Part 12

"Well," said Brulette, trying to pacify him, "she will get over it."

"I don't know that people ever get over love," he replied; "but if, through ignorance and want of precaution I have done any harm to the daughter of my master, and Huriel's sister, the virgin of the woods, who has prayed to God for me and watched over my life, I am so guilty that I can never forgive myself."

"Did not you ever think that her friendship might change to love?"

"No, Brulette, never."

"That's curious, José."

"Why so? Have not I been accustomed from my youth up to be pitied for my stupidity and helped in my weakness? Did the friendship you have shown me, Brulette, ever make me vain enough to believe that you--" Here Joseph became as red as fire, and did not say another word.

"You are right," said Brulette, who was prudent and judicious just as Thérence was quick and sensitive. "We can easily make mistakes about the feelings which we give and receive. I had a silly idea about the girl, but if you don't share it there can be nothing in it. Thérence is, no doubt, just as I am, ignorant of what they call true love, and waits the time when the good God will put it into her head to live for the man he has chosen for her."

"All the same," said Joseph, "I wish to leave this part of the country and I ought to."

"We came to take you back," I said, "as soon as you feel strong enough to go."

Contrary to my expectation, he rejected the idea vehemently. "No, no," he said, "I have but one power, and that is my force of will to be a great musician; I want to have my mother with me, and live honored and courted in my own country. If I quit these parts now I shall go to the Upper Bourbonnais till I am admitted into the fraternity of bagpipers."

We dared not tell him that we feared he would never have sound lungs.

Brulette talked to him of other things, while I, much occupied with the revelation she had made about Thérence, and indeed anxious about the girl, who had just left her lodge and plunged into the woods, started in the same direction, with no apparent object, but feeling curious and very desirous of meeting her. It was not very long before I heard the sound of choking sighs, which let me know where she was hiding. No longer feeling shy of her when I knew she was in trouble, I went forward and spoke to her resolutely.

"Thérence," I said, observing that she did not weep, and only quivered and choked with repressed anger, "I think my cousin and I are the cause of your annoyance. Our coming displeases you; or rather, Brulette does, for I myself can claim no attention. We were speaking of you this morning, she and I, and I prevented her from leaving your lodge, where she thought she was a burden to you. Now please say frankly if we are, and we will go elsewhere; for though you may have a low opinion of us, we are none the less right-minded towards you and fearful of causing you annoyance."

The proud girl seemed offended by my frankness; she got up from her seat, for I had placed myself near her.

"Your cousin wants to go, does she?" she said, with a threatening air; "she wants to shame me? No, she shall not do it! or else--"

"Or else what?" I asked, determined to make her confess her feelings.

"Or else I will leave the woods, and my father and family, and go and die in the desert."

She spoke feverishly, with so gloomy an eye and so pale a face, that I was frightened.

"Thérence," I said taking her very kindly by the hand and making her sit down again, "either you were born without a sense of justice or you have some reason for hating Brulette. If so, tell me what it is; for it is possible I could clear her of the blame you put upon her."

"No, you can't clear her, for I know her," cried Thérence, no longer controlling herself. "Don't think that I know nothing about her! I have thought enough and questioned Joseph and my brother enough to be able to judge her conduct and to know what an ungrateful heart and deceitful nature hers is. She is a flirt, that's what she is, your compatriot! and all honest girls ought to hate her."

"That's a hard thing to say," I replied, without seeming troubled. "What do you base it on?"

"Doesn't she know," cried Thérence, "that here are three young men in love with her? and she is tricking all of them,--Joseph, who is dying of it; my brother, who is now avoiding her; and you, who are trying to cure yourself. Do you mean to tell me that she does not know all this; or that she has the slightest preference for any one of you? No; she has no preference for any one; she pities Joseph, she esteems my brother, and she does not love you. Your pangs amuse her, and as she has fifty other lovers in her own village, she pretends she lives for all and not for one. Well, I don't care for you, Tiennet, for I don't know you; but as for my brother, who is so often obliged to be away from us, and goes away now to escape her when he might really stay at home; and as for poor Joseph, who is ill and partly crazy for her--Ah! your Brulette is a guilty creature towards both, and ought to blush for not being able to say a tender word to either of them."

Just then Brulette, who overheard her, came forward. Though quite unaccustomed to be spoken of in that way, she was doubtless well-pleased to know the motive of Huriel's absence, and she seated herself by Thérence and took her hand with a serious air which was half pity and half reproach. Thérence was a little pacified, and said, in a gentler tone:--

"Excuse me, Brulette, if I have pained you; but, indeed, I shall not blame myself, if it brings you to better feelings. Come, admit that your conduct is treacherous and your heart hard. I don't know if it is the custom in your country to let men wish for you when you intend only to refuse them; but I, a poor girl of the woods, think such lies criminal, and I cannot comprehend such behavior. Open your eyes, and see the harm you are doing! I don't say that my brother will break down under it, because he is too strong and too courageous a man, and there are too many girls, worth more than you, who love him, among whom he will make his choice one of these days; but have pity upon poor José, Brulette! You don't know him, though you have been brought up with him. You thought him half an imbecile; on the contrary he has a great genius, but his body is feeble and cannot bear up under the grief you persist in causing him. Give him your heart, for he deserves it; it is I who entreat you, and who will curse you if you kill him."

"Do you really mean what you are saying to me, my poor Thérence?" answered Brulette, looking her straight in the eye. "If you want to know what I think, it is that you love Joseph, and that I cause you, in spite of myself, a bitter jealousy, which leads you to impute this wrong-doing to me. Well, look at the matter as it is; I don't want to make José love me; I never thought of doing so, and I am sorry he does. I even long to help you to cure him of it: and if I had known what you have now let me see, I would never have come here, though your brother did tell me it was necessary that I should do so."

"Brulette," said Thérence, "you must think I have no pride if you suppose that I love Joseph in the way you mean, and that I condescend to be jealous of your charms. I have no need to be ashamed before any one of the sort of love I feel for him. If it were as you suppose, I should at least have sufficient pride not to let you think I would dispute him with you. But my friendship for him is so frank that I dare to protect him openly against your wiles. Love him truly, and, far from being jealous, I will love and respect you; I recognize your rights, which are older than mine, and I will help you to take him back into your own country, on condition that you will choose him for your sole lover and husband. Otherwise, you may expect in me an enemy, who will hold you up to condemnation openly. It shall never be said that I loved the poor lad and nursed him in illness only to see a village flirt kill him before my very eyes."

"Very good," said Brulette, who had recovered all her native pride, "I see more plainly than ever that you are in love with him and jealous; and I feel all the more satisfied to go away and leave him to your care. That your attachment to him is honest and faithful I have no doubt; and I have no reasons, such as you have, to be angry or unjust. Still I do wonder why you should want me to remain and to be your friend. Your sincerity gives way there, and I admit that I should like to know the reason why."

"The reason," replied Thérence, "is one you give yourself, when you use shameful words to humiliate me. You have just said that I am lovesick and jealous: that's how you explain the strength and the kindness of my feeling for Joseph! you will, no doubt, put it into his head, and the young man, who owes me respect and gratitude, will think he has the right to despise me, and ridicule me in his heart."

"There you are right, Thérence," said Brulette, whose heart and mind were both too just not to respect the pride of the woodland girl. "I ought to help you to keep your secret, and I will. I don't say that I will help you to the extent of my power over Joseph; your pride would take offence if I did, and I fully understand that you do not want to receive his regard as a favor from me. But I beg you to be just, to reflect, and even to give me some good advice, which I, who am weaker and more humble than you, ask of you to guide my conscience."

"Ask it; I will listen to you," said Thérence, pacified by Brulette's good sense and submission.

"You must first know," said the latter, "that I have never had any love for Joseph; and if it will help you, I will tell you why."

"Tell me; I want to know!" cried Thérence.

"Well, the reason is," continued Brulette, "that he does not love me as I should wish to be loved. I have known Joseph from a baby; he was never amiable to others until he came to live here; he was so wrapped up in himself that I considered him selfish. I am now willing to believe that if he was so it was not in a bad sense; but after the conversation which he and I had together yesterday I am still convinced that I have a rival in his heart that would soon crush me if I were his. This mistress whom he would surely prefer to his wife--don't deceive yourself, Thérence--is music."

"I have sometimes thought that very thing," replied Thérence, after reflecting a moment, and showing by her soothed manner that she would rather struggle with music for Joseph's heart, than with the pretty Brulette. "Joseph," she added, "is often in a state in which I have sometimes seen my father,--when the pleasure of making music is so great that they are not conscious of anything about them; but my father is always so loving and lovable that I am never jealous of his pleasure."

"Well, then, Thérence," said Brulette, "let us hope he will make Joseph like himself and worthy of you."

"Of me? why of me more than of you? God is my witness that I am not thinking of myself when I work and pray for Joseph. My future troubles me very little, Brulette; I don't understand why people should be thinking of themselves in the friendship they give to others."

"Then," said Brulette, "you are a sort of saint, dear Thérence, and I feel I am not worthy of you; for I do think about myself, and a great deal, too, when I dream of love and happiness. Perhaps you do not love Joseph as I fancied you did; but, however that may be, I ask you to tell me how I had better behave to him. I am not at all sure that if I take all hope away from him the blow would kill him; otherwise you would not see me so easy. But he is ill, that's very true; and I owe him great consideration. Here is where my friendship for him has been loyal and sincere; and I have not been as coquettish as you think for. For if it is true that I have, as you say, fifty lovers in my own village, what advantage or amusement would it be to me to follow the humblest of them all into these woods? I think, on the contrary, that I deserve your good-will for having, as it seemed right to do so, sacrificed without regret my lively friends to bring comfort to a poor fellow who asked for my remembrance."

Thérence, understanding at last that she was wrong, threw herself into Brulette's arms, without making any excuses, but showing plainly by tears and kisses that she was heartily sorry.

They were sitting thus together when Huriel, followed by his mules, preceded by his dogs, and mounted on his little horse, appeared at the end of the path where we were. He came to bid us good-bye; but nothing in his air or manner showed the grief of a man who seeks by flight to cure a hopeless love. He seemed, on the contrary, cheerful and content; and Brulette thought that Thérence had put him on the list of her admirers only to give one reason more, good or bad, for her vexation. She even tried to make him tell the real reason for his departure; and when he pretended that it was pressing business, which Thérence denied, urging him to stay, Brulette, rather piqued at his coolness, reproached him with getting tired of his Berrichon guests. He let himself be teased without making any change in his plans; and this finally affronted Brulette, and led her to say,--

"As I may never see you again, Maître Huriel, don't you think you had better return me the little token which you wear in your ear though it does not belong to you?"

"Yes, but it does," he answered. "It belongs to me as much as my ear belongs to my head, for my sister gave it to me."

"Your sister could not have given you what is either Joseph's or mine."

"My sister made her first communion just as you did, Brulette; and when I returned your jewel to José she gave me hers. Ask her if that isn't true."

Thérence colored high, and Huriel laughed in his beard. Brulette thought to herself that the most deceived of the three was Joseph, who was probably wearing Thérence's silver heart round his neck as a souvenir, while the muleteer was wearing the one she had given him. She was resolved not to allow the fraud, so she said to Thérence: "Dearest, I think the token José wears will bring him happiness, and therefore he ought to keep it; but inasmuch as this one belongs to you, I ask you to get it back from your brother, so as to make me a present which will be extremely precious to me as coming from you."

"I will give you anything else you ask of me," replied Thérence, "and with all my heart too; but this thing does not belong to me. What is given is given, and I don't think that Huriel would be willing to give it back."

"I will do so," said Huriel, quickly, "if Brulette requires it. Do you demand it?" he added, turning to her.

"Yes," said Brulette, who could not back down, though she regretted her whim when she saw the hurt look of the muleteer. He at once opened his earring and took off the token, which he gave to Brulette, saying: "Be it as you please. I should be consoled for the loss of my sister's gift if I could think you would neither give it away nor exchange it."

"The proof that I will do neither," said Brulette, fastening it on Thérence's necklace, "is that I give it to her to keep. And as for you, whose ear is now released of its weight, you do not need any token to enable me to recognize you when you come again into our parts."

"That is very handsome of you to say," replied the muleteer; "but as I only did my duty to Joseph, and as you now know all that you need to know to make him happy, I shall not meddle any further in his affairs. I suppose you will take him home with you, and I shall have no further occasion to visit your country. Adieu, therefore, my beautiful Brulette; I foretell all the blessings you deserve, and I leave you now with my family, who will serve you while here and conduct you home whenever you may wish to go."

So saying, off he went, singing:--

"One mule, two mules, three mules, On the mountain, don't you see them? Hey, the devil! 'tis the band."

But his voice did not sound as steady as he tried to make it; and Brulette, not feeling happy and wishing to escape the searching eyes of Thérence, returned with us both to find Joseph.

FIFTEENTH EVENING.

I shall not give you the history of all the days that we passed in the forest. They differed little from one another. Joseph grew better and better, and Thérence decided that it was wiser not to destroy his hopes, sharing in Brulette's resolution to prevent him from explaining his feelings. This was not difficult to manage, for Joseph had vowed to himself that he would not declare his sentiments till the moment came when he felt worthy of her notice. Brulette must have made herself very seductive indeed to have dragged a word of love out of him. To make doubly sure, she managed to avoid ever being alone with him; and she kept Thérence so cleverly at her side that the woodland nymph began to understand that she was really not deceiving her and sincerely wished that she should manage the health and the mind of the patient in all things.

These three young people did not weary of each other's company. Thérence sewed for Joseph, and Brulette, having made me buy her a white handkerchief, set about scalloping and embroidering it for Thérence, for she was very clever at such work, and it was really marvellous that a country-girl could do such exquisitely fine stitches. She even declared before Joseph and me that she was tired of sewing and taking care of linen, so as to show that she did not work for him, and to force him to thank Thérence, who was doing it so assiduously. But just see how ungrateful men can be when their minds are all upset by a woman! Joseph hardly looked at Thérence's fingers, employed as they were in his service; his eyes were fixed on Brulette's pretty hands, and you would really have thought that every time she drew her needle he counted each stitch as a moment of happiness.

I wondered how love could fill his mind and occupy his whole time, without his ever dreaming of making any use of his hands. As for me, I tried peeling osier and making baskets, or plaiting rye-straw for hats and bonnets, but for all that, at the end of forty-eight hours I was so eaten up with ennui that I was fairly ill. Sunday is a fine thing, for it brings a rest after six days' toil, but seven Sundays in a week is too much for a man who is accustomed to make use of his limbs. I might not have realized this if either of the girls had bestowed any notice on me; indeed, the beautiful Thérence, with her great eyes somewhat sunken in her head and the black mole at the corner of her mouth, could easily have turned my head if she had wanted to; but she was in no humor to think of anything but her one idea. She talked little and laughed less, and if I tried the slightest joking she looked at me with such an astonished air that I lost all courage to make an explanation.

So, after spending three or four days in fluttering with this tranquil trio round the lodges and sitting with them in various places in the woods, and having convinced myself that Brulette was quite as safe in this country as in our own, I looked about me for something to do, and finally asked the Head-Woodsman to allow me to help him. He received my request very kindly, and I began to get much amusement out of his company, when, unfortunately, I told him I did not want to be paid, and was chopping wood only to get rid of the time; on which his kind heart no longer compelled him to excuse my blunders, and he began to let me see that there never was a more exacting man than he in the matter of work. As his trade was not mine and I did not even know how to use his tools, I provoked him by my awkwardness, and I soon saw that he could scarcely restrain himself from calling me a blockhead and imbecile; for his eyes actually started from his head and the sweat rolled down his face.

Not wishing to quarrel with a man who was so kind and agreeable in other ways, I found employment with the sawyers, and they were satisfied with me. But dear me! I soon learned what a dull thing work is when it is nothing but an exercise for the body, and is not joined to the idea of profit for one's self or others.

Brulette said to me on the fourth day, "Tiennet, I see you are very dull, and I don't deny that I am, too; but to-morrow is Sunday, and we must invent some kind of amusement. I know that the foresters meet in a pretty place, where the Head-Woodsman plays for them to dance. Well, let us buy some wine and provisions and give them a better Sunday than usual, and so do honor to our own country among these strangers."

I did as Brulette told me, and the next day we assembled on a pretty bit of grass with all the forest workmen and several girls and women of the neighborhood, whom Thérence invited for a dance. The Head-Woodsman piped for us. His daughter, superb in her Bourbonnais costume, was much complimented, which made no change in her dignified manner. José, quite intoxicated by the charms of Brulette, who had not forgotten to bring a little finery from home, and who bewitched all eyes with her pretty face and her dainty ways, sat looking on at the dancing. I busied myself in regaling the company with refreshments, and as I wished to do things in good style, I had not spared the money. The feast cost me three good silver crowns out of my own pocket, but I never regretted it, for the company were pleased with my hospitality. Everything went well, and they all said that within the memory of man the woodland folk had never been so well entertained. There was even a mendicant friar, who happened to come along, and who, under pretext of begging for his convent, stuffed his stomach as full and drank as much as any woodchopper of them all. This amused me mightily, though it was at my expense, for it was the first time I had seen a Carmelite drink, and I had always heard tell that in the matter of crooking their elbows they were the best men in Christendom.

I was just re-filling his glass, astonished that I didn't intoxicate him, when the dancers fell into confusion and a great uproar arose. I went out of the little arbor which I had made, and where I received the thirsty crowd, to know what had happened; and there I saw a troop of three or perhaps four hundred mules following a _clairin_ which had taken it into its head to go through the assembly, and was being pushed, and kicked, and frightened, till it darted right and left among the people; while the mules, who are obstinate beasts, very strong-boned and accustomed to follow the _clairin_, pressed on through the dancers, caring little for blows and kicks, jostling those in their way, and behaving as if they were in a field of thistles. The animals did not go so fast, laden as they were, but what the people had time to get out of their way. No one was hurt, but some of the lads, excited by dancing and provoked at being interrupted, stamped and shouted so vociferously that the scene was most amusing to behold, and the Head-Woodsman stopped piping to hold his sides with laughter.

Presently, knowing the musical call which collects the mules, and which I knew too, having heard it in the forest of Saint-Chartier, Père Bastien sounded it in the usual manner; and when the _clairin_ and his followers trotted up and surrounded the cask on which he was seated, he laughed more than ever to see a troup of black beasts dancing round him instead of the late gala company.

Brulette, however, who escaped from the confusion and took refuge with Joseph and me, seemed terrified, and did not take it as a joke.

"What is the matter?" I said to her. "Perhaps it is friend Huriel who has come back for a dance with you."