The Red Cockade Part 18

"Yes," he said, "that is the point, Monsieur. Where are your papers?"

"I tell you I have been robbed of them!" I cried, in a rage.

"And I say, that remains to be proved," he answered. "And until it is proved, you do not leave here. That is all, Monsieur, and it is simple."

"And who," I said indignantly, "are you, I should like to know, Monsieur, who stop travellers on the highway, and ask for papers?"

"Merely the President of the Local Committee," he replied.

"And do you suppose," I said, fuming at his folly, "that I bound my hands, and stifled myself under that hay, on purpose? On purpose to pa.s.s through your wretched village?"

"I suppose nothing, Monsieur," he answered coolly. "But this is the road to Turin, where M. d'Artois is said to be collecting the disaffected; and to Nimes, where mischievous persons are flaunting the red c.o.c.kade. And without papers, no one pa.s.ses."

"But what will you do with me?" I asked, seeing that the clowns, who gaped round us, regarded him as nothing less than a Solomon.

"Detain you, M. le Vicomte, until you procure papers," he answered.

"But, mon Dieu!" I said. "That is not so easily done here. Who is likely to know me?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur does not leave without the papers," he said. "That is all."

And he spoke truly, that was all. In vain I laid the facts before him, and asked if any one would voluntarily suffer, merely to hide his lack of papers, what I had undergone; in vain I asked if the state in which I had been found was not itself proof that I had been robbed; if a man could tie his own hands, and pile hay on himself. In vain even that I said I knew who had robbed me; the last statement only made matters worse.

"Indeed!" he said ironically. "Then, pray, who was it?"

"The rogue Froment! Froment of Nimes!"

"He is not in this country."

"Indeed! I saw him yesterday," I answered.

"Then that settles the matter," the Committee-man answered, with a grim smile; and his little court smiled too. "After that, we certainly cannot lose sight of M. le Vicomte."

And so well did he keep his word, that when, to avoid the cold that began to pierce me, I went into the wretched inn, and sat down on the hearth to think over the position, two of the yokels accompanied me; and when I went out again, and stood looking distrustfully up and down the road, two more were at my elbow, as by magic. Whether I turned this way or that, one was sure to spring up, and, if I walked too far from the house, would touch me on the arm, and gruffly order me back. Mont Aigoual itself, lifting its crest, bleak, and stern, and cold, above the valley, was not more sure than their attendance, or more immovable.

This added to my irritation, and for a time I was like a madman. Deluded by Madame St. Alais, and robbed by Froment--who, I felt sure, had taken my place, and was now rolling at his ease through Sumene and Ganges with my commission in his pocket--I strode up and down the road, the road that was my prison, in a fever of rage and chagrin. Madame's ingrat.i.tude, my own easiness, the villagers' stupidity, I execrated all in turn; but most, perhaps, the inaction to which they condemned me. I had escaped with my life, and for that should have been thankful; but no man cares to be duped. And one day, two days, three days pa.s.sed; it froze and thawed, snowed and was fine; still, while the carriage bowled along the road to Nimes, and carried my mistress farther and farther from me, I lay a prisoner in this wretched hamlet. I grew to loathe the squalid inn, in which I kicked my heels through the cold hours, the muddy road that ran by it, the mean row of hovels they called the village. All day, and whenever I went abroad, the clowns dogged and flouted me, thinking it sport; each evening the Committee came to stare and question. A house this way, a house that way, were my boundaries, while the world moved beyond the mountains, and France throbbed; and I knew not what might be in hand to separate Denise from me. No wonder that I almost chafed myself into madness.

I had left my horse at Milhau, whence the landlord had undertaken to forward it to Ganges within a couple of days, by the hand of an acquaintance who would be going that way. I expected it every hour, therefore, and my only hope was that its conductor might be able to identify me, since half a hundred at Milhau had seen my commission, or heard it read. But the horse did not arrive, nor any one from Milhau, and fearing that the release of the two ladies had caused trouble there, my heart sank still lower. I could not easily communicate with Cahors, and the Committee, with rustic independence and obstinacy, would neither let me go nor send me to Nimes, where I could be identified. It was in vain I pressed them.

"No, no," the sour-faced Committee-man answered, the first time I raised the question. "Presently some one who knows you will come by. In the meantime have patience."

"M. le Vicomte is a gentleman many would know," the woman of the house chimed in; looking at me with her arms wrapped up in her ap.r.o.n and her head on one side.

"To be sure! To be sure," the crowd agreed, and, rubbing their calves, the members of the Committee followed her lead, and looked at me with satisfaction, as at something that did them credit.

Their stupid complacency nearly drove me mad; but to what purpose? "After all, you are very well here," the first speaker would say, shrugging his shoulders. "You are very well here."

"Better than under the hay!" the man who had p.r.i.c.ked my leg was wont to answer.

And on that--this was a nightly joke--a general laugh would follow, and with another admonition to be patient, the Committee would take its leave.

Or sometimes the argument in the kitchen took a harsher and more dangerous turn; and one and another would recall for my benefit old tales of the dragooning, and Villars, and Berwick; tales, at which the blood crept, of horrible cruelties done and suffered, of stern mountain men and brave women who faced the worst that Kings could do, for the fate that they had chosen; of a great cause crushed but not destroyed, of a whole people trodden down in dust and blood, and yet living and growing strong.

"And do you think that after this," the speaker would cry when he had told me these things with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, these things that his grandfathers had done and suffered--"do you think that after this we are not concerned in this business? Do you think that now, Monsieur, when, after all these years, vengeance is in our hand and our persecutors are tottering, we will sit still and see them set up again? Bishops and captains, canons and cardinals, where are they now? Where are the lands they stole from us? Gone from them! Where are the t.i.thes they took with blood? Taken from them! Where is St. Etienne, whose father they persecuted? With his foot on their necks! And, after this, do you think that with all their processions and their idols and their Corpus Christi, they shall defy us and set up their rule again? No, Monsieur, no."

"But there is no question of that!" I said mildly.

"There is great question of that," was the stern answer. "In Nimes and Montauban, at Avignon, and at Arles! We who live in the mountains have too often heard the storm gathering in the plain to be mistaken. These preachings and processions, and weeping virgins, this cry of Blasphemy--what do they mean, Monsieur? Blood! Blood! Blood! It has been so a score of times, it is so now! But this time blood will not be shed on one side only!"

And I listened and marvelled. I began to understand that the same word meant one thing in one man's mouth, and in another man's mouth another thing; and that that which worked easily and smoothly in the north might in the south roll hideously through fire and blood. In Quercy we had lost two or three chateaux, and a handful of lives, and for a few hours the mob had got out of hand--all with little enthusiasm. But here--here I seemed to stand on the brink of a great furnace under which the fires of persecution still smouldered; I felt the scorching breath of pa.s.sion on my cheek, and saw through the white-hot sc.u.m old enmities seething with new and fiercer ambitions, old factions with new bigotries. I had heard Froment, now I heard these; it remained only to be seen whether Froment had his followers.

In the meantime, pent up in this place, I found little comfort in such predictions; I lived on my heart, and the better part of a fortnight went by. The woman at the inn was well satisfied to keep me; I paid, and guests were rare. And the Committee took pride in me; I was a living, walking token of their powers, and of the importance of their village. Now to the mingled misery and absurdity of my position, the anxiety on Mademoiselle's account, which this news of Nimes caused me, added the last intolerable touch, and I determined at all risks to escape.

That I had no horse, and that at Sumene or Ganges I should inevitably be detained, had hitherto held me back from the attempt; now I could bear the position no longer, and after weighing all the chances, I determined to slip away some evening at sunset, and make my way on foot to Milhau. The villagers would be sure to pursue me in the direction of Nimes, whither they knew that I was bound; and even if a party took the other road, I should have many chances of escape in the darkness. I counted on reaching Milhau soon after daybreak, and there, if the Mayor stood my friend, I might regain my horse, and with credentials travel to Nimes by the same or another road.

It seemed feasible, and that very evening fortune favoured me. The man who should have kept me company, upset a pot of boiling water over his foot, and without giving a thought to me or his duty went off groaning to his house. A moment later the woman of the inn was called out by a neighbour, and at the very hour I would have chosen, I found myself alone. Still I knew that I had not a moment to lose; instantly, therefore, I put on my cloak, and reaching down my pistols from a shelf on which they had been placed, I put a little food in my pocket and sneaked out at the rear of the house. A dog was kennelled there, but it knew me and wagged its tail; and in two minutes, after warily skirting the backs of the houses, I gained the road to Milhau, and stood free and alone.

Night had fallen, but it was not quite dark; and dreading every eye, I hurried on through the dusk, now peering anxiously forward, and now looking and listening for the first sounds of pursuit. For a few minutes the fear of that took up all my thoughts; later, when the one twinkling light that marked the village had set behind me, and night and the silent waste of mountains had swallowed me up, a sense of eeriness, of loneliness, very depressing, took possession of me. Denise was at Nimes, and I was moving the other way; what accidents might not befall me, how many things might not happen to postpone my return? In the meantime she lay at the mercy of her mother and brothers, with all the traditions of her family, all the prejudices of maidenhood and her education against my suit. To what use in this imbroglio might not her hand be put? Or, if that were not in question, what in that city of strife, in that fierce struggle, of which the peasants had forewarned me, might not be the fate of a young girl?

Spurred by these thoughts, I pressed on feverishly, and had gone, perhaps, a league, when a sharp sound made by a horse's shoe striking a stone, caught my ear. It came from the front, and I drew to the side of the road, and crouched low to let the traveller go by. I fancied that I could distinguish the tramp of three horses, but when the men loomed darkly into sight, I could see only two figures.

Perhaps I rose a little too high in my anxiety to see. At any rate I had not counted on the horses, the nearer of which, as it pa.s.sed me, swerved violently from me. The rider was almost dismounted by the violence of the movement, but in a twinkling had his horse again in hand, and before I knew what I was doing, was urging it upon me. I dared not move, for to move was to betray my presence, but this did not avail, for in a minute the rider made out the outline of my figure.

"Hola," he cried sharply. "Who are you there, who lie in wait to break men's necks? Speak, man, or----"

But I caught his bridle. "M. de Geol!" I cried, my heart beating against my ribs.

"Stand back!" he cried, peering at me. He did not know my voice. "Who are you? Who is it?"

"It is I, M. de Saux," I answered joyfully.

"Why, man, I thought that you were at Nimes," he exclaimed in a tone of great astonishment, "these ten days past! We have your horse here."

"Here? My horse?"

"To be sure. Your good friend here has it in charge from Milhau. But where have you been? And what are you doing here?" he continued suspiciously.

"I lost my pa.s.sport. It was stolen by Froment."

He whistled.

"And at Villeraugues they stopped me," I continued. "I have been there since."

"Ah," he said drily. "That comes of travelling in bad company, M. le Vicomte. And to-night I suppose you were----"

"Going to get away," I answered bluntly. "But you--I thought that you had pa.s.sed long ago?"

"No," he said. "I was detained. Now we have met, I would advise you to mount and return with me."

"I will," I said briskly, "with the greatest pleasure. And you will be able to tell them who I am."

"I?" he answered. "No, indeed. I do not know. I only know who you told me you were."

I fell to earth again, and for a moment stood staring through the darkness at him. A moment only. For then out of the darkness came a voice. "Have no fear, M. le Vicomte, I will speak for you."

I started and stared. "Mon Dieu!" I said, trembling. "Who spoke?"

"It is I--Buton," came the answer. "I have your horse, M. le Vicomte."

It was Buton, the blacksmith; Captain Buton, of the Committee.

This for the time cut the thread of my difficulties. When we rode into the village ten minutes later, the Committee, awed by the credentials which Buton carried, accepted his explanation at once, and raised no further objection to my journey. So twelve hours afterwards we three, thus strangely thrown together, pa.s.sed through Sumene. We slept at Sauve, and presently leaving behind us the late winter of the mountains, with its frost and snow, began to descend in suns.h.i.+ne the western slope of the Rhone valley. All day we rode through balmy air, between fields and gardens and olive groves; the white dust, the white houses, the white cliffs eloquent of the south. And a little before sunset we came in sight of Nimes, and hailed the end of a journey that, for me, had not been without its adventures.

CHAPTER XIX.

AT NIMES.

It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions. I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Geol had added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not, where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here, where the warm imagination of the Provencal still saw something holy in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.

Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles apparently the strongest, the King, the n.o.bles, had crumbled and sunk before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind, here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold, lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land; that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La Vendee, and Brittany, and the Cotes du Nord, might swiftly ring round Paris with a circle of flame.

Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills, the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward, the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.

Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour, but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red c.o.c.kade--emblems at sight of which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces behind them.

I was not sorry; the novelty of the s.h.i.+fting crowd, the changing faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants, workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I reached Nimes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and struck me, as it were, in the face. As I pa.s.sed under a barred window a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty, on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.

I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.

On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if Madame received.

He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me to enter.

I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a s.p.a.cious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall, and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in pa.s.sing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man opening a door, stood aside.

I entered the room, my eyes s.h.i.+ning; in a dream, an impossible dream, that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall, grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.

Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my intrusion. She curtsied. "Monsieur need not excuse himself," she said, smiling. "He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow Gervais," she continued, "he will take you to a room, where you can remove the dust of the road."

"But, Madame," I stammered, still hesitating. "I am afraid that I am trespa.s.sing."

She shook her head, smiling. "Be so good," she said; and waved her hand towards the door.

"But my horse," I answered, standing bewildered. "I have left it in the street."

"It will be cared for," she said. "Will you be so kind?" And she pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.

I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was outside. He preceded me along a wide airy pa.s.sage to a bedroom, in which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.

"Madame----?" I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited for him to fill the blank.

"Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain," he answered glibly, and without a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the room I had left, but to another.

I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was s.p.a.cious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture; and by it stood the lady I had seen.

"Are you cold?" she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.

"No, Madame."

"Then we will sit down at once," she answered. And she pointed to the table.

I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have entered my mind was antic.i.p.ated, not only by the sedate courtesy of her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler who waited on us.

"Have you ridden far to-day?" she said, crumbling a roll with her fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.

"From Sauve, Madame," I answered.

"Ah! And you propose to go?"

"No farther."

"I am glad to hear it," she said, with a charming smile. "You are a stranger in Nimes?"

"I was. I do not feel so now."

"Thank you," she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve. "That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my name. Yours I do not ask."

"You do not know it?" I cried.

"No," she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. "Of course, you can tell it me if you please," she added lightly.

"Then, Madame, I do please," I answered gallantly. "I am the Vicomte de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service."

She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her eyes. Then she said: "Of Saux by Cahors?"

"Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear," I continued, seeing the effect my words produced, "that I am here in the place of some one else."

"Oh, no!" she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent, she laughed and clapped her hands. "No, Monsieur," she cried gaily, "there is no error, I a.s.sure you. On the contrary, now I know who you are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's gla.s.s, and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte," she continued, "you must drink with me, a l'Anglaise, to----"