Chapter III: Part 3

It is a fact that Parpluche, Joseph's dog, instead of getting angry, ran at once to the door and sprang out gayly enough; as soon as it was opened but the creature might have been bewitched, and so far as I could see, there was nothing good in the matter.

Joseph went out; the wind, which had grown very high, slammed the door after him. Brulette, who had risen, made as if she would open it to see what was going on; but I stopped her quickly, saying there was certainly some wicked secret under it all, so that she, too, began to be afraid and wished she had never come.

"Don't be frightened, Brulette," said I; "I believe in evil spirits, but I am not afraid of them. They do no harm except to those who seek them, and all they can ever do to real Christians is to frighten them. But that's a fear we can and ought to conquer. Come, say a prayer, and I'll hold the door, and you may be sure no harmful thing can get in."

"But that poor lad," said Brulette; "if he is in danger, ought we not to get him back?"

I made her a sign to be silent, and putting myself close to the door with my loaded gun I listened with all my ears. The wind blew high and the bell could only be heard now and then and seemed to be moving farther off. Brulette was at the farther end of the room, half-laughing, half-trembling, for she was a brave, intrepid sort of girl, who joked about the devil, though she would not have liked to make acquaintance with him.

Presently I heard José coming back and saying, not far from the door,--

"Yes, yes, directly after midsummer. Thank you and the good God! I will do just as you say; you have my word for that."

As he mentioned the good God I felt more confidence, so opening the door a trifle I looked out, and there I saw, by the light that streamed from the house, José, walking beside a villanous-looking man, all black from head to foot, even his face and hands, and behind him two big black dogs who were romping with Joseph's dog. The man answered, with such a loud voice that Brulette heard him and trembled: "Good-bye, little man; we shall meet again. Here, Clairin!"

He had no sooner said that than the bells began to jingle, and I saw a lean little horse come up to him, half-crouching, with eyes like live coals, and a bell which shone bright as gold upon his neck. "Call up your comrades!" said the tall dark man. The little horse galloped away, followed by the two dogs, and his master after shaking hands with José went away too. Joseph came in and shut the door, saying with a scornful air,--

"What were you doing here, Tiennet?"

"And you, José, what have you got there?" I retorted, seeing that he had a parcel wrapped in black oil-cloth under his arm.

"That?" he said, "that is something the good God has sent me at the very hour it was promised. Come, Tiennet; come, Brulette; see the fine present God has made me!"

"The good God doesn't send black angels or make presents to wrong-doers."

"Hush," said Brulette, "let José explain himself."

But she had hardly said the words when a loud commotion, like the galloping of two hundred animals, was heard from the broad grass-ground around the fountain, some sixty feet from the house, from which it was separated by the garden and hemp-field. The bell tinkled, the dogs barked, and the man's rough voice was heard shouting, "Quick, quick! here, here! to me, Clairin! come, come! I miss three! You, Louveteau, you, Satan! off with you, quick!"

For a moment Brulette was so frightened that she ran from Joseph to me, which gave me fine courage, and seizing my gun again I said to Joseph:--

"I don't choose that your people should come racketing round here at night. Brulette has had enough of it and she wants to be taken home. Come now, stop this sorcery or I'll chase your witches."

Joseph stopped me as I was going out.

"Stay here," he said, "and don't meddle with what does not concern you; or maybe you'll regret it later. Keep still, and see what I brought in; you shall know all about it presently."

As the uproar was now dying away in the distance, I did look, all the more because Brulette was crazy to know what was in the parcel; and Joseph, undoing it, showed us a bagpipe, so large, and full, and handsome that it was really a splendid thing, and such as I had never seen before.

It had double bellows, one of which measured five feet from end to end; and the wood of the instrument, which was black cherry, dazzled the eyes with the pewter ornaments, made to shine like silver, which were inlaid at all the joints. The wind-bag was of handsome leather tied with a knot of calico, striped blue and white; indeed, the whole workmanship was done in so clever a way that it only took a very little breath to fill the bag and send out a sound like thunder.

"The die is cast!" said Brulette, to whom Joseph was not listening, so intent was he in taking apart and replacing the various parts of his bagpipe. "You will be a piper, José, in spite of the hindrances you will meet with, and the trouble it will be to your mother."

"I shall be a piper," he said, "when I know how to play the bagpipe. Before then the wheat will ripen and the leaves will fall. Don't let us trouble ourselves about what will happen, children; but see things as they are, and don't accuse me of dealings with the devil. He who brought me that bagpipe is neither a sorcerer nor a demon. He is a man rather rough at times, for his business requires it, and as he is going to spend the night not far from here I advise you and I beg you, friend Tiennet, not to go where he is. Excuse me for not telling you his name or his business; and also promise me not to say that you have seen him or that he came round this way. It might cause him annoyance as well as the rest of us. Be content to know that he is a man of good sense and good judgment. It is he whom you saw in the underbrush of the forest of Saint-Chartier, playing a bagpipe like this one; for though he is not a piper by trade, he understands it thoroughly, and has played me airs that are much more beautiful than ours. He saw that not having enough money I could not buy such an instrument, and so he was satisfied with a small amount and lent me the rest, promising to buy the instrument and bring it me just about this time, letting me pay for it as I am able. For this thing, you see, costs eight pistoles, nearly one year's wages! Now, as I hadn't a third of it, he said, 'Trust me, give me what you have, and I will trust you in the same way.' That's how the thing happened. I didn't know him a mite and we had no witnesses: he could have cheated me if he wished, and if I had asked your advice you would have dissuaded me from trusting him. But you see now that he is a faithful man, for he said, 'I will come round your way at Christmas and give you an answer.' At Christmas I met him under the Râteau elm, and sure enough he came, and said: 'The thing is not yet finished; but it is being made; between the first and tenth of May I will be here again, and bring it.' This is the eighth. He has come, and just as he turned a little out of his way to look for me in the village he heard the air I was playing, which he was certain no one in these parts knew but me; and as for me, I heard and recognized his bell. That's how it happened, and the devil had nothing to do with it. We said good-evening to each other and promised to meet at midsummer."

"If that is so," I remarked, "why didn't you bring him in here, where he could have rested and been refreshed with a glass of good wine? I would have given him a hearty welcome for keeping his word to you faithfully."

"Oh! as for that," replied Joseph, "he is a man who doesn't always behave like other people. He has his ways, and his own ideas and reasons. Don't ask me more than I ought to tell you."

"Why not? is it because he is hiding from honest people?" asked Brulette. "I think that is worse than being a sorcerer. He must be some one who has done wrong, or he would not be roaming round at night, and you wouldn't be forbidden to speak of him."

"I will tell you all about it to-morrow," said Joseph, smiling at our fears. "To-night, you can think what you please, for I shall tell you nothing more. Come, Brulette, there's the cuckoo striking midnight. I'll take you home and leave my bagpipe hidden away in your charge. For I certainly shall not practise on it in this neighborhood; the time to make myself known has not yet come."

Brulette said good-night to me very prettily, putting her hand into mine. But when I saw that she put her arm into Joseph's to go away, jealousy galloped off with me again, and as they went along the high-road I cut across the hemp-field and posted myself beneath the hedge to see them pass. The weather had cleared a little, but there had been a shower, and Brulette let go of Joseph's arm to pick up her dress, saying, "It is not easy to walk two together; go in front."

If I had been in José's place I should have offered to carry her over the muddy places, or, if I had not dared to take her in my arms, I should have lingered behind her to look at her pretty ankles. But José did nothing of the kind, he concerned himself about nothing but his bagpipe; and as I saw him handling it with care and looking lovingly at it, I said to myself that he hadn't any other love just then.

I returned home, easy in mind in more ways than one, and went to bed, somewhat fatigued both in body and mind.

But it was not half an hour before Monsieur Parpluche, who had been amusing himself with the stranger's dogs, came scratching at the door in search of his master. I rose to let him in, and just then I fancied I heard a noise in my oats, which were coming up green and thick at the back of the house. It seemed to me that they were being cropped and trampled by some four-footed beast who had no business there.

I caught up the first stick that came to hand and ran out, whistling to Parpluche, who did not obey me but made off, looking for his master, after snuffing about the house.

Entering the field, I saw something rolling on its back with its paws in the air, crushing the oats right and left, getting up, jumping about and browsing quite at its ease. For a moment I was afraid to run after it, not knowing what kind of beast it was. I could see nothing clearly but its ears, which were too long for a horse; but the body was too black and stout for a donkey. I approached it gently; it seemed neither wild nor mischievous, and then I knew it was a mule, though I had seldom seen one, for we don't raise them in our part of the country, and the muleteers never pass this way. I was just going to catch him and already had my hand on his mane when he threw up his hindquarters and lashing out a dozen kicks which I had scarcely time to avoid, he leaped like a hare over the ditch and ran away so quickly that in a moment he was out of sight.

Not wishing to have my oats ruined by the return of the beast, I put off going to bed till I could have an easy mind. I returned to the house to get my shoes and waistcoat, and after fastening the doors I went through the fields in the direction the mule had taken. I had little doubt that he belonged to the troop of the dark man, Joseph's friend. Joseph had certainly advised me to see nothing of him, but now that I had touched a living animal I was afraid of nothing. Nobody likes ghosts; but when you know you are dealing with solid things it is another affair; and the moment I realized that the dark man was a man, no matter how strong he was or how much he had daubed himself over, I didn't care for him any more than I did for a weasel.

You must have heard say that I was one of the strongest fellows of these parts in my young days; in fact, such as I am now, I am not yet afraid of any man.

Moreover, I was as nimble as a roach, and I knew that in dangers where the strength of a man was not enough to save him, it would have needed the wings of a bird to overtake me in running. Accordingly, having provided myself with a rope and my own gun (which didn't have consecrated balls, but could carry truer than my father's), I set out on a voyage of discovery.

I had scarcely taken a couple of hundred steps when I saw three more animals of the same kind in my brother-in-law's pasture, where they were behaving themselves just as badly as possible. Like the first brute, they allowed me to approach them, and then immediately galloped off to a farm on the estate of Aulnières, where they met another troop of mules capering about as lively as mice, rearing and kicking in the rising moonlight,--a regular _donkey-chase_, which you know is what they call the dance of the devil's she-asses, when the fairies and the will-o-the-wisps gallop up there among the clouds.

However, there was really no magic here; but only a great robbery of pasture, and abominable mischief done to the grain. The crop was not mine, and I might have said that it was none of my business, but I felt provoked to have run after the troublesome animals for nothing, and you can't see the fine wheat of the good God trampled and destroyed without answer.

I went on into the big wheat-field without meeting a single Christian soul, though the mules seemed to increase in numbers every minute. I meant to catch at least one, which would serve as proof when I complained to the authorities of the damage done to the farm.

I singled out one which seemed to be more docile than the rest, but when I got near him I saw that he wasn't the same game, but the lean little horse with a bell round his neck; which bell, as I learned later, is called in the Bourbonnais districts a _clairin_, and the horse that wears it goes by the same name. Not knowing the habits of these animals, it was by mere good luck that I chanced upon the right way to manage them, which was to get hold of the bell-horse, or _clairin_, and lead him away, being certain to catch a mule or two afterwards if I succeeded.

The little animal, which seemed good-natured and well-trained, let me pet him and lead him away without seeming to care; but as soon as he began to walk, the bell on his neck began to jingle, and great was my surprise to see the crowd of mules, scattered here and there among the wheat, come trooping upon us, and tearing after me like bees after their queen. I saw then that they were trained to follow the _clairin_, and that they knew its ring just as well as good monks know the bell for matins.

SIXTH EVENING.

I did not long debate what I should do with the mischievous horde. I went straight for the manor of Aulnières, thinking that I could easily open the gates of the yard and drive the beasts in; after which I would wake the farmers and they, when informed of the damage done, would do as they saw fit.

I was just nearing the yard when, as it happened, I fancied I saw a man running on the road behind me. I cocked my gun, thinking that if he was the muleteer I should have a bone to pick with him. But it was Joseph, on his way back to Aulnières after escorting Brulette to the village.

"What are you doing here, Tiennet?" he said to me, coming up as fast as he could run. "Didn't I tell you not to leave home to-night? You are in danger of death; Let go that horse and don't meddle with those mules. What can't be helped must be endured for fear of worse evils."

"Thank you, comrade," I answered. "Your fine friends pasture their cavalry in my field and you expect me to say nothing! Very good, very good! go your ways if you are afraid yourself, but as for me, I shall see the thing out, and get justice done by law or might."

As I spoke, having stopped a moment to answer him, we heard a dog bark in the distance, and José, seizing the rope by which I was leading the horse, cried out:--

"Quick, Tiennet! here come the muleteer's dogs! If you don't want to be torn in pieces, let go the horse; see, he hears them and you can't do anything with him now."

Sure enough, the _clairin_ pricked his ears to listen; then laying them back, which is a great sign of ill-temper, he began to neigh and rear and kick, which brought all the mules capering round us, so that we had scarcely time to get out of the way before the whole of them rushed by at full speed in the direction of the dogs.

I was not satisfied to yield, however, and as the dogs, having called in their wild troop, showed signs of making straight for us, I took aim with my gun as if to shoot the first of the two that came at me. But Joseph went up to the dog and made him recognize him.

"Ah! Satan," he said to him, "the fault is yours. Why did you chase the hares into the wheat instead of watching your beasts? When your master wakes up you will be whipped if you are not at your post with Louveteau and the _clairin_."

Satan, understanding that he was being reproved for his behavior, obeyed Joseph, who called him towards a large tract of waste land where the mules could feed without doing any damage, and where Joseph, as he told me, intended to watch them until their master returned.

"Nevertheless, José," I said to him, "matters won't blow over as quietly as you think for; and if you will not tell me where the owner of these mules hides himself, I shall stay here and wait for him, and say what I think to his face, and demand reparation for the harm done."

"You don't know muleteers if you think it easy to get the better of them," replied Joseph. "I believe it is the first time any of them have ever passed this way. It is not their usual road; they commonly come down from the Bourbonnais forests through those of Meillant and L'Éspinasse into the Cheurre woods. I happened accidentally to meet them in the forest of Saint-Chartier, where they were halting on their way to Saint-Août; among them was the man who is here now, whose name is Huriel, and who is on his way to the iron works of Ardentes for coal and ore. He has been kind enough to come two hours out of his way to oblige me. And it may be that, having left his companions and the heath country through which the roads frequented by men of his business run, where his mules can pasture without injuring any one, he fancied he was just as free here in our wheat-lands; and though he is altogether wrong, it would be best not to tell him so."

"He will have to know what I think," I answered, "for I see now how the land lays. Ho! ho! muleteers! we know what they are. You remind me of things I have heard my godfather, Gervais the forester, tell of. Muleteers are lawless men, wicked and ignorant, who would kill a man with as little conscience as they would a rabbit. They think they have a right to feed their beasts at the expense of the peasantry, and if any one complains who is not strong enough to resist them, they will come back later or send their comrades to kill the poor man's cattle or burn his house, or worse; they live on plunder, like thieves at a fair."

"As you have heard those things," said Joseph, "you must see that we should be very foolish to draw down some great harm to the farmers and my master and your family in revenge for a little one. I don't defend what has been done, and when Maître Huriel told me he was going to pasture his mules and camp at Nohant, as he does elsewhere at all seasons, I told him about this bit of common and advised him not to let his mules stray into the wheat-fields. He promised he would not; for he is not at all ill-disposed. But his temper is quick, and he wouldn't back down if a whole crowd of people fell upon him. Please go back to your own property, keep clear of these beasts, and don't pick a quarrel with anybody. If you are questioned to-morrow, say you saw nothing; for to swear in a court of law against a muleteer is quite as dangerous as to swear against a lord."

Joseph was right; so I gave in, and took the road towards home; but I was not satisfied, for backing down before a threat is wisdom to old men and bitter wrath to young ones.

As I neared the house, quite resolved not to go to bed, I fancied I saw a light in it. I quickened my steps and finding the door, which I had latched, wide open, I rushed in and saw a man in the chimney-corner lighting his pipe by a blaze he had made. He turned round and looked at me as quietly as if the house were his, and I recognized the charcoal-blackened man whom Joseph called Huriel.

My wrath returned; and closing the door behind me I exclaimed as I went up to him:--

"Well done! I am glad you have walked into the lion's den. I've a couple of words to say to you."

"Three, if you like," he said, squatting on his heels and drawing fire through his pipe, for the tobacco was damp and did not light readily. Then he added, as if scornfully, "There's not even a pair of tongs to pick up the embers."

"No," I retorted, "but there's a good cudgel to flatten you out with."

"And pray why?" he demanded without losing an atom of assurance. "You are angry because I have entered your house without permission. Why were not you at home? I knocked on the door and asked to light my pipe, a thing no one ever refuses. Silence gives consent, so I pulled the latch. Why did not you lock the door if you are afraid of thieves? I looked at the beds and saw the house was empty; I lighted my pipe, and here I am. What have you to say to that?"

So saying, as I tell you, he took up his gun as if to examine the lock, but it was really as much as to say, "If you are armed, so am I; two can play at that game."

I had an idea of aiming at him to make him respect me; but the longer I looked at his blackened face the more I was struck with his frank air and his lively, jovial eye, so that I ceased to be angry and felt only piqued. He was a young man of twenty-five, tall and strong, and if washed and shaved, would have been quite a handsome fellow. I put my gun down beside the wall and went up to him without fear.

"Let us talk," I said, sitting down by him.

"As you will," he answered, laying aside his gun.

"Is it you they call Huriel?"

"And you Étienne Depardieu?"

"How do you know my name?"

"Just as you know mine,--from our little friend Joseph Picot."

"Then they are your mules that I have caught?"

"Caught!" he exclaimed, half-rising in astonishment. Then, laughing, he added: "You are joking! you can't catch my mules."

"Yes, I can," I said, "if I catch and lead the horse."

"Ha! you have learned the trick?" he cried, with a defiant air. "But how about the dogs?"

"I don't fear dogs when I've a gun in my hand."

"Have you killed my dogs?" he shouted, jumping up. His face flamed with anger, which let me know that though he might be jovial by nature he could be terrible at times.

"I might have killed your dogs," I replied, "and I might have led your mules into a farmyard where you would have found a dozen strong fellows to deal with. I did not do it because Joseph told me you were alone, and that it was not fair for a mere piece of mischief to put you in danger of losing your life. I agreed to that reason. But now we are one to one. Your beasts have injured my field and my sister's field, and what's more, you have entered my house in my absence, which is improper and insolent. You will beg pardon for your behavior and pay damages for my oats, or--"

"Or what?" he said, with a sneer.

"Or we will settle the matter according to the laws and customs of Berry, which are, I think, the same as those of the Bourbonnais where fists are lawyers."

"That is to say, the law of the strongest," he replied, turning up his sleeves. "That suits me better than going before the justices, and if you are really alone and don't play traitor--"

"Come outside," I said, "and you shall see that I am alone. You are wrong to insult me in that way, for I might have shot you as I came in. But guns are made to kill wolves and mad dogs. I didn't want to treat you like a beast, and though you have a chance to shoot me at this moment I think it cowardly for men to pepper each other with balls when fists were given to human beings to fight with. As to that, I don't think you are a greater fool than I, and if you have got pluck--"

"My lad," he said, pulling me towards the fire to look at me, "perhaps you are making a mistake. You are younger than I am, and though you look pretty wiry and solid I wouldn't answer for that skin of yours. I would much rather you spoke me fairly about your damages and trusted to my honesty."

"Enough," I said, knocking his hat into the ashes to anger him; "the best bruised of us two will get justice presently."

He quietly picked up his hat and laid it on the table saying,--

"What are the rules in this part of the country?"

"Among young fellows," I replied, "there is no ill-will or treachery. We seize each other round the body, or strike where we can except on the face. He who takes a stick or a stone is thought a scoundrel."

"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:--