XXIII. Fire Rises
There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and wherethe mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on thehighway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold hispoor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on thecrag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it,but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one ofthem knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it would probably notbe what he was ordered.
Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation.Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was asshrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down,dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticatedanimals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them--all wornout.
Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a nationalblessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example ofluxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose;nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, broughtthings to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly forMonseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There mustbe something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus itwas, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from theflints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often thatits purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothingto bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low andunaccountable.
But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village likeit. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrungit, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasuresof the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now, found in huntingthe beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spacesof barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted inthe appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in thedisappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified andbeautifying features of Monseigneur.
For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in thedust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was andto dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied inthinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat ifhe had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour,and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching onfoot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was nowa frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discernwithout surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarianaspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of amender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of manyhighways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkledwith the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods.
Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather,as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as hecould get from a shower of hail.
The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill,and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objectsin what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was justintelligible:
”How goes it, Jacques?”
”All well, Jacques.”
”Touch then!”
They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.
”No dinner?”
”Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry face.
”It is the fashion,” growled the man. ”I meet no dinner anywhere.”
He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint andsteel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly heldit from him and dropped something into it from between his finger andthumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke.
”Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it thistime, after observing these operations. They again joined hands.
”To-night?” said the mender of roads.
”To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.
”Where?”
”Here.”
He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently atone another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy chargeof bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village.
”Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill.
”See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. ”You go downhere, and straight through the street, and past the fountain--”
”To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling his eyeover the landscape. ”_I_ go through no streets and past no fountains.Well?”
”Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above thevillage.”
”Good. When do you cease to work?”
”At sunset.”
”Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights withoutresting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will youwake me?”
”Surely.”
The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off hisgreat wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. Hewas fast asleep directly.
As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rollingaway, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded toby silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red capnow, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on theheap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he usedhis tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account.The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollenred cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairy skins ofbeasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullenand desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the menderof roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet werefootsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffedwith leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many longleagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was intosores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep atsecret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he sleptwith his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips.Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, anddrawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as againstthis figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon andlooked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by noobstacle, tending to centres all over France.
The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals ofbrightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumpsof dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changedthem, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then,the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things readyto go down into the village, roused him.
”Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. ”Two leagues beyond thesummit of the hill?”
”About.”
”About. Good!”
The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before himaccording to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain,squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, andappearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village.When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed,as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. Acurious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gatheredtogether at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion oflooking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle,chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-topalone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind hischimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word tothe sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be needto ring the tocsin by-and-bye.
The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping itssolitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatenedthe pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terraceflights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like aswift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went throughthe hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up thestairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquishad slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, fourheavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked thebranches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Fourlights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and allwas black again.
But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangelyvisible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous.Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front,picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches,and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter.Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and thestone faces awakened, stared out of fire.
A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were leftthere, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There wasspurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in thespace by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at MonsieurGabelle's door. ”Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!” The tocsin rangimpatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. Themender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stoodwith folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in thesky. ”It must be forty feet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved.
The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered awaythrough the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison onthe crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire;removed from them, a group of soldiers. ”Help, gentlemen--officers! Thechateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames bytimely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers wholooked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and bitingof lips, ”It must burn.”
As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, thevillage was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred andfifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea oflighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles inevery dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything,occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner ofMonsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation onthat functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive toauthority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with,and that post-horses would roast.
The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring andraging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from theinfernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the risingand falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were intorment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with thetwo dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smokeagain, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stakeand contending with the fire.
The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire,scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fiercefigures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Moltenlead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water randry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before theheat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents andsplits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefiedbirds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figurestrudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshroudedroads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their nextdestination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and,abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy.
Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, andbell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do withthe collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a small instalmentof taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latterdays--became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding hishouse, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon,Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counselwith himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle againwithdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this timeresolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern manof retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over theparapet, and crush a man or two below.
Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with thedistant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door,combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having anill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate,which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour.A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink ofthe black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which MonsieurGabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and therush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed,and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for thatwhile.
Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there wereother functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whomthe rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where theyhad been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeopleless fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom thefunctionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung upin their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West,North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned.The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it,no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculatesuccessfully.