Part 11 (1/2)

”Monsieur forgives me?” he said. ”Perhaps I should have said nothing; the police have their ways. They may ask questions without malice. And yet one feels the difference between an honest man and a spy. Well, I could have laughed, if I did not hate the fellow. As if the talk of a few honest gentlemen could hurt the State!”

”Some day I hope it will,” said Monsieur Joseph, coolly. ”When the rising comes, Joubard, you will be on the right side--if only to avenge your sons, my good man!”

Joubard opened his eyes wider, hesitated, pushed his fingers through his bushy hair.

”Me, monsieur! The rising! But, monsieur, I never said I was a Chouan! I am afraid of some of them, though not of you, monsieur. They are people who can be dangerous. A rising, you said! Then--”

”Don't talk of it now,” said Monsieur Joseph, impatiently.

As he spoke, little Henriette came round the corner of the house with some blue feathers in her hand. Tobie had been out shooting, making havoc among the wild birds, large and small, and sparing the squirrels, with regret, to please his master. Owls, kites, rooks, magpies, jays, thrushes, finches; those that were eatable went into pies, and the prettiest feathers were dressed and made into plumes for Mademoiselle Henriette. She was fond of adorning her straw bonnet with jay's feathers, which, as her uncle Urbain remarked, gave her the appearance of one of Monsieur de Chateaubriand's squaws. ”See, papa, what Tobie has brought me,” she cried. ”Good evening, Maitre Joubard! How are your chickens? and when will the vintage begin?”

Joubard would gladly have entered on a lengthy gossip with Mademoiselle Henriette, but Monsieur Joseph, with a shortness very unlike him, brought the interview to an end.

”You must not keep Maitre Joubard now,” he said. ”It is late, and he must get back to the farm. Bonsoir, Joubard.”

The farmer waved his large hat. ”Bonsoir, la compagnie!” and with a smile departed.

As he pa.s.sed the stables, Tobie, still carrying his gun, slipped out and joined him.

”Anything wrong with the master, Tobie?” said the old man, curiously.

”His tongue has an edge to it this evening; he is not like himself.”

”I think I know,” said Tobie, and they strolled together up the lane.

”Go to bed, my child,” said Monsieur Joseph to his little daughter. ”It is too damp now for you to be out-of-doors. Yes, very pretty feathers.

Good night, mon pet.i.t chou!”

Riette flung herself upon him and hugged him like a young bear.

”Ah,” he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak, ”and is this the way to behave to one's respected father? Do you suppose, now, that Mesdemoiselles de Sainfoy crush their parents to death like this?”

”I dare say not,” said Riette, with another hug and a shower of kisses.

”But their parents are grand people. They have not a little bijou of a papa like mine. And as for their mamma, she is a cardboard sort of woman.”

”All that does not matter. Manners should be the same, whether people are tall or short, great or humble. You know nothing about it, my poor Riette.”

”Nor do you!”

”It is becoming plain to me that you must be sent to learn manners.”

”Where?”

”Go to bed at once. I must think about it. There, child--enough--I am tired this evening.”

”Ah, you have had so many visitors to-day, and that old Joubard is a chatterbox.”

”And he is not the only one in the world. Go--do you hear me?”

The child went. He heard her light feet scampering upstairs, clattering merrily about on the boards overhead. He sat very still. The glow in the east deepened, spreading a lurid glory over the dark velvety stillness of the woods. Crickets sang and curlews cried in the meadow, and the long ghostly hoot of an owl trembled through the motionless air. Joseph de la Mariniere leaned his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his hands, and gazed up thus into the wild autumnal sky.