From the depths where Elise was cast, it was not for her to see that her disaster had brought light to others; that out of the pitiful confusion of her life had come order and joy. A half-mad woman, without memory, knew again whence she came and whither she was going; and bewildered and happy, with a hungering tenderness, moved her hand over the head of her poor dwarf, as though she would know if he were truly her own son. A new spirit also had come into Parpon’s eyes, gentler, less weird, less distant. With the advent of their joy a great yearning came to save Elise. They hung watchful, solicitous, over her bed.
It must go hard with her, and twenty-four hours would see the end or a fresh beginning. She had fought back the fever too long, her brain and emotions had been strung to a fatal pitch, and the disease, like a hurricane, carried her on for hours, tearing at her being.
Her own mother sat in a corner, stricken and numb. At last she fell asleep in her chair, but Parpon and his mother slept not at all. Now and again the dwarf went to the door and looked out at the night, so still, and full of the wonder of growth and rest.
Far up on Dalgrothe Mountain a soft brazen light lay like a shield against the sky, a strange, hovering thing. Parpon knew it to be the reflection of the campfires in the valley, where Lagroin and his men were sleeping. There came, too, out of the general stillness, a long, low murmur, as though nature were crooning: the untiring rustle of the river, the water that rolled on and never came back again. Where did they all go—those thousands of rivers for ever pouring on, lazily or wildly? What motive? What purpose? Just to empty themselves into the greater waters, there to be lost? Was it enough to travel on so inevitably to the end, and be swallowed up?
And these millions of lives hurrying along? Was it worth while living, only to grow older and older, and, coming, heavy with sleep, to the Homestead of the Ages, enter a door that only opened inwards, and be swallowed up in the twilight? Why arrest the travelling, however swift it be? Sooner or later it must come—with dusk the end of it.
The dwarf heard the moaning of the stricken girl, her cry, “Valmond! Valmond!” the sobs that followed, the woe of her self-abnegation, even in delirium.
For one’s self it mattered little, maybe, the attitude of the mind, whether it would arrest or be glad of the terrific travel; but for another human being, who might judge? Who might guess what was best for the other; what was most merciful, most good? Destiny meant us to prove our case against it, as well as we might; to establish our right to be here as long as we could, so discovering the world day by day, and ourselves to the world, and ourselves to ourselves. To live it out, resisting the power that destroys so long as might be—that was the divine secret.
“Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!”
The voice moaned out the words again and again. Through the sounds there came another inner voice, that resolved all the crude, primitive thoughts here defined; vague, elusive, in Parpon’s own brain.
The girl’s life should be saved at any cost, even if to save it meant the awful and certain doom his mother had whispered to him over the bed an hour before.
He turned and went into the house. The old woman bent above Elise, watching intently, her eyes straining, her lips anxiously compressed.
“My son,” she said, “she will die in an hour if I don’t give her more. If I do, she may die at once. If she gets well, she will be—” She made a motion to her eyes.
“Blind, mother, blind!” he whispered, and he looked round the room. How good was the sight of the eyes! “Perhaps she’d rather die,” said the old woman. “She is unhappy.” She was thinking of her own far, bitter past, remembered now after so many years. “Misery and blindness too—ah! What right have I to make her blind? It’s a great risk, Parpon, my dear son.”
“I must, I must, for your sake. Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!” cried Elise again out of her delirium.
The stricken girl had answered for Parpon. She had decided for herself. Life! that was all she prayed for: for another’s sake, not her own.
Her own mother slept on, in the corner of the room, unconscious of the terrible verdict hanging in the balance.
Madame Degardy quickly emptied into a cup of liquor the strange brown powder, mixed it, and held it to the girl’s lips, pouring it slowly down.
Once, twice, during the next hour, a low, anguished voice filled the room; but just as dawn came, Parpon stooped and tenderly wiped a soft moisture from the face, lying so quiet and peaceful now against the pillow.
“She breathes easy, poor pretty bird!” said the old woman gently.
“She’ll never see again?” asked Parpon mournfully. “Never a thing while she lives,” was the whispered reply.
“But she has her life,” said the dwarf; “she wished it so.”
“What’s the good!” The old woman had divined why Elise had wanted to live.
The dwarf did not answer. His eyes wandered about abstractedly, and fell again upon Elise’s mother sleeping, unconscious of the awful peril passed, and the painful salvation come to her daughter.
The blue-grey light of morning showed under the edge of the closed window-blind. In the room day was mingling incongruously with night, for the candle looked sickly, and the aged crone’s face was of a leaden colour, lighted by the piercing eyes that brooded hungrily on her son—her only son: the dwarf had told her of Gabriel’s death.
Parpon opened the door and went out. Day was spreading over the drowsy landscape. There was no life as yet in all the horizon, no fires, no animals stirring, no early workmen, no anxious harvesters. But the birds were out, and presently here and there cattle rose up in the fields.
Then, over the foot-hills, he saw a white horse and its rider show up against the grey dust of the road. Elise’s sorrowful words came to him: “Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!”
His duty to the girl was done; she was safe; now he must follow that figure to where the smoke of the campfires came curling up by Dalgrothe Mountain. There were rumours of trouble; he must again be minister, counsellor, friend, to his master.
A half hour later he was climbing the hill where he had seen the white horse and its rider. He heard the sound of a drum in the distance. The gloom and suspense of the night just passed went from him, and into the sunshine he sang:
“Oh, grand to the war he goes,
O gai, vive le roi!”
Not long afterwards he entered the encampment. Around one fire, cooking their breakfasts, were Muroc the charcoalman, Duclosse the mealman, and Garotte the lime-burner. They all were in good spirits.
“For my part,” Muroc was saying, as Parpon nodded at them, and passed by, “I’m not satisfied.”
“Don’t you get enough to eat?” asked the mealman, whose idea of happiness was based upon the appreciation of a good dinner.
“But yes, and enough to drink, thanks to His Excellency, and the buttons he puts on my coat.” Muroc jingled some gold coins in his pocket. “It’s this being clean that’s the devil! When I sold charcoal, I was black and beautiful, and no dirt showed; I polished like a pan. Now if I touch a potato, I’m filthy. Pipe-clay is hell’s stuff to show you up as the Lord made you.” Garotte laughed. “Wait till you get to fighting. Powder sticks better than charcoal. For my part, I’m always clean as a whistle.”
“But you’re like a bit of wool, lime-burner, you never sweat. Dirt don’t stick to you as to me and the meal man. Duclosse there used to look like a pie when the meal and sweat dried on him. When we reach Paris, and His Excellency gets his own, I’ll take to charcoal again; I’ll fill the palace cellars. That suits me better than chalk and washing every day.”
“Do you think we’ll ever get to Paris?” asked the mealman, cocking his head seriously.
“That’s the will of God, and the weather at sea, and what the Orleans do,” answered Muroc grinning.
It was hard to tell how deep this adventure lay in Muroc’s mind. He had a prodigious sense of humour, the best critic in the world.
“For me,” said the lime-burner, “I think there’ll be fighting before we get to the Orleans. There’s talk that the Gover’ment’s coming against us.”
“Done!” said the charcoalman. “We’ll see the way our great man puts their noses out of joint.”
“Here’s Lajeunesse,” broke in the mealman, as the blacksmith came near to their fire. He was dressed in complete regimentals, made by the parish tailor.
“Is that so, monsieur le capitaine?” said Muroc to Lajeunesse. “Is the Gover’ment to be fighting us? Why should it? We’re only for licking the Orleans, and who cares a sou for them, hein?”
“Not a go-dam,” said Duclosse, airing his one English oath. “The English hate the Orleans too.” Lajeunesse looked from one to the other, then burst into a laugh. “There’s two gills of rum for every man at twelve o’clock to-day, so says His Excellency; and two yellow buttons for the coat of every sergeant, and five for every captain. The English up there in Quebec can’t do better than that, can they? And will they? No. Does a man spend money on a hell’s foe, unless he means to give it work to do? Pish! Is His Excellency like to hang back because Monsieur De la Riviere says he’ll fetch the Government? Bah! The bully soldiers would come with us as they went with the Great Napoleon at Grenoble. Ah, that! His Excellency told me about that just now. Here stood the soldiers,”—he mapped out the ground with his sword, “here stood the Great Napoleon, all alone. He looks straight before him. What does he see? Nothing less than a hundred muskets pointing at him. What does he do? He walks up to the soldiers, opens his coat, and says, ‘Soldiers, comrades, is there one of you will kill your Emperor?’ Damned if there was one! They dropped their muskets, and took to kissing his hands. There, my dears, that was the Great Emperor’s way, our Emperor’s father’s little way.”
“But suppose they fired at us ‘stead of at His Excellency?” asked the mealman.
“Then, mealman, you’d settle your account for lightweights sooner than you want.”
Duclosse twisted his mouth dubiously. He was not sure how far his enthusiasm would carry him. Muroc shook his shaggy head in mirth.
“Well, ‘tis true we’re getting off to France,” said the lime-burner. “We can drill as we travel, and there’s plenty of us for a start.”
“Morrow we go,” said Lajeunesse. “The proclamation’s to be out in an hour, and you’re all to be ready by ten o’clock in the morning. His Excellency is to make a speech to us to-night; then the General—ah, what a fine soldier, and eighty years old!—he’s to give orders, and make a speech also; and I’m to be colonel,”—he paused dramatically,—“and you three are for captains; and you’re to have five new yellow buttons to your coats, like these.” He drew out gold coins and jingled them. Every man got to his feet, and Muroc let the coffee-tin fall. “There’s to be a grand review in the village this afternoon. There’s breakfast for you, my dears!”
Their exclamations were interrupted by Lajeunesse, who added: “And so my Madelinette is to go to Paris, after all, and Monsieur Parpon is to see that she starts right.”
“Monsieur” Parpon was a new title for the dwarf. But the great comedy, so well played, had justified it. “Oh, His Excellency ‘ll keep his oath,” said the mealman. “I’d take Elise Malboir’s word about a man for a million francs, was he prince or ditcher; and she says he’s the greatest man in the world. She knows.”
“That reminds me,” said Lajeunesse gloomily, “Elise has the black fever.”
The mealman’s face seemed to petrify, his eyes stood out, the bread he had in his teeth dropped, and he stared wildly at Lajeunesse. All were occupied in watching the mealman, and they did not see the figure of a girl approaching.
Muroc, dumfounded, spoke first. “Elise—the black fever!” he gasped, thoroughly awed.
“She is better, she will live,” said a voice behind Lajeunesse. It was Madelinette, who had come to the camp early to cook her father’s breakfast.
Without a word, the mealman turned, pulled his clothes about him with a jerk, and, pale and bewildered, started away at a run down the plateau.
“He’s going to the village,” said the charcoalman. “He hasn’t leave. That’s court-martial!”
Lajeunesse shook his head knowingly. “He’s never had but two ideas in his nut-meal and Elise; let him go.”
The mealman was soon lost to view, unheeding the challenge that rang after him.
Lagroin had seen the fugitive from a distance, and came down, inquiring. When he was told he swore that Duclosse should suffer divers punishments.
“A pretty kind of officer!” he cried in a fury. “Damn it, is there another man in my army would do it?”
No one answered; and because Lagroin was not a wise man, he failed to see that in time his army might be entirely dissipated by such awkward incidents. When Valmond was told, he listened with a better understanding.
All that Lajeunesse had announced came to pass. The review and march and show were goodly, after their kind; and, by dint of money and wine, the enthusiasm was greater than ever it had been; for it was joined to the pathos of the expected departure. The Cure and the avocat kept within doors; for they had talked together, and now that the day of fate was at hand, and sons, brothers, fathers, were to go off on this far crusade, a new spirit suddenly thrust itself in, and made them sad and anxious. Monsieur De la Riviere was gloomy. Medallion was the one comfortable, cool person in the parish. It had been his conviction that something would occur to stop the whole business at the critical moment. He was a man of impressions, and he lived in the light of them continuously. Wisdom might have been expected of Parpon, but he had been won by Valmond from the start; and now, in the great hour, he was deep in another theme—the restoration of his mother to himself, and to herself.
At seven o’clock in the evening, Valmond and Lagroin were in the streets, after they had marched their men back to camp. A crowd had gathered near the church, for His Excellency was on his way to visit the Cure.
As he passed, they cheered him. He stopped to speak to them. Before he had ended, some one came crying wildly that the soldiers, the red-coats were come. The sound of a drum rolled up the street, and presently, round a corner, came the well-ordered troops of the Government.
Instantly Lagroin wheeled to summon any stray men of his little army, but Valmond laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. It would have been the same in any case, for the people had scattered like sheep, and stood apart.
They were close by the church steps. Valmond mechanically saw the mealman, open-mouthed and dazed, start forward from the crowd; but, hesitating, he drew back again almost instantly, and was swallowed up in the safety of distance. He smiled at the mealman’s hesitation, even while he said to himself: “This ends it—ends it!”
He said it with no great sinking of heart, with no fear. It was the solution of all; it was his only way to honour.
The soldiers were halted a little distance from the two; and the officer commanding, after a dull mechanical preamble, in the name of the Government, formally called upon Valmond and Lagroin to surrender themselves, or suffer the perils of resistance.
“Never!” broke out Lagroin, and, drawing his sword, he shouted: “Vive Napoleon! The Old Guard never surrenders!”
Then he made as if to rush forward on the troops. “Fire!” called the officer.
Twenty rifles blazed out. Lagroin tottered back, and fell at the feet of his master.
Raising himself, he clasped Valmond’s knee, and, looking up, said gaspingly:
“Adieu, sire! I love you; I die for you.” His head fell at his Emperor’s feet, though the hands still clutched the knee.
Valmond stood over his body, one leg on either side, and drew a pistol.
“Surrender, monsieur,” said the officer, “or we fire!”
“Never! A Napoleon knows how to die!” was the reply, and he raised his pistol at the officer.
“Fire!” came the sharp command.
“Vive Napoleon!” cried the doomed man, and fell, mortally wounded.
At that instant the Cure, with Medallion, came hurrying round the corner of the church.
“Fools! Murderers!” he said to the soldiers. “Ah, these poor children!”
Stooping, he lifted up Valmond’s head, and Medallion felt Lagroin’s pulseless heart.
The officer picked up Valmond’s pistol. A moment afterwards he looked at the dying man in wonder; for he found that the weapon was not loaded!
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