The Village Rector

XIV

THE TOR­RENT OF THE GABOU

Veronique re­mained for some min­utes un­der the chest­nut trees, ap­par­ent­ly look­ing at the land­scape. Thence she could see that por­tion of the for­est which clothes the side of the val­ley down which flows the tor­rent of the Gabou, now dry, a mass of stones, look­ing like a huge ditch cut be­tween the wood­ed moun­tains of Mon­teg­nac and an­oth­er chain of par­al­lel hills be­yond,--the lat­ter be­ing much steep­er and with­out veg­eta­tion, ex­cept for heath and ju­niper and a few sparse trees to­ward their sum­mit.

These hills, des­olate of as­pect, be­long to the neigh­bor­ing do­main and are in the de­part­ment of the Cor­reze. A coun­try road, fol­low­ing the un­du­la­tions of the val­ley, serves to mark the line be­tween the ar­rondisse­ment of Mon­teg­nac and the two es­tates. This bar­ren slope sup­ports, like a wall, a fine piece of wood­land which stretch­es away in the dis­tance from its rocky sum­mit. Its bar­ren­ness forms a com­plete con­trast to the oth­er slope, on which is the cot­tage of Farrabesche. On the one side, harsh, dis­fig­ured an­gu­lar­ities, on the oth­er, grace­ful forms and curv­ing out­lines; there, the cold, dumb still­ness of un­fruit­ful earth held up by hor­izon­tal blocks of stone and naked rock, here, trees of var­ious greens, now stripped for the most part of fo­liage, but show­ing their fine straight many-​col­ored trunks on ev­ery slope and ter­race of the land; their in­ter­lac­ing branch­es sway­ing to the breeze. A few more per­sis­tent trees, oaks, elms, beech­es, and chest­nuts, still re­tained their yel­low, bronzed, or crim­soned fo­liage.

To­ward Mon­teg­nac, where the val­ley widened im­mense­ly, the two slopes form a horse-​shoe; and from the spot where Veronique now stood lean­ing against a tree she could see the de­scend­ing val­leys ly­ing like the gra­da­tions of an amp­ithe­atre, the tree-​tops ris­ing from each tier like per­sons in the au­di­ence. This fine land­scape was then on the oth­er side of her park, though it af­ter­wards formed part of it. On the side to­ward the cot­tage near which she stood the val­ley nar­rows more and more un­til it be­comes a gorge, about a hun­dred feet wide.

The beau­ty of this view, over which Madame Graslin's eyes now roved me­chan­ical­ly, re­called her present­ly to her­self. She re­turned to the cot­tage where the fa­ther and son were stand­ing, silent­ly await­ing her and not seek­ing to ex­plain her sin­gu­lar ab­sence.

She ex­am­ined the house, which was built with more care than its thatched roof seemed to war­rant. It had, no doubt, been aban­doned ev­er since the Navar­reins ceased to care for this do­main. No more hunts, no more game-​keep­ers. Though the house had been built for over a hun­dred years, the walls were still good, notwith­stand­ing the ivy and oth­er sorts of climb­ing-​plants which clung to them. When Farrabesche ob­tained per­mis­sion to live there he tiled the room on the low­er floor and put in fur­ni­ture. Veronique saw, as she en­tered, two beds, a large wal­nut wardrobe, a bread-​box, dress­er, ta­ble, three chairs, and on the dress­er a few brown earth­en­ware dish­es and oth­er uten­sils nec­es­sary to life. Above the fire­place were two guns and two game­bags. A num­ber of lit­tle things ev­ident­ly made by the fa­ther for the child touched Veronique's heart--the mod­el of a man-​of-​war, of a sloop, a carved wood­en cup, a wood­en box of exquisite work­man­ship, a cof­fer in­laid in di­aper pat­tern, a cru­ci­fix, and a splen­did rosary. The chap­let was made of plum-​stones, on each of which was carved a head of mar­vel­lous del­ica­cy,--of Je­sus Christ, of the apos­tles, the Madon­na, Saint John the Bap­tist, Saint Joseph, Saint Anne, the two Mag­dalens, etc.

“I do that to amuse the lit­tle one in the long win­ter evenings,” he said, as if ex­cus­ing him­self.

The front of the house was cov­ered with jes­samine and ros­es, trained to the wall and wreath­ing the win­dows of the up­per floor, where Farrabesche stored his pro­vi­sions. He bought lit­tle ex­cept bread, salt, sug­ar, and a few such ar­ti­cles, for he kept chick­ens, ducks, and two pigs. Nei­ther he nor the boy drank wine.

“All that I have heard of you and all that I now see,” said Madame Graslin at last, “make me feel an in­ter­est in your wel­fare which will not, I hope, be a bar­ren one.”

“I rec­og­nize Mon­sieur Bon­net's kind­ness in what you say,” cried Farrabesche, in a tone of feel­ing.

“You are mis­tak­en; the rec­tor has not yet spo­ken of you to me; chance --or God--has done it.”

“Yes, madame, God! God alone can do mir­acles for a mis­er­able man like me.”

“If you have been a mis­er­able man,” said Madame Graslin, low­er­ing her voice that the child might not hear her (an act of wom­an­ly del­ica­cy which touched his heart), “your re­pen­tance, your con­duct, and the rec­tor's es­teem have now fit­ted you to be­come a hap­pi­er man. I have giv­en or­ders to fin­ish the build­ing of the large farm­house which Mon­sieur Graslin in­tend­ed to es­tab­lish near the chateau. I shall make you my farmer, and you will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to use all your fac­ul­ties, and al­so to em­ploy your son. The _pro­cureur-​gen­er­al_ in Limo­ges shall be in­formed about you, and the hu­mil­iat­ing po­lice-​in­spec­tion you are now sub­ject­ed to shall be re­moved. I promise you.”

At these words Farrabesche fell on his knees, as if struck down by the re­al­iza­tion of a hope he had long con­sid­ered vain. He kissed the hem of Madame Graslin's habit, then her feet. See­ing the tears in his fa­ther's eyes, the boy wept too, with­out know­ing why.

“Rise, Farrabesche,” said Madame Graslin, “you do not know how nat­ural it is that I should do for you what I have promised. You plant­ed those fine trees, did you not?” she went on, point­ing to the groups of North­ern pine, firs, and larch­es at the foot of the dry and rocky hill di­rect­ly op­po­site.

“Yes, madame.”

“Is the earth bet­ter there?”

“The wa­ter in wash­ing down among the rocks brings a cer­tain amount of soil, which it de­posits. I have prof­it­ed by this; for the whole of the lev­el of the val­ley be­longs to you,--the road is your bound­ary.”

“Is there much wa­ter at the bot­tom of that long val­ley?”

“Oh, madame,” cried Farrabesche, “be­fore long, when the rains be­gin, you will hear the tor­rent roar even at the chateau; but even that is noth­ing to what hap­pens in spring when the snows melt. The wa­ter then rush­es down from all parts of the for­est be­hind Mon­teg­nac, from those great slopes which are back of the hills on which you have your park. All the wa­ter of these moun­tains pours in­to this val­ley and makes a del­uge. Luck­ily for you, the trees hold the earth; oth­er­wise the land would slide in­to the val­ley.”

“Where are the springs?” asked Madame Graslin, giv­ing her full at­ten­tion to what he said.

Farrabesche point­ed to a nar­row gorge which seemed to end the val­ley just be­low his house. “They are most­ly on a clay plateau ly­ing be­tween the Limousin and the Cor­reze; they are mere green pools dur­ing the sum­mer, and lose them­selves in the soil. No one lives in that un­healthy re­gion. The cat­tle will not eat the grass or reeds that grow near the brack­ish wa­ter. That vast tract, which has more than three thou­sand acres in it, is an open com­mon for three dis­tricts; but, like the plains of Mon­teg­nac, no use can be made of it. This side on your prop­er­ty, as I showed you, there is a lit­tle earth among the stones, but over there is noth­ing but sandy rock.”

“Send your boy for the hors­es; I will ride over and see it for my­self.”

Ben­jamin de­part­ed, af­ter Madame Graslin had shown him the di­rec­tion in which he would find Mau­rice and the hors­es.

“You who know, so they tell me, ev­ery pe­cu­liar­ity of the coun­try thor­ough­ly,” con­tin­ued Madame Graslin, “ex­plain to me how it is that the streams of my for­est which are on the side of the moun­tain to­ward Mon­teg­nac, and ought there­fore to send their wa­ters down there, do not do so, nei­ther in reg­ular wa­ter-​cours­es nor in sud­den tor­rents af­ter rains and the melt­ing of the snows.”

“Ah, madame,” said Farrabesche, “the rec­tor, who thinks all the time about the wel­fare of Mon­teg­nac, has guessed the rea­son, but he can't find any proof of it. Since your ar­rival, he has made me trace the path of the wa­ter from point to point through each ravine and val­ley. I was re­turn­ing yes­ter­day, when I had the hon­or of meet­ing you, from the base of the Roche-​Vive, where I care­ful­ly ex­am­ined the lay of the land. Hear­ing the hors­es' feet, I came up to see who was there. Mon­sieur Bon­net is not on­ly a saint, madame; he is a man of great knowl­edge. 'Farrabesche,' he said to me (I was then work­ing on the road the vil­lage has just built to the chateau, and the rec­tor came to me and point­ed to that chain of hills from Mon­teg­nac to Roche-​Vive), --'Farrabesche,' he said, 'there must be some rea­son why that wa­ter-​shed does not send any of its wa­ter to the plain; Na­ture must have made some sluice­way which car­ries it else­where.' Well, madame, that idea is so sim­ple you would sup­pose any child might have thought it; yet no one since Mon­teg­nac ex­ist­ed, nei­ther the great lords, nor their bailiffs, nor their foresters, nor the poor, nor the rich, none of those who saw that plain bar­ren for want of wa­ter, ev­er asked them­selves why the streams which now feed the Gabou do not come there. The three dis­tricts above, which have con­stant­ly been af­flict­ed with fevers in con­se­quence of stag­nant wa­ter, nev­er looked for the rem­edy; I my­self, who live in the wilds, nev­er dreamed of it; it need­ed a man of God.”

The tears filled his eyes as he said the word.

“All that men of ge­nius dis­cov­er,” said Madame Graslin, “seems so sim­ple that ev­ery one thinks they might have dis­cov­ered it them­selves. But,” she added, as if to her­self, “ge­nius has this fine thing about it,--it re­sem­bles all the world, but no one re­sem­bles it.”

“I un­der­stood Mon­sieur Bon­net at once,” con­tin­ued Farrabesche; “it did not take him many words to tell me what I had to do. Madame, this fact I tell you of is all the more sin­gu­lar be­cause there are, to­ward the plain, great rents and fis­sures in the moun­tain, gorges and ravines down which the wa­ter flows; but, strange to say, these clefts and ravines and gorges all send their streams in­to a lit­tle val­ley which is sev­er­al feet be­low the lev­el of your plain. To-​day I have dis­cov­ered the rea­son of this phe­nomenon: from the Roche-​Vive to Mon­teg­nac, at the foot of the moun­tains, runs a shelf or bar­ri­cade of rock, vary­ing in height from twen­ty to thir­ty feet; there is not a break in it from end to end; and it is formed of a species of rock which Mon­sieur Bon­net calls schist. The soil above it, which is of course soft­er than rock, has been hol­lowed out by the ac­tion of the wa­ter, which is turned at right an­gles by the bar­ri­cade of rock, and thus flows nat­ural­ly in­to the Gabou. The trees and un­der­brush of the for­est con­ceal this for­ma­tion and the hol­low­ing out of the soil. But af­ter fol­low­ing the course of the wa­ter, as I have done by the traces left of its pas­sage, it is easy to con­vince any one of the fact. The Gabou thus re­ceives the wa­ter-​shed of both moun­tains,--that which ought to go down the moun­tain face on which your park and gar­den are to the plain, and that which comes down the rocky slopes be­fore us. Ac­cord­ing to Mon­sieur Bon­net the present state of things will crease when the wa­ter-​shed to­ward the plain gains a nat­ural out­let, and is dammed to­ward the Gabou by the earth and rocks which the moun­tain tor­rents bring down with them. It will take a hun­dred years to do that, how­ev­er; and be­sides, it isn't de­sir­able. If your soil will not take up more wa­ter than the great com­mon you are now go­ing to see, Mon­teg­nac would be full of stag­nant pools, breed­ing fever in the com­mu­ni­ty.”

“I sup­pose that the places Mon­sieur Bon­net showed me the oth­er day where the fo­liage of the trees is still green mark the present con­duits by which the wa­ter falls in­to the Gabou?”

“Yes, madame. Be­tween Roche-​Vive and Mon­teg­nac there are three dis­tinct moun­tains with three hol­lows be­tween them, down which the wa­ters, stopped by the schist bar­ri­er, turn off in­to the Gabou. The belt of trees still green at the foot of the hill above the bar­ri­er, which looks, at a dis­tance, like a part of the plain, is re­al­ly the wa­ter-​sluice the rec­tor sup­posed, very just­ly, that Na­ture had made for her­self.”

“Well, what has been to the in­jury of Mon­teg­nac shall soon be its pros­per­ity,” said Madame Graslin, in a tone of deep in­ten­tion. “And inas­much as you have been the first in­stru­ment em­ployed on the work, you shall share in it; you shall find me faith­ful, in­dus­tri­ous work­men; lack of mon­ey can al­ways be made up by de­vo­tion and good work.”

Ben­jamin and Mau­rice came up as Veronique end­ed these words; she mount­ed her horse and signed to Farrabesche to mount the oth­er.

“Guide me,” she said, “to the place where the wa­ters spread out in pools over that waste land.”

“There is all the more rea­son why madame should go there,” said Farrabesche, “be­cause the late Mon­sieur Graslin, un­der the rec­tor's ad­vice, bought three hun­dred acres at the open­ing of that gorge, on which the wa­ters have left sed­iment enough to make good soil over quite a piece of ground. Madame will al­so see the op­po­site side of the Roche-​Vive, where there are fine woods, among which Mon­sieur Graslin would no doubt have put a farm had he lived; there's an ex­cel­lent place for one, where the spring which ris­es just by my house los­es it­self be­low.”

Farrabesche rode first to show the way, tak­ing Veronique through a path which led to the spot where the two slopes drew close­ly to­geth­er and then flew apart, one to the east the oth­er to the west, as if re­pulsed by a shock. This nar­row pas­sage, filled with large rocks and coarse, tall grass­es, was on­ly about six­ty feet in width.

The Roche-​Vive, cut per­pen­dic­ular­ly on this side looked like a wall of gran­ite in which there was no foothold; but above this in­flex­ible wall was a crown of trees, the roots of which hung down it, most­ly pines cling­ing to the rock with their forked feet like birds on a bough.

The op­po­site hill, hol­lowed by time, had a frown­ing front, sandy, rocky, and yel­low; here were shal­low cav­erns, dips with­out depth; the soft and pul­ver­iz­ing rock had ochre tones. A few plants with prick­ly leaves above, and bur­docks, reeds, and aquat­ic growths be­low, were in­di­ca­tion enough of the north­ern ex­po­sure and the pover­ty of the soil. The bed of the tor­rent was of stone, quite hard, but yel­low. Ev­ident­ly the two chains, though par­al­lel and ripped asun­der by one of the great catas­tro­phes which have changed the face of the globe, were, ei­ther from some in­ex­pli­ca­ble caprice or for some un­known rea­son, the dis­cov­ery of which await­ed ge­nius, com­posed of el­ements that were whol­ly dis­sim­ilar. The con­trast of their two na­tures showed more clear­ly here than else­where.

Veronique now saw be­fore her an im­mense dry plateau, with­out any veg­eta­tion, chalky (this ex­plained the ab­sorp­tion of the wa­ter) and strewn with pools of stag­nant wa­ter and rocky places stripped of soil. To the right were the moun­tains of the Cor­reze; to left the Roche-​Vive barred the view cov­ered with its no­ble trees; on its fur­ther slope was a mead­ow of some two hun­dred acres, the ver­dure of which con­trast­ed with the hideous as­pect of the des­olate plateau.

“My son and I cut that ditch you see down there marked by the tall grass­es,” said Farrabesche; “it joins the one which bounds your for­est. On this side the es­tate is bound­ed by a desert, for the near­est vil­lage is three miles dis­tant.”

Veronique turned rapid­ly to the dis­mal plain, fol­lowed by her guide. She leaped her horse across the ditch and rode at full gal­lop across the drear ex­panse, seem­ing to take a sav­age plea­sure in con­tem­plat­ing that vast im­age of des­ola­tion. Farrabesche was right. No pow­er, no will could put to any use what­ev­er that soil which re­sound­ed un­der the hors­es' feet as though it were hol­low. This ef­fect was pro­duced by the nat­ural porous­ness of the clay; but there were fis­sures al­so through which the wa­ter flowed away, no doubt to some dis­tant source.

“There are many souls like this,” thought Veronique, stop­ping her horse af­ter she had rid­den at full speed for fif­teen or twen­ty min­utes. She re­mained mo­tion­less and thought­ful in the midst of this desert, where there was nei­ther an­imal nor in­sect life and where the birds nev­er flew. The plain of Mon­teg­nac was at least peb­bly or sandy; on it were places where a few inch­es of soil did give a foothold for the roots of cer­tain plains; but here the un­grate­ful chalk, nei­ther stone nor earth, re­pelled even the eye, which was forced to turn for re­lief to the blue of the ether.

Af­ter ex­am­in­ing the bounds of her for­est and the mead­ows pur­chased by her hus­band, Veronique re­turned to­ward the out­let of the Gabou, but slow­ly. She then saw Farrabesche gaz­ing in­to a sort of ditch which looked like one a spec­ula­tor might have dug in­to this des­olate cor­ner of the earth ex­pect­ing Na­ture to give up some hid­den trea­sure.

“What is the mat­ter?” asked Veronique, notic­ing on that man­ly face an ex­pres­sion of deep sad­ness.

“Madame, I owe my life to that ditch; or rather, to speak more cor­rect­ly, I owe to it time for re­pen­tance, time to re­deem my sins in the eyes of men.”

This method of ex­plain­ing life so af­fect­ed Madame Graslin that she stopped her horse on the brink of the ditch.

“I was hid­ing there, madame. The ground is so res­onant that when my ear was against it I could hear the hors­es of the gen­darmerie, or even the foot­steps of the sol­diers, which are al­ways pe­cu­liar. That gave me time to es­cape up the Gabou to a place where I had a horse, and I al­ways man­aged to put sev­er­al miles be­tween my­self and my pur­suers. Cather­ine used to bring me food dur­ing the night; if she did not find me I al­ways found the bread and wine in a hole cov­ered with a rock.”

This rec­ol­lec­tion of his wan­der­ing and crim­inal life, which might have in­jured Farrabesche with some per­sons, met with the most in­dul­gent pity from Madame Graslin. She rode hasti­ly on to­ward the Gabou, fol­lowed by her guide. While she mea­sured with her eye this open­ing, through which could be seen the long val­ley, so smil­ing on one side, so ru­ined on the oth­er, and at its low­er end, a league away, the ter­raced hill-​sides back of Mon­teg­nac, Farrabesche said:--

“There'll be a fa­mous rush of wa­ter in a few days.”

“And next year, on this day, not a drop shall flow there. Both sides be­long to me, and I will build a dam sol­id enough and high enough to stop the freshet. In­stead of a val­ley yield­ing noth­ing, I will have a lake twen­ty, thir­ty, forty feet deep over an ex­tent of three or four miles,--an im­mense reser­voir, which shall sup­ply the flow of ir­ri­ga­tion with which I will fer­til­ize the plain of Mon­teg­nac.”

“Ah, madame! the rec­tor was right, when he said to us as we fin­ished our road, 'You are work­ing for a moth­er.' May God shed his bless­ing on such an un­der­tak­ing.”

“Say noth­ing about it, Farrabesche,” said Madame Graslin. “The idea was Mon­sieur Bon­net's.”

They re­turned to the cot­tage, where Veronique picked up Mau­rice, with whom she rode hasti­ly back to the chateau. When Madame Sauvi­at and Aline saw her they were struck with the change in her coun­te­nance; the hope of do­ing good in the re­gion she now owned gave her al­ready an ap­pear­ance of hap­pi­ness. She wrote at once to Mon­sieur Gros­setete, beg­ging him to ask Mon­sieur de Grandville for the com­plete re­lease of the re­turned con­vict, on whose con­duct she gave him as­sur­ances which were con­firmed by a cer­tifi­cate from the may­or of Mon­teg­nac and by a let­ter from Mon­sieur Bon­net. To this re­quest she added in­for­ma­tion about Cather­ine Curieux, beg­ging Gros­setete to in­ter­est the _pro­cureur-​gen­er­al_ in the good work she wished to do, and per­suade him to write to the pre­fec­ture of po­lice in Paris to re­cov­er traces of the girl. The cir­cum­stance of Cather­ine's hav­ing sent mon­ey to Farrabesche at the gal­leys ought to be clew enough to fur­nish in­for­ma­tion. Veronique was de­ter­mined to know why it was that the young wom­an had not re­turned to her child and to Farrabesche, now that he was free. She al­so told her old friend of her dis­cov­ery about the tor­rent of the Gabou, and urged him to se­lect an able en­gi­neer, such as she had al­ready asked him to pro­cure for her.

The next day was Sun­day, and for the first time since her in­stal­la­tion at Mon­teg­nac Veronique felt able to hear mass in church; she ac­cord­ing­ly went there and took pos­ses­sion of the bench that be­longed to her in the chapel of the Vir­gin. See­ing how de­nud­ed the poor church was, she re­solved to de­vote a cer­tain sum year­ly to the needs of the build­ing and the dec­ora­tion of the al­tars. She lis­tened to the sweet, im­pres­sive, an­gel­ic voice of the rec­tor, whose ser­mon, though couched in sim­ple lan­guage suit­ed to the rus­tic in­tel­lects be­fore him, was sub­lime in char­ac­ter. Sub­lim­ity comes from the heart, in­tel­lect has lit­tle to do with it; re­li­gion is a quench­less source of this sub­lim­ity which has no dross; for Catholi­cism en­ter­ing and chang­ing all hearts, is it­self all heart. Mon­sieur Bon­net took his text from the epis­tle for the day, which sig­ni­fied that, soon­er or lat­er, God ac­com­plish­es all promis­es, as­sist­ing His faith­ful ones, en­cour­ag­ing the righ­teous. He made plain to ev­ery mind the great things which might be ac­com­plished by wealth ju­di­cious­ly used for the good of oth­ers,--ex­plain­ing that the du­ties of the poor to the rich were as wide­ly ex­tend­ed as those of the rich to the poor, and that the aid and as­sis­tance giv­en should be mu­tu­al.

Farrabesche had made known to a few of those who treat­ed him in a friend­ly man­ner (the re­sult of the Chris­tian char­ity which Mon­sieur Bon­net had put in prac­tice among his parish­ioners) the benev­olent acts Madame Graslin had done for him. Her con­duct in this mat­ter had been talked over by all the lit­tle groups of per­sons as­sem­bled round the church door be­fore the ser­vice, as is the cus­tom in coun­try places. Noth­ing could have been bet­ter cal­cu­lat­ed to win the friend­ship and good-​will of these em­inent­ly sus­cep­ti­ble minds; so that when Veronique left the church af­ter ser­vice she found near­ly all the in­hab­itants of the parish formed in two hedges through which she was ex­pect­ed to pass. One and all they bowed re­spect­ful­ly in pro­found si­lence. She was deeply touched by this re­cep­tion, with­out know­ing the ac­tu­al cause of it. See­ing Farrabesche humbly sta­tioned among the last, she stopped and said to him:--

“You are a good hunter; do not for­get to sup­ply me with game.”

A few days lat­er Veronique went to walk with the rec­tor through the part of the for­est that was near­est the chateau, wish­ing to de­scend with him the ter­raced slopes she had seen from the house of Farrabesche. In do­ing this she ob­tained com­plete cer­tain­ty as to the na­ture of the up­per af­flu­ents of the Gabou. The rec­tor saw for him­self that the streams which wa­tered cer­tain parts of up­per Mon­teg­nac came from the moun­tains of the Cor­reze. This chain of hills joined the bar­ren slopes we have al­ready de­scribed, par­al­lel with the chain of the Roche-​Vive.

On re­turn­ing from this walk the rec­tor was joy­ful as a child; he fore­saw, with the naivete of a po­et, the pros­per­ity of his dear vil­lage--for a po­et is a man, is he not? who re­al­izes hopes be­fore they ripen. Mon­sieur Bon­net gar­nered his hay as he stood over­look­ing that bar­ren plain from Madame Graslin's up­per ter­race.