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THE ABBESS OF VLAYE
By STANLEY J. WEYMAN
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[Illustration: "HE HAD DISMOUNTED, AND HAD HIS HAT IN HIS HAND"]
[_Page_ 113]
THE ABBESS
OF VLAYE
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
_Author of "Under the Red Robe," "A Gentleman of France,"
"My Lady Rotha," "The Red Cockade," "Count
Hannibal," "The Castle Inn," etc_.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 and 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1904
Copyright, 1903, by
STANLEY J. WEYMAN.
* * *
Copyright, 1904, by
STANLEY J. WEYMAN.
* * *
_All rights reserved_.
ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK.
TO
HUGH STOWELL SCOTT,
IN REMEMBRANCE OF LONG SUMMER DAYS SPENT WITH HIM
AMID THE SCENES WHICH SUGGESTED IT,
THIS STORY IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY HIS FRIEND.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
INTRODUCTION--A King in Council.
I. Villeneuve-l'Abbesse.
II. The Tower Chamber.
III. Still Waters Troubled.
IV. The Dilemma.
V. The Captain of Vlaye.
VI. In the Hay-field.
VII. A Soldiers' Frolic.
VIII. Father Angel.
IX. Speedy Justice.
X. Midnight Alarms.
XI. The Chapel by the Ford.
XII. The Peasants' Camp.
XIII. Hostages.
XIV. Saint and Sinner.
XV. Fears.
XVI. To Do or Not to Do?
XVII. The Heart of Cain.
XVIII. Two in the Mill.
XIX. The Captain of Vlaye's Condition.
XX. The Abbess Moves.
XXI. The Castle Of Vlaye.
XXII. A Night by the River.
XXIII. The Bride's Dot.
XXIV. Fors l'Amour.
XXV. His Last Ride.
THE ABBESS OF VLAYE.
INTRODUCTION.
A KING IN COUNCIL.
Monsieur des Ageaux was a man of whom his best friends could not say
that he shone, or tried to shine, in the pursuit of the fair sex. He
was of an age, something over thirty, when experience renders more
formidable the remaining charms of youth; and former conquests whet
the sword for new emprises. And the time in which he lived and
governed the province of Perigord for the King was a time in which the
favour of ladies, and the good things to be gained thereby, stood for
much, and morality for little. So that for the ambitious the path of
dalliance presented almost as many chances of advancement as the more
strenuous road of war.
Yet des Ageaux, though he was an ambitious man and one whose appetite
success--and in his degree he had been very successful--had but
sharpened, showed no inclination to take that path, or to rise by
trifling. Nay, he turned from it; he shunned if he did not dislike the
other sex. Whether he doubted his powers--he was a taciturn, grave
man--or he had energy only for the one pursuit he loved, the
government of men, the thing was certain. Yet he was not unpopular
even at Court, the lax Court of Henry the Fourth. But he was known for
a thoughtful, dry man, older than his years and no favourite with
great ladies; of whom some dubbed him shy, and some a clown, and
all--a piece of furniture.
None the less, where men were concerned, he passed for a man more
useful than most; or, for certain, seeing that he boasted no great
claims, and belonged to no great family, he had not been Governor of a
province. Governors of provinces in those days were of the highest;
cousins of the King, when these could be trusted, which was rare;
peers and Marshals of France, great Dukes with vast hereditary
possessions, old landed Vicomtes, and the like. Only at the tail of
the list came some half-dozen men whom discretion and service, or the
playfulness of fortune had--_mirabile dictum_--raised to office. And
at the tail of all came des Ageaux; for Perigord, his province, land
of the pie and the goose liver, was part of the King's demesne, the
King was his own Governor in it, and des Ageaux bore only the title of
"Lieutenant for the King in the country of Perigord."
Yet was it a wonderful post for such a man, and many a personage, many
a lord well seen at Court, coveted it. All the same the burden was
heavy; a thing not to be dismissed in a moment. The King found him no
money, or little; no men, or few. Where greater Governors used their
own resources he had to use--economy. And to make matters worse the
man was just; it was part of his nature, it was part of his passion,
to be just. So where they taxed not legally only, but illegally, he
scrupled, he held his hand. And, therefore, though his dignity was
almost as high as office could make it, and his power in his own
country not small, no man who ever came to Court went with less
splendour in the streets of Paris, or with a smaller following.
Doubtless, as a result of this, a few despised him; a few even, making
common cause with the Court ladies, and being themselves semi-royal,
and above retort, flouted him as a thing negligible.
But, on the whole, he passed, though dry and grave, for a man to be
envied, the ladies notwithstanding. And he held his own tolerably, and
his post handsomely until a certain day in the summer of 1595, when
word came to the young Governor to cross half France to meet the King
at Lyons; where, in the early part of that year, Henry the Fourth lay,
and was ill-content with a world which, on the surface, seemed to be
treating him well.
But on the surface only. The long wars of religion, midway in which
the Massacre of Bartholomew stands up, like some drear gibbet landmark
in a waste, were, indeed, virtually over. Not only had Henry come to
the throne, but Paris, his capital, was his at last; had he not bought
it eighteen months before by that mass, that abjuration of Protestant
errors, of which the world has heard so much? And not Paris only.
Orleans and Bourges, and this good city of Lyons, and Rouen, all were
his now, and in their Notre-Dames or St.-Etiennes had sung their _Te
Deums_, and more or less heartily cried "God save the King!" At last,
after six years of fighting, of wild horse forays, that flamed across
the Northern corn-lands, after a thousand sleepless nights and as many
days of buying and bartering--at last the lover of Gabrielle, who was
also the most patient and astute of men, was King of France and of
Navarre, lord of all this pleasant realm.
Or, not lord; only over-lord, as six times a day they made him know.
Nor even that, of all. For in Brittany a great noble still went his
own way. And in Provence a great city refused to surrender. And
north-eastwards Spain still clung to his border. Nevertheless it was
none of these things filled Henry, the King, with discontent. It was
at none of these things that he swore in his beard as he sulked at the
end of the long Council Table this June morning; while des Ageaux,
from his seat near the bottom of the board, watched his face.
In truth Henry was discovering, that, having bought, he must pay; that
so great was the mortgage he had put on his kingdom, the profits
belonged to others. Overlord he was--lord, no; except perhaps in Lyons
where he lay, and where for that reason the Governor had to mind his
manners. But in smiling Provence to south of him? Not a whit. The Duke
of Epernon ruled the land of Roses, and would rule until the young
Duke of Guise, to whom His Majesty had given commission, put him out;
and then Guise would rule. In Dauphiny the same. In Languedoc, the
great middle province of the south, Montmorency, son to the old
Constable, was King in fact; in Guienne old Marshal Matignon. In
Angoumois--here Epernon again; so firmly fixed that he deigned only to
rule by quarterly letters from his distant home. True in Poitou was an
obedient Governor, but the house of Tremouille from their red castle
of Thouars outweighed his governorship. And in rocky Limousin the
Governor could keep neither the King's peace nor his own.
So it was everywhere through the wide provinces of France; and Henry,
who loved his people, knew it, and sulkily fingered the papers that
told of it. Not that he had need of the papers. He knew before he cast
eye on them in what a welter of lawlessness and disorder, of private
feud and public poverty, thirty years of civil war had left his
kingdom. One province was in arms, torn asunder by a feud between two
great houses. Another laboured in the throes of a peasant rising, its
hills alight night after night with the flames of burning farmsteads.
A third was helpless in the grip of a gang of brigands, who held the
roads. A fourth was beset by disbanded soldiers. The long wars of
religion had dissolved all ties. Everywhere monks who had left their
abbeys and nuns who had left their convents swarmed on the roads, with
sturdy beggars, homeless peasants, broken gentry. Everywhere, beyond
the walls of the great cities, the law was paralysed, the great
committed outrage, the poor suffered wrong, the excesses of war
enured, and, in this time of fancied peace, took grimmer shape.
He whom God had set over France, to rule it, knew these things and sat
hopeless, brooding over the papers; hampered on the one side by lack
of money, on the other by the grants of power that in evil days had
bought a nominal allegiance. He began to see that he had won only the
first bout of a match which must last him his life. Nor would it have
consoled him much to know that in the college of Navarre that day
played a little lad, just ten years old, whose frail white hand would
one day right these things with a vengeance.
His people cried to him, and he longed to help them and could not.
From a thousand market-places, splayed wooden shelters, covering each
its quarter-acre of ground, their cry came up to him: "Give us peace,
give us law!" and he could not. No wonder that he brooded over the
papers, while the clerks looked askance at him, and the great lords
who had won what he had lost whispered or played tric-trac at the
board. Those who sat lower, and among these M. des Ageaux, were less
at their ease. They wondered where the storm would break, and feared
each for his own head.
Presently M. de Joyeuse, one of the great nobles, precipitated the
outburst. "You have heard," said he, twiddling a pen between his
delicate fingers, "what they call these peasants who are ravaging
Poitou, sire?"
Before the King could answer the Governor of Poitou protested from his
place lower down the table. "They are none of mine," he said. "It is
in the Limousin next door to me that they are at work. I wash my hands
of them!"
"They are as bad on your side as on mine!" he of the barren Limousin
retorted.
"They started with you!" Poitou rejoined. "Who kindles a fire should
put it out."
The King raised his hand for silence. "No matter who is responsible,
the fact remains!" he said.
"But you have not heard the jest, sire," Joyeuse struck in. His thin
handsome face, pale with excess, belied eyes thoughtful and dreamy,
eyes that saw visions. He had been a King's favourite, he had spent
years in a convent, he had come forth again, now he was head of the
great Joyeuse house, lord of a third of Languedoc. By turns "Father
Angel"--for he had been a noted preacher--and Monseigneur, there were
those who predicted that he would some day return to the cloister and
die in his hood. "They call them the Tards-Avises," he continued,
"because they were foolish enough to rise when the war was over."
"God pity them!" the King said.
"_Morbleu!_ Your Majesty is pitiful of a sudden!" The speaker was the
Constable de Montmorency. He was a stout, gruff, choleric man, born,
as the Montmorencys were, a generation too late.
"I pity them!" the King answered a trifle sharply. "But you"--he spoke
to the table--"neither pity them nor put them down."
"You are speaking, sire," one asked, "of the Crocans?" It was so; from
the name of a village in their midst, they called these revolted
peasants of the Limousin of whom more will be said.
"Yes."
"They are not in my government," the speaker replied. "Nor in mine!"
"Nor mine!" And so all, except the Governor of the Limousin and the
Governor of Poitou, who sat sulkily silent.
Another of the great ones, Marshal Matignon, nodded approval. "Let
every man shoe his own ass," he said, pursing up his lips. He was a
white-haired, red-faced, apoplectic man of sixty, who thought that in
persuading the Estates of Bordeaux to acknowledge Henry he had earned
the right to go his own way. "Otherwise we shall jostle one another,"
he continued, "and be at blows before we know it, sire! They are in
the Limousin; let the Governor put them down. It is his business and
no other's."
"Except mine," the King replied, with a frown of displeasure. "And if
he cannot, what then?"
"Let him make way, sire, for one who can," the Constable answered
readily. "Your Majesty will not have far to look for him," he
continued in a playful tone. "My nephew, for instance, would like a
government."
"A truce to jesting," Henry said. "The trouble began, it is true,
in the Limousin, but it has spread into Poitou and into the
Angoumois"--he looked at Epernon's agent, for the Duke of Epernon was
so great a man he had not come himself. "Gentlemen," the King
continued, sitting back in his great chair, "can you not come to some
agreement? Can you not mass what force you have, and deal with them
shortly but mercifully? The longer the fire burns, the more trouble
will it be to extinguish it, and the greater the suffering."
"Why not let it burn out, sire?" Epernon's agent muttered with thinly
veiled impudence. "It will then burn the more rubbish, with your
Majesty's leave!"
But, the words said, he quailed. For, under his aquiline nose, the
King's mustaches curled with rage. There were some with whom he must
bear, lords who had brought him rich cities, wide provinces; and
others whose deeds won them licence. But this man? "There spoke the
hireling!" he cried. And the stroke went home, for the man was the
only one at the table who had no government of his own. "I will spare
your attendance, sir," the King continued, with a scornful gesture.
"M. de Guise will answer such questions as arise on your master's late
government--of Provence. And for his other government----"
"I represent him there also," the man muttered sulkily.
"Then you can represent his absence," Henry retorted with quick wit,
"since he is never there! I need you not. Go, sir, and see that within
three hours you are without the walls of Lyons!"
The man rose, divided between fear of the King and fear of the master
to whom he must return. He paused an instant, then went down the room
slowly, and went out.
"Now, gentlemen," Henry continued, with hard looks, "understand. You
may shoe each his own ass, but you must shoe mine also. There must be
an end put to this peasant rising. Who will undertake it?"
"The man who should undertake it," Matignon answered, "for the ass is
of his providing, is the gentleman who has gone out."
"He is naught!"
"He is for much in this."
"How? Sometimes," the King continued irritably, "I think the men are
shod, and the asses come to my Council Table!"
This was a stroke of wit on a level with the Constable's discernment;
he laughed loudly. "Nevertheless," he said, "Matignon's right, sire.
That man's master is for a good deal in this. If he had kept order his
neighbour's house would not be on fire."
For the first time M. des Ageaux ventured a word from the lower end of
the table. "Vlaye!" he muttered.
The Constable leaned forward to see who spoke. "Ay, you've hit on it,
my lad, whoever you are. Vlaye it is!" And he looked at Matignon, who
nodded his adhesion.
Henry frowned. "I am coming to the matter of Vlaye," he said.
"It is all one, sire," Matignon replied, his eyes half shut. He
wheezed a little in his speech.
"How?"
The Constable explained. He leant forward and prodded the table with a
short, stout finger--not overclean according to the ideas of a later
time. "Angoumois is there," he said. "See, your Majesty. And Poitou is
here"--with a second prod an inch from the first. "And the Limousin is
here! And Perigord is there! And see, your Majesty, where their skirts
all meet in this corner--or as good as meet--is Vlaye! Name of God, a
strong place, that!" He turned for assent to old Matignon, who nodded
silently.
"And you mean to say that Vlaye----"
"Has been over heavy handed, your Majesty. And the clowns, beginning
to find the thing beyond a joke, began by hanging three poor devils of
toll gatherers, and the thing started. And what is on everybody's
frontier is nobody's business."
"Except mine," the King muttered drily. "And Vlaye is Epernon's man?"
"That is it, sire," the Constable answered. "Epernon put him in the
castle six years back for standing by him when the Angouleme people
rose on him. But the man is no Vlaye, you understand. M. de Vlaye was
in that business and died of his wounds. He had no near heirs, and the
man whom Epernon put in took the lordship as well as the castle, the
name and all belonging to it. They call him the Captain of Vlaye in
those parts."
The King looked his astonishment.
"Oh, I could give you twenty cases!" the Constable continued,
shrugging his shoulders. "What do you expect, sire, in such times as
these?"
"Ventre St. Gris!" Henry swore. "And not content with what he has got,
he robs the poor?"
"And the rich, too," Joyeuse murmured with a grin, "when he gets them
into his net!"
Henry looked sternly from one to another. "But what do you while this
goes on?" he said. "For shame! You, Constable? You, Matignon?" He
turned from one to the other.
Matignon laughed wheezily. "Make me Governor in Epernon's place,
sire," he said, "and I will account for him. But double work and
single pay? No, no!"
The Constable laughed as at a great joke. "I say the same, sire," he
said. "While Epernon has the Angoumois it is his affair."
The King looked stormily at the Governor of Poitou. But Poitou shook
his head. "It is not in my government," he said moodily. "I cannot
afford, sire, to get a hornets' nest about my ears for nothing."
He of the Limousin fidgeted. "I say the same, sire," he muttered.
"Vlaye has three hundred spears. It would need an army to reduce him.
And I have neither men nor money for the task."
"There you have, sire," the delicate-faced Joyeuse cried gaily, "three
hundred and one good reasons why the Limousin leaves the man alone.
For the matter of that"--he tried to spin his pen like a top--"there
is a government as deeply concerned in this as any that has been
named."
"Which?" Henry asked. He was losing patience. That which was so much
to him was nothing to these.
"Perigord," Joyeuse answered with a bow. And at that several laughed
softly--but not the King. He was himself, as has been said, Governor
of Perigord.
Here at last, however, was one on whom he could vent his displeasure;
and he would vent it! "Stand up, des Ageaux!" he cried harshly. And he
scowled as des Ageaux, who was somewhat like him in feature, rose from
his seat. "What have you to say, man?" Henry cried. "For yourself and
for me! Speak, sir!" But before des Ageaux could answer, the King
broke out anew--with abuse, with reproaches, giving his passion rein;
while the great Governors listened and licked their lips, or winked at
one another, when the King hit them a side blow. Presently, when des
Ageaux would have defended himself, alleging that he was no deeper in
fault than others,
"Ventre St. Gris! No words, sir!" Henry retorted. "I find kings enough
here, I want not you in the number! I made not you that I might have
your nobility cast in my teeth! You are not of the blood royal, nor
even," leaning a little on the word, "Joyeuse or Epernon! Man, I made
you! And not for show, I have enough of that--but to be of use and
service, for common needs and not for parade--like the gentleman,"
bitterly, "who deigns to represent me in the Limousin, or he who is so
good as to sign papers for me in Poitou! Man alive, it might be
thought you were peer and marshal, from your way of idling here, while
robbers ride your marches, and my peasants are driven to revolt. Go
to, do you think you are one of these?" He indicated by a gesture the
great lords who sat nearest him. "Do you think that because I made
you, I cannot unmake you?"
The man on whom the storm had fallen bore it not ignobly. It has been
said that he featured Henry himself, being prominent of nose, with a
grave face, a brown beard, close-cropped, and a forehead high and
severe. Only in his eyes shone, and that rarely, a gleam of humour.
Now the sweat stood on his brow as he listened--they were cruel blows,
the position a cruel one. Nevertheless, when the King paused, and he
had room to answer, his voice was steady.
"I claim, sire," he said, "no immunity. Neither that, nor aught but
the right of a soldier, who has fought for France----"
"And gallantly!" struck in one, who had not yet spoken--Lesdiguieres,
the Huguenot, the famous Governor of Dauphiny. He turned to the King.
"I vouch for it, sire," he continued. "And M. de Joyeuse, who has the
better right, will vouch for it, too."
But Joyeuse, who was sulkily prodding the table with his spoiled pen,
neither lifted his eyes nor gave heed. He was bitterly offended by the
junction of his name with that of Epernon, who, great and powerful as
he was, had had a notary for his father. He was silent.
Des Ageaux, who had looked at him as hoping something, lifted his
eyes. "Your Majesty will do me the justice to remember," he said,
"that I had your order to have a special care of my province; and to
mass what force I could in Perigueux. Few men as I have----"
"You build them up within walls!" Henry retorted.
"But if I lost Perigueux----"
The King snarled.
"Or aught happened there?"
"You would lose your head!" Henry returned. He was thoroughly out of
temper. "By the Lord," he continued, "have I no man in my service?
Must I take this fellow of Vlaye into hire because I have no honest
man with the courage of a mouse! You call yourself Lieutenant of
Perigord, and this happens on your border. I have a mind to break you,
sir!"
Henry seldom let his anger have vent; and the man who stood before him
knew his danger. From a poor gentleman of Brittany with something of
pedigree but little of estate, he had risen to this post which eight
out of ten at that table grudged him. He saw it slipping away; nay,
falling from him--falling! A moment might decide his fate.
In the pinch his eyes sought Joyeuse, and the appeal in them was not
to be mistaken. But the elegant sulked, and would not see. It was
clear that, for him, des Ageaux might sink. For himself, the
Lieutenant doubted if words would help him, and they might aggravate
the King's temper. He was bravely silent.
It was Lesdiguieres, the Huguenot, who came to the rescue. "Your
Majesty is a little hard on M. des Ageaux," he said. And the King's
lieutenant in Perigord knew why men loved the King's Governor in
Dauphiny.
"In his place," Henry answered wrathfully, "I would pull down Vlaye if
I did it with my teeth. It is easy for you, my friend, to talk," he
continued, addressing the Huguenot leader. "They are not your peasants
whom this rogue of a Vlaye presses, nor your hamlets he burns. I have
it all here--here!" he repeated, his eyes kindling as he slapped with
his open hand one of the papers before him, "and the things he has
done make my blood boil! I swear if I were not King I would turn
Crocan myself! But these things are little thought of by others.
M. d'Epernon supports this man, and"--with a sudden glance at
Matignon--"the Governor of Guienne makes use of his horses when he
travels to see the King."
Matignon laughed something shamefacedly. "Well, sire, the horses have
done no harm," he said. "Nor he in my government. He knows better. And
things are upside down thereabouts."
"It is for us to right them!" Henry retorted. And then to des Ageaux,
but with less temper. "Now, sir, I lay my order on you! I give you six
weeks to rid me of this man, Vlaye. Fail, and I put in your place a
man who will do it. You understand, Lieutenant? Then do not fail. By
the Lord, I know not where I shall be bearded next!"
He turned then, but still muttering angrily, to other business.
Matignon and the Constable were not concerned in this; and as soon as
the King's shoulder was towards them they winked at one another. "Your
nephew will not have long to wait," Matignon whispered, "if a
lieutenancy will suit him."
"'Twould be a fair start," the Constable answered. "But a watched
pot--you know the saying."
"This pot will boil at the end of six weeks," Matignon rejoined with a
fat chuckle. "Chut, man, with his wage a year in arrear, and naught
behind his wage, where is he to find another fifty men, let alone
three or four hundred? He will need five and twenty score for this,
and he dare not move a man!"
"He might squeeze his country?" the Constable objected.
"Pooh! He is a fool of the new school! He will go back to his cabbages
before he will do that! I tell you," he continued, laying his hand on
the other's knee, "he has got Perigord, the main part of it, into
order! Ay, into order! And if he don't go, we shall have to mend our
manners," with a grin, "and get our governments into order, too!"
"By the Lord, there is no finger wags in my country unless I will it!"
the Constable rejoined with some tartness. "Since he"--he indicated
Joyeuse--"came over to us, at any rate! Don't think it! But there
it is. If there were no whifflesnaffles here and there, and no
blood-letting, it would not suit us very well, would it? You don't
want to go to cabbage planting, Marshal, more than I do?"
The Marshal smiled.
* * * * *
Late that night the young Duke of Joyeuse, leaving his people at the
end of the street, went by himself to the house in which des Ageaux
lodged in Lyons. A woman answered his summons, and not knowing the
young grandee--for he was cloaked to the nose--fetched the Bat, an
old, lean, lank-visaged captain who played squire of the body to des
Ageaux. The Bat knew the Duke in spite of his cloak; perhaps he had
him for a certain reason in his mind. And he bowed his long, stiff
back before him, and would have fetched lights; yet with a glum face.
But the Duke answered him shortly that he wanted no more than a word
with his master, and would say it there.
On which, "You are too late, my lord," the Bat rejoined; and Joyeuse
saw that with all his politeness he was as gloomy as his name. "He
left Lyons this afternoon."
"With what attendance?" the Duke asked in great surprise. For he had
not heard of it.
"Alone, my lord Duke."
"Does he return to-morrow?"
"I know not."
"But you know something!" the young noble retorted with more of
vexation than the circumstances seemed to justify.
"My lord, nothing," the Bat answered, "save that we are ordered to
follow him to-morrow by way of Clermont."
"To his province?"
"Even so, my lord."
Joyeuse struck his booted foot against the pavement, and the sombre
Bat, whose ears--some said he got his name from them--were almost as
long as his legs, caught the genial chink of gold crowns. It was such
music as he seldom heard, for he had a vision of a heavy bag of them;
and his eyes glistened.
But the chink was all he had of them. Joyeuse turned away, and with a
stifled sigh and a shrug went back to the play-table at the
Archbishop's palace. Sinning and repenting were the two occupations in
which he had spent one half of his short life; and if there was a
thing which he did with greater ardour than the first--it was the
second.
CHAPTER I.
VILLENEUVE-L'ABBESSE.
The horse looked piteously at the man. Blood oozed from its broken
knees and its legs quivered under it. The man holding his scratched
and abraded hand to his mouth returned the beast's look, at first with
promise of punishment, but by and by less unkindly. He was a just man,
and he saw that the fault was his; since it was he who, after crossing
the ridge, had urged the horse out of the path that he might be spared
some part of the weary descent. Out of the path, and cunningly hidden
by a tuft of rough grass, a rabbit-hole had lain in wait.
He contented himself with a word of disgust, therefore, chucked the
rein impatiently--since justice has its limits--and began to lead the
horse down the descent, which a short sward rendered slippery. But he
had not gone many paces before he halted. The horse's painful limp and
the sweat that broke out on its shoulders indicated that two broken
knees were not the worst of the damage. The man let the rein go,
resigned himself to the position, and, shrugging his shoulders,
scanned the scene before him.
The accident had happened on the south side of the long swell of chalk
hills which the traveller had been mounting for an hour past; and
scarcely a stone's-throw below the ruined wind-mill that had been his
landmark for leagues. To right and left of him, under a pale-blue sky,
the breezy, open down, carpeted with wild thyme and vetches, and alive
with the hum of bees, stretched in long soft undulations, marred by no
sign of man save a second and a third wind-mill ranged in line on the
highest breasts. Below him the slope of sward and fern, broken here by
a solitary blackthorn, there by a clump of whin and briars, swept
gently down to a shallow wide valley--almost a plain--green and
thickly wooded, beyond which the landscape rose again slowly and
imperceptibly into uplands. Through this wide valley flowed from left
to right a silvery river, its meandering course marked by the lighter
foliage of willows and poplars; and immediately below the traveller a
cluster of roofless hovels on the bank seemed to mark a ford.
On all the hill about him, on the slopes of thyme, and heather, and
yellow gorse, the low sun was shining--from his right, and from a
little behind him, so that his shadow stretched far across the sward.
But in the valley about the river and the ford evening was beginning
to fall, grey, peaceful, silent. For a time his eyes roved hither and
thither, seeking a halting-place of more promise than the ruined cots;
and at length they found what they sought. He marked, rising from a
mass of trees a little beyond the ford, a thin curl of smoke, so
light, so grey, as to be undiscoverable by any but the sharpest
eyes--but his were of the sharpest. The outline of the woods at the
same point indicated a clearing within a wide loop of the river; and
putting the one with the other, des Ageaux--for it was he--came to a
fair certainty that a house of some magnitude lay hidden there.
At any rate he saw no better chance of shelter. It was that of the
ruined hovels and the roadside, and taking the rein once more, he led
the horse down the hill, and in the first dusk of the evening crossed
the pale clear water on stepping-stones. He suffered the horse to
stand awhile in the stream and drink and cool its legs amid the dark,
waving masses of weed. Then he urged it up the bank, and led it along
the track, that was fast growing dim, and grey, and lonesome.
The horse moved painfully, knuckling over at every step. Yet night had
not quite fallen when the traveller, plodding along beside it, saw two
stone pillars standing gaunt and phantom-like on the left of the path.
Each bore aloft a carved escutcheon, and in that weird half-light and
with a backing of dark forest trees the two might have been taken for
ghosts. Their purpose, however, was plain, for they flanked the
opening, at right angles to his path, of a rough road, at the end of
which, at a distance of some ten score paces from the pillars,
appeared an open gateway framed in a dim wall. No more than that, for
above was the pale sky, and on either hand the black line of trees
hedged the narrow picture.
The traveller peered awhile at the escutcheons. But gathering darkness
and the lichens which covered the stone foiled him, and he was little
the wiser when he turned down the avenue. When he had traversed a half
of its length the trees fell back on either hand, and revealed the
sullen length of a courtyard wall, and rising within it, a little on
his right, a dark mass of building, compact in the main of two round
towers, of the date of Philip Augustus, with some additions of more
modern times. The effect of the pile, viewed in that half-light, was
gloomy if not forbidding; but the open gateway, the sled-marks that
led to it, and the wisps of hay which strewed the road, no less than
the broken yoke that hung in the old elm beside the entrance--all
these, which the Lieutenant's eyes were quick to discern, seemed to
offer a more homely and more simple welcome.
A silent welcome, nevertheless, borne on the scent of new-mown,
half-gathered hay; a scent which des Ageaux was destined to associate
ever after with this beginning of an episode, and with his entrance in
the gloaming, amid quiet things. Slowly he passed under the gateway,
leading the halting horse. Fallen hay, swept from the cart by the brow
of the arch, deadened his footfalls, and before he was discovered he
was able to appreciate the enclosure, half courtyard, half fold-yard,
sloping downward from the house and shut in on the other sides by a
tile-roofed wall. At the lower end on his left were stalls, and sheds,
and stables, and a vague, mysterious huddle of ploughs and gear, and
feeding beasts, and farm refuse. Between this mass--to which the night
began to lend strange forms--and the great, towered house which loomed
black against the sky, lay the slope of the court, broken midway by
the walled marge of a swell something Italian in fashion, and speaking
of more prosperous days. On this there sat, as the traveller saw, two
figures.
And then one only. For as he looked, uncertain whether to betake
himself first to the stables of the house, one of the two figures
sprang from the wall-edge, and came bounding to him with hands
upraised, flying skirts, a sharp cry of warning.
"Oh, take care, Charles!" it cried. "Go back before M. le Vicomte
comes!"
Then, at six paces from him, she knew him for a stranger, and the last
word fell scarcely breathed from her lips; while he, knowing her for a
girl, and young by her voice, uncovered. "I seek only a night's
shelter," he said stiffly. "Pardon me, mademoiselle, the alarm I fear
I have caused you. My horse slipped on the hill, and is unable to
travel farther."
She stood staring at him in astonishment, and until her companion at
the well came forward made no reply. Something in the movements of
this second figure as it crossed the court struck the eye as abnormal,
but it was only when it came quite close that the stranger discovered
that the lad before him was slightly hump-backed.
"You have met with a mischance," the youth said with awkward
diffidence.
"Yes."
"Whatever the cause, you are welcome. Go, Bonne," the young man
continued, addressing the girl, "it is better you went--and tell my
father that a gentleman is here craving shelter. When I have stabled
his horse I will bring him in. This way, if you please!" the lad
continued, turning to lead the way to the stables, but casting from
moment to moment timid looks at his guest. "The place is rough, but
such as it is, it is at your service. Have you ridden far to-day, if
it please you?"
"From Rochechouart."
"It is well we had not closed the gates," the youth answered shyly;
"we close them an hour after sunset by rule. But to-day the men have
been making hay, and we sup late."
The stranger expressed his obligation, and, following his guide, led
his horse through one of the doors of a long range of stabling built
against the western wall of the courtyard. Within all was dark, and he
waited while his companion fetched a lanthorn. The light, when it
came, disclosed a sad show of empty mangers, broken racks, and roof
beams hung with cobwebs. Rain and sunshine, it was evident, entered
through more holes than one, and round the men's heads a couple of
bats, startled by the lanthorn-light, flitted noiselessly to and fro.
At the farther end of the place, the roof above three or four stalls
showed signs of recent repair; and here the young man invited his
guest to place his beast.
"But I shall be turning out your horses," the stranger objected.
The youth laughed a little awry. "There's but my father's gelding," he
said, "and old Panza the pony. And they are in the ox-stable where
they have company. This," he added, pointing to the roof, "was made
good for my sister the Abbess's horses."
The guest nodded, and, after examining his beast's injuries, bathed
its knees with fresh water; then producing a bandage from his
saddle-bag he soaked it in the water and skilfully wound it round the
strained fetlock. The lad held the lanthorn, envy, mingled with
admiration, growing in his eyes as he watched the other's skilled
hands and method.
"You are well used to horses?" he said.
"Tolerably," des Ageaux answered, looking up. "Are not you?" For in
those days it was an essential part of a gentleman's education.
The lad sighed. "Not to horses of this sort," he said, shrugging his
shoulders. And des Ageaux took note of the sigh and the words, but
said nothing. Instead he removed his sword and pistols from his
saddle, and would have taken up his bags also, but the young man
interposed and took possession of them. A moment and the two were
crossing the darkened courtyard. The light of the lanthorn made it
difficult to see aught beyond the circle of its rays, but the stranger
noticed that the chateau consisted half of a steep-roofed house, and
half of the two round towers he had seen; house and towers standing in
one long line. Two rickety wooden bridges led across a moat to two
doors, the one set in the inner of the two towers--probably this was
the ancient entrance--the other in the more modern part.
On the bridge leading to the latter two serving-men with lights were
awaiting them. The nearer domestic advanced, bowing. "M. le Vicomte
will descend if"--and then, after a pause, speaking more stiffly, "M.
le Vicomte has not yet heard whom he has the honour of entertaining."
"I have no pretensions to put him to the trouble of descending," the
traveller answered politely. "Say if you please that a gentleman of
Brittany seeks shelter for the night, and would fain pay his respects
to M. le Vicomte at his convenience."
The servant bowed, and turning with ceremony, led the way into a bare,
dimly-lit hall open to its steep oaken roof, and not measurably more
comfortable or less draughty than the stable. Here and there dusty
blazonings looked down out of the darkness, or rusty weapons left
solitary in racks too large for them gave back gleams of light. In the
middle of the stone floor a trestle table such as might have borne the
weight of huge sirloins and great bustards, and feasted two score
men-at-arms in the days of the great Francis, supported a litter of
shabby odds and ends; old black-jacks jostling riding-spurs, and a
leaping-pole lying hard by a drenching-horn. An open door on the tower
side of the hall presented the one point of warmth in the apartment,
for through it entered a stream of ruddy light and an odour that
announced where the kitchen lay.
But if this were the dining-hall? If the guest felt alarm on this
point he was soon reassured. The servant conducted him up a short
flight of six steps which rose in one corner. The hall, in truth, huge
as it seemed in its dreary emptiness, was but one half of the original
hall. The leftward half had been partitioned off and converted into
two storeys--the lower story raised a little from the ground for the
sake of dryness--of more modern chambers. More modern; but if that
into which the guest was ushered, a square room not unhandsome in its
proportions, stood for sample, scarcely more cheerful. The hangings on
the walls were of old Sarazinois, but worn and faded to the colour of
dust. Carpets of leather covered the floor, but they were in holes and
of a like hue; while the square stools clad in velvet and gilt-nailed,
which stood against the walls, were threadbare of stuff and tarnished
of nails. In winter, warmed by the ruddy blaze of a generous fire,
and well sconced, and filled with pleasant company seated about a
well-spread board, the room might have passed muster and even conduced
to ease. But as the dusky frame of a table, lighted by four poor
candles--that strove in vain with the vast obscurity--and set with no
great, store of provision, it wore an air of meagreness not a whit
removed from poverty.
The man who stood beside the table in the light of the candles, and
formed the life of the picture, blended well with the furnishings. He
was tall and thin, with stooping shoulders and a high-nosed face, that
in youth had been masterful and now was peevish and weary. He wore a
sword and much faded lace, and on the appearance of his guest moved
forward a pace and halted, with the precision and stiffness of
clockwork. "I have the honour," he began, "to welcome, I believe----"
"A gentleman of Brittany," des Ageaux answered, bowing low. It by no
means suited his plans to be recognised. "And one, M. le Vicomte, who
respectfully craves a night's hospitality."
"Which the chateau of Villeneuve-l'Abbesse," the Vicomte replied with
grandeur, "has often granted to the greatest, nor"--he waved his hand
with formal grace--"ever refused to the meanest. They have attended, I
trust," he continued with the air of one who, at the head of a great
household, knows, none the less, how to think for his guests, "to your
people, sir?"
"Alas, M. le Vicomte," des Ageaux answered, a faint twinkle in his
eyes belying the humility of his tone, "I have none; I am travelling
alone."
"Alone?" The Vicomte repeated the word in a tone of wonder. "You have
no servants with you--at all?"
"Alas--no."
"Is it possible?"
Des Ageaux shrugged his shoulders, and spread out his hands. "In these
days, M. le Vicomte, yes."
The Vicomte seemed by the droop of his shoulders to admit the plea;
perhaps because the other's eyes strayed involuntarily to the shabby
furniture. He shook his head gloomily. "Since Coutras----" he began,
and then, considering that he was unbending too soon, he broke off.
"You met with some accident, I believe, sir?" he said. "But first, I
did not catch your name?"
"Des Voeux," the Lieutenant answered, adopting on the spur of the
moment one somewhat like his own. "My horse fell and cut its knees on
the hill about a mile beyond the ford. I much fear it has also
strained a fetlock."
"It will not be fit to travel to-morrow, I doubt?"
The guest spread out his hands, intimating that time and the morrow
must take care of themselves; or that it was no use to fight against
fate.
"I must lend you something from the stables, then," the Vicomte
answered; as if at least a score of horses stood at rack and manger in
his stalls. "But I am forgetting your own needs, sir. Circumstances
have thrown my household out of gear, and we sup late tonight. But we
shall not need to wait long."
He had barely spoken when the two serving-men who had met the
Lieutenant on the bridge entered, one behind the other, bearing with
some pomp of circumstance a couple of dishes. They set these on the
board, and withdrawing--not without leaving behind them a pleasant
scent of new-mown hay--returned quickly bearing two more. Then falling
back they announced by the mouth of the least meagre that my lord was
served.
The meal which they announced, though home-grown and of the plainest,
was sufficient, and des Ageaux, on the Vicomte's invitation, took his
seat upon a stool at a nicely regulated distance below his host. As he
did so the girl he had seen in the courtyard glided in by a side door
and silently took her seat on the farther side of the table.
Apparently the Vicomte thought his guest below the honour of an
introduction, for he said nothing. And the girl only acknowledged the
Lieutenant's respectful salutation by a bow.
The four candles shed a feeble light on the table, and left the
greater part of the room in darkness. Des Ageaux could not see the
girl well, and he got little more than an impression of a figure
moderately tall and somewhat plump, and of a gentle, downcast face.
Form and face owned, certainly, the charm of youth and freshness. But
to eyes versed in the brilliance of a Court and the magnificence of
_grandes dames_ they lacked the more striking characteristics of
beauty.
He gave her a thought, however, pondering while he gave ear to the
Vicomte's querulous condescensions how so gentle a creature--for her
gentleness and placidity struck him--came of so stiff and peevish a
father. But that was all. Or it might have been all if as the thought
passed through his mind his host had not abruptly changed the
conversation and disclosed another side of his character.
"Where is Roger?" he asked, addressing the girl with sharpness.
"I do not know, sir," she murmured.
A retort seemed hovering on the Vicomte's lips, when the youth who had
taken the guest to the stable, and had stayed without, perhaps to make
some change in his rustic clothes, entered and slid timidly into his
place beside his sister. He hoped, probably, to pass unseen, but the
Vicomte, his great high nose twitching, fixed him with his eyes and
pointed inexorably at him, with a spoon held delicately between thumb
and finger. "You would not think," he said with grim abruptness, "that
that--that, M. des Voeux, was son of mine?"
Des Ageaux started. "I fear," he said hastily, "that it was I, sir,
who made him late. He was good enough to receive me."
"I can only assure you," the Vicomte replied with cruel wit, "that
whoever made him late, it was not I who made him--as he is! The
Villeneuves, till his day, I'd have you know, sir, have been straight
and tall, and men of their hands, as ready with a blow as a word! Men
to make their way in the world. But you see him! You see him! Can
you," he continued, his eyes half-closed, dwelling on the lad, whose
suffering was evident, "at Court? Or courting? Or stepping a
_pavanne?_ Or----"
"Father!"
The word burst from the girl's lips, drawn from her by sheer pain. The
Vicomte turned to her with icy courtesy. "You spoke, I think?" he said
in a tone which rebuked her for the freedom on which she had ventured.
"Just so. I was forgetting. We live so quietly here, we use so little
ceremony with one another, that even I forget at times that family
matters are not interesting to a stranger. Were my elder daughter
here, M. des--ah, des Voeux, yes--my daughter the Abbess, who knows
the world, and has some tincture of manners, and is not taken commonly
for a waiting-woman, she would be able to entertain you better. But
you see what we are. For," with a smirk, "it were rude not to include
myself with my family."
No wonder, the guest thought, as he listened, full of pity--no wonder
the lad had spoken timidly and shyly, if this were the daily treatment
he received! If poverty, working on pride, had brought the last of a
great family to this--to repaying on the innocents who shared his
decay the slings and arrows of unkind fortune! The girl's exclamation,
wrung from her by her brother's suffering, had gone to the
Lieutenant's heart, though that heart was not of the softest. He would
have given something to silence the bitter old tyrant. But experience
told him that he might make matters worse. He was no knight-errant, no
rescuer of dames; and, after all, the Vicomte was their father. So
while he hesitated, seeking in vain a safe subject, the sharp tongue
was at work again.
"I would like you to see my elder daughter," the Vicomte resumed with
treacherous blandness. "She has neither a ploughboy's figure, nor,"
slowly, "a dairymaid's speech. Her manners are quite like those of the
world. She might go anywhere, even to Court, where she has been,
without rendering herself the subject of ridicule and contempt. It is
truly unfortunate for us"--with a bow--"that you cannot see her."
"She is not at home?" the Lieutenant said for the sake of saying
something. He was full of pity for the girl whose face, now red, now
pale, betrayed how she suffered under the discipline.
"She does not live at home," the Vicomte answered. And then--with
curious inconsistency he now hid and now declared his poverty--"We
have not much left of which we can be proud," he continued, "since the
battle of Coutras seven years back took from the late King's friends
all they had. But the Abbey of Vlaye is still our appanage. My elder
daughter is the Abbess."
"It lies, I think, near Vlaye?"
"Yes, some half-league from Vlaye and three leagues from here. You
have heard of Vlaye, then, Monsieur--Monsieur des Voeux?"
"Without doubt, M. le Vicomte."
"Indeed! In what way, may I ask?" There was a faint tinge of suspicion
in his tone.
"At Rochechouart I was told that the roads in that direction were not
over safe."
The Vicomte laughed in his sardonic fashion. "They begin to cry out,
do they?" he said. "The fat burgesses who fleece us? Not very safe,
ha, ha! The roads! Not so safe as their back-shops where they lend to
us at cent per cent!"--with bitterness. "It is well that there is some
one to fleece them in their turn!"
"They told me as much as that," des Ageaux replied with gravity. "So
much, indeed, that I was surprised to find your gates still open! They
gave me to understand that no man slept without a guard within four
leagues of Vlaye."
"They told you that, did they?" the Vicomte answered. And he chuckled,
well satisfied. It pleased him to think that if he and his could no
longer keep Jacques Bonhomme in order, there were others who could.
"They told you not far from the truth. A little later, and you had
been barred out even here. Not that I fear the Captain of Vlaye. Hawks
pike not out hawks' eyes," with a lifting of the head, and an odd show
of arrogance. "We are good friends, M. de Vlaye and I."
"Still you bar your gates, soon or late?" the Lieutenant replied with
a smile.
A shadow fell across the Vicomte's face. "Not against him," he said
shortly.
"No, of course not," des Voeux replied. "I had forgotten. You have the
Crocans also at no great distance. I was forgetting them."
The sudden rigidity of his younger listeners, and the silence which
fell on all, warned him, as soon as he had spoken, that he had
said something amiss. Nor was the silence all. When his host next
spoke--after an interval--it was with a passion as far removed from
the cynical rudeness to which he had treated his children as are the
poles apart. "That name is not named in this house!" he cried, his
voice thin and tremulous. "By no one!" he struck the table with a
shaking hand. "Understand me, sir, by no one! God's curse on them! Ay,
and on all who----"
"No, sir, no!" The cry came from the girl. "Do not curse him!"
She was on her feet. For an instant the Lieutenant, seeing her
father's distorted face, feared that he would strike her. But the
result was different. The opposition that might have maddened the
angry man, had the effect of sobering him. "Sit down!" he muttered,
passing his napkin over his face. "Sit down, fool! Sit down! And
you"--he paused a moment, striving to regain the gibing tone that was
habitual to him--"you, sir, may now see how it is. I told you we had
no manners. You have now the proof of it. I doubt I must keep you,
until the Abbess, my daughter, pays her next visit, that you may see
at least one Villeneuve who is neither clown nor dotard!"
Man of the world as he was, the King's Lieutenant knew not what to say
to this outburst. He murmured a vague apology, and thought how
different all was from the anticipations which the scent of hay and
the farmyard peace had raised in him on his arrival. This old man,
rotting in the husk of his former greatness, girding at his helpless
children, gnawing, in the decay of his family's grandeur, on his heart
and theirs, returning scorn for scorn, and spite for spite, but on
those who were innocent of either, ignorant of either--this was a
picture to the painting of which the most fanciful must have brought
some imagination. Under the surface lay something more; something that
had to do with the Crocans. He fancied that he could make a guess at
the secret; and that it had to do with the girl's lover. But the meal
was closing, the Vicomte's rising interrupted his thoughts, and
whatever interest the question had for him, he was forced to put it
away for the time.
The Vicomte bowed a stiff good-night. "Boor as he is, I fear that you
must now put up with my son," he said, smiling awry. "He has the Tower
Room, where, in my time, I have known the best company in the province
lie, when good company was; it has been scarce," he continued
bitterly, "since Coutras. He will find you a lodging there, and if the
accommodation be rough, and your room-fellow what you see him,"
shrugging his shoulders, "at least you will have space enough and
follow good gentry. I have known the Governor of Poitou and the
Lieutenant of Perigord, with two of the Vicomtes of the Limousin, lie
there--and fourteen truckle-beds about them. In those days was little
need to bar our gates at night. Solomon! The lanthorn, fool! I bid
you good-night, sir!"
Des Ageaux bowed his acknowledgements, and following in the train of
an older serving-man than he had yet seen; who, bearing a lanthorn,
led him up a small staircase. Roger the hapless followed. On the first
floor the guest noted the doors of four rooms, two on either side of a
middle passage, that got its light from a window at the end of the
house. Such rooms--or rooms opening one through the other--were at
that date reserved for the master and mistress of the chateau, and
their daughters, maiden or married. For something of the old system
which secluded women, and a century before had forbidden their
appearance at Court, still prevailed; nor was the Lieutenant at all
surprised when his guide, turning from these privileged apartments,
led him up a flight of four or five steps at the hither end of the
passage. And so through a low doorway.
He passed the door, and was surprised to find himself in the open air
on the roof of the hall, the stars above him, and the night breeze
cooling his brow. The steeply-pitched lead ended in a broad, flat
gutter, fenced by a rail fixed in the parapet. The servant led him
along the path which this gutter provided to a door in the wall of the
great round tower that rose twenty feet above the house. This gave
entrance to a small chamber--one of those commonly found between the
two skins of such old buildings--which served both for landing and
ante-room. From it the dark opening of a winding staircase led upwards
on one hand; on the other a low-browed door masked the course of the
downward flight.
Across this closet--bare as bare walls could make it--the grey-bearded
servant led him in two strides, and opening a farther door introduced
him into the chamber which had seen so much good company. It was a
gloomy, octagonal room of great size, lighted in the daytime by four
deep-sunk windows, and occupying--save for such narrow closets as that
through which they entered--a whole storey of the tower. The lanthorn
did but make darkness visible, but Solomon proceeded to light two
rushlights that stood in iron sconces on the wall, and by their light
the Lieutenant discerned three truckle-beds laid between two of the
windows. He could well believe, so vast was the apartment, that
fourteen had not cumbered its bareness. At this date a couple of
chests, as many stools, a bundle of old spears and a heavy
three-legged table made up, with some dingy, tattered hangings, the
whole furniture of the chamber.
The old serving-man set down the lanthorn and looked about him
sorrowfully.
"Thirty-four I've seen sleep here," he said. "The Governor of Poitou,
and the Governor of Perigord, and the four Vicomtes of the Limousin,
and twenty-eight gentles in truckles."
"Twenty-eight?" the Lieutenant questioned, measuring in some
astonishment the space with his eye. "But your master said----"
"Twenty-eight, by your leave," the man answered obstinately. "And
every man his dog! A gentleman was a gentleman then, and a Vicomte a
Vicomte. But since that cursed battle at Coutras set us down and put
these Huguenots up, there is an end of gentry almost. Ay, thirty--was
it thirty, I said?"
"Four, you said. Thirty-four," des Ageaux answered, smiling.
"Good-night."
The man shook his head sombrely, bade them goodnight, and closed the
door on them.
An instant later he could be heard groping his way back through the
closet and over the roof. The Lieutenant, as soon as the sound ceased,
looked round and thought that he had seldom lain in a gloomier place.
The windows were but wooden lattices innocent of glass, and through
the slats of the nearest a strong shoot of ivy grew into the room. The
night air entered with it and stirred the ragged hangings that covered
a part of the walls; hangings that to add to the general melancholy
had once been black, a remnant, it is possible, of the funeral
trappings of some dead Vicomte. Frogs croaked in a puddle without; one
of the lattices creaked open at intervals, only to close again with a
hollow report; the rushlights flared sideways in the draught. Des
Ageaux had read of such a room in the old romances, in _Bevis of
Hampton_, or the _History of Armida_; a room of shadows and gloom,
owl-flittings and dead furnishings. But he smiled at the thoughts it
called up. He had often lain in his cloak under the sky amid dead men.
Nevertheless, "Do you sleep here alone?" he asked, turning to his
companion, who had seated himself despondently on one of the beds.
The lad, oppressed by what had gone forward downstairs, barely looked
up. "Yes," he began, "since"--and then, breaking off, he added
sullenly, "Yes, I do."
"Then you don't lack courage!" des Ageaux replied.
"People sleep well when they are tired," the youth returned, "as I am
to-night."
The Lieutenant accepted the hint, and postponed until the morrow the
questions he had it in his mind to ask. Nodding a good-humoured assent
he proceeded to his simple arrangements for the night, placed his
sword and pistols beside the truckle-bed, and in a few minutes was
sleeping as soundly on his thin palliasse as if he had been in truth
the poverty-stricken gentleman of Brittany he once had been and still
might be again.