Part 7

Then, without waiting for François's consent, he blew out the bag and began to play, amid cries of joy from the girls and with many thanks from the lads.

At his very first words I had recognized the Bourbonnais accent of the muleteer, but I could hardly believe my eyes, so changed was he for the better in looks. Instead of his coal-dusty smock-frock, his old leathern gaiters, his battered hat, and his grimy face, he had a new suit of clothes of fine white woollen stuff streaked with blue, handsome linen, a straw hat with colored ribbons, his beard trimmed, his face washed and as rosy as a peach. In short, he was the handsomest man I ever saw; grand as an oak, well-made in every part of him, clean-limbed and vigorous; with teeth that were bits of ivory, eyes like the blades of a knife, and the affable air and manners of a gentleman. He ogled all the girls, smiled at the beauties, laughed with the plain ones, and was merry, good company with every one, encouraging and inspiriting the dancers with eye and foot and voice (for he did not blow much into his bagpipe, so clever was he in managing his wind), and shouting between the puffs a dozen drolleries and funny sayings, which put everybody in good humor for the evening.

Moreover, instead of doling out exact measure like an ordinary piper, and stopping short when he had earned his two sous for every couple, he went on bagpiping a full quarter of an hour, changing his tunes you couldn't tell how, for they ran into one another without showing the join; in short, it was the best reel music ever heard, and quite unknown in our parts, but so enlivening and danceable that we all seemed to be flying in the air instead of jigging about on the grass.

I think he would have played and we should have danced all night without getting tired, if it had not been that Père Carnat, hearing the music from the wine-shop of La Biaude and wondering much that his son could play so well, came proudly over to listen. But when he saw his own bagpipe in the hands of a stranger, and François dancing away without seeing the harm of yielding his place, he was furious; and pushing the muleteer from behind, he made him jump from the stone on which he was perched into the very middle of the dancers.

Maître Huriel was a good deal surprised, and turning round he saw Carnat, red with anger, ordering him to give up the instrument.

You never knew Carnat the piper? He was getting in years even then, but he was still as sturdy and vicious as an old devil.

The muleteer began by showing fight, but noticing Carnat's white hair, he returned the bagpipe gently, remarking, "You might have spoken with more civility, old fellow; but if you don't like me to take your place I give it up to you,--all the more willingly that I should like to dance myself, if the young people will allow a stranger in their company."

"Yes, yes! come and dance! you have earned it," cried the whole parish, who had turned out to hear the fine music and were charmed with him,--old and young both.

"Then," he said, taking Brulette's hand, for he had looked at her more than at all the rest, "I ask, by way of payment, to be allowed to dance with this pretty girl, even though she be engaged to some one else."

"She is engaged to me, Huriel," said I, "but as we are friends, I yield my rights to you for this dance."

"Thank you," answered he, shaking hands; then he whispered in my ear, "I pretended not to know you; but if you see no harm to yourself so much the better."

"Don't say you are a muleteer and it is all right," I replied.

While the folks were questioning about the stranger, another fuss arose at the musician's stone. Père Carnat refused to play or to allow his son to play. He even scolded François openly for letting an unknown man supplant him; and the more people tried to settle the matter by telling him the stranger had not taken any money, the angrier he got. In fact when Père Maurice Viaud told him he was jealous, and that the stranger could outdo him and all the other neighboring players, he was beside himself with rage.

He rushed into the midst of us and demanded of Huriel whether he had a license to play the bagpipes,--which made every body laugh, and the muleteer most of all. At last, being summoned by the old savage to reply, Huriel said, "I don't know the customs in your part of the country, old man, but I have travelled enough to know the laws, and I know that nowhere in France do artists buy licenses."

"Artists!" exclaimed Carnat, puzzled by a word which, like the rest of us, he had never heard, "What does that mean? Are you talking gibberish?"

"Not at all," replied Huriel. "I will call them musicians if you like; and I assert that I am free to play music wherever I please without paying toll to the king of France."

"Well, well, I know that," answered Carnat, "but what you don't know yourself is that in our part of the country musicians pay a tax to an association of public players, and receive a license after they have been tried and initiated."

"I know that too," said Huriel, "and I also know how much money is paid into your pockets during those trials. I advise you not to try that upon me. However, happily for you, I don't practise the profession, and want nothing in your parts. I play gratis where I please, and no one can prevent that, for the reason that I have got my degree as master-piper, which very likely you have not, big as you talk."

Carnat quieted down a little at these words, and they said something privately to each other that nobody heard, by which they discovered that they belonged to the same corporation, if not to the same company. The two Carnats, having no further right to object, as every one present testified that Huriel had not played for money, departed grumbling and saying spiteful things, which no one answered so as to be sooner rid of them.

As soon as they were gone we called on Marie Guillard, a lass with a carrying voice, and made her sing, so that the stranger might have the pleasure of dancing with us.

He did not dance in our fashion, though he accommodated himself very well to the time and figures. But his style was much the best, and gave such free play to his body that he really looked handsomer and taller than ever. Brulette watched him attentively and when he kissed her, which is the fashion in our parts when each dance begins, she grew quite red and confused, contrary to her usual indifferent and easy way of taking a kiss.

I argued from this that she had rather overdone her contempt for love when talking with me about mine; but I took no notice, and I own that in spite of it all I felt a good deal set up on my own account by the fine manners and talents of the muleteer.

When the dance was over he came up to me with Brulette on his arm, saying,--

"It is your turn now, comrade; and I can't thank you better than by returning the pretty dancer you lent me. She is a beauty like those of my own land, and for her sake I do homage to the Berrichon girls. But why end the evening so early? Is there no other bagpipe in the village besides that of the old cross patch?"

"Yes, there is," said Brulette quickly, letting out the secret she wanted to keep in her eagerness for dancing; then, catching herself up, she added, blushing, "That is to say, there are shepherd's pipes, and herd-boys who can play them after a fashion."

"Pipes indeed!" cried the muleteer; "if you happen to laugh they go down your throat and make you cough! My mouth is too big for that kind of instrument; and yet I want to make you dance, my pretty Brulette; for that is your name, I have heard it," he said, drawing us both aside; "and I know, too, that there's a fine bagpipe in your house, which came from the Bourbonnais, and belongs to a certain Joseph Picot, your friend from childhood, and your companion at the first communion."

"Oh! how did you know that?" cried Brulette, much astonished. "Do you know our Joseph? Perhaps you can tell us where he has gone?"

"Are you anxious about him?" said Huriel, looking narrowly at her.

"So anxious that I will thank you with all my heart if you can give me news of him."

"Well, I'll give you some, my pretty one; but not until you bring me his bagpipe, which he wants me to carry to him at the place where he now is."

"What!" cried Brulette, "is he very far away?"

"So far that he has no idea of coming back."

"Is that true? Won't he come back? has he gone for good and all? That ends my wanting to laugh and dance any more to-night."

"Ho, ho, pretty one!" cried Huriel; "so you are Joseph's sweetheart, are you? He did not tell me that."

"I am nobody's sweetheart," answered Brulette, drawing herself up.

"Nevertheless," said the muleteer, "here is a token which he told me to show you in case you hesitated to trust me with the bagpipe."

"Where is it? what is it?" I exclaimed.

"Look at my ear," said the muleteer, lifting a great lock of his curly black hair and showing us a tiny silver heart hanging to a large earring of fine gold, which pierced his ears after a fashion among the middle classes of those days.

I think that earring began to open Brulette's eyes, for she said to Huriel, "You can't be what you seem to be, but I see plainly that you are not a man to deceive poor folks. Besides, that token is really mine, or rather it is Joseph's, for it is a present his mother made to me on the day of our first communion, and I gave it to him the next day as a remembrance, when he left home to go to service. So, Tiennet," she said, turning to me, "go to my house and fetch the bagpipe, and bring it over there, under the church porch, where it is dark, so that people can't see where it comes from; for Père Carnat is a wicked old man and might do my grandfather some harm if he thought we were mixed up in the matter."

EIGHTH EVENING.

I did as I was told, not pleased, however, at leaving Brulette alone with the muleteer in a place already darkened by the coming night. When I returned, bringing the bagpipe, taken apart and folded up under my blouse, I found them still in the same corner arguing over something with a good deal of vehemence. Seeing me, Brulette said: "Tiennet, I take you to witness that I do not consent to give this man that token which is hung on his earring. He declares he cannot give it back because it belongs to Joseph, but he also says that Joseph does not want it; it is a little thing, to be sure, not worth ten sous, but I don't choose to give it to a stranger. I was scarcely twelve years old when I gave it to José, and people must be suspicious to see any meaning in that; but, as they will have it so, it is only the more reason why I should refuse to give it to another."

It seemed to me that Brulette was taking unnecessary pains to show the muleteer she was not in love with Joseph, and also that Huriel, on his side, was very glad to find her heart was free. However that may be, he did not trouble himself to stop courting her before me.

"My pretty one," he said, "you are too suspicious. I would not show your gifts to any one, even if I had them to boast of; but I admit here, before Tiennet, that you do not encourage me to love you. I can't say that that will stop me; at any rate, you cannot hinder me from remembering you, and I shall value this ten-sous token in my ear above anything I ever coveted. Joseph is my friend, and I know he loves you; but the lad's affection is so quiet he will never think of asking for his token again. So, if it is one year or ten before we meet again, you will see it just where it is; that is, unless the ear is gone."

So saying, he took Brulette's hand and kissed it, and then he set to work to put the bagpipe together and fill it.

"What are you doing?" cried Brulette. "I told you that I had no heart to amuse myself, now that Joseph has left his mother and friends for such a time, and as for you, you'll be in danger of a fight if the other pipers should come this way and find you playing."

"Bah!" said Huriel, "we'll see about that; don't be troubled for me,--you must dance, Brulette, or I shall think you are really in love with an ungrateful fellow who has left you."

Whether it was that Brulette was too proud to let him think that, or that the dancing mania was too strong for her, it is certain that the bagpipe was no sooner fitted and filled and beginning to sound than she held out no longer and let me carry her off for the first reel.

You would hardly believe, friends, what cries of satisfaction and delight filled the marketplace at the resounding noise of that bagpipe and the return of the muleteer, for every one thought him gone. The dancing had flagged and the company were about to disperse when he made his appearance once more on the piper's stone. Instantly such a hubbub arose! no longer four to eight couples were dancing, but sixteen to thirty-two, joining hands, skipping, shouting, laughing, so that the good God himself couldn't have got a word in edgewise. And presently every one in the market-place, old and young, children who couldn't yet use their legs, grandfathers tottering on theirs, old women jigging in the style of their youth, awkward folk who couldn't get the time or the tune,--they all set to spinning; and, indeed, it is a wonder the clock of the parish church didn't spin too. Fancy! the finest music ever heard in our parts and costing nothing! It seemed as if the devil had a finger in it, for the piper never asked to rest, and tired out everybody except himself. "I'm determined to be the last," he cried when they advised him to rest. "The whole parish shall give in before me; I intend to keep it up till sunrise, and you shall all cry me mercy!" So on we went, he piping and we twirling like mad.

Mère Biaude, who kept the tavern, seeing there was profit in it, brought out tables and benches and something to eat and drink; as to the latter article, she couldn't furnish enough for so many stomachs hungry by dancing, so folks living near brought out for their friends and acquaintance the victuals they had laid in for the week. One brought cheese, another a bag of nuts, another the quarter of a kid, or a sucking pig, all of which were roasted and broiled at a fire hastily built in the market-place. It was like a wedding to which every one flocked. The children were not sent to bed, for no one had time to think of them, and they fell asleep, like a heap of lambs, on the piles of lumber which always lay about the market-place, to the wild racket of the dance and the bagpipe, which never stopped except it was to let the piper drink a jorum of the best wine.

The more he drank the gayer he was and the better he played. At last hunger seized the sturdiest, and Huriel was forced to stop for lack of dancers. So, having won his wager to bury us all, he consented to go to supper. Everybody invited him and quarrelled for the honor and pleasure of feasting him; but seeing that Brulette was coming to my table, he accepted my invitation and sat down beside her, boiling over with wit and good humor. He ate fast and well, but instead of getting torpid from digestion he was the first to clink his glass for a song; and although he had blown his pipe like a whirlwind for six hours at a stretch, his voice was as fresh and as true as if he had done nothing. The others tried to hold their own, but even our renowned singers soon gave it up for the pleasure of listening to him; his songs were far beyond theirs, as much for the tunes as the words; indeed, we had great difficulty in catching the chorus, for there was nothing in his throat that wasn't new to our ears, and of a quality, I must own, above our knowledge.

People left their tables to listen to him, and just as day was beginning to dawn through the leaves a crowd of people were standing round him, more bewitched and attentive than at the finest sermon.

At that moment he rose, jumped on his bench, and waved his empty glass to the first ray of sunlight that shone above his head, saying, in a manner that made us all tremble without knowing why or wherefore:--

"Friends, see the torch of the good God! Put out your little candles and bow to the clearest and brightest light that shines on the world. And now," he said, sitting down again and setting his glass bottom up on the table, "we have talked enough and sung enough for one night. What are you about, verger? Go and ring the Angelus, that we may see who signs the cross like a Christian; and that will show which of us have enjoyed ourselves decently, and which have degraded our pleasure like fools. After we have rendered thanks to God I must depart, my friends, thanking you for this fine fête and all your signs of confidence. I owed you a little reparation for some damage I did a few of you lately without intending it. Guess it if you can,--I did not come here to confess it; but I think I have done my best to amuse you; and as pleasure, to my thinking, is worth more than profit, I feel that I am quits with you. Hush!" he added, as they began to question him, "hear the Angelus!"

He knelt down, which led every one to do likewise, and do it, too, with soberness of manner, for the man seemed to have some extraordinary power over his fellows.

When the prayer ended we looked about for him, but he was gone,--and so completely that there were people who rubbed their eyes, fancying that they had dreamed this night of gayety and merriment.

NINTH EVENING.

Brulette was trembling all over, and when I asked her what the matter was and what she was thinking of, she answered, rubbing her cheek with the back of her hand, "That man is pleasant, Tiennet, but he is very bold."

As I was rather more heated than usual, I found courage to say,--

"If the lips of a stranger offend your skin, perhaps those of a friend can remove the stain."

But she pushed me away, saying,--

"He has gone, and it is wisest to forget those who go."

"Even poor José?"

"He! oh, that's different," she answered.

"Why different? You don't answer me. Oh, Brulette, you care for--"

"For whom?" she said, quickly. "What is his name? Out with it, as you know it!"

"It is," I said, laughing, "the black man for whose sake José has given himself over to the devil,--that man who frightened you one night last spring when you were at my house."

"No, no; nonsense! you are joking. Tell me his name, his business, and where he comes from."

"No, I shall not, Brulette. You say we ought to forget the absent, and I would rather you didn't change your mind."

The whole parish was surprised when it was known that the piper had departed before they had thought of discovering who he was. To be sure, a few had questioned him, but he gave them contradictory answers. To one he said he was a Marchois and was named thus and so; to another he gave a different name, and no one could make out the truth. I gave them still another name to throw them off the scent,--not that Huriel the wheat-spoiler need fear any one after Huriel the piper had turned everybody's head, but simply to amuse myself and to tease Brulette. Then, when I was asked where I had known him, I answered, laughing, that I didn't know him at all,--that he had taken it into his head on arriving to accost me as a friend, and that I had answered him in kind by way of a joke.

Brulette, however, sifted me to the bottom, and I was forced to tell her what I knew; and though it was not much, she was sorry she had heard it, for like most country folks, she had a great prejudice against strangers, and muleteers in particular.

I thought this repugnance would soon make her forget Huriel; and if she ever thought of him she never showed it, but continued to lead the gay life she liked so well, declaring that she meant to be as faithful a wife as she was thoughtless a girl, and therefore she should take her time and study her suitors; and to me she kept repeating that she wanted my faithful, quiet friendship, without any thought of marriage.

As my nature never turned to gloominess, I made no complaint; in fact, like Brulette, I had a leaning to liberty, and I used mine like other young fellows, taking pleasure where I found it, without the yoke. But the excitement once over, I always came back to my beautiful cousin for gentle, virtuous, and lively companionship, which I couldn't afford to lose by sulking. She had more sense and wit than all the women and girls of the neighborhood put together. And her home was so pleasant,--always neat and well-managed, never pinched for means, and filled, during the winter evenings and on all the holidays of the year, with the nicest young folks of the parish. The girls liked to follow in my cousin's train, where there was always a rush of young fellows to choose from, and where they could pick up, now and then, a husband of their own. In fact, Brulette took advantage of the respect they all felt for her to make the lads think of the lasses who wanted their attentions; for she was generous with her lovers,--like people rich in other ways who know it is their duty to give away.

Grandfather Brulet loved his young companion, and amused her with his old-fashioned songs and the many fine tales he told her. Sometimes Mariton would drop in for a moment just to talk of her boy. She was a great woman for gossip, still fresh in appearance, and always ready to show the young girls how to make their clothes,--being well dressed herself to please her master Benoit, who thought her handsome face and finery a good advertisement of his house.

It was well-nigh a year that these amusements had been going on without other news of Joseph than by two letters, in which he told his mother he was well in health and was earning his living in the Bourbonnais. He did not give the name of the place, and the two letters were postmarked from different towns. Indeed, the second letter was none so easy to make out, though our curate was very clever at reading writing; but it appeared that Joseph was getting himself educated, and had tried, for the first time, to write himself. At last a third letter came, addressed to Brulette, which Monsieur le curé read off quite fluently, declaring that the sentences were very well turned. This letter stated that Joseph had been ill, and a friend was writing for him; it was nothing more than a spring fever, and his family were not to be uneasy about him. The letter went on to say that he was living with friends who were in the habit of travelling about; that he was then starting with them for the district of Chambérat, from which they would write again if he grew worse in spite of the great care they were taking of him.

"Good gracious!" cried Brulette, when the curate had read her all that was in the letter, "I'm afraid he is going to make himself a muleteer. I dare not tell his mother about either his illness or the trade he is taking up. Poor soul! she has troubles enough without that."

Then, glancing at the letter, she asked what the signature meant. Monsieur le curé, who had paid no attention to it, put on his glasses and soon began to laugh, declaring that he had never seen anything like it, and all he could make out, in place of a name, was the sketch of an ear and an earring with a sort of a heart stuck through it.

"Probably," said he, "it is the emblem of some fraternity. All guilds have their badges, and other people can't understand them."