Schwartz: A History | Page 7

admitted. She never gave her admirer the least
encouragement so far as I could see. She never in a chance encounter in
the street paused to exchange good-morrow. She never so much as
turned a head in his direction. She tolerated his presence and that was
all. But wherever she went he shadowed her. He was not obtrusive, but
was content to keep at heel, and to be permitted to admire. I have seen
him sit for half an hour on a doorstep, a canine monument of patience,
waiting for her to come out, and I have seen her travel about the Place
in apparently purposeless zigzags and circles for the mere pride and
vanity of knowing how closely he would follow her least reasonable
movements.
A week or two before the grand event came off there was a prodigious
excitement in Janenne. An idea, originating in the military spirit of
Monsieur Dorn, had been industriously put about, a subscription had
been set on foot for it, a committee had been appointed to superintend

its working, and now the glorious fancy was actually translated into
fact. The procession was to be supplemented by artillery, and now here
was a time-eaten old gun, mounted on a worm-eaten old carriage, and
trailed in harness of rope by two stalwart Flemish horses. Here also was
gunpowder enough to wreck the village, and the Janennois, who for a
moral people have a most astounding love of noise, were out at earliest
dawn of light on Sunday morning to see the gun fired. The first firing
was supposed to be an experiment, and everybody was warned to a safe
distance when the gun was loaded, whilst Monsieur Dorn arranged a
train of powder, and set a slow match in connection with it. When the
bang came and the old iron stood the strain everybody went wild with
joy, and even Monsieur Dorn himself was so carried away by the
general enthusiasm that he tested the piece all morning. It was finally
discovered that the powder was exhausted, and the hat had to be sent
round again for a new subscription.
The annual procession is far and away the greatest event of the year at
Janenne, and the septennial procession would of itself be enough to
satisfy any resident in the village that he had lived if he had but seen it
once. Nobody dreamed of spoiling the procession for the sake of a
cart-load or so of gunpowder, and the hat was soon filled. Next Sunday
Janenne enjoyed a new series of experiments on the big gun, and what
with the banging of the drum, and the blowing of the bugle, and the
flaming of torches in the dark morning, and the banging of the big gun
from dawn till noon, and the clatter and glitter of the drill in the after
part of the short winter day, the atmosphere of the village was
altogether warlike.
The big gun gave Lil an added claim on the veneration of her admirer.
On the morning of the second firing she came demurely down to the
field in which the artillery experiments were conducted, with an air of
knowing all about it, and Schwartz, as usual, pursued her. The gun was
sponged and loaded, and the charge was rammed home under Monsieur
Dorn's supervision, Lil standing gravely by, and Schwartz grovelling in
her neighbourhood. Then the old gendarme himself primed the piece,
and taking a torch from a boy who stood near him applied it to the
touch-hole. Out at the muzzle sprang the answering flame and roar, and

away went Schwartz as if he had been projected by the force of the
powder. Panic declared itself in every hair, and his usual foolish
three-legged amble was exchanged for a pace like that of a greyhound.
He had gone but a hundred yards at most, when reason resumed her
seat. He stopped and turned, and after a little pause came back with an
evident shamefacedness. Lil had stood her ground without the slightest
sign of fear, and when Schwartz returned she took to looking so
triumphantly, and superintended the subsequent operations with so
much authority, that I am profoundly convinced of her intent to
persuade her slavish follower that this was some new and astonishing
form of bark of which she alone possessed the secret.
Schwartz was most probably willing to believe anything she told him.
It is the way of some natures to confide, and it is the way of others to
presume upon their confidence.

III
Janenne is on the outskirts of the Forest Country, and in the shooting
season the chasseur is a familiar personage. He arrives by evening train
or diligence, half a dozen strong. He sups and betakes himself to the
singing of comic