A Village of Vagabonds Part 24

"Play," said I, to him in my poor Hungarian (that de Savignac might not understand, for I wished to surprise him) "a real czardas of your people--ah! I have it!" I exclaimed. "Play the legend and the mad dance that follows--the one that Racz Laczi loved--the legend of the young man who went up the mountain and met the girl who jilted him."

Boldi nodded his head and grinned with savage enthusiasm. He drew his bow across the sobbing strings and the legend began. Under the spell of his violin, the chatter of the supper room ceased--the air now heavy with the mingled scent of perfume and cigars, seemed to pulsate under the throb of the wild melody--as he played on, no one spoke--the men even forgetting to smoke; the women listening, breathing with parted lips. I turned to look at de Savignac--he was drunk and there was a strange glitter in his eyes, his cheeks flushed to a dull crimson, but not from wine.

Boldi's violin talked--now and then it wept under the vibrant grip of the master, who dominated it until it dominated those to whom it played.

The young man in the legend was rus.h.i.+ng up the mountain path in earnest now, for he had seen ahead of him the girl he loved--now the melody swept on through the wooing and the breaking of her promise, and now came the rush of the young man down to the nearest village to drown his chagrin and forget her in the mad dance, the "Czardas," which followed.

As the czardas quickened until its pace reached the speed of a whirlwind, de Savignac suddenly staggered to his feet--his breath coming in short gasps.

"Sit down!" I pleaded, not liking the sudden purplish hue of his cheeks.

"Let--me--alone," he stammered, half angrily. "It--is so good--to--be alive again."

"You shall not," I whispered, my eye catching sight of a gold louis between his fingers. "You don't know what you are doing--it is not right--this is my dinner, old friend--_all of it_, do you understand?"

"Let--me--alone," he breathed hoa.r.s.ely, as I tried to get hold of the coin--"it is my last--my last--my last!"--and he tossed the gold piece to the band. It fell squarely on the cymballum and rolled under the strings.

"Bravo!" cried a little woman opposite, clapping her warm, jewelled hands. Then she screamed, for she saw Monsieur de Savignac sway heavily, and sink back in his seat, his chin on his chest, his eyes closed.

I ripped open his collar and s.h.i.+rt to give him breath. Twice his chest gave a great bound, and he murmured something I did not catch--then he sank back in my arms--dead.

During the horror and grim reality of it all--the screaming women, the physician working desperately, although he knew all hope was gone--while the calm police questioned me as to his ident.i.ty and domicile, I shook from head to foot--and yet the worst was still to come--I had to tell Madame de Savignac.

[Ill.u.s.tration: spilled bottle of wine]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The man with the gun]

CHAPTER NINE

THE MAN WITH THE GUN

It is at last decided! The kind and sympathetic Minister of Agriculture has signed the official doc.u.ment opening the shooting-season for hares and partridges in _La belle France_, to-morrow, Sunday, the thirtieth of September. Thrice happy hunters!--they who had begun to grumble in their cafes over the rumour that the opening of the shooting-season might be postponed until the second or even third Sunday in October.

My good friend the mayor of Pont du Sable has just handed me my hunting-permit for the coming year bearing the stamp of the _Republique Francaise_, the seal of the prefecture, the signature of the prefet, and including everything, from the colour of my hair and complexion to my height, age, birth and domicile. On the back of this important piece of paper I read as follows:

That the permit must be produced at the demand of all agents authorized by law. That it is prohibited to shoot without it, or upon lands without the consent of the proprietor having the right--or outside of the season fixed by the laws of the prefets.

Furthermore:

The father--the mother--the tutor--the masters, and guardians are civilly responsible for the misdemeanours committed while shooting by their infants--wards--pupils, or domestics living with them.

And finally:

That the hunter who has lost his permit cannot resume again the exercise of the hunt until he has obtained and paid for a new one, twenty-eight francs and sixty centimes.

To-morrow, then, the jolly season opens.

"_Vive la Republique!_"

It is a season, too, of crisp twilights after brilliant days, so short that my lost village is plunged in darkness as early as seven, and goes to bed to save the candle--the hour when the grocer's light gleaming ahead of me across the slovenly little public square becomes the only beacon in the village; and, guided by it, I pick my way in the dark along the narrow thoroughfare, stumbling over the laziest of the village dogs sprawled here and there in the road outside the doorways of the fishermen.

Across one of these thresholds I catch a glimpse to-night of a tired fisher girl stretched on her bed after her long day at sea. Beside the bed a very old woman in a white cotton cap bends over her bowl of soup by the wavering light of a tallow dip.

"_Bonsoir_, monsieur!" croaks a hoa.r.s.e voice from the dark. It is Marianne. She has fished late.

At seven-thirty the toy train rumbles into Pont du Sable, stops for a barefooted pa.s.senger, and rumbles out again through the village--crawling lest it send one of the laziest dogs yelping to its home. The headlight on the squat locomotive floods the way ahead, suddenly illumining the figure of a blinking old man laden with nets and three barelegged children who scream, "_Bonsoir_, monsieur," to the engineer.

What glorious old days are these! The wealth of hedged fields---the lush green gra.s.s, white with h.o.a.r frost at daybreak--the groups of mild-eyed cows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of sea air, suns.h.i.+ne and Norman country spreading its richness down to the very edge of the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a sane exhilaration--he is alive.

On calm nights the air is pungent and warm with the perfume of tons of apples lying heaped in the orchards, ready for the cider-making, nights, when the owls hoot dismally under a silver moon.

When the wind veers to the north it grows cold. On such nights as these "the Essence of Selfishness" seeks my fireside.

She is better fed than many other children in the lost village beyond my wall. And spoiled!--_mon Dieu!_ She is getting to be hopeless.

Ah, you queen of studied cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since you disdain to dine from my best china, and Suzette takes care of you like a nurse.

_Eh bien!_ Some day, do you hear, I shall sell you to the rabbit-skin man, who has a hook for a hand, and the rest of you will find its way to some cheap table d'hote, where you will pa.s.s as ragout of rabbit Henri IV. under a thick sauce. What would you do, I should like to know, if you were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose four children sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with what their mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best of gra.s.shopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours--Suzette is coming to put you to bed.

The trim little maid entered, crossed noiselessly in the firelight to my chair, and, laying a sealed note from my friend the Baron beneath the lamp, picked up the sleepy cat and carried her off to her room.

The note was a delightful surprise.

"_Cher monsieur_: Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to come and do the _ouverture_ of the hunt at my chateau to-morrow, Sunday--my auto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about ten guns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares to make you pa.s.s a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, the a.s.surance of my sentiments the most distinguished?"

It was nice of the Baron to think of me, for I had made his acquaintance but recently at one of Tanrade's dinners, during which, I recall, the Baron declared to me as he lifted his left eyebrow over his cognac, that the hunt--_la cha.s.se_--"was always amusing, and a great blessing to men, since it created the appet.i.te of the wolf and was an excuse to get rid of the ladies." He told me, too, as he adjusted his monocle safely in the corner of his aristocratic aquiline nose, that his favourite saint was St. Hubert. He would have liked to have known him--he must have been a _bon garcon_, this patron saint of hunting.

"Ah! _Les femmes!_" he sighed, as he straightened his erect torso, that had withstood so many Parisian years, against the back of his chair.

"Ah! _Les femmes!_ But in zee fields zey cannot follow us? _Hein?_" He laughed, lapsing into his broken English. "Zey cannot follow us through zee hedges, ovaire zee rough grounds, in zee rains, in zee muds. Nevaire take a woman hunting," he counselled me sotto voce beneath his vibrant hand, for Alice de Breville was present. "One can _nevaire_ make love and kill zee agile little game at zee same time. _Par exemple!_ You whispaire somezing in madame's leetle ear and brrrh! a partridge--_que voulez-vous, mon cher?_" he concluded, with a shrug. "It is quite impossible--_quite_ impossible."

I told him leisurely, as we sipped our liqueur, of the hunting in my own country, of the lonely tramps in the wilderness following a line of traps in the deep snow, the blind trails, the pork sandwich melted against the doughnuts at noon, leaking lean-tos, smoky fires, and bad coffee.

"_Parbleu!_" he roared. "You have not zee rendezvous? You have not zee hunting breakfast? I should be quite ill--you hunt like zee Arabs--like zee gipsies--ah, yes, I forget--zee warm sandwich and zee native nuts."

He tapped the table gently with his rings, smiling the while reminiscently into his gla.s.s, then, turning again to me, added seriously:

"It is not all zee play--zee hunt. I have had zee legs broken by zee fatigue. Zee good breakfast is what you say 'indispensable' to break zee day. Zee good stories, zee camaraderie, zee good kind wine--_enfin tout!_ But"--and again he leaned nearer--"but _not zee_ ladies--_nevaire_--only zee memories."

I repeat, it was nice of the Baron to think of me. I could easily picture to myself as I reread his note his superb estate, that stronghold of his ancestors; the hearty welcome at its gates; the gamekeepers in their green fustians; the pairs of perfectly trained dogs; the abundance of partridges and hares; and the breakfast in the old chateau, a feast that would be replete with wit and old Burgundy.

How splendid are these Norman autumns! What exhilarating old days during this season of dropping apples, blue skies, and falling leaves!