Gilbert Parker

“ Far up on Dalgrothe Mountain a soft brazen light lay like a shield against the sky, a strange, hovering thing. Parpon knew it to be the reflection of the campfires in the valley, where Lagroin and his men were sleeping. There came, too, out of the general stillness, a long, low murmur, as though nature were crooning: the untiring rustle of the river, the water that rolled on and never came back again. Where did they all go—those thousands of rivers for ever pouring on, lazily or wildly? What motive? What purpose? Just to empty themselves into the greater waters, there to be lost? ”

“ Importuned by the Cure and her mother to marry, she had threatened, if they worried her further, to wed fat Duclosse, the mealman, who had courted her in a ponderous way for at least three years. The fire that corrodes, when it does not make glorious without and within, was in her veins, and when Valmond should call she was ready to come. She could not, at first, see that if he were, in truth, a Napoleon, she was not for him. Seized of that wilful, daring spirit called Love, her sight was bounded by the little field where she strayed. ”

“ The bugle-call rang softly down the valley, echoed away tenderly in the hills, and was lost in the distance. Roused by the clear call, Elise rose from watching beside Valmond’s couch, and turned towards the door of the tent. The spring of a perfect joy at his safety had been followed by an aching in all her body and a trouble at her heart. Her feet were like lead, her spirit quivered and shrank by turn. The light of the campfires sent a glow through the open doorway upon the face of the sleeper. ”

“ Valmond’s life was saved. In three days he was on his feet, eager and ardent again, and preparing to go to the village; but what would the end of it all be? She knew of De la Riviere’s intentions, and she foresaw a crisis. If Valmond were in very truth a Napoleon, all might be well, though this crusade must close here. If he were an impostor, things would go cruelly hard with him. Impostor? Strange how, in spite of all evidence against him, she still felt a vital sureness in him somewhere; a radical reality, a convincing quality of presence. ”

“ Footsteps came over the hill: she knew them, and turned.
“Parpon!” she said, with a glad gesture.
Without a word he placed in her hand a bunch of violets that he carried. She lifted them to her lips. “What is it all?” she asked, turning again to the Tricolor.
“Louis Napoleon enters the Tuileries,” he answered. “But ours was the son of the Great Emperor!” she said. “Let us be going, Parpon: we will plats these on his grave.” She pressed the violets to her heart.
“France would have loved him, as we did,” said the dwarf, as they moved on.
“As we do,” the blind girl answered softly. ”

“ He brought his stick down smartly on the ground, drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and said: “Courage, Eustache Lagroin. It is not forty Prussians, but one rogue! Crush him! Down with the pretender!”
So, with a defiant light in his eye, he came on, the old uniform sagging loosely on the shrunken body, which yet was soldier-like from head to foot. Years of camp and discipline and battle and endurance were in the whole bearing of the man. He was no more of Pontiac and this simple life than was Valmond himself. ”

“ When he died, Parpon was nearer to him than the priest, and he loved to hear the dwarf chant his wild rhythms of the Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills, more than to listen to holy prayers. Elise, who had a warm, impulsive nature, in keeping with her black eyes and tossing hair, who was all fire and sun and heart and temper, ran over and caught the dwarf round the neck, and kissed him on the cheek, dashing the tears out of her eyes, as she said:
“I’m a cat, I’m a bad-tempered thing, Parpon; I hate myself.” ”

“ And in these troubled times, when France needs a man, even as a barren woman a child to be the token of her womanhood, it may be that one sprung from the loins of the Great Napoleon may again give life to the principle which some have sought to make into a legend. Even as the deliverer came out of obscure Corsica, so from some outpost of France, where the old watchwords still are called, may rise another Napoleon, whose mission will be civic glory and peace alone, the champion of the spirit of France, defending it against the unjust. ”

“ Madame Chalice had been merely whimsical in sending these violets, which her gardener had brought her that very morning.
“It will help along the pretty farce,” she had said to herself; and then she sat her down to read Napoleon’s letters to Josephine, and to wonder that a woman could have been faithless and vile with such a man. Her blood raced indignantly in her veins as she thought of it. She admired intellect, supremacy, the gifts of temperament, deeds of war and adventure beyond all. ”

“ It was the poignancy of these feelings which, later, drew Valmond to the ashes of the fire in whose glow Elise had stood. The village was quieting down, the excited habitants had scattered to their homes. But in one or two houses there was dancing, and, as he passed, Valmond heard the chansons of the humble games they played—primitive games, primitive chansons:
“In my right hand I hold a rose-bush, Which will bloom, Manon lon la! Which will bloom in the month of May. Come into our dance, pretty rose-bush, Come and kiss, Manon Ion la! Come and kiss whom you love best!” ”

“ Valmond was pale, and his eyes burned like restless ghosts. Surely the Cupid bow of the thin Napoleonic lips was there, the distant yet piercing look. He waved his hand again, and the crowd were silent.
“My children,” said he, “we have begun well. Once more among you the antique spirit lives. From you may come the quickening of our beloved country; for she is yours, though here under the flag of our ancient and amiable enemy you wait the hour of your return to her. In you there is nothing mean or dull; you are true Frenchmen. My love is with you. ”

“ The sun was going down behind the hills, like a drowsy boy to his bed, radiant and weary from his day’s sport. The villagers were up at Dalgrothe Mountain, soldiering for Valmond. Every evening, when the haymakers put up their scythes, the mill-wheel stopped turning, and the Angelus ceased, the men marched away into the hills, where the ardent soldier of fortune had pitched his camp.
Tents, muskets, ammunition came out of dark places, as they are ever sure to come when the war-trumpet sounds. ”

“ Now and then a bird, aroused by the flame or the snap of a burning stick, rose from its nest and flew away; and wild-fowl flitted darkly down the pass, like the souls of heroes faring to Walhalla. When an owl hooted, a wolf howled far off, or a loon cried from the water below; the solemn fantasy took on the aspect of the unreal.
Valmond watched like one in a dream, and twice or thrice he turned faint, and drew his cloak about him as if he were cold ”

“ If I do, she may die at once. If she gets well, she will be—” She made a motion to her eyes.
“Blind, mother, blind!” he whispered, and he looked round the room. How good was the sight of the eyes! “Perhaps she’d rather die,” said the old woman. “She is unhappy.” She was thinking of her own far, bitter past, remembered now after so many years. “Misery and blindness too—ah! What right have I to make her blind? It’s a great risk, Parpon, my dear son.”
“I must, I must, for your sake. Valmond! Valmond! O Valmond!” cried Elise again out of her delirium. ”

“ Beside a still smoking lime-kiln an abandoned fire was burning down into red coals. The little hut of the lime-burner was beyond in a hollow, and behind that again was a lean-to, like a small shed or stable. Hither stole the dwarf, first pausing to listen a moment at the door of the hut.
Leaning into the darkness of the shed, he gave a soft, crooning call. Low growls of dogs came in quick reply. He stepped inside, and spoke to them:
“Good dogs! good dogs! good Musket, Coffee, Filthy, Jo-Jo—steady, steady, idiots!” ”

“ Napoleon? She threw back her pretty head, laughed softly, and fanned herself. Napoleon? Why, of course there could be no real connection; the man was an impostor, a base impostor, playing upon the credulities of a secluded village. Absurd—and interesting! So interesting, she did not resent the attention given to Valmond, to the exclusion of herself; though to speak truly, her vanity desired not admiration more than is inherent in the race of women. ”

“ A half-hour afterwards the avocat, the Cure, and the Little Chemist, had heard the story as the dwarf told it, and Valmond returned to the Louis Quinze a hero. For hours the habitants gathered under his window and cheered him.
Parpon sat long in gloomy silence by his side, but, raising his voice, he began to sing softly a lament for the gross-figured body, lying alone in a shed near the deserted smithy:
“Children, the house is empty, The house behind the tall hill; Lonely and still is the empty house. There is no face in the doorway, There is no fire in the chimney. ”

“ A warm peace passed through her veins, and she drew nearer still. She did not know that this new ardent confidence came near to wrecking her. For Valmond had an instant’s madness, and only saved himself from the tumult in his blood by getting to his feet, with strenuous resolution. Taking both her hands, he kissed her on the cheeks, and said:
“Adieu, Elise. May your sorrow never be more, and my happiness never less. I am going now.” ”

“ Travelling towards the south, out of the silken haze of a mid-summer day, you would come in time to the hills of Maine; north, to the city of Quebec and the river St. Lawrence; east, to the ocean; and west, to the Great Lakes and the land of the English. Over this bright province Britain raised her flag, but only Medallion and a few others loved it for its own sake, or saluted it in the English tongue.
In the drab velvety dust of these four corners, were gathered, one night of July a generation ago, the children of the village and many of their elders. ”

“ By and by I travelled to Pontiac. Once Gabriel came down from the hills, and Lajeunesse burnt him with a hot iron, for cutting his bellows in the night, to make himself a bed inside them. To-day he came again to do some terrible thing to the blacksmith or the girl, and you have seen—ah, the poor Gabriel, and I killed him!”
“I killed him,” said Valmond—“I, Parpon, my friend.”
“My poor fool, my wild dog!” wailed the dwarf mournfully.
“Parpon,” asked Valmond suddenly, “where is your mother?”
“It is no matter. She has forgotten—she is safe.” ”

“ A look of bewilderment and joy swam into Parpon’s eyes. Then he gave a laugh of singular wildness, his face twitched, tears rushed down his cheeks, and he threw himself at Valmond’s feet, and clasped his knees, crying:
“Ah-ah, my prince, great brother, thou hast come also! Ah, thou didst know the way up the long hill Thou hast come to the burial of a fool. But he had a mother—yes, yes, a mother! All fools have mothers, and they should be buried well. ”

“ She was amused at his attentions then; she had little to occupy her, and she felt herself superior to any man’s emotions: not such as this young Seigneur could win her away from her passive but certain fealty. She had played with fire, from the very spirit of adventure in her, but she had not been burnt.
“You say he is an impostor, dear monsieur,” she said languidly: “do pray exert yourself, and prove him one. What is your evidence?”
She leaned back in the very chair where she had sat looking at Valmond a few weeks before, her fingers idly smoothing out the folds of her dress. ”

“ All seems peace, but suddenly, at the wild call, the latent barbarian in human nature springs up and is ready; and the cruder the arms, the fiercer the temper that wields.
Recruits now arrived from other parishes, and besides those who came every night to drill, there were others who stayed always in camp. The lime-burner left his kiln, and sojourned with his dogs at Dalgrothe Mountain; the mealman neglected his trade; and Lajeunesse was no longer at his blacksmith shop, save after dark, when the red glow of his forge could be seen till midnight. ”

“ When he appeared on the veranda of the inn with the hot pennies, not a half-dozen people in the village had known aught of his presence in Pontiac. The children came first, to scorch their fingers and fill their pockets, and after them the idle young men, and the habitants in general.
The stranger having warmly shaken Parpon by the hand and again whispered in his ear, stepped forward. The last light of the setting sun was reflected from the red roof of the Little Chemist’s shop upon the quaint figure and eloquent face, which had in it something of the gentleman, something of the comedian. ”

“ Why shouldn’t he get all he could out of it while it lasted—let the world break over him when it must? Why should he stand in an orchard of ripe fruit, and refuse to pick what lay luscious to his hand, what this stupid mealman below would pick, and eat, and yawn over? There was the point. Wouldn’t the girl rather have him, Valmond, at any price, than the priest-blessed love of Duclosse and his kind? ”

“ The avocat rubbed his hands in pleasure. He instantly divined one who knew his subject, though he talked this melodramatically: a thing not uncommon among the habitants and the professional story-tellers, but scarcely the way of the coterie.
“Ah, yes, yes,” he said, “for—? monsieur, for—?” He paused, as if to give himself the delight of hearing their visitor speak.
“For Napoleon,” was the abrupt reply.
“Ah, yes, dear Lord, yes—a Napoleon—of—of the Empire. France can only cherish an idea when a man is behind it, when a man lives it, embodies it. She must have heroes. ”