CHAPTER IX.

THE CONSCRIPTS OF SALLERTAINE.

The afternoon of that autumn Sunday was marked by a deeper peacefulness than usual. The air was warm, the light veiled, the wind, which, rising with the tide, had outstripped it, sweeping over the vast grassy plain, brought no sound of work in its train, no creak of plough, no ring of hammer, spade, or axe. The bells alone were heard answering each other from Sallertaine, Perrier, Saint Gervais, Chalons with its new church, vast as a cathedral, and Seullans hidden among the trees on the hill. Chimes for High Mass, ringing for Angelus, the three strokes for vespers left the bells but little rest; far and near they told out the familiar tones, understood for centuries past. Adoration of the Holy One; forgetfulness of earth; pardon for sin; union in prayer; equality of all men in the light of eternal promises. The tones rang out into space and interlocked with a vibration, and were as garlands flung from one belfry to another. Among the toilers of the fields, cattle drivers, sowers, there were but few who did not obey the summons. Along roads deserted all the week were to be seen families hastening, passing and repassing one another, of those who lived at the remotest portions of the parish; while those who lived nearer took it more leisurely. On the canal, which, broadening at the foot of the church, forms the quay of Sallertaine, boats were constantly moving hither and thither.

Towards evening the bells had ceased; the frequenters of inn parlours too had betaken themselves to their farms, lying peacefully in the light of the setting sun. Universal silence reigned over the land. Quiet as it was on working-days, at the close of the week it seemed sunk in meditation and silence; dominical truce that had its great significance, when weary souls refresh themselves, and whole families unite in calm and meditation to review their living and their dead.

But to-day the quiet was to be of short duration.

Mathurin and André were lying under the shade of the elms that afforded provisional shelter to the harrows and ploughs close by the old stonework gateway. The cripple, leaning against the cross-bars of a harrow, was resting after the fatigue and excitement of the morning. André, from concern for him, had not gone into town again with his father, but lying at full-length on the grass was reading the paper aloud, pausing every now and then to make his comments on the news, and, as a travelled man, to explain the whereabouts of places and countries—Clermont Ferrand, India, Japan, the while twirling his little fair moustache, a very youthful and ingenuous self-sufficiency showing itself in his frank, merry face. At about four o'clock, to the left of Sallertaine, was heard the sound of a bugle, coming apparently from the open marsh between the parishes of Lumineau and Seullans. Mathurin roused from the torpor into which he had sunk, looked at André, who at the first sound of the bugle had let fall the paper, and with uplifted face and straining ears was listening to the call.

"It is the cadets," said his brother, "they are out this afternoon. Soon they will be leaving."

"They are playing the call of the 'Chasseurs d'Afrique,'" returned André, a light in his eyes. "I recognise it. Is there anyone of our old regiment in the Marais?"

"Yes, the son of a gooseherd in Fief; he served his time with the Zouaves."

They were silent, both men listening to the bugling of the ex-Zouave, their thoughts very different. André with eyes fixed on the distant marshland was seeing in imagination a white town, with narrow streets, and a troop of horsemen emerging from a crenulated gateway, its arches echoing with the ring of their horses' hoofs.

Mathurin, watching the expression on his brother's face, thought: "His heart is still with the regiment." For an instant his features distended, his eyes dilated as those of a wild beast detecting its prey, then he returned to his one idea.

"Driot," he exclaimed after a while, "you like that music?"

"I should think so."

"Do you regret the regiment?"

"No, that I don't. No one does."

"Then what was the attraction out there?"

The young man looked inquiringly into his brother's face as though to say, why should he want to know, then answered:

"The country——Hark! that's the reveille now."

The sounds of the bugle, sharp, incisive, stopped. Now five or six strong untrained voices struck up "Le chant du départ." Occasional words reached the listeners where they lay. "Mourir pour la patrie ... le plus beau ... d'envie." The rest was lost in space.

Meanwhile the sounds were approaching; the two brothers motionless under the elms, each pursuing the train of thought evoked by the first notes of the bugle, could hear the conscripts of Sallertaine coming up the hill towards them.

Toussaint Lumineau, on his way home from vespers with his friend Massonneau, heard them also. Massonneau, an old tenant farmer, tall and thin, with skin as dark as a ripe ear of corn, the cartilages of his neck standing out like the breast-bone of a fowl, had acquired his name of "Le Glorieux" from a nervous twitch he had, which caused his chin to jerk upwards at every instant; Lumineau and he were discussing the latest events of La Fromentière. The two men represented the age and wisdom of the Marais; moreover, they could tell the names and nicknames of every living soul at Sallertaine, their history and parentage. As they reached the last houses of the town, both simultaneously stopped and turned their faces windward.

"Do you hear, Glorieux?" exclaimed Lumineau. "They are bugling and singing, poor boys! But the parents of those who are going may well weep."

"Yes," returned Massonneau, with a twitch of the chin, "the parents are to be pitied."

"I could name them, everyone, from only hearing their lad's voices," continued Lumineau. "You, good people of La Bounellerie, and you, of Grand Paiement; you, of Juch-Pie; you, of Linotteries; and you, of Belle-Blanche, I recognise your boys' voices. May it not do the same work for them that it did for my François! They are going to the place that changed my boy's heart—to the town that robbed me of him."

"As it robbed La Pinçonnière," said his companion.

"And Leverells."

"And Parée-du-Mont."

The litany might have been prolonged; Massonneau hearing the voices at the edge of the Marais broke in with:

"They are singing again," he said, "they are going up the hill to you, Lumineau."

And in truth the young conscripts had begun the ascent towards La Fromentière; soon the bugle call, soon their voices, resounded over the silent Marais, carried afar by the wind, like grains of seed falling everywhere. And everywhere, without apparent reason, emotions were stirred, old sorrows awoke, and the humble occupants of isolated farms or remote villages listened with a tightening of the heart to the tramp of the conscripts of Sallertaine.

As they reached the meadow-land of La Fromentière, Mathurin, who had been following the sounds, and with his marvellous sense of observation had marked every step of their way, said to André:

"They have already halted at three farms. I think they must be collecting for their class. You did not do that? For the last two years they have started calling at all the houses where there is a young girl of their own age, to ask her for a fowl as compensation for having to serve. Rousille is drawn among the other girls. You should catch a fowl to give them when they come."

"So I will," returned André, laughing and springing up with a bound. "I'm off. What do they do with all the fowls?"

"Eat them. They get three or four farewell dinners out of them. Be quick! they are coming!"

André disappeared within the courtyard. Soon could be heard his merry laugh, and a rush in the direction of the barn, then the terrified cries of the fowl he had evidently caught; and soon he reappeared holding his prize by the legs, its round spotted wings, grey and white, rising and falling on the grass as he walked. At the same moment a blast on the bugle was heard at the foot of the dwarf orchard; Mathurin half-raised himself upon the harrow, his hands clasping the cross-bars, his arms extended, his shaggy head bent forward, awaited the arrival of the troop, André standing beside him. Opposite them, just at the opening of the road leading down to the Marais, the setting sun, an enormous ball tinted orange by the mist, filled the entire space between the two treeless banks.

In this sun-bathed glory three girls advanced, arm-in-arm, up the ascent, the tallest in the middle; all were dressed in black with lace coifs; the jet on their velvet kerchiefs sparkling in the light. As they walked they rhythmically swayed their heads; they were girls from Sallertaine, but the light was behind them, and only Mathurin could recognise in the centre one Félicité Gauvrit. A few paces in the rear came the bugler, a standard-bearer, and five young men walking abreast, carrying either in their arms or suspended from a hempen cord the fowls collected from the farmhouses. The procession advanced some hundred yards along the road, then pulled up between the elms and the ruined wall of La Fromentière.

"Good day, brothers Lumineau!" said a voice.

There was a burst of laughter from the band, excited by their march and the muscadet they had drunk on the way. The cripple's hands gave way, he glanced up at André.

Félicité Gauvrit, without leaving hold of her companions, had advanced slightly in front of them, and was gazing with a pleased expression at the youngest Lumineau, who held out the grey fowl to her.

"You guessed then, André?" she said. "Ah, that's what it is to have to do with intelligent boys. Here, Sosthene Pageot, come and take Rousille's fowl."

A sturdy lad with ruddy face, and the stupefied air of one beginning to feel the effects of drink, stepped out from among the others and took the fowl. But from the mocking attitude of André, and his studied silence, Félicité guessed that he was surprised to see a girl of her position in such company, therefore she added carelessly:

"You may be satisfied that I do not range the Marais every day with conscripts. My doing it to-day is out of kindness. My two friends here, who belong to the class, were called upon to go the round to collect; they are shy and dared not go alone, and so it must have been given up, had I not come to the rescue." She expressed herself well, with a certain refinement that came with the habit of reading.

"That would have been a pity!" said the young man coldly.

"Yes, would it not? The more so, that I am not often seen in your part of the world."

She turned her head towards the windows of La Fromentière, the stables, the hayricks, sighed, then immediately remarked in a playful tone:

"You will come to one of our dances, will you not, André? The Maraîchines hope so."

At this there were signs of approval to the right and left of her.

"Perhaps," replied André. "It is so long since I was at a dance in Sallertaine; inclination may return."

She thanked him with a knowing wink; then for the first time seemed to be aware of the presence of Mathurin, who was looking at her with an air of mingled passion and grief.

A look of pity and embarrassment, not altogether feigned, came into her face as she said:

"You understand, Mathurin, what I say to one I say to all in your house.... If it were not too fatiguing for you?... I was glad to see you at mass again this morning ... it shows that you are feeling better...."

The cripple, only able to express himself clearly when he had time to think over his words, stammered out:

"Thank you, Félicité ... you are very kind, Félicité," and he uttered her name with a kind of adoration that seemed to touch two or three of the conscripts, stupefied as they were.

"What was your regiment, Mathurin?" asked the standard-bearer.

"The third Cuirassiers."

"Bugler, a fanfare of the Cuirassiers in honour of Mathurin Lumineau! Forward, march!"

The three girls, the bugler, the standard-bearer, and the five young men bringing up the rear, left the shade of the elms, and went on their way towards Quatre-Moulins, raising clouds of dust crossed by the slanting rays of the sun. The fanfare shook the walls of the old farmhouse.

When the last lace coif had disappeared among the furze-bushes and willows that bordered the road, Mathurin said to his brother, who had taken up the paper again and was absently reading:

"Would you believe it, Driot, this is the first time for six years that she has been here!"

André replied, too abruptly:

"She did for you once, old man. Better take care that she does not do it a second time."

With muttered words of anger Mathurin Lumineau picked up his crutches, and moving away to a little distance, leant up against a tree. The two brothers spoke no more to each other; both were absently gazing out over the marshland, where the daylight was dying away. The sun was rapidly sinking in the lowland, only a red crescent broken by shadows remained of the fiery globe, against which some dark object in the horizon, a willow, or a group of rushes, stood out like a crown of thorns. It faded away; a fresh breeze rose on the hills; the sounds of the bugle and of voices were no longer heard. Profound silence was over the country, here and there in the grey distance was the glimmer of a fire. Peace had returned; sorrows, one by one, were ending in sleep or in prayer.

Old Lumineau coming back from the town saw his two sons standing motionless among the trees wrapt in contemplation of the quiet scene, and not knowing their thoughts, said brightly:

"A fine sight, our Marais, eh, boys? Now let us go in together; supper will be waiting." Then as, in the darkness, André came first, he added:

"How glad I am to have you home again from the regiment, my Driot!"

CHAPTER X.

THE UPROOTED VINEYARD.

The week after his return home, André had gone to see François and Eléonore at La Roche-sur-Yon. He had found them settled in a house in the outskirts, already somewhat discontented: one inveighing against the hardness of his employers; the other that customers did not come; without any regrets, however, for what they had done, and quite decided as to the advantages of living in a town, and being their own masters. He had gone back without the least wish to follow their example—more severe even than before against the renegades from the old home life; but possessed of a fixed idea, he sought François in everything. La Fromentière that knew François no longer was to him empty and void. It became a thing of which he could not shake himself free; a suffering of which he never spoke, but that everyone unwittingly renewed.

The farmer, whose anger had abated, more particularly since he knew that the position of his two absent children at La Roche was none too brilliant, began voluntarily to speak of François as if to secretly encourage the others to remember him, and to do their best to bring him home again. It would be: "To-day we will sow La Cailleterie, where François ploughed the first two furrows," or, "let us have some chestnuts roasted in the embers to-night, Rousille, François used to like them." He thought to do well by so speaking, to re-unite, as it were, in some degree those whom misfortune had parted. And Rousille did the same. Still oftener did everyday objects speak of, and recall the absent one. Now it was a fork he had been wont to use; a basket woven by him; the rope twisted round a rafter of the stables by a hand no longer there; or even a nook or corner of a road or field to which some memory clung; the stump of a tree; a furze-bush; in fact, the whole Marais, where for years two boys of almost the same age, brothers inseparable, had driven the cows, jumped dykes, and gone birds'-nesting together.

Poor François, lazy, spendthrift, pleasure-loving as he was in reality, legendary virtues were already gathering round him at La Fromentière. His place in the diminished family was reserved to him with tender, affectionate regret, a regret that even magnified what had been his place there. André, disheartened, and disappointed in the joy of home coming, had not the same love for the new La Fromentière that he had had for the old one. It was all so changed! He had known it bright with the noise and bustle of a large, united family under the control of a man who, despite his years, was cheery and vigorous, and with more willing hands than were needed to get through the day's work—a home as passionately loved and defended as any nest from which the fledgelings have not yet flown. He found it unrecognisable. Two had gone, leaving the house desolate, the old father inconsolable, the work too heavy for those left behind. Rousille was wearing herself out. André saw clearly that he alone would not suffice to keep La Fromentière in a state of good cultivation, certainly not to improve it, as he had so often meditated through the hot, sleepless nights in Africa, thinking of the elm-trees at home. For this two strong young pair of arms were needed, without counting the help of a farm-servant: François should have been there with André! He struggled against the discouragement that oppressed him, for he was a brave lad. Every morning he went out into the fields with the determination to work so hard that there should be no room for thought; and he worked and ploughed, sowed seed or dug ditches, planted apple-trees with all zest and energy, not taking a moment's rest. But the recollection of François followed him everywhere; in everything he saw the decline of the farmstead. Working alone made the days long; longer still were they in the company of the new farm-hand, who went about his work stolidly, interested neither in the projects nor regrets of the farmer's son.

In the evening when André returned from work in whom should he confide, or who was there to comfort him? His mother was dead; his father had need of all his own hope and buoyancy of spirit that he might not break down himself; Mathurin was so uncertain and so soured that pity might well go out to him, but not real brotherly love. There remained Rousille, possibly. But Rousille was seventeen when André had left home, and he continued to treat her as a child, and told her nothing. Besides she was scarcely ever to be seen, poor girl, always on the run and hurried. The house was dull, and the young man felt it the more that regimental life, hard enough in all conscience, was yet full of go and movement.

Weeks went by, and there was no break in the sadness. Weary of being thus thrown upon himself, little by little André suffered his thoughts to go out from the mournful surroundings amid which he, in vain, tried to recognise the home of his youth. Like all peasants of the coast, he was one of those taciturn labourers who look over the sand-hills towards the sea, and who dream dreams when the wind blows. Sad and dejected he fell back upon the fatal knowledge he had acquired in absence: that life was possible in other places than at La Fromentière on the borders of the Marais of La Vendée.

The temptation grew stronger. Two months after having re-taken possession of the room that the two brothers had formerly shared together, one night, when the other inmates of the farm were sound asleep, André began a letter to a comrade in the foreign legion, whom he had known in Africa. "I find it too dull here. My brother and sister have left home. If you happen to know of any good investment in land in Algiers, or elsewhere, let me know. I have not come to any decision, but I am thinking of going away. I am, as it were, alone here." And answers soon came. To the great astonishment of Toussaint Lumineau the postman began bringing pamphlets, papers, and prospectuses to La Fromentière, over which André did not make merry as did Rousille and Mathurin. Laughingly his father, who had no suspicion of André, said:

"There has never been such a supply of paper at La Fromentière, Driot, as in the few weeks since you have been home. I don't grudge it you, reading is such a hobby of yours! As for me, I should be tired to death with all the printed stuff."

Only on Sundays the old father suffered a little from his son's passion for reading and writing. On that day after vespers it was his habit to bring back some old friend, either Le Glorieux de la Terre-Aymont, or Pipet de la Pinçonnière to pay a visit of inspection round the farm fields. Up hill and down dale they would go in single file, examining everything, expressing approval or disapproval by uplifted eye or shrug of the shoulder, exchanging an occasional word that had always the same object: the harvest, present or future, good or indifferent, threatened or gathered in. In this winter season it was the fields, the young wheat, and patches of lucerne that were under consideration; and Toussaint Lumineau, who had not succeeded in getting André to accompany them, would confide to his neighbour of La Terre-Aymont, or La Pinçonnière as they stopped where the slanting rays of the sun fell on the corner of a field:

"My son André is quite different from anyone I have ever known, and not a bit like we used to be. Not that he despises the land, on the contrary, he loves it, and I have no fault to find with his work all the week. But since he came home from the regiment, his one idea on Sunday is reading."

Rousille, too, was sometimes surprised. She had too much to do indoors to occupy herself with the work or amusements of the others. Busy with housekeeping, and the thousand and one duties of the farmyard, she never saw André save at meal-times, and in presence of the others. At those times, whether by an effort of will, or that youth obtained the mastery over depression, André was usually in gay and careless spirits, bantering Rousille and trying to make her laugh. But as a woman and one who had suffered, Rousille had learned to discern the sorrows of others; and from many a little sign, eyes fixed on the upper window, words dropped that might bear some other meaning, her loving heart had divined that André was not altogether happy; without knowing more, she felt sorry for him. But even she was far from guessing the crisis through which her brother was passing, or the project he was meditating.

One solitary member of the family had penetrated the designs of André, and that was Mathurin. He had observed his brother's increasing sadness; the useless efforts he was making to regain his former equability of temper; his calm fortitude in daily labour. Sometimes he would follow him into the fields, then watch for the arrival of the postman and take charge of the letters and papers addressed to André. The smallest details remained engraven on his brooding memory; and one day, under the guise of indifference, with a skilfully put question his brooding took shape. He was aware that the greater number of the letters received by André bore the stamp either of Algiers or Antwerp, and the latter place conveying nothing to Mathurin, André had explained:

"It is a large port in Belgium, larger than Nantes that you once passed through."

"How do you come to know anyone living so far from here and far from Algiers?"

"It's very simple," replied his brother. "My best friend in Algiers is a Belgian in the foreign legion, whose family live in Antwerp. Sometimes I hear from Demolder, sometimes from his people, who write to give me the information I want."

"News of old comrades, then?"

"No, things that interest me in the matter of voyages, other countries.... One of the sons has settled across the sea, in America. He has a farm as large as this whole parish."

"Was he rich?"

"No. He is now."

Mathurin did not further press the subject, but he continued to observe, to add indication on indication. If André chanced to leave a pamphlet on emigration lying about, or an advertisement of land to be let or sold, taking it up Mathurin would seek to discover the places over which his brother's brows had met in a frown, or where something like a smile, a wish, a desire had lighted up his eyes.

By proof on proof he had arrived at the conviction that Driot was thinking of leaving La Fromentière. When? For what remote land where money was easily made? Those were the problems. Thus in the month of December, when opportunities for confidential chat are more frequent by reason of days of snow and rain and squall, when alone with André in the stables or the house, he would say treacherously:

"Tell me about Africa, Driot. Tell me some yarns of men who have made money out there. I like to hear such things." Or at other times he would say: "La Fromentière must seem small and insignificant to a fellow like you who read so much. It certainly is not as productive as it used to be."

Mathurin had settled coming events in his mind, while Driot was still in doubt.

So the year drew to a close, and the new year began. It was a wet winter, with hard frost at nights; every morning spiders' webs covered with frozen mist would wave in the breeze like white wings, the damp earth would steam in the mid-day sun, and the white wings turn grey. The main work of the fields was suspended; the owners of land on high ground felled trees, or re-made fences; those on the Marais were perforce reduced to idleness; it was holiday-time with them; dykes and ditches were overflowing. The greater number of the farms surrounded by water, and, as it were, floating above it, were cut off from all communication with the neighbouring towns or each other save by boats steered over the inundated meadows. It was the time for dancing and shooting.

The ground, however, was not too hard to work upon, and, following Mathurin's advice, Toussaint Lumineau resolved to dig up his vineyard attacked by phylloxera.

So one morning the farmer and André made their way up to the little field lying well exposed to the south on the high ground which cuts the road between Chalons and La Fromentière. Before them they saw nothing but seven rows of vine enclosed by furze hedges, stony ground, and the revolving sails of two wind-mills.

"You begin on one row," said the farmer, "I will take the next," and pulling off their coats, despite the cold, for it meant hard work, they began on their task. Coming up the hill they had talked cheerily to each other; but no sooner did they begin to dig than their spirits sank, and they grew silent, not wanting to impart the thoughts that the work of destruction engendered. If a root, perchance, made very tough resistance, the father once or twice attempted to joke, saying playfully: "It felt quite comfortable there, and did not want to be turned out," or something else to that effect. But he soon gave up the attempt. He could not succeed in banishing from his mind, nor from that of the son working beside him, sad thoughts of the time when the vine prospered, and yielded abundantly the white foaming wine they had drunk so merrily in the old happy days of fêtes and gatherings. The contrast of his former prosperity with present hard times fretted him; and as far as he could see, it weighed still more upon the spirits of his Driot.

Thus, in silence, they plied their huge, old-fashioned pickaxes, made to be wielded by giants. The earth flew in showers; the trunks trembled; some few shrivelled leaves left upon the branches fell, and were blown about in the wind with a noise as of broken glass; now the stem was disclosed, vigorous but warped, covered with green moss, the effects of many a summer dew and rain, and tapering off to the size of a tendril. The marks of pruning made by successive vinedressers were not to be numbered; no one could tell the age of the vineyard. Every year since he could remember anything, Driot had pruned it, dressed it, gathered its grapes, drunk of its juice. And now it was dying. Each time that he gave the final blow to a root he felt a pang; each time that, seizing a portion of the lifeless fibres he threw it on the heap of dead uprooted stems, he shrugged his shoulders with mingled sorrow and rage. Dead those veins through which the red, joyous sap was wont to rise. Dead the fertile branches once bending under the weight of bunches of grapes, until they rested a golden glory on the ground! Never again would the flowerets, pale stars with drops of honey in each centre, attract the summer gnats, nor diffuse their mignonette-like perfume far over the fields, even to La Fromentière. Never again would the children of the farmstead push eager hands through the gaps in the hedge to clutch the bunches within reach! Never again would the women carry away basketfuls at vintage time. For many a long day wine would be scarce at the farm, and would be no more of "our own growing." Something belonging to the family, an hereditary and sacred possession seemed to perish with the vineyard, old and faithful servant of the Lumineaus. Father and son were both so intensely penetrated by the sense of their loss, that, as night descended, and the father raised his pickaxe for a final stroke, he could not help exclaiming:

"It's a hateful work, Driot, we have done to-day."

All the same, there was a difference between the sadness of father and son. Toussaint Lumineau, as he rooted up the vines, was already thinking of the day when he would plant fresh ones, and in his silent musings had seen his successor gathering in the vintage and drinking the muscadet of the new vineyard. He possessed that love, strong and tried, which rises hopefully after every stroke of misfortune. With André hope did not speak, because with him love had waxed feeble.

The two men, their figures indistinct in the darkening day, turned to skirt the grassy edge of the vineyard, then descended the sloping fields that led towards the farm. With weary, stooping frame, shouldering their heavy implements, they looked across the Marais to the crimson horizon, and at the clouds driven by the wind towards the setting sun. It was a melancholy evening; all around them were furze-bushes, ground uncultivated, hedges devastated, leafless trees, the gloom and chill of autumn. Thus they had gone some two hundred yards before the son could make up his mind to speak, as though feeling that his reply would be too hard for the father, who lived on in the same old groove.

"Yes," he said, "the day of the vine is at an end in our land, but it flourishes elsewhere."

"Where, my Driot?"

In the half dark the son extended his disengaged hand above La Fromentière, sunk below in the shadows; and the action extended so far, away over the Marais and over La Vendée, that through his stout woollen garments Toussaint Lumineau felt the keen blast of the wind.

"What do other countries matter to us, my Driot," said he, "seeing that we are living in our own?"

Did the son understand the anxious tenderness of the words? He answered:

"Because in ours it becomes more and more difficult to live."

Toussaint Lumineau remembered words, almost similar, spoken by François and was silent, trying to explain to himself how it was that André, who was neither lazy nor a frequenter of town pleasures, could have fallen upon the very same way of thought. As the men, skirting the brown fields, came nearer home, La Fromentière with its masses of trees rose like a dome of denser darkness, above which the winter night was lighting its first stars. The farmer never entered the beloved precincts of his home without emotion; to-night, more than ever, he experienced its sweetness, dear to him as any bridal promise.

Rousille, hearing their approaching footsteps, opened the door, and raised the lamp high in air, like a signal.

"You are late to-night," she said.

Before they could make reply, the long-drawn sound of a horn was heard coming from the depths of the Marais, beyond Sallertaine.

"It is the horn of La Seulière," cried the voice of Mathurin from within. The two men, followed by Rousille, entered the warm room with its blazing hearth.

Mathurin resumed:

"There's a dance at La Seulière to-night. Will you come, Driot?"

The cripple, half-rising, supporting himself by his arms against the table with a nervous movement, his eyes glaring with long-suppressed desire, was alike painful to see, and fear-inspiring, as one whose reason was tottering.

"I am not much in the mood for dancing," returned André carelessly, "but it may do me good to-night."

Silently the farmer pressed his hand on the shoulder of his afflicted eldest son, and the fevered eyes relaxed their stare, the body obeyed, and fell back upon the bench like a sack of wheat that expands as it touches the ground. The men ate their supper hurriedly; towards the end of the meal Toussaint Lumineau, whose mind had reverted to André's words, wishing to take those of his children to witness whose hearts had never swerved in their loyal love to La Fromentière, said:

"Would you believe, Mathurin, what foolish stuff this Driot was talking to-night? He declares that vines have had their day with us; that they flourish better elsewhere. But when one plants a vine, one expects it to die some day, does one not?"

"Many enough have died before ours," responded the cripple roughly. "We are not more unlucky than our neighbours."

"That is just what I say," put in André, and he raised his head. His eyes were lit by a spirit of contradiction, and his silky moustache quivered as he spoke. "It is not our vineyard alone that is played out, it is the soil; ours, our neighbours', that of the whole country, as far and further than you have ever been. One must have new land to produce good results."

"New land?" returned his father. "I know none about here. It is all cultivated."

"Ah, but there is in many a country." He hesitated an instant, then enumerated hurriedly: "In America, the Cape, Australia, British possessions—everything flourishes in those countries. There the earth is prolific; while here——"

"Don't speak ill of it, Driot; it is worth the very best!"

"Used up; too dear!"

"Too dear, yes, somewhat. But feed it well, and you will see!"

"Feed it then. You have nothing to buy the stuff with."

"Only come a good year, not too dry, not too wet, and we shall have money enough!"

The farmer had drawn himself up, as if under a personal insult, and now awaited Driot's answer.

He, carried away by passion, rose. Everyone looked at him, even the farm-servant, who, with chin sunk in his horny hand, was trying to understand the situation. And there was something in the fluency of words, ease of gesture that made all vaguely feel that André was no longer like one of themselves.

"Yes," said the youth, proud of an audience, "there might still be some work to be done here, in the old country; but we are taught nothing of such things in our schools; that would be too practical. Then taxes are too heavy, and rents too high; and all the time that we are leading a miserable existence, they out yonder are having magnificent harvests. That I hear every day. Our vineyards are ruined, and they have wine. Wheat grows without their having to dress the land, and they export it to us in shiploads as full as, from what you say, the granaries of the old Château used to be——"

"Cock and bull stories! You have read them in books."

"Some of them; but I have seen ships in port, and sacks of wheat being unloaded like the water of a dyke overflowing its banks. If you were to read the papers, you would know that everything now comes to us from abroad far cheaper than we can produce it ourselves: corn, oats, horses, oxen; and that we have competing with us Americans, Australians, and soon we shall have Japanese, Chinese——" he was intoxicated with words; he was but the echo of the few pamphlets he had read, or of what he had heard from others. La Fromentière heard him with stupor. China, Japan, America, the names circled round the room like some unknown variety of bird, brought by the tempest from far-off regions. The farmhouse walls had heard many uncouth peasant sounds, but never had they resounded under the shock of these foreign words.

Astonishment was marked upon the faces that, in the light of the lamp, were turned upon Driot, who continued:

"I have learnt things, I can assure you! I learn more every day. And, look you, when one comes home as I have done to-night, from rooting up a vineyard, it makes one savage to think that there are parts of America, and I could give you the names, where one can settle without opening one's purse——"

"You be off!" quoth the ploughman.

"Yes! Government gives the agriculturist his passage free; keeps him when he first lands; and gives him a ranch of seventy-four acres of land."

This time the farmer shook his head, scandalised at the enormity of his son's statement, and said in a tone of disapprobation:

"You are telling up a parcel of lies, my boy. Seventy-four acres, that makes two hundred and ninety-six roods. I am not much of a reader, it is true, but I do not let myself be crammed with all the stuff you believe in like the Gospel. Two hundred and ninety-six roods. Governments would soon be ruined if they made a present like that to everyone who wanted it.... Hold your tongue.... It vexes me to hear our native land talked ill of. Since you want to cultivate it with me, Driot, do as we do, and don't talk ill of it.... It has always supported us."

There ensued an embarrassed silence, of which the farm-servant took advantage to get up, and betake himself to bed.

The call from La Seulière sounded out again in the still night. Mathurin said no word, but looked at his brother; he, ill at ease, excited by the recent discussion, understood the mute question, and answered promptly, in a manner that should show that he was free to do as he chose:

"Very well. Yes, I am going."

"I will go with you as far as the boat," responded the cripple.

Toussaint Lumineau foresaw danger.

"It is bad enough that your brother should be going to La Seulière," said he. "But for you, my poor boy, on no account would it do to go to their dance. It is cold out of doors. Do not go further than the duck meadow, and come back quickly." He followed with his eyes the cripple, who, in great haste, with the unnatural energy given him by emotion, raised himself on his crutches, hobbled the length of the table, down the steps, and following André, was lost in the night.

His sons had gone; an icy wind blew in at the wide open door. Alas! how difficult it had become to govern the household! Sitting on the bench, his head on his arm, looking out into the dark farmyard, the old man pondered the things he had heard that night, and his powerlessness, despite his great love and long experience, to make himself obeyed, now that interest was lessening in the work of the old farmstead.

But it was not long before he called to his daughter, busy at her work of washing up; the least word was such a relief in the empty rooms! "Rousille!"

The girl opened the connecting door, and came, drying the plate in her hands without looking at him.

"I am afraid that Mathurin may go back to see her——"

"Oh, father, he would not do that. Besides, he cannot have his shoes, and he dare not appear at La Seulière" ... stooping, she searched under Mathurin's bed, then in the chest, then said as she rose:

"Yes. He has taken them ... he must have put them on beforehand ... the first sound of the horn came at six o'clock."

The old father began pacing the room with great strides, stopping uneasily from minute to minute to listen for the sound of crutches on the gravel that should announce Mathurin's return.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DANCE AT LA SEULIÈRE

Soon they were far out in the middle of the Marais, the night intensely cold with no moon. Clouds were chasing each other towards the sea; and yet it was not one unbroken darkness; up above in the grey firmament were lighter trails, clear patches constantly broken and effaced by shifting clouds reflected in their passage on the surface of the waters, not only of the dykes, but of the submerged meadows which had been changed into a series of lakes by winter rains, and above which the sloping embankments were scarcely perceptible. Every light was multiplied. The darkness had eddies of light, which enabled André to keep a right course.

The punt followed the canals, cut at right angles; progress was slow, impeded by ice needles, that formed by the cold clustered on the sedges of the bank. Did the wind not rise, the whole Marais would be one sheet of ice before morning; André knew this, and tried to reach La Seulière as quickly as possible. He began to realise the imprudence he had committed in taking Mathurin with him on such a night and so far. The cripple neither moved nor spoke, anxious not to attract his brother's attention to himself, lest he should straightway turn back. But when he saw that they were more than two thousand yards from La Fromentière, sure of reaching their destination, he broke the silence. Lying on his back, his face hidden by the side of the boat, he asked:

"Driot, when you were speaking to-night of land being given to agricultural emigrants, you were not joking?"

"Of course not."

"Have they proposed to give you some?"

Noiselessly, he had raised his head, and was watching with eyes and ears for André's answer. No reply came. In the vast extent of inundated meadows there was heard no sound but the swish of the water parted by the punt and washing up as the tide rose against the hard mud of the shore with little sharp gurgles. Mathurin resumed:

"You miss François, do you not? The house seems different to you with only me there?"

The young man standing so erect in the stern, his profile scarcely defined in the darkness, stooped precipitately:

"Look out!" he cried, "lie back, Mathurin!" Perfect darkness was around them; they were passing under one of the single-arched stone bridges that intersect the Marais here and there. When they had passed through Mathurin noticed that the boat was going more slowly, as though the propeller were absorbed in thought. Encouraged by this, resolved to be put in possession of the secret that concerned the future of La Fromentière, the cripple resumed persuasively:

"We are quite by ourselves here, André; why not tell me all you are pondering? You would like to cultivate newer soil than ours; you, too, want to go away, but further than François, and for another purpose?"

Then the younger brother ceased to punt. He still stood erect on the raised stern of the boat, and suffered the pole to float aimlessly behind him.

"As you have discovered it, Mathurin," he said, "keep my secret. It is true that proposals have been made to me.... With my two thousand francs I might have, on the other side of the Atlantic, a whole farm of my own and a brood of horses.... Some friends of mine are looking into the matter for me ... but I have not made up my mind. I have not yet consented."

"You are afraid of father?"

"I am afraid of leaving him in difficulties. If I were to go, who would carry on La Fromentière? There is certainly Rousille, she might marry."

"Not that Boquin fellow! That would not do for us at all! But my father has said No; and he is not the man to go back on his word."

"Then I do not see who is to carry on the farm?"

In a hard, imperious voice, which betrayed the intensity of his feelings, the cripple cried:

"Then I count for nothing?"

"My poor Mathurin...."

"I am better, I shall recover," continued Mathurin, in the same tone. "When it comes to be my turn to rule, no one but myself will manage La Fromentière, do you understand?"

Not to exasperate him, André replied:

"Your recovery would be a happy thing for us all, old man. I, for one, heartily wish it may come about."

But the cripple's wrath was not to be appeased so easily nor so quickly. Rising from his recumbent position with an effort which threatened to capsize the punt, he dragged himself on hands and knees to the stern, where shouting, "Give me your place, boy, you shall see me punt," he struggled for possession of the pole; and seating himself in the stern, began propelling the boat with astonishing force and steadiness, keeping it clear of the banks, and with a rapidity, despite ice splinters and sedges, which André could not have accomplished. His huge frame took up the whole width of the boat; his powerful chest bent and raised itself with all the ease of robust health. As he went on arms and punt pole worked ever more vigorously; the banks flew by on either side. Soon he turned off into a canal on the right for some hundred yards. Now rays of light appeared on the surface of the water, rendering them more dazzling. They proceeded from the door of La Seulière. The farm buildings rose up indistinctly from out the darkness; sounds of voices singing broke the stillness, mingled with the noise of footsteps on the paved court. With a couple of strokes, Mathurin brought up the boat into line with some ten other punts lying side by side; and before André had thought of going to his help, had rolled with his crutches on to the slope before the house where he got up unaided.

"Well punted, Mathurin," cried his younger brother, jumping on shore. He, crimsoned, breathless, pleased as if with a victory won, looked round:

"Then don't worry yourself!" he said. "A man who can punt a boat as I do, is capable of managing a farm," and with a blow of his shoulder he shook the house door. A voice from within called out:

"Gently there! Who wants to break the door in?"

It was flung noisily open, revealing Mathurin standing in the full glare of the lamplight. The appearance of a ghost could not have produced greater effect. The noise ceased abruptly, the girls, frightened, ran away or clustered in groups against the walls. In their astonishment, many of the lads took off their hats, which they had kept on while dancing; farmers' wives half rose from the chairs on which they were sitting. Scarcely did they recognise the new-comer at such an hour and place.

Tired and crimsoned from his exertions, affected by the hot air of the room, but proud of the stupefaction he was causing, Mathurin stood erect on his crutches, and, laughing in his tawny beard, called out in a stentorian voice:

"How do you do, all of you!"

Then, addressing the group of girls who were retreating to the other end of the room:

"Who will dance a round with me, my beauties? Why do you look at me like that? I am not a ghost. I have brought my brother, handsome Driot, to dance vis-à-vis with me." And they saw him approach, followed by the youngest son of La Fromentière, tall and slim, his hand at his forehead in military salute. Then the room resounded with merry laughter, questions, and greetings; the girls ran towards them as precipitately as they had before retreated; men's hands were extended on all sides. Old Gauvrit's loud voice drowned all others, as, already somewhat heated with wine, he called out from an inner room:

"The handsomest girl to dance with Mathurin! the handsomest! Let her show herself!"

It was not in obedience to her father that Félicité Gauvrit came forward. But, though for an instant disconcerted by this abrupt entry before all these men and women, she realised that she must put a bold face on it, and going up to Mathurin Lumineau, her black eyes looking into his, she threw her arms round his neck and embraced him.

"I embrace him," she said, "because he has more courage than most of the lads in the parish. It was I who invited him!"

Stupefied, intoxicated by the memories awakened in him, Mathurin once more shrank away. They saw him grow livid, and, turning on his crutches, force a path through the group of men on his left, with:

"Make way, make way, lads. I want to sit down!"

He found a place in the second room, beside some of the elder men, old Gauvrit among them; who rising, poured him out a bumper of the white wine of Sallertaine, in token of welcome. Still quite pale, Mathurin lifted the glass with the customary formula, "I drink to you all with cordiality and love!"

Soon he appeared to be forgotten, and dancing was resumed.

The farmstead where the gathering was held was a fairly modern building, the usual large house-place being divided into two rooms of unequal size. In the smaller of these the elder men, with the master of the house, were drinking and playing luette. In the larger, that by which the two Lumineaus had entered, dancing was going on. The tables had been pushed along the walls beside the beds, the curtains of which had been spread over the counterpanes to save them from being torn. Some half-dozen matrons, who had accompanied their daughters, had collected round the hearth before a fire of dried cow-dung, the fuel of that treeless district, each having on the mantel-piece her cup of coffee, with a dash of brandy in it, from which she took an occasional sip.

Petroleum lamps placed along the wall lighted the narrow space reserved for dancing. A smoky, heated, vinous atmosphere pervaded the house. The icy air from without drew in under the door, sometimes making the young Maraîchines, despite their stout woollen gowns, shiver with cold. But no one minded. The room was filled with laughter, chatter, and movement. Youths and maidens from isolated farmhouses, cut off from one another by periodical inundations, they were tired of solitude and repose. Escaped from their tedium and restored for a brief space of social intercourse, they seemed possessed by feverish excitement. Soon all the gay dancers would be dispersed again over the mute, trembling sheet of water. They knew it; and made the most of the short reprieve.

So dancing recommenced.

First the Maraîchine, a dance for four, a kind of ancient bourrée, which the lookers-on accompanied by a rhythmic humming; then rondes sung by a male or female voice, taken up by the others in chorus to the accompaniment of an accordeon played by a sickly, deformed boy of twelve; or there were modern dances, polkas and quadrilles, danced to one and the same tune, the time only made to vary. The girls, for the most part, danced well, some with a keen sense of rhythm and grace. Round their waists the most dainty had knotted a white handkerchief, to preserve their dresses when, after each refrain, their partner seized his lady round the waist and jumped her as high as possible, to demonstrate the lightness of the Maraîchines and the strength of the Maraîchins. Known to each other, these young people from the same parish, often neighbours, resumed the flirtations of the preceding winter; they made love; appointed meetings at Chalons fair, or at some coming dance at another farm; new-comers were gladly welcomed. Among these latter André Lumineau was the most sought after, the most cheery, most fertile at inventing nonsense and talking it.

Time passed. Twice Père Gauvrit had gone through the two rooms, opened the house door, and said:

"The moon is rising and will soon be visible; the wind is getting up and it freezes hard," then had gone back to resume his place at the card-table where the players awaited him. Mathurin Lumineau had taken a hand, but was playing absently, attending far less to his cards than to every movement, look, and word of Félicité. Already the artful beauty had several times contrived to bring her partner to a halt in the inner room, that she might exchange a few words with Mathurin. She was radiant with pride; on the bold, regular features that towered above the greater number of tulle coifs could be read triumphant joy, that after six whole years, the mad love she had inspired still endured, and had brought back to her the young men of La Fromentière.

It was ten o'clock. A little Maraîchine, her complexion russet as a thrush, started the first notes of a ronde: