The Little Huguenot/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
EXODUS.
June was waxing old, and the ripeness of the summer was upon the brown-burnt forest. Pools had become pits for lack of the rains; rich grasses and rare blossoms were to be gathered in their beds. The sward had lost its green, and the shimmer of the relaxing heat searched meadows and glens alike. Even the streams flowed drowsily, and the deer herded in the cool of the dormant glades. Night had no gift of her breezes; dawn no freshness of her sleep. The woodlanders dreamed through the long days; desolation had come down upon the hamlets.
Towards the hour of sunset on the last Sunday of the month, Père Cavaignac stood upon a spur of the hill-land above the Château aux Loups. The kine in the meadows were then turning to the water, there was a certain awakening of brute life in all the park about the château. But while it was the hour for vespers and for the coming of village folk, the voice of man was not to be heard. A great silence reigned in all the gardens of the house. No smoke rose from its chimneys; the gates of the courtyard were shut; the bells in the tower no longer called to prayer; the name of its mistress was a word for whispers in all the country round. The home of "the little Huguenot" was a home to her no more. She had gone out of the lives of the people like a sun that had set. And no man was so bold that he lifted his voice to mourn for her.
The priest stood in the shelter of the thicket and looked down to the belt of trees girdling about the château. There were moments when he thought that he saw the flash of scarlet against the riper green of the avenues; other moments when he heard the blast of a horn and beheld a musketeer riding forth from the gates. The man struck the highway to Paris, and was lost quickly in a cloud of powdering dust. Then the desolation was supreme once more; and all the gardens seemed to sleep.
Though it was plain that nothing was to be observed from the place upon the hill's brow, the Jesuit continued at his post until the church bells in the distant village were chiming eight, and the dusk had come down more plenteously. He appeared to be awaiting some turn of events at the château; and when the half of an hour had passed, he was justified. Again the gates of the courtyard were opened; again a horseman rode forth. He was Pepin, the guide, and at his heels there followed the Abbé Gondy upon his mule, and the old servant, Dominique, upon his feet, leading another mule that carried the baggage. In this order the little cavalcade struck the hill-path, and came on towards that very thicket in which the priest was watching.
It was near to being dark when at last the three arrived at the hill road. A gloomier company never set foot in the forest, nor one so melancholy. Gone was the fat from the cheeks of the Abbé, gone was the smile from the face of Pepin. The old servant walked with downcast eyes and trembling lips. He looked back often at the home he loved it was no home to him now. He remembered that every brick of it, every path, every tree, every glade was like a friend to be lost. And never again would he behold them.
"Saints and angels defend us!" cried the Abbé as his mule entered the glade of the woods; but Pepin said—
"Blood of Bartholomew! there's a man that lurks amid the trees. He has eyes for your pack, my father."
"Little has the good God left to me," said the Abbé mournfully. "Have you your cudgel ready?"
"Aye, surely, I have. But by the mass, Monsieur l'Abbé, I would sooner sing a dirge than cross a blade this night. Body of Paul! I have the plague at my knees."
"Wouldst that thou had it at thy throat for a brawling rogue," muttered the Abbé.
They rode for a space into the heart of the wood, and the figure in the thicket vanished as it had come.
But at the cross of the path it appeared again, and stood out in the waning light.
"Gratias agamus!" exclaimed the Abbé, "it is no robber, but my friend Cavaignac. Oh, blessed be God that he has come!"
"What," cried Pepin, "the dog of a Jesuit! Do you not know, my father, there are a thousand gold pieces upon his head?"
"Fool," said the Abbé, "would you hang from yonder tree?"
"It is thou that art the fool, wanting the courage of a hen," muttered Pepin, between his teeth; but when the Jesuit came up to them, he cried to him for a blessing.
Cavaignac had few words to utter, and those he spoke quickly.
"So you leave the château, my friend," said he to the Abbé.
"How! You have not heard? The king's musketeers sleep in our house like swine. Oh, cursed day that has robbed me of board and bed!"
The Jesuit looked at him with hard contempt.
"And madame?" he asked.
"Has crossed the Rhine," said the old man Dominique. "Dieu, what a night that was! Is there one that rides as she rides? Surely it was her courage that saved him from the king's men like a deer dragged from the dogs. And now she is with him where no king may harm her. Blessed be the God she served!"
For a spell the Jesuit was silent. When he spoke again, it was to the Abbé.
"Whither go you now?" he asked.
"Aye, whither go we now?" chimed in Pepin; "to the devil, so it would appear."
"If, perchance, you could lead me to any shelter," stammered the Abbé, "to any house of your holy Order where I can be sure of a cup of wine and a dish of meat, with what thanks will my heart be filled! Well am I punished for my sins. But the good God may yet permit me to repent. Oh, that I should have no pillow for my head, no drink for my lips! You pity me, my friend?"
"Nay," said the Jesuit suddenly, "why should I pity you? Are you weary, then take a pillow of the grass; do you thirst, there is the stream for your lips; if you hunger, gather fruit as you go. But, above all things, give thanks to God in that he has permitted you still to sleep, still to thirst, still to hunger."
He turned away with the words and the night hid him from their view.
"Surely the man has a devil," said the Abbé.