THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 1003.]

[Price One Penny.

MARCH 18, 1899.

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

“OUR HERO.” OUR LILY GARDEN. IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE. SOME NEW GUITAR MUSIC. A VICE-REGAL DINNER-PARTY. ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE. GOOD CHEER FOR WOMEN WORKERS. OLD ENGLISH COTTAGE HOMES; HIS GREAT REWARD. A DREAM OF FAIR SERVICE. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

“OUR HERO.”

By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.

“PUTTING UP THE PONY AND CART AT A WAYSIDE INN.”

All rights reserved.]

{386}

CHAPTER XXV.

ROY BARON A FUGITIVE.

On the edge of a little clearing in the centre of the wood stood a small square charcoal-burner’s cottage, built of stone. Near behind might be seen a good-sized outhouse or woodhouse; and to one side was the pile of slowly-burning charcoal. Round and about were heaps of unsightly rubbish and of blackened moss.

Nobody seemed to be within or at hand. Jean opened the cottage door without difficulty; and when they had passed through, he bolted it in their rear.

Then in the darkness he found his way to a corner, struck a light with flint and steel, made a “dip” to burn, and groped anew. The one window was closely shuttered.

Roy flung himself upon a small bench, glad to get his breath, and watched the other’s doings curiously.

“Are we to stop here?” he asked. “But if the gendarmes come?”

“We must circumvent them, M’sieu.”

“How? What are you going to do?”

Jean was too busy to reply. He produced a blouse, such as would be worn by a French labouring lad, with shirt and trousers to match, and brought them to Roy. “M’sieu must change his clothes,” he said. “Rest afterwards.”

“All right,” once more assented Roy, though the cottage was swimming and his ears were buzzing with fatigue. He stood up, and promptly divested himself of what he wore, to assume a different guise. Jean brought from the same corner a small bottle of dark liquid, which he mixed with a little water in a basin, and then dyed Roy’s hair and eyebrows, thereby altering his look to such an extent that even his mother might almost have passed him by. Roy laughed so much under this operation, as to discompose the operator.

“Tenez, M’sieu! Taisez-vous, donc, s’il vous plait! M’sieu, I entreat. I assure Monsieur it is no matter for laughter.”

“If you knew what it is to be free again, you’d laugh too,” declared Roy, and then his merriment passed into a big yawn. “But I’m awfully sleepy.”

“Deux minutes, and Monsieur shall rest. Monsieur is hungry.”

Monsieur undoubtedly was, though the craving to lie down was even greater than the craving to eat. Jean handed him a hunch of bread and cheese and a glass of milk; and while Roy was occupied with the same, he proceeded to array himself in holiday costume. He donned an old and shabby but once gorgeous coat, with standing collar and gay buttons, which, as he informed Roy, had many long years before been the best holiday coat of his esteemed grandfather.

“I go to the wedding of my niece,” he remarked, with so much satisfaction that, for a moment, Roy really thought he meant it. “Does Monsieur perceive? And Monsieur will be the boy—Joseph—who goes with me in the little cart.”

“But where is the little cart?”

“All in good time, M’sieu. Now we have for the moment to get rid of these things.”

Jean rolled the discarded clothes into a bundle, with which he disappeared out of the cottage for a few minutes. Roy conjectured that he might have buried it in the bushes, or under heaps of black rubbish, abundance of which lay ready to hand. Jean then took Roy into the outhouse, which was more than two-thirds full of heavy logs and faggots of wood—the winter supply—piled together.

“Am I to get underneath all that, Jean?”

“Oui, M’sieu. The gendarmes will not easily find you there.”

“And you too?”

“Non, M’sieu. I betake myself to the soupente.”

The soupente in a French cottage is a kind of upper cupboard, a small corner cut off from the one room, near the ceiling, descending only half-way to the ground, and reached by a ladder.

“And if they find you there——”

“M’sieu, if they find me, they will not know me—see, in this dress! I am not like the Jean who chopped wood at Bitche. And I hope then to draw their attention from M’sieu! Voyez-vous?”

Roy wrung his hand. “I don’t know what makes you so good to me,” the boy said huskily. “I—I don’t think it’s fair upon you, though. And—I can’t think why!”

“It is not difficult to tell M’sieu why!” Jean looked abstractedly at the roof of the wood-hut. “It is for the sake of my mother—for the sake of that kind Monsieur le Capitaine, who would not leave her unhappy. Does M’sieu remember—how Monsieur le Capitaine regarded my mother that day?”

Roy remembered—and understood.

“Now, Monsieur! We may not lose time. The light grows fast.”

Jean pulled down and hauled aside logs and masses of wood, making a kind of little cave or hollow far back, where Roy could creep in and lie close to the wall. Jean wrapped round him an old coat, for warmth; and then, when he had laid himself down, threw light black rubbish over him as an additional security, before carefully heaping up anew the logs and faggots, till not the faintest sign remained of any human being beneath. Jean did his utmost to deface all tokens that the wood-pile had been disturbed.

“M’sieu must lie still,” he said. “On no account must M’sieu move or speak. If by chance I should have to go away, M’sieu must wait till nightfall, when the cart will come to take M’sieu elsewhere.”

“But I say, Jean—you must not get into trouble for me,” called Roy, his voice sounding far and muffled.

“Bien, M’sieu. Trust Jean to do his best. Can M’sieu breathe easily?”

“Rather stuffy, but it’s all right.”

“Au revoir, M’sieu. I go to the soupente. M’sieu will remain in the bûcher, till I or my friend come again.”

Then silence. Jean returned to the cottage, where he rinsed the basin which had been used for dyeing purposes, put things straight, unbolted the front door, climbed up into the little soupente, drawing the ladder after him, and there laid himself flat, under a pile of loose rubbish. Soon he was or pretended to be asleep.

Roy’s sleep was no pretence. Despite his hard bed, and the “stuffiness” of the limited atmosphere which he had to breathe, despite fear of gendarmes and risks of discovery, he was very soon peacefully sound asleep, and knew no more for the next two hours.

Something roused him then. In a moment he was wide awake; his heart thumping unpleasantly against his side.

The gendarmes had come.

Roy of course could see nothing; he could only hear; and he heard a good deal more than might have been expected from his position, since his senses were quickened by the exigency of the moment. Also, the men made a good deal of noise, after the manner of gendarmes. Roy imagined that three or four of them must be there.

They made their way first into the cottage, surprised to find the door on the latch, and nobody within. The fact of finding the door thus tended to allay their suspicions, as Jean had hoped. On the face of matters, nothing was less probable than that fugitives hiding within should not so much as have drawn the bolt. They walked round the one room, knocking things about a little. One of them looked vaguely about for a ladder, but seeing none he did not trouble himself further as to the soupente.

Then they left the cottage, and entered the bûcher, where the wood was solidly and firmly piled together, as for the winter’s use. No signs here of human life. Roy below the pile lay motionless, every faculty concentrated into listening. One of the men kicked down a few faggots, and another pulled{387} at a log. To Roy it sounded as if they were making their way to where he was. But the search stopped at last, after what seemed to Roy a small century of suspense, and they took themselves off. He heard them mount their horses and trot away.

“Safe!” murmured Roy, and in his heart there was a fervent “Thank God!” not spoken in words.

He wondered whether Jean would come to him; but Jean remained absent; and Roy obeyed orders, staying where he was. Presently he dropped asleep again, and remembered nothing more for hours.

How many hours he had no means of knowing. Where he lay, he was in pitch darkness. When he woke, he had the consciousness which we often have after sleep, of a considerable time having elapsed; but whether it was now morning or afternoon or evening he could not even guess. He only knew that he was growing frightfully weary of his constrained position, longing to get out and exert himself. To sleep more was not possible. He waited, minute after minute, wondering if the long slow day would ever come to an end. At length a voice sounded—

“M’sieu!”

“All right,” called Roy.

“Can M’sieu wait a little longer? I hope to get Monsieur out soon—after dark. It is not safe before then.”

“I’ll wait, Jean. Only as soon as possible, please.”

“Oui, M’sieu.”

Jean disappeared anew. Roy put a question, and had no answer. He was wildly hungry, but there was nothing to be done except to endure.

The wisdom of Jean’s caution became apparent. Before darkness settled down the same party of gendarmes again galloped up and sprang to the ground. They walked as before through cottage and shed, once more kicking the furniture about. This time one of them found the ladder, went up it, and stepped inside the soupente; but Jean had betaken himself to another hiding-place outside the cottage, and the search bore no fruit. The men entered the wood-hut again, in a perfunctory manner, knocking down a log or two carelessly, and using one to another rough language as to the escaped prisoner, which boded no gentle treatment for Roy should he fall into their clutches. Then they vanished, and silence settled down anew upon the scene.

“Not likely to come again, I hope,” murmured Roy. “O I am tired of this!”

One more hour he had to endure; and then came the welcome sound of Jean removing the wood-piles.

“Can M’sieu stand?” asked Jean.

Roy crept out slowly, made the effort, and fell flat. Jean pulled him up, and held him on his feet.

“All right, I’m only stiff,” declared Roy. “They won’t come back, I suppose.”

“Non, M’sieu.”

“Why, it’s night, I declare! Been so dark in there, I didn’t know the difference between night and day. There, now I can walk.” Roy managed to reach the cottage on his own limbs unassisted. “What a desperately long day it has been.”

“M’sieu has found it wearying, sans doute.”

“But as if that mattered! As if anything mattered—only to get away safely!” Roy said energetically. “Jean, you are a good fellow! Is this for me to eat? I’m as hungry as a bear! Jean, I shall always think better of Frenchmen for your sake.”

“Yet M’sieu will doubtless fight us one day.”

“I shall fight Buonaparte, not the French nation. I like some of your people awfully—some at Fontainebleau, and some at Verdun. And Mademoiselle de St. Roques most of all.”

“Oui, M’sieu. M’sieu had better eat.”

“All right, I’m eating, and you must too. Oh, lots of French have been as good and as kind to us détenus as they possibly could be. And I only know one single lodging-house keeper who behaved like a brute. Most of them have been just the other way. Why, they have kept on lodgers month after month, out of sheer kindness, when they couldn’t pay anything because no money reached them from England. I know all that! And I like the French—only not Boney!”

Jean smiled to himself.

“Cependant, M’sieu, the army of the Emperor is made of French soldiers.”

“Can’t help that,” retorted Roy. “And they can’t help it either, poor fellows—most of them. I say, this cheese is uncommonly good. Where did you manage to hide it away, so as to keep it from the gendarmes? Jean, were you long at Bitche? Tell me about it.”

Jean was cautious. He evidently preferred not to enter into details. It was better for Roy’s own sake that he should not know too much. It seemed, however, that on Jean’s arrival at Bitche, he had found one of the gendarmes to be an old acquaintance; and through this gendarme, not through his soldier-friend, he had obtained a temporary post in the fortress. A man who did rough work, chopping and carrying wood and so on, had fallen ill and had gone home for a fortnight to a neighbouring village. Meanwhile, Jean was allowed to undertake his work.

This gave Jean a good opportunity to study the fortress and to make himself acquainted with the surrounding country. He did not fully explain to Roy the maturing of his plans during that fortnight, nor precisely what those plans had been. The careful manner in which he avoided speaking of his soldier-friend made Roy pretty sure that the said friend had had some sort of hand in aiding his escape; but he put no more questions in this direction. Jean had had two or three glimpses of Roy from time to time; but he had held carefully aloof, until he saw his way to action. Then he contrived to be sent into the yard just when the better class of prisoners was assembled there; and the rest Roy knew.

“Why was I sent to that upstairs room?” demanded Roy.

“M’sieu, there were doubtless reasons. It is sometimes best that one should not know all the reasons that may exist,” observed Jean meditatively. “What if, perhaps, somebody had known of the intended escape, and had tried by that means to save M’sieu from danger?”

“Jean, was it you?”

“Non, M’sieu!”—decidedly. But whether Jean spoke the truth on this point, whether Jean might or might not have had a hand in the wire-pulling which led to that event, Roy had no means of knowing. He felt that further questioning would be unfair. He had but to be thankful that he was free.

By the time hunger and thirst were satisfied, Roy’s spirits had risen to a pitch unknown to him during eight months past. Then, the land being shrouded in darkness, a rough little cart drawn by a rough little pony and driven by a charcoal-burner came to the door. Roy spoke a few grateful words to him, as well as again to Jean, for their generous help. After which, he and Jean started in the cart, taking a small lantern with them.

This next stage of the journey meant quicker and easier advance than that of the night before. The pony was both strong and willing; and all through the hours of darkness they were getting farther and farther away from Bitche. By dawn of day the fear of pursuit was immensely lessened. Even if the gendarmes had overtaken them, they would hardly have suspected the odd figure in a smart old coat and ancient cocked hat of being the temporary wood-chopper at Bitche, or the black-haired boy in a rough blouse of being their prisoner, Roy Baron.

For greater safety, both that day and the next, they found a retired spot in which to hide, letting the pony loose to browse and rest on some rough ground, or putting up it and the cart at a wayside inn, and calling for it later. One way and another, the dreaded pursuit was eluded; and, as day after day went by, Roy felt himself indeed free and on the road for Home.

“Why should you not come with me to England, Jean? I can promise you that you’d be well looked after there by my friends,” urged Roy. He had grown sincerely fond of this kind, thoughtful Frenchman.

They were now fast nearing the coast, and their next halting-place was to be at a farm-house within sight of the sea. There they would have to remain until an opportunity should occur for Roy to cross the Channel. Since he had no passport he could not attempt to journey by the ordinary routes. But even here Jean’s resources did not fail, and the owners of the said farmhouse were near relatives of his own.

“Non, M’sieu. I should feel strange in another country. Also—have I not promised to let Monsieur le Capitaine, and Monsieur votre Père, and Madame votre Mère, hear of your safety? Could I disappoint them?”

“But, I say, will it be safe for you to{388} go back to Verdun? What if they find out that you have helped me to get away?”

“They will not find out, M’sieu. It was known that I should leave Bitche that night—and my friends will have diverted suspicion from me. Moreover, it is no such hard matter to make a little disguise of myself—if need be.”

Then they reached the farm, and Roy found himself among friends, ready all to shield him for Jean’s sake. It was decided that he should work as a boy upon the farm, sufficiently to draw no attention upon himself, since the waiting for a passage might be long. Roy was willing to be or to do anything, if only he might at last escape to England.

The farmer’s eldest son, a soldier by conscription in the army of Napoleon, had been a prisoner in England; and he, like Roy, had made his escape, getting safely back to France. Roy, immensely interested in this story, plied the farmer and his wife with questions as to the experiences of the young fellow in an English prison—questions which they were not loath to answer. They had, of course, the whole story at their fingers’ ends.

It was at a place called “Norman’s Cross” that their Philippe had been confined—somewhere not far from the eastern coast of England. About seven thousand prisoners of war, chiefly Frenchmen, were there kept under close surveillance. The prison and the barracks were built on high land, healthy enough—yes, certainly, as to that, the farmer said—with plenty of fresh air. And the prisoners were guarded more by sentinels in all directions, than by fortifications, walls, moats, or dungeons.

“Not like Bitche!” interjected Roy.

Well, no, certainly—Monsieur spoke correctly. The place—Norman’s Cross, and the old farmer made a funny sound of these two words—was not precisely like Bitche. As to arrangements, Philippe had had no fault to find with the food provided. It was good of its kind; and cooks were chosen from among the French prisoners by themselves, being paid for their work of cooking by the English Government. Also, when Philippe fell ill, he found the hospital well managed. A school for prisoners was kept going; and several billiard-tables as well as other amusements were provided.

But, ah, the poor Philippe, he had been unhappy in captivity! Was it not natural? Had not Monsieur himself experienced the same? He had longed to be free—to return to his own country once more. And though on the whole the prisoners had been fairly well treated, at all events in that particular place, yet of course there had been cases of roughness and of harsh treatment. Moreover, there was much to make a prisoner sad—the desperate gaming, the perpetual duelling, among his fellow-prisoners were of themselves sufficient.[1] So, after more than a year of captivity, always more and more hopeless, with no token of the war drawing to a close, he had at last resolved to make his escape. And, through great dangers, privations, difficulties, he had actually succeeded.

Where was Philippe now? Ah—pour cela—he had rejoined his regiment, and was again at his old occupation. Fighting, fighting—who could say for how long? Perhaps to be again taken prisoner, and once again to be at Norman’s Cross! Who could foretell?

(To be continued.)

OUR LILY GARDEN.

PRACTICAL AIDS TO THE CULTURE OF LILIES.

By CHARLES PETERS.

Lilium Brownii.