SEVENTEENTH EVENING.
Huriel crossed himself and sighed. I did as he did, and then turning from the accursed tree we went our way.
I wished, as the friar did, to say a few comforting words to him, for I saw that his mind was troubled; but, besides being a poor hand at moralizing, I felt guilty myself after a fashion. I knew, for instance, that if I had not related aloud the affair that happened in the woods of La Roche, Huriel might not have remembered his promise to Brulette to avenge her; and that if I had not been in such a hurry to be the first to defend her in presence of the muleteers and the foresters, Huriel would not have been so eager to get that honor before me in her eyes.
Worried by these thoughts, I could not help telling them to Huriel and blaming myself to him, just as Brulette had blamed herself to Thérence.
"My dear friend Tiennet," replied the muleteer, "you are a good fellow with a good heart. Don't trouble your conscience for a thing which God, in the day of judgment, will not lay at your door, perhaps not at mine. Brother Nicolas is right, God is the only judge who renders just judgment, for he alone knows things as they are. He needs no witnesses and makes no inquiry into the truth. He reads all hearts; he knows that mine has never sworn nor sought the death of a man, even at the moment when I took that stick to punish the evil-doer. Those weapons are bad, but they are the only ones which our customs allow us to use in such cases, and I am not responsible for their use. Certainly a fight with fists alone would be far better,—such as you and I had that night in your field, all about my mules and your oats. But let me tell you that a muleteer is bound to be as brave and jealous for his honor as any of the great lords who bear the sword. If I had swallowed Malzac's insults without demanding reparation I should deserve to be expelled from our fraternity. It is true that I did not demand it coolly, as I ought to have done. I had met Malzac alone that morning, in that same wood of La Roche, where I was quietly at work without thinking of him. He again annoyed me with foolish language, declaring that Brulette was nothing better than a dried-wood picker, which means, with us, a ghost that walks by night,—a superstition which often helps girls of bad lives to escape recognition, for good people are afraid of these ghosts. So, among muleteers, who are not as credulous, the term is very insulting. Nevertheless, I bore with him as long as possible, until at last, driven to extremities, I threatened him in order to drive him away. He replied that I was a coward, capable of attacking him in a lonely place, but that I dared not challenge him to open fight with sticks before witnesses; that everybody knew I had never had occasion to show my courage, for when I was in company of others I always agreed with what they said so as not to be obliged to measure swords with them. Then he left me, saying there was a dance in the woods of Chambérat, and that Brulette gave a supper to the company; for which she had ample means, as she was the mistress of a rich tradesman in her own country; and, for his part, he should go and amuse himself by courting the girl, in defiance of me if I had courage to go and see him do it. You know, Tiennet, that I intended never to see Brulette again, and that for reasons which I will tell you later."
"I know them," said I; "and I see that your sister met you to-night; for here, hanging to your ear below the bandage, is a token which proves something I had strongly suspected."
"If it is that I love Brulette and value her token," replied Huriel, "you know all that I know myself; but you cannot know more, for I am not even sure of her friendship, and as for anything else—but that's neither here nor there. I want to tell you the ill-luck that brought me back here. I did not wish Brulette to see me, neither did I mean to speak to her, because I saw the misery Joseph endured on my account. But I knew Joseph had not the strength to protect her, and that Malzac was shrewd and tricky enough to escape you. So I came at the beginning of the dance, and kept out of sight under the trees, meaning to depart without being seen, if Malzac did not make his appearance. You know the rest until the moment when we took the sticks. At that moment I was angry, I confess it, but it couldn't have been otherwise unless I were a saint in Paradise. And yet my only thought was to give a lesson to my enemy, and to stop him from saying, especially while Brulette was here, that because I was gentle and patient I was timid as a hare. You saw that my father, sick of such talk, did not object to my proving myself a man; but there! ill-luck surely pursues me, when in my first fight and almost at my first blow—ah! Tiennet, there is no use saying I was driven into it, or that I feel within me kind and humane; that is no consolation for having a fatal hand. A man is a man, no matter how foul-mouthed and ill-behaved he be. There was little or no good in that one, but he might have mended, and I have sent him to his account before he had come to repentance. Tiennet, I am sick of a muleteer's life; I agree with Brulette that it is not easy for a God-fearing man to be one of them and maintain his own conscience and the respect of others. I am obliged to stay in the craft for some time longer, owing to engagements which I have made; but you may rely upon it, I shall give up the business as soon as possible, and find another that is quiet and decent."
"That is what you want me to tell Brulette, isn't it?" I said.
"No," replied Huriel, with much decision, "not unless Joseph gets over his love and his illness so entirely as to give her up. I love Joseph as much as you all love him; besides, he told me his secret, and asked my advice and support; I will not deceive him, nor undermine him."