A DISAPPEARANCE.
The old Seigneur del' Peyra was not exactly a changed man since his descent into and release from the oubliette; he was rather the man he had been of old with his dullness, inertness intensified. He spoke very little, never referred to his adventures—it might almost be thought that he had forgotten them, but that on the smallest allusion to Le Gros Guillem his eye would fire, all the muscles of his face quiver, and he would abruptly leave the society of such as spoke of the man who had so ill-treated him.
Except for the sudden agitations into which he was thrown by such allusions, he was almost torpid. He took no interest in his land, in his people, in his castle. He sat much on a stone in the sun when the sun shone, looking at the ground before him. When the cold and rainy weather set in, then he sat in the fire-corner with his eyes riveted on the flames. One thing he could not endure, and that was darkness. The coming on of night filled him with unrest. He could not abide in a room where did not burn a light. He would start from sleep during the night several times to make sure that the lamp was still burning.
At first Jean had spoken to his father relative to the incidents of his capture, and had asked him particulars about his treatment, but desisted from doing so as he saw how profoundly it affected the old man, and how slow he was of recovering his equanimity after such an attempt to extract his recollections from him. Nor could he consult him about the affairs of the Seigneurie. The old man seemed incapable of fixing his mind on any such matters. Not that his brain had ceased to act, but that it was preoccupied with one absorbing idea, from which it resented diversion.
Jean made an attempt to sound his father's thoughts, but in vain, and he satisfied himself that the only course open to him was to leave the old man alone, and to trust to the restorative forces of Nature to recover him. He had received a shock which had shaken his powers but had not destroyed them. If left alone he would in time be himself again.
There was much to occupy the mind and take up the time of Jean del' Peyra.
The winter had set in. The leaves had been shed from the trees. There had set in a week of rain, and the river Vézère had swelled to a flood red-brown in colour, sweeping away the soil rich in phosphates that overlay the chalk, and which alone sustained vegetation. If the Vézère were in flood, so also was the Dordogne, and both rivers being impassable, the little Seigneurie of Le Peuch Ste. Soure was safe. It was divided from its foe at Domme by these swollen dykes.
But floods would subside in time, the weather would clear, and although it was not probable that Le Gros Guillem would attempt reprisals during the winter, yet it would be injudicious not to maintain watch and be prepared against an attack.
The peasant, impulsive and inconsiderate, was not to be trusted without direction, and required to be watched so as to be kept to the ungrateful task of semi-military service. He was easily stirred to acts of furious violence, and as easily allowed himself to lapse into blind security. Having taken and destroyed l'Eglise and beaten back the routiers on the Beune, the peasants considered that they had done all that could be required of them; they hastily reconverted their swords into the ploughshares that they had been, and dismounted their spears to employ them for their proper use as pruning-hooks. At the same time that they thus turned their implements of husbandry to peaceful ends, so did they dismantle themselves of all military ambition, and revert to the condition of the boor, whose thoughts are in the soil he turns and returns, whose produce he reaps and mows. The peasant mind is not flexible, and it is very limited in its range. It can think of but one thing at a time, and it is wholly void of that nimbleness which is acquired by association with men of many avocations and of intellectual culture. For a moment, stirred by intolerable wrongs, his passions had flared into an all-consuming flame. Now he was again the plodding ploughman, happy to handle the muckfork and the goad.
Jean found it impossible to rouse the men to understand the necessity of being ever on the alert against the foe. Gros Guillem, said they, had pillaged Ste. Soure; he had done his worst; now he would go and plunder elsewhere. He had tried conclusions with them and had been worsted; in future he would test his strength against weaker men. Allons! we have had enough of fighting—there is much to be done on the farm. Jean del' Peyra foresaw danger, and would not relax his efforts to be prepared to meet it. He established sentinels to keep watch night and day, and he marshalled the peasants and drilled them. They grumbled, and endeavoured to shirk, and he had hard matter to enforce discipline. He received tidings from Domme, and ascertained that the feet of the Captain were completely restored; and that he was about the town and citadel as usual.