The Red Cockade

"No one is punished now-a-days," André replied tartly. "Except sometimes a miller, who is hung because corn is dear."

"Then even Petit Jean-"

"Petit Jean went to Paris. Doubtless he is now a Major or a Colonel."

With this shot the old man left me-left me writhing. For through all I had not dared to ask the one thing I wished to know; the one thing that, as my strength increased, had grown with it, from a vague apprehension of evil, which the mind, when bidden do its duty, failed to grasp, to a dreadful anxiety only too well understood and defined; a brooding fear that weighed upon me like an evil dream, and in spite of youth sapped my life, and retarded my recovery.

I have read that a fever sometimes burns out love; and that a man rises cured not only of his illness, but of the passion which consumed him, when he succumbed to it. But this was not my fate; from the moment when that dull anxiety about I knew not what took shape and form, and I saw on the green curtains of my bed a pale child's face-a face that now wept and now gazed at me in sad appeal-from that moment Mademoiselle was never out of my waking mind for an hour. God knows, if any thought of me on her part, if any silent cry of her heart to me in her troubles, had to do with this; but it was the case.

However, on the next day the fear and the weight were removed. I suppose that Father Benôit had made up his mind to broach the subject, which hitherto he had shunned with care; for his first question, after he had learned how I did, brought it up. "You have never asked what happened after you were injured, M. le Vicomte?" he said with a little hesitation. "Do you remember?"

"I remember all," I said with a groan.

He drew a breath of relief. I think he had feared that there was still something amiss with the brain. "And yet you have never asked?" he said.

"Man! cannot you understand why-why I have not asked?" I cried hoarsely, rising, and sinking back in my seat in uncontrollable agitation. "Cannot you understand that until I asked I had hope? But now, torture me no longer! Tell me, tell me all, man, and then-"

"There is nothing but good to tell," he answered cheerfully, endeavouring to dispel my fears at the first word. "You know the worst. Poor M. de Gontaut was killed on the stairs. He was too infirm to flee. The rest, to the meanest servant, got away over the roofs of the neighbouring houses."

"And escaped?"

"Yes. The town was in an uproar for many hours, but they were well hidden. I believe that they have left the country."

"You do not know where they are, then?"

"No," he answered, "I never saw any of them after the outbreak. But I heard of them being in this or that château-at the Harincourts', and elsewhere. Then the Harincourts left-about the middle of October, and I think that M. de St. Alais and his family went with them."

I lay for a while too full of thankfulness to speak. Then, "And you know nothing more?"

"Nothing," the Curé answered.

But that was enough for me. When he came again I was able to walk with him on the terrace, and after that I gained strength rapidly. I remarked, however, that as my spirits rose, with air and exercise, the good priest's declined. His kind, sensitive face grew day by day more sombre, his fits of silence longer. When I asked him the reason, "It goes ill, it goes ill," he said. "And, God forgive me, I had to do with it."

"Who had not?" I said soberly.

"But I should have foreseen!" he answered, wringing his hands openly. "I should have known that God's first gift to man was Order. Order, and to-day, in Cahors, there is no tribunal, or none that acts: the old magistrates are afraid, and the old laws are spurned, and no man can even recover a debt! Order, and the worst thing a criminal, thrown into prison, has now to fear is that he may be forgotten. Order, and I see arms everywhere, and men who cannot read teaching those who can, and men who pay no taxes disposing of the money of those who do! I see famine in the town, and the farmers and the peasants killing game or folding their hands; for who will work when the future is uncertain? I see the houses of the rich empty, and their servants starving; I see all trade, all commerce, all buying and selling, except of the barest necessaries, at an end! I see all these things, M. le Vicomte, and shall I not say, 'Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa'?"

"But liberty," I said feebly. "You once said yourself that a certain price must-"

"Is liberty licence to do wrong?" he answered with passion-seldom had I seen him so moved. "Is liberty licence to rob and blaspheme, and move your neighbour's landmark? Does tyranny cease to be tyranny, when the tyrants are no longer one, but a thousand? M. le Vicomte, I know not what to do, I know not what to do," he continued. "For a little I would go out into the world, and at all costs unsay what I have said, undo what I have done! I would! I would indeed!"

"Something more has happened?" I said, startled by this outbreak. "Something I have not heard?"

"The Assembly took away our tithes and our estates!" he answered bitterly. "That you know. They denied our existence as a Church. That you know. They have now decreed the suppression of all religious houses. Presently they will close also our churches and cathedrals. And we shall be pagans!"

"Impossible!" I said.

"But it is true."

"The suppression, yes. But for the churches and cathedrals-"

"Why not?" he answered despondently. "God knows there is little faith abroad. I fear it will come. I see it coming. The greater need-that we who believe should testify."

I did not quite understand at the time what he meant or would be at, or what he had in his mind; but I saw that his scrupulous nature was tormented by the thought that he had hastened the catastrophe; and I felt uneasy when he did not appear next day at his usual time for visiting me. On the following day he came; but was downcast and taciturn, taking leave of me when he went with a sad kindness that almost made me call him back. The next day again he did not appear; nor the day after that. Then I sent for him, but too late; I sent, only to learn from his old housekeeper that he had left home suddenly, after arranging with a neighbouring curé to have his duties performed for a month.

I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Curé had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy-it was the first time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves, were glad to part from me.

Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home.

He looked at me in surprise. "No, M. le Vicomte," he said. "They left the country some weeks ago-after the King was persuaded to go to Paris."

"And M. le Baron?"

"He too."

"For Paris?"

The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. "No, Monsieur, I fancy not," he said. "You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said Turin, I doubt I should be little out."

"I have been ill," I said. "And have heard nothing."

"You should go into Cahors," he answered; with rough good-nature. "Most of the gentry are there-if they have not gone farther. It is safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to see-"

He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his satisfaction out of civility.

I walked home feeling lonely and depressed. The tall stone house, the seigneurial tower and turret and dovecot, stripped of the veil of foliage that in summer softened their outlines, stood up bare and gaunt at the end of the avenue; and seemed in some strange way to share my loneliness and to speak to me of evil days on which we had alike fallen. In losing Father Benôit I had lost my only chance of society just when, with returning strength, the desire for companionship and a more active life was awakening. I thought of this gloomily; and then was delighted to see, as I approached the door, a horse tethered to the ring beside it. There were holsters on the saddle, and the girths were splashed.

André was in the hall, but to my surprise, instead of informing me that there was a visitor, he went on dusting a table, with his back to me.

"Who is here?" I said sharply.

"No one," he answered.

"No one? Then whose is that horse?"

"The smith's, Monsieur."

"What? Buton's?"

"Ay, Buton's! It is a new thing hanging it at the front door," he added, with a sneer.

"But what is he doing? Where is he?"

"He is where he ought to be; and that is at the stables," the old fellow answered doggedly. "I'll be bound that it is the first piece of honest work he has done for many a day."

"Is he shoeing?"

"Why not? Does Monsieur want him to dine with him?" was the ill-tempered retort.