WHERE WE AGAIN MEET THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PATCH.
Some time after the events which we have just recorded, the SieurBoulatruelle had a lively emotion. The Sieur Boulatruelle is theroad-mender of Montfermeil of whom we have already caught a glimpsein the dark portions of this book. Boulatruelle, it will possibly beremembered, was a man occupied with troubled and various things. Hebroke stones and plundered travellers on the highway. Road-mender androbber, he had a dream: he believed in the treasures buried in theforest of Montfermeil. He hoped some day to find money in the groundat the foot of a tree, and in the mean while willingly fished for itin the pockets of passers-by. Still, for the present he was prudent,for he had just had a narrow escape. He was, as we know, picked up withthe other ruffians in Jondrette's garret. There is some usefulness ina vice, for his drunkenness saved him, and it never could be clearedup whether he were there as a robber or as a robbed man. He was setat liberty on account of his proved intoxication on the night of theattack, and returned to the woods. He went back to his road from Gagnyto Lagny, to break stones for the State, under surveillance, withhanging head and very thoughtful, slightly chilled by the robbery whichhad almost ruined him, but turning with all the more tenderness to thewine which had saved him.
As for the lively emotion which he had a short time after his returnbeneath the turf-roof of his road-mender's cabin, it was this:One morning Boulatruelle, while going as usual to work and to hislurking-place, possibly a little before daybreak, perceived among thebranches a man whose back he could alone see, but whose shape, so hefancied, through the mist and darkness, was not entirely unknown tohim. Boulatruelle, though a drunkard, had a correct and lucid memory,an indispensable defensive weapon for any man who is at all on badterms with legal order.
"Where the devil have I seen some one like that man?" he asked.
But he could give himself no reply, save that he resembled somebodyof whom he had a confused recollection. Boulatruelle, however, madehis comparisons and calculations, though he was unable to settle theidentity. This man did not belong to those parts, and bad come thereevidently afoot, as no public vehicle passed through Montfermeil atthat hour. He must have been walking all night Where did he come from?No great distance, for he had neither haversack nor bundle. Doubtlessfrom Paris. Why was he in this wood? Why was lie there at such an hour?What did he want there? Boulatruelle thought of the treasure. By dintof racking his memory he vaguely remembered having had, several yearspreviously, a similar alarm on the subject of a man who might verywell be this man. While meditating he had, under the very weight ofhis meditation, hung his head, a natural but not clever thing. When heraised it again the man had disappeared in the forest and the mist.
"By the deuce!" said Boulatruelle, "I will find him again, and discoverto what parish that parishioner belongs. This walker of Patron-Minettehas a motive, and I will know it. No one must have a secret in myforest without my being mixed up in it."
He took up his pick, which was very sharp. "Here's something," hegrowled, "to search the ground and a man."
And as one thread is attached to another thread, covering the steps aswell as he could in the direction which the man must have pursued, hebegan marching through the coppice. When he had gone about a hundredyards, day, which was beginning to break, aided him. Footsteps on thesand here and there, trampled grass, broken heather, young branchesbent into the shrubs and rising with a graceful slowness, like thearms of a pretty woman who stretches herself on waking, gave him aspecies of trail. He followed it and then lost it, and time slippedaway; he got deeper into the wood and reached a species of eminence. Anearly sportsman passing at a distance along a path, and whistling theair of Guillery, gave him the idea of climbing up a tree, and thoughold, he was active. There was on the mound a very large beech, worthyof Tityrus and Boulatruelle, and he climbed up the tree as high ashe could. The idea was a good one; for while exploring the solitudeon the side where the wood is most entangled, Boulatruelle suddenlyperceived the man, but had no sooner seen him than he lost him out ofsight again. The man entered, or rather glided, into a rather distantclearing, masked by large trees, but which Boulatruelle knew very well,because he had noticed near a large heap of stones a sick chestnut-treebandaged with a zinc plate nailed upon it. This clearing is what wasformerly called the Blaru-bottom, and the pile of stones, intended noone knows for what purpose, which could be seen there thirty years ago,is doubtless there still. Nothing equals the longevity of a heap ofstones, except that of a plank paling. It is there temporarily; what areason for lasting!
Boulatruelle, with the rapidity of joy, tumbled off the tree ratherthan came down it. The lair was found, and now he had only to seizethe animal. The famous treasure he had dreamed of was probably there.It was no small undertaking to reach the clearing by beaten pathswhich make a thousand annoying windings; it would take a good quarterof an hour. In a straight line through the wood, which is at thatspot singularly dense, very thorny, and most aggressive, it wouldtake half an hour at least This is what Boulatruelle was wrong innot understanding; he believed in the straight line,--a respectableoptical illusion which has ruined many men. The wood, bristling thoughit was, appeared to him the right road.
"Let us go by the Rue de Rivoli of the wolves," he said.
Boulatruelle, accustomed to crooked paths, this time committed theerror of going straight, and resolutely cast himself among the shrubs.He had to contend with holly, nettles, hawthorns, eglantines, thistles,and most irascible roots, and was fearfully scratched. At the bottomof the ravine he came to a stream which he was obliged to cross, andat last reached the Blaru clearing after forty minutes, perspiring,wet through, blowing, and ferocious. There was no one in the clearing.Boulatruelle hurried to the heap of stones; it was still in its place,and had not been carried off. As for the man, he had vanished in theforest. He had escaped. Where? In which direction? Into which clump oftrees? It were impossible to guess. And, most crushing thing of all,there was behind the heap of stones and in front of the zinc-bandedtree a pick, forgotten or abandoned, and a hole; but the hole was empty.
"Robber!" Boulatruelle cried, shaking his fists at heaven.