CHAPTER III
A SUDDEN RESOLUTION
After his chance encounter with my lady, the Governor's daughter, andBeppo, her attendant, the boy walked quickly from the Mount to theforest. His eyes were still bright; his cheeks yet burned, butoccasionally the shadow of a smile played about his mouth, and he threwup his head fiercely. At the verge of the wood he looked back, stoodfor a moment with the reflection of light on his face, then plungedinto the shadows of the sylvan labyrinth. Near the east door of thecastle, which presently he reached, he stopped for an armful offaggots, and, bending under his load, passed through an entrance,seared and battered, across a great roofless space and up a flight ofsteps to a room that had once been the kitchen of the vastestablishment. As he entered, a man, thin, wizened, though activelooking, turned around.
"So you've got back?" he said in a grumbling tone.
"Yes," answered the boy good-naturedly, casting the wood to theflagging near the flame and brushing his coat with his hand; "the stormkept us out last night, Sanchez."
"It'll keep you out for good some day," remarked the man. "You'll bedrowned, if you don't have a care."
"Better that than being hanged!" returned the lad lightly.
The other's response, beneath his breath, was lost, as he drew hisstool closer to the pot above the blaze, removed the lid and peeredwithin. Apparently his survey was not satisfactory, for he replacedthe cover, clasped his fingers over his knees and half closed his eyes.
"Where's the fish?"
The boy, thoughtfully regarding the flames, started; when he had leftthe child and Beppo, unconsciously he had dropped it, but this he didnot now explain. "I didn't bring one."
"Didn't bring one?"
"No," said the boy, flushing slightly.
"And not a bone or scrap in the larder! Niggardly fishermen! A smallenough wage--for going to sea and helping them--"
"Oh, I could have had what I wanted. And they are not niggardly!Only--I forgot."
"Forgot!" The man lifted his hands, but any further evidence ofsurprise or expostulation was interrupted by a sudden ebullition in thepot.
Left to his thoughts, the boy stepped to the window; for some timestood motionless, gazing through a forest rift at the end of whichuprose the top of an Aladdin-like structure, by an optical illusionbecome a part of that locality; a conjuror's castle in the wood!
"The Mount looks near to-night, Sanchez!"
"Near?" The man took from its hook the pot and set it on the table."Not too near to suit the Governor, perhaps!"
"And why should it suit him?" drawing a stool to the table and sittingdown.
"Because he must be so fond of looking at the forest."
"And does that--please him?"
"How could it fail to? Isn't it a nice wood? Oh, yes, I'll warrantyou he finds it to his liking. And all the lands about the forest thatused to belong to the old Seigneurs, and which the peasants havetaken--waste lands they have tilled--he must think them very fine tolook at, now! And what a hubbub there would be, if the lazy peasantshad to pay their metayage, and fire-tax and road-tax--and all the othertaxes--the way the other peasants do--to him--"
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing!" The man's jaw closed like a steel trap. "The porridge isburned."
And with no further word the meal proceeded. The man, first to finish,lighted his pipe, moved again to the fire, and, maintaining ataciturnity that had become more or less habitual, stolidly devotedhimself to the solace of the weed and the companionship of his ownreflections. Once or twice the boy seemed about to speak and did not;finally, however, he leaned forward, a more resolute light in hissparkling black eyes.
"You never learned to read, Sanchez?"
At the unexpected question, the smoke puffed suddenly from the man'slips. "Not I."
"Nor write?"
The man made a rough gesture. "Nor sail to the moon!" he returnedderisively. "Read? Rubbish! Write? What for? Does it bring morefish to your nets?"
"Who--could show me how to read and write?"
"You?" Sanchez stared.
"Why not?"
"Books are the tools of the devil!" declared Sanchez shortly. "Therewas a black man here to-day with a paper--a 'writ,' I think he calledit--or a 'service' of some kind--anyhow, it must have been in Latin,"violently, "for such gibberish, I never heard and--"
The boy rose. "People who can't read and write are low and ignorant!"
"Eh? What's come over you?"
"My father was a gentleman."
"Your father!--yes--"
"And a Seigneur!--"
"A Seigneur truly!"
"And I mean to be one!" said the boy suddenly, closing his fists.
"Oh, oh! So that's it?" derisively. "You! A Seigneur? Whosemother--"
"Who could teach me?" Determined, but with a trace of color on hisbrown cheek, the boy looked down.
"Who?" The man began to recover from his surprise. "That's not soeasy to tell. But if you must know--well, there's Gabriel Gabarie, forone, a poet of the people. He might do it--although there's talk ofcutting off his head--"
"What for?"
"For knowing how to write."
The lad reached for his hat.
"Where are you going?"
"To the poet's."
"At this late hour! You are in a hurry!"
"If what you say is true, there's no time to lose."
"Well, if you find him writing verses about liberty and equality, don'tinterrupt him, or _you'll_ lose _your_ head," shouted the man.
But when the sound of the boy's footsteps had ceased, Sanchez'sexpression changed; more bent, more worn, he got up and walked slowlyto and fro. "A fine Seigneur!" The moldering walls seemed to echo thewords. "A fine Seigneur!" he muttered, and again sat brooding by thefire.
In the gathering dusk the lad strode briskly on. A squirrel barked tothe right; he did not look around. A partridge drummed to the left;usually alert to wood sound or life, to-night he did not heed it. But,fairly out of the forest and making his way with the same air ofresolution across the sands toward the lowland beyond, his attention,on a sudden, became forcibly diverted. He had but half completed thedistance from the place where he had left the wood to the objectivepoint in the curvature of the shore, when to the left through thegloom, a great vehicle, drawn by six horses, could be seen rapidlyapproaching. From the imposing equipage gleamed many lamps; the moon,which ere this had begun to assert its place in the heavens, madebright the shining harness and shone on the polished surface of thegolden car. Wondering, the boy paused.
"What is that?"
The person addressed, a fisherman belated, bending to the burden on hisshoulders, stopped, and, breathing hard, looked around and watched theapproaching vehicle intently.
"The Governor's carriage!" he said. "Haven't you ever heard of theGovernor's carriage?"
"No."
"That's because he hasn't used it lately; but in her ladyship's day--"
"Her ladyship?"
"The Governor's lady--he bought it for her. But she soon got tired ofit--or perhaps didn't like the way the people looked at her!" roughly."_Mon dieu!_ perhaps they did scowl a little--for it didn't pleasethem, I can tell you!--the sight of all that gold squeezed from thetaxes!"
"Where is he going now?"
"Nowhere himself--he never goes far from the Mount. But the LadyElise, his daughter--some one in the village was saying she was goingto Paris--"
"Paris!" The lad repeated the word quickly. "What for?"
"What do all the great lords and nobles send their children there for?To get educated--married, and--to learn the tricks of the court! Bah!"With a coarse laugh the man turned; stooping beneath his load, he movedgrumblingly on.
The boy, however, did not stir; as in a dream he looked first at theMount, a dark triangle against the sky, then at the carriage. Nearerthe latter drew, was about to dash by, when suddenly the driver, on hishigh seat, uttered an exclamat
ion and at the same time tugged hard atthe reins. The vehicle took a quick turn, lurched dangerously in itstop-heavy pomp, and, almost upsetting, came to a standstill nearlyopposite the boy.
"Careless dog!" a shrill voice screamed from the inside. "What are youdoing?"
"The _lises_, your Excellency!" The driver's voice was thick; as hespoke he swayed uncertainly.
"_Lises_--quicksands--"
"There, your Excellency," indicating a gleaming place right in theirpath; a small bright spot that looked as if it might have beenpolished, while elsewhere on the surrounding sands tiny ripplingparallels caressed the eye with streaks of black and silver. "I saw itin time!"
"In time!" angrily. "Imbecile! Didn't you know it was there?"
"Of course, your Excellency! Only I had misjudged a little, and--"The man's manner showed he was frightened.
"Falsehoods! You have been drinking! Don't answer. You shall hear ofthis later. Drive around the spot."
"Yes, your Excellency," was the now sober and subdued answer.
Ere he obeyed, however, the carriage door, from which the Governor hadbeen leaning, swung open. "Wait!" he called out impatiently, and triedto close it, but the catch--probably from long disuse--would not hold,and, before the liveried servant perched on the lofty carriage behindhad fully perceived the fact and had recovered himself sufficiently tothink of his duties, the boy on the beach had sprung forward.
"Slam it!" commanded an irate voice.
The lad complied, and as he did so, peered eagerly into the capaciousdepths of the vehicle.
"The boy with the fish!" exclaimed at the same time a girlish treblewithin.
"Eh?" my lord turned sharply.
"An impudent lad who stopped the Lady Elise!" exclaimed the fatman--surely Beppo--on the front seat.
"Stopped the Lady Elise!" The Governor repeated the words slowly; anominous pause was followed by an abrupt movement on the part of thechild.
"He did not stop me; it was I who nearly ran over him, and it was myfault. Beppo does not tell the truth--he's a wicked man!--and I'm gladI'm not going to see him any more! And the boy wasn't impudent; atleast until Beppo offered to strike him, and then, Beppo didn't!Beppo," derisively, "was afraid!"
"My lady," Beppo's voice was soft and unctuous, "construes forbearancefor fear."
"Step nearer, boy!"
Partly blinded by the lamps, the lad obeyed; was cognizant of apiercing scrutiny; two hard, steely eyes that seemed to read his inmostthoughts; a face, indistinguishable but compelling; beyond, somethingwhite--a girl's dress--that moved and fluttered!
"Who is he?"
"A poor boy who lives in the woods, papa!"
But Beppo bent forward and whispered, his words too low for the lad tocatch. Whatever his information, the Governor started; the questioningglance on an instant brightened, and his head was thrust forward closeto the boy's. A chill seemed to pass over the lad, yet he did notquail.
"Good-by, boy!" said the child, and, leaning from the window, smileddown at him.
He tried to answer, when a hand pulled her in somewhat over-suddenly.
"Drive on!" Again the shrill tones cut the air. "Drive on, I tellyou! _Diable_! What are you standing here for!"
A whip lashed the air and the horses leaped forward. The back wheelsof the vehicle almost struck the lad, but, motionless, he continuedstaring after it. Farther it drew away, and, as he remained thus hediscerned, or fancied he discerned, a girl's face at the back--a ribbonthat waved for a moment in the moonlight, and then was gone.
Eight years elapsed before next he saw her.