The Sin of Monsieur Antoine, Volume 1 (of 2)

I

EGUZON

There are few localities in France as unattractive as the town of Eguzon on the confines of La Marche and Berry, in the southwest part of the latter province. Eighty to a hundred houses, all of more or less wretched appearance, with the exception of two or three whose opulent proprietors we will not name for fear of offending their modesty, line the two or three streets and surround the public square of that municipality, famous for leagues around by reason of the litigious nature of its population and the difficulty of reaching it. Despite this last drawback, which will soon disappear, thanks to the laying out of a new road, Eguzon sees many travellers boldly traverse the solitudes by which it is surrounded and risk the springs of their carrioles on its terrible pavement. The only inn is situated on the only square, which seems the more vast because it has one side open to the fields as if awaiting the new buildings of future citizens; and this inn is sometimes compelled, in the summer, to invite its too numerous guests to accept accommodation in the neighboring houses, which are thrown open to them, we are bound to say, with much hospitality. Eguzon, you see, is the central point of a picturesque neighborhood dotted with imposing ruins, and whether one desires to visit Châteaubrun, Crozant, Prugne-au-Pot, or the still habitable and inhabited château of Saint-Germain, he must necessarily sleep at Eguzon, in order to start betimes on these different excursions on the following morning.

Several years ago, one lowering, stormy evening in June, the good people of Eguzon opened their eyes to their fullest extent to see a young man of attractive exterior crossing the square to leave the town just after sunset. The weather was threatening; it was growing dark more quickly than usual, and yet the young traveller, after taking a light repast at the inn, where he halted just long enough to rest his horse, rode boldly away toward the north, heedless of the representations of the innkeeper, and apparently caring naught for the dangers of the road. None knew him; he had answered all questions with an impatient gesture only, and all remonstrances with a smile. When the sound of his horse's hoofs had died away in the distance, the loafers about the inn said to one another:

"That fellow knows the road well or doesn't know it at all. Either he has been over it a hundred times and knows every stone by name, or he doesn't suspect what sort of a place it is, and will find himself in a deal of trouble."

"He's a stranger and not of these parts," said a knowing individual with a judicial air. "He wouldn't listen to anything but his own head; but half an hour hence, when the storm breaks, you'll see him coming back again."

"If he doesn't break his neck first, going down the Pont des Piles," observed a third.

"Faith!" said the bystanders in chorus, "that's his business! Let's go and close our shutters, so that the hail won't break our window-panes."

And throughout the village there was a great noise of doors and windows being hastily barred, while the wind, which was beginning to moan over the moors, outstripped the breathless maid-servants, and sent back into their faces the folding leaves of the heavy shutters wherein the mechanics of the province, in conformity with the traditions of their ancestors, spared neither oak nor iron bolts. From time to time a voice could be heard from one end of the street to the other, and such remarks as these were shouted from doorway to doorway: "Is all yours in?" "Ah oua! I've got two loads still on the ground." "And I've got six standing!" "Well, I don't care, mine are all in the barn." They were talking about hay.

The traveller, riding an excellent Brenne hackney, left the clouds behind him and, quickening his pace, flattered himself that he could outstrip the storm; but, at a sudden turn in the road, he realized that he must inevitably be taken in flank. He unfolded his cloak, which was strapped to his valise, tied his cap under his chin, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped on once more, hoping at least to reach and cross, by daylight, the dangerous spot that had been described to him. But his hope was disappointed; the road became so difficult that he had to go at a footpace and watch his horse to keep him from falling over the rocks with which the ground was strewn. When he reached the top of the ravine of La Creuse, the storm-cloud had enveloped the whole sky; it was quite dark, and he could judge the depth of the abyss he was skirting only by the dull, muffled roar of the torrent.

With the rashness of his twenty years the young man disregarded his horse's prudent hesitation and forced him to take the chances of a descent which the docile beast found more uneven and steeper at every step. But suddenly he stopped and threw himself back on his haunches, and his rider, who was slightly startled by the shock, saw, by the light of a brilliant flash, that he was on the extreme edge of a perpendicular precipice, and that another step would infallibly have hurled him to the bottom of La Creuse.

The rain was beginning to fall, and a furious squall twisted the tops of the old chestnut trees on the level of the road. The west wind forced man and horse alike toward the stream, and the danger became so real that the traveller was obliged to dismount, in order to present less surface to the wind and to guide his horse more surely in the darkness. What the lightning flash had enabled him to see of the landscape had seemed wonderfully beautiful to him; moreover, his situation whetted the task for adventure which is characteristic of youth.

A second flash enabled him to distinguish his surroundings, and he profited by a third to familiarize himself with the objects nearest at hand. The road was not narrow, but its very width made it hard to follow. There were some half a dozen vaguely defined tracks, marked only by hoof-prints and wheel-ruts, forming divers paths, interlaced as if by chance, on the slope of a hill; and as there was neither hedge, nor ditch, nor any sign of cultivation, those who passed that way had climbed the hill wherever they happened to choose; thus with each season a new road was opened, or some old one reopened which time and nonuse had closed. Between each two of these capricious tracks were little mounds of rock or tufts of furze, which looked just alike in the darkness, and as no two of them were on the same level it was difficult to pass from one to the other without risking a fall which might well end in the abyss; for they all sloped sidewise as well as forward, so that one must lean backward and to the left. Thus no one of these winding paths was safe; for since the spring all had been trodden equally hard, the natives taking any one of them at random in broad daylight; but, on a dark night, it was of the greatest importance not to lose one's footing, and the young man, who was more careful of the knees of the horse he loved than of his own life, concluded to halt behind a rock that was high enough to shelter them both from the violence of the wind, and to wait there until the sky should brighten up a bit. He leaned against Corbeau, and, raising a corner of his waterproof cloak in such wise as to protect his companion's quarters and the saddle, he fell into a romantic reverie, as well pleased to hear the howling of the tempest as the good people of Eguzon, assuming them to be thinking of him at all at that moment, supposed him to be anxious and disappointed.

The successive flashes soon afforded him a sufficient acquaintance with the surrounding country. Directly in front of him the road climbed the opposite slope of the ravine, equally steep and presenting difficulties of the same nature. The Creuse, a clear, swift stream, flowed not very noisily at the foot of the precipice and drew its banks together to pass with a dull, never-ending roar under the arches of an old bridge that seemed in a very dilapidated condition. The view opposite was limited by the steep incline; but at the left he could catch glimpses of sloping, well-cultivated meadows, through the middle of which the stream wound; and opposite our traveller, on the crest of a hill bristling with huge boulders interspersed with rich vegetation, rose the dilapidated towers of a vast ruined manor. But, even if it had occurred to the young man to seek shelter there from the storm, it would have been difficult to find a way of reaching it; for there was no apparent communication between the road and the ruin, and another ravine, traversed by a stream that emptied into the Creuse, separated the two hills. The site was most picturesque and the pallid gleam of the lightning imparted a touch of the terrible which one would have sought in vain by daylight. Gigantic chimneys, exposed by the falling of the roofs, towered up toward the heavy clouds that hovered over the château and seemed to rend it asunder. When the sky was lighted by the swift flashes, the ruins were outlined in white against the dark background of the atmosphere, and, on the contrary, when the eyes had accustomed themselves to the succeeding darkness, they formed a dark mass against a lighter horizon. A large star, which the clouds seemed not to dare to cover, shone a long while over the haughty donjon, like a carbuncle on a giant's head. At last it disappeared, and the torrents of rain, falling with redoubled force, made it impossible for the traveller to distinguish anything except through a thick veil. The water, falling on the rocks near by and on the ground hardened by the recent extreme heat, rebounded like white foam and at times resembled clouds of dust raised by the wind.

As he moved forward to shelter his horse more effectually behind the rock, the young man discovered that he was not alone. Another man had come to that spot in search of shelter, or perhaps had taken possession of it first. It was impossible to tell, in those alternations of dazzling light and intense darkness. The horseman had not time to obtain a good view of the pedestrian; he seemed to be wretchedly dressed and not of very attractive appearance. Indeed he seemed inclined to keep out of sight by crouching as far under the rock as possible; but as soon as he concluded, from an exclamation of the traveller, that he was discovered, he unhesitatingly addressed him in a loud, clear voice:

"This is bad weather for riding, monsieur, and if you're wise you will go back to Eguzon to sleep."

"Much obliged, my friend," replied the young man, making his stout, lead-handled hunting-crop whistle through the air, in order to give his problematical companion to understand that he was armed.

The latter understood the warning and answered it by tapping the rock, as if absent-mindedly, with an enormous holly staff, which broke off several splinters of stone. The weapon was stout and so was the wrist that wielded it.

"You won't go far to-night in such weather," continued the pedestrian.

"I shall go as far as I choose," replied the horseman, "and I should not advise anybody to take it into his head to delay me on the way."

"Are you afraid of robbers that you meet friendly overtures with threats? I don't know what province you come from, my young man, but you hardly seem to know what province you are in. Thank God, there are neither highwaymen, nor assassins among us."

The stranger's proud but frank tone inspired confidence. The young man rejoined more mildly:

"You're of this province, are you, comrade?"

"Yes, monsieur, I am, and always shall be."

"You are right to propose to remain here; it's a beautiful country."

"Not always though! At this moment, for instance, it's none too pleasant; the weather is venting its spite, and it will be bad all night."

"Do you think so?"

"I am sure of it. If you follow the valley of the Creuse you'll have the storm for company till to-morrow noon, but I fancy that you didn't start out so late without expecting to find shelter near at hand?"

"To tell you the truth, I am inclined to think that the place I am going to is farther away than I supposed at first. I fancied that they tried to keep me at Eguzon by exaggerating the distance and the bad condition of the roads; but I see, from the little progress I have made in an hour, that they hardly overstated it."

"Not to be inquisitive, where might you be going?"

"To Gargilesse. How far do you call it?"

"Not far, monsieur, if you could see where you are going; but, if you don't know the country, it will take you all night; for what you see from here is nothing in comparison with the break-neck places you have to descend to go from the ravine of La Creuse to that of Gargilesse, and you risk your life to boot."

"Well, my friend, will you undertake to guide me, for a good round sum?"

"No, monsieur, thank you."

"Is the road very dangerous that you are so disobliging?"

"The road is not dangerous to me, for I know it as well as you probably know the streets of Paris; but what reason have I for passing the night in getting drenched just to please you?"

"I am not particular about it, and I can do without your help; but I didn't ask you to favor me for nothing; I offered you——"

"Enough! enough! you are rich and I am poor, but I am not a beggar yet, and I have reasons for not making myself the servant of the first comer. However, if I knew who you were——"

"Are you suspicious of me?" said the young man, whose curiosity was aroused by his companion's proud and fearless character. "To prove that distrust is an unworthy feeling, I will pay you in advance. How much do you want?"

"I beg your pardon, excuse me, monsieur, I want nothing; I have neither wife nor children, I need nothing for the moment; besides I have a friend, a good fellow, whose house is not far away, and I shall take advantage of the first flash to go there and have supper and sleep on a good bed. Why should I deprive myself of that for you? Let us see! is it because you have a good horse and new clothes?"

"I like your pride, so far as that goes! But it seems to me not well done of you to refuse an exchange of favors."

"I have done you all the service in my power by telling you not to take any risks at night in such vile weather, on roads that will be impassable in half an hour. What more do you want?"

"Nothing. When I asked for your assistance I wanted to ascertain the character of the people of this neighborhood, that's all. I see now that their good will toward strangers is limited to words."

"Toward strangers!" cried the native, in a melancholy and reproachful tone which impressed the traveller. "In Heaven's name isn't that too much for those who have never done us aught but harm? I tell you, monsieur, men are unjust; but God's sight is clear, and he knows well that the poor peasant allows himself to be shorn, without revenging himself, by the shrewd people who come from the great cities."

"Have the people from the cities done so much harm in your country districts, pray? That is a fact that I know nothing of and am not responsible for, as this is my first visit."

"You are going to Gargilesse. I suppose of course you are going to see Monsieur Cardonnet? You are either a relation or friend of his, I am sure?"

"Who is this Monsieur Cardonnet, whom you seem to hold in ill-will?" asked the young man, after a moment's hesitation.

"Enough, monsieur," the peasant replied; "if you don't know him anything that I could say would hardly interest you, and if you are rich you have nothing to fear from him. The poor people are the only ones he has a grudge against."

"But after all," rejoined the traveller, with a sort of restrained emotion, "it may be that I have reasons for wanting to know what people in this country think of this Monsieur Cardonnet. If you refuse to give any reason for your bad opinion of him, it must be because you have some personal spite against him, not at all creditable to yourself."

"I am accountable to nobody," retorted the peasant, "and my opinion is my own. Good-night, monsieur. See, the rain is a little less violent. I am sorry to be unable to offer you a shelter; but I have only the château you see yonder, which is not mine. However," he added, after taking a few steps, and as if regretting that he had not shown more respect for the duties of hospitality, "if your heart should prompt you to come and ask a bed for the night, I can answer for it you would be welcome."

"Is yonder ruin occupied?" asked the traveller, who had to descend the ravine to cross the Creuse, and had walked along beside the peasant, supporting his horse by the rein.

"It is a ruin, in truth," his companion replied, repressing a sigh; "but although I am not so very old, I have seen that château in perfect repair, and so magnificent, outside as well as inside, that a king would have been well lodged there. The owner didn't spend a great deal, but it didn't require much repairing, it was so solid and well built; and the walls were so well laid, the stone mantels and window frames so beautifully carved that it would have been impossible to make it any finer than the architects and masons did when they built it. But everything goes, riches like all the rest, and the last lord of Châteaubrun has just repurchased the château of his ancestors for four thousand francs."

"Is it possible that such a mass of stone, even in its present condition, is worth so little?"

"What is left would still be worth a good deal if one could take it down and carry it away; but where in this vicinity can he find workmen and machines capable of pulling down those old walls? I don't know what they built with in old times, but that cement is so hard that you would say the towers and high walls are made of a single stone. And then, you see how it was planted on the very top of a mountain, with precipices on all sides! What carts and what horses could carry down such materials? Unless the hill crumbles they will stay there as long as the rock that holds them, and there are still ceilings enough left to cover one poor gentleman and one poor girl."

"So this last of the Châteaubruns has a daughter, has he?" asked the young man, pausing to look at the manor with more interest than he had yet shown. "And she lives there?"

"Yes, yes, she lives there among the gerfalcons and screech-owls, and yet she is young and pretty, all the same. There's no lack of air and water here, and in spite of the new laws against free hunting, we still see hares and partridges now and then on the lord of Châteaubrun's table. Look you, if you have no business that compels you to risk your life to arrive before daybreak, come with me; I will undertake to procure you a warm welcome at the château. Even if you should arrive there alone, without recommendation, it's enough that the weather is bad and that you have the face of a Christian, to ensure your being well received and well treated at Monsieur Antoine de Châteaubrun's."

"But this gentleman is poor, it seems, and I am reluctant to impose on his goodness of heart."

"On the contrary, you will gratify him. Come, the storm, you see, is going to begin again with more violence than before, and my conscience would trouble me if I should leave you thus all alone on the mountain. You mustn't bear me ill-will because I refused my services. I have my reasons, which you could not judge fairly, and which there is no need of my telling you; but I shall sleep better if you follow my advice. Besides, I know Monsieur Antoine; he would be angry with me for not holding fast to you and taking you to his house; he would be quite capable of running after you, which would be a bad thing for him after supper."

"And you don't think that his daughter would be displeased to have a stranger arrive thus unexpectedly?"

"His daughter is his daughter; that is to say, she is as good as he is, if not better, although that seems hardly possible."

The young man hesitated some time longer, but, drawn on by a romantic attraction, and already drawing in his imagination the portrait of the pearl of beauty he was about to find behind those frowning walls, he said to himself that he was not expected at Gargilesse until the following day; that by arriving at midnight he should disturb his parents in their sleep; and, lastly, that it would be downright imprudence to persist in his plan, and that his mother would certainly dissuade him from it, if she could see him at that moment. Moved by all the excellent reasons which a man gives himself when the demon of youth and curiosity takes a hand, he followed his guide in the direction of the old château.

II

THE MANOR OF CHÂTEAUBRUN

After climbing with difficulty a very steep road, or rather a stairway cut in the rock, our travellers reached the entrance of Châteaubrun in about twenty minutes. The wind and the rain redoubled in violence, and the young man hardly had leisure to observe the huge portal, which offered to his sight, at that moment, nothing more than an ill-defined mass of formidable proportions. He noticed simply that the seignorial portcullis was replaced by a wooden fence like those which enclose all the fields in the province.

"Wait a moment, monsieur," said his guide. "I will climb over and get the key; for latterly old Janille has minded to have a padlock here, as if there were anything to steal in her master's house! However, her intentions are good, and I don't blame her."

The peasant scaled the fence very cleverly, and, while awaiting for him to return and admit him, the young man tried in vain to make out the arrangement of the ruined masses of architecture which he could see confusedly inside the courtyard; it was like a glimpse of chaos.

After a few moments he saw several persons approaching. The gate was speedily opened; one took his horse, another his hand, and a third went ahead carrying a lantern, which was very essential for their guidance among the rubbish and brushwood that obstructed their passage. At last, after passing across part of the courtyard and through several enormous dark rooms, open to all the winds of heaven, they reached a small oblong room with an arched ceiling, which might formerly have been used as a pantry or as a store-room between the kitchen and the stables. This room had been cleaned and whitewashed, and was used by the lord of Châteaubrun as salon and dining-room. A small fireplace had recently been built there, with mantel and uprights of polished, glistening wood; the huge cast-iron plate, which had been taken from one of the great fireplaces and which filled the whole back, together with the great fire-dogs of polished iron, sent out the heat and light beautifully into the bare white room, which, with the aid of a small tin lamp, was perfectly lighted. A chestnut table, which could be made to hold as many as six covers on great occasions, a few straw-seated chairs, and a German cuckoo clock, purchased from a peddler for six francs, composed the whole furniture of this modest salon. But everything was scrupulously clean; the table and chairs, roughly carved by some local cabinet-maker, shone in a way that bore witness to the assiduous use of the brush and duster. The hearth was carefully swept, the floor sanded in the English fashion, contrary to the customs of the province; and in an earthenware pot on the mantel was a huge bunch of roses mingled with wild-flowers plucked on the hillside roundabout.

At first glance there was nothing cherché, in the poetic or picturesque sense, in that modest interior; and yet, on examining it more closely, one would see that, in that abode, as in all those of all mankind, the natural taste and temperament of its presiding genius had governed in the choice as in the arrangement of the furniture. The young man, who then entered the room for the first time, and who was left alone there for a moment while his hosts busied themselves in preparations to make him as comfortable as possible, soon formed an idea of the mental condition of the inhabitants of that retreat. It was evident that they had refined habits and that they still felt a craving for the comforts of life; that, being in a very precarious financial condition, they had had the good sense to proscribe every species of mere external vanity, and had chosen, for their place of assemblage, among the few still intact apartments in that great building, the one that could most easily be kept clean, heated, furnished and lighted; and that, nevertheless, they had instinctively given the preference to a well-proportioned, attractive room. This little nook was in fact the first floor of a square pavilion added, toward the close of the Renaissance, to the venerable buildings which looked upon the principal courtyard. The artist who had planned this sharp-angled turret had done his best to soften the transition from one to the other of two such different styles. For the shape of the windows he had gone back to the defensive system of loop-holes and small apertures through which to watch the enemy; but it was easy to see that the small round windows had never been intended to fire cannon through, and that they were simply for purposes of ornament. Being tastefully framed with red brick and white stone, in alternation, they formed an attractive setting for the interior of the room, and divers recesses between the windows decorated in the same way, avoided the necessity for papers, hangings, or even articles of furniture, with which the wall might have been covered, without adding to their simple and pleasant aspect.

In one of these recesses, the base of which, about three feet from the floor, was formed by a flagstone white as snow and glistening like marble, stood a pretty little rustic spinning-wheel, with its distaff filled with brown flax; and as he contemplated that slight and primitive instrument of toil the traveller lost himself in reflections from which he was roused by the rustling of a woman's dress behind him. He turned hastily; but the sudden rapid beating of his youthful heart was checked by a severe disappointment. It was an old servant, who had entered the room noiselessly, thanks to the fine sand with which the floor was covered, and was leaning over to throw an armful of wild grapevine roots on the fire.

"Come near the fire, monsieur," she said, lisping with a sort of affectation, "and give me your cap and cloak, so that I can have them dried in the kitchen. That's a fine cloak for the rain; I don't know what they call this material, but I've seen it in Paris. It would be a good thing to see such a cloak on Monsieur le Comte's shoulders! But it must cost a lot, and besides, he hasn't said that he would wear it. He thinks he's still twenty-five years old, and he declares that the water from the sky never yet gave an honest man a cold; however, he began to have a touch of sciatica last winter. But a man isn't afraid of those things at your age. Never mind, warm your bones all the same; here, turn your chair like this and you'll be more comfortable. You're from Paris, I am sure; I can tell by your complexion, which is too fresh for our country; a fine country, monsieur, but very hot in summer and very cold in winter. You will say that it's as cold to-night as a night in November; that's true enough, but what can you expect? it's on account of the storm. But this little room is very comfortable, very easy to heat; in a moment you'll see if I'm not right. We are lucky to have plenty of dead wood. There are so many old trees about here, and we can keep the oven going all winter just with the brambles that grow in the courtyard. To be sure, we don't do much cooking. Monsieur le Comte is a small eater and his daughter's like him; the little servant is the heartiest eater in the house; why, he has to have three pounds of bread a day; but I bake for him separate, and I don't spare the rye. That's good enough for him, and with a little bran it goes farther and isn't bad for the health. Ha! ha! that makes you laugh, does it? and me too. You see, I have always liked to laugh and talk; the work goes off just as fast, for I like to be quick in everything. Monsieur Antoine is like me; when he has once spoken, off you must go like the wind. So we have always agreed on that point. You'll excuse us, monsieur, if we keep you waiting a little while. Monsieur has gone down the cellar with the man who brought you here, and the stairs are so broken down that they can't go very fast; but it's a fine cellar, monsieur; the walls are more than ten feet thick, and it's so far underground that when you're down there you feel as if you were buried alive. Really! it's a funny feeling. They say that there was a time when they used to put prisoners of war there; now, we don't put anybody there and our wine keeps very well. What delays us is that our child has already gone to bed; she had a sick headache to-day because she went out in the sun without a hat. She says that she means to get used to it, and that she can get along without hat or umbrella just as well as I can; but she's mistaken; she's been brought up like a young lady, as she should have been, poor child! for when I say our child, I don't mean that I am Mademoiselle Gilberte's mother; she's no more like me than a goldfinch is like a sparrow; but as I brought her up, I have always kept the habit of calling her my girl: she would never let me stop calling her thou. She's such a sweet child! I am sorry she's in bed, but you will see her to-morrow; for you won't go away without breakfast, you won't be let go, and she'll help me to serve you a little better than I can do alone. It's not courage that I lack, however, monsieur, for I have a good pair of legs; I have always been thin, as you see me, with my short body, and you would never think me as old as I am. Come! how old would you call me?"

The young man thought that, thanks to this question, he would be able to put in a word at last, to thank her and to guide her, for he was very desirous of fuller details concerning Mademoiselle Gilberte; but the good woman did not await his reply, but continued volubly:

"I am sixty-four years old, monsieur, that is to say, I shall be on Saint-Jean's day, and I do more work alone than three young hussies could ever do. My blood runs quick, you see, monsieur. I am not from Berry, I was born in Marche, more than half a league from here; so you can understand it. Ah! you are looking at our child's work? Do you know that is spun as even and fine as the best spinner in the province can do it? She wanted me to teach her to spin. 'Look you, mother,' she said, for she always calls me that; she never knew her own mother and always loved me as if I was, although we were about as much alike as a rose and a nettle; 'look you, mother,' she said, 'all that embroidery and drawing and nonsense they taught me at the convent will never do me any good here. Teach me to spin and knit and sew, so that I can help you make father's clothes.'"

Just as the good woman's indefatigable monologue was beginning to be interesting to her weary auditor, she left the room, as she had already done several times; for she did not remain quiet a moment, and, while talking, had covered the table with a coarse white cloth, laid plates, glasses and knives; had swept the hearth, wiped the chairs and rekindled the fire ten times, always resuming her soliloquy at the point where she had let it drop. But this time her voice, which began to lisp in the passageway outside the door, was drowned by other stronger voices, and the Comte de Châteaubrun and the peasant who had guided our traveller at last appeared before him, each carrying two large earthenware jugs which they placed on the table. Not until then had the young man had an opportunity to see their faces distinctly.

Monsieur de Châteaubrun was a man of some fifty years, of medium height, with a noble and commanding figure, broad-shouldered, with a neck like a bull, the limbs of an athlete, a skin quite as tanned as his companion's, and large hands, calloused and roughened by hunting and by the sunlight and the cold air; a genuine poacher's hands, if such things can be, for the worthy nobleman had too little land not to hunt on that of other people.

He had a frank, ruddy, smiling face, a firm walk and the voice of a stentor. His hunting costume, neat and clean although patched at the elbow, his coarse shirt, his leather gaiters, his grizzly beard which was patiently waiting for Sunday,—everything about him indicated that his life was rough and wild, whereas his pleasant face, his hearty, affectionate manners and an ease of bearing, not unmixed with dignity, recalled the courteous gentleman and the man who was accustomed to protect and assist, rather than to be protected and assisted.

His companion the peasant was not nearly as presentable. The storm and the muddy roads had wrought havoc with his jacket and his shoes. While the nobleman's beard may have been six or seven days old, the villager's was fully fourteen or fifteen. He was thin, bony and wiry, several inches taller than the other, and although his face also expressed good-nature and cordiality, it had, if we may so describe it, flashes of malevolence, of melancholy and haughty aloofness. It was evident that he had more intelligence or was more unfortunate than the lord of Châteaubrun.

"Well, monsieur," said the nobleman, "are you a little dryer than you were? You are welcome here and my supper is at your service."

"I am grateful for your generous welcome," replied the traveller, "but I am afraid you will deem me lacking in courtesy if I do not tell you first of all who I am."

"No matter, no matter," rejoined the count, whom hereafter we shall call Monsieur Antoine, as he was generally called in the neighborhood; "you can tell me that later, if you choose; so far as I am concerned, I have no questions to ask you, and I consider that I can satisfy the demands of hospitality without making you give your names and titles. You are travelling, you are a stranger in the province, caught by an infernal night at the very gate of my house; those are your titles and your claims. In addition you have an attractive face and a manner that pleases me; I believe therefore that I shall be rewarded for my confidences by the pleasure of having accommodated a good fellow. Come, sit you down, and eat and drink."

"You are too kind and I am touched by your frank and amiable manner of welcoming strangers. But I do not need any refreshment, monsieur, and it is quite enough that you should allow me to wait here until the end of the storm. I had supper at Eguzon hardly an hour ago. So do not serve anything for me, I beg you."

"You have supped already? why, that's no reason! Is your stomach one of those that can digest only one meal at a time? At your age I would have supped every hour in the night if I had had the chance. A ride in the saddle and the mountain air are quite enough to renew the appetite. To be sure, one's stomach is less obliging at fifty; so that I consider myself well-treated if I have half a glass of good wine with a crust of stale bread. But do not stand on ceremony here. You have come in the nick of time, for I was just about to sit down, and as my poor little one has a sick-headache to-day, Janille and I were very depressed at the idea of eating alone: so your arrival is a comfort to us, and this good fellow's too, my old playmate, whom I am always glad to see. Come, sit you down here beside me," he said to the peasant, "and you, Mère Janille, opposite me. Do the honors; for you know I have a heavy hand, and when I undertake to carve, I cut the joint and platter and cloth, and sometimes the table, and you don't like that."

The supper which Dame Janille had spread on the table with an air of condescension consisted of a goat's-milk cheese, a sheep's-milk cheese, a plate of nuts, a plateful of prunes, a large round loaf of rye bread, and four jugs of wine brought by the master in person. The table-companions set about discussing this frugal meal with evident satisfaction, with the exception of the traveller, who had no appetite, and who was well content to observe the good grace with which the worthy host invited him, without embarrassment or false shame, to partake of his splendid banquet. There was in that cordial and ingenuous ease something at once fatherly and childlike which won the young man's heart.

True to the law of generosity which he had imposed upon himself, Monsieur Antoine asked his guest no questions and even avoided remarks which might suggest curiosity in disguise. The peasant seemed a little more uneasy and was more reserved. But soon, being insensibly drawn into the general conversation which Monsieur Antoine and Dame Janille had begun, he laid aside his reserve and allowed his glass to be filled so often that the traveller began to stare in amazement at a man capable of drinking so much, not only without losing his wits but without departing from his usual self-possession and gravity.

But with the master of the house it was very different. He had not drunk half of the contents of the jug beside him when his eye began to kindle, his nose to turn red and his hand to tremble. However he did not lose his wits, even after all the jugs had been emptied by himself and his friend the peasant—for Janille, whether from economy or from natural sobriety, merely poured a few drops of wine into her water, and the traveller, having made a heroic effort to swallow the first bumper, abstained from further indulgence in that sour, cloudy and execrable beverage.