The Village Rector

XIII

FARRABESCHE

Veronique has­tened to mount her horse and re­join the ser­vants, who were be­gin­ning to be un­easy about her; for the strange un­health­iness of the Roche-​Vive was well known through­out the neigh­bor­hood. Col­orat begged his mis­tress to go down in­to the lit­tle val­ley which led to the plain. It would be dan­ger­ous, he said, to re­turn by the hills, or by the tan­gled paths they had fol­lowed in the morn­ing, where, even with his knowl­edge of the coun­try, they were like­ly to be lost in the dusk.

Once on the plain Veronique rode slow­ly.

“Who is this Farrabesche whom you em­ploy?” she asked her forester.

“Has madame met him?” cried Col­orat.

“Yes, but he ran away from me.”

“Poor man! per­haps he does not know how kind madame is.”

“But what has he done?”

“Ah! madame, Farrabesche is a mur­der­er,” replied Cham­pi­on, sim­ply.

“Then they par­doned him!” said Veronique, in a trem­bling voice.

“No, madame,” replied Col­orat, “Farrabesche was tried and con­demned to ten years at the gal­leys; he served half his time, and then he was re­leased on pa­role and came here in 1827. He owes his life to the rec­tor, who per­suad­ed him to give him­self up to jus­tice. He had been con­demned to death by de­fault, and soon­er or lat­er he must have been tak­en and ex­ecut­ed. Mon­sieur Bon­net went to find him in the woods, all alone, at the risk of be­ing killed. No one knows what he said to Farrabesche. They were alone to­geth­er two days; on the third day the rec­tor brought Farrabesche to Tulle, where he gave him­self up. Mon­sieur Bon­net went to see a good lawyer and begged him to do his best for the man. Farrabesche es­caped with ten years in irons. The rec­tor went to vis­it him in prison, and that dan­ger­ous fel­low, who used to be the ter­ror of the whole coun­try, be­came as gen­tle as a girl; he even let them take him to the gal­leys with­out a strug­gle. On his re­turn he set­tled here by the rec­tor's ad­vice; no one says a word against him; he goes to mass ev­ery Sun­day and all the feast-​days. Though his place is among us he slips in be­side the wall and sits alone. He goes to the al­tar some­times and prays, but when he takes the holy sacra­ment he al­ways kneels apart.”

“And you say that man killed an­oth­er man?”

“One!” ex­claimed Col­orat; “he killed sev­er­al! But he is a good man all the same.”

“Is that pos­si­ble?” ex­claimed Veronique, let­ting the bri­dle fall on the neck of her horse.

“Well, you see, madame,” said the forester, who asked no bet­ter than to tell the tale, “Farrabesche may have had good rea­son for what he did. He was the last of the Farrabesches,--an old fam­ily of the Cor­reze, don't you know! His el­der broth­er, Cap­tain Farrabesche, died ten years ear­li­er in Italy, at Mon­tenotte, a cap­tain when he was on­ly twen­ty-​two years old. Wasn't that ill-​luck? and such a lad, too! knew how to read and write, and bid fair to be a gen­er­al. The fam­ily grieved ter­ri­bly, and good rea­son, too. As for me, I heard all about his death, for I was serv­ing at that time un­der L'AUTRE. Oh! he made a fine death, did Cap­tain Farrabesche; he saved the army and the Lit­tle Cor­po­ral. I was then in the di­vi­sion of Gen­er­al Stein­gel, a Ger­man, --that is, an Al­sa­cian,--a fa­mous good gen­er­al but rather short-​sight­ed, and that was the rea­son why he was killed soon af­ter Cap­tain Farrabesche. The younger broth­er--that's this one--was on­ly six years old when he heard of his broth­er's death. The sec­ond broth­er served too; but on­ly as a pri­vate sol­dier; he died a sergeant in the first reg­iment of the Guard, at the bat­tle of Auster­litz, where, d'ye see, madame, they ma­noeu­vred just as qui­et­ly as they might in the Car­rousel. I was there! oh! I had the luck of it! went through it all with­out a scratch! Now this Farrabesche of ours, though he's a brave fel­low, took it in­to his head he wouldn't go to the wars; in fact, the army wasn't a healthy place for one of his fam­ily. So when the con­scrip­tion caught him in 1811 he ran away,--a re­frac­to­ry, that's what they called them. And then it was he went and joined a par­ty of _chauf­feurs_, or maybe he was forced to; at any rate he _chauffed_! No­body but the rec­tor knows what he re­al­ly did with those brig­ands--all due re­spect to them! Many a fight he had with the gen­darmes and the sol­diers too; I'm told he was in sev­en reg­ular bat­tles--”

“They say he killed two sol­diers and three gen­darmes,” put in Cham­pi­on.

“Who knows how many?--he nev­er told,” went on Col­orat. “At last, madame, they caught near­ly all his com­rades, but they nev­er could catch him; hang him! he was so young and ac­tive, and knew the coun­try so well, he al­ways es­caped. The _chauf­feurs_ he con­sort­ed with kept them­selves most­ly in the neigh­bor­hood of Brives and Tulle; some­times they came down this way, be­cause Farrabesche knew such good hid­ing-​places about here. In 1814 the con­scrip­tion took no fur­ther no­tice of him, be­cause it was abol­ished; but for all that, he was obliged to live in the woods in 1815; be­cause, don't you see? as he hadn't enough to live on, he helped to stop a mail-​coach over there, down that gorge; and then it was they con­demned him. But, as I told you just now, the rec­tor per­suad­ed him to give him­self up. It wasn't easy to con­vict him, for no­body dared tes­ti­fy against him; and his lawyer and Mon­sieur Bon­net worked so hard they got him sen­tenced for ten years on­ly; which was pret­ty good luck af­ter be­ing a _chauf­feur_ --for he did _chauffe_.”

“Will you tell me what _chauf­feur_ means?”

“If you wish it, madame, I will tell you what they did, as far as I know about it from oth­ers, for I nev­er was _chauffed_ my­self. It wasn't a good thing to do, but ne­ces­si­ty knows no law. Well, this is how it was: sev­en or eight would go to some farmer or land-​own­er who was thought to have mon­ey; the farmer would build a good fire and give them a sup­per, last­ing half through the night, and then, when the feast was over, if the mas­ter of the house wouldn't give them the sum de­mand­ed, they just fas­tened his feet to the spit, and didn't un­fas­ten them till they got it. That's how it was. They al­ways went masked. Among all their ex­pe­di­tions they some­times made un­lucky ones. Hang it, there'll al­ways be ob­sti­nate, miser­ly old fel­lows in the world! One of them, a farmer, old Cochegrue, so mean he'd shave an egg, held out; he let them roast his feet. Well, he died of it. The wife of Mon­sieur David, near Brives, died of ter­ror at mere­ly see­ing those fel­lows tie her hus­band's feet. She died say­ing to David: 'Give them all you have.' He wouldn't, and so she just point­ed out the hid­ing-​place. The _chauf­feurs_ (that's why they call them _chauf­feurs_,--warm­ers) were the ter­ror of the whole coun­try for over five years. But you must get it well in­to your head,--oh, ex­cuse me, madame, but you must know that more than one young man of good fam­ily be­longed to them, though some­how they were nev­er the ones to be caught.”

Madame Graslin lis­tened with­out in­ter­rupt­ing or re­ply­ing. There was si­lence for a few mo­ments, and then lit­tle Cham­pi­on, jeal­ous of the right to amuse his mis­tress, want­ed to tell her what he knew of the late gal­ley-​slave.

“Madame ought to know more about Farrabesche; he hasn't his equal at run­ning, or at rid­ing a horse. He can kill an ox with a blow of his fist; no­body can shoot like him; he can car­ry sev­en hun­dred feet as straight as a die,--there! One day they sur­prised him with three of his com­rades; two were wound­ed, one was killed,--good! Farrabesche was all but tak­en. Bah! he just sprang on the horse of one of the gen­darmes be­hind the man, pricked the horse with his knife, made it run with all its might, and so dis­ap­peared, hold­ing the gen­darme tight round the body. But he held him so tight that af­ter a time he threw the body on the ground and rode away alone on the horse and mas­ter of the horse; and he had the cheek to go and sell it not thir­ty miles from Limo­ges! Af­ter that af­fair he hid him­self for three months and was nev­er seen. The au­thor­ities of­fered a hun­dred gold­en louis to who­ev­er would de­liv­er him up.”

“An­oth­er time,” added Col­orat, “when the pre­fect of Tulle of­fered a hun­dred louis for him, he made one of his own cousins, Giriex of Vizay, earn them. His cousin de­nounced him, and ap­peared to de­liv­er him up. Oh, yes, he de­liv­ered him sure enough! The gen­darmes were de­light­ed, and took him to Tulle; there they put him in the prison of Lu­ber­sac, from which he es­caped that very night, prof­it­ing by a hole al­ready be­gun by one of his ac­com­plices who had been ex­ecut­ed. All these ad­ven­tures gave Farrabesche a fine rep­uta­tion. The _chauf­feurs_ had lots of out­side friends; peo­ple re­al­ly loved them. They were not skin­flints like those of to-​day; they spent their mon­ey roy­al­ly, those fel­lows! Just fan­cy, madame, one evening Farrabesche was chased by gen­darmes; well, he es­caped them by stay­ing twen­ty min­utes un­der wa­ter in the pond of a farm-​yard. He breathed air through a straw which he kept above the sur­face of the pool, which was half muck. But, good­ness! what was that lit­tle dis­agree­able­ness to a man who spends his nights in the tree-​tops, where the spar­rows can hard­ly hold them­selves, watch­ing the sol­diers go­ing to and fro in search of him be­low? Farrabesche was one of the half-​dozen _chauf­feurs_ whom the of­fi­cers of jus­tice could nev­er lay hands on. But as he be­longed to the re­gion and was brought up with them, and had, as they said, on­ly fled the con­scrip­tion, all the wom­en were on his side,--and that's a great deal, you know.”

“Is it re­al­ly cer­tain that Farrabesche did kill sev­er­al per­sons?” asked Madame Graslin.

“Yes, cer­tain,” replied Col­orat; “it is even said that it was he who killed the trav­eller by the mail-​coach in 1812; but the couri­er and the pos­til­ion, the on­ly wit­ness­es who could have iden­ti­fied him, were dead be­fore he was tried.”

“Tried for the rob­bery?” asked Madame Graslin.

“Yes, they took ev­ery­thing; amongst it twen­ty-​five thou­sand francs be­long­ing to the gov­ern­ment.”

Madame Graslin rode silent­ly af­ter that for two or three miles. The sun had now set, the moon was light­ing the gray plain, which looked like an open sea. Cham­pi­on and Col­orat be­gan to won­der at Madame Graslin, whose si­lence seemed strange to them, and they were great­ly as­ton­ished to see the shin­ing track of tears up­on her cheeks; her eyes were red and full of tears, which were falling drop by drop as she rode along.

“Oh, madame,” said Col­orat, “don't pity him! The lad has had his day. He had pret­ty girls in love with him; and now, though to be sure he is close­ly watched by the po­lice, he is pro­tect­ed by the re­spect and good-​will of the rec­tor; for he has re­al­ly re­pent­ed. His con­duct at the gal­leys was ex­em­plary. Ev­ery­body knows he is as hon­est as the most hon­est man among us. On­ly he is proud; he doesn't choose to ex­pose him­self to re­buff; so he lives qui­et­ly by him­self and does good in his own way. He has made a nurs­ery of about ten acres for you on the oth­er side of the Roche-​Vive; he plants in the forests wher­ev­er he thinks there's a chance of mak­ing a tree grow; he trims the tree and cuts out the dead wood, and ties it up in­to bun­dles for the poor. All the poor peo­ple know they can get their wood from him all cut and ready to burn; so they go and ask him for it, in­stead of tak­ing it them­selves and in­jur­ing your for­est. He is an­oth­er kind of _chauf­feur_ now, and warms his poor neigh­bors to their com­fort and not to their harm. Oh, Farrabesche loves your for­est! He takes care of it as if it were his own prop­er­ty.”

“And he lives--all alone?” ex­claimed Madame Graslin, adding the two last words hasti­ly.

“Ex­cuse me, not quite alone, madame; he takes care of a boy about fif­teen years old,” said Mau­rice Cham­pi­on.

“Yes, that's so,” said Col­orat; “La Curieux gave birth to the child some lit­tle time be­fore Farrabesche was con­demned.”

“Is it his child?” asked Madame Graslin.

“Peo­ple think so.”

“Why didn't he mar­ry her?”

“How could he? They would cer­tain­ly have ar­rest­ed him. As it was, when La Curieux heard he was sen­tenced to the gal­leys the poor girl left this part of the coun­try.”

“Was she a pret­ty girl?”

“Oh!” said Mau­rice, “my moth­er says she was very like an­oth­er girl who has al­so left Mon­teg­nac for some­thing the same rea­son,--Denise Tascheron.”

“She loved him?” said Madame Graslin.

“Ha, yes! be­cause he _chauffed_; wom­en do like things that are out of the way. How­ev­er, noth­ing ev­er did sur­prise the com­mu­ni­ty more than that love af­fair. Cather­ine Curieux lived as vir­tu­ous a life as a holy vir­gin; she passed for a pearl of pu­ri­ty in her vil­lage of Vizay, which is re­al­ly a small town in the Cor­reze on the line be­tween the two de­part­ments. Her fa­ther and moth­er are farm­ers to the Messieurs Brezac. Cather­ine Curieux was about sev­en­teen when Farrabesche was sent to the gal­leys. The Farrabesches were an old fam­ily from the same re­gion, who set­tled in the com­mune of Mon­teg­nac; they hired their farm from the vil­lage. The fa­ther and moth­er Farrabesche are dead, but Cather­ine's three sis­ters are mar­ried, one in Aubus­son, an­oth­er in Limo­ges, and a third in Saint-​Leonard.”

“Do you think Farrabesche knows where Cather­ine Curieux is?” asked Madame Graslin.

“If he did know he'd break his pa­role. Oh! he'd go to her. As soon as he came back from the gal­leys he got Mon­sieur Bon­net to ask for the lit­tle boy whom the grand­fa­ther and grand­moth­er were tak­ing care of; and Mon­sieur Bon­net ob­tained the child.”

“Does no one know what be­came of the moth­er?”

“No one,” said Col­orat. “The girl felt that she was ru­ined; she was afraid to stay in her own vil­lage. She went to Paris. What is she do­ing there? Well, that's the ques­tion; but you might as well hunt for a mar­ble among the stones on that plain as look for her there.”

They were now rid­ing up the as­cent to the chateau as Col­orat point­ed to the plain be­low. Madame Sauvi­at, ev­ident­ly un­easy, Aline and the oth­er ser­vants were wait­ing at the gate, not know­ing what to think of this long ab­sence.

“My dear,” said Madame Sauvi­at, help­ing her daugh­ter to dis­mount, “you must be very tired.”

“No, moth­er,” replied Madame Graslin, in so changed a voice that Madame Sauvi­at looked close­ly at her and then saw the mark of tears.

Madame Graslin went to her own rooms with Aline, who took her or­ders for all that con­cerned her per­son­al life. She now shut her­self up and would not even ad­mit her moth­er; when Madame Sauvi­at asked to en­ter, Aline stopped her, say­ing, “Madame has gone to sleep.”

The next day Veronique rode out at­tend­ed by Mau­rice on­ly. In or­der to reach the Roche-​Vive as quick­ly as pos­si­ble she took the road by which she had re­turned the night be­fore. As they rode up the gorge which lies be­tween the moun­tain peak and the last hill of the for­est (for, seen from the plain, the Roche-​Vive looks iso­lat­ed) Veronique re­quest­ed Mau­rice to show her the house in which Farrabesche lived and then to hold the hors­es and wait for her; she wished to go alone. Mau­rice took her to a path which led down on the oth­er side of the Roche-​Vive and showed her the thatched roof of a dwelling half buried in the moun­tain, be­low which lay the nurs­ery grounds. It was then about mid-​day. A light smoke is­sued from the chim­ney. Veronique reached the cot­tage in a few mo­ments, but she did not make her pres­ence known at once. She stood a few mo­ments lost in thoughts known on­ly to her­self as she gazed on the mod­est dwelling which stood in the mid­dle of a gar­den en­closed with a hedge of thorns.

Be­yond the low­er end of the gar­den lay sev­er­al cares of mead­ow land sur­round­ed by an ev­er­green hedge; the eye looked down on the flat­tened tops of fruit trees, ap­ple, pear, and plum trees scat­tered here and there among these fields. Above the house, to­ward the crest of the moun­tain where the soil be­came sandy, rose the yel­low crowns of a splen­did grove of chest­nuts. Open­ing the railed gate made of half-​rot­ten boards which en­closed the premis­es, Madame Graslin saw a sta­ble, a small poul­try-​yard and all the pic­turesque and liv­ing ac­ces­sories of poor homes, which have so much of ru­ral poesy about them. Who could see with­out emo­tion the linen flut­ter­ing on the hedges, the bunch­es of onions hang­ing from the eaves, the iron saucepans dry­ing in the sun, the wood­en bench over­hung with hon­ey­suck­le, the stone-​crop cling­ing to the thatch, as it does on the roofs of near­ly all the cot­tages in France, re­veal­ing a hum­ble life that is al­most veg­eta­tive?

It was im­pos­si­ble for Veronique to come up­on her keep­er with­out his re­ceiv­ing due no­tice; two fine hunt­ing dogs be­gan to bark as soon as the rustling of her habit was heard on the dried leaves. She took the end of it over her arm and ad­vanced to­ward the house. Farrabesche and his boy, who were sit­ting on a wood­en bench out­side the door, rose and un­cov­ered their heads, stand­ing in a re­spect­ful at­ti­tude, but with­out the least ap­pear­ance of ser­vil­ity.

“I have heard,” said Veronique, look­ing at­ten­tive­ly at the boy, “that you take much care of my in­ter­ests; I wished to see your house and the nurs­eries, and ask you a few ques­tions re­lat­ing to the im­prove­ments I in­tend to make.”

“I am at madame's or­ders,” replied Farrabesche.

Veronique ad­mired the boy, who had a charm­ing face of a per­fect oval, rather sun­burned and brown but very reg­ular in fea­tures, the fore­head fine­ly mod­elled, or­ange-​col­ored eyes of ex­treme vi­vac­ity, black hair cut straight across the brow and al­lowed to hang down on ei­ther side of the face. Taller than most boys of his age, the lit­tle fel­low was near­ly five feet high. His trousers, like his shirt, were of coarse gray linen, his waist­coat, of rough blue cloth with horn but­tons much worn and a jack­et of the cloth so odd­ly called Mau­ri­enne vel­vet, with which the Savo­yards like to clothe them­selves, stout hob-​nailed shoes, and no stock­ings. This cos­tume was ex­act­ly like that of his fa­ther, ex­cept that Farrabesche had on his head the broad-​brimmed felt hat of the peas­antry, while the boy had on­ly a brown woollen cap.

Though in­tel­li­gent and an­imat­ed, the child's face was in­stinct with the grav­ity pe­cu­liar to all hu­man be­ings of any age who live in soli­tude; he seemed to put him­self in har­mo­ny with the life and the si­lence of the woods. Both Farrabesche and his son were spe­cial­ly de­vel­oped on their phys­ical side, pos­sess­ing many of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of sav­ages,--pierc­ing sight, con­stant ob­ser­va­tion, ab­so­lute self-​con­trol, a keen ear, won­der­ful agili­ty, and an in­tel­li­gent man­ner of speak­ing. At the first glance the boy gave his fa­ther Madame Graslin rec­og­nized one of those un­bound­ed af­fec­tions in which in­stinct blends with thought, and a most ac­tive hap­pi­ness strength­ens both the will of the in­stinct and the rea­son­ing of thought.

“This must be the child I have heard of,” said Veronique, mo­tion­ing to the boy.

“Yes, madame.”

“Have you made no at­tempt to find his moth­er?” asked Veronique, mak­ing a sign to Farrabesche to fol­low her a lit­tle dis­tance.

“Madame may not be aware that I am not al­lowed to go be­yond the dis­trict in which I re­side.”

“Have you nev­er re­ceived any news of her?”

“At the ex­pi­ra­tion of my term,” he an­swered, “I re­ceived from the Com­mis­sion­er a thou­sand francs, sent to him quar­ter­ly for me in lit­tle sums which po­lice reg­ula­tions did not al­low me to re­ceive till the day I left the gal­leys. I think that Cather­ine alone would have thought of me, as it was not Mon­sieur Bon­net who sent this mon­ey; there­fore I have kept it safe­ly for Ben­jamin.”

“And Cather­ine's par­ents?”

“They have nev­er in­quired for her since she left. Be­sides they did enough in tak­ing charge of the lit­tle one.”

“Well, Farrabesche,” said Veronique, re­turn­ing to­ward the house. “I will make it my busi­ness to know if Cather­ine still lives; and if so, what is her present mode of life.”

“Oh! madame, what­ev­er that may be,” said the man gen­tly, “it would be hap­pi­ness for me if I could have her for my wife. It is for her to ob­ject, not me. Our mar­riage would le­git­ima­tize this poor boy, who as yet knows noth­ing of his po­si­tion.”

The look the fa­ther threw up­on the lad ex­plained the life of these two be­ings, aban­doned, or vol­un­tar­ily iso­lat­ed; they were all in all to each oth­er, like two com­pa­tri­ots adrift up­on a desert.

“Then you love Cather­ine?” said Veronique.

“Even if I did not love her, madame,” he replied, “she is to me, in my sit­ua­tion, the on­ly wom­an there is in the world.”

Madame Graslin turned hur­ried­ly and walked away un­der the chest­nut trees, as if at­tacked by some sharp pain; the keep­er, think­ing she was moved by a sud­den caprice, did not ven­ture to fol­low her.