THE LITTLE MARQUIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 32, 8 May 1891, Page 23

THE LITTLE MARQUIS.

(By Hannah Lynch, in the New York Freeman's Journal.)

Herts be Nkevainville, Marquis de Saint-L mreot, was at once the biggest and smaller landlord of Calvados, tho most important personage of that department aad the most insignificant and powerless. Into his cradle the fairies had dropped all the gifts of fortune but those two without which the others taste as ashes — lave and happiness. His life was uncoloured by the affections of home, and his days, like his ragged little visige and his dull personality, were vague with the vagueness of negative misery. Of his nurse he was meekly bfraid, and his relations with the other servants were of the most distantly polite and official nature. He understood that they were there to do his bidding nominally and compel him actually to do theirs, pending his hoar of authority. With a litte broken sigh be envied the happiness that he rootedly believed to accompany the more cheerful proportions of the cottager's experience, of wuich he occasionally caught glimpses in bis daily walks, remembering tbe chill solitude of bis own big empty castle, and the immense park that seemed an expansion of his imprisonment, including, as part of his uninterrupted gloom, the kindly meadows and woods, the babbling streams and leafy aveoues, where the birds sang of joys uncompreheaded by him.

Play was as foreign to him as hope. Every mora'ng ho |iiavely saluted the picture of his ire»ty mother which hung in his beiioom, a lovely picture, hardly real in its dainty Old World charm, arch and frail and innocent, the bloom of whose eighteen years bad b^en sacrificed upon his own coming, leaving a copy washed of all beauty, its delicacy blurred in a tulf-efficed, boyish visage without character or colouring. Of his father, Hen 6 never spoke — shrinking, with the unconscious pride of race, from the male interloper who had been glad enough to drop an inferior name, aud was cjnsidered by his friends to have waltzed himself and his handsome eyes into .in enviable bondage. And the on.y return be cuuld make to the house that had so benefited him was a fl)in« visit from Paris to tnspLCL the h Mr and confer with hie S"n's stewaid, whose guardian he fad ben appointed by the old marquis at his death, and ttun return to his city pleasures which he found more entertaining than Lis Nonaan neighbour?. On Sunday morning little H>tvc was conducted to High M>.sa in the Church of St. Laurent upon the broad htghioad leading up to the town of Falaise. Duly escorted up the aisle by an ob&iquious SwißS, in military I. at and clanking sword, with a larg-: bloude moustache, that excited the boy'd admiration. Heive ana his nuise wtre bowed into the colossal family pew, as larjje as a moderate sizjd chamber, roughly carved and running alung the flat, wide tomb ot his ancestors, on which marble statues of knights and mediaeval ladies lay lengthways. Ihe child's air of melancholy and solitary state was enough to make any honest heart ache, and his presence never lai'ed to awaken the intense interest of the simple congregation and supply them with food for speculation as to hid future over tour mid-

day soup aud cider. Haid, indeed, would it have been to define the

future of the little mm sitting so decorous'y in his huge pew aud « following the long services in a spirit uf almost pathetic conventionality and resignation, only very occasionally relieved by his queer, broken t-igb. that had settled into a trick, or a initive wandering of Lis eyes that sought distraction among ar.cebtral epitaphs. He was nor, it must be owm d, an engaging child, though softhearted and timidly attracttd by auimals, whose susceptibilities he would have feared to offend by any uninvited demonstration of affection. He had heard himself described as plain and dull, and thought it bis duty to refrain as much as possible from inflicting his presence upon others, preferring loneliness to adverse criticism, But he had

one friend who hadfouai him oat aid taken him to her equally unhappy and tender heart. The Oomtesse de Freaney, a lady of thirty, was like himself miserable and misunderstood. Herve thought phe mast be very beanttfal for him to love her bo devotedly, and he looted forward with much eagerness to the time of her widowhood, when he should be free to marry her. There was something inexpressibly Bad in the drollery of their relations. Neither waß aware of the comic element, while both were profoundly impressed with the sadness. Whenever a fair, a race, or a, company of strolling players took the tyrannical Count away from Fresney.a messenger was at once dispatched to Saint-Laurent, and gladly the little Marquis trotted off to console his friend. One day Herv* gave expression to his matrimonial intentions. The Countess, sitting with her hands in her lap, was gazing gloomily out of the window when she turned, and Baid, sighing : " Do you know, Herve, that I have never even been to Paris?" Hene did not know and was not of an age to measure the fright-, ful depth of privution confessed. But the Countess spoke in a sadder voice than usual, and, in response to her sigh, his childish lips parted' in bis own vague little sigh. " When I am grown up I'll take you to Paris, Countess," he said, coming oear and timidly fondling her hand. •' Yes, Herve," said the Countess, aad she stooped to kiss him. " M. leComte is so old that he will probably be dead by that time,. and then I can marry you, Countess, and yon will live always at SaintLaurent. You know it is bigger than Fresoey. " Yes, Herv6," said the Con at ess musingly, thinking of her lost years and dead dreams, as she stared across the pleasant landscape. Herve regarded himself as an engaged gentleman from that day. The following Sunday he studied the epitaph on the tomb of the late Marquis, bis grandfather, who bad vanished into the darkness of an unexplored continent with note-book aad scientific inteat, to leave his bones to whiten in the desert and the name of a brave man to adorn his country's annals. Hervi was all excitement to learn from the Countess the precise meaning of the words distinguished and explorer. " Countess," he hurried to ask, " what is it to be distinguished ?'» " It is greatly to do great things, Hervi." " And what does explorer mean ?" " To go far away into the unknown ; to find out unvisited placet and teach others how much larger the world is than they imagine." This explanation thrilled new thoughts and ambition in the breast of the little Marquis. Why should be not begin at once to explore the world, and see for himself what lay beyond the dull pr->cu.cts of Saint-Laurent? He then would become distinguished hks his grandfather, and the Countess would be proud of him. The scheme hurried his pulses and gave him his first taste of excitement* wnich stool him in place of every smill appetite. He watched his moment in the artful i-siinct of childhood with a scheme in its head. It was not difficult to eiuie a careless nurse and gossiping servants, aud he knew an alley by which the broad straight road leading from the castle to the town might be reached over a friendly stile that involved no pledge of secrscy from aa untrustworthy lodge-keeper. And away he was scampering along the hedge, drunk with excitement and the glory of his own unprotected state, drunk with the Spring sunshine and tho; smell of violets that mad 3 breathing a bliss.

Picture a tumble down town with a quantity of little streets breaking unexpectedly into glimpses ot gree:i me»dow and foliage ; rickety omnibuses jerking and rumbling upon uncouth wheels, mysteiiously held by thtir drivers from laying their contents upon the j igge 1 pavements ; little old-fashioned squares washed by runlets fir paving divis.ons, with the big names of La TriniU, Saint Gervais, Guillaume le Conquerant, and the Grand Turc — the latter tue most unlikely form of heretic ever to have so shaken the ( quilibiium of the quaint town; a public fountain, a market place, many aisled churches smelling of damp and decay, their fretted arches worn with age, and their pictures bleached of all colour by the moist stone ; primitive shops, latticed windows, aethmatical old men in blouses and nightcaps in which they seem to have been born and in which they promise to die ; girls in linen towers and starched side-flaps concea'ing every cuil and wave of their hair, their sabots beating the flags with tne clink of castanets ; groups of idle hussars, muntaclied and menacing, strutting the dilapidated public gardens like walking arsenals, the eternal cigarette between their lips and the everlasting sapristi and severe upon them. Throw in a curt or two, wide-hatted, ot leisured and benevolent aspect, with a smile adaressed to the world us a general tnon. enfant ; an abbt, less leisured and less assured of public indulgence ; a discreet/rere, whose hurrying moveon nts >-h.tke ins rob-s to the dimensions of a t atloon ; an elegant sous prcfet, conscious uf Parisian tailoring and much in request in provoc.al salons ; a wooden-legged Colonel ; devoted to the memory of the first Napoleon and wrathful to that of him of Sedan ; a few civilians of pr ifesbional calling, deferential to the military and in awe of the Cjlonel ; and local gossip and shopkeeper on Trinity Square, Mere Lescaut, who knows everything about everybody, and tbe usual group of antagonistic politicians. For the outskirts, five broad roads diverging starwisa from a common centre, with an

inviting simplicity of aspect that might tempt the least adventurous spirit of childhood to make by one of those pleasant, straight, and leafy paths for the alluring horizon. Add the local lion, Great William's Tower, a very respectable Norman rain, where a more mythical personage than William might easily have been born, and which might very well hallow more ancient loves than those of Robert and the washer-woman Arietta ; a splendid equestrian statue of the Conqueror, and a quantity of threads of silver water running between mossy banks, where woman in moun'ainous caps of liDen wash clothes, and the viole's in spring and autumn grow so thickly that the air is faint with their sweet scent. Afar, green field upon green field stretching on all sides till the atmospheric blue blots out their colour and melts th m into the sVy ; sudden spaces of wood making shadows up. n the bright plains and dusty roads fringed with poplars, cutting uninterrupted paths to the horizon.

Tbe weekly fair was being held on the Plac? do la Trioite when Herve made his way so far. The noise and jollity stunned him. Long tables were spread around, highly coloured and decorated with a variety of objects, and good-humoured, cleanly Norman women io caps, and men in blue blouse) were shouting exchanged spaech or wiangling decorously. Herve thrust his hands into his pockets in a pretence of security, like that assumed by his elders upoi novel occasions, though his pulses shook with unaccustomed force and velocity ; and he walked around the tables with uneasy impulses toward the toys and sweatmeats, and thought a ride on the merry-go-round would be an enviable sensation. But these temptations he gallantly resisted as unbecoming his serious business. Women smiled upon him, and called him Cejoli petit Monsieur, a fact which caused him more surprise than anything else, having heard his father describe him as ugly. He bowed to them when he rejected their offers of toys and penknives, but could not resist the invitation of a fresh cake, and held his hat in one hand while he searched in his pocket to pay for it. Herve made up for his dullness by a correctness of demeanour that waß rather depressing than captivating.

Munching his cake with a secret pleasure in this slight infringment of social law, he wandered upon the skirt of the noisy and good-natured crowd, which in the settlement of its affair* was lavish in smiles and jokes. What should he do with his liberty and leisare when his senses had tired of this particular form of intoxication ? He bethought himself of the famous tower which Pierrot the vallet had assured him was the largest castle in the world. Glancing up the square, he saw the old wooden-legged colonel limping toward him, and Herv« promptly decided thit so warlike a parsonage could not fail to be aware of the direction in which the tower lay. He birred the colonel's way with his hat in his hand, and said : " Please Monsieur, will you be so goo! a 9 to direct me to the castle of William the Conqueror? "

Tbe Colonel heard the s >f t, tremulom pipa, and brought his fierce glare down upon the urchin with hawk-like penetration. Fearful menace seemed to lie in the final tap of bis wooden log upon the pavement as he came to a standstill in front of Herve, and he cleared his chest with a loud military sound like a boom. Herve stood the sound, but winced and repeated his request more timidly. Now this desperate- looking soldier had a kindly heart aud loved children. He had not the least idea that his loud boom, and his shaggy eyebrows, and bis great scowling red face frightened the life ont of them. A request from a child so small and feeble to be directed to anybody's castle, much less the Conqueror's, when so many strong and idle arms mußt be willing to carry him, afflicted him with an almost maternal throb of tenderness, By his smile he dispersed the unpleasant impressions of his boom and the click of bis artificial limb, and complotely won Herve's confidence, who was quite pleased to find his thin little fingers lost in the grasp of his new companion's large hand, when the giant in uniform turned and volunteered to conduct him to the tower. Crossißg the Squire of Guillaume le Cooquerant, Herve even became expansive.

" Look, Monsieur, " he cried, pointing to the beautiful brocze statue ; " one would say that the horse was aboufc to jump and throw the knight."

The Colonel slapped his chest like a man insulted in the person of a glorious ancestor, and emitted an unusually gruff boom that nearly blew Hervc to the oiher aide of the square and made his limbs tremble.

"I'd like, young Sir, to see the hone that could have thrown that man," said the Norman.

" There was a Baron of Tervainville when Robert was Duke of Nortnandy. He went with Robert to the Crusades. The Countess has told me that only very distinguished and brave people went to the Crusades iv those days. They were wars, Monsieur, a great way off. I often iry to make out what is written on his tomb in SaintLaurent, but I can never get further than Geoffroi." Herve concluded with his queer, short sigh, while in front of them rose tbe mighty Norman ruin upon the landscape, like the past glancing poignantly through an ever youthful pmile.

The Colonel enlightened by this communication upon the lad's identity, stared at him in alarmed surprise.

" Is there nobody in attendance upon M; ]c Marquis? he asked. " I am tryinar to be an explorer like my grand-papa ; that is why I have run away at once. lam obliged to you, Moosieur, but it it not neces»ft*y that you should give yoors-jlf the trouble to come fur'her with me. I shall be able to fiid the way back to the Place de la Trinite"

The Colonel was dubious as to his rigbt to accept dismissal. The sky looked threatening, and he hardly believed that he could in honour for«ake the child. But, saprista ! there were the unread papers down from Paris waiting for him at his favourite haunt, the Cafe dv Grand Turc, to be discussed between generous draughts of cider. He tugged his gray mustache in divided feelings, and at last came to a decision with the aid of his terrible boom. He would da liver the little Marquis into the bands of the concierge of the tower, and after a look in upon his cronies at the Grand Turc and a glass of cider, hasten to Saint-Laurent in search of proper authority.

(Concluded in our next).