A Village of Vagabonds Part 25

Days when the fat little French partridges nestle in companies in the fields, shorn to stubble after the harvest, and sleek hares at sunrise lift their long ears cautiously above the dew-bejeweled cobwebs along the ditches to make sure that the green feeding-patch beyond is safe from the man and the gun.

Fat, garrulous Monsieur Toupin of the village becomes under the spell of Madame Vinet's best cognac so uproarious when he has killed one of these sleek, strong-limbed hares, that madame is obliged to draw the turkey-red curtain over the window of her small cafe that Monsieur Toupin may not be seen by his neighbours.

"Suzette," I called, "my candle! I must get a good night's sleep, for to-morrow I shoot with the Baron."

"_Tiens!_" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand chateau?" And her frank eyes opened wide. "Ah, _mais_--but monsieur will not have to work hard for a partridge there."

"And so you know the chateau, my little one?"

"Ah, _mais oui_, monsieur! Is it not at La Sapiniere near Les Roses? My grandfather was gardener there when I was little. I pa.s.sed the chateau once with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieur will be content--ah, _mais oui_!"

"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, _ma pet.i.te_!"

"_Bien_, monsieur." And Suzette pa.s.sed me my lighted candle, the flame of which rose brilliantly from its wick.

"That means good luck, monsieur," said she, pointing to the candle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs.

"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief in superst.i.tions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for the doctor--Suzette had broken a mirror.

"Ah, _mais si_," declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that--ah, _ca!_" And with a cheery _bonsoir_ she closed the door behind her.

I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobile emitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside my wall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushed out, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and--could it be true? Monsieur le Cure.

"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight.

"Yes," he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy an invitation."

"And I would not let him," added Tanrade. "Quick! Where are your traps?

We have a good forty kilometres ahead of us; we must not keep the Baron waiting." And the composer of ballets rushed into the house and shouldered my valise containing a dry change.

"You shall have enough partridges to fill your larder for a month," I heard him tell Suzette, and he did not forget to pat her rosy cheek in pa.s.sing. Suzette laughed and struggled by him, her firm young arms hugging my gun and sh.e.l.l-case.

Before I could stop him, the cure, in his black soutane, had clambered nimbly to the roof of the big car and was las.h.i.+ng my traps next to Tanrade's and his own. At this instant I started to take a long breath of pure morning air--and hesitated, then I caught the alert eye of the chauffeur, who was grinning.

"What are you burning? Fish oil?" said I.

"_Mon Dieu_, monsieur----" began the chauffeur.

"Cheese," called down the cure, pointing to a round paper parcel on the roof of the limousine. "Tanrade got it at daylight; woke up the whole village getting it."

"Had to," explained Tanrade, as Suzette helped him into his great coat.

"The Baron is out of cheese; he added a postscript to my invitation praying that I would be amiable enough to bring one. _Eh voila!_ There it is, and real cheese at that. Come, get in, quick!" And he opened the door of the limousine, the interior of which was lined in gray suede and appointed with the daintiest of feminine luxuries.

"Look out for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the cure found his seat. "If you scratch those monograms the Baroness will never forgive you."

Then, with a wave to Suzette, we swept away from my house by the marsh, were hurled through Pont du Sable, and shot out of its narrowest end into the fresh green country beyond.

It was so thoroughly chic and Parisian, this limousine. Only a few days ago it had been shopping along the Rue de la Paix, and later rus.h.i.+ng to the cool Bois de Boulogne carrying a gracious woman to dinner; now it held two vagabonds and a cure. We tore on while we talked enthusiastically of the day's shooting in store for us. The cure was in his best humour. How he does love to shoot and what a rattling good shot he is! Neither Tanrade nor myself, and we have shot with him day in and day out on the marsh and during rough nights in his gabion, has ever beaten him.

On we flew, past the hamlet of Fourche-la-Ville, past Javonne, past Les Roses. _Sacristi!_ I thought, what if the gasoline gave out or the spark refused to sparkle, what if they had----Why worry? That cheese was strong enough to have gotten us anywhere.

Suddenly we slowed down, hastily consulted a blue iron sign at the crossroad, and swung briskly to the right.

A n.o.ble forest and the roofs and _tourelles_ of the chateau now loomed ahead of us. We turned into a clean, straight road, flanked by superb oaks leading to an ancient stone gateway. A final wail from the siren, the gates swung open, and we came to a dead stop in front of the Baron, four setter dogs, and a group of gentlemen immaculately attired for the hunt. From their tan-leather leggings to their yellow dogskin gloves and gleaming guns, they were faultless.

While the Baron greeted us, his guests stood waiting to be presented; their formal bow would have done credit to a foreign emba.s.sy during an imperial audience. The next moment we were talking as naturally together and with as much camaraderie as if we had known each other for years.

"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "_Vous etes chez vous_; the ladies have gone to Paris."

It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all.

It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was a good fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there.

No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but instead four plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The chateau itself was plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of the little towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing the snug forest bulged dangerously in places.

"You will see," explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as our little party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not get along very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives us trouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged aunt was unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us from hunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot put foot in his harvest."

"I see," I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew the birds were where the harvest was still uncut.

"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would rather lose than have me hunt over," the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall see what the _canaille_ will do, for only this morning he sent me word threatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better than have us all served with a _proces-verbal_ for trespa.s.sing."

I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of the country-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's pace and be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a _proces-verbal_ meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a no more tranquil state of mind himself.

"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That _sacre_ individual will deal with _me_. It is _I_ who am alone responsible," he generously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let him bulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, for what he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest."

"_Eh bien!_ my dear friends," he called back to the others as we reached a cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to the right--half to the left!"

"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into two slowly moving companies.

"Le Bour," returned the Baron grimly as the breech of his gun snapped shut.

The vast cultivated plain undulating below us looked like the patchwork-quilt of a giantess, st.i.tched together with well-knit hedges.

There were rectangles of apple-green clover, canary-yellow squares of mustard, green pastures of ochre stubble, rich green strips of beets, and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed.

Time after time we were obliged to pa.s.s around companies of partridges that had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt. It was exasperating, for, from the beginning of the shoot, every bird seemed to know where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the _messieurs_ in the yellow dogskin gloves. By eleven o'clock there were barely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been a hundred.

At the second cross road, the right and left party convened. It was what Le Bour had been waiting for.

A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which he had hidden himself, and came glowering toward us. As he drew nearer I saw that his gun swung loosely in his hand and was at full c.o.c.k, its muzzle wavering unpleasantly over us as he strode on. His mean old eyes glittered with rage, his jaw trembled under a string of oaths. His manner was that of a sullen bull about to charge.

There was no mistaking his ident.i.ty--it was Le Bour.

"_Proces-verbal_ for all of you," he bellowed; "you, Monsieur le Baron, and you, Monsieur le Vicomte," he snapped, as the Baron advanced to defend his guests. "I saw you cross my buckwheat," he declared pointing an ugly finger at the Vicomte.

"You lie!" shouted the Baron, before the Vicomte could find his words.

"I forbid you to open your head to my guests. Not one of these gentlemen has set foot in your harvest. What right have _you_ to carry a gun?

Where is your hunting permit?" thundered the Baron. "Where's your commission as guard, that you should have the insolence to threaten us with a _proces-verbal_."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le Cure, the fellow has no permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule.

"Come, my friends, we shall leave this imbecile to himself," laughed the Baron.