The Last Vendée
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But Courtin, whose smooth persistency we all know by this time, seemed determined not to depart without getting a look at the features of the mysterious personage whom his young master had behind him.
"Come," he said; "to-morrow you can do as you like; but to-night, at least, come and sleep at the farmhouse, – you and the person, lady or gentleman, who is with you. I swear to you, Monsieur le baron, that there is danger in being out to-night."
"There is no danger for myself and my companion, for we are not concerned in politics. What are you doing to my saddle, Courtin?" asked the young man suddenly, noticing a movement on his farmer's part which he did not understand.
"Why, nothing, Monsieur Michel; nothing," said Courtin, with perfect good-humor. "So then, you positively won't listen to my advice and entreaties?"
"No; go your way, and let me go mine."
"Go, then!" exclaimed the farmer, in his sly, sarcastic tone; "and God be with you. Remember that poor Courtin did what he could to prevent you from rushing into danger."
So saying, Courtin finally drew aside, and Michel, setting spurs to his horse, rode past him.
"Gallop! gallop!" cried Petit-Pierre. "That is the man who caused poor Bonneville's death. Let us get on as fast as we can; that man has the evil-eye."
The young baron stuck both spurs into his horse; but the animal had hardly gone a dozen paces before the saddle turned, and both riders came heavily to the ground. Petit-Pierre was up first.
"Are you hurt?" she asked Michel, who was getting up more slowly.
"No," he replied; "but I am wondering how-"
"How we came to fall? That's not the question. We did fall, and there's the fact. Girth your horse again, and as fast as possible."
"Aïe!" cried Michel, who had already thrown the saddle over his horse's back; "both girths are broken at precisely the same height."
"Say they are cut," said Petit-Pierre. "It is a trick of your infernal Courtin; and it is a warning of worse-Wait, look over there."
Michel, whose arm Petit-Pierre had seized, looked in the direction to which she pointed, and there, about a mile distant in the valley, he saw three or four camp-fires shining in the darkness.
"It is a bivouac," said Petit-Pierre. "If that scoundrel suspects the truth-and no doubt he does-he will make for the camp and set those red-breeches on our traces."
"Ah! do you think that knowing I am with you, I, his master, he would dare-"
"I must suppose everything, Monsieur Michel, and I must risk nothing."
"You are right; we must leave nothing to chance."
"Hadn't we better leave the beaten path?"
"I was thinking of that."
"How much time will it take to go on foot to the place where the marquis is awaiting us?"
"An hour, at least; and we have no time to lose. But what shall we do with the horse? He can't climb the banks as we must."
"Throw the bridle on his neck. He'll go back to his stable; and if our friends meet the animal on the way, they'll know some accident has happened and will come in search of us. Hush! hush!"
"What is it?"
"Don't you hear something?" asked Petit-Pierre.
"Yes; horses' feet in the direction of that bivouac."
"You see it was not without a motive that your farmer cut our saddle-girths. Let us be off, my poor baron."
"But if we leave the horse here those who search for us will know the riders are not far off."
"Stop!" said Petit-Pierre; "I have an idea, an Italian idea! – the races of the barberi. Yes, that's the very thing. Do as I do, Monsieur Michel."
"Go on; I obey."
Petit-Pierre set to work. With her delicate hands, and at the risk of lacerating them, she broke off branches of thorn and holly from the neighboring hedge. Michel did the same, and they presently had two thick and prickly bundles of short sticks.
"What's to be done with them?" asked Michel.
"Tear the name off your handkerchief and give me the rest."
Michel obeyed. Petit-Pierre tore the handkerchief into two strips and tied up the bunches. Then she fastened one to the mane, the other to the tail of the horse. The poor animal, feeling the thorns like spurs upon his flesh, began to rear and plunge. The young baron now began to understand.
"Take off his bridle," said Petit-Pierre, "or he may break his neck; and let him go."
The horse was hardly relieved of the saddle that held him before he snorted, shook his mane and tail angrily, and darted away like a tornado, leaving a trail of sparks behind him.
"Bravo!" cried Petit-Pierre. "Now, pick up the saddle and bridle, and let us find shelter ourselves."
They jumped the hedge, Michel having thrown the saddle and bridle before him. There they crouched down and listened. The gallop of the horse still resounded on the stony road.
"Do you hear it?" said the baron, satisfied.
"Yes; but we are not the only ones who are listening to it, Monsieur le baron," said Petit-Pierre. "Hear the echo."
XLVI.
MAÎTRE JACQUES PROCEEDS TO KEEP THE OATH HE MADE TO AUBIN COURTE-JOIE
The sound which Baron Michel and Petit-Pierre now heard in the direction by which Courtin had left them changed presently into a loud noise approaching rapidly; and two minutes later a dozen chasseurs, riding at a gallop in pursuit of the trail, or rather the noise made by the running horse, which was snorting and neighing as it ran, passed like a flash, not ten steps from Petit-Pierre and her companion, who, rising slightly after the horsemen had passed, watched their wild rush into the distance.
"They ride well," said Petit-Pierre; "but I doubt if they catch up with that horse."
"They are making straight for the place where our friends are awaiting us, and I think the marquis is in just the humor to put a stop to their course."
"Then it is battle!" cried Petit-Pierre. "Well, water yesterday, fire to-day; for my part, I prefer the latter."
And she tried to hurry Michel in the direction where the fight would take place.
"No, no, no!" said Michel, resisting; "I entreat you not to go there."
"Don't you wish to win your spurs under the eyes of your lady, baron? She is there, you know."
"I think she is," said the young man, sadly. "But troops are scattered over the country in every direction; at the first shots they will all converge toward the firing. We may fall in with one of their detachments, and if, unfortunately, the mission with which I am charged should end disastrously I shall never dare to appear again before the marquis-"
"Say before his daughter."
"Well, yes, – before his daughter."
"Then, in order not to bring trouble into your love affairs I consent to obey you."
"Oh, thank you! thank you!" cried Michel, seizing Petit-Pierre's hand vehemently. Then perceiving the impropriety of his action, he exclaimed, stepping backward, "Oh, pardon me; pray, pardon me!"
"Never mind," said Petit-Pierre; "don't think of it. Where did the Marquis de Souday intend to shelter me?"
"In a farmhouse of mine."
"Not that of your man Courtin, I hope?"
"No, in another, perfectly isolated, hidden in the woods beyond Légé. You know the village where Tinguy lived?"
"Yes; but do you know the way there?"
"Perfectly."
"I distrust that adverb in France. My poor Bonneville said he knew the way perfectly, but he lost it." Petit-Pierre sighed as she added, in a lower tone, "Poor Bonneville! alas! it may have been that very mistake that led to his death."
The topic brought back the melancholy thoughts that filled her mind as she left the cottage where the catastrophe that cost her the life of her first companion had taken place. She was silent, and after making a gesture of consent, she followed her new guide, replying only by monosyllables to the few remarks which Michel addressed to her.
As for the latter, he performed his new functions with more ability and success than might have been expected of him. He turned to the left, and crossing some fields, reached a brook where he had often fished for shrimps in his childhood. This brook runs through the valley of the Benaste from end to end, rises toward the south and falls again toward the north, where it joins the Boulogne near Saint-Colombin. Either bank, bordered with fields, gave a safe and easy path to pedestrians. Michel took to the brook itself, and followed it for some distance, carrying Petit-Pierre on his shoulders as poor Bonneville had done.
Presently, leaving the brook after following it for about a kilometre, he bore again to the left, crossed the brow of a hill, and showed Petit-Pierre the dark masses of the forest of Touvois, which were visible in the dim light, looming up from the foot of the hill on which they now stood.
"Is that where your farmhouse is?" asked Petit-Pierre.
"We have still to cross the forest," he said; "but we shall get there in about three quarters of an hour."
"You are not afraid of losing your way?"
"No; for we do not have to plunge into the thicket. In fact, we shall not enter the wood at all till we reach the road from Machecoul to Légé. By skirting the edge of the forest to the eastward we must strike that road soon."
"And then?"
"Then all we have to do is to follow it."
"Well, well," said Petit-Pierre, cheerfully, "I'll give a good account of you, my young guide; and faith, it shall not be Petit-Pierre's fault if you don't obtain the reward you covet! But here is rather a well-beaten path. Isn't this the one you are looking for?"
"I can easily tell," replied Michel, "for there ought to be a post on the right-There! here it is! we are all right. And now, Petit-Pierre, I can promise you a good night's rest."
"Ah! that is a comfort," said Petit-Pierre, smiling; "for I don't deny that the terrible emotions of the day have not relieved the fatigues of last night."
The words were hardly out of her lips before a black outline rose from the other side of the ditch, bounded into the road, and a man seized Petit-Pierre violently by the collar of the peasant's jacket which she wore, crying out in a voice of thunder: -
"Stop, or you're a dead man!"
Michel sprang to the assistance of his young companion by bringing down a vigorous blow with the butt-end of his whip on her assailant. He was near paying dear for his intervention. The man, without letting go of Petit-Pierre, whom he held with his left arm, drew a pistol from his jacket and fired at the young baron. Happily for the latter, in spite of Petit-Pierre's feebleness she was not of a stuff to keep as passive as her captor expected. With a rapid gesture she struck the arm that fired the weapon, and the ball, which would otherwise have gone straight to Michel's breast, only wounded him in the shoulder. He returned to the charge, and their assailant was just pulling a second pistol from his belt when two other men sprang from the bushes and seized Michel from behind.
Then the first assailant, seeing that the young man could interfere no longer, contented himself by saying to his companions: -
"Secure that fellow first; and then come and rid me of this one."
"But," said Petit-Pierre, "by what right do you stop us in this way?"
"This right," said the man, striking the carbine, which he carried on his shoulder. "If you want to know why, you will find out presently. Bind that man securely," he said to his men. "As for this one," he added contemptuously, "it isn't worth while; I think there'll be no trouble in mastering him."
"But I wish to know where you are taking us," insisted Petit-Pierre.
"You are very inquisitive, my young friend," replied the man.
"But-"
"Damn it! come on, and you'll find out. You shall see with your own eyes where you are going in a very few minutes."
And the man, taking Petit-Pierre by the arm, dragged her into the bushes, while Michel, struggling violently, was pushed by the two assistants in the same direction.
They walked thus for about ten minutes, at the end of which time they reached the open where, as we know, was the burrow of Maître Jacques and his bandits. For it was he, bent on sacredly keeping his oath to Aubin Courte-Joie, who had stopped the two travellers whom luck had sent in his way; and it was his pistol-shot which, as we have already seen at the close of a preceding chapter, put the whole camp of the refractories on the qui vive.
END OF VOL ITHE LAST VENDÉE;
OR,
THE SHE-WOLVES OF MACHECOUL.
VOLUME II
I.
IN WHICH IT APPEARS THAT ALL JEWS ARE NOT FROM JERUSALEM, NOR ALL TURKS FROM TUNIS
"Hola! hey! my rabbits!" called Maître Jacques, as he entered the open.
At the voice of their leader the obedient "rabbits" issued from the underbrush and from the tufts of gorse and brambles beneath which they had ensconced themselves at the first alarm, and came running into the open, where they eyed the two prisoners, as well as the darkness would allow, with much curiosity. Then, as if this examination did not suffice, one of them went down into the burrow, lighted two bits of pine, and jumping back put the improvised torches under the nose of Petit-Pierre and that of her companion.
Maître Jacques had resumed his usual seat on the trunk of a tree, and was peaceably conversing with Aubin Courte-Joie, to whom he related the incidents of the capture he had made, with the same circumstantial particularity with which a villager tells his wife of a purchase he has just concluded at a market.
Michel, who was naturally somewhat overcome by the affair and by his wound, was sitting, or rather lying, on the grass. Petit-Pierre, standing beside him, was gazing, with an attention not exempt from disgust, at the faces of the bandits; which was easy to do, because, having satisfied their curiosity, they had gone back to their usual pursuits, – that is to say, to their psalm-singing, their games, their sleep, and the polishing of their weapons. And yet, while playing, drinking, singing, and cleansing their guns, carbines, and pistols, they never lost sight for an instant of the two prisoners who, by way of precaution, were placed in the very centre of the open.
It was then that Petit-Pierre, withdrawing her eyes from the bandits, noticed for the first time that her companion was wounded.
"Oh, good God!" she exclaimed, seeing the blood which had run down Michel's arm to his hand; "you are shot?"
"Yes; I think so, Ma-mon-"
"Oh! for heaven's sake, say Petit-Pierre, and more than ever. Do you suffer much pain?"
"No; I thought I received a blow from a stick on the shoulder, but now the whole arm is getting numb."
"Try to move it."
"Well, in any case, there is nothing broken. See!"
And he moved his arm with comparative ease.
"Good! This will certainly win you the heart you love, and if your noble conduct is not enough, I promise to intervene in your behalf; and I have good reason to think my intervention will be effectual."
"How kind you are, Ma-Petit-Pierre! And whatever you order me to do, I'll do it after such a promise; even if I have to attack a battery of a hundred guns single-handed, I'll go, head down, to the redoubt. Ah, if you would only speak to the Marquis de Souday for me, I should be the happiest of men!"
"Don't gesticulate in that way; you will prevent the blood from stanching. So it seems it is the marquis you are particularly afraid of. Well, I'll speak to him, your terrible marquis, on the word of-of Petit-Pierre. But now, as they have left us alone to ourselves, let us talk about our present affairs. Where are we? – and who are these persons?"
"To me," said Michel, "they look like Chouans."
"Do Chouans stop inoffensive travellers? Impossible!"
"They do, though."
"I am shocked."
"Well, if they have not done it before, they have done it now, apparently."
"What will they do with us?"
"That we shall soon know; for see, they are beginning to bestir themselves, – about us, no doubt!"
"Goodness!" exclaimed Petit-Pierre; "how odd it will be if we are in danger from my own partisans! But hush!"
Maître Jacques, after conferring for some time with Aubin Courte-Joie, gave the order to bring the prisoners before him.
Petit-Pierre advanced confidently toward the tree, on which the master of the burrow held his assizes; but Michel who, on account of his wound and his bound hands, found some difficulty in getting on his legs, took more time in obeying the order. Seeing this, Aubin Courte-Joie made a sign to Trigaud-Vermin, who, seizing the young man by the waist, lifted him with the ease another man would have had in lifting a child three years old, and placed him before Maître Jacques, taking care to put him in precisely the same attitude from which he had taken him, – a man[oe]uvre Trigaud-Vermin accomplished by swinging forward Michel's lower limbs and poking him in the back before he let him fall at full length on the ground.
"Stupid brute!" muttered Michel, who had lost under the effect of pain some of his natural timidity.
"You are not civil," said Maître Jacques; "no, I repeat to you, Monsieur le Baron Michel de la Logerie, you are not civil, and the kindness of that poor fellow deserved a better return. But come, let's attend to our little business!" Casting a more observing look at the young man, he added, "I am not mistaken; you are M. le Baron Michel de la Logerie, are you not?"
"Yes," replied Michel, laconically.
"Very good. What were you doing on the road to Légé, in the middle of the forest of Touvois at this time of night?"
"I might answer that I am not obliged to give an account of my actions to you, and that the highways are open to everybody."
"But you won't answer me in that way, Monsieur le baron."
"Why not?"
"Because, with due respect to you, it would be folly, and I believe you have too much sense to commit it."
"Very good; I won't discuss the point. I was going to my farm of Banl[oe]uvre, which, as you know, is at the farther end of the forest of Touvois, in which we now are."
"Well done; that's right, Monsieur le baron. Do me the honor to answer always in that way and we shall agree. Now, how is it that the Baron de la Logerie, who has so many good horses in his stables, so many fine carriages in his coach-house, should be travelling on foot with his friend, like a simple peasant, – like us, in short?"
"We had a horse, but he got away in an accident we met with, and we could not catch him."
"Well done again. Now, Monsieur le baron, I hope you will be kind enough to give us some news."
"I?"
"Yes. What is going on over there, Monsieur le baron?"
"How can things over our way interest you?" asked Michel, who not being quite sure to which party the man he was addressing belonged, hesitated as to the color he ought to give to his replies.
"Go on, Monsieur le baron," resumed Maître Jacques; "never mind whether what you have to say is useful to me or not. Come, bethink yourself. Whom did you meet on the way?"
Michel looked at Petit-Pierre with embarrassment. Maître Jacques intercepted the look, and calling up Trigaud-Vermin, he ordered him to stand between the two prisoners, like the Wall in "Midsummer-Night's Dream."
"Well," continued Michel, "we met what everybody meets at all hours and on every road for the last three days in and about Machecoul, – we met soldiers."
"Did they speak to you?"
"No."
"No? Do you mean to say they let you pass without a word?"
"We avoided them."
"Bah!" said Maître Jacques, in a doubtful tone.
"Travelling on our own business it did not suit us to be mixed up in affairs that were none of ours."
"Who is this young man who is with you?"
Petit-Pierre hastened to answer before Michel had time to do so.
"I am Monsieur le baron's servant," she said.
"Then, my young friend," said Maître Jacques, replying to Petit-Pierre, "allow me to tell you that you are a very bad servant. In fact, peasant as I am, I am grieved to hear a servant answering for his master, especially when no one spoke to him." Turning to Michel, he continued, "So this lad is your servant, is he? Well, he is a pretty boy."
And the lord of the burrow looked at Petit-Pierre with scrutinizing attention, while one of his men threw the light of a torch full on her face to facilitate the examination.
"Let us come to the point," said Michel; "what do you want? If it is my purse I sha'n't prevent you from having it. Take it; but let us go about our business."
"Oh, fie!" returned Maître Jacques; "if I were a gentleman, like you, Monsieur Michel, I would ask satisfaction for such an insult. Do you take us for highwaymen? That's not flattering. I would willingly tell you my business, only, I fear I should make myself disagreeable. Besides, you say you have nothing to do with politics. Your father, nevertheless, whom I knew something of in the olden time, did meddle with politics, and didn't lose his fortune that way either. I must admit, therefore, that I expected to find you a zealous adherent of his Majesty Louis-Philippe."
"Then you'd have been very much mistaken, my good sir," broke in Petit-Pierre, disrespectfully; "Monsieur le baron is, on the contrary, a zealous partisan of his Majesty Henri V."
"Indeed, my little friend!" cried Maître Jacques. Then, turning to Michel, "Come, Monsieur le baron," he continued, "be frank; is what your companion-I mean your servant-says the truth?"
"The exact truth," answered Michel.
"Ah, but this is good news! I, who thought I had to do with those horrid curs! – good God! how ashamed I am of the way I have treated you, and what excuses I ought to offer! Pray, receive them, Monsieur le baron; and take your share, my excellent young friend, – master and servant, please to accept them together. I'm not too proud to beg your pardon."
"Well, then," said Michel, whose displeasure was not lessened by Maître Jacques's sarcastic politeness, "you have a very easy way of testifying your regret, and that is by letting us go our way."
"Oh, no!" cried Maître Jacques.
"Why not?"
"No, no, no! I cannot consent to let you leave us in that way. Besides, two such partisans of legitimacy as you and I, Monsieur le Baron Michel, have a great deal to say to each other about the grand uprising that is now taking place. Don't you think so, Monsieur le baron?"
"It may be so; but the interests of that cause require that I and my servant should immediately reach the safety of my farm at Banl[oe]uvre."
"Monsieur le baron, there is no spot in all this region as safe as the one where you now are in the midst of us. I cannot allow you to leave us without giving you some proof of the really touching interest I feel for you."
"Hum!" muttered Petit-Pierre, under her breath; "things are going very wrong."
"Go on," said Michel.
"You are devoted to Henri V.?"
"Yes."
"Very devoted?"
"Yes."
"Supremely devoted?"
"I have told you so."
"Yes, you have told me so, and I don't doubt your word. Well, I'll provide you with a way to manifest that devotion in a dazzling manner."
"Do so."
"You see my men," continued Maître Jacques, pointing to his troop, – "some forty scamps who look more like Callot's bandits than the honest peasants that they are. They don't ask anything better than to be killed for our young king and his heroic mother; only, they lack everything needful to attain that end, – shoes to march in, arms to fight with, garments to wear, money to lessen the hardships of the bivouac. You do not, I presume. Monsieur le baron, desire that these faithful servants, accomplishing what you yourself regard as a sacred duty, should be exposed to cold, hunger, and other privations in all weathers?"
"But," said Michel, "how the devil am I to clothe and arm your men? Have I a base of supplies at command?"
"Ah, Monsieur le baron," resumed Maître Jacques, "don't think I know so little of good manners as to dream of burdening you with the annoyance of such details. No, indeed! But I've a faithful follower here" (and he pointed to Aubin Courte-Joie) "who will spare you all trouble. Give him the money, and he will lay it out to the best advantage, all the while saving your purse."
"If that's all," said Michel, with the readiness of youth and the enthusiasm of his dawning opinions, "I'm very willing. How much do you want?"