Chapter 6

He made inquiries at the neighboring house. The shepherdess and child had been seen. As the boy had left Belair suddenly, carelessly dressed, with his blouse torn, and his little lambskin over his shoulders, and as little Marie was necessarily poorly clad at all times, they had been taken for beggars. People had offered them bread. The girl had accepted a crust for the child, who was hungry, then she had walked away with him very quickly, and had entered the forest.

Germain thought a minute, then he asked whether the farmer of Ormeaux had not been at Fourche.

“Yes,” they answered, “he passed on horseback a few seconds after the girl.”

“Was he chasing her?”

“Oh, so you understand?” answered the village publican, with a laugh. “Certain it is that he is the devil of a fellow for running after girls. But I don’t believe that he caught her; though, after all, if he had seen her--”

“That is enough, thank you!” And he flew rather than ran to Leonard’s stable. Throwing the saddle on the gray’s back, he leaped upon it, and set off at full gallop toward the wood of Chanteloube.

His heart beat hard with fear and anger; the sweat poured down his forehead; he spurred the mare till the blood came, though the gray needed no pressing when she felt herself on the road to her stable.

XIII

The Old Woman

Germain came soon to the spot where he had passed the night on the border of the pool. The fire was smoking still. An old woman was gathering the remnants of the wood little Marie had piled there. Germain stopped to question her. She was deaf and mistook his inquiries.

“Yes, my son,” said she, “this is the Devil’s Pool. It is an evil spot, and you must not approach it without throwing in three stones with your left hand, while you cross yourself with the right. That drives away the spirits. Otherwise trouble comes to those who go around it.”

“I am not asking about that,” said Germain, moving nearer her, and screaming at the top of his lungs. “Have you seen a girl and a child walking through the wood?”

“Yes,” said the old woman, “a little child was drowned there.”

Germain shook from head to foot; but happily the hag added:

“That happened a long time ago. In memory of the accident they raised a handsome cross there. But one stormy night, the bad spirits threw it into the water. You can still see one end of it. If anybody were unlucky enough to pass the night here, he could never find his way out before daylight. He must walk and walk, and though he went two hundred leagues into the forest, he must always return to the same place.”

The peasant’s imagination was aroused in spite of himself, and the thought of the evils that must come in order that the old woman’s assertions might be vindicated, took so firm a hold of his mind that he felt chilled through and through. Hopeless of obtaining more news, he remounted, and traversed the woods afresh, calling Pierre with all his might, whistling, cracking his whip, and snapping the branches that the whole forest might reëcho with the noise of his coming; then he listened for an answering voice, but he heard no sound save the cowbells scattered through the glades, and the wild cries of the swine as they fought over the acorns.

At length Germain heard behind him the noise of a horse following in his traces, and a man of middle age, dark, sturdy, and dressed after the city fashion, called to him to stop. Germain had never seen the farmer of Ormeaux, but his instinctive rage told him at once that this was the man. He turned, and eyeing him from head to foot, waited for him to speak.

“Have not you seen a young girl of fifteen or sixteen go by with a small boy?” asked the farmer, with an assumed air of indifference, although he was evidently ill at ease.

“What do you want of her?” answered Germain, taking no pains to conceal his anger.

“I might tell you that that is none of your business, my friend. But as I have no reasons for secrecy, I shall tell you that she is a shepherdess whom I engaged for a year, before I knew her. When I saw her, she looked too young and frail to work on the farm. I thanked her, but I wished to pay the expenses of her short journey, and while my back was turned, she went off in a huff. She was in such a hurry that she forgot even some of her belongings and her purse, which has certainly not much in it, probably but a few pennies; but since I was going in this direction, I hoped to meet her, and give her back the things which she left behind, as well as what I owe her.”

Germain had too honest a heart not to pause at hearing a story which, however unlikely, was not impossible. He fastened his penetrating gaze on the farmer, who submitted to the examination with a plentiful supply of impudence or of good faith.

“I wish to get at the bottom of this matter,” said Germain; “and,” continued he, suppressing his indignation, “the girl lives in my village. I know her. She can’t be far away. Let’s ride on together; we shall find her, no doubt.”

“You are right,” said the farmer; “let’s move on; but if we do not find her before we reach the end of this road, I shall give up, for I must turn off toward Ardentes.”

“Oh, oh!” thought the peasant, “I shall not part with you, even if I have to follow you around the Devil’s Pool for twenty-four hours.”

“Stop,” said Germain suddenly, fixing his eyes on a clump of broom which waved in a peculiar manner. “Halloa! halloa! Petit Pierre, is that you, my child?”

The boy recognized his father’s voice, and came out from the broom leaping like a young deer; but when he saw Germain in company with the farmer, he stopped dismayed, and stood irresolute. “Come, my Pierre, come. It is I,” cried the husbandman, as he leaped from his horse and ran toward his boy to take him in his arms; “and where is little Marie?”

“She is hiding there, because she is afraid of that dreadful black man, and so am I.”

“You needn’t be afraid. I am here. Marie, Marie. It is I.”

Marie crept toward them, but the moment she saw Germain with the farmer close behind, she sprang forward, and throwing herself into his arms, clung to him as a daughter to her father.

“Oh, my brave Germain!” she cried, “you will defend me. I am not afraid when you are near.”

Germain shuddered. He looked at Marie. She was pale; her clothes were torn by the thorns which had scratched her as she passed, rushing toward the brake like a stag chased by the hunters. But neither shame nor despair were in her face.

“Your master wishes to speak to you,” said he, his eyes fixed on her features.

“My master!” she exclaimed fiercely; “that man is no master of mine, and he never shall be. You, Germain, you are my master. I want you to take me home with you. I will be your servant for nothing.”

The farmer advanced, feigning impatience. “Little girl,” said he, “you left something behind at the farm, which I am bringing back to you.”

“No, you are not, sir,” answered little Marie. “I didn’t forget anything, and I have nothing to ask of you.”

“Listen a moment,” returned the farmer. “It’s I who have something to tell you. Come with me. Don’t be afraid. It’s only a word or two.”

“You may say them aloud. I have no secrets with you.”

“At any rate, do take your money.”

“My money? You owe me nothing, thank God!”

“I suspected as much,” said Germain under his breath, “but I don’t care, Marie. Listen to what he has to say to you, for--I am curious to know. You can tell me afterward. Go up to his horse. I shall not lose sight of you.”

Marie took three steps toward the farmer. He bent over the pommel of his saddle, and lowering his voice he said:

“Little girl, here is a bright golden louis for you. Don’t say anything about it; do you hear? I shall say that I found you too frail to work on my farm. There will be no more talk about that. I shall be passing by your house one of these days; and if you have not said anything, I will give you something more; and then if you are more sensible, you have only to speak. I will take you home with me, or I will come at dusk and talk with you in the meadows. What present would you like me to bring you?”

“Here, sir, is the present I have for you,” answered little Marie, aloud, as she threw the golden louis in his face with all her might. “I thank you heartily, and I beg that if you come anywhere near our house, you will be good enough to let me know. All the boys in the neighborhood will go out to welcome you, because, where I live, we are very fond of gentlemen who try to make love to poor girls. You shall see. They will be on the lookout for you.”

“You lie with your dirty tongue,” cried the farmer, raising his stick with a dangerous air. “You wish to make people believe what is not so, but you shall never get a penny out of me. We know what kind of a girl you are.”

Marie drew back, frightened, and Germain sprang to the bridle of the farmer’s horse and shook it violently.

“I understand now,” said he; “it is easy to see what is going on. Get down, my man, get down; I want to talk to you.”

The farmer was not eager to take up the quarrel. Anxious to escape, he set spurs to his horse and tried to loosen the peasant’s grasp by striking down his hands with a cane; but Germain dodged the blow, and seizing hold of his antagonist’s leg, he unseated him and flung him to the earth. The farmer regained his feet, but although he defended himself vigorously, he was knocked down once more. Germain held him to the ground. Then he said:

“Poor coward, I could thrash you if I wished. But I don’t want to do you an injury, and, besides, no amount of punishment would help your conscience--but you shall not stir from this spot until you beg the girl’s pardon, on your knees.”

The farmer understood this sort of thing, and wished to take it all as a joke. He made believe that his offense was not serious, since it lay in words alone, and protested that he was perfectly willing to ask her pardon, provided he might kiss the girl afterward. Finally, he proposed that they go and drink a pint of wine at the nearest tavern, and so part good friends.

“You are disgusting!” answered Germain, rubbing his victim’s head in the dirt, “and I never wish to see your nasty face again. So blush, if you are able, and when you come to our village, you had better slink along Sneak’s Alley.”[2]

He picked up the farmer’s holly-stick, broke it over his knee to show the strength of his wrists, and threw away the pieces with disgust. Then giving one hand to his son and the other to little Marie, he walked away, still trembling with anger.

[2] This is the road, which, diverging from the principal street at the entrance of villages, makes a circuit about them. Persons who are in dread of receiving some well deserved insult, are supposed to take this route to escape attention.

XIV

The Return to the Farm

At the end of fifteen minutes they had left the heath behind them. They trotted along the highroad, and the gray whinnied at each familiar object. Petit-Pierre told his father as much as he could understand of what had passed.

“When we reached the farm,” said he, “that man came to speak to my Marie in the fold where we had gone to see the pretty sheep. I had climbed into the manger to play, and that man did not see me. Then he said good morning to Marie, and he kissed her.”

“You allowed him to kiss you, Marie?” said Germain, trembling with anger.

“I thought it was a civility, a custom of the place to new-comers, just as at your farm the grandmother kisses the young girls who enter her service to show that she adopts them and will be a mother to them.”

“And next,” went on little Pierre, who was proud to have an adventure to tell of, “_that man_ told you something wicked, which you have told me never to repeat and not even remember; so I forgot it right away. Still, if father wishes, I will tell him what it was--”

“No, Pierre, I don’t wish to hear, and I don’t wish you ever to think of it again.”

“Then I will forget it all over again,” replied the child. “Next, _that man_ seemed to be growing angry because Marie told him that she was going away. He told her he would give her whatever she wanted,--a hundred francs! And my Marie grew angry too. Then he came toward her as if he wished to hurt her. I was afraid, and I ran to Marie and cried. Then _that man_ said: ‘What’s that? Where did that child come from? Put it out,’ and he raised his cane to beat me. But my Marie prevented him, and she spoke to him this way: ‘We will talk later, sir; now I must take this child back to Fourche, and then I shall return.’ And as soon as he had left the fold, my Marie spoke to me this way: ‘We must run, my Pierre; we must get away as quickly as we can, for this is a wicked man and he is trying to do us harm.’ Then when we had gone back of the farm-houses, we crossed a little meadow, and we went to Fourche to find you. But you were not there, and they wouldn’t let us wait. And then _that man_, riding his black horse, came behind us, and we ran on as fast as we could and hid in the woods. And then he followed us, and when we heard him coming, we hid again. And then, when he had passed, we began to run toward home, and then you came and found us, and that is how it all happened. I haven’t forgotten anything, have I, my Marie?”

“No, my Pierre, that is the whole truth. Now, Germain, you must be my witness, and tell everybody in the village that if I did not stay there it was not from want of courage and industry.”

“And, Marie, I want to ask of you whether a man of twenty-eight is too old when there is a woman to be defended and an insult to be revenged. I should like to know whether Bastien or any other pretty boy, ten years better off than I, would not have been knocked to pieces by _that man_, as Petit-Pierre says. What do you think?”

“I think, Germain, that you have done me a great service, and that I shall be grateful all my life.”

“Is that all?”

“Little father,” said the child, “I forgot to ask little Marie what I promised. I have not had time yet, but I will speak to her at home, and I will speak to my grandmother too.”

The child’s promise set Germain to thinking. He must explain his conduct to his family and give his objections to the widow Guam, and all the while conceal the true reasons which had made him so judicious and so decided. When a man is proud and happy, it seems an easy task to thrust his happiness upon others, but to be repulsed on one side and blamed on the other is not a very pleasant position.

Fortunately, Petit-Pierre was fast asleep when they reached the farm, and Germain put him to bed undisturbed. Then he began upon all sorts of explanations, Father Maurice, seated on a three-legged stool before the door, listened with gravity; and, although he was ill-content with the result of the journey, when Germain told him about the widow’s systematic coquetry, and demanded of his father-in-law whether he had the time to go and pay his court fifty-two Sundays in the year at the risk of being dismissed in the end, the old man nodded his head in assent and answered: “You were not wrong, Germain; that could never be.” And then, when Germain described how he had been obliged to bring back little Marie, with the utmost haste, in order to protect her from the insults or perhaps from the violence of a wicked master, Father Maurice nodded approvingly again and said: “You were not wrong, Germain; that was right.”

When Germain had told his story, and had set forth all his reasons, the old farmer and his wife heaved deep, simultaneous sighs of resignation, and looked at each other. Then the head of the house rose and said: “God’s will be done. Love can’t be made to order.”

“Come to supper, Germain,” said his mother-in-law. “It is unfortunate that this did not come to a better end, but, after all, it seems that God did not wish it. We must look elsewhere.”

“Yes,” added the old man, “as my wife says, we must look elsewhere.”

There was no more noise at the house, and on the morrow, when Petit-Pierre rose with the larks at dawn, he was no longer excited by the extraordinary events of the preceding days. Like other little peasants of his age, he became indifferent, forgot everything that had been running in his head, and thought only of playing with his brothers, and of pretending to drive the horses and oxen like a man. Germain plunged into his work, and tried to forget, too; but he became so absent-minded and so sad that everybody noticed it. He never spoke to little Marie, he never even looked at her, and yet had anybody asked him in what meadow she was, or by what road she had passed, there was not a moment in the day when he could not have answered if he would. He dared not ask his family to take her in at the farm during the winter, and yet he knew well how she must suffer from want. But she did not suffer; and Mother Guillette could not understand how her little store of wood never grew less, and how her shed was full in the morning, although she had left it almost empty at night. It was the same with the wheat and potatoes. Somebody entered by the garret window, and emptied a sack on the floor without awaking a soul or leaving a trace of his coming. The widow was at once uneasy and delighted. She made her daughter promise to tell nobody, and said that were people to know of the miracle performed at her house they would take her for a witch. She felt confident that the devil had a share in it, but she was in no hurry to pick a quarrel with him by calling down the priest’s exorcisms on the house. It would be time enough, she said, when Satan should come to demand her soul in return for his gifts.

Little Marie understood the truth better, but she dared not speak to Germain, for fear of seeing him return to his dreams of marriage, and, before him, she pretended to perceive nothing.

XV

Mother Maurice

One day, Mother Maurice was alone in the orchard with Germain, and spoke to him kindly:

“My poor son, I believe you are not well. You don’t eat as well as usual; you never laugh; you talk less and less. Perhaps one of us, or all of us, have hurt your feelings, without knowing and without wishing it.”

“No, my mother,” answered Germain, “you have always been as kind to me as the mother who brought me into the world, and I should be very ungrateful if I were to complain of you or your husband, or of anybody in the household.”

“Then, my child, it is the sorrow for your wife’s death which comes back to you. Instead of growing lighter with time, your grief becomes worse, and as your father has said very wisely, it is absolutely necessary for you to marry again.”

“Yes, my mother, that is my opinion, but the women whom you advised me to ask don’t suit me. Whenever I see them, instead of forgetting my Catherine, I think of her all the more.”

“Apparently that’s because we haven’t been able to understand your taste. You must help us by telling us the truth. There must be a woman somewhere who is made for you, for God doesn’t make anybody without placing his happiness in somebody else. So if you know where to find this woman whom you need, take her, and be she pretty or ugly, young or old, rich or poor, we have made up our minds, my husband and I, to give our consent, for we are tired of seeing you so sad, and we can never be happy while you are sorrowful.”

“My mother, you are as kind as the kind Lord, and so is my father,” answered Germain; “but your compassion brings small help to my troubles, for the girl I love doesn’t care for me.”

“She is too young, then? It’s foolish for you to love a young girl.”

“Yes, mother dear, I have been foolish enough to love a young girl, and it’s my fault. I do my best to stop thinking of it, but, working or sleeping, at mass or in bed, with my children or with you, I can think of nothing else.”

“Then it’s like a fate cast over you, Germain. There’s but one remedy, and it is that this girl must change her mind and listen to you. It’s my duty to look into this, and see whether it’s practicable. Tell me where she lives, and what’s her name.”

“Oh, my dear mother, I dare not,” said Germain, “because you will make fun of me.”

“I shall not make fun of you, Germain, because you are in trouble, and I don’t wish to make it harder for you. Is it Fanchette?”

“No, mother, of course not.”

“Or Rosette?”

“No.”

“Tell me, then, for I shall never finish if I must name every girl in the countryside.”

Germain bowed his head, and could not bring himself to answer.

“Very good,” said Mother Maurice, “I shall let you alone for to-day; to-morrow, perhaps, you will be more confidential with me, or possibly your sister-in-law will question you more cleverly.” And she picked up her basket to go and spread her linen on the bushes.

Germain acted like children who make up their minds when they see that they are no longer attracting attention. He followed his mother, and at length, trembling, he named Marie of Guillette.

Great was the surprise of Mother Maurice. Marie was the last person she would have dreamed of. But she had the delicacy not to cry out, and made her comments to herself. Then seeing that her silence hurt Germain, she stretched out her basket toward him and said:

“Is there any reason for not helping me at my work. Carry this load, and come and talk with me. Have you reflected well, Germain? Are you fully decided?”

“Alas, dear mother, you mustn’t speak in that way. I should be decided if I had a chance of success, but as I could never be heard, I have only made up my mind to cure myself, if I can.”

“And if you can’t.”

“There is an end to everything, Mother Maurice: when the horse is laden too heavily, he falls, and when the cow has nothing to eat, she dies.”

“Do you mean to say that you will die, if you do not succeed. God grant not, Germain. I don’t like to hear a man like you talk of those things; for what he says, he thinks. You are very brave, and weakness is dangerous for strong men. Take heart; I can’t conceive that a poverty-stricken girl, whom you have honored so much as to ask her to marry you, will refuse you.”

“Yet it’s the truth: she does refuse me.”

“And what reasons does she give you?”

“That you have always been kind to her, and that her family owes a great deal to yours, and that she doesn’t wish to displease you by turning me away from a rich marriage.”

“If she says that, she proves her good sense, and shows what an honest girl she is. But, Germain, she doesn’t cure you; for of course she tells you that she loves you and would marry you if we were willing?”

“That’s the worst part of all. She says that her heart can never be mine.”

“If she says what she doesn’t think in order to keep you at a safer distance, the child deserves our love, and we should pass over her youth on account of her great good sense.”

“Yes,” said Germain, struck by a hope he had never held before; “that would be very wise and right of her! But if she is so sensible, I am sure it is because I displease her.”

“Germain,” said Mother Maurice, “you must promise me not to worry for a whole week. Keep from tormenting yourself, eat, sleep, and be as gay as you used to be. For my part, I’ll speak to my husband, and if I gain his consent, you shall know the girl’s real feelings toward you.”

Germain promised, and the week passed without a single word in private from Father Maurice, who seemed to suspect nothing. The husbandman did his best to look calm, but he grew ever paler and more troubled.

XVI

Little Marie

At length, on Sunday morning, when mass was over, his mother-in-law asked Germain what encouragement he had had from his sweetheart since the conversation in the orchard.

“Why, none at all,” answered he; “I haven’t spoken to her.”

“How can you expect to win her if you don’t speak to her?”