CHAPTER IX
Toni was now thirteen years old, and though short, was very lithe and well made. He had never been on a horse’s back since that glorious day when the old cavalry charger had run off with him, and he had not been able to enjoy the society of the horses much, or to lurk around the riding-school since his apprenticeship to Clery. On a certain May day which, although Toni did not know it, was a day of fate to him, he saw the greatest sight of his life—the debarkation of a circus company, with all its horses and other animals, at the little station in Bienville.
Toni had often seen recruits debark when they came to the cavalry school for instruction. Clumsy, awkward fellows they were—at first ridiculously uneasy on a horse, and often as much afraid of a horse as Toni was of people. And he had seen them return, fine, dashing-looking troopers, after having been licked into shape in the riding-school. He loved to see the horses led to the train—they were so intelligent, so orderly, and seemed like real comrades of the troopers. But he had never seen anything like the trained intelligence of the circus horses in his life, and on this May day, when he wandered down to the station and saw horses who obeyed the word of command, like human beings, in getting off the train and taking up their right places, he was astounded and delighted. Every boy in Bienville was at the station to see the circus arrive, but Toni, according to his habit, slunk off by himself. There were numerous cages of animals, in which the other boys took a much greater interest than in the horses, but the other animals were nothing to Toni, to whom the cult of the horse was everything.
He followed the circus people, at a respectful distance, to the large open field where they put up the tent, but the chief point of interest to him was the temporary canvas stables which were erected. He knew that it was time for him to go back to Clery’s, but he could not, to save his life, have torn himself away from the fascinating sights and sounds which surrounded him.
Everywhere was the bustle and well-regulated haste of such companies. The circus, which was really a small affair, had arrived in the morning, and the tent was up, and the performance ready to open by two o’clock. Toni spent the whole of the intervening time watching what was going on. Clery and the shop quite faded from his memory. He saw the circus riders come out of the dressing-tent, in their beautiful costumes of red and gold and pink and silver, a little tarnished, but glorious in Toni’s eyes, and he saw the horses gaily caparisoned and almost adored them.
If he had a single franc, he would be able to go into the tent, and see the performance, but he had not a franc, nor did he know where to get one, except—except—he knew where his mother kept a tin box full of francs. He was afraid to go to her and ask her for the franc, because he had not been near Clery’s shop that day, and if his mother once caught him she might send him back to the shop, and that would mean no circus for him that day. But it was so easy to open the box and take out a franc—a thing he had never done before or thought of doing. But, like Captain Ravenel and Sophie, there are moments in the lives of human beings when temptation overwhelms the soul. Toni, who was neither a thief nor a liar, became both, just as Captain Ravenel and Sophie Delorme had, in one desperate moment, trampled on the social law.
So Toni to, whom, in spite of his faults, deceit was as foreign even as it was to Paul Verney, conceived the thought of taking a franc out of his mother’s tin box. He sneaked back home, along by-lanes and garden walls, and crept in through the little back door which opened into the kitchen. His mother was in the front shop, and did not see him. As he stole softly up the narrow stair into the bedroom above, the sun was shining brightly, and the clock on the mantel pointed to half-past one. Toni always remembered this as an hour of fate.
The circus performance was to begin at two, and he barely had time to find the key which his mother kept under the bureau cover, and to unlock the press in which she kept her strong box, to find the key to the strong box hanging up on a nail inside the press, to open it and there, in a smaller tin box, to find many pieces of silver. Toni took out a single franc. He might have taken the whole box, but he never thought of it. It was not money he wanted, but a sight of the circus. He then closed and replaced the box, made everything as it was before, and, creeping down stairs, rushed off to the field where the circus tent was up, his heart beating with a wild excitement which was not joy—neither was it pain.