THE MAN WITH THE BELL.
Jean Valjean walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden, and while doing so took from his pocket the rouleau of silver. This man was looking down, and did not see him coming, and in a few strides Jean Valjean was by his side, and addressed him with the cry, "One hundred francs."
The man started and raised his eyes.
"One hundred francs to be gained," Jean Valjean continued, "if you will find me a shelter for this night."
The moon fully lit up Jean Valjean's alarmed face.
"Why, it is you, Father Madeleine!" the man said.
The name uttered thus in the darkness at this strange spot, by this strange man, made Jean Valjean recoil, for he expected everything save that. The man who addressed him was a stooping, lame old man, dressed nearly like a peasant, and wearing on his left leg a leathern knee-cap, from which hung a rather large bell. It was impossible to distinguish his face, which was in the shadow; still the man had doffed his bonnet, and said all in a tremor,—
"Oh, Lord, how did you get here, Father Madeleine? Which way did you come in? Why, you must have fallen from heaven. Well, if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And then, what a state you are in! You have no cravat, no hat, and no coat! Do you know that you would have frightened anybody who did not know you? No coat! Oh, my goodness, are the saints going mad at present? But how did you get in here?"
One word did not wait for the next, the old man spoke with a rustic volubility in which there was nothing alarming; and it was all said with a mixture of stupefaction and simple kindness.
"Who are you, and what is this house?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Oh, Lord, that is too strong!" the old man exclaimed. "Why, did you not get me the situation, and in this house too? What, don't you recognize me?"
"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how is it that you know me?"
"You saved my life," the man said.
He turned; a moonbeam played on his face, and Jean Valjean recognized old Fauchelevent.
"Ah!" he said, "it is you? Oh, now I recognize you."
"That is lucky," the old man said reproachfully.
"And what are you doing here?" Jean Valjean asked.
"Why, I am covering my melons!"
Old Fauchelevent really held in his hand at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him a piece of matting, which he was engaged in spreading over the melon-frame. He had laid a good many pieces during the hour he had been in the garden, and it was this operation that produced the peculiar movements which Jean Valjean had noticed from the shed. He continued,—
"I said to myself, there is a bright moon and it is going to freeze, so I had better put these great-coats on my melons." And he added, as he looked at Jean Valjean with a grin, "You should have done the same. But how have you got here?"
Jean Valjean, feeling himself known by this man, at least under the name of Madeleine, only advanced cautiously. He multiplied his questions, and curiously enough they changed parts,—he, the intruder, became the questioner.
"And what is that bell you have on your knee?"
"That?" Fauchelevent said; "it is that they may avoid me."
"What on earth do you mean?"
Old Fauchelevent gave an inimitable wink.
"Oh, Lord, they are only women in this house, and lots of girls. It seems that I should be dangerous to meet, and so the bell warns them; when I come they go."
"What is this house?"
"Oh, nonsense, you know."
"Indeed I do not."
"Why, you got me the gardener's place here."
"Answer me as if I knew nothing."
"Well, it is the Convent of the Little Picpus, then."
Jean Valjean's recollections returned to him. Chance, that is to say, Providence, had brought him to the very convent in the Quartier St. Antoine where Fauchelevent after his accident had been engaged on his recommendation two years back. He repeated, as if speaking to himself,—
"'Little Picpus'!"
"But come, tell me," Fauchelevent continued, "how the deuce did you get in here, Father Madeleine? For though you are a saint, you are a man, and no men are admitted here."
"Why, you are!"
"Well, only I."
"And yet," Jean Valjean continued, "I must remain."
"Oh, Lord!" Fauchelevent exclaimed.
Jean Valjean walked up to the gardener and said in a grave voice,—
"Fauchelevent, I saved your life."
"I was the first to remember it," Fauchelevent answered.
"Well, you can do for me to-day what I did for you formerly."
Fauchelevent took Jean Valjean's muscular hands in his old wrinkled and trembling hands, and for some seconds seemed as if unable to speak; at length he exclaimed,—
"Oh, it would be a blessing from Heaven if I could repay you a slight portion! Save your life! M. Madeleine, you can dispose of an old man as you please."
An admirable joy had transfigured the aged gardener, and his face seemed radiant.
"What do you wish me to do?" he continued.
"I will explain. Have you a room?"
"I have a cottage behind the ruins of the old convent, in a corner which no one visits, with three rooms."
"Good," said Jean Valjean; "now I will ask two things of you."
"What are they, M. le Maire?"
"First, that you will tell nobody what you know about me; and secondly, that you will not try to learn anything further."
"As you please. I know that you can do nothing but what is honest, and that you have ever been a man after God's heart. And then, again, it was you who got me this situation, and I am at your service."
"Enough; now come with me, and we will go and fetch the child."
"Ah," said Fauchelevent,"there is a child!"
He did not add a word, but followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows its master. In less than half an hour, Cosette, who had become rosy again by the heat of a good fire, was asleep in the old gardener's bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat again; the hat thrown over the wall had been found and picked up, and Fauchelevent took off his knee-cap and bell, which now adorned the wall by the side of a door. The two men were seated near the fire at a table on which Fauchelevent had placed a lump of cheese, biscuits, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man said to Jean Valjean as he laid his hand on his knee,—
"Ah, Father Madeleine! you did not recognize me at once; you save people's lives and forget them afterwards! Oh, that is wrong, for they remember you; you are an ungrateful man."