Part 25

Nevertheless, there were present persons who knew good music, particularly the choir of the parish church and the hemp-spinners, who are great judges, and even elderly women, guardians of the good things of the past; and among such as these Joseph's music was quickly accepted, as much for the easy manner in which he used his instrument as for the good taste he displayed and the correct rendering which he gave to the new and very beautiful airs he played. A remark being made by the Carnats that his bagpipe, having a fuller sound, gave him an advantage, he unscrewed it and used only the chanter, which he played so well that the music was even more delightful than before. Finally, he took Carnat's old fashioned bagpipe, and played it so cleverly that any one would have said it was another instrument than the one first used.

The judges said nothing; but all others present trembled with pleasure and applauded vehemently, declaring that nothing so fine had ever been heard in our parts; and old mother Bline de la Breuille, who was eighty-seven years old and neither deaf nor dumb, walked up to the table and rapping it with her distaff said to the bagpipers, with the freedom her age warranted:--

"You may make faces as much as you like and shake your heads, but there's not one of you can play against that lad; he'll be talked of two hundred years hence; but all your names will be forgotten before your carcasses are rotten in the earth."

Then she left the room, saying (as did all present) that if the bagpipers rejected Joseph it would be the worst injustice that was ever done, and the wickedest jealousy that could be confessed.

The conclave of bagpipers now ascended to an upper room, and I hurried to open the door, hoping to gather something by overhearing what they said to each other in going up the stairs. The last to enter were the Head-Woodsman and his son; as they did so, Père Carnat, who recognized Huriel from having seen him with us at the midsummer bonfire, asked what they wanted and by what right they came to the council.

"The right of membership in your guild," answered Père Bastien; "and if you doubt it, ask us the usual questions, or try us with any music you like."

On this they were allowed to enter and the door was shut. I tried to listen, but every one spoke in a low voice, and I could not be sure of anything, except that they recognized the right of the two strangers to be present, and that they were deliberating about the competition without either noise or dispute. Through a crack in the door I could see that they divided into parties of five or six, exchanging opinions in a low voice before they began to vote. But when the time for voting came, one of the bagpipers looked out to see if any one were listening, and I was forced to disappear in a hurry lest I should be caught in a position which would put me to shame without an excuse; for I certainly could not say that my friends were in danger in such a peaceful conclave.

I found my young fellows below, sitting at table with others of our acquaintance, who were toasting and complimenting Joseph. Carnat the younger was alone and gloomy in a corner,--forgotten and mortified. The monk was there, too, in the chimney-corner, inquiring of Mariton and Benoît what was going on. When told all about it he came up to the long table, where they were drinking with Joseph, and asking him where and from whom he had got his teaching.

"Friend Joseph," said he, "we know each other, you and I, and I wish to add my voice to the applause you are now, of good right, receiving. But permit me to point out that it is generous as well as wise to console the vanquished, and that in your place, I should make friendly advances to young Carnat, whom I see over there all alone and very sad."

The monk spoke so as to be heard only by Joseph and a few others who were near him, and I thought he did so as much out of kind-heartedness as by instigation of Joseph's mother, who wanted the Carnats to get over their aversion to her son.

This appeal to Joseph's generosity flattered his vanity. "You are right, Brother Nicolas," he said; then, in a loud voice, he called to young Carnat:--

"Come, François, don't sulk at your friends. You did not play as well as you know how to, I am quite sure. But you shall have your revenge another time; besides, judgment is not given yet. So, instead of turning your back on us, come and drink, and let us be as quiet together as a pair of oxen yoked to a cart."

Everybody approved of this speech, and Carnat, fearing to seem jealous, accepted the offer and sat down near him. So far so good, but Joseph could not keep from showing his opinion that his art was far above that of others, and in offering civilities to his rival he put on such a patronizing manner that Carnat was more hurt than ever.

"You talk as if you were already elected," he said, "and it is no such thing. It is not always for the skill of the fingers and the cleverest compositions that those who know what they are about select a man. Sometimes they choose him for being the best-known and most respected player in the country, for that makes him a good comrade to the rest of the guild."

"Oh! I expect that," returned Joseph. "I have been long absent, and though I pique myself on deserving as much respect as any man, yet I know they will try to fall back on the foolish reason that I am little known. Well, I don't care for that, François! I did not expect to find a company of good musicians among you, capable of judging me or my merits, and lovers enough of true knowledge to prefer my talent to their own interests and that of their acquaintances. All that I wanted was to be heard and judged by my mother and friends,--by intelligent ears and reasonable beings. For the rest, I laugh at your screaming and bellowing bagpipes, and I must say, God forgive me! that I shall be prouder of being rejected than accepted."

The monk remarked gently that he was not speaking judiciously. "You should not challenge the judges you demanded of your own free-will," he said; "pride spoils the highest merit."

"Leave him his pride," said Carnat; "I am not jealous of what he can show. He ought to have some talent, to cover his other misfortunes. Remember the old saying: 'Good player, good dupe.'"

"What do you mean by that?" said Joseph, setting down his glass and looking the other in the eye.

"I am not obliged to tell you," said Carnat; "all the others understand it."

"But I don't understand it, and as you are speaking to me I'll call you a coward if you dare not explain yourself."

"Oh, I can tell you to your face," returned Carnat; "it is something that need not offend you at all, for perhaps it is no more your fault to be unlucky in love than it is mine to be unlucky to-night in music."

"Come, come!" said one of the young men who were present; "let _Josette_ alone. She has found some one to marry her, and that's enough; it is nobody's business."

"It is my opinion," said another, "that it was not Joseph who was tricked in that affair, but the other who is going to shoulder his work."

"Whom are you speaking of?" cried Joseph, as if his head were reeling. "Who is it you call _Josette_? What wicked nonsense are you trying on me?"

"Hold your tongues!" cried Mariton, turning scarlet with anger and grief, as she always did when Brulette was attacked. "I wish your wicked tongues were torn out and nailed to the church door."

"Speak lower," said one of the young men; "you know that Mariton won't allow a word against her José's fair friend. All beauties uphold each other, and Mariton is not yet so old but what she has a voice in the chapter."

Joseph was puzzling his brains to know whether they were blaming or ridiculing him.

"Explain it to me," he said, pulling me by the arm. "Don't leave me without a word to say."

I was just going to meddle, though I had vowed I wouldn't get into any dispute in which Père Bastien and his son were not concerned, when François Carnat cut me short. "Nonsense!" he said to Joseph, with a sneer; "Tiennet can't tell you more than what I wrote you."

"That is what you are talking of, is it?" said Joseph. "Well, I swear you lie! and that you have written and signed false witness. Never--"

"Bravo!" cried Carnat. "You knew how to make your profit out of my letter! and if, as people think, you are the author of that child, you have not been such a fool, after all, in getting rid of your property to a friend,--a faithful friend, too, for there he is upstairs, looking after your interests in the council. But if, as I now think, you came into these parts to assert your right to the child, which was refused, that accounts for a queer scene which I saw from a distance at the castle of Chassin--"

"What scene?" said the monk. "Let me tell you, young man, that I too may have witnessed it, and I want to know how truly you relate the things that you see."

"As you please," returned Carnat. "I will tell you what I saw with my own eyes, without hearing a word that was said; and you may explain it as you can. You are to know, the rest of you, that on the last day of last month Joseph got up early in the morning to hang his May bunch on Brulette's door; and seeing a baby about two years old, which of course was his, he wanted no doubt to get possession of it, for he seized it, as if to go off with it; and then began a sharp dispute, in which his friend the Bourbonnais wood-cutter (the same that is upstairs now with his father, and who is to marry Brulette next Sunday) struck him violently and then embraced the mother and child; after which Joseph was gently shoved out of the door and did not show his face there again. I call that one of the queerest histories I ever knew. Twist it as you will, it still remains the tale of a child claimed by two fathers, and of a girl who, instead of giving herself to the first seducer, kicks him away as unworthy or incapable of bringing up the child of their loves."

Instead of answering, as he had proposed to do, Brother Nicolas returned to the chimney, and talked in a low voice, but very eagerly, with Benoît. Joseph was so taken aback at the interpretation put upon a matter of which, after all, he did not know the real meaning, that he looked all round him for assistance, and as Mariton had rushed from the room like a crazy woman, there was no one but me to put down Carnat. The latter's speech had created some astonishment, but no one thought of defending Brulette, against whom they still felt piqued. I began to take her part; but Carnat interrupted me at the first word:--

"Oh! as for you," he said, "no one accuses you. I dare say you played your part in good faith, though it is known that you were used to deceive people by bringing the child from the Bourbonnais. But you are so simple, Tiennet, you may never have suspected anything.--The devil take me!" he continued, addressing the company, "if that fellow isn't as stupid as a basket. He is capable of being godfather to a child believing all the while they were christening a clock. He probably went into the Bourbonnais to fetch this godson of his, who, they told him, was found in a cabbage, and he brought it back in a pilgrim's sack. In fact he is such a slave and good cousin to the girl, that if she had tried to make him believe the boy was like him he would have thought so too."

THIRTIETH EVENING.

There was no use in protesting and getting angry; the company were more inclined to laugh than to listen, for it is always a great delight to misbehaving fellows to speak ill of a poor girl. They make haste to plunge her in the mire, reserving the right to deny it if they find she is innocent.

In the midst of their slanderous speeches, however, a loud voice, slightly weakened by illness but still capable of drowning every other in the room, made itself heard. It was that of the master of the tavern, long accustomed to quell the dissensions of wine and the hubbub of junketing.

"Hold your tongues," he said, "and listen to me, or I'll turn you out this moment, if I never open the house again. Be silent about an honest girl whom you decry because you have all found her too virtuous. As to the real parents of the child who has given rise to these tales, tell them to their face what fault you find with them, for here they are before you. Yes," he continued, drawing Mariton, who was holding Charlot in her arms and weeping, up to him, "here is the mother of my heir, and this is my son whom I recognize by my marriage to this good woman. If you ask me for exact dates, I shall tell you to mind your own business; nevertheless, to any who have the right to question me, I will show deeds which prove that I have always recognized the child as mine, and that his mother was my legitimate wife before his birth, though the matter was kept secret."

The silence of astonishment fell on everybody; and Joseph, who had risen at the first words, stood stock still like a stone image. The monk who noticed the doubt, shame, and anger in his eyes, thought best to add further explanations. He told us that Benoît had been unable to make his marriage public because of the opposition of a rich relative, who had lent him money for his business, and who might have ruined him by demanding it back. As Mariton feared for her reputation, specially on account of her son Joseph, they had concealed Charlot's birth and had put him to nurse at Saint-Sevère; but, at the end of a year Mariton had found him so ill-used that she begged Brulette to take charge of him, thinking that no one else would give him as much care. She had not foreseen the harm this would do to the young girl, and when she did find it out, she wished to remove the child, but Benoît's illness had prevented her doing so, and moreover Brulette had become so attached to Charlot that she would not part with him.

"Yes!" cried Mariton, "poor dear soul that she is, she proved her courage for me. 'You will have trouble enough,' she said to me, 'if you lose your husband; and, perhaps your marriage will be questioned by the family. He is too ill to trouble him now about declaring it. Have patience; don't kill him by talking of your affairs. Everything will come right if God grant that he recovers.'"

"And if I have recovered," added Benoît, "it is by the care of this good woman, my wife, and the kindheartedness of the young girl in question, who patiently endured both blame and insult rather than cause me injury at that time by exposing our secrets. And here is another faithful friend," he added, pointing to the monk,--"a man of sense, of action, and of honest speech, an old school friend of mine in the days when I was educating at Montluçon. He it was who went after my old devil of an uncle, and who at last, no later than this morning, persuaded him to consent to my marriage with my good housekeeper; and when my uncle had given his word to make me heir to his whole property, Brother Nicolas told him the priest had already joined Mariton and me, and showed him that fat Charlot, whom he thought a fine boy and very like the author of his existence."

Benoît's satisfaction revived the lost gayety of the party; every one was struck with the resemblance, which, however, no one had yet noticed,--I as little as any.

"So, Joseph," continued the innkeeper, "you can and ought to love and respect your mother, just as I love and respect her. I take my oath here and now that she is the bravest and most helpful Christian woman that ever a sick man had about him; and I have never had a moment's hesitation in my resolve to declare sooner or later what I have declared to-day. We are now very well off in our worldly affairs, thank God, and as I swore to her and to God that I would replace the father you lost, I will agree, if you will live here with us, to take you into partnership and to give you a good share of the profits.' So you needn't fling yourself into bagpiping, in which your mother sees all sorts of ills for you and anxieties for her. Your notion was to get her a home. That's my affair now, and I even offer to make hers yours. Come, you'll listen to us, won't you, and give up that damned music? Why can't you live in your own country and stay at home? You needn't blush at having an honest innkeeper for a step-father."

"You are my step-father, that's very certain," replied Joseph, not showing either pleasure or displeasure, but remaining coldly on the defensive; "you are an honest man, I know, and rich, I see, and if my mother is happy with you--"

"Yes, yes, Joseph, as happy as possible; above all to-day," cried Mariton, kissing him, "for I hope you will never leave me again."

"You are mistaken, mother," answered Joseph; "you no longer have any need of me, and you are contented. All is well. You were the only thing that brought me back into this part of the country; you were all I had to love, for Brulette--and it is well that all present should hear this from my own mouth--for Brulette never had any feeling but that of a sister for me. Now I am free to follow my destiny; which is not a very kindly one, but it is so plainly mine that I prefer it to all the money of innkeeping and the comfort of family life. Farewell, mother, God bless those who make you happy; as for me, I want nothing in these parts, not even admission to the guild which evil-intentioned fools are trying to deny me. My inward thoughts and my bagpipe go with me wherever I am; and I know I can always earn my living, for wherever my music is heard I shall be welcome."

As he spoke the door to the staircase opened and the whole company of bagpipers entered in silence. Père Carnat requested the attention of those present, and in a firm and cheerful manner, which surprised everybody, he said:--

"François Carnat, my son, after careful examination of your merits and full discussion of your rights, you are declared too much of a novice for present admission. You are advised to study a while longer, without discouragement, so as to present yourself for competition later when circumstances may be more favorable. And you, Joseph Picot, of the village of Nohant, the decision of the masters of this part of the country is that you be, by reason of your unparalleled talents, received into the first class of the guild; and this decision is unanimous."

"Well," replied Joseph, who seemed wholly indifferent to his victory and to the applause with which it was received, "as the matter has turned out this way, I accept the decision, although, not expecting it, I hardly care for it."

Joseph's haughty manner displeased everybody, and Père Carnat hastened to sav, with an air which I thought showed disguised malignity: "Does that mean, Joseph, that you wish for the honor and the title, and do not intend to take your place among the professional bagpipers in these parts?"

"I don't know yet," said Joseph, evidently by way of bravado, and not wishing to satisfy his judges. "I'll think about it."

"I believe," said young Carnat to his father, "that he has thought about it already, and his decision is made, for he hasn't the courage to go on with the matter."

"Courage?" cried Joseph, "courage for what, if you please?"

Then the dean of the bagpipers, old Paillou of Verneuil, said to Joseph:--

"You are surely not ignorant, young man, that something more than playing an instrument is required, to be received into our guild; there is such a thing as a musical catechism, which you must know and on which you will be questioned, if you feel you have the knowledge and also the boldness to answer. Moreover, there are certain oaths to be taken. If you feel no repugnance to these things, you must decide at once to submit to them, so that the matter may be settled to-morrow morning."

"I understand you," said Joseph. "The guild has secret oaths, and tests and trials. They are all great folly, as far as I know, and music has no part in them, for I defy you to reply to any musical question which I might put to you. Consequently, the questions you address to me on a subject you know less about than the frogs in the pond, are no better than old women's gabble."

"If you take it that way," said Renet, the Mers bagpiper, "we are willing you should think yourself a great genius and the rest of us jackasses. So be it. Keep your secrets, and we will keep ours. We are not anxious to tell them to those who despise us. But remember one thing: here is your certificate as a master bagpiper, which we now hand to you, signed and sealed by all, including your friends the Bourbonnais bagpipers, who agree that all is done in good order. You are free to exercise your talents where you please and where you can; except in the parishes where we play and which number one hundred and fifty, according to the distribution we make among ourselves, the list of which will be handed to you; in those parishes you are forbidden to play. We give notice that if you break this rule it will be at your own risk and peril, for we shall put a stop to it, if need be, by main force."

Here Mariton spoke up.

"You needn't threaten him," she said, "it is safe to leave him to his own fancy, which is to play his music and look for no profit. He has no need to do that, thank God, and besides, his lungs are not strong enough for your business. Come, Joseph, thank them for the honor have done you, and don't keep them anxious about their interests. Let the matter be settled now, and here's my man who will pay the pipers with a good quartern of Sancerre or Issoudun wine, at the choice of the company."

"That's all right," said old Carnat. "We are quite willing the matter should end thus. It is best, no doubt, for your son; for one needn't be either a fool or a coward to shrink from the tests, and I do think the poor fellow is not cut out to endure them."

"We will see about that!" cried Joseph, falling into the trap that was set for him, in spite of the warnings Père Bastien was giving him in a low voice. "I demand the tests; and as you have no right to refuse them after delivering to me the certificate, I intend to practise your calling if I choose, or, at any rate, to prove that I am not prevented from doing so by any of you."

"Agreed!" said the dean, showing plainly, as did Carnat and several others, the malignant pleasure Joseph's words afforded them. "We will now prepare for your initiation, friend Joseph. Remember there is no going back, and that you will be considered a milk-sop or a braggart if you change your mind."

"Go on, go on!" cried Joseph. "I'll await you on a firm foot."

"It is for us to await you," said old Carnat in his ear, "at the stroke of midnight."

"Where?" said Joseph, coolly.

"At the gate of the cemetery," replied the dean, in a low voice. Then, without accepting the wine which Benoît offered them, or giving heed to the remonstrances of his wife, they went off in a body, threatening evil to all who followed them or spied upon their mysteries.

The Head-Woodsman and Huriel went with them without a word to Joseph, by which I plainly saw that, although the pair were opposed to the spirit of the other bagpipers, they thought it none the less their duty not to warn Joseph, nor to betray in the slightest degree the secrets of the guild.