The Lane That Had No Turning, Complete - Gilbert Parker
"What would he do? You are for the master, not the man; for love, not the
feeding on; for the Manor House and the hunt, not the cottage and the
loom.'
"She broke into tears, her heart thumping in her throat. 'I am for what
the Church did for me this day,' she said. 'O sir, I pray you, forgive me
and let me go. Do not punish me, but forgive me--and let me go. I was
wicked to wear your glove-wicked, wicked.' 'But no,' was his reply, 'I
shall not forgive you so good a deed, and you shall not go. And what the
Church did for you this day she shall undo--by all the saints, she shall!
You came sailing into my heart this hour past on a strong wind, and you
shall not slide out on an ebb-tide. I have you here, as your Seigneur,
but I have you here as a man who will--'
"He sat down by her at that point, and whispered softly in her ear; at
which she gave a cry which had both gladness and pain. 'Surely, even
that,' he said, catching her to his breast. 'And the Baron of Beaugard
never broke his word.' What should be her reply? Does not a woman when
she truly loves always believe? That is the great sign. She slid to her
knees and dropped her head into the hollow of his arm. 'I do not
understand these things,' she said, 'but I know that the other was death,
and this is life. And yet I know, too, for my heart says so, that the
end--the end, will be death.'
"'Tut, tut, my flower, my wild-rose!' he said. 'Of course the end of all
is death, but we will go a-Maying first, come October, and let the world
break over us when it must. We are for Maying now, my rose of all the
world!' It was as if he meant more than he said, as if he saw what would
come in that October which all New France never forgot, when, as he said,
the world broke over them.
"The next morning the Baron called Garoche to him. The man was like some
mad buck harried by the hounds, and he gnashed his teeth behind his shut
lips. The Baron eyed him curiously, yet kindly, too, as well he might,
for when was ever man to hear such a speech as came to Garoche the
morning after his marriage? 'Garoche,' the Baron said, having waved his
men away, 'as you see, the lady made her choice--and for ever. You and
she have said your last farewell in this world--for the wife of the Baron
of Beaugard can have nothing to say to Garoche the soldier.' At that
Garoche snarled out, 'The wife of the Baron of Beaugard, that is a lie to
shame all hell.' The Baron wound the lash of a riding-whip round and
round his fingers quietly and said: 'It is no lie, my man, but the
truth.' Garoche eyed him savagely, and growled: 'The Church made her my
wife yesterday; and you--you--you--ah, you who had all--you with your
money and place, which could get all easy, you take the one thing I have!
You, the grand seigneur, are only a common robber! Ah, Jesu--if you would
but fight me!'
"The Baron, very calm, said: 'First, Garoche, the lady was only your wife
by a form which the Church shall set aside--it could never have been a
true marriage. Second, it is no stealing to take from you what you did
not have. I took what was mine--remember the glove! For the rest--to
fight you? No, my churl, you know that's impossible. You may shoot me
from behind a tree or a rock, but swording with you--come, come, a pretty
gossip for the Court! Then, why wish a fight? Where would you be, as you
stood before me--you!' The Baron stretched himself up, and smiled down at
Garoche. 'You have your life, man; take it and go--to the farthest corner
of New France, and show not your face here again. If I find you ever
again in Beaugard I will have you whipped from parish to parish. Here is
money for you--good gold coins. Take them, and go.'
"Garoche got still and cold as stone. He said in a low, harsh voice:
'M'sieu' le Baron, you are a common thief, a wolf, a snake. Such men as
you come lower than Judas. As God has an eye to see, you shall pay all
one day. I do not fear you nor your men nor your gallows. You are a
jackal, and the woman has a filthy heart--a ditch of shame.'
"The Baron drew up his arm like lightning, and the lash of his whip came
singing across Garoche's pale face. Where it passed, a red welt rose, but
the man never stirred. The arm came up again, but a voice' behind the
Baron said: 'Ah no, no, not again!' There stood Falise. Both men looked
at her. 'I have heard Garoche,' she said. 'He does not judge me right. My
heart is no filthy ditch of shame; but it was breaking when I came from
the altar with him yesterday. Yet I would have been a true wife to him
after all. A ditch of shame--ah, Garoche--Garoche! And you said you loved
me, and that nothing could change you!'
"The Baron said to her: 'Why have you come, Falise? I forbade you.' 'Oh,
my lord,' she answered, 'I feared--for you both! When men go mad because
of women a devil enters into them.' The Baron, taking her by the hand,
said: 'Permit me,' and he led her to the door for her to pass out. She
looked back sadly at Garoche, standing for a minute very still. Then
Garoche said: 'I command you, come with me; you are my wife.' She did not
reply, but shook her head at him. Then he spoke out high and fierce: 'May
no child be born to you. May a curse fall on you. May your fields be
barren, and your horses and cattle die. May you never see nor hear good
things. May the waters leave their courses to drown you, and the hills
their bases to bury you, and no hand lay you in decent graves!'
"The woman put her hands to her ears and gave a little cry, and the Baron
pushed her gently on, and closed the door after her. Then he turned on
Garoche. 'Have you said all you wish?' he asked. 'For, if not, say on,
and then go; and go so far you cannot see the sky that covers Beaugard.
We are even now--we can cry quits. But that I have a little injured you,
you should be done for instantly. But hear me: if I ever see you again,
my gallows shall end you straight. Your tongue has been gross before the
mistress of this Manor; I will have it torn out if it so much as
syllables her name to me or to the world again. She is dead to you. Go,
and go for ever!'
"He put a bag of money on the table, but Garoche turned away from it, and
without a word left the room, and the house, and the parish, and said
nothing to any man of the evil that had come to him.
"But what talk was there, and what dreadful things were said at
first-that Garoche had sold his wife to the Baron; that he had been
killed and his wife taken; that the Baron kept him a prisoner in a cellar
under the Manor House! And all the time there was Falise with the
Baron--very quiet and sweet and fine to see, and going to Chapel every
day, and to Mass on Sundays--which no one could understand, any more than
they could see why she should be called the Baroness of Beaugard; for had
they all not seen her married to Garoche? And there were many people who
thought her vile. Yet truly, at heart, she was not so--not at all. Then
it was said that there was to be a new marriage; that the Church would
let it be so, doing and undoing, and doing again. But the weeks and the
months went by, and it was never done. For, powerful as the Baron was,
Bigot the Intendant was powerful also, and fought the thing with all his
might. The Baron went to Quebec to see the Bishop and the Governor, and
though promises were made, nothing was done. It must go to the King and
then to the Pope, and from the Pope to the King again, and so on. And the
months and the years went by as they waited, and with them came no child
to the Manor House of Beaugard. That was the only sad thing--that and the
waiting, so far as man could see. For never were man and woman truer to
each other than these, and never was a lady of the Manor kinder to the
poor, or a lord freer of hand to his vassals. He would bluster sometimes,
and string a peasant up by the heels, but his gallows was never used;
and, what was much in the minds of the people, the Cure did not refuse
the woman the sacrament.
"At last the Baron, fierce because he knew that Bigot was the cause of
the great delay, so that he might not call Falise his wife, seized a
transport on the river, which had been sent to brutally levy upon a poor
gentleman, and when Bigot's men resisted, shot them down. Then Bigot sent
against Beaugard a company of artillery and some soldiers of the line.
The guns were placed on a hill looking down on the Manor House across the
little river. In the evening the cannons arrived, and in the morning the
fight was to begin. The guns were loaded and everything was ready. At the
Manor all was making ready also, and the Baron had no fear.
"But Falise's heart was heavy, she knew not why. 'Eugene,' she said, 'if
anything should happen!' 'Nonsense, my Falise,' he answered; 'what should
happen?' 'If--if you were taken--were killed!' she said. 'Nonsense, my
rose,' he said again, 'I shall not be killed. But if I were, you should
be at peace here.' 'Ah, no, no!' said she. 'Never. Life to me is only
possible with you. I have had nothing but you--none of those things which
give peace to other women--none. But I have been happy-yes, very happy.
And, God forgive me, Eugene, I cannot regret, and I never have! But it
has been always and always my prayer that, when you die, I may die with
you--at the same moment. For I cannot live without you, and, besides, I
would like to go to the good God with you to speak for us both; for oh, I
loved you, I loved you, and I love you still, my husband, my adored!'
"He stooped--he was so big, and she but of middle height--kissed her, and
said: 'See, my Falise, I am of the same mind. We have been happy in life,
and we could well be happy in death together.' So they sat long, long
into the night and talked to each other--of the days they had passed
together, of cheerful things, she trying to comfort herself, and he
trying to bring smiles to her lips. At last they said good-night, and he
lay down in his clothes; and after a few moments she was sleeping like a
child. But he could not sleep, for he lay thinking of her and of her
life--how she had come from humble things and fitted in with the highest.
At last, at break of day, he arose and went outside. He looked up at the
hill where Bigot's two guns were. Men were already stirring there. One
man was standing beside the gun, and another not far behind. Of course
the Baron could not know that the man behind the gunner said: 'Yes, you
may open the dance with an early salute;' and he smiled up boldly at the
hill and went into the house, and stole to the bed of his wife to kiss
her before he began the day's fighting. He looked at her a moment,
standing over her, and then stooped and softly put his lips to hers.
"At that moment the gunner up on the hill used the match, and an awful
thing happened. With the loud roar the whole hillside of rock and gravel
and sand split down, not ten feet in front of the gun, moved with
horrible swiftness upon the river, filled its bed, turned it from its
course, and, sweeping on, swallowed the Manor House of Beaugard. There
had been a crack in the hill, the water of the river had sapped its
foundations, and it needed only this shock to send it down.
"And so, as the woman wished: the same hour for herself and the man! And
when at last their prison was opened by the hands of Bigot's men, they
were found cheek by cheek, bound in the sacred marriage of Death.
"But another had gone the same road, for, at the awful moment, beside the
bursted gun, the dying gunner, Garoche, lifted up his head, saw the loose
travelling hill, and said with his last breath: 'The waters drown them,
and the hills bury them, and--'
"He had his way with them, and after that perhaps the great God had His
way with him perhaps."
THE TUNE McGILVERAY PLAYED
McGilveray has been dead for over a hundred years, but there is a parish
in Quebec where his tawny-haired descendants still live. They have the
same sort of freckles on their faces as had their ancestor, the
bandmaster of Anstruther's regiment, and some of them have his taste for
music, yet none of them speak his language or with his brogue, and the
name of McGilveray has been gallicised to Magille.
In Pontiac, one of the Magilles, the fiddler of the parish, made the
following verse in English as a tribute of admiration for an heroic deed
of his ancestor, of which the Cure of the parish, the good M. Santonge,
had told him:
"Piff! poem! ka-zoon, ka-zoon!
That is the way of the organ tune--
And the ships are safe that day!
Piff! poum! kazoon, kazoon!
And the Admiral light his pipe and say:
'Bully for us, we are not kill!
Who is to make the organ play
Make it say zoon-kazoon?
You with the corunet come this way--
You are the man, Magillel
Piff! poum! kazoon, kazoon!'"
Now, this is the story of McGilveray the bandmaster of Anstruther's
regiment:
It was at the time of the taking of Quebec, the summer of 1759. The
English army had lain at Montmorenci, at the Island of Orleans, and at
Point Levis; the English fleet in the basin opposite the town, since June
of that great year, attacking and retreating, bombarding and besieging,
to no great purpose. For within the walls of the city, and on the shore
of Beauport, protected by its mud flats--a splendid moat--the French more
than held their own.
In all the hot months of that summer, when parishes were ravaged with
fire and sword, and the heat was an excuse for almost any lapse of
virtue, McGilveray had not been drunk once--not once. It was almost
unnatural. Previous to that, McGilveray's career had been chequered. No
man had received so many punishments in the whole army, none had risen so
superior to them as had he, none had ever been shielded from wrath
present and to come as had this bandmaster of Anstruther's regiment. He
had no rivals for promotion in the regiment--perhaps that was one reason;
he had a good temper and an overwhelming spirit of fun--perhaps that was
another.
He was not remarkable to the vision--scarcely more than five feet four;
with an eye like a gimlet, red hair tied in a queue, a big mouth, and a
chest thrown out like the breast of a partridge--as fine a figure of a
man in miniature as you should see. When intoxicated, his tongue rapped
out fun and fury like a triphammer. Alert-minded drunk or sober, drunk,
he was lightning-tongued, and he could play as well drunk as sober, too;
but more than once a sympathetic officer altered the tactics that
McGilveray might not be compelled to march, and so expose his condition.
Standing still he was quite fit for duty. He never got really drunk "at
the top." His brain was always clear, no matter how useless were his
legs.
But the wonderful thing was that for six months McGilveray's legs were as
steady as his head was right. At first the regiment was unbelieving, and
his resolution to drink no more was scoffed at in the non-com mess. He
stuck to it, however, and then the cause was searched for--and not found.
He had not turned religious, he was not fanatical, he was of sound
mind--what was it? When the sergeant-major suggested a woman, they howled
him down, for they said McGilveray had not made love to women since the
day of his weaning, and had drunk consistently all the time.
Yet it was a woman.
A fortnight or so after Wolfe's army and Saunders's fleet had sat down
before Quebec, McGilveray, having been told by a sentry at Montmorenci
where Anstruther's regiment was camped, that a French girl on the other
side of the stream had kissed her hand to him and sung across in laughing
insolence:
"Malbrouk s'en va t'en guerre,"
he had forthwith set out to hail this daughter of Gaul, if perchance she
might be seen again.
At more than ordinary peril he crossed the river on a couple of logs,
lashed together, some distance above the spot where the picket had seen
Mademoiselle. It was a moonlight night, and he might easily have been
picked off by a bullet, if a wary sentry had been alert and malicious.
But the truth was that many of these pickets on both sides were in no
wise unfriendly to each other, and more than once exchanged tobacco and
liquor across the stream. As it chanced, however, no sentry saw
McGilveray, and presently, safely landed, he made his way down the
stream. Even at the distance he was from the falls, the rumble of them
came up the long walls of firs and maples with a strange, half-moaning
sound--all else was still. He came down until he was opposite the spot
where his English picket was posted, and then he halted and surveyed his
ground.
Nothing human in sight, no sound of life, no sign of habitation. At this
moment, however, his stupidity in thus rushing into danger, the
foolishness of pursuing a woman whom he had never seen, and a French
woman at that, the punishment that would be meted out to him if his
adventure was discovered--all these came to him.
They stunned him for a moment, and then presently, as if in defiance of
his own thoughts, he began to sing softly:
"Malbrouk s'en va t'en guerre."
Suddenly, in one confused moment, he was seized, and a hand was clapped
over his mouth. Three French soldiers had him in their grip-stalwart
fellows they were, of the Regiment of Bearn. He had no strength to cope
with them, he at once saw the futility of crying out, so he played the
eel, and tried to slip from the grasp of his captors. But though he gave
the trio an awkward five minutes he was at last entirely overcome, and
was carried away in triumph through the woods. More than once they passed
a sentry, and more than once campfires round which soldiers slept or
dozed. Now and again one would raise his head, and with a laugh, or a
"Sapristi!" or a "Sacre bleu!" drop back into comfort again.
After about ten minutes' walk he was brought to a small wooden house, the
door was thrown open, he was tossed inside, and the soldiers entered
after. The room was empty save for a bench, some shelves, a table, on
which a lantern burned, and a rude crucifix on the wall. McGilveray sat
down on the bench, and in five minutes his feet were shackled, while a
chain fastened to a staple in the wall held him in secure captivity.
"How you like yourself now?" asked a huge French corporal who had learned
English from an English girl at St. Malo years before.
"If you'd tie a bit o' pink ribbon round me neck, I'd die wid pride,"
said McGilveray, spitting on the ground in defiance at the same time.
The big soldier laughed, and told his comrades what the bandmaster had
said. One of them grinned, but the other frowned sullenly, and said:
"Avez vous tabac?"
"Havey you to-ba-co?" said the big soldier instantly--interpreting.
"Not for a Johnny Crapaud like you, and put that in your pipe and shmoke
it!" said McGilveray, winking at the big fellow, and spitting on the
ground before the surly one, who made a motion as if he would bayonet
McGilveray where he sat.
"He shall die--the cursed English soldier," said Johnny Crapaud.
"Some other day will do," said McGilveray. "What does he say?" asked
Johnny Crapaud.
"He says he'll give each of us three pounds of tobacco, if we let him
go," answered the corporal. McGilveray knew by the corporal's voice that
he was lying, and he also knew that, somehow, he had made a friend.
"Y'are lyin', me darlin', me bloody beauty!" interposed McGilveray.
"If we don't take him to headquarters now he'll send across and get the
tobacco," interpreted the corporal to Johnny Crapaud.
"If he doesn't get the tobacco he'll be hung for a spy," said Johnny
Crapaud, turning on his heel. "Do we all agree?" said the corporal.
The others nodded their heads, and, as they went out, McGilveray said
after them:
"I'll dance a jig on yer sepulchrees, ye swobs!" he roared, and he spat
on the ground again in defiance. Johnny Crapaud turned to the corporal.
"I'll kill him very dead," said he, "if that tobacco doesn't come. You
tell him so," he added, jerking a thumb towards McGilveray. "You tell him
so."
The corporal stayed when the others went out, and, in broken English,
told McGilveray so.
"I'll play a hornpipe, an' his gory shroud is round him," said
McGilveray.
The corporal grinned from ear to ear. "You like a chew tabac?" said he,
pulling out a dirty knob of a black plug.
McGilveray had found a man after his own heart. "Sing a song a-sixpence,"
said he, "what sort's that for a gintleman an' a corporal, too? Feel in
me trousies pocket," said he, "which is fur me frinds for iver."
McGilveray had now hopes of getting free, but if he had not taken a fancy
to "me baby corporal," as he called the Frenchman, he would have made
escape or release impossible, by insulting him and every one of them as
quick as winking.
After the corporal had emptied one pocket, "Now the other,
man-o-wee-wee!" said McGilveray, and presently the two were drinking what
the flask from the "trousies pocket" contained. So well did McGilveray
work upon the Frenchman's bonhomie that the corporal promised he should
escape. He explained how McGilveray should be freed--that at midnight
some one would come and release him, while he, the corporal, was with his
companions, so avoiding suspicion as to his own complicity. McGilveray
and the corporal were to meet again and exchange courtesies after the
manner of brothers--if the fortunes of war permitted.
McGilveray was left alone. To while away the time he began to whistle to
himself, and what with whistling, and what with winking and talking to
the lantern on the table, and calling himself painful names, he endured
his captivity well enough.
It was near midnight when the lock turned in the door and presently
stepped inside--a girl.
"Malbrouk s'en va t'en guerre," said she, and nodded her head to him
humorously.
By this McGilveray knew that this was the maid that had got him into all
this trouble. At first he was inclined to say so, but she came nearer,
and one look of her black eyes changed all that.
"You've a way wid you, me darlin'," said McGilveray, not thinking that
she might understand.
"A leetla way of my own," she answered in broken English.
McGilveray started. "Where did you learn it?" he asked, for he had had
two surprises that night.
"Of my mother--at St. Malo," she replied. "She was half English--of
Jersey. You are a naughty boy," she added, with a little gurgle of
laughter in her throat. "You are not a good soldier to go a-chase of the
French girls 'cross of the river."
"Shure I am not a good soldier thin. Music's me game. An' the band of
Anstruther's rigimint's mine."
"You can play tunes on a drum?" she asked, mischievously.
"There's wan I'd play to the voice av you," he said, in his softest
brogue. "You'll be unloosin' me, darlin'?" he added.
She stooped to undo the shackles on his ankles. As she did so he leaned
over as if to kiss her. She threw back her head in disgust.
"You have been drink," she said, and she stopped her work of freeing him.
"What'd wet your eye--no more," he answered. She stood up. "I will not,"
she said, pointing to the shackles, "if you drink some more--nevare some
more--nevare!"
"Divil a drop thin, darlin', till we fly our flag yander," pointing
towards where he supposed the town to be.
"Not till then?" she asked, with a merry little sneer. "Ver' well, it is
comme ca!" She held out her hand. Then she burst into a soft laugh, for
his hands were tied. "Let me kiss it," he said, bending forward.
"No, no, no," she said. "We will shake our hands after," and she stooped,
took off the shackles, and freed his arms.
"Now if you like," she said, and they shook hands as McGilveray stood up
and threw out his chest. But, try as he would to look important, she was
still an inch taller than he.
A few moments later they were hurrying quietly through the woods, to the
river. There was no speaking. There was only the escaping prisoner and
the gay-hearted girl speeding along in the night, the mumbling of the
quiet cascade in their ears, the shifting moon playing hide-and-seek with
the clouds. They came out on the bank a distance above where McGilveray
had landed, and the girl paused and spoke in a whisper. "It is more hard
now," she said. "Here is a boat, and I must paddle--you would go to
splash. Sit still and be good."
She loosed the boat into the current gently, and, holding it, motioned to
him to enter.
"You're goin' to row me over?" he asked, incredulously.
"'Sh! get in," she said.
"Shtrike me crazy, no!" said McGilveray. "Divil a step will I go. Let me
that sowed the storm take the whirlwind." He threw out his chest.
"What is it you came here for?" she asked, with meaning.
"Yourself an' the mockin' bird in yer voice," he answered.
"Then that is enough," she said. "You come for me, I go for you. Get in."
A moment afterwards, taking advantage of the obscured moon, they were
carried out on the current diagonally down the stream, and came quickly
to that point on the shore where an English picket was placed. They had
scarcely touched the shore when the click of a musket was heard, and a
"Qui-va-la?" came from the thicket.