King of Camargue Part 2

And with it all he was a handsome fellow, not too tall or too short, with a well-shaped head, clear, dark complexion, short, thick, matted black hair, a well-defined moustache of the same devil's black as the hair, and cheeks and chin always closely shaven, for this savage always carried in the leather saddle-bags hanging at the bow of his saddle a razor-edged knife, a stone to sharpen it upon, and a little round mirror in a sheep-skin case.

And when, with his stout and shapely legs encased in heavy boots, his feet in the closed stirrups, his long spear resting on his boot, he sat erect and motionless in his high-backed saddle, his size heightened by the refraction of the desert, amid his little tribe of mares and wild bulls, wearing upon his head the round narrow-brimmed hat that made for him a crown of gleaming golden straw, indeed the drover did resemble the king of some outlandish race!

And yet it was not on the day of a _ferrade_, nor because of his great deeds as tamer of wild beasts, that the gentle, fair-haired girl had come to love him.

In the first place, she was accustomed to seeing many of these drovers; and then, being the daughter of a rich intendant, she might have been inclined rather to look down upon them a little, as mere herdsmen. Indeed her father and grandmother did not readily agree to give her hand to Renaud, who was poor and had no kindred; but Livette was an only child, and had wept and prayed so hard, the darling, that at last they had said _yes_.

And this is how it came to pa.s.s that the drover Renaud, who was used to being run after by pretty girls, had taken Livette's trembling little heart in his great hand.

It was one morning when he was making a new _seden_ for his horse, who had lost his the night before, while bathing in the Rhone.

The _seden_, as it is called in Camargue, is a halter, but a halter made of mares' hair braided, it being customary always to allow the manes and tails of stallions to grow as long as they will, as a mark of strength and pride. The _seden_ is generally black and white. It is, in a word, a long rope, which hangs in a coil about the horse's neck, and may serve, as occasion arises, many purposes, being generally used as a halter, sometimes as a la.s.so.

But the _seden_, being a thing essentially Camarguese, should never go from the province. Many a one does so, no doubt, but it is on account of the contemptible greed of this or that drover, who snaps his fingers at the old customs that were good enough for his ancestors.

Renaud, then, was making a _seden_. It was in front of one of the farm-houses appertaining to the Chateau d'Avignon, a long, low structure, rather a drover's cottage than a farm-house, lost in the moor, and so squat that it had the appearance of not wanting to be seen, like an animal burrowing in the ground.

It was October. The larks were singing merrily. Mounted upon Blanquet (or Blanchet), her favorite horse, the little one, in obedience to her father's orders, was out in search of Renaud, and she spied him at a distance, walking backward, playing the rope-maker. From a piece of canvas tied around his waist and swelling out in front of him, like an ap.r.o.n turned up to make a great pocket, he was taking little bunches of white and black hair alternately, braiding them together and twisting them into a rope, which grew visibly longer. A child was turning the thick wooden wheel upon which the _seden_, already of considerable length, was wound; and Renaud--keeping time to the wheel, which struck a dull blow against something or other at every revolution--was singing a ballad which floated to Livette's ears on the gentle breeze that was blowing, like a sweet, strong call from the love of which she as yet knew nothing.

"N'use pas sur les routes Tes souliers; Descends plutot le Rhone En bateau.

"Laisse Lyon, Valence, De cote; Salue-les de la tete Sous les ponts."

He had a fine voice, smooth and clear, powerful without effort, and of wide range.

"Avignon est la reine---- Pa.s.se encor; Tu ne verras qu'en Arles Tes amours----

"La plaine est belle et grande, Compagnon---- Prends tes amours en croupe, En avant!"[1]

Livette had stopped her horse, to hear better. It was in the morning.

In the light there was the reflection that tells that the day is young, that makes hope dance in hearts of sixteen, and sows hope anew even in the hearts of the old.

A vague hope that is naught but the desire to love; but its loss, bitterer than death, makes the thought of death a consolation!

"Prends tes amours en croupe---- En avant!"

the singer repeated, and the little one involuntarily urged her horse toward the song that called to her to come.

"Aha!" said Renaud, pausing in his work, "aha! young lady! you are astir early!--with a white horse that will soon be all red!"

"Yes," she said, laughing, "with gnats and gadflies; there are swarms of them! too many, by my faith in G.o.d!"

"You are covered with them, young lady, as a bit of honey is covered with bees, or a tuft of flowering genesta! But what brings you here?"

"I come from my father. You must come with me at once."

"But comrade Rampal borrowed my horse just now to go to Saintes. They went off one upon the other."

"Take mine, then," said Livette.

"And what will you do, young lady?"

She was ashamed of her thoughtlessness, and blushed scarlet.

"I?" said she, and the words of the ballad rang in her heart:

"Prends tes amours en croupe, En avant!"

"Unless," said he, laughing in his turn, "you care to take me _en croupe_?"

"People would never stop talking about it all over our Camargue," said she, with laughter in her voice. "A drover like you, the terror of riders, _en croupe_ like a girl? No, no; no false shame, that is my place. We will take off my saddle, and you can bring it to me to-morrow."

"Very luckily," said Renaud, "Rampal didn't take mine, which I never lend."

Livette jumped down from her horse; and at the breeze made by her skirt a cloud of great flies and enormous mosquitoes rose and flew buzzing about her. Blanchet's snow-white rump looked as if it were covered with a net of purple silk, there was such a labyrinth of little streams of blood crossing and recrossing one another. Another instant, and gadflies and mosquitoes settled down again upon the bleeding surface and dotted it with a myriad of black spots; but Blanchet, albeit somewhat cross, was used to that annoyance.

Livette fastened him to one of the rings in the wall, and sat down upon the stone bench, waiting until Renaud had finished his _seden_.

The wheel turned and turned, striking its dull blow with perfect regularity at every turn.

"That was a pretty song, Renaud," said Livette suddenly, answering her thoughts without intention; "that was a pretty song you were singing just now."

"I learned it," said Renaud, "from a boatman, a friend of my father, with whom I went up the Rhone as far as Lyon--and then came down again----"

"And is all that country very beautiful up there?" said she.

"Yes," he answered, "it is beautiful."

And he said nothing more.

"You don't look as if you meant what you say, Renaud. Pray, didn't you like the city of Lyon we hear so much about?"

There was a long silence, broken only by the monotonous rhythm of the wheel.

"No sun!" said Renaud abruptly. "It's a city in a cold cloud!--The Rhone isn't fine till you come down again," he added.

Livette looked at him, and her wide-open eyes seemed to say:

"Why is that?"

He answered her look.

"When one of us goes up yonder, young lady, you understand, he leaves everything to go nowhere, and when he gets there, all he asks is to start back again!--When he comes from there here, on the contrary, he leaves nothing at all, and knows that, at the end of the journey, he will have arrived somewhere! You see, young lady, the best horse must, of necessity, stop at the sea--and that is the only place where I am willing to consent to go no farther. Where the sea is not, you have all the rest of the journey still to do.--Enough, my boy!" he added, raising his voice.

The wheel stopped. He examined the _seden_. The rope, of black and white strands in regular alternation, was finished.

"That's a good piece of work," said he; "look, young lady."

He leaned over, almost against her, to look at a point in the rope which seemed to him defective; he leaned over, and a short black curl touched lightly the disordered, almost invisible, locks that formed a sort of fleecy golden cloud over Livette's forehead. And thereupon it seemed to both of them--young as they were!--that their hair blazed up and shrivelled softly, like the fine gra.s.s that takes fire in summer, under the hot sun. Ah! holy youth!