Rose recommended her to keep her pity for Monsieur Riviere, “who had fallen into nice hands,” she said. That no doubt might remain on that head, she whispered mysteriously, but with much gravity and conviction, “I am an Imp;” and aimed at Josephine with her forefinger to point the remark. For one second she stood and watched this important statement sink into her sister’s mind, then set-to and gambolled elfishly round her as she moved stately and thoughtful across the grass to the chateau.
Two days after this a large tree was blown down in Beaurepaire park, and made quite a gap in the prospect. You never know what a big thing a leafy tree is till it comes down. And this ill wind blew Edouard good; for it laid bare the chateau to his inquiring telescope. He had not gazed above half an hour, when a female figure emerged from the chateau. His heart beat. It was only Jacintha. He saw her look this way and that, and presently Dard appeared, and she sent him with his axe to the fallen tree. Edouard watched him hacking away at it. Presently his heart gave a violent leap; for why? two ladies emerged from the Pleasaunce and walked across the park. They came up to Dard, and stood looking at the tree and Dard hacking it, and Edouard watched them greedily. You know we all love to magnify her we love. And this was a delightful way of doing it. It is “a system of espionage” that prevails under every form of government. How he gazed, and gazed, on his now polar star; studied every turn, every gesture, with eager delight, and tried to gather what she said, or at least the nature of it.
But by and by they left Dard and strolled towards the other end of the park. Then did our astronomer fling down his tube, and come running out in hopes of intercepting them, and seeming to meet them by some strange fortuity. Hope whispered he should be blessed with a smile; perhaps a word even. So another minute and he was running up the road to Beaurepaire. But his good heart was doomed to be diverted to a much humbler object than his idol; as he came near the fallen tree he heard loud cries for help, followed by groans of pain. He bounded over the hedge, and there was Dard hanging over his axe, moaning. “What is the matter? what is the matter?” cried Edouard, running to him.
“Oh! oh! cut my foot. Oh!”
Edouard looked, and turned sick, for there was a gash right through Dard’s shoe, and the blood welling up through it. But, recovering himself by an effort of the will, he cried out, “Courage, my lad! don’t give in. Thank Heaven there’s no artery there. Oh, dear, it is a terrible cut! Let us get you home, that is the first thing. Can you walk?”
“Lord bless you, no! nor stand neither without help.”
Edouard flew to the wheelbarrow, and, reversing it, spun a lot of billet out. “Ye must not do that,” said Dard with all the energy he was capable of in his present condition. “Why, that is Jacintha’s wood.”—“To the devil with Jacintha and her wood too!” cried Edouard, “a man is worth more than a fagot. Come, I shall wheel you home: it is only just across the park.”
With some difficulty he lifted him into the barrow. Luckily he had his shooting-jacket on with a brandy-flask in it: he administered it with excellent effect.
The ladies, as they walked, saw a man wheeling a barrow across the park, and took no particular notice; but, as Riviere was making for the same point they were, though at another angle, presently the barrow came near enough for them to see Dard’s head and arms in it. Rose was the first to notice this. “Look! look! if he is not wheeling Dard in the barrow now.”
“Who?”
“Can you ask? Who provides all our excitement?”
Josephine instantly divined there was something amiss. “Consider,” said she, “Monsieur Riviere would not wheel Dard all across the park for amusement.”
Rose assented; and in another minute, by a strange caprice of fate, those Edouard had come to intercept, quickened their pace to intercept him. As soon as he saw their intention he thrilled all over, but did not slacken his pace. He told Dard to take his coat and throw it over his foot, for here were the young ladies coming.
“What for?” said Dard sulkily. “No! let them see what they have done with their little odd jobs: this is my last for one while. I sha’n’t go on two legs again this year.”
The ladies came up with them.
“O monsieur!” said Josephine, “what is the matter?”
“We have met with a little accident, mademoiselle, that is all. Dard has hurt his foot; nothing to speak of, but I thought he would be best at home.”
Rose raised the coat which Riviere, in spite of Dard, had flung over his foot.
“He is bleeding! Dard is bleeding! Oh, my poor Dard. Oh! oh!”
“Hush, Rose!”
“No, don’t put him out of heart, mademoiselle. Take another pull at the flask, Dard. If you please, ladies, I must have him home without delay.”
“Oh yes, but I want him to have a surgeon,” cried Josephine. “And we have no horses nor people to send off as we used to have.”
“But you have me, mademoiselle,” said Edouard tenderly. “Me, who would go to the world’s end for you.” He said this to Josephine, but his eye sought Rose. “I’m a famous runner,” he added, a little bumptiously; “I’ll be at the town in half an hour, and send a surgeon up full gallop.”
“You have a good heart,” said Rose simply.
He bowed his blushing, delighted face, and wheeled Dard to his cottage hard by with almost more than mortal vigor. How softly, how nobly, that frolicsome girl could speak! Those sweet words rang in his ears and ran warm round and round his heart, as he straightened his arms and his back to the work. When they had gone about a hundred yards, a single snivel went off in the wheelbarrow. Five minutes after, Dard was at home in charge of his grandmother, his shoe off, his foot in a wet linen cloth; and Edouard, his coat tied round the neck, squared his shoulders, and ran the two short leagues out. He ran them in forty minutes, found the surgeon at home, told the case, pooh-poohed that worthy’s promise to go to the patient presently, darted into his stable, saddled the horse, brought him round, saw the surgeon into the saddle, started him, dined at the restaurateur’s, strolled back, and was in time to get a good look at the chateau of Beaurepaire just as the sun set on it.
Jacintha came into Dard’s cottage that evening.
“So you have been at it, my man,” cried she cheerfully and rather roughly, then sat down and rocked herself, with her apron over her head. She explained this anomalous proceeding to his grandmother privately. “I thought I would keep his heart up anyway, but you see I was not fit.”
Next morning, as Riviere sat writing, he received an unexpected visit from Jacintha. She came in with her finger to her lips, and said, “You prowl about Dard’s cottage. They are sure to go and see him every day, and him wounded in their service.”
“Oh, you good girl! you dear girl!” cried Edouard.
She did not reply in words, but, after going to the door, returned and gave him a great kiss without ceremony. “Dare say you know what that’s for,” said she, and went off with a clear conscience and reddish cheeks.
Dard’s grandmother had a little house, a little land, a little money, and a little cow. She could just maintain Dard and herself, and her resources enabled Dard to do so many little odd jobs for love, yet keep his main organ tolerably filled.
“Go to bed, my little son, since you have got hashed,” said she.—“Bed be hanged,” cried he. “What good is bed? That’s a silly old custom wants doing away with. It weakens you: it turns you into train oil: it is the doctor’s friend, and the sick man’s bane. Many a one dies through taking to bed, that could have kept his life if he had kept his feet like a man. If I had cut myself in two I would not go to bed—till I go to the bed with a spade in it. No! sit up like Julius Caesar; and die as you lived, in your clothes: don’t strip yourself: let the old women strip you; that is their delight laying out a chap; that is the time they