by Bret Harte
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK
He was a "cowboy." A reckless and dashing rider, yet mindful of hishorse's needs; good-humored by nature, but quick in quarrel; independentof circumstance, yet shy and sensitive of opinion; abstemious byeducation and general habit, yet intemperate in amusement; self-centred,yet possessed of a childish vanity,--taken altogether, a characteristicproduct of the Western plains, which he never should have left.
But reckless adventure after adventure had brought him intodifficulties, from which there was only one equally adventurous escape:he joined a company of Indians engaged by Buffalo Bill to simulatebefore civilized communities the sports and customs of the uncivilized.In divers Christian arenas of the nineteenth century he rode as anorthern barbarian of the first might have disported before the Romanpopulace, but harmlessly, of his own free will, and of some littleprofit to himself. He threw his lasso under the curious eyes of languidmen and women of the world, eager for some new sensation, with admiringplaudits from them and a half contemptuous egotism of his own. Butoutside of the arena he was lonely, lost, and impatient for excitement.
An ingenious attempt to "paint the town red" did not commend itself as aspectacle to the householders who lived in the vicinity of Earl's Court,London, and Alkali Dick was haled before a respectable magistrate by aserious policeman, and fined as if he had been only a drunken coster. Alater attempt at Paris to "incarnadine" the neighborhood of the Champsde Mars, and "round up" a number of boulevardiers, met with a moredisastrous result,--the gleam of steel from mounted gendarmes, and amandate to his employers.
So it came that one night, after the conclusion of the performance,Alkali Dick rode out of the corral gate of the Hippodrome with hislast week's salary in his pocket and an imprecation on his lips. He hadshaken the sawdust of the sham arena from his high, tight-fitting boots;he would shake off the white dust of France, and the effeminate soilof all Europe also, and embark at once for his own country and the FarWest!
A more practical and experienced man would have sold his horse at thenearest market and taken train to Havre, but Alkali Dick felt himselfincomplete on terra firma without his mustang,--it would be hard enoughto part from it on embarking,--and he had determined to ride to theseaport.
The spectacle of a lithe horseman, clad in a Rembrandt sombrero, velvetjacket, turnover collar, almost Van Dyke in its proportions, whitetrousers and high boots, with long curling hair falling over hisshoulders, and a pointed beard and mustache, was a picturesque one, butstill not a novelty to the late-supping Parisians who looked up underthe midnight gas as he passed, and only recognized one of those men whomParis had agreed to designate as "Booflo-bils," going home.
At three o'clock he pulled up at a wayside cabaret, preferring it tothe publicity of a larger hotel, and lay there till morning. The slightconsternation of the cabaret-keeper and his wife over this long-hairedphantom, with glittering, deep-set eyes, was soothed by a royally-flunggold coin, and a few words of French slang picked up in the arena,which, with the name of Havre, comprised Dick's whole knowledge ofthe language. But he was touched with their ready and intelligentcomprehension of his needs, and their genial if not so comprehensiveloquacity. Luckily for his quick temper, he did not know that they hadtaken him for a traveling quack-doctor going to the Fair of Yvetot, andthat madame had been on the point of asking him for a magic balsam toprevent migraine.
He was up betimes and away, giving a wide berth to the larger towns;taking byways and cut-offs, yet always with the Western pathfinder'sinstinct, even among these alien, poplar-haunted plains, low-bankedwillow-fringed rivers, and cloverless meadows. The white sun shiningeverywhere,--on dazzling arbors, summer-houses, and trellises; on lightgreen vines and delicate pea-rows; on the white trousers, jackets, andshoes of smart shopkeepers or holiday makers; on the white headdressesof nurses and the white-winged caps of the Sisters of St. Vincent,--allthis grew monotonous to this native of still more monotonous wastes. Thelong, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabotted women and short,blue-bloused, sabotted men slowly working in the fields, with slow oxen,or still slower heavy Norman horses; the same horses gayly bedecked,dragging slowly not only heavy wagons, but their own apparently moremonstrous weight over the white road, fretted his nervous Westernenergy, and made him impatient to get on.
At the close of the second day he found some relief on entering atrackless wood,--not the usual formal avenue of equidistant trees,leading to nowhere, and stopping upon the open field,--but apparentlya genuine forest as wild as one of his own "oak bottoms." Gnarled rootsand twisted branches flung themselves across his path; his mustang'shoofs sank in deep pits of moss and last year's withered leaves;trailing vines caught his heavy-stirruped feet, or brushed his broadsombrero; the vista before him seemed only to endlessly repeat the samesylvan glade; he was in fancy once more in the primeval Western forest,and encompassed by its vast, dim silences. He did not know that he hadin fact only penetrated an ancient park which in former days resoundedto the winding fanfare of the chase, and was still, on stated occasions,swept over by accurately green-coated Parisians and green-plumedDianes, who had come down by train! To him it meant only unfettered andunlimited freedom.
He rose in his stirrups, and sent a characteristic yell ringing downthe dim aisles before him. But, alas! at the same moment, his mustang,accustomed to the firmer grip of the prairie, in lashing out, steppedupon a slimy root, and fell heavily, rolling over his clinging and stillunlodged rider. For a few moments both lay still. Then Dick extricatedhimself with an oath, rose giddily, dragged up his horse,--who,after the fashion of his race, was meekly succumbing to his recliningposition,--and then became aware that the unfortunate beast was badlysprained in the shoulder, and temporarily lame. The sudden recollectionthat he was some miles from the road, and that the sun was sinking,concentrated his scattered faculties. The prospect of sleeping out inthat summer woodland was nothing to the pioneer-bred Dick; he couldmake his horse and himself comfortable anywhere--but he was delaying hisarrival at Havre. He must regain the high road,--or some wayside inn.He glanced around him; the westering sun was a guide for his generaldirection; the road must follow it north or south; he would find a"clearing" somewhere. But here Dick was mistaken; there seemed nointerruption of, no encroachment upon this sylvan tract, as in hiswestern woods. There was no track or trail to be found; he missed eventhe ordinary woodland signs that denoted the path of animals to water.For the park, from the time a Northern Duke had first alienated it fromthe virgin forest, had been rigidly preserved.
Suddenly, rising apparently from the ground before him, he saw the highroof-ridges and tourelles of a long, irregular, gloomy building. A fewsteps further showed him that it lay in a cup-like depression of theforest, and that it was still a long descent from where he had wanderedto where it stood in the gathering darkness. His mustang was movingwith great difficulty; he uncoiled his lariat from the saddle-horn,and, selecting the most open space, tied one end to the trunk of a largetree,--the forty feet of horsehair rope giving the animal a sufficientdegree of grazing freedom.
Then he strode more quickly down the forest side towards the building,which now revealed its austere proportions, though Dick could see thatthey were mitigated by a strange, formal flower-garden, with quaintstatues and fountains. There were grim black allees of clipped trees, acuriously wrought iron gate, and twisted iron espaliers. On one side theedifice was supported by a great stone terrace, which seemed to him asbroad as a Parisian boulevard. Yet everywhere it appeared sleeping inthe desertion and silence of the summer twilight. The evening breezeswayed the lace curtains at the tall windows, but nothing else moved. Tothe unsophisticated Western man it looked like a scene on the stage.
His progress was, however, presently checked by the first sight ofpreservation he had met in the forest,--a thick hedge, which interferedbetween him and a sloping lawn beyond. It was up to his waist, yet hebegan to break his way through it, when suddenly he was arrested by thesound of voices. Before him, on the la
wn, a man and woman, evidentlyservants, were slowly advancing, peering into the shadows of the woodwhich he had just left. He could not understand what they were saying,but he was about to speak and indicate by signs his desire to find theroad when the woman, turning towards her companion, caught sight of hisface and shoulders above the hedge. To his surprise and consternation,he saw the color drop out of her fresh cheeks, her round eyes fix intheir sockets, and with a despairing shriek she turned and fledtowards the house. The man turned at his companion's cry, gave thesame horrified glance at Dick's face, uttered a hoarse "Sacre!" crossedhimself violently, and fled also.
Amazed, indignant, and for the first time in his life humiliated,Dick gazed speechlessly after them. The man, of course, was a sneakingcoward; but the woman was rather pretty. It had not been Dick'sexperience to have women run from him! Should he follow them, knock thesilly fellow's head against a tree, and demand an explanation? Alas,he knew not the language! They had already reached the house anddisappeared in one of the offices. Well! let them go--for a mean"lowdown" pair of country bumpkins:--HE wanted no favors from them!
He turned back angrily into the forest to seek his unlucky beast. Thegurgle of water fell on his ear; hard by was a spring, where at least hecould water the mustang. He stooped to examine it; there was yet lightenough in the sunset sky to throw back from that little mirror thereflection of his thin, oval face, his long, curling hair, and hispointed beard and mustache. Yes! this was his face,--the face thatmany women in Paris had agreed was romantic and picturesque. Had thosewretched greenhorns never seen a real man before? Were they idiots,or insane? A sudden recollection of the silence and seclusion of thebuilding suggested certainly an asylum,--but where were the keepers?
It was getting darker in the wood; he made haste to recover his horse,to drag it to the spring, and there bathe its shoulder in the watermixed with whiskey taken from his flask. His saddle-bag contained enoughbread and meat for his own supper; he would camp for the night where hewas, and with the first light of dawn make his way back through thewood whence he came. As the light slowly faded from the wood he rolledhimself in his saddle-blanket and lay down.
But not to sleep. His strange position, the accident to his horse,an unusual irritation over the incident of the frightenedservants,--trivial as it might have been to any other man,--and, aboveall, an increasing childish curiosity, kept him awake and restless.Presently he could see also that it was growing lighter beyond theedge of the wood, and that the rays of a young crescent moon, while itplunged the forest into darkness and impassable shadow, evidently wasilluminating the hollow below. He threw aside his blanket, and made hisway to the hedge again. He was right; he could see the quaint, formallines of the old garden more distinctly,--the broad terrace, the queer,dark bulk of the house, with lights now gleaming from a few of its openwindows.
Before one of these windows opening on the terrace was a small, white,draped table with fruits, cups, and glasses, and two or three chairs. Ashe gazed curiously at these new signs of life and occupation, he becameaware of a regular and monotonous tap upon the stone flags of theterrace. Suddenly he saw three figures slowly turn the corner of theterrace at the further end of the building, and walk towards the table.The central figure was that of an elderly woman, yet tall and statelyof carriage, walking with a stick, whose regular tap he had heard,supported on the one side by an elderly Cure in black soutaine, and onthe other by a tall and slender girl in white.
They walked leisurely to the other end of the terrace, as if performinga regular exercise, and returned, stopping before the open Frenchwindow; where, after remaining in conversation a few moments, theelderly lady and her ecclesiastical companion entered. The young girlsauntered slowly to the steps of the terrace, and leaning against a hugevase as she looked over the garden, seemed lost in contemplation. Herface was turned towards the wood, but in quite another direction fromwhere he stood.
There was something so gentle, refined, and graceful in her figure, yetdominated by a girlish youthfulness of movement and gesture, that AlkaliDick was singularly interested. He had probably never seen an ingenuebefore; he had certainly never come in contact with a girl of that casteand seclusion in his brief Parisian experience. He was sorely temptedto leave his hedge and try to obtain a nearer view of her. There was afringe of lilac bushes running from the garden up the slope; if he couldgain their shadows, he could descend into the garden. What he should doafter his arrival he had not thought; but he had one idea--he knew notwhy--that if he ventured to speak to her he would not be met with theabrupt rustic terror he had experienced at the hands of the servants.SHE was not of that kind! He crept through the hedge, reached thelilacs, and began the descent softly and securely in the shadow. But atthe same moment she arose, called in a youthful voice towards the openwindow, and began to descend the steps. A half-expostulating replycame from the window, but the young girl answered it with the laughing,capricious confidence of a spoiled child, and continued her way into thegarden. Here she paused a moment and hung over a rose-tree, from whichshe gathered a flower, afterwards thrust into her belt. Dick paused,too, half-crouching, half-leaning over a lichen-stained, cracked stonepedestal from which the statue had long been overthrown and forgotten.
To his surprise, however, the young girl, following the path to thelilacs, began leisurely to ascend the hill, swaying from side to sidewith a youthful movement, and swinging the long stalk of a lily at herside. In another moment he would be discovered! Dick was frightened; hisconfidence of the moment before had all gone; he would fly,--and yet, anexquisite and fearful joy kept him motionless. She was approaching him,full and clear in the moonlight. He could see the grace of her delicatefigure in the simple white frock drawn at the waist with broad satinribbon, and its love-knots of pale blue ribbons on her shoulders; hecould see the coils of her brown hair, the pale, olive tint of her ovalcheek, the delicate, swelling nostril of her straight, clear-cut nose;he could even smell the lily she carried in her little hand. Then,suddenly, she lifted her long lashes, and her large gray eyes met his.
Alas! the same look of vacant horror came into her eyes, and fixedand dilated their clear pupils. But she uttered no outcry,--there wassomething in her blood that checked it; something that even gave adignity to her recoiling figure, and made Dick flush with admiration.She put her hand to her side, as if the shock of the exertion of herascent had set her heart to beating, but she did not faint. Then herfixed look gave way to one of infinite sadness, pity, and patheticappeal. Her lips were parted; they seemed to be moving, apparently inprayer. At last her voice came, wonderingly, timidly, tenderly: "MonDieu! c'est donc vous? Ici? C'est vous que Marie a crue voir! Quevenez-vous faire ici, Armand de Fontonelles? Repondez!"
Alas, not a word was comprehensible to Dick; nor could he think ofa word to say in reply. He made an uncouth, half-irritated,half-despairing gesture towards the wood he had quitted, as if toindicate his helpless horse, but he knew it was meaningless to thefrightened yet exalted girl before him. Her little hand crept to herbreast and clutched a rosary within the folds of her dress, as her softvoice again arose, low but appealingly:
"Vous souffrez! Ah, mon Dieu! Peuton vous secourir? Moi-meme--mesprieres pourraient elles interceder pour vous? Je supplierai le ciel deprendre en pitie l'ame de mon ancetre. Monsieur le Cure est la,--je luiparlerai. Lui et ma mere vous viendront en aide."
She clasped her hands appealingly before him.
Dick stood bewildered, hopeless, mystified; he had not understood aword; he could not say a word. For an instant he had a wild idea ofseizing her hand and leading her to his helpless horse, and then camewhat he believed was his salvation,--a sudden flash of recollection thathe had seen the word he wanted, the one word that would explain all, ina placarded notice at the Cirque of a bracelet that had been LOST,--yes,the single word "PERDU." He made a step towards her, and in a voicealmost as faint as her own, stammered, "PERDU!"
With a little cry, that was more like a sigh than an outcry, the girl'sarms fel
l to her side; she took a step backwards, reeled, and faintedaway.
Dick caught her as she fell. What had he said!--but, more than all, whatshould he do now? He could not leave her alone and helpless,--yet howcould he justify another disconcerting intrusion? He touched her hands;they were cold and lifeless; her eyes were half closed; her face as paleand drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave the worst now, and carryher to the house, even at the risk of meeting the others and terrifyingthem as he had her. He caught her up,--he scarcely felt her weightagainst his breast and shoulder,--and ran hurriedly down the slope tothe terrace, which was still deserted. If he had time to place her onsome bench beside the window within their reach, he might still flyundiscovered! But as he panted up the steps of the terrace with hisburden, he saw that the French window was still open, but the lightseemed to have been extinguished. It would be safer for her if he couldplace her INSIDE the house,--if he but dared to enter. He was desperate,and he dared!
He found himself alone, in a long salon of rich but faded white and goldhangings, lit at the further end by two tall candles on either side ofthe high marble mantel, whose rays, however, scarcely reached the windowwhere he had entered. He laid his burden on a high-backed sofa. Inso doing, the rose fell from her belt. He picked it up, put it inhis breast, and turned to go. But he was arrested by a voice from theterrace:--
"Renee!"
It was the voice of the elderly lady, who, with the Cure at her side,had just appeared from the rear of the house, and from the further endof the terrace was looking towards the garden in search of the younggirl. His escape in that way was cut off. To add to his dismay, theyoung girl, perhaps roused by her mother's voice, was beginning to showsigns of recovering consciousness. Dick looked quickly around him.There was an open door, opposite the window, leading to a hall which, nodoubt, offered some exit on the other side of the house. It was his onlyremaining chance! He darted through it, closed it behind him, andfound himself at the end of a long hall or picture-gallery, strangelyilluminated through high windows, reaching nearly to the roof, by themoon, which on that side of the building threw nearly level bars oflight and shadows across the floor and the quaint portraits on the wall.
But to his delight he could see at the other end a narrow, lance-shapedopen postern door showing the moonlit pavement without--evidently thedoor through which the mother and the Cure had just passed out. He ranrapidly towards it. As he did so he heard the hurried ringing of bellsand voices in the room he had quitted--the young girl had evidentlybeen discovered--and this would give him time. He had nearly reached thedoor, when he stopped suddenly--his blood chilled with awe! It was histurn to be terrified--he was standing, apparently, before HIMSELF!
His first recovering thought was that it was a mirror--so accuratelywas every line and detail of his face and figure reflected. But a secondscrutiny showed some discrepancies of costume, and he saw it was apanelled portrait on the wall. It was of a man of his own age, height,beard, complexion, and features, with long curls like his own, fallingover a lace Van Dyke collar, which, however, again simulated theappearance of his own hunting-shirt. The broad-brimmed hat in thepicture, whose drooping plume was lost in shadow, was scarcelydifferent from Dick's sombrero. But the likeness of the face to Dick wasmarvelous--convincing! As he gazed at it, the wicked black eyes seemedto flash and kindle at his own,--its lip curled with Dick's own sardonichumor!
He was recalled to himself by a step in the gallery. It was the Cure whohad entered hastily, evidently in search of one of the servants.Partly because it was a man and not a woman, partly from a feeling ofbravado--and partly from a strange sense, excited by the picture, thathe had some claim to be there, he turned and faced the pale priest witha slight dash of impatient devilry that would have done credit to theportrait. But he was sorry for it the next moment!
The priest, looking up suddenly, discovered what seemed to him to be theportrait standing before its own frame and glaring at him. Throwingup his hands with an averted head and an "EXORCIS--!" he wheeled andscuffled away. Dick seized the opportunity, darted through the narrowdoor on to the rear terrace, and ran, under cover of the shadow ofthe house, to the steps into the garden. Luckily for him, this new andunexpected diversion occupied the inmates too much with what was goingon in the house to give them time to search outside. Dick reached thelilac hedge, tore up the hill, and in a few moments threw himself,panting, on his blanket. In the single look he had cast behind, he hadseen that the half-dark salon was now brilliantly lighted--where nodoubt the whole terrified household was now assembled. He had no fearof being followed; since his confrontation with his own likeness inthe mysterious portrait, he understood everything. The apparentlysupernatural character of his visitation was made plain; his ruffledvanity was soothed--his vindication was complete. He laughed to himselfand rolled about, until in his suppressed merriment the rose fell fromhis bosom, and--he stopped! Its freshness and fragrance recalledthe innocent young girl he had frightened. He remembered her gentle,pleading voice, and his cheek flushed. Well, he had done the best hecould in bringing her back to the house--at the risk of being taken fora burglar--and she was safe now! If that stupid French parson didn'tknow the difference between a living man and a dead and painted one, itwasn't his fault. But he fell asleep with the rose in his fingers.
He was awake at the first streak of dawn. He again bathed his horse'sshoulder, saddled, but did not mount him, as the beast, although better,was still stiff, and Dick wished to spare him for the journey to stilldistant Havre, although he had determined to lie over that night at thefirst wayside inn. Luckily for him, the disturbance at the chateau hadnot extended to the forest, for Dick had to lead his horse slowly andcould not have escaped; but no suspicion of external intrusion seemed tohave been awakened, and the woodland was, evidently, seldom invaded.
By dint of laying his course by the sun and the exercise of a littlewoodcraft, in the course of two hours he heard the creaking of ahay-cart, and knew that he was near a traveled road. But to hisdiscomfiture he presently came to a high wall, which had evidentlyguarded this portion of the woods from the public. Time, however, hadmade frequent breaches in the stones; these had been roughly filled inwith a rude abatis of logs and treetops pointing towards the road. Butas these were mainly designed to prevent intrusion into the park ratherthan egress from it, Dick had no difficulty in rolling them aside andemerging at last with his limping steed upon the white high-road.The creaking cart had passed; it was yet early for traffic, and Dickpresently came upon a wine-shop, a bakery, a blacksmith's shop, laundry,and a somewhat pretentious cafe and hotel in a broader space whichmarked the junction of another road.
Directly before it, however, to his consternation, were the massive, buttimeworn, iron gates of a park, which Dick did not doubt was the onein which he had spent the previous night. But it was impossible to gofurther in his present plight, and he boldly approached the restaurant.As he was preparing to make his usual explanatory signs, to his greatdelight he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, mixed withforgotten American slang, by the white-trousered, black-alpaca coatedproprietor. More than that--he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiasticlover of America--had he not been to "Bos-town" and New York, andpenetrated as far west as "Booflo," and had much pleasure in thatbeautiful and free country? Yes! it was a "go-a-'ed" country--you"bet-your-lif'." One had reason to say so: there was yourelectricity--your street cars--your "steambots"--ah! such steambots--andyour "r-rail-r-roads." Ah! observe! compare your r-rail-r-roads and thebuffet of the Pullman with the line from Paris, for example--and whereis one? Nowhere! Actually, positively, without doubt, nowhere!
Later, at an appetizing breakfast--at which, to Dick's greatsatisfaction, the good man had permitted and congratulated himself tosit at table with a free-born American--he was even more loquacious.For what then, he would ask, was this incompetence, this imbecility, ofFrance? He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the graspingof capital and companies, the fatal influence of the still clin
gingnoblesse, and the insidious Jesuitical power of the priests. As forexample, Monsieur "the Booflo-bil" had doubtless noticed the great gatesof the park before the cafe? It was the preserve,--the hunting-park ofone of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descendants, theComtes de Fontonelles--hundreds of acres that had never been tilled,and kept as wild waste wilderness,--kept for a day's pleasure in a year!And, look you! the peasants starving around its walls in their smallgarden patches and pinched farms! And the present Comte de Fontonellescascading gold on his mistresses in Paris; and the Comtesse, his mother,and her daughter living there to feed and fatten and pension a broodof plotting, black-cowled priests. Ah, bah! where was your RepublicanFrance, then? But a time would come. The "Booflo-bil" had, withoutdoubt, noticed, as he came along the road, the breaches in the wall ofthe park?
Dick, with a slight dry reserve, "reckoned that he had."
"They were made by the scythes and pitchforks of the peasants in theRevolution of '93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason'skedadelle,' to England. Let them look the next time that they burn notthe chateau,--'bet your lif'!'"
"The chateau," said Dick, with affected carelessness. "Wot's the blamedthing like?"
It was an old affair,--with armor and a picture-gallery,--and bricabrac.He had never seen it. Not even as a boy,--it was kept very secludedthen. As a man--you understand--he could not ask the favor. The Comtesde Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like acafe near their sacred gates,--where had stood only the huts of theirretainers. The American would observe that he had not called it "Cafe deChateau," nor "Cafe de Fontonelles,"--the gold of California would notinduce him. Why did he remain there? Naturally, to goad them! It was aprinciple, one understood. To GOAD them and hold them in check! One kepta cafe,--why not? One had one's principles,--one's conviction,--that wasanother thing! That was the kind of "'air-pin"--was it not?--that HE,Gustav Ribaud, was like!
Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obliging, andcharmingly attentive to Dick and his needs. As to Dick's horse, heshould have the best veterinary surgeon--there was an incomparable onein the person of the blacksmith--see to him, and if it were an affair ofdays, and Dick must go, he himself would be glad to purchase thebeast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,--anadvertisement for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before thegates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned atrick or two in free America.
Dick's first act had been to shave off his characteristic beard andmustache, and even to submit his long curls to the village barber'sshears, while a straw hat, which he bought to take the place of hisslouched sombrero, completed his transformation. His host saw in thechange only the natural preparation of a voyager, but Dick had reallymade the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered hisold swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to hisresemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and toovain a man, to feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocraticbully, as he believed the ancestral De Fontonelles to be. Even hismomentary sensation as he faced the Cure in the picture-gallery wasmore from a vague sense that liberties had been taken with his, Dick's,personality, than that he had borrowed anything from the portrait.
But he was not so clear about the young girl. Her tender, appealingvoice, although he knew it had been addressed only to a vision, stillthrilled his fancy. The pluck that had made her withstand her fearso long--until he had uttered that dreadful word--still excited hisadmiration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made--for he knewit must have been some frightful blunder--was all the more keen, as hehad no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him--orDID she really think him a brute even then?--for her look was one moreof despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word,and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friendsto carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across theseas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl ever beforehis eyes! A sense of delicacy--new to Dick, but always the accompanimentof deep feeling--kept him from even hinting his story to his host,though he knew--perhaps BECAUSE he knew--that it would gratify hisenmity to the family. A sudden thought struck Dick. He knew her house,and her name. He would write her a note. Somebody would be sure totranslate it for her.
He borrowed pen, ink, and paper, and in the clean solitude of his freshchintz bedroom, indited the following letter:--
DEAR MISS FONTONELLES,--Please excuse me for having skeert you. I hadn'tany call to do it, I never reckoned to do it--it was all jest myderned luck; I only reckoned to tell you I was lost--in them blamedwoods--don't you remember?--"lost"--PERDOO!--and then you up andfainted! I wouldn't have come into your garden, only, you see, I'd justskeered by accident two of your helps, reg'lar softies, and I wanted toexplain. I reckon they allowed I was that man that that picture in thehall was painted after. I reckon they took ME for him--see? But he ain'tMY style, nohow, and I never saw the picture at all until after I'dtoted you, when you fainted, up to your house, or I'd have made mykalkilations and acted according. I'd have laid low in the woods, andgot away without skeerin' you. You see what I mean? It was mighty meanof me, I suppose, to have tetched you at all, without saying, "Excuseme, miss," and toted you out of the garden and up the steps into yourown parlor without asking your leave. But the whole thing tumbled sosuddent. And it didn't seem the square thing for me to lite out andleave you lying there on the grass. That's why! I'm sorry I skeert thatold preacher, but he came upon me in the picture hall so suddent, thatit was a mighty close call, I tell you, to get off without a shindy.Please forgive me, Miss Fontonelles. When you get this, I shall be goingback home to America, but you might write to me at Denver City, sayingyou're all right. I liked your style; I liked your grit in standing upto me in the garden until you had your say, when you thought I wasthe Lord knows what--though I never understood a word you got off--notknowing French. But it's all the same now. Say! I've got your rose!
Yours very respectfully,
RICHARD FOUNTAINS.
Dick folded the epistle and put it in his pocket. He would post ithimself on the morning before he left. When he came downstairs he foundhis indefatigable host awaiting him, with the report of the veterinaryblacksmith. There was nothing seriously wrong with the mustang, but itwould be unfit to travel for several days. The landlord repeated hisformer offer. Dick, whose money was pretty well exhausted, was fain toaccept, reflecting that SHE had never seen the mustang and would notrecognize it. But he drew the line at the sombrero, to which his hosthad taken a great fancy. He had worn it before HER!
Later in the evening Dick was sitting on the low veranda of the cafe,overlooking the white road. A round white table was beside him, hisfeet were on the railing, but his eyes were resting beyond on the high,mouldy iron gates of the mysterious park. What he was thinking of didnot matter, but he was a little impatient at the sudden appearance ofhis host--whom he had evaded during the afternoon--at his side. Theman's manner was full of bursting loquacity and mysterious levity.
Truly, it was a good hour when Dick had arrived at Fontonelles,--"justin time." He could see now what a world of imbeciles was France. Whatstupid ignorance ruled, what low cunning and low tact could achieve,--ineffect, what jugglers and mountebanks, hypocritical priests andlicentious and lying noblesse went to make up existing society.Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular coup d'theatre atFontonelles,--the chateau yonder; here at the village, where the newswas brought by frightened grooms and silly women! He had been in thethick of it all the afternoon! He had examined it,--interrogated themlike a juge d'instruction,--winnowed it, sifted it. And what was itall? An attempt by these wretched priests and noblesse to revive in thenineteenth century--the age of electricity and Pullman cars--a miserablemediaeval legend of an apparition, a miracle! Yes; one is asked tobelieve that at the chateau yonder was seen last night three times theapparition of Armand de Fontonelles!
Di
ck started. "Armand de Fontonelles!" He remembered that she hadrepeated that name.
"Who's he?" he demanded abruptly.
"The first Comte de Fontonelles! When monsieur knows that the firstcomte has been dead three hundred years, he will see the imbecility ofthe affair!"
"Wot did he come back for?" growled Dick.
"Ah! it was a legend. Consider its artfulness! The Comte Armand had beena hard liver, a dissipated scoundrel, a reckless beast, but a mightyhunter of the stag. It was said that on one of these occasions he hadbeen warned by the apparition of St. Hubert; but he had laughed,--for,observe, HE always jeered at the priests too; hence this story!--andhad declared that the flaming cross seen between the horns of the sacredstag was only the torch of a poacher, and he would shoot it! Good! thebody of the comte, dead, but without a wound, was found in the wood thenext day, with his discharged arquebus in his hand. The Archbishop ofRouen refused his body the rites of the Church until a number of masseswere said every year and--paid for! One understands! one sees their'little game;' the count now appears,--he is in purgatory! Moremasses,--more money! There you are. Bah! One understands, too, thatthe affair takes place, not in a cafe like this,--not in a publicplace,--but at a chateau of the noblesse, and is seen by--theproprietor checked the characters on his fingers--TWO retainers; oneyoung demoiselle of the noblesse, daughter of the chatelaine herself;and, my faith, it goes without saying, by a fat priest, the Cure! Ineffect, two interested ones! And the priest,--his lie is magnificent!Superb! For he saw the comte in the picture-gallery,--in effect,stepping into his frame!"
"Oh, come off the roof," said Dick impatiently; "they must have seenSOMETHING, you know. The young lady wouldn't lie!"
Monsieur Ribaud leaned over, with a mysterious, cynical smile, andlowering his voice said:--
"You have reason to say so. You have hit it, my friend. There WAS asomething! And if we regard the young lady, you shall hear. The story ofMademoiselle de Fontonelles is that she has walked by herself alone inthe garden,--you observe, ALONE--in the moonlight, near the edge of thewood. You comprehend? The mother and the Cure are in the house,--for thetime effaced! Here at the edge of the wood--though why she continues,a young demoiselle, to the edge of the wood does not make itselfclear--she beholds her ancestor, as on a pedestal, young, pale, but veryhandsome and exalte,--pardon!"
"Nothing," said Dick hurriedly; "go on!"
"She beseeches him why! He says he is lost! She faints away, on theinstant, there--regard me!--ON THE EDGE OF THE WOOD, she says. But hermother and Monsieur le Cure find her pale, agitated, distressed, ONTHE SOFA IN THE SALON. One is asked to believe that she is transportedthrough the air--like an angel--by the spirit of Armand de Fontonelles.Incredible!"
"Well, wot do YOU think?" said Dick sharply.
The cafe proprietor looked around him carefully, and then lowered hisvoice significantly:--
"A lover!"
"A what?" said Dick, with a gasp.
"A lover!" repeated Ribaud. "You comprehend! Mademoiselle hasno dot,--the property is nothing,--the brother has everything. AMademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her class, and thenoblesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is young,--pretty, they say, ofher kind. It is an intolerable life at the old chateau; mademoiselleconsoles herself!"
Monsieur Ribaud never knew how near he was to the white road below therailing at that particular moment. Luckily, Dick controlled himself, andwisely, as Monsieur Ribaud's next sentence showed him.
"A romance,--an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like,--but, all thesame, if known of a Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, a compromising, a fatalentanglement. There you are. Look! for this, then, all this story ofcock and bulls and spirits! Mademoiselle has been discovered with herlover by some one. This pretty story shall stop their mouths!"
"But wot," said Dick brusquely, "wot if the girl was really skeertat something she'd seen, and fainted dead away, as she said shedid,--and--and"--he hesitated--"some stranger came along and picked herup?"
Monsieur Ribaud looked at him pityingly.
"A Mademoiselle de Fontonelle is picked up by her servants, by herfamily, but not by the young man in the woods, alone. It is even morecompromising!"
"Do you mean to say," said Dick furiously, "that the ragpickers andsneaks that wade around in the slumgallion of this country would dare tospatter that young gal?"
"I mean to say, yes,--assuredly, positively yes!" said Ribaud,rubbing his hands with a certain satisfaction at Dick's fury. "For youcomprehend not the position of la jeune fille in all France! Ah! inAmerica the young lady she go everywhere alone; I have seen her--pretty,charming, fascinating--alone with the young man. But here, no, never!Regard me, my friend. The French mother, she say to her daughter'sfiance, 'Look! there is my daughter. She has never been alone with ayoung man for five minutes,--not even with you. Take her for your wife!'It is monstrous! it is impossible! it is so!"
There was a silence of a few minutes, and Dick looked blankly at theiron gates of the park of Fontonelles. Then he said: "Give me a cigar."
Monsieur Ribaud instantly produced his cigar case. Dick took a cigar,but waved aside the proffered match, and entering the cafe, took fromhis pocket the letter to Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, twisted it in aspiral, lighted it at a candle, lit his cigar with it, and returningto the veranda held it in his hand until the last ashes dropped on thefloor. Then he said, gravely, to Ribaud:--
"You've treated me like a white man, Frenchy, and I ain't goin' backon yer--though your ways ain't my ways--nohow; but I reckon in this yermatter at the shotto you're a little too previous! For though I don'tas a gin'ral thing take stock in ghosts, I BELIEVE EVERY WORD THAT THEMFOLK SAID UP THAR. And," he added, leaning his hand somewhat heavily onRibaud's shoulder, "if you're the man I take you for, you'll believe ittoo! And if that chap, Armand de Fontonelles, hadn't hev picked up thatgal at that moment, he would hev deserved to roast in hell another threehundred years! That's why I believe her story. So you'll let these yerFontonelles keep their ghosts for all they're worth; and when you nextfeel inclined to talk about that girl's LOVER, you'll think of me, andshut your head! You hear me, Frenchy, I'm shoutin'! And don't you forgetit!"
Nevertheless, early the next morning, Monsieur Ribaud accompanied hisguest to the railway station, and parted from him with great effusion.On his way back an old-fashioned carriage with a postilion passed him.At a sign from its occupant, the postilion pulled up, and MonsieurRibaud, bowing to the dust, approached the window, and the pale, sternface of a dignified, white-haired woman of sixty that looked from it.
"Has he gone?" said the lady.
"Assuredly, madame; I was with him at the station."
"And you think no one saw him?"
"No one, madame, but myself."
"And--what kind of a man was he?"
Monsieur Ribaud lifted his shoulders, threw out his hands despairingly,yet with a world of significance, and said:--
"An American."
"Ah!"
The carriage drove on and entered the gates of the chateau. And MonsieurRibaud, cafe proprietor and Social Democrat, straightened himself in thedust and shook his fist after it.
