Part 6

"That is not exactly our way," he said. "But come on, I shan't spare you; if I hit harder than I mean to, surrender; for there's a time, you know, when one can't answer for one's self."

Once outside on the thick sward we off coats (not to spoil them uselessly), and began to wrestle, clasping thighs and lifting one another bodily. I had the advantage of him there, for he was taller than I by a head, and in bending over he gave me a better grip. Besides, he was not angry, and thinking he would soon get the better of me, he didn't put forth his strength. So being, I was able to floor him at the third round, falling on top of him, but there he recovered himself, and before I had time to strike he wound himself round me like a snake and squeezed me so closely that I lost my breath. Nevertheless, I managed to get up first and attack him again. When he saw that he had to do with a free hitter, and caught it well in the stomach and on the shoulders, he gave me as good as I sent, and I must own that his fist was like a sledge-hammer. But I would have died sooner than show I felt it; and each time that he cried out, "Surrender!" I plucked up courage and strength to pay him in his own coin. So for a good quarter of an hour the fight seemed even. Presently, however, I felt I was getting exhausted while he was only warming to the work; for if he had less activity than I, his age and temperament were in his favor. The end of it was that I was down beneath him and fairly beaten and unable to release myself. But for all that I wouldn't cry mercy; and when he saw that I would rather be killed he behaved like a generous fellow.

"Come, enough!" he cried, loosing his grip on my throat; "your will is stronger than your bones, I see that, and I might break them to bits before you would give in. That's right! and as you are a true man let us be friends. I beg your pardon for entering your house; and now let us talk over the damage my mules have done to you. I am as ready to pay you as to fight you; and afterwards, you shall give me a glass of wine so that we may part good friends."

The bargain concluded, I pocketed three crowns which he paid me for myself and my brother-in-law; then I drew the wine and we sat down to table. Three flagons of two pints each disappeared, for we were both thirsty enough after the game we had been playing, and Maître Huriel had a carcass which could hold as much as he liked to put into it. I found him a good fellow, a fine talker, and easy to get on with; and I, not wishing to seem behindhand in words or actions, filled his glass every two minutes and swore friendship till the roof rang.

Apparently, he felt no effects of the fight. I felt them badly enough; but not wishing to show it, I proposed a song, and squeezed one, with some difficulty, from my throat, which was still hot from the grip of his hands. He only laughed.

"Comrade," said he, "neither you nor yours know anything about singing. Your tunes are as flat and your wind as stifled as your ideas and your pleasures. You are a race of snails, always snuffing the same wind and sucking the same bark; for you think the world ends at those blue hills which limit your sky and which are the forests of my native land. I tell you, Tiennet, that's where the world begins, and you would have to walk pretty fast for many a night and day before you got out of those grand woods, to which yours are but a patch of pea-brush. And when you do get out of them you will find mountains and more forests, such as you have never seen, of the tall handsome fir-trees of Auvergne, unknown to your rich plains. But what's the good of telling you about these places that you will never see? You Berry folks are like stones which roll from one rut to another, coming back to the right hand when the cart-wheels have shoved them for a time to the left. You breathe a heavy atmosphere, you love your ease, you have no curiosity; you cherish your money and don't spend it, but also you don't know how to increase it; you have neither nerve nor invention. I don't mean you personally, Tiennet; you know how to fight (in defence of your own property), but you don't know how to acquire property by industry as we muleteers do, travelling from place to place, and taking, by fair means or foul, what isn't given with a good will."

"Oh! I agree to all that," I answered; "but don't you call yours a brigand's trade? Come, friend Huriel, wouldn't it be better to be less rich and more honest? for when it comes to old age will you enjoy your ill-gotten property with a clear conscience?"

"Ill-gotten! Look here, friend Tiennet," he said, laughing, "you who have, I suppose, like all the small proprietors about here, a couple of dozen sheep, two or three goats, and perhaps an old mare that feeds on the common, do you go and offer reparation if, by accident, your beasts bark your neighbor's trees and trample his young wheat? Don't you call in your animals as fast as you can, without saying a word about it; and if your neighbors take the law of you, don't you curse them and the law too? And if you could, without danger, get them off into a corner, wouldn't you make amends to yourself by belaboring their shoulders? I tell you, it is either cowardice or force that makes you respect the law, and it is because we avoid both that you blame us, out of jealousy of the freedom that we have known how to snatch."

"I don't like your queer morality, Huriel; but what has all this got to do with music? Why do you laugh at my song? Do you know a better?"

"I don't pretend to, Tiennet; but I tell you that music, liberty, beautiful wild scenery, lively minds, and, if you choose, the art of making money without getting stupefied,--all belong together like fingers to the hand. I tell you that shouting is not singing; you can bellow like deaf folks in your fields and taverns, but that's not music. Music is on our side of those hills, and not on yours. Your friend Joseph felt this, for his senses are more delicate than yours; in fact, my little Tiennet, I should only lose my time in trying to show you the difference. You are a Berrichon, as a swallow is a swallow; and what you are to-day you will be fifty years hence. Your head will whiten, but your brain will never be a day older."

"Why, do you think me a fool?" I asked, rather mortified.

"Fool? Not at all," he said. "Frank as to heart and shrewd as to interest,--that's what you are and ever will be; but living in body and lively in soul you never can be. And this is why, Tiennet," he added, pointing to the furniture of the room. "See these big-bellied beds where you sleep in feathers up to your eyes. You are spade and pickaxe folk,--toilers in the sun,--but you must have your downy beds to rest in. We forest fellows would soon be ill if we had to bury ourselves alive in sheets and blankets. A log hut, a fern bed,--that's our home and our furniture; even those of us who travel constantly and don't mind paying the inn charges, can't stand a roof over our heads; we sleep in the open air in the depth of winter, on the pack-saddles of our mules, with the snow for a coverlet. Here you have dresses and tables and chairs and fine china, ground glass, good wine, a roasting-jack and soup-pots, and heaven knows what? You think you must have all that to make you happy; you work your jaws like cows that chew the cud; and so, when obliged to get upon your feet and go back to work, you have a pain in your chest two or three times a day. You are heavy, and no gayer at heart than your beasts of burden. On Sundays you sit, with your elbows on the table, eating more than your hunger tells you to, and drinking more than your thirst requires; you think you are amusing yourself by storing up indigestion and sighing after girls who are only bored with you though they don't know why,--your partners in those dragging dances in rooms and barns where you suffocate; turning your holidays and festivals into a burden the more upon your spirits and stomachs. Yes, Tiennet, that's the life you live. To indulge your ease you increase your wants, and in order to live well you don't live at all."

"And how do you live, you muleteers?" I said, rather shaken by his remarks. "I don't speak now of your part of the country, of which I know nothing, but of you, a muleteer, whom I see there before me, drinking hard, with your elbows on the table, not sorry to find a fire to light your pipe and a Christian to talk with. Are you made different from other men? When you have led this hard life you boast of for a score of years, won't you spend your money, which you have amassed by depriving yourself of everything, in procuring a wife, a house, a table, a good bed, good wine, and rest at last?"

"What a lot of questions, Tiennet!" replied my guest. "You argue fairly well for a Berrichon. I'll try to answer you. You see me drink and talk because I am a man and like wine. Company and the pleasures of the table please me even more than they do you, for the very good reason that I don't need them and am not accustomed to them. Always afoot, snatching a mouthful as I can, drinking at the brooks, sleeping under the first oak I come to, of course it is a feast for me to come across a good table and plenty of good wine; but it is a feast, and not a necessity. To me, living alone for weeks at a time, the society of a friend is a holiday; I say more to him in one hour's talk than you would say in a day at a tavern. I enjoy all, and more, than you fellows do, because I abuse nothing. If a pretty girl or a forward woman comes after me in the woods to tell me that she loves me, she knows I have no time to dangle after her like a ninny and wait her pleasure; and I admit that in the matter of love I prefer that which is soon found to that you have to search and wait for. As to the future, Tiennet, I don't know if I shall ever have a home and a family; but if I do, I shall be more grateful to the good God than you are, and I shall enjoy its sweetness more, too. But I swear that my helpmate shall not be one of your buxom, red-faced women, let her be ever so rich. A man who loves liberty and true happiness never marries for money. I shall never love any woman who isn't slender and fair as a young birch,--one of those dainty, lively darlings, who grow in the shady woods and sing better than your nightingales."

"A girl like Brulette," I thought to myself. "Luckily she isn't here, for though she despises all of us, she might take a fancy to this blackamoor, if only by way of oddity."

The muleteer went on talking.

"And so, Tiennet, I don't blame you for following the road that lies before you; but mine goes farther and I like it best. I am glad to know you, and if you ever want me send for me. I can't ask the same of you, for I know that a dweller on the plains makes his will and confesses to the priest before he travels a dozen leagues to see a friend. But with us it isn't so; we fly like the swallows, and can be met almost everywhere. Good-bye. Shake hands. If you get tired of a peasant's life call the black crow from the Bourbonnais to get you out of it; he'll remember that he played the bagpipe on your back without anger, and surrendered to your bravery."

SEVENTH EVENING.

Thereupon Huriel departed to find Joseph, and I went to bed; for if up to that time I had concealed out of pride and forgotten out of curiosity the ache in my bones, I was none the less bruised from head to foot. Maître Huriel walked off gayly enough, apparently without feeling anything, but as for me I was obliged to stay in bed for nearly a week, spitting blood, with my stomach all upset. Joseph came to see me and did not know what to make of it all; for I was shy of telling him the truth, because it appeared that Huriel, in speaking to him of me, hadn't mentioned how we came to an explanation.

Great was the amazement of the neighborhood over the injury done to the wheat-fields of Aulnières, and the mule-tracks along the roads were something to wonder at. When I gave my brother-in-law the money I had earned with my sore bones I told him the whole story secretly, and as he was a good, prudent fellow, no one got wind of it.

Joseph had left his bagpipe at Brulette's and could not make use of it, partly because the haying left him no time, and also because Brulette, fearing Carnat's spite, did her best to put him out of the notion of playing.

Joseph pretended to give in; but we soon saw that he was concocting some other plan and thinking to hire himself out in another parish, where he could slip his collar and do as he pleased.

About midsummer he gave warning to his master to get another man in his place; but it was impossible to get him to say where he was going; and as he always replied, "I don't know," to any question he didn't choose to answer, we began to think he would really let himself be hired in the market-place, like the rest, without caring where he went.

As the Christians' Fair, so-called, is one of the great festivals of the town, Brulette went there to dance, and so did I. We thought we should meet Joseph and find out before the end of the day what master and what region he had chosen. But he did not appear either morning or evening on the market-place. No one saw him in the town. He had left his bagpipe, but he had carried off, the night before, all the articles he usually left in Père Brulet's house.

That evening as we came home,--Brulette and I and all her train of lovers with the other young folks of our parish,--she took my arm, and walking on the grassy side of the road away from the others, she said:--

"Do you know, Tiennet, that I am very anxious about José? His mother, whom I saw just now in town, is full of trouble and can't imagine where he has gone. A long time ago he told her he thought of going away; but now she can't find out where, and the poor woman is miserable."

"And you, Brulette," I said, "it seems to me that you are not very gay, and you haven't danced with the same spirit as usual."

"That's true," she answered; "I have a great regard for the poor lunatic fellow,--partly because I ought to have it, on account of his mother, and then for old acquaintance' sake, and also because I care for his fluting."

"Fluting! does it really have such an effect upon you?"

"There's nothing wrong in its effect, cousin. Why do you find fault with it?"

"I don't; but--"

"Come, say what you mean," she exclaimed, laughing; "for you are always chanting some sort of dirge about it, and I want to say amen to you once for all, so that I may hear the last of it."

"Well then, Brulette," I replied, "we won't say another word about Joseph, but let us talk of ourselves. Why won't you see that I have a great love for you? and can't you tell me that you will return it one of these days?"

"Oh! oh! are you talking seriously, this time?"

"This time and all times. It has always been serious on my part, even when shyness made me pretend to joke about it."

"Then," said Brulette, quickening her step with me that the others might not overhear us, "tell me how and why you love me; I'll answer you afterwards."

I saw she wanted compliments and flattery, but my tongue was not very ready at that kind of thing. I did my best, however, and told her that ever since I came into the world I had never thought of any one but her; for she was the prettiest and sweetest of girls, and had captivated me even before she was twelve years old.

I told nothing that she did not know already; indeed she said so, and owned she had seen it at the time we were catechised. But she added laughing:--

"Now explain why you have not died of grief, for I have always put you down; and tell me also why you are such a fine-grown, healthy fellow, if love, as you declare, has withered you."

"That's not talking seriously, as you promised me," I said.

"Yes, it is," she replied; "I am serious, for I shall never choose any one who can't swear that he has never in his life fancied, or loved, or desired any girl but me."

"Then it is all right, Brulette," I cried. "If that's so, I fear nobody, not even that José of yours, who, I will allow, never looked at a girl in his life, for his eyes can't even see you, or he wouldn't go away and leave you."

"Don't talk of Joseph; we agreed to let him alone," replied Brulette, rather sharply, "and as you boast of such very keen eyes, please confess that in spite of your love for me you have ogled more than one pretty girl. Now, don't tell fibs, for I hate lying. What were you saying so gayly to Sylvia only last year? And it isn't more than a couple of months since you danced two Sundays running, under my very nose, with that big Bonnina. Do you think I am blind, and that nobody comes and tells me things?"

I was rather mortified at first; but then, encouraged by the thought that there was a spice of jealousy in Brulette, I answered, frankly,--

"What I was saying to such girls, cousin, is not proper to repeat to a person I respect. A fellow may play the fool sometimes to amuse himself, and the regret he feels for it afterwards only proves that his heart and soul had nothing to do with it."

Brulette colored; but she answered immediately,--

"Then, can you swear to me, Tiennet, that my character and my face have never been lowered in your esteem by the prettiness or the amiability of any other girl,--never, since you were born?"

"I will swear to it," I said.

"Swear, then," she said; "but give all your mind, and all your religion to what you are going to say. Swear by your father and your mother, by your conscience and the good God, that no girl ever seemed to you as beautiful as I."

I was about to swear, when, I am sure I don't know why, a recollection made my tongue tremble. Perhaps I was very silly to heed it; a shrewder fellow wouldn't have done so, but I couldn't lie at the moment when a certain image came clearly before my mind. And yet, I had totally forgotten it up to that very moment, and should probably never have remembered it at all if it had not been for Brulette's questions and adjurations.

"You are in no hurry to swear," she said, "but I like that best; I shall respect you for the truth and despise you for a lie."

"Well then, Brulette," I answered, "as you want me to tell the exact truth I will do so. In all my life I have seen two girls, two children I might say, between whom I might have wavered as to preference if any one had said to me (for I was a child myself at the time), 'Here are two little darlings who may listen to you in after days; choose which you will have for a wife.' I should doubtless have answered, 'I choose my cousin,' because I knew how amiable you were, and I knew nothing of the other, having only seen her for ten minutes. And yet, when I came to think of it, it is possible I might have felt some regret, not because her beauty was greater than yours, for I don't think that possible, but because she gave me a good kiss on both cheeks, which you never gave me in your life. So I conclude that she is a girl who will some day give her heart generously, whereas your discretion holds me and always has held me in fear and trembling."

"Where is she now?" asked Brulette, who seemed struck by what I said. "What is her name?"

She was much surprised to hear that I knew neither her name nor the place she lived in, and that I called her in my memory "the girl of the woods." I told her the little story of the cart that stuck in the mud, and she asked me a variety of questions which I could not answer, my recollections being much confused and the whole affair being of less interest to me than Brulette supposed. She turned over in her head every word she got out of me, and it almost seemed as if she were questioning herself, with some vexation, to know if she were pretty enough to be so exacting, and whether frankness or coyness was the best way of pleasing the lads.

Perhaps she was tempted for a moment to try coquetry and make me forget the little vision that had come into my head, and which, for more reasons than one, had displeased her; but after a few joking words she answered seriously:--

"No, Tiennet, I won't blame you for having eyes to see a pretty girl when the matter is as innocent and natural as you tell me; but nevertheless it makes me think seriously, I hardly know why, about myself. Cousin, I am a coquette. I feel the fever of it to the very roots of my hair. I don't know that I shall ever be cured of it; but, such as I am, I look upon love and marriage as the end of all my comfort and pleasure. I am eighteen,--old enough to reflect. Well, reflection comes to me like a blow on the stomach; whereas you have been considering how to get yourself a happy home ever since you were fifteen or sixteen, and your simple heart has given you an honest answer. What you need is a wife as simple and honest as yourself, without caprices, or pride, or folly: I should deceive you shamefully if I told you that I am the right kind of girl for you. Whether from caprice or distrust I don't know, but I have no inclination for any of those I can choose from, and I can't say that I ever shall have. The longer I live the more my freedom and my light-heartedness satisfy me. Therefore be my friend, my comrade, my cousin; I will love you just as I love Joseph, and better, if you are faithful to our friendship; but don't think any more about marrying me. I know that your relations would be opposed to it, and so am I, in spite of myself, and with great regret for disappointing you. See, the others are coming after us to break up this long talk. Promise me not to sulk; choose a course; be my brother. If you say yes, we'll build the midsummer bonfire when we get back to the village, and open the dance together gayly."

"Well, Brulette," I answered, sighing, "it shall be as you say. I'll do my best not to love you, except as you wish, and in any case I shall still be your cousin and good friend, as in duty bound."

She took my hand and ran with me to the village market-place, delighted to make her lovers scamper after her; there we found that the old people had already piled up the fagots and straw of the bonfire. Brulette, being the first to arrive, was called to set fire to it, and soon the flames darted higher than the church porch.

We had no music to dance by until Carnat's son, named François, came along with his bagpipe; and he was very willing to play, for he, too, like the rest, was putting his best foot foremost to please Brulette.

So we opened the ball joyously, but after a minute or two everybody cried out that the music tired their legs. François Carnat was new at the business, and though he did his best, we found we couldn't get along. He let us make fun of him, however, and kept on playing,--being, as I suppose, rather glad of the practice, as it was the first time he had played for people to dance.

Nobody liked it, however, and when the young men found that dancing, instead of resting their tired legs, only tired them more, they talked of bidding good-night or spending the evening in the tavern. Brulette and the other girls exclaimed against that, and told us we were unmannerly lads and clodhoppers. This led to an argument, in the midst of which, all of a sudden, a tall, handsome fellow appeared, before it could be seen where he came from.

"Hallo there, children!" he cried, in such a loud tone that it drowned our racket and forced us to listen. "If you want to go on dancing, you shall. Here's a bagpiper who will pipe for you as long as you like, and won't ask anything for his trouble. Give me that," he said to François Carnat, taking hold of his bagpipe, "and listen; it may do you good, for though music is not my business, I know more about it than you."