AFTER THE FIGHT.
Gaspard, having rejoined his companions, thanked them for their services, told them of the state of things, and dismissed them for better times,--advising them to disperse at once, and thus escape all pursuit by the soldiers. Then he returned to Petit-Pierre, whom he found in the same place, and around her the Marquis de Souday, Bertha, and a few Vendéans who would not think of their own safety till certain of hers.
"Well," asked Petit-Pierre when Gaspard returned to her alone, "have they gone?"
"Yes; they could do no more than they have done."
"Poor souls! what troubles await them!" said Petit-Pierre. "Why has God refused me the consolation of pressing them to my heart? But I should never have had the strength; they do right to leave me without farewell. Twice to suffer thus in life is too much agony. Those days at Cherbourg!--I hoped I might never see their like again."
"Now," said Gaspard, "we must think of your safety."
"Oh, never mind me personally," replied Petit-Pierre; "my sole regret is that the balls did not choose to come my way. My death would not have given you the victory, that is true; but at least the struggle would have been glorious. And now what are we to do?"
"Wait for better days. You have proved to the French people that a valiant heart is beating in your bosom. Courage is the principal virtue they demand of their rulers; they will remember your action, never fear."
"God wills it!" said Petit-Pierre, rising and leaning on Gaspard's arm, who led her from the hilltop into the road across the plain. The government troops, who did not know the country, were forced to keep to the main roads.
Gaspard guided the little company, which ran no risk in the open country, except from scouts--thanks to the knowledge Maître Jacques possessed of paths that were almost impassable; they reached the neighborhood of the Jacquet mill without so much as seeing a tricolor cockade.
As they went along, Bertha approached her father and asked him whether in the midst of the mêlée he had seen or heard of Baron Michel; but the old gentleman, horrified at the issue of the insurrection prepared with so much care and so quickly stifled, was in the worst of humors, and answered gruffly that for the last two days no one knew what had become of the Baron de la Logerie; probably he was frightened, and had basely renounced the glory he might have won and the alliance which would have been the reward of his glory.
This answer filled Bertha with consternation. Useless, however, to say that she did not believe one word of what her father said; but her heart trembled at an idea which alone seemed to her probable,--namely, that Michel had been killed, or at any rate grievously wounded. She resolved to make inquiries of every one until she discovered something as to the fate of the man she loved. She first questioned all the Vendéans. None of them had seen Michel; but some, impelled by the old hatred against his father, expressed themselves about the son in terms that were not less vehement than those of the marquis himself.
Bertha grew frantic with distress; nothing short of palpable, visible, undeniable proof could have forced her to admit that she had made a choice unworthy of her, and, though all appearances were against Michel, her love, becoming more ardent, more impetuous under the pressure of such accusations, gave her strength to regard them as calumnies. A few moments earlier her heart was torn, her brain maddened under the idea that Michel had met his death in the struggle; and now that glorious death had become a hope, a consolation to her grief. She was frantic to acquire the cruel certainty, and even thought of returning to Chêne, visiting the battlefield, in search of her lover's body, as Edith sought that of Harold; she even dreamed of avenging him on his murderers after vindicating his memory from her father's aspersions. The girl was reflecting on the pretext she could best employ to remain behind the rest and return to Chêne, when Aubin Courte-Joie and Trigaud, the rear-guard of the company, came up and were about to pass her. She breathed more freely; they, no doubt, could throw some light upon the matter.
"You, my brave friends," she said, "can you give me news of Monsieur de la Logerie?"
"Yes, indeed, my dear young lady," replied Courte-Joie.
"Ah!" cried Bertha, with the eagerness of hope, "he has not left the division as they say he has, has he?"
"He has left it," replied Courte-Joie.
"When?"
"The evening before the fight at Maisdon."
"Good God!" cried Bertha, in a tone of anguish. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure. I saw him meet Jean Oullier at the Croix-Philippe; and we walked a little way together."
"With Jean Oullier!" cried Bertha. "Oh! then I am satisfied; Jean Oullier was not deserting. If Michel is with Jean Oullier he has done nothing cowardly or dishonorable."
Suddenly a terrible thought came into her mind. Why this sudden interest on Jean Oullier's part for the young man? Why had Michel followed Jean Oullier rather than the marquis? These questions, which the young girl put to herself, filled her heart with sinister forebodings.
"And you say you saw the two on their way to Clisson?" she said to Courte-Joie.
"With my own eyes."
"Do you know what is going on at Clisson?"
"It is too far from here to have got the details as yet," replied Courte-Joie; "but a gars from Sainte-Lumine overtook us just now and said that a devilish firing had been going on since ten o'clock in the morning over against Sèvre."
Bertha did not answer; her ideas had taken another course. She saw Michel led to his death by Jean Oullier's hatred; she fancied the poor lad wounded, panting, abandoned, lying helpless on some lonely and bloody moor, calling on her to save him.
"Do you know any one who could guide me to Jean Oullier?" she asked Courte-Joie.
"To-day?"
"Now, this instant."
"The roads are covered with the red-breeches."
"The wood-paths are not."
"But it is almost night."
"We shall be all the safer. Find me a guide; if not, I shall start alone."
The two men looked at each other.
"No one shall guide you but me," said Aubin Courte-Joie. "Do I not owe your family a debt of gratitude? Besides, Mademoiselle Bertha, you did me, no later than to-day, a service I shall never forget,--in knocking up the bayonet of that National guard who was going to split me."
"Very good; then drop behind and wait for me here in this wheat-field," said Bertha. "I shall be back in fifteen minutes."
Courte-Joie and Trigaud lay down among the wheat ears, and Bertha, hastening her steps, rejoined Petit-Pierre and the Vendéans just as they were about to enter the mill. She went rapidly up to the little room she occupied with her sister, and hurriedly changed her clothes, which were covered with blood, for the dress of a peasant-woman. Coming down, she found Mary busy among the wounded, and told her, without explaining her plan, not to feel uneasy if she did not see her again till the next day. She then returned to the wheat-field.
Reserved as she was in what she said to her sister, her face was so convulsed and agitated that Mary read upon it plainly the thoughts that filled her soul; she knew of Michel's disappearance, and she did not doubt that Bertha's sudden departure was caused by it. After the scene of the previous evening Mary dared not to question her sister; but a new anguish was added to those which already rent her heart, and when she was called to mount and attend Petit-Pierre in search of another refuge, she knelt down and prayed to God that her sacrifice might not be useless, and that it would please Him to protect both the life and honor of Bertha's affianced husband.