The Silver Lining Part 21

He felt quite well at times, then re-a.s.sumed his moody ways; rays of suns.h.i.+ne sometimes darted from behind the clouds. "I wish the sun would disperse the clouds," he sighed.

One evening, when his head was tolerably clear, he was seized with a desire to visit his parents' grave.

Without consulting anyone, he immediately proceeded towards the Foulon. When he came to the iron gate, it was closed. He was bitterly disappointed. By climbing over it, he would risk being empaled on the iron spikes, or otherwise injured.

Presently he thought of the wooden wicket situated a little lower down. He proceeded thither and climbed over it without difficulty. A stream confronted him. He crossed it on a plank thrown across the rill. It was very dark, but he did not think of it. He was alone in this graveyard, but he experienced no fear. He felt happier than he had done for a long time. "Had he not adopted the pessimistic view of life."

He walked straight to the grave where his father and mother lay buried and seated himself near it. Just then, a gentle breeze caused the stately trees surrounding the graveyard to waft their leafy tops to and fro. Nature was rocking itself to sleep.

Even as it slumbered, it now and then heaved a sigh, sympathizing with the lonely man who pondered near his parents' grave.

He soliloquized: "Around me, the dead; beneath that turf, the dead; above me, beyond those glimmering stars, somewhere in that infinity of s.p.a.ce, in which man with his very limited understanding loses himself, the departed souls...."

Suddenly, he perceived a white form advancing towards him. If hair stands on end, Frank's did. His heart beat at a fearful rate. What could this be? It certainly must be a ghost. "I have laughed at apparitions, but I am now going to be punished for my incredulity,"

he said to himself.

The ghost moved and came nearer. Frank trembled from head to foot.

When he had recovered sufficient courage to scrutinize this form, it suddenly disappeared.

The young man fixed his eyes on the place where the ghost had vanished, for ten minutes; then turned his gaze in another direction. He soon recovered his senses, and fell into a reverie.

Again he soliloquized: "We all travel towards the grave. We all shall one day be like these around me. Why work, why trouble oneself. Why have I taken so much pains about my education? I have been ambitious, I have worried myself, I have been anxious to acquire wealth and fame. Here, the rich and the poor, the famous, the unfamous, and the infamous, the ignorant and the educated, are resting in the same ground, surrounded by the same scenery. I have been foolish to worry myself thus.

"Do I not daily meet ignorant and uncivilised people who live a life of contentment and happiness? Not caring for the future, not aspiring after getting on in life, living from hand to mouth, they manage to show a radiant countenance.

"Is ignorance bliss? Perhaps, in one sense; still I would not be without education.

"What must I do to be happy? I will shut mine eyes to all ambition, I will live a quiet life. Alas! even as I p.r.o.nounce these words, my heart belies them. I cannot annihilate the acute brain which tortures me. Since all my hopes of happiness seem to shun me, I will continue in my new religion--pessimism; and when the hour of death comes, I will smile."

He thought of the hopeful days he had once known. He rose from his seat, cast a farewell glance on his parents' grave and proceeded down the gravel walk. He then thought of the ghost which he had seen, and felt a vague sense of fear. "I am no coward," he muttered as he straightened himself and tried to a.s.sume an air of indifference. But he felt nervous. He glanced anxiously behind him every other moment, and increased his pace.

He perceived, among the trees, near the gate over which he had to pa.s.s--a light.

It was as if a thunderbolt had pa.s.sed through his body.

He looked more attentively. Yes, there was a light, a strange, fantastic light, dancing amongst the trees. His feverish brain caused him to lose all power of reasoning.

"What is this?" he said to himself. He felt his heart beating heavily against the walls of its prison as if trying to escape. His legs seemed to give way under him. A big lump stuck in his throat.

"It is only an _ignis fatuus_," he said to himself. "No, it cannot be, it does not burn with a bluish light. Why this terror, why this fear; it must be the _feu bellanger_."

The light changed. It was approaching.

A sense of horripilation stole over him. A cold perspiration bathed him.

The light changed again. It really receded this time, but to Frank's agitated mind, it was simply one of its tactics to induce him to come nearer.

He suddenly bethought himself of the stream. His terror reached its climax. "Ah! there it was, waiting for him to pa.s.s that way, and then with a shout of triumph, it would plunge him in."

He remembered old Pierre's words: "Wait till he gets caught." How he wished he had not mocked him so. Perhaps this _feu bellanger_ was preparing to revenge itself.

Again, the light approached. It came nearer to him than it had yet come. The supreme moment had arrived. He already felt himself being dipped in the stream, with no one to rescue him. Ah! the horror of being killed by one of the devil's angels.

Here he remembered Pierre Merlin's advice: "Turn your coat sleeves inside out and put on your garment so." Without a moment's hesitation he divested himself of his coat. As he was turning the sleeves, the object of his dread disappeared. A sigh of relief escaped him.

In a minute, he had bounded over the stream and gate into the road.

He put on his coat, and was proceeding towards his home, when he perceived the cause of his fears. It was simply a ray of light coming through the windows of the guardian's house. He could see it now. A woman was standing on a chair with a small lamp in her hand seeking for something on a shelf. As she moved the lamp, the reflection on the trees moved also.

He began to laugh. "The _feu bellanger_, forsooth. How old Pierre would have smiled if he had beheld him taking off his coat. But the ghost, _that_ was what puzzled him."

The ghost came bounding over the wicket and pa.s.sed by him.

It was a white dog.

This adventure had taught him a great lesson. What could he say now, he, the educated and civilized young man? No wonder if the people who had been accustomed to hear strange tales from their earliest infancy, believed in them.

He went home, determined to deal leniently with Pierre in the future.

"I must have been in a dreadful state of mind to have acted thus,"

he thought. "I have done more than I ever meant to do."

When he came home, he was quite cheerful. He did not say that he had seen a ghost, neither did he tell the spouses Merlin that he had nearly been attacked by the _feu bellanger_.

Pierre noticed his joyous look. He gave a wink to his wife as if to say: "He's taken a gla.s.s or two."

It was not so; the shock which he had received had completely dislodged the last trace of melancholy.

CHAPTER XVI.

SHADOW AND SUNs.h.i.+NE.

What was Adele doing? She was not engaged. It was one of Jacques'

inventions, or rather deductions, from what he saw.

She was being gradually drawn towards the abyss, where her soul would lose all that it possessed that was divine, and into which, to all appearances, she was finally to plunge, pushed by an unseen hand, drawn thither by a magic power.

She shuddered. After all her dreams of happiness, Fate had condemned her to this. How often had she pictured herself, the possessor of true love, streams of happiness flowing into her heart. She had formed a high ideal of life; the present did not satisfy her. Hope had sustained her, and that hope, that idea of a pure, refined, elevated and n.o.ble life, chastened by love, was now dwindling away and she seemed destined to join the great mult.i.tude of ordinary beings.

Still, she hesitated. She dared not trust her future happiness to a man for whom she barely felt friends.h.i.+p.

One day, her father, being in a better mood than was his wont, told her that she ought to make up her mind about whom she wanted to marry.

"It is not my intention to marry young," she said; "I want you to leave me quiet for a whole year."