The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte M. Yonge (i am reading a book .txt) 📕

CHAPTER XVII. THE GHOSTS OF THE TEMPLARS ‘Tis said, as through the aisles they passed, They heard strange voices on the blast, And through the cloister galleries small, Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall, Loud sobs and laughter louder ran, And voices unlike the voice of man, As if the fiends kept holiday. Scott, LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL

‘Ill news, Martin, I see by your look!’ cried Eustacie, starting to her feet from the heap of straw on which she was sitting in his cowhouse, one early April day, about seven weeks since her evasion from the convent.

‘Not so, I hope, Madame, but I do not feel at ease. Monsieur has not sent for me, nor told me his plans for the morrow, and I much doubt me whether that bode not a search here. Now I see a plan, provided Madame would trust herself to a Huguenot.’

‘They would guard me for my husband’s sake.’

‘And could Madame walk half a league, as far as the Grange du Temple? There live Matthieu Rotrou and his wife, who have, they say, baffled a hundred times the gendarmes who sought their ministers. No one ever found a pastor, they say, when Rotrou had been of the congregation; and if they can do so much for an old preacher with a long tongue, surely they can for a sweet young lady; and if they could shelter her just for tomorrow, till the suspicion is over, then would I come for Madame with my cart, and carry her into Chollet among the trusses of hay, as we had fixed.’

Eustacie was already tying her cloak, and asking for Lucette; but she was grieved to hear that Martin had sent her to vespers to disarm suspicion, and moreover that he meant not to tell her of his new device. ‘The creature is honest enough,’ he said, ‘but the way to be safe with women is not to let them know.’

He cut short all messages and expressions of gratitude, and leading Eustacie to a small stream, he made her creep along its course, with her feet in the water so as to be sheltered by the boughs that hung over the banks, while he used his ling strides to enable him to double back and enter into conversation with passers-by, quite of the track of the Grange du Temple, but always telling her where he should join her again, and leaving with her the great dog, whom she had come to regard as a friend and protector. Leaving the brook, he conducted her beneath hedges and by lonely woodland paths beyond the confines of her own property, to a secluded valley, so shut in by wooded hills that she had not been aware of its existence. Through an extensive orchard, she at length, when nearly spent with the walk, beheld the cluster of stone buildings, substantial as the erections of religious orders were wont to be.

Martin found a seat for her, where she might wait while he went on alone to the house, and presently returned with both the good people of the farm. They were more offhand and less deferential than were her own people, but were full of kindliness. They were middle-aged folk, most neatly clad, and with a grave, thoughtful look about them, as if life were a much heavier charge to them than to their light-hearted neighbours.

‘A fair day to you, Madame,’ said the farmer, doffing his wide-flapped hat. ‘I am glad to serve a sufferer for the truth’s sake.’

‘My husband was,’ faltered Eustacie.

‘AH! la pauvre,’ cried the good woman, pressing forward as she saw how faint, heated, and exhausted was the wanderer. ‘Come in, ma pauvrette. Only a bride at the Bartholomew! Alas! There, lean on me, my dear.’

To be tutoyee by the Fermiere Rotrou was a shock; yet the kind manner was comfortable, and Eustacie suffered herself to be led into the farm-house, where, as the dame observed, she need not fear chance-comers, for they lived much to themselves, and no one would be about till their boy Robinet came in with the cows. She might rest and eat there in security, and after that they would find a hiding-place for her—safe as the horns of the altar—for a night or two; only for two nights at most.

‘Nor do I ask more,’ said Eustacie. ‘Then Martin will come for me.’

‘Ah, I or Blaise, or whichever of us can do it with least suspicion.’

‘She shall meet you here,’ added Rotrou.

‘All right, good man; I understand; it is best I should not know where you hide her. Those rogues have tricks that make it as well to know nothing. Farewell, Madame, I commend you to all the saints till I come for you on Monday morning.’

Eustacie gave him her hand to kiss, and tried to thank him, but somehow her heart sank, and she felt more lonely than ever, when entirely cast loose among these absolute strangers, than amongst her own vassals. Even the farm-kitchen, large, stone-built, and scrupulously clean, seemed strange and dreary after the little, smoky, earth-built living-rooms in which her peasantry were content to live, and she never had seemed to herself so completely desolate; but all the time she was so wearied out with her long and painful walk, that she had no