PITOU hurried on for half an hour into the very depth of the wood.
There was in the undergrowth, beneath a huge rock, a hut built some thirty-five or forty years before, which was inhabited by a person who in his day had excited no little mystery.
This hut, half buried in the ground and surrounded by foliage, received light only by an oblique opening. Not unlike a gypsy hut, it was often to be detected only by the smoke which rose from it.
Otherwise none but gamekeepers, poachers, and sportsmen would ever have suspected its existence, or that it was inhabited.
For forty years, though, it had been the abode of a retired keeper whom the Duke of Orléans, father of Louis Philippe, had permitted to remain, with the privilege of killing a rabbit or a hare a day.
Fowl and large game were excepted.
At the time we speak of the old man was sixty-nine years old. His name was Clovis originally, to which, as he grew old, the title Father was annexed.
From his residence the rock took the name of Clovis's Stone.
He had been wounded at Fontenoy, and consequently had lost a leg, and had therefore been treated kindly by the duke.
He never went into great cities, and visited VillersCotterets but once a year, for the purpose of buying three hundred and sixty-five loads of powder and ball. On leap years he bought three hundred and sixty-six.
On that day he took to the hatter, Monsieur Cornu, three hundred and sixty-five or three hundred and sixty-six rabbit and hare skins, for which he received seventy-five Tours livres. He never missed a shot, and we are therefore able to be so exact.
He lived on the flesh of the animals, though sometimes he sold it.
With the skins of the animals he bought powder and lead.
Once a year Father Clovis entered into a kind of speculation.
The rock which served as a support to his hut was in the form of an inclined plane, like the roof of a house, and at its widest part measured eighteen feet.
An object placed at the top slid gently down to the bottom.
He spread the report quietly through the neighboring villages, through the intervention of the old women who came to buy his hares and rabbits, that all the young women who on Saint Louis's Day should let themselves slide from the top to the bottom of his rock would certainly be married within the year.
The first year many young women came, but none dared the attempt.
On the next year three tried to do so. Two were married during the course of the year, and Father Clovis said the third would have been married had she had as much faith as the others.
The next year all the young women of the neighborhood came and dared the attempt.
Father Clovis declared that enough men could not be found for so many young women, but that those who had most faith would be married. He had brilliant success. His matrimonial reputation was established.
Then, as people cannot slide all day without something to eat and drink, Father Clovis secured the monopoly of selling all kinds of viands to the male and female sliders; for the young men had persuaded the young ladies that in order that the efficacy of the rock should be infallible, both sexes should slide together and at the same time.
For thirty-five years Clovis lived in this manner. The country treated him as the Arabs do their marabouts. He had become a legend.
One thing, however, excited the jealousy of the guards on duty. It was said that Father Clovis fired but three hundred and sixty-five times yearly, and that at every shot, without fail, he killed either a hare or a rabbit.
More than once the nobles of Paris, invited by the Duke of Orléans, who had heard of Father Clovis, placed a louis or a crown in his broad hand, and sought to ascertain, how any one could never miss.
Old Clovis, however, told them nothing more than that with the same gun, in the army, he had never missed a man at a hundred yards. If he could kill a man with ball, it was far easier to kill a hare with shot.
If any smiled when Clovis spoke thus, he used to say: “Why do you fire when you are not sure of the mark?”
A saying which might have been worthy to have ranked among the boasts of Monsieur de Palisse, had it not been for the established reputation of the old marksman.
“But,” they would ask, “why did Monsieur d' Orléans's father, who was not at all mean, grant you permission to fire but once a day?”
“Because he knew that one shot would be enough.”
The curiosity of this spectacle, and the oddness of this theory, brought at least ten louis a year to the old anchorite.
Now, as he gained much money by the sale of his hare-skins and the holiday he had established, and he purchased only a pair of gaiters in every five years, and a coat every ten, he was not at all unhappy.
On the contrary, it was said that he had a concealed treasure, and that his heir would get a good thing.
Such was the singular person whom Pitou went to at midnight when the brilliant idea of which we have spoken entered his mind.
To fall in with Father Clovis, however, required much address.
Like Neptune's old herdsman, he was not easily overtaken. He knew easily how to distinguish the useless man from one from whom he could make money.
Clovis was lying down on his aromatic bed of heath, which the woods afford in September, and which would not require to be changed until the same month of the next year.
It was eleven o'clock, and the night was calm and bright.
To reach the hut of Clovis, Pitou had to pass through thickets of oak and underbrush so dense that his arrival could not be unheard.
Pitou made four times as much noise as an ordinary person would have done, and old Clovis lifted up his head. He was not asleep, but was on that day in a terribly bad humor. An accident had happened which made him almost unapproachable. The accident was terrible.
His gun, which he had used for five years with balls, and for thirty-five years with shot, had burst when he was firing at a rabbit.
It was the first time ne had missed for thirty-five years.
The fact of the rabbit being safe and sound was not the greatest misfortune which had befallen Clovis. Two fingers of his left hand had been carried away. Clovis had bound up his fingers with bruised herbs and leaves, but he could not mend his gun.
Now to procure another gun Father Clovis would be under the necessity of appealing to his treasury, and even though he expended as much as two louis, who knew if with the new gun he would kill at every shot, as he had done with the one which had so unfortunately burst?
Pitou came, therefore, at an evil hour.
At the very moment Pitou placed his hand on the door, old Clovis uttered a grunt which amazed the commander of the National Guard of Haramont.
Was it a wolf or some one substituted for Father
Pitou, who had read “Little Red Riding-Hood,” hesitated whether he should go in or not.
“Hey! Father Clovis!” cried he.
“What?” said the misanthropist.
Pitou was reassured. He recognized the voice of the worthy anchorite.
“I am glad you are in,” said he.
He then entered the hut and bowed to the occupant.
“Good-day, Father Clovis,” said Pitou, graciously.
“Who goes there?” asked the veteran.
“Well, what is it to me who you are?”
“Ah!” said Pitou, coaxingly, “Father Clovis is now in a bad humor. I was wrong to awake him.”
“Begone as quickly as you can.”
“Well, I will pay for all I get.”
“Possibly; but I am no longer of use to any one.”
“How so? You never miss a shot, Clovis. It is impossible.”
“Listen to me, and you will not be sorry.”
“Well, then, what do you wish? Be brief!”
“No; teach me the manual, and I will pay you.”
“The creature is certainly mad,” growled the old soldier, raising himself on his elbow.
“Father Clovis, will you teach me the manual or not? Do so, and I will pay you what you please.”
The old man arose, and looking fiercely at Pitou, said:
“What I please. Well, give me a gun.”
“The very thing! I have thirty-four guns.”
“Yes; and the thirty-fourth, which I had meant for myself, will just suit you. It is a sergeant's musket with the king's cipher in gold on the breech.”
“How came you by it? You did not steal it, I hope.”
Pitou told him the whole truth frankly and honestly.
“Good!” said the veteran; “I will teach you, but my fingers are hurt.”
He then told Pitou what accident had befallen him.
“Well,” said Pitou, “give yourself no concern about the gun; that is replaced. I cannot give you other fingers, for all I have I need myself.”
“Oh, as for the fingers, that's nothing. If you will only promise that the gun will be here to-morrow, come on.”
The moon shed a torrent of white light on the little clearing in front of the hut.
Pitou and Father Clovis went to the clearing.
Any one who had seen these two dark forms gesticulating at midnight could not have repressed some mysterious terror.
Clovis took up the stump of his gun with a sigh. He then placed himself in a military position.
It was strange to see the old man again become erect, bent as he was from the habit of passing the bushes; but the recollection of his regiment and the excitement of the drill revived him, and he brushed back his long gray locks on his broad shoulders.
“Look at me!” said he; “look at me! That is the way to learn. Do as I do, and I will correct you.”
“Draw back your knees! Shoulders back! Hold up your head! Turn out your toes! Give yourself a good foundation; your feet are large enough.”
Pitou did as well as he could.
“Very well!” said the old man. “You look noble enough.”
Pitou felt much flattered. He had not expected so much.
If he looked noble after an hour's drill, what would he not be in a month? He would be majestic.
But this was enough for one lesson.
Besides, Father Clovis wished to make sure of the gun before giving any more instruction.
“No,” said he, “this is enough for once. Teach this at your first drill, and they will not learn it in four days; and in that time you will have had two lessons.”
“Ah!” replied Clovis, dryly, “I see you have zeal and legs enough. Well, four times be it. I must, however, tell you that there will be no moon.”
“We will go through the manual in your hut, then.”
“You will have to bring a candle.”
“Two pounds of candles, if you please.”
“You shall have it to-morrow.”
“All right. Now let me see if you recollect what I told you.”
Pitou behaved so well that Clovis complimented him. He would have promised Clovis a six-pounder if he had asked for one.
When they had finished, it lacked but an hour of daylight, and he took leave of his teacher, going at a brisk pace towards Haramont, the whole population of which slept soundly.
Pitou sank to sleep, and dreamed that he commanded an army of many millions of men, and waged war on the whole world, his army obeying, in one rank, the word of command, “Carry arms!”
On the next day he drilled his soldiers with an insolence which they esteemed proof positive of his capacity.
Pitou became popular, and was admired by men, women, and children.
The women even became serious, when, in stentorian tones he cried out:—
