"It is just as I thought,you are covered with perspiration,"said Benassis."Your mother has not come in yet?""No,sir.""Come!go in-doors and get into bed."The young invalid went back into the cottage,followed by Benassis and the officer.
"Just light a candle,Captain Bluteau,"said the doctor,who was helping Jacques to take off his rough,tattered clothing.
When Genestas had struck a light,and the interior of the room was visible,he was surprised by the extreme thinness of the child,who seemed to be little more than skin and bone.When the little peasant had been put to bed,Benassis tapped the lad's chest,and listened to the ominous sounds made in this way by his fingers;then,after some deliberation,he drew back the coverlet over Jacques,stepped back a few paces,folded his arms across his chest,and closely scrutinized his patient.
"How do you feel,my little man?"
"Quite comfortable,sir."
A table,with four spindle legs,stood in the room;the doctor drew it up to the bed,found a tumbler and a phial on the mantel-shelf,and composed a draught,by carefully measuring a few drops of brown liquid from the phial into some water,Genestas holding the light the while.
"Your mother is very late."
"She is coming,sir,"said the child;"I can hear her footsteps on the path."The doctor and the officer looked around them while they waited.At the foot of the bed there was a sort of mattress made of moss,on which,doubtless,the mother was wont to sleep in her clothes,for there were neither sheets nor coverlet.Genestas pointed out this bed to Benassis,who nodded slightly to show that he likewise had already admired this motherly devotion.There was a clatter of sabots in the yard,and the doctor went out.
"You will have to sit up with Jacques to-night,Mother Colas.If he tells you that his breathing is bad,you must let him drink some of the draught that I have poured into the tumbler on the table.Take care not to let him have more than two or three sips at a time;there ought to be enough in the tumbler to last him all through the night.
Above all things,do not touch the phial,and change the child's clothing at once.He is perspiring heavily.""I could not manage to wash his shirts to-day,sir;I had to take the hemp over to Grenoble,as we wanted the money.""Very well,then,I will send you some shirts.""Then is he worse,my poor lad?"asked the woman.
"He has been so imprudent as to sing,Mother Colas;and it is not to be expected that any good can come of it;but do not be hard upon him,nor scold him.Do not be down-hearted about it;and if Jacques complains overmuch,send a neighbor to fetch me.Good-bye."The doctor called to his friend,and they went back along the foot-path.
"Is that little peasant consumptive?"asked Genestas.
"Mon Dieu!yes,"answered Benassis."Science cannot save him,unless Nature works a miracle.Our professors at the Ecole de Medecine in Paris often used to speak to us of the phenomenon which you have just witnessed.Some maladies of this kind bring about changes in the voice-producing organs that give the sufferer a short-lived power of song that no trained voice can surpass.I have made you spend a melancholy day,sir,"said the doctor when he was once more in the saddle."Suffering and death everywhere,but everywhere also resignation.All these peasant folk take death philosophically;they fall ill,say nothing about it,and take to their beds like dumb animals.But let us say no more about death,and let us quicken our horses'paces a little;we ought to reach the town before nightfall,so that you may see the new quarter.""Eh!some place is on fire over there,"said Genestas,pointing to a spot on the mountain,where a sheaf of flames was rising.
"It is not a dangerous fire.Our lime-burner is heating his kiln,no doubt.It is a newly-started industry,which turns our heather to account."There was the sudden report of a gun,followed by an involuntary exclamation from Benassis,who said,with an impatient gesture,"If that is Butifer,we shall see which of us two is the stronger.""The shot came from that quarter,"said Genestas,indicating a beech-wood up above them on the mountain side."Yes,up there;you may trust an old soldier's ear.""Let us go there at once!"cried Benassis,and he made straight for the little wood,urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and fields,as if he were riding a steeplechase,in his anxiety to catch the sportsman red-handed.
"The man you are after has made off,"shouted Genestas,who could scarcely keep up with him.
Benassis wheeled his horse round sharply,and came back again.The man of whom he was in search soon appeared on the top of a perpendicular crag,a hundred feet above the level of the two horsemen.
"Butifer!"shouted Benassis when he saw that this figure carried a fowling-piece;"come down!"Butifer recognized the doctor,and replied by a respectful and friendly sign which showed that he had every intention of obeying.
"I can imagine that if a man were driven to it by fear or by some overmastering impulse that he might possibly contrive to scramble up to that point among the rocks,"said Genestas;"but how will he manage to come down again?""I have no anxiety on that score,"answered Benassis;"the wild goats must feel envious of that fellow yonder!You will see."The emergencies of warfare had accustomed the commandant to gauge the real worth of men;he admired the wonderful quickness of Butifer's movements,the sure-footed grace with which the hunter swung himself down the rugged sides of the crag,to the top of which he had so boldly climbed.The strong,slender form of the mountaineer was gracefully poised in every attitude which the precipitous nature of the path compelled him to assume;and so certain did he seem of his power to hold on at need,that if the pinnacle of rock on which he took his stand had been a level floor,he could not have set his foot down upon it more calmly.He carried his fowling-piece as if it had been a light walking-cane.Butifer was a young man of middle height,thin,muscular,and in good training;his beauty was of a masculine order,which impressed Genestas on a closer view.
Evidently he belonged to the class of smugglers who ply their trade without resorting to violent courses,and who only exert patience and craft to defraud the government.His face was manly and sunburned.His eyes,which were bright as an eagle's,were of a clear yellow color,and his sharply-cut nose with its slight curve at the tip was very much like an eagle's beak.His cheeks were covered with down,his red lips were half open,giving a glimpse of a set of teeth of dazzling whiteness.His beard,moustache,and the reddish whiskers,which he allowed to grow,and which curled naturally,still further heightened the masculine and forbidding expression of his face.Everything about him spoke of strength.He was broad-chested;constant activity had made the muscles of his hands curiously firm and prominent.There was the quick intelligence of a savage about his glances;he looked resolute,fearless,and imperturbable,like a man accustomed to put his life in peril,and whose physical and mental strength had been so often tried by dangers of every kind,that he no longer felt any doubts about himself.He wore a blouse that had suffered a good deal from thorns and briars,and he had a pair of leather soles bound to his feet by eel-skin thongs,and a pair of torn and tattered blue linen breeches through which his legs were visible,red,wiry,hard,and muscular as those of a stag.
"There you see the man who once fired a shot at me,"Benassis remarked to the commandant in a low voice."If at this moment I were to signify to him my desire to be rid of any one,he would kill them without scruple.--Butifer!"he went on,addressing the poacher,"I fully believed you to be a man of your word;I pledged mine for you because I had your promise.My promise to the procureur du roi at Grenoble was based upon your vow never to go poaching again,and to turn over a new leaf and become a steady,industrious worker.You fired that shot just now,and here you are,on the Comte de Labranchoir's estate!Eh!you miscreant?Suppose his keeper had happened to hear you?It is a lucky thing for you that I shall take no formal cognizance of this offence;if I did,you would come up as an old offender,and of course you have no gun license!I let you keep that gun of yours out of tenderness for your attachment to the weapon.""It is a beauty,"said the commandant,who recognized a duck gun from Sainte Etienne.
The smuggler raised his head and looked at Genestas by way of acknowledging the compliment.
"Butifer,"continued Benassis,"if your conscience does not reproach you,it ought to do so.If you are going to begin your old tricks again,you will find yourself once more in a park enclosed by four stone walls,and no power on earth will save you from the hulks;you will be a marked man,and your character will be ruined.Bring your gun to me to-night,I will take care of it for you."Butifer gripped the barrel of his weapon in a convulsive clutch.
"You are right,sir,"he said;"I have done wrong,I have broken bounds,I am a cur.My gun ought to go to you,but when you take it away from me,you take all that I have in the world.The last shot which my mother's son will fire shall be through my own head.
What would you have?I did as you wanted me.I kept quiet all winter;but the spring came,and the sap rose.I am not used to day labor.It is not in my nature to spend my life in fattening fowls;I cannot stoop about turning over the soil for vegetables,nor flourish a whip and drive a cart,nor scrub down a horse in a stable all my life,so Imust die of starvation,I suppose?I am only happy when I am up there,"he went on after a pause,pointing to the mountains."And Ihave been about among the hills for the past week;I got a sight of a chamois,and I have the chamois there,"he said,pointing to the top of the crag;"it is at your service!Dear M.Benassis,leave me my gun.Listen!I will leave the Commune,foi de Butifer!I will go to the Alps;the chamois-hunters will not say a word;on the contrary,they will receive me with open arms.I shall come to grief at the bottom of some glacier;but,if I am to speak my mind,I would rather live for a couple of years among the heights,where there are no governments,nor excisemen,nor gamekeepers,nor procureurs du roi,than grovel in a marsh for a century.You are the only one that Ishall be sorry to leave behind;all the rest of them bore me!When you are in the right,at any rate you don't worry one's life out----""And how about Louise?"asked Benassis.Butifer paused and turned thoughtful.
"Eh!learn to read and write,my lad,"said Genestas;"come and enlist in my regiment,have a horse to ride,and turn carabineer.If they once sound 'to horse'for something like a war,you will find out that Providence made you to live in the midst of cannon,bullets,and battalions,and they will make a general of you.""Ye-es,if Napoleon was back again,"answered Butifer.
"You know our agreement,"said the doctor."At the second infraction of it,you undertook to go for a soldier.I give you six months in which to learn to read and write,and then I will find some young gentleman who wants a substitute."Butifer looked at the mountains.
"Oh!you shall not go to the Alps,"cried Benassis."A man like you,a man of his word,with plenty of good stuff in him,ought to serve his country and command a brigade,and not come to his end trailing after a chamois.The life that you are leading will take you straight to the convict's prison.After over-fatiguing yourself,you are obliged to take a long rest;and,in the end,you will fall into idle ways that will be the ruin of any notions of orderly existence that you have;you will get into the habit of putting your strength to bad uses,and you will take the law into your own hands.I want to put you,in spite of yourself,into the right path.""So I am to pine and fret myself to death?I feel suffocated whenever I am in a town.I cannot hold out for more than a day,in Grenoble,when I take Louise there----""We all have our whims,which we must manage to control,or turn them to account for our neighbor's benefit.But it is late,and I am in a hurry.Come to see me to-morrow,and bring your gun along with you.We will talk this over,my boy.Good-bye.Go and sell your chamois in Grenoble."The two horsemen went on their way.
"That is what I call a man,"said Genestas.
"A man in a bad way,"answered Benassis."But what help is there for it?You heard what he said.Is it not lamentable to see such fine qualities running to waste?If France were invaded by a foreign foe,Butifer at the head of a hundred young fellows would keep a whole division busy in Maurienne for a month;but in a time of peace the only outlets for his energy are those which set the law at defiance.
He must wrestle with something;whenever he is not risking his neck he is at odds with society,he lends a helping hand to smugglers.The rogue will cross the Rhone,all by himself,in a little boat,to take shoes over into Savoy;he makes good his retreat,heavy laden as he is,to some inaccessible place high up among the hills,where he stays for two days at a time,living on dry crusts.In short,danger is as welcome to him as sleep would be to anybody else,and by dint of experience he has acquired a relish for extreme sensations that has totally unfitted him for ordinary life.It vexes me that a man like that should take a wrong turn and gradually go to the bad,become a bandit,and die on the gallows.But,see,captain,how our village looks from here!"Genestas obtained a distant view of a wide circular space,planted with trees,a fountain surrounded by poplars stood in the middle of it.Round the enclosure were high banks on which a triple line of trees of different kinds were growing;the first row consisted of acacias,the second of Japanese varnish trees,and some young elms grew on the highest row of all.
"That is where we hold our fair,"said Benassis."That is the beginning of the High Street,by those two handsome houses that I told you about;one belongs to the notary,and the other to the justice of the peace."They came at that moment into a broad road,fairly evenly paved with large cobble-stones.There were altogether about a hundred new houses on either side of it,and almost every house stood in a garden.
The view of the church with its doorway made a pretty termination to this road.Two more roads had been recently planned out half-way down the course of the first,and many new houses had already been built along them.The town-hall stood opposite the parsonage,in the square by the church.As Benassis went down the road,women and children stood in their doorways to wish him good-evening,the men took off their caps,and the little children danced and shouted about his horse,as if the animal's good-nature were as well known as the kindness of its master.The gladness was undemonstrative;there was the instinctive delicacy of all deep feeling about it,and it had the same pervasive power.At the sight of this welcome it seemed to Genestas that the doctor had been too modest in his deion of the affection with which he was regarded by the people of the district.
His truly was a sovereignty of the sweetest kind;a right royal sovereignty moreover,for its title was engraven in the hearts of its subjects.However dazzling the rays of glory that surround a man,however great the power that he enjoys,in his inmost soul he soon comes to a just estimate of the sentiments that all external action causes for him.He very soon sees that no change has been wrought in him,that there is nothing new and nothing greater in the exercise of his physical faculties,and discovers his own real nothingness.Kings,even should they rule over the whole world,are condemned to live in a narrow circle like other men.They must even submit to the conditions of their lot,and their happiness depends upon the personal impressions that they receive.But Benassis met with nothing but goodwill and loyalty throughout the district.