The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
and the practice of old Clovis that he obtained immense success.
Formed into a hollow square, the whole army raised but one voice and
proclaimed him Colonel on the spot.
Bathed in perspiration and drunk with glory, Pitou got down off his
horse and received the people’s felicitations when he alighted.
But at the same time he glanced round for Catherine. He heard her voice
by his side; he had no need to hunt for her, as she had come to him.
Great was this triumph.
“Have you not a word for us, Captain Pitou?” she demanded, with a
laughing air belied by her pale face; “I suppose you have grown proud
since you are a great general?”
“Oh, no,” responded he, saluting, “I am not that, but just a poor fellow
who loves his country and desires to serve her.”
This reply was carried away on the waves of the multitude and was
proclaimed sublime by the acclamation in unison.
“Ange, I want to speak with you,” whispered Catherine. “Do come back to
the farm with mother and me.”
“All right.”
Catherine had already arranged that they should be alone together on the
road. She had switched her mother into the train of several neighbors
and gossips who held her in talk so that the girl could walk through
the woods with the National Guardsman.
“Why have you kept aloof from the farm so long?” began Catherine when
they were beneath the hoary oaks. “It is bad behavior on your part.”
Pitou was silent, for it hurt him to hear Catherine tell lies.
“But, I have something else to speak about,” she continued, seeing that
he was avoiding her with his usually straight and loyal glance. “The
other day I saw you in the copse. Did you know me?”
“Not at first, but I did know you.”
“What were you doing there in hiding?”
“Why should I be in hiding? I was studying a military book.”
“I only thought that curiosity----“
“I am not a Peeping Tom.”
She stamped testily with her small foot.
“You are always stuck there and it is not a regular place for students.”
“It is very secluded--nothing disturbs one there.”
“Nothing? do you stay there any length of time?”
“Sometimes whole days.”
“And have you been in the habit of making that your resort?” she
inquired quickly.
“Since a good while back.”
“It is astonishing that I should not have seen you before,” she said,
lying so boldly that Pitou was almost convinced.
But he was ashamed for her sake; he was timid from being in love and
this led him to be guarded.
“I may have dozed off,” he replied; “it has happened when I have taxed
my brain too much.”
“Then in your sleep you would not have noticed where I strayed for
shade--I would go as far as the walls of the old shooting-lodge.”
“What lodge?” questioned Pitou.
“The Charny Hunting-lodge,” replied she, blushing from his innocence
being too thickly laid on not to be suspicious. “It is there grow the
finest houseleeks in the section. I burnt myself while ironing and
wanted to make a poultice of them.”
As if willing to believe her, he looked at her hands.
“No, not my hand, my foot,” she said quickly. “I--I dropped the iron:
but it has done me good; you see, that I do not limp.”
“She did not limp either when she scampered through the wood like a
fawn,” thought Ange.
She imagined she had succeeded and that Pitou had seen and heard
nothing. Giving way to delight, mean in so fine a spirit, she said:
“So Captain Pitou is riding his high horse; proud of his new rank, he
scorns us rustics from being a military officer.”
Pitou felt wounded. Even a dissimulated sacrifice almost requires some
reward, and as Catherine only mystified Pitou or jested at him, no doubt
contrasting him with the intelligent Charny, all his good intentions
vanished. Self-esteem is a charmed serpent, on which it is perillous to
step unless you crush it once for all.
“It seems to me that you are the haughty one,” he returned, “for you
drove me off the farm on the grounds that there was no work for me. I
haven’t told Master Billet so far I have arms for earning my bread,
thank God! However, you are the mistress under your own roof. In short,
you sent me away. Hence, as you saw me at the Charny Lodge, and we were
not enemies, it was your place to speak to me instead of running away
like a boy stealing apples.”
The viper had bitten; Catherine dropped out of her calm.
“I, run away?” she exclaimed.
“As though fire had broken out on the farm. I had not time to shut up my
book before you were on the back of Younker, where he was concealed in
the foliage, after barking an ashtree, and ruining it.”
“What do you mean by ruining?”
“That is right enough,” continued Pitou: “while you were gathering
houseleeks, Younker was browsing, and in an hour a horse eats a heap of
stuff. It must have taken quite an hour for him to strip that sized tree
of bark. You must have collected enough plants to cure all the wounds
inflicted in taking the Bastile--it is a great thing for poultices!”
Pale and in despair, Catherine could not find a word to speak. Pitou was
silent also, as he had said quite enough.
Mother Billet, stopping at the road forks, was bidding adieu to her
cronies.
“What does the officer say?” queried the woman.
“He says goodnight to you, Mother Billet.”
“Not yet,” cried Catherine with a desperate tone. “Tell me the
truth--are we no longer friends?”
Pitou felt his secret well up to his lips: but it was all over with him
if he spoke; so he bowed mutely with respect which touched her heart;
gave Mother Billet a pleasant smile, and disappeared in the dense wood.
“Is that what is called love?” Pitou monologued to himself; “it is sweet
at times and then again bitter.”
He returned to Haramont, singing the most doleful of rural ballads to
the mournfullest tunes.
Luckily he did not find his warriors in any such mood. On the contrary,
they were preparing for a feast and they had set aside the chair of
honor for their Caesar who had overcome the other villages’ Pompeys.
Dragged by his officers into the banquet room, he saluted in silence in
return for the greetings, and with the calmness we know as his, attacked
the roast veal and potatoes. His action lasted so long that his
“digester” was filled while his heart was freed of gall. At the end of a
couple of hours he perceived that his grief was no worse.
He stood up when his brother revellers could not stand, while the ladies
had fled before the dessert. He made a speech on the sobriety of the
Spartans--when all were dead drunk. He said that it was healthier to
take a stroll than sleep under the table.
Alone he set the example; he asked of the shadows beneath the glades,
why he should be so stern towards a young woman, made for love, grace
and sweetness; one who might also cherish a fancy at the outset of life?
Alas, why had she not fancied him?
Why should an ugly, uncouth bear like him inspire amorous sentiments in
a pretty girl, when a handsome young nobleman--a very peacock beside
him--was there to glitter and enchant?
He reasoned that, dazzled by Charny’s brilliancy, she would not see
Pitou’s real value if he acted harshly towards her. Consequently, he
ought to behave nicely to her.
The good soul, heated white hot by wine and love, vowed to make
Catherine ashamed of having scorned the affection of such a sterling
lover as he was.
He could not admit that the fair, chaste and proud Catherine was
anything like a plaything to the dashing gallant, or a bright flirt,
smiling on the lace ruffles and spurred boots.
Some day Master Isidore would go to the city to marry a countess, and
the romance would end by his never looking at Catherine again.
To prove to the maid that he was not ugly, he resolved to take back any
harsh words he had used; to do which it was necessary for him to see
her.
He started through the woods for the Billet Farm, slashing the bushes
with his stick--which blows the shrubs returned with usury.
During this time Catherine was pensively following her mother.
A few steps from the farm was a swamp. The road narrows there so that
two horses can hardly go abreast. Mother Billet had gone through and the
girl was about to follow when she heard a whistle.
In the shadow she spied the laced cap of Isidore’s groom. She let her
mother ride on and waited for the messenger.
“Master wants to see you very particular this evening at eleven,
wherever you like,” said the man.
“Good gracious, has anything bad happened to him?” she said.
“I do not know; but he had a letter from town sealed with black wax. I
have been waiting an hour for you.”
Ten o’clock struck on the village church bell. Catherine looked round
her.
“This place is dark and out of the way,” she said; “I will await your
Master here.”
At the fixed time she ran out to the spot, warned by the sound of a
galloping horse. It was Isidore, attended by the groom, who stood at a
space while the noble advanced, without getting off his horse.
He held out his arms to her, lifted her on the stirrup, kissed her and
said:
“My brother Valence was killed yesterday at Versailles and my brother
the count calls me. I am off, Catherine!”
“Oh,” she moaned painfully, as she furiously embraced him, “if they have
killed him, they will kill you as well.”
“Catherine, whatever betides, my eldest brother awaits me; Catherine,
you know that I love you.”
“Oh, stay, stay,” she cried, only knowing one thing--that her beloved
talked of leaving her.
“But, honor, Catherine--my murdered brother! vengeance!”
“Oh, what an unhappy girl I am,” moaned she, collapsing, palpitating but
rigid in the horseman’s arms.
Resigned, for she at last comprehended that the brother’s summons was an
order, she glided to the ground after a farewell kiss.
He turned his eyes, sighed and wavered for a time; but, attracted by the
imperative order received, he set his horse to the gallop, and flung
Catherine a final farewell.
The lackey followed him across the country.
Catherine remained on the ground, where she had dropped, barring the way
with her body.
Almost immediately a man appeared on the hill, striding towards the
farm. In his rapid course he could not fail to stumble on the body. He
staggered and rolled in the fall, and his groping hands touched the
inert form.
“Catherine--dead!” he yelled so that the farm dogs’ took up the howling.
“Who has killed Catherine?”
He knelt down, pale and ice-cold, beside the inanimate body with its
head across his knee.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ROAD TO PARIS.
On this same evening, a no less grave event set the college of Father
Fortier in an uproar. Sebastian Gilbert had disappeared about six
o’clock and had not been found up to midnight by the most active search.
Nobody had seen him save Aunt Angelique, who, coming from the church,
where she let out the chairs, had thought to see him going up a lane.
This report added to the schoolmaster’s disquiet. He knew that the youth
had strange delusions, during which he believed he was following a
beautiful lady; more than once when on a walk he had seen him stare at
vacancy and if he plunged too deeply into the copse, he would start the
best pedestrians of the class after him.
But he had never gone off in the night.
This time, he had taken the road to Haramont, and Angelique had really
seen him. He was going to find Pitou. But the latter left the village by
one end, to go and see Catherine, at the same time as the doctor’s son
quitted it by the other.
Pitou’s door was open, for the captain was still simple in his habits.
He lit the candle and waited: but he was too fretful. He found a sheet
of paper, half of that on which Pitou had inscribed the name of his
company of soldiers, and wrote as follows:
“MY DEAR PITOU: I have come to tell you of a conversation I