S. R. Crockett

“ The rule of the Twenty was over in Aramon.
Slowly and mournfully Père Félix took the way under the beautiful trees of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going. His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the Sambre-et-Meuse. ”

“ All that day no one crossed over the bridge from Château Schneider and the time was blessed for Linn. She knew very well that it was for just such companionship that Alida had come to Aramon. She had herself supported the necessity for change, even against her husband. But all the same, now when she got her Princess a day to herself she made the most of it, falling back into her old caressing habits and ready to treat Alida as the little girl who long ago had been put in her hands with all a queen's habits of command and the sweet waywardness of a child. ”

“ Rhoda Polly gave Jeanne her hand with the swift grip of liking. But I saw a glow in Jeanne's eyes as she took the oar away from me and marched with them both over her shoulder to the house.
"Mademoiselle Deventer, mother," she cried, "come to visit us. Monsieur has brought her—so kind of Monsieur!"
And Jeanne vanished round the corner with a kind of swirl of her pretty figure, the oar-blades swooping perilously after her.
"I say," whispered Rhoda Polly, "that girl has never worn stays. Did you see her waist and hips when she turned—a full half circle? ”

“ I had done my best to sympathise with those others over the wall. I had tried to help and understand Keller Bey, but though I might wear the red cardigan, follow Garibaldi, run up the "tatter of scarlet" under Keller Bey's orders, my heart beat with the after-guard. My instincts were "yellow"—the rest was but the rash of the blood which came with youth and would pass like a malady of childhood.
Small wonder I did not sleep. Into that entrancing and mysterious hangar, hooded and cloaked men stole from nowhere in particular. ”

“ I must see Rhoda Polly. There was no sound except a confused murmur like wind overhead in high trees. No shots were fired, and except the erect sentinel in his blue coat, his red kêpi tipped rakishly over one ear, and his shining rifle and sword-bayonet, I heard no sound of civil strife.
I watched him carefully. He was new to his work and fidgeted constantly, now coming a little down the street and then going a little way up, but never a moment losing sight of my alley arch, which seemed to attract him like a sort of black hole into the unknown. ”

“ I have chosen a profession in which I can be happy, here in this little town among the hills, till I seek larger fields and try my fate in other cities."
She paused in her tale and smiled. The tears were falling steadily down Linn's face, and she seemed suddenly to have aged a quarter of a century. But Keller Bey, no longer restless, stood stiffly at attention as if he had been listening to the commands of his master, the great Emir. Alida looked from one to the other. Then lightly as a cat leaping from the floor to a window-sill, she sprang to her feet and embraced them tenderly. ”

“ I said, "you should have heard me praising you to Rhoda Polly when I got back from Autun. It took me nearly one whole day, and ever since she has been painting, varnishing, and scrubbing, that the nest should be worthy of such a bird of Paradise as I described."
"Oh, I know," pouted Alida, "she is infinitely better than I, more unselfish, and—and—you love her!"
"She is certainly more unselfish," I said, firing up; "you have yet to learn what the word means. Perhaps that partly explains your charm, but all the same you must love Rhoda Polly." ”

“ If we are to govern at all, we must show an example of good government, so that every city, town, and hamlet shall desire to throw in its lot with us. There is to be no wrecking of machinery, which we know must one day belong to the workers. We shall make friends with the foremen of departments, and when we come to restarting the works on the Communist plan we shall pay every man his wage according to his deserts—aye, and to Dennis Deventer his, for a head we must have. A business without a head is like an army without a general. ”

“ Still, as we lay close to our camp-fires or threshed our arms about to keep warm, we could not keep out of our minds the hope of better days. I know not of what Hugh Deventer thought, but for me I was talking to Rhoda Polly, or lazily steering the ferry-boat across the river while before me Jeanne Félix bent lissomly to the oars. It was clear that I had not yet reached the age of the grand expulsive passion which ignores partage. Indeed, given a temperament like mine, no youth is worth his salt who at twenty-one cannot drive several teams abreast. ”

“ We had marched many hours in the darkness—from eight or nine of the evening till the small hours were passing one by one with infinite weariness. I was lighter on my feet than Hugh, having less to carry in the way of "too, too solid flesh." Consequently he suffered more, both from the weight of his rifle, and the dumb remorseless steadiness of the marching column. Forward we went, however, stumbling now and then with sleep, our feet blistered, and the rattle and wheeze of the ammunition wagons coming back to us mixed with a jingle of mules' gear through the dark. ”

“ Keller Bey rose again, brushing aside the Père Félix.
"To-morrow," he said "you shall elect your Commune—twenty citizens of weight and mark to take the place of the present provisional government which has declared Aramon a city of liberty. Choose you good strong men who can deal with the Company and the Company's agent. Have no fear. Our cause is just. Marseilles and the great cities are with us. And to-morrow, doubt it not, France shall be with us also. We have inaugurated the reign of international peace. Let us begin by keeping the peace within our own borders. ”

“ For indeed Rhoda Polly spared neither man nor beast, least of all did she spare herself. A tack-hammering, painting and varnishing, cellar-to-garret Rhoda Polly pervaded the house, swooping upon all and sundry and compelling strict attention to business among the much-promising, little-performing tradesmen of Aramon.
My father had already done his part, for he was a man who could not endure the chill mistral of the Rhône valley. Every room which had a chimney was equipped above with a wind shield, and beneath with steel andirons, beside which the cut faggots lay ready piled. ”

“ Keller Bey will tell you that they are workers like yourselves—citizens, of equal rights before the Internationale. Why then did they collect together yonder, these brave citizens, these honest workers, these noble revolutionaries? Why are they not walking about these streets and taking their turn at mounting guard? I will tell you. Because they are the guardians of the treasures of the masters—they are keeping locked in Dennis Deventer's safes the millions which have been wrung from you in cruelty and blood and tears! ”

“ Rhoda Polly had finished with her roses. She set out the boxes in a row, and then stood up facing me. Her eyes were steady and level like a man's—I mean a man of the North. They did not droop and flutter like Jeanne's at the Ferry. Her breast did not heave nor her full throat swell. The pent-up emotion in Rhoda Polly's bosom found no such commonplace feminine vents. Only the firm lines about her mouth betrayed her, and perhaps a certain moist luminousness of eye.
"I would not hinder you, Angus Cawdor," she said steadily, "let a man do what he knows he ought. ”

“ I said suavely and still provocatively, "but I have been among the chimneys of the Château Schneider when the mitrailleuses were talking. You intend to rule justly and love mercy, but what of the men about you? I have seen them streaming across the open court wrecking and destroying."
"Exactly," said Keller Bey, with suddenly recovered dignity, "but then I was not at the direction of affairs. If any man now disobeys he shall be made to feel the vengeance of the Internationale! We shall sow fear among them as corn is sown on a windy day." ”

“ There was never a man nor a boy in all the Ateliers but knew Monsieur Jack. He had a way with him. He asked for what he wanted, did Monsieur Jack. And he could do more with his bare hands and booted feet when it came to a mêlée (what Jack Jaikes would have called a scrap) than half a dozen ordinary men armed to the teeth. Oh yes, a well-known figure in the Works, Monsieur Jack. In fact, quite a favourite!
And they winked at one another, being quite aware that, without the quiver of an eyelash, Dennis Deventer was winking too. ”

“ Deventer had received Alida into her arms as she descended from the carriage, and was now cooing over her, watched hungrily by Rhoda Polly, who wearied for her turn to come.
It struck me that Alida was not looking quite so well as usual. It had cost her more than I thought to disobey her father—more afterwards perhaps than at the time. For among those of her blood, the servitude of woman goes with heredity, and the culture of Europe, though it may render obedience impossible, does not kill the idea of parental authority. "Though he slay me, yet shall I trust in him!" ”

“ Then the new-comers would go over to the embers of the fire on the forge in the corner, where the red glow would reveal him as a pleasant-faced English lad, munching ardently his bread and sausage, or heating his coffee on the coals. In the gloom of the dormitory shake-downs men would talk rapidly, muttering in their sleep. If a man snored too vigorously, Jack Jaikes, or a lieutenant of that considerable sub-chief, would turn him over on his side, or, in extreme case, send him to the boiler-room, where the men had room to snore one against the other. ”

“ They thought that I was responsible for the wish of Alida to leave Autun and go to Aramon.
"Do you think it is a proper thing," said Linn, "that a maid should follow two young men?"
"I think you wrong her," I said, "unwittingly of course, but certainly you mistake Alida. It springs from no feeling of love for either of us, but she has now tasted comradeship and the equality of years for the first time. She thinks there is nothing else worth living for in the world. She will change her mind by and by. Her mind and affection will turn again to her elders." ”

“ Luckier still that we fell into the hands of regular mobiles of the army of the Vosges, instead of a stray company of franc-tireurs, who as like as not, would have cut our throats for the sake of our rifles, the stores of ammunition, and the few silver coins we carried.
We had come upon a picket of men of the regiment of Gray on the borders of the Haute Saône. It was like one of Napoleon's levies after Moscow—young lads of sixteen and men of forty or fifty standing by each other cheerfully, and without distinction of age or previous occupation. ”

“ Alida, leaning on her elbow, had caught sight of me, and I could see Linn's gesture of something like despair, which I took to mean—"There—-the secret is out. We can never stop it if once she speaks."
She bent forward and spoke earnestly into Alida's ear. But the girl merely signed to Linn to retire. The gesture was made unconsciously, but with all the dignity of a princess accustomed to be unquestioningly obeyed.
"Let Monsieur Cawdori come hither at once. I must speak with him. His advice is good. You and Keller Bey are old and speak as the old. ”

“ There were tears in the eyes of Père Félix. The tribune of the people could not all at once bring himself to accept a final defeat. But as he looked a different feeling gathered warm about his heart. Yonder was Jeanne bringing back a boat-load of firewood gathered from the flood mark. How tall she was, and how beautiful! He had not noticed these things before. How nobly and regularly she stood in the stern and poled the boat with the current—a splash or two and she was safe within the little backwater. ”

“ For I knew, or thought I knew, that the absence of the women would relieve us who were fighting the lines of the Château and Factory from an almost intolerable fear. In this respect I now think I was wrong. For the idea of the girls and their mother being entrusted to them to defend, made every man behind the defences hate the enemy with a deep steady hatred. Each became in his own eyes charged with the care of Liz or Hannah, of Rhoda Polly or their mother, according to where, or in what relation of life—sweetheart, sister, or mother—their hearts were tenderest. ”

“ Here in Aramon we have a Government, and over it presides a Great Shadow which has been sent us from the Internationale. What did ever the Internationale do for us? Did it stop this war? Did it force back the Germans? You tell me that we owe to this shadow the thirty sous a day on which we starve. What of that? It is a bribe to keep us from taking all they possess. Every day in that Château yonder the silver gleams on the white table-cloth, the red wine mantles in the glass, the champagne foams, and—my great God! ”

“ Alida would don her smart walking dress, and with her brown leather music roll under her arm would set off to give the Sous-Préfet's young wife her daily music lesson, Linn stalking majestically beside her like a great Danish hound on guard.
At last she spoke, but without looking at me.
"Though I agree that the thing itself is impossible—that I cannot marry Ali Mohammed the slave and slave's son—tell me what is to be done? I shall ruin these good people whom I love, who are paid to take care of me. ”

“ But Hugh and I, who slept with our door of communication open in order to talk to one another in case of sleeplessness, could hear Keller and Linn moving about at all hours of the night down in the silence of the ground floor—sometimes advertising their presence by a little silvery rattle of glass set on a tray, the dull fall of a log on the chimney and irons, or the curious slip-shuffle of Linn's walk. Sometimes, too, we heard voices, but that not often. ”

“ Yet great and even final events hung upon Matteo le Gaucher. He was an Italian from Arquà, and, as was said by his comrades, a "spiteful toad." He was deformed in body, and of course carried with him the repute of a jettatore. The evil eye certainly looked out from under his low brows, but it was with his evil tongue that he could actually do the most mischief.
He had been employed by Arcadius in his garden. He was not a bad workman. "The ground," as he said, "was not too far off for him." He could work when he chose, better than anyone at the task of the day. ”

“ They saw each other every day, and the sight of Rhoda Polly and Alida striking across the big bridge with the wind right in their faces—or of Alida, with Linn, like a gaunt watch-dog, thrusting a combative shoulder into the mistral to fend a way for her charge—became familiar on the windy sidewalks of the great suspension bridge. ”

“ There was not much to distinguish Aramon the Old from Aramon the New, that is, from a distance. Both glowed out startingly white and delicately creamy between the burnished river and the flawless sapphire of the Provençal sky. It was still winter time by the calendar, but the sun beat on our bowed shoulders as we bent over the solid masonry of the breastwork, and the stones were hotter than in English dog-days as we plucked away our hands from it. ”

“ There was no man in Aramon who could get through so much work as Arcadius the Slug. By a kind of instinct he saw exactly where every stroke ought to fall, how much or how little was to be done, and the completed task ran out behind him like the wake from a well-rowed boat.
It was in a little bay behind a promontory filled with the Slug's sapling pines that I landed. I knew the place well, I knew also that Arcadius would almost certainly be in his potting house, putting things to rights after the labours of the day (the middle of March is high season for every gardener in the Midi) . ”