THE COUNTRY OF THE DREAD
The three remaining Scottish palmers were riding due west into a
sunset which hung like a broad red girdle over the Atlantic. All the
sky above their heads was blue grey and lucent. But along the horizon,
as it seemed for the space of two handbreadths, there was suspended
this bandolier of flaming scarlet.
The adventurers were not weary of their quest. They were only sick at
heart with the fruitlessness of it.
First upon leaving Paris they had gone on to the Castle of Champtocé,
and from beneath had surveyed the noble range of battlements crowning
the heights above the broad, poplar-guarded levels of the Loire. The
Chateau de Thouars also they had seen, a small white-gabled house,
most like a Scottish baron's tower, which the Marshal de Retz
possessed in virtue of his neglected wife Katherine. In it her sister
the Lady Sybilla had been born. Solitary and tenantless, save for a
couple of guards and their uncovenanted womenkind, it looked down on
its green island meadows, while on the horizon hung the smoke of the
wood fires lit at morn and eve by the good wives of Nantes.
To that place the three had next journeyed and had there beheld the
great Hotel de Suze, set like an enemy's fortress in the midst of the
turbulent city, over against the Castle of the King. But the Hotel,
though held like a place of arms, was untenanted by the marshal, his
retinue, or the lost Scottish maids.
Next they found the strong Castle of Tiffauges, above the green and
rippling waters of the Sevres, void also as the others. No light
gleamed out of that window of sinister repute, high up in the
cliff-like wall, from which strange shapes were reported to look forth
even at deep midnoon.
North, south, and east the three had ridden through the country of
Retz. There remained but Machecoul, more remote and also darker in
repute than any of the other dwelling-places of Gilles de Retz. As
they rode westward towards it, they became day by day more conscious
of the darkening down of the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, which,
murky and lowering, overhung all that fair land of southern Brittany.
The vast pine forests from which rose the lonely towers of this the
marshal's most remote castle could now be seen, serrated darkly
against the broad belt of the sky. The sombre blackness of their
spreading branches, the yet blacker darkness where the gaps between
their red trunks showed a way into the wood, increased the gloom of
the weary travellers. Yet they rode on, Sholto eagerly, Malise grimly,
and the Lord James with the dogged resignation of a good knight who
may be depended on to see an adventure through, however irksome it may
be proving.
James of Avondale thought within himself that the others had greater
interests in the quest than he--the younger MacKim having at stake the
honour of his sweetheart Maud, the elder the life of his young
mistress, the last of the Galloway house of Douglas.
Yet it was with that jolly heart of his beating strong and loyal under
his brown palmer's coat, that James Douglas rode towards Machecoul,
only whistling low to himself and wishing that something would happen
to break the monotony of their journey.
Nor had he long to wait. For just as the sun was setting they rode all
three of them abreast into the little hamlet of Saint Philbert, and
saw the sullen waters of the Étang de Grande Lieu spread marshy and
brackish as far as the eye could reach, edged by peat bogs and
overhung perilously by gloomy pines nodding over pools blacker than
scrivener's ink.
As the three Scots looked into the stockaded entrance of the village,
they could see the children playing on the long, irregular street, and
the elder folk sitting about their doors in the evening light.
But as soon as the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard, borne from far
down the aisles of the forest, there arose a sudden clamour and a
crying. From each little sparred enclosure rushed forth a woman who
snatched a baby here and there and drove a herd of children before her
indoors, glancing around and behind her as she did so with the anxious
look of a motherly barn-door fowl when the hawk hangs poised in the
windless sky.
By the time the three men had entered the gate and ridden up the
village street, all was silent and dark. The windows were shut, the
doors were barred, and the village had become a street of living
tombs.
"What means this?" said the Lord James; "the people are surely afraid
of us."
"'Tis doubtless but their wonted welcome to their lord, the Sieur de
Retz. He seems to be popular wherever he goes," said Malise, grimly;
"but let us dismount and see if we can get stabling for our beasts.
Did they not tell us there was not another house for miles betwixt
here and Machecoul?"
So without waiting for dissent or counter opinion, the master armourer
went directly up to the door of the most respectable-appearing house
in the village, one which stood a little back from the road and was
surrounded by a wall. Here he dismounted and knocked loudly with his
sword-hilt upon the outer gate. The noise reverberated up and down the
street, and was tossed back in undiminished volume from the green wall
of pines which hemmed in the village.
But there was no answer, and Malise grew rapidly weary of his own
clamour.
"Hold my bridle," he said curtly to Sholto, and with a single push of
his shoulders he broke the wooden bar, and the two halves of the outer
gate fell apart before him. A great, smooth-haired yellow dog of the
country rushed furiously at the intruders, but Malise, who was as
dexterous as he was powerful, received him with so sound a buffet on
the head that he paused bewildered, shaking his ears, whereat Malise
picked him up, tucked him under his arm, and with thumbs about his
windpipe effectually choked his barking. Then releasing him, Malise
took no further notice of this valorous enemy, and the poor, loyal,
baffled beast, conscious of defeat, crept shamefacedly away to hide
his disgrace among the faggots.
But Malise was growing indignant and therefore dangerous and ill to
cross.
"Never did I see such mannerless folk," he growled; "they will not
even give a stranger a word or a bite for his beast."
Then he called to his companions, "Come hither and speak to these
cravens ere I burst their inner doors as well."
At this by no means empty threat came the Lord James and spoke aloud
in his cheery voice to those within the silent house: "Good people, we
are no robbers, but poor travellers and strangers. Be not afraid. All
we want is that you should tell us which house is the inn that we may
receive refreshment for ourselves and our horses."
Then there came a voice from behind the door: "There is no inn nearer
than Pornic. We are poor people and cannot support one. We pray your
highness to depart in peace."
"But, good sir," answered James Douglas, "that we cannot do. Our
steeds are foot weary with a long day's journey. Give us the shelter
of your barns and a bundle of fodder and we will be content. We have
food and drink with us. Open, and be not afraid."
"Of what country are you? Are you of the household of the Sieur de
Retz?"
"Nay," cried James again, "we are pilgrims returning to our own city
of Albi in the Tarn country. We know nothing of any Sieur de Retz.
Look forth from a window and satisfy yourself."
"Then if there be treachery in your hearts, beware," said the
tremulous voice again; "for I have four young men here by me whose
powder guns are even now ready to fire from all the windows if you
mean harm."
A white face looked out for a moment from the casement, and as quickly
ducked within. Then the voice continued its bleating.
"My lords, I will open the door. But forgive the fears of a poor old
man in a wide, empty house."
The door opened and a curious figure appeared within. It was a man
apparently decrepit and trembling, who in one hand carried a lantern
and in the other a staff over which he bent with many wheezings of
exhausted breath.
"What would you with a poor old man?" he said.
"We would have shelter and fodder, if it please you to give them to us
for the sake of God's grace."
The old man trembled so vehemently that he was in danger of shaking
out the rushlight which flickered dismally in his wooden lantern.
"I am a poor, poor man," he quavered; "I have naught in the world save
some barley meal and a little water."
"That will do famously," said James Douglas; "we are hungry men, and
will pay well for all you give us."
The countenance of the cripple instantly changed. He looked up at the
speaker with an alert expression.
"Pay," he said, "pay--did you not say you would pay? Why, I thought
you were gentlefolks! Now, by that I know that you are none, but of
the commonalty like myself."
James Douglas took a gold angel out of his belt and threw it to him.
The cripple collapsed upon the top of the piece of money and groped
vainly for it with eager, outspread fingers in the dust of the yard.
"I cannot find it, good gentleman," he piped, shrill as an east wind;
"alas, what shall I do? Poor Cæsar cannot find it. It was not a piece
of gold;--do tell me that it was not a piece of gold; to lose a piece
of gold, that were ruin indeed."
Sholto picked up the lantern which had slipped from his trembling
hand. The tallow was beginning to gutter out as it lay on its side,
and a moment's search showed him the gold glittering on some farmyard
rubbish. With a little shrill cry like a frightened bird the old man
fell upon it, as it had been with claws.
"Bite upon it and see if the gold be good," said Sholto, smiling.
"Alas," cried the cripple, "I have but one tooth. But I know the coin.
It is of the right mintage and greasiness. O lovely gold! Beautiful
gentlemen, bide where you are and I will be back with you in a
moment."
And the old man limped away with astonishing quickness to hide his
acquisition, lest, mayhap, his guests should repent them and retract
their liberality.