"Go with the poor blind traveller by all means," replied Father Chatelain; "but you must walk, mind. Madame has changed her mind about sending to Villiers del Bel, and, wisely reflecting that it was not worth while to have so large a sum of money lying useless at the farm, has determined to let it remain with the lawyer till Monday next, which will be the day she requires it."
"Of course, Father Chatelain; mistress knows best. But please to tell me why she should consider it unsafe to have money at the farm. What is she afraid of?"
"Of nothing, my lad. Thank G.o.d, there is no occasion for fear. But, for all that, I would much rather have five hundred sacks of corn on the premises than ten bags of crowns. Come," said old Chatelain, addressing himself to the brigand and Tortillard, "come, follow me, friend; and you too, my lad." Then, taking up a small lamp, he conducted his two guests to a chamber on the ground floor, first traversing a large pa.s.sage into which several doors opened. Placing the light on a table, the old labourer said to the Schoolmaster, "Here is your lodging, and may G.o.d grant you a good and peaceful night"s repose, my good friend. As for you, my little man, you are sure to sleep sound and well; it belongs to your happy age to do so."
The Schoolmaster, pensive and meditative, sat down by the side of the bed to which Tortillard conducted him. At the instant when Father Chatelain was quitting the room, Tortillard made him a sign indicative of his desire to speak with him alone, and hastily rejoined him in the pa.s.sage.
"What is it, my boy, you have to say to me?" inquired the old man, kindly.
"Ah, my kind sir, I only wanted to say that my father is frequently seized during the night with most violent convulsion-fits, which require a much stronger person than I am to hold him; should I be obliged to call for help, is there any person near who could hear me?"
"Poor child!" said the labourer, sympathisingly; "make yourself easy.
There,--do you see that door beside the staircase?"
"Oh, yes, good, kind gentleman; I see it."
"Well, one of the farm labourers sleeps in that room. You will only just have to run to him. He never locks his door; and he will come to your father in an instant."
"Thank you, sir; G.o.d bless you! I will remember all your kindness when I say my prayers. But suppose, sir, the man and myself were not strong enough together to manage my poor father when these violent convulsions come on, could you, who look so good, and speak so kind--could you be kind enough to come and tell us what to do?"
"Me, my boy? Oh, I sleep, as well as all the other men servants, out of the house, in a large outbuilding in the courtyard. But make yourself quite comfortable. Jean Rene could manage a mad bull, he is so powerful.
Besides, if you really wished any further help he would go and call up our old cook; she sleeps on the first floor, even with our mistress and young mademoiselle, and I can promise you that our old woman is a most excellent sick-nurse should your father require any one to attend to him when the fit is over."
"Thank you, kind gentleman, a thousand times. Good-night, sir. I will go now and pray of G.o.d to bless you for your kindness and pity to the poor blind."
"Good night, my lad! Let us hope both you and your father will enjoy a sound night"s rest, and have no occasion to require any person"s help.
You had better return to your room now; your poor father may be wanting you."
"I will, sir. Good night, and thank you!"
"G.o.d preserve you both, my child!" And the old man returned to the kitchen.
Scarcely had he turned his back than the limping rascal made one of those supremely insulting and derisive gestures familiar to all the blackguards of Paris, consisting in slapping the nape of the neck repeatedly with the left hand, darting the right hand quite open continually out in a straight line. With the most consummate audacity, this dangerous child had just gleaned, under the mask of guileless tenderness and apprehension for his father, information most important for the furtherance of the schemes of the Chouette and Schoolmaster. He had ascertained during the last few minutes that the part of the building where he slept was only occupied by Madame Georges, Fleur-de-Marie, an old female servant, and one of the farm-labourers.
Upon his return to the room he was to share with the blind man, Tortillard carefully avoided approaching him. The former, however, heard his step, and growled out:
"Where have you been, you vagabond?"
"What! you want to know, do you, old blind "un?"
"Oh, I"ll make you pay for all you have made me suffer this evening, you wretched urchin!" exclaimed the Schoolmaster, rising furiously, and groping about in every direction after Tortillard, feeling by the walls as a guide. "I"ll strangle you when I catch you, you young fiend--you infernal viper!"
"Poor, dear father! How prettily he plays at blind-man"s buff with his own little boy," said Tortillard, grinning, and enjoying the ease with which he escaped from the impotent attempts of the Schoolmaster to seize him, who, though impelled to the exertion by his overboiling rage, was soon compelled to cease, and, as had been the case before, to give up all hopes of inflicting the revenge he yearned to bestow on the impish son of Bras Rouge.
Thus compelled to submit to the impudent persecution of his juvenile tormentor, and await the propitious hour when all his injuries could safely be avenged, the brigand determined to reserve his powerless wrath for a fitting opportunity of paying off old scores, and, worn out in body by his futile violence, threw himself, swearing and cursing, on the bed.
"Dear father!--sweet father!--have you got the toothache that you swear so? Ah, if Monsieur le Cure heard you, what would he say to you? He would give you such penance! Oh, my!"
"That"s right!--go on!" replied the ruffian, in a hollow and suppressed voice, after long enduring this entertaining vivacity on the part of the young gentleman. "Laugh at me!--mock me!--make sport of my calamity, cowardly scoundrel that you are! That is a fine, n.o.ble action, is it not? Just worthy of such a mean, ign.o.ble, contemptible soul as dwells within that wretched, crooked body!"
"Oh, how fine we talk! How nice we preach about being generous, and all that, don"t we?" cried Tortillard, bursting into peals of laughter. "I beg your pardon, dear father, but I can"t possibly help thinking it so funny to hear you, whose fingers were regular fish-hooks, picking and stealing whatever came in their way; and, as for generosity, I beg you don"t mention it, because, till you got your eyes poked out I don"t suppose you ever thought of such a word!"
"But, at least, I never did you any harm. Why, then, torment me thus?"
"Because, in the first place, you said what I did not like to the Chouette; then you had a fancy for stopping and playing the fool among the clodhoppers here. Perhaps you mean to commence a course of a.s.ses"
milk?"
"You impudent young beggar! If I had only had the opportunity of remaining at this farm--which I now wish sunk in the bottomless pit, or blasted with eternal lightning--you should not have played your tricks of devilish cruelty with me any longer!"
"You to remain here! that would be a farce! Who, then, would Madame la Chouette have for her _bete de souffrance_? Me, perhaps, thank ye!--don"t you wish you may get it?"
"Miserable abortion!"
"Abortion! ah, yes, another reason why I say, as well as Aunt Chouette, there is nothing so funny as to see you in one of your unaccountable pa.s.sions--you, who could kill me with one blow of your fist; it"s more funny than if you were a poor, weak creature. How very funny you were at supper to-night! _Dieu de Dieu!_ what a lark I had all to myself! Why, it was better than a play at the Gaite. At every kick I gave you on the sly, your pa.s.sion made all the blood fly in your face, and your white eyes became red all round; they only wanted a bit of blue in the middle to have been real tri-coloured. They would have made two fine c.o.c.kades for the town-sergeant, wouldn"t they?"
"Come, come, you like to laugh--you are merry: bah! it"s natural at your age--it"s natural--I"m not angry with you," said the Schoolmaster, in an air of affected carelessness, hoping to propitiate Tortillard; "but, instead of standing there, saying saucy things, it would be much better for you to remember what the Chouette told you; you say you are very fond of her. You should examine all over the place, and get the print of the locks. Didn"t you hear them say they expected to have a large sum of money here on Monday? We will be amongst them then, and have our share.
I should have been foolish to have stayed here; I should have had enough of these a.s.ses of country people at the end of a week, shouldn"t I, boy?" asked the ruffian, to flatter Tortillard.
"If you had stayed here I should have been very much annoyed, "pon my word and honour," replied Bras Rouge"s son, in a mocking tone.
"Yes, yes, there"s a good business to be done in this house; and, if there should be nothing to steal, yet I will return here with the Chouette, if only to have my revenge," said the miscreant, in a tone full of fury and malice, "for now I am sure it is my wife who excited that infernal Rodolph against me; he who, in blinding me, has put me at the mercy of all the world, of the Chouette, and a young blackguard like yourself. Well, if I cannot avenge myself on him, I will have vengeance against my wife,--yes, she shall pay me for all, even if I set fire to this accursed house and bury myself in its smouldering ruins. Yes, I will--I will have--"
"You will, you want to get hold of your wife, eh, old gentleman? She is within ten paces of you! that"s vexing, ain"t it? If I liked, I could lead you to the door of her room, that"s what I could, for I know the room. I know it--I know it--I know it," added Tortillard, singing according to his custom.
"You know her room?" said the Schoolmaster, in an agony of fervent joy; "you know it?"
"I see you coming," said Tortillard; "come, play the pretty, and get on your hind legs like a dog when they throw him a dainty bone. Now, old Cupid!"
"You know my wife"s chamber?" said the miscreant, turning to the side whence the sound of Tortillard"s voice proceeded.
"Yes, I know it; and, what"s still better, only one of the farm servants sleeps on the side of the house where we are. I know his door--the key is in it--click, one turn, and he"s all safe and fast. Come, get up, old blind Cupid!"
"Who told you all this?" asked the blind scoundrel, rising involuntarily.
"Capital, Cupid! By the side of your wife"s room sleeps an old cook--one more turn of the key, and click! we are masters of the house--masters of your wife, and the young girl with the gray mantle that you must catch hold of and carry off. Now, then, your paw, old Cupid; do the pretty to your master directly."
"You lie! you lie! how could you know all this?"
"Why, I"m lame in my leg, but not in my head. Before we left the kitchen I said to the old guzzling labourer that sometimes in the night you had convulsions, and I asked him where I could get a.s.sistance if you were attacked. He said if you were attacked I might call up the man servant and the cook; and he showed me where they slept; one down, the other up stairs in the first floor, close to your wife--your wife--your wife!"
And Tortillard repeated his monotonous song. After a lengthened silence the Schoolmaster said to him, in a calm voice, but with an air of desperate determination:
"Listen, boy. I have stayed long enough. Lately--yes, yes, I confess it--I had a hope which now makes my lot appear still more frightful; the prison, the _bagne_, the guillotine, are nothing--nothing to what I have endured since this morning; and I shall have the same to endure always.
Lead me to my wife"s room; I have my knife here; I will kill her. I shall be killed afterwards; but what of that? My hatred swells till it chokes me; I shall have revenge, and that will console me. What I now suffer is too much--too much! for me, too, before whom everybody trembled. Now, lad, if you knew what I endure, even you would pity me.
Even now my brain appears ready to burst; my pulse beats as if my veins would burst; my head whirls--"
"A cold in your "knowledge-box," old chap--that"s it; sneeze--that"ll cure you," said Tortillard, with a loud grin; "what say you to a pinch of snuff, old brick?"
And striking loudly on the back of his left hand, which was clenched, as if he were tapping on the lid of a snuff-box, he sang: