There was shouting and cursing, and laughter that sounded mirthless and forced, and calls to Pierre, and oaths of revenge. Memory, like an evil-intentioned witch, was riding invisibly in the darkness, and she touched each seething brain with her fever-giving wand. Every man had an outrage to remember, an injustice to recall, and strong, brown fists were shaken aloft in the direction of the château de Kernogan, whose lights glimmered feebly in the distance beyond the Loire.
"Death to the tyrant! A la lanterne les aristos! The people's hour has come at last! No more starvation! No more injustice! Equality! Liberty! A mort les aristos!"
The shouts, the curses, the crackling flames, the howling of the wind, the soughing of the trees, made up a confusion of sounds which seemed hardly of this earth; the blazing ricks, the flickering, red light of the flames had finally transformed the little hillock behind the mill into another Brocken on whose summit witches and devils do of a truth hold their revels.
"A moi!" shouted Pierre again, and he threw his torch down upon the ground and once more made for the barn. The others followed him. In the barn were such weapons as these wretched, penniless peasants had managed to collect—scythes, poles, axes, saws, anything that would prove useful for the destruction of the château de Kernogan and the proposed brow-beating of M. le duc and his family. All the men trooped in in the wake of Pierre. The entire hillock was now a blaze of light—lurid and red and flickering—alternately teased and fanned and subdued by the gale, so that at times every object stood out clearly cut, every blade of[21] grass, every stone in bold relief, and in the ruts and fissures, every tiny pool of muddy water shimmered like strings of fire-opals: whilst at others, a pall of inky darkness, smoke-laden and impenetrable would lie over the ground and erase the outline of farm-buildings and distant mill and of the pushing and struggling mass of humanity inside the barn.
But Pierre, heedless of light and darkness, of heat or of cold, proceeded quietly and methodically to distribute the primitive implements of warfare to this crowd of ignorant men, who were by now over ready for mischief: and with every weapon which he placed in willing hands, he found the right words for willing ears—words which would kindle passion and lust of vengeance most readily where they lay dormant, or would fan them into greater vigour where they smouldered.
"For thee this scythe, Hector Lebrun," he would say to a tall, lanky youth whose emaciated arms and bony hands were stretched with longing toward the bright piece of steel; "remember last year's harvest, the heavy tax thou wert forced to pay, so that not one sou of profit went into thy pocket, and thy mother starved whilst M. le duc and his brood feasted and danced, and shiploads of corn were sunk in the Loire lest abundance made bread too cheap for the poor!
"For thee this pick-axe, Henri Meunier! Remember the new roof on thy hut, which thou didst build to keep the wet off thy wife's bed, who was crippled with ague—and the heavy impost levied on thee by the tax-collector for this improvement to thy miserable hovel.
"This pole for thee, Charles Blanc! Remember the beating administered to thee by the duc's bailiff for daring to keep a tame rabbit to amuse thy children!
"Remember! Remember, mes amis!" he added exultantly,[22] "remember every wrong you have endured, every injustice, every blow! remember your poverty and his wealth, your crusts of dry bread and his succulent meals, your rags and his silks and velvets, remember your starving children and ailing mother, your care-laden wife and toil-worn daughters! Forget nothing, mes amis, to-night, and at the gates of the château de Kernogan demand of its arrogant owner wrong for wrong and outrage for outrage."
A deafening cry of triumph greeted this peroration, scythes and sickles and axes and poles were brandished in the air and several scores of hands were stretched out to Pierre and clasped in this newly-formed bond of vengeful fraternity.
III
Then it was that with vigorous play of the elbows, Jean Adet, the miller, forced his way through the crowd till he stood face to face with his son.
"Unfortunate!" he cried, "what is all this? What dost thou propose to do? Whither are ye all going?"
"To Kernogan!" they all shouted in response.
"En avant, Pierre! we follow!" cried some of them impatiently.
But Jean Adet—who was a powerful man despite his years—had seized Pierre by the arm and dragged him to a distant corner of the barn:
"Pierre!" he said in tones of command, "I forbid thee in the name of thy duty and the obedience which thou dost owe to me and to thy mother, to move another step in this hot-headed adventure. I was on the high-road, walking homewards, when that conflagration and the senseless cries of these poor lads warned me that some awful mischief was[23] afoot. Pierre! my son! I command thee to lay that weapon down."
But Pierre—who in his normal state was a dutiful son and sincerely fond of his father—shook himself free from Jean Adet's grasp.
"Father!" he said loudly and firmly, "this is no time for interference. We are all of us men here and know our own minds. What we mean to do to-night we have thought on and planned for weeks and months. I pray you, father, let me be! I am not a child and I have work to do."
"Not a child?" exclaimed the old man as he turned appealingly to the lads who had stood by, silent and sullen during this little scene. "Not a child? But you are all only children, my lads. You don't know what you are doing. You don't know what terrible consequences this mad escapade will bring upon us all, upon the whole village, aye! and the country-side. Do you suppose for one moment that the château of Kernogan will fall at the mercy of a few ignorant unarmed lads like yourselves? Why! four hundred of you would not succeed in forcing your way even as far as the courtyard of the palace. M. le duc has had wind for some time of your turbulent meetings at the auberge: he has kept an armed guard inside his castle yard for weeks past, a company of artillery with two guns hoisted upon his walls. My poor lads! you are running straight to ruin! Go home, I beg of you! Forget this night's escapade! Nothing but misery to you and yours can result from it."
They listened quietly, if surlily, to Jean Adet's impassioned words. Far be it from their thoughts to flout or to mock him. Paternal authority commanded respect even among the most rough; but they all felt that they had gone too far now to draw back: the savour of anticipated revenge had been too sweet to be forgone quite so readily, and Pierre[24] with his vigorous personality, his glowing eloquence, his compelling power had more influence over them than the sober counsels of prudence and the wise admonitions of old Jean Adet. Not one word was spoken, but with an instinctive gesture every man grasped his weapon more firmly and then turned to Pierre, thus electing him their spokesman.
Pierre too had listened in silence to all that his father said, striving to hide the burning anxiety which was gnawing at his heart, lest his comrades allowed themselves to be persuaded by the old man's counsels and their ardour be cooled by the wise dictates of prudence. But when Jean Adet had finished speaking, and Pierre saw each man thus grasping his weapon all the more firmly and in silence, a cry of triumph escaped his lips.
"It is all in vain, father," he cried, "our minds are made up. A host of angels from heaven would not bar our way now to victory and to vengeance."
"Pierre!" admonished the old man.
"It is too late, my father," said Pierre firmly, "en avant, lads!"
"Yes! en avant! en avant!" assented some, "we have wasted too much time as it is."
"But, unfortunate lads," admonished the old man, "what are you going to do?—a handful of you—where are you going?"
"We go straight to the cross-roads now, father," said Pierre, firmly. "The firing of your ricks—for which I humbly crave your pardon—is the preconcerted signal which will bring the lads from all the neighbouring villages—from Goulaine and les Sorinières and Doulon and Tourne-Bride to our meeting place. Never you fear! There will[25] be more than four hundred of us and a company of paid soldiers is not like to frighten us. Eh, lads?"
"No! no! en avant!" they shouted and m
urmured impatiently, "there has been too much talking already and we have wasted precious time."
"Pierre!" entreated the miller.
But no one listened to the old man now. A general movement down the hillock had already begun and Pierre, turning his back on his father, had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and was now leading the way down the slope. Up on the summit the fire was already burning low; only from time to time an imprisoned tongue of flame would dart out of the dying embers and leap fitfully up into the night. A dull red glow illumined the small farmery and the mill and the slowly moving mass of men along the narrow road, whilst clouds of black, dense smoke were tossed about by the gale. Pierre walked with head erect. He ceased to think of his father and he never looked back to see if the others followed him. He knew that they did: like the straw-ricks a while ago, they had become the prey of a consuming fire: the fire of their own passion which had caught them and held them and would not leave them now until their ardour was consumed in victory or defeat.
IV
M. le duc de Kernogan had just finished dinner when Jacques Labrunière, his head-bailiff, came to him with the news that a rabble crowd, composed of the peasantry of Goulaine and Vertou and the neighbouring villages, had assembled at the cross-roads, there held revolutionary speeches, and was even now marching toward the castle[26] still shouting and singing and brandishing a miscellaneous collection of weapons chiefly consisting of scythes and axes.
"The guard is under arms, I imagine," was M. le duc's comment on this not altogether unforeseen piece of news.
"Everything is in perfect order," replied the head-bailiff cooly, "for the defence of M. le duc and his property—and of Mademoiselle."
M. le duc, who had been lounging in one of the big armchairs in the stately hall of Kernogan, jumped to his feet at these words: his cheeks suddenly pallid, and a look of deadly fear in his eyes.
"Mademoiselle," he said hurriedly, "by G—d, Labrunière, I had forgotten—momentarily——"
"M. le duc?" stammered the bailiff in anxious inquiry.
"Mademoiselle de Kernogan is on her way home—even now—she spent the day with Mme. le Marquise d'Herbignac—she was to return at about eight o'clock.... If those devils meet her carriage on the road...."
"There is no cause for anxiety, M. le duc," broke in Labrunière hurriedly. "I will see that half a dozen men get to horse at once and go and meet Mademoiselle and escort her home...."
"Yes ... yes ... Labrunière," murmured the duc, who seemed very much overcome with terror now that his daughter's safety was in jeopardy, "see to it at once. Quick! quick! I shall wax crazy with anxiety."
While Labrunière ran to make the necessary arrangements for an efficient escort for Mademoiselle de Kernogan and gave the sergeant in charge of the posse the necessary directions, M. le duc remained motionless, huddled up in the capacious armchair, his head buried in his hand, shivering in front of the huge fire which burned in the monu
[27] mental hearth, himself the prey of nameless, overwhelming terror.
He knew—none better—the appalling hatred wherewith he and all his family and belongings were regarded by the local peasantry. Astride upon his manifold rights—feudal, territorial, seignorial rights—he had all his life ridden roughshod over the prejudices, the miseries, the undoubted rights of the poor people, who were little better than serfs in the possession of the high and mighty duc de Kernogan. He also knew—none better—that gradually, very gradually it is true, but with unerring certainty, those same downtrodden, ignorant, miserable and half-starved peasants were turning against their oppressors, that riots and outrages had occurred in many rural districts in the North and that the insidious poison of social revolution was gradually creeping toward the South and West, and had already infected the villages and small townships which were situated quite unpleasantly close to Nantes and to Kernogan.
For this reason he had kept a company of artillery at his own expense inside the precincts of his château, and with the aristocrat's open contempt for this peasantry which it had not yet learned to fear, he had disdained to take further measures for the repression of local gatherings, and would not pay the village rabble the compliment of being afraid of them in any way.
But with his daughter Yvonne in the open roadway on the very night when an assembly of that same rabble was obviously bent on mischief, matters became very serious. Insult, outrage or worse might befall the proud aristocrat's only child, and knowing that from these people, whom she had been taught to look upon as little better than beasts, she could expect neither mercy nor chivalry, the duc de Kernogan within his unassailable castle felt for his daughter's[28] safety the most abject, the most deadly fear which hath ever unnerved any man.
Labrunière a few minutes later did his best to reassure his master.
"I have ordered the men to take the best horses out of the stables, M. le duc," he said, "and to cut across the fields toward la Gramoire so as to intercept Mademoiselle's coach ere it reach the cross-roads. I feel confident that there is no cause for alarm," he added emphatically.
"Pray God you are right, Labrunière," murmured the duc feebly. "Do you know how strong the rabble crowd is?"
"No, Monseigneur, not exactly. Camille the under-bailiff, who brought me the news, was riding homewards across the meadows about an hour ago when he saw a huge conflagration which seemed to come from the back of Adet's mill: the whole sky has been lit up by a lurid light for the past hour, and I fancied myself that Adet's straw must be on fire. But Camille pushed his horse up the rising ground which culminates at Adet's farmery. It seems that he heard a great deal of shouting which did not seem to be accompanied by any attempt at putting out the fire. So he dismounted and led his horse round the hillock skirting Adet's farm buildings so that he should not be seen. Under cover of darkness he heard and saw the old miller with his son Pierre engaged in distributing scythes, poles and axes to a crowd of youngsters and haranguing them wildly all the time. He also heard Pierre Adet speak of the conflagration as a preconcerted signal, and say that he and his mates would meet the lads of the neighbouring villages at the cross-roads ... and that four hundred of them would then march on Kernogan and pillage the castle."
"Bah!" quoth M. le duc in a voice hoarse with execration and contempt, "a lot of oafs who will give the hangman[29] plenty of trouble to-morrow. As for that Adet and his son, they shall suffer for this ... I can promise them that.... If only Mademoiselle were home!" he added with a heartrending sigh.
V
Indeed, had M. le duc de Kernogan been gifted with second sight, the agony of mind which he was enduring would have been aggravated an hundredfold. At the very moment when the head-bailiff was doing his best to reassure his liege-lord as to the safety of Mlle. de Kernogan, her coach was speeding along from the château of Herbignac toward those same cross-roads where a couple of hundred hot-headed peasant lads were planning as much mischief as their unimaginative minds could conceive.
The fury of the gale had in no way abated, and now a heavy rain was falling—a drenching, sopping rain which in the space of half an hour had added five centimetres to the depth of the mud on the roads, and had in that same space of time considerably damped the enthusiasm of some of the poor lads. Three score or so had assembled from Goulaine, two score from les Sorinières, some three dozen from Doulon: they had rallied to the signal in hot haste, gathered their scythes and spades, very eager and excited, and had reached the cross-roads which were much nearer to their respective villages than to Jean Adet's farm and the mill, even while the old man was admonishing his son and the lads of Vertou on the summit of the blazing hillock. Here they had spent half an hour in cooling their heels and their tempers under the drenching rain—wet to the skin—fuming and fretting at the delay.
But even so—damped in ardour and chilled to the mar[30]row—they were still a dangerous crowd and prudence ought to have dictated to Mademoiselle de Kernogan the wiser course of ordering her coachman Jean-Marie to head his
horses back toward Herbignac the moment that the outrider reported that a mob, armed with scythes, spades and axes, held the cross-roads, and that it would be dangerous for the coach to advance any further.
Already for the past few minutes the sound of loud shouting had been heard even above the tramp of the horses and the clatter of the coach. Jean-Marie had pulled up and sent one of the outriders on ahead to see what was amiss: the man returned with very unpleasant tidings—in his opinion it certainly would be dangerous to go any further. The mob appeared bent on mischief: he had heard threats and curses all levelled against M. le duc de Kernogan—the conflagration up at Vertou was evidently a signal which would bring along a crowd of malcontents from all the neighbouring villages. He was for turning back forthwith. But Mademoiselle put her head out of the window just then and asked what was amiss. On hearing that Jean-Marie and the postilion and outriders were inclined to be afraid of a mob of peasant lads who had assembled at the cross-roads, and were apparently threatening to do mischief, she chided them for their cowardice.
"Jean-Marie," she called scornfully to the old coachman, who had been in her father's service for close on half a century, "do you really mean to tell me that you are afraid of that rabble!"
"Why no! Mademoiselle, so please you," replied the old man, nettled in his pride by the taunt, "but the temper of the peasantry round here has been ugly of late, and 'tis your safety I have got to guard."
"'Tis my commands you have got to obey," retorted[31] Mademoiselle with a gay little laugh which mitigated the peremptoriness of her tone. "If my father should hear that there's trouble on the road he will die of anxiety if I do not return: so whip up the horses, Jean-Marie. No one will dare to attack the coach."