The Strollers

Breathing hard, his chest rising and falling with labored effort, Saint-Prosper fell back against the wall. The anti-renters quickly recovering from their surprise, gave him no time to regain his strength, and the contest promised a speedy and disastrous conclusion for the soldier, when suddenly a white figure flashed before him, confronting the tenants with pale face and shining eyes. A slender obstacle; only a girlish form, yet the fearlessness of her manner, the eloquence of her glance–for her lips were silent!–kept them back for the instant.

But fiercer passions were at work among them, the desire for retaliation and bitter hatred of the patroon, which speedily dissipated any feeling of compunction or any tendency to waver,

“Kill him before his lady love!” cried a piercing voice from behind. “Did they not murder my husband before me? Kill him, if you are men!”

And pressing irresistibly to the front appeared the woman whose husband had been shot by the deputies. Her features, once soft and matronly, flamed with uncontrollable passions.

“Are only the poor to suffer?” she continued, as her, burning eyes fell on the young girl. “Shall she not feel what I did?”

“Back woman!” exclaimed one of the barn-burners, sternly. “This is no place for you.”

“Who has a better right to be here?” retorted the woman.

“But this is not woman’s work!”

“Woman’s work!” Fiercely. “As much woman’s work as for his trull to try to save him! Oh? let me see him!”

Gently the soldier, now partly recovering his strength, thrust the young girl behind him, as pushing to the foreground the woman regarded him vengefully. But in her eyes the hatred and bitter aversion faded slowly, to be replaced by perplexity, which in turn gave way to wonder, while the uplifted arm, raised threateningly against him, fell passively to her side. At first, astonished, doubting, she did not speak, then her lips moved mechanically.

“That is not the land baron,” she cried, staring at him in disappointment that knew no language.

“The woman is right,” added a masquerader. “I know Mauville, too, for he told me to go to the devil when I asked him to wait for his rent.”

At this unexpected announcement, imprecations and murmurs of incredulity were heard on all sides.

“Woman, would you shield your husband’s murderer?” exclaimed an over-zealous barn-burner.

“Shield him!” she retorted, as if aroused from a trance. “No, no! I’m not here for that! But this is not the patroon. His every feature is burned into my heart! I tell you it is not he. Yet he should be here. Did I not see him driving toward the manor?” And she gazed wildly around.

For a moment, following this impassioned outburst, their rough glances sought one another’s, and the soldier quickly took advantage of this cessation of hostilities.

“No; I am not the land baron,” he interposed.

“You aren’t?” growled a disappointed lease-holder. “Then who the devil are you? An anti-renter?” he added, suspiciously.

“He must be an enemy of the land baron,” interrupted the woman, passing her hand across her brow. “He was with us in the grove. I saw him ride up and took him to be a barn-burner. He crossed the meadow with us. I saw his face; distinctly as I see it now! He asked me about the patroon–yes, I remember now!–and what was she like, the woman who was with him!”

“I am no friend of his,” continued the soldier in a firm voice. “You had one purpose in seeking him; I, another! He carried off this lady. I was following him, when I met you in the grove.”

“Then how came you here–in this room?”

“By the way of a tree, the branch of which reaches to the window.”

“The land baron was in this room a moment ago. Where is he now?”

For answer Saint-Prosper pointed to the window.

“Then you let him–”

“We’re wasting time,” impatiently shouted the barn-burner who had disclaimed the soldier’s identity to the patroon. “Come!” With an oath. “Do you want to lose him after all? He can’t be far away. And this one, damn him! isn’t our man!”

For a second the crowd wavered, then with a vengeful shout they shot from the room, disappearing as quickly as they had come. Led by Little Thunder, who, being a man of peace, had discreetly remained without, they had reached the gate in their headlong pursuit when they were met by a body of horsemen, about to turn into the yard as the anti-renters were hurrying out. At sight of this formidable band, the lease-holders immediately scattered. Taken equally by surprise, the others made little effort to intercept them and soon they had vanished over field and down dell. Then the horsemen turned, rode through the avenue of trees, and drew up noisily before the portico.

From their window the soldier and his companion observed the abrupt encounter at the entrance of the manor grounds and the dispersion of the lease-holders like leaves before the autumn gusts. Constance, who had breathlessly watched the flight of the erstwhile assailants, felt her doubts reawakened as the horsemen drew up before the door.

“Are they coming back?” she asked, involuntarily clasping the arm of her companion.

She who had been so courageous and self-controlled throughout that long, trying day, on a sudden felt strangely weak and dependent. He leaned from the narrow casement to command the view below, striving to pierce the gloom, and she, following his example, gazed over his shoulder. Either a gust of air had extinguished the light in the candelabra on the mantel, or the tallow dip had burnt itself out, for the room was now in total darkness so that they could dimly see, without being seen.

“These men are not the ones who just fled,” he replied.

“Then who are they?” she half-whispered, drawing unconsciously closer in that moment of jeopardy, her face distant but a curl’s length.

Below the men were dismounting, tying their horses among the trees. Like a noisy band of troopers they were talking excitedly, but their words were indistinguishable.

“Why do you suppose they fled from them?” she continued.

Was it a tendril of the vine that touched his cheek gently? He started, his face toward the haze in the open borderland.

“Clearly these men are not the lease-holders. They may be seeking you.”

She turned eagerly from the window. In the darkness their hands met. Momentary compunction made her pause.

“I haven’t yet thanked you!” And he felt the cold, nervous pressure of her hands on his. “You must have ridden very hard and very far!”

His hand closed suddenly upon one of hers. He was not thinking of the ride, but of how she had placed herself beside him in his moment of peril; how she had held them–not long–but a moment–yet long enough!

“They’re coming in! They’re down stairs!” she exclaimed excitedly.

A flickering light below suddenly threw dim moving shadows upon the ceiling of the hall. As she spoke she stepped forward and stumbled over the debris at the door. His arm was about her, almost before the startled exclamation had fallen from her lips; for a moment her shapely, young figure rested against him. But quickly she extricated herself, and they picked their way cautiously over the bestrewn threshold out into the hall.

At the balustrade, they paused. Reconnoitering at the turn, they were afforded full survey of the lower hall where the latest comers had taken possession. Few in numbers, the gathering had come to a dead stop, regarding in surprise the broken door, and the furniture wantonly demolished. But amid this scene of rack and ruin, an object of especial wonder to the newcomers was the great lifting-stone lying in the hall amid the havoc it had wrought.

“No one but Dick, the tollman, could have thrown that against the door!” said a little man who seemed a person of authority. “I wonder where the patroon can be?”

With unusual pallor of face the young girl stepped from behind the sheltering post. Her hand, resting doubtfully upon the balustrade, sought in unconscious appeal her companion’s arm, as they descended together the broad steps. In the partial darkness the little man ill discerned the figures, but divined their bearing in the relation of outlines limned against the obscure background.

“Why,” he muttered in surprise, “this is not the patroon! And here, if I am not mistaken, is the lady Mr. Barnes is so anxious about.”

“Mr. Barnes–he is with you?”

It was Constance that spoke.

“Yes; but–”

“Where is he?”

“We left him a ways down the road and–”