Part 6 (1/2)
”He smelt something, though,” growled Tobie the groom. ”He would have searched the stable and found the inner place if I had not stood in front of him: luckily I was the biggest man of the two. It is not so easy, do you see, to make a way past me.”
”I gave them enough good food and wine to send them to sleep for the afternoon,” said Marie the cook. ”It was a sad waste, but the only way to keep such creatures quiet.”
”What a terrible man, that General!” said Gigot. ”How he slept and snored and kicked the sofa! you can see the marks of his boots now. And how he resembles the Emperor! I know, for I saw his Majesty once--”
”Stop your recollections, Gigot,” said Monsieur Joseph; for Gigot, like many solemn and silent people, was difficult to check when once set talking. ”We have something else to think of now. Make haste with dinner, Marie. We must console our poor friends for their captivity.
Come, Riette, we will go and fetch them.”
So that evening was a merry one at Les Chouettes, and the moon was high before the second batch of guests climbed slowly to the moor on their homeward way. The day's experience had not heightened their courage, somehow, or advanced their plans for a rising. Even the Comte d'Ombre agreed that the time was hardly ripe; that five or six men might throw away their own lives or liberties, but could not make a new revolution; that the peasants must be sounded, public opinion educated; and that the Prefect's courteous moderation was an odious quality which made everything more difficult.
And in the meanwhile, Monsieur de Mauves was justifying their conclusions in a way that would have startled them.
Beyond the wood, Angelot led the party across stubble-fields, where blue field flowers with grey dusty leaves cl.u.s.tered by the wayside, and distant poplars, pointing high into the evening air, showed where his home lay. Then they turned down into one of the hollow lanes of the country, its banks scooped out by winter rains and treading of cattle, so that it was almost like three sides of a cylinder, while the thick pollard oaks, leaning over it, made twilight even in the lingering suns.h.i.+ne.
The General was riding in front, the gendarmes some yards behind; Angelot, with his dog and gun, kept close beside the Prefect, who talked to him with his usual friendliness. Presently he said, ”I love your uncle, Angelot, much better than he loves me, and I am sorry that he should run such useless risks.”
”What risks, monsieur?” the young man said, glancing up quickly; and somehow it was difficult to meet the Prefect's eyes.
”Ah, you know very well. Believe me, your father is right, and your uncle is wrong. The old regime cannot be reestablished. The path of France is marked out for her; a star has arisen to guide her, and she is foolish, suicidal, not to follow where it leads. I do not defend or admire the Emperor in everything: but see what he has done for France.
She lay ruined, distracted. She took the mountain path of liberty, made a few wrong turns, and was dashed over the precipice. See how the Emperor has built her up into a great nation again; look at the laws and the civilisation; look at the military glory which has cost much blood, it is true, but has raised her so high in Europe that the nations who were ready to devour her are mostly crouching at her feet. Would our Bourbons have done all this for us, Angelot? Are they, after all, worth the devotion of men like your uncle and--for instance--Monsieur des Barres? Does not true patriotism lead a man to think of his country's good and glory, not of the advantage of one special family? Your uncle can hardly believe in that mediaeval fiction of divine right, I suppose?”
Angelot smiled. ”My uncle belongs to the days of Saint Louis,” he said.
”But you do not,” the Prefect replied. ”I find it hard to forgive him.
He is free, of course, to put his own neck in danger. One of these days he will drive me to extremities, and will find himself and his friends in a state prison--lucky if nothing worse happens. But he has no right to involve you in these treasonous tricks of his. It is selfish and immoral. Your father should see to it. You ought not to have been there to-day.”
The Prefect spoke low and earnestly. It was impossible to misunderstand him. Angelot felt something like a cold s.h.i.+ver running over him. But he smiled and answered bravely.
”If my uncle has been foolish, so have I, and I will share the consequences with him. But as to to-day, monsieur?”
”I know all,” the Prefect said. ”Your uncle had visitors this morning, who were spirited away out of our sight. Their horses were hidden in an inner stable; they themselves in a hovel in the wood--and if they have waited there till we were gone, they must be tired of it. That famous breakfast we enjoyed was not prepared on such miraculously short notice.
Your little cousin, poor child, was employed to carry food to the fugitives hidden in the wood. With all my heart I pity her; a life of political plots is not happiness. But if Monsieur de la Mariniere does not hesitate to sacrifice his daughter, it is no wonder that he lightly runs his nephew into danger! You acted well, you and he. But I almost think it might have been safer to carry on that first breakfast-party, and not show its character by absurd attempts at concealment. You cannot contradict a word I have been saying, Angelot. I do not ask you to tell me the names of your uncle's guests.”
”If you did, monsieur,” the young fellow answered, ”I should consider that an uncomfortable day had punished them enough, and so I should respectfully decline to answer you. I don't know how you made all these wonderful discoveries.”
The Prefect looked at him and laughed. ”You take it lightly!”
”I am speaking to a friend,” Angelot said.
”That is all very well. Yes--too good a friend, I fear, from the point of view of duty. But I shall not repent, if you will be warned into prudence yourself, and will warn your uncle.”
”I am rather afraid, monsieur, that my father has all the prudence of the family.”
The Prefect would have argued further, but suddenly a sound like low thunder, still distant, echoed down the lane.
”What is that?” he said, looking round.
”Cattle, monsieur. Pull right into the bank and give them room to pa.s.s,”
said Angelot.