'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.




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