"Coward!" said Germain, when he had him beneath him, "I could break every bone in your body if I chose! But I don't like to harm anybody, and besides, no punishment would mend your conscience. However, you shan't stir from this spot until you have asked this girl's pardon on your knees."
The farmer, who was familiar with affairs of that sort, tried to turn it off as a joke. He claimed that his offence was not so very serious, as it consisted only in words, and said that he was willing to beg the girl's pardon, on condition that he might kiss her and that they should all go and drink a pint of wine at the nearest inn and part good friends.
"You disgust me!" replied Germain, pressing his face against the ground, "and I long to see the last of your ugly face. There, blush if you can, and you had better take the road of the affronteux[2] when you come to our town."
He picked up the farmer's holly staff, broke it across his knee to show the strength of his wrists, and threw the pieces away with a contemptuous gesture.
Then, taking his son's hand in one of his, and little Marie's in the other, he walked away, trembling with indignation.
XV
THE RETURN TO THE FARM
Within a quarter of an hour they had crossed the moors. They trotted along the high-road, and Grise neighed at every familiar object. Petit-Pierre told his father what had taken place so far as he had been able to understand it.
"When we got there," he said, "that man came and talked to my Marie in the sheepfold, where we went first to see the fine sheep. I'd got up into the crib to play, and that man didn't see me. Then he said good-day to my Marie and then he kissed her."
"You let him kiss you, Marie?" said Germain, trembling with anger.
"I thought it was a compliment, a custom of the place for new arrivals, just as grandma, at your house, kisses the girls who take service with her, to show that she adopts them and will be like a mother to them."
"And then," continued Petit-Pierre, who was very proud to have a story to tell, "that man said something naughty, something you told me not to say and not to remember: so I forgot it right away. But if my papa wants me to tell him what it was—"
"No, my Pierre, I don't want to hear it, and I don't want you to remember it ever."
"Then I'll forget it again," said the child. "And then that man acted as if he was mad because Marie said she was going away. He told her he'd give her all she wanted,—a hundred francs! And my Marie got mad, too. Then he went at her, just like he was going to hurt her. I was afraid, and I ran up to Marie and cried. Then that man said like this: 'What's that? where did that child come from? Put him out of here.' And he put up his stick to beat me. But my Marie stopped him, and she said like this: 'We will talk by and by, monsieur; now I must take this child to Fourche, and then I'll come back again.' And as soon as he'd gone out of the sheepfold, my Marie says to me like this: 'Let's run away, my Pierre, we must go away right off, for that man's a bad man, and he would only hurt us.'—Then we went behind the barns and crossed a little field and went to Fourche to look for you. But you weren't there, and they wouldn't let us wait for you. And then that man came up behind us on his black horse, and we ran still farther away, and then we went and hid in the woods. Then he came, too, and we hid when we heard him coming. And then, when he'd gone by, we began to run for ourselves so as to go home; and then at last you came and found us; and that's all there was. I didn't forget anything, did I, my Marie?"
"No, Pierre, and it's the truth. Now, Germain, you will bear witness for me and tell everybody at home that it wasn't for lack of courage and being willing to work that I couldn't stay over yonder."
"And I will ask you, Marie," said Germain, "to ask yourself the question, whether, when it comes to defending a woman and punishing a knave, a man of twenty-eight isn't too old? I'd like to know if Bastien, or any other pretty boy who has the advantage of being ten years younger than I am, wouldn't have been crushed by that man, as Petit-Pierre calls him: what do you think about it?"
"I think, Germain, that you have done me a very great service, and that I shall thank you for it all my life."
"Is that all?"
"My little father," said the child, "I didn't think to tell little Marie what I promised you. I didn't have time, but I'll tell her at home, and I'll tell grandma, too."
This promise on his child's part gave Germain abundant food for reflection. The problem now was how to explain his position to his family, and while setting forth his grievances against the widow Guérin, to avoid telling them what other thoughts had predisposed him to be so keen-sighted and so harsh in his judgment.
When one is happy and proud, the courage to make others accept one's happiness seems easily within reach; but to be rebuffed in one direction and blamed in another is not a very pleasant plight.
Luckily, Pierre was asleep when they reached the farm, and Germain put him down on his bed without waking him. Then he entered upon such explanations as he was able to give. Père Maurice, sitting upon his three-legged stool in the doorway, listened gravely to him, and, although he was ill pleased with the result of the expedition, when Germain, after describing the widow's system of coquetry, asked his father in-law if he had time to go and pay court to her fifty-two Sundays in the year with the chance of being dismissed at the end of the year, the old man replied, nodding his head in token of assent: "You are not wrong, Germain; that couldn't be." And again, when Germain told how he had been compelled to bring little Marie home again without loss of time to save her from the insults, perhaps from the violence, of an unworthy master, Père Maurice again nodded assent, saying: "You are not wrong, Germain; that's as it should be."
When Germain had finished his story and given all his reasons, his father-in-law and mother-in-law simultaneously uttered a heavy sigh of resignation as they exchanged glances.
Then the head of the family rose, saying: "Well! God's will be done! affection isn't made to order!"
"Come to supper, Germain," said the mother-in-law. "It's a pity that couldn't be arranged better; however, it wasn't God's will, it seems. We must look somewhere else."
"Yes," the old man added, "as my wife says, we must look somewhere else."
There was no further sound in the house, and when Petit-Pierre rose the next morning with the larks, at dawn, being no longer excited by the extraordinary events of the last two days, he relapsed into the normal apathy of little peasants of his age, forgot all that had filled his little head, and thought of nothing but playing with his brothers, and being a man with the horses and oxen.
Germain tried to forget, too, by plunging into his work again; but he became so melancholy and so absent-minded that everybody noticed it. He did not speak to little Marie, he did not even look at her; and yet, if any one had asked him in which pasture she was, or in what direction she had gone, there was not an hour in the day when he could not have told if he had chosen to reply. He had not dared ask his people to take her on at the farm during the winter, and yet he was well aware that she must be suffering from poverty. But she was not suffering, and Mère Guillette could never understand why her little store of wood never grew less, and how her shed was always filled in the morning when she had left it almost empty the night before. It was the same with the wheat and potatoes. Some one came through the window in the loft, and emptied a bag on the floor without waking anybody or leaving any tracks. The old woman was anxious and rejoiced at the same time; she bade her daughter not mention the matter, saying that if people knew what was happening in her house they would take her for a witch. She really believed that the devil had a hand in it, but she was by no means eager to fall out with him by calling upon the curé to exorcise him from her house; she said to herself that it would be time to do that when Satan came and demanded her soul in exchange for his benefactions.
Little Marie had a clearer idea of the truth, but she dared not speak to Germain for fear that he would recur to his idea of marriage, and she pretended when with him to notice nothing.
XVI
MÈRE MAURICE
One day, Mère Maurice, being alone in the orchard with Germain, said to him affectionately: "My poor son, I don't think you're well. You don't eat as much as usual, you never laugh, and you talk less and less. Has any one in the house, have we ourselves wounded you, without meaning to do it or knowing that we had done it?"
"No, mother," replied Germain, "you have always been as kind to me as the mother who brought me into the world, and I should be an ungrateful fellow if I complained of you, or your husband, or any one in the house."
"In that case, my child, it must be that your grief for your wife's death has come back. Instead of lessening with time, your loneliness grows worse, and you absolutely must do what your father-in-law very wisely advised, you must marry again."
"Yes, mother, that would be my idea, too; but the women you advised me to seek don't suit me. When I see them, instead of forgetting Catherine, I think of her all the more."
"The trouble apparently is, Germain, that we haven't succeeded in divining your taste. So you must help us by telling us the truth. Doubtless there's a woman somewhere who was made for you, for the good Lord doesn't make anybody without putting by his happiness for him in somebody else. So if you know where to go for the wife you need, go and get her; and whether she's pretty or ugly, young or old, rich or poor, we have made up our minds, my old man and I, to give our consent; for we're tired of seeing you so sad, and we can't live at peace if you are not."
"You are as good as the good Lord, mother, and so is father," replied Germain; "but your compassion can't cure my trouble: the girl I would like won't have me."
"Is it because she's too young? It's unwise for you to put your thoughts on a young girl."
"Well, yes, mother, I am foolish enough to have become attached to a young girl, and I blame myself for it. I do all I can not to think of her; but whether I am at work or resting, whether I am at Mass or in my bed, with my children or with you, I think of her all the time, and can't think of anything else."
"Why, it's as if there'd been a spell cast on you, Germain, isn't it? There's only one cure for it, and that is to make the girl change her mind and listen to you. So I must take a hand in it, and see if it can be done. You tell me where she lives and what her name is."
"Alas! my dear mother, I don't dare," said Germain, "for you'll laugh at me."
"No, I won't laugh at you, Germain, because you're in trouble, and I don't want to make it any worse for you. Can it be Fanchette?"
"No, mother, not her."
"Or Rosette?"
"No."
"Tell me, then, for I won't stop, if I have to name all the girls in the province."
Germain hung his head, and could not make up his mind to reply.
"Well," said Mère Maurice, "I leave you in peace for to-day, Germain; perhaps to-morrow you will feel more like trusting me, or your sister-in-law will show more skill in questioning you."
And she picked up her basket to go and stretch her linen on the bushes.
Germain acted like children who make up their minds when they see that you have ceased to pay any attention to them. He followed his mother-in-law, and at last gave her the name in fear and trembling—La Guillette's little Marie.
Great was Mère Maurice's surprise: she was the last one of whom she would have thought. But she had the delicacy not to cry out at it, and to make her comments mentally. Then, seeing that her silence was oppressive to Germain, she held out her basket to him, saying: "Well, is that any reason why you shouldn't help me in my work? Carry this load, and come and talk with me. Have you reflected, Germain? have you made up your mind?"
"Alas! my dear mother, that's not the way you must talk: my mind would be made up if I could succeed; but as I shouldn't be listened to, I have made up my mind simply to cure myself if I can."
"And if you can't?"
"Everything in its time, Mère Maurice: when the horse is overloaded, he falls; and when the ox has nothing to eat, he dies."
"That is to say that you will die if you don't succeed, eh? God forbid, Germain! I don't like to hear a man like you say such things as that, because when he says them he thinks them. You're a very brave man, and weakness is a dangerous thing in strong men. Come, take hope. I can't imagine how a poor girl, who is much honored by having you want her, can refuse you."
"It's the truth, though, she does refuse me."
"What reasons does she give you?"
"That you have always been kind to her, that her family owes a great deal to yours, and that she doesn't want to displease you by turning me away from a wealthy marriage."
"If she says that, she shows good feeling, and it's very honest on her part. But when she tells you that, Germain, she doesn't cure you, for she tells you she loves you, I don't doubt, and that she'd marry you if we were willing."
"That's the worst of it! she says that her heart isn't drawn toward me."
"If she says what she doesn't mean, the better to keep you away from her, she's a child who deserves to have us love her and to have us overlook her youth because of her great common-sense."
"Yes," said Germain, struck with a hope he had not before conceived; "it would be very good and very comme il faut on her part! but if she's so sensible, I am very much afraid it's because she doesn't like me."
"Germain," said Mère Maurice, "you must promise to keep quiet the whole week and not worry, but eat and sleep, and be gay as you used to be. I'll speak to my old man, and if I bring him round, then you can find out the girl's real feeling with regard to you."
Germain promised, and the week passed without Père Maurice saying a word to him in private or giving any sign that he suspected anything. The ploughman tried hard to seem tranquil, but he was paler and more perturbed than ever.
XVII
LITTLE MARIE
At last, on Sunday morning as they came out from Mass, his mother-in-law asked him what he had obtained from his sweetheart since their interview in the orchard.
"Why, nothing at all," he replied. "I haven't spoken to her."
"How do you expect to persuade her, pray, if you don't speak to her?"
"I have never spoken to her but once," said Germain. "That was when we went to Fourche together; and since then I haven't said a single word to her. Her refusal hurt me so, that I prefer not to hear her tell me again that she doesn't love me."
"Well, my son, you must speak to her now; your father-in-law authorizes you to do it. Come, make up your mind! I tell you to do it, and, if necessary, I insist on it; for you can't remain in this state of doubt."
Germain obeyed. He went to Mère Guillette's, with downcast eyes and an air of profound depression. Little Marie was alone in the chimney-corner, musing so deeply that she did not hear Germain come in. When she saw him before her, she leaped from her chair in surprise and her face flushed.
"Little Marie," he said, sitting beside her, "I have pained you and wearied you, I know; but the man and the woman at our house"—so designating the heads of the family in accordance with custom—"want me to speak to you and ask you to marry me. You won't be willing to do it, I expect that."
"Germain," replied little Marie, "have you made up your mind that you love me?"
"That offends you, I know, but it isn't my fault; if you could change your mind, I should be too happy, and I suppose I don't deserve to have it so. Come, look at me, Marie, am I so very frightful?"
"No, Germain," she replied, with a smile, "you're better looking than I am."
"Don't laugh at me; look at me indulgently; I haven't lost a hair or a tooth yet. My eyes tell you that I love you. Look into my eyes, it's written there, and every girl knows how to read that writing."
Marie looked into Germain's eyes with an air of playful assurance; then she suddenly turned her head away and began to tremble.
"Ah! mon Dieu! I frighten you," said Germain; "you look at me as if I were the farmer of Ormeaux. Don't be afraid of me, I beg of you, that hurts me too much. I won't say bad words to you, I won't kiss you against your will, and when you want me to go away, you have only to show me the door. Tell me, must I go out so that you can stop trembling?"
Marie held out her hand to the ploughman, but without turning her head, which was bent toward the fire-place, and without speaking.
"I understand," said Germain; "you pity me, for you are kind-hearted; you are sorry to make me unhappy; but still you can't love me, can you?"
"Why do you say such things to me, Germain?" little Marie replied at last, "do you want to make me cry?"
"Poor little girl, you have a kind heart, I know; but you don't love me, and you hide your face from me because you're afraid to let me see your displeasure and your repugnance. And for my part, I don't dare do so much as press your hand! In the woods, when my son was asleep, and you were asleep too, I came near kissing you softly. But I should have died of shame rather than ask you for a kiss, and I suffered as much that night as a man roasting over a slow fire. Since then, I've dreamed of you every night. Ah! how I have kissed you, Marie! But you slept without dreaming all the time. And now do you know what I think? that if you should turn and look at me with such eyes as I have for you, and if you should put your face to mine, I believe I should fall dead with joy. And as for you, you are thinking that if such a thing should happen to you, you would die of anger and shame!"
Germain talked as if he were dreaming, and did not know what he said. Little Marie was still trembling; but as he was trembling even more than she, he did not notice it. Suddenly she turned; she was all in tears, and looked at him with a reproachful expression.
The poor ploughman thought that that was the last stroke, and rose to go, without awaiting his sentence, but the girl detained him by throwing her arms about him, and hid her face against his breast.
"Ah! Germain," she said, sobbing, "haven't you guessed that I love you?"
Germain would have gone mad, had not his son, who was looking for him and who entered the cottage galloping on a stick, with his little sister en croupe, lashing the imaginary steed with a willow switch, recalled him to himself. He lifted him up, and said, as he put him in his fiancée's arms:
"You have made more than one person happy by loving me!"
APPENDIX
I
THE COUNTRY WEDDING
Here ends the story of Germain's courtship, as he told it to me himself, cunning ploughman that he is! I ask your pardon, dear reader, for having been unable to translate it better; for the old-fashioned, artless language of the peasants of the district that I sing—as they used to say—really has to be translated. Those people speak too much French for us, and the development of the language since Rabelais and Montaigne has deprived us of much of the old wealth. It is so with all progress, and we must make up our minds to it. But it is pleasant still to hear those picturesque idioms in general use on the old soil of the centre of France; especially as they are the genuine expressions of the mockingly tranquil and pleasantly loquacious character of the people who use them. Touraine has preserved a considerable number of precious patriarchal locutions. But Touraine has progressed rapidly in civilization during and since the Renaissance. It is covered with châteaux, roads, activity, and foreigners. Berry has remained stationary, and I think that, next to Bretagne and some provinces in the extreme south of France, it is the most conservative province to be found at the present moment. Certain customs are so strange, so curious, that I hope to be able to entertain you a moment longer, dear reader, if you will permit me to describe in detail a country wedding, Germain's for instance, which I had the pleasure of attending a few years ago.
For everything passes away, alas! In the short time that I have lived, there has been more change in the ideas and customs of my village than there was for centuries before the Revolution. Half of the Celtic, pagan, or Middle-Age ceremonials that I saw in full vigor in my childhood, have already been done away with. Another year or two, perhaps, and the railroads will run their levels through our deep valleys, carrying away, with the swiftness of lightning, our ancient traditions and our wonderful legends.
It was in winter, not far from the Carnival, the time of year when it is considered becoming and proper, among us, to be married. In the summer, we hardly have time, and the work on a farm cannot be postponed three days, to say nothing of the extra days required for the more or less laborious digestion attending the moral and physical intoxication that follows such a festivity.—I was sitting under the huge mantel-piece of an old-fashioned kitchen fire-place, when pistol-shots, the howling of dogs, and the shrill notes of the bagpipe announced the approach of the fiancés. Soon Père and Mère Maurice, Germain, and little Marie, followed by Jacques and his wife, the nearest relations of the bride and groom, and their godfathers and godmothers, entered the court-yard.
Little Marie, not having as yet received the wedding-gifts, called livrées, was dressed in the best that her modest wardrobe afforded: a dress of dark-gray cloth, a white fichu with large bright-colored flowers, an apron of the color called incarnat, an Indian red then much in vogue but despised to-day, a cap of snow-white muslin and of the shape, fortunately preserved, which recalls the head-dress of Anne Boleyn and Agnès Sorel. She was fresh and smiling, and not at all proud, although she had good reason to be. Germain was beside her, grave and deeply moved, like the youthful Jacob saluting Rachel at Laban's well. Any other girl would have assumed an air of importance and a triumphant bearing; for in all ranks of life it counts for something to be married for one's beaux yeux. But the girl's eyes were moist and beaming with love; you could see that she was deeply smitten, and that she had no time to think about the opinions of other people. She had not lost her little determined manner; but she was all sincerity and good nature; there was nothing impertinent in her success, nothing personal in her consciousness of her strength. I never saw such a sweet fiancée as she when she quickly answered some of her young friends who asked her if she was content: "Bless me! indeed I am! I don't complain of the good Lord."
Père Maurice was the spokesman; he had come to offer the customary compliments and invitations. He began by fastening a laurel branch adorned with ribbons to the mantel-piece; that is called the exploit, that is to say, the invitation; then he gave to each of the guests a little cross made of a bit of blue ribbon crossed by another bit of pink ribbon; the pink for the bride, the blue for the groom; and the guests were expected to keep that token to wear on the wedding-day, the women in their caps, the men in their button-holes. It was the ticket of admission.
Then Père Maurice delivered his speech. He invited the master of the house and all his company, that is to say, all his children, all his relations, all his friends, all his servants, to the marriage-ceremony, to the feast, to the sports, to the dancing, and to everything that comes after. He did not fail to say:—I come to do you the honor to invite you. A very proper locution, although it seems a misuse of words to us, as it expresses the idea of rendering honor to those who are deemed worthy thereof.
Despite the general invitation carried thus from house to house throughout the parish, good-breeding, which is extremely conservative among the peasantry, requires that only two persons in each family should take advantage of it,—one of the heads of the family to represent the household, one of their children to represent the other members.
The invitations being delivered, the fiancés and their relations went to the farm and dined together.
Little Marie tended her three sheep on the common land, and Germain turned up the ground as if there were nothing in the air.
On the day before that fixed for the marriage, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the musicians arrived, that is to say, the bagpipers and viol-players, with their instruments decorated with long floating ribbons, and playing a march written for the occasion, in a measure somewhat slow for the feet of any but natives, but perfectly adapted to the nature of the heavy ground and the hilly roads of that region. Pistol-shots, fired by youths and children, announced the beginning of the ceremony. The guests assembled one by one and danced on the greensward in front of the house, for practice. When night had come, they began to make strange preparations: they separated into two parties, and when it was quite dark, they proceeded to the ceremony of the livrées.
That ceremony was performed at the home of the fiancée, La Guillette's cabin. La Guillette took with her her daughter, a dozen or more young and pretty shepherdesses, her daughter's friends or relations, two or three respectable matrons, neighbors with well-oiled tongues, quick at retort, and unyielding observers of the ancient customs. Then she selected a dozen sturdy champions, her relations and friends; and, lastly, the old hemp-beater of the parish, a fine and fluent talker, if ever there was one.
The rôle played in Bretagne by the bazvalan, or village tailor, is assumed in our country districts by the hemp-beater or the wool-carder, the two professions being often united in a single person. He attends all solemnities, sad or gay, because he is essentially erudite and a fine speaker, and on such occasions it is always his part to act as spokesman in order that certain formalities that have been observed from time immemorial may be worthily performed. The wandering trades which take men into the bosoms of other families and do not permit them to concentrate their attention upon their own, are well calculated to make them loquacious, entertaining, good talkers, and good singers.
The hemp-beater is peculiarly sceptical. He and another rustic functionary, of whom we shall speak anon, the grave-digger, are always the strong-minded men of the neighborhood. They have talked so much about ghosts, and are so familiar with all the tricks of which those mischievous spirits are capable, that they fear them hardly at all. Night is the time when all three, hemp-beaters, grave-diggers, and ghosts, principally exercise their callings. At night, too, the hemp-beater tells his harrowing tales. May I be pardoned for a slight digression.
When the hemp has reached the proper point, that is to say, when it has been sufficiently soaked in running water and half dried on the bank, it is carried to the yards of the different houses; there they stand it up in little sheaves, which, with their stalks spread apart at the bottom and their heads tied together in balls, greatly resemble, in the dark, a long procession of little white phantoms, planted on their slim legs and walking noiselessly along the walls.
At the end of September, when the nights are still warm, they begin the process of beating, by the pale moonlight. During the day, the hemp has been heated in the oven; it is taken out at night to be beaten hot. For that purpose, they use a sort of wooden horse, surmounted by a wooden lever, which, falling upon the grooves, breaks the plant without cutting it. Then it is that you hear at night, in the country, the sharp, clean-cut sound of three blows struck in rapid succession. Then there is silence for a moment; that means that the arm is moving the handful of hemp, in order to break it in another place. And the three blows are repeated; it is the other arm acting on the lever, and so it goes on until the moon is dimmed by the first rays of dawn. As this work is done only a few days in the year, the dogs do not become accustomed to it, and howl plaintively at every point of the compass.
It is the time for unusual and mysterious noises in the country. The migrating cranes fly southward at such a height that the eye can hardly distinguish them in broad daylight. At night, you can only hear them; and their hoarse, complaining voices, lost among the clouds, seem like the salutation and the farewell of souls in torment, striving to find the road to heaven and compelled by an irresistible fatality to hover about the abodes of men, not far from earth; for these migratory birds exhibit strange uncertainty and mysterious anxiety in their aerial wanderings. It sometimes happens that they lose the wind, when fitful breezes struggle for the mastery or succeed one another in the upper regions. Thereupon, when one of those reverses happens during the day, we see the leader of the line soar at random through the air, then turn sharply about, fly back, and take his place at the rear of the triangular phalanx, while a skilful manoeuvre on the part of his companions soon brings them into line behind him. Often, after vain efforts, the exhausted leader abandons the command of the caravan; another comes forward, takes his turn at the task, and gives place to a third, who finds the current and leads the host forward in triumph. But what shrieks, what reproaches, what remonstrances, what fierce maledictions or anxious questions are exchanged by those winged pilgrims in an unfamiliar tongue!
In the resonant darkness you hear the dismal uproar circling above the houses sometimes for a long while; and as you can see nothing, you feel, in spite of yourself, a sort of dread and a sympathetic uneasiness until the sobbing flock has passed out of hearing in space.
There are other sounds that are peculiar to that time of year, and are heard principally in the orchards. The fruit is not yet gathered, and a thousand unaccustomed snappings and crackings make the trees resemble animate beings. A branch creaks as it bends under a weight that has suddenly reached the last stage of development; or an apple detaches itself and falls at your feet with a dull thud on the damp ground. Then you hear a creature whom you cannot see, brushing against the branches and bushes as he runs away; it is the peasant's dog, the restless, inquisitive prowler, impudent and cowardly as well, who insinuates himself everywhere, never sleeps, is always hunting for nobody knows what, watches you from his hiding-place in the bushes and runs away at the noise made by a falling apple, thinking that you are throwing a stone at him.
On such nights as those—gray, cloudy nights—the hemp-beater narrates his strange adventures with will-o'-the-wisps and white hares, souls in torment and witches transformed into wolves, the witches' dance at the cross-roads and prophetic night-owls in the grave-yard. I remember passing the early hours of the night thus around the moving flails, whose pitiless blow, interrupting the beater's tale at the most exciting point, caused a cold shiver to run through our veins. Often, too, the goodman went on talking as he worked; and four or five words would be lost: awful words, of course, which we dared not ask him to repeat, and the omission of which imparted a more awe-inspiring mystery to the mysteries, sufficiently harrowing before, of his narrative. In vain did the servants warn us that it was very late to remain out-of-doors, and that the hour for slumber had long since struck for us; they themselves were dying with longing to hear more. And with what terror did we afterward walk through the hamlet on our homeward way! how deep the church porch seemed, and how dense and black the shadow of the old trees! As for the grave-yard, that we did not see; we closed our eyes as we passed it.
But the hemp-beater does not devote himself exclusively to frightening his hearers any more than the sacristan does; he likes to make them laugh, he is jocose and sentimental at need, when love and marriage are to be sung; he it is who collects and retains in his memory the most ancient ballads and transmits them to posterity. He it is, therefore, who, at wedding-festivals, is entrusted with the character which we are to see him enact at the presentation of the livrées to little Marie.
II
THE LIVRÉES
When everybody was assembled in the house, the doors and windows were closed and fastened with the greatest care; they even barricaded the loop-hole in the attic; they placed boards, trestles, stumps, and tables across all the issues as if they were preparing to sustain a siege; and there was the solemn silence of suspense in that fortified interior until they heard in the distance singing and laughing, and the notes of the rustic instruments. It was the bridegroom's contingent, Germain at the head, accompanied by his stoutest comrades, by his relations, friends, and servants and the grave-digger,—a substantial, joyous procession.
But, as they approached the house, they slackened their pace, took counsel together, and became silent. The maidens, shut up in the house, had arranged little cracks at the windows, through which they watched them march up and form in battle-array. A fine, cold rain was falling, and added to the interest of the occasion, while a huge fire was crackling on the hearth inside. Marie would have liked to abridge the inevitable tedious length of this formal siege; she did not like to see her lover catching cold, but she had no voice in the council under the circumstances, and, indeed, she was expected to join, ostensibly, in the mischievous cruelty of her companions.
When the two camps were thus confronted, a discharge of fire-arms without created great excitement among all the dogs in the neighborhood. Those of the household rushed to the door barking vociferously, thinking that a real attack was in progress, and the small children, whom their mothers tried in vain to reassure, began to tremble and cry. The whole scene was so well played that a stranger might well have been deceived by it and have considered the advisability of preparing to defend himself against a band of brigands.
Thereupon, the grave-digger, the bridegroom's bard and orator, took his place in front of the door, and, in a lugubrious voice, began the following dialogue with the hemp-beater, who was stationed at the small round window above the same door:
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Alas! my good people, my dear parishioners, for the love of God open the door.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Who are you, pray, and why do you presume to call us your dear parishioners? We do not know you.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We are honest folk in sore distress. Be not afraid of us, my friends! receive us hospitably. The rain freezes as it falls, our poor feet are frozen, and we have come such a long distance that our shoes are split.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
If your shoes are split, you can look on the ground; you will surely find osier withes to make arcelets [little strips of iron in the shape of bows, with which shoes (wooden) were mended].
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Osier arcelets are not very strong. You are making sport of us, good people, and you would do better to open the door to us. We can see the gleam of a noble blaze within your house; doubtless the spit is in place, and your hearts and your stomachs are rejoicing together. Open, then, to poor pilgrims, who will die at your door if you do not have mercy on them.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Aha! you are pilgrims? you did not tell us that. From what pilgrimage are you returning, by your leave?
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We will tell you that when you have opened the door, for we come from so far away that you would not believe it.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Open the door to you? indeed! we should not dare trust you. Let us see: are you from Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny?
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We have been to Saint-Sylvain de Pouligny, but we have been farther than that.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Then you have been as far as Sainte-Solange?
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We have been to Sainte-Solange, for sure; but we have been farther still.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
You lie; you have never been as far as Sainte-Solange.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We have been farther, for we have just returned from Saint-Jacques de Compostelle.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
What foolish tale are you telling us? We don't know that parish. We see plainly enough that you are bad men, brigands, nobodies, liars. Go somewhere else and sing your silly songs; we are on our guard, and you won't get in here.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Alas! my dear man, have pity on us! We are not pilgrims, as you have rightly guessed; but we are unfortunate poachers pursued by the keepers. The gendarmes are after us, too, and, if you don't let us hide in your hay-loft, we shall be caught and taken to prison.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
But what proof have we this time that you are what you say? for here is one falsehood already that you could not follow up.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
If you will open the door, we will show you a fine piece of game we have killed.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Show it now, for we are suspicious.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Well, open a door or a window, so that we can pass in the creature.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Oh! nay, nay! not such fools! I'm looking at you through a little hole, and I see neither hunters nor game.
At that point, a drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength, came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout iron spit, decorated with bunches of straw and ribbons.
"Hoity-toity!" cried the hemp-beater, after he had cautiously put out an arm to feel the bird; "that's not a quail or a partridge, a hare or a rabbit; it looks like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word, you are noble hunters! and that game did not make you ride very fast. Go elsewhere, my knaves! all your falsehoods are detected, and you may as well go home and cook your supper. You won't eat ours."
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
Alas! mon Dieu! where shall we go to have our game cooked? it's very little among so many of us; and, besides, we have no fire nor place to go to. At this time of night, every door is closed, everybody has gone to bed; you are the only ones who are having a wedding-feast in your house, and you must be very hardhearted to leave us to freeze outside. Once more, good people, let us in; we won't cause you any expense. You see we bring our own food; only a little space at your fireside, a little fire to cook it, and we will go hence satisfied.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
Do you think that we have any too much room, and that wood costs nothing?
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
We have a little bundle of straw to make a fire with, we will be satisfied with it; only give us leave to place the spit across your fire-place.
THE HEMP-BEATER.
We will not do it; you arouse disgust, not pity, in us. It's my opinion that you are drank, that you need nothing, and that you simply want to get into our house to steal our fire and our daughters.
THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
As you refuse to listen to any good reason, we propose to force our way into your house.