Bret Harte

“ Later, at an appetizing breakfast—at which, to Dick's great satisfaction, the good man had permitted and congratulated himself to sit at table with a free-born American—he was even more loquacious. For what then, he would ask, was this incompetence—this imbecility—of France? He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the grasping of capital and companies, the fatal influence of the still clinging noblesse, and the insidious Jesuitical power of the priests. As for example, Monsieur “the Booflo-bil” had doubtless noticed the great gates of the park before the café? ”

“ He crept through the hedge, reached the lilacs, and began the descent softly and securely in the shadow. But at the same moment she arose, called in a youthful voice towards the open window, and began to descend the steps. A half-expostulating reply came from the window, but the young girl answered it with the laughing, capricious confidence of a spoiled child, and continued her way into the garden. ”

“ Truly, it was a good hour when Dick had arrived at Fontonelles—“just in time.” He could see now what a world of imbeciles was France. What stupid ignorance ruled, what low cunning and low tact could achieve—in effect, what jugglers and mountebanks, hypocritical priests and licentious and lying noblesse went to make up existing society. Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular coup d'théâtre at Fontonelles—the Château yonder ”

“ Ah! in America, the young lady she go everywhere alone; I have seen her—pretty, charming, fascinating—alone with the young man. But here, no! never! Regard me, my friend. The French mother, she say to her daughter's fiancé, 'Look! there is my daughter. She has never been alone, with a young man, for five minutes—not even with you. Take her for your wife!' It is monstrous!—it is impossible!—it is so!”
There was a silence of a few minutes, and Dick looked blankly at the iron gates of the park of Fontonelles. Then he said: “Give me a cigar.”
M. Ribaud instantly produced his cigar-case. ”

“ He must regain the high road—or some wayside inn. He glanced around him; the westering sun was a guide for his general direction, the road must follow it north or south; he would find a “clearing” somewhere. But here Dick was mistaken; there seemed no interruption of, no encroachment upon, this sylvan tract, as in his Western woods. There was no track or trail to be found; he missed even the ordinary woodland signs that denoted the path of animals to water. For the park, from the time a Norman Duke had first alienated it from the virgin forest, had been rigidly preserved. ”

“ ALKALI DICK
By Bret Harte
HE was a a “cowboy.” A reckless and dashing rider, yet mindful of his horse's needs; good-humoured by nature, but quick in quarrel; independent of circumstance, yet shy and sensitive of opinion; abstemious by education and general habit, yet intemperate in amusement; self-centred, yet possessed of a childish vanity—taken altogether, a characteristic product of the Western plains, which he should have never left. ”

“ Let them look the next time that they burn not the Château—'bet your lif'!”
“The Château,” said Dick, with affected carelessness. “Wot's the blamed thing like?”
It was an old affair—with armour and a picture-gallery—and bric-à-brac. He had never seen it. Not even as a boy—it was kept very secluded then. As a man—you understand—he could not ask the favour. The Comtes de Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like a café near their sacred gates—where had stood only the huts of their retainers. ”

“ Monsieur Ribaud never knew how near he was to the white road below the railing at that particular moment. Luckily, Dick controlled himself, and wisely, as M. Ribaud's next sentence showed him.
“A romance—an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like—but, all the same, if known of a Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, a compromising—a fatal—entanglement. There you are—look! For this, then, all this story of cock and bulls and spirits! Mademoiselle has been discovered with her lover by someone. ”

“ The café proprietor looked around him carefully, and then lowered his voice significantly:—
“A lover!”
“A what!” said Dick, with a gasp.
“A lover!” repeated Ribaud. “You comprehend! Mademoiselle has no dot—the property is nothing—the brother has everything. A Mademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her class, and the noblesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is young—pretty they say, of her kind. It is an intolerable life at the old Château ”

“ The long, black shadows of short, blue-skirted, sabotted women and short, blue-bloused, sabotted men slowly working in the fields, with slow oxen, or still slower heavy Norman horses; the same horses gaily bedecked, dragging slowly not only heavy waggons, but their own apparently more monstrous weight over the white road, fretted his nervous Western energy, and made him impatient to get on. ”

“ One understands! one sees their 'little game'; the Count now appears—he is in purgatory! More masses—more money! There you are. Bah! One understands, too, that the affair takes place, not in a café like this—not in a public place—but at a château of the noblesse, and is seen by,” the proprietor checked the characters on his fingers, “two retainers; one young demoiselle of the noblesse, daughter of the châtelaine herself; and, my faith, it goes without saying, by a fat priest, the curé! ”

“ He says he is lost! She faints away, on the instant, there—regard me!—on the edge of the wood—she says. But her mother and Monsieur le Curé find her pale, agitated, distressed on the sofa in the salon. One is asked to believe that she is transported through the air—like an angel—by the spirit of Armand de Fontonelles. Incredible!”
“Well, wot do you think?” said Dick, sharply. ”

“ It was the voice of the elderly lady, who, with the curé at her side, had just appeared from the rear of the house, and from the further end of the terrace was looking towards the garden in search of the young girl. His escape in that way was cut off. To add to his dismay, the young girl, perhaps roused by her mother's voice, was beginning to show signs of recovering consciousness. Dick looked quickly around him. There was an open door, opposite the window, leading to a hall which, no doubt, offered some exit on the other side of the house. ”

“ For though I don't as a ginral thing take stock in ghosts, I believe every word that them folk said up thar. And,” he added, leaning his hand somewhat heavily on Ribaud's shoulder, “if you're the man I take you for, you'll believe it too! And if that chap, Armand de Fontonelles, hadn't hev picked up that gal, at that moment, he would hev deserved to roast in hell another three hundred years! ”

“ And it didn't seem the square thing for me to lite out and leave you lying there on the grass. That's why! I'm sorry I skeert that old preacher, but he came upon me in the picter hall so suddent, that it was a mighty close call, I tell you, to get off without a shindy. ”