LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

“The lad is more generous than his sire, and if I were to send him word that I have been affronted, he might consent to meet me. For the rest, I could kill him blindfolded,” he added, with a shrug.

      “Bloodthirsty animal!” rejoined Duhamel. “Unnatural tutor! Do you forget that you were the boy's preceptor?”

      With that Duhamel carried the argument into new fields, and showed La Boulaye that to avenge upon the young Vicomte the insults received at the hands of the old Marquis was hardly a worthy method of taking vengeance. At last he won him to his way, and it was settled that on the morrow La Boulaye should journey with him to Amiens.

      “But, Caron, we are forgetting our friend Charlot and his bride,” he broke off suddenly. “Come, boy; the ceremony will be at an end by this.”

      He took La Boulaye by the arm, and led him out and down the street to the open space opposite St. Ildefonse. The wedding-party was streaming out through the door of the little church into the warm sunshine of that April morning. In the churchyard they formed into a procession of happy be-ribboned and nosegayed men and women—the young preceding, the old following, the bridal couple. Two by two they came, and the air rang with their laughter and joyous chatter. Then another sound arose, and if the secretary and the pedagogue could have guessed of what that beating of hoofs was to be the prelude, they had scarce smiled so easily as they watched the approaching cortege.

      From a side street there now emerged a gaily apparelled cavalcade. At its head rode the Marquis de Bellecour, the Vicomte, and a half-dozen other gentlemen, followed by, perhaps, a dozen lacqueys. It was a hunting party that was making its way across the village to the open country beyond. The bridal procession crossing their path caused them to draw rein, and to wait until it should have passed—which argued a very condescending humour, for it would not have been out of keeping with their habits to have ridden headlong through it. Their presence cast a restraint upon the peasants. The jests were silenced, the laughter hushed, and like a flight of pigeons under the eye of the hawk, they scurried past the Seigneurie, and some of them prayed God that they might be suffered to pass indeed.

      Bellecour eyed them in cold disdain, until presently Charlot and his bride were abreast of him. Then his eye seemed to take life and his sallow face to kindle into expression. He leant lightly from the saddle.

      “Stay!” he commanded coldly, and as they came to a halt, daring not to disobey him—“approach, girl,” he added.

      Charlot's brows grew black. He looked up at the Marquis, but if his glance was sullen and threatening, it was also not free from fear. Marie obeyed, with eyes downcast and a heightened colour. If she conjectured at all why they had been stopped, it was but to conclude that M. le Marquis was about to offer her some mark of appreciation. Uneasiness, in her dear innocence, she knew none.

      “What is your name, child?” inquired the Marquis more gently.

      “It was Marie Michelin, Monseigneur,” she made answer timidly. “But it has just been changed to Marie Tardivet.”

      “You have just been wed, eh?”

      “We are on our way from church, Monseigneur.”

      “C'est ca,” he murmured, as if to himself, and his eyes taking such stock of her as made Charlot burn to tear him from his horse. Then, in a kindly, fatherly voice, he added: “My felicitations, Marie; may you be a happy wife and a happier mother.”

      “Merci, Monseigneur,” she murmured, with crimson cheeks, whilst Charlot breathed once more, and from his heart gave thanks to Heaven, believing the interview at an end. But he went too fast.

      “Do you know, Marie, that you are a very comely child?” quoth the Marquis, in tones which made the bridegroom's blood run cold.

      Some in that noble company nudged one another, and one there was who burst into a loud guffaw.

      “Charlot has often told me so,” she laughed, all unsuspicious.

      The Marquis moved on his horse that he might bend lower. With his forefinger he uptilted her chin, and now, as she met his glance thus at close quarters, an unaccountable fear took possession of her, and the colour died out of her plump cheeks.

      “Yes,” said Bellecour, with a smile, “this Tardivet has good taste. My congratulations, to him. We must find you a wedding gift, little woman,” he continued more briskly. “It is an ancient and honoured custom that is falling somewhat into neglect. Go up to the Chateau with Blaise and Jean there. This good Tardivet must curb his impatience until to-morrow.”

      He turned in his saddle, and beckoning the two servants he had named, he bade Marie to mount behind Blaise.

      She drew back now, her cheeks white as those of the dead. With a wild terror in her eyes she turned to Charlot, who stood the very picture of anguish and impotent rage. In the cortege, where but a few moments ago all had been laughter, a sob or two sounded now from some of the women.

      “By my faith,” laughed Bellecour contemptuously eyeing their dejection, “you have more the air of a burial than a bridal party.”

      “Mercy my lord!” cried the agonised voice of Charlot, as, distraught with grief, he flung himself before the Marquis.

      “Who seeks to harm you, fool?” was Bellecour's half-derisive rejoinder.

      “Do not take her from me, my lord,” the young man pleaded piteously.

      “She shall return to-morrow, booby,” answered the noble. “Out of the way!”

      But Charlot was obstinate. The Marquis might be claiming no more than by ancient law was the due of the Seigneur, but Charlot was by no means minded to submit in craven acquiescence to that brutal, barbarous law.

      “My lord,” he cried, “you shall not take her. She is my wife. She belongs to me. You shall not take her!”

      He caught hold of the Marquis's bridle with such a strength and angry will that the horse was forced to back before him.

      “Insolent clod!” exclaimed Bellecour, with an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground. Bellecour touched his horse with the spur and rode over the prostrate fellow with no more concern than had he been a dog's carcase. “Blaise, see to the girl,” he called over his shoulder, adding to his company: “Come, messieurs, we have wasted time enough.”

      Not a hand was raised to stay him, not a word of protest uttered, as the nobles rode by, laughing, and chatting among themselves, with the utmost unconcern of the tragedy that was being enacted.

      Like a flock of frightened sheep the peasants stood huddled together and watched them go. In the same inaction—for all that not a little grief was blent with the terror on their countenances—they stood by and allowed Blaise to lift the half-swooning girl to the withers of his horse. No reply had they to the coarse jest with which he and his fellow-servant rode off. But La Boulaye, who, from the point where he and Duhamel had halted, had observed the whole scene from its inception, turned now a livid face upon his companion.

      “Shall such things be?” he cried passionately. “Merciful God! Are we men, Duhamel, and do we permit such things to take place?”

      The old pedagogue shrugged his shoulders in despair. His face was heavily scored by sorrow.

      “Helas!” he sighed. “Are they not masters of all that they may take? The Marquis goes no further than is by ancient law allowed his class. It is the law needs altering, my friend, and then the men will alter. Meanwhile, behold them—lords of life and death.”

      “Lords of hell are they!” blazed the young revolutionist. “That is where they belong, whence they are come, and whither they shall return. Poltroons!” he cried, shaking his fist at the group of cowed peasants that surrounded the prostrate Charlot “Sheep! Worthless clods! The nobles do well to despise you, for, by my faith, you invite nothing but contempt, you that will

Скачать книгу