Till at the set of sun all tracks and ways In darkness lay enshrouded.
And e’en thus The utmost limit of the great profound At length we
reach’d, where in dark gloom and mist Cimmeria’s people and their city
lie Enveloped ever.--ODYSSEY (MUSGROVE)
The October afternoon had set in before the brothers were the way to
Nissard; and in spite of Berenger’s excited mood, the walk through the
soft, sinking sand could not be speedily performed. It was that peculiar
sand-drift which is the curse of so many coasts, slowly, silently,
irresistibly flowing, blowing, creeping in, and gradually choking all
vegetation and habitation. Soft and almost impalpable, it lay heaped in
banks yielding as air, and yet far more than deep enough to swallow up
man and horse. Nay, tops of trees, summits of chimneys, told what it had
already swallowed. The whole scene far and wide presented nothing but
the lone, tame undulations, liable to be changed by every wind, and
solitary beyond expression--a few rabbits scudding hither and thither,
or a sea-gull floating with white, ghostly wings in the air, being the
only living things visible. On the one hand a dim, purple horizon showed
that the inhabited country lay miles inland; on the other lay the
pale, gray, misty expanse of sea, on which Philip’s eyes could lovingly
discern the THROSTLE’S masts.
That view was Philip’s chief comfort. The boy was feeling more eerie and
uncomfortable than ever he had been before as he plodded along, sinking
deep with every step almost up to his ankles in the sand, on which the
bare-footed guide ran lightly, and Berenger, though sinking no less
deeply, seemed insensible to all inconveniences. This desolateness was
well-nigh unbearable; no one dared to speak while Berenger thus moved on
in the unapproachableness of his great grief, and Philip presently began
to feel a dreamy sense that they had all thus been moving for years,
that this was the world’s end, the land of shadows, and that his brother
was a ghost already. Besides vague alarms like these, there was the
dismal English and Protestant prejudice in full force in Philip’s
mind, which regarded the resent ground as necessarily hostile, and
all Frenchmen, above all French priests, as in league to cut off every
Englishman and Protestant. He believed himself in a country full of
murderers, and was walking on with the one determination that his
brother should not rush on danger without him, and that the Popish
rogues should be kept in mind that there was an English ship in sight.
Alas! that consolation was soon lost, for a dense gray mist was slowly
creeping in from the sea, and blotted out the vessel, then gathered in
closer, and obliterated all landmarks. Gradually it turned to a heavy
rain, and about the same time the ground on which they walked became no
longer loose sand-hills, but smooth and level. It was harder likewise
from the wet, and this afforded better walking, but there lay upon it
fragments of weed and shell, as though it were liable to be covered by
the sea, and there was a low, languid plash of the tide, which could
not be seen. Twilight began to deepen the mist. The guide was evidently
uneasy; he sidled up to Philip, and began to ask what he--hitherto
obstinately deaf and contemptuous to French--was very slow to
comprehend. At last he found it was a question how near it was to
All Soul’s day; and then came an equally amazing query whether the
gentlemen’s babe had been baptized; for it appeared that on All Soul’s
day the spirits of unchristened infants had the power of rising from the
sands in a bewildering mist, and leading wayfarers into the sea. And
the poor guide, white and drenched, vowed he never would have undertaken
this walk if he had only thought of this. These slaughters of heretics
must so much have augmented the number of the poor little spirits;
and no doubt Monsieur would be specially bewildered by one so nearly
concerned with him. Philip, half frightened, could not help stepping
forward and pulling Berenger by the cloak to make him aware of this
strange peril; but he did not get much comfort. ‘Baptized? Yes; you
know she was, by the old nurse. Let me alone, I say. I would follow her
wherever she called me, the innocent, and glad--the sooner the better.’
And he shook his brother off with a sadness and impatience so utterly
unapproachable, that Philip, poor boy, could only watch his tall figure
in the wide cloak and slouched hat, stalking on ever more indistinct in
the gloom, while his much confused mind tried to settle the theological
point whether the old nurse’s baptism were valid enough to prevent poor
little Berangere from becoming one of these mischievous deluders; and
all this was varied by the notion of Captain Hobbs picking up their
corpses on the beach, and of Sir Marmaduke bewailing his only son.
At last a strange muffled sound made him start in the dead silence, but
the guide hailed the sound with a joyful cry---
‘Hola! Blessings on Notre-Dame and holy Father Colombeau, now are we
saved!’ and on Philip’s hasty interrogation, he explained that it was
from the bells of Nissard, which the good priest always caused to be
rung during these sea-fogs, to disperse all evil beings, and guide the
wanderers.
The guide strode on manfully, as the sound became clearer and nearer,
and Philip was infinitely relived to be free from all supernatural
anxieties, and to have merely to guard against the wiles of a Polish
priest, a being almost as fabulously endowed in his imagination as poor
little Berangere’s soul could be in that of the fisherman.
The drenching Atlantic mist had wetted them all to the skin, and closed
round them so like a solid wall, that they had almost lost sight of each
other, and had nothing but the bells’ voices to comfort them, till quite
suddenly there was a light upon the mist, a hazy reddish gleam--a window
seemed close to them. The guide, heartily thanking Our Lady and St.
Julian, knocked at a door, which opened at once into a warm, bright,
superior sort of kitchen, where a neatly-dressed elderly peasant woman
exclaimed, ‘Welcome, poor souls! Enter, then. Here, good Father, are
some bewildered creatures. Eh! wrecked are you, good folks, or lost in
the fog?’
At the same moment there came from behind the screen that shut off the
fire from the door, a benignant-looking, hale old man in a cassock,
with long white hair on his shoulders, and a cheerful face, ruddy from
sea-wind.
‘Welcome, my friends,’ he said. ‘Thanks to the saints who have guided
you safely. You are drenched. Come to the fire at once.’
And as they moved on into the full light of the fire and the rude iron
lamp by which he had been reading, and he saw the draggled plumes and
other appurtenances that marked the two youths as gentlemen, he
added, ‘Are you wrecked, Messieurs? We will do our poor best for your
accommodation;’ and while both mechanically murmured a word of thanks,
and removed their soaked hats, the good man exclaimed, as he beheld
Berenger’s ashy face, with the sunken eyes and deep scars, ‘Monsieur
should come to bed at once. He is apparently recovering from a severe
wound. This way, sir; Jolitte shall make you some hot tisane.’
‘Wait, sir,’ said Berenger, very slowly, and his voice sounding hollow
from exhaustion; ‘they say that you can tell me of my child. Let me
hear.’
‘Monsieur’s child!’ exclaimed the bewildered curate, looking from him
to Philip, and then to the guide, who poured out a whole stream of
explanation before Philip had arranged three words of French.
‘You hear, sir,’ said Berenger, as the man finished: ‘I came hither to
seek my wife, the Lady of Ribaumont.’
‘Eh!’ exclaimed the _cure_, ‘do I then see M. le Marquis de Nid de
Merle?’
‘No!’ cried Berenger; ‘no, I am not that _scelerat_! I am her true
husband, the Baron de Ribaumont.’
‘The Baron de Ribaumont perished at the St. Bartholomew,’ said the
_cure_, fixing his eyes on him, as though to confute an impostor.
‘Ah, would that I had!’ said Berenger. ‘I was barely saved with the life
that is but misery now. I came to seek her--I found what you know. They
told me that you saved the children. Ah, tell me where mine is!--all
that is left me.’
‘A few poor babes I was permitted to rescue, but very few. But let me
understand to whom I speak,’ he added, much perplexed. ‘You, sir---’
‘I am her husband, married at five years old--contract renewed last
year. It was he whom you call Nid de Merle who fell on me, and left
me for dead. A faithful servant saved my life, but I have lain sick
in England till now, when her letter to my mother brought me to La
Sablerie, to find--to find THIS. Oh, sir, have pity on me! Tell me if
you know anything of her, or if you can give me her child.’
‘The orphans I was able to save are--the boys at nurse here, the girls
with the good nuns at Lucon,’ said the priest, with infinite pity in his
look. ‘Should you know it, sir?’
‘I would--I should,’ said Berenger. ‘But it is a girl. Ah, would that it
were here! But you--you, sir--you know more than these fellows. Is there
no--no hope of herself?’
‘Alas! I fear I can give you none,’ said the priest; ‘but I will tell
all I know; only I would fain see you eat, rest, and be dried.’
‘How can I?’ gasped he, allowing himself, however, to sink into a chair;
and the priest spoke:
‘Perhaps you know, sir, that the poor lady fled from her friends, and
threw herself upon the Huguenots. All trace had been lost, when, at a
banquet given by the mayor of Lucon, there appeared some _patisseries_,
which some ecclesiastic, who had enjoyed the hospitality of Bellaise,
recognized as peculiar to the convent there, where she had been brought
up. They were presented to the mayor by his friend, Bailli la Grasse,
who had boasted of the excellent _confitures_ of the heretic pastor’s
daughter that lodged in the town of La Sablerie. The place was in
disgrace for having afforded shelter and supplies to Montgomery’s pirate
crews, and there were narrations of outrages committed on Catholics. The
army were enraged by their failure before La Rochelle; in effect, it was
resolved to make an example, when, on M. de Nid de Merle’s summons, all
knowledge of the lady was denied. Is it possible that she was indeed not
there?’
Berenger shook his head. ‘She was indeed there,’ he said, with an
irrepressible groan. ‘Was there no mercy--none?’
‘Ask not, sir,’ said the compassionate priest; ‘the flesh shrinks,
though there may be righteous justice. A pillaged town, when men are
enraged, is like a place of devils unchained. I reached it only after it
had been taken by assault, when all was flame and blood. Ask me no
more; it would be worse for you to hear than me to tell,’ he concluded,
shuddering, but laying his hand kindly on Berenger’s arm. ‘At least it
is ended now and God is more merciful than men. Many died by the bombs
cast into to city, and she for whom you ask certainly fell not alive
into the hands of those who sought her. Take comfort, sir; there is One
who watches and takes count of our griefs. Sir, turning to Philip, ‘this
gentleman is too much spent with sorrow to bear this cold and damp. Aid
me, I entreat, to persuade him to lie down.’
Philip understood the priest’s French far better than that of the
peasants, and added persuasions that Berenger was far too much exhausted
and stunned to resist. To spend a night in a Popish priest’s house would
once have seemed to Philip a shocking alternative, yet here he was,
heartily assisting in removing the wet garments in which his brother
had sat only too long, and was heartily relieved to lay him down in the
priest’s own bed, even though there was an image over the head, which,
indeed, the boy never saw. He only saw his brother turn away from the
light with a low, heavy moan, as if he would fain be left alone with his
sorrow and his crushed hopes.
Nothing could be kinder than Dome Colombeau, the priest of Nissard.
He saw to the whole of his guests being put into some sort of dry
habiliments before they sat round his table to eat of the savoury mess
in the great _pot-au-feu_, which had, since their arrival, received
additional ingredients, and moreover sundry villagers had crept into the
house. Whenever the good Father supped at home, any of his flock were
welcome to drop in to enjoy his hospitability. After a cup of hot cider
round, they carried off the fisherman to ledge in one of their cottages.
Shake-downs were found for the others, and Philip, wondering what was
to become of the good host himself, gathered that he meant to spend such
part of the night on the kitchen floor as he did not pass in prayer in
the church for the poor young gentleman, who was in such affliction.
Philip was not certain whether to resent this as an impertinence or an
attack on their Protestant principles; but he was not sure, either, that
the priest was aware what was their religion, and was still less certain
of his own comprehension of these pious intentions: he decided that, any
way, it was better not to make a fool of himself. Still, the notion
of the mischievousness of priests was so rooted in his head, that he
consulted Humfrey on the expedience of keeping watch all night, but was
sagaciously answered that ‘these French rogues don’t do any hurt unless
they be brought up to it, and the place was as safe as old Hurst.’
In fact, Philip’s vigilance would have been strongly against nature. He
never awoke till full daylight and morning sun were streaming through
the vine-leaves round the window, and then, to his dismay, he saw that
Berenger had left his bed, and was gone. Suspicions of foul play coming
over him in full force as he gazed round on much that he considered as
‘Popish furniture,’ he threw on his clothes, and hastened to open the
door, when, to his great relief, he saw Berenger hastily writing at a
table under the window, and Smithers standing by waiting for the billet.
‘I am sending Smithers on board, to ask Hobbs to bring our cloak bags,’
said Berenger, as his brother entered. ‘We must go on to Lucon.’
He spoke briefly and decidedly, and Philip was satisfied to see him
quite calm and collected--white indeed, and with the old haggard look,
and the great scar very purple instead of red, which was always a bad
sign with him. He was not disposed to answer questions; he shortly said,
‘He had slept not less than usual,’ which Philip knew meant very little;
and he had evidently made up his mind, and was resolved not to
let himself give way. If his beacon of hope had been so suddenly,
frightfully quenched, he still was kept from utter darkness by straining
his eyes and forcing his steps to follow the tiny, flickering spark that
remained.
The priest was at his morning mass; and so soon as Berenger had given
his note to Smithers, and sent him off with a fisherman to the THROSTLE,
he took up his hat, and went out upon the beach, that lay glistening
in the morning sun, then turned straight towards the tall spire of the
church, with had been their last night’s guide. Philip caught his cloak.
‘You are never going there, Berenger?’
‘Vex me not now,’ was all the reply he got. ‘There the dead and living
meet together.’
‘But, brother, they will take you for one of their own sort.’
‘Let them.’
Philip was right that it was neither a prudent nor consistent
proceeding, but Berenger had little power of reflection, and his impulse
at present bore him into the church belonging to his native faith and
land, without any defined felling, save that it was peace to kneel
there among the scattered worshippers, who came and went with their
fish-baskets in their hands, and to hear the low chant of the priest and
his assistant from within the screen.
Philip meantime marched up and down outside in much annoyance, until the
priest and his brother came out, when the first thing he heard the good
Colombeau say was, ‘I would have called upon you before, my son, but
that I feared you were a Huguenot.’
‘I am an English Protestant,’ said Berenger; ‘but, ah! sir, I needed
comfort too much to stay away from prayer.’
Pere Colombeau looked at him in perplexity, thinking perhaps that here
might be a promising convert, if there were only time to work on him;
but Berenger quitted the subject at once, asking the distance to Lucon.
‘A full day’s journey,’ answered Pere Colombeau, and added, ‘I am sorry
you are indeed a Huguenot. It was what I feared last night, but I feared
to add to your grief. The nuns are not permitted to deliver up children
to Huguenot relations.’
‘I am her father!’ exclaimed Berenger, indignantly.
‘That goes for nothing, according to the rules of the Church,’ said the
priest. ‘The Church cannot yield her children to heresy.’
‘But we in England and not Calvinists,’ cried Berenger. ‘We are not like
your Huguenots.’
‘The Church would make no difference,’ said the priest. ‘Stay, sir,’
as Berenger stuck his own forehead, and was about to utter a fierce
invective. ‘Remember that if your child lives, it is owing to the pity
of the good nuns. You seem not far from the bosom of the Church. Did you
but return---’
‘It is vain to speak of that,’ said Berenger, quickly. ‘Say, sir, would
an order from the King avail to open these doors?’
‘Of course it would, if you have the influence to obtain one.’
‘I have, I have,’ cried Berenger, eagerly. ‘The King has been my good
friend already. Moreover, my English grandfather will deal with the
Queen. The heiress of our house cannot be left in a foreign nunnery.
Say, sir,’ he added, turning to the priest, ‘if I went to Lucon at once
know your name, and refuse all dealings with you.’
‘She could not do so, if I brought an order from the King.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then to Paris!’ And laying his hand on Philip’s shoulder, he asked the
boy whether he had understood, ad explained that he must go at once to
Paris--riding post--and obtain the order from the King.
‘To Paris--to be murdered again!’ said Philip, in dismay.
‘They do not spend their time there in murder,’ said Berenger. ‘And now
is the time, while the savage villain Narcisse is with his master in
Poland. I cannot but go, Philip; we both waste words. You shall take
home a letter to my Lord.’
‘I--I go not home without you,’ said Philip, doggedly.
‘I cannot take you, Phil; I have no warrant.’
‘I have warrant for going, though. My father said he was easier about
you with me at your side. Where you go, I go.’
The brothers understood each other’s ways so well, that Berenger knew
the intonation in Philip’s voice that meant that nothing should make him
give way. He persuaded no more, only took measures for the journey, in
which the kind priest gave him friendly advice. There was no doubt that
the good man pitied him sincerely, and wished him success more than
perhaps he strictly ought to have done, unless as a possible convert.
Of money for the journey there was no lack, for Berenger had brought a
considerable sum, intending to reward all who had befriended Eustacie,
as well as to fit her out for the voyage; and this, perhaps, with
his papers, he had brought ashore to facilitate his entrance into La
Sablerie,--that entrance which, alas! he had found only too easy. He had
therefore only to obtain horses and a guide, and this could be done
at la Motte-Achard, where the party could easily be guided on foot,
or conveyed in a boat if the fog should not set in again, but all the
coast-line of Nissard was dangerous in autumn and winter; nay, even this
very August an old man, with his daughter, her infant, and a donkey, had
been found bewildered between the creeks on a sandbank, where they stood
still and patient, like a picture of the Flight into Egypt, when an old
fisherman found them, and brought them to the beneficent shelter of the
Presbytere.
Stories of this kind were told at the meal that was something partaking
of the nature of both breakfast and early dinner, but where Berenger ate
little and spoke less. Philip watched him anxiously; the boy thought
the journey a perilous experiment every way, but, boyishly, was resolved
neither to own his fears of it nor to leave his brother. External perils
he was quite ready to face, and he fancied that his English birth would
give him some power of protecting Berenger, but he was more reasonably
in dread of the present shock bringing on such an illness as the last
relapse; and if Berenger lost his senses again, what should they do? He
even ventured to hint at this danger, but Berenger answered, ‘That will
scarce happen again. My head is stronger now. Besides, it was doing
nothing, and hearing her truth profaned, that crazed me. No one at least
will do that again. But if you wish to drive me frantic again, the way
would be to let Hobbs carry me home without seeking her child.’
Philip bore this in mind, when, with flood-tide, Master Hobbs landed,
and showed himself utterly dismayed at the turn affairs had taken. He
saw the needlessness of going to Lucon without royal authority; indeed,
he thought it possible that the very application there might give the
alarm, and cause all tokens of the child’s identity to be destroyed,
in order to save her from her heretic relations. But he did not at
all approve of the young gentlemen going off to Paris at once. It was
against his orders. He felt bound to take them home as he has brought
them, and they might then make a fresh start if it so pleased them; but
how could he return to my Lord and Sir Duke without them? ‘Mr. Ribaumont
might be right--it was not for him to say a father ought not to look
after his child--yet he was but a stripling himself, and my Lord had
said, ‘Master Hobbs, I trust him to you.’’ He would clearly have liked
to have called in a boat’s crew, mastered the young gentlemen, and
carried them on board as captives; but as this was out of his power, he
was obliged to yield the point. He disconsolately accepted the letters
in which Berenger had explained all, and in which he promised to go
at once to Sir Francis Walsingham’s at Paris, to run into no needless
danger, and to watch carefully over Philip; and craved pardon, in a
respectful but yet manly and determined tone, for placing his duty to
his lost, deserted child above his submission to his grandfather. Then
engaging to look out for a signal on the coast if he should said to
Bordeaux in January, to touch and take the passengers off, Captain Hobbs
took leave, and the brothers were left to their own resources.