Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER II

A BU­COL­IC OVER­LOOKED BY VIR­GIL

When a Parisian drops in­to the coun­try he is cut off from all his usu­al habits, and soon feels the drag­ging hours, no mat­ter how at­ten­tive his friends may be to him. There­fore, be­cause it is so im­pos­si­ble to pro­long in a tete-​a-​tete con­ver­sa­tions that are soon ex­haust­ed, the mas­ter and mis­tress of a coun­try-​house are apt to say, calm­ly, “You will be ter­ri­bly bored here.” It is true that to un­der­stand the de­lights of coun­try life one must have some­thing to do, some in­ter­ests in it; one must know the na­ture of the work to be done, and the al­ter­nat­ing har­mo­ny of toil and plea­sure,--eter­nal sym­bol of hu­man life.

When a Parisian has re­cov­ered his pow­ers of sleep­ing, shak­en off the fa­tigues of his jour­ney, and ac­cus­tomed him­self to coun­try habits, the hard­est pe­ri­od of the day (if he wears thin boots and is nei­ther a sports­man nor an agri­cul­tur­al­ist) is the ear­ly morn­ing. Be­tween the hours of wak­ing and break­fast­ing, the wom­en of the fam­ily are sleep­ing or dress­ing, and there­fore un­ap­proach­able; the mas­ter of the house is out and about on his own af­fairs; a Parisian is there­fore com­pelled to be alone from eight to eleven o'clock, the hour cho­sen in all coun­try-​hous­es for break­fast. Now, hav­ing got what amuse­ment he can out of care­ful­ly dress­ing him­self, he has soon ex­haust­ed that re­source. Then, per­haps, he has brought with him some work, which he finds it im­pos­si­ble to do, and which goes back un­touched, af­ter he sees the dif­fi­cul­ties of do­ing it, in­to his valise; a writ­er is then obliged to wan­der about the park and gape at noth­ing or count the big trees. The eas­ier the life, the more irk­some such oc­cu­pa­tions are,--un­less, in­deed, one be­longs to the sect of shak­ing quak­ers or to the hon­or­able guild of car­pen­ters or taxi­der­mists. If one re­al­ly had, like the own­ers of es­tates, to live in the coun­try, it would be well to sup­ply one's self with a ge­olog­ical, min­er­alog­ical, en­to­mo­log­ical, or botan­ical hob­by; but a sen­si­ble man doesn't give him­self a vice mere­ly to kill time for a fort­night. The no­blest es­tate, and the finest chateaux soon pall on those who pos­sess noth­ing but the sight of them. The beau­ties of na­ture seem rather squalid com­pared to the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of them at the opera. Paris, by ret­ro­spec­tion, shines from all its facets. Un­less some par­tic­ular in­ter­est at­tach­es us, as it did in Blon­det's case, to scenes hon­ored by the steps and light­ed by the eyes of a cer­tain per­son, one would en­vy the birds their wings and long to get back to the end­less, ex­cit­ing scenes of Paris and its har­row­ing strifes.

The long let­ter of the young jour­nal­ist must make most in­tel­li­gent minds sup­pose that he had reached, moral­ly and phys­ical­ly, that par­tic­ular phase of sat­is­fied pas­sions and com­fort­able hap­pi­ness which cer­tain winged crea­tures fed in Stras­bourg so per­fect­ly rep­re­sent when, with their heads sunk be­hind their pro­trud­ing giz­zards, they nei­ther see nor wish to see the most ap­pe­tiz­ing food. So, when the formidable let­ter was fin­ished, the writ­er felt the need of get­ting away from the gar­dens of Armi­da and do­ing some­thing to en­liv­en the dead­ly void of the morn­ing hours; for the hours be­tween break­fast and din­ner be­longed to the mis­tress of the house, who knew very well how to make them pass quick­ly. To keep, as Madame de Mont­cor­net did, a man of tal­ent in the coun­try with­out ev­er see­ing on his face the false smile of sati­ety, or de­tect­ing the yawn of a weari­ness that can­not be con­cealed, is a great tri­umph for a wom­an. The af­fec­tion which is equal to such a test cer­tain­ly ought to be eter­nal. It is to be won­dered at that wom­en do not of­ten­er em­ploy it to judge of their lovers; a fool, an ego­ist, or a pet­ty na­ture could nev­er stand it. Philip the Sec­ond him­self, the Alexan­der of dis­sim­ula­tion, would have told his se­crets if con­demned to a month's tete-​a-​tete in the coun­try. Per­haps this is why kings seek to live in per­pet­ual mo­tion, and al­low no one to see them more than fif­teen min­utes at a time.

Notwith­stand­ing that he had re­ceived the del­icate at­ten­tions of one of the most charm­ing wom­en in Paris, Emile Blon­det was able to feel once more the long for­got­ten de­lights of a tru­ant school­boy; and on the morn­ing of the day af­ter his let­ter was writ­ten he had him­self called by Fran­cois, the head valet, who was spe­cial­ly ap­point­ed to wait on him, for the pur­pose of ex­plor­ing the val­ley of the Avonne.

The Avonne is a lit­tle riv­er which, be­ing swollen above Conch­es by nu­mer­ous rivulets, some of which rise in Les Aigues, falls at Ville-​aux-​Fayes in­to one of the large af­flu­ents of the Seine. The ge­ograph­ical po­si­tion of the Avonne, nav­iga­ble for over twelve miles, had, ev­er since Jean Bou­vet in­vent­ed rafts, giv­en full mon­ey val­ue to the forests of Les Aigues, Soulanges, and Ron­querolles, stand­ing on the crest of the hills be­tween which this charm­ing riv­er flows. The park of Les Aigues cov­ers the greater part of the val­ley, be­tween the riv­er (bor­dered on both sides by the for­est called des Aigues) and the roy­al mail road, de­fined by a line of old elms in the dis­tance along the slopes of the Avonne moun­tains, which are in fact the foot-​hills of that mag­nif­icent amp­ithe­atre called the Mor­van.

How­ev­er vul­gar the com­par­ison may be, the park, ly­ing thus at the bot­tom of the val­ley, is like an enor­mous fish with its head at Conch­es and its tail in the vil­lage of Blangy; for it widens in the mid­dle to near­ly three hun­dred acres, while to­wards Conch­es it counts less than fifty, and six­ty at Blangy. The po­si­tion of this es­tate, be­tween three vil­lages, and on­ly three miles from the lit­tle town of Soulanges, from which the de­scent is rapid, may per­haps have led to the strife and caused the ex­cess­es which are the chief in­ter­est at­tach­ing to the place. If, when seen from the mail road or from the up­lands be­yond Ville-​aux-​Fayes, the par­adise of Les Aigues in­duces mere pass­ing trav­ellers to com­mit the mor­tal sin of en­vy, why should the rich burghers of Soulanges and Ville-​aux-​Fayes who had it be­fore their eyes and ad­mired it ev­ery day of their lives, have been more vir­tu­ous?

This last to­po­graph­ical de­tail was need­ed to ex­plain the site, al­so the use of the four gates by which alone the park of Les Aigues was en­tered; for it was com­plete­ly sur­round­ed by walls, ex­cept where na­ture had pro­vid­ed a fine view, and at such points sunk fences or ha-​has had been placed. The four gates, called the gate of Conch­es, the gate of Avonne, the gate of Blangy, and the gate of the Av­enue, showed the styles of the dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods at which they were con­struct­ed so ad­mirably that a brief de­scrip­tion, in the in­ter­est of ar­chae­ol­ogists, will present­ly be giv­en, as brief as the one Blon­det has al­ready writ­ten about the gate of the Av­enue.

Af­ter eight days of strolling about with the count­ess, the il­lus­tri­ous ed­itor of the “Jour­nal des De­bats” knew by heart the Chi­nese kiosk, the bridges, the isles, the her­mitage, the dairy, the ru­ined tem­ple, the Baby­lo­ni­an ice-​house, and all the oth­er delu­sions in­vent­ed by land­scape ar­chi­tects which some nine hun­dred acres of land can be made to serve. He now wished to find the sources of the Avonne, which the gen­er­al and the count­ess dai­ly ex­tolled in the evening, mak­ing plans to vis­it them which were dai­ly for­got­ten the next morn­ing. Above Les Aigues the Avonne re­al­ly had the ap­pear­ance of an alpine tor­rent. Some­times it hol­lowed a bed among the rocks, some­times it went un­der­ground; on this side the brooks came down in cas­cades, there they flowed like the Loire on sandy shal­lows where rafts could not pass on ac­count of the shift­ing chan­nels. Blon­det took a short cut through the labyrinths of the park to reach the gate of Conch­es. This gate de­mands a few words, which give, more­over, cer­tain his­tor­ical de­tails about the prop­er­ty.

The orig­inal founder of Les Aigues was a younger son of the Soulanges fam­ily, en­riched by mar­riage, whose chief am­bi­tion was to make his el­der broth­er jeal­ous,--a sen­ti­ment, by the bye, to which we owe the fairy-​land of Iso­la Bel­la in the La­go Mag­giore. In the mid­dle ages the cas­tle of Les Aigues stood on the banks of the Avonne. Of this old build­ing noth­ing re­mains but the gate­way, which has a porch like the en­trance to a for­ti­fied town, flanked by two round tow­ers with con­ical roofs. Above the arch of the porch are heavy stone cours­es, now draped with veg­eta­tion, show­ing three large win­dows with cross-​bar sash­es. A wind­ing stair­way in one of the tow­ers leads to two cham­bers, and a kitchen oc­cu­pies the oth­er tow­er. The roof of the porch, of point­ed shape like all old tim­ber-​work, is no­tice­able for two weath­er­cocks perched at each end of a ridge-​pole or­na­ment­ed with fan­tas­tic iron-​work. Many an im­por­tant place can­not boast of so fine a town hall. On the out­side of this gate­way, the key­stone of the arch still bears the arms of Soulanges, pre­served by the hard­ness of the stone on which the chis­el of the artist carved them, as fol­lows: Azure, on a pale, ar­gent, three pil­grim's staff's sable; a fess bron­chant, gules, charged with four gross­es patee, fitched, or; with the heraldic form of a shield award­ed to younger sons. Blon­det de­ci­phered the mot­to, “Je soule agir,”--one of those puns that cru­saders de­light­ed to make up­on their names, and which brings to mind a fine po­lit­ical max­im, which, as we shall see lat­er, was un­for­tu­nate­ly for­got­ten by Mont­cor­net. The gate, which was opened for Blon­det by a very pret­ty girl, was of time-​worn wood clamped with iron. The keep­er, wak­ened by the creak­ing of the hinges, put his nose out of the win­dow and showed him­self in his night-​shirt.

“So our keep­ers sleep till this time of day!” thought the Parisian, who thought him­self very know­ing in ru­ral cus­toms.

Af­ter a walk of about quar­ter of an hour, he reached the sources of the riv­er above Conch­es, where his rav­ished eyes be­held one of those land­scapes that ought to be de­scribed, like the his­to­ry of France, in a thou­sand vol­umes or in on­ly one. We must here con­tent our­selves with two para­graphs.

A pro­ject­ing rock, cov­ered with dwarf trees and abrad­ed at its base by the Avonne, to which cir­cum­stance it owes a slight re­sem­blance to an enor­mous tur­tle ly­ing across the riv­er, forms an arch through which the eye takes in a lit­tle sheet of wa­ter, clear as a mir­ror, where the stream seems to sleep un­til it reach­es in the dis­tance a se­ries of cas­cades falling among huge rocks, where lit­tle weep­ing wil­lows with elas­tic mo­tion sway back and forth to the flow of wa­ters.

Be­yond these cas­cades is the hill­side, ris­ing sheer, like a Rhine rock clothed with moss and heather, gul­lied like it, again, by sharp ridges of schist and mi­ca send­ing down, here and there, white foam­ing rivulets to which a lit­tle mead­ow, al­ways wa­tered and al­ways green, serves as a cup; far­ther on, be­yond the pic­turesque chaos and in con­trast to this wild, soli­tary na­ture, the gar­dens of Conch­es are seen, with the vil­lage roofs and the clock-​tow­er and the out­ly­ing fields.

There are the two para­graphs, but the ris­ing sun, the pu­ri­ty of the air, the dewy sheen, the melody of woods and wa­ters--imag­ine them!

“Al­most as charm­ing as at the Opera,” thought Blon­det, mak­ing his way along the banks of the un­nav­iga­ble por­tion of the Avonne, whose caprices con­trast with the straight and deep and silent stream of the low­er riv­er, flow­ing be­tween the tall trees of the for­est of Les Aigues.

Blon­det did not pro­ceed far on his morn­ing walk, for he was present­ly brought to a stand-​still by the sight of a peas­ant,--one of those who, in this dra­ma, are su­per­nu­mer­aries so es­sen­tial to its ac­tion that it may be doubt­ed whether they are not in fact its lead­ing ac­tors.

When the clever jour­nal­ist reached a group of rocks where the main stream is im­pris­oned, as it were, be­tween two por­tals, he saw a man stand­ing so mo­tion­less as to ex­cite his cu­rios­ity, while the clothes and gen­er­al air of this liv­ing stat­ue great­ly puz­zled him.

The hum­ble per­son­age be­fore him was a liv­ing pre­sent­ment of the old men dear to Charlet's pen­cil; re­sem­bling the troop­ers of that Homer of sol­diery in a strong frame able to en­dure hard­ship, and his im­mor­tal skir­mish­ers in a fiery, crim­son, knot­ted face, show­ing small ca­pac­ity for sub­mis­sion. A coarse felt hat, the brim of which was held to the crown by stitch­es, pro­tect­ed a near­ly bald head from the weath­er; be­low it fell a quan­ti­ty of white hair which a painter would glad­ly have paid four francs an hour to copy,--a daz­zling mass of snow, worn like that in all the clas­si­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tions of De­ity. It was easy to guess from the way in which the cheeks sank in, con­tin­uing the lines of the mouth, that the tooth­less old fel­low was more giv­en to the bot­tle than the trencher. His thin white beard gave a threat­en­ing ex­pres­sion to his pro­file by the stiff­ness of its short bris­tles. The eyes, too small for his enor­mous face, and slop­ing like those of a pig, be­trayed cun­ning and al­so lazi­ness; but at this par­tic­ular mo­ment they were gleam­ing with the in­tent look he cast up­on the riv­er. The sole gar­ments of this cu­ri­ous fig­ure were an old blouse, for­mer­ly blue, and trousers of the coarse burlap used in Paris to wrap bales. All city peo­ple would have shud­dered at the sight of his bro­ken sabots, with­out even a wisp of straw to stop the cracks; and it is very cer­tain that the blouse and the trousers had no mon­ey val­ue at all ex­cept to a pa­per-​mak­er.

As Blon­det ex­am­ined this ru­ral Dio­genes, he ad­mit­ted the pos­si­bil­ity of a type of peas­antry he had seen in old tapestries, old pic­tures, old sculp­tures, and which, up to this time, had seemed to him imag­inary. He re­solved for the fu­ture not to ut­ter­ly con­demn the school of ug­li­ness, per­ceiv­ing a pos­si­bil­ity that in man beau­ty may be but the flat­ter­ing ex­cep­tion, a chimera in which the race strug­gles to be­lieve.

“What can be the ideas, the morals, the habits, of such a be­ing? What is he think­ing of?” thought Blon­det, seized with cu­rios­ity. “Is he my fel­low-​crea­ture? We have noth­ing in com­mon but shape, and even that!--”

He no­ticed in the old man's limbs the pe­cu­liar rigid­ity of the tis­sues of per­sons who live in the open air, ac­cus­tomed to the in­clemen­cies of the weath­er and to the en­durance of heat and cold,--hard­ened to ev­ery­thing, in short,--which makes their leath­ern skin al­most a hide, and their nerves an ap­pa­ra­tus against phys­ical pain al­most as pow­er­ful as that of the Rus­sians or the Arabs.

“Here's one of Coop­er's Red-​skins,” thought Blon­det; “one needn't go to Amer­ica to study sav­ages.”

Though the Parisian was less than ten paces off, the old man did not turn his head, but kept look­ing at the op­po­site bank with a fix­ity which the fakirs of In­dia give to their vit­ri­fied eyes and their stiff­ened joints. Com­pelled by the pow­er of a species of mag­netism, more con­ta­gious than peo­ple have any idea of, Blon­det end­ed by gaz­ing at the wa­ter him­self.

“Well, my good man, what do you see there?” he asked, af­ter the lapse of a quar­ter of an hour, dur­ing which time he saw noth­ing to jus­ti­fy this in­tent con­tem­pla­tion.

“Hush!” whis­pered the old man, with a sign to Blon­det not to ruf­fle the air with his voice; “You will fright­en it--”

“What?”

“An ot­ter, my good gen­tle­man. If it hears us it'll go quick un­der wa­ter. I'm cer­tain it jumped there; see! see! there, where the wa­ter bub­bles! Ha! it sees a fish, it is af­ter that! But my boy will grab it as it comes back. The ot­ter, don't you know, is very rare; it is sci­en­tif­ic game, and good eat­ing, too. I get ten francs for ev­ery one I car­ry to Les Aigues, for the la­dy fasts Fri­days, and to-​mor­row is Fri­day. Years agone the de­ceased madame used to pay me twen­ty francs, and gave me the skin to boot! Mouche,” he called, in a low voice, “watch it!”

Blon­det now per­ceived on the oth­er side of the riv­er two bright eyes, like those of a cat, be­neath a tuft of alders; then he saw the tanned fore­head and tan­gled hair of a boy about ten years of age, who was ly­ing on his stom­ach and mak­ing signs to­wards the ot­ter to let his mas­ter know he kept it well in sight. Blon­det, com­plete­ly mas­tered by the ea­ger­ness of the old man and boy, al­lowed the de­mon of the chase to get the bet­ter of him,--that de­mon with the dou­ble claws of hope and cu­rios­ity, who car­ries you whith­er­so­ev­er he will.

“The hat-​mak­ers buy the skin,” con­tin­ued the old man; “it's so soft, so hand­some! They cov­er caps with it.”

“Do you re­al­ly think so, my old man?” said Blon­det, smil­ing.

“Well tru­ly, my good gen­tle­man, you ought to know more than I, though I am sev­en­ty years old,” replied the old fel­low, very humbly and re­spect­ful­ly, falling in­to the at­ti­tude of a giv­er of holy wa­ter; “per­haps you can tell me why con­duc­tors and wine-​mer­chants are so fond of it?”

Blon­det, a mas­ter of irony, al­ready on his guard from the word “sci­en­tif­ic,” rec­ol­lect­ed the Marechal de Riche­lieu and be­gan to sus­pect some jest on the part of the old man; but he was re­as­sured by his art­less at­ti­tude and the per­fect­ly stupid ex­pres­sion of his face.

“In my young days we had lots of ot­ters,” whis­pered the old fel­low; “but they've hunt­ed 'em so that if we see the tail of one in sev­en years it is as much as ev­er we do. And the sub-​pre­fect at Ville-​aux-​Fayes,--doesn't mon­sieur know him? though he be a Parisian, he's a fine young man like you, and he loves cu­riosi­ties,--so, as I was say­ing, hear­ing of my tal­ent for catch­ing ot­ters, for I know 'em as you know your al­pha­bet, he says to me like this: 'Pere Four­chon,' says he, 'when you find an ot­ter bring it to me, and I'll pay you well; and if it's spot­ted white on the back,' says he, 'I'll give you thir­ty francs.' That's just what he did say to me as true as I be­lieve in God the Fa­ther, Son, and Holy Ghost. And there's a learned man at Soulanges, Mon­sieur Gour­don, our doc­tor, who is mak­ing, so they tell me, a col­lec­tion of nat­ural his­to­ry which hasn't its mate at Di­jon even; in­deed he is first among the learned men in these parts, and he'll pay me a fine price, too; he stuffs men and beasts. Now my boy there stands me out that that ot­ter has got the white spots. 'If that's so,' says I to him, 'then the good God wish­es well to us this morn­ing!' Ha! didn't you see the wa­ter bub­ble? yes, there it is! there it is! Though it lives in a kind of a bur­row, it some­times stays whole days un­der wa­ter. Ha, there! it heard you, my good gen­tle­man; it's on its guard now; for there's not a more sus­pi­cious an­imal on earth; it's worse than a wom­an.”

“So you call wom­en sus­pi­cious, do you?” said Blon­det.

“Faith, mon­sieur, if you come from Paris you ought to know about that bet­ter than I. But you'd have done bet­ter for me if you had stayed in your bed and slept all the morn­ing; don't you see that wake there? that's where she's gone un­der. Get up, Mouche! the ot­ter heard mon­sieur talk­ing, and now she's scary enough to keep us at her heels till mid­night. Come, let's be off! and good-​bye to our thir­ty francs!”

Mouche got up re­luc­tant­ly; he looked at the spot where the wa­ter bub­bled, point­ed to it with his fin­ger and seemed un­able to give up all hope. The child, with curly hair and a brown face, like the an­gels in a fif­teenth-​cen­tu­ry pic­ture, seemed to be in breech­es, for his trousers end­ed at the knee in a ragged fringe of bram­bles and dead leaves. This nec­es­sary gar­ment was fas­tened up­on him by cords of tarred oakum in guise of braces. A shirt of the same burlap which made the old man's trousers, thick­ened, how­ev­er, by many darns, open in front showed a sun-​burnt lit­tle breast. In short, the at­tire of the be­ing called Mouche was even more startling­ly sim­ple than that of Pere Four­chon.

“What a good-​na­tured set of peo­ple they are here,” thought Blon­det; “if a man fright­ened away the game of the peo­ple of the sub­urbs of Paris, how their tongues would maul him!”

As he had nev­er seen an ot­ter, even in a mu­se­um, he was de­light­ed with this episode of his ear­ly walk. “Come,” said he, quite touched when the old man walked away with­out ask­ing him for a com­pen­sa­tion, “you say you are a fa­mous ot­ter catch­er. If you are sure there is an ot­ter down there--”

From the oth­er side of the wa­ter Mouche point­ed his fin­ger to cer­tain air-​bub­bles com­ing up from the bot­tom of the Avonne and burst­ing on its sur­face.

“It has come back!” said Pere Four­chon; “don't you see it breathe, the beg­gar? How do you sup­pose they man­age to breathe at the bot­tom of the wa­ter? Ah, the crea­ture's so clever it laughs at sci­ence.”

“Well,” said Blon­det, who sup­posed the last word was a jest of the peas­antry in gen­er­al rather than of this peas­ant in par­tic­ular, “wait and catch the ot­ter.”

“And what are we to do about our day's work, Mouche and I?”

“What is your day worth?”

“For the pair of us, my ap­pren­tice and me?--Five francs,” said the old man, look­ing Blon­det in the eye with a hes­ita­tion which be­trayed an enor­mous over­charge.

The jour­nal­ist took ten francs from his pock­et, say­ing, “There's ten, and I'll give you ten more for the ot­ter.”

“And it won't cost you dear if there's white on its back; for the sub-​pre­fect told me there wasn't one o' them mu­se­ums that had the like; but he knows ev­ery­thing, our sub-​pre­fect,--no fool he! If I hunt the ot­ter, he, M'sieur des Lu­peaulx, hunts Made­moi­selle Gaubertin, who has a fine white 'dot' on her back. Come now, my good gen­tle­man, if I may make so bold, plunge in­to the mid­dle of the Avonne and get to that stone down there. If we head the ot­ter off, it will come down stream; for just see their sly­ness, the beg­gars! they al­ways go above their bur­row to feed, for, once full of fish, they know they can eas­ily drift down, the sly things! Ha! if I'd been trained in their school I should be liv­ing now on an in­come; but I was a long time find­ing out that you must go up stream very ear­ly in the morn­ing if you want to bag the game be­fore oth­ers. Well, some­body threw a spell over me when I was born. How­ev­er, we three to­geth­er ought to be sly­er than the ot­ter.”

“How so, my old necro­mancer?”

“Why, bless you! we are as stupid as the beasts, and so we come to un­der­stand the beasts. Now, see, this is what we'll do. When the ot­ter wants to get home Mouche and I'll fright­en it here, and you'll fright­en it over there; fright­ened by us and fright­ened by you it will jump on the bank, and when it takes to earth, it is lost! It can't run; it has web feet for swim­ming. Ho, ho! it will make you laugh, such floun­der­ing! you don't know whether you are fish­ing or hunt­ing! The gen­er­al up at Les Aigues, I have known him to stay here three days run­ning, he was so bent on get­ting an ot­ter.”

Blon­det, armed with a branch cut for him by the old man, who re­quest­ed him to whip the wa­ter with it when he called to him, plant­ed him­self in the mid­dle of the riv­er by jump­ing from stone to stone.

“There, that will do, my good gen­tle­man.”

Blon­det stood where he was told with­out re­mark­ing the lapse of time, for ev­ery now and then the old fel­low made him a sign as much as to say that all was go­ing well; and be­sides, noth­ing makes time go so fast as the ex­pec­ta­tion that quick ac­tion is to suc­ceed the per­fect still­ness of watch­ing.

“Pere Four­chon,” whis­pered the boy, find­ing him­self alone with the old man, “there's _re­al­ly_ an ot­ter!”

“Do you see it?”

“There, see there!”

The old fel­low was dumb-​found­ed at be­hold­ing un­der wa­ter the red­dish-​brown fur of an ac­tu­al ot­ter.

“It's com­ing my way!” said the child.

“Hit him a sharp blow on the head and jump in­to the wa­ter and hold him fast down, but don't let him go!”

Mouche dove in­to the wa­ter like a fright­ened frog.

“Come, come, my good gen­tle­man,” cried Pere Four­chon to Blon­det, jump­ing in­to the wa­ter and leav­ing his sabots on the bank, “fright­en him! fright­en him! Don't you see him? he is swim­ming fast your way!”

The old man dashed to­ward Blon­det through the wa­ter, call­ing out with the grav­ity that coun­try peo­ple re­tain in the midst of their great­est ex­cite­ments:--

“Don't you see him, there, along the rocks?”

Blon­det, placed by di­rec­tion of the old fel­low in such a way that the sun was in his eyes, thrashed the wa­ter with much sat­is­fac­tion to him­self.

“Go on, go on!” cried Pere Four­chon; “on the rock side; the bur­row is there, to your left!”

Car­ried away by ex­cite­ment and by his long wait­ing, Blon­det slipped from the stones in­to the wa­ter.

“Ha! brave you are, my good gen­tle­man! Twen­ty good Gods! I see him be­tween your legs! you'll have him!-- Ah! there! he's gone--he's gone!” cried the old man, in de­spair.

Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fel­low plunged in­to the deep­est part of the stream in front of Blon­det.

“It's your fault we've lost him!” he cried, as Blon­det gave him a hand to pull him out, drip­ping like a tri­ton, and a van­quished tri­ton. “The ras­cal, I see him, un­der those rocks! He has let go his fish,” con­tin­ued Four­chon, point­ing to some­thing that float­ed on the sur­face. “We'll have that at any rate; it's a tench, a re­al tench.”

Just then a groom in liv­ery on horse­back and lead­ing an­oth­er horse by the bri­dle gal­loped up the road to­ward Conch­es.

“See! there's the chateau peo­ple send­ing af­ter you,” said the old man. “If you want to cross back again I'll give you a hand. I don't mind about get­ting wet; it saves wash­ing!”

“How about rheuma­tism?”

“Rheuma­tism! don't you see the sun has browned our legs, Mouche and me, like to­bac­co-​pipes. Here, lean on me, my good gen­tle­man--you're from Paris; you don't know, though you _do_ know so much, how to walk on our rocks. If you stay here long enough, you'll learn a deal that's writ­ten in the book o' na­ture,--you who write, so they tell me, in the news­pa­pers.”

Blon­det had reached the bank be­fore Charles, the groom, per­ceived him.

“Ah, mon­sieur!” he cried; “you don't know how anx­ious Madame has been since she heard you had gone through the gate of Conch­es; she was afraid you were drowned. They have rung the great bell three times, and Mon­sieur le cure is hunt­ing for you in the park.”

“What time is it, Charles?”

“A quar­ter to twelve.”

“Help me to mount.”

“Ha!” ex­claimed the groom, notic­ing the wa­ter that dripped from Blon­det's boots and trousers, “has mon­sieur been tak­en in by Pere Four­chon's ot­ter?”

The words en­light­ened the jour­nal­ist.

“Don't say a word about it, Charles,” he cried, “and I'll make it all right with you.”

“Oh, as for that!” an­swered the man, “Mon­sieur le comte him­self has been tak­en in by that ot­ter. When­ev­er a vis­itor comes to Les Aigues, Pere Four­chon sets him­self on the watch, and if the gen­tle­man goes to see the sources of the Avonne he sells him the ot­ter; he plays the trick so well that Mon­sieur le comte has been here three times and paid him for six days' work, just to stare at the wa­ter!”

“Heav­ens!” thought Blon­det. “And I imag­ined I had seen the great­est co­me­di­ans of the present day!--Poti­er, the younger Bap­tiste, Mi­chot, and Mon­rose. What are they com­pared to that old beg­gar?”

“He is very know­ing at the busi­ness, Pere Four­chon is,” con­tin­ued Charles; “and he has an­oth­er string to his bow, be­sides. He calls him­self a rope-​mak­er, and has a walk un­der the park wall by the gate of Blangy. If you mere­ly touch his rope he'll en­tan­gle you so clev­er­ly that you will want to turn the wheel and make a bit of it your­self; and for that you would have to pay a fee for ap­pren­tice­ship. Madame her­self was tak­en in, and gave him twen­ty francs. Ah! he is the king of tricks, that old fel­low!”

The groom's gos­sip set Blon­det think­ing of the ex­treme crafti­ness and wil­iness of the French peas­ant, of which he had heard a great deal from his fa­ther, a judge at Alen­con. Then the satir­ical mean­ing hid­den be­neath Pere Four­chon's ap­par­ent guile­less­ness came back to him, and he owned him­self “gulled” by the Bur­gun­di­an beg­gar.

“You would nev­er be­lieve, mon­sieur,” said Charles, as they reached the por­ti­co at Les Aigues, “how much one is forced to dis­trust ev­ery­body and ev­ery­thing in the coun­try,--es­pe­cial­ly here, where the gen­er­al is not much liked--”

“Why not?”

“That's more than I know,” said Charles, with the stupid air ser­vants as­sume to shield them­selves when they wish not to an­swer their su­pe­ri­ors, which nev­er­the­less gave Blon­det a good deal to think of.

“Here you are, tru­ant!” cried the gen­er­al, com­ing out on the ter­race when he heard the hors­es. “Here he is; don't be un­easy!” he called back to his wife, whose lit­tle foot­falls were heard be­hind him. “Now the Abbe Bros­sette is miss­ing. Go and find him, Charles,” he said to the groom.