Jean-Pierre Boyer

“ Cabarreux? Bah-h! Boyer is a man! Why, gentlemen, if Peter Marmaduke Boyer were to appear in Sevier, it would [Pg 347] be like the coming of the eagle among the magpies."
"Sam, you're drunk," said Byloe. "What d'ye know about the man?"
"Know Boyer?" He laughed. The major had a peculiar laugh, which always put the crowd about the pump in a good-humor—a shrill, pleasant cackle of exultation. "Why, the whole country knows Boyer. But, if you must know it, he was a personal friend of mine. He had a great intellect—a gi-gantic intellect," sweeping the horizon with his arm. ”

“ The whole house was empty now, the farm-bailiff living in the servants’ quarters. Peer grew more and more enthusiastic. Here, in these great rooms, there had been festive gatherings enough in the days of the old Governors, where cavaliers in uniform or with elegant shirt-frills and golden spurs had kissed the hands of ladies in sweeping silk robes. Old mahogany, pot-pourri, convivial song, wit, grace—Peer saw it all in his mind’s eye, and again and again he had to give vent to his feelings by seizing Merle and embracing her. ”

“ She was sitting looking out at the yellow sky in the west, and she hardly turned her head as she took the flowers. “Thanks, Peer,” she said, and continued gazing out at the sky.
“What are you thinking of, dear mother?” asked Peer.
“Ah! it isn’t a good thing always to tell our thoughts,” she said, and she turned her spectacled eyes so as to look out over the lake.
“I hope it was something pleasant?”
“I was thinking of you, Peer. Of you and Merle.”
“It is good of you to think of us.”
“You see, Peer, there is trouble coming for you. A great deal of trouble.” ”

“ One Sunday morning Merle drove up to the hotel in a light cart with a big brown horse; Peer came out and climbed in, leaving the reins to her. They were going out along the fjord to look at her father’s big estate which in olden days had been the County Governors’ official residence.
It is the end of September. The sun is still warm, but the waters of the lake are grey and all the fields are reaped. Here and there a strip of yellowing potato-stalks lies waiting to be dug up. Up on the hillsides horses tethered for grazing stand nodding their heads slowly, as if they knew that it was Sunday. ”

“ Boyer's not the sort of man to die as long as a good thing like this is in the dice. Why, Boyer's young, sir. He's got more brains and experience and vitality than all the damned wooden Cabarreuxes in a lump."
Byloe squirted tobacco-juice skilfully into the puddle between his feet, and winked at the squire. "It would go dead ag'in' your chances down at Calhoun's, major, if Dave gets that proputty," he said gravely. "Old Tony Calhoun is a full-blood Yankee. He'll never give his daughter to a man with lean pockets." ”

“ Among the moderns, La Rochefoucauld, Saint-Evremond, and La Bruyère are admired by all judicious readers. From these French writers Boyer has selected materials for the groundwork of his collection. He has added passages from Antoninus, Pascal, and Gratian; from the English authors Bacon, Cowley, L'Estrange, Raleigh, Temple, Dryden, Wycherley, Brown and others; and from his own pen. They range from a single line to a passage of several pages. Those of English origin are distinguished by "an Asterism," his own remarks by inverted commas. Other matter is unmarked. ”

“ In fine, before three years had passed away, not a cent was left of Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's estate, and in return he had acquired neither talents nor fame. He is scarcely thirty years old: he looks like a man of sixty. I know no man in the world who, for the hope of half a million of dollars and a place in the French Academy, would consent to bear the burden of tortures, privations, and humiliations which make up Monsieur Philoxène Boyer's existence. He undergoes the torments of the damned; he fasts; he flounders in all the sewers of Paris. ”

“ By his good judgment, management, and humanity, he succeeded in uniting the whole island under one government, and gained the possession of what Christophe had exhausted himself with efforts to obtain, and what Petion had sighed for, without daring to cherish a single hope that its attainment could be accomplished. Boyer was blameless in his private life. ”

“ The new stallion from Gudbrandsdal wants breaking in—we’ll take him. Hallo! and away they go in their furs, swinging out over the frozen lake, whirling on to the bare glassy ice, where they skid and come near capsizing, and Merle screams—but they get on to snow, and hoofs and runners grip again. None of your galloping—trot now, trot! And Peer cracks his whip. The black, long-maned Gudbrandsdaler lifts his head and trots out. And the evening comes, and under the wide and starry sky they dash up again to Loreng—Loreng that lies there lighting them home with its long rows of glowing windows. ”

“ Their father, John Boyer, was a hunter. When he died the two elder sons, Richard and Hugh, remained with their mother, farmed a sterile tract on the Black Mountains and trapped bears and wolves through the great southern ranges of the Appalachian chain. Twice in the year they came down to the hamlet at Gray Eagle to exchange their peltry for such goods as they needed. They were, in short, Grimmel's elder brothers, who sat satisfied in the chimney-corner while giants, devils and trolls were carousing without. ”

“ And whatever power and might he gained, he could never stand in autumn evenings and lift up his finger and make all the stars break into song.
Something was past and gone for Peer. It was as if he were rowing away from a coast where red clouds hung in the sky and dream-visions filled the air—rowing farther and farther away, towards something quite new. A power stronger than himself had willed it so.
One Sunday, as he sat reading, the door opened, and Klaus Brock entered whistling, with his cap on the back of his head. ”

“ Next day Merle and Peer were rung up by telephone and asked to come in to dinner with the old folks.
But when they were all sitting at table, they found it impossible to keep the conversation going. Everyone seemed shy of beginning on the subject they were all thinking about. The old man’s face was grey with want of sleep; his wife looked from one to the other through her spectacles. Peer was calm and smiling.
At last, when the claret came round, Fru Uthoug lifted her glass and drank to Peer. “Good fortune!” she said. “We won’t be the ones to stand in your way. ”

“ But now! Her father had been right. Her father! The whole thing overwhelmed her like a terrible darkness.
Suddenly she started up and hurried on. She must manage to reach the children before dark, for she dared not be out alone when it was dark.
When the carriage drove down the avenue from Norby Farm, the two daughters sat opposite their parents, and Einar with the coachman on the box. Einar had come home quite unexpectedly. That evening when he rowed across to Buvik Sæter he had met with a great disappointment. The doctor’s daughter had left for the valley that afternoon. ”

“ And M. Boyer shrugged his shoulders, whilst he inhaled another large pinch of snuff.
"You hope to get rid of him?"
"Parbleu, he is a jackanapes,—an ass! He places me there as if he ought not to have any fears of me. Before two months I shall be in his place."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand livres a year in land!" replied Edwards, reflecting; "and a young man! It is a good house?"
"I tell you there is everything to make a man comfortable. I will speak to my protector for you," said M. Boyer, with irony. "Take the place ”

“ The horse pricked up its ears, and stepped timidly over the rough ice; but Knut roused it with a smart touch of the whip, and the sledge bounded from hummock to hummock until it reached the smooth, shining surface of the lake.
When one annoyance follows close upon another, the feeling induced is like that of a blow falling upon a place where there is a wound already. First of all to-day, the old man had been outvoted in a school committee matter; it was against that wretched parish schoolmaster. ”

“ Peer was a town boy, who had been put out to board with a fisherman in the village. His mother had been no better than she should be, so people said, but she was dead now, and the father at any rate must be a rich gentleman, for he sent the boy a present of ten whole crowns every Christmas, so that Peer always had money in his pocket. Naturally, then, he was looked up to by the other boys, and took the lead in all things as a chieftain by right.
The boat moved on past the grey rocks, the beach and the huts above it growing blue and faint in the distance. ”

“ He rose with an impetuous movement, and began to pace the floor.
“The only thing I’m afraid of,” he said demonstratively—for he was quite willing that Norby should hear this—“is that he’ll get off too easily. After thinking it over, I don’t think he ought to come out of prison any more.”
The pastor felt as if he had received a blow, and rose quickly. “If he is in the right,” he thought, “then Heaven help the right that has fallen into such hands! Can being in the right make a man so coarse and bad? No! He is guilty!” ”

“ Knut rose slowly, pushing the rug aside. He gazed at her, opened his mouth and gazed. At last he passed his hand through his beard, and then over his bald head, and said in an uncomfortably ordinary tone of voice:
“Oh, have you been to the bailiff, Marit?”
[Pg 24]
“Yes! When there are no men on the farm, the women have to go out to work,” she said. “I didn’t come quite empty-handed when I became mistress at Norby, and I didn’t mean to let you give my share to tramps and beggars.”
Knut turned pale, but once more passed his hand over his bald crown and through his beard, and tried to laugh. ”

“ Louise got her ski on and immediately fell on her face; Lorentz, astride of the new sleigh, was shouting “Hi, hi!—clear the course there!”, and over in a corner sat little Asta, busy putting her baby to bed and singing it to sleep.
Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled.
“What did I tell you?” said Merle.
Slowly, with torturing slowness, the leaden-grey winter days creep by. For two hours in the middle of the day there is pale twilight—for two hours—then darkness again. ”

“ Calm, golden autumn days; one farm above another rising up towards the crest of the range, all set in ripe yellow fields. One little cottage stands right on the crest against the sky itself, and it, too, has its tiny patch of yellow corn. And an eagle sails slowly across the deep valley from peak to peak.
People passing by stared at Peer as he went about bare-headed, in his shirt-sleeves, wheeling stones. “Aye, gentlefolks have queer notions,” they would say, shaking their heads. ”

“ He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth pursed itself up.
“Extend—did you say extend? Extend a—a doll’s house!”
“Oh, Peer, you shouldn’t laugh at it—a thing that father took so much pains to set going!”
“And YOU shouldn’t go worrying me to get to work again in earnest, Merle. You shouldn’t really. One of these days I might discover that there’s no way to be happy in the world but to drag a plough and look straight ahead and forget that there’s anything else in existence. It may come to that one day—but give me a little breathing-space first, and you love me. ”

“ The sound of wheels in the night may mean the approach of fate itself. Some decision, some final word that casts us down in a moment from wealth to ruin—who knows? Peer had been to England now, trying to come to some arrangement with the Company. Sh!—was that not wheels? She rose, trembling, and listened.
No, it had passed on.
It was eight o’clock now, time for Louise to go to bed; and Merle began undressing her. Soon the child was lying in her little white bed, with a doll on either side. “Give Papa a tiss,” she babbled, “and give him my love. ”

“ John—' promises me to swinge him. ... I must make that rogue an example for warning to others.' Boyer was discharged from custody through the intervention, he says, of Harley, to whom he boasts of having rendered services (Annals of Queen Anne, vol. for 1711, pp. 264-5) . Though he professed a strict political impartiality in the conduct of his principal periodicals, Boyer was a zealous whig. ”

“ The spirit of man will hold a Day of Judgment, and settle accounts with Olympus—with the riddle, the almighty power beyond. It will be a great reckoning. And mark my words—that is the one single religious idea that lives and works in each and every one of us—the thing that makes us hold up our heads and walk upright, forgetting that we are slaves and things that die.”
Suddenly he looked at his watch. “Excuse me a moment. If the telegraph office is open . . .” and he rose and went in.
When he returned, Klaus and Peer were talking of the home of their boyhood and their early days together. ”

“ Was she loth to take root too firmly?
“A great deal?” he said. “What did your father give for it?”
“The place was sold by auction, and he got it cheap. Fifty thousand crowns, I think it was.”
Peer strode off towards the house again. “We’ll buy it. It’s the very place to make into a home. . . . Horses, cattle, sheep, goats, cottars—ah! it’ll be grand.”
Merle followed him more slowly. “But, Peer, remember you’ve just taken over father’s machine-shops in town.”
“Pooh!” said Peer scornfully. “Do you think I can’t manage to run that village smithy and live here too! Come along, Merle.” ”