The sisters often undressed without exchanging a word. Rousille was gazing straight before her into the clear moonlight; her accustomed eye could distinguish objects by it almost as accurately as by the light of day. Immediately beyond the wall came a group of elms, under shelter of which stood carts and ploughs, then a stretch of land lying fallow, and beyond that again the broad flat expanse of marshland, across which on most nights would come now faintly, now loudly, the sound of the roll of the ocean, as of some far-off chariot that never stopped. The immense gra.s.sy plain looked blue in the darkness; here and there the water of a d.y.k.e shone in the moonlight. A few distant lights, a window lit up, pierced the veil of mist that spread over the meadows. Unerringly Rousille could name each farmstead to herself by its beacon light, similar to that on the mast-head of a s.h.i.+p riding at anchor; La Pinconniere, La Paree du Mont, both near; further away, Les Levrelles; then so distant that their lights were only visible at intervals, like tiny stars, La Terre-Aymont, La Seuliere, Malabrit, and the flour-mill of Moque-Souris. By a group of starry points on the right, she could discern the town of Sallertaine standing out on an invisible mound in the middle of the Marais. Somewhere about there Jean Nesmy was wading among the reeds, for love of Rousille. So she continued to think of him; she seemed to see him so far, so very far away, amid the dreamy shadows, and her lips pressed together, then parted in a long, silent kiss.

There was a sudden swish of wings over the tiles of La Fromentiere.

"Do shut the window, Rousille," said Eleonore, waking up. "It is the turn of the night, and blows in cold."

The sky was clear, the clouds had dispersed. The lights of Moque-Souris were extinguished; those of Sallertaine had gradually diminished like a bunch of currants pecked by birds.

"Until to-morrow, my Jean, in the dwarf orchard," murmured Rousille.

And slowly, musingly, the girl began unfastening her dress by the light reflected from her white sheet, her young heart filled with dreams of youth.

CHAPTER III.

THE DWARF ORCHARD.

Towards four o'clock the stars began to fade in the sky, the first signs of daybreak to appear. A c.o.c.k crowed. It was the same golden-feathered c.o.c.k, with fiery eyes under his red crest, that crowed every morning. Marie-Rose had reared him. Now hearing it she thought, "Thank you, little c.o.c.k!" Then began to dress quietly, for fear of rousing Eleonore, who still slept soundly.

She was quickly ready, and crossing the courtyard, turned to the left past the ruined wall by a gra.s.sy path on the farm property, strewn with fallen branches, which led down to the Marais. About some hundred yards from La Fromentiere all vegetation abruptly ceased, and one came upon a low wall grown with lichen and moss, surrounding an orchard of about an acre in extent. Rousille, pus.h.i.+ng open a gate in the middle of the wall, entered.

It was a curious sight, this dwarf orchard. The cider apple and pear trees with which it was planted had never been able to grow higher than the top of the wall on account of the strong winds that blew from the sea. Their stems were thick and gnarled, their branches all bent and driven towards the east; leafless above, they met and over-arched beneath. Looking at it from outside one simply saw a billowy ma.s.s of bare branches; but on making one's way down the central path, one found oneself in a leafy shade some four feet high, safe from inquisitive eyes, from rain and heat, and from the gales which sweep over the Marais. It was a sailor's folly, such as might be found in far-off isles. As a child, it had been Rousille's playground; now grown up, it was here she had come to meet her betrothed.

Entering, she stooped and made a path for herself towards the western wall, then sitting upon the forked branch of an apple-tree, hidden among them like a partridge in a corn-field, she gazed out upon the vast plain along which Jean Nesmy must come.

At this early hour the Marais was covered with mists which did not rise, but parted ever and anon, undulating in the breeze. The solitude was unbroken, the atmosphere light, sensitive, nervous, carrying the faintest sound without diminution. The bark of a dog at Sallertaine came to her ears as if it were beside her. Great square corn-fields that looked like patches of grey fur st.i.tched together faded away into nothing in the distance. Here and there ca.n.a.ls, cutting each other at right angles, looked like tarnished mirrors, the mist curling in smoke above them. Then vaguely from out the fog darker outlines began to appear, like oases in the desert; they were farmhouses built on the low-lying ground of the marshland, with their outbuildings and groups of poplars to lend shade. Now the undulating veil of mist began to rise, rays of light touched the gra.s.ses, sheets of water sparkled like windows in a setting sun. For many a league, from the bay of Bourgneuf to Saint Gilles, the Marais of La Vendee had awakened to the light of a fresh day.

Rousille rejoiced in it. She loved her native soil, faithful, true, generous soil, ever yielding its increase whether in rain or suns.h.i.+ne; where one would sleep one's last sleep to the sighing of the wind, under the shelter of the Cross. She loved nothing better than that horizon where every tiniest road was familiar to her, from the fence that ran along the first meadow of La Fromentiere close at hand, to the paths on the embankment which must be traversed pole in hand to jump the d.y.k.es.

"Four o'clock," she said to herself, "and he has not come back yet!

What will father say?" She was beginning to grow uneasy, when, as she was gazing into the distance towards the pointed clock tower of Sallertaine, a voice startled her with:

"Rousille!" On the rising path, the marshland behind him, standing looking at her in the light of the early morning, was Jean Nesmy.

"I did not see you come," she said.

He laughed, and with a proud air raised above his head a bundle of feathers, four plovers and a teal tied together. The next moment, resting the gun he carried against the inside of the wall, and flinging over the birds, he dropped down beside Rousille.

"Rousille," he said, taking her hand under the arching apple-trees, "I have had luck! Four plovers and such fine ones! I had a couple of hours' sleep in the barn at La Pinconniere, and if the farmer had not dragged me out this morning, I should have been late, I was so sound asleep. And you?"

"I," replied Marie-Rose, as he sat opposite to her, "I am afraid.

Father spoke to me so angrily last night--he had been talking to Mathurin in the courtyard--they must know."

"Well, and if they do? I am doing nothing to anger them. I mean to win you by my work, to ask your father for your hand, and take you home as my wife."

She looked at him, happy, despite her fears, at the determination she read in the lad's face. And reserving her thought which answered yes, she said without direct reply:

"What is it like in your home?"

"In my home," replied Jean Nesmy, contracting his eyes as if to fix the picture thus evoked, and looking over Rousille's head--"in my home is my mother, who is old and poor. The house she lives in is called the Chateau, as I have told you before, in the parish of Chatelliers; but it is not by any means a castle, Rousille, only two rooms, in which live six little Nesmys besides myself, who am the eldest ... it was, as you know, on account of our poverty and the number of children that I could only serve one year in the army."

"Oh, yes, I remember," she answered, laughing, "that year seemed to me longer than any other."

"I am the eldest; then come two girls, who are growing up. They are not dressed altogether like you, for instance...."

An idea seized him, and with his hand quite near yet without touching Rousille, he sketched about the young girl's shoulders and waist, the little shawl and the long velvet ribbons encircling the bust. "All round there two rows of velvet; rich girls have even three. You would be charming, Rousille, in the costume of the Chatelliers and La Flocelliere, for they dress in the same manner, the villages are quite close."

She laughed, as if caressed by the hand which never touched her, following its action with half-closed eyes.

"As you may suppose," he continued, "they only dress like that on Sundays! There would not be bread in the house every day if I did not send home the wages that your father gives me. Then I have two brothers who have finished their schooling, and look after cows and begin to do little odd jobs. The farmer who hires them gives them each one row of potatoes to dig up for their own. It is a great help!"

"So I should think!" returned Rousille, with an air of conviction

"But above all," continued the lad, "our air is superb. We have plenty of rain, indeed it rains without ceasing when the wind blows from Saint Michael, a place about one league from us. But immediately after we are in full suns.h.i.+ne; and as we have plenty of trees and moss and ferns about us, the air is a very joy to breathe, quite different from here; for our country is not at all like that of the Marais; it is all hills, here, there, and everywhere, big and little; there is no getting away from them. From any height it looks a perfect paradise.

Ah, Rousille, if you only knew Le Bocage, and the moors of Nouzillac, you would never want to leave them!"

"And is the land tilled like this?"

"Very nearly, but much deeper. It takes strong oxen, sometimes six or eight to plough."

"Father uses as many, when it pleases him."

"Yes, for the honour of it, Rousille, because your father is a rich man. But down there, believe me, the soil has more granite and is harder to turn."

She hesitated a little, the smile left her face as she asked:

"Do the women work in the fields?"

"Oh, no, of course not," answered the lad warmly. "We respect and care for them as much as men do here in your Marais. Even my mother, who goes gleaning at harvest-time and when the chestnuts are gathered, is never seen working in the fields like a man. No, you may depend on it, our women are more indoors spinning, than doing out-of-door work."

Recalled to the stern conditions of his daily life, the young man grew grave, and added slowly:

"Rest a.s.sured, I will never slacken in my work. I am known for more than two leagues round Chatelliers as a lad who has no fear of hard work. We will have our own little house to ourselves, and if only I have your love, Rousille, like my father and mother, I will never complain of any hards.h.i.+ps."

He had scarcely ended his speech of humble love-making when a voice from the road called:

"Rousille!"

"We are betrayed!" she said, turning pale. "It is father."

They both remained motionless, with beating hearts, thinking only of the voice that would call again.

And, in truth, it was now heard nearer.

"Rousille!"

She did not resist. Signing to Jean Nesmy to remain under cover of the trees, and bending half double, she made her way out to the path that divided the orchard. There straightening herself, she saw her father standing before her in the road. He looked at his daughter for a moment, as she presented herself, pale, breathless, dishevelled by the branches, then said: