"WHERE ALL THE LOVERS CAN HIDE"
It was in the saffron light of early morning that I saw it, the
Tall Calvary of the Valdoche Hills.
The night before I had come up through a long valley, overhung
with pines on one side and crimsoning maples on the other, and,
travelling till nearly midnight, had lain down in the hollow of a
bank, and listened to a little river leap over cascades, and, far
below, go prattling on to the greater river in the south. My eyes
closed, but for long I did not sleep. I heard a night-hawk go by on
a lonely mission, a beaver slide from a log into the water, and the
delicate humming of the pine needles was a drowsy music, through
which broke by-and-bye the strange crying of a loon from the water
below. I was neither asleep nor awake, but steeped in this wide
awe of night, the sweet smell of earth and running water in my
nostrils. Once, too, in a slight breeze, the scent of some wild
animal's nest near by came past, and I found it good. I lifted up
a handful of loose earth and powdered leaves, and held it to my
nose--a good, brave smell--all in a sort of drowsing.
While I mused, Doltaire's face passed before me as it was in
life, and I heard him say again of the peasants, "These shall save
the earth some day, for they are of it, and live close to it, and
are kin to it."
Suddenly there rushed before me that scene in the convent, when
all the devil in him broke loose upon the woman I loved. But,
turning on my homely bed, I looked up and saw the deep quiet of the
skies, the stable peace of the stars, and I was a son of the good
Earth again, a sojourner in the tents of Home. I did not doubt that
Alixe was alive or that I should find her. There was assurance in
this benignant night. In that thought, dreaming that her cheek lay
close to mine, her arm around my neck, I fell asleep. I waked to
bear the squirrels stirring in the trees, the whir of the partridge,
and the first unvarying note of the oriole. Turning on my dry,
leafy bed, I looked down, and saw in the dark haze of dawn the
beavers at their house-building.
I was at the beginning of a deep gorge or valley, on one side of
which was a steep sloping hill of grass and trees, and on the other
a huge escarpment of mossed and jagged rocks. Then, farther up, the
valley seemed to end in a huge promontory. On this great wedge grim
shapes loomed in the mist, uncouth and shadowy and unnatural--a
lonely, mysterious Brocken, impossible to human tenantry. Yet as
I watched the mist slowly rise, there grew in me the feeling that
there lay the end of my quest. I came down to the brook, bathed
my face and hands, ate my frugal breakfast of bread, with berries
picked from the hillside, and, as the yellow light of the rising
sun broke over the promontory, I saw the Tall Calvary upon a knoll,
strange comrade to the huge rocks and monoliths--as it were vast
playthings of the Mighty Men, the fabled ancestors of the Indian
races of the land.
I started up the valley, and presently all the earth grew
blithe, and the birds filled the woods and valleys with jocund
noise.
It was near noon before I knew that my pilgrimage was over.
Coming round a point of rock, I saw the Gray Monk, of whom
strange legends had lately travelled to the city. I took off my hat
to him reverently; but all at once he threw back his cowl, and I
saw--no monk, but, much altered, the good chaplain who had married
me to Alixe in the Chateau St. Louis. He had been hurt when he was
fired upon in the water; had escaped, however, got to shore, and
made his way into the woods. There he had met Mathilde, who led
him to her lonely home in this hill. Seeing the Tall Calvary, he
had conceived the idea of this disguise, and Mathilde had brought
him the robe for the purpose.
In a secluded cave I found Alixe with her father, caring for
him, for he was not yet wholly recovered from his injuries.
There was no waiting now. The ban of Church did not hold my
dear girl back, nor did her father do aught but smile when she
came laughing and weeping into my arms.
"Robert, O Robert, Robert!" she cried, and at first that was all
she could say.
The good Seigneur put out his hand to me beseechingly. I took
it, clasped it.
"The city?" he asked.
"Is ours," I answered.
"And my son--my son?"
I told him how, the night that the city was taken, the Chevalier
de la Darante and I had gone a sad journey in a boat to the Isle
of Orleans, and there, in the chapel yard, near to his father's
chateau, we had laid a brave and honest gentleman who died
fighting for his country.
By-and-bye, when their grief had a little abated, I took them
out into the sunshine. A pleasant green valley lay to the north,
and to the south, far off, was the wall of rosy hills that hid
the captured town. Peace was upon it all, and upon us.
As we stood there, a scarlet figure came winding in and out among
the giant stones, crosses hanging at her girdle. She approached
us, and, seeing me, she said: "Hush! I know a place where all the
lovers can hide."
And she put a little wooden cross into my hands.