The Red Cockade

I took no notice of this, but went to the stables. I could hear the bellows heaving; and turning the corner of the building I came on Buton at work in the forge with two of his men. The smith was stripped to his shirt, and with his great leather apron round him, and his bare, blackened arms, looked like the Buton of six months ago. But outside the forge lay a little heap of clothes neatly folded, a blue coat with red facings, a long blue waistcoat, and a hat with a huge tricolour; and as he released the horse's hoof on which he was at work, and straightened himself to salute me, he looked at me with a new look, that was something between appeal and defiance.

"Tut, tut!" I said, fleering at him. "This is too great an honour, M. le Capitaine! To be shod by a member of the Committee!"

"Has M. le Vicomte anything of which to complain?" he said, reddening under the deep tan of his face.

"I? No, indeed. I am only overwhelmed by the honour you do me."

"I have been here to shoe once a month," he persisted stubbornly. "Does Monsieur complain that the horses have suffered?"

"No. But-"

"Has M. le Vicomte's house suffered? Has so much as a stack of his corn been burned, or a colt taken from the fields, or an egg from the nest?"

"No," I said.

Buton nodded gloomily. "Then if Monsieur has no fault to find," he replied, "perhaps he will let me finish my work. Afterwards I will deliver a message I have for him. But it is for his ear, and the forge-"

"Is not the place for secrets, though the smith is the man!" I answered, with a parting gibe, fired over my shoulders. "Well, come to me on the terrace when you have finished."

He came an hour later, looking hugely clumsy in his fine clothes; and with a sword-heaven save us! – a sword by his side. Presently the murder came out; he was the bearer of a commission appointing me Lieutenant-Colonel in the National Guard of the Province. "It was given at my request," he said, with awkward pride. "There were some, M. le Vicomte, who thought that you had not behaved altogether well in the matter of the riot, but I rattled their heads together. Besides I said, 'No Lieutenant-Colonel, no Captain!' and they cannot do without me. I keep this side quiet."

What a position it was! Ah, what a position it was! And how for a moment the absurdity of it warred in my mind with the humiliation! Six months before I should have torn up the paper in a fury, and flung it in his face, and beaten him out of my presence with my cane. But much had happened since then; even the temptation to break into laughter, into peal upon peal of gloomy merriment, was not now invincible. I overcame it by an effort, partly out of prudence, partly from a better motive-a sense of the man's rough fidelity amid circumstances, and in face of anomalies, the most trying. I thanked him instead, therefore-though I almost choked; and I said I would write to the Committee.

Still he lingered, rubbing one great foot against another; and I waited with mock politeness to hear his business. At length, "There is another thing I wish to say, M. le Vicomte," he growled. "M. le Curé has left Saux."

"Yes?"

"Well, he is a good man; or he was a good man," he continued grudgingly. "But he is running into trouble, and you would do well to let him know that."

"Why?" I said. "Do you know where he is?"

"I can guess," he answered. "And where others are, too; and where there will presently be trouble. These Capuchin monks are not about the country for nothing. When the crows fly home there will be trouble. And I do not want him to be in it."

"I have not the least idea where he is," I said coldly. "Nor what you mean." The smith's tone had changed and grown savage and churlish.

"He has gone to Nîmes," he answered.

"To Nîmes?" I cried in astonishment. "How do you know? It is more than I know."

"I do know," he answered. "And what is brewing there. And so do a great many more. But this time the St. Alais and their bullies, M. le Vicomte-ay, they are all there-will not escape us. We will break their necks. Yes, M. le Vicomte, make no mistake," he continued, glaring at me, his eyes red with suspicion and anger, "mix yourselves up with none of this. We are the people! The people! Woe to the man or thing that stands in our way!"

"Go!" I said. "I have heard enough. Begone!"

He looked at me a moment as if he would answer me. But old habits overcame him, and with a sullen word of farewell he turned, and went round the house. A minute later I heard his horse trot down the avenue.

I had cut him short; nevertheless the instant he was gone I wished him back, that I might ask him more. The St. Alais at Nîmes? Father Benôit at Nîmes? And a plot brewing there in which all had a hand? In a moment the news opened a window, as it were, into a wider world, through which I looked, and no longer felt myself shut in by the lonely country round me and the lack of society. I looked and saw the great white dusty city of the south, and trouble rising in it, and in the middle of the trouble, looking at me wistfully, Denise de St. Alais.

Father Benôit had gone thither. Why might not I?

I walked up and down in a flutter of spirits, and the longer I considered it, the more I liked it; the longer I thought of the dull inaction in which I must spend my time at home, unless I consented to rub shoulders with Buton and his like, the more taken I was with the idea of leaving.

And after all why not? Why should I not go?

I had my commission in my pocket, wherein I was not only appointed to the National Guards, but described as ci-devant "President of the Council of Public Safety in the Province of Quercy"; and this taking the place of papers or passport would render travelling easy. My long illness would serve as an excuse for a change of air; and explain my absence from home; I had in the house as much money as I needed. In a word, I could see no difficulty, and nothing to hinder me, if I chose to go. I had only to please myself.

So the choice was soon made. The following day I mounted a horse for the first time, and rode two-thirds of a league on the road, and home again very tired.

Next morning I rode to St. Alais, and viewed the ruins of the house and returned; this time I was less fatigued.

Then on the following day, Sunday, I rested; and on the Monday I rode half-way to Cahors and back again. That evening I cleaned my pistols and overlooked Gil while he packed my saddle-bags, choosing two plain suits, one to pack and one to wear, and a hat with a small tricolour rosette. On the following morning, the 6th of March, I took the road; and parting from André on the outskirts of the village, turned my horse's head towards Figeac with a sense of freedom, of escape from difficulties and embarrassments, of hope and anticipation, that made that first hour delicious; and that still supported me when the March day began to give place to the chill darkness of evening-evening that in an unknown, untried place is always sombre and melancholy.

CHAPTER XV.

AT MILHAU

I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from the earth at my feet.

A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree, leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook, I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.

My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking hand in hand. "Welcome to Vlais and Giron!" cried one. "Welcome to Giron and Vlais!" cried the other. And then, before I could answer, "You come on a happy day," cried both together.

I could not help smiling. "I am glad of that," I said. "May I ask what is the reason of your meeting?"

"The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron," they answered, speaking alternately, "are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of Vlais, beat as one."

I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity; fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of a Watteau fête. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.

"But, Monsieur, this is nothing," one of them answered with perfect gravity. "It is not only that the boundaries of communes are disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence, beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all Frenchmen are of all provinces!"

"That is a fine idea," I said.

"No son of France will again shed French blood!" he continued.

"So be it."

"Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace! There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich."

They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same naïve confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair, and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit, was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked; and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.

I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook me.

"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.

"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town to-night."

"I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village."

And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the hamlet. There-the place was deserted-he brought from an outhouse a sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in silence.