I winna spare for his tender age, Nor yet for his hie kin;
But soon as ever he born is,
He shall mount the gallow’s pin.--Fause Foodrage.
Dusk was closing in, but lamps had not yet been lighted, when with a
trembling, yet almost a bounding heart, Eustacie stole down the stone
staircase, leading to a back-door--an utterly uncanonical appendage to a
nunnery, but one much used among the domestic establishment of Bellaise.
A gleam of red light spread across the passage from the half-open
kitchen door, whence issued the savoury steam of the supper preparing
for Monseigneur. Eustacie had just cautiously traversed it, when the
voice of the presiding lay-sister called out, ‘Veronique, is that you?’
‘Sister!’ returned Eustacie, with as much of the Angevin twang as she
could assume.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To the Orchard Farm with this linen.’
‘Ah! it must be. But there are strict orders come from Madame about
nobody going out unreported, and you may chance to find the door locked
if you do not come back in good time. Oh! and I had well-night forgot;
tell your mother to be here early to-morrow, Madame would speak with
her.’
Eustacie assented, half stifled by the great throb of her fluttering
heart at the sense that she had indeed seized the last moment. Forth
then she stepped. How dark, waste, and lonely the open field looked!
But her heart did not fail her; she could only feel that a captivity was
over, and the most vague and terrible of her anxieties soothed, as she
made her way into one of the long shady lanes of the Bocage. It was
nearly dark, and very muddy, but she had all the familiarity of a native
with the way, and the farm, where she had trotted about in her infancy
like a peasant’s child, always seemed like home to her. It had been a
prime treat to visit it during her time of education at the convent, and
there was an association of pleasure in treading the path that seemed to
bear her up, and give her enjoyment in the mere adventure and feeling
of escape and liberty. She had no fear of the dark, nor of the distant
barking of dogs, but the mire was deep, and it was plodding work in
those heavy _sabots_, up the lane that led from the convent; and the
poor child was sorely weary long before she came to the top of the low
hill that she used scarcely to know to be rising round at all. The stars
had come out; and as she sat for a few moments to rest on a large
stone, she saw the lights of the cottage fires in the village below, and
looking round could also see the many gleams in the convent windows, the
read fire-light in her own room among them. She shivered a little as
she thought of its glowing comfort, but turned her back resolutely,
tightened her cloak over her head, looked up to a glimmer in the
watch-tower of her own castle far above her on the hill and closed
against her; and then smiled to herself with hope at the sparkle of a
window in a lonely farmhouse among the fields.
With fresh vigour she rose, and found her way through lane and
field-path to the paddock where she had so often played. Here a couple
of huge dogs dashed forward with an explosion of barks, dying away into
low growls as she spoke to them by their names, and called aloud on
‘Blaise!’ and ‘Mere Perrine!’ The cottage door was opened, the light
streamed forth, and a man’s head in a broad had appeared. ‘Veronique,
girl, is this an hour to be gadding abroad?’
‘Blaise, do you not know me?’
‘It is our Lady. Ah!’
The next moment the wanderer was seated in the ample wooden chair of the
head of the family, the farmer and his two stout sons standing before
her as their liege Lady, and Mere Perrine hanging over her, in great
anxiety, not wholly dispelled by her low girlish laugh, partly of
exultation at her successful evasion, partly of amusement at their
wonder, and partly, too, because it was so natural to her to enjoy
herself at that hearth that she could not help it. A savoury mess from
the great caldron that was for ever stewing over the fire was at once
fished out for her, before she was allowed to explain herself; and as
she ate with the carved spoon and from the earthenware crock that had
been called Mademoiselle’s ever since her baby-days, Perrine chafed
and warmed her feet, fondled her, and assured her, as if she were still
their spoiled child, that they would do all she wished.
Pierre and Tiennot, the two sons, were sent out to fodder the cattle,
and keep careful watch for any sounds of pursuers from the convent;
and Blaise, in the plenitude of his respects and deference, would have
followed them, but Eustacie desired him to remain to give her counsel.
Her first inquire was after the watch-tower. She did not care for any
discomfort if her vassals would be faithful, and hold it out for her,
till she could send for help to the allies of her husband’s house, and
her eyes glanced as she spoke.
But Blaise shook his head. He had looked at the tower as Madame bade,
but it was all in ruins, crumbling away, and, moreover, M. le Chevalier
had put a forester there--a grim, bad subject, who had been in the
Italian wars, and cared neither for saint nor devil, except Chevalier
Narcisse. Indeed, even if he had not been there, the place was
untenable, it would only be getting into a trap.
‘Count Hebert held it out for twelve days against the English!’ said
Eustacie, proudly.
‘Ah! ah! but there were none of your falconets, or what call you those
cannons then. No; if Madame would present herself as a choice morsel for
Monsieur le Chevalier to snap up, that is the place.’
Then came the other plan of getting an escort of the peasants together,
and riding with them towards the Huguenot territories around La
Rochelle, where, for her husband’s sake, Eustacie could hardly fail
to obtain friends. It was the more practicable expedient, but Blaise
groaned over it, wondered how many of the farmers could be trusted,
or brought together, and finally expressed his intention of going to
consult Martin, his staunch friend, at the next farm. Meantime, Madame
had better lie down and sleep. And Madame did sleep, in Perrine’s huge
box-bedstead, with a sweet, calm, childlike slumber, whilst her nurse
sat watching her with eyes full of tears of pity and distress; the poor
young thing’s buoyant hopefulness and absence of all fear seemed to the
old woman especially sad, and like a sort of want of comprehension of
the full peril in which she stood.
Not till near dawn was Eustacie startled from her rest by approaching
steps. ‘Nurse, is all ready?’ she cried. ‘Can we set off? Are the horses
there?’
‘No, my child; it is but my good man and Martin who would speak with
you. Do not hasten. There is nothing amiss as yet.’
‘Oh, nurse,’ cried Eustacie, as she quickly arranged the dress in which
she had lain down, ‘the dear old farm always makes me sleep well. This
is the first time I have had no dream of the whirling wheel and fiery
gates! Oh, is it a token that HE is indeed at rest? I am so well, so
strong. I can ride anywhere now. Let them come in and tell me.’
Martin was a younger, brisker, cleverer man than Blaise, and besides
being a vassal of the young Lady, was a sort of agent to whom the Abbess
instructed many of the matters of husbandry regarding the convent lands.
He stood, like Blaise, bareheaded as he talked to little Lady, and heard
her somewhat peremptorily demand why they had not brought the horses and
men for her escort.
It was impossible that night, explained Martin. Time was needed to bring
in the farm-horses, and summon the other peasants, without whom the
roads were unsafe in these times of disorder. He and Blaise must go
round and warn them to be ready. A man could not be ready in a wink
of the eye, as Madame seemed to think, and the two peasants looked
impenetrable in stolidity.
‘Laggards that you are!’ cried Eustacie, petulantly, clasping her hands;
‘and meantime all will be lost. They will be upon me!’
‘Not so, Madame. It is therefore that I came here,’ said Martin,
deferentially, to the little fuming impatient creature; ‘Madame will be
far safer close at hand while the pursuit and search are going on. But
she must not stay here. This farm is the first place they will come to,
while they will never suspect mine, and my good woman Lucette will be
proud to keep watch for her. Madame knows that the place is full of
shrubs and thickets, where one half of an army might spend a fine day in
looking for the other.’
‘And at night you will get together the men and convoy me?’ asked
Eustacie, eagerly.
‘All in good time, Madame. Now she must be off, ere the holy mothers be
astir. I have brought an ass for her to ride.’
Eustacie had no choice but compliance. None of the Orchard family could
go with her, as it was needful that they should stay at home and appear
as unconcerned as possible; but they promised to meet her at the hour
and place to be appointed, ad if possible to bring Veronique.
Eating a piece of rye-bread as she went, Eustacie, in her gray cloak,
rode under Martin’s guardianship along the deep lanes, just budding with
spring, in the chill dewiness before sunrise. She was silent, and just
a little sullen, for she had found stout shrewd Martin less easy to talk
over than the admiring Blaise, and her spirit was excessively chafed by
the tardiness of her retainers. But the sun rose and cleared away all
clouds of temper, the cocks crew, the sheep bleated, and fresh morning
sounds met her ear, and seemed to cheer and fill her with hope; and in
some compunction for her want of graciousness, she thanked Martin,
and praised his ass with a pretty cordiality that would have fully
compensated for her displeasure, even if the honest man had been
sensible of it.
He halted under the lee of a barn, and gave a low whistle. At the sound,
Lucette, a brown, sturdy young woman with a red handkerchief over her
head, and another over her shoulders, came running round the corner of
the barn, and whispered eagerly under her breath, ‘Ah! Madame, Madame,
what an honour!’ kissing Eustacie’s hand with all her might as she
spoke; ‘but, alas! I fear Madame cannot come into the house. The
questing Brother Francois--plague upon him!--has taken it into his head
to drop in to breakfast. I longed to give him the cold shoulder, but it
might have brought suspicion down.’
‘Right, good woman,’ said Martin; ‘but what shall Madame do? It is broad
way, and no longer safe to run the lanes!’
‘Give me a distaff,’ said Eustacie, rising to the occasion; ‘I will go
to that bushy field, and herd the cows.’
Madame was right, the husband and wife unwillingly agreed. There, in her
peasant dress, in the remote field, sloping up into a thick wood, she
was unlikely to attract attention; and though the field was bordered on
one side by the lane leading to the road to Paris, it was separated from
it by a steep bank, crowned by one of the thick hedgerows characteristic
of the Bocage.
Here, then, they were forced to leave her, seated on a stone beneath a
thorn-bush, distaff in hand, with bread, cheese, and a pitcher of milk
for her provisions, and three or four cows grazing before her. From
the higher ground below the wood of ash and hazel, she could see the
undulating fields and orchards, a few houses, and that inhospitable
castle of her own.
She had spent many a drearier day in the convent than this, in the free
sun and air, with the feeling of liberty, and unbounded hopes founded
on this first success. She told her beads diligently, trusting that the
tale of devotions for her husband’s spirit would be equally made up in
the field as in the church, and intently all day were her ears and
eyes on the alert. Once Lucette visited her, to bring her a basin of
porridge, and to tell her that all the world at the convent was in
confusion, that messengers had been sent out in all directions, and that
M. le Chevalier had ridden out himself in pursuit; but they should soon
hear all about it, for Martin was pretending to be amongst the busiest,
and he would know how to turn them away. Again, much later in the day,
Martin came striding across the field, and had just reached her, as she
sat in the hedgerow, when the great dog who followed him pricked his
ears, and a tramping and jingling was audible in the distance in the
lane. Eustacie held up her finger, her eyes dilating.
‘It must be M. le Chevalier returning. Madame must wait a little longer.
I must be at home, or they may send out to seek me here, and that
would be ruin. I will return as soon as it is safe, if Madame will hide
herself in the hedgerow.’
Into the hedgerow accordingly crept Eustacie, cowering close to
a holly-tree at the very summit of the bank, and led by a strange
fascination to choose a spot where, unseen herself, she could gaze down
on the party who came clanking along the hollow road beneath. Nearer,
nearer, they came; and she shuddered with more of passion than of fear,
as she beheld, not only her uncle in his best well-preserved green suit,
but Narcisse, muddy with riding, though in his court braveries. Suddenly
they came to a halt close beneath her! Was she detected? Ah! just below
was the spot where the road to the convent parted from the road to the
farm; and, as Martin had apprehended, they were stopping for him. The
Chevalier ordered one of the armed men behind him to ride up to the
farm and summon Martin to speak with him; and then he and his son, while
waiting under the holly-bush, continued their conversation.
‘So that is the state of things! A fine overthrow!’ quoth Narcisse.
‘Bah! not at all. She will soon be in our hands again. I have spoken
with, or written to, every governor of the cities she must pass through,
and not one will abet the little runaway. At the first barrier she is
ours.’
‘_Et puis_?’
‘Oh, we shall have her mild as a sheep.’ (Eustacie set her teeth.)
‘Every one will be in the same story, that her marriage was a nullity;
she cannot choose but believe, and can only be thankful that we overlook
the escapade and rehabilitate her.’
‘Thank you, my good uncle,’ almost uttered his unseen auditor.
‘Well! There is too much land down here to throw away; but the affair
has become horribly complicated and distasteful.’
‘No such thing. All the easier. She can no longer play the spotless
saint--get weak-minded priests on her side--be all for strict convents.
No, no; her time for that is past! Shut her up with trustworthy persons
from whom she will hear nothing from without, and she will understand
her case. The child? It will scarce be born alive, or at any rate she
need not know whether it is. Then, with no resource, no hope, what can
she do but be too thankful for pardon, and as glad to conceal the past
as we could wish?’
Eustacie clenched her fist. Had a pistol been within her reach,
the speaker’s tenure of life had been short! She was no chastened,
self-restrained, forgiving saint, the poor little thing, only a
hot-tempered, generous, keenly-sensitive being, well-nigh a child in
years and in impulses, though with the instincts of a mother awakening
within her, and of a mother who heard the life of her unborn babe
plotted against. She was absolutely forced to hold her lips together,
to repress the sobbing scream of fury that came to her throat; and the
struggles with her gasping breath, the surging of the blood in her ears,
hindered her from hearing or seeing anything for some seconds,
though she kept her station. By the time her perceptions had cleared
themselves, Martin, cap in hand, was in the lane below, listening
deferentially to the two gentlemen, who were assuring him that inquiry
had been made, and a guard carefully set at the fugitive could have
passed those, or be able to do so. She must certainly be hidden
somewhere near home, and Martin had better warn all his friends against
hiding her, unless they wished to be hung up on the thresholds of their
burning farm-steads. Martin bowed, and thought the fellows would know
their own interest and Mademoiselle’s better.
‘Well,’ said the Chevalier, ‘we must begin without loss of time. My son
has brought down a set of fellows here, who are trained to ferret out
heretics. Not a runaway weasel cold escape them! We will set them on as
soon as ever they have taken a bit of supper up there at the Chateau;
and do you come up with us just to show them the way across to
Leonard’s. That’s no unlikely place for her to lurk in, as you said this
morning, good fellow.’
It was the most remote farm from that of Martin, and Eustacie felt how
great were his services, even while she flushed with anger to hear him
speaking of her as Mademoiselle. He was promising to follow immediately
to the castle, to meet _ces Messieurs_ there almost as soon as they
could arrive, but excusing himself from accompanying them, by the need
of driving home the big bull, whom no one else could manage.
They consented, and rode on. Martin watched them out of sight, then
sprang up by some stepping-stones in the bank, a little below where
Eustacie sat, and came crackling through the boughs to where she was
crouching down, with fierce glittering eyes and panting breath, like a
wild animal ready to spring.
‘Madame has heard,’ said Martin, under his breath.
‘If I have heard! Oh that I were a man, to slay them where they stood!
Martin, Martin! you will not betray me. Some day WE will reward you.’
‘Madame need not have said THAT to me,’ said Martin, rather hurt. ‘I am
only thinking what she can do. Alas! I fear that she must remain in this
covert till it is dark, for these men’s eyes are all on the alert. At
dark, I or Lucette will come and find a shelter for her for the night.’
Long, long, then, did Eustacie sit, muffled in her gray cloak, shrinking
together to shelter herself from the sunset chill of early spring, but
shuddering more with horror than with cold as the cruel cold-blooded
words she had heard recurred to her, and feeling as if she were fast
within a net, every outlet guarded against her, and search everywhere;
yet still with the indomitable determination to dare and suffer to the
utmost ere that which was dearer than her own life should come into
peril from her enemies.
The twilight closed in, the stars came out, sounds of life died away,
and still she sat on, becoming almost torpid in the cold darkness, until
at length she heard the low call of Lucette, ‘MADAME! AH!_la pauvre
Madame_.’ She started up, so stiff that she could hardly more, and only
guided by the voice to feel her way through the hedgerow in the right
direction. Another moment, and Lucette’s warn arms had received her; and
she was guided, scarce knowing how or where, in cautious silence to the
farmyard, and into the house, where a most welcome sight, a huge fire,
blazed cheerfully on the hearth, and Martin himself held open the door
for her. The other occupants of the kitchen were the sleeping child
in its wooden cradle, some cocks and hens upon the rafters, and a big
sheep-dog before the fire.
The warmth, and the chicken that Lucette had killed and dressed, brought
the colour back to the exhausted wanderer’s cheek, and enabled her again
to hold council for her safety. It was plain, as Martin had found in
conversation with the men-at-arms, that precautions had been taken
against her escaping in any of the directions where she might hope to
have reached friends. Alone she could not go, and any escort sufficient
to protect her would assuredly be stopped at the first town;
besides which, collecting it in secret was impossible under present
circumstances, and it would be sure to be at once overtaken and
demolished by the Chevalier Narcisse’s well-armed followers. Martin,
therefore, saw no alternative but for her to lurk about in such
hiding-places as her faithful vassals could afford her, until the search
should blow over, and the vigilance of her uncle and cousin relax. Hope,
the high-spirited hope of early youth, looked beyond to indefinite but
infinite possibility. Anything was better than the shame and horror
of yielding, and Eustacie trusted herself with all her heart for the
present, fancying, she knew not what, the future.
Indeed, the Vendean fidelity has often been tested, and she made full
proof of it among the lanes, copses, and homesteads of her own broad
lands. The whole country was a network of deep lanes, sunk between
impenetrable hedgerows, inclosing small fields, orchards, and thickets,
and gently undulating in low hills and shallow valleys, interspersed
with tall wasp-waisted windmills airily waving their arms on the top
of lofty masts. It was partitioned into small farms, inhabited by a
simple-hearted peasantry, religious and diligent, with a fair amount of
rural wealth and comfort. Their love for their lords was loyally warm,
and Eustacie monopolized it, from their detestation of her uncle’s
exactions; they would risk any of the savage punishments with which they
were threatened for concealing her; and as one by one it was needful to
take them into the secret, so as to disarm suspicion, and she was passed
from one farm to another, each proved his faithful attachment, and
though himself repaid by her thankful smile and confiding manner.
The Chevalier and his son searched vigorously. On the slightest
suspicion, they came down to the farm, closed up the outlets, threatened
the owners, turned out the house, and the very place they had last
searched would become her quarters on the next night! Messages always
had warned her in time. Intelligence was obtained by Martin, who
contrived to remain a confidential agent, and warnings were dispatched
to her by many a strange messenger--by little children, by old women, or
even by the village innocent.
The most alarming days were those when she was not the avowed object
of the chase, but when the pursuit of game rendered the coverts in the
woods and fields unsafe, and the hounds might lead to her discovery. On
one of these occasions Martin locked her up in the great hayloft of the
convent, where she could actually hear the chants in the chapel, and
distinguish the chatter of the lay-sisters in the yard. Another time, in
conjunction with the sacristan, he bestowed her in the great seigneurial
tribune (or squire’s pew) in the village church, a tall carved box,
where she was completely hidden; and the only time when she had failed
to obtain warning beforehand, she stood kneading bread at a tub in
Martin’s cottage, while the hunt passed by, and a man-at-arms looked in
and questioned the master on the last traces of the runaway.
It was seldom possible to see Mere Perrine, who was carefully watched,
under the conviction that she must know where her nursling was; but one
evening Veronique ventured up to Martin’s farm, trusting to tidings that
the gentlemen had been Eustacie’s only secure harbour; and when, in
a bright evening gleam of the setting sun from beneath the clouds,
Veronique came in sight of her Lady, the Queen’s favourite, it was to
see her leading by a string a little shaggy cow, with a bell round its
neck, her gray cloak huddled round her, though dank with wet, a long
lock of black hair streaming over her brow, her garments clinging with
damp, her bare ankles scratched with thorns, her heavy SABOTS covered
with mire, her cheeks pale with cold and wet.
The contrast overwhelmed poor Veronique. She dropped on her knees,
sobbing as if her heart would break, and declaring that this was what
the Abbess had feared; her Lady was fast killing herself.
‘Hush! Veronique,’ said Eustacie; ‘that is all folly. I am wet and weary
now, but oh! if you knew how much sweeter to me life is now than it
was, shut up down there, with my fears. See,’ and she held up a bunch
of purple pasque-flowers and wood-sorrel, ‘this is what I found in the
wood, growing out of a rugged old dead root; and just by, sheltered
by the threefold leaves of the alleluia-flower, was a bird’s nest, the
mother-bird on her eggs, watching me with the wise black eye that saw I
would not hurt her. And it brought back the words I had heard long ago,
of the good God caring for the sparrows; and I knew He would care the
more for me and mine, because I have not where to lay my head.’
‘Alas!’ sobbed Veronique, ‘now she is getting to be a saint outright.
She will be sure to die! Ah, Madame--dear Madame! do but listen to me.
If you did but know how Madame de Bellaise is afflicting herself on your
account! She sent for me--ah! do not be angry, dear Lady?’
‘I wish to hear nothing about her,’ said Eustacie.
‘Nay, listen, _de grace_--one moment, Madame! She has wept, she has
feared for you, all the lay-sisters say so. She takes no pleasure in
hawking, nor in visiting; and she did not eat more than six of Soeur
Bernardine’s best conserves. She does nothing but watch for tidings of
Madame. And she sent for me, as I told you, and conjured me, if I knew
where you were, or had any means of finding out, to implore you to trust
to her. She will swear on all the relics in the chapel never to give a
hint to Messieurs les Chevaliers if only you would trust her, and not
slay yourself with all this dreadful wandering.’
‘Never!’ said Eustacie; ‘she said too much!’
‘Ah! but she declares that, had she known the truth, she never would
have said that. Ah, yes, Madame, the Abbess is good!’ And Veronique,
holding her mistress’s cloak to secure a hearing, detailed the Abbess’
plan for lodging her niece in secret apartments within the thickness
of the convent walls, where Mere Perrine could be with her, and every
sacred pledge should be given that could remove her fears.
‘And could they make me believe them, so that the doubt and dread would
not kill me in themselves?’ said Eustacie.
‘But it is death--certain death, as it is. Oh, if Madame would hear
reason!--but she is headstrong! She will grieve when it is too late!’
‘Listen, Veronique. I have a far better plan. The sacristan has a sister
who weaves red handkerchiefs at Chollet. She will receive me, and keep
me as long as there is need. Martin is to take me in his cart when he
carries the hay to the garrison. I shall be well hidden, and within
reach of your mother. And then, when my son is once come--then all will
be well! The peasants will rise in behalf of their young Lord, though
not for a poor helpless woman. No one will dare to dispute his claim,
when I have appealed to the King; and then, Veronique, you shall come
back to me, and all will be well!’
Veronique only began to wail aloud at her mistress’ obstinacy. Martin
came up, and rudely silenced her, and said afterwards to his wife, ‘Have
a care! That girl has--I verily believe--betrayed her Lady once; and if
she do not do so again, from pure pity and faintness of heart, I shall
be much surprised.’