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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XXI.</h4> The player's account of himself had interested me more than he knew, especially that part of it which referred to the unfortunate Count de Bagnols. There seemed something extraordinary in the chance, which threw circumstance after circumstance of his history upon my knowledge; and I felt a superstitious sort of feeling about it, which was weak, I own, but which was pardonable perhaps in a mind labouring like mine under a high degree of morbid excitement. I fancied that I was destined to be the Count's avenger; and I felt, at the same time, that I should be doing human nature good service in ridding the world of such a man as the Marquis de St. Brie; nor did I believe that the eye of Heaven could look frowningly upon so signal an act of justice. I reasoned, finely too, upon the right of an individual to execute that retributive punishment which either the laws of his country were inadequate to perform, or its judges unwilling to enforce. But where was there ever yet a deed unsusceptible of fine reasoning to justify it to the doer? Acts well nigh as black as the revolt of Satan have met able defenders in their day; and in the prejudiced tribunal of my own bosom I easily found a voice to sanction what I had already determined. In regard to the papers of the Count de Bagnols, which had fallen into my possession by so curious a train of circumstances, I had them still about me; but I did not think fit to mention the circumstance to Monsieur Achilles Lefranc, upon whose judgment I had no great reason to rely. I determined, however, if fortune should ever permit me to revisit my own country, to seek out the nearest relations of the count, and to deliver the papers into their hands as an act of justice to the memory of that unhappy nobleman; and I also felt a sort of stern pleasure in the hope of once more measuring my sword with the daring villain whose many detestable actions seemed to call loudly for chastisement. There might be a touch of over-excited enthusiasm--of that sort of exaltation of mind which men call fanaticism in religion, and which borders upon frenzy, when it relates to the common affairs of life, but I hope--I believe--nay, I am sure that there was no thirst of personal revenge in that wish. I felt indignant that such a man should have been allowed to live so long, and that neither private vengeance nor public justice should yet have overtaken him with the fate he so well merited; and my sensations, which were at all times irritable enough, had been worked up, by the scenes and circumstances I had lately gone through, to a pitch of excitement which not every man could feel, and none perhaps can describe. While little Achilles had been engaged in recounting his history, he had kept close by my side, jogging on upon his ass, looking like a less corpulent and more youthful Sancho Panza, accompanying a less gaunt and grimly Quixote. Not that I believe my appearance had been much improved by two such nights as I had passed, nor indeed was the bandage round my head very ornamental; and in this respect was I but the better qualified to represent the doughty hero of La Mancha. No adventures, however, of any kind attended our journey; and we passed the mountains and descended into Spain undisturbed. Towards three o'clock, after having proceeded near ten miles in an eastern direction, we reached a little village, which seemed a great resort of the smugglers; for here every one of them was known, and several of them had their habitations--if indeed such a name could be applied to the spot where they only rested a few brief days in the intervals of their long and frequent absences. The moment our cavalcade was seen upon the hill above the village, a bustle made itself manifest amongst the inhabitants; and we could perceive a boy running from house to house spreading the glad news. A crowd of women and children assembled in an instant, and coming out to meet us, expressed their joy with a thousand gratulatory exclamations. The rich golden air of a spring afternoon in Spain; the picturesque cottages covered with their young vines, and scattered amongst the broken masses of the mountain; the gay dresses of the Spanish mountaineers, the graceful forms of the women and children, and the beautiful groups into which they fell as they advanced to greet us,--all offered a lovely and interesting sight to the eyes of a stranger. It was one of the pictures of Claude Gelée wakened into life. Every one sprang to the ground, and a thousand welcomes and embraces were exchanged; the sight of which made my heart swell with feelings I cannot describe. There were none to embrace or welcome me! Amongst the foremost of those who came to meet us on our arrival, was a beautiful young woman of the most delicate form and feature I ever beheld; exquisitely lovely in every line; but so slight, so fragile, it seemed as if the very breath of the mountain wind would have torn her like a butterfly. She ran on, however, with a quicker step than all the rest, and casting herself into the gigantic arms of Garcias, gazed up in his face with a look of that tender affection not to be mistaken, while a glistening moisture in her eye told how very, very glad she was to see him returned in safety. She was the last person on earth one would have imagined the wife of the fierce and daring man to whom her fate was united. But Garcias with her was not fierce; it seemed as if to him her tenderness was contagious; and the moment his eye met hers, its fire sunk and softened, and it only seemed to reflect the tender glance of her own. After giving a delicious moment or two to the first sweet feelings of his return, the smuggler appeared suddenly to remember me, and taking me by the hand, he presented me to his wife as a French gentleman, to whom he and his were indebted for much; adding, that all the hospitality she could show me would not repay the kindness and patronage he had received from my house. She received me with a modesty, and a grace, and a simple elegance, I had hardly expected to meet in an insignificant mountain village; and led the way to their dwelling, which was by far the best in the place, not even excepting that of the principal officer of the Spanish customs, who, somewhat to my surprise, came out of his house to welcome back Garcias, with more friendship than I could have supposed to exist between a smuggler and a douanier. Our arrival was the signal for feasting and merriment. Some of the youths of the village had been very successful in the chase; and the delicate flesh of the izzard, with fine white bread and excellent wine, were in such abundance, that my poor little follower, Achilles Lefranc, ate, and drank, and sang, and gesticulated, seeming to think himself quite in the land of promise. He busied himself about everything; and though he neither understood nor spoke one word of the language, he was so gay, and so lively, and so well pleased himself, that he won the goodwill of the whole village. After affording us shelter till we had supped, as soon as the sun began to sink behind the mountains every house in the place poured forth its inhabitants upon a little green. In the centre stood a group of high ash trees, under which the great majority seated themselves, notwithstanding the disagreeable odour of the cantharides which were buzzing about thickly amongst the branches; the rest took it in turns to dance to the music of a guitar, which was played by the young smuggler whose vocal powers I had already been made acquainted with. Never in court or drawing-room did I see more grace or more beauty than on that village green; while the awful masses of the mountains, stretching blue and vast behind, offered a strange grand contrast to the light figures of the gay ephemeral beings that were sporting like butterflies before me. The mingling of the two scenes, and the calm placidity which both tended to inspire, did not fail to find its way to my heart, and to soothe and quiet the anguish which had not yet left it. In the meanwhile, the musician joined his voice to the notes of his guitar, and sang one of their village songs. SONG. I. "Dance! dance! dance! Life so quick is past, Seize ye its minutes for joy as they fly: Existence' flowers so brief a space may last, 'Twere pity to see them but blossom and die. II. "Dance! dance! dance! On the roses tread, That swift-fleeting Time shall let fall ere he go; He's now in his spring, but full soon shall he shed On every dark ringlet his wintry snow. III. "Dance! dance! dance! Cheat the heavy hours, They're tyrants would bind us to Time's chariot fast; Weave then a chain of gay summer flowers, And make them our slaves while youth's reign shall last." He had scarcely ended, and was still continuing the air upon his guitar, when a horse's feet were heard clattering up over the stones of the village, and in a minute or two after, a young man rode up, dressed in a costume somewhat different from that of the villagers, but still decidedly Spanish. On his appearance, the dance instantly stopped, several voices crying, "It is Francisco from Lerida. He brings news of Fernandez! What news of Fernandez?" together with a variety of other exclamations and interrogatories, making a quantum of noise and confusion sufficient to prevent his answering any one distinctly for at least five minutes after his arrival. The horseman, however, seemed but little disposed to reply to any one, slowly dismounting from his horse with what appeared to me an air of assumed importance. "Ah! he is playing his old tricks," cried one of the merry boys of the village; "he wants to frighten us about Fernandez." "No, indeed!" cried Francisco, with a sigh; "I have, as the old story-book goes, so often cried out wolf! that perhaps you will not believe me now when it is true: but I bring you all sad news, and with a heavy heart I bring it. To you, my cousin, especially," he continued, speaking to Garcias' wife, who sat beside her husband, with her elbow leaning on his knee--"I know not well how to tell you what I have got to relate; but I came off in speed this morning, to see what we could all do to mend a bad business. Your brother Fernandez is now in prison at Lerida, and I am afraid that worse may come of it." "In prison! Why? How? What for?" exclaimed Garcias, starting up; "he shall not be in prison long!" "I fear me he will," replied the other, shaking his head,--"I fear me he will, if ever he come out of it. You all know the dreadful state of our province of Catalonia since that tyrant villain the count-duke has filled it with the most lawless and undisciplined soldiers in Spain. For the last three months our minds have been worked up to a pitch of desperation which every day threatened to plunge us into anarchy and revolt; wrong upon wrong, exaction after exaction, oppression outdoing oppression----" "But Fernandez--what of him?" cried Garcias. "Speak of him, Francisco. We well know what you have endured." "Well, then, all I can tell you of him is this," proceeded the Catalonian, apparently not well pleased at having been interrupted in the fine oration he was making: "as far as I could hear, for I was not present, he interfered to prevent one of the base soldados from maltreating a woman in the street. The soldier struck him. Fernandez is not a man to bear a blow, and he plunged his knife some six inches into his body. He was immediately arrested, disarmed, and carried to the castle. If the soldier dies, he will, they say, be shot off from one of the cannons' mouths; if he recovers, the galleys are to be Fernandez's doom for life." The wife of the smuggler had listened to this account of her brother's situation without proffering a word either of inquiry or remark; but I saw her cheek, like a withering rose, growing paler and paler as the incautious narrator proceeded, till at length, as he mentioned the horrible fate likely to befall the hero of his tale, she fell back upon the turf totally insensible. The effect of the history had been different upon Garcias; his brow became bent as the speaker went on, it is true; but the passionate agitation, which at first seemed to affect him, wore away, and he assumed a cold sort of calmness, which remained uninterrupted even upon the fainting of his wife. He raised her in his arms, however, and bidding Francisco wait a moment till he could return, he carried her away towards their own dwelling, accompanied by all the women of the place, in whose care he left her. On coming back, he questioned the Catalonian keenly to ascertain whether his brother-in-law had been in any degree to blame; but from all the replies he could obtain, it appeared that the conduct of the soldier had been gross and outrageous in the extreme; that Fernandez, as they called him, had merely interfered, when no man but a coward or a pander could have refrained, and that he actually stabbed the soldier in defence of his own life. Garcias made no observation, but he held his hand upon the pommel of his sword; and every now and then his fingers clasped upon it, with a sort of convulsive motion, which seemed to indicate that all was not so quiet within as the tranquillity of his countenance bespoke. "Well," said he, at length looking up to the sky, which by this time began to show more than one twinkling star, shining like a diamond through the blue expanse;--"well, it is too late tonight to think of what can be done. Come, Francisco, you want both food and rest--come, you must lodge with us. Monsieur de l'Orme," he added, turning to me, and speaking in French, "you will find our lodging but hard, and our fare but poor, but if you will take the best of welcomes for seasoning to the one, and for down to the other, you could not have more of it in a palace." I returned home with him to his cottage; but not wishing to intrude more than I could help upon his privacy, when I knew his wife was both ill in body and in mind, and fearful also of interrupting any conversation he might wish to have with his companion, I retired to a room which had been prepared for me, and undressing myself with the assistance of my little follower Achilles, who made a most excellent extempore valet-de-chambre, I cast myself on the bed, hardly hoping to sleep. A long day of fatigue had been friendly to me, however, in this respect; and I scarcely saw my little attendant nestle himself into a high pile of dried rosemary, with which the mountains abound, and which, with the addition of a cloak, forms the bed of many a mountaineer, before I was myself asleep. My slumbers remained unbroken till I was awakened by Garcias shaking me by the arm. It was still deep night, and starting up, I saw by the light of a lamp which he carried, that he was completely dressed, and armed with more precaution than even during his excursions into France. "I have to ask your pardon, monseigneur," said he, in a low deep tone, as soon as I was completely awake, "for thus disturbing you, and, indeed, it was my intention not to have done so; but I am about to set out for Lerida, and before I go, I wish to lay before you such plans as are most feasible for your comfort and safety in Spain. In the first place, you can remain here, if a poor village, and poor fare, and mountain sports, may suit you; but if you do, your time may hang heavy on your hands, and beware of lightening it with the smiles of our women--remember, the Spaniard is jealous by nature, and revengeful, too; and there is not a black-eyed girl in this village that has not some one to watch and to protect her." The blood rose in my cheek, and I replied somewhat hastily, "Were she as unprotected as a wild flower, do you think I would take advantage of her friendlessness? You do me wrong, Garcias; and by Heaven, were I so willed, it would be no fear of a revengeful Spaniard would stand in the way of my pursuit! But, as I said, you do me wrong,--great wrong!" "Be not angry, my noble Count," replied the smuggler, with a calm smile; "I know what youth and idleness may do with many a one, even with the best dispositions? I warned you for your own good, and I am not a man who values any of this earth's empty bubbles so highly as not to say my mind when I am sure that it is right. But hear me still:--humble as I am in station, I have one or two friends of a higher class, and I can give you a letter to the new corregidor of Saragossa, who will easily obtain you rank in the Spanish armies, if you choose to employ yourself in war, which I know is the only occupation that you nobles of France can hold." "Not to Saragossa," replied I; "no, not to Saragossa; I cannot go there. But you say the new corregidor; what has become of the former one?" "He died this last month," replied Garcias; "and a good man he was--God rest his soul! He was much beloved by all classes of the people. He died, they say, of grief for the loss of his only child. But if you love not Saragossa, hark to another plan. I go to Lerida. You can accompany me as far as the town gates, but you must not go with me farther. You have heard of the fate of my wife's brother--he must, he shall be saved, or I will light such a flame in Catalonia as shall burn up these mercenary sworders by whom it is consumed, as by a flight of devastating locusts--ay, shall burn them up like stubble! What may come of my journey, I know not--death, perhaps, to many; and therefore, though you may go with me to Lerida, turn off before you enter the town, and make all speed to Barcelona, where you will find many a vessel ready to sail for France. You will easily find your way to Paris, where you may conceal yourself as well as if you were in Spain; and as you will land in a different part of the country from that where your appearance might prove dangerous to yourself, you will run no risk of interruption in your journey; at the same time, you will be able more easily to communicate with your family and friends, and negotiate at the court for your pardon." I did not hesitate in regard to which I should choose of the three plans that Garcias propounded. At once, and without difficulty, I fixed upon that course which, by carrying me directly to Paris, would give me a thousand facilities that I could not possess in Spain. Though so far from the capital, of course, a frequent communication existed between my native province and Paris, and I thus hoped soon to satisfy myself in regard to all the circumstances which had followed my flight from the Château de l'Orme; I should also be in the immediate neighbourhood of the Count de Soissons; and I doubted not, that, by putting myself under his protection, I could easily obtain those letters of grace which would insure me from all the painful circumstances of a trial for murder: for although the severities which the Cardinal de Richelieu had exercised upon the nobles, in every case where they laid themselves open to the blow of the law, showed evidently that my nobility would be no protection, yet, knowing little of the politics of the court, I fancied that he would not reject the intercession of a prince of the blood royal. There is no reason why I should not acknowledge that, in these respects, I was most anxious about that life which I would have cast into the most hazardous circumstances--ay, even thrown away in any honourable manner; but to die the death of a common felon, or even to be arraigned as one, was what I could not bear to dream of. There is something naturally more valuable to man than life itself--something more fearful than death; for though my whole mind was bent on saving myself from the fate that menaced me, at the same time with every thought came the remembrance that it was Helen's brother I had slain--that she could never, never be mine; and I cursed the life I struggled for. As soon as my determination was expressed, Garcias pressed me to hasten my movements; and as the little player had awoke, and, seeing me about to depart, insisted on accompanying me, the next consideration became, how to mount him, so as to enable him to keep up with the quick pace at which we proposed to proceed. Horses, however, were plentiful in the village; and the smuggler, although it was now midnight, took upon himself to appropriate the beast of one of his companions, for which I left three gold pieces as payment. I was soon dressed; and Garcias having supplied me with some articles of apparel, of which I stood in some need, we proceeded to the green, where we found Francisco, who had brought the news of his kinsman's arrest, together with the horses, and four or five of Garcias' associates, armed like himself, and prepared to mount. We were instantly in our saddles, and set off at all speed, greatly to the annoyance of poor little Achilles; who, not much accustomed to equestrian exercise, and perched upon the ridge of a tall strong horse, looked as if he was riding the Pyrenees, and riding them ill. I kept him close to myself, however, and contrived to maintain him in his seat, till such time as he had in some degree got shaken into the saddle; after which he began to feel himself more at his ease, and to play the good horseman. Little conversation took place on the road, the mind of Garcias labouring evidently under a high degree of excitement, which he was afraid might break forth if he spoke, and I myself being far too much swallowed up in the selfishness of painful thoughts to care much about the schemes or wishes of others. I gathered, however, from the occasional questions which Garcias addressed to Francisco, and the replies he received, that the whole of Catalonia was ripe for revolt; that the sufferings of the people, and the outrages of the Castilian soldiery, had arrived at a point no longer to be endured; and that the murmurs and inflammatory placards which had lately been much spoken of, were but the roarings of the volcano before an eruption. Several private meetings of the citizens and the peasantry had been held, Francisco observed; and at more than one of these, aid, arms, ammunition, money, and co-operation, had been promised on the part of France. All was ready for revolt; the pile was already laid whereon to sacrifice to the god of liberty, and it wanted but some hand to apply the torch. "That hand shall be mine," muttered Garcias;--"that hand shall be mine, if they change not their doings mightily;" and here the conversation again dropped. For three hours we rode on in darkness, by rough and narrow paths, which probably we might not have passed so safely had it been day; for we went on with that sort of fearlessness which is almost always sure to conduct one securely through the midst of danger. Although I felt my horse make many a slip and many a flounder as we went along, I knew not the real state of the roads over which we passed, till I found him plunge up to his shoulders in a pit of water that lay in the midst. By spurring him on, however, I forced him up the other side; and shortly after the day broke, showing what might, indeed, be called by courtesy a road, but which seemed in truth but an old watercourse, obstructed with large stones and deep holes, and, in short, a thousand degrees worse in every respect than any path we had followed through the gorges of the Pyrenees. No feeling, I believe, is more consistently inconsistent than cowardice. Children shut their eyes in the dark to avoid seeing ghosts; and as long as my little companion Achilles could not exactly discover the dangers of the path, he proceeded very boldly; but no sooner did he perceive, by the light of the dawn, the holes, the rocks, and the channels, which obstructed the road at every step, than he fell into the most ludicrous trepidation, and called down upon his head many an objurgation from Garcias for hanging behind in the worst parts, floundering like a fish left in the shallows. During the whole of our journey hitherto we had passed neither house nor village, as far as I could discover; and we still went on for about an hour before we came even to a solitary cottage, where Garcias drew in his rein to allow our horses a little refreshment. Here he paced up and down before the door, seemingly anxious and impatient to proceed, knitting his brows and gnawing his lip with an air of deep and bitter meditation. I interrupted his musings, nevertheless, to inquire whether he could convey a few lines to their destination, which I had written to inform my father that I was, at least, in safety. "To be sure," replied he hastily, taking the letter out of my hand. "Did I not deliver the packet safely to Mademoiselle Arnault, at the château? and doubt not I will deliver yours too, if I be alive; and if I be dead," he added with a smile, "I will send it." "What packet did you deliver to Mademoiselle Arnault?" demanded I, somewhat surprised; "I never heard of any packet." "Nay, I know not what it contained," answered the smuggler; "it was brought to me by a friend at Jaca, and I know nothing farther than that I delivered it truly. That is all I have to do with it, and fully as much as any one else has." I turned upon my heel, again feeling the proud blood of the ancient noble rising angrily at the careless tone with which a peasant presumed to treat my inquiries; but the overpowering passions which, under the calm exterior of the Spaniard, were working silently but tremendously, like an earthquake preceded by a heavy calm, levelled in his eyes all the unsubstantial distinctions of rank. Nor did I, though struck by a breach of habitual respect, give above a thought to the manner of his speech; the matter of it soon occupied my whole mind, and for the rest of the journey I was as full of musing as the smuggler himself. A packet from Spain!--for Helen Arnault! What could it mean? She, who had no friends, no acquaintances beyond the circle of our own hall! A new flame was added to the fires already kindled in my bosom; I suppose that my mind was weakened by all that I had lately suffered, for I cannot otherwise account for the wild, vague, jealous suspicions that took possession of me. But so it was--I was jealous! At other times my character was anything but suspicious; but now I pondered over the circumstance which had just reached my knowledge, viewed it in a thousand different lights, regarded it in every aspect, and still the jaundiced medium of my own mind communicated to Helen's conduct a hue that, however extraordinary, it did not deserve. With thoughts thus occupied, I scarcely perceived the length of the way, till, as we climbed a slight eminence, Garcias pulled in his rein, and looking forward, I perceived at no great distance a group of towers and steeples, announcing Lerida. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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