The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER XXX.

  UNDER THE WINDOW.

  On the surface all was calm and almost smiling on the Billet Farm.

  As before, Billet, on his strong horse, trotted all over the landkeeping his hands up to the mark. But a sharp observer would havenoticed that on whatever part he was he tried to get a look at hisdaughter's room window.

  Though his face had a little softened toward her, Catherine felt thatpaternal distrust hovered over her.

  Mother Billet was vegetating as formerly; she did not know that herhusband harbored suspicion in his bosom, and her daughter anguish inhers.

  Pitou, after his glory as captain of the uniformed National Guards, hadfallen back into his habitual state of sweet and kindly melancholy. Bythe postmark on Isidore's letters he noticed that he had returned toParis.

  He concluded that he would not be long before returning to his estate.Pitou's heart shrank at this prospect.

  Under pretence of snaring rabbits to give his friend more succulent foodthan farm fare, he haunted the wood until he saw Catherine. She wasseeking him, too, for she had a word for him.

  He need not trouble about her letters as she would not be receiving anyfor some days.

  He guessed that the writer was coming in person to repeat his vows.

  "Have you noticed," he said, "how gloomy the master has become of late?"

  Catherine turned pale.

  "I tell you as a sure thing that whoever is the cause of this change insuch a hearty good fellow, will have an unpleasant time with him when hemeets him."

  "You say, 'him,'" said Catherine; "why may he not have quarrelled witha woman, against whom he nurses this sullen rage?"

  "You have seen something? have you any reason to fear?"

  "I have to fear all that a girl may fear when she loves above herstation and has an irritated father."

  "It seems to me that in your place," Pitou ventured to give advice, "Ishould--no, it nearly killed you to part with him, and to give him upaltogether would be your death. Oh, all this is very unfortunate!"

  "Hush, speak of something else--here comes father."

  Indeed, seeing his daughter with a man, the farmer rode up at speed: butrecognizing Pitou, he asked him in to dinner with less gloom on hisface.

  "Gracious," muttered Catherine at the door, "can he know?"

  "What?" whispered Pitou.

  "Nothing," replied the girl, going up to her room and closing theshutters.

  When she came down, dinner was ready, but she ate little.

  "You might tell us what brought you our way to-day," asked the morosefarmer of Pitou.

  The latter showed some brass wire loops.

  "The rabbits over our way are getting shy of me. I am going to lay somesnares on your farm, if you do not mind. Yours are so tender from thegrain they get."

  "I did not know you had so sweet a tooth."

  "Oh, not for me but for Miss Catherine."

  "Yes, she has no appetite, lately, that is a fact."

  At this moment, Pitou felt a touch to his foot. It was Catherinedirecting his attention to the window past which a man was making forthe door where he entered with the farmer's gun on his shoulder.

  "Father Clovis," he was hailed by the master.

  Clovis was the old soldier who had taught Pitou to drill.

  "Yes, Papa Billet, a bargain is a bargain. You paid me to pick out adozen bullets to suit your rifle and here they are."

  He handed the farmer his gun and a bag of bullets. Calm as the veteranwas, he inspired terror in Catherine as he sat at table.

  "By the way I cast thirteen bullets instead of a dozen so I squanderedone on the hare you see. Your gun carries fine."

  "Is there a prize for shooting offered anywhere?" asked Pitou simply."You will win it, I guess like you did that silver cup and the bowl youare drinking of, Miss Catherine. Why, what is the matter?"

  "Nothing," replied the girl opening her eyes which she had half closedand leaning back in her chair.

  "All I know is," said Billet, "that I am going to lay in wait. It is awolf, I think."

  Clovis turned the bullets out on a plate. Had Pitou looked from them toCatherine he would have seen that she nearly swooned.

  "Wolf?" repeated he. "I am astonished that before the snowfalls weshould see them here."

  "The shepherd says one is prowling round, out Boursonne way."

  Pitou looked from the speaker to Catherine.

  "Yes, he was spied last year, I was told; but he went off, and it wasthought forever; but he has turned up again. I mean to turn him down!"

  This was all the girl could endure; she uttered a cry and staggered outof the door. Pitou followed her to offer his arm and found her in thekitchen.

  "What ails you?"

  "Can you not guess? he knows that Isidore has arrived at Boursonne thismorning, and he is going to shoot him."

  "I will put him on his guard----"

  The voice of Billet interrupted the pair.

  "If you are going to lay snares, Master Pitou, it seems to me it is timeyou were jogging. Father Clovis is going your way."

  "I am off," and he went out by the kitchen door, while Catherine went upto her room, where she bolted the door.

  The forest was Pitou's kingdom and when he had left Clovis to go home,he felt easy about what he had undertaken to do.

  He thought of running to Boursonne and warning Viscount Isidore; but hemight not be believed and the warning might not be heeded.

  He considered he had better wait.

  He had not a doubt that at the windows of Billet's room and of hisdaughter's, they two were on the alert. All the tragedy or its failuredepended on him. If he let the viscount pass within rifle range, hewould let him march to his death.

  In fact, Billet, sure that the nobleman would not marry a farmer'sdaughter, had resolved to wipe out the insult done him in blood.

  Suddenly Pitou, lying on the ground in a clump of willow, heard thegallop of a horse.

  Billet must have heard it also for he came out of the house; and Angehad not a doubt that the willow copse which he had chosen to spyCatherine's window had for the same reason recommended itself to thefarmer.

  As the latter advanced, he slipped back and slid down into the ditch.

  The horse crossed the road at sixty paces, and as a shadow was soondetached from it, the rider must have leaped off, and turned the steedloose. It went on without stopping.

  There was ten minutes of dreadful silence.

  The night was so black that Pitou, reckoning his eyes better thanBillet's, hoped that he alone saw the shadow stealing towards the house.

  But at the same moment, as the shadow went up under Catherine's window,Pitou heard the click of a hammer going on full cock on the gun.

  The shadow did not notice but rapped three times on the shutter.

  Pitou quivered--Catherine would surely blame him for not having passedthe warning as he had promised.

  But what could he do?

  Pitou heard the hammer fall and saw the priming flash; the powder in thetouchhole did not catch and the living target received no bullet.

  At the same moment Catherine opened her window. She saw all and cried:"Up, it is my father!" she almost dragged Charny in at the casement.

  The farmer had his second barrel to fire and he thought:

  "He must come out and this time I will not miss him."

  Presently the dogs began barking.

  "Oh, the jade," he growled, "she has let him out at the back, throughthe orchard."

  He ran round the house to overtake the escaping prey.

  "There is hope," thought Pitou: "aim cannot be taken in the night as inthe day and the hand is not so steady in firing on a man as at a wolf inthe den."

  Indeed, Billet had fired on a man whom he saw scaling the orchard wallbut he had got away on a horse which came up at his whistle. WhileBillet was following the pair in vague hope that he had hurt the riderso that he must fall out of the saddle, Ange reached the o
rchard wherehe saw Catherine leaning up against a tree with her hand on her heart.

  "Let me take you into the house," he said.

  "No, I will not live under the roof of the man who shot at mysweetheart."

  "But then----"

  "Do you refuse to accompany me?"

  "No, but----"

  "Come."

  No one saw them leave the farm and both disappeared in the valley.

  God only knew the refuge of Catherine Billet!

  All night a dreadful storm raged in the heart of the injured father.Something vital seemed to snap in the mighty frame of the man when hereturned emptyhanded to see that his daughter had taken to flight.

  When he came home at nine as usual to breakfast, his wife said. "Whereis our Catherine?"

  "Catherine?" he said with an effort. "The air is bad on the farm and Isent her over to her aunt's in Sologne."

  "Good, she wanted a change. Will she make a long stay?"

  "Till she gets better."

  Drying her tears the good woman went to sit in the chimney corner whileher husband rode off into the fields.

  Dr. Raynal had passed a restless night also. He was roused by ViscountCharny's lackey pulling at his nightbell and, riding over to Boursonne,found that he had a couple of bullets in his side. Neither wound wasdangerous, though one was serious. In three calls he set him up again;but he had to wear a bandage for a time, which did not prevent himriding out. Nobody had an idea of his accident.

  It was time for him to be healed--time to return to Paris!

  Mirabeau had promised the Queen to save her, and she wrote to herbrother on the Austrian throne:

  "I follow your counsel. I am making use of Mirabeau but there is nothingof weight in my relations with him."

  On the following day, he saw groups on the way to the Assembly and wentup to learn the nature of the outcries.

  Little newsheets were passing from hand to hand and newsdealers werecalling out:

  "Buy the Great Treason of Mirabeau!"

  "It seems this concerns me," he said, taking a piece of money out. "Myfriend," he said to one of the venders who had a donkey carryingpanniers full of the sheets, "how much is this Great Treason ofMirabeau?"

  "Nothing to you, my lord," replied the man, looking him in the eye, "andit is struck off in an edition of one hundred thousand."

  The orator went away thoughtful. A lampoon in such an edition and givenaway by a newsman who knew him!

  Still the sheet might be one of those catchpennys which abounded at thatepoch, stupid or spiteful. No, it was the list of his debts, accurate,and the note that their 200,000 francs had been paid by the Queen'salmoner on a certain date; also the statement that the court paid himsix thousand francs per month. Lastly the account of his reception bythe Queen.

  What mysterious enemy pursued him, or rather pursued the monarchy like ahellhound?

  This is what we shall learn, with many another secret which none butCagliostro the superhuman might divine, in the sequel to this volumeentitled "THE ROYAL LIFEGUARD."

  THE END

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