Atalanta in the South/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
On the day when our party of friends had left the city, Robert Feuardent also went into the country. The magnet which had kept him in New Orleans for so many weeks was now removed, and he took the opportunity to visit his forest-home. Many months had elapsed since he had shaken the dust of the city from his feet, and despite the heavy feeling at his heart, his spirits began to rise as he left the noise and tumult of the streets behind him. His emotions that morning had been far from enjoyable as he watched the departure of his friends for the Rondelet plantation. He had concealed himself behind a pile of cotton-bales standing conveniently near that part of the levee from which they had embarked, and had marked that they all seemed in very good spirits. Every mile that he put between himself and the scene of that annoyance seemed to lighten the jealous anger that had galled him.
What felon in his chains, what sufferer from a grievous disease, what mourner for a beloved one dead, is to be more pitied than that man or woman in whose soul jealousy has taken up its abode? It is, I believe, the most grievous passion that can sear the heart of man. What crimes will he not commit to appease that demon in his breast, whose presence banishes every tender and human sentiment? If he be driven by jealousy to the commission of the unpardonable sin, if he shed the life-blood of brother or of wife, what council of his peers but will judge that the demon was stronger than his humanity, and that, just or unjust, his crime must be condoned?
It was on the very edge of night that Robert arrived at the little settlement of friendly Indians. He found the wigwams deserted by all save the women and old men. After resting for a few moments, he proceeded to the chapel of the missionary priest, situated at a short distance from the hamlet. His way led him over a dilapidated bridge which spanned a bayou contiguous to the great lake. He stepped lightly over the loose-lying planks, which would have failed to support any less wary wayfarer. He knew just how to throw his weight, and could spring from a rotten board before it gave way beneath him. He was midway on his somewhat perilous journey when he was hailed by a cheerful voice; a wagon was fording the bayou, and he recognized in its driver an old acquaintance, The horses stopped, obedient to their master's "Whoa, Emma! whoa, Baby!" and stood patiently still in the water, which reached up to the hubs of the wheels.
"Won't you come up to the house and dine with us? I have a seat for you in the carriage," asked the driver. He had a cheery voice and kind blue eyes, and the group of children, of all sizes and ages, packed about him echoed the invitation in chorus.
"Do come up, Robert, and see my new pony," cried a boy, evidently the eldest.
"Monsieur Feuardent, you never made the kite you promised me," said a demure little girl.
"We 've got some new puppies," vouchsafed a chubby urchin of four.
"We 're going to have a great big turkey for dinner," added a wise maiden of six, who at an early age had divined the surest road to the masculine heart.
Which argument was the convincing one, I cannot say. Perhaps it was the combined attractions of the "great big turkey" and the "puppies," or it may have been that the prospect of seeing the new pony was too enticing to be resisted; in any case the fact is certain that five minutes later Robert was seated in the carriage beside M. Bienveillance, with a child on either knee.
"I was on my way to seek the Father," explained Robert.
"I am in luck to have met you, then, for he dines with us to-night."
"And there 's going to be such a big jelly-cake," whispered the little six-year-old.
"He is well? it is many months since I have seen him," said Feuardent.
"Yes, well as ever," replied M. Bienveillance; "though how he endures such discomforts at his age, amazes me. A wonderful man, sir, and the best human being I have ever known. My wife says his sainthood has begun on this side of eternity."
By this time the sure-footed horses had struggled up the incline which led to the bayou, and the carriage was on firm ground again. The road before them led through a thick swampy country, rich with the luxuriance of an almost tropical vegetation. The broad shining leaves of the palmetto overshadowed a thousand smaller plants not less beautiful than itself. In a cleared space, where the ground was high, a group of cattle ceased munching the herbage and turned their great eyes wonderingly at the carriage as it rolled by. A flock of sheep, whose long fleecy wool had left traces on the low underbrush, were browsing under the care of a dusky shepherd who saluted the master as he passed. The carriage stopped before a cottage whose wide-roofed piazza, was wreathed with honeysuckle. A lady, sitting in a low chair, rose to meet Feuardent, and bade him welcome to her forest-home. She smiled at her husband as she gave her hand to her guest, and said in a sweet, gracious voice, "You are never more welcome, mon cher than when you bring with you so agreeable a guest as M. Feuardent."
The conversation was carried on entirely in French. Madame Bienveillance was a tall, hand some woman with large dark eyes and a red, curved mouth. Her complexion was white and flawless as the thick creamy leaves of the magnolia blossom which drooped from the ribbon at her waist. Her smile seemed to Feuardent as innocent as that which rested on the features of the child clinging to her skirts. She did the honors of her simple home with a gracious hospitality often found wanting in more pretentious houses. Her summer-dwelling possessed only four rooms, gathered about a large chimney. These were her own apartment, a guest-chamber, a parlor, and a dining-room rarely used in weather which allowed the table to be spread on the gallery. Near by, another cottage of similar dimensions afforded sleeping and play-rooms to the children; a third building was reserved for such guests as were happy enough to enjoy the hospitality of the amiable couple.
"What news do you bring us from the city? M. Feuardent, I shall consider you in the light of an animated society-newspaper, through whose columns I may gather something of what my friends in New Orleans are doing," said Madame Bienveillance.
Poor Robert was at a loss to answer her. He had lived so entirely in his own emotions for weeks past that he had neither thought nor cared about the rest of the world. He only knew about Margaret; and he was on the point of yielding to the lover's impulse to talk of his beloved, even to a stranger, when a step was heard on the path and a tall, gaunt figure approached them.
"Mon père, you are most welcome; it is long since you have broken bread with us," the lady said, greeting the new-comer affectionately.
"It is not longer ago than this morning since I have eaten of thy bread, my daughter. My other friends say that thou dost more than thy share in keeping my larder supplied. How is this,—Robert Feuardent, the deserter, here? Thy wigwam has lost its roof, thy friends have almost forgotten thy face, thy dogs acknowledge a new master. What hast thou found in the city so attractive that thou hast so neglected those whom thou hast professed to love above all others?"
Robert hung his head and blushed like a school-boy detected in some naughty prank.
The keen-eyed old man looked at him closely for a moment, and seeing his perturbation, turned to the children, who had come to speak with him. The priest was a remarkable-looking man, who carried his threescore and ten years lightly. His face was a variable one. When it was bent, as now, over the little children, it was tender and full of light; so it looked when he walked among his Indians, to whose welfare he had devoted the greater part of his life. They had adopted him as a member of their tribe, and the name they had given him signified the affection in which they held him. His broad philanthropic brow, his large, kindly mouth, betrayed the lover of men, satisfied in giving up his life for their advancement; but the quick, restless dark eyes sometimes had a look of profound sorrow in their depths, of whose source Robert had often vainly conjectured. Madame Bienveillance, with her quicker womanly instinct, saw in this trait of melancholy, whose existence the priest would have eagerly denied, the result of some great trial or disappointment suffered during his life in that world which he now apostrophized as heartless, godless, loveless. For him the solitude of the woods, the companionship of the wild men, the song of the forest bird, sufficed. He wondered that men of heart and intellect could endure the stifling atmosphere of cities, and claimed that only through that intimacy with Nature which the solitudes of the wilderness afford can the soul rise to the height of communion with the Divine. Yet toward that world which he had quitted, and of which he spoke such hard things, his thoughts ever turned, if it was but to compare it with the paradise he claimed to have found in the deserted places.
The evening passed quickly and pleasantly. Robert's melancholy was soon dispelled by the cheerful influences of the happy home circle. Shortly after dinner he disappeared in company with the children, the two younger ones seated on his broad shoulders and clinging about his neck with the remorseless grip of a pair of young grislies.
"Do not stifle your kind friend," cautioned Madame Bienveillance. But the youngsters only screamed louder than before, and the smaller boy on the left shoulder buried his hands in Robert's hair, crying,—
"When one rides without bridle, one must hold on by the mane."
"When one rides without spurs, one must use one's heels," echoed the child on the right shoulder, suiting the action to the word.
In a moment the obstreperous rider was landed on a high shelf, from which he was only lifted on parole of good behavior. The puppies were next visited and duly admired. They were the property of the little six-year-old girl.
"Monsieur Feuardent shall have one of the puppies," she cried. "Choose whichever one you want, you can have any of them except the white one, because I named him for papa,—he is so fat; and the spotted one, I gave that one to my big brother; and this one, which is a little lame, I must keep him myself, because no one else will be so kind to him."
"That only leaves Robert the ugly little black fellow. Papa says he is not worth raising; that is the reason you are so generous with him,—Greedy," teased the big brother.
The child began to cry, and presently sobbed out,—
"I am sure I am not greedy, and it is very mean of you to say so. I gave you your first choice, but you shall not have him now. I always liked the spotted one best myself."
"You did n't; you don't know enough," retorted the boy. "It is only because I said he was the best marked, and you only pretended to give me my choice, so as to find out which was the best one, and then take it back from me the first chance you got,—just like girls!"
"I like the black one best," interposed Robert. "Black dogs are better for grown people than white, or even spotted ones."
The little girl smiled through her tears and laid the ugly black creature in Robert's hand. The boy looked somewhat sceptical, but he did not quite dare to question Mr. Feuardent's last statement; and the puppy being carefully laid in a small basket packed with straw, a game of romps ensued, which rivalled the antics of the most playful of puppies. Bedtime came all too soon, and the playfellows parted regretfully, Robert joining the elders at the main house, carrying his basket on his arm. The gifts of children are very serious matters to them, and Robert was too tender-hearted to refuse the ugly little creature yelping in its straw nest.
He found the missionary in an excellent vein. He was recounting to Madame Bienveillance some of the incidents of the forty years passed among the Louisiana Indians, and Robert, seating himself, listened to the stories, some of which were already known to him. He had been for years so familiar with the life of this solitary old man that he had perhaps sometimes ignored its beauty and its pathos. The outlines of things at which we look too closely are sometimes blurred; those who stand at a distance often get the true values which we miss by being too near. Robert was very silent as they drove afterward to the home of the priest, where he was to pass the night. M. Bienveillance, who had accompanied them so far, took leave of Robert, cordially inviting him to return to his house the following day. The kindly man, whose name so well expressed his nature, touched his horses with the whip, and was soon lost to view as the carriage disappeared down the narrow wood-road. They heard his cheery voice calling to his animals in the distance, and then the silence of the forest settled down upon them.
The home of the priest was situated under a spreading live-oak whose undermost branches scarcely cleared the roof of the lowly structure. The rough wooden building, had it not been dignified by the cross which rose above it, canopied by the spreading branches of the tree, might have passed for the cabin of a wood-cutter. Its interior was hardly superior to the outside. A few rough benches, some religious pictures on the wall, and an altar as simple as was the priest who officiated before it,—these were all it contained. At one end a small space was partitioned off from the church, and here was spread the couch of the missionary,—a blanket thrown over a bed of bare wooden planks.
"Thou knewest how thou wouldst fare with me, Robert, when thou didst decline to remain with our friends," said the priest.
"I have not yet forgotten how to cut my bed from the pine-branches, father, though it is long since I have slept on such a fragrant mattress," Robert returned.
"And why hast thou remained so many months away from thy friends? Thou lovest not the confessional, I know, but speak to me as to thy friend. Thou hast a burden on thy heart, Robert; thou art not the free, light-hearted youth thou wert a year ago."
The young man hesitated, loath to grieve his friend with the recital of the troublous events of the past winter. The priest was so far removed from the world's grossness that it seemed a wrong to desecrate his forest-chapel with a story of passion, of bloodshed, of cowardice, of deceit, and of human love.
"Speak, my son," said the priest authoritatively.
The old habit of obedience prevailed, and Robert complied with the father's exhortation to confide in him.
The hour was late when the two friends lay down to sleep, the priest on his hard bed, the youth on the floor beside him. The silence of the woods, the fatigues he had endured, and the freshness of his fragrant couch insured a long sleep to Feuardent. The sun was high in the heavens when he awoke. He found beside him a pitcher of water, bread and meat, and a cup of coffee, fragant and inviting, prepared by the father's own hands. It was Sunday morning, and from the sounds in the adjoining chapel Robert judged that preparations for service were in progress. Dressing noiselessly, he made his escape through the window and betook himself to the Indian settlement, not far distant. While the priest was ministering to the spiritual needs of his dusky flock, Robert, in company with a pair of Sabbath-breaking redskins, went on a hunting tour, the result of which was highly favorable to the larder of his host. Through the well-known haunts he tramped, whistling as he went an old Creole love-song, his gun on his shoulder, his dogs following him. He was thinking joyfully of Margaret; yesterday's dark mood had been dispelled by the scenes and faces which were so familiarly dear to him, and by the counsels of that wise old man who had so little of this world about him.
Robert Feuardent felt all the beauty of his forest home because something in him claimed kindred with the wood-life. He felt but could not express the delights of an existence governed only by the laws of Nature. The priest, who was born a poet, was never weary of contrasting the peace of the forest with the turmoil of the world in which he had suffered so keenly, and which he could never quite forget. The glowing panegyrics which he pronounced upon the desert which had so hospitably sheltered him had been listened to by Robert in other days with scant attention. The world, which the priest had characterized as "barbarously sophistical" and "coldly refined," had been to him a pleasant place enough. He had found friends and amusements there, and had lived its life as thoughtlessly and gayly as he had lived the forest life. He had on the whole preferred the companionship of the wood people; but not because he found the world people heartless or cruel. It had been a mere matter of taste with him. Now, he saw things very differently. He listened to the words of the missionary with an unwonted attention; he realized how the pure-minded man must have been outraged by the shams and the lies, the selfishness and cruelty, of society. "The rottenness of the great world" had, to use his own words, "forced him to fly from it, as from a pestilential corpse, to the forest which God made as a refuge for man when every other refuge is denied him."
By sundown Robert had come back from his day's hunting, and the two men were sitting before the door of the little chapel, under the shade of the friendly oak. A half-caste Indian boy was seated near them, busily engaged in stripping the birds Robert had shot. The huntsman himself was cleaning his gun; his dogs lay at his feet. The black puppy, which had already made friends with them, was rolling over the tired creatures, who were too sleepy to heed the impudent youngster.
"What you say may be true, father," said Robert, gathering a wisp of grass which he rammed vigorously into, the barrel of his fowling-piece; "but look at the woods. Things die and decompose here; but new flowers bloom every day from what yesterday was foul decay. Look now at this piece of wood,"—he paused in his work and picked up a branch,—"it is quite rotten, it has lain in the water for months; but to-day this beautiful pink flower has bloomed from it. Is not this same thing going on in the world?"
The priest did not answer directly. He looked at his young friend silently for a few moments, and then said: "Dost thou think that thou canst understand the world? Thou art but a boy."
"I have grown ten years older in the last six months," persisted the younger man; "I am a boy no longer; and I now know that I can never live as you do, away from the world."
"I have never counselled it, Robert."
"No, father, you have not. You have said to me that I must try to live with civilized men, and that not till I had seen, as you have seen, their falseness and their barbarity, could I enjoy deliverance from their society. I once listened to you, and I believed you. Now I know that I am not strong enough to live alone as you have done. I need the contact with other men, even if they are sinful. I am sinful too; and as I am sorry for them, so will they be for me. As I am glad when they are happy, so will they rejoice with me."
"Alone, saidst thou, alone?" cried the enthusiast, ignoring the rest of the sentence, "O sightless eyes that cannot see! O deaf ears that cannot hear! I have the immaculate maiden Nature for my companion. What woman wilt thou show me with such infinite variety of loveliness? Each day her face wears a new expression; every hour her mood changes; whether she smile or frown, she is always faithful, always tender. If she whispers to me in the soft murmurings of the night, if she sings to me with the voice of the wood-bird, if she soothes me with the wind sighing through the trees, if her voice startles me in the crash of the thunder and calls me in the mighty melody of the river, it is to tell me with each of her myriad voices that she loves me."
The priest had risen, speaking passionately, his hands clasped, his eyes raised to the towering oak-tree, through whose branches the sunbeams filtered about him like a glory. Robert, still busy with his gun, glanced at the inspired face, and with a sigh went on with his work.
"Madame Bienveillance is right," he said to himself; "he is a saint already."
Meanwhile the boy had finished his task; and after building a fire in the hollow stump of a tree, proceeded to broil the game after the approved Indian fashion. When it was ready, he laid the table,—a service which was speedily accomplished, for the best of reasons. When the simple preparations were complete, the child, whose reverence for the inspired moods of the priest was not equal to Robert's, who would never have dared to call that pure spirit from its lofty communings, pulled the missionary by the arm and pointed silently to the table.
"Robert, I have not fared so well since thou wert last here. Tell me, does the New Orleans market afford such trout as these, such a pair of ducks?"
"Yes, father, I think it does," answered Robert, eying the smoking viands hungrily; "it is the appetite that is lacking in the city."
He moved toward the table.
"See the delicate markings on this fish!" continued the priest; "I wonder thou hadst the heart to keep him for thy prey, he is so beautiful a creature."
Robert's nostrils were tickled by the crisp fragrance of the roasted trout.
"I am too busy in smelling the fish, and shall soon be in tasting it, I hope, to care much for its markings," cried Robert. "Don't let the good food get cold, father."
"Thou art hungry indeed, Robert," answered the priest; and making no further delay, he asked the blessing, without which Robert would not have dared to touch a crust of his bread. The two friends sat down side by side on a rough bench, and the dusky child served them silently.
"We do not often feast like this, do we, my boy?" said the priest kindly.
The child shook his head, still speechless.
"Whose son is this?" asked Robert; "he must be a stranger, since he will not speak before me."
"Yes; thou hast never seen him before," returned the missionary. "The fact that my Indians refuse to enter into conversation with strange white people is not without a sad significance," he added; "they have been so abused by the dominant—I cannot call it the superior—race, that they suspect all of its children who fall in their way. This boy here knows, young as he is, that he may say too much if he talks before you. You are, in his eyes, probably a government agent, and he has been taught that they are to be distrusted, even when they make friendly overtures. They fear the Greeks bringing gifts."
"Why, what have the Greeks got to do with the Indians or the government?" queried Robert, filling and lighting his pipe as he spoke.
"Thou didst not love thy studies at school, or thou wouldst not ask. Of the knowledge that is had from books, Robert, thou art sadly ignorant; and in this thou art wrong. There is yet time for thee to cultivate a love of learning; thy mind is good. Like the Indians, thou never forgettest what thou hast seen or heard. I, too, have a keen memory; and how richly is it peopled with the heroes of the poets! When thou art old like me, and canst no more spend thy leisure in hunting and breaking wild horses, how wilt thou pass thy time? Do as I have done, and take from men their noblest inspirations. My solitude has for its companions the men and women born in the dreams of the great writers of the world. In leaving that world behind me, I took with me the best things that it has produced."
The father's speech was here interrupted by an Indian woman, who rushed from the thicket, and throwing herself at his feet besought him to come to her husband, who was either dying or bewitched. The good man stopped only to gather together those necessaries of spiritual-and physical ministration which the sufferer might require,—a few phials of medicine and the vessels for the sacrament of extreme unction,—and disappeared down the woodland path, followed by the weeping woman. The boy having fed himself, the dogs, and the puppy, quenched the embers of the fire with water from the spring near by, and nodding to Robert, departed without a word of greeting, taking the same direction as the priest.
With only his dogs for company, Robert sat before the chapel, watching the death of the day, and the night darkening in the skies and through the odorous forest. He listened to those silent noises of the night which are felt rather than heard, and in his mind reviewed all the things the priest had said to him. He had been in the forest only twenty-four hours, and yet yesterday appeared a year ago. It seemed impossible to him that so short a distance, so brief a space of time, divided him from the city where he had but the day before seen Margaret stepping on board the little steamer, supported by Philip's arm. The thought which had yesterday tortured him, he now smiled at. The cool forest breeze had blown the mists of the city from his eyes (thus he reasoned), and now he knew that Margaret loved him! How could he doubt it? Had he not felt that she belonged to him from the hour when they had danced together, had breathed the perfume of the same flowers, and felt the same irresistible influence of the spring thrilling in their veins? Had he not heard her love in the low cry she gave that night when he exonerated his friend and acknowledged that it was his hand which had shed the blood of Fernand Thoron? Had he not seen it in the drooping lines of her lithe body as she stood, all white and quivering, as if she had been struck with a mortal blow? He had hesitated long enough; he would go and woo and win the woman he loved. He would pursue her as arduously as ever Indian lover pursued his fleeing bride. He would have her for his own. What power in the world was so strong as the passion in his breast? Love, that had o'erturned an empire, was it not strong enough to conquer this girl who mocked him and called him a savage?
He was speaking his thoughts aloud now, while he paced up and down the narrow clearing. On the same spot where the priest had breathed his fervent apostrophe to Nature, Robert paused, and raising his arms above his head, cried with a voice deep as the sound of the sea: "I will have her for my own; she is mine, mine, mine!"
A branch rustled near him, and putting aside the leaves, the priest joined his friend. The old man's holy face was very pale, his eyes shone with the brilliancy of youth. What thoughts had the words of this boisterous lover raised in his heart? He laid his thin hand on the young man's shoulder and said in a faint, low voice, which contrasted as strangely with the full tones that had just now echoed in the forest as did his tall, emaciated body with the powerful frame beside him: "She shall be thine; and when she is dead or faithless, come to me, or if my release has been granted, come to my forest for consolation."