"Lend me a hand, Rousille," he cried, "I must see what is going on!" Rousille was kneeling beside her father, kissing him amid her tears. The farm-servant, roused by the noise, came through the yard with a lantern.

CHAPTER XIV.

DWELLERS IN TOWNS.

"Last Sunday he said good-bye to several of us, myself among the number. He told me he was off to South America, where, for a mere nothing, he would get a farm of seventy-four acres of virgin soil; but I do not remember the name of the place where he was going."

On the evening of the third day, when, having had this information, the farmer returned home, he found the cripple sitting by the fireside.

"Mathurin," he said, "you ought still to have some of those books where countries are sketched out, you know what I mean?"

"Geography books? Yes, there must be some left from old schooldays. Why?"

"I want to look at America," replied the old man. "It is there that your brother is going they all say."

Dragging himself to the chest, from under the clothes at the bottom the cripple brought forth a handful of school books, which had belonged to one or other of them as boys, and came back with a little elementary atlas, on the cover of which was written in a beginner's large handwriting: "This book belongs to Lumineau André, son of Lumineau Toussaint, of La Fromentière, Commune of Sallertaine, Vendée." The father stroked his hand over the writing, as if to caress it.

"It was his," he said.

Mathurin opened the atlas. It was all to pieces; the maps were rounded at the corners from wear, crumpled or torn, the edges frayed. The cripple's fingers turned the pages gingerly, and stopped at a map covered with ink-blots in which the two Americas, united by their isthmus, in deep orange colour, looked like a pair of huge spectacles. The two men bent over it. "This is South America," said Mathurin. "And here is the sea."

The farmer pondered for a considerable time over Mathurin's words, endeavouring to harmonise them with the inky map, then shook his head.

"I cannot picture to myself where he is," he said sadly, "but I see that there is sea, and that he is lost to us...."

Mathurin slowly shut his book and said:

"They were both bad sons; they have forsaken you."

The farmer did not seem to have heard him; turning to Rousille, he said gently, far more gently than was his wont: "Rousille, have a cup of coffee ready for me the first thing to-morrow morning. I will go and find out François." And accordingly at ten o'clock the next morning, the fourth day after Driot's departure, the farmer of La Fromentière alighted from the train at the station of La Roche-sur-Yon. The moment he set foot on the platform, he began looking for his son amongst the porters engaged in shutting the carriage doors, or taking the luggage from the van. Taller by a head than most of the passengers who were hurrying hither and thither, he would stop every ten paces to follow with his eyes some porter with young, full face like François. He wanted to see his son again, but was nervous at meeting him in so public a place. He, clad in his black cloth suit, with blue waistband, his new hat bound with velvet set well at the back of his head, free to come and go at his own time—he, the master of his working and leisure hours, felt a kind of shame at the thought that among that group of paid servants, hustled about by their superiors, clad in a uniform they had no right to exchange for ordinary clothes, was a Lumineau of La Fromentière.

Not finding François on the platform, he was proceeding to a part of the line where carriages were uncoupled, and was watching a gang of men push a loaded truck along with their shoulders, thinking the while, "Why, they are doing the work of our oxen at home," when a voice called out:

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"To find my boy."

"Who is he?"

"You may perhaps know him," replied the farmer, touching the brim of his hat. "He is employed on the line; his name is François Lumineau."

The inspector said carelessly:

"Lumineau? Ah, yes, one of the men on the line. Been here four months?"

"Five," returned the father.

"Maybe. A stout, red-faced fellow, somewhat lazy. Do you want to speak to him?"

"Yes."

"Very well. If you know where he lives, go to him there. You can do your business with him when he goes home to his dinner. Foot passengers are not allowed on the lines, my good man." And as he went away, the inspector grumbled: "These peasants think they have the right to go anywhere, as if they were in their own fields."

The farmer controlling himself on François' account, made no reply. He left the railway station and began wandering among the broad, deserted streets with their rows of low-built houses on either side; rain had been falling since early morning. The people he stopped to inquire of did not know Café la Faucille, the name of which he had learned from the Maraîchins who came to the fairs of La Roche. At length, by means of the sign-board, he found it out for himself, in the outskirts of the town. Like the others in the street it was a little one-storied house, with one window. Pushing open the door, Toussaint Lumineau found himself in a coffee shop, furnished with deal tables, cane stools, and a glass cupboard, wherein were displayed bottles of wine and spirits, and on a counter at the foot were a few plates of cold meat, between two boxes of sweet biscuits. Nobody was there. Lumineau took his stand in the middle of the shop; the bell, set ringing by the farmer's entrance, continued to sound more and more feebly. Before it had altogether ceased, an inner door opposite opened, emitting a whiff of cookery, and a woman, without cap, her hair very much dressed, came forward in a mincing manner.

Although he stood with his back to the light she at once recognised the new-comer, coloured vividly, let fall the corner of her apron she was holding in both hands, and stopped short.

"Oh," she said, "it is you, father! What a surprise! How long it is since we have seen you!"

"Yes, true. A very long time."

She hesitated, glad to see her father, and not daring to say so, not knowing his object in coming, and whether she ought to ask him to sit down, to kiss him, or to keep her distance as one who may not hope to be forgiven.

Her eyes were fixed on him. However, the words, not hard, the gentle tones and voice that trembled, reassured her; and she asked:

"May I kiss you, father, despite all?"

He suffered her embrace, but did not return the kiss. Then sitting on a stool, while Eléonore went to the other side of the table, he looked at his daughter with melancholy curiosity to see in what way she had changed. Eléonore, standing near the wall, embarrassed by the penetrating gaze, began fastening the collar of her grey woollen dress, drawing down the sleeves over her bare arms, then twisted a ring she was wearing on her right hand.

"I did not expect," she stammered, casting down her eyes.... "It has quite startled me to see you again! François will be astonished too. He comes in at eleven every day, sometimes half-past. Father, you will have something to eat?"

He made a negative gesture.

"A glass of wine? You will not refuse that?"

For all answer, Toussaint Lumineau said:

"Do you know what has happened at home, Eléonore?"

Suddenly the slight amount of self-possession she had assumed left her. She drew back still further. Her light blue eyes assumed an expression of fear, while she glanced towards the street as if, perchance, the expected help were coming from that direction. Then, obliged to speak, leaning her head against the wall, with eyes downcast:

"Yes," she said. "He came to La Roche. He wanted to see François."

"What!" exclaimed Toussaint Lumineau, rising and pushing back the stool. "André? You have spoken to André?"

"Very early on Monday he came. His face had a look on it that is always coming back to me when I am alone. Oh! a look as of a world of sorrow. He pushed open the door, like you did, and said: 'François, I am going away from La Fromentière, because you are not there!' I am sure, father, it is a blow to you ... but do not be angry, for we said nothing to induce him to go. We were even sorry on your account."

She had put out her hand as if to ward the old man off; but she saw at once that there was nothing to fear, and the outstretched hand fell beside the dingy plastered wall. For Toussaint Lumineau was crying as he looked at her. The tears were coursing down his face, wrinkled by suffering. He wanted to know everything, and asked:

"Did he speak of me?"

"No."

"Did he speak of La Fromentière?"

"No."

"Did he at last say where he was going?"

"He would neither sit down nor stay. He kissed us both; but words neither came to him nor to us. François asked him: 'Where are you going, Driot?' and he answered: 'To Buenos Ayres, in America. I mean to try and make money. When I am a rich man you shall all hear of me. Good-bye, Lionore. Good-bye, François,' and he was gone."

"Gone," repeated Lumineau; "my last one gone!"

Eléonore's feelings were touched in sympathy, the corners of her eyes grew moist; but they still turned towards the street, while her father shut his.

"Father," she said, "will you mind coming into the kitchen with me? François will soon be coming in, and if he does not find his dinner ready, you know what it will be! He is not always easy to get on with." She went into the inner room, followed by her father. It was but a shed built on, quite dark even in broad daylight, whose only window looked on to a narrow yard built up on all sides. An iron stove, at present alight, three chairs, and a table took up nearly all the space. The farmer, taking a chair, sat down between the window and the open door, that he might see François when he came in. Eléonore busied herself with cookery, laid the table for two, went backwards and forwards from one room to the other, always in a hurry, never getting on much with what she had in hand. Toussaint Lumineau was silent. She felt it necessary to sigh as she passed him, and say:

"Things have gone sadly against you. And how melancholy it must be at La Fromentière now! Poor father, I am sorry for you!"

He, listening, took her empty words as words of pity.

"Lionore," he said, after a while, as she stooping was cutting the bread for the soup, "Lionore, you have given up the coif of La Vendée?"

"Yes, they ironed them so badly here at La Roche, and it cost so much. Besides, no one wears caps here."

"Humph! Well, since you have given up dressing as did your mother and grandmother, and all the women of the family I have ever known, are you any the happier? Are you content in your new circumstances?"

She went on cutting the bread into thin slices, and answered:

"It is not the same kind of work, but I cannot say but that I have as much to do as I had at home. There are the rooms to keep in order, marketing to do, my stones to wash every other day when it rains, as to-day, or snows; cooking at all times of the day, and that for people who are not always very civil, I assure you. Sometimes there are complaints that there are so few customers, for there was too high a price paid for the café—much too high. And then when men passing come in for a drink, I am often afraid of them. Indeed, if I had not neighbours——"

"And your brother, is he content?" interrupted the farmer.

"Half and half. The pay is so poor, you see. Two francs at La Fromentière go farther than three here."

The father hesitated a little. Then asked, lowering his voice:

"Tell me, perhaps he regrets what he has done? I have no son with me now, Lionore; I am wretched. Do you think that François would come back to his home?"

He forgave all, forgot all; he craved help from the children who had wronged him.

Eléonore's face changed abruptly. Drying her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief, she shook her pointed chignon, and replied drily:

"I do not think so, father. I would rather tell you so out straight. You will be seeing my brother—will talk it over with him, but I do not think——" And as if deeply hurt she turned abruptly away to the store.

The half-hour had struck, the door of the café opened noisily, a man came in. Without looking up, or moving from her place, the girl said:

"Here he is."

Despite the railway uniform and cap he was wearing, the farmer, in the semi-darkness of the shop, had already recognised his son by the downcast head, slouching gait, and habit of holding his arms out from his body. Soon François stood before him in the doorway of the kitchen, and a glance revealed the same heavy features as of old—russet-red complexion, drooping moustache, and look of stolid indifference.

On seeing his father a shade of emotion passed over his face.

"Good day, father," said he, holding out his hand. "So things are not going well by what I see?"

The farmer made a sign of acquiescence.

"You are in trouble. Yes, I understand. So should I be if I were you. André ought not to have done it; he was the last, he ought to have stayed."

Toussaint Lumineau had seized François' hand, and was pressing it between both of his with a tenderness that spoke volumes, and his eyes, which sought the eyes of his son, uttered the same entreaty. In measure, however, that his father's mute pleading entered his soul, François quickly recovered from his surprise, hardening himself against the momentary feeling of compassion. Presently, drawing back his hand, he retreated a step, saying with the air of a man defiant and on the defensive.

"I understand. You are not wanting to engage another servant, but would rather have Lionore and me back at Sallertaine?"

"If you could, François. I have no one else to look to."

A half-satisfied smile at the correctness of his surmise passed over François' face as he rejoined:

"Yet you see that the other has gone too; and that there is nothing more to be done with the land."

"You are mistaken. He has gone to cultivate it elsewhere, in America! It was because he missed you so sorely, François, that he lost heart at home."

"Yes," said François, drawing up a chair for himself and sitting down to the table. "It seems to be a wonderful country, America! But here with us it's too hard."

The farmer did not take up the words which had angered him before.

"Well!" he said, "I will give you help. I have no other son now, for you know that Mathurin is of no account in the management of a farm. You will soon be the master; the next lease shall be drawn up in your name, and there will still be a Lumineau at La Fromentière. Will you come back?"

François made a gesture of annoyance and gave no reply.

"You are making nothing," resumed the farmer, "by what Eléonore tells me."

"No, the pay is poor enough."

"The café has not many customers?"

"No; but we paid too much for it. We are not sure that it will answer." He turned to his sister who was listening passive and tearful. "But we scrape along, eh, Lionore? In time I may get a rise, so the sub-inspector tells me. Then I shall be better off. I don't want more. We have got to know people already; on Sundays I have my half-day off."

"You had the whole day at La Fromentière!"

"I don't say that I hadn't. But what you ask, father, can't be done."

A man, whose entrance they had not perceived, now called out from the adjoining room:

"Is no one here? Is there no dinner to be had?"

Eléonore, glad of the interruption, passed between her brother and father, and they heard her laugh to appease the customer. François drew the soup-tureen towards him, and put in the ladle.

"You must not mind my helping myself," he said to his father, who remained sitting at the window behind him, "I have only got a quarter of an hour; it's a long way to the station. I shall be fined," and between the mouthfuls of soup he asked in a softened voice: "You have not given me news of Rousille. Is she quite well? And Mathurin, does he still imagine that he will be all right again? He who always was so keen on being master at La Fromentière did nothing to keep André back, I suppose?"

Toussaint Lumineau rose abruptly, unable longer to control his anger.

"You are a couple of ungrateful children, both of you!" he exclaimed in a loud voice. "Stay in your town!" and going out of the kitchen, he crossed the café before the eyes of the sickly-looking mechanic, and of Eléonore, who, terrified, leant forward:

"I told you so, poor father. I told you he would not! I knew it. Still, au revoir."

Then to François who was following him:

"You are going with him to the station."

He shook his head.

"Yes, go! It would look better; he would not then be able to say that we had not treated him kindly."

The farmer had opened the door into the street.

"I will go with you to the station, if you like," said François sheepishly.

"I did not ask you to go with me to the station, ungrateful son; I asked you to come back and save us all from ruin, and you have refused!" was the reply. They saw him stride down the street erect, his fine figure making two of the puny town mechanics, his silvery hair shining through the mist of rain. The door shut behind him.

"No easy customer, the old papa," said the man who was dining.

"Don't talk of it," exclaimed Eléonore; "I am quite ill."

"What was it he wanted?"

With a coarse laugh François said as he went back to the kitchen:

"Wanted me to go back and dig for him."

The mechanic, shrugging his shoulders, said with a self-satisfied air:

"A fine idea! The old gentleman was a bit unreasonable, I think."

CHAPTER XV.

THE EMIGRANT.

With a curt greeting to his household the farmer went straight to his bedside, and began silently changing his Sunday garb for his working clothes. The best coat, new hat, shoes, were all laid away. The answer must have been unsatisfactory. An awkward silence reigned in the room; as the minutes went on Mathurin's irritation increased. Bent almost double in the chimney-corner, his face drawn, he, the eldest son, felt hurt at being treated like a servant or a woman. Why not have taken him apart? A sign would have sufficed. Why not have given it him?

His ill temper broke forth when his father, having changed his clothes, said peremptorily:

"Rousille, you will come with me and the man into the barn to make baskets. You, Mathurin, for once will take your sister's place, and watch the pot."

"So you think me of no use at all?" said the cripple.

Contrary to his usual habit, which was to give reasons and modify orders, the farmer, raising his voice, made answer:

"I am sole master here. Come, Rousille!" Followed by his daughter and the man, he crossed the yard in the front of the house, went into the barn, and threw open the double doors that separated it from the cart shed. There was the wine press, the red tilbury; and ranged against the walls were wheelbarrows, hen-coops, ladders, rafters, and poles; in the middle of the circle formed by this medley was a sandy space, where the fowls came to scratch and cover themselves with sand. The farmer sat down upon a joist beside a vat in which a bundle of osiers were steeping, his face turned towards the farmhouse. Rousille kneeling close to him, her back to the light, drew the twigs from the water one by one, peeled them with her pocket-knife and handed them to her father. He, taking the white stems, twisted them round the already prepared framework of the baskets. In a corner the man was chopping poles of chestnut wood with a hedge-bill. The rain came down faster than ever, the air grew colder and more penetrating, spreading a veil of mist between the barn and the house. A fantastic twilight, coming from one knew not whither, uncertain as the rain and driven by the wind, cast a faint glimmer upon the workers. The ducks were quacking merrily in the Marais; sparrows were chirping in the gutters of the roof. Not a word passed between the father, his daughter, and the man. Toussaint Lumineau was looking at Rousille—looking at her more often and attentively than was his wont; his thought was: "She is all that is left to me." At times he stopped plaiting, the white osier remained motionless, and his hand sank nerveless to his side. Then it was that the remembrance of his other children was passing, like the rain, in a torrent over his soul. In the depths of his heart the father would cry, "François! André!" He tried to picture South America as he had seen it on map. Where was his youngest son now in the great wide world? Was he in a town, or wandering along unknown roads, or on the great ocean that sucks in so many victims? Toussaint Lumineau strove to get to him, but the effort was vain. All the scenes his imagination could picture were lost in the unknown.

At that same hour, far away, the heart of a young man was recalling with all the faithfulness of familiar scenes, La Fromentière and its elms, his father, Rousille, Mathurin, the meadows of the Marais and all the country round. It was the son of whom the old man was thinking with such poignant regret; he, whom all three in the barn were vainly trying to follow in their inexperience of travel.

Tired after a night passed in the train, and in going from one agent's office to the other, a stranger and unknown, André was sitting on a bundle of sheep-skins in the docks of a great seaport, awaiting the hour of embarkation in a steamer that was to bear him away to the new country. In front of him the waters of the River Scheldt dashed up against the quay; emerging from the fog on one side they formed a kind of half circle, to be lost in deeper fog on the other, their broad expanse covered with shipping. André's weary eyes followed the moving panorama of sailing vessels, steamers, coasting and fishing boats all standing out grey in the fog and the fading light of day, now massed together, now disentangling and gliding away each to its own destination.

More often he looked beyond to the low-lying land round which the river curved, meadows half under water, deserted, immeasurable, seeming to float on the pale waters. How they reminded him of the province he had left! How they spoke to him! Neither the rolling of trucks, nor the whistle of commanding officers, nor the voices of the thousands of men of all nations unloading their ships round about him could draw away his thoughts. Nor did he feel any interest in the great city that extended behind him, and whence at times, amid the noise and bustle of the quay, came the sound of peals of bells such as he had never yet heard. But the time was drawing near. He knew this by the increasing agitation within him. The tramp of an approaching body of people made him turn his head; they were emigrants coming out of the sheds where they had been penned in by the agents, forming a long grey stream, seen through the mist. They come nearer, the foremost making their way through the casks and piles of sacks heaped upon the quay, and crossing the muddy gangway, hasten to secure the best places between decks; others follow, a confused mass of men, women, and children. Young and old are hard to distinguish; like tears, all look alike; all have the same sad look in their eyes; all are wearing their oldest clothes for the voyage: shapeless coats, jerseys, old mantles, kerchiefs over the women's heads, patched petticoats, odd garments in which they have worked and toiled many a day. They rub against André Lumineau, sitting on the bundle of skins, and pay no heed to him. They do not speak to one another, but in their hurried progress families form into distinct groups; mothers holding their children by the hand and shielding them from the wind, fathers with elbows extended protecting them from the pressure. All are carrying something: a bundle of clothing, a loaf of bread, a handbag tied together with string. All have made the same pause at the same place. As they turn in from the streets through the dock gates, they straighten themselves and stretch out their necks to look across, ever in the same direction, to the plains of the Scheldt, where a golden shimmer through the fog denotes the quarter of the setting sun; and, as though it were their own, they gaze upon a solitary little clock tower which rises out of the misty distance. Then they turn into the docks, find which is their boat, the steam already up, the windlass at work, the bridge black with emigrants. And their courage fails, they are afraid; many among them would fain turn back. But for them there is no turning back, they must embark, their tickets tremble in their shaking hands. In spirit only they return to the old country, to the poverty they have anathematized and now regret; to the deserted rooms, the suburbs, the factories, the country sides where once was "home." Pale and nerveless the living stream suffers itself to be swept on, and embarks.

For a long time André Lumineau looked on without joining the crowd. He was seeking a fellow-countryman. Seeing none, he at last put himself in line with the others; he was wearing his military cloak, the buttons of which had been changed, and was carrying the black portmanteau that five days ago reposed in the hayloft of Fromentière. His neighbours glanced at him with indifference, accepting him without remark.

Among them he crossed the quay, mounted the gangway, and stepped on board, the ship already swaying with the motion of the river. Then while others in the throng who had friends or relations with them were walking the decks in groups, or examining the machinery, or inspecting the cabins, he leaned over the side of the boat at the stern trying to distinguish the river and the grey meadow land, for memories were rushing thickly upon him, and his courage was nigh to deserting him. But doubtless the fog had deepened, for he saw nothing.

Beside him, hunched up upon the seat, was an old woman with still fresh complexion, wrapped in a black cloak with a cape to it, her coif fastened with a pair of gold pins, and rocking a child in her arms.

André took no notice of her. But she, unable to fix her eyes anywhere in the bustle and confusion of a ship on the point of departure, raised them every now and then to the stranger standing beside her, who so surely was thinking of the home he was leaving. Perhaps she had a son of the same age. The feeling of pity grew in her and albeit, well knowing that her neighbour would not understand her language, the old woman said:

"U heeft pyn."

After she had repeated it several times he understood by the word "pain" and the intonation with which it was said, that the woman asked, "You are in sorrow?" and answered:

"Yes, madame."

The old mother took Driot's hand in her soft shrivelled one, all cold and damp with the fog, and stroked it tenderly, and the young Vendéen broke down utterly and wept, thinking of bygone caresses from his old mother, who, too, had worn a white coif and gold pins on grand occasions.

Mist and fog were sweeping over the Marais of La Vendée, as over the plains of the Scheldt, driven by gusts of wind.

At times an expression of anguish crossed the face of Toussaint Lumineau as he followed with his eyes the quivering points of the osiers Rousille held out to him, as though they had been the masts of ships labouring in the ocean. At other times he would look long and lingeringly at his one remaining child, and Rousille knew that she was fair to look upon. A violent squall struck the elm-trees, stripping them clear of leaves, and beating their branches against the roof of La Fromentière. The rainspouts, the tiles, the rafters and walls, the very lizards in the barn groaned and creaked together—and the storm-cry groaned, wildly and madly, over the Marais.

Three hundred leagues away the melancholy whistle of a sirene awoke the echoes, the screw of a huge steamer parted the waters of the river and drew away slowly from shore, as though yet half inert and drifting. No sooner did the emigrants, outcasts of the old world, poor and hopelessly miserable, feel themselves afloat, than they were terrified. The thoughts of all on board flew back to their deserted homes. It was in the darkness of night that André Lumineau went forth.

The farmer threw back a handful of osiers into the vat, saying:

"Let us go in. My old hands can work no longer."

But he did not stir. The man, alone, ceased chopping the poles of chestnut wood, and left the barn. Rousille, seeing that her father made no movement to rise, stayed where she was.

CHAPTER XVI.

HER FATHER'S BIDDING.

"Always, father. I have given him my love, and shall never withdraw it. Now that André is gone, I quite understand that I cannot leave you to go and live in the Bocage. But I shall never marry; I will stay with you and serve you."

"Then you will not forsake me as they have done?"

"No, father, never."

Her father rested his hand upon her shoulder, and the girl felt herself enveloped in a tenderness hitherto unknown. A hymn of thanksgiving passed from soul to soul. Around them the wind and rain were raging.

"Rousille," resumed the farmer, "I have no longer a son to lean upon. André was the last to betray me. François has refused to come back. And yet La Fromentière must continue ours."

A firm, sweet voice answered:

"It must."

"Then, little one," continued her father, "your wedding bells must ring!"

Rousille dared not understand. Still on her knees she drew a little closer so as to touch her father. She longed that daylight would come back to reveal the expression of the eyes fixed upon her. But the darkness was impenetrable.

"I had always hoped," continued the farmer, "that there would be one of my name to carry on the farm after me. God has refused me my desire. As for you, Rousille, I should have liked to have given you to a Maraîchin like ourselves; one in like position, and from our part. Perhaps it was pride. Things have not turned out according to my wishes. Do you think that Jean Nesmy will consent to come back to La Fromentière?"

"I am certain of it! I can answer for him. He will come back!"

"And his mother will not seek to offer us any affront?"

"No, no. She loves her son too well for that; she knows everything. But Mathurin!" and she stretched out her arm towards the house lying hidden in the darkness. "Mathurin would not have it. He hates us! He would make life so hard for us that we could not stay here."

"But I am still here, dear child, and I mean to gather the three of you about me."

Had Rousille heard aright? Had her father really in so many words given his consent to her marriage? Yes, for he was now standing upright, and in rising he had raised his daughter, and was holding her in close embrace, his tears falling so fast that he could not speak. But contact with her youthful happiness seemed to have lent him fresh courage.

"Do not fear Mathurin," he said, "I will reason with him, and he must obey. It was I who dismissed Jean Nesmy; it is now my will that he comes back to be my son and helper, and the master here when I am gone."

The girl listened in the darkness.

"It is my wish that he should come back as quickly as possible, for a place does not prosper in hired hands however good they may be. I have thought it all out for you, Rousille. You will go from here where we now are, straight to the Michelonnes."

"Yes, father."

"That will give me the time to speak to your brother. You will therefore go to them and say: 'My father cannot leave La Fromentière and Mathurin, who has not been well these last few days. He asks you to go for him to the Bocage, and to beg the mother of Jean Nesmy to let her son come back to be my husband. The sooner you start the better for us.'"

Now Rousille's tears were falling fast. Toussaint Lumineau continued:

"Go, my Rousille. Greet the Michelonnes from me ... tell them it is to save La Fromentière."

A whisper answered:

"Yes," and a pair of young arms were thrown round the old farmer's neck, and his face drawn down for a long, loving kiss. Then, going a little away from him, across the darkness through which they could not see each other, Rousille said: "I am happy, father. I will go at once to the Michelonnes ... but, oh! how much better it would have been if we could have had all our people at my wedding!"

And she ran out into the night. Her father stood for a moment, proud and happy. She had said "our people," this little Rousille; she spoke like her ancestresses who had ruled in La Fromentière. She was a true descendant of the great-grandmothers she had never known, thorough housewives, who from the very day they were brought home as wives, staid and happy, seemed to bring with them as reading in an ever open book the sense of family cares and joys.

Rousille ran along the road, unheeding the stoniness of the way. Rain fell heavily, but she did not feel it. Sometimes she pressed her hand to her heart, to calm its beating. She thought, "I am happy," and with that she wept.

The windows of all the houses in Sallertaine were lighted when she reached the long street. The timid sisters Michelonne had already shut their shutters, and drawn their bolts.

"Aunts Michelonne!" she cried, knocking with her hand on the door, "please let me in quickly."

It was the work of a moment for Véronique to draw the bolt, open the door, and shut it behind the new-comer.

"How wet you are, Rousille!" she exclaimed, "and without cloak or kerchief in such weather! It has struck seven. What brings you out at such an hour?"

At the far end of the room, on a chest beside the bed nearest to the fireplace, Adelaide had stood the solitary tallow candle, its long smoky wick burnt to a thick glowing knob. By its dim light she was beginning to undress, and had already taken off her apron. A corner of the sheet turned back upon the coverlet showed a patch of whiteness; the rest of the shop was in gloom—chairs, spinning wheels, the table, the other bedstead, and the clock beside it calmly ticking.

"Do not let me disturb you, Aunt Adelaide," said the girl going towards her; "I have news."

The eldest of the sisters taking the candlestick, held it up to Rousille's face, and seeing traces of tears upon it, said:

"Sad news, again, dear child?"

"No, aunts, glad news."

"Then let us sit down, and tell it quickly."

The old sisters sat on the oak chest and made Rousille take a chair facing them, close up that they might see her happy face, and each taking a hand in hers prepared to listen. The three faces were close together; the candle gave just light enough to reveal lip or eyes irradiated with a smile.

"My news is," said Rousille, "that my father, having no longer a son to help him, wishes Jean Nesmy to come back."

"What, Rousille, your sweetheart?"

"Aunt Michelonne, it is to save La Fromentière."

"Then you are going to be married, pet; you are going to be married?" exclaimed Aunt Adelaide enthusiastically, half rising; while her sister, on the contrary, bent lower to hide her emotion.

"Yes, father has said so. If you will help me."

"If! You know I will; you are my daughter. You have only to ask for what you want—but tell me, is it money?"

"No, aunt."

"A trousseau that we will both set about making?"

"Something far more difficult," said Rousille. "To make a journey—a long one."

"I, a journey?"

"You, or Aunt Véronique. As far as the Bocage. Father cannot leave home; you are to go in his stead to see Jean Nesmy's mother, and persuade her to let her son come away. Will you do it?"

Véronique sat upright. "You go to the Bocage, Adelaide, you are more active than I am."

"Is that any reason? So great a pleasure; to do Rousille so great a service, why should you not have the privilege?"

"Sister, you are the elder; you take the place of the mother."

"You are right," said Adelaide simply.

She was silent for a short time; in the agitation of the news and her decision, the pretty pink cheeks had paled. Then she said:

"You see, it is forty years since I have been beyond the town of Chalons. I never thought to make any journey again. Where is Jean Nesmy's country?"

With a pretty smile on her face at the recollections it evoked, Rousille touched Aunt Michelonne's black dress three times with the tip of her finger.

"Here," she said, "is the farm of Nouzillac, where he is employed; there, a parish called La Flocellière; and there Les Châtelliers, where is his house, called La Château."

"I do not know any of those names, pet."

"There are hills in all directions, some small, some large, and a great many trees. When the wind blows from Saint Michel it rains without ceasing. Pouzanges is not far."

"I have heard speak of Saint Michel and Pouzanges when I was quite a child by Boquins, who used in those days to come to our part to seek for fuel. And when must I go?"

Lowering her soft eyes, Rousille answered:

"Father is hard pressed. He said the sooner the better."

"Holy Virgin! But I cannot start to-night. Still, look at the clock, Véronique, your eyes are better than mine."

The younger sister rising, trotted to the foot of the tall clock which stood between the beds, and with difficulty read the time from the copper-clock face.

"Too late, sister. The last tramway for Chalons has just passed."

"Then," said Adelaide, "I will start to-morrow morning. I have good legs to carry me to Quatre-Moulins, and a good tongue to ask my way later from the shopkeepers at Chalons. I will go. All the way I shall be thinking of you, Rousille, and when I see La Mère Nesmy—you will say I am conceited—but I shall not be a bit embarrassed, I will tell her of you, and I shall have plenty to tell. Why are you getting up, little one?"

"To go home, Aunt Michelonne."

The two old sisters laughing, cried simultaneously:

"No, that you are not indeed! You have told us nothing. What did your father say when he gave you permission? And what about François? And what does Mathurin think of it all? Stay, dearie, and tell us all about everything; and what is to be the message for Jean Nesmy?"

As when night falls over the fields partridges cluster together in a furrow, feather to feather, so the three women again grouped themselves, in close vicinity, in the corner of the shop. Words, looks, smiles, gestures, sometimes tears, all that bespeaks deep feeling, found utterance, and was re-echoed by the two auditors. A joyous murmur floated through the dwelling of the two old maids. Adelaide was slightly fevered; Véronique, without wishing to confess it, was already nervous at the idea of being left alone. Time went on. The neighbours, as they extinguished their lamps said: "Mademoiselles Michelonne are sitting up late to-night! Work seems plentiful in their trade!"

The town was sunk in darkness and silence under an icy rain when Rousille left her aunt's doorstep. On both sides the same words served for their parting. Adelaide said it first; Rousille repeated it. In one case it was a promise; in the other an expression of thanks.

"To-morrow morning!"

"To-morrow morning!"

CHAPTER XVII.

A FEBRUARY NIGHT.

Before replying, Toussaint Lumineau followed with his eyes the movements of the unhappy young man, a prey to a species of madness produced by rage and pain, such as was too well known at La Fromentière—since André's departure the paroxysms had become more frequent—and the father was moved to pity. Ignoring the insolence of the question, he said simply:

"Your sister will come back later, Mathurin. Where she has gone I have sent her."

"I am not to know where she is, then?" cried the cripple still more violently. "Everything is hidden from me here, and she is told all!"

At a sign from the farmer the man took out a couple of potatoes with his knife from the saucepan, slipped them into his coat pocket, cut a slice of bread from the loaf on the table, and carrying off his supper, went out into the yard.

The father and son were alone. Toussaint Lumineau, standing erect in the firelight, said:

"On the contrary, you are going to know all, Mathurin. Your brother François refuses to come home to us."

"I thought so."

The cripple had drawn back into a dark corner between the two beds, out of the range of the lamplight; there, as though on the watch for the words spoken, he listened; his trembling hands resting on the crutches shook the bed-curtains.

"La Fromentière cannot go on as it is now," resumed the farmer. "I have bidden Rousille take a message to the Michelonnes. One or the other of the sisters, whether it be Adelaide or Véronique matters not, is to go to the Bocage to bring back Jean Nesmy."

"Ah! you are marrying Rousille?"

"Yes, my friend."

"To a dismissed farm-servant!"

"I am taking him back."

"A Boquin! A man not of these parts!"

"A good worker, Mathurin, and one who always loved our soil."

"And he is to live at La Fromentière?"

"Of course. I need help. I need a son to stand by me."

Mathurin's tawny head was thrust out from darkness.

"And me," he cried, "what are you going to do with me?"

In his look was a concentrated reproach, all pent-up suffering and wrath of years.

"So I, the eldest, the rightful heir, am only to bear my suffering and submit to the will of others?"

"My son," replied his father gently, "you will continue to live with us as now; you will do what you can, and no one will expect more. No work will be undertaken here without your having first been consulted, that I promise you. The farmstead will be your home after my death as now."

"No. I will not be ordered about by a man who does not bear my name. A Lumineau, and a Lumineau only, must be master here!"

"It is the sorrow of my life, Mathurin, that this cannot be."

"I could have borne with François, even with André," continued the cripple, with equal vehemence, "but Rousille and her Boquin shall never be the masters here. It is my home, and, I tell you, it is my turn!"

"But, my poor boy, you cannot take the management."

The serge curtains shook, and the unhappy man, suffocating with rage, made a few uncertain steps forward.

"I cannot tell what is good ploughing?" he gasped.

"Yes."

"I cannot buy a pair of oxen?"

"Yes."

"I cannot have myself drawn about in a cart, or punt a boat? Answer, if you please."

"Yes, my son."

"Then what further do I need for the management of a farm? Labourers I can hire. A wife?"

His father dared not say Yes.

"I will bring one!" Mathurin had reached the corner of the table and was now leaning upon it, the upper part of his body swaying and struggling to maintain its equilibrium. "One who has more heart than all of you put together! She knows that I shall get well. She has almost given me her promise to marry me as I am ... when I shall have persuaded her."

"Do not trust to what the girls tell you, my poor lad. It is only fathers and mothers who love and cherish those afflicted as you are.... You are ill this evening. See, your limbs are failing you. Come to bed, I will help you."

The cripple did not try to answer. His eyes closed, his head sank on to his shoulder; the crutches slipped from under the arms that stretched out as those of a drowning man seeking help. He would have fallen to the ground had not the farmer rushed forward to support him.

The giddiness did not last long. It was a sharp but short attack. Hardly had his father got him into a recumbent position on the chest at the foot his bed than Mathurin opened his eyes. He looked at his father, raised himself unaided, and putting hand to the back of his neck, said:

"You see, it is nothing. The pain you caused did it.... I am not ill."

All trace of anger had disappeared, but the misery in his face was the same, mingled with that kind of horror men experience when they have been at the very verge of death.

"Would you like me to help you?" asked his father.

With a shrug of the shoulders the cripple began to undress himself, and taking off his coat, folded it, and laid it on the chest.

"No. I will get to bed by myself. I want to be left in peace." His voice trembled as much as his hands. "You had better go to meet Rousille. She will have her news to tell you—and, moreover, it is pitch dark, the roads are not too safe——"

Toussaint Lumineau, who knew the danger of opposing his son in such an attack, made no demur.

"I will go as far as the road, Mathurin, and will tell the man to be at hand in the bakery in case you need him."

He did not go even as far as the road. He was too uneasy. He went some hundred yards along the wall of La Fromentière in the rain, turned back, and then not wishing to go in too soon as to allow Mathurin time to calm down, he went into the stables to look to the animals, and see that none had broken loose.

But, all unsuspected, Mathurin had slipped out after him. The farmer had not gone ten paces beyond the gate ere the cripple had come out into the courtyard, cautiously shut the outer door, and was making his way towards the threshing-floor in order to reach the meadow by the short cut.

His marvellous energy, and the diseased state of nervous excitability he was in, sustained him. A mad fancy, born of all his misery and all his dreams, forced him out on that cruel night to his doom. He would seek his lost love; would appeal by all the slights, all the suffering, all the affronts he had endured, to her who had been and still was the arbitress of his life; would say to her: "All forsake me; I have only you. Tell me that you love me, and they will scorn me no more. Save me, Félicité Gauvrit!"

Despite the dark night, the slippery ground, the two fences he had to climb, he went quickly along the track which bordered the park. Like a naughty child fearing pursuit, he turned his head every now and then to listen. Many a sound came to him, but it was only the whistling of the wind among the elms; the rain crashing down upon the slates; the roll of a distant train, probably on the way to Chalons. Mathurin descended the sloping meadow; the darkness was so dense that he had to turn back twice before he found the landing-stage. Feeling for a punt with his crutch he threw himself into the first one, and with a stroke of the pole pushed it out, not into the canal which led direct to Le Perrier and La Seulière, but to the left into a dyke rarely made use of by the occupants of the farm.

The bottom of the boat was full of water; at each movement it washed over the limbs of the cowering man, but he heeded it not. What mattered the wet boat, the icy rain that was falling, the pitch darkness, the weeds that checked his progress many a time, the length of the way, the fatigue. He must reach her, did he strain his last nerve and die in the effort.

The darkness was so great that Mathurin could scarce see the bow of his boat. Since sundown the wind had been driving the fog into the Marais; in its length and breadth it was full of it, covering whole spaces with its swaying mass; it lay over the inundated meadows, the embankments, and islets, shrouding them all in its malarial folds. It dripped in poisonous drops down poplars and willows, from the thatched roofs of hovels on the edge of the great sea shore where men, condemned to live in them, drank in fever without the power of struggling against it.

On such a deadly night was it that Mathurin, already a prey to the malady hanging over him, the blood surging to his head, found his strength ebbing away. In vain he threw himself from side to side of the punt, unable to distinguish which way to go. Sometimes his breath failed, he grew unconscious, and the puntsman would sit leaning forward motionless in the boat; then the cold would restore him, and with a shake he would continue his course.

As he went on further into the wildest part of the Marais, the shades of night grew peopled with forms. Birds, more and more numerous, rose as he brushed past the quivering willows. It was the time of their flight. Plovers, wild duck, bernacles, snipe, flew up, uttering their shrill or plaintive cry, soaring in invisible flocks, now high up in the icy fog, now close down to the sides of the boat. At each flight the cripple shuddered: "Why do you cry thus at me, ye birds of ill-omen?" he thought. "Leave me in peace, I am going to Félicité—she will consent—we shall make preparation again for our wedding—we will live at La Fromentière."

But his strength was exhausted. Little by little the torpor increased. His efforts relaxed; his sight failed. He continued touching the banks with the punt pole but fitfully, and not knowing where it struck. All suddenly the boat, which drifted across an embankment into the middle of a submerged meadow, stopped. Water was all around. Mathurin's hands relaxed their hold of the pole, his eyes opened wide with terror; he felt Death creeping up from limbs to brain. Raising himself, he cried out into the night with a loud voice: "Félicité! Father!" Then his body swayed backwards and forwards, his hand made the sign of the cross, and with mouth still open he sank lifeless to the bottom of the boat.

Through the labyrinth of dykes another punt was being rapidly propelled; at its bow a lantern was slung, just clearing the water, its tiny flame swaying with a rapid movement, and shaken by the wind. The farmer had discovered Mathurin's flight, and was seeking him.

Around him, too, coveys of birds arose. White wings fluttered in the light of the lantern.

"Ye birds," murmured the farmer, "tell me where to find him!"

Did the thousands of voices make answer?

At each crossway of the canals the father stood in the stern of his boat, and turning successively to the four winds of heaven, he called out with all his strength the name of his son. Twice men returning to their island homes from wild duck shooting, or belated farmers, had opened their windows to cry in the darkness:

"What do you want?"

"My son."

The voices had given no reply. The third time Toussaint Lumineau thought he distinguished a feeble cry, very distant, coming through the icy fog, and leaving the canal which runs straight to Perrier, he turned off to the left. From time to time he called again, but hearing no further sound, and fearing to have taken a wrong direction, he unfastened the lantern, and drew up to the side to see if there were traces of a punt pole. Some hundred yards further on he detected by newly-made marks in the mud that the bank had been grazed; a punt had certainly passed that way. Was it Mathurin's? He followed it. The punt had made the circuit of a meadow, but on which side had it gone out? In vain the farmer, forcing his way through the rushes, tried the different canals that cut it at right angles, each time he came back baffled; all traces had disappeared. He was about to turn back when, by the light of his lantern, he caught sight of a piece of floating wood. He stooped to catch it; a presentiment of the truth flashed across him; it was one of the Fromentière punt poles, drifting, carried by the wind towards the spot where the banks under water had converted meadow and dyke into one great lake.

The farmer thought his son's boat had upset.

"Hold on, Mathurin!" he cried. "I am coming. Hold on!" and with a stroke of the pole he pushed on into the channel. "Where are you, Mathurin?"

In the chopping waves of the open water he had made some thirty yards, when he was suddenly thrown forward. Stooping over the side, he felt about, and caught hold of another boat, which he drew alongside his own. Then turning the lantern upon it, he saw at the bottom of the punt his son, lying motionless. Toussaint Lumineau threw himself on his knees, nearly sending the boat under water; he felt his son's temples, there was no pulsation; his hands, they were icy cold; he put his mouth to the dead man's ear, and twice called him by name.

"Answer me, my son," he implored. "Answer! Move but a finger to show me you are still living."

But his son's fingers did not move; the lips clothed by the tawny beard remained motionless, open as when the last cry proceeded from them.

"My God!" groaned Lumineau, still kneeling. "Grant that he may not be called away before his Easter Communion. Grant that he be not dead!" And taking off his coat he covered his son in it, like a bed, and leaving his own punt he got into the one where Mathurin lay, and pushed off. A shade of hope sustained him, giving renewed vigour to his old arms. He must find help. Standing upright, endeavouring to find out where he was in the pitch darkness, the father had punted on some distance before he detected the light of a farmhouse. Then, to the right, a ray of light pierced through the fog. The punt glided on more rapidly through the dyke, it neared the building, and Toussaint could make out that it was a farm from the shape of the doors and the lighted windows. Alas! it was La Seulière, and a dance was going in. The noise of laughter, songs, the muffled notes of an accordeon plainly audible within, died away in the wind without.

The farmer went on past the brown hillock, but even while he punted with all speed he watched to see if the great dark shade cast by Mathurin had not stirred; then seeing it motionless, thought to himself: "My son is dead!"

Some five hundred yards away on the other side of the canal, he knew now that there was another house, and he made all haste to reach it. For this time it was Terre-Aymont, the farm of Massonneau le Glorieux, his friend. And soon the farmer, throwing his boat-chain round a willow, had sprung to land, and going to the farmhouse door, was crying: "Glorieux! Glorieux! Help!"

Soon lights were moving along the muddy slopes between the farm and the willow to which the boat had been attached, and men and women were hurrying to and fro with tears, laments, and low-voiced prayers. The whole sleeping household had been quickly roused, and were assembled on the bank. Massonneau would have had Mathurin carried into the house-place of La Terre-Aymont and have sent to fetch the doctor of Chalons, but Toussaint Lumineau, having once more examined and felt over his son's body, said:

"No, Glorieux. His sufferings are at an end. I will take him back to La Fromentière."

Then the farmer of La Terre-Aymont turned to two young lads standing in the background, who with arms round each other's necks, their brown heads touching, seemed to be looking on death for the first time.

"My lads," he said, "go and fetch our large punt."

Disappearing in the fog, they ran to fetch the boat which was kept in a meadow close by La Seulière, and as they passed they told the merrymakers what had happened.

It was nearly ten at night when the body of Mathurin Lumineau was reverently placed by friendly hands in the great punt used for carrying forage, and which had so often been seen returning from the meadows laden with hay, one of the Terre-Aymont children perched on the top, singing.

The body was laid in the middle of the boat, covered with a white sheet by the hands of Mère Massonneau; on it she placed a copper crucifix.

Toussaint Lumineau took his place in the stern at his son's head. Standing in the bow with their punt poles were the two sons of Glorieux de la Terre-Aymont, two lanterns at their feet to light them on their way.

The boat left the bank amid the laments of those present, and proceeded slowly down the Grand Canal, the wind driving the mists of the Marais towards it as it advanced.

When at a short distance from La Seulière, a voice from land exclaimed:

"There it is! I hear the punt poles; I see the lights!"

The doors of both rooms were thrown open; the lamplight shone out, illuminating the hillock on which the house stood; the stunted trees on the edge of the dyke looked silvery out of the darkness. Now all those present at the dance, young men and maidens, came forth in long procession down to the bank to greet the mournful convoy. In their gala dresses they knelt on the muddy bank, their coifs and aprons blown about in the wind. Silently they watched the approach of the white shroud covering the remains of the cripple, their senior by so few years, and the poor old father sitting bent double in the stern, his head almost touching his knees, motionless as the dead son he was guarding.

Behind the others knelt a tall girl supported by two of her companions kneeling on either side of her, the blue kerchief and gold chain she wore conspicuous in the light that streamed from the house. All were silent. All followed with their eyes the boat as it slowly glided away again into the darkness. The sound of the punt poles, as they dipped the water, gradually died away; the ripples left on the smooth surface of the water subsided. The white shroud had passed away into the ever-deepening fog. There remained only a glimmer of light, the faint reflection of the lanterns passing across the meadows; soon nothing could be distinguished from out the enveloping darkness into which the punt had disappeared.

"Poor eldest Lumineau! the handsomest of us all!"

In the solitude of the Marais, whither the pity of his fellow creatures could not accompany him, the old father wept as he looked on the burden at his feet; he wept, too, when lifting up his head his eyes lighted on the stalwart lads plying the punt poles, who, faithful to their home and soil, were keeping on the straight course.