CHAPTER V.
WHY THE POLICE AGENT CAME WITH THE CONSTABLES.
About six that morning a police-agent from the capital, accompanied bytwo inferior policemen, had arrived at Villers Cotterets where theypresented themselves to the police justice, and asked him to tell themwhere Farmer Billet dwelt.
Five hundred paces from the farmhouse the corporal, as the exempt'srank was in the semi-military organization of the police of the era,perceived a peasant working in the field, of whom he inquired about hismaster.
The man pointed to a horseman a quarter of a league off.
"He won't be back till nine," he said; "there he is inspecting thework. He comes in for breakfast, then."
"If you want to please your master, run and tell him a gentleman fromtown is waiting to see him."
"Do you mean Dr. Gilbert?"
"Run and tell him, all the same."
No sooner was he notified than Billet galloped home but when heentered the room where he expected to see his landlord under the canopyof the large fireplace, none were there but his wife, sitting in themiddle, plucking ducks with all the care such a task demands. Catherinewas up in her room, preparing finery for Sunday, from the pleasuregirls feel in getting ready for fun.
"Who asked for me?" demanded Billet, stopping on the threshold andlooking round.
"Me," replied a flute-like voice behind him.
"Turning, the yeoman beheld the police-agent and his two myrmidons.
"How now? what do you want?" he snarled, making three steps backwards.
"Next to nothing, dear Master Billet," replied the unctuous speaker:"we have to make a search in your premises, that is all."
"A search, hey?" repeated Billet, glancing at his gun, on hooks overthe mantelpiece. "Since we had a National Assembly," he said, "Ithought citizens were no longer exposed to proceedings which smack ofanother age and style of things. What do you want with a peaceable andloyal man?"
Policemen are alike all the world over in their never answeringquestions of their victims; some bewail them while clapping on the ironcuffs, searching them or pinioning; they are the most dangerous as theyappear to be the best. The fellow who descended on Farmer Billet was ofthe hypocritical school, those who have a tear for those they overhaul,but they never let their hands be idle to dash away the tear.
Uttering a sigh, this man waved his hand to his acolytes, who went upto Billet. He jumped back and reached out for his musket.
But his hand was turned aside from the doubly dangerous weapon to himwho made use of it and her whose pair of slight hands was strong withterror and mighty with entreaty.
It was Catherine who had rushed to the spot in time to save her fatherfrom the crime of rebellion to justice.
After this first outburst, Billet made no further resistance.
The police agent ordered him to be locked up in one of the groundfloor rooms which he had noticed to be barred, though Billet, who hadthe grating done, had forgotten the precaution. Catherine was placedin a first-floor room and Mrs. Billet was shoved into the kitchen asinoffensive. Master of the fort, the Exempt set to searching all thefurniture.
"What are you doing?" roared Billet who saw through the keyhole thathis house was turned out of windows.
"Looking, as you see, for something we cannot find," replied the policeofficer.
"But you may be robbers, burglars, scoundrels!"
"Oh, you wrong us, master," rejoined the fellow through the door; "weare honest folk like yourself--only we are in the wages of the King andwe have to obey his orders."
"His Majesty's orders," repeated the farmer: "King Louis XVI. givesyou orders to rummage my desk and turn my things upside down? When thefamine was so dreadful last year that we thought of eating our horses;when the hail on the thirteenth of July two years back cut our wheatto chaff--his Majesty never bothered about us. What has happened at myfarm at present for him to concern himself--never having seen or knownme?"
"You will please excuse me," said the man, opening the door a littleand warily showing a search-warrant issued by the Chief of Police butas usual commencing with "In the King's Name"--"His Majesty has heardabout you, old fellow; though he may not personally know you, do notkick at the honor he does you, and try to receive properly those whomhe sends in his royal name."
With a polite bow and a friendly wink, the chief policeman slammed thedoor, and recommenced the ferreting.
Billet held his tongue and with folded arms, trod the room: he felthe was in the men's power. The searching went on silently. Thesemen seemed fallen from the skies. No one had seen them but thefarm-hand who had pointed out the way to the farmhouse. In the yardthe watch-dogs had not barked; the leader of the expedition must be acelebrated man in his line and not making his first arrest.
Billet heard his daughter wailing in the room overhead. He recalled herprophetic words, for he had no doubt that the investigation was causedby the doctor's book.
Nine o'clock struck, and Billet could count his hired men returningfor their morning meal from the fields. This made him comprehend that,in case of conflict, he could have numbers of not law on his side.This made the blood boil in his veins. He had not the temper to bearinaction any longer and grasping the door he gave it such a shaking bythe handle that with such another he would send the lock flying.
The police opened it at once and confronted the farmer, threatening andupright before the house turned inside out.
"But, to make it short, what are you looking for?" roared the cagedlion: "Tell me, or by the Lord Harry of Navarre, I swear I'll thump itout of you."
The flocking in of the farm lads had not escaped the corporal's alerteye; he reckoned them and was convinced that, in case of a tussel, hecould not crow on the battlefield.
With more honeyed politeness than before, he sneaked up to the speakerand said as he bowed to the ground:
"I am going to tell you, Master Billet, though it goes dead against therules and regulations. We are looking for a subversive publication, andincendiary pamphlet put on the back list by the Royal Censors."
"A book in the house of a farmer who cannot read?"
"What is there amazing in that, when you are friend of the author andhe sent you a copy?"
"I am not the friend of Dr. Gilbert but his humble servant," repliedthe other. "To be his friend would be too great an honor for a poorfarmer like me."
This unreflected reply, in which Billet betrayed himself by confessingthat he not only knew the author, which was natural being his landlord,but the book--assured victory to the officer of the law. This man drewhimself up to his full height, with his most benignant air, and smilingas he tapped Billet on the shoulder, so that he seemed to cleave hishead in twain, he said:
"You have let the cat out of the bag. You have been the first to nameGilbert, whose name we kept back out of discretion."
"That's so," muttered the farmer. "Look here, I will not merely own upbut--will you stop pulling things about if I tell you where the bookis?"
"Why, certainly," said the chief making a sign to his associates; "forthe book is the object of the search. Only," he added with a sly grin,"don't allow you have one copy when you have a dozen."
"I swear, I have only the one."
"We are obliged to get that down to a certainty by the most minutesearch, Master Billet. Have five minute's farther patience. We are onlypoor servants of justice, under orders from those above us, and youwill not oppose honorable men doing their duty--for there are such inall walks of life."
He had found the flaw in the armor: he knew how to talk Billet over.
"Go on, but be done quickly," he said, turning his back on them.
The man closed the door softly and still more quietly turned the key:which made Billet snap his fingers: sure that he could burst the dooroff its hinges if he had to do it.
On his part the policeman waved his fellows to the work. All three in atrice went through the papers, books and linen. Suddenly, at the bottomof an open clothespress, they per
ceived a small oak casket clamped withiron. The corporal pounced on it as a vulture on its prey. By the mereview, by his scent, by the place where it was stored, he had divinedwhat he sought, for he quickly hid the box under his tattered mantleand beckoned to his bravoes that he had accomplished the errand.
At that very moment Billet had come to the end of his patience.
"I tell you that you cannot find what you are looking for unless I tellyou," he called out. "There is no need to 'make hay' with my things. Iam not a conspirator, confound you! Come, get this into your noddles.Answer, or, by all the blue moons, I will go to Paris and complain tothe King, to the Assembly and to the people."
At this time the King was still spoken of before the people.
"Yes, dear Master Billet, we hear you, and we are ready to bow to yourexcellent reasons. Come, let us know where the book is, and, as we arenow convinced that you have only the single copy, we will seize thatand get away. There it is in a nutshell."
"Well, the book is in the hands of a lad to whom I entrusted it thismorning to carry it to a friend's," said Billet.
"What is the name of this honest lad?" queried the man in blackcoaxingly.
"Ange Pitou; he is a poor orphan whom I housed from charity, and whodoes not know the nature of the book."
"I thank you, dear Master Billet," said the corporal, throwing thelinen into the hole in the wall and closing the lid. "And where maythis nice boy be, prithee?"
"I fancy I saw him as I came in, under the arbor by the Spanishclimbing beans. Go and take the book away but do not hurt him."
"Hurt? oh, Master, you do not know us to think we would hurt a fly."
They advanced in the indicated direction, where they had the adventurewith Pitou already described. Catherine had heard enough in the wordsabout the doctor, the book, and the search-warrant, to save theinnocent holder of the treasonable pamphlet.
Since the double errand of the police was fulfilled, the commander ofthe expedition was only too glad of the excuse to get far away. So hebounded on his men by his voice and example till they ran him into thewoods. Then they came to a halt in the bushes. In the chase they werejoined by two more policeman who had hidden on the farm with orders notto run up unless called.
"Faith, it is a good job the lad did not have the box instead of thebook," said the organizer of the attack, "we would be obliged to takepost-horses to catch up with him. Hang me if he is a man at all so muchas a deer."
"But you have the prize, eh, Master Wolfstep?" said one of thesubordinates.
"Certainly, comrade, for here it is," answered the police agent, towhom the nickname had been given for his sidelong "lope" or wolfishtread and its lightness.
"Then we are entitled to the promised reward, eh?"
"Ay, and here you are," said the captain of the squad, distributinggold pieces among them with no preference for those who had activelyprosecuted the search and the others.
"Long live the Chief!" called out the men.
"There is no harm in your cheering the Chief," said Wolfstep: "but itis not he who cashes up this trip. It is some friend of his, lady orgentleman, who wants to keep in the background."
"I wager that he or she wants that little box bad," suggested one ofthe hirelings.
"Rigoulet, my friend," said the leader, "I have always certified thatyou are a chap full of keenness; but while we wait for the gift to winits reward, we had better be on the move. That confounded countrymandoes not look easily cooled down, and when he perceives the casket ismissing, he may set his farm boys on our track; and they are poacherscapable of keeling us over with a shot as surely as the best Swissmarksmen in his Majesty's forces."
This advice was that of the majority, for the five men kept on alongthe forest skirts out of sight till they reached the highroad.
This was no useless precaution for Catherine had no sooner seen theparty disappear in pursuit of Pitou than, full of confidence in thelast one's agility, who would lead them a pretty chase, she called onthe farm-men to open the door.
They knew something unusual was going on but not exactly what.
They ran in to set her free and she liberated her father.
Billet seemed in a dream. Instead of rushing out of the room, he walkedforth warily, and acted as if not liking to stay in any one place andyet hated to look on the furniture and cupboards disturbed by the posse.
"They have got the book, anyway?" he questioned.
"I believe they took that, dad, but not Pitou, who cut away? If theyare sticking to him, they will all be over at Cayelles or Vauciennes bythis time."
"Capital! Poor lad, he owes all this harrying to me."
"Oh, father, do not bother about him but look to ourselves. Be easyabout Pitou getting out of his scrape. But what a state of disorder!look at this, mother!"
"They are low blackguards," said Mother Billet: "they have not evenrespected my linen press."
"What, tumbled over the linen?" said Billet, springing towards thecavity which the corporal had carefully closed but into which, openingit, he plunged both arms deeply. "It is not possible!"
"What are you looking for, father?" asked the girl as her father lookedabout him bewildered.
"Look, look if you can see it anywhere: the casket! that is what thevillains were raking for."
"Dr. Gilbert's casket?" inquired Mrs. Billet, who commonly let othersdo the talking and work in critical times.
"Yes, that most precious casket," responded the farmer thrusting hishands into his mop of hair.
"You frighten me, father," said Catherine.
"Wretch that I am," cried the man, in rage, "and fool never to suspectthat. I never thought about the casket. Oh, what will the doctor say?What will he think? That I am a betrayer, a coward, a worthless fellow!"
"Oh, heavens, what was in it, dad?"
"I don't know; but I answered for it to the doctor on my life and Iought to have been killed defending it."
He made so threatening a gesture against himself that the womenrecoiled in terror.
"My horse, bring me my horse," roared the madman. "I must let thedoctor know--he must be apprised."
"I told Pitou to do that."
"Good! no, what's the use?--a man afoot. I must ride to Paris. Did younot read in his letter that he was going there? My horse!"
"And will you leave us in the midst of anguish?"
"I must, my girl, I must," he said, kissing Catherine convulsively:"the doctor said: 'If ever you lose that box, or rather if it is stolenfrom you, come to warn me the instant you perceive the loss, Billet,wherever I am. Let nothing stop you, not even the life of man.'"
"Lord, what can be in it?"
"I don't know a bit. But I do know that it was placed in my keeping,and that I have let it be snatched away. But here is my nag. I shalllearn where the father is by his son at the college."
Kissing his wife and his daughter for the last time, the farmerbestrode his steed and set off towards the city at full gallop.
Taking the Bastile; Or, Pitou the Peasant Page 6