Part 24

Père Brulet listened without saying a word, and I began to fear he had not understood; but no such thing; though he seemed to be dreaming, his mind was really quite clear, and he presently answered discreetly that he recognized in the Head-Woodsman the son of a former friend; that he held the family in much esteem, and considered Brother Nicolas as worthy of all confidence; and, above all, he trusted in the sense and good judgment of his granddaughter. Then he went on to say that she had not delayed her choice and refused the best offers of the neighborhood to commit a folly in the end, and that if she wished to marry Huriel, Huriel would certainly be a good husband.

He spoke in a collected manner: yet his memory failed him on one point, which he recalled soon after, as we were about to take leave, namely, that Huriel was a muleteer.

"That is the only thing that troubles me," he said. "My girl will be so lonely at home by herself for three-quarters of the year."

We satisfied him at once with the news that Huriel had left the craft and become a woodsman; and thereupon he readily agreed to the plan of working in the woods of Chassin during the summer months.

We parted, all well pleased with one another. Thérence stayed with Brulette, and I took the others to my own house.

We learned the next evening, through the monk, who had been begging about all day, that Joseph had not gone near the village of Nohant, but had spent an hour with his mother at Saint-Chartier, after which he started to go round the neighborhood and collect all the bagpipers for a meeting, at which he would demand a competition for admission to the craft and the right to practise the calling. Mariton was much troubled by this determination, believing that the Carnats, father and son, and all the bagpipers of the country round, who were already more in number than were needed, would oppose it and cause him both trouble and injury. But Joseph would not listen to her, still saying that he was resolved to get her out of service and take her to some distant place to live with him, though she seemed not as much inclined to that idea as he had hoped.

On the third day, all our preparations having been made, and Huriel and Brulette's first banns published in the parish church, we started to return to Chassin. It was like departing on a pilgrimage to the ends of the earth. We were obliged to carry furniture, for Brulette was determined that her grandfather should lack for nothing; so a cart was hired and the whole village opened its eyes very wide to see the entire contents of the house going off, even to the baskets. The goats and the hens went too, for Thérence was delighted at the idea of taking care of them; never having known how to manage animals, she wanted to learn, as she said, when the opportunity offered. This gave me the chance to propose myself in jest for her management, as the most docile and faithful animal of the flock. She was not annoyed, but gave me no encouragement to pass from jest to earnest. Only, it did seem to me that she was not displeased to find me cheerfully leaving home and family to follow her; and that if she did little to attract me she certainly did still less to repulse me.

Just as old Brulet and the women, with Charlot, were getting into the cart (Brulette very proud of going off with such a handsome lover, in the teeth of all the lovers who had misjudged her), the friar came up to say good-bye, adding for the benefit of inquisitive ears: "As I am going over to your parts, I'll ride a bit of the way with you."

He got up beside Père Brulet, and at the end of the third mile, in a shady road, he asked to be set down. Huriel was leading the _clairin_, which was a good draught horse as well as a pack horse, and the Head-Woodsman and I walked in front. Seeing that the cart lagged behind, we turned back, thinking there might have been an accident, and found Brulette in tears, kissing Charlot, who clung to her screaming because the friar was endeavoring to carry him off. Huriel interceded against it, for he was so troubled at Brulette's tears that he came near crying himself.

"What is the matter?" said Père Bastien. "Why do you wish to send away the child, my daughter? Is it because of the notion you expressed the other day?"

"No, father," replied Brulette, "his real parents have sent for him, and it is for his good to go. The poor little fellow can't understand that; and even I, though I do understand it, my heart fails me. But as there are good reasons why the thing should be done without delay, give me courage instead of taking it away from me."

Though talking of courage she had none at all against Charlot's tears and kisses, for she had really come to love him with much tenderness; so Thérence was called in to help her. Every look and tone of the woodland girl conveyed such a sense of her loving-kindness that the stones themselves would have been persuaded, and the child felt it, though he did not know why. She succeeded in pacifying him, making him understand that Brulette was leaving him for a short time only, so that Brother Nicolas was able to carry him off without using force; and the pair disappeared to the tune of a sort of rondo which the monk sang to divert his charge, though it was more like a church chant than a song. But Charlot was pleased, and when their voices were lost in the distance that of the monk had drowned his expiring moans.

"Come, Brulette, start on," said Père Bastien. "We love you so well we can soon console you."

Huriel jumped on the shaft to be near her, and talked to her so gently all the way that she said to him just before we arrived: "Don't think me inconsolable, my true friend. My heart failed me for a second; but I know where to turn the love I felt for that child, and where I shall find the happiness he gave me."

It did not take us long to settle down in the old castle and even to feel at home in it. There were several habitable chambers, though they hardly looked so, and at first we thought them likely to fall about our heads. But the ruins had so long been shaken by the wind without collapsing that we felt they might outlast our time.

Aunt Marghitonne, delighted to have us near her, furnished the household with the various little comforts to which we were accustomed, and which the Huriel family were coaxed with some difficulty into sharing with us, for they were not used to such things and cared very little for them. The Bourbonnais wood-cutters, whom the Head-Woodsman had engaged, arrived duly, and he hired others in the neighborhood. So that we made quite a colony, quartered partly in the village and partly in the ruins, working cheerfully under the rule of a just man, who knew what it was to spare over-work and to reward the willing workman, and assembling every night in the courtyard for the evening meal; relating stories and listening to them; singing and frolicking in the open air, and dancing on Sundays with all the lads and lasses of the neighborhood, who were glad enough to get our Bourbonnais music, and who brought us little gifts from all parts, showing us a deal of attention.

The work was hard on account of the steep slopes on which the forest grew, which rose straight from the river, and made the felling a very dangerous matter. I had had experience of the quick temper of the Head-Woodsman in the woods of Alleu. As he was employing none but choice workmen for the felling, and the choppers understood the cutting up, nothing happened to irritate him; but I was ambitious to become a first-class chopper in order to please him, and I dreaded lest my want of practice should once more make him call me unhandy and imprudent, which would have mortified me cruelly in presence of Thérence. So I begged Huriel to take me apart and show me how to work and to let me watch him at the business. He was quite willing to oblige me, and I went at it with such a will that before long I surprised the master himself by my ability. He praised me, and even asked me before his daughter why I took hold so valiantly of a business I had no occasion for in my own country. "Because," I replied, "I am not sorry to know how to earn my living wherever I am. Who knows what may happen? If I loved a woman who wanted me to live in the depths of the woods, I could follow her, and support her there as elsewhere."

To prove to Thérence I was not so self-indulgent as perhaps she thought, I practised sleeping on the bare ground, and living frugally; trying to become as hardy a forester as the rest of them. I did not find myself any the worse for it; in fact I felt that my mind grew more active and my thoughts clearer. Many things that I did not at first understand without long explanations, unravelled themselves little by little, of their own accord, so that Thérence had no longer any occasion to smile at my stupid questions. She talked to me without getting weary and appeared to feel confidence in my judgment.

Still, a full fortnight went by before I felt the slightest hope of success; though when I bemoaned myself to Huriel that I dared not say a word to a girl who seemed so far above me that she could never so much as look at me, he replied,--

"Don't worry, Tiennet; my sister has the truest heart in existence; and if, like all young girls, she has her fanciful moments, there is no fancy in her head which will not yield to the love of a noble truth and an honest devotion."

His father said the same, and together they lent me courage; and Thérence found me so good an attendant, I watched so closely that no pain, fatigue, or annoyance should touch her from any cause within my power to control, and I was so careful never to look at another girl,--indeed I had little desire to,--in short, I behaved myself with such honest respect, showing her plainly on what a pinnacle I set her, that her eyes began to open; and several times I saw her watch how I went beforehand of her wishes with a softened, reflective look, and then reward me with thanks of which, I can tell you, I was proud enough. She was not accustomed, like Brulette, to have her wishes anticipated, and would never have known, like her, how to encourage it prettily. She seemed surprised that any one thought of her; and when it did happen, she showed such a sense of obligation that I never felt at my ease when she said to me with her serious air and guileless frankness, "Really, Tiennet, you are too kind," or perhaps, "Tiennet, you take too much trouble for me; I wish I could take as much for you some day."

One morning she was speaking to me in this way before a number of woodcutters, and one of them, a handsome Bourbonnais lad, remarked in a low tone that she showed a deal of interest in me.

"Certainly I do, Leonard," she replied, looking at him with a confident air. "I feel the interest that is due to him for all his kindness and friendship to me and mine."

"Don't you know that every one would do as he does," remarked Leonard, "if they thought they would be paid in the same coin?"

"I would try to be just to everybody," she replied, "if I felt a liking or a need for everybody's attentions. But I don't; and to one of my disposition the friendship of one person suffices."

I was sitting on the turf beside her as she said this, and I took her hand in mine, without daring to retain it more than a second. She drew it away, but as she did so she let it rest a moment on my shoulder in sign of confidence and relationship of soul.

However, things still went on in this way, and I began to suffer greatly from the reserve between us,--all the more because the lovers Huriel and Brulette were so tender and happy, and the contrast grieved my heart and troubled my spirit. Their day of joy was coming, but mine was not within sight.

TWENTY-NINTH EVENING.

One Sunday--it was that of the last publication of Brulette's banns--the Head-Woodsman and his son, who had seemed all day to be consulting privately, went off together, saying that a matter connected with the marriage called them to Nohant. Brulette, who knew all about the arrangements for her wedding, was a good deal surprised at their sudden activity, and still more that they told her nothing about it. She was even inclined to pout at Huriel, who said he should be absent for twenty-four hours; but he would not yield, and managed to pacify her by letting her think he was only going on her business and planning to give her some pleasant surprise.

But Thérence, whom I watched narrowly, seemed to me to make an effort to hide her uneasiness, and as soon as her father and Huriel had started, she carried me off into the little park and said:--

"Tiennet, I am worried to death, and I don't know what can be done to remedy matters. Listen to what has happened, and tell me if we can do anything to prevent harm. Last night as I lay awake I heard my father and brother agreeing to go and protect Joseph, and from what they said I made out that Joseph, though very ill-received by the bagpipers of your parts, to whom he applied for admission to the guild, is determined to insist on admittance,--a thing that they dare not refuse him openly without having put his talents to the test. It appears that the younger Carnat has also applied for admittance in place of his father, who retires; and his trial was to take place before the corporation this very day; so that Joseph has put himself forward to interfere with a claim that was not to be contested, and which was promised and half-granted in advance. Now, some of our wood-cutters who frequent the wine-shops have overheard certain wicked plans which the bagpipers of your neighborhood are making; for they are resolved to eject Joseph, if they can, by sneering at his music. If there was no greater risk than his having to bear injustice and defeat, I should not be so uneasy as you see me; but my father and brother, who belong to the guild and have a voice in all proceedings, feel it their duty to be present at this competition solely to protect Joseph. And, more than that, there was something I could not make out, because the guild have certain secret terms among themselves which my father and brother used, and which I did not understand. But however one looks at it, I am sure they are going into danger, for they carried under their blouses those little single-sticks, the harm of which you have already seen, and they even sharpened their pruning-hooks and hid them under their clothes, saying to each other early this morning, 'The devil is in that lad; he can neither be happy himself nor let others be. We must protect him, however; though he is obstinately rushing among the wolves, without thinking of his own skin or that of others.' My brother complained, saying he did not want to break anybody's head or have his own broken just as he was going to be married. To which my father replied that there was no use in anticipating evil; what one had to do was to go where humanity required us to help our neighbor. As they named Leonard among those who had overheard the malicious talk, I questioned him hastily just now, and he told me that Joseph, and consequently those who support him, have been threatened for a week or more, and that your bagpipers talk of not only refusing him admittance at this competition, but also of depriving him of the wish and the power to try again. I know, from having heard it spoken of as a child when my brother was admitted, that the candidates must behave boldly and endure all sorts of trials of their strength and courage. With us, the bagpipers lead a wandering life and do not make their music so much of a business as yours do; therefore they don't stand in each other's way and never persecute the candidates. It seems, from what Leonard told me and from my father's preparations, that here it is different, and that such matters end in fights which last till one or the other side gives up. Help me, Tiennet, for I am half-dead with fear and anxiety. I dare not rouse our wood-cutters; if my father thought I had overheard and betrayed the secrets of the guild he would deny me all trust and confidence in future. He expects me to be as brave as any woman can be in danger; but ever since that dreadful Malzac affair, I own to you I have no courage at all, and that I am tempted to fling myself into the middle of the fight, so much do I dread the results for those I love."

"And you call that want of courage, my brave girl?" I replied. "Now don't be troubled and leave me to act. The devil will be very cunning if I can't discover for myself, without suspicion falling on you, what those bagpipers are about; and if your father blames me, if he even drives me away and refuses the happiness I have been hoping to win,--I shall not care, Thérence! So long as I bring him or send him safe back to you, and Huriel also, I shall have my reward even if I never see you again. Good-bye; don't give way to anxiety; say nothing to Brulette, for she would lose her head. I know what should be done. Look as if you knew nothing. I take it all on my shoulders."

Thérence flung herself on my breast and kissed me on both cheeks with the innocence of a pure girl; so, filled to the brim with courage and confidence, I went to work.

I began by finding Leonard, whom I knew to be a good fellow, very bold and strong, and much attached to Père Bastien. Though he was rather jealous of me on the score of Thérence, he entered into my scheme, and I questioned him as to the number of bagpipers who were to meet for the competition, and the place where we could watch the assembly. He could not tell me anything under the first head; as to the second he knew that the trial was not to be in secret, and the place appointed was Saint-Chartier, in Benoît's tavern, an hour after vespers. The deliberation on the merits of the candidates was all that was to be held in secret, and even that was to be in the same house, and the decision was to be rendered in public.

I thought of half a dozen resolute lads fully able to keep the peace if, as Thérence feared, the matter should end in a quarrel; and I felt that justice being on our side, plenty of other fellows would come forward to support us. So I chose four who consented to follow me,--making, with Leonard and myself, six in all. They hesitated only on one point,--the fear of displeasing their master, the Head-Woodsman, by giving him help he had never asked for; but I swore to them that he should never know that they gave it deliberately, for we could easily pretend we were there by accident, and then, if any one were blamed, they could throw it all on me, who had asked them there to drink without their knowing what was going on.

So it was all agreed, and I went to tell Thérence that we were fully prepared against every danger. After which we started, each carrying a stout cudgel, and reached Saint-Chartier at the hour named.

Benoît's wine-shop was so full there was no turning round in it, and we were obliged to take a table outside. Indeed I was not sorry to leave my contingent there (exhorting them not to get drunk), and to slip myself into the shop, where I counted sixteen professional bagpipers, without reckoning Huriel and his father, who were sitting at table in a dark corner with their hats over their eyes, and all the less likely to be recognized because few of those present had met them in our parts. I pretended not to see them, and speaking so that they could hear me, I asked Benoît what this meeting of bagpipers was for, as if I had not heard a word about it, and did not understand its object.

"Why, don't you know," said the host, who was getting over his illness but was pallid and much reduced, "that your old friend Joseph, the son of my housekeeper, is going to compete with Carnat's son? I must say it is great folly on his part," added Benoît, lowering his voice. "His mother is much distressed, and fears the ill-will that grows out of these competitions. Indeed, she is so troubled that she has lost her head, and the customers are complaining, for the first time, that she does not serve them properly."

"Can I help you?" I said, glad to get a reason for staying inside and going about among the tables.

"Faith, my boy," he replied, "if you really mean it, you can do me good service; for I don't deny that I am still pretty weak, and I can't stoop to draw the wine without getting giddy. Here is the key of the cellar. Take charge of filling and bringing in the jugs. I hope that Mariton and her scullions can do the rest."

I didn't need telling twice; I ran out for an instant to tell my companions of the employment I had taken for the good of the cause, and then I went to work as tapster, which enabled me to see and hear everything.

Joseph and the younger Carnat were at either end of a long table feasting the guild, each taking the guests half-way down. There was more noise than pleasure going on. The company were shouting and singing to avoid talking, for they were all on the defensive, and it was easy to feel the jealousies and self-interests heaving below. I soon observed that all the bagpipers were not, as I had feared, in favor of the Carnats against Joseph; for, no matter how well a guild is managed, there are always old grudges which set members by the ears. But I also saw, little by little, that there was no comfort for Joseph in this, because those who did not want his rival, wanted him still less, and hoped to get the number of professional bagpipers lessened by the retirement of old Carnat. I even fancied that the greater number thought in this way, and I concluded that both candidates would be rejected.

After feasting for about two hours, the competition began. Silence was not demanded; for bagpipes in a room are instruments that don't trouble themselves about other noises, and the shouters and talkers soon gave up the contest. A crowd of people pressed in from outside. My five comrades climbed on the open window sill, and I went and stood near them. Huriel and his father did not stir from their corner. Carnat, who drew the lot to begin, mounted the bread-box and, encouraged by his father, who could not restrain himself from beating time with his sabots, played for half an hour on the old-fashioned bagpipe of the country with its narrow wind-bag.

He played very badly, being much agitated, and I saw that this pleased the greater part of the bagpipers. They kept silence, as they always did, so as to seem solemn and important, but others present kept silence too. This hurt the poor fellow, who had hoped for a little encouragement, and his father began to growl, and to show his revengeful and malicious nature.

When Joseph's turn came, he tore himself away from his mother, who was still entreating him in a low voice not to compete. He, too, mounted the box, holding his great Bourbonnaise bagpipe with great ease, the which quite dazzled the eyes of all present with its silver ornaments, its bits of looking-glass, and the great length of its pipes. Joseph carried himself proudly, looking round contemptuously on those who were to hear him. Everyone noticed his good looks, and the young fellows about asked if he could really be "José the dullard," whom they had once thought so stupid, and seen so puny. But his haughty air disgusted everybody, and as soon as the sound of his instrument filled the room there was more fear than pleasure in the curiosity he excited.