Part 20 (1/2)
”A woman, then,” said the countess.
”Down there, by the broken pitcher, are the footsteps of a man,” added Michaud.
”I don't see traces of any other foot,” said the abbe, who was tracking into the wood the prints of the woman's feet.
”She must have been lifted and carried into the wood,” cried Michaud.
”That can't be, if it is really a woman's foot,” said Blondet.
”It must be some trick of that wretch, Nicolas,” said Michaud. ”He has been watching La Pechina for some time. Only this morning I stood two hours under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was about. A woman may have helped him.”
”It is dreadful!” said the countess.
”They call it amusing themselves,” added the priest, in a sad and grieved tone.
”Oh! La Pechina would never let them keep her,” said the bailiff; ”she is quite able to swim across the river. I shall look along the banks. Go home, my dear Olympe; and you gentlemen and madame, please to follow the avenue towards Conches.”
”What a country!” exclaimed the countess.
”There are scoundrels everywhere,” replied Blondet.
”Is it true, Monsieur l'abbe,” asked Madame de Montcornet, ”that I saved the poor child from the clutches of Rigou?”
”Every young girl over fiften years of age whom you may protect at the chateau is saved from that monster,” said the abbe. ”In trying to get possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought to satisfy both his l.u.s.t and his vengeance. When I took Pere Niseron as s.e.xton I told him what Rigou's intentions were. That is one of the causes of the late mayor's rancor against me; his hatred grew out of it. Pere Niseron said to him solemnly that he would kill him if any harm came to Genevieve, and he made him responsible for all attempts upon the poor child's honor. I can't help thinking that this pursuit of Nicolas is the result of some infernal collusion with Rigou, who thinks he can do as he likes with these people.”
”Doesn't he fear the law?”
”In the first place, he is father-in-law of the prosecuting-attorney,”
said the abbe, pausing to listen. ”And then,” he resumed, ”you have no conception of the utter indifference of the rural police to what is done around them. So long as the peasants do not burn the farm-houses and buildings, commit no murders, poison no one, and pay their taxes, they let them do as they like; and as these people are not restrained by any religious principle, horrible things happen every day. On the other side of the Avonne helpless old men are afraid to stay in their own homes, for they are allowed nothing to eat; they wander out into the fields as far as their tottering legs can bear them, knowing well that if they take to their beds they will die for want of food. Monsieur Sarcus, the magistrate, tells me that if they arrested and tried all criminals, the costs would ruin the munic.i.p.ality.”
”Then he at least sees how things are?” said Blondet.
”Monseigneur thoroughly understands the condition of the valley, and especially the state of this district,” continued the abbe. ”Religion alone can cure such evils; the law seems to me powerless, modified as it is now--”
The words were interrupted by loud cries from the woods, and the countess, preceded by Emile and the abbe, sprang bravely into the brushwood in the direction of the sounds.
CHAPTER XI. THE OARISTYS, EIGHTEENTH ECLOGUE OF THEOCRITUS
LITTLE ADMIRED ON THE POLICE CALENDAR
The sagacity of a savage, which Michaud's new occupation had developed among his faculties, joined to an acquaintance with the pa.s.sions and interests of Blangy, enabled him partially to understand a third idyll in the Greek style, which poor villagers like Tonsard, and middle-aged rich men like Rigou, translate _freely_--to use the cla.s.sic word--in the depths of their country solitudes.
Nicolas, Tonsard's second son, had drawn an unlucky number at a recent conscription. Two years earlier his elder brother had been p.r.o.nounced, through the influence of Soudry, Gaubertin, and Sarcus the rich, unfit for military service, on account of a pretended weakness in the muscles of the right arm; but as Jean-Louis had since wielded instruments of husbandry with remarkable force and skill, a good deal of talk on the subject had gone through the district. Soudry, Rigou, and Gaubertin, who were the special protectors of the family, had warned Tonsard that he must not expect to save Nicolas, who was tall and vigorous, from being recruited if he drew a fatal number. Nevertheless Gaubertin and Rigou were so well aware of the importance of conciliating bold men able and willing to do mischief, if properly directed against Les Aigues, that Rigou held out certain hopes of safety to Tonsard and his son. The late monk was occasionally visited by Catherine Tonsard who was very devoted to her brother Nicolas; on one such occasion Rigou advised her to appeal to the general and the countess.
”They may be glad to do you this service to cajole you; in that case, it is just so much gained from the enemy,” he said. ”If the Shopman refuses, then we shall see what we shall see.”
Rigou foresaw that the general's refusal would pa.s.s as one wrong the more done by the land-owner to the peasantry, and would bind Tonsard by an additional motive of grat.i.tude to the coalition, in case the crafty mind of the innkeeper could suggest to him some plausible way of liberating Nicolas.
Nicolas, who was soon to appear before the examining board, had little hope of the general's intervention because of the harm done to Les Aigues by all the members of the Tonsard family. His pa.s.sion, or to speak more correctly, his caprice and obstinate pursuit of La Pechina, were so aggravated by the prospect of his immediate departure, which left him no time to seduce her, that he resolved on attempting violence.
The child's contempt for her prosecutor, plainly shown, excited the Lovelace of the Grand-I-Vert to a hatred whose fury was equalled only by his desires. For the last three days he had been watching La Pechina, and the poor child knew she was watched. Between Nicolas and his prey the same sort of understanding existed which there is between the hunter and the game. When the girl was at some little distance from the pavilion she saw Nicolas in one of the paths which ran parallel to the walls of the park, leading to the bridge of the Avonne. She could easily have escaped the man's pursuit had she appealed to her grandfather; but all young girls, even the most unsophisticated, have a strange fear, possibly instinctive, of trusting to their natural protectors under the like circ.u.mstances.