It is at last decided! The kind and sympathetic Minister of Agriculture has signed the official document opening the shooting-season for hares and partridges in La belle France, to-morrow, Sunday, the thirtieth of September. Thrice happy hunters!—they who had begun to grumble in their cafÉs over the rumour that the opening of the shooting-season might be postponed until the second or even third Sunday in October.

My good friend the mayor of Pont du Sable has just handed me my hunting-permit for the coming year bearing the stamp of the RÉpublique FranÇaise, the seal of the prefecture, the signature of the prÉfet, and including everything, from the colour of my hair and complexion to my height, age, birth and domicile. On the back of this important piece of paper I read as follows:

That the permit must be produced at the demand of all agents authorized by law. That it is prohibited to shoot without it, or upon lands without the consent of the proprietor having the right—or outside of the season fixed by the laws of the prÉfets.

Furthermore:

The father—the mother—the tutor—the masters, and guardians are civilly responsible for the misdemeanours committed while shooting by their infants—wards—pupils, or domestics living with them.

And finally:

That the hunter who has lost his permit cannot resume again the exercise of the hunt until he has obtained and paid for a new one, twenty-eight francs and sixty centimes.

To-morrow, then, the jolly season opens.

"Vive la RÉpublique!"

It is a season, too, of crisp twilights after brilliant days, so short that my lost village is plunged in darkness as early as seven, and goes to bed to save the candle—the hour when the grocer's light gleaming ahead of me across the slovenly little public square becomes the only beacon in the village; and, guided by it, I pick my way in the dark along the narrow thoroughfare, stumbling over the laziest of the village dogs sprawled here and there in the road outside the doorways of the fishermen.

Across one of these thresholds I catch a glimpse to-night of a tired fisher girl stretched on her bed after her long day at sea. Beside the bed a very old woman in a white cotton cap bends over her bowl of soup by the wavering light of a tallow dip.

"Bonsoir, monsieur!" croaks a hoarse voice from the dark. It is Marianne. She has fished late.

At seven-thirty the toy train rumbles into Pont du Sable, stops for a barefooted passenger, and rumbles out again through the village—crawling lest it send one of the laziest dogs yelping to its home. The headlight on the squat locomotive floods the way ahead, suddenly illumining the figure of a blinking old man laden with nets and three barelegged children who scream, "Bonsoir, monsieur," to the engineer.

What glorious old days are these! The wealth of hedged fields—-the lush green grass, white with hoar frost at daybreak—the groups of mild-eyed cows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of sea air, sunshine and Norman country spreading its richness down to the very edge of the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a sane exhilaration—he is alive.

On calm nights the air is pungent and warm with the perfume of tons of apples lying heaped in the orchards, ready for the cider-making, nights, when the owls hoot dismally under a silver moon.

When the wind veers to the north it grows cold. On such nights as these "the Essence of Selfishness" seeks my fireside.

She is better fed than many other children in the lost village beyond my wall. And spoiled!—mon Dieu! She is getting to be hopeless.

Ah, you queen of studied cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since you disdain to dine from my best china, and Suzette takes care of you like a nurse.

Eh bien! Some day, do you hear, I shall sell you to the rabbit-skin man, who has a hook for a hand, and the rest of you will find its way to some cheap table d'hÔte, where you will pass as ragout of rabbit Henri IV. under a thick sauce. What would you do, I should like to know, if you were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose four children sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with what their mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best of grasshopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours—Suzette is coming to put you to bed.

The trim little maid entered, crossed noiselessly in the firelight to my chair, and, laying a sealed note from my friend the Baron beneath the lamp, picked up the sleepy cat and carried her off to her room.

The note was a delightful surprise.

"Cher monsieur: Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to come and do the ouverture of the hunt at my chÂteau to-morrow, Sunday—my auto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about ten guns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares to make you pass a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, the assurance of my sentiments the most distinguished?"

It was nice of the Baron to think of me, for I had made his acquaintance but recently at one of Tanrade's dinners, during which, I recall, the Baron declared to me as he lifted his left eyebrow over his cognac, that the hunt—la chasse—"was always amusing, and a great blessing to men, since it created the appetite of the wolf and was an excuse to get rid of the ladies." He told me, too, as he adjusted his monocle safely in the corner of his aristocratic aquiline nose, that his favourite saint was St. Hubert. He would have liked to have known him—he must have been a bon garÇon, this patron saint of hunting.

"Ah! Les femmes!" he sighed, as he straightened his erect torso, that had withstood so many Parisian years, against the back of his chair. "Ah! Les femmes! But in zee fields zey cannot follow us? Hein?" He laughed, lapsing into his broken English. "Zey cannot follow us through zee hedges, ovaire zee rough grounds, in zee rains, in zee muds. Nevaire take a woman hunting," he counselled me sotto voce beneath his vibrant hand, for Alice de BrÉville was present. "One can nevaire make love and kill zee agile little game at zee same time. Par exemple! You whispaire somezing in madame's leetle ear and brrrh! a partridge—que voulez-vous, mon cher?" he concluded, with a shrug. "It is quite impossible—quite impossible."

I told him leisurely, as we sipped our liqueur, of the hunting in my own country, of the lonely tramps in the wilderness following a line of traps in the deep snow, the blind trails, the pork sandwich melted against the doughnuts at noon, leaking lean-tos, smoky fires, and bad coffee.

"Parbleu!" he roared. "You have not zee rendezvous? You have not zee hunting breakfast? I should be quite ill—you hunt like zee Arabs—like zee gipsies—ah, yes, I forget—zee warm sandwich and zee native nuts."

He tapped the table gently with his rings, smiling the while reminiscently into his glass, then, turning again to me, added seriously:

"It is not all zee play—zee hunt. I have had zee legs broken by zee fatigue. Zee good breakfast is what you say 'indispensable' to break zee day. Zee good stories, zee camaraderie, zee good kind wine—enfin tout! But"—and again he leaned nearer—"but not zee ladies—nevaire—only zee memories."

I repeat, it was nice of the Baron to think of me. I could easily picture to myself as I reread his note his superb estate, that stronghold of his ancestors; the hearty welcome at its gates; the gamekeepers in their green fustians; the pairs of perfectly trained dogs; the abundance of partridges and hares; and the breakfast in the old chÂteau, a feast that would be replete with wit and old Burgundy. How splendid are these Norman autumns! What exhilarating old days during this season of dropping apples, blue skies, and falling leaves! Days when the fat little French partridges nestle in companies in the fields, shorn to stubble after the harvest, and sleek hares at sunrise lift their long ears cautiously above the dew-bejeweled cobwebs along the ditches to make sure that the green feeding-patch beyond is safe from the man and the gun.

Fat, garrulous Monsieur Toupin of the village becomes under the spell of Madame Vinet's best cognac so uproarious when he has killed one of these sleek, strong-limbed hares, that madame is obliged to draw the turkey-red curtain over the window of her small cafÉ that Monsieur Toupin may not be seen by his neighbours.

"Suzette," I called, "my candle! I must get a good night's sleep, for to-morrow I shoot with the Baron."

"Tiens!" exclaimed the little maid. "At the grand chÂteau?" And her frank eyes opened wide. "Ah, mais—but monsieur will not have to work hard for a partridge there."

"And so you know the chÂteau, my little one?"

"Ah, mais oui, monsieur! Is it not at La SapiniÈre near Les Roses? My grandfather was gardener there when I was little. I passed the chÂteau once with my mother and heard the guns back of the great wall. Monsieur will be content—ah, mais oui!"

"My coffee at five-thirty promptly, ma petite!"

"Bien, monsieur." And Suzette passed me my lighted candle, the flame of which rose brilliantly from its wick.

"That means good luck, monsieur," said she, pointing to the candle-flame, as my foot touched the winding stairs.

"Nonsense!" I laughed, for I am always amused at her peasant belief in superstitions. Once, I remember, I was obliged to send for the doctor—Suzette had broken a mirror.

"Ah, mais si," declared Suzette, with conviction, as she unlatched her kitchen door. "When the wick burns like that—ah, Ça!" And with a cheery bonsoir she closed the door behind her.

I had just swallowed my coffee when the siren of the Baron's automobile emitted a high, devilish wail, and subsided into a low moan outside my wall. The next instant the gate of the court flew open, and I rushed out, to greet, to my surprise, Tanrade in his shooting-togs, and—could it be true? Monsieur le CurÉ.

"You, too?" I exclaimed in delight.

"Yes," he smiled and added, with a wink: "I could not refuse so gamy an invitation."

"And I would not let him," added Tanrade. "Quick! Where are your traps? We have a good forty kilometres ahead of us; we must not keep the Baron waiting." And the composer of ballets rushed into the house and shouldered my valise containing a dry change.

"You shall have enough partridges to fill your larder for a month," I heard him tell Suzette, and he did not forget to pat her rosy cheek in passing. Suzette laughed and struggled by him, her firm young arms hugging my gun and shell-case.

Before I could stop him, the curÉ, in his black soutane, had clambered nimbly to the roof of the big car and was lashing my traps next to Tanrade's and his own. At this instant I started to take a long breath of pure morning air—and hesitated, then I caught the alert eye of the chauffeur, who was grinning.

"What are you burning? Fish oil?" said I.

"Mon Dieu, monsieur——" began the chauffeur.

"Cheese," called down the curÉ, pointing to a round paper parcel on the roof of the limousine. "Tanrade got it at daylight; woke up the whole village getting it."

"Had to," explained Tanrade, as Suzette helped him into his great coat. "The Baron is out of cheese; he added a postscript to my invitation praying that I would be amiable enough to bring one. Eh voilÀ! There it is, and real cheese at that. Come, get in, quick!" And he opened the door of the limousine, the interior of which was lined in gray suÈde and appointed with the daintiest of feminine luxuries.

"Look out for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the curÉ found his seat. "If you scratch those monograms the Baroness will never forgive you."

Then, with a wave to Suzette, we swept away from my house by the marsh, were hurled through Pont du Sable, and shot out of its narrowest end into the fresh green country beyond.

It was so thoroughly chic and Parisian, this limousine. Only a few days ago it had been shopping along the Rue de la Paix, and later rushing to the cool Bois de Boulogne carrying a gracious woman to dinner; now it held two vagabonds and a curÉ. We tore on while we talked enthusiastically of the day's shooting in store for us. The curÉ was in his best humour. How he does love to shoot and what a rattling good shot he is! Neither Tanrade nor myself, and we have shot with him day in and day out on the marsh and during rough nights in his gabion, has ever beaten him.

On we flew, past the hamlet of Fourche-la-Ville, past Javonne, past Les Roses. Sacristi! I thought, what if the gasoline gave out or the spark refused to sparkle, what if they had——Why worry? That cheese was strong enough to have gotten us anywhere.

Suddenly we slowed down, hastily consulted a blue iron sign at the crossroad, and swung briskly to the right.

A noble forest and the roofs and tourelles of the chÂteau now loomed ahead of us. We turned into a clean, straight road, flanked by superb oaks leading to an ancient stone gateway. A final wail from the siren, the gates swung open, and we came to a dead stop in front of the Baron, four setter dogs, and a group of gentlemen immaculately attired for the hunt. From their tan-leather leggings to their yellow dogskin gloves and gleaming guns, they were faultless.

While the Baron greeted us, his guests stood waiting to be presented; their formal bow would have done credit to a foreign embassy during an imperial audience. The next moment we were talking as naturally together and with as much camaraderie as if we had known each other for years.

"Make yourselves at home, my children!" cried the Baron. "Vous Êtes chez vous; the ladies have gone to Paris."

It was not such a very grand place, this estate of the Baron, after all. It had an air about it of having seen better days, but the host was a good fellow, and his welcome genuine, and we were all happy to be there. No keepers in green fustians, no array of thoroughbred dogs, but instead four plain setters with a touch of shepherd in them. The chÂteau itself was plain and comfortable within and scarred by age without. Some of the little towers had lost their tops, and the extensive wall enclosing the snug forest bulged dangerously in places.

"You will see," explained the Baron to me in his fluent French, as our little party sauntered out into the open fields to shoot, "I do not get along very well with my farmer. I must tell you this in case he gives us trouble to-day. He has the right, owing to a stupid lease my aged aunt was unwise enough to sign with him some years ago, to exclude us from hunting over many fields contiguous to my own; above all, we cannot put foot in his harvest."

"I see," I returned, with a touch of disappointment, for I knew the birds were where the harvest was still uncut.

"There are acres of grain going to seed beyond us which he would rather lose than have me hunt over," the Baron confessed. "Bah! We shall see what the canaille will do, for only this morning he sent me word threatening to break up the hunt. Nothing would please him better than have us all served with a procÈs-verbal for trespassing."

I confess I was not anxious to be hauled before the court of the country-seat time after time during a trial conducted at a snail's pace and be relieved of several hundred francs, for this is what a procÈs-verbal meant. It was easily seen that the Baron was in a no more tranquil state of mind himself.

"You are all my guests!" he exclaimed, with sudden heat. "That sacrÉ individual will deal with me. It is I who am alone responsible," he generously added. "Ah! We shall see. If you meet him, don't let him bulldoze you. Don't show him your hunting permit if he demands it, for what he will want is your name. I have explained all this to the rest."

"Eh bien! my dear friends," he called back to the others as we reached a cross-road, "we shall begin shooting here. Half of you to the right—half to the left!"

"What is the name of your farmer?" I inquired, as we spread out into two slowly moving companies.

"Le Bour," returned the Baron grimly as the breech of his gun snapped shut.

The vast cultivated plain undulating below us looked like the patchwork-quilt of a giantess, stitched together with well-knit hedges. There were rectangles of apple-green clover, canary-yellow squares of mustard, green pastures of ochre stubble, rich green strips of beets, and rolling areas of brown-ribbed furrows freshly plowed.

Time after time we were obliged to pass around companies of partridges that had taken refuge under the idiotic lease of the aged aunt. It was exasperating, for, from the beginning of the shoot, every bird seemed to know where it was safe from the gleaming guns held so skilfully by the messieurs in the yellow dogskin gloves. By eleven o'clock there were barely a score of birds in the game-bags when there should have been a hundred.

At the second cross road, the right and left party convened. It was what Le Bour had been waiting for.

A sour old man in a blue blouse now rose up out of a hedge in which he had hidden himself, and came glowering toward us. As he drew nearer I saw that his gun swung loosely in his hand and was at full cock, its muzzle wavering unpleasantly over us as he strode on. His mean old eyes glittered with rage, his jaw trembled under a string of oaths. His manner was that of a sullen bull about to charge.

There was no mistaking his identity—it was Le Bour.

"ProcÈs-verbal for all of you," he bellowed; "you, Monsieur le Baron, and you, Monsieur le Vicomte," he snapped, as the Baron advanced to defend his guests. "I saw you cross my buckwheat," he declared pointing an ugly finger at the Vicomte.

"You lie!" shouted the Baron, before the Vicomte could find his words. "I forbid you to open your head to my guests. Not one of these gentlemen has set foot in your harvest. What right have you to carry a gun? Where is your hunting permit?" thundered the Baron. "Where's your commission as guard, that you should have the insolence to threaten us with a procÈs-verbal."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Baron, as the permit was not forthcoming, "I thought as much. I appoint you witness, Monsieur le CurÉ, the fellow has no permit." And we swelled the merriment with a forced sputter of ridicule.

"Come, my friends, we shall leave this imbecile to himself," laughed the Baron.

Le Bour sprang past him and confronted us.

"Eh ben, my fine gentlemen," he snarled, "you'll not get away so easily. I demand, in the name of the law, your hunting permits. Come, allons! All of you!"

At the same instant he tore open his blouse and displayed, to our dismay, an oval brass plaque bearing his name and the number 1247.

"There!" cried the old man, white and trembling with rage. "There's my full commission as guard."

My companion with the gloves next to me fidgeted nervously and coughed. I saw the Vicomte turn a little pale. Tanrade shrugged his shoulders. Monsieur le CurÉ's face wore an expression of dignified gravity. Not once, however, had Le Bour's eyes met his own. It was evident that he reverently excluded the curÉ from the affair.

The Vicomte looked uncomfortable enough. The truth was, he was not known to be at the hunt. The Vicomtesse was shrewd when it came to the question of his whereabouts. A procÈs-verbal meant publicity; naturally the Vicomtesse would know. It might even reach the adorable ears of Mademoiselle Rosalie, of the corps de ballet, who imagined the Vicomte safe with his family. The Baron was fuming, but he did not speak.

"Your permits!" reiterated Le Bour, flourishing his license.

There was an awkward silence; not a few in the party had left their permits at home.

"Pouf!" exclaimed the Baron. "Enough of this! En route, my friends!"

"Eh, bien!" growled the farmer. "You refuse to produce your permits on demand of a guard. It shall be stated," he threatened, "in the procÈs-verbal." Then Le Bour turned on his muddy heel and launched a parting volley at the Baron denouncing his chÂteau and everything connected with him.

"Do not forget the time you stole the ducks of my uncle," cried the Baron, shaking a clenched fist at the old man, "or the morning—" But his words were lost on Le Bour, who had disappeared in the hedge.

By eleven-thirty we had killed some two dozen birds and three hares; and as we were now stricken with "the appetite of the wolf," we turned back to the chÂteau for breakfast.

Here a sponge and a rub-down sent us in gay spirits down to the billiard-room, where a bottle of port was in waiting—a rare bottle for particular occasions. It was "the last of a dozen," explained the Baron as we touched glasses, sent to the chÂteau by Napoleon in payment for a night's lodging during one of his campaigns. "The very time, in fact," he added, "when the little towers lost their tops."

Under the spell of the Emperor's port the Vicomte regained his nerves, and even the unpleasant incident of the morning was half forgotten while the piano in the historic salon rang merrily under Tanrade's touch until we filed in to luncheon.

It was as every French shooting-luncheon is intended to be—a pleasant little fÊte full of good cheer and understanding; the good soup, the decanters of Burgundy, the clean red-and-white checkered napkins and cloth, the heavy family silver, the noiseless old servants—and what an appetite we had! What a soufflÉ of potatoes, and such chicken smothered in cream! And always the "good kind wine," until the famous cheese that Tanrade had waked up Pont du Sable in procuring was passed quickly and went out to the pantry, never to return. Ah, yes! And the warm champagne without which no French breakfast is complete.

Over the coffee and liqueurs, the talk ran naturally to gallantry.

"Ah, les femmes! The memories," as the Baron had said.

"You should have seen Babette Deslys five years ago," remarked one of our jolly company when the Baron had left the room in search of some milder cigars.

I saw the Vicomte raise his eyebrows in subtle warning to the speaker, who, like myself, knew the Baron but slightly. If he was treading upon delicate ground he was unconscious of it, this bon vivant of a Parisian; for he continued rapidly in his enthusiasm, despite a second hopeless attempt of the Vicomte to check him.

"You should have seen Babette in the burlesque as Phryne at the VariÉtÉs—une merveille, mon cher!" he exclaimed, addressing the sous-lieutenant on his right, and he blew a kiss to the ceiling. "The complexion of a rosebud and amusing! Ah—la! la!"

"I hear her debts ran close to a million," returned the lieutenant.

"She was feather-brained," continued the bon vivant, with a blasÉ shrug. "She was a good little quail with more heart than head! Poor Babette!"

"Take care!" cautioned the Vicomte pointblank, as the Baron re-entered with the box of milder Havanas.

And thus the talk ran on among these men of the world who knew Paris as well as their pockets; and so many Babettes and Francines and other careless little celebrities whose beauty and extravagance had turned peace and tranquillity into ruin and chaos.

At last the jolly breakfast came to an end. We rose, recovered our guns from the billiard-table, and with fresh courage went forth again into the fields to shoot until sunset. During the afternoon we again saw Le Bour, but he kept at a safe distance watching our movements with muttered oaths and a vengeful eye, while we added some twenty-odd partridges to the morning's score.

Toward the end of the afternoon, a week later, at Pont du Sable, Tanrade and the curÉ sat smoking under my sketching-umbrella on the marsh. The curÉ is far from a bad painter. His unfinished sketch of the distant strip of sea and dunes lay at my feet as I worked on my own canvas while the sunset lasted.

Tanrade was busy between puffs of his pipe in transposing various passages in his latest score. Now and then he would hesitate, finger the carefully thought out bar on his knee, and again his stub of a pencil would fly on through a maze of hieroglyphics that were to the curÉ and myself wholly unintelligible.

Suddenly the curÉ looked up, his keen gaze rivetted upon two dots of figures on bicycles speeding rapidly toward us along the path skirting the marsh.

"Hello!" exclaimed the curÉ, and he gave a low whistle. "The gendarmes!"

There was no mistaking their identity; their gold stripes and white duck trousers appeared distinctly against the tawny marsh.

The next moment they dismounted, left their wheels on the path, and came slowly across the desert of wire-grass toward us.

"Diable!" muttered Tanrade, under his breath, and instantly our minds reverted to Le Bour.

The two officials of the law were before us.

"We regret to disturb you, messieurs," began the taller of the two pleasantly as he extracted a note-book from a leather case next to his revolver. "But"—and he shrugged his military shoulders—"it is for the little affair at Hirondelette."

"Which one of us is elected?" asked Tanrade grimly.

"Ah! Bon Dieu!" returned the tall one; half apologetically. "A procÈs-verbal unfortunately for you, Monsieur Tanrade. Read the charge," he said to the short one, who had now unfolded a paper, cleared his throat, and began to read in a monotonous tone.

"Monsieur Gaston Emile Le Bour, agriculturist at Hirondelette, charges Monsieur Charles Louis Ernest Tanrade, born in Paris, soldier of the Thirteenth Infantry, musician, composer, with flagrant trespass in his buckwheat on hectare number seven, armed with the gun of percussion on the thirtieth of September at ten-forty-five in the morning."

"I was not in his sacrÉ buckwheat!" declared Tanrade, and he described the entire incident of the morning.

"Take monsieur's denial in detail," commanded the tall one.

His companion produced a small bottle of ink and began to write slowly with a scratchy pen, while we stood in silence.

"Kindly add your signature, monsieur," said the tall one, when the bottle was again recorked.

Tanrade signed.

The gendarmes gravely saluted and were about to withdraw when Tanrade asked if he was "the only unfortunate on the list."

"Ah, non!" confessed the tall one. "There is a similar charge against Monsieur le Vicomte—we have just called upon him. Also against Monsieur le Baron."

"And what did they say?"

"Eh bien, monsieur, a general denial, just as monsieur has made."

"The affair is ridiculous," exclaimed Tanrade hotly.

"That must be seen," returned the tall one firmly.

Again we all saluted and they left us, recovered their bicycles, and went spinning off back to Pont du Sable.

"Nom d'un chien!" muttered Tanrade, while the curÉ and I stared thoughtfully at a clump of grass.

"Why didn't he get me?" I ventured, after a moment.

"Foreigner," explained Tanrade. "You're in luck, old boy—no record of identity, and how the devil do you suppose Le Bour could pronounce your name?"

Half an hour later I found the Vicomte, who lived close to our village. He was pacing up and down his salon in a rage.

"I was not in the buckwheat!" he declared frantically. "Do you suppose I have nothing better to do, my friend, than see this wretched business out at the county-seat? The Vicomtesse is furious. We were to leave, for a little voyage in Italy, next week. Ah, that young son of the Baron! He is the devil! He is responsible for this—naturally." And he fell again to pacing the room.

I looked blankly at the Vicomte.

"Son? What young son?" I asked.

The Vicomte stopped, with a gesture of surprise.

"Ah! Sapristi! You do not know?" he exclaimed. "You do not know that Babette Deslys is Le Bour's daughter? That the Baron's son ran away with her and a hundred thousand francs? That the hundred thousand francs belonged to Le Bour? Sapristi! You did not know that?"