The Mystery of Choice. Chambers Robert William
one and I should probably be in for a long run down the stream. The five-ounce rod swept in a splendid circle, quivering under the strain. "Oh, for a gaff-hook!" I cried aloud, for I was now firmly convinced that I had a salmon to deal with, and no sea trout at all.
Then as I stood, bringing every ounce to bear on the sulking fish, a lithe, slender girl came hurriedly along the opposite bank calling out to me by name.
"Why, Lys!" I said, glancing up for a second, "I thought you were at St. Julien with Yvette."
"Yvette has gone to Bannalec. I went home and found an awful fight going on at the Groix Inn, and I was so frightened that I came to tell you."
The fish dashed off at that moment, carrying all the line my reel held, and I was compelled to follow him at a jump. Lys, active and graceful as a young deer, in spite of her Pont-Aven sabots, followed along the opposite bank until the fish settled in a deep pool, shook the line savagely once or twice, and then relapsed into the sulks.
"Fight at the Groix Inn?" I called across the water. "What fight?"
"Not exactly fight," quavered Lys, "but the Red Admiral has come out of his house at last, and he and my uncle are drinking together and disputing about butterflies. I never saw my uncle so angry, and the Red Admiral is sneering and grinning. Oh, it is almost wicked to see such a face!"
"But Lys," I said, scarcely able to repress a smile, "your uncle and the Red Admiral are always quarrelling and drinking."
"I know – oh, dear me! – but this is different, Monsieur Darrel. The Red Admiral has grown old and fierce since he shut himself up three weeks ago, and – oh, dear! I never saw such a look in my uncle's eyes before. He seemed insane with fury. His eyes – I can't speak of it – and then Terrec came in."
"Oh," I said more gravely, "that was unfortunate. What did the Red Admiral say to his son?"
Lys sat down on a rock among the ferns, and gave me a mutinous glance from her blue eyes.
Yves Terrec, loafer, poacher, and son of Louis Jean Terrec, otherwise the Red Admiral, had been kicked out by his father, and had also been forbidden the village by the Purple Emperor, in his majestic capacity of mayor. Twice the young ruffian had returned: once to rifle the bedroom of the Purple Emperor – an unsuccessful enterprise – and another time to rob his own father. He succeeded in the latter attempt, but was never caught, although he was frequently seen roving about the forests and moors with his gun. He openly menaced the Purple Emperor; vowed that he would marry Lys in spite of all the gendarmes in Quimperlé; and these same gendarmes he led many a long chase through brier-filled swamps and over miles of yellow gorse.
What he did to the Purple Emperor – what he intended to do – disquieted me but little; but I worried over his threat concerning Lys. During the last three months this had bothered me a great deal; for when Lys came to St. Gildas from the convent the first thing she captured was my heart. For a long time I had refused to believe that any tie of blood linked this dainty blue-eyed creature with the Purple Emperor. Although she dressed in the velvet-laced bodice and blue petticoat of Finistère, and wore the bewitching white coiffe of St. Gildas, it seemed like a pretty masquerade. To me she was as sweet and as gently bred as many a maiden of the noble Faubourg who danced with her cousins at a Louis XV fête champêtre. So when Lys said that Yves Terrec had returned openly to St. Gildas, I felt that I had better be there also.
"What did Terrec say, Lys?" I asked, watching the line vibrating above the placid pool.
The wild rose colour crept into her cheeks. "Oh," she answered, with a little toss of her chin, "you know what he always says."
"That he will carry you away?"
"Yes."
"In spite of the Purple Emperor, the Red Admiral, and the gendarmes?"
"Yes."
"And what do you say, Lys?"
"I? Oh, nothing."
"Then let me say it for you."
Lys looked at her delicate pointed sabots, the sabots from Pont-Aven, made to order. They fitted her little foot. They were her only luxury.
"Will you let me answer for you, Lys?" I asked.
"You, Monsieur Darrel?"
"Yes. Will you let me give him his answer?"
"Mon Dieu, why should you concern yourself, Monsieur Darrel?"
The fish lay very quiet, but the rod in my hand trembled.
"Because I love you, Lys."
The wild rose colour in her cheeks deepened; she gave a gentle gasp, then hid her curly head in her hands.
"I love you, Lys."
"Do you know what you say?" she stammered.
"Yes, I love you."
She raised her sweet face and looked at me across the pool.
"I love you," she said, while the tears stood like stars in her eyes. "Shall I come over the brook to you?"
That night Yves Terrec left the village of St. Gildas vowing vengeance against his father, who refused him shelter.
I can see him now, standing in the road, his bare legs rising like pillars of bronze from his straw-stuffed sabots, his short velvet jacket torn and soiled by exposure and dissipation, and his eyes, fierce, roving, bloodshot – while the Red Admiral squeaked curses on him, and hobbled away into his little stone cottage.
"I will not forget you!" cried Yves Terrec, and stretched out his hand toward his father with a terrible gesture. Then he whipped his gun to his cheek and took a short step forward, but I caught him by the throat before he could fire, and a second later we were rolling in the dust of the Bannalec road. I had to hit him a heavy blow behind the ear before he would let go, and then, rising and shaking myself, I dashed his muzzle-loading fowling piece to bits against a wall, and threw his knife into the river. The Purple Emperor was looking on with a queer light in his eyes. It was plain that he was sorry Terrec had not choked me to death.
"He would have killed his father," I said, as I passed him, going toward the Groix Inn.
"That's his business," snarled the Purple Emperor. There was a deadly light in his eyes. For a moment I thought he was going to attack me; but he was merely viciously drunk, so I shoved him out of my way and went to bed, tired and disgusted.
The worst of it was I couldn't sleep, for I feared that the Purple Emperor might begin to abuse Lys. I lay restlessly tossing among the sheets until I could stay there no longer. I did not dress entirely; I merely slipped on a pair of chaussons and sabots, a pair of knickerbockers, a jersey, and a cap. Then, loosely tying a handkerchief about my throat, I went down the worm-eaten stairs and out into the moonlit road. There was a candle flaring in the Purple Emperor's window, but I could not see him.
"He's probably dead drunk," I thought, and looked up at the window where, three years before, I had first seen Lys.
"Asleep, thank Heaven!" I muttered, and wandered out along the road. Passing the small cottage of the Red Admiral, I saw that it was dark, but the door was open. I stepped inside the hedge to shut it, thinking, in case Yves Terrec should be roving about, his father would lose whatever he had left.
Then, after fastening the door with a stone, I wandered on through the dazzling Breton moonlight. A nightingale was singing in a willow swamp below, and from the edge of the mere, among the tall swamp grasses, myriads of frogs chanted a bass chorus.
When I returned, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, and across the meadows on the cliffs, outlined against the paling horizon, I saw a seaweed gatherer going to his work among the curling breakers on the coast. His long rake was balanced on his shoulder, and the sea wind carried his song across the meadows to me:
St. Gildas!
St. Gildas!
Pray for us,
Shelter us,
Us who toil in the sea.
Passing the shrine at the entrance of the village, I took off my cap and knelt