Lord Montagu's Page Part 25

Thus she rambled on, with less gayety, and less familiarity, perhaps, than before dinner; but there was a sort of languor about her, a soft sleepiness, which was perhaps more attractive, especially to a young man. One of the greatest charms of that extraordinary woman was her infinite variety. Was it now a desire merely to coquet with a young and handsome lad? Was it only with the purpose of amusing a vacant hour or two? Was it without purpose at all, and that she simply gave way to the pa.s.sing feelings of the moment and with listless carelessness left the results to chance? I know not; and probably she herself and Edward Langdale were the only persons who ever knew.

Authors will get into difficulties sometimes, dear reader,--will come to sticking-places where they find it as difficult to go back as to wade through. The only way in such circ.u.mstances is to take a great jump; and, thank Heaven, the horses we ride are equal to any leap.

The next morning Edward and the d.u.c.h.ess and her daughter met at breakfast; and Madame de Chevreuse, if not in great spirits, was cheerful and gay, and full of plans for pa.s.sing the day pleasantly. She would go and show the young Englishman the grotto and the rocks; they would kill a stag in the adjoining forest; they would visit the _cure_ of Chevreuse, and astonish the good man,--a sport which she by no means disliked: but while they were arranging all these schemes on the open s.p.a.ce before the chateau, a courier was seen riding up from the gates, and when he came near he handed the d.u.c.h.ess two letters.

The blood left her cheek as she read, and, instantly drawing Edward aside, she said, "We must part at once. You go on as fast as possible to Gray. Wait there two days, and, if you hear no more, ride forward to Turin. As for myself, look here." And she put a paper into his hand. It was a copy of the decree banishing her to Lorraine, there to remain upon her own estates till the king's further pleasure.

"Order your horses quickly," she said. "Then come to my chamber for the sum Montagu left for you. Glimpses of sunshine! glimpses of sunshine in this April-day life! and then dark clouds and heavy showers."

In an hour, Edward Langdale rode away from Dampierre. He was grave and silent. What was in his heart who can tell? but he certainly did not view the world more brightly, or feel more confidence in human nature, than he had done before that short visit.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Edward Langdale rode on from place to place, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as the condition of the roads and the nature of the country required; and, strangely enough for a journey in those days, neither accident nor adventure befell him. One thing excited his curiosity and suspicion, however. At Trapes, where he pa.s.sed the first night after leaving the house of Madame de Chevreuse, when he had finished his supper and was just retiring to rest, he caught for a moment, on the somewhat darksome stairs, one glance of a face he thought he had seen before. He could not identify it, indeed, for it was lost as soon as seen; but it instantly carried his mind back to his adventure with the two Savoyards, and he felt almost sure that face belonged to one of them. But neither of the two strangers appeared the next morning; and Pierrot and Jacques both a.s.sured him that their horses were not in the stable.

There are faces that haunt us both in night and daydreams; and Edward was almost led to believe that one of these spectres of the imagination had taken possession of him; for twice or three times before he reached Gray that face again crossed him for a moment, and always when no one else was present who could confirm or remove his suspicions.

Those were not pleasant days to live in; and it is a very difficult thing for any one born in and accustomed to the bad comfortable modern days to realize those _good old times_. Espionage was then a great science, an honorable profession, practised by great dignitaries and men of high degree. Words brought men's heads to the block, and thoughts often conducted to a prison. There was no need of overt acts: intentions were quite sufficient; and friends and foes were so continually changing places that no one could tell that the thoughts uttered in the confidence of familiar intercourse would not be brought forward a few days or weeks later to lead one to the dungeon and the rack. Yet it is wonderful, unaccountable, how freely and daringly men spoke their mind,--how the grave condemnation, the witty lampoon, or the hideous libel, was disseminated without ceremony. Men laughed and had their heads chopped off,--and would have laughed still if they could have been fixed on again, I do believe; for nothing seemed a warning or a restraint.

Edward, however, born in a country where neither the reign of the Tudor nor of the Stuart had been able to crush out the spirit of liberty, loved not to be watched; and there is always something more alarming in the indefinite than the definite danger. He could not divine what was the object of the two strangers, if, indeed, they had any object, in thus persisting in following him. The cardinal had lacked no opportunity of detaining him at Nantes, or of arresting him on his journey, if he had thought fit; and yet he could not clear his mind from suspicion till he reached Franche Comte and found himself beyond the power of the French minister.

It may be necessary to remind the reader that Franche Comte was not annexed to France till the year 1668; and at the time of which I now write the important town of Gray was a fortified place, consisting of the city on the high ground strongly walled, and a suburb on the bank of the Saone, defended merely by a small battery. For a long period of troublous times, so frequent had been the visits of French exiles to Lorraine, Burgundy, and Franche Comte, that safe-conducts or pa.s.sports from one country to another were very generally dispensed with in the country and in open towns; but in fortresses some trouble was experienced; and it is probable that the directions which the d.u.c.h.esse de Chevreuse had given Edward Langdale to stop in the faubourg were intended to guard against his detention. The inn which she had named to him was good, however,--perhaps better than that in the upper town; and the appointed two days of Edward's stay pa.s.sed dully but not unpleasantly. The horses were refreshed and the two men none the worse for the repose. For Edward himself, too, perhaps two days of thought were beneficial. Every man, in the toil and tumult and hurry of the world, requires some moment to pause and consider his position, to decide upon his future course, to apply the lesson of past errors, to take breath as it were amidst the bustle of existence. Edward was like a stout swimmer who had been suddenly plunged into a torrent, and was likely to be carried away by the flood which for the last three months had been whirling confusedly round him; and those two days at Gray were like a little island of dry ground where he could rest and scan his way to the opposite bank, avoiding the rocks and eddies which might impede or destroy him. It is a quaint old proverb, but a true one, that "a man who does not look clearly before him will often have to look sadly behind him;" and happy is he who has both the will and the time to do so.

Those two days then with Edward pa.s.sed in almost uninterrupted thought; but at last the night of the second day came, and yet neither message nor letter had arrived. Supper had been eaten, and the horses had been ordered for daybreak on the following morning to proceed to Turin, when, toward nine o'clock, the landlord brought in a sc.r.a.p of writing, asking Edward if that was intended for him. It was addressed in English,--"Master Edward Langdale,"--and underneath was written, "Join me at Chambery or Aix. I shall be there from the twenty-ninth till the first."

No name was signed, but the writing was Lord Montagu's; and the landlord, on being questioned, said the paper had been given to him by a courier from Arnay le Duc going to Vesoul, who had gone on his way as soon as he had left it.

Now, Edward's knowledge of geography was considerable, and, as far as France and England were concerned, minute; but he had at Gray got somewhat out of his lat.i.tude, and the landlord had to be consulted as to the road to Aix and Chambery. The good man was learned upon the subject, however, knew every inch of the road, he said, and could find his way in the dark. It was true, he added, that it was rather a wild way, and carriages could hardly go one-half the distance; but, as the gentleman had horses, it would be easily managed. He must first go straight to Dole, then from Dole to Lons-le-Saulnier, from Lons-le-Saulnier to Bourg or Nantua, and thence to the Pont du Sault.

After that, he said, came Bellay and Aix and Chambery; but there the traveller would have to ask every step of his way. It was a five days'

journey, he remarked, and, ride as hard as you would, it would take four and a half.

Edward did ride hard, and the first part of the way was overcome in a much shorter s.p.a.ce of time than the good host had antic.i.p.ated; nor was it till the party had pa.s.sed Bourg that any thing like difficulties occurred. It is as pleasant a ride in fine weather as any one can take, for the roads are now good and the scenery exceedingly picturesque without being fatiguingly grand; but neither Edward nor ourselves have any time to pause upon the beauties of nature. The roads, however, were then in a very different condition from that which they now display; and, indeed, the wonder-working eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have done more for few countries than for the districts lying between the Jura and the Rhone and Saone.

On the twenty-seventh of July, Edward Langdale and his party were within one short day's journey of Aix, and the early morning when they set out was fresh and beautiful. The hot summer sun was shaded by the rocks and forests, and the air was cooled by the mountain-breeze. As he was earlier than the first of the days named by Lord Montagu, the young traveller suffered his horses to proceed leisurely. But in this he made a mistake. Man always wants more money and time than he calculates upon; and n.o.body can tell what the want of an hour or a guinea may bring about.

As every one knows, the country which Edward had now to traverse is a land of rocks and mountains, of rivers and lakes. Not three miles can be pa.s.sed without encountering some stream or torrent hurrying down to join the great Rhone; and at every mile, as the road then went, was some steep ascent or descent, flanked with rugged cliffs, sometimes covered with dark forests, sometimes naked and gray, with immense ma.s.ses of stone impending over the traveller's head without the root of a single tree to bind them to the crag, while high up in front the Mont du Chat was seen from time to time rearing its rugged front and seeming to close the pa.s.s. About one o'clock, over the edges of the hills some heavy clouds were seen rising, knotty and dull, and of a deep lead-color, except where the sun tipped their edges with an ochrey yellow. The wind was from the northeast, and the clouds were coming from the south. But they did not heed the breeze, which soon began to fail before them.

"Let us ride faster," said Edward: "the road is good here." And on he went, keeping his eye on the heavy ma.s.ses, but fearing no greater inconvenience than a wetting. He had never travelled in Savoy before.

However, by quick trotting he saved himself and his followers for about two hours; but by the end of that time the sun was hidden and great drops began to fall. Then came the thunder echoing through the hills, and then a complete deluge. Every thing turned gray, and the old castles which strew that part of the country could hardly be distinguished from the rocks on which they stood.

Two more hours were pa.s.sed by the travellers under an overhanging shelf of rock, which afforded some shelter, not only to themselves, but also to their horses. But at the end of that time the rain had had the effect of loosening some parts of the cliff, and several large ma.s.ses of stone began to fall, giving them warning to retreat as soon as possible.

The thunder was now more distant and the flashes of lightning farther apart; but the rain continued to fall, not so heavily, but in a dull, incessant pour. There was nothing to be done but to ride on, and, even then, but slow progress could be made; for the roads were cut up in a terrible manner, the smaller streams were swollen so as to be well nigh impa.s.sable, and here and there the way was nearly blocked up by piles of rock and gravel. Night was rapidly coming on; no human habitation was in sight except a scattered old tower here and there, and that in ruins.

At length, just as the sun sank, a more formidable obstacle than ever presented itself. Where the road took a rapid descent between some high rocky ground on the right and the Rhone in flood upon the left, just at the spot where one of the branches of the Guiers joins the larger river, an immense ma.s.s of rock, undermined by the torrent, had fallen across the mouth of the stream, which, thus blocked up, had flooded the whole road. By the side of the water, gazing disconsolately at the rushing and whirling current, was a group of men, some four in number. It was too dark for Edward to distinguish who they were at any distance, but when he came nearer he perceived his two old friends the Savoyard blacksmiths, and two laborers of the country, whom the fall of the rock and the consequent inundation had, it seemed, cut off from their own cottages on the other side.

"Ah! bon jour, bon jour, seigneur!" said one of the blacksmiths, who had dismounted, and was holding his horse by the bridle: "we came all along the road with you, after all, but we kept out of your way for fear of your pistols. Here is a pretty pa.s.s! We shall not get over to-night, these men say."

"Can we find no place of shelter this side?" asked Edward, whose suspicion of the two men had been greatly abated by finding they had quietly pursued their way to Savoy. The blacksmith shook his head.

"I saw an old castle about half a mile back," said the young Englishman: "it was not far up the mountain."

"All ruined! No roof," replied the other. "Ask them yourself."

But Edward could not make either of the peasants comprehend a word he said. "We must do something," he remarked. "It is growing darker every moment, and it would give us some sort of covering, were it but under an old arch. Hark! there are horses coming on the other side. Those men will be into the torrent if they do not mind." And, raising his voice, he shouted aloud to warn the hors.e.m.e.n, who were dashing on at furious pace from the side of Aix.

The wind set the other way, and the roaring of the water was loud, so that it is probable his shout was not heard, for the next moment there was a plunge into the water and then a loud cry for help.

Edward sprang instantly from his horse and advanced to the very verge of the stream.

"For Heaven's sake, Master Ned, for Heaven's sake, do not try it!" cried Pierrot, catching his arm.

"Here, take the horse," said Edward, sharply. "Let go my arm."

A flash of lightning came at that moment, faint, indeed, but sufficient to show him a horse carried away toward the Rhone, a horseman who had pulled up just in time upon the other brink, and a man struggling in the water and trying to hold by a smooth ma.s.s of fallen rock, just in the middle of the torrent, about twelve yards from him. He paused not to consider, but ran as far as he could up the water, dashed in, and swam with all his strength toward the drowning man, whom he could just distinguish. Borne down by the current, he drifted right to the rock, calling aloud, in French, "Do not touch me, and I will save you!"

Such warnings are usually vain. The man's first effort was to clutch him; but Edward was prepared, and kept him off, catching him tightly by the back of the neck. We have said that he was a good and practised swimmer; but neither skill nor strength would probably have carried him across that small s.p.a.ce of twelve yards against that powerful current.

But Jacques Beaupre caught sight of him, and exclaimed, "Here, Pierrot, catch my hand. Let us all be drowned in company." And, running in till the water reached his shoulders and almost carried him off his feet, he contrived to grasp Edward's arm and pull him on till he could touch ground.

The young lad was almost exhausted, for the man, of whom he had never loosed his hold, had struggled to the last to grasp him, and the few moments since he had left the rock had been all one confused scene of strife amongst the dark and eddying waters.

"Here; let me take him, sir," said Jacques: "if ever a man's life was n.o.bly saved, it is his." And, throwing his brawny arms round the stranger, who struggled still, he carried him on to the road.

Edward paused for a moment, as soon as he could resist the stream, to draw breath, and then slowly joined the rest. They had laid the stranger down on the bank, and for a moment or two he remained quite still, though his panting breath showed that his life was in no danger.

"Here, moosoo, take some of this," said one of the blacksmiths, pouring some spirit out of a bottle into the stranger's mouth: "you owe that young seigneur something; for if he had not been here you would have been out of Savoy by this time."

"I know it; I know it," said the rescued man, faintly. "Where is he?

which is he?"

"Look! look!" cried Pierrot: "there is a light up there, in one, two, three windows. That must be in the old chateau which these fellows said was all in ruins. Let us go up. We shall none of us ever get dry here, it is raining so hard."

"Are you able, sir, to walk up to that castle?" asked Edward, speaking to the stranger, who had now raised himself upon his arm. "I fear your poor horse is lost beyond all hope."

"Let the fiery brute go," said the other, petulantly: "if he would have obeyed the rein I should not have been in this plight. I will try to accompany you in a moment. But what castle is that? It must be Groslie, I think."

He did not speak very good French; but, calling to one of the Savoyard peasants, he addressed him in his own language, of which he seemed to have a perfect command.

The good man instantly began to speak fast and gesticulate vehemently; and, translating as best he could the language of signs, Edward concluded that the Savoyard was trying to dissuade the gentleman from going to the old chateau he had seen.

"What does he say?" asked the young Englishman: "he seems unwilling we should go."

"Oh, he talks nonsense," answered the stranger: "he will have it that the place is haunted, and says that no one is ever seen there by day, but that those lights appear from time to time at night,--smugglers, more likely, or coiners; but we are too many for them to do us any harm." As he spoke he raised himself slowly upon his feet and said to the friendly blacksmith, "Give me some more of those strong waters, my friend. I will pay you well for them."