“En moins de rien, vous verrez les écoliers des Jésuites, Cicérons improvisés, faire la shmenr de leurs pareas; ils jasent, ils latinisent, ils scandent; docteurs, quinze ans, et sots á jamais.”
MICHELET.
LATE one evening Griselle came hastily into the kitchen and keeping room of the farmhouse, where the large family of their host sate grouped around the hearth. Her pale and frightened looks caused two or three of these good-natured peasants to exclaim together, “What is it, ma’amselle? Is young monsieur ill again?”
“My brother is well enough, thank you. But I am uneasy about my uncle.”
“I am not surprised, ma’amselle,” said the farmer’s wife, looking up from her spinning wheel. “M. le Curé has eaten nothing to speak of these two days.”
“Just now he sleeps,” Griselle continued; “an uneasy sleep, broken with moanings. There is a strange look in his face. I fear―”
“Ah, yes, that is it!” groaned the old grandfather from his chair in the comer. “We might have guessed it. That fever is so taking.”
“Hush, father! Don’t you see how frightened the poor young lady looks already?” whispered his good-natured daughter-in-law. Then aloud, “Perhaps it is only fatigue, ma’amselle. M. le Curé never spared himself while the young gentleman was ill. I will come with you and see him. I should know the look of a sick man, for many a one have I tended.”
She came, and shook her head gravely.
“You think him very ill then?” said Griselle.
“M. Gustave has been worse. But we will send for the physician. Pierre shall go for him at once.”
“At this hour, and such a distance! It is too much to ask―” Griselle hesitated.
“Say no more, ma’amselle. It is both honor and pleasure for my Pierre to serve M. le Curé; for he brings the blessing of the good God on our house.”
Before an answer could be made she was gone. Griselle returned to her uncle’s room. She soon heard the sound of horse hoofs clattering briskly over the stony road, and listened dreamily until they died away in the distance.
The voice of Goudin aroused her. “It seems hard this new trouble should come to thee, my child,” he said. “Gustave so much better, and our return already planned. I had hoped—” He paused, looking at her thoughtfully and somewhat sadly. “No matter. God will do all for thee, and all He does is well.”
It was difficult for Griselle to realize this, when the physician came and confirmed her fears that M. Goudin had taken the fever.
After that, the long days wore slowly on; but they were not without comfort. Gustave’s recovery was rapid. Once able to leave the house, he began to take an interest, new and very beneficial to him, in country scenes and occupations. Often he would come in from the orchard or the farm, with the glow of returning health on his pale cheek, and tell Griselle, with a kind of triumph, how he had helped to gather the apples, or how Pierre had taken him to see the field his father intended to add to their farm.
Nor were the duties of the sickroom trying. The fever was not violent. The delirium never went beyond quiet wanderings of the mind amongst old scenes and faces, or gentle exhortations addressed to the sick and sorrowing; whether these were the parishioners of St. André, the patients of Charenton, or the associates of Deacon Pâris, was not always apparent. Griselle was at first greatly surprised at the frequency, as well as at the affection and reverence, with which the name of Valérie was mentioned. Was there some mystery interwoven with that name? She might guess, but she never knew. Once, however, the priest said to her, evidently mistaking her for Madame Bairdon, “Little Valérie, you are not like your mother― you love this present world. But He that heareth prayer will remember, and though I am weak, He is strong.”
Others would gladly have shared Griselle’s loving tares for the uncomplaining, unexacting sufferer; but she would seldom accept of help, preferring to do everything for M. Goudin herself. She had a dim, unexplained feeling that in tending him she was fulfilling her stepmother’s lack of service.
But, as time passed, she saw no return of strength, no progress towards recovery, though she looked for it, at first confidently and hopefully, then anxiously, at last sadly―almost despairingly.
“My daughter,” the priest said one day, “I am better―no, stronger―today. I want you to go to the orchard with the girls, and let Gustave stay awhile with me.”
Griselle obeyed, though reluctantly; and Gustave, with a subdued uneasy look, came softly into the darkened room, and took her place by the bedside.
After an interval of silence, the priest said gently, “Will you do a little service for me, my son? In yonder sacoche there is paper, and on the table an inkhorn and a pen. Write, if you will be so good, at my dictation.”
Gustave found the paper, and sat down silently at the table. “Write as follows,” Goudin resumed,―
“MONSIEUR L’ABBÉ,―A dying man, and a priest, needs your holy ministrations. He ventures to entreat you to come to him as speedily as you can.”
“Bring it hither, my son; I would sign it myself.”
Gustave brought it with a trembling hand, and the priest feebly affixed his signature, “François Goudin.” “Now fold the sheet and write the address,” he said. “‘AM. l’Abbé Vergitôt, Curé d’Escouey.’ At daybreak tomorrow, these good peasants send their butter and eggs to market; and this can go at the same time without giving trouble.”
“Godfather,” Gustave said with quivering lips, “you must not call yourself―that.”
“What, my child?”
“What you said in that note. It is not true. You will recover. Every one says I was much worse than you, and yet I―”
“Sixteen and sixty are not quite the same, my son,” said the priest with a tranquil smile. “But say nothing now to Griselle. Her kind heart will grieve, more than needs, for me. And I would fain tell her myself, that it is the best thing God could do for me.” Then dismissing the subject quietly and completely, he added, “Sit down again beside me. I want to speak to you.”
Gustave did so, shading his eyes with his hand. Goudin took a well-worn pocketbook from under his pillow, opened it, found a paper, and gave it to the boy.
Gustave started. “Where—where did you get this?” he asked with evident surprise, though still in a subdued and quivering voice.
“Where did you leave it?” said the priest, sternly enough.
“I? At the door of M. Prosper’s lodging, to be sure.” “Not there, Gustave. It was found in a drawer of your mother’s shop.”
“Oh, what misery!” cried Gustave in genuine distress. “Then she never saw my note, never knew that I vowed solemnly to restore all, to the uttermost farthing! That I never meant to wrong her, only to borrow what I would soon repay, with splendid interest! What a horrible mistake!”
“Mistake? What?” said the priest feebly.
“These verses were for M. Prosper―an idle fest of mine; I thought I would show him what nonsense he had written―but no matter now. The note was for my mother, telling her all. I must have changed the papers unconsciously in my haste. So Prosper got the note!” he cried, shame and vexation crimsoning his cheek, “and my mother these vile worthless verses!”
“That note would have done little to save your mother the anxiety she has suffered, or to alter her estimate of your conduct. Thank God that He has given you the opportunity of frankly and fully acknowledging your fault, and repairing it by a genuine repentance. But those verses―would you write them now, Gustave? Do you still think all stories of self-sacrifice, of generous devotion for others, mere ‘nonsense’ ―fable and delusion?”
The priest half raised himself and gazed in the boy’s face with yearning tenderness. He was thinking only of one Sacrifice in which, for him, life had its center, and death its explanation. Could he but bring that story home, as a real fact, to the poor wanderer before him, he would thank God and lie down in peace to die!
So natural had it been to Goudin to sacrifice himself, that he never even thought he had done it. His godson thought it for the first time that moment. The light the priest so earnestly sought to throw upon a Form far away, beyond the bounded vision of Gustave, fell instead upon his own, and glorified it.
On the wasted face that met Gustave’s answering gaze, Death had set his sign manual. The pallid features, the large bright wistful eyes, so earnestly reading his, proclaimed that presence. “In seeking me,” Gustave thought, “he has found Death. Yet no complaint, no word of reproach, even for me, unworthy of his kindness though I was, has passed his lips!” He hid his face, while in a voice low and broken, and strangely unlike his own, he faltered, “I believe in self-sacrifice now, for I see it. As D’Assas gave his life for his king, you are giving yours for me!”
“If so, gladly, not grudgingly. Because I love thee, my son,” the priest said, tenderly laying his hand on the bowed head of Gustave.
“There was a sound of abundance of rain.” The long drought that had held that young heart as if in bands of iron, parched, hard, and dry, was over now, and the drops that soften and fertilize were falling fast. Gustave was weeping like a little child.
“Who am I, that God should thus have heard me?” the priest murmured. Then, after a pause, “Gustave! ―Gustave, my son!”
“My father?” the boy whispered, looking up.
“Thou hast been loved with a love greater, higher than mine, ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth.’ For thee a sacrifice has been offered at which angels wonder; for thy life a life has been given, precious beyond thought or utterance. This love is more than philosophy, and includes it. Believe, and thou shalt see the glory of God.”
He fell back on the pillow with a sigh of weariness. Gustave looked at him anxiously through his tears.
“It is nothing,” he said, answering the look. “Only I am weary. Now I have given my message, I may rest, if God will.”
Rest was near; yet not quite so near as François Goudin thought. The scholar had one lesson more to learn, ere―the days of his exile over and his education completed―the welcome summons home should reach his listening ear and thrill his waiting heart with joy.