The Last Vendée

"You are mistaken in your thoughts, monsieur," replied Mary. "Monsieur Michel does not care for me; he is my sister's betrothed husband, and he loves her deeply; I can assure you of that."

"You are wrong not to trust me, Mademoiselle Mary. Do you know who I am? I am Courtin, Monsieur Michel's head farmer, and I may say, his confidential, man; and if you choose-"

"Monsieur Courtin, you will oblige me extremely," interrupted Mary, "if you would choose-"

"What?"

"To change the conversation."

"Very good; but allow me to renew my offer. Won't you ride behind me? – it would ease your journey. You are going to Nantes, I suppose?"

"Yes," replied Mary, who, little as she liked Courtin, thought she had better not conceal her destination from the Baron de la Logerie's confidential man.

"Well," continued Courtin, "as I am going there myself we had better go together, unless-If you are going to Nantes on an errand, and I could do it for you, I'd willingly undertake it, and save you the trouble."

Mary, in spite of her natural truthfulness, felt compelled to dissimulate; for it was all-important that no one should even guess at the cause of her journey.

"No," she replied; "it is impossible. I am on my way to join my father, who has taken refuge in Nantes, where he is now concealed."

"Dear, dear!" said Courtin, "Monsieur le marquis hiding in Nantes! that's a clever idea. They are looking for him the other way, and talk of turning the château de Souday inside out to its foundations."

"Who told you that?" asked Mary.

Courtin saw that he had made a blunder by seeming to know the plans of the government agents; he tried to repair it as best he could.

"It was chiefly to prevent you from going back there that Mademoiselle Bertha sent me in search of you," he said.

"Well, you see," said Mary, "that neither my father nor I are at Souday."

"Ah, that reminds me!" exclaimed Courtin, as if the thought had just come naturally into his head; "if Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur de la Logerie want to communicate with you, how are they to address you?"

"I don't know myself as yet," replied Mary. "I am to meet a man on the pont Bousseau who will take me to the house where my father is concealed. After I get there and have seen him I will write to my sister."

"Very good; if you have any communication to make, or if Monsieur le baron and your sister want to join you, and need a guide, I will undertake to manage it." Then, with a meaning smile, he added: "I'll answer for one thing; Monsieur Michel will be sending me more than once."

"Enough!" said Mary.

"Ah! excuse me. I didn't know it would make you angry."

"It does; your suppositions are offensive both to your master and to me."

"Pooh!" said Courtin, "all that is only talk. Monsieur le baron has a fine fortune, and there isn't a young lady the country round, whether she is an heiress or not, who would turn up her nose at it. Say the word, Mademoiselle Mary," continued the farmer, who believed that everybody worshipped money as he did; "only say the word and I'll do my best to make that fortune yours."

"Maître Courtin," said Mary, stopping short, and looking at the farmer with an expression in her eye he could not mistake; "it needs all my sense of your attachment to Monsieur de la Logerie to keep me from being seriously angry. I tell you again, and once for all, you are not to speak to me in that manner!"

Courtin expected a different reply, – his conception of a "she-wolf" not admitting of such delicacy. He was all the more surprised because he saw very plainly that the young girl shared the love his prying eyes had detected in the depths of the young baron's heart. For a moment he was disconcerted. Then he reflected that he might lose all by hurrying matters; better let the fish get thoroughly entangled in the net before he pulled it in.

The mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him it was probable that the leaders of the Legitimist insurrection would seek shelter in Nantes. Monsieur de Souday-Courtin believed this-was there already; Mary was on her way; Petit-Pierre would probably follow. Michel's love for the young girl might be used, like Ariadne's thread, to lead the way to her retreat, which would probably be that of Petit-Pierre; and the capture of Petit-Pierre was the real end and object of Courtin's ambitious hopes. If he persisted in accompanying Mary he would rouse her suspicions; and although he was most desirous to succeed that very day in his enterprise, prudence and strategy prevailed, and he resolved to give Mary some proof which might reassure her completely as to his intentions.

"Ah!" said he, "I see you despise my horse; but all the same it hurts me to see your little feet cut to pieces on those stones."

"Well, it can't be helped," replied Mary. "I shall be less noticed on foot than if I were mounted behind you; and, if I dared, I would ask you not to keep at my side. Anything that draws attention to me is dangerous. Let me walk alone and join those peasant-women just in front of us. I run less risk in their company."

"You are right," said Courtin; "and all the more because the gendarmes are behind and will overtake us soon."

Mary started; true enough, two gendarmes were really following them about a thousand feet back.

"Oh! you needn't be afraid," said Courtin; "I'll detain them at that tavern. Go on alone; but tell me, first, what I am to say to your sister?"

"Tell her that all my thoughts and prayers are for her welfare."

"Is that all?"

The girl hesitated; she looked at the farmer; doubtless the expression of his countenance betrayed his secret thoughts, for she lowered her head and answered: -

"Yes, that is all."

Courtin was well aware that although Mary did not utter Michel's name, he was the first and last thought of her heart.

The farmer stopped his horse. Mary, on the other hand, hastened her steps and joined the other peasant-women, who had gained some distance ahead while she talked with Courtin. As soon as she reached them she walked on by Petit-Pierre and told her what had happened, – suppressing, of course, that part of the conversation that related to the young baron.

Petit-Pierre thought it wise to evade the curiosity of the man; for his name recalled in a vague way some unpleasant memory. She therefore dropped behind the other women with Mary; and when they were fairly out of sight-thanks to a turn in the road-the two fugitives slipped into a wood at a short distance from the highway, from the edge of which they could see who passed it. After about fifteen minutes they saw Courtin hurrying, as best he could, his stubborn pony. Unfortunately, the farmer passed too far from the place where they were hidden to allow of Petit-Pierre's recognizing him as the man who had visited Pascal Picaut's house, and cut the girths of Michel's horse.

When he was out of sight Petit-Pierre and her companion returned to the high-road and continued their way to Nantes. The nearer they came to the town, where Petit-Pierre was promised a safe retreat, the more their fears diminished. She was now quite used to her costume, and the farmers who passed them did not seem to perceive that the little peasant-woman who tripped so lightly along the road was other than she seemed to be. It was surely a great thing to have deceived an instinct so penetrating as that of the country-folk, who have no masters, and perhaps no rivals, in this respect except soldiers.

At last they came in sight of Nantes. Petit-Pierre put on her shoes and stockings, preparatory to entering the town. One thing, however, made Mary uneasy. Courtin would doubtless be watching for her on the bridge; therefore, instead of entering by the pont Rousseau, the two women took advantage of a boat to cross the Loire to the other side of the town.

As they passed the Bouffai a hand was laid on Petit-Pierre's shoulder. She started and turned round. The person who had taken that alarming liberty was a worthy old woman on her way to market, who had put down her basket of apples in order to rest herself, and was not able to lift it alone and replace it on her head.

"My dears," she said to Petit-Pierre and Mary, "do help me, please, to get up my basket, and I'll give you each an apple."

Petit-Pierre took one handle, motioned to Mary to take the other, and the basket was quickly replaced and balanced on the head of the old woman, who began to walk away without bestowing the promised reward. But Petit-Pierre caught her by the arm, saying: -

"Look here, mother, where's my apple?"

The market-woman gave it to her. Petit-Pierre set her teeth into it and was munching it with an appetite sharpened by a ten-mile walk, when, lifting her head, her eyes fell on a notice posted on the walls upon which appeared in large letters these words: -

STATE OF SIEGE

It was a ministerial decree placing four departments in La Vendée under martial law.

Petit-Pierre went up to the notice and read it through from end to end tranquilly, in spite of Mary's entreaties to go as quickly as possible to the house where she was expected. Petit-Pierre very justly remarked that the matter was of such importance to her that she was right in obtaining a thorough knowledge of it.

Presently, however, the two women went their way into the dark and narrow streets of the old Breton city.

XXIII.

WHAT BECAME OF JEAN OULLIER

Though it was next to impossible for the soldiers to discover Jean Oullier in the hiding-place poor Trigaud's herculean strength had made for him, nevertheless, now that Courte-Joie and his companion were dead, Jean Oullier had only exchanged the prison into which the Blues would have thrust him, had he fallen into their hands, for another prison more terrible, a death more awful than any his captors could inflict upon him. He was buried alive; and in this deserted region there was little hope that any human being would hear his cries.

Toward the middle of the night which followed his parting from his two associates, finding they did not return, he felt certain that some fatal event had overtaken them; evidently, they were either dead or prisoners. The mere idea of the position in which he himself was placed was enough to freeze the blood in the veins of the bravest man; but Jean Oullier had one of those strongly religious natures which continue a struggle in faith when the bravest despair. He commended his soul to God in a short but fervent prayer, and then set to work as ardently as he had done in the burning ruins of La Pénissière.

Up to this time he had been crouching, bent double, with his chin on his knees; it was the only position the cramped quarters of the excavation allowed. He now endeavored to change it, and after many efforts he succeeded in getting on his knees. Then bracing himself on his hands and applying his shoulders to the heavy stone, he endeavored to raise it. But that which was child's play to Trigaud was impossible to any other man. Jean Oullier could not even shake the enormous mass which the giant had placed between him and the heavens.

He felt the ground beneath him; it was not earth but rock, – rock to right, rock to left, above and below him, rock only.

The slab of granite which Trigaud had laid like a monstrous cover on the stone box, slanted forward and left an open space about four inches wide between the bed of the rivulet and the imprisoned man, through which the air could reach him.

It was on this side that Jean Oullier, after fully reconnoitring his position, decided to apply his efforts.

He broke the point of his knife against the rock and made a chisel of it. The butt-end of his pistol answered for a hammer, and he set to work to widen the aperture. He spent twenty-four hours at this labor, without other sustenance than that contained in his huntsman's brandy-flask, from which he sipped from time to time some drops of the strengthening liquor it contained. During those twenty-four hours his courage and force of will did not desert him for a single instant.

At last, on the evening of the second day, he succeeded in passing his head through the aperture he had cut in the base of his prison; before long his shoulders could follow his head; and then, clasping the rock and making a vigorous effort, he drew out the rest of his body.

It was indeed high time that he did so; his strength was exhausted. He rose to his knees, then to his feet, and attempted to walk. But his injured ankle had swelled to such a frightful extent during the thirty-six hours he had spent in that horribly constrained position that at the first step he took all the nerves of his body quivered as if they were wrung. He uttered a cry and fell gasping on the heather, mastered at last by the terrible pain.

Night was coming on. Listen as he might, Jean Oullier could hear no sound. The thought came to him that this night, now beginning to wrap the world in its shadows, would be his last. Again he commended his soul to God, praying him to watch over the two children he had loved so well, and who, but for him, would long ago have been orphaned through their father's indifference. Then, determined to neglect no chances, he dragged himself by his hands, or rather crept, in the direction where the sun had set, which he knew to be that of the nearest dwellings.

He had gone in this way nearly a mile when he reached a little hill, whence he could see the lights in a few lonely houses scattered on the moor. Each of them was to him a pharos, beckoning to life and safety; but, in spite of all his courage, his strength now deserted him and he could do no more. It was sixty hours since he had eaten anything. The stumps of the brambles and the gorse, cut down in the haying season and sharpened by the scythe, had torn his hands and chest, and loss of blood from these wounds still further weakened him.

He allowed himself to roll into a ditch by the wayside; determined to go no farther, but to die there. Intense thirst possessed him, and he drank a little water which was stagnant in the ditch. He was so weak that his hand could scarcely reach his mouth; his head seemed absolutely empty. From time to time he fancied he heard in his brain a dull, lugubrious roar, like that of the sea making a breach over a ship and about to engulf it; a sort of veil seemed to spread before his eyes, and behind that veil coursed myriads of sparks, which died away and sparkled again like phosphorescent gleams.

The unfortunate man felt that this was death. He tried to shout, not caring whether enemies or friends came to his relief; but his voice died away in his throat, and he scarcely heard himself the hoarse cry which he managed to emit.

Thus he remained for over an hour, in a dying condition. Then, little by little, the veil before his eyes thickened and took prismatic tints; the humming in his brain had strange modulations, and for a time he lost consciousness of all about him.

But his powerful being could not be annihilated without a further struggle; the lethargic stillness in which he remained for some time allowed the heart to regulate its pulses, the blood to circulate less feverishly. The torpor in which he now lay did not lessen the acuteness of his senses. Presently he heard a sound which his huntsman's ear did not mistake for a single instant. A step was coming across the heather, and that step he knew to be a woman's.

That woman could save him! Torpid as he was, Jean Oullier understood it. But when he tried to call or make a movement to attract her attention he was like a man in a trance, who sees the preparations for his funeral and is unable to arrest them; he perceived with terror that nothing remained of him but his intelligence, and that his body, completely paralyzed, refused to obey him. As the hapless being nailed in his coffin makes frantic efforts to burst the iron barrier which parts him from the world, so Jean Oullier strained at every spring which Nature puts at the service of man's will to conquer matter. In vain.

And yet, the steps were coming nearer; each minute, each second made them more distinct, more unmistakable to his ear. He fancied that every pebble they displaced rolled to his heart; his agony from the multiplicity of his abortive efforts grew intense; his hair rose on his head; an icy sweat stood on his brow. It was worse and more cruel than death itself, for death feels nothing.

The woman passed.

Jean Oullier heard the thorns on the briers catch and scrape her dress as if even they wished to stop her; he saw her shadow lying dark upon the bushes; then she passed away, and the sound of her steps was lost in the sighing of the wind among the reeds.

The unfortunate man believed he was doomed; and the moment hope abandoned him the awful struggle he had fought against himself came to an end. He recovered calmness and mentally prayed to God, commending his soul to Him.

This prayer so absorbed him that it was not until he heard the noisy breathing of a dog, which passed its head through the bushes scenting an emanation, that he noticed the coming of an animal. He turned, with an effort, not his head, that was impossible, but his eyes in the direction of the creature, and there saw a cur gazing at him with frightened but intelligent eyes.

Catching Jean Oullier's gaze the animal retreated to a little distance and began to bark. At this instant Jean Oullier fancied that he heard the woman calling to her dog; but the creature did not choose to leave its post, continuing to bark. It was a last hope, – a hope that was not balked.

Tired of calling to her dog, and curious to know what excited it, the woman retraced her steps. Chance, or Providence, willed that this woman should be the widow of Pascal Picaut. As she neared the bushes she saw a man; stooping over him she recognized Jean Oullier.

At first she thought him dead; then she saw his eyes, unnaturally wide open, fixed upon her. She laid her hand upon the huntsman's heart and felt it beating; she lifted him to a sitting posture, threw a little water on his face, and poured a few drops through his clenched teeth. Then-as if through contact with a living being he recovered contact with life itself-Jean Oullier felt the enormous weight which lay upon him lightening; warmth returned to his torpid limbs; he felt its glow steal softly to each extremity; tears of gratitude welled from his eyelids and rolled down his sunken cheeks; he caught the woman's hand and carried it to his lips, wetting it with tears.

She, on her side, was greatly moved. Philippist as she was, the good woman highly esteemed the old Chouan.

"Well, well," she said, "don't take on so, my Jean Oullier! It is all natural, what I am doing! I'd do as much for any Christian; and all the more for you, who are a man after God's own heart!"

"That doesn't prevent-" said Jean Oullier.

He could say no more, his breath failed him.

"Doesn't prevent what?" asked the widow.

Oullier made an effort.

"Doesn't prevent-that I owe you my life," he said.

"Oh, nonsense!" exclaimed Marianne.

"It is as I say. Without you, I should have died."

"Without my dog, Jean. You see it isn't me, but the good God you have to thank." Then noticing with horror that he was covered with blood, "Why, you are wounded!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, no, nothing but scratches. My worst trouble is that I have dislocated my ankle; and besides, I haven't eaten anything for nearly three days. It is chiefly weakness that is killing me."

"Good gracious! but see here, I was just carrying dinner to some men who are getting litter for me on the moor. You shall have their soup."

So saying, the widow put down the basket she was carrying, untied the four corners of a cloth in which were several porringers full of soup and bouilli smoking hot. She gave several spoonfuls to Jean Oullier, who felt his strength returning as every mouthful of the warm and succulent broth got down into his stomach.

"Ah!" he said; and he breathed noisily.

A smile of satisfaction crossed the grave, sad face of the widow.

"Now," she said, sitting down opposite to him, "what are you going to do? Of course you know the red-breeches are after you?"

"Alas!" said Jean Oullier; "I have lost all power with my poor leg. It will be months before I can roam the woods as I must to escape a prison. What I had better do," he added with a sigh, "is to get to Maître Jacques; he will give me a corner in some of his burrows, where I can stay till my leg is well."

"But your master? – and his daughters?"

"The marquis won't go back yet awhile to Souday; and he is right."

"What will he do, then?"

"Probably cross the channel with the young ladies."

"That's a pretty idea of yours, Jean Oullier, to go and live among that crew of bandits who follow Maître Jacques! Fine care they'll take of you!"

"They are the only ones who can take me in without being compromised."

"How about me? You forget me, and that isn't nice of you, Jean."

"You?"

"Yes, me!"

"But you forget the ordinance."

"What ordinance?"

"About the penalties incurred by those who harbor Chouans."

"Pooh! my Jean; such orders are not issued for honest folk, but for scoundrels!"

"Besides, you hate Chouans."

"No; it is only brigands I hate, whichever side they are. They were brigands who killed my poor Pascal, and on those brigands I'll avenge his death if I can. But you, Jean Oullier, your cockade, be it white or tricolor, is that of an honest man, and I'll save you."

"But I can't walk a step."

"That's no matter. Even if you could walk, Jean, I'd be afraid to take you to my house by daylight, – not that I fear for myself; but ever since the death of that young man I fear treachery. Get back under those bushes; hide as best you can; wait till dark, and I'll come back with a cart and fetch you. Then, to-morrow, I'll go for the bone-setter at Machecoul; he'll rub his hand over the nerves of your foot, and in three days you'll run like a rabbit."

"Hang it! I know that would be best, but-"

"Wouldn't you do as much for me?"

"You know, Marianne, I'd go through fire and water for you."

"Then don't say another word. I shall be back after dark."

"Thank you; I accept your offer. You may be very sure you are not helping an ungrateful man."

"It is not to get your gratitude I am doing it, Jean Oullier; but to fulfil my duty as an honest woman."

She looked about her.

"What are you looking for?" asked Jean.

"I was thinking if you tried to get farther back among the bushes you would be safer than in this ditch."

"I think it is impossible," said Oullier, showing his ankle, now swelled to the size of a man's head, and his torn hands and face. "Besides, I am not badly off here; you passed close by these bushes and did not suspect they hid a man."

"Yes, but a dog might pass and smell you out, just as mine did. Remember, my Jean, the war is over, and the days of denunciation and vengeance will begin, if they have not already begun."

"Bah!" said Jean Oullier, "we must leave something for the good God to do."

The widow was no less of a believer than the old Chouan. She gave him a piece of bread, cut an armful of ferns with which she made him a bed, and then, after carefully raising the branches of the briers and brambles about him, and satisfying herself that the eye of no passer would detect him, she departed, exhorting him to patience.

Jean Oullier settled himself as comfortably as he could, offered a fervent thanksgiving to the Lord, munched his bread, and presently went to sleep in that heavy sleep which follows great prostration.

He must have been lying there several hours when the sound of voices woke him. In the species of somnolence which followed the state of torpor he had been in, he fancied he heard the name of his young mistresses; suspicious as all men of his stamp are in the matter of their affections, he fancied some danger must be threatening either Bertha or Mary, and the thought was like a lever, which lifted in a second the torpor of his mind. He rose on his elbow, gently moved the brambles which made a thick rampart before him, and looked through them into the road.

It was dark, but not dark enough to prevent him from seeing the outline of two men who were sitting on a fallen tree on the other side of the road.

"Why didn't you continue to follow her, as you recognized her?" said one of them whom, from his strong German accent, Jean Oullier judged to be a stranger in these regions.