"_Sacre mille tonnerres!_" roared the brigadier, sinking down on the bundle. Then he turned and glared at me savagely. "Idiot!" he cried, labouring for his breath. "_Espece d'imbecile. Ah! Nom d'un pet.i.t bonhomme._ You were on the end. Why did you not head off those devils with the lantern?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly in reply. He was in no condition to argue with.

"And the rest of you----" He choked in his rage, unable to frame his words. They stood helplessly about, gesticulating their apologies.

He sprang to his feet, gave the bundle a sound kick, and snarled out an order. Pierre and another jumped forward, and together they shouldered it between them. Then the remainder of the valiant guard fell into single file and started back to the fort, the brigadier and myself bringing up the rear. As we trudged on through the sand together he kept muttering to himself. It only occurred to me then that n.o.body had been hit. By this time even the accomplices were safe.

"Monsieur," I ventured, as we regained the trail leading to the fort, "it is with the sincerest regret of my heart that I offer you my apologies. True, I might have done better, but I did my best in my inexperience. We have the contraband--at least that is something, eh?"

He grew calmer as the thought struck him.

"Yes," he grumbled, "there are in that bundle at least ten thousand cigars. It is, after all, not so bad."

"Might I ask," I returned, "when your excellency intends to honour me with my liberty?"

He stopped, and to my delight held out his hand to me.

"You are free, monsieur," he said roughly, with a touch of his good nature. "The affair is over--but not a word of the manoeuvre you have witnessed in the village. Our work here is for the ears of the Government alone."

As we reached the gate of the fort I saluted him, handed my carbine to Pierre in exchange for my shotgun, and struck home in the mist of early dawn.

The morning after, I was leaning over the lichen-stained wall of my garden caressing the white throat of the Essence of Selfishness, the events of my night of service still in my mind, when I saw the coast patrol coming across the marsh in double file. As they drew nearer I recognized Pierre and his companion, who had shouldered the contraband.

The roped bundle was swung on a stout pole between them.

Presently they left the marsh and gained the road. As the double file of uniformed men came past my wall they returned my salute. Pierre s.h.i.+fted his end of the pole to the man behind him and stood at attention until the rest had pa.s.sed. Then the procession went on to inform Monsieur the Mayor, who lived near the little square where nothing ever happened.

Pierre turned when they had left and entered my garden. What was he going to tell me now? I wondered, with sudden apprehension. Was I to serve another night?

"I'll be hanged if I will," I muttered.

He approached solemnly and slowly, his bayonet gleaming at his side, the warm sunlight glinting on the b.u.t.tons of his uniform. When he got near enough for me to look into his eyes he stopped, raised his hand to his cap in salute, and said with a smile:

"Now, monsieur, the artichokes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: bundle of contraband]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marianne]

CHAPTER FIVE

MARIANNE

Monsieur le Cure slid the long chair up to my fire, bent his straight, black body forward, and rubbing his chilled hands briskly before the blazing logs, announced with a smile of content:

"Marianne is out of jail."

"_Sacristi!_" I exclaimed, "and in mid-winter! It must be cold enough in that hut of hers by the marsh--poor old girl."

"And not a sou to be earned fis.h.i.+ng," added the cure.

"Tell me about this last crime of hers," I asked.

Monsieur le Cure's face grew serious, then again the smile of content spread to the corners of his firm mouth.

"Oh! Nothing very gruesome," he confessed, then after a moment's silence he continued slowly: "Her children needed shoes and warm things for the winter. Marianne stole sixty _metres_ of nets from the fis.h.i.+ng crew at 'The Three Wolves'--she is hopeless, my friend." With a vibrant gesture he straightened up in his chair and flashed his keen eyes to mine. "For ten years I have tried to reform her," he declared. "Bah!"--and he tossed the stump of his cigarette into the blaze.

"You nursed her once through the smallpox," said I, "when no one dared go near her. The mayor told me so. I should think _that_ would have long ago persuaded her to do something for you in return."

"We go where we are needed," he replied simply. "She will promise me nothing. One might as well try to make a faithful paris.h.i.+oner of a gipsy as to change Marianne for the better." He brought his fist down sharply on the broad arm of his chair. "I tell you," he went on tensely, "Marianne is a woman of no morals and no religion--a woman who allows no one to dictate to her save a gendarme with a warrant of arrest. Hardly a winter pa.s.ses but she goes to jail. She is a confirmed thief, a bad subject," he went on vibrantly. "She can drink as no three sailors can drink--and yet you know as well as I do," he added, lowering his voice, "that there is not a mother in Pont du Sable who is as good to her children as Marianne."

"They are a brave little brood," I replied. "I have heard that the eldest boy and girl Marianne adopted, yet they resemble their mother, with their fair curly hair and blue eyes, as much as do the youngest boys and the little girl."

"Marianne has had many lovers," returned the cure gravely. "There is not one of that brood of hers that has yet been baptized." An expression of pain crossed his face. "I have tried hard; Marianne is impossible."

"Yet you admit she has her qualities."

"Yes, good qualities," he confessed, filling a fresh cigarette paper full of tobacco. "Good qualities," he reiterated. "She has brought up her children to be honest and she keeps them clean. She has never stolen from her own village--it is a point of honour with her. Ah! you do not know Marianne as I know her."

"It seems to me you are growing enthusiastic over our worst vagabond," I laughed.

"I am," replied the cure frankly. "I believe in her; she is afraid of nothing. You see her as a vagabond--an outcast, and the next instant, _Parbleu!_ she forces out of you your camaraderie--even your respect.

You shake her by the hand, that straight old hag with her clear blue eyes, her square jaw and her hard face! She who walks with the stride of a man, who is as supple and strong as a sailor, and who looks you squarely in the eye and studies you calmly, at times disdainfully--even when drunk."

It was late when Monsieur le Cure left me alone by my fire. I cannot say "alone," for the Essence of Selfishness, was purring on my chest.

In this old _normand_ house of mine by the marsh, there comes a silence at this hour which is exhilarating. Out of these winter midnights come strange sounds, whirring flights of sea-fowl whistle over my roof, in late for a lodging on the marsh. A heavy peasant's cart goes by, groaning in agony under the brake. When the wind is from the sea, it is like a bevy of witches shrilling my doom down the chimney. "Aye, aye, 'tis he," they seem to scream, "the stranger--the s-t-r-a-n-g-e-r."

One's mind is alert at this hour--one must be brave in a foreign land.

And so I sat up late, smoking a black pipe that gurgled in unison with the purring on my chest while I thought seriously of Marianne.

I had seen her go laughing to jail two months ago, handcuffed to a gendarme on the back seat of the last car of the toy train. It was an occasion when every one in the lost village came charitably out to have a look. I remembered, too, she sat there as garrulous as if she were starting on a holiday--a few of her old cronies crowded about her. One by one, her children gave their mother a parting hug--there were no tears--and the gendarme sat beside her with a stolid dignity befitting his duty to the _Republique_. Then the whistle tooted twice--a coughing puff of steam in the crisp sunlight, a wheeze of wheels, and the toy train rumbled slowly out of the village with its prisoner. Marianne nodded and laughed back at the waving group.

"_Bon voyage!_" croaked a little old woman, lifting her claw. She had borrowed five francs from the prisoner.

"_Au revoir!_" laughed back Marianne, but the words were faint, for the last car was snaking around the bend.

Thus Marianne went to jail. Now that she is back, she takes her return as carelessly and unblus.h.i.+ngly as a _demi-mondaine_ does her annual return from Dinard.