'Tis said, as through the aisles they passed,
They heard strange voices on the blast,
And through the cloister galleries small,
Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs and laughter louder ran,
And voices unlike the voice of man,
As if the fiends kept holiday.
Scott, LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL
'Ill news, Martin, I see by your look!' cried Eustacie, starting to
her feet from the heap of straw on which she was sitting in his
cowhouse, one early April day, about seven weeks since her evasion
from the convent.
'Not so, I hope, Madame, but I do not feel at ease. Monsieur has
not sent for me, nor told me his plans for the morrow, and I much
doubt me whether that bode not a search here. Now I see a plan,
provided Madame would trust herself to a Huguenot.'
'They would guard me for my husband's sake.'
'And could Madame walk half a league, as far as the Grange du
Temple? There live Matthieu Rotrou and his wife, who have, they
say, baffled a hundred times the gendarmes who sought their
ministers. No one ever found a pastor, they say, when Rotrou had
been of the congregation; and if they can do so much for an old
preacher with a long tongue, surely they can for a sweet young
lady; and if they could shelter her just for tomorrow, till the
suspicion is over, then would I come for Madame with my cart, and
carry her into Chollet among the trusses of hay, as we had fixed.'
Eustacie was already tying her cloak, and asking for Lucette; but
she was grieved to hear that Martin had sent her to vespers to
disarm suspicion, and moreover that he meant not to tell her of his
new device. 'The creature is honest enough,' he said, 'but the way
to be safe with women is not to let them know.'
He cut short all messages and expressions of gratitude, and leading
Eustacie to a small stream, he made her creep along its course,
with her feet in the water so as to be sheltered by the boughs that
hung over the banks, while he used his ling strides to enable him
to double back and enter into conversation with passers-by, quite
of the track of the Grange du Temple, but always telling her where
he should join her again, and leaving with her the great dog, whom
she had come to regard as a friend and protector.