A little farther on they came to two pillars, and between these was a huge wheel closely studded with iron p.r.o.ngs; and entangled in these were bones and fragments of cloth miserably dispersed over the wheel.
Gerard hid his face in his hands. "Oh to think those patches and bones are all that is left of a man! Of one who was what we are now."
"Excusez! a thing that went on two legs and stole; are we no more than that?"
"How know ye he stole? Have true men never suffered death and torture too?"
"None of my kith ever found the way to the gibbet, I know."
"The better their luck. Prithee how died the saints?"
"Hard. But not in Burgundy."
"Ye ma.s.sacred them wholesale at Lyons, and that is on Burgundy"s threshold. To you the gibbet proves the crime; because you read not story. Alas! had you stood on Calvary that b.l.o.o.d.y day we sigh for to this hour, I tremble to think you had perhaps shouted for joy at the gibbet builded there; for the cross was but the Roman gallows, Father Martin says."
"The blaspheming old hound!"
"Oh fie! fie! a holy and a book-learned man. Ay, Denys, y"had read them, that suffered there, by the bare light of the gibbet. "Drive in the nails!" y"had cried: "drive in the spear! Here be three malefactors.
Three "roues."" Yet of those little three one was the first Christian saint, and another was the Saviour of the world which gibbeted him."
Denys a.s.sured him on his honour they managed things better in Burgundy.
He added too after profound reflection, that the horrors Gerard had alluded to had more than once made him curse and swear with rage when told by the good cure in his native village at Easter-tide; "but they chanced in an outlandish nation; and near a thousand years agone. Mort de ma vie, let us hope it is not true: or at least sore exaggerated. Do but see how all tales gather as they roll!"
Then he reflected again, and all in a moment turned red with ire. "Do ye not blush to play with your book-craft on your unlettered friend, and throw dust in his eyes, evening the saints with these reptiles?"
Then suddenly he recovered his good humour. "Since your heart beats for vermin, feel for the carrion crows! they be as good vermin as these: would ye send them to bed supperless, poor pretty poppets? Why, these be their larder: the pangs of hunger would gnaw them dead, but for cold cutpurse hung up here and there."
Gerard, who had for some time maintained a dead silence, informed him the subject was closed between them and for ever. "There are things,"
said he, "in which our hearts seem wide as the poles asunder, and eke our heads. But I love thee dearly all the same," he added with infinite grace and tenderness.
Towards afternoon they heard a faint wailing noise on ahead: it grew distincter as they proceeded. Being fast walkers they soon came up with its cause: a score of pikemen, accompanied by several constables, were marching along, and in advance of them was a herd of animals they were driving. These creatures, in number rather more than a hundred, were of various ages, only very few were downright old: the males were downcast and silent. It was the females from whom all the outcry came. In other words the animals thus driven along at the law"s point were men and women.
"Good Heaven!" cried Gerard. "What a band of them! But stay, surely all those children cannot be thieves: why there are some in arms. What on earth is this, Denys?"
Denys advised him to ask that "bourgeois" with the badge. "This is Burgundy: here a civil question ever draws a civil reply."
Gerard went up to the officer and removing his cap, a civility which was immediately returned, said, "For our Lady"s sake, sir, what do ye with these poor folk?"
"Nay, what is that to you, my lad?" replied the functionary suspiciously.
"Master, I"m a stranger, and athirst for knowledge."
"That is another matter. What are we doing? ahem. Why we--Dost hear, Jacques? Here is a stranger seeks to know what we are doing," and the two machines were tickled that there should be a man who did not know something they happened to know. In all ages this has tickled. However the chuckle was brief, and moderated by their native courtesy, and the official turned to Gerard again. "What we are doing? hum!" and now he hesitated not from any doubt as to what he was doing, but because he was hunting for a single word that should convey the matter.
"Ce que nous faisons, mon gars?--Mais--dam--NOUS TRANSVASONS."
"You decant? that should mean you pour from one vessel to another."
"Precisely." He explained that last year the town of Charmes had been sore thinned by a pestilence, whole houses emptied and trades short of hands. Much ado to get in the rye; and the flax half spoiled. So the bailiff and aldermen had written to the duke"s secretary; and the duke he sent far and wide to know what town was too full. "That are we," had the baillie of Toul writ back. "Then send four or five score of your townsfolk," was the order. "Was not this to decant the full town into the empty, and is not the good duke the father of his people, and will not let the duchy be weakened, nor its fair towns laid waste, by sword nor pestilence; but meets the one with pike, and arbalest (touching his cap to the sergeant and Denys alternately), and t"other with policy?
LONG LIVE THE DUKE!"
The pikemen of course were not to be outdone in loyalty: so they shouted with stentorian lungs "LONG LIVE THE DUKE!" Then the decanted ones, partly because loyalty was a nonreasoning sentiment in those days, partly perhaps because they feared some further ill consequence should they alone be mute, raised a feeble tremulous shout "Long live the Duke!"
But, at this, insulted nature rebelled. Perhaps indeed the sham sentiment drew out the real, for, on the very heels of that loyal noise, a loud and piercing wail burst from every woman"s bosom and a deep groan from every man"s; oh! the air filled in a moment with womanly and manly anguish. Judge what it must have been when the rude pikemen halted unbidden, all confused; as if a wall of sorrow had started up before them.
"En avant," roared the sergeant, and they marched again, but muttering and cursing.
"Ah the ugly sound," said the civilian, wincing. "Les malheureux!" cried he ruefully: for where is the single man can hear the sudden agony of a mult.i.tude and not be moved? "Les ingrats! They are going whence they were de trop to where they will be welcome: from starvation to plenty--and they object. They even make dismal noises. One would think we were thrusting them forth from Burgundy."
"Come away," whispered Gerard, trembling; "come away," and the friends strode forward.
When they pa.s.sed the head of the column, and saw the men walk with their eyes bent in bitter gloom upon the ground, and the women, some carrying, some leading, little children, and weeping as they went, and the poor bairns, some frolicking, some weeping because "their mammies" wept, Gerard tried hard to say a word of comfort, but choked and could utter nothing to the mourners; but gasped: "Come on, Denys. I cannot mock such sorrow with little words of comfort." And now, artist-like, all his aim was to get swiftly out of the grief he could not soothe. He almost ran not to hear these sighs and sobs.
"Why, mate," said Denys, "art the colour of a lemon. Man alive, take not other folks" troubles to heart! not one of those whining milksops there but would see thee, a stranger, hanged without winking."
Gerard scarce listened to him.
"Decant them?" he groaned: "ay, if blood were no thicker than wine.
Princes, ye are wolves. Poor things! Poor things! Ah, Denys! Denys! with looking on their grief mine own comes home to me. Well-a-day. Ah, well-a-day!"
"Ay, now you talk reason. That you, poor lad, should be driven all the way from Holland to Rome, is pitiful indeed. But these snivelling curs, where is their hurt? There is six score of "em to keep one another company: besides they are not going out of Burgundy."
"Better for them if they had never been in it."
"Mechant, va! they are but going from one village to another, a mule"s journey! whilst thou--there, no more. Courage, camarade, le diable est mort."
Gerard shook his head very doubtfully, but kept silence for about a mile, and then he said thoughtfully, "Ay, Denys, but then I am sustained by book-learning. These are simple folk that likely thought their village was the world: now what is this? more weeping. Oh! "tis a sweet world. Humph? A little girl that hath broke her pipkin. Now may I hang on one of your gibbets but I"ll dry somebody"s tears:" and he pounced savagely upon this little martyr, like a kite on a chick, but with more generous intentions. It was a pretty little la.s.s of about twelve: the tears were raining down her two peaches, and her palms lifted to heaven in that utter, though temporary, desolation, which attends calamity at twelve; and at her feet the fatal cause, a broken pot, worth, say the fifth of a modern farthing.
"What, hast broken thy pot, little one?" said Gerard, acting intensest sympathy.
"Helas! bel gars; as you behold;" and the hands came down from the sky and both pointed at the fragments. A statuette of adversity.
"And you weep so for that?"
"Needs I must, bel gars. My mammy will ma.s.sacre me. Do they not already"
(with a fresh burst of woe) "c-c-call me J-J-Jean-net-on C-c-ca.s.se tout?
It wanted but this; that I should break my poor pot. Helas! fallait-il donc, mere de Dieu?"
"Courage, little love," said Gerard: ""tis not thy heart lies broken; money will soon mend pots. See now, here is a piece of silver, and there, scarce a stone"s throw off, is a potter; take the bit of silver to him, and buy another pot, and the copper the potter will give thee keep that to play with thy comrades."
The little mind took in all this, and smiles began to struggle with the tears: but spasms are like waves, they cannot go down the very moment the wind of trouble is lulled. So Denys thought well to bring up his reserve of consolation. "Courage, ma mie, le diable est mort!" cried that inventive warrior gaily. Gerard shrugged his shoulders at such a way of cheering a little girl.
"What a fine thing Is a lute with one string,"
said he.
The little girl"s face broke into warm sunshine.
"Oh, the good news! oh, the good news!" she sang out with such heartfelt joy, it went off into a honeyed whine; even as our gay old tunes have a pathos underneath. "So then," said she, "they will no longer be able to threaten us little girls with him, MAKING OUR LIVES A BURDEN!" And she bounded off "to tell Nanette," she said.