Chapter XV

"MASTER," said he to Jean Vertaud, "I must leave you for a time; how long I cannot tell. I have something to attend to near my old home, and I request you to let me go with a good will; for, to tell the truth, if you refuse to give your permission, I shall not be able to obey you, but shall go in spite of you. Forgive me for stating the case plainly. I should be very sorry to vex you, and that is why I ask you as a reward for all the services that I may have been able to render you, not to take my behavior amiss, but to forgive the offense of which I am guilty, in leaving your work so suddenly. I may return at the end of a week, if I am not needed in the place where I am going; but I may not come back till late in the year, or not at all, for I am unwilling to deceive you. However, I shall do my best to come to your assistance if you need me, or if anything were to occur which you cannot manage without me. Before I go, I shall find you a good workman to take my place, and, if necessary, offer him as an inducement all that is due on my wages since Saint John's day last. Thus I can arrange matters without loss to you, and you must shake hands to wish me good luck, and to ease my mind of some of the regret I feel at parting with you."

Jean Vertaud knew that the waif seldom asked for anything, but that when he did, his will was so firm that neither God nor the devil could bend it.

"Do as you please, my boy," said he, shaking hands with him. "I should not tell the truth if I said I did not care; but rather than have a quarrel with you, I should consent to anything."

François spent the next day in looking up a servant to take his place in the mill, and he met with a zealous, upright man who was returning from the army, and was happy to find work and good wages under a good master; for Jean Vertaud was recognized as such, and was known never to have wronged anybody.

Before setting out, as he intended to do at daybreak the next day, François wished to take leave of Jeannette Vertaud at supper-time. She was sitting at the barn door, saying that her head ached and that she could not eat. He observed that she had been weeping, and felt much troubled in mind. He did not know how to thank her for her kindness, and yet tell her that he was to leave her in spite of it. He sat down beside her on the stump of an alder-tree, which happened to be there, and struggled to speak, without being able to think of a single word to say. She saw all this, without looking up, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. He made a motion to take her hand in his and comfort her, but drew back as it occurred to him that he could not conscientiously tell her what she wanted to hear. When poor Jeannette found that he remained silent, she was ashamed of her own sorrow, and rising quietly without showing any bitterness of feeling, she went into the barn to weep unrestrained.

She lingered there a little while, in the hope that he would make up his mind to follow her and say a kind word, but he forbore, and went to his supper, which he ate in melancholy silence.

It would be false to say that he had felt nothing for Jeannette when he saw her in tears. His heart was a little fluttered, as he reflected how happy he might be with a person of so excellent a disposition, who was so fond of him, and who was not personally disagreeable to him. But he shook off all these ideas when it returned to his mind that Madeleine might stand in need of a friend, adviser, and servant, and that when he was but a poor, forsaken child, wasted with fever, she had endured, worked, and braved more for him than anybody else in the world.

"Come," said he to himself, when he woke next morning before the dawn; "you must not think of a love-affair or your own happiness and tranquillity. You would gladly forget that you are a waif, and would throw your past to the winds, as so many others do, who seize the moment as it flies, without looking behind them. Yes, but think of Madeleine Blanchet, who entreats you not to forget her, but to remember what she did for you. Forward, then; and Jeannette, may God help you to a more gallant lover than your humble servant."

Such were his reflections as he passed beneath the window of his kind mistress, and if the season had been propitious, he would have left a leaf or flower against her casement, in token of farewell; but it was the day after the feast of the Epiphany; the ground was covered with snow, and there was not a leaf on the trees nor a violet in the grass.

He thought of knotting into the corner of a white handkerchief the bean which he had won the evening before in the Twelfth-night cake, and of tying the handkerchief to the bars of Jeannette's window, to show her that he would have chosen her for his queen, if she had deigned to appear at supper.

"A bean is a very little thing," thought he, "but it is a slight mark of courtesy and friendship, and will make my excuses for not having said good-by to her."

But a still, small voice within counseled him against making this offering, and pointed out to him that a man should not follow the example of those young girls who try to make men love, remember, and regret them, when they have not the slightest idea of giving anything in return.

"No, no, François," said he, putting back his pledge into his pocket, and hastening his step; "a man's will must be firm, and he must allow himself to be forgotten when he has made up his mind to forget himself."

Thereupon, he strode rapidly away, and before he had gone two gunshots from Jean Vertaud's mill he fancied that he saw Madeleine's image before him, and heard a faint little voice calling to him for help. This dream drew him on, and he seemed to see already the great ash-tree, the fountain, the meadow of the Blanchets, the mill-dam, the little bridge, and Jeannie running to meet him; and in the midst of all this, the memory of Jeannette Vertaud was powerless to hold him back an inch.

He walked so fast that he felt neither cold nor hunger nor thirst, nor did he stop to take breath till he left the highroad and reached the cross of Plessys, which stands at the beginning of the path which leads to Presles.

When there, he flung himself on his knees and kissed the wood of the cross with the ardor of a good Christian who meets again with a good friend. Then he began to descend the great track, which is like a road, except that it is as broad as a field. It is the finest common in the world, and is blessed with a beautiful view, fresh air, and extended horizon. It slopes so rapidly that in frosty weather a man could go post-haste even in an ox-cart and take an unexpected plunge in the river, which runs silently below.

François mistrusted this; he took off his sabots more than once, and reached the bridge without a tumble. He passed by Montipouret on the left, not without sending a loving salute to the tall old clock-tower, which is everybody's friend; for it is the first to greet the eyes of those who are returning home, and shows them the right road, if they have gone astray.

As to the roads, I have no fault to find with them in summer-time, when they are green, smiling, and pleasant to look upon. You may walk through some of them with no fear of a sunstroke; but those are the most treacherous of all, because they may lead you to Rome, when you think you are going to Angibault. Happily, the good clock-tower of Montipouret is not chary of showing itself, and through every dealing you may catch a glimpse of its glittering steeple, that tells you whether you are going north or northwest.

The waif, however, needed no such beacon to guide him. He was so familiar with all the wooded paths and byways, all the shady lanes, all the hunters' trails, and even the very hedge-rows along the roads, that in the middle of the night he could take the shortest cut, and go as straight as a pigeon flies through the sky.

It was toward noon when he first caught sight of the mill of Cormouer through the leafless branches, and he was happy to see curling up from the roof a faint blue smoke, which assured him that the house was not abandoned to the rats.

For greater speed he crossed the upper part of the Blanchet meadow, and thus did not pass close by the fountain; but as the trees and bushes were stript of their leaves, he could still see sparkling in the sunlight the open water, that never freezes, because it bubbles up from a spring. The approach to the mill, on the contrary, was icy and so slippery that much caution was required to step safely over the stones, and along the bank of the river. He saw the old mill-wheel, black with age and damp, covered with long icicles, sharp as needles, that hung from the bars.

Many trees were missing around the house, and the place was much changed. Cadet Blanchet's debts had called the ax into play, and here and there were to be seen the stumps of great alders, freshly cut, as red as blood. The house seemed to be in bad repair; the roof was ill-protected, and the oven had cracked half open by the action of the frost.

What was still more melancholy was that there was no sound to be heard of man or beast; only a brindled black-and-white dog, a poor country mongrel, jumped up from the door-step and ran barking toward François; then he suddenly ceased, and came crawling up to him and lay at his feet.

"Is it you, Labriche, and do you know me?" said François. "I did not recognize you, for you are so old and miserable; your ribs stick out, and your whiskers are quite white."

François talked thus to the dog, because he was distressed, and wanted to gain a little time before entering the house. He had been in great haste up to this moment, but now he was alarmed, because he feared that he should never see Madeleine again, that she might be absent or dead instead of her husband, or that the report of the miller's death might prove false; in short, he was a prey to all those fancies which beset the mind of a man who has just reached the goal of all his desires.