The Rebellion in the Cevennes, an Historical Novel Volume Ii Part 3

"They were compelled to proceed again, in order to reach with safety the solitary village in the mountain heights." "You must know," said the doctor, when they were again seated in the coach, "that it is merely to an old maidservant of mine I am now conducting you, a simple person, who served me long, but who is, however, so faithful and honest, that it is almost a scandal, what perhaps many free thinking exquisites would say of her. She has married a gardener, or peasant, who also plays the surgeon in the mountains. There you will pa.s.s for an old invalid cousin, whose house and farm the Camisards have set fire to; you will find your daughter there already, the intelligent child however must not betray you; the husband and wife would suffer themselves to be torn to pieces rather than give out any thing else of you. If you will but sit half an hour in the room with Barbara, she herself will take you for her cousin, and there will be no further necessity for lying. That is why such things often succeed better in this cla.s.s than in a higher one: education they have none, but they possess the proper capacity for belief. Only lose not courage yourself, and in that solitude there do not become a timid hare's foot. All may yet be well." With these and similar conversations they, at length, arrived in the afternoon at the village in the centre of the mountains.

The houses lay dispersed midway, or above the declivity of the mountain; each had a garden and shrubbery attached to it, and the church situated on the highest point, looked down on the lowly cottages. The little dwellings after which the travellers were obliged to inquire, stood at the extremity of the village, immediately over a rapidly flowing brook, a kitchen-garden was in front and a few chesnut, ash, and plantain-trees spread a shade and freshness around. When the travellers alighted, the rather elderly hostess advanced to the little vestibule to meet them. "Welcome! right welcome!" said she half jestingly, but with the heartiest good will: "So the old gentleman is my cousin? I rejoice in the acquisition of his relationship." "Where is my daughter?" asked the Lord of Beauvais.

"Hush! hush!" said Barbara with a significant look; "my little cousin sleeps in the room above--which you too will now inhabit, my much honoured cousin."

"That's all right," said the doctor: "only study nicely your expressions; and what is sick Joseph doing?"

"Ah, heaven!" said the old woman, he did not get over his fright, "the poor man has died at the next village below there, for when he was obliged to make off so quickly, helter skelter with my little cousin, and had lost his master, who had taken another road, and that the police officers became so troublesome, and the militia would also interfere, then all that affected his liver and spleen, and he died of it.

"Poor Joseph!" sighed the Counsellor.

"But pray, make yourselves comfortable," pursued the old hostess,--"sit down then cousin, poor man, there on that soft chair; you must now forget, that you were formerly accustomed to anything better."

"Well," asked Vila, "and the household, how fares it? what is your husband doing?"

"Thanks for the kind inquiry," answered the chatterer; "Ah! dear G.o.d!

nothing can be done with him, he will remain a boaster his life long."

"Wait until he comes a little to years," said Vila, "his petulance will then pa.s.s away."

"Ah good heaven!" exclaimed she, "he is already past fifty; it does not depend upon that, G.o.d has permitted him to arrive at years of discretion, youth no longer oppresses him, but he is past all hope of amendment."

"Is he idle then? or does he squander your substance?"

"No," continued she quickly, "that must not be said against him, he spends nothing on himself, scarcely will he allow himself the extreme necessaries, and as to running about, working and lending a hand, he is not remiss, but he lays by no store. Indeed times are no longer as they were formerly."

"You get no profit then?"

"Just so, most respected doctor. Look you, here among us in the country, my old husband is called nothing, far and wide, but the clever man. Where an animal is sick, where a man is infirm, there is he called, and it must be true, that heaven has placed a very peculiar blessing in his hands, for almost whatever he merely touches becomes better. Where his misicaments, or his proscriptions fail, he is then compelled to have recourse to symphonies, or what you call the sympathretical system, and that is always among the peasantry most liked and most fructifying."

"You have then learned something from him," observed Vila.

"Should not something have devolved to me in so many years?" replied she modestly. "But if he would only not do so much without remuneration, all would be well and good. Look you, instead of planting cabbage, our little garden is full of learned rampons, and horse radish and onions with Latin names, which he then mingles or distils, as he calls it, and economises powders and opiates out of them that cannot be equalled. But they know already throughout the whole neighbourhood that he is a fool, for they frequently knock him up at midnight and summon him to a sick child, or to a tom-cat or taby-cat that has eaten or drank too much. And when they are to pay, the service is forgotten and there is no money in the coffers. 'They are poor people,' says the good-for-nothing fellow, 'they have already misery enough; and G.o.d be praised, we have never yet been in want of bread.'

"Thus was he ever," remarked Vila. "I thought he would become more reasonable, and learn to think a little of himself. He was always too devout."

"Devout!" exclaimed the wife: "ah heavens! your honour, we now come in earnest to the foul spot. No, Monsieur Vila, religion, or what people so call christianity, he is utterly deficient in."

"How then has he thus fallen into error?" asked the old man.

"The Lord knows best," answered she, "who has created him so confused.

He will ruin himself yet with his curing. Look you, it is not alone his companions of the faith, the Catholic Christians that he succours without remuneration, if they only give him the least hint of poverty; nay also--G.o.d be with us--the Huguenots and even the Camisards he attends, as one of us, if he can find an opportunity. The wounded whom they ought to have taken off to Florac swarmed here; look you, the G.o.d-forgetting man quartered, healed and fed them and occupied himself so much with them, that they were able afterwards to run off in health, and I will not answer for it, that he did not also give them money and the worth of money to take with them on the road. No, not a spark of true genuine faith and of proper christianity is in the man."

"He is probably a sort of Samaritan," said Vila affected.

"You are right, good sir," continued Barbara, "Samariter, or Samoid, and if he only does not turn out an anibaptist in his old days. Would you believe it, six weeks ago, when they gave up so many of those poor sinners to justice at Florac, thither did he run the first, and bound up the wounds of the sick and set their broken limbs. Husband, said I, they will certainly be put to the wheel, and hanged, there is nothing more to heal in them. Then said the simple fellow, G.o.d or nature had taken so much pains to suffer their joints, bones, muscles, and I know not what else to grow, that one is obliged out of charity to spare and take care of them as long as they will last. Look you, he has such enthusiasm stuff in his head that, as the saying is, he is Jack in every corner, where there is only any thing to doctor, should it even be the greatest criminal, there he is."

"I shall read him a sermon on that point," said Vila.

"That's right!" cried she joyfully, "scold him a skin full, for he always says, that I am too stupid; and my persuasions tend to nothing."

The woman had got up several times to look at the little bed.

"Perhaps, you have a sick child there?" asked the doctor.--"Child!"

answered she somewhat mockingly! "quite otherwise! only look at the present!"--when she removed the cushion, there lay a cur dog with bandaged paws.--"The history," commenced the narrator, "correcterises exactly the simple man. The people about here often make him their laughing stock, because he is such a good-humoured, easy fellow; and so the smith at length gave him his dog to doctor, having in a pa.s.sion broken its hind-paws in two with a hammer. My G.o.dfred wrapped up the dog and dragged it home to me, bound up its wounds himself, laid him down, raised him up, suffered him not to run about, bound the cushion tight over him, made him a kind of maskinnery for his legs, because he said the dog would not be taken proper care of at home, and that he must have it under his own eyes. Well, my good smith's dog became healthy again, and went off without saying good day, or by your leave.

That may be about two months ago; last week, towards evening, something came scratching at our room door; come in! no one opened; but the sc.r.a.ping and scratching continued: so my G.o.dfred opened the door and looked out, in springs our old smith's dog like a fool and behind him came hobling the diseased thing, the cur there with a broken leg dragging behind him, and the smith's dog danced and sprang round my husband, as if to beg, and thus supplicated him that he would also doctor his comrade. In my rage, I seized the botanix stick from my old man to cudgel the curs out of the room. But he, as if affected, said, 'Never could I have imagined so much understanding and grat.i.tude in a dog,' and immediately took him in his arms, examined his foot, bandaged it, and busied himself about the animal. Grat.i.tude! cried I, you call it thus, if the bull dog recommenders you to the cur which will afterwards spread the story about among all the dogs in the country, so that finally with all the fame of dog-pratix, you will no longer be able to stand, or walk? But all in vain! there is the beast, and I must attend to it, when the old fool is not at home."

The husband now returned, his arm full of herbs, which he immediately carried into a closet; he then saluted his guests quietly and affably, and before he sat down he looked after his four-legged patient, which in grat.i.tude licked his hands, and looked fondly in his face. With the greatest composure and as if there was nothing remarkable in it, he rebandaged the foot, placed the invalid again in its bed, which he also bound fast, then pressed its head down on the cushion, as if to intimate that it must now go to sleep. The dog seemed also to understand him, for he only blinked a few times up at his benefactor, and then resigned himself to sleep.

"Your wife here," commenced the doctor, "complains of you, that you do not think enough of your own concerns, you cure every body, even dogs and cats, and receive nothing for it, for this dog as little as for the former; have they not paid your bills yet?"

"I made none for them," said the old man with the driest gravity.

"Then I must make them out for you; you negligent fellow!" exclaimed Vila vehemently: "What; write out prescriptions for nothing? truly you degrade our whole art. Take this then on account of what the poor sinners, the wounded, the beggar-train, and the oppressed race of animals owe you up to the present."--He threw to the astonished and perplexed individual a heavy purse of gold, and without waiting for his thanks, he hastened out, and was already seated in the carriage before the rustic practioner had recovered from his astonishment. The Lord of Beauvais gazed with emotion after his rapidly departing friend.

CHAPTER VI.

The father went up to his daughter, who now awaked from her refreshing sleep. The little girl, in a flood of tears threw herself into the arms of the new comer, and was never weary of kissing his hands and cheeks: it seemed as if it were a necessity for her to indulge this once, in an unrestrained declaration, and expression of her love. "Man, indeed,"

thought the Lord of Beauvais within himself, "has nothing else but these poor tokens, or the action of alleviating sorrow, and administering food, clothing the naked, or affording warmth to the freezing: perhaps it may be that in a future state spirits intermingle in love." When both were more composed, the father said, "Eveline, you have ever been a sensible child, but now you have an opportunity of shewing it in deed for my safety; and for your own also. Never must a word escape your lips here of our former residence of my friends, or of your brother. When we are both quite alone, you may then talk of these things, but below, or when anybody is present, you must ever be the little cousin of our good hosts. Be therefore in company rather perfectly quiet, or try to accommodate your behaviour for a short time to these people; for your father's life depends on our not being discovered and spied out in this place of concealment." "My dear, my poor father," said Eveline, "all this will not be difficult to me, now that you are with me again. You know well how our great Hector always looked up to my brother, or to Frantz, and from a sign understood, when he was to go, to stay, to lie down, or to eat; the animal has never once made a mistake: Now, dear papa, thus will your little pet dog attend to the slightest sign from your dear eyes and understand, and conceive everything. I was not allowed to speak of many things in the presence of my brother, many things that Martha related I was unable to tell you, because you were angry with my nurse formerly; one must, indeed, learn from childhood to suit one's self to the world. But shall we see Frantz and Hector again? my brother too? ah, it has ever floated in my mind, that he would one day become downright G.o.dless; for no good can come of it, when men approach G.o.d as it were too rudely."

The father descended again, and was very much surprised to find a newly arrived guest in his host's room. Old G.o.dfred was at that moment employed in dressing two deep and dangerous wounds in the head of a young lad, who seemed scarcely fourteen years of age. "See now, cousin," cried the talkative Barbara, turning towards him, "as I told you, our Sam-Rocious, as the old gentleman called him, a short time ago, is again seized with a vertigo, a real vagabond, as they call such deserters; who asks here in the village after such and such an one, after a coach and strange travellers, and immediately our dealer in herbs there brings him to our house, because he has something to cure, which is once for all his greatest pa.s.sibility." The Counsellor of Parliament listened not to the chattering, but examined with the greatest attention the handsome countenance and n.o.ble expression of the stranger, who seemed to be yet almost a boy. This sight attracted him the more, as the supposition occurred to him, that this wounded youth might probably be that Martin of whose astonishing fearlessness the doctor had spoken. Emotion and grat.i.tude mingled therefore in those feelings of sympathy which drew him towards the sufferer, and he only waited for the others to retire to interrogate him. The surgeon G.o.dfred seemed dissatisfied at the appearance of the wounds, he comforted the youth, and cut his short brown hair still shorter, and stroked his handsome head with tender sympathy. "The Lord has blessed us with money," exclaimed he aloud, "it shall benefit you, not only thee, I was going to say, dear old cousin, but this young patient here as well. I will run directly to the town and fetch better food, for wounds must not be neglected by any means."

A gaunt, haggered-looking man, in a tattered uniform entered, the surgeon sprang joyfully to meet him, and shook his meagre hand so heartily, that his long arm quivered with emotion, and a grim smile of affability pa.s.sed over his pale face, under a large hat, which he still kept on. The new comer who now perceived the Counsellor, took off his hat, and said: "I did not know, gossip, that you had strangers."

"Not exactly strangers," immediately replied dame Barbara, preventing her husband's reply, "but a dear cousin of ours, Mr. Peter Florval, who possessed a pretty house and garden below there in the fruitful Camargue. The antichrists, the rebellious Camisards have plundered and burnt every thing, and it was with difficulty that he saved himself with our little cousin; he will now remain here contenting himself with our poor house until better times." The stranger drew near, and said solemnly, while he extended his hand to the Counsellor with a certain majestic air; "Venerable Mr. Peter Florval, be but at peace and let not your spirits flag, these times will pa.s.s quickly and in less than a year you will be happy again. I have had dreams, which have predicted this and still more to me, and my dreams never deceive, as I know how to give them the right interpretation. The abominable Cavalier has appeared to me, I could have painted him; behold: a head taller than myself, broad, muscular as a hercules, moustaches that he might have twisted twice round his whole head, which he did too, several times, to make himself look still more terrible. He came up to me, he had a guard's uniform in his hand: sergeant, I shall be once more under the banners of the royal guards, and that shall be the sign, that this day twelve months I shall wear this uniform, and then peace will be in the land, for without my supernatural giant-strength the rebels would be unable to do anything, and would be obliged to surrender. Remember Gerard Dubois, my good Peter, when the thing comes to pa.s.s."

Without paying particular attention to the speaker, the surgeon had again devoted himself to the invalids for whom he had also made up a bed in the hay loft. He looked after the dog too once more, then gave his hand to the Counsellor and fetched his hat and stick. "I will go with you," said Gerard, "if you do not botanise, for I cannot endure that cursed stooping and mountain-climbing." On learning that the walk was only to the neighbouring market-town, he took leave, rejoiced to have an opportunity of accompanying his gossip.

"Look you, dear cousin," commenced the old dame, immediately again, "that great herculus is also the cause, that my old man will not be anything as long as he lives. He seduces him fearfully to idleness, because he himself has nothing to do. He has been formerly a dreampeter in the royal guards, but as he was weak at the chest, he obtained his discharge and a pension, and with a small fortune, he plays the n.o.bleman here, and gives himself such intolerable airs, that he addresses almost every body with familiarity. He was so enamoured with blowing, that they were obliged to pull the dreampet forcibly out of his mouth, for he is phthisical, properly hictical, as my old man calls it, for he looks wicked enough for it. Now the great beast stalks about here, and no one can bear him, because he is so very haughty and moreover wearisome and quite ennuiyant when he speaks of his forefathers. My good calf, however, will suit him, he might easily speak and listen to him in his leisure hours, and often may be thinking of other things at the same time; but this is not the case, he has nothing to think of, and is delighted when the bully goes on with his gasconading to him. Only think, cousin, because he is not permitted to blow any more, he whistles, or lisps a little with his tongue all his old dreampeter airs for hours together into my husband's ears; when he tells of campaigns, at times, with his mouth screwed up, he imitates the sounds of appelle, and retreat, the attack, every thing; or he beats it with his long stork-fingers on the table, which then is to represent the dulcimer or the harpichord, and thus does he play the harpichord as it is called before my old husband the live-long day and he talks of x sharp and z soft, and crosses and stories of fughes and pa.s.sages, such gibberdish, that one might loose one's senses, looking at these two fools wasting their time. The lanky fellow frequently a.s.sists in searching, for herbs, and makes out of old rags a lineament for wounds, or cooks a mixture, and syrup quackery, and as they are almost always together, he seduces my old husband away from me. They will no longer suffer the long Urian in the public-house, because he drives away all the guests with his blowing and harpchord playing, even the common people are wise enough for that, my G.o.dfred alone suffers himself to betaken in. But this quick dreampeter-blower is an arrant rogue. He tices my old husband out of his chimistical experiments and begins to doctor patients, but he princ.i.p.ally makes use of symphonies, which besides is much easier when one is once in the way of it, and the silly peasants therefore begin to have faith in the spoil-trade. What does a physician know of symphony; books and study appertain to that, and no little dreampeters. Moreover, he is for ever telling his stupid dreams. The times are so very bad, because now children, and old people, women and maid-servants, almost every one in the country, when they at once gave up the faith, began with prophecying and prediction to prepare misfortune; formerly my husband was asked this thing and that, he also looked at the hands to see whether they would get rich husbands and so forth; he drew their line of life longer, once even he cast the Hurenskorp of a right n.o.ble lady, yonder in Florac, for he was much renowned at that time; but since this new-fashioned superst.i.tion has arisen, hardly any one inquires after him, all tell their own fortunes, or run to the unbelieving children, and what can these urchins know of philosophy or chiromantic and particularly of the stars; as if one only needed to take a horn in the mouth in order to obtain any knowledge of astrology and of all the abstract or dried-up sciences; for which purpose a great deal more is required." The old dame would have still run on, if she had not thought that she heard a pot boiling over in the kitchen; she ran therefore hastily out, leaving the Counsellor of Parliament alone with the young man. "My son," began the Lord of Beauvais, "could you be the same of whom a friend of mine has spoken to me? perhaps your name may be Martin?"

"It is so," said the youth; approaching nearer and seizing the Counsellor's hand, over which he bent with deep emotion.

"And this blood."----

"It is mine, mingled with that of your son." "Thanks then," exclaimed the father and embraced the youth much affected. "You know then who I am?"

"Yes," replied Martin, "in the fight your son pointed you out to me; Vila spoke of you, and now, my honoured sir, as I have discovered you, as I enjoy such kind care here, and as I shall soon be cured, grant that I may remain by you, and be your servant. Your domestic household is far from you, flown, dead, your tender child requires more affectionate, more gentle attendance, than these people here, with all their good will, are able to bestow. I shall be wretched, if you reject my pet.i.tion."

The Counsellor gazed long on the youth's dark, sparkling eyes. "My dear, beloved son," said he then, "I am indeed bound to you by the dearest ties; oh, ought I not call it friendship cemented with blood?

How shall I command you, as you are here the guest of our benevolent host? I dare not now have any attendants, I must conceal myself, I must appear as a poor man of inferior condition. Would you wish to belong to me, so that I might put full confidence in you, you must give me further knowledge of yourself. Who are you? from whence come you? your appearance is too refined and delicate for service to be your vocation; this small, n.o.bly-formed hand has not yet been hardened by any labour, your pale face has never yet been exposed to the inclemency of the seasons; tell me then what is your parentage, your name, how you became a member of this unfortunate rebellion?"

"Dear, beloved, paternal friend," said the pale Martin with a gush of tears, "did you but know the excruciating pain you give my heart by these questions, you would spare me. Will it not suffice, that I venerate your family, that it has long been my desire to be at your beloved side? you can guide, you can reform me; let my whole life be consecrated to you. I can, I dare not return, they would seize and sentence me to an ignominious death; my brethren too, the Camisards, distrust me and hold me for a traitor. Why put my poor parents to the blush, by naming them at this moment? They brought me up with tenderness and affection, and the more bitter must their sorrow be, to behold me degenerate, and liable to be executed. They are wealthy, but not of such high rank as to have their name disgraced by my humble services in my attendance on the n.o.blest of men."

"I will believe you, young man!" cried the Lord of Beauvais; "could such an eye as that deceive? Be to me in lieu of child, of son, perhaps soon----." He could not proceed from emotion, and Martin also appeared deeply moved.

The repast was served up and G.o.dfred also returned from his wandering loaded with poultry, and delicate vegetables, Eveline descended, who in her peasant's attire appeared very attractive; the Counsellor placed a chair for Martin, by the side of Eveline, saying at the same time, "My dear cousins, this young man belongs to me, he is related to me, and whatever expenses you may incur for him, I shall return to you again: only do me the favour to call him also cousin Martin and be kind to him."