Book II - Chapter XXIII. Fire Rises

by Charles Dickens

　　There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and wherethe mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones onthe highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to holdhis poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prisonon the crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guardit, but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but notone of them knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it wouldprobably not be what he was ordered.

　　Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation.Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was asshrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was boweddown, dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences,domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that borethem--all worn out.

　　Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a nationalblessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example ofluxurious and shining fife, and a great deal more to equal purpose;nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, broughtthings to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly forMonseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There mustbe something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thusit was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted fromthe flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so oftenthat its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothingto bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so lowand unaccountable.

　　But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a villagelike it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed itand wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except forthe pleasures of the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now,found in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur madeedifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The changeconsisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather thanin the disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwisebeautified and beautifying features of Monseigneur.

　　For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in thedust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and todust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied inthinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eatif he had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonelylabour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figureapproaching on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in thoseparts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the menderof roads would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggy-hairedman, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that wereclumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart,steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the marshymoisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leavesand moss of many byways through woods.

　　Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather,as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter ashe could get from a shower of hail.

　　The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at themill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified theseobjects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect thatwas just intelligible:

　　"How goes it, Jacques?"

　　"All well, Jacques."

　　"Touch then!"

　　They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones.

　　"No dinner?"

　　"Nothing but supper now," said the mender of roads, with a hungry face.

　　"It is the fashion," growled the man. "I meet no dinner anywhere."

　　He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint andsteel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly heldit from him and dropped something into it from between his finger andthumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke.

　　"Touch then." It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it thistime, after observing these operations. They again joined hands.

　　"To-night?" said the mender of roads.

　　"To-night," said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

　　"Where?"

　　"Here."

　　He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silentlyat one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmycharge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village.

　　"Show me!" said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill.

　　"See!" returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. "You godown here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain--"

　　"To the Devil with all that!" interrupted the other, rolling his eyeover the landscape. "_I_ go through no streets and past no fountains.Well?"

　　"Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill abovethe village."

　　"Good. When do you cease to work?"

　　"At sunset."

　　"Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights withoutresting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Willyou wake me?"

　　"Surely."

　　The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped offhis great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones.He was fast asleep directly.

　　As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rollingaway, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded toby silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red capnow, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on theheap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that heused his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very pooraccount. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarsewoollen red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairyskins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, andthe sullen and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspiredthe mender of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, andhis feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his greatshoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over themany long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himselfwas into sores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried toget a peep at secret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain,for he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely ashis lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates,trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so muchair as against this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it tothe horizon and looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures,stopped by no obstacle, tending to centres all over France.

　　The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals ofbrightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumpsof dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changedthem, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing.Then, the mender of roads having got his tools together and all thingsready to go down into the village, roused him.

　　"Good!" said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. "Two leagues beyondthe summit of the hill?"

　　"About."

　　"About. Good!"

　　The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before himaccording to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain,squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, andappearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village.When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed,as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there.A curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when itgathered together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagionof looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. MonsieurGabelle, chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out onhis house-top alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced downfrom behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below,and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, thatthere might be need to ring the tocsin by-and-bye.

　　The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keepingits solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though theythreatened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Upthe two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat atthe great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within; uneasyrushes of wind went through the hall, among the old spears and knives,and passed lamenting up the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bedwhere the last Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, throughthe woods, four heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grassand cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to come together inthe courtyard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away in differentdirections, and all was black again.

　　But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itselfstrangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were growingluminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architectureof the front, picking out transparent places, and showing wherebalustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared higher, andgrew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows,flames burst forth, and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire.

　　A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were leftthere, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There wasspurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn inthe space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood atMonsieur Gabelle's door. "Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!" Thetocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there wasnone. The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particularfriends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillarof fire in the sky. "It must be forty feet high," said they, grimly;and never moved.

　　The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered awaythrough the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prisonon the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at thefire; removed from them, a group of soldiers. "Help, gentlemen--officers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved fromthe flames by timely aid! Help, help!" The officers looked towardsthe soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered,with shrugs and biting of lips, "It must burn."

　　As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, thevillage was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundredand fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by theidea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were puttingcandles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity ofeverything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptorymanner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitationon that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissiveto authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfireswith, and that post-horses would roast.

　　The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring andraging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight fromthe infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With therising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they werein torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face withthe two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of thesmoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning atthe stake and contending with the fire.

　　The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire,scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fiercefigures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Moltenlead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the waterran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice beforethe heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Greatrents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation;stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fiercefigures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards theirnext destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of thetocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy.

　　Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, andbell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to dowith the collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a smallinstalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in thoselatter days--became impatient for an interview with him, and,surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference.Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire tohold counsel with himself. The result of that conference was, thatGabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack ofchimneys; this time resolved, if his door were broken in (he was asmall Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself headforemost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below.

　　Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with thedistant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door,combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his havingan ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate,which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour.A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink ofthe black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which MonsieurGabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, andthe rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happilydispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with himfor that while.

　　Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there wereother functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whomthe rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where theyhad been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeopleless fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whomthe functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom theystrung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wendingEast, West, North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung,fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to waterand quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, wasable to calculate successfully.