Front matter (continued 8)

When I judged that the bagpipers must have reached the postern, I turned the corner of the castle under an arcade which in those days was used as a footpath by the gentry on their way to the parish church. I found I was all alone when I entered the path by the churchyard, a place few Christian men would set foot in alone after nightfall,—not only because it led past the cemetery, but because the north flank of the castle had a bad name. There was talk of I don't know how many persons drowned in the moat in the days of the English war; and some folks swore they had heard the cocadrillos whistle on that particular path when epidemics were about.

You know of course that the cocadrillo is a sort of lizard, which sometimes seems no bigger than your little finger, and sometimes swells to the size of an ox and grows five or six yards long. This beast, which I have never seen, and whose existence I couldn't warrant, is supposed to vomit a venom which poisons the air and brings the plague. Now, though I did not believe much of this, I was not over-fond of going along this path, where the high wall of the castle and the tall trees of the cemetery shut out every speck of light. On this occasion I walked fast, without looking to the right or left, and passed through the postern of the English gate, of which, by the bye, not one stone upon another remains to the present day.

Once there, and notwithstanding that the night was fine and the moon clear, I could not see, either far or near, the slightest trace of the eighteen persons I was after. I looked in every direction; I even went as far as Père Begneux's cottage, the only house they could have entered. The occupants were all asleep, and nowhere about was there any noise, or trace, or sign, of a living person. I therefore concluded that the missing bagpipers had entered the cemetery to perform some wicked conjuring, and—though far from liking to do so, but determined to risk all for Thérence's relations—I returned through the postern and along the accursed path, stepping softly, skirting the bank so close that I touched the tombstones, and keeping my ears open to the slightest sound. I heard the screech-owl hooting in the casemates, and the adders hissing in the black water of the moat, but that was all. The dead slept in the ground as tranquilly as the living in their beds. I plucked up courage to climb over the cemetery bank and to give a glance round the field of death. All was quiet,—no signs whatever of the bagpipers.

Then I walked all round the castle. It was locked up, and as it was after ten o'clock masters and servants slept like stones.

Then I returned to the inn, not being able to imagine what had become of the guild, but determined to station my comrades in the path leading to the English gate, from which we could see what happened to Joseph when he reached the rendezvous at midnight at the gate of the cemetery. I found them on the bridge debating whether or not they should start for home, and declaring they could see no danger to the Huriels, because it was evident they had agreed amicably with the other bagpipers in the matter of the competition. As for what concerned Joseph, they cared little or nothing, and tried to prevent me from interfering. I told them that to my thinking the danger for all three would be when the tests were applied, for the evil intentions of the bagpipers had been plainly shown, and the Huriels, I knew, were there to protect Joseph.

"Are you already sick of the enterprise?" I said. "Is it because we are only eight to sixteen, and you haven't a heart for two inside of you?"

"How do you count eight?" asked Leonard. "Do you think the Head-Woodsman and his son would go with us against their fellow-members?"

"I did count wrong;" I answered; "for we are really nine. Joseph won't let himself be fleeced if they make it too hot for him, and as both the Huriels carry arms, I feel quite sure they mean to defend him if they can't be heard otherwise."

"That's not the point," returned Leonard. "We are only six, and they are twenty; but there's another thing which pleases us even less than a fight. People have been talking in the inn, and each had a story to relate of these tests. The monk denounced them as impious and abominable; and though Joseph laughed at what was said, we don't feel certain there is nothing in it. They told of candidates nailed on a bier, and furnaces into which they were tripped, and red-hot iron crosses which they were made to clasp. Such things seem hard to believe; and if I were certain that that was all I'd like to punish the fellows who are bad enough to ill-treat a neighbor in that way. Unfortunately—"

"There, there!" said I, "I see you have let yourself be scared. What is behind it all? Tell the whole, and let's either laugh at it or take warning."

"This is it," said one of the lads, seeing that Leonard was ashamed to own his fears. "None of us have ever seen the devil, and we don't want to make his acquaintance."

"Ho, ho!" I cried, seeing that they were all relieved, now the words were out. "So it is Lucifer himself that frightens you! Well, I'm too good a Christian to be afraid of him; I give my soul to God, and I'll be bound I'll take him by the horns, yes I myself, alone against the enemy of mankind, as fearlessly as I would take a goat by the beard. He has been allowed to do evil to those who fear him long enough, and it is my opinion that an honest fellow who dared to wrench off his horns could deprive him of half his power, and that would be something gained at any rate."

"Faith!" said Leonard, ashamed of his fears, "if you look at it that way I won't back down, and if you'll smash his horns I'll try to pull out his tail. They say it is fine, and we'll find out if it is gold or hemp."

There is no such remedy against fear as fun, but I don't deny that though I took the matter on that tone, I was not at all anxious to pit myself against "Georgeon," as we call the devil in our parts. I wasn't a bit more easy in mind than the rest, but for Thérence's sake I felt ready to march into the jaws of hell. I had promised her, and the good God himself couldn't have turned me back now.

But that's an ill way to talk. The good God, on the contrary, gave me strength and confidence, and the more anxiety I felt all that night, the more I thought on him and asked his aid.

When our other comrades saw that our minds, Leonard's and mine, were made up, they followed us. To make the affair safer, I went back to the inn to see if I could find other friends who, without knowing what we were after, would follow us for fun, and, if occasion came, would fight with us. But it was late, and there was no one at the Bœuf Couronné but Benoît, who was supping with the monk, Mariton, who was saying her prayers, and Joseph, who had thrown himself on a bed and was sound asleep with, I must own, a tranquillity that put us to shame.

"I have only one hope," said Mariton, as she got off her knees; "and that is that he will sleep over the time and not wake up till morning."

"That's just like all women!" cried Benoît, laughing, "they want life at the price of shame. But I gave my word to her lad to wake him before midnight, and I shall not fail to do so."

"Ah, you don't love him!" cried the mother. "We'll see if you push our Charlot into danger when his turn comes."

"You don't know what you are talking about, wife," replied the innkeeper; "go to bed and to sleep with my boy; I promise you I'll not fail to wake yours. You would not wish him to blame me for his dishonor?"

"Besides," said the monk, "what danger do you suppose there is in the nonsense they are going to perform? I tell you you are dreaming, my good woman. The devil doesn't get hold of anybody; God doesn't allow it, and you have not brought your boy up so ill that you need fear that he will get himself damned for his music. I tell you that the villanous tests of the bagpipers are really nothing worse than impious jokes, from which sensible people can easily protect themselves; and Joseph need only laugh at the demons they will set upon him, to put them all to flight."

The monk's words heartened up my comrades wonderfully.

"If it is only a farce," they said to me, "we will tumble into the middle of it and thrash the devil well; but hadn't we better take Benoît into our confidence? He might help us."

"To tell you the truth," I said, "I am not sure that he would. He is thought a worthy man; but you never know the secrets of a family, especially when there are children by a first marriage. Step-fathers don't always like them, and Joseph has been none too amiable this evening with his. Let's get off without a word to anyone; that's best, and it is nearly time we were there."

Taking the road past the church, walking softly and in single file, we posted ourselves in the little path near the English gate. The moon was so low we could creep in the shadow of the cemetery bank and not be seen, even if any one passed quite close to us. My comrades, being strangers, had no such repugnance to the place as the villagers, and I let them go in front while I hid within the cemetery, near enough to the gate to see who entered, and also near enough to call to them when wanted.

THIRTY-FIRST EVENING.

I waited a good long time,—all the longer because the hours go so slow in company with dead folks. At last midnight struck in the church steeple and I saw the head of a man rising beyond the low wall of the cemetery quite near the gate. Another quarter of an hour dragged along without my seeing or hearing anything but that man, who, getting tired of waiting, began to whistle a Bourbonnais tune, whereby I knew it was Joseph, who no doubt betrayed the hopes of his enemies by seeming so cool in presence of the dead.

At last, another man, who was stuck close to the wall inside the gate, and whom I hadn't seen on account of the big box-trees which hid him, popped his head quickly over the wall as if to take Joseph by surprise; but the latter did not stir, and said, laughing: "Well, Père Carnat, you are rather late; I came near going to sleep while waiting. Will you open the gate, or must I enter that 'nettle-field,' by the breach?"

"No," said Carnat, "the curate would not like it; we mustn't openly offend the church people. I will go to you."

He climbed over the wall and told Joseph he must let his head and arms be covered with a very thick canvas sack, and then walk wherever he was led.

"Very good," said Joseph in a contemptuous tone. "Go on."

I watched them from over the wall, and saw them enter the little path to the English gate; then I made a short cut to the place where I had left my comrades and found only four of them; the youngest had slipped off without a word, and I was rather afraid the others would do the same, for they found the time long and told me they had heard very queer noises, which seemed to come from under the earth.

Presently Joseph came along, with his head covered and led by Carnat. The pair got close upon us, but turned from the path about twenty feet off. Carnat made Joseph clamber down to the edge of the moat, and we thought he meant to drown him. At once we were on our legs to stop such treachery, but in a minute more we saw they were both walking in the water, which was shallow at that place, until they reached a low archway in the wall of the castle which was partly in the water of the moat. They passed through it, and this explained to me what had become of the others whom I had hunted for.

It was necessary to do as they did; which didn't seem to me very difficult, but my comrades were hard to persuade. They had heard that the vaults of the castle ran nine miles out into the country, as far as Deols, and that persons who did not know their windings had been lost in them. I was forced to declare that I knew them very well, though I had never set foot there in my life, and had no idea whether they were common wine-cellars or a subterraneous town, as my friends declared.

I walked first, without seeing where I set my feet, feeling the walls, which inclosed a narrow passage where one's head very nearly touched the roof. We advanced in this way for a short time, when a hullaballoo sounded beneath us like forty thunder-claps rolling round the devil's cave. It was so strange and alarming that I stopped short to try and find out what it meant; then I went quickly forward, not to let myself get chilled with the idea of some devil's caper, telling my companions to follow me. But the noise was so loud they did not hear me and I, thinking they were at my heels, went on and on, till, hearing nothing more, I turned to speak to them and got no answer. Not wishing to call aloud, I went back four or five steps; it was all dark. I stretched out my hands, and called cautiously; good-bye to my valiant contingent,—they had deserted me!

I thought I must be pretty near the entrance and could surely catch up with them within or without. I returned through the arch by which we had entered, and searched carefully along the little path beside the cemetery; but no! my comrades had disappeared just like the bagpipers; it seemed as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up.

I had a moment of horrid worry, thinking I must either give up the whole thing or return to those devilish caverns and take myself all alone into the traps and terrors they were preparing for Joseph. But I asked myself whether, even if the matter concerned only him, I could quietly leave him in danger. My soul answered no, and then I asked my heart if love for Thérence wasn't quite as real a thing as one's duty to one's neighbor, and the answer I received sent me back through the dark and slimy archway and along the subterranean passages—I won't say as gayly, but at any rate as quickly as if I were going to my own wedding.

While I was feeling my way forward I found, on my right, an opening to another passage, which I had not found before because I then felt to my left; and I thought to myself that my comrades in going out had probably found it and turned that way. I followed the passage, for there was no sign that the other way would bring me any nearer to the bagpipers. I did not find my comrades, but as for the bagpipers, I had not taken twenty steps before I heard their din much nearer than it sounded the first time; and presently a quivering kind of light let me see that I was entering a large round cave which had three or four exits, black as the jaws of hell.

I was surprised to see so clearly in a vault where there wasn't any light, but I presently noticed that gleams were coming from below through the ground I trod upon. I noticed that this ground seemed to swell up in the middle, and fearing it was not solid, I kept close to the wall, and getting near to a crevice, I lay down with my eye close to it and saw very plainly what was going on in another cavern just below the one I was in. It was, as I afterwards learned, a former dungeon, adjoining an oubliette or black hole, the mouth of which could still be seen thirty years ago in the upper hall of the castle. I thought as much when I saw the remains of human bones at the lower end of the cave, which the bagpipers had set up in rows to terrify the candidate, with pine torches inside their skulls. Joseph was there all alone, his eyes unbound, his arms crossed, just as cool as I was not, listened contemptuously to the uproar of eighteen bagpipes, which all brayed together, prolonging a single note into a roar. This crazy music came from an adjoining cave where the bagpipers were hidden, and where, as they doubtless knew, a curious echo multiplied the sound. I, who knew nothing about it then, fancied at first that all the bagpipes of Berry, Auvergne, and the Bourbonnais were collected together in that cave.

When they had had enough of growling with their instruments, they began to squeal and squall themselves, and the walls echoed them, till you would have fancied they were a great troop of furious animals of all kinds. But Joseph, who was really an unusual kind of man among our peasantry,—indeed, I hardly ever knew his like,—merely shrugged his shoulders and yawned, as if tired with such fool's play. His courage passed into me, and I began to think of laughing at the farce, when a little noise at my back made me turn my head. There I saw, at the entrance of the passage by which I had come, a figure which froze my senses.

It was that of a lord of the olden time, carrying a lance and wearing an iron breastplate and leathern garments of a style no longer seen. But the most awful part of him was his face, which was actually like a death's head.

I partly recovered myself, thinking it was only a disguise some of the enemy had put on to frighten Joseph; but on reflection I saw the danger was really mine, because, finding me on the watch, he would surely do me some damage. However, though he saw me as plain as I could see him, he did not stir, but remained stock-still like a ghost, half in shadow, and half in the light that came up from below; and as this light flickered according as it was moved about, there were moments when, not seeing him, I thought he was a notion of my own brain,—until suddenly he would reappear, all but his legs, which remained in darkness behind a sort of step or barrier, which made me fancy he was as it were floating on a cloud.

I don't know how long I was tortured with this vision, which made me forget to watch Joseph, and scared me lest I was going mad in trying to do more than it was in me to perform. I recollected that I had seen in the hall of the castle an old picture which they said was the portrait of a wicked warrior whom a lord of the castle in the olden time, who was the warrior's brother, had flung into the dungeon. The garments of leather and iron which I saw before me on that skeleton figure, were certainly like those in the picture, and the notion came into my head that here was a ghost in pain, watching the desecration of his sepulchre, and waiting to show his displeasure in some way or other.

What made this idea the more probable was that the ghost said nothing to me, and evidently took no notice of my presence,—apparently aware that I had no evil intentions against his poor carcass.

At last a noise different from all others attracted my eyes away from him. I looked back into the cave below me, where stood Joseph, and something near him very ugly and very strange.

Joseph stood boldly in front of an abominable creature, dressed in the skin of a dog, with horns sticking out of his tangled hair, and a red face, and claws and tail; the which beast was jumping about and making faces like one possessed of the devil. It was vile to see, and yet I wasn't the dupe of it very long, for though the creature tried to disguise his voice I thought I recognized that of Doré-Fratin, the bagpiper of Pouligny, one of the strongest and most quarrelsome men in our neighborhood.

"You may sneer as you please," he was saying to Joseph, "at me and at hell, but I am the king of all musicians, and you shall not play your instrument without my permission unless you sell me your soul."

Joseph answered, "What can such a fool of a devil as you do with the soul of a musician? You have no use for it."

"Mind what you say," returned the other. "Don't you know that down here you must either give yourself to the devil or prove that you are stronger than he?"

"Yes, yes, I know the proverb," said Joseph: "'Kill the devil or the devil will kill you.'"

As he spoke, I saw Huriel and his father come from a dark opening into the vault and go up to the devil as if to speak to him; but they were pulled back by the other bagpipers who now showed themselves, and Carnat the elder addressed Joseph.

"You have proved," he said, "that you don't fear witchcraft, and we will let you go free if you will now conform to the usual custom, which is to fight the devil, in proof that you, a Christian man, refuse to submit to him."

"If the devil wants to be well thrashed," replied Joseph, "let me go at him at once, and we'll see if his skin is any tougher than mine. What weapons?"

"None but your fists," replied Carnat.

"It is fair play, I hope," said the Head-Woodsman.

Joseph took no time to inquire; his temper was up. Enraged by the tricks that were played on him, he sprang on the devil, tore off his horns and head-dress, and caught him so resolutely round the body that he brought him to earth and fell on top of him.

But he instantly got up, and I fancied he gave a cry of surprise and pain; but the bagpipers all began to play, except Huriel and his father, who stood watching the encounter with an expression of doubt and uneasiness.

Joseph, meantime, was tumbling the devil about and seeming to get the better of him; but his rage seemed to me unnatural, and I feared he might put himself in the wrong through too much violence. The bagpipers seemed to help him, for instead of rescuing their comrade, who was knocked down three times, they marched round and round the fight, piping loudly, and beating with their feet to excite him.

Suddenly the Head-Woodsman separated the combatants by levelling a blow with his stick on the devil's paws, and threatening to strike harder the second time if he was not listened to. Huriel ran to his father's side, raising his stick also, while all the others stopped walking round and round and piping; and a moment's silence and stillness fell on all.

Then I saw that Joseph, overcome with pain, was wiping his torn hands and his face, which was covered with blood, and that he would have fainted if Huriel had not caught him in his arms, while Doré-Fratin merely threw aside his trappings, panting with heat, and wiping the sweat from his forehead with a grin.

"What does this mean?" cried Carnat, coming up to the Plead-Woodsman with a threatening air, "Are you a traitor to the guild? By what right do you interfere with the tests?"

"I interfere at my own risk and to your shame," replied the Head-Woodsman. "I am not a traitor, and you are evil-doers, both treacherous and cruel. I suspected that you were tricking us to lead this young man here and wound him, perhaps dangerously. You hate him because you know that every one will prefer him to you, and that wherever he is heard no one will listen to your music. You have not dared to refuse him admission to the guild, because the whole country would blame you for such a crying injustice; but you are trying to frighten him from playing in the parishes you have taken possession of, and you have put him through hard and dangerous tests which none of you could have borne as long as he."

"I don't know what you mean," said the old dean, Pailloux de Verneuil; "and the blame you cast upon us here, in presence of a candidate, is unheard-of insolence. We don't know how you practise initiation in your part of the country, but here we are following our customs and shall not allow you to interfere."

"I shall interfere," said Huriel, who was sopping Joseph's blood with his handkerchief, and had brought him back to consciousness, as he held him on his knee. "I neither can nor will tell of your conduct away from here, because I belong to the brotherhood, but at least I will tell you to your faces that you are brutes. In our country we fight with the devil in jest, taking care to do no one any harm. Here you choose the strongest among you and furnish him with hidden weapons, with which he endeavors to put out the eyes and stab the veins of your victims. See! this young man is exhausted, and in the rage which your wickedness excited in him, he would have let you kill him if we had not stopped the fight. And then what would you have done? You would have flung his body into that vault, where so many other unfortunates have perished, whose bones ought to rise and condemn you for being as cruel as your former lords."

These words reminded me of the apparition I had forgotten, and I turned round to see if it was still there. I could not see it, and then I bethought me of finding my way to the lower cave, where, as I began to think, I might be useful to my friends. I found the stairway at once and went down to the entrance of the vault, not trying to conceal myself, for such disputing and confusion were going on that no one paid any attention to me.

The Head-Woodsman had picked up the devil's skin-coat and showed that it was covered with spikes like a comb for currying oxen; and also the mittens which the sham devil wore on his hands, in which strong nails were fastened with the points outside. The bagpipers were furious. "Here's a pretty fuss about a few scratches," cried Carnat. "Isn't it in the order of things that a devil should have claws? And this young fool, who attacked him so imprudently, why didn't he know how far he could play at that game without getting his snout scraped? Come, come, don't pity him so much; it's a mere nothing; and since he has had enough of it, let him confess he can't play at our games, and is not fit to belong to our guild in any way."

"I shall belong to it!" cried Joseph, wrenching himself from Huriel's arms and showing as he did so his torn shirt and bleeding breast. "I shall belong to it in spite of you! I insist that the fight shall go on, and one of us be left in this cavern."

"I forbid it!" said the Head-Woodsman, "and I insist that this young man shall be proclaimed victor, or I swear to bring into this place a company of bagpipers who shall teach you how to behave, and who will see justice done."

"You?" said Doré-Fratin, drawing a sort of boar-knife from his belt. "You can do so if you choose, but you shall carry with you some marks on your body, so that people may believe your reports."

The Head-Woodsman and Huriel put themselves in an attitude of defence. Joseph flung himself upon Fratin to get away his knife, and I made one bound in amongst them. But before any of us could strike a blow the figure that startled me so in the upper cavern appeared at the opening of the lower one, stretched forth his lance, and slowly advanced in a way to strike terror to the minds of the evil-doers. Then, as they all paused, dumbfounded with fear and amazement, a piteous voice was heard from the depths of the dungeon, reciting the prayers for the dead.

This routed the whole brotherhood. One of the pipers cried out: "The dead! the dead are rising!" and they all fled, pell-mell, yelling and pushing through the various openings except that to the dungeon, where stood another figure wrapped in a winding-sheet, chanting the most dismal sing-song that anybody ever heard. A minute later all our enemies had disappeared, and the warrior flinging off his helmet and mask, we beheld the jovial face of Benoît, while the monk, getting out of his winding sheet, was holding his sides in convulsions of laughter.

"May God forgive me for masquerading," he said. "I did it with the best intentions; those rascals deserve a good lesson, if it is only to teach them not to laugh at the devil, of whom they are really more afraid than those whom they threaten with him."

"For my part, I felt quite certain," said Benoît, "that our comedy would put an end to theirs." Then, noticing Joseph's wounds, he grew very uneasy, and showed such feeling for him that all this, together with the succor he had brought in so timely a manner, proved to my mind his regard for his step-son, and his good heart, which I had hitherto doubted.

While we examined Joseph and convinced ourselves he was not very seriously hurt, the monk told us how the butler at the castle had once said to him that he allowed the bagpipers and other societies to hold their secret meetings in the cellars of the castle. Those in which we found ourselves were too far from the inhabited parts of the castle to disturb the lady mistress of Saint-Chartier, and, indeed, if it had, she would only have laughed, not imagining that any mischief could come of it. But Benoît, who suspected some evil intent, had got the same butler to give him a key to the cellars, and a disguise; and that was how it was that he got these in time to avert all danger.

"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, addressing him, "thank you for your assistance; but I rather regret you came, for those fellows are capable of declaring that I asked you to do so and consequently that I betrayed the secrets of the guild. If you will take my advice we had better get away noiselessly, at once, and leave them to think you were really ghosts."

"All the more," added Benoît, "that their wrath may deprive me of their custom, which is no slight matter. I hope they did not recognize Tiennet—but how the devil was it that Tiennet got here in the nick of time?"

"Didn't you bring him?" asked Huriel.

"That he didn't," said I. "I came on my own account, because of the stories they tell of your deviltries. I was curious to see them; but I swear to you those fellows were too scared and the sight of their eyes was too wide of the mark ever to have recognized me."

We were about to leave when the sound of angry voices and an uproar like that of a fight was heard.

"Dear, dear!" cried the monk, "what's that now? I think they are coming back and we have not yet done with them. Quick, let's get back into our disguises!"

"No," said Benoît, listening, "I know what it is. I met, as I came along through the castle cellars, four or five young fellows, one of whom is known to me; and that is Leonard, your Bourbonnais wood-chopper, Père Bastien. These lads were there from curiosity no doubt; but they had got bewildered in the caverns, and I lent them my lantern, telling them to wait for me. The bagpipers must have met them and they are giving chase."

"It is more likely that they are being chased themselves if there are not more than five of them," said Huriel. "Let us go and see."

We were just starting when the noise and the footsteps approached, and Carnat, Doré-Fratin, and eight others returned to the cave, having, in fact, exchanged a few blows with our comrades, and finding that they had to do with real flesh and blood instead of spectres, were ashamed of their cowardice and so came back again. They reproached the Huriels for having betrayed them and driven them into an ambush. The Head-Woodsman defended himself, and the monk tried to secure peace by taking it all upon himself, telling the bagpipers to repent of their sins. But they felt themselves in good force, for others kept coming back to their support; and when they found their numbers nearly complete they raised their voices to a roar, and went from reproaches to threats and from threats to blows. Seeing there was no way to avoid an encounter, all the more because they had drunk a good deal of brandy while the tests were going on and were more or less intoxicated, we put ourselves in an attitude of defence, pressing one against the other, and showing front to the enemy on all sides, like oxen when a troop of wolves attack them at pasture. The monk, having already lost his morality and his Latin, now lost his patience also, and seizing the pipe of an instrument which had got broken in the scrimmage, he laid about him as hard as a man well could, in defence of his own skin.

Unluckily, Joseph was weakened by the loss of blood, and Huriel, who bore upon his heart the recollection of Malzac's death, was more fearful of giving blows than of receiving them. Anxious to protect his father, who sprang into the fray like an old lion, he put himself in great danger. Benoît fought very well for a man who was just out of an illness; but the truth is we were only six against fifteen or sixteen, and as the blood rose anger came, and I saw our enemies opening their knives. I had only time to fling myself before the Head-Woodsman, who, still unwilling to draw his blade, was the object of their bitterest anger. I received a wound in the arm, which I hardly felt at the moment, but which hindered my fighting on, and I thought the day was lost, when, by great good luck, my four comrades decided to come and see what the noise was about. The reinforcement was sufficient, and together we put to flight, for the second time and the last, our exhausted enemies, taken in the rear and ignorant how many were upon them.

I saw that victory was ours and that none of my friends were much hurt; then, suddenly perceiving that I had got more than I wanted, I fell like a log and neither knew nor felt another thing.

THIRTY-SECOND EVENING.

When I came to my senses I found myself in the same bed with Joseph, and it took me some time to recover full consciousness. When I did, I saw I was in Benoît's own room, that the bed was good, the sheets very white, and my arm bound up after a bleeding. The sun was shining through the yellow bed-curtains, and, except for a sense of weakness, I felt no ill. I turned to Joseph, who was a good deal cut about the head, but in no way to disfigure him, and who said, as he kissed me: "Well, my Tiennet, here we are, as in the old days, when we fought the boys of Verneuil on our way back from catechism, and were left lying together at the bottom of a ditch. You have protected me to your hurt, just as you did then, and I can never thank you as I ought; but you know, and I think you always knew, that my heart is not as churlish as my tongue."

"I have always known it," I replied, returning his kiss, "and if I have again protected you I am very glad of it. But you mustn't take too much for yourself. I had another motive—"

Here I stopped, fearing I might give way and let out Thérence's name; but just then a white hand drew back the curtain, and there I saw a vision of Thérence herself, leaning towards me, while Mariton went round between the bed and the wall to kiss and question her son.

Thérence bent over me, as I said; and I, quite overcome and thinking I was dreaming, tried to rise and thank her for her visit and assure her I was out of danger, when there! like a sick fool and blushing like a girl, I received from her lips the finest kiss that ever recalled the dead.

"What are you doing, Thérence?" I cried, grasping her hands, which I could almost have eaten up. "Do you want to make me crazy?"

"I want to thank you and love you all my life," she answered, "for you have kept your word to me; you have brought my father and my brother back to me safe and sound, and I know that all that you have done, all that has happened to you, is because you loved them and loved me. Therefore I am here to nurse you and not to leave you as long as you are ill."

"Ah, that's good, Thérence!" I said, sighing; "it is more than I deserve. Please God not to let me get well, for I don't know what would become of me afterwards."

"Afterwards?" said Père Bastien, coming into the room with Huriel and Brulette. "Come, daughter, what shall we do with him afterwards?"

"Afterwards?" said Thérence, blushing scarlet for the first time.

"Yes, Thérence the Sincere," returned her father, "speak as becomes a girl who never lies."

"Well, father, then afterwards, I will never leave him, either," she said.

"Go away, all of you!" I cried; "close the curtains; I want to get up and dress and dance and sing. I'm not ill; I have paradise inside of me—" and so saying I fell back in a faint, and saw and knew nothing more, except that I felt, in a kind of a dream, that Thérence was holding me in her arms and giving me remedies.

In the evening I felt better; Joseph was already about, and I might have been, too, only they wouldn't let me; and I was made to spend the evening in bed, while the rest sat and talked in the room, and my Thérence, sitting by my pillow, listened tenderly to what I said, letting me pour out in words all the balm that was in my heart.

The monk talked with Benoît, the pair washing down their conversation with several jorums of white wine, which they swallowed under the guise of a restorative medicine. Huriel and Brulette were together in a corner; Joseph with his mother and the Head-Woodsman in another.

Huriel was saying to Brulette: "I told you, the very first day I saw you, when I showed you your token in my earring, that it should stay there forever unless the ear itself came off. Well, the ear, though slit in the fight, is still there, and the token, though rather bent, is in the ear—see! The wound will heal, the token can be mended, and everything will come all right, by the grace of God."

Mariton was saying to Père Bastien: "What is going to be the result of this fight? Those men are capable of murdering my poor boy if he attempts to play his bagpipe in this region."

"No," replied Père Bastien, "all has happened for the best; they have had a good lesson, and there were witnesses enough outside of the brotherhood to keep them from venturing to attack Joseph or any of us again. They are capable of doing harm when, by force or persuasion, they have brought the candidate to take an oath. But Joseph took none; he will, however, be silent because he is generous. Tiennet will do the same, and so will our young woodsmen by my advice and order. But your bagpipers know very well that if they touch a hair of our heads all tongues will be loosened and the affair brought to justice."

And the monk was saying to Benoît: "I can't laugh as you do about the adventure, for I got into a passion which compels me to confess and do penance. I can forgive them the blows they tried to give me, but not those they forced me to give them. Ah! the prior of my convent is right enough to taunt me with my temper, and tell me I ought to combat not only the old Adam in me but the old peasant too,—that is, the man within me who loves wine and fighting. Wine," continued the monk, sighing, and filling his glass to the brim, "is conquered, thank God! but I discovered this night that my blood is as quarrelsome as ever, and that a mere tap could make me furious."

"But weren't you in a position of legitimate defence?" said Benoît. "Come, come; you spoke to those fellows in a proper manner, and you didn't strike till you were obliged to."

"That's all very true," replied the friar, "but my evil genius the prior will ask me questions,—he'll pump the truth out of me; and I shall be forced to confess that instead of doing it regretfully, I was carried away with the pleasure of striking like a sledge-hammer, forgetting I had a cassock on my back and thinking of the days when, keeping my flocks in the Bourbonnais pastures, I went about quarrelling with the other shepherds for the mere earthly vanity of proving I was the strongest and most obstinate of them all."

Joseph was silent; no doubt he felt badly at seeing two such happy couples without the right to sulk at them, after receiving such good support from Huriel and me. The Head-Woodsman, who had a tender spot in his heart for the fellow on account of his music, kept talking to him of glory. Joseph made great efforts to witness the happiness of others without showing jealousy; and we had to admit that, proud and cold as he was, there was in him an uncommon force of will for self-conquest. He remained hidden, as I did, for some time in his mother's house, till the marks of the fray were effaced; for the secret of the whole affair was very well kept by my comrades, though Leonard, who behaved very boldly and yet judiciously, threatened the bagpipers to reveal all to the authorities of the canton, if they did not conduct themselves peacefully.

When we all got about again it was found that no one was seriously damaged, except Père Carnat, whose wrist, as it proved, I had dislocated, and a parley and settlement ensued. It was agreed that Joseph should have certain parishes; and he had them assigned to him, though with no intention of using his privilege.

I was rather more ill than I thought for; not so much on account of my wound, which was not severe, nor yet of the blows that had been rained on my body, but because of the bleeding the monk had done to me with the best intentions. Huriel and Brulette had the charming amiability to put off their marriage till ours could take place; and a month later, the two weddings were celebrated,—in fact, there were three, for Benoît wished to acknowledge his publicly, and to celebrate the occasion with us. The worthy man, delighted to have had his heir so well taken care of by Brulette, tried to get her to accept a gift of some consequence, but she steadily refused, and throwing herself into Mariton's arms she said: "Remember that this dear woman was a mother to me for more than a dozen years; do you think I can take money when I am not yet out of her debt?"

"That maybe," said Mariton, "but your bringing up was nothing but honor and profit to me, whereas that of my Charlot brought you trouble and insult."

"My dear friend," replied Brulette, "that very fact is all that evens our account. I would gladly have made your José happy in return for all your goodness to me; but that did not depend on my poor heart, and so to compensate you for the grief I caused him, I was bound to suffer all I did for your other child."

"There's a girl for you!" cried Benoît, wiping his big round eyes, which were not used to shed tears. "Yes, yes, indeed, there's a girl!—" and he couldn't say any more.

To get even with Brulette, he was determined to pay all the costs of her wedding, and mine into the bargain. As he spared nothing and invited at least two hundred guests, it cost him a pretty sum, which he paid without a murmur.

The monk promised faithfully to be present, all the more because the prior had kept him on bread and water for a month and the embargo on his gullet was raised the very day of the wedding. He did not abuse his liberty, however, and behaved in such a pleasant way that we all became as fast friends with him as Huriel and Benoît had previously been.

Joseph kept up his courage till the day of the wedding. In the morning he was pale, and apparently deep in thought; but as we left the church he took the bagpipe from my father-in-law's hand, and played a wedding march which he had composed that very night in our honor. It was such a beautiful piece of music, and was so applauded, that his gloom disappeared, and he played triumphantly his best dance airs all the evening, and quite forgot himself and his troubles the whole time the festivities lasted.

He followed us back to Chassin, and there the Head-Woodsman, having settled his affairs, addressed us one and all, as follows:—

"My children, you are now happy, and rich for country folks; I leave you the business of this forest, which is a good one, and all I possess elsewhere is yours. You can spend the rest of the season here, and during that time you can decide on your plans for the future. You belong to different parts of the country; your tastes and habits are not alike. Try, my sons, both of you, to find what kind of life will make your wives happy and keep them from regretting their marriages now so well begun. I shall return within a year. Let me have two fine grandchildren to welcome me. You can then tell me what you have decided to do. Take your time; a thing that seems good to-day may seem worse, or better, to-morrow."

"Where are going, father?" said Thérence, clasping him in her arms in fear.

"I am going to travel about with Joseph, and play our music as we go," answered Père Bastien. "He needs it; and as for me, I have hungered for it these thirty years."

Neither tears nor entreaties could keep him, and that evening we escorted them half way to Saint Sevère. There, as we embraced Père Bastien with many tears, Joseph said to us: "Don't be unhappy. I know very well he is sacrificing the sight of your happiness to my good, for he has a father's heart for me and knows I am the most to be pitied of his children; but perhaps I shall not need him long; and I have an idea you will see him sooner than he thinks for." Then he added, kneeling before my wife and Huriel's, "Dear sisters, I have offended both of you, and I have been punished enough by my own thoughts. Will you not forgive me, so that I may forgive myself and go away more peacefully?"

They both kissed him with the utmost affection, and then he came to each of us, and said, with surprising warmth of heart, the kindest and most affectionate words he had ever said in his life, begging us to forgive his faults and to hold him in remembrance.

We stood on a hill to watch them as long as possible. Père Bastien played vigorously on his bagpipe, turning round from time to time to wave his cap and blow kisses with his hand.

Joseph did not turn round; he walked in silence, with his head down as if in thought or in grief. I could not help saying to Huriel that I saw on his face as he left us that strange look I had seen in his childhood, which, in our parts, is thought the sign of a man doomed to evil.

Our tears were dried, little by little, in the sunshine of happiness and hope. My beautiful dear wife made a greater effort than the rest of us, for never before being parted from her father, she seemed to have lost a portion of her soul in losing him; and I saw that in spite of her courage, her love for me, and the happiness she felt in the prospect of becoming a mother, there was always something lacking for which she sighed in secret. So my mind was constantly turning on how to arrange our lives to live in future with Père Bastien, were it even necessary to sell my property, give up my family, and follow my wife wherever she wished to live.

It was just the same with Brulette, who was determined to consult only her husband's tastes, specially when her old grandfather, after a brief illness, died quietly, as he had lived, protected by the care and love of his dear daughter.

"Tiennet," she often said to me, "I see plainly that Berry must give way to the Bourbonnais in you and me. Huriel is too fond of this free, strong life and change of air to endure our sleepy plains. He makes me so happy I will never let him feel a secret pain. I have no family now in our parts; all my friends there, except you, have hurt me; I live only for Huriel. Where he is happy there I am happiest."

The winter found us still in the forest of Chassin. We had stripped that beautiful region of its beauty, for the old oak wood was its finest feature. The snow covered the prostrate bodies of the noble trees, flung head-foremost into the river, which held them, cold and dead, in its ice. One morning Huriel and I were lunching beside a fire of brushwood which our wives had lighted to warm our soup, and we were looking at them with delight, for both were in a fair way to keep the promise they had made to Père Bastien to give him descendants, when suddenly they both cried out, and Thérence, forgetting she was not so light as she once was, sprang almost across the fire to kiss a man whom the smoke of damp leaves had hidden from our sight. It was her good father, who soon had neither arms nor lips enough to reply to our welcome. After the first joy was over, we asked him about Joseph, and then his face darkened and his eyes filled with tears.

"He told you that you would see me sooner than I expected," said Père Bastien, sadly; "he may have had a presentiment of his fate, and God, who softened the hard shell of his heart at that moment, no doubt counselled him to reflect upon himself."

We dared not inquire further. Père Bastien sat down, opened his sack and drew forth the pieces of a broken bagpipe.

"This is all that remains of that poor lad," he said. "He could not escape his star. I thought I had softened his pride, but, alas! in everything connected with music he grew daily more haughty and morose. Perhaps it was my fault. I tried to console him for his love troubles by proving to him the happiness of his art. From me, at least, he got the sweets of praise, but the more he sucked them the greater his thirst. We went far,—as far even as the mountains of the Morvan, where there are many bagpipers as jealous as those in these parts, not so much for their selfish interests as for their conceit in their talents. Joseph was imprudent; he used language that offended them at a supper to which they hospitably invited him with the kindest intentions. Unhappily, I was not there; not feeling very well, and having no reason to fear a misunderstanding, I stayed away. He was absent all night, but that often happened, and as I had noticed he was rather jealous of the applause people were pleased to give to my old ditties, I was apt not to go with him. In the morning I went out, still not feeling well, and I heard in the village that a broken bagpipe had been picked up at the edge of a pond. I ran to see it, and knew it at a glance. Then I went to the place where it was found, and breaking the ice of the pond, I found his poor body, quite frozen. There were no marks of violence on it, and the bagpipers swore that they had parted from him, soberly and without a quarrel, about a league from the spot. I searched in vain for the cause of his death. The place was in a very wild region, where the law fears the peasant and the peasant fears nought but the devil. I was forced to content myself with their foolish remarks and reasons. In those parts they firmly believe a great deal that we should laugh at here; for instance, they think you can't be a musician without selling your soul to hell; and that Satan tears the bagpipe from the player's hands and breaks it upon his back, which drives him wild and maddens him, and then he kills himself. That is how they explain the revenge which bagpipers often take upon each other; and the latter never contradict, for it suits them to be feared and to escape all consequences. Indeed, all musicians are held in such fear and disrepute that I could get no attention to my complaints, and if I had remained in the neighborhood I might even have been accused of summoning the devil to rid me of my companion."

"Alas!" said Brulette, weeping, "my poor José, my poor dear companion! Good God, what are we to say to his mother?"

"We must tell her," said Père Bastien, sadly, "not to let Charlot take a fancy to music. It is too harsh a mistress for folks like us; we have not head enough to stand on the heights to which it leads without turning giddy."

"Oh, father!" cried Thérence, "if you would only give it up! God knows what misfortunes it may yet bring upon you."

"Be comforted, my darling," said Père Bastien, "I have given it up! I return to live with my family, to be happy with my grandchildren, whom I dream of already as they dance at my knee. Where shall we settle ourselves, my dear children?"

"Where you wish," said Thérence.

"Where our husbands wish," said Brulette.

"Where my wife wishes," I cried.

"Where you all wish," said Huriel.

"Well," said Père Bastien, "as I know your likings and your means, and as, moreover, I bring you back a bit of money, I've been thinking; as I trudged along that we could all be satisfied. When you wish the peach to ripen you mustn't pull out the stone. The peach-stone is the property which Tiennet owns at Nohant. We will buy other land that adjoins it, and build a good house for all of us. I shall be content to watch the wheat-fields,—glad not to fell God's noble trees, but to make my little songs in the olden fashion, at evening, by my door, among mine own, instead of drinking the wine of others and making jealousies. Huriel likes to roam, and his wife, just now, is of the same turn of mind. They can undertake such enterprises as we have now finished in this forest (where I see you have worked well), and they can spend the fine season in the woods. If their young family is in the way, Thérence has strength and heart enough to manage a double nest, and you will all meet together in the autumn with increased pleasure, until my son, long after he has closed my eyes, will feel the need of resting all the year round, as I feel it now."

All that my father-in-law said came to pass, just as he advised and prophesied. The good God blessed our obedience; and as life is a pasty mixed of sadness and content, poor Mariton often came to us to weep, and the worthy monk, as often, came to laugh.

THE END.