Alice of Old Vincennes

by Maurice Thompson

The old man was transformed. His face was terrible to see, with its narrow, burning eyes deep under the shaggy brows, its dark veins writhing snakelike on the temples and forehead, the projected mouth and chin, the hard lines of the jaws, the iron-gray gleam from all the features—he looked like an aged tiger stiffened for a spring.

Farnsworth was made of right soldierly stuff; but he felt a distinct shiver flit along his back. His past life had not lacked thrilling adventures and strangely varied experiences with desperate men. Usually he met sudden emergencies rather calmly, sometimes with phlegmatic indifference. This passionate outburst on the priest's part, however, surprised him and awed him, while it stirred his heart with a profound sympathy unlike anything he had ever felt before.

Father Beret mastered himself in a moment, and passing his hand over his face, as if to brush away the excitement, sat down again on his stool. He appeared to collapse inwardly.

"You must excuse the weakness of an old man, my son," he said, in a voice hoarse and shaking. "But tell me what is going to be done with Alice. Your words—what you said—I did not understand."

He rubbed his forehead slowly, as one who has difficulty in trying to collect his thoughts.

"I do not know what Governor Hamilton means to do, Father Beret. It will be something devilish, however,—something that must not happen," said Farnsworth.

Then he recounted all that Hamilton had done and said. He described the dreary and comfortless room in which Alice was confined, the miserable fare given her, and how she would be exposed to the leers and low remarks of the soldiers. She had already suffered these things, and now that she could no longer have any protection, what was to become of her? He did not attempt to overstate the case; but presented it with a blunt sincerity which made a powerfully realistic impression.

Father Beret, like most men of strong feeling who have been subjected to long years of trial, hardship, multitudinous dangers and all sorts of temptation, and who have learned the lessons of self-control, had an iron will, and also an abiding distrust of weak men. He saw Farnsworth's sincerity; but he had no faith in his constancy, although satisfied that while resentment of Hamilton's imperiousness lasted, he would doubtless remain firm in his purpose to aid Alice. Let that wear off, as in a short time it would, and then what? The old man studied his companion with eyes that slowly resumed their expression of smouldering and almost timid geniality. His priestly experience with desperate men was demanding of him a proper regard for that subtlety of procedure which had so often compassed most difficult ends.

He listened in silence to Farnsworth's story. When it came to an end he began to offer some but half relevant suggestions in the form of indirect cross-questions, by means of which he gradually drew out a minute description of Alice's prison, the best way to reach it, the nature of its door-fastenings, where the key was kept, and everything, indeed, likely to be helpful to one contemplating a jail delivery. Farnsworth was inwardly delighted. He felt Father Beret's cunning approach to the central object and his crafty method of gathering details.

The shades of evening thickened in the stuffy cabin room while the conversation went on. Father Beret presently lifted a puncheon in one corner of the floor and got out a large bottle, which bore a mildewed and faded French label, and with it a small iron cup. There was just light enough left to show a brownish sparkle when, after popping out the cork, he poured a draught in the fresh cup and in his own.