“He must suffer, he must suffer--lolalla--lolalla--lolalla!”
A loud peal of laughter followed the words, and while the laughter
rang, the thicket was lit again with the flaming scarlet light. The
abbé’s heart threatened to stand still when he saw, grouped there
upon the green, the strangest company he had ever beheld in all his
life. Dressed in scarlet, some like devils, some like dwarfs, some
like hideous creatures with horns protruding from their brows, the
throng appeared to be led by a woman whose sugar-loaf cap and sweeping
crimson skirts answered in all things to the popular pictures of a
witch. When the abbé beheld her she rode upon a great black horse,
but those around her were mounted upon white ponies; and the whole
company galloping out of the wood, presently they surrounded the
trembling ecclesiastic and roared until the very woods rang as with
demon voices,--
“Long live the Lord Bishop of Blois--lolalla--lolalla!”
It was a strange scene; the torches, which many of the masqueraders
had now lighted, casting a lurid glow upon the scarlet dresses and
masks and whitened faces of the dwarfs and demons--horrid monsters,
who now flocked about the amazed curé of Yvette. He, on his part,
knew not whether the whole were a hideous dream, or the perpetration
of some masquerade of which he was to be the victim. Possibly deep
down in his mind there was born the question--are these human things
or spiritual? Even the learned were gross in superstition in the
middle of the eighteenth century; and the excellent abbé was no wiser
than other men--perhaps even a little more prone to believe in omens
and the unseen than the common citizen. No wonder if the terror of the
wood and the dark of the night and the horrid yells of the horned and
hoofed company which now swarmed about him contributed to his
bewilderment. A hundred possibilities occurred to him while the cries
were still ringing in his ears. He had heard of the terrible jests
which courtly masqueraders had perpetrated on those who were obnoxious
to them. Could he have given offence in high places--or was it true,
after all, that the woods of St. Cloud were peopled by spirits and
elves and witches, and that he had fallen into their power? He said he
would believe no such tale. Rather would he take courage; and if this
were a jest of Corinne’s, then should two years instead of one be her
portion in the convent.
With this resolution to nerve him, he turned of a sudden upon the
horde who pressed about him and began to argue with them.
“Sirs,” said he, “I have heard much talk of the Lord Bishop of Blois,
and I see plainly that you mistake me for him. Know then that I am but
a simple priest, the curé of Yvette, sirs, and that I ride to Paris
upon an affair of very great importance.”
He spoke the words very slowly, but to his astonishment no one gave
any answer. All together, witches, dwarfs, and demons, they began to
repeat his explanation in a sort of monotone, the key of which changed
note by note until it rose to a discordant, unearthly shriek.
“Sirs,” cried they, “we have heard much talk of the Lord Bishop of
Blois, and we see plainly that you mistake us for him. Know then that
we are but simple priests, the curés of Yvette, and that we ride to
Paris upon an affair of very great importance.”
The abbé, deafened by the clamour, put his fingers into his ears and
began to shiver with fear.
“_Ciel!_” he murmured, “you are all mad.”
“_Ciel!_” repeated the scarlet company, “we are all mad.”
The sally was roared rather than intoned; and at the end of it, the
whole company bent low in their saddles, the men doffing their hats to
the terrified abbé, the women blowing kisses to him.
Then the scarlet woman who appeared to be the mistress of the throng,
raised her fresh young voice and asked again,--
“What must be done to the Lord Bishop of Blois?”