Part 1 (1/2)
Autumn Glory.
by Rene Bazin.
CHAPTER I.
LA FROMENTIeRE.
”Quiet! Bas-Rouge, down! Don't you know folk born and bred here?”
The dog thus addressed, a mongrel in which some twenty breeds were mixed, with grey long-haired coat changing to auburn silky fleece about the paws, at once left off barking at the gate, trotted along the gra.s.sy path bordering the field, and, content at having done his duty, sat down at the extreme edge of the line of cabbages which the farmer was tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. Along the same path a man was approaching, clad in gaiters and a suit of well-worn corduroys. His pace was the even steady gait of a man accustomed to tramp the country. The face in its setting of black beard was drawn and pale, the eyes, accustomed to roam the hedges and rest nowhere, bore an expression of weariness and mistrust, the contested authority of an agent. He was the head-keeper and steward to the Marquis de la Fromentiere.
He came to a halt behind Bas-Rouge, whose eyelids gave a furtive quiver, though his ears made not the slightest movement.
”Good day, Lumineau.”
”Good day.”
”I have a word to say to you. M. le Marquis has written.”
Probably he expected the farmer to leave his cabbages and come towards him. Not a bit of it. The yeoman of the Marais bending double, a huge bundle of green leaves in his arms, stood some thirty feet off, looking askance at the keeper waiting motionless in the path. What did he want of him? His well-fed cheeks broadened into a smile, his clear, deep-set eyes lengthened. In order to show his independence, he bent down and resumed his labours for a moment without reply. He felt himself upon the ground that he looked upon as his own, which his race had cultivated by virtue of a contract indefinitely renewed. Around him, his cabbages formed an immense square, a billowy ma.s.s of superb growth, firm and heavy, their colour comprising every imaginable shade of green, blue, and violet, tinting in harmony with the hues of the setting sun. Of huge stature though he was, the farmer plunged to his middle, like a s.h.i.+p, in this compact sea of vegetation. All that was to be seen above it was the short coat and round felt hat, set well back on his head, from which hung velvet streamers, the headgear of La Vendee.
When by this period of silence and labour he had sufficiently marked the superiority of a tenant farmer over a hired labourer, Lumineau straightening himself, said:
”You can talk on; there's no one here but me and my dog.”
Nettled, the man replied,
”M. le Marquis is displeased that you did not pay your rent at Midsummer. It will soon be three months in arrears.”
”But he knows that I have lost two oxen this year; that the wheat is poor; and that one must live, I and my sons, and the 'Creatures.'”
By ”Creatures” the farmer meant, as is customary in the Marais, his two daughters, Eleonore and Marie-Rose.
”Tut, tut,” replied the keeper, ”it is not reasons he wants from you, my good man, it's the money.”
The farmer shrugged his shoulders.
”Were he here at the Chateau the Marquis would not require it; I would soon explain how things stand. He and I were friends, I may say, as his father and mine were before us. I could show him what changes time has brought about with me. He would understand. But now one only has to do with paid agents, no longer the Master; he is no more to be seen, and some folks say we shall never see him at La Fromentiere any more. It is a bad thing for us.”
”Very likely,” returned the keeper, ”but it is not my place to discuss orders. When will you pay?”
”It's easy to ask when will you pay, but it's another thing to find the money.”
”Well then, I am to answer, No.”
”You will answer, Yes, as it must be. I will pay at Michaelmas, which is not far off now.”
The farmer was about to stoop to resume his work when the keeper added:
”You will do well, too, Lumineau, to look after your man. I found some snares the other day in the preserves of La Cailleterie, which could only have been laid by him.”