Leaving the brook, he conducted her beneath hedges and by lonely woodland paths
beyond the confines of her own property, to a secluded valley, so
shut in by wooded hills that she had not been aware of its
existence. Through an extensive orchard, she at length, when
nearly spent with the walk, beheld the cluster of stone buildings,
substantial as the erections of religious orders were wont to be.
Martin found a seat for her, where she might wait while he went on
alone to the house, and presently returned with both the good
people of the farm. They were more offhand and less deferential
than were her own people, but were full of kindliness. They were
middle-aged folk, most neatly clad, and with a grave, thoughtful
look about them, as if life were a much heavier charge to them than
to their light-hearted neighbours.
'A fair day to you, Madame,' said the farmer, doffing his wide-
flapped hat. 'I am glad to serve a sufferer for the truth's sake.'
'My husband was,' faltered Eustacie.
'AH! la pauvre,' cried the good woman, pressing forward as she
saw how faint, heated, and exhausted was the wanderer. 'Come in,
ma pauvrette. Only a bride at the Bartholomew! Alas! There,
lean on me, my dear.'
To be tutoyee by the Fermiere Rotrou was a shock; yet the kind
manner was comfortable, and Eustacie suffered herself to be led
into the farm-house, where, as the dame observed, she need not fear
chance-comers, for they lived much to themselves, and no one would
be about till their boy Robinet came in with the cows. She might
rest and eat there in security, and after that they would find a
hiding-place for her--safe as the horns of the altar--for a night
or two; only for two nights at most.
'Nor do I ask more,' said Eustacie. 'Then Martin will come for
me.'
'Ah, I or Blaise, or whichever of us can do it with least
suspicion.'
'She shall meet you here,' added Rotrou.
'All right, good man; I understand; it is best I should not know
where you hide her. Those rogues have tricks that make it as well
to know nothing. Farewell, Madame, I commend you to all the saints
till I come for you on Monday morning.'
Eustacie gave him her hand to kiss, and tried to thank him, but
somehow her heart sank, and she felt more lonely than ever, when
entirely cast loose among these absolute strangers, than amongst
her own vassals. Even the farm-kitchen, large, stone-built, and
scrupulously clean, seemed strange and dreary after the little,
smoky, earth-built living-rooms in which her peasantry were content
to live, and she never had seemed to herself so completely
desolate; but all the time she was so wearied out with her long and
painful walk, that she had no sooner taken some food than she began
to doze in her chair.
'Father,' said the good wife, 'we had better take la pauvrette to
her rest at once.'
'Ah! must I go any farther?' sighed Eustacie.
'It is but a few fields beyond the yard, ma petite,' said the
good woman consolingly; 'and it will be safer to take you there ere
we need a light.'
The sun had just set on a beautiful evening of a spring that
happily for Eustacie had been unusually warm and mild, when they
set forth, the dame having loaded her husband with a roll of
bedding, and herself taking a pitcher of mild and a loaf of bread,
whilst Eustacie, as usual, carried her own small parcel of clothes
and jewels. The way was certainly not long to any one less
exhausted than she; it was along a couple of fields, and then
through a piece of thicket, where Rotrou held back the boughs and
his wife almost dragged her on with kind encouraging words, till
they came up to a stone ivy-covered wall, and coasting along it to
a tower, evidently a staircase turret. Here Rotrou, holding aside
an enormous bush of ivy, showed the foot of a winding staircase,
and his wife assured her that she would not have far to climb.
She knew where she was now. She had heard of the old Refectory of
the Knights Templars. Partly demolished by the hatred of the
people upon the abolition of the Order, it had ever since lain
waste, and had become the centre of all the ghostly traditions of
the country; the locality of all the most horrid tales of REVENANTS
told under the breath at Dame Perrine's hearth or at recreation
hour at Bellaise. Her courage was not proof against spiritual
terrors. She panted and leant against the wall, as she faintly
exclaimed, 'The Temple--there--and alone!'
'Nay, Lady, methought as Monsieur votre mari knew the true light,
you would fear no vain terror nor power of darkness.'
Should these peasants--these villeins--be bold, and see the
descendant of the 'bravest of knights,' the daughter of the house
of Ribaumont, afraid? She rallied herself, and replied manfully,
'I FEAR not, no!' but then, womanfully, 'But it is the Temple! It
is haunted! Tell me what I must expect.'
'I tell you truly, Madame,' said Rotrou; 'none whom I have
sheltered here have seen aught. On the faith of a Christian, no
evil spirit--no ghost--has ever alarmed them; but they were
fortified by prayer and psalm.'
'I do pray! I have a psalm-book,' said Eustacie, and she added to
herself, 'No, they shall never see that I fear. After all,
REVENANTS can do nothing worse than scare one; they cannot touch
one; the saints and angels will not let them--and my uncle would do
much worse.'
But to climb those winding stairs, and resign herself to be left
alone with the Templars for the night, was by far the severest
trial that had yet befallen the poor young fugitive. As her tire
feet dragged up the crumbling steps, her memory reverted to the
many tales of the sounds heard by night within those walls--church
chants turning into diabolical songs, and bewildered travelers into
thickets and morasses, where they had been found in the morning,
shuddering as they told of a huge white monk, with clanking
weapons, and a burning cross of fire printed on his shoulder and
breast, who stood on the walls and hurled a shrieking babe into the
abyss. Were such spectacles awaiting her? Must she bear them? And
could her endurance hold out? Our Lady be her aid, and spare her
in her need!
At the top of the stairs she found Rotrou's hand, ready to help her
out on a stone floor, quite dark, but thickly covered, as she felt
and smelt, with trusses of hay, between which a glimmering light
showed a narrow passage. A few steps, guided by Rotrou's hand,
brought her out into light again, and she found herself in a large
chamber, with the stone floor broken away in some places, and with
a circular window, thickly veiled with ivy, but still admitting a
good deal of evening light.
It was in fact a chamber over the vaulted refectory of the knights.
The walls and vaults still standing in their massive solidity, must
have tempted some peasant, or mayhap some adventurer, rudely to
cover in the roof (which had of course been stripped of its
leading), and thus in the unsuspected space to secure a hiding-
place, often for less innocent commodities than the salt, which the
iniquitous and oppressive gabelle had always led the French
peasant to smuggle, ever since the days of the first Valois. The
room had a certain appearance of comfort; there was a partition
across it, a hearth with some remains of wood-ashes, a shelf,
holding a plate, cup, lamp, and a few other necessaries; and
altogether the aspect of the place was so unlike what Eustacie had
expected, that she almost forgot the Templar as she saw the dame
begin to arrange a comfortable-looking couch for her wearied limbs.
Yet she felt very unwilling to let them depart, and even ventured
on faltering out the inquiry whether the good woman could not stay
with her,--she would reward her largely.
'It is for the love of Heaven, Madame, not for gain,' said Nanon
Rotrou, rather stiffly. 'If you were ill, or needed me, all must
then give way; but for me to be absent this evening would soon be
reported around the village down there, for there are many who
would find occasion against us.' But, by way of consolation, they
gave her a whistle, and showed her that the window of their cottage
was much nearer to a loophole-slit looking towards the east than
she had fancied. The whistle perpetrated a mist unearthly screech,
a good deal like that of an owl, but more discordant, and Nanon
assured her that the sound would assuredly break her slumbers, and
bring her in a few minutes at any moment of need. In fact, the
noise was so like the best authenticated accounts of the shrieks
indulged in by the spirits of the Temple, that Eustacie had wit
enough to suspect that it might be the foundation of some of the
stories; and with that solace to her alarms, she endured the
departure of her hosts, Nanon promising a visit in the early
morning.
The poor child was too weary to indulge in many terrors, the
beneficent torpor of excessive fatigue was upon her, happily
bringing slumberous oblivion instead of feverish restlessness. She
strove to repeat her accustomed orisons; but sleep was too strong
for her, and she was soon lying dreamlessly upon the clean homely
couch prepared for her.
When she awoke, it was with a start. The moon was shining in
through the circular window, making strange white shapes on the
floor, all quivering with the shadows of the ivy sprays. It looked
strange and eerie enough at the moment, but she understood it the
next, and would have been reassured if she had not become aware
that there was a low sound, a tramp, tramp, below her. 'Gracious
saints! The Templar! Have mercy on me! Oh! I was too sleepy to
pray! Guard me from being driven wild by fright!' She sat
upright, with wide-spread eyes, and, finding that she herself was
in the moonlight, through some opening in the roof, she took refuge
in the darkest corner, though aware as she crouched there, that if
this were indeed the Templar, concealment would be vain, and
remembering suddenly that she was out of reach of the loophole-
window.
And therewith there was a tired sound in the tread, as if the
Templar found his weird a very length one; then a long heavy
breath, with something so essentially human in its sound that the
fluttering heart beat more steadily. If reason told her that the
living were more perilous to her than the dead, yet feeling
infinitely preferred them! It might be Nanon Rotrou after all;
then how foolish to be crouching there in a fright! It was
rustling through the hay. No-no Nanon; it is a male figure, it has
a long cloak on. Ah! it is in the moonlight-silver hair--silver
beard. The Templar! Fascinated with dismay, yet calling to mind
that no ghost has power unless addressed, she sat still, crossing
herself in silence, but unable to call to mind any prayer or
invocation save a continuous 'Ave Mary,' and trying to restrain her
gasping breath, lest, if he were not the Templar after all, he
might discover her presence.
He moved about, took off his cloak, laid it down near the hay, then
his cap, not a helmet after all, and there was no fiery cross.
He was in the gloom again, and she heard him moving much as though
he were pulling down the hay to form a bed. Did ghosts ever do
anything so sensible? If he were an embodied spirit, would it be
possible to creep past him and escape while he lay asleep? She was
almost becoming familiarized with the presence, and the
supernatural terror was passing off into a consideration of
resources, when, behold, he was beginning to sing. To sing was the
very way the ghosts began ere they came to their devilish outcries.
'Our Lady keep it from bringing frenzy. But hark! hark!' It was
not one of the chants, it was a tune and words heard in older times
of her life; it was the evening hymn, that the little husband and
wife had been wont to sing to the Baron in the Chateau de Leurre--
Marot's version of the 4th Psalm.
'Plus de joie m'est donnee
Par ce moyen, O Dieu Tres-Haut,
Que n'ont ceux qui ont grand annee
De froment et bonne vinee,
D'huile et tout ce qu'il leur faut.'
If it had indeed been the ghostly chant, perhaps Eustacie would not
have been able to help joining it. As it was, the familiar home
words irresistibly impelled her to mingle her voice, scarce knowing
what she did, in the verse--
'Si qu'en paix et surete bonne
Coucherai et reposerai ;
Car, Seigneur, ta bonte tout ordonne
Et elle seule espoir me donne
Que sur et seul regnant serai.'
The hymn died away in its low cadence, and then, ere Eustacie had
had time to think of the consequences of thus raising her voice,
the new-comer demanded:
'Is there then another wanderer here?'
'Ah! sir, pardon me!' she exclaimed. 'I will not long importune
you, but only till morning light--only till the Fermiere Rotrou
comes.'
'If Matthieu and Anne Rotrou placed you here, then all is well,'
replied the stranger. 'Fear not, daughter, but tell me. Are you
one of my scattered flock, or one whose parents are known to me?'
Then, as she hesitated, 'I am Isaac Gardon--escaped, alas! alone,
from the slaughter of the Barthelemy.'
'Master Gardon!' cried Eustacie. 'Oh, I know! O sir, my husband
loved and honoured you.'
'Your husband?'
'Yes, sir, le Baron de Ribaumont.'
'That fair and godly youth! My dear old patron's son! You--you!
But--' with a shade of doubt, almost of dismay, 'the boy was
wedded--wedded to the heiress---'
'Yes, yes, I am that unhappy one! We were to have fled together on
that dreadful night. He came to meet me to the Louvre--to his
doom!' she gasped out, nearer to tears than she had ever been since
that time, such a novelty was it to her to hear Berenger spoken of
in kind or tender terms; and in her warmth of feeling, she came out
of her corner, and held our her hand to him.
'Alas! poor thing!' said the minister, compassionately, 'Heaven has
tried you sorely. Had I known of your presence here, I would not
have entered; but I have been absent long, and stole into my lair
here without disturbing the good people below. Forgive the
intrusion, Madame.'
The minister replied warmly that surely persecution was a
brotherhood, even had she not been the window of one he had loved
and lamented.
'Ah! sir, it does me good to hear you say so.'
And therewith Eustacie remembered the hospitalities of her loft.
She perceived by the tones of the old man's voice that he was
tired, and probably fasting, and she felt about for the milk and
bread with which she had been supplied. It was a most welcome
refreshment, though he only partook sparingly; and while he ate,
the two, so strangely met, came to a fuller knowledge of one
another's circumstances.
Master Isaac Gardon had, it appeared, been residing at Paris, in
the house of the watchmaker whose daughter had been newly married
to his son; but on the fatal eve of St. Bartholomew, he had been
sent for to pray with a sick person in another quarter of the city.
The Catholic friends of the invalid were humane, and when the
horrors began, not only concealed their kinsman, but almost
forcibly shut up the minister in the same cellar with him. And
thus, most reluctantly, had he been spared from the fate that
overtook his son and daughter-in-law. A lone and well-night
broken-hearted man, he had been smuggled out of the city, and had
since that time been wandering from one to another of the many
scattered settlements of Huguenots in the northern part of France,
who, being left pastorless, welcomed visits from the minister of
their religion, and passed him on from one place to another, as his
stay in each began to be suspected by the authorities. He was now
on his way along the west side of France, with no fixed purpose,
except so far as, since Heaven had spared his life when all that
made it dear had been taken from him, he resigned himself to
believe that there was yet some duty left for him to fulfil.
Meantime the old man was wearied out; and after due courtesies had
passed between him and the lady in the dark, he prayed long and
fervently, as Eustacie could judge from the intensity of the low
murmurs she heard; and then she heard him, with a heavy
irrepressible sigh, lie down on the couch of hay he had already
prepared for himself, and soon his regular breathings announced his
sound slumbers. She was already on the bed she had so
precipitately quitted, and not a thought more did she give to the
Templars, living or dead, even though she heard an extraordinary
snapping and hissing, and in the dawn of the morning saw a white
weird thing, like a huge moth, flit in through the circular window,
take up its station on a beam above the hay, and look down with the
brightest, roundest eyes she had ever beheld. Let owls and bats
come where they would, she was happier than she had been for
months. Compassion for herself was plentiful enough, but to have
heard Berenger spoken of with love and admiration seemed to quiet
the worst ache of her lonely heart.