Arthur O'Leary Part 29

But I had little time for such speculations; the hour of my own trial was approaching. The roan was getting troublesome, the pace was gradually working up her mettle; and she had given three or four preparatory bounds, as though to see whether she'd part company with me before she ran away or not. My own calculations at the moment were not very dissimilar; I was meditating a rupture of the partnership too. The matrix of a full-length figure of Arthur O'Leary in red clay was the extent of any damage I could receive, and I only looked for a convenient spot where I might fall unseen. As I turned my head on every side, hoping for some secluded nook, some devil of a hunter, by way of directing the dogs, gave a blast of his bra.s.s instrument about a hundred yards before me. The thing was now settled; the roan gave a whirl of her long vicious tail, plunged fearfully, and throwing down her head and twisting it to one side, as if to have a peep at my confusion, away she went. From having formed one of the rear-guard, I now closed up with the main body--'aspirants' all--through whom I dashed like a catapult, and notwithstanding repeated shouts of 'Pull in, sir!' 'Hold back!' etc, I continued my onward course; a few seconds more and I was in the thick of the scarlet coats, my beast at the stretch of her speed, and caring nothing for the bridle. Amid a shower of _sacres_ that fell upon me like hail, I sprang through them, making the 'red ones' black with every stroke of my gallop. Leaving them far behind, I flew past the _grand maitre_ himself, who rode in the van, almost upsetting him by a side spring, as I pa.s.sed--a malediction reaching me as I went; but the forest soon received me in its dark embrace, and I saw no more.

It was at first a source of consolation to me to think that every stride removed me from the reach of those whose denunciations I had so unfortunately incurred; _grand maitre, cha.s.seurs_, and 'aspirants'--they were all behind me. Ay, for that matter, so were the dogs and the _piqueurs_, and, for aught I knew, the fox with them. When I discovered, however, that the roan continued her speed still unabated, I began to be somewhat disconcerted. It was true the ground was perfectly smooth and safe--a long _allee_ of the wood, with turf shorn close as a pleasure-ground. I pulled and sawed the bit, I jerked the bridle, and performed all the manual exercise I could remember as advised in such extremities, but to no use. It seemed to me that some confounded echo started the beast, and incited her to increased speed. Just as this notion struck me, I heard a voice behind cry out--

'Do hold in! Try and hold in, Mr. O'Leary!' I turned my head, and there was Laura, scarce a length behind, her thoroughbred straining every sinew to come up. No one else was in sight, and there we were, galloping like mad, with the wood all to ourselves.

I can very well conceive why the second horse in a race does his best to get foremost, if it were only the indulgence of a very natural piece of curiosity to see what the other has been running for; but why the first one only goes the faster because there are others behind him, that is a dead puzzle to me. But so it was; my ill-starred beast never seemed to have put forth her full powers till she was followed. _Ventre a terre_, as the French say, was now the pace; and though from time to time Laura would cry out to me to hold back, I could almost swear I heard her laughing at my efforts. Meanwhile the wood was becoming thicker and closer, and the _allee_ narrower and evidently less travelled. Still it seemed to have no end or exit; scarcely had we rounded one turn when a vista of miles would seem to stretch away before us, pa.s.sing over which, another, as long again, would appear.

After about an hour's hard galloping, if I dare form any conjecture as to the flight of time, I perceived with a feeling of triumph that the roan was relaxing somewhat in her stride; and that she was beginning to evince, by an up-and-down kind of gait, what sailors call a 'fore-and aft' motion, that she was getting enough of it. I turned and saw Laura about twenty yards behind--her thoroughbred dead beat, and only able to sling along at that species of lobbing canter blood-cattle can accomplish under any exigency. With a bold effort I pulled up short, and she came alongside of me; and before I could summon courage to meet the reproaches I expected for having been the cause of her runaway, she relieved my mind by a burst of as merry and good-tempered laughter as ever I listened to. The emotion was contagious, and so I laughed too, and it was full five minutes before either of us could speak.

'Well, Mr. O'Leary, I hope you know where we are,' said she, drying her eyes, where the sparkling drops of mirth were standing, 'for I a.s.sure you I don't.'

'Oh, perfectly,' replied I, as my eye caught a board nailed against a tree, on which some very ill-painted letters announced 'La route de Bouvigne'--'we are on the highroad to Bouvigne, wherever that may be.'

'Bouvigne!' exclaimed she, in an accent of some alarm; 'why, it's five leagues from the chateau! I travelled there once by the highroad. How are we ever to get back?'

That was the very question I was then canva.s.sing in my own mind, without a thought of how it was to be solved. However, I answered with an easy indifference, 'Oh, nothing easier; we 'll take a _caleche_ at Bouvigne.'

'But they 've none.'

'Well, then, fresh horses.'

'There's not a horse in the place; it's a little village near the Meuse, surrounded with tall granite rocks, and only remarkable for its ruined castle, the ancient schloss of Philip de Bouvigne.'

'How interesting!' said I, delighted to catch at anything which should give the conversation a turn; 'and who was Philip de Bouvigne?'

'Philip,' said the lady, 'was the second or third count, I forget which, of the name. The chronicles say that he was the handsomest and most accomplished youth of the time. Nowhere could he meet his equal at joust or tournament; while his skill in arms was the least of his gifts--he was a poet and a musician. In fact, if you were only to believe his historians, he was the most dangerous person for the young ladies of those days to meet with. Not that he ran away with them, _sur la grande route_.' As she said this, a burst of laughing stopped her; and it was one I could really forgive, though myself the object of it. 'However,'

resumed she, 'I believe he was just as bad. Well, to pursue my story, when Philip was but eighteen, it chanced that a party of warriors bound for the Holy Land came past the Castle of Bouvigne, and of course pa.s.sed the night there. From them, many of whom had already been in Palestine, Philip heard the wondrous stories the crusaders ever brought back of combats and encounters, of the fearful engagements with the infidels and the glorious victories of the Cross. And at length, so excited did his mind become by the narrations, that he resolved on the spot to set out for the Holy Land, and see with his own eyes the wonderful things they had been telling him.

'This resolution could not fail of being applauded by the rest, and by none was it met with such decided approval as by Henri de Bethune, a young Liegeois, then setting out on his first crusade, who could not help extolling Philip's bravery, and above all his devotion in the great cause, in quitting his home and his young and beautiful wife; for I must tell you, as indeed I ought to have told you before, he had been but a few weeks married to the lovely Alice de Franchemont, the only daughter of the old Graf de Franchemont, of whose castle you may see the ruins near Chaude Fontaine.'

I nodded a.s.sent, and she went on.

'Of course you can imagine the dreadful grief of the young countess when her husband broke to her his determination. If I were a novelist I'd tell you of tears and entreaties and sighs and faintings, of promises and pledges and vows, and so forth; for, indeed, it was a very sorrowful piece of business, as she didn't at all fancy pa.s.sing some three or four years alone in the old keep at Bouvigne, with no society, not one single friend to speak to. At first, indeed, she would not hear of it; and it was only at length when Henri de Bethune undertook to plead for him--for he kindly remained several days at the chateau, to a.s.sist his friend at this conjuncture--that she gave way, and consented. Still, her consent was wrung from her against her convictions, and she was by no means satisfied that the arguments she yielded to were a whit too sound.

And this, let me remark, _en pa.s.sant_, is a most dangerous species of a.s.sent, when given by a lady; and one she always believes to be something of the nature of certain Catholic vows, which are only binding while you believe them reasonable and just.'

'Is that really so?' interrupted I. 'Do you, indeed, give me so low a standard of female fidelity as this?'

'If women are sometimes false,' replied she, 'it is because men are never true; but I must go on with my tale.--Away went Count Philip, and with him his friend De Bethune--the former, if the fact were known, just as low-spirited, when the time came, as the countess herself. But, then, he had the double advantage that he had a friend to talk with and make partic.i.p.ator of his sorrows, besides being the one leaving, not left.'

'I don't know,' interrupted I at this moment, 'that you are right there; I think that the a.s.sociations which cling to the places where we have been happy are a good requital for the sorrowful memories they may call up. I 'd rather linger around the spot consecrated by the spirit of past pleasure, and dream over again, hour by hour, day by day, the bliss I knew there, than break up the charm of such memories by the vulgar incidents of travel and the commonplace adventures of a journey.'

'There I differ from you completely,' replied she. 'All your reflections and reminiscences, give them as fine names as you will, are nothing but sighings and repinings for what cannot come back again; and such things only injure the temper, and spoil the complexion, whereas---- But what are you laughing at?'

'I was smiling at your remark, which has only a feminine application.'

'How teasing you are! I declare I 'll argue no more with you. Do you want to hear my story?'

'Of all things; I 'm greatly interested in it.'

'Well, then, you must not interrupt me any more. Now, where was I? You actually made me forget where I stopped.'

'You were just at the point where they set out, Philip and his friend, for the Holy Land.'

'You must not expect from me any spirit-stirring narrative of the events in Palestine. Indeed, I'm not aware if the _Chronique de Flandre_, from which I take my tale, says anything very particular about Philip de Bouvigne's performances. Of course they were in accordance with his former reputation: he killed his Saracens, like a true knight--that there can be no doubt of. As for Henri de Bethune, before the year was over he was badly wounded, and left on the field of battle, where some said he expired soon after, others averring that he was carried away to slavery. Be that as it might, Philip continued his career with all the enthusiasm of a warrior and a devotee, a worthy son of the Church, and a brave soldier--unfortunately, however, forgetting the poor countess he had left behind him, pining away her youth at the barred cas.e.m.e.nts of the old chateau; straining her eyes from day to day along the narrow causeway that led to the castle, and where no charger's hoof re-echoed, as of old, to tell of the coming of her lord. Very bad treatment, you 'll confess; and so, with your permission, we'll keep her company for a little while. Madame la Comtesse de Bouvigne, as some widows will do, only become the prettier from desertion. Her traits of beauty mellowed by a tender melancholy, without being marked too deeply by grief, a.s.sumed an imaginative character, or what men mistake for it.'

'Indeed!' said I, catching at the confession.

'Well, I'm sure it is so,' replied she. 'In the great majority of cases you are totally ignorant of what is pa.s.sing in a woman's mind. The girl that seemed all animation to-day may have an air of deep depression to-morrow, and of downright wildness the next, simply by changing her coiffure from ringlets to braids, and from a bandeau to a state of dishevelled disorder. A little flattery of yourselves, artfully and well done, and you are quite prepared to believe anything. In any case, the countess was very pretty and very lonely.

'In those good days when gentlemen left home, there were neither theatres nor concerts to amuse their poor neglected wives; they had no operas nor b.a.l.l.s nor soirees nor promenades. No; their only resource was to work away at some huge piece of landscape embroidery, which, begun in childhood, occupied a whole life, and transmitted a considerable labour of background and foliage to the next generation. The only pleasant people in those times, it seems to me, were the _jongleurs_ and the pilgrims; they went about the world fulfilling the destinies of newspapers; they chronicled the little events of the day--births, marriages, deaths, etc.--and must have been a great comfort on a winter's evening.

'Well, it so chanced that as the countess sat at her window one evening, as usual, watching the sun go down, she beheld a palmer coming slowly along up the causeway, leaning on his staff, and seeming sorely tired and weary----

'But see,' cried Laura, at this moment, as we gained the crest of a gentle acclivity, 'yonder is Bouvigne; it is a fine thing even yet.'

We both reined in our horses, the better to enjoy the prospect; and certainly it was a grand one. Behind us, and stretching for miles in either direction, was the great forest we had been traversing; the old Ardennes had been a forest in the times of Caesar, its narrow pathways echoing to the tread of Roman legions. In front was a richly cultivated plain, undulating gently towards the Meuse, whose silver current wound round it like a garter--the opposite bank being formed by an abrupt wall of naked rocks of grey granite, sparkling with its brilliant hues, and shining doubly in the calm stream at its foot. On one of the highest cliffs, above an angle of the river, and commanding both reaches of the stream for a considerable way, stood Bouvigne. Two great square towers rising above a battlemented wall, pierced with long loopholes, stood out against the clear sky; one of them, taller than the other, was surmounted by a turret at the angle, from the top of which something projected laterally, like a beam.

'Do you see that piece of timber yonder?' said Laura. 'Yes,' said I; 'it's the very thing I've been looking at, and wondering what it could mean.'

'Carry your eye downward,' said she, 'and try if you can't make out a low wall connecting two ma.s.ses of rock together, far, far down: do you see it?'

'I see a large archway, with some ivy over it.' 'That's it; that was the great entrance to the schloss; before it is the fosse--a huge ditch cut in the solid rock, so deep as to permit the water of the Meuse, when flooded, to flow into it. Well, now, if you look again, you 'll see that the great beam above hangs exactly over that spot. It was one of the rude defences of the time, and intended, by means of an iron basket which hung from its extremity, to hurl great rocks and stones upon any a.s.sailant. The mechanism can still be traced by which it was moved back and loaded; the piece of rope which opened the basket at each discharge of its contents was there not many years ago. There's a queer, uncouth representation of the _panier de la mort_, as it is called, in the _Chronique_, which you can see in the old library at Rochepied. But here we are already at the ferry.'

As she spoke we had just reached the bank of the Meuse, and in front was a beautifully situated little village, which, escarped in the mountain, presented a succession of houses at different elevations, all looking towards the stream. They were mostly covered with vines and honeysuckles, and with the picturesque outlines of gable and roof, diamond windows and rustic porches, had a very pleasing effect.

As I looked, I had little difficulty in believing that they were not a very equestrian people--the little pathways that traversed their village being inaccessible save to foot-pa.s.sengers, frequently ascending by steps cut in the rock, or by rude staircases of wood which hung here and there over the edge of the cliff in anything but a tempting way, the more so, as they trembled and shook with every foot that pa.s.sed over them. Little mindful of this, the peasants might now be seen leaning over their frail barriers, and staring at the unwonted apparition of two figures on horseback, while I was endeavouring, by signs and gestures, to indicate our wish to cross over.

At last a huge raft appeared to move from beneath the willows of the opposite bank, and by the aid of a rope fastened across the stream two men proceeded slowly to ferry the great platform over. Leading our horses cautiously forward, we embarked in this frail craft, and landed safely in Bouvigne.

CHAPTER XV. A NARROW ESCAPE

'Will you please to tell me, Mr. O'Leary,' said Laura, in the easy tone of one who asked for information's sake, 'what are your plans here; for up to this moment I only perceive that we have been increasing the distance between us and Rochepied.'

'Quite true,' said I; 'but you know we agreed it was impossible to hope to find our way back through the forest. Every _allee_ here has not only its brother, but a large family, so absolutely alike no one could distinguish between them; we might wander for weeks without extricating ourselves.'

'I know all that,' said she somewhat pettishly; 'still my question remains unanswered. What do you mean to do here?'

'In the first place,' said I, with the affected precision of one who had long since resolved on his mode of proceeding, 'we 'll dine.'

I stopped here to ascertain her sentiments on this part of my arrangement. She gave a short nod, and I proceeded. 'Having dined,'

said I, 'we'll obtain horses and a caleche, if such can be found, for Rochepied.'

'I 've told you already there are no such things here. They never see a carriage of any kind from year's end to year's end; and there is not a horse in the whole village.'

'Perhaps, then, there may be a chateau near, where, on making known our mishap, we might be able----'