monsieur, " I declared, "I shall notopen my lips to a soul. Besides, I must dine at eight to-night withMadame de Bréville. Your excellency can well understand. "

"I know you have friends, monsieur; they might be inquisitive; andthose friends have servants, and those servants have friends, " was hisreply. "No, it is better that you stay. Pierre, give monsieur a carbineand a place ten metres from your own at sundown; then report to me he isthere. Now you may go, monsieur. "

Pierre touched me on the shoulder; then suddenly realizing I was underorders and a prisoner, I straightened, saluted the brigadier, andfollowed Pierre out of the fort with the best grace I could muster. 

"Pierre!" I exclaimed hotly, as we stood again in the thicket. "How longsince you've held up anything here--contraband, I mean?"

For a moment he hesitated, then his voice sank to a whisper. 

"They say it is all of twenty years, perhaps longer, " he confessed. "Butto-night monsieur shall see. Monsieur is, of course, not exactly aprisoner or he would now be in the third vault from the right. "

"A prisoner! The devil I'm not? Didn't he tell me I was?" I exclaimed. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have, monsieur?" returned Pierre excitedly, under his breath. "It is the brigadier's orders. I was afraid monsieurmight reply to him in anger. Ah, _par exemple!_ Then monsieur would haveseen a wild bull. Oh, la! la! When the brigadier is furious----Ah, _ça!_" And he led the way to my appointed ambush without another word. 

Despite my indignation at being thus forced into the service and made aprisoner to boot--however temporary it might be--I gradually began tosee the humour of the situation. It was very like a comic opera, Ithought, as I lay flat on the edge of the thicket and pried away a smallopening in the tangle through which I could look down upon the sweep ofbeach below me and far out to sea. Thus I lay in wait for the smugglingcrew to arrive--to be blazed at and perhaps captured. 

What if they outnumber us? We might all perish then, with no hope ofquarter from these men whom we were lying in wait for like snakes in thegrass. One thing, however, I was firmly resolved upon, and that was toshoot safely over anything that lay in range except in case ofself-defence. I was never of a murderous disposition, and the thought ofanother's blood on my hands sent a fresh shiver along my prostratespine. Then again the comic-opera side of it struck me. I began to feelmore like an extra super in a one-night stand than a real soldier. What, after all, if the smugglers failed us?

I was pondering upon the dangerous effect upon the brigadier of soserious a stage wait, when Pierre crawled over to me from his ambush tenmetres from my own, to leave me my ration of bread and wine. He was soexcited by this time that his voice trembled in my ear. 

"Gaston, my comrade, the fifth down the line, " he whispered, "has justseen two men prowling on the marsh; they are, without doubt, accomplices. Gaston has gone to tell the brigadier. " He ran his handcarefully along the barrel of my carbine. "Monsieur must hold high, " heexplained in another whisper, "since monsieur is unaccustomed to the gunof war. It is this little machine here that does the trick. " He bent hiseyes close to the hind sight and screwed it up to its notch at onehundred and fifty metres. 

I nodded my thanks, and he left me to my bread and wine and creptcautiously back to his ambush. 

 * * * * *

A black night was rapidly settling. Above me in the great unfathomablevault of sky not a star glimmered. Under the gloom of the approachingdarkness the vast expanse of marsh to my left lay silent, desolate, andindistinct, save for its low edge of undulating sand dunes. Only thebeach directly before me showed plainly, seemingly illumined by thebreakers, that gleamed white like the bared teeth of a fighting line ofwolves. 

It was a sullen, cheerless sea, from which the air blew over me damp andraw; the only light visible being the intermittent flash from thedistant lighthouse on Les Trois Loups, beyond the marsh. 

One hour passed--two hours--during which I saw nothing alive and movingsave a hare foraging timidly on the beach for his own rations. After awhile he hopped back to his burrow in the thicket, a thicket of silencefrom which I knew at any moment might break forth a murderous fire. Itgrew colder and colder, I had to breathe lustily into the collar of myjersey to keep out the chill. I began to envy the hare snug in hisburrow. Thus I held my vigil, and the night wore on. 

Ah! my friend the curé! I mused. Was there ever such an indefatigablesportsman? Lucky curé! He was not a prisoner, neither had he beenpressed into the customs patrol like a hired assassin. At that moment Iknew Monsieur le Curé was snug in his duck-blind for the night, a longtwo miles from where I lay; warm, and comfortable, with every chance onsuch a night to kill a dozen fat mallards before his daylight mass. Whatwould my friend Madame Alice de Bréville, and that whole-souled fellowTanrade, think when I did not appear as I had promised, at madame'schâteau, to dine at eight? Cold as I was, I could not help chucklingover the fact that it was no fault of mine. 

I was a prisoner. Alice and Tanrade would dine together. It would bethen a dinner for two. I have never known a woman as discreet as Alice. She had insisted that I dine with them. In Paris Alice might not haveinsisted, but in the lost village, with so many old women with nothingto talk about save other peoples' affairs! Lucky Tanrade!

I could see from where I lay the distant mass of trees screening herchâteau, and picture to myself my two dear friends _alone_. Theirchairs--now that my vacant one was the only witness--drawn closetogether; he holding her soft, responsive little hand between the soupand the fish, between the duck and the salad; then continuously overtheir dessert and Burgundy--she whom he had held close to his big heartthat night after dinner in that once abandoned house of mine, when theyhad gone out together into my courtyard and disappeared in the shadowsof the moonlight. 

Dining alone! The very thing I had tried to bring about. But for thestern brigadier we should have been that wretched number--three--to-nightat the château. Ah, you dear human children, are you conscious andgrateful that I am lying out like a vagabond, a prisoner, that youmay be alone?

I began to wonder, too, what the Essence of Selfishness, that spoiledand adorable cat of mine, would think when it came her bedtime hour. Would Suzette, in her anxiety over my absence, remember to give her thesaucer of warm milk? Yet I knew the Essence of Selfishness would takecare of herself; she would sleep with Suzette. Catch her lying out onthe bare ground like her master when she could curl herself up at thefoot of two fuzzy blankets in a tiny room next to the warm kitchen. 

 * * * * *

It was after midnight when Pierre crawled over to me again, and pointedto a black patch of mussel rocks below. 

"There are the two men Gaston saw, " he whispered. "They are waiting tosignal the channel to their comrades. "

I strained my eyes in the direction he indicated. 

"I cannot see, " I confessed. 

"Here, take the glass, " said he. "Those two humps behind the big one arethe backs of men. They have a lantern well hidden--you can see its glowwhen the glass is steady. "

I could see it all quite clearly now, and occasionally one of the humpslift a head cautiously above the rock. 

"She must be lying off close by, " muttered Pierre, hoarse withexcitement. Again he hurriedly ran his hand over the breech of mycarbine. "The trigger pulls light, " he breathed. "Courage, monsieur! Wehave not long to wait now. " And again he was gone. 

I felt like a hired assassin weakening on the verge of a crime. The nextinstant I saw the lantern hidden on the mussel rocks raised and loweredthrice. 

It was the signal!

Again all was darkness save the gleaming line of surf. My heart thumpedin my ears. Ten minutes passed; then again the lantern was raised, thefigures of the two men standing in silhouette against its steady rays. 

I saw now a small sloop rear itself from the breakers, a short, squatlittle craft with a ghostly sail and a flapping jib. On she came, leaping and dropping broadside among the combers. The lantern now shoneas clearly as a beacon. A sea broke over the sloop, but she staggered upbravely, and with a plunge was swept nearer and nearer the jagged pointof rocks awash with spume. Braced against the tiller was a man indrenched tarpaulins; two other men were holding on to the shrouds likegrim death. On the narrow deck between them I made out a bale-likebundle wrapped in tarpaulin and heavily roped, ready to be cast ashore. 

A moment more, and the sloop would be on the rocks; yet not a sound camefrom the thicket. The suspense was sickening. I had once experiencedbuck-fever, but it was nothing compared to this. The short carbine beganto jump viciously under my grip. 

The sloop was nearly on the rocks! At that critical moment overboardwent the bundle, the two men with the lantern rushing out and draggingit clear of the swash. 

Simultaneously, with a crackling roar, six tongues of flame spat fromthe thicket and we charged out of our ambush and over the crest of thedunes toward the smugglers' craft and its crew, firing as we ran. Thefellow next to me stumbled and fell sprawling in the sand. 

In the panic that ensued I saw the sloop making a desperate effort toput to sea. Meanwhile the two accomplices were running like rabbits forthe marsh. Close to the mysterious bundle their lantern lay smashed andburning luridly in its oil. The brigadier sprang past me swearing like apirate, while his now thoroughly demoralized henchmen and myselfstumbled on, firing at random with still a good hundred yards between usand the abandoned contraband. 

At that instant I saw the sloop's sail fill and then, as if by amiracle, she slowly turned back to the open sea. Above the general dinthe brigadier's voice rang out, bellowing his orders. By the time thesloop had cleared the breakers his language had become unprintable. Hehad reached the mussel rocks and stood shaking his clenched fists at thedeparting craft, while the rest of us crowded about the bundle and theblazing lantern. Every one was talking and gesticulating at once asthey watched the sloop plunge away in the darkness. 

"_Sacré mille tonnerres!_" roared the brigadier, sinking down on thebundle. Then he turned and glared at me savagely. "Idiot!" he cried, labouring for his breath. "_Espèce d'imbécile. Ah! Nom d'un petitbonhomme. _ You were on the end. Why did you not head off those devilswith the lantern?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly in reply. He was in no condition toargue with. 

"And the rest of you----" He choked in his rage, unable to frame hiswords. They stood helplessly about, gesticulating their apologies. 

He sprang to his feet, gave the bundle a sound kick, and snarled out anorder. Pierre and another jumped forward, and together they shoulderedit between them. Then the remainder of the valiant guard fell intosingle file and started back to the fort, the brigadier and myselfbringing up the rear. As we trudged on through the sand together he keptmuttering to himself. It only occurred to me then that nobody had beenhit. By this time even the accomplices were safe. 

"Monsieur, " I ventured, as we regained the trail leading to the fort, "it is with the sincerest regret of my heart that I offer you myapologies. True, I might have done better, but I did my best in myinexperience. We have the contraband--at least that is something, eh?"

He grew calmer as the thought struck him. 

"Yes, " he grumbled, "there are in that bundle at least ten thousandcigars. It is, after all, not so bad. "

"Might I ask, " I returned, "when your excellency intends to honour mewith my liberty?"

He stopped, and to my delight held out his hand to me. 

"You are free, monsieur, " he said roughly, with a touch of his goodnature. "The affair is over--but not a word of the manoeuvre you havewitnessed in the village. Our work here is for the ears of theGovernment alone. "

As we reached the gate of the fort I saluted him, handed my carbine toPierre in exchange for my shotgun, and struck home in the mist of earlydawn. 

 * * * * *

The morning after, I was leaning over the lichen-stained wall of mygarden caressing the white throat of the Essence of Selfishness, theevents of my night of service still in my mind, when I saw the coastpatrol coming across the marsh in double file. As they drew nearer Irecognized Pierre and his companion, who had shouldered the contraband. The roped bundle was swung on a stout pole between them. 

Presently they left the marsh and gained the road. As the double file ofuniformed men came past my wall they returned my salute. Pierre shiftedhis end of the pole to the man behind him and stood at attention untilthe rest had passed. Then the procession went on to inform Monsieur theMayor, who lived near the little square where nothing ever happened. 

Pierre turned when they had left and entered my garden. What was hegoing to tell me now? I wondered, with sudden apprehension. Was I toserve another night?

"I'll be hanged if I will, " I muttered. 

He approached solemnly and slowly, his bayonet gleaming at his side, thewarm sunlight glinting on the buttons of his uniform. When he got nearenough for me to look into his eyes he stopped, raised his hand to hiscap in salute, and said with a smile:

"Now, monsieur, the artichokes. "

 [Illustration: bundle of contraband]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: Marianne]

CHAPTER FIVE

MARIANNE

Monsieur le Curé slid the long chair up to my fire, bent his straight, black body forward, and rubbing his chilled hands briskly before theblazing logs, announced with a smile of content:

"Marianne is out of jail. "

"_Sacristi!_" I exclaimed, "and in mid-winter! It must be cold enough inthat hut of hers by the marsh--poor old girl. "

"And not a sou to be earned fishing, " added the curé. 

"Tell me about this last crime of hers, " I asked. 

Monsieur le Curé's face grew serious, then again the smile of contentspread to the corners of his firm mouth. 

"Oh! Nothing very gruesome, " he confessed, then after a moment's silencehe continued slowly: "Her children needed shoes and warm things for thewinter. Marianne stole sixty _mètres_ of nets from the fishing crew at'The Three Wolves'--she is hopeless, my friend. " With a vibrant gesturehe straightened up in his chair and flashed his keen eyes to mine. "Forten years I have tried to reform her, " he declared. "Bah!"--and hetossed the stump of his cigarette into the blaze. 

"You nursed her once through the smallpox, " said I, "when no one daredgo near her. The mayor told me so. I should think _that_ would have longago persuaded her to do something for you in return. "

"We go where we are needed, " he replied simply. "She will promise menothing. One might as well try to make a faithful parishioner of a gipsyas to change Marianne for the better. " He brought his fist down sharplyon the broad arm of his chair. "I tell you, " he went on tensely, "Marianne is a woman of no morals and no religion--a woman who allows noone to dictate to her save a gendarme with a warrant of arrest. Hardlya winter passes but she goes to jail. She is a confirmed thief, a badsubject, " he went on vibrantly. "She can drink as no three sailors candrink--and yet you know as well as I do, " he added, lowering his voice, "that there is not a mother in Pont du Sable who is as good to herchildren as Marianne. "

"They are a brave little brood, " I replied. "I have heard that theeldest boy and girl Marianne adopted, yet they resemble their mother, with their fair curly hair and blue eyes, as much as do the youngestboys and the little girl. "

"Marianne has had many lovers, " returned the curé gravely. "There is notone of that brood of hers that has yet been baptized. " An expression ofpain crossed his face. "I have tried hard; Marianne is impossible. "

"Yet you admit she has her qualities. "

"Yes, good qualities, " he confessed, filling a fresh cigarette paperfull of tobacco. "Good qualities, " he reiterated. "She has brought upher children to be honest and she keeps them clean. She has neverstolen from her own village--it is a point of honour with her. Ah! youdo not know Marianne as I know her. "

"It seems to me you are growing enthusiastic over our worst vagabond, " Ilaughed. 

"I am, " replied the curé frankly. "I believe in her; she is afraid ofnothing. You see her as a vagabond--an outcast, and the next instant, _Parbleu!_ she forces out of you your camaraderie--even your respect. You shake her by the hand, that straight old hag with her clear blueeyes, her square jaw and her hard face! She who walks with the stride ofa man, who is as supple and strong as a sailor, and who looks yousquarely in the eye and studies you calmly, at times disdainfully--evenwhen drunk. "

 * * * * *

It was late when Monsieur le Curé left me alone by my fire. I cannot say"alone, " for the Essence of Selfishness, was purring on my chest. 

In this old _normand_ house of mine by the marsh, there comes a silenceat this hour which is exhilarating. Out of these winter midnights comestrange sounds, whirring flights of sea-fowl whistle over my roof, inlate for a lodging on the marsh. A heavy peasant's cart goes by, groaning in agony under the brake. When the wind is from the sea, it islike a bevy of witches shrilling my doom down the chimney. "Aye, aye, 'tis he, " they seem to scream, "the stranger--the s-t-r-a-n-g-e-r. "One's mind is alert at this hour--one must be brave in a foreign land. 

And so I sat up late, smoking a black pipe that gurgled in unison withthe purring on my chest while I thought seriously of Marianne. 

I had seen her go laughing to jail two months ago, handcuffed to agendarme on the back seat of the last car of the toy train. It was anoccasion when every one in the lost village came charitably out to havea look. I remembered, too, she sat there as garrulous as if she werestarting on a holiday--a few of her old cronies crowded about her. Oneby one, her children gave their mother a parting hug--there were notears--and the gendarme sat beside her with a stolid dignity befittinghis duty to the _République_. Then the whistle tooted twice--a coughingpuff of steam in the crisp sunlight, a wheeze of wheels, and the toytrain rumbled slowly out of the village with its prisoner. Mariannenodded and laughed back at the waving group. 

"_Bon voyage!_" croaked a little old woman, lifting her claw. She hadborrowed five francs from the prisoner. 

"_Au revoir!_" laughed back Marianne, but the words were faint, for thelast car was snaking around the bend. 

Thus Marianne went to jail. Now that she is back, she takes her returnas carelessly and unblushingly as a _demi-mondaine_ does her annualreturn from Dinard. 

When Marianne was eighteen, they tell me, she was the prettiest girl inPont du Sable, that is to say, she was prettier than Emilienne Dagèt atBar la Rose, or than Berthe Pavoisiér, the daughter of the miller atTocqueville, who is now in Paris. At eighteen, Marianne was slim andblonde; moreover, she was as bold as a hawk, and smiled as easily asshe lied. At twenty, she was rated as a valuable member of any fishingcrew that put out from the coast, for they found her capable during acatch, and steady in danger, always doing her share and a little morefor those who could not help themselves. She is still doing it, for inher stone hut on the edge of the marsh that serves as shelter for herchildren and her rough old self, she has been charitable and given awinter's lodging to three old wrecks of the sea. There are no beds, butthere are bunks filled with marsh-hay; there is no furniture, but thereare a few pots and pans, and in one corner of the dirt floor, acrackling fire of drift wood, and nearly always enough applejack forall, and now and then hot soup. Marianne wrenches these luxuries, so tospeak, out of the sea, often alone and single-handed, working as hard asa gull to feed her young. 

The curé was right; Marianne had her good qualities--I was almostbeginning to wonder to myself as I pulled drowsily at the black pipe ifher good qualities did not outweigh her bad ones, when the Essence ofSelfishness awakened and yawned. And so it was high time to send thisspoiled child of mine to bed. 

 * * * * *

Marianne called her "_ma belle petite_, " though her real name wasYvonne--Yvonne Louise Tournéveau. 

Yvonne kept her black eyes from early dawn until dark upon a dozen ofthe Père Bourron's cows in her charge, who grazed on a long point of themarsh, lush with salt grass, that lay sheltered back of the dunesfronting the open sea. 

Now and then, when a cow strayed over the dunes on to the hard beachbeyond to gaze stupidly at the breakers, the little girl's voice wouldbecome as authoritative as a boy's. "_Eh ben, tu sais!_" she would shoutas she ran to head the straggler off, adding some sound whacks with astick until the cow decided to lumber back to the rest. "_Ah mais!_"Yvonne would sigh as she seated herself again in the wire-grass, tuckingher firm bronzed legs under a patched skirt that had once served as awinter petticoat for the Mère Bourron. 

Occasionally a trudging coast guard or a lone hunter in passing wouldcall "_Bonjour!_" to her, and since she was pretty, this child offifteen, they would sometimes hail her with "_Ça va, ma petite!_" andYvonne would flush and reply bravely, "_Mais oui, M'sieur, merci. _"

Since she was only a little girl with hair as black as a gipsy's, aruddy olive skin, fresh young lips and a well-knit, compact body, hardened by constant exposure to the sea air and sun, no one botheredtheir heads much about her name. She was only a child who smiled whenthe passerby would give her a chance, which was seldom, and when shedid, she disclosed teeth as white as the tiny shells on the beach. Therewere whole days on the marsh when she saw no one. 

At noon, when the cracked bell in the distant belfry of the gray churchof Pont du Sable sent its discordant note quavering across the marsh, Yvonne drew forth a sailor's knife from where it lay tucked safe withinthe breast of her coarse chemise, and untying a square of blue cottoncloth, cut in two her portion of peasant bread, saving half the breadand half a bottle of Père Bourron's thinnest cider for the lateafternoon. 

There were days, too, when Marianne coming up from the sea with hernets, stopped to rest beside the child and talk. Yvonne having no motherwhich she could remember, Marianne had become a sort of transient motherto her, whom the incoming tide sometimes brought her and whom she wouldwait for with uncertain expectancy, often for days. 

One afternoon, early in the spring, when the cows were feeding in thescant slanting shade of the dunes, Yvonne fell asleep. She lay outstraight upon her back, her brown legs crossed, one wrist over her eyes. She slept so soundly that neither the breeze that had sprung up from thenortheast, stirring with every fresh puff the stray locks about hersmall ears, or the sharp barking of a dog hunting rabbits for himselfover the dunes, awakened her. Suddenly she became conscious of beinggrasped in a pair of strong arms, and, awakening with a little scream, looked up into the grinning face of Marianne, who straightway gave hera big, motherly hug until she was quite awake and then kissed hersoundly on both cheeks, until Yvonne laughed over her fright. 

"_Oh, mon Dieu!_ but I was frightened, " sighed the child, and sat upstraight, smoothing back her tumbled hair. "Oh! la! la!" she gasped. 

"They are beauties, _hein!_" exclaimed Marianne, nodding to an oozingbasketful of mackerel; then, kneeling by the basket, she plunged her redhands under the slimy, glittering mass of fish, lifting and droppingthem that the child might see the average size in the catch. 

"_Eh ben!_" declared Marianne, "some day when thou art bigger, _mapetite_, I'll take thee where thou canst make some silver. There's halfa louis' worth there if there's a sou!" There was a gleam ofsatisfaction in her eyes, as she bent over her basket again, dressed asshe was in a pair of fisherman's trousers cut off at the knees. 

"One can play the lady on half a louis, " she continued, covering herfish from the sun with her bundle of nets. "My man shall have a fullbottle of the best to-night, " she added, wiping her wet hands across herstrong bare knees. 

"How much 'cake' does that old crab of a Bourron pay thee?" sheinquired, turning again to the child. 

"Six sous a day, and then my food and lodging, " confessed Yvonne. 

"He won't ruin himself, " muttered Marianne. 

"They say the girl at the Three Wolves gets ten, " added the child withawe, "but thou knowest how--she must do the washing besides. "

Marianne's square jaw shut hard. She glanced at Yvonne's patched skirt, the one that had been the Mère Bourron's winter petticoat, feeling itsquality as critically as a fashionable dressmaker. 

"_Sacristi!_" she exclaimed, examining a rent, "there's one door thatthe little north wind won't knock twice at before he enters. Keep still, _ma petite_, I've got thread and a needle. "

She drew from her trousers' pocket a leather wallet in which lay fourtwo-sous pieces, an iron key and a sail needle driven through a ball oflinen thread. "It is easily seen thou art not in love, " laughedMarianne, as she cross-stitched the tear. "Thou wilt pay ten sous for aribbon gladly some day when thou art in love. "

The child was silent while she sewed. Presently she asked timidly, "Oneeats well there?"

"Where?"

"But thou knowest--_there_. "

"In the prison?"

"_Mais oui_, " whispered Yvonne. 

"Of course, " growled Marianne, "one eats well; it is perfect. _Tiens!_we have the good soup, that is well understood; and now and then meatand rice. "

"Oh!" exclaimed the child in awe. 

"_Mais oui_, " assured Marianne with a nod, "and prunes. "

"Where is that, the prison?" ventured the child. 

"It is very far, " returned Marianne, biting off the thread, "and it isnot for every one either, " she added with a touch of pride--"only Ihappen to be an old friend and know the judge. "

"And how much does it cost a day, the prison?" asked Yvonne. 

"Not _that_, " replied Marianne, snipping her single front toothknowingly with the tip of her nail. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ and they give you all that for nothing?" exclaimed thechild in astonishment. "It is _chic_, that, _hein!_" and she nodded herpretty head with decision, "_Ah mais oui, alors!_" she laughed. 

"I must be going, " said Marianne, abruptly. "My young ones will bewanting their soup. " She flattened her back against her heavy basket, slipped the straps under her armpits and rose to her feet, the childpassing the bundle of nets to her and helping her shoulder them to theproper balance. 

"_Au revoir, ma belle petite_, " she said, bending to kiss the girl'scheek; then with her free hand she dove into her trousers' pocket anddrew out a two-sous piece. "_Tiens_, " she exclaimed, pressing thecopper into the child's hand. 

Yvonne gave a little sigh of delight. It was not often she had two sousall to herself to do what she pleased with, which doubles the delight ofpossession. Besides, the Mère Bourron kept her wages--or rather, countof them, which was cheaper--on the back page of a greasy book whereinwere registered the births of calves. 

"_Au revoir_, " reiterated Marianne, and turned on her way to the villagedown the trail that wound through the salt grass out to the roadskirting the bay. Yvonne watched her until she finally disappearedthrough a cut in the dunes that led to the main road. 

The marsh lay in the twilight, the curlews were passing overhead boundfor a distant mud flat for the night. "_Courli! Courli!_" they called, the old birds with a rasp, the young ones cheerfully; as one says"_bonsoir_. " The cows, conscious of the fast-approaching dark, weremoving toward the child. She stood still until they had passed her, then drove them slowly back to the Père Bourron's, her two-sous piececlutched safe in her hand. 

It was dark when she let down the bars of the orchard, leading into thefarm-yard. Here the air was moist and heavy with the pungent odour ofmanure; a turkey gobbler and four timid hens roosting in a low appletree, stirred uneasily as the cows passed beneath them to their stablenext to the kitchen--a stable with a long stone manger and walls twofeet thick. Above the stable was a loft covered by a thatched roof; itwas in a corner of this loft, in a large box filled with straw andprovided with a patchwork-quilt, that Yvonne slept. 

A light from the kitchen window streamed across the muddy court. ThePère and Mère Bourron were already at supper. The child bolted thestable door upon her herd and slipped into her place at table with atimid "_Bonsoir, m'sieur, madame_, " to her masters, which wasacknowledged by a grunt from the Père Bourron and a spasm of coughingfrom his spouse. 

The Mère Bourron, who had the dullish round eye of a pig that gleamedsuspiciously when she became inquisitive, had supped well. Now and thenshe squinted over her fat jowls veined with purple, plying her mate withshort, savage questions, for he had sold cattle that day at the marketat Bonville. Such evenings as these were always quarrelsome between thetwo, and as the little girl did not count any more than the chair shesat in, they argued openly over the day's sale. The best steer hadbrought less than the Mère Bourron had believed, a shrewd possibility, even after a month's bargaining. When both had wiped their plates cleanwith bread--for nothing went to waste there--the child got up andbrought the black coffee and the decanter of applejack. They at lastceased to argue, since the Mère Bourron had had the final word. PèreBourron sat with closed fists, opening one now and then to strengthenhis coffee with applejack. Being a short, thickset man, he generally satin his blouse after he had eaten, with his elbows on the table and hisrough bullet-like head, with its crop of unkempt hair, buried in hishands. 

When Yvonne had finished her soup, and eaten all her bread, she rose andwith another timid "_Bonsoir_" slipped away to bed. 

"Leave the brindle heifer tied!" shrilled madame as the child reachedthe courtyard. 

"_Mais, oui madame_, it is done, " answered Yvonne, and crept into herbox beneath the thatch. 

 * * * * *

At sixteen Yvonne was still guarding the cows for the Bourrons. Atseventeen she fell in love. 

He was a slick, slim youth named Jean, with a soapy blond lock plasteredunder the visor of his leather cap pulled down to his red ears. On fêtedays, he wore in addition a scarlet neck-tie girdling his scrawnythroat. He had watched Yvonne for a long time, very much as the snake inthe fable saved the young dove until it was grown. 

And so, Yvonne grew to dreaming while the cows strayed. Once the PèreBourron struck at her with a spade for her negligence, but missed. Another night he beat her soundly for letting a cow get stalled in themud. The days on the marsh now became interminable, for he worked forGavelle, the carpenter, a good three _kilomètres_ back of Pont du Sableand the two could see each other only on fête days when he met hersecretly among the dunes or in the evenings near the farm. He would waitfor her then at the edge of the woods skirting the misty sea of pasturethat spread out below the farm like some vast and silent dry lake, dotted here and there with groups of sleeping cattle. 

She saw Marianne but seldom now, for the latter fished mostly at theThree Wolves, sharing her catch with a crew of eight fishermen. Oftenthey would seine the edge of the coast, their boat dancing off beyondthe breakers while they netted the shallow water, swishing up the hardbeach--these gamblers of the sea. They worked with skill and precision, each one having his share to do, while one--the quickest--was appointedto carry their bundle of dry clothes rolled in a tarpaulin. 

Marianne seemed of casual importance to her now. We seldom think of ourbest friends in time of love. Yvonne cried for his kisses which atfirst she did not wholly understand, but which she grew to hunger for, just as when she was little she craved for all she wanted to eat foronce--and candy. 

She began to think of herself, too--of Jean's scarlet cravat--of his newshoes too tight for him, which he wore with the pride of a village dandyon fête days and Sundays--and of her own patched and pitifully scantywardrobe. 

"She has nothing, that little one, " she had heard the gossips remarkopenly before her, time and time again, when she was a child. Now thatshe was budding into womanhood and was physically twice as strong asJean, now that she was conscious of _herself_, she began to know thepangs of vanity. 

It was about this time that she bought the ribbon, just as Marianne hadforetold, a red ribbon to match Jean's tie, and which she fashioned intoa bow and kept in a paper box, well hidden in the straw of her bed. Thepatched skirt had long ago grown too short, and was now stuffed into abroken window beyond the cow manger to temper the draught from the neckof a sick bull. 

She wore now, when it stormed, thick woollen stockings and sabots; andanother skirt of the Mère Bourron's fastened around a chemise of coarsehomespun linen, its colour faded to a delicious pale mazarine blue, showing the strength and fullness of her body. 

 * * * * *

She had stolen down from the loft this night to meet him at the edge ofthe woods. 

"Where is he?" were his first words as he sought her lips in the dark. 

"He has gone, " she whispered, when her lips were free. 

"Where?"

"_Eh ben_, he went away with the Père Detour to the village--madame isasleep. "

"Ah, good!" said he. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ but you are warm, " she whispered, pressing her cheekagainst his own. 

"I ran, " he drawled, "the patron kept me late. There is plenty of workthere now. "

He put his arm around her and the two walked deeper into the wood, heholding her heavy moist hand idly in his own. Presently the moon cameout, sailing high among the scudding clouds, flashing bright in theclear intervals. A white mist had settled low over the pasture belowthem, and the cattle were beginning to move restlessly under the chillblanket, changing again and again their places for the night. A bullbellowed with all his might from beyond the mysterious distance. He hadevidently scented them, for presently he emerged from the mist and movedalong the edge of the woods, protected by a deep ditch. He stopped whenhe was abreast of them to bellow again, then kept slowly on past them. They had seated themselves in the moonlight among the stumps of somefreshly cut poplars. 

"_Dis donc_, what is the matter?" he asked at length, noticing herunusual silence, for she generally prattled on, telling him of theuneventful hours of her days. 

"Nothing, " she returned evasively. 

"_Mais si; bon Dieu!_ there _is_ something. "

She placed her hands on her trembling knees. 

"No, I swear there is nothing, Jean, " she said faintly. 

But he insisted. 

"One earns so little, " she confessed at length. "Ten sous a day, it isnot much, and the days are so long on the marsh. If I knew how to cookI'd try and get a place like Emilienne. "

"Bah!" said he, "you are crazy--one must study to cook; besides, you arenot yet eighteen, the Père Bourron has yet the right to you for a year. "

"That is true, " confessed the girl simply; "one has not much chance whenone is an orphan. Listen, Jean. "

"What?"

"Listen--is it true that thou dost love me?"

"Surely, " he replied with an easy laugh. 

"Listen, " she repeated timidly; "if thou shouldst get steady work--Ishould be content ... To be... " But her voice became inaudible. 

"_Allons!_... What?" he demanded irritably. 

"To ... To be married, " she whispered. 

He started. "_Eh ben! en voilà_ an idea!" he exclaimed. 

"Forgive me, Jean, I have always had that idea----" She dried her eyeson the back of her hand and tried hard to smile. "It is foolish, eh? Themarriage costs so dear ... But if thou shouldst get steady work... "

"_Eh ben!_" he answered slowly with his Normand shrewdness, "I don't sayno. "

"I'll help thee, Jean; I can work hard when I am free. One wins fortysous a day by washing, and then there is the harvest. "

There was a certain stubborn conviction in her words which worried him. 

"_Eh ben!_" he said at length, "we might get married--that's so. "

She caught her breath. 

"Swear it, Jean, that thou wilt marry me, swear it upon Sainte Marie. "

"_Eh voilà_, it's done. _Oui_, by Sainte Marie!"

She threw her arms about him, crushing him against her breast. 

"_Dieu!_ but thou art strong, " he whispered. 

"Did I hurt thee?"

"No--thou art content now?"

"Yes--I am content, " she sobbed, "I am content, I am content. "

He had slipped to the ground beside her. She drew his head back in herlap, her hand pressed hard against his forehead. 

"_Dieu!_ but I am content, " she breathed in his ear. 

He felt her warm tears dropping fast upon his cheek. 

 * * * * *

All night she lay in the straw wide awake, flushed, in a sort of fever. At daylight she drove her cows back to the marsh without having barelytouched her soup. 

Far across the bay glistened the roof of a barn under construction. Anobject the size of a beetle was crawling over the new boards. 

It was Jean. 

"I'm a fool, " he thought, as he drove in a nail. Then he fell tothinking of a girl in his own village whose father was as rich as thePère Bourron. 

"_Sacré Diable!_" he laughed at length, "if every one got married whohad sworn by Sainte Marie, Monsieur le Curé would do a good business. "

 * * * * *

A month later Père Bourron sold out a cartful of calves at the market atBonville. It was late at night when he closed his last bargain over afinal glass, climbed up on his big two-wheeled cart, and with a face ofdull crimson and a glazed eye, gathered up the reins and started swayingin his seat for home. A boy carrying milk found him at daylight the nextmorning lying face down in the track of his cart, dead, with a fracturedskull. Before another month had passed, the Mère Bourron had sold thefarm and gone to live with her sister--a lean woman who took in sewing. 

Yvonne was free. 

Free to work and to be married, and she did work with silent ferocityfrom dawn until dark, washing the heavy coarse linen for a farm, andscrubbing the milk-pans bright until often long after midnight--andsaved. Jean worked too, but mostly when he pleased, and had his haircut on fête days, most of which he spent in the café and saw Yvonneduring the odd moments when she was free. 

Life over the blacksmith's shop, where she had taken a room, wentmerrily for a while. Six months later--it is such an old story that itis hardly worth the telling--but it was long after dark when she gotback from work and she found it lying on the table in her rough cleanlittle room--a scrap of paper beside some tiny worsted things she hadbeen knitting for weeks. 

"I am not coming back, " she read in an illiterate hand. 

She would have screamed, but she could not breathe. She turned again, staring at the paper and gripping the edge of the table with bothhands--then the ugly little room that smelt of singed hoofs rocked andswam before her. 

When she awoke she lay on the floor. The flame of the candle wassputtering in its socket. After a while she crawled to her knees in thedark; then, somehow, she got to her feet and groped her way to thedoor, and down the narrow stairs out to the road. She felt the need of amother and turned toward Pont du Sable, keeping to the path at the sideof the wood like a homeless dog, not wishing to be observed. Everylittle while, she was seized with violent trembling so that she wasobliged to stop--her whole body ached as if she had been beaten. 

A sharp wind was whistling in from the sea and the night was so blackthat the road bed was barely visible. 

It was some time before she reached the beginning of Pont du Sable, andturned down a forgotten path that ran back of the village by the marsh. A light gleamed ahead--the lantern of a fishing-boat moored far out onthe slimy mud. She pushed on toward it, mistaking its position, in heragony, for the hut of Marianne. Before she knew it, she was well out onthe treacherous mud, slipping and sinking. She had no longer thestrength now to pull her tired feet out. Twice she sank in the slimeabove her knees. She tried to go back but the mud had become ooze--shewas sinking--she screamed--she was gone and she knew it. Then sheslipped and fell on her face in a glaze of water from the incoming tide. At this instant some one shouted back, but she did not hear. 

It was Marianne. 

It was she who had moored the boat with the lantern and was on her wayback to her hut when she heard a woman scream twice. She stopped assuddenly as if she had been shot at, straining her eyes in the directionthe sound came from--she knew that there was no worse spot in the bay, asemi-floating solution of mud veined with quicksand. She knew, too, howfar the incoming tide had reached, for she had just left it at her bareheels by way of a winding narrow causeway with a hard shell bottom thatled to the marsh. She did not call for help, for she knew what laybefore her and there was not a second to lose. The next instant, she hadsprung out on the treacherous slime, running for a life in thefast-deepening glaze of water. 

"Lie down!" she shouted. Then her feet touched a solid spot caked withshell and grass. Here she halted for an instant to listen--a chokinggroan caught her ear. 

"Lie down!" she shouted again and sprang forward. She knew the knack ofrunning on that treacherous slime. 

She leapt to a patch of shell and listened again. The woman was chokingnot ten yards ahead of her, almost within reach of a thin point ofmatted grass running back of the marsh, and there she found her, and shewas still breathing. With her great strength she slid her to the pointof grass. It held them both. Then she lifted her bodily in her arms, swung her on her back and ran splashing knee-deep in water to solidground. 

"_Sacré bon Dieu!_" she sobbed as she staggered with her burden. "_C'estma belle petite!_"

 * * * * *

For weeks Yvonne lay in the hut of the worst vagabond of Pont du Sable. So did a mite of humanity with black eyes who cried and laughed when hepleased. And Marianne fished for them both, alone and single-handed, wrenching time and time again comforts from the sea, for she wouldallow no one to go near them, not even such old friends as Monsieur leCuré and myself--that old hag, with her clear blue eyes, who walks withthe stride of a man, and who looks at you squarely, at timesdisdainfully--even when drunk. 

 [Illustration: sabots]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: a Normande]

CHAPTER SIX

THE BARON'S PERFECTOS

Strange things happen in my "Village of Vagabonds. " It is not all fishergirls, Bohemian neighbours, romance, and that good friend the curé whoshoots one day and confesses sinners the next. Things from the outsideworld come to us--happenings with sometimes a note of terror in them tomake one remember their details for days. 

Only the other day I had run up from the sea to Paris to replenish thelarder of my house abandoned by the marsh at Pont du Sable, and wassitting behind a glass of vermouth on the terrace of the Café de la Paixwhen the curtain rose. 

One has a desire to promenade with no definite purpose these softspring days, when all Paris glitters in the warm sun. The days slip by, one into another--days to be lazy in, idle and extravagant, to promenadealone, seeking adventure, and thus win a memory, if only the amiableglance of a woman's eyes. 

I was drinking in the tender air, when from my seat on the terrace Irecognized in the passing throng the familiar figure of the Brazilianbanker, the Baron Santos da Granja. The caress of spring had enticed theBaron early this afternoon to the Boulevard. Although he had beenpointed out to me but once, there was no mistaking his conspicuousfigure as he strode on through the current of humanity, for he stoodhead and shoulders above the average mortal, and many turned to glanceat this swarthy, alert, well-preserved man of the world with his keenblack eyes, thin pointed beard and moustache of iron gray. From hispatent-leather boots to his glistening silk hat the Baron Santos daGranja was immaculate. 

Suddenly I saw him stop, run his eyes swiftly over the crowded tablesand then, though there happened to be one just vacated within hisreach, turn back with a look of decision and enter the Government'sdépôt for tobacco under the Grand Hotel. 

I, too, was in need of tobacco, for had not my good littlemaid-of-all-work, Suzette, announced to me only the day before:

"Monsieur, there are but three left of the big cigars in the thin box;and the ham of the English that monsieur purchased in Paris is no more. "

"It is well, my child, " I had returned resignedly, "that ham could notlast forever; it was too good. "

"And if Monsieur le Curé comes to dinner there is no more kümmel, " thelittle maid had confessed, and added with a shy lifting of her truthfuleyes, "monsieur does not wish I should get more of the black cigars atthe grocery?"

I had winced as I recalled the last box, purchased from the only storein Pont du Sable, where they had lain long enough to absorb the pungentodour of dried herring and kerosene. 

Of course it was not right that our guests should suffer thus from anempty larder and so, as I have said, I had run up from the sea toreplenish it. It was, I confess, an extravagant way of doing one'smarketing; but then there was Paris in the spring beckoning me, and whocan resist her seductive call at such a time?

But to my story: I finished my glass of vermouth, and, following theBaron's example, entered the Government's store, where I discovered himselecting with the air of a connoisseur a dozen thin boxes of rareperfectos. He chatted pleasantly with the clerk who served him and upongoing to the desk, opened a Russian-leather portfolio and laid beforethe cashier six crisp, new one-hundred-franc notes in payment for thelot. I have said that the Baron was immaculate, and he _was_, even tohis money. It was as spotless and unruffled as his linen, as neat, infact, as were the noble perfectos of his choice, long, mild and pure, with tiny ends, and fat, comforting bodies that guaranteed a quality fitfor an emperor; but then the least a bank can do, I imagine, is toprovide clean money to its president. 

As the Baron passed out and my own turn at the desk came to settle formy modest provision of Havanas, I recalled to my mind the current gossipof the Baron's extravagance, of the dinners he had lately given thatsurprised Paris--and Paris is not easily surprised. What if he had "soldmore than half of his vast estate in Brazil last year"? And suppose hewas no longer able or willing "to personally supervise his racingstable, " that he "had grown tired of the track, " etc. Nonsense! Thepress knows so little of the real truth. For me the Baron Santos daGranja a was simply a seasoned man of the world, with the good taste tohave retired from its conspicuous notoriety; and good taste is alwaysexpensive. His bank account did not interest me. 

 * * * * *

I knew her well by sight, for she passed me often in the Bois deBoulogne when I ran up to Paris on just such errands as my present one. She had given me thus now and then glimpses of her feverishlife--gleams from the facets, since her success in Paris was asbrilliant as a diamond. Occasionally I would meet her in the shadedalleys, but always in sight of her brougham, which kept pace with herwhims at a safe but discreet distance. 

There was a rare perfection about her lithe, graceful person, an easeand subtlety of line, an allure which was satisfying--from her trimlittle feet gloved in suède, to the slender nape of her neck, from whichsprang, back of the loveliest of little ears, the exquisite sheen of herblonde hair. 

There were mornings when she wore a faultless tailor-made of plain darkblue and carried a scarlet parasol, with its jewelled handle held in afirm little hand secreted in spotless white kid. 

I noticed, too, in passing that her eyes were deep violet andexceedingly alert, her features classic in their fineness. Once I sawher smile, not at me, but at her fox terrier. It was then that I caughta glimpse of her young white teeth--pearly white in contrast to thefreshness of her pink and olive skin, so clear that it seemed to betranslucent, and she blushed easily, having lived but a score of springsall told. 

In the afternoon, when she drove in her brougham lined with dove-gray, the scarlet parasol was substituted by one of filmy, creamy lace, shading a gown of pale mauve or champagne colour. 

I had heard that she was passionately extravagant, that she seldom, ifever, won at the races--owned a little hotel with a carved façade in theAvenue du Bois, a villa at Dinard, and three fluffy little dogs, whojingled their gold bells when they followed her. 

She dined at Paillard's, sometimes at the Café de la Paix, rarely atMaxim's; skated at the Palais de Glace on the most respectableafternoons--drank plain water--rolled her own cigarettes--and possesseda small jewel box full of emeralds, which she seldom wore. 

_Voilà!_ A spoiled child for you!

There were mornings, too, when, after her tub, as early as nine, shegalloped away on her cob to the _Bois_ for her coffee and hot _brioche_at the Pré Catelan, a romantic little farm with a café and a stablefulof mild-eyed cows that provide fresh milk to the weary at daylight, whoare trying hard to turn over a new leaf before the next midnight. Oftenshe came there accompanied by her groom and the three little dogs withthe jingling bells, who enjoyed the warm milk and the run back of thefleet hoofs of her saddle-horse. 

On this very morning--upon which opens the second act of my drama, Ifound her sitting at the next table to mine, chiding one of the jinglinglittle dogs for his disobedience. 

"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she exclaimed suddenly, with a savage gleam in hereyes. 

I turned and gazed at her in astonishment. It was the first time I hadheard her voice. It was her accent that made me stare. 

"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she repeated, in the patois of the Normand peasant, lifting her riding crop in warning to the ball of fluff who had refusedto get on his chair and was now wriggling in apology. 

"Who is that lady?" I asked the old waiter Emile, who was serving me. 

"Madame is an Austrian, " he confided to me, bending his fat back as hepoured my coffee. 

"Austrian, eh! Are you certain, Emile?"

"_Parbleu_, monsieur" replied Emile, "one is never certain of any one inParis. I only tell monsieur what I have heard. Ah! it is very easy to bemistaken in Paris, monsieur. Take, for instance, the lady in deepmourning, with the two little girls, over there at the table under thelilac bush. "

"She is young to be a widow, " I interposed, glancing discreetly in thedirection he nodded. 

Emile smiled faintly. "She is not a widow, monsieur, " he returned, "neither is she as Spanish as she looks; she is Polish and dances at theFolies Parisiennes under the name of _La Belle Gueritta_ from Seville. "

"But her children look French, " I ventured. 

"They are the two little girls of her concierge, monsieur. " Emile'ssmile widened until it spread in merry wrinkles to the corners of histwinkling eyes. 

"In all that lace and velvet?" I exclaimed. 

"Precisely, monsieur. "

"And why the deep mourning, Emile?"

"It is a pose, monsieur. One must invent novelties, eh? when one is asgood-looking as that. Besides, madame's reputation has not been of thebest for some time. Monsieur possibly remembers the little affair lastyear in the Rue des Mathurins? Very well, it was she who extracted thehundred thousand francs from the Marquis de Villiers. Madame now giveslargely to charity and goes to mass. "

"Blackmail, Emile?"

"Of the worst kind, and so monsieur sees how easily one can be mistaken, is it not so? _Sacristi!_ one never knows. "

"But are you certain you are not mistaken about your Austrian, Emile?" Iventured. 

He shrugged his shoulders as if in apology for his opinion, and I turnedagain to study his Austrian. The noses of her little dogs with thejingling bells were now contentedly immersed in a bowl of milk. 

A moment later I saw her lift her clear violet eyes and catch sight ofone of the milkers, who was trying to lead a balky cow through the courtby a rope badly knotted over her horns. She was smiling as she satwatching the cow, who now refused to budge. The boy was losing histemper when she broke into a rippling laugh, rose, and going over to theunruly beast, unknotted the rope from her horns and, replacing it by twohalf hitches with the ease and skill of a sailor, handed the rope backto the boy. 

"There, you little stupid!" she exclaimed, "she will lead better now. _Allez!_" she cried, giving the cow a sharp rap on her rump. "_Allez!Hup!_"

A murmur of surprise escaped Emile. "It is not the first time madame hasdone that trick, " he remarked under his hand, as she crossed thecourtyard to regain her chair. 

"She is Normande, " I declared, "I am certain of it by the way she said'_Eh ben!_' And did you not notice her walk back to her table? Erect, with the easy, quick step of a fisher girl? The same walk of the race offisher girls who live in my village, " I continued with enthusiasticdecision. "There is no mistaking it; it is peculiar to Pont du Sable, and note, too, her _patois_!"

"It is quite possible, monsieur, " replied Emile, "but it does notsurprise me. One sees every one in Paris. There are few _grandes dames_left. When one has been a _garçon de café_, as I have, for over thirtyyears, one is surprised at nothing; not even----"

The tap of a gold coin on the rim of a cold saucer interrupted our talk. The summons was from my lady who had conquered the cow. 

"_Voilà_, madame!" cried Emile, as he left me to hasten to her table, where he made the change, slipped the _pourboire_ she gave him into hisalpaca pocket, and with a respectful, "_Merci bien_, madame, " drew backher chair as she rose and summoned her groom, who a moment later stoodready to help her mount. The next instant I saw her hastily withdraw hersmall foot from the hollow of his coarse hand, and wave to a passinghorse and rider. The rider, whose features were half hidden under theturned-down brim of a panama, wheeled his horse, reined up before her, dismounted, threw his rein to her groom and bending, kissed her on bothcheeks. She laughed; murmured something in his ear; the panama nodded inreply, then, slipping his arm under her own, the two entered thecourtyard. There they were greeted by Emile. 

"Madame and I will breakfast here to-day, Emile, " said the voice beneaththe panama. "The little table in the corner and the same Pommard. "

He threw his riding crop on a vacant chair and, lifting his hat, handedit to the veteran waiter. 

It was the Baron Santos da Granja!

 * * * * *

Hidden at the foot of a plateau skirting the desert marshes, two milesabove my village of Pont du Sable, lies in ruins all that remains of thedeserted village known as La Poche. 

It is well named "The Pocket, " since for years it served as a safereceptacle for itinerant beggars and fugitives from justice who found anideal retreat among its limestone quarries, which, being longabandoned, provided holes in the steep hillside for certain vagabonds, who paid neither taxes to the government, nor heed to its law. 

There is an old cattle trail that leads to La Poche, crossed now andthen by overgrown paths, that wind up through a labyrinth of briers, rank ferns and matted growth to the plateau spreading back from thehillside. I use this path often as a short cut home. 

One evening I had shot late on the marshes and started for home by wayof La Poche. It was bright moonlight when I reached a trail new to meand approached the deserted village by way of a tangled, overgrown road. 

The wind had gone down with the rising of the moon, and the intensestillness of the place was such that I could hear about me in the tanglethe lifting of a trampled weed and the moving of the insects as my bootsdisturbed them. The silence was uncanny. Under the brilliancy of themoon all things gleamed clear in a mystic light, their shadows as blackas the sunken pits of a cave. 

I pushed on through the matted growth, with the collar of my leathercoat buttoned up, my cap pulled down, and my hands thrust in my sleeves, hugging my gun under my arm, for the briars made tough going. 

Presently, I got free of the tangle and out to a grassy stretch of road, once part of the river bed. Here and there emerged, from the mattedtangle of the hillside flanking it, the ruins of La Poche. Often only asingle wall or a tottering chimney remained silhouetted against theskeleton of a gabled roof; its rafters stripped of tiles, gleaming inthe moonlight like the ribs and breastbone of a carcass. 

If La Poche is a place to be shunned by day--at night it becomesterrible; it seems to breathe the hidden viciousness of its past, as ifits ruins were the tombs of its bygone criminals. 

I kept on the road, passed another carcass and drew abreast of a third, which I stepped out of the road to examine. Both its floors had longbefore I was born dropped into its cellar; its threshold beneath my feetwas slippery with green slime; I looked up through its ribs, from whichhung festoons of cobwebs and dead vines, like shreds of dried fleshhanging from a skeleton. 

Still pursuing my way, I came across an old well; the bucket was drawnup and its chain wet; it was the first sign of habitation I had comeacross. As my hand touched the windlass, I instinctively gave it a turn;it creaked dismally and a dog barked savagely at the sound fromsomewhere up the hillside; then the sharp, snappy yelping of other dogshigher up followed. 

I stopped, felt in my pockets and slipped two shells into my gun, heavily loaded for duck, with the feeling that if I were forced to shootI would hold high over their heads. As I closed the breech of my gun andclicked back my hammers to be ready for any emergency, the tall figureof a man loomed up in the grassy road ahead of me, his legs in a ray ofmoonlight, the rest of him in shadow. 

"Does this road lead out to the main road?" I called to him, not beingany too sure that it did. 

"Who is there?" he demanded sharply and in perfect French; then headvanced and I saw that the heavy stick he carried with a firm grip wasmounted in silver. 

"A hunter, monsieur, " I returned pleasantly, noticing now his dress andbearing. 

It was so dark where we stood, that I could not yet distinguish hisfeatures. 

"May I ask you, monsieur, whom I have the pleasure of meeting, " Iventured, my mind now more at rest. 

He strode toward me. 

"My name is de Brissac, " said he, extending his hand. "Forgive me, " headded with a good-natured laugh, "if I startled you; it is hardly theplace to meet a gentleman in at this hour. Have you missed your way?"

"No, " I replied, "I shot late and took a short cut to reach my home. " Ipointed in the direction of the marshes while I searched his face whichwas still shrouded in gloom, in my effort to see what manner of man Ihad run across. 

"And have you had good luck?" he inquired with a certain meaning in hisvoice, as if he was still in doubt regarding my trespass. 

"Not worth speaking of, " I returned in as calm a voice as I couldmuster; "the birds are mostly gone. And do you shoot also, may I ask?"

"It is an incorrigible habit with me, " he confessed in a more reassuredtone. "I have, however, not done so badly of late with the birds; Ikilled seventeen plovers this morning--a fine lot. "

Here his tone changed. All his former reserve had vanished. "Come withme, " said he; "I insist; I'll show you what I killed; they make a prettystring, I assure you. You shall see, too, presently, my house; it is theone with the new roof. Do you happen to have seen it?"

This came with a certain note of seriousness in his voice. 

"No, but I am certain it must be a luxury in the débris, " I laughed;"but, " I added, "I am afraid I must postpone the pleasure until anothertime. " I was still undecided as to my course. 

Again his tone changed to one of extreme courtesy, as if he had beenquick to notice my hesitation. 

"I know it is late, " said he, "but I must insist on your accepting myhospitality. The main road lies at the end of the plateau, and I willsee you safely out to it and on your way home. "

I paused before answering. Under the circumstances, I knew, I could notvery well refuse, and yet I had a certain dread of accepting too easily. In France such refusals are sometimes considered as insults. "Thankyou, " I said at last, resolved to see the adventure out; "I accept withpleasure, " adding with a laugh and speaking to his shadowy bulk, for Icould not yet see his face:

"What silent mystery, what an uncanny fascination this place has aboutit! Even our meeting seems part of it. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, there is a peculiar charm here, " he replied, in a more cautioustone as he led me into a narrow trail, "a charm that has taken hold ofme, so that I bury myself here occasionally; it is a rest from Paris. "

From Paris, eh? I thought--then he does not belong to the coast. 

I edged nearer, determined now to catch a glimpse of his features, thelight of the moon having grown stronger. As he turned, its raysillumined his face and at the same instant a curious gleam flashed intohis eyes. 

Again the Baron da Granja stood before me. 

Da Granja! the rich Brazilian! President of one of the biggest foreignbanks in Paris. Man of the world, with a string of horses famous foryears on a dozen race tracks. What the devil was he doing here? Had thecares of his bank driven him to such a lonely hermitage as La Poche? Itseemed incredible, and yet there was not the slightest doubt as to hisidentity--I had seen him too often to be mistaken. His voice, too, nowcame back to me. 

He strode on, and for some minutes kept silent, then he stopped suddenlyand in a voice in which the old doubting tones were again audible said:

"You are English?"

Here he barred the path. 

"No, " I answered, a little ill at ease at his sudden change of manner. "American, from New York. "

"And yet, I think I have seen you in Paris, " he replied, after amoment's hesitation, his eyes boring into mine, which the light of themoon now made clear to him. 

"It is quite possible, " I returned calmly; "I think I have seen youalso, monsieur; I am often in Paris. "

Again he looked at me searchingly. 

"Where?" he asked. 

"At the Government's store, buying cigars. " I did not intend to go anyfurther. 

He smiled as if relieved. He had been either trying to place me, or hissuspicions had been again aroused, I could not tell which. One thing wascertain: he was convinced I had swallowed the name "de Brissac" easily. 

All at once his genial manner returned. "This way, to the right, " heexclaimed. "Pardon me if I lead the way; the path is winding. My ruin, as I sometimes call it, is only a little farther up, and you shall havea long whiskey and siphon when you get there. You know Pont du Sable, ofcourse, " he continued as I kept in his tracks; the talk having againturned on his love of sport. 

"Somewhat. I live there. "

This time the surprise was his. 

"Is it possible?" he cried, laying his hand on my shoulder, his facealight. 

"Yes, my house is the once-abandoned one with the wall down by themarsh. "

"Ah!" he burst out, "so you are _the_ American, the newcomer, the man Ihave heard so much about, the man who is always shooting; and how thedevil, may I ask, did you come to settle in Pont du Sable?"

"Well, you see, every one said it was such a wretched hole that I feltthere must be some good in it. I have found it charming, and with theshooting it has become an old friend. I am glad also to find that youlike it well enough to (it was I who hesitated now) to visit it. "

"Yes, to shoot is always a relief, " he answered evasively, and then in amore determined voice added, "This way, to the right, over the rocks!Come, give me your gun! The stones are slippery. "

"No, I will carry it, " I replied. "I am used to carrying it, " and thoughmy voice did not betray me, I proposed to continue to carry it. It wasat least a protection against a walking stick with a silver top. My mindbeing still occupied with his suspicions, his inquiries, and most of allhis persistence that I should visit his house, with no other object inview than a whiskey and siphon and a string of plovers. And yet, despitethe gruesomeness of the surroundings, while alert as to his slightestmove, I was determined to see the adventure through. 

He did not insist, but turned sharply to the left, and the next instantI stood before the threshold of a low stone house with a new tiled roof. A squat, snug house, the eaves of whose steep gabled roof came down wellover its two stories, like the snuffer on a candle. He stepped to thethreshold, felt about the door as if in search for a latch, and rappedthree times with the flat of his hand. Then he called softly:

"Léa!"

"_C'est toi?_" came in answer, and a small hand cautiously opened aheavy overhead shutter, back of which a shaded lamp was burning. 

"Yes, it is all right, it is I, " said he. "Come down! I have a surprisefor you. I have captured an American. "

There came the sound of tripping feet, the quick drawing of a heavybolt, and the door opened. 

My little lady of the Pré Catelan!

Not in a tea-gown from the Rue de la Paix--nothing of that kindwhatever; not a ruffle, not a jewel--but clothed in the well-worngarment of a fisher girl of the coast--a coarse homespun chemise oflinen, open at the throat, and a still coarser petticoat of blue, fadedby the salt sea--a fisher girl's petticoat that stopped at her knees, showing her trim bare legs and the white insteps of her little feet, incased in a pair of heelless felt slippers. 

For the second time I was treated to a surprise. Really, Pont du Sablewas not so dead a village after all. 

Emile was wrong. She was one of my village people. 

My host did not notice my astonishment, but waved his hand courteously. 

"_Entrez_, monsieur!" he cried with a laugh, and then, turning sharply, he closed the door and bolted it. 

I looked about me. 

We were in a rough little room, that would have won any hunter's heart;there were solid racks, heavy with guns, on the walls, a snapping woodfire, and a clean table, laid for dinner, and lastly, the chair quicklydrawn to it for the waiting guest. This last they laughingly forced meinto, for they both insisted I should dine with them--an invitationwhich I gladly accepted, for my fears were now completely allayed. 

We talked of the neighbourhood, of hunting, of Paris, of the new play atthe Nouveautés--I did not mention the Bois. One rarely mentions inFrance having seen a woman out of her own home, although I was sure sheremembered me from a look which now and then came into her eyes thatleft but little doubt in my mind that she vaguely recalled the incidentat the Pré Catelan with the cow. 

It was a simple peasant dinner which followed. When it was over, hewent to a corner cupboard and drew forth a flat box of long perfectos, which I recognized instantly as the same brand of rare Havanas he had soextravagantly purchased from the Government. If I had had my doubt as tothe identity of my man it was at rest now. 

"You will find them mild, " said he with a smile, as he lifted thetinfoil cover. 

"No good cigar is strong, " I replied, breaking the untouched row andbending my head as my host struck a match, my mind more on the scene inthe Government's shop than the quality of his tobacco. And yet with allthe charm that the atmosphere of his place afforded, two things stillseemed to me strange--the absence of a servant, until I realizedinstinctively the incident of the balky cow, and the prompt bolting ofthe outside door. 

The first I explained to myself as being due to her peasant blood andher ability to help herself; the second to the loneliness of the placeand the characters it sometimes harboured. As for my host, I had toadmit, despite my mental queries, that his bearing and mannercompletely captivated me, for a more delightful conversationalist itwould have been difficult to find. 

Not only did he know the art of eliminating himself and amusing you withtopics that pleased you, but his cleverness in avoiding the personal wasamazingly skilful. His tact was especially accentuated when, with asignificant look at his companion, who at once rose from her seat and, crossing the room, busied herself with choosing the liqueurs from acloset in the corner of the room, he drew me aside by the fire, and in acalm, sotto voce said with intense earnestness:

"You may think it strange, monsieur, that I invited you, that I was eveninsistent. You, like myself, are a man of the world and can understand. You will do me a great favour if you will not mention to any one havingmet either myself or my little housekeeper" (there was not a tremor inhis voice), "who, as you see, is a peasant; in fact, she was born here. We are not bothered with either friends or acquaintances here, nor do wecare for prowlers; you must excuse me for at first taking you for one. You, of course, know the reputation of La Poche. "

"You could not have chosen a better place to be lost in, " I answered, smiling as discreetly as one should over the confession of another'slove affair. "Moreover, in life I have found it the best policy to keepone's mouth shut. You have my word, monsieur--it is as if we had nevermet--as if La Poche did not exist. "

"Thank you, " said he calmly, taking the tiny liqueur glasses from herhands; "what will you have--cognac or green chartreuse?"

"Chartreuse, " I answered quietly. My eye had caught the labels which Iknew to be genuine from the Grenoble printer. 

"Ah! you knew it--_Dieu!_ but it is good, that old chartreuse!"exclaimed my hostess with a rippling laugh as she filled my glass, "weare lucky to find it. "

Then something happened which even now sends a cold chill down my spine. Hardly had I raised my glass to my lips when there came a sharp, determined rap at the bolted door, and my host sprang to his feet. Fora moment no one spoke--I turned instinctively to look at my lady of thePré Catelan. She was breathing with dilated eyes, her lips drawn andquivering, every muscle of her lithe body trembling. He was standingerect, his head thrown back, his whole body tense. One hand gripped theback of his chair, the other was outstretched authoritatively toward usas if to command our silence. 

Again the rapping, this time violent, insistent. 

"Who is there?" he demanded, after what seemed to me an interminablemoment of suspense. 

With this he slipped swiftly through a door leading into a narrowcorridor, closed another door at the end of the passage, broke the keyin the lock and returned on tiptoe as noiselessly as he left the room. Then picking up the lamp he placed it under the table, thus deadeningits glow. 

Now a voice rang out, "Open in the name of the Law. "

No one moved. 

He again gripped the back of the chair, his face deathly white, his jawset, his eyes with a sullen gleam in them. 

I turned to look at her. Her hands were outstretched on the table, herdilated eyes staring straight at the bolt as if her whole life dependedon its strength. 

Again came the command to open, this time in a voice that allowed noquestion as to the determination of the outsider:

"Open in the name of the Law. "

No one moved or answered. 

A crashing thud, from a heavy beam, snapped the bolt from its screws, another blow tore loose the door. Through the opening and over thedébris sprang a short, broad-shouldered man in a gray suit, while threeother heavily built men entered, barring the exit. 

The woman screamed and fell forward on the table, her head buried in herclenched hands. The Baron faced the one in gray. 

"What do you want?" he stammered in the voice of a ghost. 

"You, Pedro Maceiö, " said the man in the gray suit, in a low, even tone, "for the last trick you will pull off in some years; open up things, doyou hear? All of it, and quick. "

The Brazilian did not reply; he stood behind his chair, eyeing sullenlythe man in gray, who now held a revolver at a level with his heart. 

Then the man in gray called to one of his men, his eye still on thebanker. "Break in the door at the end of the passage. "

With the quickness of a cat, the Brazilian grabbed the chair and with aswinging blow tried to fell his assailant and dash past him. The man ingray dodged and pocketed his weapon. The next instant he had hisprisoner by the throat and had slammed him against the wall; then camethe sharp click of a pair of handcuffs. The banker tripped and fell tothe floor. 

It had all happened so quickly that I was dazed as I looked on. What itwas all about I did not know. It seemed impossible that my host, a manwhose bank was well known in Paris, was really a criminal. Were theintruders from the police? Or was it a clever ruse of four determinedburglars?

I began now to gather my wits and think of myself, although so far notone of the intruders had taken the slightest notice of my presence. 

One of the men was occupied in breaking open the door at the end of thecorridor, while another stood guard over the now sobbing, hystericalwoman. The fourth had remained at the open doorway. 

As for the prisoner, who had now regained his feet, he had sunk into thechair he had used in defence and sat there staring at the floor, breathing in short gasps. 

The man who had been ordered by his chief to break open the door at theend of the corridor, now returned and laid upon the dinner table twoengraved metal plates, and a handful of new one-hundred-franc notes;some I noticed from where I sat were blank on one side. With the platescame the acrid stench of a broken bottle of acid. 

"My God! Counterfeiting!" I exclaimed half aloud. 

The Baron rose from his seat and stretched out his linked hands. 

"She is innocent, " he pleaded huskily, lifting his eyes to the woman. Icould not repress a feeling of profound pity for him. 

The man in gray made no reply; instead he turned to me. 

"I shall escort you, too, monsieur, " he remarked coolly. 

"Escort me? _Me?_ What have I got to do with it, I'd like to know?" Icried, springing to my feet. "I wish to explain--to make clear toyou--_clear_. I want you to understand that I stumbled here by themerest chance; that I never spoke to this man in my life until to-night, that I accepted his hospitality purely because I did not wish to offendhim, although I had shot late and was in a hurry to get home. "

He smiled quietly. 

"Please do not worry, " he returned, "we know all about you. You are theAmerican. Your house is the old one by the marsh in Pont du Sable. Icalled on you this afternoon, but you were absent. I am really indebtedto you if you do but know it. By following your tracks, monsieur, westumbled on the nest we have so long been looking for. Permit me to handyou my card. My name is Guinard--Sous Chief of the Paris Police. "

I breathed easier--things were clearing up. 

"And may I ask, monsieur, how you knew I had gone in the direction of LaPoche?" I inquired. That was still a mystery. 

"You have a little maid, " he replied; "and little maids can sometimes bemade to talk. "

He paused and then said slowly, weighing each word. 

"Yes, that no doubt surprises you, but we follow every clue. You wereboth sportsmen; that, as you know, monsieur, is always a bond, and wehad not long to wait, although it was too dark for us to be quite surewhen you both passed me. It was the bolting of the door that clinchedthe matter for me. But for the absence of two of my men on another scentwe should have disturbed you earlier. I must compliment you, monsieur, on your knowledge of chartreuse as well as your taste for good cigars;permit me to offer you another. " Here he slipped his hand into hispocket and handed me a duplicate of the one I had been smoking. 

"Twelve boxes, Maceiö, were there not? Not expensive, eh, when purchasedwith these?" and he spread out the identical bank-notes with which hisprisoner had paid for them in the Government store on the boulevard. 

"As for you, monsieur, it is only necessary that one of my men take yourstatement at your house; after that you are free. 

"Come, Maceiö, " and he shook the prisoner by the shoulder, "you take themidnight train with me back to Paris--you too, madame. "

 * * * * *

And so I say again, and this time you must agree with me, that strangehappenings, often with a note of terror in them, occur now and then inmy lost village by the sea. 

 [Illustration: cigar]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: soldiers]

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HORRORS OF WAR

At the very beginning of the straggling fishing-village of Pont du Sableand close by the tawny marsh stands the little stone house of the mayor. The house, like Monsieur le Maire himself, is short and sturdy. Itsmodest façade is half hidden under a coverlet of yellow roses that havespread at random over the tiled roof as high as the chimney. In front, edging the road, is a tidy strip of garden with more roses, a wood-pile, and an ancient well whose stone roof shelters a worn windlass thatgroans in protest whenever its chain and bucket are disturbed. 

I heard the windlass complaining this sunny morning as I passed on myway through the village and caught sight of the ruddy mayor in his blueblouse lowering the bucket. The chain snapped taut, the bucket gulpedits fill, and Monsieur le Maire caught sight of me. 

"_Ah bigre!_" he exclaimed as he left the bucket where it hung and cameforward with both hands outstretched in welcome, a smile wrinkling hisgenial face, clean-shaven to the edges of his short, cropped grayside-whiskers, reaching well beneath his chin. "Come in, come in, " heinsisted, laying a persuasive hand on my shoulder, as he unlatched hisgate. 

It is almost impossible for a friend to pass the mayor's without beingstopped by just such a welcome. The twinkle in his eyes and the heartygenuineness of his greeting are irresistible. The next moment you havecrossed his threshold and entered a square, low-ceiled room that forover forty years has served Monsieur le Maire as living room, kitchen, and executive chamber. 

He had left me for a moment, as he always does when he welcomes afriend. I could hear from the pantry cupboard beyond the shivery tinkleof glasses as they settled on a tray. He had again insisted, as healways does, upon my occupying the armchair in the small parlouradjoining, with its wax flowers and its steel engraving of Napoleon atWaterloo; but I had protested as I always do, for I prefer the kitchen. 

I like its cavernous fireplace with its crane and spit, and the lowceiling upheld by great beams of rough-hewn oak, and the tall clock inthe corner, and the hanging copper saucepans, kettles and ladles, keptas bright as polished gold. Here, too, is a generous Norman armoire withcarved oaken doors swung on bar-hinges of shining steel, and acentre-table provided with a small bottle of violet ink, a scratchy penand an iron seal worked by a lever--a seal that has grown dull from longservice in the stamping of certain documents relative to plain justice, marriage, the official recognition of the recently departed and thenewly born. Above the fireplace hangs a faded photograph of a prizebull, for you must know that Monsieur le Maire has been for half ageneration a dealer in Norman cattle. 

Presently he returned with the tray, placing it upon the table withinreach of our chairs while I stood admiring the bull. 

He stopped as he half drew the cork from a fat brown jug, and looked atme curiously, his voice sinking almost to a whisper. 

"You never were a dealer in beef?" he ventured timidly. 

I shook my head sadly. 

"_Hélas! Hélas!_ Never mind, " said he. "One cannot be everything. There's my brother-in-law, Péquin; he does not know a yearling from athree-year-old. It is he who keeps the little store at Saint Philippe. "

The cork squeaked out. He filled the thimble glasses with rare oldapplejack so skilfully that another drop would have flushed over theirworn gilt rims. What a gracious old gentleman he is! If it be a questionof clipping a rose from his tidy garden and presenting it to a lady, hedoes it with such a gentle courtliness that the rose smells the sweeterfor it--almost a lost art nowadays. 

"I saw the curé this morning, " he remarked, as we settled ourselves fora chat. "He could not stop, but he waved me an _au revoir_, for he wasin a hurry to catch his train. He had been all night in hisduck-blind--I doubt if he had much luck, for the wind is from the south. There is a fellow for you who loves to shoot, " chuckled the mayor. 

"Some news for him of game?" I inquired. 

The small eyes of the mayor twinkled knowingly. "_Entre nous_, " heconfided, "he has gone to Bonvilette to spray the sick roses of a friendwith sulphate of iron--he borrowed my squirt-gun yesterday. "

"And how far is it to Bonvilette?"

"_Eh ben!_ One must go by the little train to Nivelle, " explainedMonsieur le Maire, "and from Nivelle to Bonvilette there lies a goodtwenty kilometres for a horse. Let us say he will be back in threedays. "

"And the mass meanwhile?" I ventured. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have? The roses of his old friend are sick. It is the duty of a curé to tend the sick. Besides----"

Here Monsieur le Maire leaned forward within reach of my ear, and Icaught in whispers something relative to a château and one of the bestcellars of Bordeaux in France. 

"Naturally, " I replied, with a wink, and again my eyes reverted to theprize bull. It is not wise to raise one's voice in so small a village asPont du Sable, even indoors. 

"A pretty beast!" affirmed the mayor, noticing my continued interest inlive stock. "And let me tell you that I took him to England in'eighty-two. _Ah, mais oui! Hélas! Hélas!_ What a trip!" he sighed. "Monsieur Toupinet--he that has the big farm at Saint Philippe--and Isailed together the third of October, in 1882, with forty steers. Ourship was called _The Souvenir_, and I want to tell you, my friend, itwasn't gay, that voyage. _Ah, mais non!_ Toupinet was sea-sick--I wassea-sick--the steers were sea-sick--all except that _sacré_ brute upthere, and he roared all the way from Calais to London. _Eh ben!_ Andwould you believe it?" At the approaching statement Monsieur le Maire'scountenance assumed a look of righteous indignation. He raised his fistand brought it down savagely on the table as he declared: "Would youbelieve it? We were _thirty-four hours_ without eating and _twenty-ninehours, mon Dieu!_ without drinking!"

I looked up in pained astonishment. 

"And that wasn't all, " continued the mayor. "A hurricane struck us threehours out, and we rolled all night in a dog's sea. The steers were up totheir bellies in water. Aye, but she did blow, and _The Souvenir_ hadall she could do to keep afloat. The captain was lashed to the bridgeall night and most of the next day. Neither Toupinet nor myself everexpected to see land again, and there we were like calves in a pen onthe floor of the cabin full of tobacco-smoke and English, and not a wordof English could we speak except 'yes' and 'good morning. '" HereMonsieur le Maire stopped and choked. Finally he dried his eyes on thesleeve of his blouse, for he was wheezing with laughter, took a sip fromhis glass, and resumed:

"Well, the saints did not desert us. _Ah, mais non!_ For about fouro'clock in the afternoon the captain sighted Su-Tum-Tum. "

"Sighted what?" I exclaimed. 

"_Eh ben!_ Su-Tum-Tum, " he replied. 

"Where had you drifted? To the Corean coast?"

"_Mais non_, " he retorted, annoyed at my dullness to comprehend. "Wewere saved--_comprenez-vous?_--for there, to starboard, lay Su-Tum-Tumas plain as a sheep's nose. "

"England? Impossible!" I returned. 

"_Mais parfaitement!_" he declared, with a hopeless gesture. "_Su-Tum-Tum_, " he reiterated slowly for my benefit. 

"Never heard of it, " I replied. 

The next instant he was out of his chair, and fumbling in a drawer ofthe table extracted a warped atlas, reseated himself, and began to turnthe pages. 

"_Eh, voilà!_" he cried as his forefinger stopped under a word along theEnglish coast. "That's Su-Tum-Tum plain enough, isn't it?"

"Ah! Southampton!" I exclaimed. "Of course--plain as day. "

"Ah!" ejaculated the mayor, leaning back in his chair with a broad smileof satisfaction. "You see, I was right, Su-Tum-Tum. _Eh ben!_ Do youknow, " he said gently as I left him, "when you first came to Pont duSable there were times then, my poor friend, when I could not understanda word you said in French. "

Then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, he called me back as heclosed the gate. 

"Are those gipsies still camped outside your wall?" he inquired, suddenly assuming the dignity of his office. "_Bon Dieu!_ They are a badlot, those vagabonds! If I don't tell them to be off you won't have aduck or a chicken left. "

"Let them stay, " I pleaded, "they do no harm. Besides, I like to see thelight of their camp-fire at night scurrying over my wall. "

"How many are there?" inquired his excellency. 

"Seven or eight, not counting the dogs chained under the wagons, " Iconfessed reluctantly, fearing the hand of the law, for I have afondness for gipsies. "But you need not worry about them. They won'tsteal from me. Their wagons are clean inside and out. "

"_Ah, mais!_" sighed the mayor. "It's just like you. You spoil yourcat, you spoil your dog, and now you're spoiling these rascals by givingthem a snug berth. Have they their papers of identity?"

"Yes, " I called back, "the chief showed them to me when he askedpermission to camp. "

"Of course, " laughed the mayor. "You'll never catch them withoutthem--signed by officials we never can trace. "

He waved me a cheery _au revoir_ and returned to the well of thegroaning windlass while I continued on my way through the village. 

Outside the squat stone houses, nets were drying in the sun. Save forthe occasional rattle of a passing cart, the village was silent, forthese fisher-folk go barefooted. Presently I reached the public square, where nothing ever happens, and, turning an iron handle, entered Pont duSable's only store. A box of a place, smelling of dried herring, kerosene, and cheese; and stocked with the plain necessities--almosteverything, from lard, tea, and big nails to soap, tarpaulins, andapplejack. The night's catch of mackerel had been good, and the smallroom with its zinc bar was noisy with fisher-folk--wiry fishermen withlegs and chests as hard as iron; slim brown fisher girls as hardy as themen, capricious, independent and saucy; a race of blonds for the mostpart, with the temperament of brunettes. Old women grown gray andleathery from fighting the sea, and old men too feeble to go--one ofthese hung himself last winter because of this. 

It was here, too, I found Marianne, dripping wet, in her tarpaulins. 

"What luck?" I asked her as I helped myself to a package of cigarettesfrom a pigeonhole and laid the payment thereof on the counter. 

"_Eh ben!_" she laughed. "We can't complain. If the good God would sendus such fishing every night we should eat well enough. "

She strode through the group to the counter to thrust out an emptybottle. 

"Eight sous of the best, " she demanded briskly of the mild-eyed grocer. "My man's as wet as a rat--he needs some fire in him and he'll feel asfit as a marquis. "

A good catch is a tonic to Pont du Sable. Instantly a spirit of goodhumour and camaraderie spreads through the village--even old scores areforgotten. A good haul of mackerel means a let-up in the daily strugglefor existence, which in winter becomes terrible. The sea knows notcharity. It massacres when it can and adds you to the line of deadthings along its edge where you are only remembered by the ebb and flowof the tide. On blue calm mornings, being part of the jetsam, you mayglisten in the sun beside a water-logged spar; at night you become anonentity, of no more consequence along the wavering line of drift thana rotten gull. But if, like Marianne, you have fought skilfully, you mayagain enter Pont du Sable with a quicker eye, a harder body, and adeeper knowledge of the southwest gale. 

 * * * * *

Within the last week Pont du Sable has undergone a transformation. Thedead village is alive with soldiers, for it is the time of themanoeuvres. Houses, barns and cow-sheds are filled by night with thered-trousered infantry of the French _République_. By day, the windowpanes shiver under the distant flash and roar of artillery. The airvibrates with the rip and rattle of musketry--savage volleys, fillingthe heavens with shrill, vicious waves of whistling bullets that kill ata miraculous distance. It is well that all this murderous fire occursbeyond the desert of dunes skirting the open sea, for they say theresult upon the iron targets on the marsh is something frightful. Thegeneral in command is in a good humour over the record. 

Despatch-bearers gallop at all hours of the day and night through Pontdu Sable's single street. The band plays daily in the public square. Sunburned soldiers lug sacks of provisions and bundles of straw out tofive hundred more men bivouacked on the dunes. Whole regiments return tothe little fishing-village at twilight singing gay songs, followed bythe fisher girls. 

 Ah! Mesdames--voilà du bon fromage! Celui qui l'a fait il est de son village! Voilà du bon fromage au lait! Il est du pays de celui qui l'a fait. 

Three young officers are stopping at Monsieur le Curé's, who hasreturned from the sick roses of his friend; and Tanrade has a coloneland two lieutenants beneath his roof. As for myself and the houseabandoned by the marsh, we are very much occupied with a blustering oldgeneral, his aide-de-camp, and two common soldiers; but I tremble lestthe general should discover the latter two, for you see, they knocked atmy door for a lodging before the general arrived, and I could not refusethem. Both of them put together would hardly make a full-sized warrior, and both play the slide-trombone in the band. Naturally their artistictemperament revolted at the idea of sleeping in the only available placeleft in the village--a cow-shed with cows. They explained this to mewith so many polite gestures, mingled with an occasional salute at theirassured gratefulness should I acquiesce, that I turned them over forsafe keeping to Suzette, who has given them her room and sleeps in thegarret. Suzette is overjoyed. Dream of dreams! For Suzette to have onereal live soldier in the house--but to have two! Both of thesered-eared, red-trousered dispensers of harmony are perfect indeportment, and as quiet as mice. They slip out of my back gate atdaylight, bound for the seat of war and slip in again at sundown likeobedient children, talk in kitchen whispers to Suzette over hot cakesand cider, and go punctually to bed at nine--the very hour when theroaring old general and his aide-de-camp are toasting their gold spursbefore my fire. 

 * * * * *

The general is tall and broad-shouldered, and as agile as a boy. Thereis a certain hard, compact firmness about him as if he had been cast inbronze. His alert eyes are either flashing in authority or beaming ingentleness. The same play between dominant roughness and tenderness istrue, too, of his voice and manner. 

"Madame, " he said, last night, after dinner, as he bent and graciouslykissed Alice de Bréville's hand, "forgive an old savage who pays youhomage and the assurance of his profound respect. " The next moment mycourtyard without rocked with his reprimand to a bungling lieutenant. 

To-night the general is in an uproar of good humour after a storm, fordid not some vagabonds steal the danger-posts intended to warn thepublic of the location of the firing-line, so that new ones had to besent for? When the news of the theft reached him his rage was somethingto behold. I could almost hear the little slide-trombonists shake as farback as Suzette's kitchen. Fortunately, the cyclone was of shortduration--to-night he is pleased over the good work of his men duringthe days of mock warfare and at the riddled, twisted targets, all ofwhich is child's play to this veteran who has weathered so many realbattles. 

To-night he has dined well, and his big hand is stroking the Essence ofSelfishness who purrs against his medalled chest under a caress asgentle as a woman's. He sings his favourite airs from "Faust" and "Aïda"with gusto, and roars over the gallant stories of his aide-de-camp, who, being from the south of _La belle France_, is never at a loss for atale--tales that make the general's medals twinkle merrily in thefirelight. It is my first joyful experience as host to the military, but I cannot help being nervous over Suzette and the trombonists. 

"Bah! Those _sacré_ musicians!" exclaimed the general to-night as hepuffed at his cigarette. "If there's a laggard in my camp, you may besure it is one of those little devils with a horn or a whistle. _MonDieu!_ Once during the manoeuvres outside of Périgord I found three ofthem who refused to sleep on the ground--stole off and begged a lodgingin a château, _parbleu!_"

"Ah--indeed?" I stammered meekly. 

"Yes, they did, " he bellowed, "but I cured them. " I saw the muscles inhis neck flush crimson, and tried to change the subject, but in vain. 

"If they do that in time of peace, they'll do the same in war, " hethundered. 

"Naturally, " I murmured, my heart in my throat. The aide-de-camp gruntedhis approval while the general ran his hand over the gray bristles onhis scarred head. 

"Favours!" roared the general. "Favours, eh? When my men sleep on theground in rough weather, I sleep with them. What sort of discipline doyou suppose I'd have if I did not share their hardships time and timeagain? Winter campaigns, forced marches--twenty-four hours of itsometimes in mountain snow. Bah! That is nothing! They need thattraining to go through worse, and yet those good fellows of mine, heavily loaded, never complain. I've seen it so hot, too, that it wouldmelt a man's boots. It is always one of those imbeciles, then, withnothing heavier to carry than a clarinet, who slips off to a comfortablefarm. "

"_Bien entendu, mon général!_" agreed his aide-de-camp tersely as heleaned forward and kindled a fresh cigarette over the candle-shade. 

Happily I noticed at that moment that the cigarette-box neededreplenishing. It was an excuse at least to leave the room. A momentlater I had tiptoed to the closed kitchen door and stood listening. Suzette was laughing. The trombonists were evidently very much at ease. They, too, were laughing. Little pleasantries filtered through thecrack in the heavy door that made me hold my breath. Then I heard thegurgle of cider poured into a glass, followed swiftly by what I took tobe unmistakably a kiss. 

It was all as plain now as Su-Tum-Tum. I dared not break in upon them. Had I opened the door, the general might have recognized their voices. Meanwhile, silly nothings were demoralizing the heart of my goodSuzette. She would fall desperately in love with either one or the otherof those _sacré_ virtuosos. Then another thought struck me! One of themmight be Suzette's sweetheart, hailing from her own village, themanoeuvres at Pont du Sable a lucky meeting for them. A few sentencesthat I now hurriedly caught convinced me of my own denseness in nothaving my suspicions aroused when they singled out my domain and beggedmy hospitality. 

The situation was becoming critical. By the light of the crack Iscribbled the following:

"Get those two imbeciles of yours hidden in the hay-loft, quick. Thegeneral wants to see the kitchen, " and slipped it under the door, coughing gently in warning. 

There was an abrupt silence--the sound of Suzette's slippered feet--andthe scrap of paper disappeared. Then heavy, excited breathing within. 

I dashed upstairs and was down again with the cigarettes before thegeneral had remarked my tardiness to his aide. At midnight I lightedtheir candles and saw them safely up to bed. Then I went to my roomfronting the marsh and breathed easier. 

"Her sweetheart from her own village, " I said to myself as I blew out mycandle. "The other"--I sighed drowsily--"was evidently his cousin. Themayor was right. I have a bad habit of spoiling people and pets. "

Then again my mind reverted to the general. What if he discovered them?My only consolation now was that to-day had seen the end of themanoeuvres, and the soldiers would depart by a daylight train in themorning. I recalled, too, the awkward little speech of thanks for myhospitality the trombonists had made to me at an opportune momentbefore dinner. Finally I fell into a troubled sleep. 

Suzette brought me my coffee at seven. 

"Luckily the general did not discover them!" I exclaimed when Suzettehad closed the double door of my bedroom. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ What danger we have run!" whispered the little maid. "Icould not sleep, monsieur, thinking of it. "

"You got them safely to the haymow?" I inquired anxiously. 

"Oh! _Mais oui_, monsieur. But then they slept over the cider-press backof the big casks. Monsieur advised the hay-loft, but they said the roofleaked. And had it rained, monsieur--"

"See here, " I interrupted, eyeing her trim self from head to footsavagely. "You've known that little devil with the red ears before. "

I saw Suzette pale. 

"Confess!" I exclaimed hoarsely, with a military gesture of impatience. "He comes from your village. Is it not so, my child?"

Suzette was silent, her plump hands twisting nervously at her apronpocket. 

"I am right, am I not? I might have guessed as much when they came. "

"Oh, monsieur!" Suzette faltered, the tears welling up from the depthsof her clear trustful eyes. 

"Is it not so?" I insisted. 

"Oh! Oh! _Mon Dieu, oui_, " she confessed half audibly. "He--he is theson of our neighbor, Monsieur Jacot. "

"At Saint Philippe?"

"At Saint Philippe, monsieur. We were children together, Gaston and I. I--I--was glad to see him again, monsieur, " sobbed the little maid. "Heis very nice, Gaston. "

"When are you to be married?" I ventured after a moment's pause. 

"_Ben--eh ben!_ In two years, monsieur--after Gaston finishes hismilitary service. He--has a good trade, monsieur. "

"Soloist?" I asked grimly. 

"No, monsieur--tailor for ladies. We shall live in Paris, " she added, and for an instant her eyes sparkled; then again their gaze reverted tothe now sadly twisted apron pocket, for I was silent. 

"No more Suzette then!" I said to myself. No more merry, willing littlemaid-of-all-work! No more hot mussels steaming in a savory sauce! Herpurée of peas, her tomato farcies, the stuffed artichokes, and hercoffee the like of which never before existed, would vanish with therest. But true love cannot be argued. There was nothing to do but tohold out my hand in forgiveness. As I did so the general rang for hiscoffee. 

"_Mon Dieu!_" gasped Suzette. "He rings. " And flew down to her kitchen. 

An hour later the general was sauntering leisurely up the road throughthe village over his morning cigar. The daylight train, followed rapidlyby four extra sections, had cleared Pont du Sable of all but two of thered-trousered infantry--my trombonists! They had arrived an hour andtwenty minutes late, winded and demoralized. They sat together outsidethe locked station unable to speak, pale and panic-stricken. 

The first object that caught the general's eye as he slowly turned intothe square by the little station was their four red-trousered legs--thenhe caught the glint of their two brass trombones. The next instant headsappeared at the windows. It was as if a bomb had suddenly exploded inthe square. 

The two trombonists were now on their feet, shaking from head to footwhile they saluted their general, whose ever-approaching stride struckfresh agony to their hearts. He was roaring:

"_Canailles! Imbéciles!_ A month of prison!" and "_Sacré bon Dieu's!_"were all jumbled together. "Overslept! Overslept, did you?" he bellowed. "In a château, I'll wager. _Parbleu!_ Where then? Out with it!"

"_Pardon, mon général!_" chattered Gaston. "It was in the stone house ofthe American gentleman by the marsh. "

 * * * * *

We lunched together in my garden at noon. He had grown calm again underthe spell of the Burgundy, but Suzette, I feared, would be ill. 

"Come, be merciful, " I pleaded. 

"He is the fiancé of my good Suzette; besides, you must not forget thatyou were all my guests. "

The general shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "They were lucky to havegotten off with a month!" he snapped. "You saw that those little devilswere handcuffed?" he asked of his aide. 

"Yes, my general, the gendarme attended to them. "

"You were my guests, " I insisted. "Hold me responsible if you wish. "

"Hold _you_ responsible!" he exclaimed. "But you are a foreigner--itwould be a little awkward. "

"It is my good Suzette, " I continued, "that I am thinking of. "

He leaned back in his chair, and for a moment again ran his handsthoughtfully over the bristles of his scarred head. He had a daughter ofhis own. 

"The coffee, " I said gently to my unhappy Suzette as she passed. 

"_Oui! Oui_, monsieur, " she sighed, then suddenly mustering up hercourage, she gasped:

"_Oh, mon général!_ Is it true, then, that Gaston must go to jail? _Ah!Mon Dieu!_"

"_Eh bien_, my girl! It will not kill him, _Sapristi!_ He will be abetter soldier for it. "

"Be merciful, " I pleaded. 

"_Eh bien! Eh bien!_" he retorted. "_Eh bien!_" And cleared his throat. 

"Forgive them, " I insisted. "They overslept. I don't want Suzette tomarry a jail-bird. "

Again he scratched his head and frowned. Suzette was in tears. 

"Um! Difficult!" he grumbled. "Order for arrest once given--" Then heshot a glance at me. I caught a twinkle in his eye. 

"_Eh bien!_" he roared. "There--I forgive them! Ah, those _sacré_musicians!"

Suzette stood there trembling, unable even to thank him, the colourcoming and going in her peasant cheeks. 

"Are they free, general?" I asked. 

"Yes, " he retorted, "both of them. "

"Bravo!" I exclaimed. 

"Understand that I have done it for the little girl--and _you_. Is thatplain?"

"Perfectly, " I replied. "As plain as Su-Tum-Tum!" I added under mybreath as I filled his empty glass in gratefulness to the brim. 

"Halt!" shouted the general as the happiest of Suzettes turned towardher kitchen. 

"Eh--um!" he mumbled awkwardly in a voice that had suddenly grown thick. Then he sprang to his feet and raised his glass. 

"A health to the bride!" he cried. 

 [Illustration: The general]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: a formal garden]

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE MILLION OF MONSIEUR DE SAVIGNAC

The bay of Pont du Sable, which the incoming tide had so swiftly filledat daylight, now lay a naked waste of oozing black mud. The birds hadgone with the receding sea, and I was back from shooting, loafing overmy pipe and coffee in a still corner among the roses of my wild garden, hidden behind the old wall, when that Customhouse soldier-gardener ofmine, Pierre, appeared with the following message:

"Monsieur de Savignac presents his salutations the most distinguishedand begs that monsieur will give him the pleasure of calling on him _àpropos_ of the little spaniel. "

What an unexpected and welcome surprise! For weeks I had hunted in vainfor a thoroughbred. I had never hoped to be given one from the kennelsof Monsieur de Savignac's château. 

"Enchanted, Pierre!" I cried--"Present my compliments to Monsieur deSavignac. Tell him how sincerely grateful I am, and say that he mayexpect me to-morrow before noon. "

I could easily imagine what a beauty my spaniel would be, clean-limbedand alert like the ones in the coloured lithographs. "No wonder, " Ithought, as Pierre left me, "that every peasant for miles around spokeof this good Monsieur de Savignac's generosity. Here he was giving me adog. To me, his American neighbour, whom he had never met!"

As I walked over to the château with Pierre the next morning, I recalledto my mind the career of this extraordinary man, whose only vice was hisgreat generosity. 

When Monsieur de Savignac was twenty-one he inherited a million francs, acquired a high hat with a straight brim, a standing collar, well openat the throat (in fashion then under Napoleon III. ), a flowing cravat--aplush waistcoat with crystal buttons, a plum-coloured broadcloth coatand trousers of a pale lemon shade, striped with black, gathered tightat the ankles, their bottoms flouncing over a pair of patent-leatherboots with high heels. 

He was tall, strong and good-natured, this lucky Jacques de Savignac, with a weakness for the fair sex which was appalling, and a charm ofmanner as irresistible as his generosity. A clumsy fencer, but a goodcomrade--a fellow who could turn a pretty compliment, danced better thanmost of the young dandies at court, drove his satin-skinned pair of baysthrough the Bois with an easy smile, and hunted hares when the shootingopened with the dogged tenacity of a veteran poacher. 

When he was twenty-one, the Paris that Grévin drew was in the splendourof an extravagant life that she was never to see again, and never has. One could _amuse_ one's self then--ah! _Dame, oui!_

There is no emperor now to keep Paris gay. 

What suppers at Véfour's! What a brilliant life there was in those daysunder the arcades of the dear old Palais Royal, the gay world goingdaily to this mondaine cloister to see and be seen--to dine andwine--to make conquests of the heart and dance daylight quadrilles. 

Paris was ordered to be daily _en fête_ and the host at the Tuileriessaw to it that the gaiety did not flag. It was one way at least fromkeeping the populace from cutting one another's throats, which they didlater with amazing ferocity. 

There were in those good old days under Louis Napoleon plenty of placesto gamble and spend the inherited gold. Ah! it was Rabelaisian enough!What an age to have been the recipient of a million at twenty-one! Itwas like being a king with no responsibilities. No wonder de Savignacleft the university--he had no longer any need of it. He dined now atthe Maison Dorée and was seen nightly at the "Bal Mabille" or the"Closerie des Lilas, " focussing his gold-rimmed monocle on the flyingfeet and lace _frou-frous_ of "Diane la Sournoise, " or roaring withlaughter as he chucked gold louis into the satined lap of some"Francine" or "Cora" amid the blare of the band, and the flash ofjewels strung upon fair arms and fairer necks of woman who went nightlyto the "Bal Mabille" in smart turnouts and the costliest gowns moneycould buy--and after the last mad quadrille was ended, on he went tosupper at Bignon's where more gaiety reigned until blue dawn, and wherethe women were still laughing and merry and danced as easily on thetable as on the floor. 

What a time, I say, to have inherited a million! And how many goodfriends he had! Painters and musicians, actors and wits (and there_were_ some in those days)--no king ever gathered around him a jollierband. 

It was from one of these henchmen of his that de Savignac purchased hischâteau (long since emptied of its furniture)--from a young noblemanpressed hard for his debts, like most young noblemen are--and so thegreat château close to my Village of Vagabonds, and known for milesaround, became de Savignac's. 

What house parties he gave then!--men and women of talent flocked underhis hospitable roof--indeed there was no lack of talent--some of itfrom the Opéra--some of it from the Conservatoire, and they broughttheir voices and their fiddles with them and played and sang for him fordays, in exchange for his feudal hospitality--more than that, thepainter Paul Deschamps covered the ceiling of his music room with chubbycupids playing golden trumpets and violins--one adorable little fellowin the cove above the grand piano struggling with a 'cello twice as highas himself, and Carin painted the history of love in eight panels uponthe walls of the old ballroom, whose frescoes were shabby enough, so Iam told, when de Savignac purchased them. 

There were times also when the château was full to overflowing withguests, so that the late comers were often quartered in a low two-storymanor close by, that nestled under great trees--a cosey, dear old placecovered with ivy and climbing yellow roses, with narrow alleys leadingto it flanked by tall poplars, and a formal garden behind it in theniches of whose surrounding wall were statues of Psyche and Venus, theirsmooth marble shoulders stained by rain and the drip and ooze ofgrowing things. One of them even now, still lifts its encrusted head tothe weather. 

During the shooting season there were weeks when he and his guests shotdaily from the crack of dawn until dark, the game-keepers following withtheir carts that by night were loaded with hares, partridges, woodcockand quail--then such a good dinner, sparkling with repartee and goodwine, and laughter and dancing after it, until the young hours in themorning. One was more solid in those days than now--tired as their dogsafter the day's hunt, they dined and danced themselves young again forthe morrow. 

And what do you think they did after the Commune? They made him mayor. Yes, indeed, to honour him--Mayor of Hirondelette, the little villageclose to his estate, and de Savignac had to be formal and dignified forthe first time in his life--this good Bohemian--at the village fêtes, atthe important meetings of the Municipal Council, composed of a dealer incattle, the blacksmith and the notary. Again, in time of marriage, accident or death, and annually at the school exercises, when hepresented prizes to the children spic and span for the occasion, withvoices awed to whispers, and new shoes. And he loved them all--all thosedirty little brats that had been scrubbed clean, and their ruddy cheekspolished like red apples, to meet "Monsieur le Maire. "

He was nearing middle life now, but he was not conscious of it, beingstill a bachelor. There was not as yet, a streak of gray in hiswell-kept beard, and the good humour sparkled in his merry eyes as ofold. The only change that had occurred concerned the million. It was nolonger the brilliant solid million of his youth. It was sadly torn offin places--there were also several large holes in it--indeed, if thetruth be told, it was little more than a remnant of its once splendidentirety. It had been eaten by moths--certain shrewd old wasps, too, hadnested in it for years--not a sou of it had vanished in speculation orbad investment. Monsieur de Savignac (this part of it the curé told me)was as ignorant as a child concerning business affairs and stubbornlyavoided them. He had placed his fortune intact in the Bank of France, and had drawn out what he needed for his friends. In the first year ofhis inheritance he glanced at the balance statement sent him by thebank, with a feeling of peaceful delight. As the years of his generosityrolled on, he avoided reading it at all--"like most optimists, " remarkedthe curé, "he did not wish to know the truth. " At forty-six he marriedthe niece of an impoverished old wasp, a gentleman still in excellenthealth, owing to de Savignac's generosity. It was his good wife now, whoread the balance statement. 

For a while after his marriage, gaiety again reigned at the château, butupon a more economical basis; then gradually they grew to entertain lessand less; indeed there were few left of the moths and old wasps to giveto--they had flown to cluster around another million. 

Most of this Pierre, who was leading me through the leafy lane that ledto de Savignac's home, knew or could have known, for it was common talkin the country around, but his mind to-day was not on de Savignac'spast, but on the dog which we both were so anxious to see. 

 * * * * *

"Monsieur has never met Monsieur de Savignac?" ventured Pierre as weturned our steps out of the brilliant sunlight, and into a wooded pathskirting the extensive forest of the estate. 

"Not yet, Pierre. "

"He is a fine old gentleman, " declared Pierre, discreetly lowering hisvoice. "Poor man!"

"Why _poor_, Pierre?" I laughed, "with an estate like this--nonsense!"

"Ah! Monsieur does not know?"--Pierre's voice sunk to a whisper--"thechâteau is mortgaged, monsieur. There is not a tree or a field leftMonsieur de Savignac can call his own. Do you know, monsieur, he has nolonger even the right to shoot over the ground? Monsieur sees that lowroof beyond with the single chimney smoking--just to the left of thechâteau towers?"

I nodded. 

"That is where Monsieur de Savignac now lives. It is called thegarçonnière. "

"But the château, Pierre?"

"It is rented to a Peruvian gentleman, monsieur, who takes in boarders. "

"Pierre!" I exclaimed, "we go no farther. I knew nothing of this. I amnot going to accept a dog from a gentleman in Monsieur de Savignac'sunfortunate circumstances. It is not right. No, no. Go and present mydeep regrets to Monsieur de Savignac and tell him--tell him what youplease. Say that my rich uncle has just sent me a pair of pointers--thatI sincerely appreciate his generous offer, that--"

Pierre's small black eyes opened as wide as possible. He shrugged hisshoulders twice and began twisting thoughtfully the waxed ends of hismoustache to a finer point. 

"Pardon, monsieur, " he resumed after an awkward pause, "but--butmonsieur, by not going, will grieve Monsieur de Savignac--He will be sohappy to give monsieur the dog--so happy, monsieur. If Monsieur deSavignac could not give something to somebody he would die. Ah, hegives everything away, that good Monsieur de Savignac!" exclaimedPierre. "I was once groom in his stables--_oui_, monsieur, and hemarried us when he was Mayor of Hirondelette, and he paid ourrent--_oui_, monsieur, and the doctor and.... "

"We'll proceed, Pierre, " said I. "A man of de Savignac's kind in theworld is so rare that one should do nothing to thwart him. "

We walked on for some distance along the edge of a swamp carpeted withstrong ferns. Presently we came to a cool, narrow alley flanked androofed by giant poplars. At the end of this alley a wicket gate barredthe entrance to the courtyard of the garçonnière. 

As we drew nearer I saw that its ancient two-story façade was completelycovered by the climbing mass of ivy and yellow roses, the only openingsbeing the Louis XIV. Windows, and the front door, flush with thegravelled court, bordered by a thick hedge of box. 

"Monsieur the American gentleman for the dog, " announced Pierre to theboy servant in a blue apron who appeared to open the wicket gate. 

A moment later the door of the garçonnière opened, and a tall, heavilybuilt man with silver white hair and beard came forth to greet me. 

I noticed that the exertion of greeting me made him short of breath, andthat he held his free hand for a second pressed against his heart as heushered me across his threshold and into a cool, old-fashioned sittingroom, the walls covered with steel engravings, the furniture upholsteredin green rep. 

"Have the goodness to be seated, monsieur, " he insisted, waving me to anarmchair, while he regained his own, back of an old-fashioned desk. 

"Ah! The--little--dog, " he began, slowly regaining his breath. "You areall the time shooting, and I heard you wanted one. It is so difficult toget a really--good--dog--in this country. François!" he exclaimed, "Youmay bring in the little dog--and, François!" he added, as the boyservant turned to go--"bring glasses and a bottle of Musigny--you willfind it on the shelf back of the Medoc. " Then he turned to me: "Thereare still two bottles left, " and he laughed heartily. 

"Bien, monsieur, " answered the boy, and departed with a key big enoughto have opened a jail. 

The moment had arrived for me to draw forth a louis, which I laid on hisdesk in accordance with an old Norman custom, still in vogue when youaccept as a gift a dog from an estate. 

"Let your domestics have good cheer and wine to-night, " said I. 

"Thank you, " he returned with sudden formality. "I shall put it asidefor them, " and he dropped the gold piece into a small drawer of hisdesk. 

I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, toldme afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boywith the blue apron and the cook--an old woman--the last of his faithfulservitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling glasses, followedby the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and--my dog!

Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy--very blond--withridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach andfour heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate ina straight line to make my acquaintance. 

"_Voilà!_" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigablehunter, like his mother--wait until he is two years old--He'll stand tohis day's work beside the best in France----"

"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac. "

"Gorgon--Gorgon of Poitou, " he returned with enthusiasm. "They aregetting as rare now as this, " he declared, nodding to the cobwebbedbottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and filled my glass. 

While we sipped and chatted, his talk grew merry with chuckles andlaughter, for he spoke of the friends of his youth, who played for himand sang to him--the thing which he loved most of all, he told me. "Once, " he confessed to me, "I slipped away and travelled to Hungary. Ah! how those good gipsies played for me there! I was drunk with theirmusic for two weeks. It is stronger than wine, that music of thegipsies, " he said knowingly. 

Again our talk drifted to hunting, of the good old times when hares andpartridges were plentiful, and so he ran on, warmed by the rare Musigny, reminiscing upon the old days and his old friends who were serioussportsmen, he declared, and knew the habits of the game they were after, for they seldom returned with an empty game-bag. 

"And you are just as keen about shooting as ever?" I ventured. 

"I shoot no more, " he exclaimed with a shrug. "One must be a philosopherwhen one is past sixty--when one has no longer the solid legs to trampwith, nor the youth and the digestion to _live_. Ah! Besides, the lifehas changed--Paris was gay enough in my day. I _lived_ then, but atsixty--I stopped--with my memories. No! no! beyond sixty it is quiteimpossible. One must be philosophic, eh?"

Before I could reply, Madame de Savignac entered the room. I felt thecharm of her personality, as I looked into her eyes, and as she welcomedme I forgot that her faded silk gown was once in fashion before I wasborn, or that madame was short and no longer graceful. As the talk wenton, I began to study her more at my ease, when some one rapped at theouter door of the vestibule. She started nervously, then, rising, whispered to François, who had come to open it, then a moment later roseagain and, going out into the hall, closed the door behind her. 

"Thursday then, " I heard a man's gruff voice reply brusquely. 

I saw de Savignac straighten in his chair, and lean to one side as iftrying to catch a word of the muffled conversation in the vestibule. Thenext instant he had recovered his genial manner to me, but I saw thatagain he laboured for some moments painfully for his breath. 

The door of the vestibule closed with a vicious snap. Then I heard thecrunch of sabots on the gravelled court, and the next instant caught aglimpse of the stout, brutal figure of the peasant Le Gros, the bigdealer in cattle, as he passed the narrow window of the vestibule. 

It was _he_, then, with his insolent, bestial face purple with goodliving, who had slammed the door. I half started indignantly from mychair--then I remembered it was no affair of mine. 

Presently madame returned--flushed, and, with a forced smile, in whichthere was more pain than pleasure, poured for me another glass ofMusigny. I saw instantly that something unpleasant had passed--somethingunusually unpleasant--perhaps tragic, and I discreetly rose to take myleave. 

Without a word of explanation as to what had happened, Madame deSavignac kissed my dog good-bye on the top of his silky head, while deSavignac stroked him tenderly. He was perfectly willing to come with me, and cocked his head on one side. 

We were all in the courtyard now. 

"_Au revoir_, " they waved to me. 

"_Au revoir_, " I called back. 

"_Au revoir_, " came back to me faintly, as Pierre and the doggie and Ientered the green lane and started for home. 

"Monsieur sees that I was right, is it not true?" ventured Pierre, as wegained the open fields. "Monsieur de Savignac would have been grievedhad not monsieur accepted the little dog. "

"Yes, " I replied absently, feeling more like a marauder for havingaccepted all they had out of their hearts thrust upon me. 

Then I stopped--lifted the roly-poly little spaniel, and taking him inmy arms whispered under his silky ear: "We shall go back often, you andI"--and I think he understood. 

 * * * * *

A few days later I dropped into Madame Vinet's snug little café in Pontdu Sable. It was early in the morning and the small room of the café, with barely space enough for its four tables still smelt of fresh soapsuds and hot water. At one of the tables sat the peasant in his blackblouse, sipping his coffee and applejack. 

Le Gros lifted his sullen face as I entered, shifted his elbows, grippedthe clean marble slab of his table with both his red hands, and with ashrewd glint from his small, cruel eyes, looked up and grunted. 

"Ah!--_bonjour_, monsieur. "

"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Le Gros, " I replied. "We seem to be the only oneshere. Where's the patronne?"

"Upstairs, making her bed--another dry day, " he muttered, half tohimself, half to me. 

"She will stay dry for some days, " I returned. "The wind is well setfrom the northeast. "

"_Sacristi!_ a dirty time, " he growled. "My steers are as dry as anempty cask. "

"I'd like a little rain myself, " said I, reaching for a chair--"I have ayoung dog to train--a spaniel Monsieur de Savignac has been good enoughto give me. He is too young to learn to follow a scent on dry ground. "

Le Gros raised his bull-like head with a jerk. 

"De Savignac gave you a _dog_, did he? and he has a dog to give away, has he?"

The words came out of his coarse throat with a snarl. 

I dropped the chair and faced him. 

(He is the only man in Pont du Sable that I positively dislike. )

"Yes, " I declared, "he gave me a dog. May I ask you what business it isof yours?"

A flash of sullen rage illumined for a moment the face of the cattledealer. Then he muttered something in his peasant accent and satglowering into his empty coffee cup as I turned and left the room, mymind reverting to Madame de Savignac's door which his coarse hand hadclosed with a vicious snap. 

 * * * * *

We took the short cut across the fields often now--my yellow puppy andI. Indeed I grew to see these good friends of mine almost daily, and asfrequently as I could persuade them, they came to my house abandoned bythe marsh. 

The Peruvian gentleman's boarding house had been a failure, and Ilearned from the curé that the de Savignacs were hard pressed to paytheir creditors. 

It was Le Gros who held the mortgage, I further gleaned. 

And yet those two dear people kept a brave heart. They were still givingwhat they had, and she kept him in ignorance as best she could, softening the helplessness of it all, with her gentleness and hercourage. 

In his vague realization that the end was near, there were days when heforced himself into a gay mood and would come chuckling down the lane toopen the gate for me, followed by Mirza, the tawny old mother of mypuppy, who kept her faithful brown eyes on his every movement. Often itwas she who sprang nimbly ahead and unlatched the gate for me with herpaw and muzzle, an old trick he had taught her, and he would laugh whenshe did it, and tell me there were no dogs nowadays like her. 

Thus now and then he forced himself to forget the swarm of littlemiseries closing down upon him--forgot even his aches and pains, duelargely to the dampness of the vine-smothered garçonnière whoseold-fashioned interior smelt of cellar damp, for there was hardly a roomin it whose wall paper had escaped the mould. 

It was not until March that the long-gathering storm broke--as quick asa crackling lizard of lightning strikes. Le Gros had foreclosed themortgage. 

The Château of Hirondelette was up for sale. 

When de Savignac came out to open the gate for me late that evening hisface was as white as the palings in the moonlight. 

"Come in, " said he, forcing a faint laugh---he stopped for a moment ashe closed and locked the gate--labouring painfully for his breath. Thenhe slipped his arm under my own. "Come along, " he whispered, strugglingfor his voice. "I have found another bottle of Musigny. "

A funeral, like a wedding or an accident, is quickly over. The sale ofde Savignac's château consumed three days of agony. 

As I passed the "garçonnière" by the lane beyond the courtyard on my wayto the last day's sale, I looked over the hedge and saw that theshutters were closed--farther on, a doctor's gig was standing by thegate. From a bent old peasant woman in sabots and a white cap, whopassed, I learned which of the two was ill. It was as I had feared--hiswife. And so I continued on my way to the sale. 

As I passed through the gates of the château, the rasping voice of thelean-jawed auctioneer reached my ears as he harangued in the drizzlingrain before the steps of the château the group of peasants gatheredbefore him--widows in rusty crêpe veils, shrewd old Norman farmers inblue blouses looking for bargains, their carts wheeled up on themud-smeared lawn. And a few second-hand dealers from afar, in blackderbys, lifting a dirty finger to close a bid for mahogany. 

Close to this sordid crowd on the mud-smeared lawn sat Le Gros, hisheavy body sunk in a carved and gilded arm-chair that had once gracedthe boudoir of Madame de Savignac. As I passed him, I saw that his facewas purple with drink. He sat there the picture of insolent ignorance, this pig of a peasant. 

At times the auctioneer rallied the undecided with coarse jokes, andthe crowd roared, for they are not burdened with delicacy, these Normanfarmers. 

"_Allons! Allons!_ my good ladies!" croaked the auctioneer. "Forty sousfor the lot. A bed quilt for a princess and a magnificent water filterde luxe that will keep your children well out of the doctor's hands. _Allons!_ forty sous, forty-one--two?"

A merchant in hogs raised his red, puffy hand, then turned away with aleer as the shrill voice of a fisher woman cried, "Forty-five. "

"Sold!" yelped the auctioneer--"sold to madame the widow Dupuis ofHirondelette, " who was now elbowing her broad way through the crowd toher bargain which she struggled out with, red and perspiring, to themud-smeared lawn, where her eldest daughter shrewdly examined thebedquilt for holes. 

I turned away when it was all over and followed the crowd out throughthe gates. Le Gros was climbing into his cart. He was drunk and swearingover the poor result of the sale. De Savignac was still in his debt--andI continued on my way home, feeling as if I had attended an execution. 

Half an hour later the sharp bark of my yellow puppy greeted me frombeyond my wall. As I entered my courtyard, he came to me wriggling withjoy. Suddenly I stopped, for my ear caught the sound of a tail gentlypatting the straw in the cavernous old stable beyond my spaniel'skennel. I looked in and saw a pair of eyes gleaming like opals in thegloom. Then the tawny body of Mirza, the mother, rose from the straw andcame slowly and apologetically toward me with her head lowered. 

"Suzette!" I called, "how did she get here?"

"The boy of Monsieur de Savignac brought her an hour ago, monsieur, "answered the little maid. "There is a note for monsieur. I have left iton the table. "

I went in, lighted the fire, and read the following:

 "THE GARÇONNIÈRE, _Saturday_. 

 "Take her, my friend. I can no longer keep her with me. You have the son, it is only right you should have the mother. We leave for Paris to-morrow. We shall meet there soon, I trust. If you come here, do not bring her with you. I said good-bye to her this morning. 

 "Jacques de Savignac. "

It was all clear to me now--pitifully clear--the garçonnière had gonewith the rest. 

 * * * * *

On one of my flying trips to Paris I looked them up in their refuge, ina slit of a street. Here they had managed to live by the strictesteconomy, in a plain little nest under the roof, composed of two roomsand a closet for a kitchen. 

One night, early in June, after some persuasion, I forced him to go withme to one of those sparkling _risquée_ little comedies at the PalaisRoyal which he loved, and so on to supper at the Café de la Paix, wherethat great gipsy, Boldi, warms the heart with his fiddle. 

The opera was just out, when we reached our table, close to the band. Beauty and the Beast were arriving, and wraps of sheen and lace werebeing slipped from fair shoulders into the fat waiting hands of thegarçons, while the busy maître d'hôtel beamed with his nightly smile andjotted down the orders. 

The snug supper room glittered with light, clean linen and shiningglass. Now that the theatres were out, it had become awake with thechatter with which these little midnight suppers begin--suppers that sooften end in confidences, jealousy and even tears, that need only themerriest tone of a gipsy's fiddle to turn to laughter. 

Boldi is an expert at this. He watches those to whom he plays, singlingout the one who needs his fiddle most, and to-night he was watching deSavignac. 

We had finished our steaming dish of lobster, smothered in a spicedsauce that makes a cold dry wine only half quench one's thirst, and wereproceeding with a crisp salad when Boldi, with a rushing crescendoslipped into a delicious waltz. De Savignac now sat with his chin sunkheavily in his hands, drinking in the melody with its spiritedaccompaniment as the cymballist's flexible hammers flew over theresonant strings, the violins following the master in the red coat, withthat keen alertness with which all real gipsies play. I realized now, what the playing of a gipsy meant to him. By the end of the waltz DeSavignac's eyes were shining. 

Boldi turned to our table and bowed. 

"Play, " said I, to him in my poor Hungarian (that de Savignac might notunderstand, for I wished to surprise him) "a real czardas of yourpeople--ah! I have it!" I exclaimed. "Play the legend and the mad dancethat follows--the one that Racz Laczi loved--the legend of the young manwho went up the mountain and met the girl who jilted him. "

Boldi nodded his head and grinned with savage enthusiasm. He drew hisbow across the sobbing strings and the legend began. Under the spell ofhis violin, the chatter of the supper room ceased--the air now heavywith the mingled scent of perfume and cigars, seemed to pulsate underthe throb of the wild melody--as he played on, no one spoke--the meneven forgetting to smoke; the women listening, breathing with partedlips. I turned to look at de Savignac--he was drunk and there was astrange glitter in his eyes, his cheeks flushed to a dull crimson, butnot from wine. 

Boldi's violin talked--now and then it wept under the vibrant grip ofthe master, who dominated it until it dominated those to whom it played. 

The young man in the legend was rushing up the mountain path in earnestnow, for he had seen ahead of him the girl he loved--now the melodyswept on through the wooing and the breaking of her promise, and nowcame the rush of the young man down to the nearest village to drown hischagrin and forget her in the mad dance, the "Czardas, " which followed. 

As the czardas quickened until its pace reached the speed of awhirlwind, de Savignac suddenly staggered to his feet--his breath comingin short gasps. 

"Sit down!" I pleaded, not liking the sudden purplish hue of hischeeks. 

"Let--me--alone, " he stammered, half angrily. "It--is so good--to--bealive again. "

"You shall not, " I whispered, my eye catching sight of a gold louisbetween his fingers. "You don't know what you are doing--it is notright--this is my dinner, old friend--_all of it_, do you understand?"

"Let--me--alone, " he breathed hoarsely, as I tried to get hold of thecoin--"it is my last--my last--my last!"--and he tossed the gold pieceto the band. It fell squarely on the cymballum and rolled under thestrings. 

"Bravo!" cried a little woman opposite, clapping her warm, jewelledhands. Then she screamed, for she saw Monsieur de Savignac sway heavily, and sink back in his seat, his chin on his chest, his eyes closed. 

I ripped open his collar and shirt to give him breath. Twice his chestgave a great bound, and he murmured something I did not catch--then hesank back in my arms--dead. 

During the horror and grim reality of it all--the screaming women, thephysician working desperately, although he knew all hope was gone--whilethe calm police questioned me as to his identity and domicile, I shookfrom head to foot--and yet the worst was still to come--I had to tellMadame de Savignac. 

 [Illustration: spilled bottle of wine]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: The man with the gun]

CHAPTER NINE

THE MAN WITH THE GUN

It is at last decided! The kind and sympathetic Minister of Agriculturehas signed the official document opening the shooting-season for haresand partridges in _La belle France_, to-morrow, Sunday, the thirtieth ofSeptember. Thrice happy hunters!--they who had begun to grumble in theircafés over the rumour that the opening of the shooting-season might bepostponed until the second or even third Sunday in October. 

My good friend the mayor of Pont du Sable has just handed me myhunting-permit for the coming year bearing the stamp of the _RépubliqueFrançaise_, the seal of the prefecture, the signature of the préfet, andincluding everything, from the colour of my hair and complexion to myheight, age, birth and domicile. On the back of this important piece ofpaper I read as follows:

That the permit must be produced at the demand of all agents authorizedby law. That it is prohibited to shoot without it, or upon lands withoutthe consent of the proprietor having the right--or outside of the seasonfixed by the laws of the préfets. 

Furthermore:

The father--the mother--the tutor--the masters, and guardians arecivilly responsible for the misdemeanours committed while shooting bytheir infants--wards--pupils, or domestics living with them. 

And finally:

That the hunter who has lost his permit cannot resume again the exerciseof the hunt until he has obtained and paid for a new one, twenty-eightfrancs and sixty centimes. 

To-morrow, then, the jolly season opens. 

"_Vive la République!_"

It is a season, too, of crisp twilights after brilliant days, so shortthat my lost village is plunged in darkness as early as seven, and goesto bed to save the candle--the hour when the grocer's light gleamingahead of me across the slovenly little public square becomes the onlybeacon in the village; and, guided by it, I pick my way in the darkalong the narrow thoroughfare, stumbling over the laziest of the villagedogs sprawled here and there in the road outside the doorways of thefishermen. 

Across one of these thresholds I catch a glimpse to-night of a tiredfisher girl stretched on her bed after her long day at sea. Beside thebed a very old woman in a white cotton cap bends over her bowl of soupby the wavering light of a tallow dip. 

"_Bonsoir_, monsieur!" croaks a hoarse voice from the dark. It isMarianne. She has fished late. 

At seven-thirty the toy train rumbles into Pont du Sable, stops for abarefooted passenger, and rumbles out again through thevillage--crawling lest it send one of the laziest dogs yelping to itshome. The headlight on the squat locomotive floods the way ahead, suddenly illumining the figure of a blinking old man laden with netsand three barelegged children who scream, "_Bonsoir_, monsieur, " to theengineer. 

What glorious old days are these! The wealth of hedged fields---the lushgreen grass, white with hoar frost at daybreak--the groups of mild-eyedcows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of seaair, sunshine and Norman country spreading its richness down to the veryedge of the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a saneexhilaration--he is alive. 

On calm nights the air is pungent and warm with the perfume of tons ofapples lying heaped in the orchards, ready for the cider-making, nights, when the owls hoot dismally under a silver moon. 

When the wind veers to the north it grows cold. On such nights as these"the Essence of Selfishness" seeks my fireside. 

She is better fed than many other children in the lost village beyond mywall. And spoiled!--_mon Dieu!_ She is getting to be hopeless. 

Ah, you queen of studied cruelty and indifference! You, with your noseof coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and yourblue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to deathtwo helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have notdiscovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal sinceyou disdain to dine from my best china, and Suzette takes care of youlike a nurse. 

_Eh bien!_ Some day, do you hear, I shall sell you to the rabbit-skinman, who has a hook for a hand, and the rest of you will find its way tosome cheap table d'hôte, where you will pass as ragout of rabbit HenriIV. Under a thick sauce. What would you do, I should like to know, ifyou were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose fourchildren sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with whattheir mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best ofgrasshopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours--Suzetteis coming to put you to bed. 

The trim little maid entered, crossed noiselessly in the firelight to mychair, and, laying a sealed note from my friend the Baron beneath thelamp, picked up the sleepy cat and carried her off to her room. 

The note was a delightful surprise. 

"_Cher monsieur_: Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to comeand do the _ouverture_ of the hunt at my château to-morrow, Sunday--myauto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about tenguns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares tomake you pass a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, theassurance of my sentiments the most distinguished?"

It was nice of the Baron to think of me, for I had made his acquaintancebut recently at one of Tanrade's dinners, during which, I recall, theBaron declared to me as he lifted his left eyebrow over his cognac, thatthe hunt--_la chasse_--"was always amusing, and a great blessing to men, since it created the appetite of the wolf and was an excuse to get ridof the ladies. " He told me, too, as he adjusted his monocle safely inthe corner of his aristocratic aquiline nose, that his favourite saintwas St. Hubert. He would have liked to have known him--he must havebeen a _bon garçon_, this patron saint of hunting. 

"Ah! _Les femmes!_" he sighed, as he straightened his erect torso, thathad withstood so many Parisian years, against the back of his chair. "Ah! _Les femmes!_ But in zee fields zey cannot follow us? _Hein?_" Helaughed, lapsing into his broken English. "Zey cannot follow us throughzee hedges, ovaire zee rough grounds, in zee rains, in zee muds. Nevairetake a woman hunting, " he counselled me sotto voce beneath his vibranthand, for Alice de Bréville was present. "One can _nevaire_ make loveand kill zee agile little game at zee same time. _Par exemple!_ Youwhispaire somezing in madame's leetle ear and brrrh! a partridge--_quevoulez-vous, mon cher?_" he concluded, with a shrug. "It is quiteimpossible--_quite_ impossible. "

I told him leisurely, as we sipped our liqueur, of the hunting in my owncountry, of the lonely tramps in the wilderness following a line oftraps in the deep snow, the blind trails, the pork sandwich meltedagainst the doughnuts at noon, leaking lean-tos, smoky fires, and badcoffee. 

"_Parbleu!_" he roared. "You have not zee rendezvous? You have not zeehunting breakfast? I should be quite ill--you hunt like zee Arabs--likezee gipsies--ah, yes, I forget--zee warm sandwich and zee native nuts. "

He tapped the table gently with his rings, smiling the whilereminiscently into his glass, then, turning again to me, addedseriously:

"It is not all zee play--zee hunt. I have had zee legs broken by zeefatigue. Zee good breakfast is what you say 'indispensable' to break zeeday. Zee good stories, zee camaraderie, zee good kind wine--_enfintout!_ But"--and again he leaned nearer--"but _not zee_ladies--_nevaire_--only zee memories. "

I repeat, it was nice of the Baron to think of me. I could easilypicture to myself as I reread his note his superb estate, thatstronghold of his ancestors; the hearty welcome at its gates; thegamekeepers in their green fustians; the pairs of perfectly traineddogs; the abundance of partridges and hares; and the breakfast in theold château, a feast that would be replete with wit and old Burgundy. How splendid are these Norman autumns! What exhilarating old daysduring this season of dropping apples, blue skies, and falling leaves!Days when the fat little French partridges nestle in companies in thefields, shorn to stubble after the harvest, and sleek hares at sunriselift their long ears cautiously above the dew-bejeweled cobwebs alongthe ditches to make sure that the green feeding-patch beyond is safefrom the man and the gun. 

Fat, garrulous Monsieur Toupin of the village becomes under the spell ofMadame Vinet's best cognac so uproarious when he has killed one of thesesleek, strong-limbed hares, that madame is obliged to draw theturkey-red curtain over the window of her small café that MonsieurToupin may not be seen by his neighbours. 

"Suzette, " I called, "my candle! I must get a good night's sleep, forto-morrow I shoot with the Baron. "

"_Tiens!_" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand château?" And herfrank eyes opened wide. "Ah, _mais_--but monsieur will not have to workhard for a partridge there. "

"And so you know the château, my little one?"

"Ah, _mais oui_, monsieur! Is it not at La Sapinière near Les Roses? Mygrandfather was gardener there when I was little. I passed the châteauonce with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieurwill be content--ah, _mais oui_!"

"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, _ma petite_!"

"_Bien_, monsieur. " And Suzette passed me my lighted candle, the flameof which rose brilliantly from its wick. 

"That means good luck, monsieur, " said she, pointing to thecandle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs. 

"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief insuperstitions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for thedoctor--Suzette had broken a mirror. 

"Ah, _mais si_, " declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched herkitchen door. "When the wick burns like that--ah, _ça!_" And with acheery _bonsoir_ she closed the door behind her. 

I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobileemitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside mywall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushedout, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and--couldit be true? Monsieur le Curé. 

"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight. 

"Yes, " he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy aninvitation. "

"And I would not let him, " added Tanrade. "Quick! Where are your traps?We have a good forty kilometres ahead of us; we must not keep the Baronwaiting. " And the composer of ballets rushed into the house andshouldered my valise containing a dry change. 

"You shall have enough partridges to fill your larder for a month, " Iheard him tell Suzette, and he did not forget to pat her rosy cheek inpassing. Suzette laughed and struggled by him, her firm young armshugging my gun and shell-case. 

Before I could stop him, the curé, in his black soutane, had clamberednimbly to the roof of the big car and was lashing my traps next toTanrade's and his own. At this instant I started to take a long breathof pure morning air--and hesitated, then I caught the alert eye of thechauffeur, who was grinning. 

"What are you burning? Fish oil?" said I. 

"_Mon Dieu_, monsieur----" began the chauffeur. 

"Cheese, " called down the curé, pointing to a round paper parcel on theroof of the limousine. "Tanrade got it at daylight; woke up the wholevillage getting it. "

"Had to, " explained Tanrade, as Suzette helped him into his great coat. "The Baron is out of cheese; he added a postscript to my invitationpraying that I would be amiable enough to bring one. _Eh voilà!_ Thereit is, and real cheese at that. Come, get in, quick!" And he opened thedoor of the limousine, the interior of which was lined in gray suède andappointed with the daintiest of feminine luxuries. 

"Look out for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of afarmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the curé found his seat. "If youscratch those monograms the Baroness will never forgive you. "

Then, with a wave to Suzette, we swept away from my house by the marsh, were hurled through Pont du Sable, and shot out of its narrowest endinto the fresh green country beyond. 

It was so thoroughly chic and Parisian, this limousine. Only a few daysago it had been shopping along the Rue de la Paix, and later rushing tothe cool Bois de Boulogne carrying a gracious woman to dinner; now itheld two vagabonds and a curé. We tore on while we talkedenthusiastically of the day's shooting in store for us. The curé was inhis best humour. How he does love to shoot and what a rattling good shothe is! Neither Tanrade nor myself, and we have shot with him day in andday out on the marsh and during rough nights in his gabion, has everbeaten him. 

On we flew, past the hamlet of Fourche-la-Ville, past Javonne, past LesRoses. _Sacristi!_ I thought, what if the gasoline gave out or the sparkrefused to sparkle, what if they had----Why worry? That cheese wasstrong enough to have gotten us anywhere. 

Suddenly we slowed down, hastily consulted a blue iron sign at thecrossroad, and swung briskly to the right. 

A noble forest and the roofs and _tourelles_ of the château now loomedahead of us. We turned into a clean, straight road, flanked by superboaks leading to an ancient stone gateway. A final wail from the siren, the gates swung open, and we came to a dead stop in front of the Baron, four setter dogs, and a group of gentlemen immaculately attired for thehunt. From their tan-leather leggings to their yellow dogskin gloves andgleaming guns, they were faultless. 

While the Baron greeted us, his guests stood waiting to be presented;their formal bow would have done credit to a foreign embassy during animperial audience. The next moment we were talking as naturally togetherand with as much camaraderie as if we had known each other for years. 

"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "_Vous êteschez vous_; the ladies have gone to Paris. "

It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all. It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was agood fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there. No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but insteadfour plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The château itselfwas plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of thelittle towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing thesnug forest bulged dangerously in places. 

"You will see, " explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as ourlittle party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not getalong very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives ustrouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged auntwas unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us fromhunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot putfoot in his harvest. "

"I see, " I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew thebirds were where the harvest was still uncut. 

"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would ratherlose than have me hunt over, " the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall seewhat the _canaille_ will do, for only this morning he sent me wordthreatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better thanhave us all served with a _procès-verbal_ for trespassing. "

I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of thecountry-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's paceand be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a_procès-verbal_ meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a nomore tranquil state of mind himself. 

"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That _sacré_individual will deal with _me_. It is _I_ who am alone responsible, " hegenerously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let himbulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, forwhat he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest. "

"_Eh bien!_ my dear friends, " he called back to the others as we reacheda cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to theright--half to the left!"

"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into twoslowly moving companies. 

"Le Bour, " returned the Baron grimly as the breech of his gun snappedshut. 

The vast cultivated plain undulating below us looked like thepatchwork-quilt of a giantess, stitched together with well-knit hedges. There were rectangles of apple-green clover, canary-yellow squares ofmustard, green pastures of ochre stubble, rich green strips of beets, and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed. 

Time after time we were obliged to pass around companies of partridgesthat had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt. It wasexasperating, for, from the beginning of the shoot, every bird seemed toknow where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the_messieurs_ in the yellow dogskin gloves. By eleven o'clock there werebarely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been ahundred. 

At the second cross road, the right and left party convened. It was whatLe Bour had been waiting for. 

A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which hehad hidden himself, and came glowering toward us. As he drew nearer Isaw that his gun swung loosely in his hand and was at full cock, itsmuzzle wavering unpleasantly over us as he strode on. His mean old eyesglittered with rage, his jaw trembled under a string of oaths. Hismanner was that of a sullen bull about to charge. 

There was no mistaking his identity--it was Le Bour. 

"_Procès-verbal_ for all of you, " he bellowed; "you, Monsieur le Baron, and you, Monsieur le Vicomte, " he snapped, as the Baron advanced todefend his guests. "I saw you cross my buckwheat, " he declared pointingan ugly finger at the Vicomte. 

"You lie!" shouted the Baron, before the Vicomte could find his words. "I forbid you to open your head to my guests. Not one of these gentlemenhas set foot in your harvest. What right have _you_ to carry a gun?Where is your hunting permit?" thundered the Baron. "Where's yourcommission as guard, that you should have the insolence to threaten uswith a _procès-verbal_. "

"Ah!" exclaimed the Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thoughtas much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Curé, the fellow has nopermit. " And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule. 

"Come, my friends, we shall leave this imbecile to himself, " laughed theBaron. 

Le Bour sprang past him and confronted us. 

"_Eh ben_, my fine gentlemen, " he snarled, "you'll not get away soeasily. I demand, in the name of the law, your hunting permits. Come, _allons_! All of you!"

At the same instant he tore open his blouse and displayed, to ourdismay, an oval brass plaque bearing his name and the number 1247. 

"There!" cried the old man, white and trembling with rage. "There's myfull commission as guard. "

My companion with the gloves next to me fidgeted nervously and coughed. I saw the Vicomte turn a little pale. Tanrade shrugged his shoulders. Monsieur le Curé's face wore an expression of dignified gravity. Notonce, however, had Le Bour's eyes met his own. It was evident that hereverently excluded the curé from the affair. 

The Vicomte looked uncomfortable enough. The truth was, he was not knownto be at the hunt. The Vicomtesse was shrewd when it came to thequestion of his whereabouts. A _procès-verbal_ meant publicity;naturally the Vicomtesse would know. It might even reach the adorableears of Mademoiselle Rosalie, of the _corps de ballet_, who imagined theVicomte safe with his family. The Baron was fuming, but he did notspeak. 

"Your permits!" reiterated Le Bour, flourishing his license. 

There was an awkward silence; not a few in the party had left theirpermits at home. 

"_Pouf!_" exclaimed the Baron. "Enough of this! _En route_, my friends!"

"_Eh, bien!_" growled the farmer. "You refuse to produce your permits ondemand of a guard. It shall be stated, " he threatened, "in the_procès-verbal_. " Then Le Bour turned on his muddy heel and launched aparting volley at the Baron denouncing his château and everythingconnected with him. 

"Do not forget the time you stole the ducks of my uncle, " cried theBaron, shaking a clenched fist at the old man, "or the morning--" Buthis words were lost on Le Bour, who had disappeared in the hedge. 

By eleven-thirty we had killed some two dozen birds and three hares; andas we were now stricken with "the appetite of the wolf, " we turned backto the château for breakfast. 

Here a sponge and a rub-down sent us in gay spirits down to thebilliard-room, where a bottle of port was in waiting--a rare bottle forparticular occasions. It was "the last of a dozen, " explained the Baronas we touched glasses, sent to the château by Napoleon in payment for anight's lodging during one of his campaigns. "The very time, in fact, "he added, "when the little towers lost their tops. "

Under the spell of the Emperor's port the Vicomte regained his nerves, and even the unpleasant incident of the morning was half forgotten whilethe piano in the historic salon rang merrily under Tanrade's touch untilwe filed in to luncheon. 

It was as every French shooting-luncheon is intended to be--a pleasantlittle fête full of good cheer and understanding; the good soup, thedecanters of Burgundy, the clean red-and-white checkered napkins andcloth, the heavy family silver, the noiseless old servants--and what anappetite we had! What a _soufflé_ of potatoes, and such chickensmothered in cream! And always the "good kind wine, " until the famouscheese that Tanrade had waked up Pont du Sable in procuring was passedquickly and went out to the pantry, never to return. Ah, yes! And thewarm champagne without which no French breakfast is complete. 

Over the coffee and liqueurs, the talk ran naturally to gallantry. 

"Ah, _les femmes_! The memories, " as the Baron had said. 

"You should have seen Babette Deslys five years ago, " remarked one ofour jolly company when the Baron had left the room in search of somemilder cigars. 

I saw the Vicomte raise his eyebrows in subtle warning to the speaker, who, like myself, knew the Baron but slightly. If he was treading upondelicate ground he was unconscious of it, this _bon vivant_ of aParisian; for he continued rapidly in his enthusiasm, despite a secondhopeless attempt of the Vicomte to check him. 

"You should have seen Babette in the burlesque as Phryne at theVariétés--_une merveille, mon cher!_" he exclaimed, addressing thesous-lieutenant on his right, and he blew a kiss to the ceiling. "Thecomplexion of a rosebud and amusing! Ah--la! la!"

"I hear her debts ran close to a million, " returned the lieutenant. 

"She was feather-brained, " continued the _bon vivant_, with a blaséshrug. "She was a good little quail with more heart than head! PoorBabette!"

"Take care!" cautioned the Vicomte pointblank, as the Baron re-enteredwith the box of milder Havanas. 

And thus the talk ran on among these men of the world who knew Paris aswell as their pockets; and so many Babettes and Francines and othercareless little celebrities whose beauty and extravagance had turnedpeace and tranquillity into ruin and chaos. 

At last the jolly breakfast came to an end. We rose, recovered our gunsfrom the billiard-table, and with fresh courage went forth again intothe fields to shoot until sunset. During the afternoon we again saw LeBour, but he kept at a safe distance watching our movements withmuttered oaths and a vengeful eye, while we added some twenty-oddpartridges to the morning's score. 

 * * * * *

Toward the end of the afternoon, a week later, at Pont du Sable, Tanradeand the curé sat smoking under my sketching-umbrella on the marsh. Thecuré is far from a bad painter. His unfinished sketch of the distantstrip of sea and dunes lay at my feet as I worked on my own canvas whilethe sunset lasted. 

Tanrade was busy between puffs of his pipe in transposing variouspassages in his latest score. Now and then he would hesitate, finger thecarefully thought out bar on his knee, and again his stub of a pencilwould fly on through a maze of hieroglyphics that were to the curé andmyself wholly unintelligible. 

Suddenly the curé looked up, his keen gaze rivetted upon two dots offigures on bicycles speeding rapidly toward us along the path skirtingthe marsh. 

"Hello!" exclaimed the curé, and he gave a low whistle. "The gendarmes!"

There was no mistaking their identity; their gold stripes and white ducktrousers appeared distinctly against the tawny marsh. 

The next moment they dismounted, left their wheels on the path, and cameslowly across the desert of wire-grass toward us. 

"_Diable!_" muttered Tanrade, under his breath, and instantly our mindsreverted to Le Bour. 

The two officials of the law were before us. 

"We regret to disturb you, messieurs, " began the taller of the twopleasantly as he extracted a note-book from a leather case next to hisrevolver. "But"--and he shrugged his military shoulders--"it is for thelittle affair at Hirondelette. "

"Which one of us is elected?" asked Tanrade grimly. 

"Ah! _Bon Dieu!_" returned the tall one; half apologetically. "A_procès-verbal_ unfortunately for you, Monsieur Tanrade. Read thecharge, " he said to the short one, who had now unfolded a paper, clearedhis throat, and began to read in a monotonous tone. 

"Monsieur Gaston Emile Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, chargesMonsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of theThirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in hisbuckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion onthe thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in the morning. "

"I was _not_ in his _sacré_ buckwheat!" declared Tanrade, and hedescribed the entire incident of the morning. 

"Take monsieur's denial in detail, " commanded the tall one. 

His companion produced a small bottle of ink and began to write slowlywith a scratchy pen, while we stood in silence. 

"Kindly add your signature, monsieur, " said the tall one, when thebottle was again recorked. 

Tanrade signed. 

The gendarmes gravely saluted and were about to withdraw when Tanradeasked if he was "the only unfortunate on the list. "

"Ah, _non_!" confessed the tall one. "There is a similar charge againstMonsieur le Vicomte--we have just called upon him. Also against Monsieurle Baron. "

"And what did they say?"

"_Eh bien_, monsieur, a general denial, just as monsieur has made. "

"The affair is ridiculous, " exclaimed Tanrade hotly. 

"That must be seen, " returned the tall one firmly. 

Again we all saluted and they left us, recovered their bicycles, andwent spinning off back to Pont du Sable. 

"_Nom d'un chien!_" muttered Tanrade, while the curé and I staredthoughtfully at a clump of grass. 

"Why didn't he get me?" I ventured, after a moment. 

"Foreigner, " explained Tanrade. "You're in luck, old boy--no record ofidentity, and how the devil do you suppose Le Bour could pronounce yourname?"

Half an hour later I found the Vicomte, who lived close to our village. He was pacing up and down his salon in a rage. 

"I was _not_ in the buckwheat!" he declared frantically. "Do you supposeI have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched businessout at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, fora little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! Heis the devil! _He_ is responsible for this--naturally. " And he fellagain to pacing the room. 

I looked blankly at the Vicomte. 

"Son? What young son?" I asked. 

The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise. 

"Ah! _Sapristi!_ You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know thatBabette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away withher and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francsbelonged to Le Bour? _Sapristi!_ You did not know _that_?"

 [Illustration: sign: CHASSE GARDEÉ]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: the yellow car]

CHAPTER TEN

THE BELLS OF PONT DU SABLE

The big yellow car came ripping down the road--a clean hard ribbon of aroad skirting the tawny marsh that lay this sparkling August morningunder a glaze of turquoise blue water at high tide. 

With a devilish wail from its siren, the yellow car whizzed past myhouse abandoned by the marsh. I was just in time, as I raised my headabove the rambling wall of my courtyard, to catch sight of my goodfriend the curé on the back seat, holding on tight to his saucer-likehat. In the same rapid glance I saw the fluttering ends of abottle-green veil, in front of the curé's nose and knew Germaine wasdriving. 

"Lucky curé!" I said to myself, as I returned to my half-finishedsketch, "carried off again to luncheon by one of the dearest of littlewomen. "

No wonder during his lonely winters, when every villa or château ofevery friend of his for miles around is closed, and my vagabond villageof Pont du Sable rarely sees a Parisian, the curé longs for midsummer. It is his gayest season, since hardly a day passes but some friendkidnaps him from his presbytery that lies snug and silent back of thecrumbling wall which hides both his house and his wild garden from thegaze of the passer-by. 

He is the kind of curé whom it is a joy to invite--this straight, strongcuré, who is French to the backbone; with his devil-may-care geniality, his irresistible smile of a comedian, his quick wit of an Irishman, andhis heart of gold. 

To-day Germaine had captured him and was speeding him away to a jollyluncheon of friends at her villa, some twenty kilometres below Pont duSable--Germaine with her trim, lithe figure and merry brown eyes, eyesthat can become in a flash as calm and serious as the curé's, and inturn with her moods (for Germaine is a pretty collection of moods) gleamwith the impulsive devilry of a _gamine_; Germaine, who teases an oldvagabond painter like myself, by daubing a purple moon in the middle ofmy morning sketch, adds a dab on my nose when I protest, and the nextinstant embraces me, and begs my forgiveness. 

I cannot conceive of anyone not forgiving Germaine, beneath whose firmand delicate beauty lies her warm heart, as golden in quality as thecuré's. 

Ah! It is gay enough in midsummer with Germaine and such other goodBohemians as Alice de Bréville, Tanrade, and his reverence to cheer myhouse abandoned by the marsh. 

I heard the yellow car tearing back to Pont du Sable late that night. Itslowed down as it neared my walled domain, and with a wrenching gruntstopped in front of my gate. The next instant the door of my den openedand in rushed the curé. 

"All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!" he cried, flinging his hat on the floor; then bending, with a grin ofsatisfaction over the lamp chimney, he kindled the end of a fatcigarette he had rolled in the dark. His eyes were snapping, while thecorners of his humorous mouth twitched in a satisfied smile. He strodeup and down the room for some moments, his hands clasped behind him, hisstrong, sun-tanned face beaming in the glow of the shaded lamplight, while he listened to my delight over the pleasant news he had brought. 

"Ah! They are good to me, these children of mine, " he declared withenthusiasm. "Germaine tells me there is a surprise in store for me andthat I am not to know until to-morrow, at luncheon. Beyond that, shewould tell me nothing, the little minx, except that I managed to makeher confess that Alice was in the secret. "

He glanced at his watch, "Ah!" he ejaculated, "I must be getting to bed;you, too, my old one, for we must get an early start in the morning, ifwe are to reach The Three Wolves by noon. " He recovered his hat from thefloor, straightened up, brushed the cigarette ashes from the breast ofhis long black soutane, shiny from wear, and held out his strong hand. 

"Sleep well, " he counselled, "for to-morrow we shall be _en fête_. "

Then he swung open my door and passed out into the night, whistling ashe crossed my courtyard a _café chantant_ air that Germaine had taughthim. 

A moment later, the siren of the yellow car sent forth its warning wail, and he was speeding back to his presbytery under the guidance ofGermaine's chauffeur. 

 * * * * *

The curé was raking out the oysters; he stood on the sandy rim of a poolof clear sea-water that lay under the noonday sun like a liquid emerald. As Monsieur le Curé plunged in his long rake and drew it back heavy withthose excellent bivalves for which the restaurant at The Three Wolveshas long been famous, his tall black figure, silhouetted against thedistant sea and sky, reminded me of some great sea-crow fishing for itsbreakfast. 

To the right of him crouched the restaurant, a low wooden structure, with its back to the breakers. It has the appearance of being cast thereat high tide, its zigzag line of tiled roofs drying in the air and sun, like the scaled shell of some stranded monster of the sea. There is acavernous old kitchen within, resplendent in shining copper--a busykitchen to-day, sizzling in good things and pungent with the aroma oftwo tender young chickens, basting on a spit, a jolly old kitchen, farmore enticing than the dingy long dining-room adjoining it, whose wallsare frescoed in panels representing bottle-green lobsters, gapingsucculent clams, and ferocious crabs sidling away indignantly from netsheld daintily by fine ladies and their gallants, in costumes that werein vogue before the revolution. Even when it pours, this cheerless olddining-room at The Three Wolves is deserted, since there are half ascore of far cosier little round pavilions for lovers and intimatefriends, built over the oyster pools. 

Beyond them, hard by the desolate beach, lie the rocks known as TheThree Wolves. In calm weather the surf smashes over their glisteningbacks--at low water, as it happened to be to-day, the seethe of the tidescurried about their dripping bellies green with hairy sea-weed. 

Now and then came cheery ripples of laughter from our little pavilion, where Germaine and Alice de Bréville were arranging a mass of scarletnasturtiums, twining their green leaves and tendrils amongst the platesof _hors d'oeuvres_ and among the dust-caked bottles of Chablis andBurgundy--Alice, whose dark hair and olive skin are in strong contrastto Germaine's saucy beauty. 

They had banished Tanrade, who had offered his clumsy help--and spilledthe sardines. He had climbed on the roof and dropped pebbles down onthem through the cracks and had later begged forgiveness through thekey-hole. Now he was yelling like an Indian, this celebrated composer ofballets, as he swung a little peasant maid of ten in a creaky swingbeyond the pool--a dear little maid with eyes as dark as Alice's, whoscreamed from sheer delight, and insisted on that good fellow playingall the games that lay about them, from _tonneau_ to _bilboquet_. 

Together, the curé and I carried the basket, now plentifully filled withoysters back to the kitchen, while Tanrade was hailed from the pavilion, much to the little maid's despair. 

"_Dépêchez-vous!_" cried Alice, who had straightway embraced her exiledTanrade on his return and was now waving a summons to the curé andmyself. 

"_Bon_, " shouted back the curé. "_Allons, mes enfants, à table_--and theone who has no appetite shall be cast into the sea--by the heels, " addedhis reverence. 

What a breakfast followed! Such a rushing of little maids back and forthfrom the jolly kitchen with the great platters of oysters. What a solesmothered in a mussel sauce! What a lobster, scarlet as the cap of acardinal and garnished with crisp romaine! and the chickens! and themutton! and the _soufflé_ of potatoes, and the salad of shrimps--_MonDieu!_ What a luncheon, "sprayed, " as the French say, with that rare oldChablis and mellow Burgundy! And what laughter and camaraderie wentwith it from the very beginning, for to be at table with friends inFrance is to be _en fête_--it is the hour when hearts are warmest andmerriest. 

Ah, you dear little women! You who know just when to give those who loveyou a friendly pressure of the hand, or the gift of your lips if needsbe, even in the presence of so austere a personage as Monsieur le Curé. You who understand. You who are tender or merry with the mood, orcontrary to the verge of exasperation--only to caress with the subtlelight of your eyes and be forgiven. 

It was not until we had reached our coffee and liqueur, that thesurprise for the curé was forthcoming. Hardly had the tiny glasses beenfilled, when the clear tone of the bell ringing from the ancient churchof The Three Wolves made us cease our talk to listen. 

Alice turned to the curé; it was evidently the moment she had beenwaiting for. 

"Listen, " said Alice softly--"how delicious!"

"It is the bell of Ste. Marie, " returned the curé. 

Even Tanrade was silent now, for his reverence had made the sign of thecross. As his fingers moved I saw a peculiar look come into his eyes--alook of mingled disappointment and resignation. 

Again Alice spoke: "Your cracked bell at Pont du Sable has not long toring, my friend, " she said very tenderly. 

"One must be content, my child, with what one has, " replied the curé. 

Alice leaned towards him and whispered something in his ear, Germainesmiling the while. 

I saw his reverence give a little start of surprise. 

"No, no, " he protested half aloud. "Not that; it is too much to ask ofyou with all your rehearsals at the Bouffes Parisiennes coming. "

"_Parbleu!_" exclaimed Alice, "it will not be so very difficult--I shallaccomplish it, you shall see what a concert we shall give--we shall makea lot of money; every one will be there. It has the voice of a frog, your bell. _Dieu!_ What a fuss it makes over its crack. You shall have anew one--two new ones, _mon ami_, even if we have to make bigger thebelfry of your little gray church to hang them. "

The curé grew quite red. I saw for an instant his eyes fill with tears, then with a benign smile, he laid his hand firmly over Alice's andlifting the tips of her fingers, kissed them twice in gratefulness. 

He was very happy. He was happy all the way back in Germaine's yellowcar to Pont du Sable. Happy when he thrust his heavy key in the rustylock of the small door that let him into his silent garden, cool underthe stars, and sweet with the scent of roses. 

 * * * * *

A long winter has passed since that memorable luncheon at The ThreeWolves. Our little pavilion over the emerald pool will never see usreunited, I fear. A cloud has fallen over my good friend the curé, acloud so unbelievable, and yet so dense, if it be true, and so filledwith ominous mutterings of thunder and lightning, crime, defalcation, banishment, and the like, that I go about my work dazed at the rumouredsituation. 

They tell me the curé still says mass, and when it is over, regains thepresbytery by way of the back lane skirting the marsh. I am also toldthat he rarely even ventures into his garden, but spends most of hisdays and half of his nights alone in his den with the door locked, andstrict orders to his faithful old servant Marie, who adores him, that hewill see no one who calls. 

For days I have not laid eyes on him--he who kept his napkin tied in asailor's knot in my cupboard and came to breakfast, luncheon, or dinnerwhen he pleased, waking up my house abandoned by the marsh with his goodhumour, joking with Suzette, my little maid-of-all-work, until her faircheeks grew the rosier, and rousing me out of the blues with his quickwit and his hearty laugh. 

It seems impossible to me that he is guilty of what he is accused of, yet the facts seem undeniable. 

Only the good go wrong, is it not so? The bad have become socommonplace, they do not attract our attention. 

Now the ways of the curé were always just. I have never known him to doa mean thing in his life, far less a dishonest one. I have known him togive the last few sous he possessed to a hungry fisherwoman who neededbread for herself and her brood of children and content himself withwhat was left among the few remaining vegetables in his garden. Thereare days, too, when he is forced to live frugally upon a peasant soupand a pear for dinner, and there have been occasions to my knowledge, when the soup had to be omitted and his menu reduced to a novel, acigarette and the pear. 

It is a serious matter, the separation of the state from the church inFrance, since it has left the priest with the munificent salary of fourhundred francs a year, out of which he must pay his rent and give to thepoor. 

Once we dined nobly together upon two fat sparrows, and again we had ablackbird for dinner. He had killed it that morning from his window, while shaving, for I saw the lather dried on the stock of his duck gun. 

Monsieur le Curé is ingenious when it comes to hard times. 

Again, there are days when he is in luck, when some generous parishionerhas had the forethought to restock his larder. Upon such bountifuloccasions he insists on Tanrade and myself dining with him at thepresbytery as long as these luxuries last, refusing to dine with eitherof us until there is no more left of his own to give. 

The last time I saw him, I had noticed a marked change in his reverence. He was moody and unshaven, and his saucerlike hat was as dusty andspotted as his frayed soutane. Only now and then he gave out flashes ofhis old geniality and even they seemed forced. I was amazed at thechange in him, and yet, when I consider all I have heard since, I do notwonder much at his appearance. 

Tanrade tells me (and he evidently believes it) that some fifteenhundred francs, raised by Alice's concert and paid over to the curé topurchase the bells for his little gray church at Pont du Sable, havedisappeared and that his reverence refuses to give any account. 

Despite his hearty Bohemian spirit, Tanrade, like most musicians, is adreamer and as ready as a child to believe anything and anybody. Being amaster of the pianoforte and a composer of rare talent, he can hardly becalled sane. And yet, though I have seen him enthusiastic, misled, movedto tears over nothing, indignant over an imaginary insult, or ready toforgive any one who could be fool enough to be his enemy, I have neverknown him so thoroughly upset or so positive in his convictions as whenthe other morning, as I sat loafing before my fire, he entered my den. 

"It is incredible, _mon vieux_, incredible!" he gasped, throwing himselfdisconsolately into my arm-chair. "I have just been to the presbytery. Not only does he refuse to give an account of the money, but he declinesto offer any explanation beyond the one that he "spent it. " Moreover, hesits hunched up before his stove in his little room off the kitchen, chewing the end of a cigarette. Why, he didn't even ask me to have adrink--the curé, _mon ami_--our curé--_Mon Dieu_, what a mess! Ah, _monDieu!_"

He sank his chin in his hands and gazed at me with a look of utterdespair. 

I regarded him keenly, then I went to the decanter and poured out forhim a stiff glass of applejack. 

"Drink that, " said I, "and get normal. "

With an impetuous gesture he waved it away. 

"No, not now!" he exclaimed, "wait until I tell you all--nothing until Itell you. "

"Go on, then, " I returned, "I want to hear all about this wretchedbusiness. Go slow and tell it to me from top to bottom. I am not asconvinced of the curé's guilt as you are, old boy. There may be nothingin it more than a pack of village lies; and if there is a vestige of thetruth, we may, by putting our heads together, help matters. "

He started to speak, but I held up my hand. 

"One thing before you proceed, " I declared with conviction. "I can nomore believe the curé is dishonest than Alice or yourself. It isridiculous to presume so for a moment. I have known the curé too well. He is a prince. He has a heart as big as all outdoors. Look at the goodhe's done in this village! There is not a vagabond in it but will tellyou he is as right as rain. Ask the people he helps what they think ofhim, they'll tell you 'he's just the curé for Pont du Sable. ' _Voilà!_That's what they'll tell you, and they mean it. All the gossip in theworld can't hurt him. Here, " I cried, forcing the glass into his hand, "get that down you, you maker of ballets, and proceed with the horribledetails, but proceed gently, merrily, with the right sort of beat inyour heart, for the curé is as much a friend of yours as he is of mine. "

Tanrade shrugged his broad shoulders, and for some moments sipped hisglass. At length, he set it down on the broad table at his elbow, andsaid slowly: "You know how good Alice is, how much she will do for anyone she is fond of--for a friend, I mean, like the curé. Very well, itis not an easy thing to give a concert in Paris that earns fifteenhundred francs for a curé whom, it is safe to say, no one in theaudience, save Germaine, Alice and myself had ever heard of. It was averitable _tour de force_ to organize. You were not there. I'm glad youwere not. It was a dull old concert that would not have amused youmuch--Lassive fell ill at the last moment, Delmar was in a bad humour, and the quartet had played the night before at a ball at the Élysée andwere barely awake. Yet in spite of it the theatre was packed; a chicaudience, too. Frambord came out with half a column in the _Critique desArts_ with a pretty compliment to Alice's executive energy, and added'that it was one of the rare soirées of the season. ' He must have beendrunk when he wrote it. I played badly--I never can play when theygabble. It was as garrulous as a fish market in front. _Enfin!_ It wasover and we telegraphed his reverence the result; from a moneystandpoint it was a '_succès fou_. '"

Tanrade leaned back and for a few seconds gazed at the ceiling of myden. 

"Where every penny has gone, " he resumed, with a strained smile, "_Dieusait!_ There is no bell, not even the sound of one, _et voilà!_"

He turned abruptly and reached for his glass, forgetting he had drainedit. A fly was buzzing on its back in the last drop. And then we bothsmiled grimly, for we were thinking of Monsieur le Curé. 

I rang the bell of the presbytery early the next morning, by insertingmy jackknife, to spare my fingers, in a loop at the end of a crookedwire which dangles over the rambling wall of the curé's garden. The dooritself is of thick oak, and framed by stones overgrown with lichens--asolid old playground for nervous lizards when the sun shines, and afavourite sticking place for snails when it rains. I had to tug hard onthe crooked wire before I heard a faint jingle issuing in response fromthe curé's cavernous kitchen, whose hooded chimney and stone-paved floorI love to paint. 

Now came the klop-klop of a pair of sabots--then the creak of a heavykey as it turned over twice in the rusty lock, and his faithful Mariecautiously opened the garden door. I do not know how old Marie is, there is so little left of this good soul to guess by. Her smallshrunken body is bent from age and hard work. Her hands are heavy--thefingers gnarled and out of proportion to her gaunt thin wrists. She hasthe wrinkled, leathery face of some kindly gnome. She opened her eyes ina sort of mute appeal as I inquired if Monsieur le Curé was at home. 

"Ah! My poor monsieur, his reverence will see no one"--shefaltered--"_Ah! Mais_"--she sighed, knowing that I knew the change inher master and the gossip thereof. 

"My good Marie, " I said, persuasively patting her bony shoulder, "tellhis reverence that I _must_ see him. Old friends as we are--"

"_Bon Dieu, oui!_" she exclaimed after another sigh. "Such old friendsas you and he--I will go and see, " said she, and turned bravely backdown the path that led to his door while I waited among the roses. 

A few moments later Marie beckoned to me from the kitchen window. 

"He will see you, " she whispered, as I crossed the stone floor of thekitchen. "He is in the little room, " and she pointed to a narrow doorclose by the big chimney, a door provided with old-fashioned littleglass panes upon which are glued transparent chromos of wild ducks. 

I knocked gently. 

"_Entrez!_" came a tired voice from within. 

I turned the knob and entered his den--a dingy little box of a room, sunk a step below the level of the kitchen, with a smoke-grimed ceilingand corners littered with dusty books and pamphlets. 

He was sitting with his back to me, humped up in a worn arm-chair, before his small stove, just as Tanrade had found him. As I edged aroundhis table--past a rack holding his guns, half-hidden under twodilapidated game bags and a bicycle tyre long out of service, he turnedhis hollow eyes to mine, with a look I shall long remember, and feeblygrasped my outstretched hand. 

"Come, " said I, "you're going to get a grip on yourself, _mon ami_. You're going to get out of this wretched, unkempt state of melancholiaat once. Tanrade has told me much. You know as well as I do, the villageis a nest of gossip--that they make a mountain out of a molehill; if Iwere a pirate chief and had captured this vagabond port, I'd have a fewof those wagging tongues taken out and keel-hauled in the bay. "

He started as if in pain, and again turned his haggard eyes to mine. 

"I don't believe there's a word of truth in it, " I declared hotly. 

"There--_is_, " he returned hoarsely, trembling so his voice faltered--"Iam--a thief. "

He sat bolt-upright in his chair, staring at me like a man who hadsuddenly become insane. His declaration was so sudden and amazing, thatfor some moments I knew not what to reply, then a feeling of pity tookpossession of me. He was still my friend, whatever he had done. I sawhis gaze revert to the crucifix hanging between the steel engravings oftwo venerable saints, over the mantel back of the stove--a mantel heapedwith old shot bags and empty cartridge shells. 

"How the devil did it happen?" I blurted out at length. "You don't meanto say you stole the money?"

"Spent it, " he replied half inaudibly. 

"How spent it? On yourself?"

"No, no! Thank God--"

"How, then?"

He leaned forward, his head sunk in his hands, his eyes riveted uponmine. 

"There is--so--much--dire--need of money, " he said, catching his breathbetween his words. "We are all human--all weak in the face of another'smisery. It takes a strong heart, a strong mind, a strong body to resist. There are some temptations too terrible even for a priest. I wish withall my heart that Alice had never given it into my hands. "

I started to speak, but he held up his arms. 

"Do not ask me more, " he pleaded--"I cannot tell you--I am ill andweak--my courage is gone. "

"Is there any of the money left?" I ventured quietly, after waiting invain for him to continue. 

"I do not know, " he returned wearily, "most of it has gone--over there, beneath the papers, in the little drawer, " he said pointing to thecorner; "I kept it there. Yes, there is some left--but I have not daredcount it. "

Again there ensued a painful silence, while I racked my brain for ascheme that might still save the situation, bad as it looked. In thestate he was in, I had not the heart to worry out of him a fullerconfession. Most of the fifteen hundred francs was gone, that was plainenough. What he had done with it I could only conjecture. Had he givenit to save another I wondered. Some man or woman whose very life andreputation depended upon it? Had he fallen in love hopelessly and pastall reasoning? There is no man that some woman cannot make her slave. Itwas not many years ago, that a far more saintly priest than he eloped toBelgium with a pretty seamstress of Les Fosses. Then I thought ofGermaine!--that little minx, badly in debt--perhaps? No, no, impossible!She was too clever--too honest for that. 

"Have you seen Alice?" I broke our silence with at length. 

He shook his head wearily. "I could not, " he replied, "I know thebitterness she must feel toward me. "

At that moment Marie knocked at the door. As she entered, I saw that herwrinkled face was drawn, as with lowered eyes she regarded a yellowenvelope stamped with the seal of the _République Française_. 

With a trembling hand she laid it beside the curé, and left the room. 

The curé started, then he rose nervously to his feet, steadying himselfagainst the table's edge as he tore open the envelope, and glanced atits contents. With a low moan he sank back in his chair. --"Go, " hepleaded huskily, "I wish to be alone--I have been summoned before themayor. "

 * * * * *

Never before in the history of the whole country about, had a curé beenhauled to account. Pont du Sable was buzzing like a beehive over theaffair. Along its single thoroughfare, flanked by the stone houses ofthe fishermen, the gossips clustered in groups. From what I caught inpassing proved to me again that his reverence had more friends thanenemies. 

It was in the mayor's kitchen, which serves him as executive chamber aswell, that the official investigation took place. 

With the exception of the Municipal Council, consisting of the baker, the butcher, the grocer, and two raisers of cattle, none were to beadmitted at the mayor's save Tanrade, myself and Alice de Bréville, whose presence the mayor had judged imperative, and who had beensummoned from Paris. 

Tanrade and I had arrived early--the mayor greeting us at the gate ofhis trim little garden, and ushering us to our chairs in the clean, well-worn kitchen, with as much solemnity as if there had been a deathin the house. Here we sat, under the low ceiling of rough beams andwaited in a funereal silence, broken only by the slow ticking of thetall clock in the corner. It was working as hard as it could, its brasspendulum swinging lazily toward three o'clock, the hour appointed forthe investigation. 

Monsieur le Maire to-day was no longer the genial, ruddy old raiser ofcattle, who stops me whenever I pass his gate with a hearty welcome. Hewas all Mayor to-day, clean shaven to the raw edges of his cropped grayside-whiskers with a look of grave importance in his shrewd eyes and afirm setting of his wrinkled upper lip, that indicated the dignity ofhis office; a fact which was further accentuated by his carefullybrushed suit of black, a clean starched collar and the tri-coloured silksash, with gold tassels, which he is forced to gird his fat paunch with, when he either marries you or sends you to jail. The clock ticked on, its oaken case reflecting the copper light from the line of saucepanshanging beside it on the wall. Presently, the Municipal Council filed inand seated themselves about a centre table, upon which lay in readinessthe official seal, pen, ink and paper. Being somewhat ill at ease in hisstarched shirt, the florid grocer coughed frequently, while the twocattle-raisers in their black blouses, talked in gutteral whispers overa bargain in calves. Through the open window, screened with cool vines, came the faint murmur of the village--suddenly it ceased. I rose, andgoing to the window, looked up the street. The curé was coming down it, striding along as straight as a savage, nodding to those who nodded tohim. An old fisherwoman hobbled forth and kissed his hand. Young andold, gamblers of the sea, lifted their caps as he passed. 

"The census of opinion is with him, " I whispered to Tanrade, as Iregained my chair. "He has his old grit with him, too. "

The next instant, his reverence strode in before us--firm, cool, and sothoroughly master of himself that a feeling of intense relief stole overme. 

"I have come, " he said, in a clear, even voice, "in answer to yoursummons, Monsieur le Maire. "

The mayor rose, bowed gravely, waved the curé to a chair opposite theMunicipal Council, and continued in silence the closely written contentsof two official documents containing the charge. The stopping of anautomobile at his gate now caused him to look up significantly. Madamede Bréville had arrived. As Alice entered every man in the room rose tohis feet. Never had I seen her look lovelier, gowned, as she was, insimple black, her dark hair framing her exquisite features, pale asivory, her sensitive mouth tense as she pressed Tanrade's handnervously, and took her seat beside us. For an instant, I saw her darkeyes flash as she met the steady gaze of the curé's. 

"In the name of the _République Française_, " began the mayor in measuredtones. 

The curé folded his arms, his eyes fixed on the open door. 

"Pardon me, " interrupted Alice, "I wish it to be distinctly understoodbefore you begin, Monsieur le Maire, that I am here wholly against mywill. "

The curé turned sharply. 

"You have summoned me, " continued Alice, "and there was no alternativebut to come--I know nothing in detail concerning the charge againstMonsieur le Curé, nor do I wish to take any part whatever in thisunfortunate affair. It is imperative that I return to Paris in time toplay to-night, I beg of you that you will let me go at once. "

There was a polite murmur of surprise from the Municipal Council. Thecuré sprang to his feet. 

"Alice, my child!" he cried, "look at me. "

Her eyes met his own, her lips twitching nervously, her breast heaving. 

"I wish _you_ to judge me before you go, " he pleaded. "They accuse me ofbeing a thief;" his voice rose suddenly to its full vibrant strength;"they do not know the truth. "

Alice leaned forward, her lips parted. 

"God only knows what this winter has been, " declared hisreverence--"Empty nets--always empty nets. "

He struck the table with his clenched fist. "Empty nets!" he cried, "until I could bear it no longer. My children were in dire need; theycame to you, " he declared, turning to the mayor, "and you refused them. "

The mayor shrugged his shoulders with a grunt of resentment. 

"I gave what I could, while it lasted, from the public fund, " heexplained frankly; "there were new roads to be cut. "

"Roads!" shouted the curé. "What are roads in comparison to illness andstarvation? They came to me, " he went on, turning to Alice, "littlechildren--mothers, ill, with little children and not a sou in the house, and none to be earned fishing. Old men crying for bread for those whomthey loved. I grew to hate the very thought of the bells; they seemed tome a needless luxury among so much misery. "

His voice rose until it rang clear in the room. 

"I gave it to them, " he cried out. "There in my little drawer lay thepower to save those who were near death from sickness, from dirt, fromprivation!"

Alice's ringless white hands were clenched in her lap. 

"And I saw, as I gave, " continued the curé, "the end of pain and ofhunger--little by little I gave, hoping somehow to replace it, until Idared give no more. "

He paused, and drew forth from the breast of his soutane a small cottonsack that had once held his gun wads. "Here is what is left, gentlemen, "said he, facing the Municipal Council; "I have counted it at last, fourhundred and eighty francs, sixty-five centimes. "

There were tears now in Alice's eyes; dark eyes that followed the curé'swith a look of tenderness and pain. The mayor sat breathing irritably. As for the Municipal Council, it was evident to Tanrade and myself, thatnot one of these plain, red-eared citizens was eager to send a priest tojail--it was their custom occasionally to go to mass. 

"Marianne's illness, " continued the curé, "was an important item. Youseemed to consider her case of typhoid as a malady that would cureitself if let alone. Marianne needed care, serious care, strong as shewas. The girl, Yvonne, she saved from drowning last year, and her baby, she still shelters among her own children in her hut. They, too, had tobe fed; for Marianne was helpless to care for them. There was the littleboy, too, of the Gavons--left alone, with a case of measles welldeveloped when I found him, on the draughty floor of a loft; the motherand father had been drunk together for three days at Bar la Rose. Andthere were others--the Mère Gailliard, who would have been sold out forher rent, and poor old Varnet, the fisherman; he had no home, no money, no friends; he is eighty-four years old. Most of the winter he slept ina hedge under a cast-off sail. I got him a better roof and something forhis stomach, Monsieur le Maire. "

He paused again, and drew out a folded paper from his pocket. "Here is alist of all I can remember I have given to, and the amounts as near as Ican recall them, " he declared simply. Again he turned to Alice. "It isto you, dear friend, I have come to confess, " he continued; "as for you, gentlemen, my very life, the church I love, all that this village meansto me, lies in your hands; I do not beg your mercy. I have sinned and Ishall take the consequences--all I ask you to do is to judge fairly theerror of my ways. " Monsieur le Curé took his seat. 

"It is for you, Madame de Bréville, to decide, " said the mayor, aftersome moments conference with the Council, "since the amount in questionwas given by your hand. "

Alice rose--softly she slipped past the Municipal Council of Pont duSable, until she stood looking up into the curé's eyes; then her armswent about his strong neck and she kissed him as tenderly as a sister. 

"Child!" I heard him murmur. 

"We shall give another concert, " she whispered in his ear. 

 [Illustration: bell]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: The miser--Garron]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE MISER--GARRON

We've had a drowning at Pont du Sable. Drownings are not infrequent onthis rough Norman coast of France. Only last December five ablefishermen went down within plain sight of the dunes in a roaring whitesea that gave no quarter. This gale by night became a cyclone; the sea adriving hell of water, hail and screaming wind. The barometer dropped totwenty-eight. The wind blew at one hundred and twenty kilometers anhour. Six fishing boats hailing from Boulogne perished with their crews. Their women went by train to Calais, still hoping for news, and returnedweeping and alone. 

At Boulogne the waves burst in spray to a height of forty feet over thebreakwater--small wonder that the transatlantic liner due there to takeon passengers, signalled to her plunging tender already indanger--"Going through--No passengers--" and proceeded on her way to NewYork. 

The sea that night killed with a blow. 

This latest drowning at Pont du Sable was a tragedy--or rather, theculmination of a series of tragedies. 

"Suicide?"

"_Non_--_mon ami_--wait until you hear the whole truth of this plaintale. "

On my return from shooting this morning, Suzette brought me the news. The whole fishing village has known it since daylight. 

It seems that the miser, Garron--Garron's boy--Garron's woman, Julie, and another woman who nobody seems to know much about, are mixed up inthe affair. 

Garron's history I have known for months--my good friend the curéconfided to me much concerning the unsavory career of this vagabond of amiser, whose hut is on the "Great Marsh, " back of Pont du Sable. Garronand I hailed "_bonjour_" to each other through the mist at dawn onemorning, as I chanced to pass by his abode, a wary flight of vignonhaving led me a fruitless chase after them across the great marsh. At adistance through the rifts of mist I mistook this isolated hut ofGarron's for a _gabion_. As I drew within hailing distance of its ownerI saw that the hut stood on a point of mud and wire grass that formedthe forks of the stream that snakes its way through the centre of thisisolated prairie, and so on out to the open sea, two kilometers beyond. 

As shrewd a rascal as Garron needed just such a place to settle on. Ashe returned my _bonjour_, his woman, Julie, appeared in the low doorwayof the hut and grinned a greeting to me across the fork of the stream. She impressed me as being young, though she was well on in the untoldforties. Her mass of fair hair--her ruddy cheeks--her blue eyes and herthick strong body, gave her the appearance of youthful buxomness. 

Life must be tough enough with a man like Garron. With the sagacity ofan animal he knew the safety of the open places. By day no one couldemerge from the far horizon of low woodland skirting the great marsh, without its sole inhabitant noting his approach. By night none but asclever a poacher as Garron could have found his way across the labyrinthof bogs, ditches and pitfalls. Both the hut and the woman cost Garronnothing; both were a question of abandoned wreckage. 

Garron showed me his hut that morning, inviting me to cross a muddyplank as slippery as glass, with which he had spanned the stream, thathe might get a closer look at me and know what manner of man I was. Hedid not introduce me to the woman, and I took good care, as I crossedhis threshold and entered the dark living-room with its dirt floor, notto force her acquaintance, but instead, ran my eye discreetly over theobjects in the gloom--a greasy table littered with dirty dishes, a bedhidden under a worn quilt and a fireplace of stones over which an ironpot of soup was simmering. Beyond was another apartment, darker thanthe one in which I stood--a sort of catch-all for the refuse of theformer. 

The whole of this disreputable shack was built of the wreckage of honestships. It might have been torn down and reassembled into some sort of adecent craft. Part of a stout rudder with its heavy iron hinges, servedas the door. For years it had guided some good ship safe into port--thenthe wreck occurred. For weeks after--months, perhaps--it had drifted atsea until it found a resting place on the beach and was stolen by Garronto serve him as a strong barrier. 

Garron had a bad record--you saw this in his small shifty black eyes, that evaded your own when you spoke to him, and were riveted upon youthe moment your back was turned. He was older than the woman--possiblyfifty years of age, when I first met him, and, though he lived in theopen, there was a ghastly pallor in his hard face with its determined, square jaw--a visage well seamed by sin--and crowned by a shock of blackhair streaked with gray. In body he was short, with unusually broadshoulders and unnaturally long arms. Physically he was as strong as anape, yet I believe the woman could easily have strangled him with herbare hands. Garron had been a hard drinker in his youth, a capable thiefand a skilful poacher. His career in civilization ended when he wasyoung and--it is said--good-looking. 

Some twenty-five years ago--so the curé tells me--Garron worked onesummer for a rich cattle dealer named Villette, on his farm some sixtykilometers back of the great marsh. Villette was one of those big, silent Normans, who spoke only when it was worth while, and was knownfor his brusqueness and his honesty. He was a giant in build--a manwhose big hands and feet moved slowly but surely; a man who avoidedmaking intimate friendships and was both proud and rich--proud of hisgoods and chattels--of his vast grazing lands and his livestock--proudtoo, of his big stone farmhouse with its ancient courtyard flanked byhis stone barns and his entrance gate whose walls were as thick as thoseof some feudal stronghold; proud, too, of his wife--a plump littlewoman with a merry eye and whom he never suspected of being madlyinfatuated with his young farm hand, Garron. 

Their love affair culminated in an open scandal. The woman lacked boththe shrewdness and discretion of her lover; he had poached for years andhad never been caught;--it is, therefore, safe to say he would asskilfully have managed to evade suspicion as far as the woman wasconcerned, had not things gone from bad to worse. 

Villette discovered this too late; Garron had suddenly disappeared, leaving madame to weather the scandal and the divorce that followed. More than this, young Garron took with him ten thousand francs belongingto the woman, who had been fool enough to lend him her heart--a sum outof her personal fortune which, for reasons of her own, she deemed itwisest not to mention. 

With ten thousand francs in bank notes next his skin, Garron took theshortest cut out of the neighbourhood. He travelled by night and sleptby day, keeping to the unfrequented wood roads and trails secretedbetween the thick hedges, hidden by-ways that had proved their valueduring the guerilla warfares that were so successfully waged in Normandygenerations ago. Three days later Garron passed through the modestvillage of Hirondelette, an unknown vagabond. He looked so poor that apriest in passing gave him ten sous. 

"Courage, my son, " counselled the good man--"you will get work soon. Trythe farm below, they are in need of hands. "

"May you never be in want, father, " Garron strangled out huskily inreply. Then he slunk on to the next farm and begged his dinner. The banknotes no longer crinkled when he walked; they had taken the contour ofhis hairy chest. Every now and then he stopped and clutched them to seeif they were safe, and twice he counted and recounted them in a ditch. 

With the Great Marsh as a safe refuge in his crafty mind, he passed bythe next sundown back of Pont du Sable; slept again in a hedge, and bydawn had reached the marsh. Most of that day he wandered over it lookingfor a site for his hut. He chose the point at the forks of thestream--no one in those days, save a lone hunter ever came there. Moreover, there was another safeguard. The Great Marsh was too cut up byditches and bogs to graze cattle on, hence no one to tend them, and themore complete the isolation of its sole inhabitant. 

Having decided on the point, he set about immediately to build his hut. The sooner housed the better, thought Garron, besides, the packet nexthis chest needed a safe hiding place. 

For days the curlews, circling high above the marsh, watched him snakingdriftwood from the beach up the crooked stream to the point at theforks. The rope he dragged them with he stole from a fisherman's boatpicketed for the night beyond the dunes. When he had gathered asufficient amount of timber he went into Pont du Sable with three hareshe had snared and traded them for a few bare necessities--an old saw, arusty hammer and some new nails. He worked steadily. By the end of afortnight he had finished the hut. When it was done he fashioned (for hepossessed considerable skill as a carpenter) a clever hiding place inthe double wall of oak for his treasure. Then he nailed up his door andwent in search of a mate. 

 * * * * *

He found her after dark--this girl to his liking--at the _fête_ in theneighbouring village of Avelot. She turned and leered at him as henudged her elbow, the lights from the merry-go-round she stood watchingillumining her wealth of fair hair and her strong young figuresilhouetted against the glare. Garron had studied her shrewdly, singlingher out in the group of village girls laughing with their sweethearts. The girl he nudged he saw did not belong to the village--moreover, shewas barefooted, mischievously drunk, and flushed with riding on thewooden horses. She was barely eighteen. She laughed outright as hegripped her strong arm, and opened her wanton mouth wide, showing hereven, white teeth. In return for her welcome he slapped her strong waistsoundly. 

"_Allons-y_--what do you say to a glass, _ma belle_?" ventured Garronwith a grin. 

"_Eh ben!_ I don't say no, " she laughed again, in reply. 

He felt her turn instinctively toward him--there was already somethingin common between these two. He pushed her ahead of him through thegroup with a certain familiar authority. When they were free of thecrowd and away from the lights his arm went about her sturdy neck and hecrushed her warm mouth to his own. 

"_Allons-y_--" he repeated--"Come and have a glass. "

They had crossed in the mud to a dingy tent lighted by a lantern; herethey seated themselves on a rough bench at a board table, his arm stillaround her. She turned to leer at him now, half closing her clear blueeyes. When he had swallowed his first thimbleful of applejack he spat, and wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand, while the girl grewgarrulous under the warmth of the liquor and his rough affection. Againshe gave him her lips between two wet oaths. No one paid any attentionto them--it was what a _fête_ was made for. For a while they left theirglasses and danced with the rest to the strident music of themerry-go-round organ. 

It was long after midnight when Garron paid his score under the tent. She had told him much in the meantime--there was no one to care whom shefollowed. She told him, too, she had come to the _fête_ from a hamletcalled Les Forêts, where she had been washing for a woman. The moon wasup when they took the highroad together, following it until it reachedthe beginning of Pont du Sable, then Garron led the way abruptly to theright up a tangled lane that ran to an old woodroad that he used to gainthe Great Marsh. They went lurching along together in comparativesilence, the man steadying the girl through the dark places where thetrees shut out the moon. Garron knew the road as well as his pocket--itwas a favourite with him when he did not wish to be seen. Now and thenthe girl sang in a maudlin way:

 "_Entrez, entrez, messieurs, C'est l'amour qui vous attend. _"

It was gray dawn when they reached the edge of the Great Marsh that laysmothered under a blanket of chill mist. 

"It is over there, my nest, " muttered Garron, with a jerk of his thumbindicating the direction in which his hut lay. Again he drew her roughlyto him. 

"_Dis donc, toi!_" he demanded brusquely: "how do they call you?" It hadnot, until then, occurred to him to ask her name. 

"_Eh ben_--Julie, " she replied. "It's a _sacré_ little name I neverliked. _Eh, tu sais_, " she added slowly--"when I don't like a thing--"she drew back a little and gazed at him sullenly--"_Eh ben_--I am likethat when I don't like a thing. " Her flash of temper pleased him--he hadhad enough of the trustful kitten of Villette's. 

"Come along, " said he gruffly. 

"_Dis donc, toi_, " she returned without moving. "It is well understoodthen about my dress and the shoes?"

"_Mais oui! Bon Dieu!_" replied the peasant irritably. He was hungry andwanted his soup. He swore at the chill as he led the way across themarsh while she followed in his tracks, satisfied with his promise ofthe dress and shoes. She wanted a blue dress and she had seen the shoesthat pleased her some months before in the grocery at Pont du Sable whena dog and she had dragged a fisherwoman in her cart for their board andlodging. 

By the time they reached the forks of the stream the rising sun hadmelted the blanket of the mist until it lay over the desolate prairie inthin rifts of rose vapour. 

It was thus the miser, Garron, found his mate. 

 * * * * *

Julie proved to be a fair cook, and the two lived together, at thebeginning, in comparative peace. Although it was not until days afterthe _fête_ at Avelot that she managed to hold him to his promise aboutthe blue dress, he sent her to Pont du Sable for her shoes the dayafter their arrival on the marsh--she bought them and they hurt her. Theoutcome of this was their first quarrel. 

"_Sacré bon Dieu!_" he snarled--"thou art never content!" Then he struckher with the back of his clenched fist and, womanlike, she wentwhimpering to bed. Neither he nor she thought much of the blow. Her mindwas on the shoes that did not fit. 

When she was well asleep and snoring, he ran his sinewy arm in the holehe had made in the double wall--lifted the end of a short, heavy plank, caught it back against a nail and gripped the packet of bank notes thatlay snug beneath it. Satisfied they were safe and his mate still asleep, he replaced the plank over his fortune--crossed the dirt floor to hisbarrier of a door, dropped an iron rod through two heavy staples, securely bolting it--blew out the tallow dip thrust in the neck of anempty bottle, and went to bed. 

Months passed--months that were bleak and wintry enough on the marsh foreven a hare to take to the timber for comfort. During most of thatwinter Garron peddled the skins of rabbits he snared on the marsh, andtraded and bought their pelts, and he lived poor that no one mightsuspect his wealth. He and his mate rose, like the wild fowl, with thesun and went to bed with it, to save the light of the tallow dip. ThoughI have said she could easily have strangled him with her hands, sherefrained. Twice, when she lay half awake she had seen him run his wiryarm in the wall--one night she had heard the lifting of the heavy plankand the faint crinkling sound of the package as he gripped it. She hadlong before this suspected he had money hidden. 

Julie was no fool!

With the spring the marsh became more tenable. The smallest song birdsfrom the woods flitted along the ditches; there were days, too, when thedesolate prairie became soft--hazy--and inviting. 

At daybreak, the beginning of one of these delicious spring days, Garron, hearing a sharp cry without, rose abruptly and unbolted hisbarrier. He would have stepped out and across his threshold had not hisbare foot touched something heavy and soft. He looked down--still halfasleep--then he started back in a sort of dull amazement. The thing hisfoot had touched was a bundle--a rolled and well-wrapped blanket, tiedwith a stout string. The sharp cry he had heard he now realized, issuedfrom the folds of the blanket. Garron bent over it, his thumb andforefinger uncovering the face of a baby. 

"_Sacristi!_" he stammered--then leaned back heavily against the oldrudder of a door. Julie heard and crawled out of bed. She was peeringover his shoulder at the bundle at his feet before he knew it. 

Garron half wheeled and faced her as her breath touched his coarse ear. 

"_Eh bien!_ what is it?" he exclaimed, searching vainly for somethingelse to say. 

"_Eh ben! Ça! Nom de Dieu!_" returned his mate nodding to the bundle. "It is pretty--that!"

"_Tu m'accuses, hein?_" he snarled. 

"They do not leave bundles of that kind at the wrong door, " she retortedin reply, half closing her blue eyes and her red hands. 

"_Allons! allons!_" he exclaimed with heat, still at a loss for hiswords. 

With her woman's instinct she brushed past him and started to pick upthe bundle, but he was too quick for her and drew her roughly back, gripping her waist so sharply that he felt her wince. 

"It does not pass like that!" he cried sharply. "_Eh ben!_ listen to me. I'm too old a rat to be made a fool of--to be tricked like that!"

"Tricked!" she laughed back--"No, my old one--it is as simple as_bonjour_, and since it is thine thou wilt keep it. Thou'lt--keep whatthou--"

The pent-up rage within him leaped to his throat:

"It does not pass like that!" he roared. With his clenched fist hestruck her squarely across the mouth. He saw her sink limp to theground, bleeding, her head buried between her knees. Then he picked upthe child and started with it across the plank that spanned the fork ofthe stream. A moment later, still dizzy from the blow, she saw himdimly, making rapidly across the marsh toward a bend in the stream. Thenthe love of a mother welled up within her and she got to her feet andfollowed him. 

"Stay where thou art!" he shouted back threateningly. 

The child in his arms was screaming. She saw his hand cover itsthroat--the next moment she had reached him and her two hands were abouthis own in a grip that sent him choking to his knees. The child rolledfrom his arms still screaming, and the woman who was strangling Garroninto obedience now sank her knee in his back until she felt him give up. 

"_Assez!_" he grunted out when he could breathe. 

"_Eh ben!_ I am like _that_ when I don't like a thing!" she cried, savagely repeating her old words. He looked up and saw a dangerous gleamin her eyes. "_Ah, mais oui alors!_" she shouted defiantly. "Since it isthine thou wilt keep it!"

Garron did not reply. She knew the fight was out of him and picked upthe still screaming baby, which she hugged to her breast, crooning overit while Garron got lamely to his feet. Without another word she startedback to the hut, Garron following his mate and his son in silence. 

 * * * * *

Years passed and the boy grew up on the marsh, tolerated by Garron andidolized and spoiled by Julie--years that transformed the black-eyedbaby into a wiry, reckless young rascal of sixteen with all the vagabondnature of his father--straight and slim, with the clear-cut features ofa gypsy. A year later the brother of Madame Villette, a well-knownfigure on the Paris Bourse, appeared and after a satisfactoryarrangement with Garron, took the boy with him to Paris to be educated. 

It was hard on Julie, who adored him. Her consent was not even asked, but at the time she consoled herself with the conviction, however, thatthe good fortune that had fallen to the lot of the baby she had saved, was for the best. The uncle was rich--that in itself appealed stronglyto her peasant mind. That, and her secret knowledge of Garron's fortune, for she had discovered and counted it herself and, motherlike, told theboy. 

 * * * * *

In Paris the attempt to educate Jacques Baptiste Garron was an expensiveexperiment. When he went to bed at all it was only when the taverns andcafés along the "Boul-miche" closed before dawn. Even then he and hisband of idle students found other retreats and more glasses in theall-night cafés near the Halles. And so he ate and drank and slept andmade love to any little outcast who pleased him--one of these amiable_petites femmes_--the inside of whose pocketbook was well greased withrouge--became his devoted slave. 

She was proud of this handsome devil-may-care "type" of hers and herjealousy was something to see to believe. Little by little she dominatedhim until he ran heavily in debt. She even managed the uncle when thenephew failed--she was a shrewd little brat--small and tense as wire, with big brown eyes and hair that was sometimes golden and sometimes adry Titian red, according to her choice. Once, when she left him for twodays, Garron threatened to kill himself. 

"_Pauvre gosse!_" she said sympathizingly on her return--and embracedhim back to sanity. 

The real grain of saneness left in young Garron was his inborn love of agun. It was the gun which brought him down from Paris, back to the GreatMarsh now and then when the ducks were on flight. 

He had his own _gabion_ now at the lower end of the bay at Pont duSable, in which he slept and shot from nights when the wind wasnortheast--a comfortable, floating box of a duck-blind sunk in an outerjacket of tarred planks and chained to a heavy picket driven in the mudand wire grass, for the current ran dangerously strong there when thetide was running out. 

Late in October young Garron left Paris suddenly and the girl with theTitian hair was with him. He, like his father, needed a safe refuge. Pressed by his creditors he had forged his uncle's name. The only wayout of the affair was to borrow from Julie to hush up the matter. It didnot occur to him at the time how she would feel about the girl; neitherdid he realize that he had grown to be an arrogant young snob who nowtreated Julie, who had saved his life, and pampered him, more like aservant than a foster-mother. 

The night young Garron arrived was at the moment of the highest tides. The four supped together that night in the hut--the father silent andsullen throughout the meal and Julie insanely jealous of the girl. Laterold Garron went off across the marsh in the moonlight to look after hissnares. 

When the three were alone Julie turned to the boy. For some moments sheregarded him shrewdly. She saw he was no longer the wild young savageshe had brought up; there was a certain nervous, blasé feebleness abouthis movements as he sat uneasily in his chair, his hands thrust in thepockets of his hunting coat, his chin sunk on his chest. She noticedtoo, the unnatural redness of his lips and the haggard pallor about histhin, sunken cheeks. 

"_Eh ben, mon petit_--" she began at length. "It is a poor place to getfat in, your Paris! They don't feed you any too well--_hein?_--Thosegrand restaurants you talk so much about. Pouf!"

"_Penses-tu?_" added the girl, since Garron did not reply. Instead helighted a fresh cigarette, took two long puffs from it, and threw it onthe floor. 

The girl, angered at his silence and lack of courage, gave him a viciousglance. 

"_Hélas!_" sighed Julie, "you were quicker with your tongue when youwere a baby. "

"_Ah zut!_" exclaimed the girl in disgust. "He has something to tellyou--" she blurted out to Julie. 

"_Eh ben!_ What?" demanded Julie firmly. 

"I need some money, " muttered the boy doggedly. "I _need it!!_" he criedsuddenly, gaining courage in a sort of nervous hysteria. 

Julie stared at him in amazement, the girl watching her like a lynx. 

"_Bon Dieu!_" shouted Julie. "And it is because of _that_ you sit therelike a sick cat! Listen to me, my little one. Eat the good grease likethe rest of us and be content if you keep out of jail. "

The boy sank lower in his chair. 

"It will be jail for me, " he said, "unless you help me. Give me fivehundred francs. I tell you I am in a bad fix. _Sacré bon Dieu!_--you_shall_ give it to me!" he cried, half springing from his chair. 

"Shut up, thou, " whispered the girl--"not so fast!"

"Do you think it rains money here?" returned Julie, closing her redfists upon the table, "that all you have to do is to ask for it? _Ah, mais non, alors!_"

The boy slunk back in his chair staring at the tallow dipdisconsolately. The girl gritted her small teeth--somehow, she feltabler than he to get it out of Julie in the end. 

"You stole it, _hein?_" cried Julie, "like your father. Name of a dog!it is the same old trick that, and it brings no good. _Allons!_" sheresumed after a short pause. "_Dépêche toi!_ Get out for your ducks--I'mgoing to bed. "

"Give me four hundred, " pleaded the boy. 

"Not a sou!" cried Julie, bringing her fist down on the greasy table, and she shot a jealous glance at the girl. 

Without a word, young Garron rose dejectedly, got into his goatskincoat, picked up his gun and, turning, beckoned to the girl. 

"Go on!" she cried; "I'll come later. "

"He is an infant, " said she to Julie, when young Garron had closed thedoor behind him. "He has no courage. You know the fix we are in--theCommissaire of Police in Paris already has word of it. "

Julie did not reply; she still sat with her clenched fists outstretchedon the table. 

"He has forged his uncle's check, " snapped the girl. 

Julie did not reply. 

"_Ah, c'est comme ça!_" sneered the girl with a cool laugh--"and whenhe is in jail, " she cried aloud, "_Eh, bien--quoi?_"

"He will not have _you_, then, " returned Julie faintly. 

"Ah----" she exclaimed. She slipped her tense little body into her thickautomobile coat and with a contemptuous toss of her chin passed out intothe night, leaving the door open. 

"Jacques!" she called shrilly--"Jacques!--_Attends. _"

"_Bon!_" came his voice faintly in reply from afar on the marsh. 

After some moments Julie got slowly to her feet, crossed the dirt floorof the hut and closing the door dropped the bar through the staples. Then for the space of some minutes she stood by the table strugglingwith a jealous rage that made her strong knees tremble. She who hadsaved his life, who had loved him from babyhood--she told herself--andwhat had he done for her in return? The great Paris that she knewnothing of had stolen him; Paris had given him _her_--that little viperwith her red mouth; Paris had ruined him--had turned him into a thieflike his father. Silently she cursed his uncle. Then her rage revertedagain to the girl. She thought too, of her own life with Garron--of allits miserly hardships. "They have given me nothing--" she sobbedaloud--"nothing. "

"Five hundred francs would save him!" she told herself. She caught herbreath, then little by little again the motherly warmth stole up intoher breast deadening for the moment the pain of her jealousy. Shestraightened to her full height, squaring her broad shoulders like a manand stepped across to the wall. 

"It is as much mine as it is his, " she said between her teeth. 

She ran her arm into the hole in the wall, lifted the heavy plank anddrew out a knitted sock tied with a stout string. From the toe she drewout Garron's fortune. 

"He shall have it--the _gosse_--" she said, "and the rest--is as muchmine as it is his. "

She thrust the package in her breast. 

Half an hour later Julie stood, scarcely breathing, her ear to thelocked door of his _gabion_. 

"A pretty lot you came from, " she overheard the girl say, "that old catwould sooner see you go to jail. " The rest of her words were half lostin the rush and suck of the tide slipping out from the _gabion's_ outerjacket of boards. The heavy chain clinked taut with the pull of theoutgoing tide, then relaxed in the back rush of water. 

"Bah!" she heard him reply, "they are pigs, those peasants. I was a foolto have gone to them for help. "

"You had better have gone to the old man, " taunted the girl, "as I toldyou at first. "

"He is made of the same miserly grizzle as she, " he retorted hotly. Again the outrush of the tide drowned their words. 

Julie clenched her red fists and drew a long breath. A sudden frenzyseized her. Before she realized what she was doing, she had crawled inthe mud on her hands and knees to the heavy picket. Here she waiteduntil the backward rush again slackened the chain, then she half drewthe iron pin that held the last link. Half drew it! Had the girl beenalone, she told herself, she would have given her to the ebb tide. 

Julie rose to her feet and turned back across the marsh, unconsciousthat the last link was nearly free and that the jerk and pull of theoutgoing tide was little by little freeing the pin from the link. 

She kept on her way, towards a hidden wood road that led down to themarsh at the far end of Pont du Sable and beyond. 

She was done with the locality forever. Garron's money was still in herbreast. 

 * * * * *

At the first glimmer of dawn the next morning, the short, solitaryfigure of a man prowled the beach. He was hatless and insane with rage. In one hand he gripped an empty sock. He would halt now and then andwave his long, ape-like arms--cursing the deep strip of sea water thatprevented him from crossing to the hard desert of sand beyond--far outupon which lay an upturned _gabion_. Within this locked and strandedbox lay two dead bodies. Crabs fought their way eagerly through thecracks of the water-sprung door, and over it, breasting the salt breeze, slowly circled a cormorant--curious and amazed at so strange a thing atlow tide. 

 [Illustration: the upturned gabion]

 * * * * *

 [Illustration: game birds on the marsh]

CHAPTER TWELVE

MIDWINTER FLIGHTS

One dines there much too well. 

This snug Restaurant des Rois stands back from the grand boulevard in aslit of a street so that its ancient windows peer out askance at the gaylife streaming by the corner. 

The burgundy at "Les Rois" warms the soul, and the Chablis! Ah! whereelse in all Paris is there such Chablis? golden, sound and clear astopaz. Chablis, I hold, should be drank by some merry blonde whose heartis light; Burgundy by a brunette in a temper. 

The small café on the ground floor is painted white, relieved by afrieze of gilded garlands and topped by a ceiling frescoed with rosynymphs romping in a smoked turquoise sky. 

Between five and seven o'clock these midwinter afternoons the café isfilled with its _habitués_--distinguished old Frenchmen, who sip theirabsinthe leisurely enough to glance over the leading articles in theconservative _Temps_ or the slightly gayer _Figaro_. Upstairs, by meansof a spiral stairway, is a labyrinth of narrow, low-ceiled corridorsleading to half a dozen stuffy little _cabinets particuliers_, aboutwhose faded lambrequins and green velveted chairs there still lurks thescent of perfumes once in vogue with the gallants, beaux and belles ofthe Second Empire. 

Alice de Bréville, Tanrade, and myself, are dining to-night in one ofthese _intime_ little rooms. The third to the left down the corridor. 

_Sapristi!_ what a change in Tanrade. He is becoming a responsibleperson---he has even grown neat and punctual--he who used to pound atthe door of my house abandoned by the marsh at Pont du Sable, an hourlate for dinner, dressed in a fisherman's sea-going overalls of browncanvas, a pair of sabots and a hat that any passing vagabond might havediscarded by the roadside. I could not help noticing carefully to-nighthis new suit of black broadcloth, with its standing collar, buttoned upunder his genial chin. His black hair is neatly combed and hisbroad-brimmed hat that hangs over my own on the wall, is but three daysold. Thus had this _bon garçon_ who had won the Prix de Rome beentransformed---and Alice was responsible, I knew, for the change. Whowould not change anything for so exquisite and dear a friend as Alice?She, too, was in black, without a jewel--a gown which her lithe bodywore with all its sveltness--a gown that matched her dark eyes and hair, accentuating the clean-cut delicacy of her features and the ivoryclearness of her olive skin. She was a very merry Alice to-night, forher long engagement at the Bouffes Parisiennes was at an end. And shehad been making the best of her freedom by keeping Tanrade hard at workover the score of his new ballet. They are more in love with each otherthan ever--so much so that they insist on my dining with them, and sothese little dinners of three at "Les Rois" have become almost nightlyoccurrences. It is often so with those in love to be generous to an oldfriend--even lovers have need of company. 

We were lingering over our coffee when the talk reverted to the newballet. 

"It is done, _ma chérie_, " declared Tanrade, in reply to an imperativeinquiry from Alice. "Bavière shall have the whole of the second actto-morrow. "

"And the ballet in the third?" she asked sternly, lifting her brillianteyes. 

"_Eh, voilà!_" laughed that good fellow, as he drew forth from hispocket a thin roll of manuscript and spread it out before her, that shemight see--but it was not discreet for me to continue, neither is itgood form to embrace before the old _garçon de café_, who at that momententered apologetically with the liqueurs--as for myself, I have longsince ceased to count in such tender moments of reward, during which Iam of no more consequence than a faithful poodle. 

Again the garçon entered, this time with smiling assurance, for hebrought me a telegram forwarded from my studio by my concierge. I openedthe despatch: the next instant I jumped to my feet. 

"Read!" I cried, poking the blue slip under Tanrade's nose, "it's fromthe curé. "

"Howling northeast gale"--Tanrade read aloud--"Duck and geese--comemidnight train, bring two hundred fours, one hundred double zeros forten bore. "

"_Vive le curé!_" I shouted, "the good old boy to let us know. Anortheast gale at last--a howler, " he says. 

"He is charming--the curé, " breathed Alice, her breastheaving--"Charming!" she repeated in a voice full of suppressed emotion. 

Tanrade did not speak. He had let the despatch slip to the floor and satstaring at his glass. 

"You'll come, of course, " I said with sudden apprehension, but he onlyshook his head. "What! you're not going?" I exclaimed in amazement. "We'll kill fifty ducks a night--it's the gale we've been waiting for. "

I saw the sullen gleam that had crept into Alice's eyes soften; she drewnear him--she barely touched his arm:

"Go, _mon cher_!" she said simply--"if you wish. "

He lifted his head with a grim smile, and I saw their eyes meet. I wellknew what was passing in his mind--his promise to her to work--more thanthis, I knew he had not the heart to leave her during her well-earnedrest. 

"_Ah! les hommes!_" Alice exclaimed, turning to me impetuously--"you arequite crazy, you hunters. "

I bowed in humble apology and again her dark eyes softened totenderness. 

"_Non_--forgive me, _mon ami_, " she went on, "you are sane enough untilnews comes of those wretched little ducks, then, _mon Dieu!_ there is noholding you. Everything else goes out of your head; you become as mad aschildren rushing to a fête. Is it not so?"

Still Tanrade was silent. Now and then he gave a shrug of his bigshoulders and toyed with his half empty glass of liqueur. _Sapristi!_it is not easy to decide between the woman you love and a northeast galethrashing the marsh in front of my house abandoned. He, like myself, could already picture in his mind's eye duck after duck plunge out ofthe night among our live decoys. My ears, like his own, were alreadyringing with the roar of the guns from the _gabions_--I could not resista last appeal. 

"Come, " I insisted--"both of you--no--seriously--listen to me. There isplenty of dry wood in the garret; you shall have the _chambre d'amis_, dear friend, and this brute of a composer shall bunk in my room--we'lllive, and shoot and be happy. Suzette will be overjoyed at your coming. Let me wire her to have breakfast ready for us?"

Alice laughed softly: "You are quite crazy, my poor friend, " she said, laying her white hand on my shoulder. "You will freeze down there inthat stone house of yours. Oh, la! la!" she sighed knowingly--"the leaksfor the wind--the cold bedrooms, the cold stone floors--B-r-r-h-h!"

Tanrade straightened back in his chair: "No, " said he, "it isimpossible; Bavière can not wait. He must have his score. The rehearsalshave been delayed long enough as it is--Go, _mon vieux_, and good luckto you!"

Again the old garçon entered, this time with the timetable I had senthim for in a hurry. 

"_Voilà_, monsieur!" he began excitedly, his thumbnail indicating theline--"the 12. 18, as monsieur sees, is an express--monsieur will nothave to change at Lisieux. "

"_Bon!_" I cried--"quick--a taxi-auto. "

"_Bien_, monsieur--a good hunt to monsieur, " and he rushed out into thenarrow corridor and down the spiral stairs while I hurried into my coatand hat. 

Tanrade gripped my hand:

"Shoot straight!" he counselled with a smile. Alice gave me her cheek, which I reverently kissed and murmured my apologies for my insistence inher small ear. Then I swung open the door and made for the spiralstairs. At the bottom step I stopped short. I had completely forgotten Ishould not return until after New Year's, and I rushed back to wishthem a _Bonne Année_ in advance, but I closed the door of the stuffylittle _cabinet particulier_ quicker than I opened it, for her arms wereabout the sturdy neck of a good comrade whose self-denial made me feellike the mad infant rushing to the fête. 

"_Bonne Année, mes enfants!_" I called from the corridor, but they didnot hear. 

Ten minutes later I reached my studio, dumped three hundred cartridgesinto a worn valise and caught the 12. 18 with four minutes to spare. 

 * * * * *

_Enfin!_ it is winter in earnest!

The northeast gale gave, while it lasted, the best shooting the curé andI have ever had. Then the wind shifted to the southwest with a fallingbarometer, and the flights ceased. Again, for three days, the Normancoast has been thrashed by squalls of driving snow. The wild geese arehonking in V-shaped lines to an inland refuge for the white sea is nolonger tenable. Curlews cry hoarsely over the frozen fields. It istough enough lying hidden in my sand pit on the open beach beyond thedunes, where I crack away at the ricketing flights of fat gray ploverand beat myself to keep warm. Fuel is scarce and there is hardly a souto be earned fishing in such cruel weather as this. 

The country back of my house abandoned by the marsh is now stripped tobare actualities--all things are reduced to their proper size. Houses, barns and the skeletons of leafless trees stand out, naked facts in thelandscape. The orchards are soggy in mud and the once green featherylane back of my house abandoned, is now a rough gash of frozen pools androtten leaves. 

Birds twitter in the thin hedges. 

I would never have believed my wild garden, once so full of mystery--gayflowers, sunshine and droning bees, to be so modest in size. A fewrectangles of bare, frozen ground, and a clinging vine trembling againstthe old wall, is all that remains, save the scraggly little fruit treesgreen with moss. Beyond, in a haze of chill sea mist, lie thewoodlands, long undulating ribbons of gray twigs crouching under aleaden sky. 

In the cavernous cider press whose doors creak open within my courtyardPère Bordier and a boy in eartabs, are busy making cider. If you stopand listen you can hear the cider trickling into the cask and PèreBordier encouraging the patient horse who circles round and round agreat stone trough in which revolve two juggernauts of wooden wheels. The place reeks with the ooze and drip of crushed apples. The giantscrew of oak, the massive beams, seen dimly in the gloomy light thatfilters through a small barred window cut through the massive stonewall, gives the old pressoir the appearance of some feudal torturechamber. Blood ran once, and people shrieked in such places--as these. 

 * * * * *

To-morrow begins the new year and every peasant girl's cheeks arescrubbed bright and her hair neatly dressed, for to-morrow all Franceembraces--so the cheeks are rosy in readiness. 

"_Tiens_, mademoiselle!" exclaims the butcher's boy clattering into mykitchen in his sabots. 

_Eh, voilà!_ My good little maid-of-all-work, Suzette, has been kissedby the butcher's boy and a moment later by Père Bordier, who has leftthe cider press for a steaming bowl of _café au lait_; and ten minuteslater by the Mère Péquin who brings the milk, and then in turn by thepostman--by her master, by the boy in eartabs and by every child in thevillage since daylight for they have entered my courtyard in droves towish the household of my house abandoned a happy new year, and have goneaway content with their little stomachs filled and two big sous in theirpockets. 

And now an old fisherman enters my door. It is the Père Varnet--he whogoes out with his sheep dog to dig clams, since he is eighty-four andtoo old to go to sea. 

"_Ah, malheur!_" he sighs wearily, lifting his cap with a trembling handas seamed and tough as his tarpaulin. "Ah, the bad luck, " he repeats ina thin, husky voice. "I would not have deranged monsieur, but _bonDieu_, I am hungry. I have had no bread since yesterday. It is a littlebeast this hunger, monsieur. There are no clams--I have searched fromthe great bank to Tocqueville. "

It is surprising how quick Suzette can heat the milk. 

The old man is now seated in her kitchen before a cold duck of thecuré's killing and hot coffee--real coffee with a stiff drink ofapplejack poured into it, and there is bread and cheese besides. Likehungry men, he eats in silence and when he has eaten he tells me his dogis dead--that woolly sheep dog of his with a cast in one fishy greeneye. 

"_Oui_, monsieur, " confided the old man, "he is dead. He was all I hadleft. It is not gay, monsieur, at eighty-four to lose one's lastfriend--to have him poisoned. "

"Who poisoned him?" I inquired hotly--"was it Bonvin the butcher? Theysay it was he poisoned both of Madame Vinet's cats. "

"_Eh, ben!_" he returned, and I saw the tears well up into his wateryblue eyes--"one should not accuse one's neighbours, but they say it washe, monsieur--they say it was in his garden that Hector found the badstuff--there are some who have no heart, monsieur. "

"Bonvin!" I cried, "so it was that pig who poisoned him, eh? and yousaved his little girl the time the _Belle Marie_ foundered. "

"_Oui_, monsieur--the time the _Belle Marie_ foundered. It is true Idid--we did the best we could! Had it not been for the fog and the ebbtide I think we could have saved them all. "

He fell to eating again, cutting into the cheese discreetly--this fineold gentleman of the sea. 

It is a pity that some one has not poisoned Bonvin I thought. A shortthick fellow, is Bonvin, with cheeks as red as raw chops and small eyesthat glitter with cruelty. Bonvin, whose youngest child--a male, has thelook and intelligence of a veal and whose mother weighs one hundred andfive kilos--a fact which Bonvin is proud of since his first wife, whodied, was under weight despite the fact that the Bonvins being in thebusiness, eat meat twice daily. I have always believed the vealinfant's hair is curled in suet. Its face grows purple after meals. 

 * * * * *

A rough old place is my village of vagabonds in winter, and I am gladAlice did not come. Poor Tanrade--how he would have enjoyed thatnortheast gale!

 * * * * *

Two weeks later there came to my house abandoned by the marsh suchjoyful news that my hand trembled as I realized it--news that made myheart beat quicker from sudden surprise and delight. As I read andreread four closely written pages from Tanrade and a corroborativepostscript from Alice, leaving no doubt as to the truth. 

"Suzette! Suzette!" I called. "Come quick--_Eh! Suzette!_"

I heard her trim feet running to me from the garden. The next instantshe opened the door of my den and stood before me, her blue eyes andpretty mouth both open in wonder at being so hurriedly summoned. 

"What is the matter, monsieur?" she exclaimed panting, her fresh youngcheeks all the rosier from her run. 

"Monsieur Tanrade and Madame de Bréville are going to be married, " Iannounced as calmly as I could. 

"_Hélas!_" gasped Suzette. 

"_Et voilà--et voilà!_" I cried, throwing the letter back on the table, while I squared my back to the blazing fire of my den and waited for thelittle maid's astonishment to subside. 

Suzette did not speak. 

"It is true, nevertheless, " I added with enthusiasm, "they are to bemarried in Pont du Sable. We shall have a fête such as there never was. Ah! you will have plenty of cooking to do, _mon enfant_. Run and findMonsieur le Curé--he must know at once. "

Suzette did not move--without a word she buried her face in her apronand burst into tears:

"Oh, monsieur!" she sobbed. "Oh, monsieur! It istrue--that--I--I--have--no luck!"

I looked at her in astonishment. 

"_Eh, bien!_ my child, " I returned--"and it is thus you take such happynews?"

"_Ah, mon Dieu!_" sobbed the little maid--"it is--true--I--have noluck. "

"What is the matter Suzette--tell me?" I pleaded. Never had I seen herso brokenhearted, even on the day she smashed the mirror. 

I saw her sway toward me like the child she was. 

"There--there--_mais voyons!_" I exclaimed in a vain effort to stop hertears--"_mais voyons!_ Come, you must not cry like that. " Little bylittle she ceased crying, until her sobbing gave way to brave littlehiccoughs, then, at length, she opened her eyes. 

"Suzette, " I whispered--the thought flashing through my mind, "is itpossible that _you_ love Monsieur Tanrade?"

I saw her strong little body tremble: "No, monsieur, " she breathed, andthe tears fell afresh. 

"Tell me the truth, Suzette. "

"I have told monsieur the--the--truth, " she stammered bravely with afresh effort to strangle her sobs. 

"You do not love Monsieur Tanrade, my child?"

"No, monsieur--I--I--was a little fool to have cried. It was strongerthan I--the news. The marriage is so gay, monsieur--it is so easy forsome. "

"Ah--then you do love some one?"

"_Oui_, monsieur--" and her eyes looked up into mine. 

"Who?"

"Gaston, monsieur--as always. "

"Gaston, eh! the little soldier I lodged during the manoeuvres--thelittle trombonist whom the general swore he would put in jail formissing his train. _Sapristi!_ I had forgotten him--and you wish tomarry him, Suzette?"

She nodded mutely in assent, then with a hopeless little sigh she added:"_Hélas_--it is not easy--when one has nothing one must work hard andwait--_Ah, mon Dieu!_"

"Sit down, my little one, " I said. "I have something serious to thinkover. " She did as I bade her, seating herself in silence before thefire. I have never regarded Suzette as a servant--she has always been tome more like a child whom I was responsible for. What would my houseabandoned by the marsh have been without her cheeriness, and herdevotion, I thought, and what would it be when she was gone? No otherSuzette would ever be like her--and her cooking would vanish with therest. _Diable!_ these little marriages play the devil with us at times. And yet, if any one deserved to be happy it was Suzette. I realized too, all that her going would mean to me, and moreover that her devotion toher master was such that if I should say "stay" she would have stayed onquite as if her own father had counselled her. 

As I turned toward her sitting humbly in the chair, I saw she was againstruggling to keep back her tears. It was high time for me to speak. 

I seated myself beside her upon the arm of the chair and took her warmlittle hands in mine. 

"You shall marry your Gaston, Suzette, " I said, "and you shall haveenough to marry on even if I have to sell the big field and the cow thatgoes with it. "

She started, trembling violently, then gave a little gasp of joy. 

"Oh, monsieur! and it is true?" she cried eagerly. 

"Yes, my child--there shall be two weddings in Pont du Sable! Now runand tell Monsieur le Curé. "

 * * * * *

Monsieur le Curé ran too, when he heard the news--straight to my houseabandoned, by the short cut back of the village. 

"_Eh bien! Eh bien!_" he exclaimed as he burst into my den, his keeneyes shining. "It is too good to be true--and not a word to us about ituntil now! _Ah, les rosses! Ah, les rosses!_" he repeated with a broadgrin of delight as he eagerly read Tanrade's letter, telling him thatthe banns were published; that he was to marry them in the little graychurch with the new bells and that but ten days remained before thewedding. He began pacing the floor, his hands clasped behind him--ahabit he had when he was very happy. 

"And Suzette?" I asked, "has she told you?"

"Yes, " he returned with a nod. "She is a good child--she deserves to behappy. " Then he stopped and inquired seriously--"What will you dowithout her?"

"One must not be selfish, " I replied with a helpless shrug. "Suzette hasearned it--so has Tanrade. It was his unfinished opera that was in theway: Alice was clever. "

He crossed to where I stood and laid his hand on my shoulder, and thoughhe did not open his lips I knew what was passing in his mind. 

"Charity to all, " he said softly at length. "It is so good to makeothers happy! Courage, _mon petit_--the price we pay for love, devotion--friendship, is always a heavy one. " Suddenly hisface lighted up. "Have you any idea?" he exclaimed, "how much there isto do and how little time to do it in? Let us prepare!"

And thus began the busiest week the house abandoned had ever known, beginning with the curé and I restocking the garret with dry wood whileSuzette worked ferociously at house cleaning, and every detail of thewedding breakfast was planned and arranged for--no easy problem in mylost village in midwinter. If there was a good fish to be had out of thesea we knew we could rely on Marianne to get it. Even the old fisherman, Varnet, went off with fresh courage in search for clams and good MadameVinet opened her heart and her wine cellar. 

It was the curé who knew well a certain dozen of rare burgundy that hadlain snug beneath the stairs of Madame Vinet's small café--a vintage thegood soul had come into possession of the first year of her own marriageand which she ceded to me for the ridiculously low price of twenty sousthe bottle, precisely what it had cost her in her youth. 

 * * * * *

It is over, and I am alone by my fire. 

As I look back on to-day--their wedding day--it seems as if I had beenliving through some happy dream that has vanished only too quickly andout of which I recall dimly but half its incidents. 

That was a merry procession of old friends that marched to the ruddymayor's where there was the civil marriage and some madeira, and so onto the little gray church where Monsieur le Curé was waiting--that mustyold church in which the tall candles burned and Monsieur le Curé's voicesounded so grave and clear. And we sat together, the good old generaland I, and in front of us were Alice's old friend Germaine, chic andpretty in her sables, and Blondel, who had left his unfinished editorialand driven hard to be present, and beside him in the worn pew sat theMarquis and Marquise de Clamard, and the rest of the worn pews werefilled with fisherfolk and Marianne sat on my left, and old Père Varnetwith Suzette beyond him--and every one's eyes were upon Alice andTanrade, for they were good to look upon. And it was over quickly, and Iwas glad of it, for the candle flames had begun to form halos before myeyes. 

And so we went on singing through the village amid the booming ofshotguns in honour of the newly wed, to the house abandoned. And all thewhile the new bells that Alice had so generously regiven rang lustilyfrom the gray belfry--rang clear--rang out after us, all the way back tothe house abandoned and were still ringing when we sat down to our jollybreakfast. 

"Let them ring!" cried the curé. "I have two old salts of the sea takingturns at the rope, " he confided in my ear. "Ring on!" he cried aloud, aswe lifted our glasses to the bride--"Ring loud--that the good God mayhear!"

And how lovely the room looked, for the table was a mass of roses freshfrom Paris, and the walls and ceiling were green with mistletoe andholly. Moreover, the old room was warm with the hearts of friends andthe cheer from blazing logs that crackled merrily up the blackenedthroat of my chimney. And there were kisses with this feast that camefrom the heart; and sound red wine that went to it. And later, thecourtyard was filled with villagers come to congratulate and to drinkthe health of the bride and groom. 

 * * * * *

They are gone. 

And the thrice-happy Suzette is dreaming of her own wedding to come, forit is long past midnight and I am alone with my wise old cat--"TheEssence of Selfishness, " and my good and faithful spaniel whom I call"Mr. Bear, " for he looks like a young cinnamon, all save his ears. Ifpoor de Savignac were alive he would hardly recognize the little spanielpuppy he gave me, he has grown so. He has crept into my arms, big as heis, awakening jealousy in "The Essence of Selfishness"--for she hateshim--besides, we have taken her favourite chair. Poor Mr. Bear--whonever troubles her----

"And _you_--beast whom I love--another hiss out of you, anotherflattening of your ears close to your skull, and you go straight to bed. There will be no Suzette to put you there soon, and there is now noAlice, nor Tanrade to spoil you. They are gone, pussy kit. "

One o'clock--and the fire in embers. 

I rose and Mr. Bear followed me out into the garden. The land lay stilland cold under millions of stars. High above my chimney came faintly the"Honk, honk, " of a flock of geese. 

I closed my door, bolted the inner shutter, lighted my candle andmotioned to Mr. Bear. The Essence of Selfishness was first on the creakystairs. She paused half way up to let Mr. Bear pass, her ears again flatto her skull. Then I took them both to my room where they slept inopposite corners. 

 * * * * *

Lost village by the tawny marsh. Lost village, indeed, to-night! inwhich were hearts I loved, good comrades and sound red wine--Hark! therush of wings. I must be up at dawn. It will help me forget----Sleepwell, Mr. Bear!

THE END

 [Illustration: village]

 * * * * *

Popular Copyright Books

AT MODERATE PRICES

Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at theprice you paid for this volume

 ANNA THE ADVENTURESS. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. ANN BOYD. By Will N. Harben. AT THE MOORINGS. By Rosa N. Carey. BY RIGHT OF PURCHASE. By Harold Bindloss. CARLTON CASE, THE. By Ellery H. Clark. CHASE OF THE GOLDEN PLATE. By Jacques Futrelle. CASH INTRIGUE, THE. By George Randolph Chester. DELAFIELD AFFAIR, THE. By Florence Finch Kelly. DOMINANT DOLLAR, THE. By Will Lillibridge. ELUSIVE PIMPERNEL, THE. By Baroness Orczy. GANTON & CO. By Arthur J. Eddy. GILBERT NEAL. By Will N. Harben. GIRL AND THE BILL, THE. By Bannister Merwin. GIRL FROM HIS TOWN, THE. By Marie Van Vorst. GLASS HOUSE, THE. By Florence Morse Kingsley. HIGHWAY OF FATE, THE. By Rosa N. Carey. HOMESTEADERS, THE. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles. HUSBANDS OF EDITH, THE. George Barr McCutcheon. INEZ. (Illustrated Ed. ) By Augusta J. Evans. INTO THE PRIMITIVE. By Robert Ames Bennet. JACK SPURLOCK, PRODIGAL. By Horace Lorimer. JUDE THE OBSCURE. By Thomas Hardy. KING SPRUCE. By Holman Day. KINGSMEAD. By Bettina Von Hutten. LADDER OF SWORDS, A. By Gilbert Parker. LORIMER OF THE NORTHWEST. By Harold Bindloss. LORRAINE. By Robert W. Chambers. LOVES OF MISS ANNE, THE. By S. R. Crockett. 

Popular Copyright Books

AT MODERATE PRICES

Any of the following titles can be bought of your booksellerat 50 cents per volume. 

 SPIRIT OF THE BORDER, THE. By Zane Grey. SPOILERS, THE. By Rex Beach. SQUIRE PHIN. By Holman F. Day. STOOPING LADY, THE. By Maurice Hewlett. SUBJECTION OF ISABEL CARNABY. By Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. SUNSET TRAIL, THE. By Alfred Henry Lewis. SWORD OF THE OLD FRONTIER, A. By Randall Parrish. TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. By A. Conan Doyle. THAT PRINTER OF UDELL'S. By Harold Bell Wright. THROWBACK, THE. By Alfred Henry Lewis. TRAIL OF THE SWORD, THE. By Gilbert Parker. TREASURE OF HEAVEN, THE. By Marie Corelli. TWO VANREVELS, THE. By Booth Tarkington. UP FROM SLAVERY. By Booker T. Washington. VASHTI. By Augusta Evans Wilson. VIPER OF MILAN, THE (original edition). By Marjorie Bowen. VOICE OF THE PEOPLE, THE. By Ellen Glasgow. WHEEL OF LIFE, THE. By Ellen Glasgow. WHEN WILDERNESS WAS KING. By Randall Parrish. WHERE THE TRAIL DIVIDES. By Will Lillibridge. WOMAN IN GREY, A. By Mrs. C. N. Williamson. WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE, THE. By Anna Katharine Green. YOUNGER SET, THE. By Robert W. Chambers. THE WEAVERS. By Gilbert Parker. THE LITTLE BROWN JUG AT KILDARE. By Meredith Nicholson. THE PRISONERS OF CHANCE. By Randall Parrish. MY LADY OF CLEVE. By Percy J. Hartley. LOADED DICE. By Ellery H. Clark. GET RICH QUICK WALLINGFORD. By George Randolph Chester. THE ORPHAN. By Clarence Mulford. A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. By Stanley J. Weyman. 

Popular Copyright Books

AT MODERATE PRICES

Any of the following titles can be bought of your booksellerat 50 cents per volume. 

 THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS. By Harold Bell Wright. JANE CABLE. By George Barr McCutcheon. ABNER DANIEL. By Will N. Harben. THE FAR HORIZON. By Lucas Malet. THE HALO. By Bettina von Hutten. JERRY JUNIOR. By Jean Webster. THE POWERS AND MAXINE. By C. N. And A. M. Williamson. THE BALANCE OF POWER. By Arthur Goodrich. ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE. By Cutcliffe Hyne. ADVENTURES OF GERARD. By A. Conan Doyle. ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. By A. Conan Doyle. ARMS AND THE WOMAN. By Harold MacGrath. ARTEMUS WARD'S WORKS (extra illustrated). AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS. By Augusta Evans Wilson. AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE. By Margaret Deland. BATTLE GROUND, THE. By Ellen Glasgow. BELLE OF BOWLING GREEN, THE. By Amelia E. Barr. BEN BLAIR. By Will Lillibridge. BEST MAN, THE. By Harold MacGrath. BETH NORVELL. By Randall Parrish. BOB HAMPTON OF PLACER. By Randall Parrish. BOB, SON OF BATTLE. By Alfred Ollivant. BRASS BOWL, THE. By Louis Joseph Vance. BRETHREN, THE. By H. Rider Haggard. BROKEN LANCE, THE. By Herbert Quick. BY WIT OF WOMEN. By Arthur W. Marchmont. CALL OF THE BLOOD, THE. By Robert Hitchens. CAP'N ERI. By Joseph C. Lincoln. CARDIGAN. By Robert W. Chambers. CAR OF DESTINY, THE. By C. N. And A. N. Williamson. CASTING AWAY OF MRS. LECKS AND MRS. ALESHINE. By Frank R. Stockton. CECILIA'S LOVERS. By Amelia E. Barr. 

Popular Copyright Books

AT MODERATE PRICES

 CIRCLE, THE. By Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of "The Masquerader, " "The Gambler"). COLONIAL FREE LANCE, A. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. CONQUEST OF CANAAN, THE. By Booth Tarkington. COURIER OF FORTUNE, A. By Arthur W. Marchmont. DARROW ENIGMA, THE. By Melvin Severy. DELIVERANCE, THE. By Ellen Glasgow. DIVINE FIRE, THE. By May Sinclair. EMPIRE BUILDERS. By Francis Lynde. EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. By A. Conan Doyle. FIGHTING CHANCE, THE. By Robert W. Chambers. FOR A MAIDEN BRAVE. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH, THE. By Chas. D. Stewart. GOD'S GOOD MAN. By Marie Corelli. HEART'S HIGHWAY, THE. By Mary E. Wilkins. HOLLADAY CASE, THE. By Burton Egbert Stevenson. HURRICANE ISLAND. By H. B. Marriott Watson. IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. INDIFFERENCE OF JULIET, THE. By Grace S. Richmond. INFELICE. By Augusta Evans Wilson. LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER. By C. N. And A. M. Williamson. LADY OF THE MOUNT, THE. By Frederic S. Isham. LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING, THE. By Gilbert Parker. LANGFORD OF THE THREE BARS. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles. LAST TRAIL, THE. By Zane Grey. LEAVENWORTH CASE, THE. By Anna Katharine Green. LILAC SUNBONNET, THE. By S. R. Crockett. LIN MCLEAN. By Owen Wister. LONG NIGHT, THE. By Stanley J. Weyman. MAID AT ARMS, THE. By Robert W. Chambers. 

 * * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvioustypographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotes and the like) havebeen fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

page 24: typo corrected

 the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice de Breville's[Bréville's] automobile whined up to my door. The next

page 201: swapped words fixed

 To-night the general is an in[in an] uproar of good humour

page 225: spurious quote removed

 this country. ["]François!" he exclaimed, "You may bring in the little dog--and, François!"

page 272: typo corrected

 business out at the county-seat? The Vicomtess[e] is furious. We were to leave, for a little voyage

page 276: quote added

 "All of us to luncheon to-morrow at The Three Wolves!["] he cried, flinging his hat on

page 277: quote added

 morning, if we are to reach The Three Wolves by noon. ["] He recovered his hat from the floor, page 343: typo corrected

 smiling assurance, for be[he] brought me a telegram forwarded from my studio by my concierge. 

page 350: spurious comma removed; typo corrected

 gone away content with their little stomachs[, ] filled and two big sous in their pockets. 

 and ten minutes later by the Mère Pequin[Péquin] who brings the milk, and then in turn