The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (open ebook txt) 📕

While the young officer was thus closing in upon the Chouans, the little detachment under Hulot had reached a point still parallel with that at which Gudin had arrived. The old soldier, at the head of his men, was silently gliding along the hedges with the ardor of a young man; he jumped them from time to time actively enough, casting his wary eyes to the heights and listening with the ear of a hunter to every noise. In the third field to which he came he found a woman about thirty years old, with bent back, hoeing the ground vigorously, while a small boy with a sickle in his hand was knocking the hoarfrost from the rushes, which he cut and laid in a heap. At the noise Hulot made in jumping the hedge, the boy and his mother raised their heads. Hulot mistook the young woman for an old one, naturally enough. Wrinkles, coming long before their time, furrowed her face and neck; she was clothed so grotesquely in a worn-out goatskin that if it had not been for a dirty yellow petticoat, a distinctive mark of sex, Hulot would hardly have known the gender she belonged to; for the meshes of her long black hair were twisted up and hidden by a red worsted cap. The tatters of the little boy did not cover him, but left his skin exposed.

“Ho! old woman!” called Hulot, in a low voice, approaching her, “where is the Gars?”

The twenty men who accompanied Hulot now jumped the hedge.

“Hey! if you want the Gars you’ll have to go back the way you came,” said the woman, with a suspicious glance at the troop.

“Did I ask you the road to Fougeres, old carcass?” said Hulot, roughly. “By Saint-Anne of Auray, have you seen the Gars go by?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” replied the woman, bending over her hoe.

“You damned garce, do you want to have us eaten up by the Blues who are after us?”

At these words the woman raised her head and gave another look of distrust at the troop as she replied, “How can the Blues be after you? I have just seen eight or ten of them who were going back to Fougeres by the lower road.”

“One would think she meant to stab us with that nose of hers!” cried Hulot. “Here, look, you old nanny-goat!”

And he showed her in the distance three or four of his sentinels, whose hats, guns, and uniforms it was easy to recognize.

“Are you going to let those fellows cut the throats of men who are sent by Marche-a-Terre to protect the Gars?” he cried, angrily.

“Ah, beg pardon,” said the woman; “but it is so easy to be deceived. What parish do you belong to?”

“Saint-Georges,” replied two or three of the men, in the Breton patois, “and we are dying of hunger.”

“Well, there,” said the woman; “do you see that smoke down there? that’s my house. Follow the path to the right, and you will come to the rock above it. Perhaps you’ll meet my man on the way. Galope-Chopine is sure to be on watch to warn the Gars. He is spending the day in our house,” she said, proudly, “as you seem to know.”

“Thank you, my good woman,” replied Hulot. “Forward, march! God’s thunder! we’ve got him,” he added, speaking to his men.

The detachment followed its leader at a quick step through the path pointed out to them. The wife of Galope-Chopine turned pale as she heard the un-Catholic oath of the so-called Chouan. She looked at the gaiters and goatskins of his men, then she caught her boy in her arms, and sat down on the ground, saying, “May the holy Virgin of Auray and the ever blessed Saint-Labre have pity upon us! Those men are not ours; their shoes have no nails in them. Run down by the lower road and warn your father; you may save his head,” she said to the boy, who disappeared like a deer among the bushes.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil met no one on her way, neither Blues nor Chouans. Seeing the column of blue smoke which was rising from the half-ruined chimney of Galope-Chopine’s melancholy dwelling, her heart was seized with a violent palpitation, the rapid, sonorous beating of which rose to her throat in waves. She stopped, rested her hand against a tree, and watched the smoke which was serving as a beacon to the foes as well as to the friends of the young chieftain. Never had she felt such overwhelming emotion.

“Ah! I love him too much,” she said, with a sort of despair. “To-day, perhaps, I shall no longer be mistress of myself—”

She hurried over the distance which separated her from the cottage, and reached the courtyard, the filth of which was now stiffened by the frost. The big dog sprang up barking, but a word from Galope-Chopine silenced him and he wagged his tail. As she entered the house Marie gave a look which included everything. The marquis was not there. She breathed more freely, and saw with pleasure that the Chouan had taken some pains to clean the dirty and only room in his hovel. He now took his duck-gun, bowed silently to his guest and left the house, followed by his dog. Marie went to the threshold of the door and watched him as he took the path to the right of his hut. From there she could overlook a series of fields, the curious openings to which formed a perspective of gates; for the leafless trees and hedges were no longer a barrier to a full view of the country. When the Chouan’s broad hat was out of sight Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned round to look for the church at Fougeres, but the shed concealed it. She cast her eyes over the valley of the Couesnon, which lay before her like a vast sheet of muslin, the whiteness of which still further dulled a gray sky laden with snow. It was one of those days when nature seems dumb and noises are absorbed by the atmosphere. Therefore, though the Blues and their contingent were marching through the country in three lines, forming a triangle which drew together as they neared the cottage, the silence was so profound that Mademoiselle de Verneuil was overcome by a presentiment which added a sort of physical pain to her mental torture. Misfortune was in the air.

At last, in a spot where a little curtain of wood closed the perspective of gates, she saw a young man jumping the barriers like a squirrel and running with astonishing rapidity. “It is he!” she thought.

The Gars was dressed as a Chouan, with a musket slung from his shoulder over his goatskin, and would have been quite disguised were it not for the grace of his movements. Marie withdrew hastily into the cottage, obeying one of those instinctive promptings which are as little explicable as fear itself. The young man was soon beside her before the chimney, where a bright fire was burning. Both were voiceless, fearing to look at each other, or even to make a movement. One and the same hope united them, the same doubt; it was agony, it was joy.

“Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil at last, in a trembling voice, “your safety alone has brought me here.”

“My safety!” he said, bitterly.

“Yes,” she answered; “so long as I stay at Fougeres your life is threatened, and I love you too well