ted to revolutionary action
of the most desperate kind. The representative and delegate of a nobleman in
the States  of  Brittany, he found himself simultaneously and  incongruously
the representative and delegate of the whole Third Estate of Rennes.
     It is difficult to determine to what extent, in the heat of passion and
swept  along  by  the torrent of his own oratory,  he  might  yesterday have
succeeded in deceiving himself.  But it  is at  least certain that,  looking
back in cold blood now he had no single delusion on the score of what he had
done. Cynically he had presented to his audience one side only of the  great
question that he propounded.
     But since the established order of things in France was such as to make
a rampart for M. de La Tour d'Azyr, affording him complete immunity for this
and  any  other  crimes  that  it pleased  him  to  commit,  why,  then  the
established order must  take the consequences of its wrong-doing. Therein he
perceived his clear justification.
     And so it was without misgivings that he came on his errand of sedition
into that  beautiful  city  of Nantes, rendered  its  spacious  streets  and
splendid port the rival in prosperity of Bordeaux and Marseilles.
     He found an  inn  on the Quai La Fosse, where he put  up his horse, and
where he  dined  in the embrasure  of a  window  that  looked  out over  the
tree-bordered quay  and the broad bosom  of the Loire,  on which argosies of
all nations rode at anchor. The sun had again broken through the clouds, and
shed its  pale  wintry light  over the  yellow waters  and  the  tall-masted
shipping.
     Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen on
the   quays  of  Paris.  Foreign  sailors  in  outlandish  garments  and  of
harsh-sounding,  outlandish  speech,  stalwart  fishwives  with  baskets  of
herrings on  their heads,  voluminous  of petticoat above bare legs and bare
feet, calling  their wares  shrilly and  almost inarticulately, watermen  in
woollen  caps and loose trousers  rolled to the  knees, peasants in goatskin
coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the round kidney-stones, shipwrights
and   labourers   from   the   dockyards,   bellows-menders,   rat-catchers,
water-carriers,  ink-sellers, and  other  itinerant  pedlars. And, sprinkled
through  this proletariat mass  that came  and went  in  constant  movement,
Andre-Louis beheld tradesmen in sober garments, merchants in long, fur-lined
coats;  occasionally  a  merchant-prince  rolling  along  in  his  two-horse
cabriolet  to the  whip-crackings and  shouts  of "Gare!" from his coachman;
occasionally a  dainty lady  carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a
mincing  abbe  from  the  episcopal  court  tripping  along  in  attendance;
occasionally an officer in  scarlet riding disdainfully;  and once the great
carriage  of   a  nobleman,   with   escutcheoned  panels  and  a   pair  of
white-stockinged, powdered footmen in gorgeous liveries hanging  on  behind.
And there  were  Capuchins  in  brown and Benedictines in black, and secular
priests in plenty  -  for  God was  well served  in the  sixteen parishes of
Nantes  -  and  by way  of  contrast  there  were  lean-jawed,  out-at-elbow
adventurers, and gendarmes  in  blue  coats  and gaitered  legs,  sauntering
guardians of the peace.
     Representatives  of  every  class  that  went  to make  up the  seventy
thousand  inhabitants of that wealthy, industrious  city  were to be seen in
the human  stream  that  ebbed and  flowed  beneath  the window  from  which
Andre-Louis observed it.
     Of the waiter who ministered to his humble wants with soup and bouilli,
and a  measure of vin gris, Andre-Louis  enquired into  the  state of public
feeling  in  the  city. The  waiter, a staunch supporter  of  the privileged
orders, admitted regretfully that an uneasiness prevailed. Much would depend
upon what happened at Rennes. If it was true that the King had dissolved the
States of Brittany, then all should be well, and the malcontents would  have
no  pretext for further disturbances. There had been trouble and to spare in
Nantes  already. They wanted no repetition of it. All manner of rumours were
abroad, and since early morning there  had been crowds besieging the portals
of the Chamber of  Commerce for  definite news. But definite news was yet to
come.  It  was not  even  known  for a  fact that His  Majesty actually  had
dissolved the States.
     It was striking two, the busiest hour of the day  upon the Bourse, when
Andre-Louis reached the Place  du Commerce. The  square,  dominated  by  the
imposing classical building  of the Exchange, was  so crowded  that  he  was
compelled almost  to fight  his way through to the steps of the  magnificent
Ionic porch.  A  word would have  sufficed  to have opened  a way for him at
once. But guile moved  him to keep silent. He would come upon  that  waiting
multitude as a thunderclap, precisely as yesterday he had come  upon the mob
at Rennes. He would lose nothing of the surprise effect of his entrance.
     The precincts of that house of  commerce were jealously kept by  a line
of ushers armed with staves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the merchants
as it was evidently necessary. One of these now effectively barred the young
lawyer's passage as he attempted to mount the steps.
     Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.
     The stave was instantly raised  from the horizontal, and he  passed and
went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top, on  the threshold of
the chamber, he paused, and stayed his guide.
     "I will wait here," he announced. "Bring the president to me."
     "Your name, monsieur?"
     Almost had  Andre-Louis answered him when  he remembered Le Chapelier's
warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le Chapelier's
parting admonition to conceal his identity.
     "My name  is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece of
a people, no more. Go."
     The  usher went, and  in the  shadow of  that lofty,  pillared  portico
Andre-Louis  waited,  his eyes  straying  out ever  and anon to survey  that
spread of upturned faces immediately below him.
     Soon  the  president  came,  others  following,  crowding  out into the
portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.
     "You are a messenger from Rennes?"
     "I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber  of that city to inform
you here in Nantes of what is taking place."
     "Your name?"
     Andre-Louis paused. "The less we mention names perhaps the better."
     The president's eyes grew big with gravity. He was a corpulent,  florid
man, purse-proud, and self-sufficient.
     He hesitated a moment. Then - "Come into the Chamber," said he.
     "By your leave, monsieur, I  will deliver my  message from  here - from
these steps."
     "From here?" The great merchant frowned.
     "My message  is for the people  of Nantes, and from here I can speak at
once to the greatest number of  Nantais of all ranks,  and it is my desire -
and the  desire  of those  whom  I represent -  that as  great  a number  as
possible should hear my message at first hand."
     "Tell me, sir, is it true that the King has dissolved the States?"
     Andre-Louis  looked at him. He smiled apologetically, and waved a  hand
towards the crowd,  which by  now  was  straining for a glimpse of this slim
young man who had brought forth the president and more than half the numbers
of the Chamber, guessing already, with that curious instinct of crowds, that
he was the awaited bearer of tidings.
     "Summon the  gentlemen  of  your Chamber, monsieur," said he,  "and you
shall hear all."
     "So be it."
     A word, and forth they  came to crowd upon the steps, but leaving clear
the topmost step and a half-moon space in the middle.
     To  the spot  so indicated, Andre-Louis now advanced very deliberately.
He took his stand there, dominating the entire assembly. He removed his hat,
and  launched  the  opening  bombshell of  that address  which is  historic,
marking as it does  one of the  great  stages of  France's  progress towards
revolution.
     "People  of  this great  city  of Nantes, I have come to summon you  to
arms!"
     In the  amazed and rather scared silence that followed he surveyed them
for a moment before resuming.
     "I am a delegate  of the people of Rennes, charged to announce  to  you
what  is taking  place, and to invite  you in  this  dreadful  hour  of  our
country's peril to rise and march to her defence."
     "Name! Your name!" a voice  shouted, and instantly the cry was taken up
by others, until the multitude rang with the question.
     He could not answer that excited mob as  he had answered the president.
It was necessary to compromise, and  he did so, happily. "My name," said he,
"is Omnes Omnibus - all for all. Let that suffice you now. I am a  herald, a
mouthpiece, a  voice;  no more. I come  to announce to  you that  since  the
privileged orders, assembled for the States of Brittany in Rennes,  resisted
your will - our will
     - despite the King's plain hint to  them, His Majesty has dissolved the
States."
     There  was a burst of delirious applause. Men  laughed and shouted, and
cries of "Vive le Roi!" rolled  forth like thunder. Andre-Louis waited,  and
gradually the preternatural gravity of his  countenance came to be observed,
and  to beget the suspicion  that there might be more  to  follow. Gradually
silence was restored, and at last Andre Louis was able to proceed.
     "You  rejoice  too soon. Unfortunately, the  nobles, in their  insolent
arrogance, have elected  to ignore the royal dissolution,  and in despite of
it persist in sitting and in conducting matters as seems good to them."
     A silence  of  utter dismay greeted that  disconcerting epilogue to the
announcement  that had  been so  rapturously received. Andre-Louis continued
after a moment's pause:
     "So that these men who were already rebels against the  people, rebels,
against justice  and  equity, rebels against humanity itself, are  now  also
rebels  against their King. Sooner than yield an  inch of the unconscionable
privileges by which too long  already they have flourished, to the misery of
a whole  nation, they will make a mock of  royal authority, hold up the King
himself  to contempt. They are  determined  to prove  that there is  no real
sovereignty   in   France   but  the  sovereignty  of  their  own  parasitic
faineantise."
     There  was  a  faint splutter  of applause,  but  the  majority of  the
audience remained silent, waiting.
     "This  is no new thing. Always has it been the same. No minister in the
last ten years, who, seeing the  needs and perils of  the State,  counselled
the  measures  that we  now demand  as  the  only  means  of  arresting  our
motherland in its  ever-quickening progress to the abyss,  but found himself
as a consequence cast out of office by the influence which Privilege brought
to  bear  against  him. Twice  already has M.  Necker  been  called  to  the
ministry, to  be twice  dismissed  when  his  insistent counsels  of  reform
threatened the privileges of clergy and nobility. For the third time now has
he been called to office, and at last it seems we are to have States General
in spite of Privilege. But what the privileged orders can no longer prevent,
they are determined to stultify.  Since it is now a settled thing that these
States General are to meet, at least the nobles and  the clergy  will see to
it - unless we  take measures to prevent them -  by packing the Third Estate
with their own creatures, and  denying it all effective representation, that
they convert.  the States General into an  instrument of their own will  for
the  perpetuation of the abuses by which they live. To achieve this end they
will stop at nothing. They have flouted the authority  of the King, and they
are silencing by assassination those who raise their voices to condemn them.
Yesterday  in  Rennes two  young  men  who  addressed  the  people  as I  am
addressing  you were done  to  death in the  streets  by  assassins  at  the
instigation of the nobility. Their blood cries out for vengeance."
     Beginning in a sullen mutter,  the  indignation that  moved his hearers
swelled up to express itself in a roar of anger.
     "Citizens of  Nantes, the motherland is in peril.  Let us  march to her
defence. Let us proclaim it to the world that we recognize that the measures
to liberate the  Third Estate from the slavery in which for centuries it has
groaned find only obstacles in those orders  whose phrenetic egotism sees in
the tears and suffering  of  the unfortunate  an odious  tribute  which they
would  pass  on  to  their  generations  still unborn.  Realizing  from  the
barbarity  of the means employed by our enemies to perpetuate our oppression
that we  have everything to fear from the aristocracy they would set up as a
constitutional  principle  for  the  governing  of  France, let  us  declare
ourselves at once enfranchised from it.
     "The establishment of liberty and equality should be  the aim of  every
citizen  member  of the Third  Estate; and  to  this  end  we  should  stand
indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous,  especially those who
have had the good fortune to be  born late  enough to  be able to gather for
themselves  the  precious  fruits  of  the  philosophy  of  this  eighteenth
century."
     Acclamations broke out unstintedly now. He had caught them in the snare
of his oratory. And he pressed his advantage instantly.
     "Let us all swear," he cried in a great voice, "to raise up in the name
of humanity and of liberty a rampart against our enemies, to oppose to their
bloodthirsty  covetousness the calm perseverance of men whose cause is just.
And let  us protest here and in advance against any  tyrannical decrees that
should  declare us seditious when we have none but pure and just intentions.
Let us make oath upon the  honour of our motherland that should any of us be
seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us one of  those acts termed
of political expediency - which are, in effect, but  acts of despotism - let
us swear, I say, to give a full expression to the strength that is in us and
do that in self-defence which nature, courage, and despair dictate to us."
     Loud and long rolled the applause  that greeted his  conclusion, and he
observed with satisfaction and  even some  inward  grim  amusement that  the
wealthy merchants who had been congregated upon the steps, and  who now came
crowding  about him  to  shake him by  the hand and to acclaim him, were not
merely  participants  in,  but  the  actual leaders  of,  this  delirium  of
enthusiasm.
     It confirmed him, had he needed  confirmation, in  his conviction  that
just as the philosophies  upon which this new  movement was based  had their
source in  thinkers extracted from  the bourgeoisie,  so  the need to  adopt
those  philosophies  to the practical purposes of life was most acutely felt
at  present  by  those bourgeois who found themselves  debarred by Privilege
from  the expansion  their wealth  permitted them.  If  it  might be said of
Andre-Louis that  he  had that  day  lighted  the torch of the Revolution in
Nantes,  it might  with even greater truth be said that the torch itself was
supplied by the opulent bourgeoisie.
     I need not  dwell at  any length upon the sequel.  It  is a  matter  of
history  how  that oath which Omnes Omnibus administered to  the citizens of
Nantes  formed the backbone of the  formal protest which  they  drew  up and
signed in their thousands. Nor were the results of  that powerful protest  -
which, after all, might already be said to harmonize with the expressed will
of the sovereign himself - long  delayed. Who shall say how far it  may have
strengthened  the hand  of Necker,  when on the  27th of  that same month of
November  he  compelled  the  Council  to  adopt the  most  significant  and
comprehensive of all those measures to which clergy and nobility had refused
their consent? On that date was  published the royal  decree  ordaining that
the deputies to be elected to the  States General should number at least one
thousand,  and that  the deputies  of  the  Third  Estate  should  be  fully
representative by numbering as many as the deputies  of clergy and  nobility
together.

        CHAPTER XI. THE AFTERMATHX


     Dusk  of the following  day  was falling  when  the homing  Andre-Louis
approached  Gavrillac.  Realizing  fully  what a  hue  and  cry  there would
presently be  for the apostle of revolution who had  summoned the people  of
Nantes to arms, he desired as far as  possible to  conceal the fact that  he
had  been in that  maritime city. Therefore he made a  wide detour, crossing
the  river at  Bruz, and  recrossing  it a  little above  Chavagne, so as to
approach Gavrillac from  the north, and  create the impression  that he  was
returning from Rennes, whither he was known to have gone two days ago.
     Within a mile or so of the village  he  caught in the  fading light his
first glimpse of a figure on horseback pacing slowly towards him. But it was
not until they  had come within a few  yards of each  other, and he observed
that this cloaked figure  was leaning forward to  peer  at him, that he took
much notice of it. And  then he found himself challenged almost at once by a
woman's voice.
     "It is you, Andre - at last!"
     He drew rein,  mildly surprised, to be assailed  by  another  question,
impatiently, anxiously asked.
     "Where have you been?"
     "Where have I been, Cousin Aline? Oh... seeing the world."
     "I have been patrolling  this  road since noon to-day waiting for you."
She  spoke breathlessly, in haste to explain.  "A troop of the  marechaussee
from Rennes  descended  upon Gavrillac this  morning in quest of  you.  They
turned the  chateau and the village inside out, and  at last discovered that
you were due to return with a horse hired from the Breton arme. So they have
taken up their quarters at the inn to wait for you. I have been here all the
afternoon on the lookout to warn you against walking into that trap."
     "My dear Aline! That I  should have  been  the cause of so much concern
and trouble!"
     "Never mind that. It is not important."
     "On the contrary; it is the most important part of what you tell me. It
is the rest that is unimportant."
     "Do you realize that they have come to arrest you?" she asked him, with
increasing impatience. "You are wanted for sedition, and upon a warrant from
M. de Lesdiguieres."
     "Sedition?" quoth he, and his thoughts flew to that business at Nantes.
It was impossible they could have had news of it in Rennes and acted upon it
in so short a time.
     "Yes,  sedition.  The sedition of that wicked speech of yours at Rennes
on Wednesday."
     "Oh,  that!"  said he. "Pooh!" His note of relief might have told  her,
had she  been  more attentive, that  he had  to  fear the consequences  of a
greater wickedness committed since. "Why, that was nothing."
     "Nothing?"
     "I  almost  suspect that  the real intentions of these gentlemen of the
marechaussee have been misunderstood. Most probably  they have come to thank
me  on M.  de Lesdiguieres' behalf. I restrained the people when they  would
have burnt the Palais and himself inside it."
     "After you had first  incited them to do  it. I suppose you were afraid
of your work. You drew back at the last moment. But you said things of M. de
Lesdiguieres, if you are correctly reported, which he will never forgive."
     "I see," said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought.
     But Mlle.  de Kercadiou  had already done  what thinking was necessary,
and her alert young mind had settled all that was to be done.
     "You must  not go into Gavrillac," she told him, "and you must get down
from your  horse, and  let me  take  it.  I will stable  it at  the  chateau
to-night. And sometime to morrow afternoon, by when you should be well away,
I will return it to the Breton arme."
     "Oh, but that is impossible."
     "Impossible? Why?"
     "For  several reasons. One of them is  that you haven't considered what
will happen to you if you do such a thing."
     "To  me? Do you  suppose I am afraid of that pack of  oafs  sent  by M.
Lesdiguieres? I have committed no sedition."
     "But it is almost as bad to give aid  to  one who  is  wanted  for  the
crime. That is the law."
     "What do I care  for the  law? Do you imagine that the law will presume
to touch me?"
     "Of course there is that. You are  sheltered  by  one of  the  abuses I
complained of at Rennes. I was forgetting."
     "Complain of  it as  much  as  you please, but  meanwhile profit by it.
Come, Andre, do  as I tell  you. Get down from  your horse." And then, as he
still hesitated, she stretched  out and caught him by the arm. Her voice was
vibrant  with earnestness. "Andre, you  don't  realize how serious  is  your
position.  If these people  take you, it is almost certain  that you will be
hanged. Don't you realize it? You must not go to Gavrillac. You must go away
at  once, and lie completely lost for a time until  this blows over. Indeed,
until  my uncle can bring influence  to bear to obtain your pardon, you must
keep in hiding."
     "That will be a long time, then," said Andre-Louis. M. de Kercadiou has
never cultivated friends at court."
     "There is M. de La Tour d'Azyr," she reminded him, to his astonishment.
     "That man!" he cried, and then he laughed. "But it was  chiefly against
him that I aroused the resentment of  the  people of Rennes.  I should  have
known that all my speech was not reported to you.
     "It was, and that part of it among the rest."
     "Ah!  And yet you are concerned to save me, the man who seeks  the life
of your future husband at  the hands either of the  law or of the people? Or
is it, perhaps,  that  since you have seen his true nature  revealed in  the
murder of  poor  Philippe,  you have changed  your views  on  the subject of
becoming Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr?"
     "You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning."
     "Perhaps.  But hardly to  the  extent of imagining that  M. de  La Tour
d'Azyr will ever lift a finger to do as you suggest."
     "In which, as usual,  you are  wrong. He will certainly do  so if I ask
him."
     "If you ask him?" Sheer horror rang in his voice.
     "Why, yes. You see,  I have not yet said that I will  be Marquise de La
Tour  d'Azyr.  I am  still  considering.  It  is  a position  that  has  its
advantages. One of them is that it ensures a suitor's complete obedience."
     "So, so. I see the  crooked logic of  your mind. You might go so far as
to say to him: 'Refuse me this, and I shall refuse to be your marquise.' You
would go so far as that?"
     "At need, I might."
     "And do you  not see the converse implication? Do you not see that your
hands  would then be tied, that you would be wanting in honour if afterwards
you  refused  him? And do you think that I  would  consent to  anything that
could so tie your hands? Do you think I want to see you damned, Aline?"
     Her hand fell away from his arm.
     "Oh, you are mad!" she exclaimed, quite out of patience.
     "Possibly. But I like my  madness.  There is a thrill  in it unknown to
such sanity as yours.  By your leave,  Aline,  I think  I  will  ride on  to
Gavrillac."
     "Andre, you must not! It  is death to you!" In her alarm she backed her
horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.
     It was  almost completely night by  now; but from behind  the wrack  of
clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.
     "Come, now,"  she enjoined  him. "Be reasonable.  Do as I bid you. See,
there  is  a carriage  coming  up behind  you. Do not let us  be  found here
together thus."
     He made up his mind quickly. He was not the man to be actuated by false
heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever  for the gallows  of M. de
Lesdiguieres' providing. The immediate task that he had set himself might be
accomplished. He had  made heard - and ringingly  - the voice  that M. de La
Tour  d'Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was very far  from having done
with life.
     "Aline, on one condition only."
     "And that?"
     "That  you  swear to  me  you will never seek the aid of M. de La  Tour
d'Azyr on my behalf."
     "Since you insist, and as time presses, I consent. And now ride on with
me as far as the lane. There is that carriage coming up."
     The lane to which she referred was one that branched off the road  some
three  hundred yards nearer the village and led straight up the  hill to the
chateau itself. In silence they rode together towards it, and  together they
turned into that thickly hedged and narrow bypath. At a depth of fifty yards
she halted him.
     "Now!" she bade him.
     Obediently he swung down from his horse,  and surrendered the reins  to
her.
     "Aline," he said, "I haven't words in which to thank you."
     "It isn't necessary," said she.
     "But I shall hope to repay you some day."
     "Nor is  that necessary. Could I do less than I am doing? I do not want
to hear  of you  hanged, Andre;  nor does my  uncle, though he is very angry
with you.
     "I suppose he is.
     "And  you   can  hardly  be  surprised.  You  were  his  delegate,  his
representative.  He depended upon you, and  you have turned your coat. He is
rightly  indignant, calls you a traitor, and swears that he will never speak
to you again. But he doesn't want you hanged, Andre."
     "Then we are agreed on that at least, for I don't want it myself."
     "I'll make  your peace with him.  And now - good-bye,  Andre. Send me a
word when you are safe."
     She held out a hand that looked ghostly  in the faint light. He took it
and bore it to his lips.
     "God bless you, Aline."
     She was gone,  and he stood  listening to  the receding clopper-clop of
hooves until  it grew  faint in  the distance.  Then slowly,  with shoulders
hunched and head sunk on his breast, he retraced his steps to the main road,
cogitating whither he should go. Quite suddenly he checked, remembering with
dismay that he was almost entirely without money. In Brittany itself he knew
of no dependable hiding-place,  and as long as he  was in Brittany his peril
must remain imminent. Yet to leave the province, and to leave  it as quickly
as prudence  dictated, horses would be  necessary. And how was he to procure
horses, having no money  beyond  a  single louis  d'or and  a few pieces  of
silver?
     There was also the fact that he was very weary. He had had little sleep
since Tuesday night, and not very much then;  and much of  the time had been
spent in  the  saddle, a  wearing thing to one  so little accustomed to long
rides. Worn as he was, it was unthinkable that he should go far to-night. He
might get as far as Chavagne, perhaps. But there he  must sup and sleep; and
what, then, of to-morrow?
     Had he but thought of  it before, perhaps Aline might have been able to
assist him with the loan of a few louis. His first impulse now was to follow
her to the chateau. But prudence dismissed the notion. Before he could reach
her, he must be seen by servants, and word of his presence would go forth.
     There was  no choice for him; he must  tramp as far as Chavagne, find a
bed there, and leave to-morrow until it dawned. On  the  resolve he  set his
face in the direction whence he had come. But again he paused.  Chavagne lay
on the road to Rennes. To go that way was to plunge further into  danger. He
would strike south  again. At the  foot of some meadows on this side  of the
village there was a ferry that would put him across the river. Thus he would
avoid the  village;  and  by  placing  the river  between  himself  and  the
immediate danger, he would obtain an added sense of security.
     A lane, turning  out of the highroad, a quarter  of a mile this side of
Gavrillac, led down  to that ferry. By  this lane some twenty  minutes later
came  Andre-Louis with  dragging feet. He avoided the  little cottage of the
ferryman, whose  window was alight, and in  the dark crept down to the boat,
intending if possible to put himself across. He  felt for the chain by which
the boat  was moored, and ran his fingers along  this to the point where  it
was fastened. Here to his dismay he found a padlock.
     He stood up in the  gloom and laughed silently. Of course he might have
known it. The ferry was the property of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and not likely
to  be left unfastened so that  poor devils  might cheat him  of seigneurial
dues.
     There being no possible alternative, he walked back to the cottage, and
rapped on the door. When it opened,  he stood  well back, and  aside, out of
the shaft of light that issued thence.
     "Ferry!" he rapped out, laconically.
     The ferryman, a burly scoundrel well known to him, turned aside to pick
up a lantern, and came forth as he was bidden. As he stepped from the little
porch, he levelled the  lantern so that its light fell on the  face  of this
traveller.
     "My God!" he ejaculated.
     "You realize,  I see, that I am pressed," said Andre-Louis, his eyes on
the fellow's startled countenance.
     "And well you may  be with  the  gallows  waiting  for you at  Rennes,"
growled  the ferryman. "Since you've been  so  foolish  as  to come back  to
Gavrillac, you had better go again as quickly as you can. I will say nothing
of having seen you."
     "I thank you,  Fresnel. Your  advice accords with my intention. That is
why I need the boat."
     "Ah, that, no," said Fresnel, with determination. "I'll hold my  peace,
but it's as much as my skin is worth to help you.
     "You need not have seen my face. Forget that you have seen it."
     "I'll do  that, monsieur.  But that is  all I will do. I cannot put you
across the river."
     "Then give me the key of the boat, and I will put myself across."
     "That is the same thing. I cannot. I'll  hold my tongue, but I will not
- I dare not - help you."
     Andre-Louis  looked  a  moment  into that sullen,  resolute  face,  and
understood. This man,  living under  the  shadow of La  Tour  d'Azyr,  dared
exercise no will that might he in conflict with the will of his dread lord.
     "Fresnel," he said, quietly, "if, as you say, the gallows claim me, the
thing that has brought me to this  extremity arises out  of the  shooting of
Mabey.  Had not Mabey been murdered  there would have been no need for me to
have  raised my voice as I have done. Mabey  was  your friend, I think. Will
you for his sake lend me the little help I need to save my neck?"
     The man kept his glance averted,  and the cloud  of sullenness deepened
on his face.
     "I would  if I dared, but I  dare not." Then, quite suddenly  he became
angry. It was as if in anger he sought support. "Don't you understand that I
dare not? Would you have a poor man risk his life for you? What have  you or
yours ever done for me  that you should ask that? You do not cross  to-night
in  my  ferry.  Understand that, monsieur, and  go  at  once -  go before  I
remember that it may be dangerous even  to have  talked to  you and not give
information. Go!"
     He  turned  on  his  heel  to  reenter  his  cottage,  and  a  wave  of
hopelessness swept over Andre-Louis.
     But in a second it was gone. The man must be compelled, and  he had the
means. He bethought  him of a pistol pressed upon him by Le Chapelier at the
moment  of his  leaving Rennes,  a  gift which at  the  time  he had  almost
disdained. True,  it was  not loaded, and he had no ammunition. But how  was
Fresnel to know that?
     He acted quickly. As with  his right hand he pulled it from his pocket,
with his left he caught the ferryman by the shoulder, and swung him round.
     "What do you want  now?" Fresnel demanded angrily. "Haven't I  told you
that I... "
     He  broke off short. The muzzle of the pistol was  within a foot of his
eyes.
     "I want the key of  the boat.  That is all, Fresnel. And you can either
give it me at once, or I'll take it after I have burnt your brains. I should
regret to kill you, but I shall not hesitate. It is your life against  mine,
Fresnel; and you'll not find it strange that if  one of us must die I prefer
that it shall be you."
     Fresnel  dipped a hand into his pocket, and  fetched thence  a  key. He
held it  out to  Andre-Louis in fingers that  shook - more in anger than  in
fear.
     "I yield to violence," he said,  showing his teeth like a snarling dog.
"But don't imagine that it will greatly profit you."
     Andre-Louis took the key. His pistol remained levelled.
     "You threaten me, I think," he said. "It  is not difficult to read your
threat.  The moment I am gone, you  will run to inform against me.  You will
set the marechaussee on my heels to overtake me."
     "No,  no!" cried the other. He perceived his peril. He read his doom in
the cold, sinister note on which Andre-Louis addressed him, and grew afraid.
"I swear to you, monsieur, that I have no such intention."
     "I think I had better make quite sure of you."
     "0 my God! Have mercy,  monsieur!" The knave was in  a palsy of terror.
"I mean you no harm - I swear to Heaven I mean you no harm. I will not say a
word. I will not... "
     "I would rather depend upon your  silence  than your assurances. Still,
you shall have your chance. I am a fool, perhaps, but I have a reluctance to
shed blood. Go into the house, Fresnel. Go, man. I follow you."
     In the shabby main room of that dwelling, Andre-Louis halted him again.
"Get me a length of rope," he commanded, and was readily obeyed.
     Five  minutes  later  Fresnel  was  securely  bound  to  a  chair,  and
effectively silenced by a very uncomfortable  gag improvised out  of a block
of wood and a muffler.
     On the threshold the departing Andre-Louis turned.
     "Good-night,  Fresnel," he said. Fierce eyes glared mute hatred at him.
"It  is unlikely  that your ferry will be  required again to-night. But some
one is sure  to come to your  relief  quite early in the morning. Until then
bear  your discomfort with what fortitude you can, remembering that you have
brought it entirely upon yourself by your uncharitableness. If you spend the
night considering that,  the lesson should not be lost upon  you. By morning
you may even have grown  so charitable as not to know  who it  was that tied
you up. Good-night."
     He stepped out and closed the door.
     To unlock the  ferry, and pull himself across the swift-running waters,
on  which the faint moonlight was making a silver ripple,  were matters that
engaged not  more than six or seven minutes.  He  drove the nose of the boat
through the decaying sedges that fringed the southern  bank  of  the stream,
sprang ashore, and made the  little craft secure. Then, missing the footpath
in the dark, he struck out across a sodden meadow in quest of the road.

         * BOOK II: THE BUSKIN * 

        CHAPTER I. HE TRESPASSERS


     Coming  presently  upon the Redon  road, Andre-Louis,  obeying instinct
rather than reason, turned  his  face to  the south, and plodded wearily and
mechanically forward. He had no clear idea of whither  he  was going,  or of
whither he should go. All that imported at the moment was to put as  great a
distance as possible between Gavrillac and himself.
     He had a vague, half-formed notion  of  returning to Nantes; and there,
by employing the newly  found  weapon of his oratory, excite the people into
sheltering him as  the first victim of the persecution  he had foreseen, and
against which he had sworn them to take  up arms. But the idea was one which
he entertained  merely  as an indefinite possibility  upon which he felt  no
real impulse to act.
     Meanwhile he chuckled  at the thought of  Fresnel  as he  had last seen
him,  with his muffled face and glaring  eyeballs. "For one who was anything
but a man of action," he writes, "I felt that I had acquitted myself none so
badly."  It  is   a  phrase  that  recurs  at  intervals   in   his  sketchy
"Confessions." Constantly is he reminding you that he is a man of mental and
not  physical  activities, and apologizing when dire  neccessity drives  him
into  acts  of  violence. I suspect  this  insistence  upon his  philosophic
detachment - for which I confess he had justification enough - to betray his
besetting vanity.
     With  increasing  fatigue came  depression  and  self-criticism. He had
stupidly overshot his mark in insultingly denouncing M. de Lesdiguieres. "It
is much better," he says somewhere, "to be wicked than to be stupid. Most of
this world's misery is the  fruit not  as priests tell us of wickedness, but
of stupidity." And  we know that of all stupidities  he considered anger the
most deplorable. Yet he had permitted himself  to  be angry with a  creature
like  M. de  Lesdiguieres  - a  lackey,  a fribble,  a nothing, despite  his
potentialities for evil. He could perfectly have discharged his self-imposed
mission without arousing the vindictive resentment of the King's Lieutenant.
     He  beheld himself  vaguely launched upon life with the  riding-suit in
which  he stood, a single  louis d'or and  a few  pieces  of silver  for all
capital, and  a knowledge of  law which had been inadequate to  preserve him
from the consequences of infringing it.
     He  had, in addition  - but  these  things  that  were to  be  the real
salvation of him he  did  not reckon - his gift of laughter, sadly repressed
of late, and the philosophic outlook and mercurial temperament which are the
stock-in-trade of your adventurer in all ages.
     Meanwhile  he tramped mechanically on through the night, until  he felt
that he could tramp no more. He had skirted the little  township of Guichen,
and now within a half-mile of Guignen, and with Gavrillac a good seven miles
behind him, his legs refused to carry him any farther.
     He  was midway across  the vast common to the north of Guignen  when he
came to a halt. He had left  the road,  and taken heedlessly to the footpath
that struck across the waste of indifferent pasture interspersed with clumps
of gorse. A  stone's  throw away  on  his right the common was bordered by a
thorn hedge. Beyond this loomed  a tall building which he knew to be an open
barn, standing  on  the  edge of  a long stretch of meadowland.  That  dark,
silent  shadow  it  may  have  been that had brought  him  to  a standstill,
suggesting shelter to his  subconsciousness. A moment he hesitated; then  he
struck across towards  a  spot where a  gap in  the hedge  was  closed  by a
five-barred gate. He pushed the gate open, went through  the gap,  and stood
now before the barn. It was as big as a house, yet consisted of no more than
a roof carried upon half a  dozen  tall,  brick  pillars. But densely packed
under that roof was a great  stack  of hay that promised a warm couch on  so
cold a  night. Stout timbers had been  built  into  the brick  pillars, with
projecting ends to serve as  ladders by which the labourer  might  climb  to
pack or  withdraw hay. With what  little strength remained him,  Andre-Louis
climbed by one of these and landed safely at the top, where he was forced to
kneel, for lack of room to stand upright. Arrived there, he removed his coat
and neckcloth, his sodden boots and stockings. Next he cleared a  trough for
his body, and lying down in it, covered himself  to the neck with the hay he
had  removed. Within  five  minutes he  was lost  to  all worldly  cares and
soundly asleep.
     When  next  he awakened, the sun was already  high in the heavens, from
which he concluded that  the  morning was  well advanced; and this before he
realized  quite where he was or  how  he came there.  Then  to his awakening
senses  came a  drone  of voices close at  hand, to which at  first he  paid
little   heed.   He  was   deliciously  refreshed,  luxuriously  drowsy  and
luxuriously warm.
     But  as  consciousness  and  memory grew more full, he raised his  head
clear  of the hay that he might free both ears to listen, his pulses faintly
quickened by the nascent fear that those voices might bode him no good. Then
he caught the reassuring accents  of a woman,  musical  and silvery,  though
laden with alarm.
     "Ah, mon Dieu, Leandre,  let us  separate at once. If  it  should be my
father... "
     And upon this a man's voice broke in, calm and reassuring:
     "No,  no, Climene; you are mistaken. There is  no one  coming.  We  are
quite safe. Why do you start at shadows?"
     "Ah, Leandre, if he should find us here together! I tremble at the very
thought."
     More was not needed to reassure Andre-Louis. He