Part 27

"I interfere at my own risk and to your shame," replied the Head-Woodsman. "I am not a traitor, and you are evil-doers, both treacherous and cruel. I suspected that you were tricking us to lead this young man here and wound him, perhaps dangerously. You hate him because you know that every one will prefer him to you, and that wherever he is heard no one will listen to your music. You have not dared to refuse him admission to the guild, because the whole country would blame you for such a crying injustice; but you are trying to frighten him from playing in the parishes you have taken possession of, and you have put him through hard and dangerous tests which none of you could have borne as long as he."

"I don't know what you mean," said the old dean, Pailloux de Verneuil; "and the blame you cast upon us here, in presence of a candidate, is unheard-of insolence. We don't know how you practise initiation in your part of the country, but here we are following our customs and shall not allow you to interfere."

"I shall interfere," said Huriel, who was sopping Joseph's blood with his handkerchief, and had brought him back to consciousness, as he held him on his knee. "I neither can nor will tell of your conduct away from here, because I belong to the brotherhood, but at least I will tell you to your faces that you are brutes. In our country we fight with the devil in jest, taking care to do no one any harm. Here you choose the strongest among you and furnish him with hidden weapons, with which he endeavors to put out the eyes and stab the veins of your victims. See! this young man is exhausted, and in the rage which your wickedness excited in him, he would have let you kill him if we had not stopped the fight. And then what would you have done? You would have flung his body into that vault, where so many other unfortunates have perished, whose bones ought to rise and condemn you for being as cruel as your former lords."

These words reminded me of the apparition I had forgotten, and I turned round to see if it was still there. I could not see it, and then I bethought me of finding my way to the lower cave, where, as I began to think, I might be useful to my friends. I found the stairway at once and went down to the entrance of the vault, not trying to conceal myself, for such disputing and confusion were going on that no one paid any attention to me.

The Head-Woodsman had picked up the devil's skin-coat and showed that it was covered with spikes like a comb for currying oxen; and also the mittens which the sham devil wore on his hands, in which strong nails were fastened with the points outside. The bagpipers were furious. "Here's a pretty fuss about a few scratches," cried Carnat. "Isn't it in the order of things that a devil should have claws? And this young fool, who attacked him so imprudently, why didn't he know how far he could play at that game without getting his snout scraped? Come, come, don't pity him so much; it's a mere nothing; and since he has had enough of it, let him confess he can't play at our games, and is not fit to belong to our guild in any way."

"I shall belong to it!" cried Joseph, wrenching himself from Huriel's arms and showing as he did so his torn shirt and bleeding breast. "I shall belong to it in spite of you! I insist that the fight shall go on, and one of us be left in this cavern."

"I forbid it!" said the Head-Woodsman, "and I insist that this young man shall be proclaimed victor, or I swear to bring into this place a company of bagpipers who shall teach you how to behave, and who will see justice done."

"You?" said Doré-Fratin, drawing a sort of boar-knife from his belt. "You can do so if you choose, but you shall carry with you some marks on your body, so that people may believe your reports."

The Head-Woodsman and Huriel put themselves in an attitude of defence. Joseph flung himself upon Fratin to get away his knife, and I made one bound in amongst them. But before any of us could strike a blow the figure that startled me so in the upper cavern appeared at the opening of the lower one, stretched forth his lance, and slowly advanced in a way to strike terror to the minds of the evil-doers. Then, as they all paused, dumbfounded with fear and amazement, a piteous voice was heard from the depths of the dungeon, reciting the prayers for the dead.

This routed the whole brotherhood. One of the pipers cried out: "The dead! the dead are rising!" and they all fled, pell-mell, yelling and pushing through the various openings except that to the dungeon, where stood another figure wrapped in a winding-sheet, chanting the most dismal sing-song that anybody ever heard. A minute later all our enemies had disappeared, and the warrior flinging off his helmet and mask, we beheld the jovial face of Benoît, while the monk, getting out of his winding sheet, was holding his sides in convulsions of laughter.

"May God forgive me for masquerading," he said. "I did it with the best intentions; those rascals deserve a good lesson, if it is only to teach them not to laugh at the devil, of whom they are really more afraid than those whom they threaten with him."

"For my part, I felt quite certain," said Benoît, "that our comedy would put an end to theirs." Then, noticing Joseph's wounds, he grew very uneasy, and showed such feeling for him that all this, together with the succor he had brought in so timely a manner, proved to my mind his regard for his step-son, and his good heart, which I had hitherto doubted.

While we examined Joseph and convinced ourselves he was not very seriously hurt, the monk told us how the butler at the castle had once said to him that he allowed the bagpipers and other societies to hold their secret meetings in the cellars of the castle. Those in which we found ourselves were too far from the inhabited parts of the castle to disturb the lady mistress of Saint-Chartier, and, indeed, if it had, she would only have laughed, not imagining that any mischief could come of it. But Benoît, who suspected some evil intent, had got the same butler to give him a key to the cellars, and a disguise; and that was how it was that he got these in time to avert all danger.

"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, addressing him, "thank you for your assistance; but I rather regret you came, for those fellows are capable of declaring that I asked you to do so and consequently that I betrayed the secrets of the guild. If you will take my advice we had better get away noiselessly, at once, and leave them to think you were really ghosts."

"All the more," added Benoît, "that their wrath may deprive me of their custom, which is no slight matter. I hope they did not recognize Tiennet--but how the devil was it that Tiennet got here in the nick of time?"

"Didn't you bring him?" asked Huriel.

"That he didn't," said I. "I came on my own account, because of the stories they tell of your deviltries. I was curious to see them; but I swear to you those fellows were too scared and the sight of their eyes was too wide of the mark ever to have recognized me."

We were about to leave when the sound of angry voices and an uproar like that of a fight was heard.

"Dear, dear!" cried the monk, "what's that now? I think they are coming back and we have not yet done with them. Quick, let's get back into our disguises!"

"No," said Benoît, listening, "I know what it is. I met, as I came along through the castle cellars, four or five young fellows, one of whom is known to me; and that is Leonard, your Bourbonnais wood-chopper, Père Bastien. These lads were there from curiosity no doubt; but they had got bewildered in the caverns, and I lent them my lantern, telling them to wait for me. The bagpipers must have met them and they are giving chase."

"It is more likely that they are being chased themselves if there are not more than five of them," said Huriel. "Let us go and see."

We were just starting when the noise and the footsteps approached, and Carnat, Doré-Fratin, and eight others returned to the cave, having, in fact, exchanged a few blows with our comrades, and finding that they had to do with real flesh and blood instead of spectres, were ashamed of their cowardice and so came back again. They reproached the Huriels for having betrayed them and driven them into an ambush. The Head-Woodsman defended himself, and the monk tried to secure peace by taking it all upon himself, telling the bagpipers to repent of their sins. But they felt themselves in good force, for others kept coming back to their support; and when they found their numbers nearly complete they raised their voices to a roar, and went from reproaches to threats and from threats to blows. Seeing there was no way to avoid an encounter, all the more because they had drunk a good deal of brandy while the tests were going on and were more or less intoxicated, we put ourselves in an attitude of defence, pressing one against the other, and showing front to the enemy on all sides, like oxen when a troop of wolves attack them at pasture. The monk, having already lost his morality and his Latin, now lost his patience also, and seizing the pipe of an instrument which had got broken in the scrimmage, he laid about him as hard as a man well could, in defence of his own skin.

Unluckily, Joseph was weakened by the loss of blood, and Huriel, who bore upon his heart the recollection of Malzac's death, was more fearful of giving blows than of receiving them. Anxious to protect his father, who sprang into the fray like an old lion, he put himself in great danger. Benoît fought very well for a man who was just out of an illness; but the truth is we were only six against fifteen or sixteen, and as the blood rose anger came, and I saw our enemies opening their knives. I had only time to fling myself before the Head-Woodsman, who, still unwilling to draw his blade, was the object of their bitterest anger. I received a wound in the arm, which I hardly felt at the moment, but which hindered my fighting on, and I thought the day was lost, when, by great good luck, my four comrades decided to come and see what the noise was about. The reinforcement was sufficient, and together we put to flight, for the second time and the last, our exhausted enemies, taken in the rear and ignorant how many were upon them.

I saw that victory was ours and that none of my friends were much hurt; then, suddenly perceiving that I had got more than I wanted, I fell like a log and neither knew nor felt another thing.

THIRTY-SECOND EVENING.

When I came to my senses I found myself in the same bed with Joseph, and it took me some time to recover full consciousness. When I did, I saw I was in Benoît's own room, that the bed was good, the sheets very white, and my arm bound up after a bleeding. The sun was shining through the yellow bed-curtains, and, except for a sense of weakness, I felt no ill. I turned to Joseph, who was a good deal cut about the head, but in no way to disfigure him, and who said, as he kissed me: "Well, my Tiennet, here we are, as in the old days, when we fought the boys of Verneuil on our way back from catechism, and were left lying together at the bottom of a ditch. You have protected me to your hurt, just as you did then, and I can never thank you as I ought; but you know, and I think you always knew, that my heart is not as churlish as my tongue."

"I have always known it," I replied, returning his kiss, "and if I have again protected you I am very glad of it. But you mustn't take too much for yourself. I had another motive--"

Here I stopped, fearing I might give way and let out Thérence's name; but just then a white hand drew back the curtain, and there I saw a vision of Thérence herself, leaning towards me, while Mariton went round between the bed and the wall to kiss and question her son.

Thérence bent over me, as I said; and I, quite overcome and thinking I was dreaming, tried to rise and thank her for her visit and assure her I was out of danger, when there! like a sick fool and blushing like a girl, I received from her lips the finest kiss that ever recalled the dead.

"What are you doing, Thérence?" I cried, grasping her hands, which I could almost have eaten up. "Do you want to make me crazy?"

"I want to thank you and love you all my life," she answered, "for you have kept your word to me; you have brought my father and my brother back to me safe and sound, and I know that all that you have done, all that has happened to you, is because you loved them and loved me. Therefore I am here to nurse you and not to leave you as long as you are ill."

"Ah, that's good, Thérence!" I said, sighing; "it is more than I deserve. Please God not to let me get well, for I don't know what would become of me afterwards."

"Afterwards?" said Père Bastien, coming into the room with Huriel and Brulette. "Come, daughter, what shall we do with him afterwards?"

"Afterwards?" said Thérence, blushing scarlet for the first time.

"Yes, Thérence the Sincere," returned her father, "speak as becomes a girl who never lies."

"Well, father, then afterwards, I will never leave him, either," she said.

"Go away, all of you!" I cried; "close the curtains; I want to get up and dress and dance and sing. I'm not ill; I have paradise inside of me--" and so saying I fell back in a faint, and saw and knew nothing more, except that I felt, in a kind of a dream, that Thérence was holding me in her arms and giving me remedies.

In the evening I felt better; Joseph was already about, and I might have been, too, only they wouldn't let me; and I was made to spend the evening in bed, while the rest sat and talked in the room, and my Thérence, sitting by my pillow, listened tenderly to what I said, letting me pour out in words all the balm that was in my heart.

The monk talked with Benoît, the pair washing down their conversation with several jorums of white wine, which they swallowed under the guise of a restorative medicine. Huriel and Brulette were together in a corner; Joseph with his mother and the Head-Woodsman in another.

Huriel was saying to Brulette: "I told you, the very first day I saw you, when I showed you your token in my earring, that it should stay there forever unless the ear itself came off. Well, the ear, though slit in the fight, is still there, and the token, though rather bent, is in the ear--see! The wound will heal, the token can be mended, and everything will come all right, by the grace of God."

Mariton was saying to Père Bastien: "What is going to be the result of this fight? Those men are capable of murdering my poor boy if he attempts to play his bagpipe in this region."

"No," replied Père Bastien, "all has happened for the best; they have had a good lesson, and there were witnesses enough outside of the brotherhood to keep them from venturing to attack Joseph or any of us again. They are capable of doing harm when, by force or persuasion, they have brought the candidate to take an oath. But Joseph took none; he will, however, be silent because he is generous. Tiennet will do the same, and so will our young woodsmen by my advice and order. But your bagpipers know very well that if they touch a hair of our heads all tongues will be loosened and the affair brought to justice."

And the monk was saying to Benoît: "I can't laugh as you do about the adventure, for I got into a passion which compels me to confess and do penance. I can forgive them the blows they tried to give me, but not those they forced me to give them. Ah! the prior of my convent is right enough to taunt me with my temper, and tell me I ought to combat not only the old Adam in me but the old peasant too,--that is, the man within me who loves wine and fighting. Wine," continued the monk, sighing, and filling his glass to the brim, "is conquered, thank God! but I discovered this night that my blood is as quarrelsome as ever, and that a mere tap could make me furious."

"But weren't you in a position of legitimate defence?" said Benoît. "Come, come; you spoke to those fellows in a proper manner, and you didn't strike till you were obliged to."

"That's all very true," replied the friar, "but my evil genius the prior will ask me questions,--he'll pump the truth out of me; and I shall be forced to confess that instead of doing it regretfully, I was carried away with the pleasure of striking like a sledge-hammer, forgetting I had a cassock on my back and thinking of the days when, keeping my flocks in the Bourbonnais pastures, I went about quarrelling with the other shepherds for the mere earthly vanity of proving I was the strongest and most obstinate of them all."

Joseph was silent; no doubt he felt badly at seeing two such happy couples without the right to sulk at them, after receiving such good support from Huriel and me. The Head-Woodsman, who had a tender spot in his heart for the fellow on account of his music, kept talking to him of glory. Joseph made great efforts to witness the happiness of others without showing jealousy; and we had to admit that, proud and cold as he was, there was in him an uncommon force of will for self-conquest. He remained hidden, as I did, for some time in his mother's house, till the marks of the fray were effaced; for the secret of the whole affair was very well kept by my comrades, though Leonard, who behaved very boldly and yet judiciously, threatened the bagpipers to reveal all to the authorities of the canton, if they did not conduct themselves peacefully.

When we all got about again it was found that no one was seriously damaged, except Père Carnat, whose wrist, as it proved, I had dislocated, and a parley and settlement ensued. It was agreed that Joseph should have certain parishes; and he had them assigned to him, though with no intention of using his privilege.

I was rather more ill than I thought for; not so much on account of my wound, which was not severe, nor yet of the blows that had been rained on my body, but because of the bleeding the monk had done to me with the best intentions. Huriel and Brulette had the charming amiability to put off their marriage till ours could take place; and a month later, the two weddings were celebrated,--in fact, there were three, for Benoît wished to acknowledge his publicly, and to celebrate the occasion with us. The worthy man, delighted to have had his heir so well taken care of by Brulette, tried to get her to accept a gift of some consequence, but she steadily refused, and throwing herself into Mariton's arms she said: "Remember that this dear woman was a mother to me for more than a dozen years; do you think I can take money when I am not yet out of her debt?"

"That maybe," said Mariton, "but your bringing up was nothing but honor and profit to me, whereas that of my Charlot brought you trouble and insult."

"My dear friend," replied Brulette, "that very fact is all that evens our account. I would gladly have made your José happy in return for all your goodness to me; but that did not depend on my poor heart, and so to compensate you for the grief I caused him, I was bound to suffer all I did for your other child."

"There's a girl for you!" cried Benoît, wiping his big round eyes, which were not used to shed tears. "Yes, yes, indeed, there's a girl!--" and he couldn't say any more.

To get even with Brulette, he was determined to pay all the costs of her wedding, and mine into the bargain. As he spared nothing and invited at least two hundred guests, it cost him a pretty sum, which he paid without a murmur.

The monk promised faithfully to be present, all the more because the prior had kept him on bread and water for a month and the embargo on his gullet was raised the very day of the wedding. He did not abuse his liberty, however, and behaved in such a pleasant way that we all became as fast friends with him as Huriel and Benoît had previously been.

Joseph kept up his courage till the day of the wedding. In the morning he was pale, and apparently deep in thought; but as we left the church he took the bagpipe from my father-in-law's hand, and played a wedding march which he had composed that very night in our honor. It was such a beautiful piece of music, and was so applauded, that his gloom disappeared, and he played triumphantly his best dance airs all the evening, and quite forgot himself and his troubles the whole time the festivities lasted.

He followed us back to Chassin, and there the Head-Woodsman, having settled his affairs, addressed us one and all, as follows:--

"My children, you are now happy, and rich for country folks; I leave you the business of this forest, which is a good one, and all I possess elsewhere is yours. You can spend the rest of the season here, and during that time you can decide on your plans for the future. You belong to different parts of the country; your tastes and habits are not alike. Try, my sons, both of you, to find what kind of life will make your wives happy and keep them from regretting their marriages now so well begun. I shall return within a year. Let me have two fine grandchildren to welcome me. You can then tell me what you have decided to do. Take your time; a thing that seems good to-day may seem worse, or better, to-morrow."

"Where are going, father?" said Thérence, clasping him in her arms in fear.

"I am going to travel about with Joseph, and play our music as we go," answered Père Bastien. "He needs it; and as for me, I have hungered for it these thirty years."

Neither tears nor entreaties could keep him, and that evening we escorted them half way to Saint Sevère. There, as we embraced Père Bastien with many tears, Joseph said to us: "Don't be unhappy. I know very well he is sacrificing the sight of your happiness to my good, for he has a father's heart for me and knows I am the most to be pitied of his children; but perhaps I shall not need him long; and I have an idea you will see him sooner than he thinks for." Then he added, kneeling before my wife and Huriel's, "Dear sisters, I have offended both of you, and I have been punished enough by my own thoughts. Will you not forgive me, so that I may forgive myself and go away more peacefully?"

They both kissed him with the utmost affection, and then he came to each of us, and said, with surprising warmth of heart, the kindest and most affectionate words he had ever said in his life, begging us to forgive his faults and to hold him in remembrance.

We stood on a hill to watch them as long as possible. Père Bastien played vigorously on his bagpipe, turning round from time to time to wave his cap and blow kisses with his hand.

Joseph did not turn round; he walked in silence, with his head down as if in thought or in grief. I could not help saying to Huriel that I saw on his face as he left us that strange look I had seen in his childhood, which, in our parts, is thought the sign of a man doomed to evil.

Our tears were dried, little by little, in the sunshine of happiness and hope. My beautiful dear wife made a greater effort than the rest of us, for never before being parted from her father, she seemed to have lost a portion of her soul in losing him; and I saw that in spite of her courage, her love for me, and the happiness she felt in the prospect of becoming a mother, there was always something lacking for which she sighed in secret. So my mind was constantly turning on how to arrange our lives to live in future with Père Bastien, were it even necessary to sell my property, give up my family, and follow my wife wherever she wished to live.

It was just the same with Brulette, who was determined to consult only her husband's tastes, specially when her old grandfather, after a brief illness, died quietly, as he had lived, protected by the care and love of his dear daughter.