The Master-Christian Part 7

"None!"

"And is it not strange, Monseigneur," murmured Madame Patoux at this juncture--"The little lad does not speak as if he were ignorant! It is as though he had been well taught and carefully nurtured."

Manuel's deep eyes dwelt upon her with a meditative sweetness.

"I have taught myself;" he said simply--"Not out of books, perhaps, but out of nature. The trees and rivers, the flowers and birds have talked to me and explained many things;--I have learned all I know from what G.o.d has told me."

His voice was so gentle and tender that Madame Patoux was infinitely touched by its soft plaintiveness.

"Poor child!" she murmured,--"He has no doubt been wandering through the country, without a soul to help him. Alas, that troubles should begin for one so young! Perhaps he does not even know a prayer!"

"Oh yes!" said Manuel quickly--"Prayer is like thought,--G.o.d is so good that it is only natural to thank and praise Him. Is it not so?"

"It should be natural, my boy," answered the Cardinal slowly and with a slight accent of melancholy,--"But for many of us in these days I fear it is more natural still to forget than to remember. Too often we take gifts and ignore the giver. But come now and breakfast in my room;--for the present you shall remain with me, and I will see what can best be done for your future welfare."

And turning to Madame Patoux he added smilingly--"You, my daughter, with children of your own to care for, will no longer blame me for my interest in this child, who is without protection in a somewhat rough world. We of the Church dare not 'offend one of these little ones'."

"Ah, Monseigneur!" murmured Madame,--"If all in the Church were like you, some poor folks would believe in G.o.d more willingly. But when people are starving and miserable, it is easy to understand that often they will curse the priests and even religion itself, for making such a mock of them as to keep on telling them about the joys of heaven, when they are tormented to the very day of their death on earth, and are left without hope or rescue of any kind--"

But the Cardinal had disappeared with his young charge and Madame's speech was lost upon him. She had therefore to content herself with relating the story of "Monseigneur's foundling" to her husband, who just then came into the kitchen to take his breakfast before starting off to work in his market-garden. He listened with interest and attention.

"A boy is always a trouble," he said sententiously--"And it is likely that so Monseigneur will find it. How old would the child be?"

"About twelve, I should say," answered Madame--"But beautiful as a little angel, Jean!"

"That's a pity!" and Patoux shook his head ominously--"Tis bad enough when a girl is beautiful,--but a boy!--Well, well! Monseigneur is a wise man, and a saint they say,--he knows best,--but I fear he has taken a burden upon himself which he will very soon regret! What dost thou think of it, pet.i.te?"

Madame hesitated a moment before replying.

"Truly, I do not know what to think," she answered--"For myself, I have not spoken to the child. I have seen him,--yes!--and at the sight of him a something in my throat rose up and choked me as it were,--and stopped me from saying a rough word. Such a lonely gentle lad!--one could not be harsh with him, and yet--"

"Yet! Oh, yes, I know!" said Patoux, finis.h.i.+ng his coffee at a gulp and smiling,--"Women will always be women,--and a handsome face in girl or boy is enough to make fools of them all. Where are the children? Are they gone to school?"

"Yes--they went before the Cardinal was up. 'Tis a Sat.u.r.day, and they will be back early,--they are going to bring little Fabien Doucet to Monseigneur."

"What for?" enquired Patoux, his round eyes opening widely in amazement.

"Oh, for a strange fancy! That he may bless the child and pray Our Lady to cure him of his lameness. It was Babette's whim. I told her the Cardinal was a saint,--and she said,--well! she said she would never believe it unless he worked a miracle! The wicked mischief that girl is!--as bad as Henri, who puts a doubt on everything!"

"'Tis the school," said Jean gloomily--"I must speak to Pere Laurent."

"Truly that would be well," said Madame--"He may explain what we cannot. All the same, you may be sure the children WILL bring Fabien Doucet to Monseigneur;--they have made up their minds about it,--and if the little miserable's lameness gets no better, we shall have work enough in future to make the saints respected!"

Patoux muttered something inaudible, and went his way. Life was in his opinion, a very excellent thing,--nevertheless there were a few details about it which occasionally troubled him, and one of these details was decidedly the "national education" question. It struck him as altogether remarkable that the State should force him to send his children to school whether he liked it or no; and moreover that the system of instruction at the said school should be totally opposed to his own ideas. He would have certainly wished his son to learn to read and write, and then to have been trained as a thorough florist and gardener;--while for his daughter he also desired reading and writing as a matter of course, and then a complete education in cooking and domestic economy, so that she might be a useful and efficient wife and mother when the proper time for such duties came. Astronomy he felt they could both do without, and most of the "physical sciences."

Religion he considered an absolute necessity, and this was the very thing that was totally omitted from the national course of education.

He was well aware that there are countless numbers of unhappy people nowadays who despise religion and mock at the very idea of a G.o.d. Every day he saw certain works exposed for sale on the out-of-door bookstalls which in their very t.i.tles proclaimed the hideous tone of blasphemy which in France is gradually becoming universal,--but this did not affect his own sense of what was right and just. He was a very plain common man, but he held holy things in reverence, and instinctively felt that, if the world were in truth a bad place, it was likely to become much worse if all faith in G.o.d were taken out of it. And when he reached his plot of ground that morning, and set to work as usual, he was, for a non-reflective man, very much absorbed in thought. His heavy tramping feet over the soil startled some little brown birds from their hidden nests, and sent them flying to and fro through the clear air uttering sharp chirrups of terror,--and, leaning on his spade, he paused and looked at them meditatively.

"Everything is afraid," he said,--"Birds, beasts, and men,--all are afraid of something and cannot tell what it is that frightens them. It seems hard sometimes that there should be so much trouble and struggle just to live--however, the good G.o.d knows best,--and if we could not think and hope and believe He knew best, we might just as well light up a charcoal fire, shut all the doors and windows, and say 'Bon jour! Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!--for if YOU do not know YOUR business, it is evident we do not know ours, and therefore 'tis best for both our sakes to make an end of sheer Stupidity!'"

He chuckled at his own reasoning, and moistening his hands vigorously, seized his spade and began to bank up a ridge of celery, singing "Bon jour, Monsieur le bon Dieu!" under his breath without the slightest idea of irreverence. And looking up at the bright sky occasionally, he wished he had seen the stray boy rescued from the streets by Cardinal Bonpre.

"That he will be a trouble, there is no doubt," he said as he turned and patted the rich dark earth--"Never was there a boy born yet into the world that was not a trouble except our Lord, and even in His case His own people did not know what to make of Him!"

Meantime, while Jean Patoux dug in his garden, and sang and soliloquized, his two children, Henri and Babette, their school hours being ended, had run off to the market, and were talking vivaciously with a big brown st.u.r.dy woman, who was selling poultry at a stall, under a very large patched red umbrella. She was Martine Doucet, reported to have the worst temper and most vixenish tongue in all the town, though there were some who said her sourness of humour only arose from the hards.h.i.+ps of her life, and the many troubles she had been fated to endure. Her husband, a fine handsome man, earning good weekly wages as a stone-mason, had been killed by a fall from a ladder, while engaged in helping to build one of the new houses on the Boulevards, and her only child Fabien, a boy of ten had, when a baby, tumbled from the cart in which his mother was taking her poultry to market, and though no injury was apparent at the time, had, from the effects of the fall, grown into a poor little twisted mite of humanity with a bent spine, and one useless leg which hung limply from his body, while he could scarcely hobble about on the other, even with the aid of a crutch. He had a soft, pretty, plaintive face of his own, the little Fabien, and very gentle ways,--but he was sensitively conscious of his misfortune, and in his own small secret soul he was always praying that he might die while he was yet a child, and not grow up to be a burden to his mother. Martine, however, adored him; and it was through her intense love for this child of hers that she had, in a strange vengeful sort of mood abandoned G.o.d, and flung an open and atheistical defiance in the face of her confessor, who, missing her at ma.s.s, had ventured to call upon her and seriously reproach her for neglecting the duties of her religion. Martine had whirled round upon him,--a veritable storm in petticoats.

"Religion!" she cried--"Oh--he! What good has it done for ME, if you please! When I said my prayers night and morning, went to ma.s.s and confession, and told my rosary every Mary-Feast, what happened? Was not my man killed and my child crippled? And then,--(not to lose faith--) did I not give the saints every chance of behaving themselves? For my child's sake did I not earn good money and pay it to the Church in special ma.s.ses that he might be cured of his lameness? And Novenas in plenty, and candles in plenty to the Virgin, and fastings of my own and penitences? And is the child not as lame as ever? Look at him!--the dear angel!--with never an evil thought or a wicked way,--and will you try to make me believe there is a good G.o.d, when He will not help a poor little creature like that, to be happy, though He is prayed to night and morning for it! No--no! Churches are kept up for priests to make a fat living out of,--but there is never a G.o.d in them that I can see;--and as for the Christ, who had only to be asked in order to heal the sick, there is not so much as a ghost of Him anywhere! If what you priests tell us were true, poor souls such as I am, would get comfort and help in our sorrows, but it is all a lie!--the whole thing!--and when we are in trouble, we have got to bear it as best we can, without so much as a kind word from our neighbours, let alone any pity from the saints. Go to ma.s.s again? Not I!--nor to confession either!--and no more of my earnings will click into your great bra.s.s collection plate, mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman indeed, to trust so long in a G.o.d who for all my tears and prayers never gives me a sign or a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose this wretched world of ours was made by somebody, whoever it is that has done it is a cruel creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as much good feeling as there is in the heart of an ordinary man, and without the sense of the man either! For who that thinks twice about it would make a world where everything is only born to die?--and for no other use at all! Bah! It is sheer folly and wickedness to talk to me of a G.o.d!--a G.o.d, if there were one, would surely be far above torturing the creatures He has made, all for nothing!"

And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the part of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror, and presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was unfit to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard of it, Martine laughed loudly and ferociously.

"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If you don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he tells your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little does he care to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil, that he refuses you the Sacrament, though THAT is said to drive away Satan by the mere touch of it! But wait till I ASK to have the Sacrament given to me!--it will be time enough then to refuse it! Many a fat chicken of my stock has the reverend father had as a free gift to boil in his soup maigre!"

and again she laughed angrily--"But no more of them does he get to comfort his stomach while doing penance for his soul!--the hypocrite!

He must find another silly woman to cheat with his stories of a good G.o.d who never does anything but kill and curse us every one!--he has had all that he will ever get out of Martine Doucet!"

It was to this redoubtable virago that Henri and Babette had betaken themselves in the market place directly school was over. She always held the same stall in the same position on market days,--and she sat under her red umbrella on a rough wooden bench, knitting rapidly, now keeping an eye on her little lame son, coiled up in a piece of matting beside her, and anon surveying her stock-in-trade of ducks and geese and fowls, which were heaped on her counter, their wrung necks drooping limply from the board, and their yellow feet tied helplessly together and s.h.i.+ning like bits of dull gold in the warm light of the September sun. She listened with an impa.s.sive countenance while Babette poured out her story of the great Cardinal,--the Cardinal Felix Bonpre, whom people said was a saint,--how he had come unexpectedly to stay two nights at the Hotel Poitiers,--how "pet.i.te maman" had declared he was so good that even angels might visit him,--how kind and gentle and grand he seemed,--"Yes," said Babette somewhat eagerly, "there was no doubt that he LOOKED good,--and we have told him all about Fabien and he has promised to bless him and ask Our Lord to cure his lameness."

"Well, and of what use is that, mignonne?" demanded Martine, clicking her knitting-needles violently and stooping over her work to wink away the sudden tears that had risen in her bold brown eyes at Babette's enthusiastic desire to benefit her afflicted child.--"Asking our Lord is poor business,--you may ask and ask, but you never get answered!"

Babette hung her curly brown head despondingly, and looked appealingly at her brother. Now Henri was a decided cynic;--but his sister exercised a weird fascination over him,--a sort of power to command which he always felt more or less constrained to obey. He stared solemnly at Martine, and then at the little Fabien, who, half rising from his mat, had listened with a visibly painful interest to Babette's story.

"I think you might let us take Fabien and see if a Cardinal CAN do anything," he said with a kind of judicial air, as of one who, though considering the case hopeless, had no objection to try a last desperate remedy. "This one is a very old man, and he must know a good deal. He could not do any harm. And I am sure Babette would like to find out if there is any use at all in a Cardinal. I should like it too. You see we went into Notre Dame last night,--Babette and I,--and everything was dark,--all the candles were out at Our Lady's statue--and we had only ten centimes between us. And the candles are ten centimes each. So we could only light one. But we lit that one, and said an Ave for Fabien.

And the candle was all by itself in the Cathedral. And now I think we ought to take him to the Cardinal."

Martine shook her head, pursed up her lips, and knitted more violently than ever.

"It is all no use--no use!" she muttered--"There is no G.o.d,--or if there is, He must be deaf as well as blind!"

But here suddenly the weak plaintive voice of Fabien himself piped out--

"Oh, mother, let me go!"

Martine looked down at him.

"Let thee go? To see the Cardinal? Why he is nought but an old man, child, as helpless as any of us. What dost thou think he can do for thee?"

"Nothing!" and the boy clambered up on his crutch, and stood appealingly before his mother, his fair curls blowing back in the breeze,--"But I SHOULD like to see him. Oh, do let me go!"

Babette caught him by the hand.

"Yes, oh yes, Martine!" she exclaimed--"Let him come with us!"

Martine hesitated a moment longer, but she could never altogether resist an imploring look in her boy's eyes, or refuse any request he made of her,--and gradually the hard lines of her mouth relaxed into a half smile. Babette at once perceived this, and eagerly accepted it as a sign that she had gained her point.

"Come, Fabien!" she exclaimed delightedly--"Thy mother says yes! We will not be long gone, Martine! And perhaps we will bring him home quite well!"

Martine shook her head sorrowfully, and paused for a while in her knitting to watch the three children crossing the market-place together, Henri supporting her little son on one side, Babette on the other, both carefully aiding his slow and halting movements over the rough cobbles of the uneven pavement. Then as they all turned a corner and disappeared, she sighed, and a couple of bright tears splashed down on her knitting. But the next moment her eyes were as bold and keen and defiant as ever while she stood up to attend to two or three customers who just then approached her stall, and her voice was as shrill and sharp as any woman's voice could be in the noisy business of driving a bargain. Having disposed of three or four fat geese and fowls at a good profit, she c.h.i.n.ked and counted the money in her ap.r.o.n pockets, hummed a tune, and looked up at the genial sky with an expression of disfavour.

"Oh, yes, 'tis a fine day!" she muttered,--"And the heavens look as if the saints lived in them;--but by and by the clouds will come, and the cold!--the sleet, the snow, the frost and the bitterness of winter!--and honest folk will starve while thieves make a good living!--that is the way the wise G.o.d arranges things in this world."