"Chaudiere may well be proud of it. I shall refer to it in the Legislature on the question of roads and bridges—there ought to be a stone fence on that dangerous road by the Red Ravine—Have I your attention?"
He stood up, for he was an excitable and voluble Colonel, and he loved oration as a cat does milk. With a knife he drew a picture of the locale on the table cloth. "Here I was riding on my sorrel, all my noble fellows behind, the fife and drums going as at Louisburg—that day! Martial ardour united to manliness and local pride—follow me? Here we were, Red Ravine left, stump fences and waving fields of grain right. From military point of view, bad position—ravine, stump fence, brave soldiers in the middle, food for powder—catch it?—see?"
He emptied his glass, drew a long breath, and again began, the carving- knife cutting a rhetorical path before him. "I was engaged upon the military problem—demonstration in force, no scouts ahead, no rearguard, ravine on the right, stump fence on the left, red coats, fife-and-drum band, concealed enemy—follow me? Observant mind always sees problems everywhere—unresting military genius accustoms intelligence to all possible contingencies—'stand what I mean?"
The Seigneur took a pinch of snuff, and the Cure, whose mind was benevolent, listened with the gravest interest.
"At the juncture when, in my mind's eye, I saw my gallant fellows enfiladed with a terrible fire, caught in a trap, and I, despairing, spurring on to die at their headhave I your attention?—just at that moment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man. He wore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our movements —so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny! Not far away was a wagon, in it a man. Wagon bisecting our course from a cross- road—"
He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary said: "Yes, yes, the concession road."
"So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band; there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet the engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man driving— catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at that instant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'. He shies from the road with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the reins drop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on to the ravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me? What can we, an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled, impetuous, brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the wagon senseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the power of man—'stand what I mean?"
"Why didn't your battalion shoot the horse?" said the Seigneur drily, taking a pinch of snuff. "Monsieur," said the Colonel, "see the irony, the implacable irony of fate—we had only blank cartridge! But see you, here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor—takes nine tailors to make a man!—between the ravine and the galloping tragedy. His spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestle with death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night 'sieur le Cure!"
The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement.
"Awoke a whole man—nine-ninths, as in Adam—in the obscure soul of the tailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridle as he galloped upon the chasm: The horse dragged him on—dragged him on —on—on. We, an army, so to speak, stood and watched the Tailor and the Tragedy! All seemed lost, but, by the decree of fate—"