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 sooner taken some food than she began

to doze in her chair.

'Father,' said the good wife, 'we had better take la pauvrette to

her rest at once.'

'Ah! must I go any farther?' sighed Eustacie.

'It is but a few fields beyond the yard, ma petite,' said the

good woman consolingly; 'and it will be safer to take you there ere

we need a light.'

The sun had just set on a beautiful evening of a spring that

happily for Eustacie had been unusually warm and mild, when they

set forth, the dame having loaded her husband with a roll of

bedding, and herself taking a pitcher of mild and a loaf of bread,

whilst Eustacie, as usual, carried her own small parcel of clothes

and jewels. The way was certainly not long to any one less

exhausted than she; it was along a couple of fields, and then

through a piece of thicket, where Rotrou held back the boughs and

his wife almost dragged her on with kind encouraging words, till

they came up to a stone ivy-covered wall, and coasting along it to

a tower, evidently a staircase turret. Here Rotrou, holding aside

an enormous bush of ivy, showed the foot of a winding staircase,

and his wife assured her that she would not have far to climb.

She knew where she was now. She had heard of the old Refectory of

the Knights Templars. Partly demolished by the hatred of the

people upon the abolition of the Order, it had ever since lain

waste, and had become the centre of all the ghostly traditions of

the country; the locality of all the most horrid tales of REVENANTS

told under the breath at Dame Perrine's hearth or at recreation

hour at Bellaise. Her courage was not proof against spiritual

terrors. She panted and leant against the wall, as she faintly

exclaimed, 'The Temple--there--and alone!'

'Nay, Lady, methought as Monsieur votre mari knew the true light,

you would fear no vain terror nor power of darkness.'

Should these peasants--these villeins--be bold, and see the

descendant of the 'bravest of knights,' the daughter of the house

of Ribaumont, afraid? She rallied herself, and replied manfully,

'I FEAR not, no!' but then, womanfully, 'But it is the Temple! It

is haunted! Tell me what I must expect.'

'I tell you truly, Madame,' said Rotrou; 'none whom I have

sheltered here have seen aught. On the faith of a Christian, no

evil spirit--no ghost--has ever alarmed them; but they were

fortified by prayer and psalm.'

'I do pray! I have a psalm-book,' said Eustacie, and she added to

herself, 'No, they shall never see that I fear. After all,

REVENANTS can do nothing worse than scare one; they cannot touch

one; the saints and angels will not let them--and my uncle would do

much worse.'

But to climb those winding stairs, and resign herself to be left

alone with the Templars for the night, was by far the severest

trial that had yet befallen the poor young fugitive. As her tire

feet dragged up the crumbling steps, her memory reverted to the

many tales of the sounds heard by night within those walls--church

chants turning into diabolical songs, and bewildered travelers into

thickets and morasses, where they had been found in the morning,

shuddering as they told of a huge white monk, with clanking

weapons, and a burning cross of fire printed on his shoulder and

breast, who stood on the walls and hurled a shrieking babe into the

abyss. Were such spectacles awaiting her? Must she bear them? And

could her endurance hold out? Our Lady be her aid, and spare her

in her need!

At the top of the stairs she found Rotrou's hand, ready to help her

out on a stone floor, quite dark, but thickly covered, as she felt

and smelt, with trusses of hay, between which a glimmering light

showed a narrow passage. A few steps, guided by Rotrou's hand,

brought her out into light again, and she found herself in a large

chamber, with the stone floor broken away in some places, and with

a circular window, thickly veiled with ivy, but still admitting a

good deal of evening light.

It was in fact a chamber over the vaulted refectory of the knights.

The walls and vaults still standing in their massive solidity, must

have tempted some peasant, or mayhap some adventurer, rudely to

cover in the roof (which had of course been stripped of its

leading), and thus in the unsuspected space to secure a hiding-

place, often for less innocent commodities than the salt, which the

iniquitous and oppressive gabelle had always led the French

peasant to smuggle, ever since the days of the first Valois. The

room had a certain appearance of comfort; there was a partition

across it, a hearth with some remains of wood-ashes, a shelf,

holding a plate, cup, lamp, and a few other necessaries; and

altogether the aspect of the place was so unlike what Eustacie had

expected, that she almost forgot the Templar as she saw the dame

begin to arrange a comfortable-looking couch for her wearied limbs.

Yet she felt very unwilling to let them depart, and even ventured

on faltering out the inquiry whether the good woman could not stay

with her,--she would reward her largely.

'It is for the love of Heaven, Madame, not for gain,' said Nanon

Rotrou, rather stiffly. 'If you were ill, or needed me, all must

then give way; but for me to be absent this evening would soon be

reported around the village down there, for there are many who

would find occasion against us.' But, by way of consolation, they

gave her a whistle, and showed her that the window of their cottage

was much nearer to a loophole-slit looking towards the east than

she had fancied. The whistle perpetrated a mist unearthly screech,

a good deal like that of an owl, but more discordant, and Nanon

assured her that the sound would assuredly break her slumbers, and

bring her in a few minutes at any moment of need. In fact, the

noise was so like the best authenticated accounts of the shrieks

indulged in by the spirits of the Temple, that Eustacie had wit

enough to suspect that it might be the foundation of some of the

stories; and with that solace to her alarms, she endured the

departure of her hosts, Nanon promising a visit in the early

morning.

The poor child was too weary to indulge in many terrors, the

beneficent torpor of excessive fatigue was upon her, happily

bringing slumberous oblivion instead of feverish restlessness. She

strove to repeat her accustomed orisons; but sleep was too strong

for her, and she was soon lying dreamlessly upon the clean homely

couch prepared for her.

When she awoke, it was with a start. The moon was shining in

through the circular window, making strange white shapes on the

floor, all quivering with the shadows of the ivy sprays. It looked

strange and eerie enough at the moment, but she understood it the

next, and would have been reassured if she had not become aware

that there was a low sound, a tramp, tramp, below her. 'Gracious

saints! The Templar! Have mercy on me! Oh! I was too sleepy to

pray! Guard me from being driven wild by fright!' She sat

upright, with wide-spread eyes, and, finding that she herself was

in the moonlight, through some opening in the roof, she took refuge

in the darkest corner, though aware as she crouched there, that if

this were indeed the Templar, concealment would be vain, and

remembering suddenly that she was out of reach of the loophole-

window.

And therewith there was a tired sound in the tread, as if the

Templar found his weird a very length one; then a long heavy

breath, with something so essentially human in its sound that the

fluttering heart beat more steadily. If reason told her that the

living were more perilous to her than the dead, yet feeling

infinitely preferred them! It might be Nanon Rotrou after all;

then how foolish to be crouching there in a fright! It was

rustling through the hay. No-no Nanon; it is a male figure, it has

a long cloak on. Ah! it is in the moonlight-silver hair--silver

beard. The Templar! Fascinated with dismay, yet calling to mind

that no ghost has power unless addressed, she sat still, crossing

herself in silence, but unable to call to mind any prayer or

invocation save a continuous 'Ave Mary,' and trying to restrain her

gasping breath, lest, if he were not the Templar after all, he

might discover her presence.

He moved about, took off his cloak, laid it down near the hay, then

his cap, not a helmet after all, and there was no fiery cross.

He was in the gloom again, and she heard him moving much as though

he were pulling down the hay to form a bed. Did ghosts ever do

anything so sensible? If he were an embodied spirit, would it be

possible to creep past him and escape while he lay asleep? She was

almost becoming familiarized with the presence, and the

supernatural terror was passing off into a consideration of

resources, when, behold, he was beginning to sing. To sing was the

very way the ghosts began ere they came to their devilish outcries.

'Our Lady keep it from bringing frenzy. But hark! hark!' It was

not one of the chants, it was a tune and words heard in older times

of her life; it was the evening hymn, that the little husband and

wife had been wont to sing to the Baron in the Chateau de Leurre--

Marot's version of the 4th Psalm.

'Plus de joie m'est donnee

Par ce moyen, O Dieu Tres-Haut,

Que n'ont ceux qui ont grand annee

De froment et bonne vinee,

D'huile et tout ce qu'il leur faut.'

If it had indeed been the ghostly chant, perhaps Eustacie would not

have been able to help joining it. As it was, the familiar home

words irresistibly impelled her to mingle her voice, scarce knowing

what she did, in the verse--

'Si qu'en paix et surete bonne

Coucherai et reposerai ;

Car, Seigneur, ta bonte tout ordonne

Et elle seule espoir me donne

Que sur et seul regnant serai.'

The hymn died away in its low cadence, and then, ere Eustacie had

had time to think of the consequences of thus raising her voice,

the new-comer demanded:

'Is there then another wanderer here?'

'Ah! sir, pardon me!' she exclaimed. 'I will not long importune

you, but only till morning light--only till the Fermiere Rotrou

comes.'

'If Matthieu and Anne Rotrou placed you here, then all is well,'

replied the stranger. 'Fear not, daughter, but tell me. Are you

one of my scattered flock, or one whose parents are known to me?'

Then, as she hesitated, 'I am Isaac Gardon--escaped, alas! alone,

from the slaughter of the Barthelemy.'

'Master Gardon!' cried Eustacie. 'Oh, I know! O sir, my husband

loved and honoured you.'

'Your husband?'

'Yes, sir, le Baron de Ribaumont.'

'That fair and godly youth! My dear old patron's son! You--you!

But--' with a shade of doubt, almost of dismay, 'the boy was

wedded--wedded to the heiress---'

'Yes, yes, I am that unhappy one! We were to have fled together on

that dreadful night. He came to meet me to the Louvre--to his

doom!' she gasped out, nearer to tears than she had ever been since

that time, such a novelty was it to her to hear Berenger spoken of

in kind or tender terms; and in her warmth of feeling, she came out

of her corner, and held our her hand to him.

'Alas! poor thing!' said the minister, compassionately, 'Heaven has

tried you sorely. Had I known of your presence here, I would not

have entered; but I have been absent long, and stole into my lair

here without disturbing the good people below. Forgive the

intrusion, Madame.'

The minister replied warmly that surely persecution was a

brotherhood, even had she not been the window of one he had loved

and lamented.

'Ah! sir, it does me good to hear you say so.'

And therewith Eustacie remembered the hospitalities of her loft.

She perceived by the tones of the old man's voice that he was

tired, and probably fasting, and she felt about for the milk and

bread with which she had been supplied. It was a most welcome

refreshment, though he only partook sparingly; and while he ate,

the two, so strangely met, came to a fuller knowledge of one

another's circumstances.

Master Isaac Gardon had, it appeared, been residing at Paris, in

the house of the watchmaker whose daughter had been newly married

to his son; but on the fatal eve of St. Bartholomew, he had been

sent for to pray with a sick person in another quarter of the city.

The Catholic friends of the invalid were humane, and when the

horrors began, not only concealed their kinsman, but almost

forcibly shut up the minister in the same cellar with him. And

thus, most reluctantly, had he been spared from the fate that

overtook his son and daughter-in-law. A lone and well-night

broken-hearted man, he had been smuggled out of the city, and had

since that time been wandering from one to another of the many

scattered settlements of Huguenots in the northern part of France,

who, being left pastorless, welcomed visits from the minister of

their religion, and passed him on from one place to another, as his

stay in each began to be suspected by the authorities. He was now

on his way along the west side of France, with no fixed purpose,

except so far as, since Heaven had spared his life when all that

made it dear had been taken from him, he resigned himself to

believe that there was yet some duty left for him to fulfil.

Meantime the old man was wearied out; and after due courtesies had

passed between him and the lady in the dark, he prayed long and

fervently, as Eustacie could judge from the intensity of the low

murmurs she heard; and then she heard him, with a heavy

irrepressible sigh, lie down on the couch of hay he had already

prepared for himself, and soon his regular breathings announced his

sound slumbers. She was already on the bed she had so

precipitately quitted, and not a thought more did she give to the

Templars, living or dead, even though she heard an extraordinary

snapping and hissing, and in the dawn of the morning saw a white

weird thing, like a huge moth, flit in through the circular window,

take up its station on a beam above the hay, and look down with the

brightest, roundest eyes she had ever beheld. Let owls and bats

come where they would, she was happier than she had been for

months. Compassion for herself was plentiful enough, but to have

heard Berenger spoken of with love and admiration seemed to quiet

the worst ache of her lonely heart.




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