Our young readers must not be surprised that Walter thought the worms made silk ready for use. How should he know anything about it? A good many boys who read these books may not know any more; those who do, have obtained their knowledge by reading, and perhaps never saw a silk-worm in all their lives, although they are raised in Connecticut, and a few in Massachusetts; but Walter had not access to books that treated of such matters. Walter now asked the peasant to what the fragrance of the air was owing; to which he replied that, on the hills from which the wind then blew, a great many fragrant plants were growing wild, and also in the fields of his neighbors; they were cultivated for the purpose of the perfumer; but there was not so much of that business here as at Nismes, Nice, and Cannes; but still a good many plants were cultivated and sent to those and other places to be sold.
"Does anybody own land here, except the nobility? or are the laboring people all tenants?"
"We have been delivered from all that trash by the revolution; cut off their heads, or they have fled; we're all nobles now. To answer your question, citizens, it used to be so in a good measure here. Although the people owned land, more or less, all over France, yet the most of it was in the hands of the grand seigniors; and that which the common people held was so burdened with taxes to be paid the aristocracy, clergy, and government, that it was better to be without it; but since the revolution, in consequence of the confiscation of the estates of the seigniors and priests who were guillotined or emigrated, all that land was thrown into the market by the National Assembly, divided into lots, from one to ten acres, sold to the citizens, and five years allowed to pay for it in."
"Do you own this land?" asked Walter.
"What, all this valley?"
"Yes."
"Citizens, are you mad? No peasant owns so much as that."
"Why not? A great many persons in my country own more than this whole valley."
"A great part of this land," said Gabriel, "belonged to a grand seignior, some small portions being owned by citizens; but he was guillotined, his property confiscated, the land parcelled out and sold, so that it has passed into the hands of the people. Before the revolution," said he, "the land, at the death of the parent, went to the oldest son; but that law is abolished, and it is now equally divided; for which reason, in respect to some small properties, the children possess only a few rods; sometimes an olive tree, or mulberry, standing in ten rods of land; and this is the homestead of a whole family—their farm."
The peasants now began to return to the village, while the boys prepared to camp out. Walter, at a hasty glance along the side of the mountain, perceiving many trees, took it for granted, without further examination, that they were forest trees, and would furnish material for a fire; but as they approached, to his great chagrin, he noticed that they were mulberry, olive, and figs, and that there was not even a bush or a bramble that could be taken to feed a fire. This at once reversed the whole train of his ideas, and threw him into a state of mind entirely foreign to his usual cheerful, buoyant frame, and a mood not to be pleased with anything, which communicated itself, though with less intensity, to Ned, who, never having experienced those peculiar emotions begotten of the free wild life in the woods, was not peculiarly touched by the disappointment.
"I think it is a great way for people who live by their labor to be so far from their work. I should think it would take half of their time to go and come."
"They don't know how to put things ahead with a rush, as we do," said Walter.
"How can a man think much of his time when it's worth only twenty cents a day?"
"It ain't worth that, for a sou ain't quite a cent. They will work all day in a half bushel, and don't know how to take advantage of work. I've heard the captain say that they were once little better than slaves to the aristocracy, and have been so long used to working at a slave jog that they keep it up, and always want to huddle together like a nest of rats."
While talking they had gained the declivity of the hill, and sat down.
"Only look at that troop, Wal."
It was, indeed, a curious spectacle, that peasant train,—some driving asses, others mules, and still others oxen attached to their queer-looking carts heaped with olives, and all making for the gap between the hills, through which the boys had seen the church spire.
Spreading their blankets beneath a shelving rock, they rolled themselves in them, and began to converse.
"How sweet this air smells!" said Ned, snuffing the odor of the wild thyme, lavender, marjoram, absinthe, and other fragrant plants among which they lay.
"I don't think much of it," said Walter, who was not in a humor to be pleased with anything. "I call it a God-forsaken country, all dried up, no water to drink without travelling ten miles, and then sucking it out of the rocks. Here we've passed two or three beds of brooks all dried up; plenty of water when you don't want it, none when you do; and not a stick of wood to build a camp fire. This smell is not to be mentioned in the same day with the fragrance of good pine woods, and I know it isn't half so wholesome. Give me a good apple orchard in bloom, and you may have all these miserable herbs."
"I'm sure," said Ned, "I'd rather have a tumbler of cider than all their sour wine; and what is an olive to an apple?"
"Yes, Ned, to the cat-heads that grow down behind our pig-sty. They may talk about the juice of the grape; give me the good maple sirup, and sap, and a country where a man can earn enough to afford to eat meat."
"I know it, Walter; and where the women don't have to shovel dirt, hoe, reap, and work just like an Indian squaw. I twigged that. And then brag about their politeness!"
"I never heard there was any politeness among the Griffins; but I wonder what my father would say to see mother shovelling sand, or lugging manure on her back up the side of a mountain. Guess he'd roar some; guess she'd have to scud into the house quicker."
"Did you ever see such pigs?" said Ned, who was now thoroughly imbued with the fault-finding humor of his companion. "Guess they have to boil their pork; for I don't believe there's grease enough in it to fry itself."
"Did you ever see such oxen? They ain't bigger than rats—nasty, scraggly-looking things, cow-horned and cat-hammed, no necks or quarters, every hair sticking up straight. Don't believe they could twitch a spruce bush. I'll bet our old Star and Golding (just let father speak to 'em) would drag six such, tail foremost. They're welcome to their silks; I'd rather have mother's fulled cloth than all their spider's web. They're welcome to their warm weather, vines, figs, cockroaches, garlic, and all their herbs; give me three feet of snow, a good log camp, a roaring fire, and game in plenty, and they are welcome to the almond trees and pot herbs. Goodness! to call three olive trees, on a bit of ground that I could straddle, a farm. One good fat bear would make more and better grease than an acre of 'em."
"What do you suppose they would say, Walter, to see Lion Ben's acres? and what to the Lion himself?"
"Jerusalem!" said Walter, borrowing one of his brother Joe's by-words; "only let him get into one of his rages, and he would slay the whole country with the jaw-bone of an ass."
"Well," said Ned, who felt that a good part of Walter's spleen arose from the lack of the camp fire he had anticipated. "They all seemed very kind, you know; and Gabriel asked and urged us to go to his house."
"Yes; to be eaten up with fleas and ten thousand bugs and stinging concerns they have here."
Thus growling and grumbling, Walter fell asleep. The last words distinguishable were, "God-forsaken country; no wood for a camp fire."
In the morning, as the result of a consultation held while eating, they determined first to ascend the hill, and afterwards to explore the country. Here they found a long moss on the rocks, which they concluded would be just the thing with which to fill their beds, and resolved to take some of it with them when they returned.
"O, Wal, we'll dry some of these fragrant plants, and mix with the moss."
"Yes; that will be nice."
Following a cart track through a gap in the hills, they came upon a highway in most excellent order, and bordered with trees, and saw, a little upon their left, the village of the peasants, consisting of houses built of mud and stone huddled together, many without glass, and no entrance for light except the door, the roofs covered with tiles, and not a tree near them.
Their attention was attracted by the towers of a large castle, evidently in ruins, upon the summit of an eminence that commanded the village. With curiosity greatly excited, they were about to climb the hill to view it more closely, when Ned said, "Let us go ahead, see the country, come back here to-night, and camp in the ruins."
Skirting the base of the hill upon which the castle stood, they came again upon the stream that watered the vale,—now increased in volume by affluents from the mountains,—falling over a cliff upon which were the remnants of a dam, and just below it a mass of half-burned timber and large stones, that Walter, more familiar than Ned with such matters, declared to be the ruins of some kind of a mill. These large circular stones lay embedded in a mass of coals and brands, the shafts burned out of them, white from the action of fire, and every one split in two. It seemed probable this had been accomplished by flinging water upon them while red hot.
There was no water, at this time, within several rods of the stones; but, from the appearance of the banks, it was evident that the stream, since the destruction of the dam, had changed its channel, and had once flowed near to the stones, to which it had been brought in a flume, the remains being still visible. After inspecting these stones with the greatest curiosity, Walter said,—
"I don't see what they could grind with such stones as these; they certainly couldn't grind grain; they couldn't grind anything; they are not 'picked,' like a millstone, but as smooth as my hand; they could only squat. If they raised apples here, I should think they were made to squat them."
Our young readers will bear in mind that mill-stones are "picked," or cut in sweeping furrows, which leave sharp edges to catch and grind the grain.
Still farther from the bank of the stream, on some high and level ground, were two more pairs of stones. These, it was evident, had not been enclosed in any building, as the only cinders lying around were those resulting from the burning of the shafts that had once been used to operate them. The lower stones were raised about two feet from the ground, and dishing nearly ten feet in diameter, with holes drilled through them, around a central one. Upon these lay two smaller stones, with square holes in their centres, in one of which was a half-burned shaft. These were all, save one upper stone, split in halves.
"How did they split these?" asked Ned. "They have not been heated."
"With powder," said Walter, pointing to holes drilled in the stones.
"Then why didn't they split this one?"
"They tried to, but the charge blew out; there are the holes."
"Perhaps their powder gave out."
"I guess I know how this went."
"How?"
"This stone ran on its edge round the other; there was an upright shaft in the middle; and that hole in the centre was made to receive a pintle, to hold the foot of it, and it was turned by a horse, or by hand, just like a cider mill."
Walter began to hunt in the long grass around the stone, and soon exclaimed,—
"Here it is! here is the track worn into the ground, where somebody or something travelled."
"It was a horse or mule," said Ned, holding up a rusty shoe.
"That is too big for the foot of an ass."
"What is the stone trough underneath for, Wal?"
"To catch whatever ran from the mill. It must have been liquid, for nothing else could go through these holes."
"It is very strange," said Ned, "that these people should set to work and plant trees along the highways, and not put so much as one tree, rosebush, or even a lilac, around their own houses."
Although not aware of it, they were now among a people to whom those peculiar feelings which in the mind of the Anglo-Saxon are connected with home and the domestic hearth, are unknown. Had they been aware that these splendid roads, ornamented with magnificent trees, and so skilfully laid out as to present the most picturesque and imposing scenery to the eye of the traveller, were all constructed and kept in order by means of the dreaded "corvée,"—compulsory labor, which signified that the poor peasant might be taken from his work to labor on the public roads, and, should he chance to offend a capricious master, even in time of harvest, to leave the bread of his household to waste in the field,—they would have ceased to wonder that the wretched peasant, burdened with a thousand exactions and goaded to despair, should be rather disposed to brood over his wrongs, and nurse the hope of vengeance, than to embellish a dwelling which, in the great majority of instances, was not his own.
Determining to follow the course of the stream, rather than the highway, they had proceeded but a short distance, when they reached a spot, where, divided by a mass of rock, it encircled a level island of about three acres, entirely covered with a growth of rods as smooth and pointed as a bulrush. They were planted in regular rows, with great care, were eight or ten feet in height, perfectly straight, and entirely destitute of leaves or limbs, except that in some instances there was a fork at the top.
"What can these be?" asked Ned.
"I don't know; let's see if we can't find a place where we can wade across."
Following the stream till abreast the middle of the island, they espied a row of stepping-stones, upon which they crossed, and, finding a peasant at work, he informed them that they were "osiers," anglice sallows, and were used to make hampers for wine, cover bottles and demijohns, and tie vines to the stakes, were made into chairs and playthings for children, and that a great many, after being divested of their bark, were exported to New York.
"Why, Walter," said Ned, "these are the very things Mr. Bell made baskets of, that he and Charlie called sallies. I heard him ask the captain to get him some rods, and tell him that if he put them in earth or wet moss in the vessel's hold, they would grow by being stuck down, when the vessel got home."
"Then we will get a lot for him."
They asked the peasant, who told them the rods must be cut into pieces, seven or eight inches long, that in two years they would yield something, and in three a good crop of rods.
"Charlie has a splendid place to plant them on," said Ned, "right on a little flat by the mouth of the brook."
"Yes," said Walter, "but here are willows ten feet high. Mr. Bell carried no willows like these."
The peasant told him the reason that these grew so remarkably, was, that in the spring and fall the stream overflowed its banks, leaving a rich slime, which fertilized the soil, and the island, being surrounded by water, was moist throughout the year, and that the largest he was then cutting were used to hoop wine casks.
On the other side of the little isle was a rude bridge, upon which they crossed to the opposite shore. Following the course of the stream over heaps of gravel mixed with stones, brought down by streams from the mountains in the spring floods, they proceeded for miles through the most monotonous, dreary scenery imaginable; not a tree, bush, or scarcely a blade of grass to relieve the eye, Walter often repeating his favorite expression, "a God-forsaken country."
At length, as the sun attained its meridian, the face of the country became more diversified, breaking into gentle swells, and even hills of moderate elevation. Here they met with a little brook, which wound among the hills, and fell into the stream with a grateful murmur. Its banks were margined with a broad belt of green grass, and fringed with bushes and small trees, many of them evergreens.
"This is excellent water," said Ned, as he stooped and drank. "Suppose we eat here."
"I wouldn't; let us follow the stream into the valley I see yonder, eat, and rest there, and then go back."
They were led to a glen, the banks of which, broken into irregular, gentle slopes, were clothed with groves of large trees entirely clear of underbrush. Flinging themselves at the roots of a massive tree standing by itself at the extremity of a slight elevation, around which the brook wound, and where the sun shone warm and pleasantly, they began leisurely to eat, till, the demands of appetite appeased, they stretched themselves upon the grass.
"Wonder what kind of trees these are," said Ned; "guess they are walnuts."
"They look more like oaks," said Walter.
"Well, so they are," said Ned, who, lying on his back, was looking up through the branches, "for I see an acorn."
"Here is another I've found on the ground. What a funny acorn! The cup comes half way over it."
Near by them was a rude building open at the sides, and with thatched roof.
"I'm going to see what is in that building, Wal." And going to it, he cried out, "Come here; it is half full of great sheets of cork."
"So it is, Ned; and these are cork trees, you may depend." Trying the bark with their knives, they found it to be the fact.
"O, my! I'm so glad we came! Only think how much we have learned to-day; and we've got the old castle to see when we go back."
"I never thought before," said Walter, "that a cork tree was an oak, and bore acorns."
Returning, they re-crossed the island.
"How old," asked Walter of the peasant, "must a cork tree be, before they can take off the cork?"
"Twenty years; after that, they take it every ten years, but the cork is not of the best quality till the third stripping."
"Don't it injure the tree?"
"No more than it does you to peel the dead skin from your hands; only the live bark beneath must not be injured."
"What time of year do they peel it?"
"July and August."
"How do they get it off?"
"They first pound the tree to loosen the dead bark from the live, then make two up and down cuts the whole length of the body of the tree, then cross-cuts about three feet apart, and remove the bark with a wedge."
"That," said Walter, "is the way we peel hemlock bark in America; only we cut the trees down, and don't beat the bark."
"What else do they do to it?" asked Ned.
"They scorch it to close the grain, and warp it straight, then put on rocks to keep it so till it gets set (like that you saw in the hovel), when it is ready to sell."
As they went on, Walter said, "I shouldn't think a man in this country would ever have courage enough to commence farming."
"Why not?"
"Because you must wait twelve years for an olive tree, twenty for a cork, and forty before the bark is first rate. Give me New England, where, with nothing under heavens but his rifle and narrow axe, a man can raise his bread on a burn the first year, knock up a log hut, and have his meat for the killing."
"And wood enough for a camp fire," said Ned, laughing.
As the boys returned by the same road, which presented no new objects to excite their curiosity, much less time was consumed in measuring the same distance; and they ascended the eminence upon which the castle was situated, and stood before its principal entrance long before night.
It was one of the few old feudal strongholds still remaining in France that had not been suffered to go to decay by its possessors. It had been the property of a grand seignior (derived from his ancestors), who, having built a modern chateau near it, with extensive stables and other out-buildings, kept the old castle in complete repair, till sacked by a mob during the reign of terror.
It had evidently been a place of great strength, but occupying so much space that a large garrison would be required to man its exterior fortifications. It was beautifully situated upon a noble swell of land, falling away in natural terraces to the stream upon whose banks were clustered the dwellings of the peasants. The hand of violence had swept away all but the relics of its former magnificence and beauty. The axe had levelled the vast groves and long avenues of oak, chestnut, beech, and massive pines,—which had for ages delighted the eye and gratified the taste, and beneath whose hoary limbs generations had lived and died,—except one clump of large pines, at some distance in the rear of the fortress.
Everything without the walls that would burn had been consumed by fire, while the tall chimney of the chateau, and other buildings standing amid heaps of rubbish, the wild weeds springing from the joints of the hearth-stones, imparted a peculiarly desolate appearance to the scene.
Gunpowder had been freely used to obtain an entrance into the fortress, and afterwards to destroy it; but such was the enormous thickness of the walls that but comparatively little impression had been produced upon them, although single apartments had been blown up and whole floors had fallen, the pillars which supported them having been mined. Entire floors, supported at one end by the beams, which still remained in the walls, and a few pillars, while the remaining portion lay upon heaps of rubbish, bricks, mortar, fragments of clothes, domestic utensils, curved frames, broken china and glass ware of the rarest patterns and the richest colors, presented an inclined plane, up which the boys clambered to the apartments above, passing through chambers once the abode of luxury, but from whose walls the rich tapestry hung in tatters, exposed to sun and wind, that found free entrance through shattered casements and demolished doors. The boys gazed with wonder upon the relics of a magnificence of which they had before no conception.
The most singular spectacle awaited them in the great hall of the castle, which they now entered. Nothing remained undisfigured here except the lofty arches of the roof, with its beautiful fret-work, the carving on the capitals and some portions of the windows, by reason of their height difficult to reach.
The walls had been adorned with ancestral portraits of the former inhabitants of the castle and the old French nobility, with banners and suits of armor, statues in marble and bronze, paintings and copies of paintings by the greatest masters; but they were now torn from their places, pierced with bullets, and battered with rocks and clubs; for, in consequence of one of those caprices which sometimes influence the conduct of a mob even in the midst of the wildest excitement, they had abstained from using fire within the walls, while they had burned everything combustible outside, although many of the timbers and much of the panel-work bore traces of the peasants' axes, undoubtedly cut for fire-wood.
In the midst of this spacious hall was a vast collection of articles which appeared to have been brought from all parts of the castle and flung here in indiscriminate confusion; marble statues, paintings, ancient armor, antlers of stags, hunting implements, and flags from old battle-fields.
Walter sat down upon a marble statue of a chieftain in armor, from which the left arm and shield had been broken, and the face flattened.
Ned placed himself on a pile of gilded frames of large paintings he had thrown together, and thus seated they surveyed at leisure the fretted roof, and whatever of interest and beauty had escaped the fury of the assailants.
The nearest approach to ornamental carving Walter had ever seen before was the plain panel-work with which Uncle Isaac ceiled up the rooms he finished, the cornice round the tops of the rooms, beneath the mantel-piece, and on the front stairs; but these consisted of only four little flutings with a gouge, a simple bead with a moulding-plane, or a succession of little squares made with a saw and finished up with a jack-knife. He had also seen faces of cats on the cat-heads of vessels, sheaves of wheat and vine-leaves carved on their sterns. Ned had also seen these, and in addition some more ambitious efforts, in the old meeting-house at Salem, on the sounding-board, the base, and surroundings of the pulpit. But here they gazed upon oaken panels, displaying the most beautiful designs in the highest style of ancient or modern art; upon tapestry most beautifully wrought, fitted to adorn regal halls, bleaching in the wind, rent and disfigured; picked from the rubbish fragments of porcelain vases, bowls, and drinking-cups, of elaborate design and rare finish.
"I mean to carry these home," said Ned, culling from the heap a portion of a broken vase, and a large pane from one of the windows, upon which was represented the Saviour in the act of healing the withered hand.
"And I this," said Walter, holding up a panel upon which were carved Laocoon and his sons, writhing in the folds of the snakes.
"Look at that window," said Ned; "only six panes of glass left, and two thirds of the sash gone."
"This sight," said Walter, "reminds me of stories I have heard Monsieur Vimont, my French teacher at Salem, tell. He said the mob attacked the chateaux and castles of the nobles, murdered their possessors, or dragged them to prison, except such as were able to save themselves by flight."
Walter, who sympathized with the refugees, and listened to his recital of the terrible scenes through which they had passed, was much prejudiced in favor of the nobility and against their assailants.
As they followed along the walls, noticing the shattered windows and the positions from which the paintings and statuary had been torn, they came to a place from which a very large painting of a knight templar in full armor had been thrown, and lay defaced upon the floor. Lying upon this, grinding up the gilded frame, and breaking the canvas, was one of the large stones of the wall. This stone had once been hung upon massive hinges, now broken.
Through the opening it had once closed a flight of stairs was visible, constructed in the thickness of the wall by an arrangement of the stones at the time of building, and which led to the foundation of the castle.
Ned was burning with impatience to enter the opening and see whither the stairs led; but Walter, naturally interested in everything of a mechanical nature, would not proceed till he had ascertained the method by which an entrance was effected. He found the whole painting had been raised by hidden weights, and, by the pressure of a spring adroitly concealed in the frame, was elevated sufficiently to permit of passing under it, when by the pressure of another spring the stone was set free and sprung outwards, affording an entrance, after which, by concealed mechanism, the whole was restored as before. When he had mastered the principle of the machinery, they descended the stairs, from the bottom of which a winding passage led to a corridor from which several doors opened into vaulted chambers dimly lighted by slits in the walls. Some of them appeared to have been used as dungeons, ring-bolts, with chains attached, being secured to the walls.
As they proceeded they came to another door admitting to a winding passage-way, entirely dark; but, their curiosity being excited, they continued to grope their way, carefully placing one foot in advance, and dragging the other after, lest they might stumble into some pit.
At length Ned, who led the way, suddenly stopped and gave back.
"What is the matter, Ned? What are you stopping for?"
"Walter," he exclaimed in a half whisper, "there's something here, under my feet. I've put my hand on it, and I believe it's some dead man; there's something feels like clothes and buttons."
"Drag it out to where it's lighter; or let me, if you don't like to."
"Do you think I'm afraid?"
Ned began to step backward, dragging the object after him, while Walter threw open the doors leading to the vaults. By the glimmering of light thus obtained, they beheld the skeleton of a human body, held together by the articulations of the joints, the clothes, dried gristle, and sinews, being partially mummified.
Neither of the boys had ever seen the human skeleton before, or even so much as a bone, and this was to them a fearful sight—the teeth white and prominent, the eyeless sockets, and the remaining portion of the skull black with decayed flesh that still adhered to it (for the air was cool and dry, ventilation being in some way provided). The right hand had dropped off, the stump of the wrist projecting from the sleeve, while the blackened bones and shrivelled sinews of the left remained in place.
"It was a boy," said Ned; "you can see by the clothes."
"Poor fellow, he was about your size."
"His hair," said Ned, pointing to some brown locks that had lodged in the breast of the coat, "was just the color of yours. Think he was murdered?"
"I expect so, for it don't seem likely that a place as strong as this was given up without a struggle, unless it was occupied only by a family, or was surprised."
"Then, perhaps, there's more in there."
"Let us try to make some kind of a torch. I want to see all there is, and to find where this secret passage leads to that so much pains was taken to make and conceal."
Returning, the boys hunted over the great heap of rubbish in the hall, and searched every nook and corner in order to find a lamp or wax candle (which they knew were much used in that country), but in vain.
"O, if we were only at home," said Walter, "instead of being in this wretched country, how quick I could get a piece of pitch wood, or strip the bark from a birch tree, and make a first-rate torch; but there are no birches here, and no old pines with any pitch wood in 'em."
"But we shouldn't have any castles there to see," said Ned.
At last they found an iron pot, and resolved to build a fire in that, and carry it as a torch.
While they were breaking up pieces of dry wood for that purpose, Ned exclaimed, "Who knows but olive wood will burn well. I should think it would be full of oil."
"Perhaps it will."
They broke some branches from the trees, and put them in the pot with pine slivers from old panels. Walter took a horn full of tinder from his pack, and, holding it between his knees, with an old file and flint-stone struck the sparks into the horn till he ignited the tinder sufficiently to light a brimstone match, and kindled his fire in the pot, when they found that the olive wood burned freely, lasted longer, and afforded a better light, than the pine or oak; therefore they procured more of it.
"Now for something to carry it with," said Ned; "and here it is," pulling a long iron rod from the pile of miscellaneous articles that strewed the floor.
"And here is something to hold a supply of wood," said Walter, picking up a steel helmet and filling it with the chips.
With the kettle of blazing brands between them, they proceeded to explore the passage.
The first object that arrested their attention (and almost touching a door, through the grates of which a fresh current of air, fragrant with the scent of the earth and fields, was blowing) was the skeleton of an aged man. The skull had been cleft by some sharp weapon; long locks of gray hair strewed the floor, and across the breast of the skeleton lay that of a dog, the fore paws outstretched, and the nose thrust among the clothes that covered the breast.
"O, Walter," cried Ned, the tears springing to his eyes, "what a sight!"
"The saddest sight I ever saw. That dog starved to death because he would not leave his master."
"I shall always love a dog after this."
"They are noble creatures. Did you ever see what was on Tige Rhines's collar?"
"About his taking the little girl from the mill pond?"
"Yes; and that is not all he did; he saved the lives of John, Charlie Bell, and Fred Williams, by waking them up when they were asleep in a cave into which the tide was flowing."
"This must be that boy's father," said Ned. "Or his grandfather," replied Walter. "He was murdered, at any rate," pointing to the cloven skull.
"See here, Wal," holding a brand close to the floor; "see the blood all dried on the stones."
"Poor old man, cut down with his hand almost on the door! That door leads out, for I can smell the fresh air, and feel it warm on my cheek. Let's see if we can open it, Wal."
The upper part of the door was grated. They shook it, and exerted themselves to the utmost to wrench it open, but without success.
"Hold up a brand, Ned; perhaps I can find a fastening."
Walter searched carefully, but in vain, for any lock, bolt, or other fastening.
"If I only had a sledge, or hammer, and cold chisel, I'd cut these grates off, short notice."
"I saw a crowbar outside, among some garden tools," said Ned.
"Get it; that's the thing."
Walter plied the bar upon the grates till the sparks flew from the iron, and the sweat dropped from his forehead; but it resisted his efforts.
"Let me spell you, Wal."
"Try the wood below, Ned."
"It is oak, and studded with iron; but I'll try it."
After a few blows, the door flew open of its own accord. Ned, by a random stroke, had moved the spring.
"That's good luck, Ned. Go ahead."
They soon encountered another similar door.
"Now, Ned, I'm just going back to look at that spring."
By the knowledge thus obtained, Walter was enabled to detect a similar spring in this door, though in a different place.
They now began to perceive the light, and came to a horizontal grate, which was unfastened, and reached by only two steps. Walter flung it back, and they crawled out on their hands and knees beneath an overhanging cliff (through which the passage was cut), and into a tangle of wild vines that clung to the cliffs, weeds, brambles, and shrubs, effectually concealing the passage from casual observation.
"Whoever built this," said Ned, "knew how to make secret passages. One might pass this place all his lifetime, and never suspect it."
"It didn't do them much good," said Walter. "I'd rather live in a country where they are not needed. Ned, don't you think we ought to put this father and son in the ground?"
"I was thinking of that."
"What can we find to dig a grave with?"
"When I went after the crowbar, I found it among a lot of garden tools; there were shovels, rakes, and hoes, but the handles were all burnt away."
"No matter; we'll bury them in the old garden, where the ground is mellow; we can make a hole with the bar, and throw out the loose earth with the shovel-blades, if they have no handles."
A shallow grave was soon dug in the soft mould.
"We buried a man from the Madras," said Ned; "he was sewed up in canvas."
"We lost the second mate when I was in the Casco," said Walter; "he was buried ashore, and we put the American flag on the coffin for a pall. Suppose we should wrap their bones in these flags taken from the walls; they are their country's flags."
"I suppose they would like it if they could know it, and would rather lie here, where the nightingales will sing in the summer, than in that dark alley."
They carefully gathered the bones, wrapped them in the tattered banners, and committed them to the earth.
"What shall we do with the dog, Walter?"
"Do with him? Bury him with them."
"In the same grave?"
"To be sure; at their feet. He was the best and only friend they had, and died on his master's breast; he is worthy to sleep in marble."
"Well, I feel just so; but I didn't know."
The sun was just sinking behind the horizon, and his last lingering rays fell, as it were, in benediction upon the boys, as, feeling the necessity of instant preparation for the night, they hastened from the spot. Admonished by the approaching twilight, they went rapidly from room to room, in order to select one suited to their purpose.
"Let us go out of this hall," said Ned, "into God's air, and get clear of rubbish, musty walls, and dead men's bones."
"Yes, into that clump of pines. I had rather lug the wood, and be out of doors."
It was not long before they heaped together a great pile of oaken beams, boards, picture-frames, broken furniture, and panels, and, seated by the ruddy blaze, were enjoying a hearty meal, till, full even to repletion, they seated themselves with their backs against a tree to enjoy the grateful warmth of the fire.
The rising moon began to silver the lofty towers of the ancient castle, and quivered on the stream, visible at different points between the cottages of the peasants, while the rush of water, pouring through the rents of the broken dam, rose on the air. Not a breath of wind stirred the foliage. The only sounds, contesting with the murmur of waters the empire of the night, were the crackling of the fire and the occasional bleat of a sheep on the mountain. It is singular to what an extent peculiar states of feeling impart a tinge, sombre or otherwise, to impressions produced by surrounding objects and events.
As Walter sat thus, with the crackling of the fire in his ear, and the ruddy blaze playing on his cheek, he said,—
"I think this is a nice country, after all; rather dry, to be sure; a good deal of waste land, covered with gravel and stones brought down from the mountains. We have seen some beautiful valleys of most excellent land. The people are kind and hospitable, and, if they were not so shiftless, might, with their climate and soil, raise two crops a year. What are you thinking about, Ned?"
"About what my mother would say, if she knew I was making a fire of mahogany chairs, looking-glass frames, harpsichords, and carved work. I wonder if any boy ever did that before."
"Perhaps some soldiers have."
After this they sat some time, hand clasped in hand, and each occupied with his own thoughts.
"I should like to know what you are thinking about, Wal."
"You see that little cove the river has eaten out of the bank?"
"You mean where the moonlight is shining on that large rock, and beside which a tree is growing?"
"That is the spot. Well, the Saturday afternoon before I was going to sea for the first time, in the Madras, I went to the catechising, because I knew that I should find all the boys and girls there, and I wanted to bid them good by. After that I kept on to Charlie Bell's. It was a moonlight evening, just like this; and after supper we went to the head of Pleasant Cove, sat down, and leaned our backs against an oak, just as you and I are leaning against this pine. We could hear the brook that runs through his field, behind us, just as we can hear this stream below, and the ripple of the tide as it crept along the beach. I felt tender that night, for I loved Charlie Bull dearly. You know, Ned, how a boy feels, if he does want to go, when the time comes."
"That I do. When he's thinking about going, longing to be off, and his folks trying to put him off the notion, then he's all stirred up, and only thinks about getting away; but, when they've given their consent, he has signed the articles, packed his chest, got his protection at the Custom house, is sure of going, and all is settled, then, if he has a good home, and any soul in him, it will give him the heartache to say good by. There never was a boy more crazy to go to sea than I was—counting the days till the vessel was ready. She lay in the stream, ready to sail in the morning. After supper the second mate took me and three men whom he could trust, and went ashore. We were ordered to be down to the boat at nine o'clock. It was seven when I reached home. Didn't those two hours go quick as I sat on the sofa in the parlor, between father and mother, and my sisters before me. When the bell rang for nine, and I got up to start for the beach, I didn't feel altogether so keen for going as I did the week before."
"That was what I meant. I felt just so that night, while Charlie and I sat together at the head of Pleasant Cove, beneath the oak, and he talked to me."
"What did he say?"
"A great many things. He wanted me to love God and pray to him; he said there would be nights at sea when the moon would be shining on the ocean, just as it was then upon the waters of that cove; that he should look at it and think of me; hoped I would look at it and think of him and his words; and that as the same planets were above us, so the same God was around our daily paths; that perhaps when I thought that some dear friend I loved much was thinking of and praying for me, I should feel I ought to pray for myself."
"Have you never thought of it before to-night?"
"Thought of it? Yes, truly. On many a bright moonlight night, when you and I have been pacing the deck together, have I been occupied with those memories. You may think it strange, but they were in my mind when the shot from that English ship of the line was flying round us; but the moon shining on the water in that little bight, the sound of the stream, as we sit against this pine, and perhaps what we have just been doing, bring it home as never before."
"I love you, Wal," said Ned, laying his head in his friend's lap.
"Tell me some news; I knew that before," said Walter, patting his cheek.
"I have thought a good many times, lately, that you didn't seem as you used to. I never heard you say anything about doing good till this voyage; before, it was always getting rich and rushing things. I suppose it was because he talked with you, made you have this feeling."
"I don't know; I always had something of it; always admired it in Charlie Bell and Uncle Isaac, and longed to do something—I didn't know what—that was not altogether for myself."
"Have you ever done what Charlie asked you to that night?"
"What? Pray to God?"
"Yes."
"No; I only say my prayers when I turn in; don't you?"
"No, I never was brought up to. Will you say the Lord's prayer with me, Ned?"
"Shall we kneel?"
They knelt together between the roots of the pine, after which they replenished the fire, rolled themselves in their blankets, and were soon asleep.
In the morning, after eating and still further exploring the different apartments of the castle, they bent their steps towards the village of the peasants.
"Would you mention to Gabriel what we found in the secret passage?" asked Ned.
"I don't think I should. I expect he knows more about it than we do."
They found Gabriel and his neighbors all busily engaged. Some were bruising the olives in large mortars; others were treading them in tubs. There was oil everywhere, and the odor was anything but agreeable. Others, after placing the bruised pulp in sacks made of grass or rushes, carried them to the second story of a building, and, placing the sacks in the middle of the floor, piled great stones upon them, which pressed the oil through holes bored in the floor, and it was received in vessels beneath. In consequence of this slow method of procedure, a large portion of the olives was likely to decay before they could be pressed, while not more than half the oil was extracted. As the weight of the stones did not sufficiently compress the pulp, much of it was wasted on the floor, and still more was lost in being soaked up by the multitude of different vessels in which the olives were trampled. This did not, however, obtain in respect to those bruised in the mortars, which were stone.
Gabriel conducted the boys from one building to another, and showed them the olives, belonging to different peasants, which were spread over the floors, where women and little children were picking out the leaves, stones, and decayed ones.
"Why don't you have a mill to grind these olives?" asked Walter, "and screws to press the pulp? A great part of them will rot before you can bruise them in this way; besides, you don't get half the oil, to say nothing of what is wasted, or of the time lost."
Gabriel told them that before the revolution there were mills and presses—the property of the grand seignior—in which all the olives of the peasants were ground and pressed; but they were destroyed at that time.
"Then that was what those stones were used for that we saw on the bank of the river?"
"Yes."
"But what were those for that lie so far from the stream, on the high ground?"
"They were turned by a horse or mule, or by a number of men. We used those before the rains came to raise the stream so the mill could work. It is often very dry here in the autumn."
"Why don't you all turn to and build them up again, and use them in company?"
"We have no workmen; they have been conscripted, and are in the army, except a blacksmith, who was left to shoe the cattle and sharpen the plough-irons."
"Is there no stone-cutter? Why don't you make some mill-stones? I'm sure there are rocks enough. All turn to together, and at least set the smaller mills a-going, instead of working in this childish fashion."
The peasant scratched his head, and said, "The stone-cutter has been conscripted."
"Did you have a carpenter?"
"Yes."
"Was he drafted?"
"What is that?"
"Conscripted."
"Yes."
"What became of his tools?"
"He sold them in Marseilles to get bread for his children."
"In my country we are not tied to mechanics, because it is a new country, and they are scarce; but when a man wants a thing, he must set his brains at work and make it, or do without it. How did that concern on the high ground work?"
"The smaller stone, lying on top, went round the other, and was turned by a mule."
"Guess I know. It was rigged just like Uncle John Godsoe's mill that he ground bark with. A stone ran edgeways on a plank floor, and they shoved the pieces of bark under the stone. Who do the castle and the land round it belong to now?"
"It was confiscated and sold by the National Assembly. Felix Bertault owns the land where the mill stood, and two other peasants, Tonnelot and Bernard, the castle and the rest of the land."
"Then it was their wood we burned last night. I will pay them for it."
"That is nothing."
"Look here, old friend," said Walter, slapping Gabriel on the shoulder. "I am not a mechanic, but all my breed of people can handle tools. I can set that old affair going again, and better than ever it went before; the upper stone is whole, and though the lower one is gone, I can lay a wooden platform. There's timber enough, and the best of timber, in the old castle, and though not equal to a water-mill, it will be an everlasting sight better than your mules, and you can use them while I am doing it, if you like. I can fix a press, too, that will get about all the oil from the pulp."
"But, citizen, you have no tools."
"There are tools enough on board the vessel, and I ground them a few days ago. Go among your neighbors, and see what they say to it."
Gabriel was in raptures, and ran to tell the peasants. He soon returned, saying that every man, woman, and child were overjoyed, would do all they could to aid; that the carpenter's apprentice was left, and proffered his services.
"That is first rate," said Walter. "Now, Ned, you must go to the vessel and get the tools. Be sure you get a cross-cut saw, and ask the captain to lend us the tackle and fall we get the anchors on to the bows with."
Ned was soon mounted on a cart with Gosset (Gabriel's son), as Ned didn't know how to drive a mule that might take a notion to stop when half way there, and they set off.
Nimble hands and plenty of carts soon transported the old floor beams and oak plank (which Walter selected) to the spot. The gate posts made capital sills, upon which he laid his platform at the same height from the ground as the bottom stone of the old mill, in order that the trough for receiving the oil might go under it.
The apprentice, Raffard, proved to be a good workman, and Gosset also evinced a decided mechanical ability. Ned, too, could use tools quite well.
"That boy," said Walter to Gabriel, "only wants instruction and practice to make a first-rate mechanic."
There was no lack of iron bolts in the strong-hold, and the blacksmith made all the iron-work necessary. An upright shaft was prepared, to be placed in the centre of the platform, which, supported by cross-beams attached to posts set in the ground, revolved on iron pintles, which entered the platform and the cross-beam above.
Walter now took a narrow strip of board, seven feet long, bored a hole in one end, and slipped it over an iron pin placed in the hole in the centre of the platform, which was jointed together perfectly tight, and somewhat dishing, with holes to permit the drainage to escape into the trough; in the other end he drove a pointed nail, and with it swept a circle on the platform; around this scratch he fayed pieces of plank to confine the pulp. The diameter of the horse-track was eighteen feet.
It was wonderful, and excited the surprise of Walter and Ned, to witness the instantaneous change wrought in the appearance of the peasants. They were now all energy and activity, seemed completely to have laid aside their listless, lounging attitudes, and manifested a fertility of resource that the boys never supposed pertained to them.
"All these people want," said Walter to Ned, "is opportunity. They are smart, only give them a chance."
It was night by the time Walter had made a horizontal shaft, which was to run through a square hole in the centre of the edge-stone.
The boys took supper at the house of Gabriel, but notwithstanding his entreaties to pass the night with him, preferred their camp fire, although they gladly accepted the present of a pair of chickens, a dozen eggs from Felix Bertault, honey from Tonnelot, and potatoes from Leroux. Indeed, the entire community were ready to place their all at the disposal of these young republicans, in whose energy, ingenuity, and self-reliance, they flattered themselves they beheld mirrored the future of their own children under the operation of the principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality they had so recently inaugurated. As they separated, Walter told Gabriel that all except Raffard, Gosset, and Felix, had better keep at work among the olives after their old fashion, as, the stuff being all on the spot, they were as many as could work to advantage on the mill, and the others could be called for a hard lift. They now set out for the castle.
"Won't we have a tuck-out to-morrow morning?" said Ned. "I guess there's no lack of pots and kettles among the ruins of the chateau. That one we carried the brands in will be first rate; it's all burnt out clean."
While Ned was making a fire, Walter was walking round among the woods on the side of the hill, apparently searching for something. When he returned, he found a blazing fire at the old spot, but Ned nowhere visible.
"Ned, where are you?"
"Here, Wal; only come here."
Following the direction of the voice, he found Ned on his knees before the kitchen fireplace of the chateau, the chimney of which was still standing. He was surrounded by old pots and kettles, one of which he was busily engaged in scouring. He had also placed the wood on the old andirons, ready to light in the morning.
"O, Wal, just you see; here's a crane, pots, and kettles. I've found the well, and a tin pail to draw water in, but some bruised; a pitcher, with the nose broken off; six plates, three of 'em whole; four cups; only one of them is broken, and a little piece is broken out of the side of another; a couple of linen towels, but one of them is scorched a little. I can't find any soap; but I've washed them out in lye. I've found lots of knives, forks, and spoons; only they are black and rusty, and the handles burnt off. Ain't it great, Wal?"
"Yes, we are all provided for. Ain't you glad we didn't stop with Gabriel?"
"I guess I am."
"Let us get everything ready to-night, because in the morning we shall want to start early, and it will take some time to get breakfast, we're going to have such a famous one."
After helping Ned scour the kettles, Walter went to the castle, and soon returned with some cord, which he wound around the knives, affording a very good substitute for handles. He then ran them into the ground, and rubbed them with brick and ashes, till he made them clean and somewhat bright.
"Let's have a table, Wal. That will put the touch on."
"Agreed."
Ned drove four stakes into the ground with the crowbar, and Walter brought a large panel from the hall, which he placed on them.
"I'll put the finishing stroke to it," said Ned; and, running back, he came with a piece of splendid tapestry, which he flung over it; and now they set the table.
"There," said Ned, "who can beat that—a carved table, tapestry table-cloth, and Sevres china dishes? Now for getting into the blankets. Walter," said Ned, after they lay down, "what were you hunting so long in the woods after?"
"I was trying to find a tree that had an elbow at the root."
"What do you want of that?"
"I'll tell you. In Godsoe's bark-mill the stone had a round hole in it, and turned around the shaft; and it wabbled, though that didn't make much difference in grinding bark, which was dry, and worth but little; so that waste was of no consequence. In this stone the hole is square. The shaft must turn with the stone on a pintle going into the upright shaft; and if I don't have something to make it pull inwards and run true, it will be all the time grinding against the curb I have made to keep the pulp in, and slatting off and on."
"How can you help it?"
"I've found a tree with an elbow at the root; and I'm going to dig it up, frame one end into the upright shaft, bring the elbow down over the stone wheel, put a pintle in the end of the shaft, bore a hole through the elbow, and have it turn in that, letting the elbow run down far enough for the beast to pull level; and then the stone must run true."
Next morning, after a glorious breakfast, the boys repaired to the village. With the aid of a strong force, the tree was cut out by the roots, the stick hewed on the spot, and transported on their shoulders to the mill. By means of the vessel's purchase, planks laid, and plenty of help, the great stone was parbuckled on to the platform, and put in place.
"Now, fellow-citizens," said Ned, flinging up his hat, "hurrah for a Yankee bark-mill! Bring on your mules and olives."
A mule was attached to the sweep, amid the cheers of the whole village. The mill was found to work excellently well, and ground the olives so fast that it required the efforts of all who had been employed bruising them in mortars to carry the pulp to the chamber and press it.
"Now," said Walter, "for the press. How did you use to press them, Gabriel?"
"There were presses belonging to the grand seignior, with wooden screws; but they were burnt."
"I don't know but I could cut the thread of a wooden screw, if I had time enough. However, that is not here nor there. I know what I can do: I can make a press with a lever, that will give you as much again oil as you can get by piling on stones, and make it right beside this mill, where you can shovel the pulp on to it, and save all portage and waste."
The next day, Walter, Ned, and their fellow-workmen—who had become quite expert in the use of tools—laid another platform within two feet of the mill, and on a level with it, in order that the pulp could be easily transferred from one to the other, and the oil from each run into different ends of the same trough, and be dipped out between them. He then cut a deep channel around the edge of the platform, leading to the trough, to conduct the oil. After this he built up, with the aid of the peasants, two abutments of stone, several feet above the platform, leaving in the middle, near the top, an opening eighteen inches square.
"Are you a stone-mason?" asked Gabriel, in surprise.
"No: but I've been used to building stone wall. I've worked on rocks till my fingers were worn so thin I couldn't take up a cup of hot coffee."
Now with the cattle they hauled three halves of the mill-stones that had been split to the spot, and, with skids and the tackle, placed them on the abutments, one upon the other, composing an enormous aggregate of weight.
"I calculate it will take some strength to lift those," said Walter, viewing his work with great complacency. "Now, Gabriel, for the biggest beam in the old castle! If I was at home, I could get one big enough."
"There is plenty of timber and large forests in France, my brother, although, since the revolution, it has been cut away in this part. Before that, the forests were very strictly guarded; but the National Assembly have sold a great deal. There are great beams in the castle that grew in the olden time."
After much labor, they obtained from beneath one of the floors an oak beam fifty feet in length and a foot square. One end of this was placed in the opening left in the stone-work; at the other Walter built what he called a "gin," which was a tripod of timber, fourteen feet in height, with a bolt at the top to fasten the tackle, and a windlass between two of the legs, by which the timber could be raised or lowered. When all was prepared, Gabriel and his friends put the sacks filled with pulp on the press, piling them up four feet in height, then poured on hot water, placed planks on the sacks, then blocks crosswise, and one large one lengthwise. The mere weight of the planks and blocks caused the oil to run merrily from the pulp, and pour into the trough.
The delighted peasants danced round the press, and Gabriel told the boys it was better not to let the beam down, as the oil which ran from the mill while the olives were grinding, and from the press, under that light pressure, was of the best quality.
When it ceased to run, the oil in the trough was dipped out, and the beam let down, when it began to run freely again. They stood upon the beam, and put on rocks, till they pressed the cake dry.
"It will be difficult," said Gabriel, "to get this beam up; and your 'gin' will be of no use without the tackle."
"We have got another tackle. The captain will sell this, and take his pay in oil, I know. Contribute among yourselves, and buy it."
"That we will gladly do."
"I've got some old wine," said Felix, "that came out of the cellars of the aristocrats; he can have that."
It was about four o'clock of an afternoon when the boys arrived at this successful termination of their philanthropic labors.
"This," said Gabriel, "has been a great day, a good day, one long to be remembered. Let us do no more to-day, but enjoy ourselves with these good citizens; we can soon press the olives now."
As they sat conversing, after supper, Walter said to the peasants,—
"People in our country—when a person has done a foolish thing; injured himself in trying to hurt another—have a fashion of saying 'that he has bitten off his nose to spite his face.' It seems to me that you did a very silly thing when you broke the mill-stones and burnt up the oil and wine presses of the aristocrats. The stone never harmed you. Didn't you know that your crops were coming off, and that you would need all these things yourselves? Why did you destroy those beautiful avenues and groves? Now that the aristocrats are gone, you would be right glad to have those noble trees yourselves."
In the course of their talk, Walter related to Gabriel some of the conversations he had held with the refugees at Salem, and observed that a great proportion of the American people, though ready to sympathize with any nation desirous of self-government, were struck with horror at the cruelties of which they had heard, and the wholesale massacres perpetrated, especially by the execution of the king and queen.
The peasant leaped to his feet; his eyes shot fire, his lips were drawn apart, and his face assumed an expression so demoniacal as to leave upon the minds of the boys no doubt of the part he had taken in these terrible scenes.
"Execution of a king!" he hissed between his teeth: "what better is the blood of a king than that of any other creature God has made?"
Controlling himself, he said more calmly,—
"Young citizens, you have been deceived. You have heard but one story—that of the aristocrats, of the oppressors. Listen now to that of the oppressed—to me, Gabriel Quesnard, a peasant born and bred on the soil of France, as were all my ancestors. I am not about to relate to you the cruelties practised in the days of my forefathers, when a noble has been known to kill a peasant, that he might warm his feet by thrusting them into his body on a cold day."
"Horrible!" exclaimed both the boys in a breath. "Was that ever done?"
"Indeed, and it would be difficult to tell what cruelties were not practised; neither shall I speak of such things as the peasants being compelled to beat the water in the marshes with poles to keep the frogs from croaking, when the wife of their lord was sick, lest they should disturb her. But I shall tell you of those miseries, which are of yesterday, which myself, my neighbors, and children of your ages, have endured. Let me tell you of the 'lettres de cachet,'—issued by the king you pity so much,—by which a person was seized, perhaps in the street, and, without any form of trial, hurried to the Bastile, while his friends could only guess what had become of him. Any one who had money enough could buy one.
"When we levelled that accursed dungeon, we found citizens who had grown gray there, unconscious of crime and utterly ignorant of what they were accused.
"In the spring the peasant is trying to get in his seed to raise bread for his family. He, perhaps,—by some inadvertent word, wrung from him by the bitterness of oppression,—has given offence to the intendant; the subdélégué comes along and says, 'Go do your corvée' (compulsory labor) at such a place. The poor man must loose his cattle from the plough, and work on the roads; or perhaps, in the midst of harvest, must leave his grain to spoil, and go and carry convicts to the galleys, haul ship-timber to the navy-yard, or supplies to some garrison, while the soldiers prick his cattle with their swords, and insult their driver. More than three hundred peasants, who owned their land, were made beggars by the filling up of one valley in Lorraine. Every peasant was compelled to buy, and pay a tax on, seven pounds of salt a year, whether he used it or not.
"The capitaineries—"
"What were those?"
"The right to preserve the game, which meant that they might keep whole herds of deer and boars, and flocks of partridges, to overrun the peasant's land and eat up his crops. Did he presume to kill one, to save the bread of his family, he was sent to the galleys; and this right was not confined to their own lands, but extended to all the lands of the district. Yes, and the peasant was forbidden to weed or hoe his own grain, lest he should disturb the young partridges that were devouring his substance. Neither was he allowed to cut or plough under his own stubble, lest they should be deprived of shelter. This was a right granted by the king to princes of the blood. All these exactions came directly from the king, whom you pity so much. In addition to this were countless seignioral rights. There were perpetual dues. A seignior could sell his land, and still draw rent from the very peasant who had bought it of him in the shape of seignioral dues. They, too, had their 'corvées,' and the peasant was forced to labor for them a certain number of days in each year. On everything that he owned must he pay dues to them. Yes, he must pay them for the right of selling his own produce in the market. Though in my time this custom of stilling the frogs was abolished, we were compelled to pay a fine instead of it. When, amid all these impositions, the peasant has raised his grain, he can't have a hand-mill to grind it in. He must grind in the mill of the lord, bake his bread in the oven, and press his grapes and olives in the press of his master, and pay for the privilege, and, if unmarried, was subject to conscription; while from this and taxes the nobles were exempt, and so were thousands of others—petty clerks, government officers, and all worth over so much property. Thus all the burden of taxation was thrown upon the peasant because he was poor, and taken from the noble because he was not. To this it must be added that the clergy, with their tithes, took what little was left. Now, consider that I have omitted almost as much as I have mentioned, and you will be able to see the poor man's condition under the tyranny we have destroyed. That was the 'servitude of the soil.' Marvel not that we were frantic, and only thought of destroying everything that was an instrument of oppression while we had the power. Did you never see a dog bite the stone that had been flung at him?"
"Yes," replied Ned.
"So it was with us. We hated those mills; those presses, where we had been forced to work; those ovens, where we had been compelled to yield up a portion of our scanty loaf; broad avenues of trees that we and our folks had been forced to plant; those roads, adorned with trees so beautiful to others, were watered with the tears of the oppressed, and appeared frightful to us. In our delirium we thought only of destroying all that could remind us of those detested tyrants and those bitter days."
"I have understood," said Walter, "that, for these many years past, the peasants had been less hardly dealt with; that, although the laws remained unchanged upon the statute-books, they had not been rigidly enforced."
"That is true, citizens, and was the very reason of our rising."
"That is strange, that people should rise just when their condition was improving."
"Had you fallen into a deep pit, from which you could see no possible way of escape, you would resign yourself to your fate; but, did you perceive some projection upon which you might clamber and escape, would it not cause you to strain every nerve?"
"To be sure."
"Thus it was with us. When we were less hardly dealt with, we knew it was from lack of power; that it was not from charity, but fear. When we felt that the clutch of the oppressor was loosening on the peasant's throat, we were no longer resigned. Then came the news of what had been done in your country. Our children who had fought in your armies had returned. They brought with them these noble words, which were read to us by the few who could read: 'that all men are created free, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' As we listened, tears flowed from our eyes, our hearts grew hot, we trembled with a feeling altogether new. We felt we also were men—struggled, broke our letters, were free! Then we put to their lips the bitter cup of which they had made us drink so long, avenged the wrongs of our ancestors, and our own, and gave them blood for blood."
As the boys listened, their sentiments underwent a change. They felt that the greatest excesses of an ignorant people, in the paroxysm of their fury, made frantic by oppression, were in a great measure to be laid to the account of their oppressors.