The bay of Pont du Sable, which the incoming tide had so swiftly filled at daylight, now lay a naked waste of oozing black mud. The birds had gone with the receding sea, and I was back from shooting, loafing over my pipe and coffee in a still corner among the roses of my wild garden, hidden behind the old wall, when that Customhouse soldier-gardener of mine, Pierre, appeared with the following message:

"Monsieur de Savignac presents his salutations the most distinguished and begs that monsieur will give him the pleasure of calling on him À propos of the little spaniel."

What an unexpected and welcome surprise! For weeks I had hunted in vain for a thoroughbred. I had never hoped to be given one from the kennels of Monsieur de Savignac's chÂteau.

"Enchanted, Pierre!" I cried—"Present my compliments to Monsieur de Savignac. Tell him how sincerely grateful I am, and say that he may expect me to-morrow before noon."

I could easily imagine what a beauty my spaniel would be, clean-limbed and alert like the ones in the coloured lithographs. "No wonder," I thought, as Pierre left me, "that every peasant for miles around spoke of this good Monsieur de Savignac's generosity. Here he was giving me a dog. To me, his American neighbour, whom he had never met!"

As I walked over to the chÂteau with Pierre the next morning, I recalled to my mind the career of this extraordinary man, whose only vice was his great generosity.

When Monsieur de Savignac was twenty-one he inherited a million francs, acquired a high hat with a straight brim, a standing collar, well open at the throat (in fashion then under Napoleon III.), a flowing cravat—a plush waistcoat with crystal buttons, a plum-coloured broadcloth coat and trousers of a pale lemon shade, striped with black, gathered tight at the ankles, their bottoms flouncing over a pair of patent-leather boots with high heels.

He was tall, strong and good-natured, this lucky Jacques de Savignac, with a weakness for the fair sex which was appalling, and a charm of manner as irresistible as his generosity. A clumsy fencer, but a good comrade—a fellow who could turn a pretty compliment, danced better than most of the young dandies at court, drove his satin-skinned pair of bays through the Bois with an easy smile, and hunted hares when the shooting opened with the dogged tenacity of a veteran poacher.

When he was twenty-one, the Paris that GrÉvin drew was in the splendour of an extravagant life that she was never to see again, and never has. One could amuse one's self then—ah! Dame, oui!

There is no emperor now to keep Paris gay.

What suppers at VÉfour's! What a brilliant life there was in those days under the arcades of the dear old Palais Royal, the gay world going daily to this mondaine cloister to see and be seen—to dine and wine—to make conquests of the heart and dance daylight quadrilles.

Paris was ordered to be daily en fÊte and the host at the Tuileries saw to it that the gaiety did not flag. It was one way at least from keeping the populace from cutting one another's throats, which they did later with amazing ferocity.

There were in those good old days under Louis Napoleon plenty of places to gamble and spend the inherited gold. Ah! it was Rabelaisian enough! What an age to have been the recipient of a million at twenty-one! It was like being a king with no responsibilities. No wonder de Savignac left the university—he had no longer any need of it. He dined now at the Maison DorÉe and was seen nightly at the "Bal Mabille" or the "Closerie des Lilas," focussing his gold-rimmed monocle on the flying feet and lace frou-frous of "Diane la Sournoise," or roaring with laughter as he chucked gold louis into the satined lap of some "Francine" or "Cora" amid the blare of the band, and the flash of jewels strung upon fair arms and fairer necks of woman who went nightly to the "Bal Mabille" in smart turnouts and the costliest gowns money could buy—and after the last mad quadrille was ended, on he went to supper at Bignon's where more gaiety reigned until blue dawn, and where the women were still laughing and merry and danced as easily on the table as on the floor.

What a time, I say, to have inherited a million! And how many good friends he had! Painters and musicians, actors and wits (and there were some in those days)—no king ever gathered around him a jollier band.

It was from one of these henchmen of his that de Savignac purchased his chÂteau (long since emptied of its furniture)—from a young nobleman pressed hard for his debts, like most young noblemen are—and so the great chÂteau close to my Village of Vagabonds, and known for miles around, became de Savignac's.

What house parties he gave then!—men and women of talent flocked under his hospitable roof—indeed there was no lack of talent—some of it from the OpÉra—some of it from the Conservatoire, and they brought their voices and their fiddles with them and played and sang for him for days, in exchange for his feudal hospitality—more than that, the painter Paul Deschamps covered the ceiling of his music room with chubby cupids playing golden trumpets and violins—one adorable little fellow in the cove above the grand piano struggling with a 'cello twice as high as himself, and Carin painted the history of love in eight panels upon the walls of the old ballroom, whose frescoes were shabby enough, so I am told, when de Savignac purchased them.

There were times also when the chÂteau was full to overflowing with guests, so that the late comers were often quartered in a low two-story manor close by, that nestled under great trees—a cosey, dear old place covered with ivy and climbing yellow roses, with narrow alleys leading to it flanked by tall poplars, and a formal garden behind it in the niches of whose surrounding wall were statues of Psyche and Venus, their smooth marble shoulders stained by rain and the drip and ooze of growing things. One of them even now, still lifts its encrusted head to the weather.

During the shooting season there were weeks when he and his guests shot daily from the crack of dawn until dark, the game-keepers following with their carts that by night were loaded with hares, partridges, woodcock and quail—then such a good dinner, sparkling with repartee and good wine, and laughter and dancing after it, until the young hours in the morning. One was more solid in those days than now—tired as their dogs after the day's hunt, they dined and danced themselves young again for the morrow.

And what do you think they did after the Commune? They made him mayor. Yes, indeed, to honour him—Mayor of Hirondelette, the little village close to his estate, and de Savignac had to be formal and dignified for the first time in his life—this good Bohemian—at the village fÊtes, at the important meetings of the Municipal Council, composed of a dealer in cattle, the blacksmith and the notary. Again, in time of marriage, accident or death, and annually at the school exercises, when he presented prizes to the children spic and span for the occasion, with voices awed to whispers, and new shoes. And he loved them all—all those dirty little brats that had been scrubbed clean, and their ruddy cheeks polished like red apples, to meet "Monsieur le Maire."

He was nearing middle life now, but he was not conscious of it, being still a bachelor. There was not as yet, a streak of gray in his well-kept beard, and the good humour sparkled in his merry eyes as of old. The only change that had occurred concerned the million. It was no longer the brilliant solid million of his youth. It was sadly torn off in places—there were also several large holes in it—indeed, if the truth be told, it was little more than a remnant of its once splendid entirety. It had been eaten by moths—certain shrewd old wasps, too, had nested in it for years—not a sou of it had vanished in speculation or bad investment. Monsieur de Savignac (this part of it the curÉ told me) was as ignorant as a child concerning business affairs and stubbornly avoided them. He had placed his fortune intact in the Bank of France, and had drawn out what he needed for his friends. In the first year of his inheritance he glanced at the balance statement sent him by the bank, with a feeling of peaceful delight. As the years of his generosity rolled on, he avoided reading it at all—"like most optimists," remarked the curÉ, "he did not wish to know the truth." At forty-six he married the niece of an impoverished old wasp, a gentleman still in excellent health, owing to de Savignac's generosity. It was his good wife now, who read the balance statement.

For a while after his marriage, gaiety again reigned at the chÂteau, but upon a more economical basis; then gradually they grew to entertain less and less; indeed there were few left of the moths and old wasps to give to—they had flown to cluster around another million.

Most of this Pierre, who was leading me through the leafy lane that led to de Savignac's home, knew or could have known, for it was common talk in the country around, but his mind to-day was not on de Savignac's past, but on the dog which we both were so anxious to see.

"Monsieur has never met Monsieur de Savignac?" ventured Pierre as we turned our steps out of the brilliant sunlight, and into a wooded path skirting the extensive forest of the estate.

"Not yet, Pierre."

"He is a fine old gentleman," declared Pierre, discreetly lowering his voice. "Poor man!"

"Why poor, Pierre?" I laughed, "with an estate like this—nonsense!"

"Ah! Monsieur does not know?"—Pierre's voice sunk to a whisper—"the chÂteau is mortgaged, monsieur. There is not a tree or a field left Monsieur de Savignac can call his own. Do you know, monsieur, he has no longer even the right to shoot over the ground? Monsieur sees that low roof beyond with the single chimney smoking—just to the left of the chÂteau towers?"

I nodded.

"That is where Monsieur de Savignac now lives. It is called the garÇonniÈre."

"But the chÂteau, Pierre?"

"It is rented to a Peruvian gentleman, monsieur, who takes in boarders."

"Pierre!" I exclaimed, "we go no farther. I knew nothing of this. I am not going to accept a dog from a gentleman in Monsieur de Savignac's unfortunate circumstances. It is not right. No, no. Go and present my deep regrets to Monsieur de Savignac and tell him—tell him what you please. Say that my rich uncle has just sent me a pair of pointers—that I sincerely appreciate his generous offer, that—"

Pierre's small black eyes opened as wide as possible. He shrugged his shoulders twice and began twisting thoughtfully the waxed ends of his moustache to a finer point.

"Pardon, monsieur," he resumed after an awkward pause, "but—but monsieur, by not going, will grieve Monsieur de Savignac—He will be so happy to give monsieur the dog—so happy, monsieur. If Monsieur de Savignac could not give something to somebody he would die. Ah, he gives everything away, that good Monsieur de Savignac!" exclaimed Pierre. "I was once groom in his stables—oui, monsieur, and he married us when he was Mayor of Hirondelette, and he paid our rent—oui, monsieur, and the doctor and...."

"We'll proceed, Pierre," said I. "A man of de Savignac's kind in the world is so rare that one should do nothing to thwart him."

We walked on for some distance along the edge of a swamp carpeted with strong ferns. Presently we came to a cool, narrow alley flanked and roofed by giant poplars. At the end of this alley a wicket gate barred the entrance to the courtyard of the garÇonniÈre.

As we drew nearer I saw that its ancient two-story faÇade was completely covered by the climbing mass of ivy and yellow roses, the only openings being the Louis XIV. windows, and the front door, flush with the gravelled court, bordered by a thick hedge of box.

"Monsieur the American gentleman for the dog," announced Pierre to the boy servant in a blue apron who appeared to open the wicket gate.

A moment later the door of the garÇonniÈre opened, and a tall, heavily built man with silver white hair and beard came forth to greet me.

I noticed that the exertion of greeting me made him short of breath, and that he held his free hand for a second pressed against his heart as he ushered me across his threshold and into a cool, old-fashioned sitting room, the walls covered with steel engravings, the furniture upholstered in green rep.

"Have the goodness to be seated, monsieur," he insisted, waving me to an armchair, while he regained his own, back of an old-fashioned desk.

"Ah! The—little—dog," he began, slowly regaining his breath. "You are all the time shooting, and I heard you wanted one. It is so difficult to get a really—good—dog—in this country. FranÇois!" he exclaimed, "You may bring in the little dog—and, FranÇois!" he added, as the boy servant turned to go—"bring glasses and a bottle of Musigny—you will find it on the shelf back of the Medoc." Then he turned to me: "There are still two bottles left," and he laughed heartily.

"Bien, monsieur," answered the boy, and departed with a key big enough to have opened a jail.

The moment had arrived for me to draw forth a louis, which I laid on his desk in accordance with an old Norman custom, still in vogue when you accept as a gift a dog from an estate.

"Let your domestics have good cheer and wine to-night," said I.

"Thank you," he returned with sudden formality. "I shall put it aside for them," and he dropped the gold piece into a small drawer of his desk.

I did not know until Pierre, who was waiting outside in the court, told me afterwards, that his entire staff of servants was composed of the boy with the blue apron and the cook—an old woman—the last of his faithful servitors, who now appeared with a tray of trembling glasses, followed by the boy, the dusty cobwebbed bottle of rare Musigny and—my dog!

Not a whole dog. But a flub-dub little spaniel puppy—very blond—with ridiculously long ears, a double-barrelled nose, a roly-poly stomach and four heavy unsteady legs that got in his way as he tried to navigate in a straight line to make my acquaintance.

"VoilÀ!" cried de Savignac. "Here he is. He'll make an indefatigable hunter, like his mother—wait until he is two years old—He'll stand to his day's work beside the best in France——"

"And what race is he? may I ask, Monsieur de Savignac."

"Gorgon—Gorgon of Poitou," he returned with enthusiasm. "They are getting as rare now as this," he declared, nodding to the cobwebbed bottle, as he rose, drew the cork, and filled my glass.

While we sipped and chatted, his talk grew merry with chuckles and laughter, for he spoke of the friends of his youth, who played for him and sang to him—the thing which he loved most of all, he told me. "Once," he confessed to me, "I slipped away and travelled to Hungary. Ah! how those good gipsies played for me there! I was drunk with their music for two weeks. It is stronger than wine, that music of the gipsies," he said knowingly.

Again our talk drifted to hunting, of the good old times when hares and partridges were plentiful, and so he ran on, warmed by the rare Musigny, reminiscing upon the old days and his old friends who were serious sportsmen, he declared, and knew the habits of the game they were after, for they seldom returned with an empty game-bag.

"And you are just as keen about shooting as ever?" I ventured.

"I shoot no more," he exclaimed with a shrug. "One must be a philosopher when one is past sixty—when one has no longer the solid legs to tramp with, nor the youth and the digestion to live. Ah! Besides, the life has changed—Paris was gay enough in my day. I lived then, but at sixty—I stopped—with my memories. No! no! beyond sixty it is quite impossible. One must be philosophic, eh?"

Before I could reply, Madame de Savignac entered the room. I felt the charm of her personality, as I looked into her eyes, and as she welcomed me I forgot that her faded silk gown was once in fashion before I was born, or that madame was short and no longer graceful. As the talk went on, I began to study her more at my ease, when some one rapped at the outer door of the vestibule. She started nervously, then, rising, whispered to FranÇois, who had come to open it, then a moment later rose again and, going out into the hall, closed the door behind her.

"Thursday then," I heard a man's gruff voice reply brusquely.

I saw de Savignac straighten in his chair, and lean to one side as if trying to catch a word of the muffled conversation in the vestibule. The next instant he had recovered his genial manner to me, but I saw that again he laboured for some moments painfully for his breath.

The door of the vestibule closed with a vicious snap. Then I heard the crunch of sabots on the gravelled court, and the next instant caught a glimpse of the stout, brutal figure of the peasant Le Gros, the big dealer in cattle, as he passed the narrow window of the vestibule.

It was he, then, with his insolent, bestial face purple with good living, who had slammed the door. I half started indignantly from my chair—then I remembered it was no affair of mine.

Presently madame returned—flushed, and, with a forced smile, in which there was more pain than pleasure, poured for me another glass of Musigny. I saw instantly that something unpleasant had passed—something unusually unpleasant—perhaps tragic, and I discreetly rose to take my leave.

Without a word of explanation as to what had happened, Madame de Savignac kissed my dog good-bye on the top of his silky head, while de Savignac stroked him tenderly. He was perfectly willing to come with me, and cocked his head on one side.

We were all in the courtyard now.

"Au revoir," they waved to me.

"Au revoir," I called back.

"Au revoir," came back to me faintly, as Pierre and the doggie and I entered the green lane and started for home.

"Monsieur sees that I was right, is it not true?" ventured Pierre, as we gained the open fields. "Monsieur de Savignac would have been grieved had not monsieur accepted the little dog."

"Yes," I replied absently, feeling more like a marauder for having accepted all they had out of their hearts thrust upon me.

Then I stopped—lifted the roly-poly little spaniel, and taking him in my arms whispered under his silky ear: "We shall go back often, you and I"—and I think he understood.

A few days later I dropped into Madame Vinet's snug little cafÉ in Pont du Sable. It was early in the morning and the small room of the cafÉ, with barely space enough for its four tables still smelt of fresh soap suds and hot water. At one of the tables sat the peasant in his black blouse, sipping his coffee and applejack.

Le Gros lifted his sullen face as I entered, shifted his elbows, gripped the clean marble slab of his table with both his red hands, and with a shrewd glint from his small, cruel eyes, looked up and grunted.

"Ah!—bonjour, monsieur."

"Bonjour, Monsieur Le Gros," I replied. "We seem to be the only ones here. Where's the patronne?"

"Upstairs, making her bed—another dry day," he muttered, half to himself, half to me.

"She will stay dry for some days," I returned. "The wind is well set from the northeast."

"Sacristi! a dirty time," he growled. "My steers are as dry as an empty cask."

"I'd like a little rain myself," said I, reaching for a chair—"I have a young dog to train—a spaniel Monsieur de Savignac has been good enough to give me. He is too young to learn to follow a scent on dry ground."

Le Gros raised his bull-like head with a jerk.

"De Savignac gave you a dog, did he? and he has a dog to give away, has he?"

The words came out of his coarse throat with a snarl.

I dropped the chair and faced him.

(He is the only man in Pont du Sable that I positively dislike.)

"Yes," I declared, "he gave me a dog. May I ask you what business it is of yours?"

A flash of sullen rage illumined for a moment the face of the cattle dealer. Then he muttered something in his peasant accent and sat glowering into his empty coffee cup as I turned and left the room, my mind reverting to Madame de Savignac's door which his coarse hand had closed with a vicious snap.

We took the short cut across the fields often now—my yellow puppy and I. Indeed I grew to see these good friends of mine almost daily, and as frequently as I could persuade them, they came to my house abandoned by the marsh.

The Peruvian gentleman's boarding house had been a failure, and I learned from the curÉ that the de Savignacs were hard pressed to pay their creditors.

It was Le Gros who held the mortgage, I further gleaned.

And yet those two dear people kept a brave heart. They were still giving what they had, and she kept him in ignorance as best she could, softening the helplessness of it all, with her gentleness and her courage.

In his vague realization that the end was near, there were days when he forced himself into a gay mood and would come chuckling down the lane to open the gate for me, followed by Mirza, the tawny old mother of my puppy, who kept her faithful brown eyes on his every movement. Often it was she who sprang nimbly ahead and unlatched the gate for me with her paw and muzzle, an old trick he had taught her, and he would laugh when she did it, and tell me there were no dogs nowadays like her.

Thus now and then he forced himself to forget the swarm of little miseries closing down upon him—forgot even his aches and pains, due largely to the dampness of the vine-smothered garÇonniÈre whose old-fashioned interior smelt of cellar damp, for there was hardly a room in it whose wall paper had escaped the mould.

It was not until March that the long-gathering storm broke—as quick as a crackling lizard of lightning strikes. Le Gros had foreclosed the mortgage.

The ChÂteau of Hirondelette was up for sale.

When de Savignac came out to open the gate for me late that evening his face was as white as the palings in the moonlight.

"Come in," said he, forcing a faint laugh—-he stopped for a moment as he closed and locked the gate—labouring painfully for his breath. Then he slipped his arm under my own. "Come along," he whispered, struggling for his voice. "I have found another bottle of Musigny."

A funeral, like a wedding or an accident, is quickly over. The sale of de Savignac's chÂteau consumed three days of agony.

As I passed the "garÇonniÈre" by the lane beyond the courtyard on my way to the last day's sale, I looked over the hedge and saw that the shutters were closed—farther on, a doctor's gig was standing by the gate. From a bent old peasant woman in sabots and a white cap, who passed, I learned which of the two was ill. It was as I had feared—his wife. And so I continued on my way to the sale.

As I passed through the gates of the chÂteau, the rasping voice of the lean-jawed auctioneer reached my ears as he harangued in the drizzling rain before the steps of the chÂteau the group of peasants gathered before him—widows in rusty crÊpe veils, shrewd old Norman farmers in blue blouses looking for bargains, their carts wheeled up on the mud-smeared lawn. And a few second-hand dealers from afar, in black derbys, lifting a dirty finger to close a bid for mahogany.

Close to this sordid crowd on the mud-smeared lawn sat Le Gros, his heavy body sunk in a carved and gilded arm-chair that had once graced the boudoir of Madame de Savignac. As I passed him, I saw that his face was purple with drink. He sat there the picture of insolent ignorance, this pig of a peasant.

At times the auctioneer rallied the undecided with coarse jokes, and the crowd roared, for they are not burdened with delicacy, these Norman farmers.

"Allons! Allons! my good ladies!" croaked the auctioneer. "Forty sous for the lot. A bed quilt for a princess and a magnificent water filter de luxe that will keep your children well out of the doctor's hands. Allons! forty sous, forty-one—two?"

A merchant in hogs raised his red, puffy hand, then turned away with a leer as the shrill voice of a fisher woman cried, "Forty-five."

"Sold!" yelped the auctioneer—"sold to madame the widow Dupuis of Hirondelette," who was now elbowing her broad way through the crowd to her bargain which she struggled out with, red and perspiring, to the mud-smeared lawn, where her eldest daughter shrewdly examined the bedquilt for holes.

I turned away when it was all over and followed the crowd out through the gates. Le Gros was climbing into his cart. He was drunk and swearing over the poor result of the sale. De Savignac was still in his debt—and I continued on my way home, feeling as if I had attended an execution.

Half an hour later the sharp bark of my yellow puppy greeted me from beyond my wall. As I entered my courtyard, he came to me wriggling with joy. Suddenly I stopped, for my ear caught the sound of a tail gently patting the straw in the cavernous old stable beyond my spaniel's kennel. I looked in and saw a pair of eyes gleaming like opals in the gloom. Then the tawny body of Mirza, the mother, rose from the straw and came slowly and apologetically toward me with her head lowered.

"Suzette!" I called, "how did she get here?"

"The boy of Monsieur de Savignac brought her an hour ago, monsieur," answered the little maid. "There is a note for monsieur. I have left it on the table."

I went in, lighted the fire, and read the following:

"The GarÇonniÈre, Saturday.

"Take her, my friend. I can no longer keep her with me. You have the son, it is only right you should have the mother. We leave for Paris to-morrow. We shall meet there soon, I trust. If you come here, do not bring her with you. I said good-bye to her this morning.

"Jacques de Savignac."