CHAPTER IX.
"THE GOOD GENTLEMAN."
Tout homme qui, à quarante ans, n'est pas misanthrope, n'a jamais aimé les hommes. – Champfort.
J'ai été prodigieusement fier jusqu'à quarente-cinq ans: mais le malheur m'a bien courbé et m'a rendu aussi humble que j'étais fier. Ah! c'est une grande école que le malheur! j'ai appris à me courber et à m'humilier sous la main de Dieu. – Chenedollé.
The two months which Jules had to spend with his family before his departure for Europe had come to an end, and the vessel in which he had taken passage was to sail in two or three days. Lochiel was at Quebec, making preparations for a voyage which could hardly take less than two months. Abundant provisions were necessary, and Seigneur D'Haberville had intrusted this point to the young Scotchman's care, while Jules's mother and sister were loading down the young men's valises with all the comforts and dainties they could think of. As the time drew near for a separation which might be forever, Jules was drawn closer and closer to his family, whom he could hardly bear to leave even for a moment. One day, however, he remarked:
"As you know, I promised 'the good gentleman' that I would go and stay a night with him before my departure. I will be back to-morrow morning in time to breakfast with you."
With these words, he picked up his gun and started for the woods, in order to take a short cut and have a little hunting by the way.
M. d'Egmont, whom everybody called "the good gentleman," dwelt in a cottage on the Trois Saumons River, about three quarters of a league from the manor house. With him there lived a faithful follower who had shared alike his good and his evil fortunes. André Francœur was of the same age as his master, and was also his foster-brother. Having been the playfellow of his childhood, and the trusted friend rather than the valet of his riper years, André Francœur had found it as natural to follow D'Egmont's fortunes in adversity as in prosperity.
D'Egmont and his servant were living on the interest of a small capital which they had in common. One might even say that the savings of the valet were even greater than those of the master. Was it consistent with D'Egmont's honor to be thus, in a way, dependent on his own servant? Many will answer no; but "the good gentleman" argued otherwise.
"When I was rich I spent my wealth for my friends, and how have my friends rewarded me? André, alone, has shown himself grateful and noble-hearted. In no way, therefore, do I lower myself by associating my fortune with his, as I would have done with one of my own station had one been found as noble as my valet."
When Jules arrived, the good gentleman was busy weeding a bed of lettuce in his garden. Entirely absorbed, he did not see his young friend, who overheard the following soliloquy:
"Poor little insect! I have wounded you, and lo! all the other ants, just now your friends, are falling upon you to devour you. These tiny creatures are as cruel as men. I am going to rescue you; and as for you, my good ants, thanks for the lesson; I have now a better opinion of my kind."
"Poor fellow!" thought Jules, "with a heart so tender, how he must have suffered!"
Withdrawing noiselessly, he entered by the garden gate.
M. d'Egmont uttered an exclamation of delight on seeing his young friend, whom he loved as a son. Although, during the thirty years that he had lived on Captain D'Haberville's estate, he had constantly refused to take up his abode at the manor house, he yet was a frequent visitor there, often remaining a week at a time when there were no strangers present. Without actually shunning society, he had suffered too much in his relations with men of his own class to be able to mingle cordially in their enjoyments.
Although poor, M. d'Egmont was able to do a great deal of good. He comforted the afflicted; he visited the sick, whom he healed with herbs whose virtues were revealed to him by his knowledge of botany; and if his alms-giving was not lavish, it was accompanied by such sympathy and tact that it was none the less appreciated by the poor, who had come to know him by no other title than that of le bon gentilhomme.
When D'Egmont and his young friend entered the house, André set before them a dish of fine trout and a plate of broiled pigeons, garnished with chives.
"It is a frugal supper, indeed," said D'Egmont, "I caught the trout myself in yonder brook, about an hour ago, and André bagged the doves this morning at sunrise, in yonder dead tree, half a gunshot from the cottage. You see that, without being a seigneur, I have a fish-pond and dove-cote on my estate. Now for a salad of lettuce with cream, a bowl of raspberries, a bottle of wine – and there is your supper, friend Jules."
"And never fish-pond and dove-cote supplied better meal to a hungry hunter," exclaimed Jules.
The meal was a cheerful one, for M. d'Egmont seemed to have recovered something of the gayety of his youth. His conversation was no less instructive than amusing; for, although he had mingled much with men in his early days, he had found in study a refuge from his unhappiness.
"How do you like this wine?" said he to Jules, who was eating like a hungry wolf, and had already quaffed several bumpers.
"It is capital, upon my word."
"You are a connoisseur, my friend," went on M. d'Egmont. "If it is true that wine and men improve with age, that wine must indeed be excellent; and as for me, I must be approaching perfection, for I am very nearly ninety."
"Thus it is," said Jules, "that they call you 'the good gentleman.'"
"The Athenians, my son, sent Aristides into exile, and at the same time called him the Just. But let us drop men and speak of wine. For my own part, I drink it rarely. As with many other useless luxuries, I have learned to do without it, and yet I enjoy perfect health. This wine is older than you are; its age, for a man, would not be much, but for wine it is something. Your father sent me a basket of it the day you were born. In his happiness he made gifts to all his friends. I have kept it with great care, and I only bring it out on such rare occasions as this. Here is a health to you, my dear boy. Success to all your undertakings; and when you come back to New France, promise that you will come and sup here with me, and drink a last bottle of this wine, which I will keep for you. You look astonished. You think it likely that when you return I shall have long since paid that debt which is paid even by the most recalcitrant debtor. You are mistaken, my son; a man like me does not die. But come, we have finished supper, let us go and sit sub tegmine fagi, which may be interpreted to mean, under that splendid walnut-tree whose branches are reflected in the river."
The night was magnificent. The ripple of running water was the only sound that broke the moonlit stillness. M. d'Egmont was silent for some moments, and Jules, not caring to disturb his reverie, began tracing hieroglyphics with his finger in the sand.
"I have greatly desired," said "the good gentleman," "to have a talk with you before your departure, before you go out into the world. I know that we can profit little by the experience of others, but that each must purchase his own. No matter, I shall at least have the consolation of having opened my heart to you, a heart which should have been dried up long since, but which yet beats as warmly as when I led the joyous troops of my companions more than half a century ago. Just now you looked at me with surprise when I said that a man like me does not die; you thought I spoke in metaphor, but I was sincere at the moment. So often on my knees have I begged for death that I have ended by almost doubting Death's existence. The heathen have made of him a divinity, doubtless that they might call him to their aid in time of heavy sorrow. If it is as physiology teaches us, and our sufferings depend upon the sensitiveness of our nerves, then have I suffered what would have killed fifty strong men." M. d'Egmont was silent once more, and Jules flung some pebbles into the river.
"See," resumed the old man, "this stream which flows so quietly at our feet. Within an hour it mingles with the troubled waters of the St. Lawrence, and in a few days it will be writhing under the scourge of the Atlantic storms. Behold therein an image of our life! Thy days hitherto have been like the current of this stream; but soon you will be tossed on the great river of life, and will be carried into the ocean of men, whose waves rage ceaselessly. I have watched you from child-hood up; I have studied your character minutely, and that is what has caused me to seek this conversation. Between your character and mine I have found the closest resemblance. Like you, I was born kind-hearted, sympathetic, generous to a fault. How has it come that these virtues, which should have secured me happiness, have rather been the cause of all my ills? How comes it, my son, that these qualities, so applauded among men, have risen against me as my most implacable enemies and beaten me to the dust? I can not but think that I deserved a kindlier fate. Born, like you, of rich and loving parents, I was free to follow my every inclination. Like you, I sought nothing so much as the love of those about me. Like you, in my childhood I would not willingly injure the most insignificant of God's creatures, and to the beggar child I gave the very clothes I wore. Needless to add that, again like you, my hand was ever open to all my comrades, so that I was said to have 'nothing of my own.' It is curious to consider that, at the hands of my playfellows, I never tasted ingratitude. Is ingratitude the attribute only of the full-grown man? Or is it a snare which this human nature casts about the feet of generous childhood, the better to despoil the prey when grown to be a richer prize! But, no; it is impossible that youth could be so depraved.
"And you, Jules," continued the old man after this semi-soliloquy, "have you yet experienced the ingratitude of those you have befriended, the ingratitude which pierces the heart like a blade of steel?"
"Never," said the young man.
"It is self-interest, then, bitter fruit of civilization, which causes ingratitude; the more a man needs, the more ungrateful he becomes. This reminds me of a little story. About twenty years ago a poor savage of the Huron tribe came to me in a pitiable state. It was spring. He had made a long and painful march, he had swum the icy streams when overheated, and as a result he was seized with a violent attack of pleurisy, accompanied by inflammation of the lungs. I judged that only a copious bleeding could save him, and I made shift to bleed him with my penknife. In a word, with care and simple remedies, I effected a cure; but his convalescence was slow, and he stayed with me more than two months. In a little while André and I could talk to him in his own tongue. He told me that he was a great warrior and hunter, but that fire-water had been his ruin. His thanks were as brief as his farewells:
"'My heart is too full for many words,' said he; 'the Huron warrior knows not how to weep like a woman. I thank you, my brothers,' And he vanished in the forest.
"I had entirely forgotten my Indian, when about four years later he arrived at my door, accompanied by another savage. I could scarcely recognize him. He was splendidly clad, and everything about him bespoke the great hunter and the mighty warrior. In one corner of my room he and his companion laid down two bundles of merchandise of great value – the richest furs, moccasins splendidly embroidered with porcupine quills, and exquisite pieces of work in birch bark, such as the Indians alone know how to make. I congratulated him upon the happy turn his affairs had taken.
"'Listen to me, my brother,' said he. 'I owe you much, and I am come to pay my debt. You saved my life, for you know good medicine. You have done more, for you know the words which reach the heart; dog of a drunkard as I was, I am become once more a man as I was created by the Great Spirit. You were rich when you lived beyond the great water. This wigwam is too small for you; build one large enough to hold your great heart. All these goods belong to you,' The gratitude of this child of the forest brought tears to my eyes; for in all my long life I had found but two men who could be grateful – the faithful André, my foster-brother, and this poor Indian, who, seeing that I was going to accept nothing but a pair of deer-hide moccasins, struck three fingers rapidly across his mouth with a shrill cry of 'houa,' and took himself off at top speed with his companion. Never after could I find a trace of him. Our good curé undertook the sale of the goods, the product of which, with interest, was lately distributed among his tribe."
The good gentleman sighed, reflected a moment, then resumed his speech:
"I am now going to tell you, my dear Jules, of the most happy and most wretched periods of my life. Five years of happiness! Five years of misery! O God! for one single day of the joy of my youth, the joy as keen as pain, which could make me forget all that I have suffered! Oh, for one of those happy days when I believed in human friendship, when I knew not the ingratitude of men!
"When I had completed my studies, all careers were open to me. That of arms seemed most suitable, but I hated to shed blood. I obtained a place of trust under the government. For me such a place was ruin. I had a great fortune of my own, my office was a lucrative one, and I scattered by handfuls the gold which I despised.
"I do not accuse others in order to palliate my own follies. But one thing is sure, I had more than enough for all my own expenses, though not for those of my friends and my friends' friends, who rushed upon me like hungry wolves. I bear them no grudge; they but acted according to their nature. As for me, my hand was never shut. Not only my purse, but my signature was at everybody's disposal. There was my greatest mistake; for I may say in all sincerity that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, in my times of greatest embarrassment, I had to meet their liabilities with my own cash in order to save my credit. A great English poet has said:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,
And loan oft loses both itself and friend.
"Give, my dear boy, with both hands; but be chary of your signature.
"My private affairs were so mingled with those of my office that it was long before I discovered how deeply I was involved. The revelation came upon me like a thunderbolt. Not only was I ruined, but I was on the verge of a serious defalcation. At last I said to myself, 'what matters the loss of the gold, so long as I pay my debts? I am young, and not afraid to work, and I shall always have enough. Moreover, my friends owe me considerable sums. When they see my difficulties, not only will they hasten to give back what they owe, but they will do for me as I have so often done for them.' What a fool I was to judge others by myself! For me, I would have moved heaven and earth to save a friend from ruin. How innocent and credulous I was! They had good reason, the wretches, to laugh at me.
"I took account of what was owed me and of the value of my property, and then perceived that with these affairs settled up there would remain but a small balance, which I could cover with the help of my relations. The load rolled off my heart. How little I knew of men! I told my debtors, in confidence, how I was situated. I found them strangely cold. Several to whom I had lent without written acknowledgment had even forgotten that they owed me anything. Those whose notes I held, declared it was ungenerous of me to take them unawares. The greater number, who had had business at my office, claimed boldly that I was in debt to them. I did, indeed, owe them a trifle, while they owed me considerable sums. I asked them for a settlement, but they put me off with promises; and meanwhile undermined my credit by whispering it about that I was on the verge of ruin. They even turned me into ridicule as a spendthrift fool. One wag of a fellow, whom but eighteen months before I had saved not only from ruin but from disgrace (his secret shall die with me), was hugely witty at my expense. His pleasantries had a great success among my old friends. Such measureless ingratitude as this completely crushed me. One only, and he a mere acquaintance, hearing that I was in difficulties, hastened to me with these words:
"'We have had some little transactions together; I think you will find here the correct balance in your favor. Please look up the matter in your books and see if I am right.'
"He is dead long since. Honor to his memory, and may the blessings of an old man descend upon his children!
"The inevitable day was close at hand, and even had I had the heart to make further struggle nothing could save me. My friends and enemies alike were intriguing for the spoils. I lowered my head before the storm and resigned.
"I will not sadden you with the story of all I suffered; suffice to say that, fallen into the claws of pitiless creditors, I drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs. Apart from the ingratitude of my friends, I was not the sort of man to grieve greatly over my mere personal misfortunes. Even within the walls of the Bastille my gayety would not have deserted me; I might have danced to the grim music of the grating of my bolts. But my family! my family! Oh, the gnawing remorse which harasses the day, which haunts the long sleepless night, which suffers you neither forgetfulness nor rest, which wrenches the nerves of one's heart as with pincers of steel!
"I believe, my boy, that with a few exceptions every man who can do so pays his debts; the torments he endures at the sight of his creditor would constrain him to this, even without the terrors of the law. Glance through the ancient and modern codes, and you will be struck with the barbarous egotism which has dictated them all alike. Can one imagine, indeed, any punishment more humiliating than that of a debtor kept face to face with his creditor, who is often a skinflint to whom he must cringe with fearful deference? Can anything be more degrading than to be obliged to keep dodging a creditor?
"It has always struck me that civilization warps men's judgment, and makes them inferior to primitive races in mere common sense and simple equity. Let me give you an amusing instance. Some years ago, in New York, an Iroquois was gazing intently at a great, forbidding structure. Its lofty walls and iron-bound windows interested him profoundly. It was a prison. A magistrate came up.
"'Will the pale face tell his brother what this great wigwam is for?' asked the Indian. The citizen swelled out his chest and answered with an air of importance:
"'It is there we shut up the red-skins who refuse to pay the furs which they owe our merchants.'
"The Iroquois examined the structure with ever-increasing interest, walked around it, and asked to see the inside of this marvelous wigwam. The magistrate, who was himself a merchant, was glad to grant his request, in the hope of inspiring with wholesome dread the other savages, to whom this one would not fail to recount the effective and ingenious methods employed by the pale faces to make the red-skins pay their debts.
"The Iroquois went over the whole building with the minutest care, descended into the dungeons, tried the depth of the wells, listened attentively to the smallest sounds, and at last burst out laughing.
"'Why,' exclaimed he, 'no Indian could catch any beaver here.'
"In five minutes the Indian had found the solution of a problem which civilized man has not had the common sense to solve in centuries of study. This simple and unlearned man, unable to comprehend such folly on the part of a civilized race, had naturally concluded that the prison had subterranean canals communicating with streams and lakes where beaver were abundant, and that the savages were shut up therein in order to facilitate their hunting of the precious animals, and the more prompt satisfaction of their creditors' claims. These walls and iron gratings seemed to him intended for the guarding of the treasure within.
"You understand, Jules, that I am speaking to you now on behalf of the creditor, who gets all the sympathy and pity, and not on behalf of the debtor who, with his dread and suspicion ever before his eyes, gnaws his pillow in despair after watering it with his tears.
"I was young, only thirty-three years of age. I had ability, energy, and a sturdy faith in myself. I said to my creditors, take all I have but leave me free, and I will devote every energy to meeting your claims. If you imprison me you wrong yourselves. Simple as was this reasoning, it was incomprehensible to civilized man. My Iroquois would have understood it well enough. He would have said: 'My brother can take no beaver if the pale face ties his hands.' My creditors, however, took no account of such simple logic as this, and have held the sword of Damocles over my head for thirty years, the limit allowed them by the laws of France."
"What adorable stupidity!" cried Jules.
"One of them, however," continued M. d'Egmont, "with a delightful ingenuity of torture, obtained a warrant for my arrest, and with a refinement of cruelty worthy of Caligula himself, did not put it in execution till eighteen months later. Picture me for those eighteen months, surrounded by my family, who had to see me trembling at every noise, shuddering at the sight of every stranger who might prove to be the bearer of the order for my imprisonment.
"So unbearable was my suspense that twice I sought out my creditor and besought him to execute his warrant without delay. At last he did so, at his leisure. I could have thanked him on my knees. From behind my bars I could defy the malice of men.
"During the first month of his captivity the prisoner experiences a feverish restlessness, a need of continual movement. He is like a caged lion. After this time of trial, this feverish disquiet, I attained in my cell the calm of one who after being tossed violently by a storm at sea, feels no longer anything more than the throb of the subsiding waves; for apart from the innumerable humiliations of imprisonment, apart from my grief for my family, I was certainly less wretched. I believed that I had drunk the last drop of gall from the cup which man holds to his brother's fevered lips. I was reckoning without the hand of God, which was being made heavy for the insensate fool who had wrought his own misfortune. Two of my children, at two different periods, fell so dangerously ill that the doctors gave them up and daily announced to me that the end was near. It was then I felt the weight of my chains. It was then I learned to cry, like the mother of Christ, 'Approach and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' I was separated from my children only by the breadth of a street. During the long night watches I could perceive the stir about their couch, the lights moving from one room to another; and I trembled every moment lest the stillness should fall which would proclaim them no longer in need of a mother's care. I blush to confess that I was sometimes tempted to dash my life out against the bars.
"Meanwhile my persecutor knew as well as I what was passing in my family. But pity is fled from the breast of man to take refuge in brute beasts that have no understanding. The lamb bleats sadly when one of his companions is slaughtered, the ox bellows with rage and pain when he smells the blood of his kind, the horse snorts sharply and utters his doleful and piercing cry at the sight of his fellow struggling in the final agony, the dog howls with grief when his master is sick; but with whisperings and gossip and furtive pleasantry man follows his brother to the grave.
"Lift up your head in your pride, lord of creation! You have the right to do so. Lift your haughty head to heaven, O man whose heart is as cold as the gold you grasp at day and night! Heap your slanders with both hands on the man of eager heart, of ardent passions, of blood burning like fire, who has fallen in his youth! Hold high your head, proud Pharisee, and say, 'As for me, I have never fallen!'" "The good gentleman" pressed his hands to his heart, kept silent for some minutes, and at length resumed:
"Pardon me, my son, that, carried away by the memory of my sufferings, I have spoken the whole bitterness of my heart. It was but seven days after the coming of his friends when the great Arabian poet Job, the singer of so many sorrows, broke out with this heart-rending cry, 'Pereat dies in quâ natus sum!' As for me, these fifty years have I buried my lamentations in my heart, and you will pardon me if I have spoken now with bitterness, if I have calumniated mankind.
"As I had long ago given up to my creditors all that I possessed, and had sold my real estate and personal property for their benefit, after four years' imprisonment I petitioned the King for my release. The Government was of the opinion that I had suffered enough, but there remained one great difficulty – when a debtor has given up everything, does anything yet remain? The question was a knotty one. Nevertheless, after long debate, it was decided in the negative, and very politely they showed me the door.
"My future was broken, like my heart, and I had nothing to do but vegetate without profit to myself or others. But observe the fatality that pursued me. When making my surrender to my creditors I begged them to leave me a certain property of very small immediate value, which I foresaw that I might turn to good account. I promised that whatever I could make out of it should go to wiping out the debt. They laughed me in the face; and very naturally, for there was a beaver to catch. Well, Jules, this same property, which brought hardly enough to cover costs of sale, sold ten years later for a sum which would have covered all my debts and more.
"Europe was now too populous for me, and I embarked with my faithful André for New France. I chose out this peaceful dwelling place, where I might have lived happily could I have drunk the waters of Lethe. The ancients, our superiors in point of imagination, knew the needs of the human heart when they created that stream. Long tainted with the errors of the sixteenth century, I used once to cry in my pride, 'O men, if I have shared your vices, I have found few among you endowed with even one of my virtues.' But religion has taught me to know myself better, and I have humbled myself beneath God's hand, convinced at length that I could claim but little credit for merely following the inclinations of my nature.
"You are the only one, Jules, to whom I have hinted the story of my life, suppressing the cruelest episodes because I know the tenderness of your heart. My end is attained; let us now go and finish the evening with my faithful André, who will keenly appreciate this attention on the eve of your departure."
When they re-entered the house André was making up a bed on a sofa, a piece of furniture which was the result of the combined skill of master and man. This sofa, of which they were both very proud, had one leg shorter than the others, but this little inconvenience was remedied with the aid of a chip.
"This sofa," said "the good gentleman," with an air of pride, "has cost André and me more elaborate calculations than Perrault required for the construction of the Louvre; but we accomplished it at last to our satisfaction. One leg, to be sure, presents arms to all comers. But what work is perfect? You must have remembered, my André, that this camp-bed was to be a soldiers' couch."
André, though not quite relishing this pleasantry, which jarred a little on his vanity, nevertheless could not help laughing.
Late in the evening M. d'Egmont handed Jules a little silver candlestick exquisitely wrought.
"There, my dear boy, is all that my creditors have left me of my ancient fortune. They intended it, I suppose, to solace my sleepless nights. Good-night, dear boy; one sleeps well at your age; and when, after my prayers beneath the vault of that great temple which is forever declaring the glory of God, I once more come under my roof, you will be deep in your slumbers."