"But you fear him?"

"Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to the surprise of the Countess,

she made a little face of contempt. "No; why should I fear him? I fear

him no more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's bridle fears his tall

playfellow! Or than the cloud you see above us fears the wind before

which it flies!" She pointed to a white patch, the size of a man's hand,

which hung above the hill on their left hand and formed the only speck in

the blue summer sky. "Fear him? Not I!" And, laughing gaily, she put

her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed the grassy track on which

they rode.

"But he is hard?" the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she regained

her companion's side.

"Hard?" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride. "Ay, hard as the

stones in my jewelled ring! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone--to

his enemies! But to women? Bah! Who ever heard that he hurt a woman?"

"Why, then, is he so feared?" the Countess asked, her eyes on the subject

of their discussion--a solitary figure riding some fifty paces in front

of them.

"Because he counts no cost!" her companion answered. "Because he killed

Savillon in the court of the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit.

He would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right hand, if Monsieur,

for his brother the Marshal's sake, had not intervened. But Savillon had

whipped his dog, you see. Then he killed the Chevalier de Millaud, but

'twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their shirts. For that, Millaud's

son lay in wait for him with two, in the passage under the Chatelet; but

Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved themselves. Undoubtedly he is

feared!" she added with the same note of pride in her voice.

The two who talked, rode at the rear of the little company which had left

Paris at daybreak two days before, by the Porte St. Jacques. Moving

steadily south-westward by the lesser roads and bridle-tracks--for Count

Hannibal seemed averse from the great road--they had lain the second

night in a village three leagues from Bonneval. A journey of two days on

fresh horses is apt to change scenery and eye alike; but seldom has an

alteration--in themselves and all about them--as great as that which

blessed this little company, been wrought in so short a time. From the

stifling wynds and evil-smelling lanes of Paris, they had passed to the

green uplands, the breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper

Orleannais; from sights and sounds the most appalling, to the solitude of

the sandy heath, haunt of the great bustard, or the sunshine of the

hillside, vibrating with the songs of larks; from an atmosphere of terror

and gloom to the freedom of God's earth and sky. Numerous enough--they

numbered a score of armed men--to defy the lawless bands which had their

lairs in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they pleased: at

mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees, or among the willows beside a

brook; at night, if they willed it, under God's heaven. Far, not only

from Paris, but from the great road, with its gibbets and pillories--the

great road which at that date ran through a waste, no peasant living

willingly within sight of it--they rode in the morning and in the

evening, resting in the heat of the day. And though they had left Paris

with much talk of haste, they rode more at leisure with every league.




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