The Complete Brigadier Gerard Stories (48 page)

But one may fly in many ways. One may fly with dignity or one may fly in panic. I fled, I trust, like a soldier. My bearing was superb, through my legs moved rapidly. My whole appearance was a protest against the position in which I was placed. I smiled as I ran––the bitter smile of the brave man who mocks his own fate. Had all my comrades surrounded the field they could not have thought the less of me when they saw the disdain with which I avoided the bull.

But here it is that I must make my confession. When once flight commences, though it be ever so soldierly, panic follows hard upon it. Was it not so with the Guard at Waterloo? So it was that night with Etienne Gerard. After all, there was no one to note my bearing––no one save this accursed bull. If for a minute I forgot my dignity, who would be the wiser? Every moment the thunder of the hoofs and the horrible snorts of the monster drew nearer to my heels. Horror filled me at the thought of so ignoble a death. The brutal rage of the creature sent a chill to my heart. In an instant everything was forgotten. There were in all the world but two creatures, the bull and I––he trying to kill me, I striving to escape. I put down my head and I ran––I ran for my life.

It was for the house of the Ravons that I raced. But even as I reached it, it flashed into my mind that there was no refuge for me there. The door was locked; the lower windows were barred; the wall was high upon either side; and the bull was nearer me with every stride. But, oh, my friends, it is at that supreme moment of danger that Etienne Gerard has ever risen to his height. There
was but one path to safety, and in an instant I had chosen it.

I have said that the window of Marie’s bedroom was above the door. The curtains were closed, but the folding sides were thrown open, and a lamp burned in the room. Young and active, I felt that I could spring high enough to reach the edge of the window-sill and to draw myself out of danger. The monster was within touch of me as I sprang. Had I been unaided I should have done what I had planned. But even as in a superb effort I rose from the earth, he butted me into the air. I shot through the curtains as if I had been fired from a gun, and I dropped upon my hands and knees in the centre of the room.

There was, as it appears, a bed in the window, but I had passed over it in safety. As I staggered to my feet I turned towards it in consternation, but it was empty. My Marie sat in a low chair in the corner of the room, and her flushed cheeks showed that she had been weeping. No doubt her parents had given her some account of what had passed between us. She was too amazed to move, and could only sit looking at me with her mouth open.

‘Etienne!’ she gasped. ‘Etienne!’

In an instant I was as full of resource as ever. There was but one course for a gentleman, and I took it.

‘Marie,’ I cried, ‘forgive, oh, forgive the abruptness of my return! Marie, I have seen your parents to-night. I could not return to the camp without asking you whether you will make me for ever happy by promising to be my wife.’

It was long before she could speak, so great was her amazement. Then every emotion was swept away in the one great flood of her admiration.

‘Oh, Etienne, my wonderful Etienne!’ she cried, her arms round my neck. ‘Was ever such love? Was ever such a man? As you stand there, white and trembling with passion, you seem to me the very hero of my dreams. How hard you breathe, my love; and what a spring it must have been which brought you to my arms! At the instant that you came I had heard the tramp of your war-horse without.’

There was nothing more to explain, and when one is newly betrothed one finds other uses for one’s lips. But there was a scurry in the passage and a pounding at the panels. At the crash of my arrival the old folk had rushed to the cellar to see if the great cider-cask had toppled off the trestles, but now they were back and eager for admittance. I flung open the door and stood with Marie’s hand in mine.

‘Behold your son!’ I said.

Ah, the joy which I had brought to that humble household! It warms my heart still when I think of it. It did not seem too strange to them that I should fly in through the window, for who should be a hot-headed suitor if it is not a gallant Hussar? And if the door be locked, then what way is there but the window? Once more we assembled all four in the parlour, while the cobwebbed bottle was brought up and the ancient glories of the House of Ravon were unrolled before me. Once more I see the heavy-raftered room, the two old smiling faces, the golden circle of the lamp-light, and she, my Marie, the bride of my youth, won so strangely, and kept for so short a time.

It was late when we parted. The old man came with me into the hall.

‘You can go by the front door or the back,’ said he. ‘The back way is the shorter.’

‘I think that I will take the front way,’ I answered. ‘It may be a little longer, but it will give me the more time to think of Marie.’

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), was born in Edinburgh where his father, of Irish parentage, was a clerk of works for the government. Educated by the Jesuits at Stonyhurst, Doyle entered the medical school at Edinburgh University in 1876, working as a doctor’s assistant at times to help pay the fees. He graduated in 1881 and, after Greenland and African voyages as a ship’s doctor, went into practice at Southsea, Portsmouth.

Conan Doyle had started to write while he was a medical student, and he at 20 had a story published in
Chamber’s
Journal
. Sherlock Holmes first appeared in
A Study in
Scarlet
(1887), and from 1891 he featured regularly in stories for the
Strand Magazine
. Killed-off in 1893 (‘The Final Problem’), Holmes was brought back by popular demand, in
The Hound of the Baskervilles
(1902) and four further collections, from
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
(1905), to
The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes
(1927).

To replace Holmes, Conan Doyle created Etienne Gerard, a young French cavalry officer from the time of the Napoleonic wars, whose memoirs were collected as
The
Exploits of Brigadier Gerard
(1896) and its sequel
Adventures
of Gerard
(1903). Together they form a miniature epic triumphantly reviving the spirit of Napoloen’s armies and of the nations aroused against them. After Gerard there came Professor Challenger, the scientist and explorer of
The Lost World
(1912) and
The Poison Belt
(1913).

Knighted in 1902, Conan Doyle produced more than 60 books in the course of his career, including songs, poetry and historical fiction in the spirit of Scott, including
Micah
Clarke
(1889), and
The White Company
(1891). But his greatest literary achievement lay in his short stories, unrivalled in the mingling of character, action and atmosphere, whether Holmesian, Gerardine or self-standing.