第63章

"I was hiding there, madame. The ground is so resonant that when my ear was against it I could hear the horses of the gendarmerie, or even the footsteps of the soldiers, which are always peculiar. That gave me time to escape up the Gabou to a place where I had a horse, and I always managed to put several miles between myself and my pursuers.

Catherine used to bring me food during the night; if she did not find me I always found the bread and wine in a hole covered with a rock."

This recollection of his wandering and criminal life, which might have injured Farrabesche with some persons, met with the most indulgent pity from Madame Graslin. She rode hastily on toward the Gabou, followed by her guide. While she measured with her eye this opening, through which could be seen the long valley, so smiling on one side, so ruined on the other, and at its lower end, a league away, the terraced hill-sides back of Montegnac, Farrabesche said:--"There'll be a famous rush of water in a few days."

"And next year, on this day, not a drop shall flow there. Both sides belong to me, and I will build a dam solid enough and high enough to stop the freshet. Instead of a valley yielding nothing, I will have a lake twenty, thirty, forty feet deep over an extent of three or four miles,--an immense reservoir, which shall supply the flow of irrigation with which I will fertilize the plain of Montegnac."

"Ah, madame! the rector was right, when he said to us as we finished our road, 'You are working for a mother.' May God shed his blessing on such an undertaking."

"Say nothing about it, Farrabesche," said Madame Graslin. "The idea was Monsieur Bonnet's."

They returned to the cottage, where Veronique picked up Maurice, with whom she rode hastily back to the chateau. When Madame Sauviat and Aline saw her they were struck with the change in her countenance; the hope of doing good in the region she now owned gave her already an appearance of happiness. She wrote at once to Monsieur Grossetete, begging him to ask Monsieur de Grandville for the complete release of the returned convict, on whose conduct she gave him assurances which were confirmed by a certificate from the mayor of Montegnac and by a letter from Monsieur Bonnet. To this request she added information about Catherine Curieux, begging Grossetete to interest the /procureur-general/ in the good work she wished to do, and persuade him to write to the prefecture of police in Paris to recover traces of the girl. The circumstance of Catherine's having sent money to Farrabesche at the galleys ought to be clew enough to furnish information. Veronique was determined to know why it was that the young woman had not returned to her child and to Farrabesche, now that he was free. She also told her old friend of her discovery about the torrent of the Gabou, and urged him to select an able engineer, such as she had already asked him to procure for her.

The next day was Sunday, and for the first time since her installation at Montegnac Veronique felt able to hear mass in church; she accordingly went there and took possession of the bench that belonged to her in the chapel of the Virgin. Seeing how denuded the poor church was, she resolved to devote a certain sum yearly to the needs of the building and the decoration of the altars. She listened to the sweet, impressive, angelic voice of the rector, whose sermon, though couched in simple language suited to the rustic intellects before him, was sublime in character. Sublimity comes from the heart, intellect has little to do with it; religion is a quenchless source of this sublimity which has no dross; for Catholicism entering and changing all hearts, is itself all heart. Monsieur Bonnet took his text from the epistle for the day, which signified that, sooner or later, God accomplishes all promises, assisting His faithful ones, encouraging the righteous. He made plain to every mind the great things which might be accomplished by wealth judiciously used for the good of others,--explaining that the duties of the poor to the rich were as widely extended as those of the rich to the poor, and that the aid and assistance given should be mutual.

Farrabesche had made known to a few of those who treated him in a friendly manner (the result of the Christian charity which Monsieur Bonnet had put in practice among his parishioners) the benevolent acts Madame Graslin had done for him. Her conduct in this matter had been talked over by all the little groups of persons assembled round the church door before the service, as is the custom in country places.

Nothing could have been better calculated to win the friendship and good-will of these eminently susceptible minds; so that when Veronique left the church after service she found nearly all the inhabitants of the parish formed in two hedges through which she was expected to pass. One and all they bowed respectfully in profound silence. She was deeply touched by this reception, without knowing the actual cause of it. Seeing Farrabesche humbly stationed among the last, she stopped and said to him:--"You are a good hunter; do not forget to supply me with game."

A few days later Veronique went to walk with the rector through the part of the forest that was nearest the chateau, wishing to descend with him the terraced slopes she had seen from the house of Farrabesche. In doing this she obtained complete certainty as to the nature of the upper affluents of the Gabou. The rector saw for himself that the streams which watered certain parts of upper Montegnac came from the mountains of the Correze. This chain of hills joined the barren slopes we have already described, parallel with the chain of the Roche-Vive.

On returning from this walk the rector was joyful as a child; he foresaw, with the naivete of a poet, the prosperity of his dear village--for a poet is a man, is he not? who realizes hopes before they ripen. Monsieur Bonnet garnered his hay as he stood overlooking that barren plain from Madame Graslin's upper terrace.