I went back to the slope and followed the road Joseph had taken, inquiring for him as I went along, but could hear nothing except that he had been seen to pass, and had not returned. The road led me to the right of the forest, and I went in to question the forester, whose house, a very ancient building, stands at the top of a large tract of heathland lying on the hillside. It is a melancholy place, though you can see from there to a great distance; and nothing grows there at the edge of the oak-copses but brake and furze.
The forester of those days was Jarvois, a relation of mine, born in Verneuil. As soon as he saw me, and because I did not often walk that way, he was so friendly and hospitable that I could not get away.
"Your comrade, Joseph, was here about an hour ago," he said, "and asked if the charcoal-burners were in the woods; his master probably told him to inquire. He spoke clear enough and was steady on his legs, and he went on up to the big oak; you need not be uneasy. And now you are here, you must drink a bottle with me, and wait till my wife comes back with the cows, for she will be hurt if you go away without seeing her."
Thinking there was no reason to worry, I stayed with my relations till sunset. It was about the middle of February; and when it got to be nearly dark I said good-night, and took the upper road, intending to cross to Verneuil and go home by the straight road, without returning to Saint-Chartier, where I had nothing further to do.
My relative explained the road, as I had never been in the forest more than once or twice in my life. You know that in these parts we seldom go far from home, especially those of us who till the ground, and keep near our dwellings like chicks round a coop.
So, in spite of a warning, I kept too far to the left; and instead of striking a great avenue of oaks, I got among the birches, at least a mile and a half from where I ought to have been.
The night was dark, and I could not see a thing; for in those days the forest of Saint-Chartier was still a fine one,—not as to size, for it was never very large, but from the age of the trees, which allowed no light from the sky to get through them. What it thus gained in grandeur and greenery it made you pay for in other ways. Below it was all roots and brambles, sunken paths and gullies full of spongy black mud, out of which you could hardly draw your feet, and where you sank knee-deep if you got even a little way off the track. Presently, getting lost in the forest and scratched and muddied in the opens, I began to curse the luckless time and the luckless place.
After struggling and wading till I was overheated, though the night was chilly, I got among some dry brake which were up to my chin; and looking straight before me, I saw in the gray of the night something like a huge black mass in the middle of an open tract. I felt sure it was the big oak, and that I had reached the end of the forest. I had never seen the tree, but I had heard tell of it, for it was famous as one of the oldest in the country; and from the talk of others I knew pretty well how it was shaped. You must surely have seen it. It is a gnarled tree, topped in its youth by some accident so that it grew in breadth and thickness; its foliage, shrivelled by the winter, still clung to it, and it stood up there like a rock looking to heaven.
I was about to go towards it, thinking I should find the path, which made a straight line through the woods, when I heard a sound of music that was something like bagpipes, but so loud you might think it thunder.
Don't ask me why a thing which ought to have comforted me, by showing the presence of a human being, did actually frighten me like a child. I must honestly tell you that in spite of my nineteen years and a good pair of fists, I had not felt easy after I found I had lost my way. It was not because wolves do come down sometimes into that forest from the great woods of Saint-Aoust that I lost heart, nor yet that I feared any evil-intentioned Christian; but I was chilled through with the kind of fear that you can't explain to your own self, because you don't really know the cause of it. The dark night; the wintry fog; a jumble of noises heard in the woods, with others coming from the plain; a crowd of foolish stories which you have heard, and which now start up in your head; and finally the idea of being all alone far from your own belongings,—there's enough in all that to upset your mind when you are young, and, indeed, when you are old.
You can laugh at me if you like; but that music, in that lonely place, seemed to me devilish. It was too loud and strong to be natural, and the tune was so sad and strange that it was not like any other known music on this Christian earth. I quickened my steps; then I stopped, amazed at another sound. While the music clashed on one side, a bell chimed on the other; and the two sounds came at me, as if to prevent me from going forward or back.
I jumped to one side and hid in the brake; and as I did so, there was a flash of light about four feet from me, and I saw a large black animal, that I couldn't make out distinctly, spring up and disappear at a run.
Instantly from all parts of the undergrowth a crowd of the same animals sprang out, stamping, and running towards the bell and towards the music, which now seemed to be getting nearer to each other. There might have been two hundred of these animals, but I saw at least thirty thousand; for terror got hold of me, and I began to see sparks and white specks in my eyes, such as fear produces in those who can't defend themselves.
I don't know whose legs carried me to the oak; I seemed to have none of my own. But I got there, quite astonished to have crossed that bit of ground like a whirlwind; and when I recovered breath I heard nothing, neither far nor near, and could see nothing under the tree nor yet in the brake, and was not quite sure that I hadn't dreamed a pandemonium of crazy music and evil beasts.
I began to look about me and find out where I was. The oak-branches overhung a large piece of grassy ground; it was so dark under them that I could not see my feet, and I stumbled over a big root and fell, hands forward, upon the body of a man who was lying there as if asleep or dead. I don't know what fear made me say or shout, but at any rate my voice was recognized, and that of Joseph replied, saying,—
"Is that you, Tiennet? What are you doing here at this time of night?"
"And you yourself, what are you doing, old fellow?" I replied, much pleased and comforted to have found him. "I have looked everywhere for you. Your mother was worrying, and I hoped you had got back to her long ago."
"I had business over here," he replied, "and before starting back I wanted to rest, that's all."
"Were not you afraid of being here alone at night in this hideous, gloomy place?"
"Afraid of what? Why should I be afraid, Tiennet? I don't understand you."
I was ashamed to confess what a fool I had been. Still, I did venture to ask if he hadn't seen people and animals in the open.
"Yes, yes," he said, "I have seen plenty of animals, and people too; but they are not mischievous, and we can go away together without their harming us.”
I fancied from his voice that he was sneering at my fears. I left the oak as he did; but when we got out of its shadow, I fancied that José's face and figure were not the same as usual. He seemed to me taller, and carried his head higher, walking quickly, and speaking with more energy than naturally belonged to him. This did not ease my mind, for all sorts of queer recollections crossed it. It was not from my grandmother only that I had heard tell that folks with white faces and green eyes, gloomy tempers and speech that you couldn't understand, were apt to consort with evil spirits; and in all countries, as you know, old trees are said to be haunted by sorcerers and other such.
I hardly dared to breathe as long as we were in the undergrowth. I kept expecting to see the same things I had either dreamed in my brain or seen with my senses. But all was still; there was no sound except the breaking of the dried branches as we went along, or the crunching of the remains of ice under our feet.
Joseph, who walked in front, did not follow the main path, but cut across the covert. You would have thought he was a hare, well acquainted with the ins and outs, and he led me so quickly to the ford of the Igneraie, without crossing the potter's village, that it seemed as if I got there by magic. Then he left me, without having opened his lips, except to say that he wished to show himself to his mother, as she was worried about him; and he followed the road to Saint-Chartier, while I took a short cut through the two parishes to my own house.
I no sooner found myself in the places I was familiar with than my terror left me, and I was very much ashamed not to have conquered it. Joseph would no doubt have told me the things I wanted to know if I had only asked him; for, for once in his life, he had lost his sleepy air, and I had even detected for an instant a sort of laugh in his voice, and something in his behavior like a wish to give assistance.
However, when I had slept upon the adventure, and my senses were calmer, I was convinced that I had not dreamed what I had seen in the undergrowth, and I began to think there was something queer about Joseph's tranquillity under the oak. The animals that I had seen in such number were certainly not an ordinary sight. In our part of the country we have no flocks, except sheep, and those I had seen were animals of another color and another shape. They were neither horses nor cattle nor sheep nor goats; besides, no animals were allowed to pasture in the forest.
Now, as I tell you all this, I think I was a great fool. And yet there's a deal that's unknown in the affairs of this world into which a man sticks his nose, and more still in God's affairs, which He chooses to keep secret. Anyhow, I did not venture to question Joseph; for though you may be inquisitive about good things, you ought not to be so about evil ones; and, indeed, a wise man feels reluctant to poke into matters where he may find a good deal more than he looks for.