The Chaplet of Pearls Part 20

'I have given my word,' said Berenger, 'that all that could do me harm should be delivered up! Besides,' he added, 'even had I the feeling for my own honour and that of my wife and child, living or dead, the harm, it seems to me, would be to those who withhold her lands from me.

'Ah, fair nephew! you have fallen among designing persons who have filled your head with absurd claims; but I will not argue the point now, since it becomes a family, not a State matter. These papers'-and he took them into his hand-'must be examined, and to-morrow Captain Delarue will take them to Paris, with any explanation you may desire to offer. Meantime you and your companions remain my guest, at full liberty, provided you will give me your parole to attempt no escape.

'No, sir,' said Berenger, hotly, 'we will not become our own jailers, nor acquiesce in this unjust detention. I warn you that I am a naturalized Englishman, acknowledged by the Queen as my grandfather's heir, and the English Amba.s.sador will inform the court what Queen Elizabeth thinks of such dealings with her subjects.

'Well said,' exclaimed Philip, and drawing himself up, he added, 'I refuse my parole, and warn you that it is at your peril that you imprison an Englishman.

'Very well, gentlemen,' said the Chevalier; 'the difference will be that I shall unwillingly be forced to let Captain Delarue post guards at the outlets of this tower. A room beneath is prepared for your grooms, and the court is likewise free to you. I will endeavour to make your detention as little irksome as you will permit, and meantime allow me to show you your sleeping chamber. He then politely, as if he had been ushering a prince to his apartment, led the way, pointing to the door through which they had entered the keep, and saying, 'This is the only present communication with the dwelling-house. Two gendarmes will always be on the outside.' He conducted the young men up a stone spiral stair to another room, over that which they had already seen, and furnished as fairly as ordinary sleeping chambers were wont to be.

Here, said their compulsory host, he would leave them to prepare for supper, when they would do him the honour to join him in the eating-hall on their summons by the steward.

His departing bow was duly returned by Berenger, but no sooner did his steps die away on the stairs than the young man threw himself down on his bed, in a paroxysm of suffering both mental and bodily.

'Berry, Berry, what is this? Speak to me. What does it all mean? cried Philip.

'How can I tell?' said Berenger, showing his face for a moment, covered with tears; 'only that my only friend is dead, and some villainous trick has seized me, just-just as I might have found her. And I've been the death of my poor groom, and got you into the power of these vile dastards! Oh, would that I had come alone! Would that they had had the sense to aim direct!

'Brother, brother, anything but this!' cried Philip. 'The rogues are not worth it. Sir Francis will have us out in no time, or know the reason why. I'd scorn to let them wring a tear from me.

'I hope they never may, dear Phil, nor anything worse.

'Now,' continued Philip, 'the way will be to go down to supper, since they will have it so, and sit and eat at one's ease as if one cared for them no more than cat and dog. Hark! there's the steward speaking to Guibert. Come, Berry, wash your face and come.

'I-my head aches far too much, were there nothing else.

'What! it is nothing but the sun,' said Philip. 'Put a bold face on it, man, and show them how little you heed.

'How LITTLE I heed!' bitterly repeated Berenger, turning his face away, utterly unnerved between disappointment, fatigue, and pain; and Philip at that moment had little mercy. Dismayed and vaguely terrified, yet too resolute in national pride to betray his own feelings, he gave vent to his vexation by impatience with a temperament more visibly sensitive than his own: 'I never thought you so mere a Frenchman,' he said contemptuously. 'If you weep and wail so like a sick wench, they will soon have their will of you! I'd have let them kill me before they searched me.

"Tis bad enough without this from you, Phil,' said Berenger, faintly, for he was far too much spent for resentment or self-defence, and had only kept up before the Chevalier by dint of strong effort. Philip was somewhat aghast, both at the involuntary gesture of pain, and at finding there was not even spirit to be angry with him: but his very dismay served at the moment only to feed his displeasure; and he tramped off in his heavy boots, which he chose to wear as a proof of disdain for his companions. He explained that M. de Ribaumont was too much fatigued to come to supper, and he was accordingly marched along the corridor, with the steward before him bearing a lighted torch, and two gendarmes with halberds behind him. And in his walk he had ample time for, first, the resolution that illness, and not dejection, should have all the credit of Berenger's absence; then for recollecting of how short standing had been his brother's convalescence; and lastly, for a fury of self-execration for his own unkindness, rude taunts, and neglect of the recurring illness. He would have turned about and gone back at once, but the two gendarmes were close behind, and he knew Humfrey would attend to his brother; so he walked on to the hall-a handsome chamber, hung with armour and spoils of hunting, with a few pictures on the panels, and a great carved music-gallery at one end. The table was laid out somewhat luxuriously for four, according to the innovation which was beginning to separate the meals of the grandees from those of their household.

Great concern was expressed by the Chevalier, as Philip, in French, much improved since the time of his conversation with Madame de Selinville, spoke of his brother's indisposition, saying with emphasis, as he glared at Captain Delarue, that Maitre Pare had forbidden all exposure to mid-day heat, and that all their journeys had been made in morning or evening coolness. 'My young friend,' as his host called him, 'should, he was a.s.sured, have mentioned this, since Captain Delarue had no desire but to make his situation as little painful as possible.' And the Chevalier sent his steward at once to offer everything the house contained that his prisoner could relish for supper; and then anxiously questioned Philip on his health and diet, obtaining very short and glum answers. The Chevalier and the captain glanced at each other with little shrugs; and Philip, becoming conscious of his shock hair, splashed doublet, and dirty boots, had vague doubts whether his English dignity were not being regarded as English lubberliness; but, of course, he hated the two Frenchmen all the more, and received their civility with greater gruffness. They asked him the present object of his journey-though, probably, the Chevalier knew it before, and he told of the hope that they had of finding the child at Lucon.

'Vain, of course?' said the Chevalier. 'Poor infant! It is well for itself, as for the rest of us, that its troubles were ended long ago.'

Philip started indignantly.

'Does your brother still nurture any vain hope?' said the Chevalier.

'Not vain, I trust,' said Philip.

'Indeed! Who can foolishly have so inspired him with a hope that merely wears out his youth, and leads him into danger?'

Philip held his tongue, resolved to be impenetrable; and he was so far successful, that the Chevalier merely became convinced that the brothers were not simply riding to La Roch.e.l.le to embark for England, but had some hope and purpose in view; though as to what that might be, Philip's bluff replies and stubborn silence were baffling.

After the meal, the Chevalier insisted on coming to see how his guest fared; and Philip could not prevent him. They found Berenger sitting on the side of his bed, having evidently just started up on hearing their approach. Otherwise he did not seem to have moved since Philip left him; he had not attempted to undress; and Humfrey told Philip that not a word had been extracted from him, but commands to let him alone.

However, he had rallied his forces to meet the Chevalier, and answered manfully to his excuses for the broiling ride to which he had been exposed, that it mattered not, the effect would pa.s.s, it was a mere chance; and refused all offers of medicaments, potions, and TISANES, till his host at length left the room with a most correct exchange of good nights.

'Berry, Berry, what a brute I have been!' cried Philip.

'Foolish lad!' and Berenger half smiled. 'Now help me to bed, for the room turns round!'

CHAPTER x.x.x. CAGED IN THE BLACKBIRD'S NEST

Let him shun castles; Safer shall he be on the sandy plain Than where castles mounted stand.-KING HENRY VI.

While Berenger slept a heavy morning's sleep after a resless night, Philip explored the narrow domain above and below. The keep and its little court had evidently been the original castle, built when the oddly-nicknamed Fulkes and Geoffreys of Anjou had been at daggers drawn with the Dukes of Normandy and Brittany, but it had since, like most other such ancient feudal fortresses, become the nucleus of walls and buildings for use, defence, or ornament, that lay beneath him like a spider's web, when he had gained the roof of the keep, garnished with pepper-box turrets at each of the four angles. Beyond lay the green copses and orchards of the Bocage, for it was true, as he had at first suspected, that this was the chateau de Nid de Merle, and that Berenger was a captive in his wife's own castle.

Chances of escape were the lad's chief thought, but the building on which he stood went sheer down for a considerable way. Then on the north side there came out the sharp, high-pitched, tiled roof of the corps du logis; on the south, another roof, surmounted by a cross at the gable, and evidently belonging to the chapel; on the other two sides lay courts-that to the east, a stable-yard; that to the west, a small narrow, chilly-looking, paved inclosure, with enormously-ma.s.sive walls, the doorway walled up, and looking like a true prison-yard. Beyond this wall-indeed, on every side-extended offices, servants' houses, stables, untidy desolate-looking gardens, and the whole was inclosed by the white wall with flanking red-tiled turrets, whose gaudy appearance had last night made Philip regard the whole as a flimsy, Frenchchified erection, but he now saw it to be of extremely solid stone and lime, and with no entrance but the great barbican gateway they had entered by; moreover, with a yawning dry moat all round. Wherever he looked he saw these tall, pointed red caps, resembling, he thought, those worn by the victims of an auto-de-fe, as one of Walsingham's secretaries had described them to him; and he ground his teeth at them, as thought they grinned at him like emissaries of the Inquisition.

Descending, he found Berenger dressing in haste to avoid receiving an invalid visit from the Chevalier, looking indeed greatly shaken, but hardly so as would have been detected by eyes that had not seen him during his weeks of hope and recovery. He was as resolved as Philip could wish against any sign of weakness before his enemy, and altogether disclaimed illness, refusing the stock of cooling drinks, cordials, and febrifuges, which the Chevalier said had been sent by his sister the Abbess of Bellaise. He put the subject of his health aside, only asking if this were the day that the gendarme-captain would return to Paris, and then begging to see that officer, so as to have a distinct understanding of the grounds of his imprisonment. The captain had, however, been a mere instrument; and when Philip clamoured to be taken before the next justice of the peace, even Berenger smiled at him for thinking that such a being existed in France. The only cause alleged was the vague but dangerous suspicion of conveying correspondence between England and the heretics, and this might become extremely perilous to one undeniably half English, regarded as whole Huguenot, caught on the way to La Roch.e.l.le with a letter to La Noue in his pocket; and, moreover, to one who had had a personal affray with a king famous for storing up petty offences, whom the last poor king had favoured, and who, in fine, had claims to estates that could not spared to the Huguenot interest.

He was really not sure that there was not some truth in the professions of the Chevalier being anxious to protect him from the Queen-mother and the Guises; he had never been able to divest himself of a certain trust in his old kinsman's friendliness, and he was obliged to be beholden to him for the forms in which to couch his defence. At the same time he wrote to Sir Francis Walsingham, and to his grandfather, but with great caution, lest his letters should be inspected by his enemies, and with the less hope of their availing him because it was probable that the Amba.s.sador would return home on the king's death. No answer could be expected for at least a fortnight, and even then it was possible that the Queen-mother might choose to refer the cause to King Henry, who was then in Poland.

Berenger wrote these letters with much thought and care, but when they were once sealed, he collapsed again into despair and impatience, and frantically paced the little court as if he would dash himself against the walls that detained him from Eustacie; then threw himself moodily into a chair, hid his face in his crossed arms, and fell a prey to all the wretched visions called up by an excited brain.

However, he was equally alive with Philip to the high-spirited resolution that his enemies should not perceive or triumph in his dejection. He showed himself at the noon-day dinner, before Captain Delarue departed, grave and silent, but betraying no agitation; and he roused himself from his sad musings at the supper-hour, to arrange his hair, and a.s.sume the ordinary dress of gentlemen in the evening; though Philip laughed at the roses adorning his shoes, and his fresh ruff, as needless attentions to an old ruffian like the Chevalier. However, Philip started when he entered the hall, and beheld, not the Chevalier alone, but with him the beautiful lady of the velvet coach, and another stately, extremely handsome dame, no longer in her first youth, and in costly black and white garments. When the Chevalier called her his sister, Madame de Bellaise, Philip had no notion that she was anything but a widow, living a secular life; and though a couple of nuns attended her, their dress was so much less conventual than Cecily's that he did not at first find them out. It was explained that Madame de Selinville was residing with her aunt, and that, having come to visit her father, he had detained the ladies to supper, hoping to enliven the sojourn of his beaux cousins.

Madame de Selinville, looking anxiously at Berenger, hoped she saw him in better health. He replied, stiffly, that he was perfectly well; and then, by way of safety, repaired to the society of the Abbess, who immediately began plying him with questions about England, its court, and especially the secret marriage of Queen Elisabeth and 'ce Comte de Dudley,' on which she was so minutely informed as to put him to the blush. Then she was very curious about the dispersed convents, and how many of the nuns had married; and she seemed altogether delighted to have secured the attention of a youth from the outer world. His soul at first recoiled from her as one of Eustacie's oppressors, and from her unconvent-like talk; and yet he could not but think her a good-natured person, and wonder if she could rally have been hard upon his poor little wife. And she, who had told Eustacie she would strangle with her own hands the scion of the rival house!-she, like most women, was much more bitter against an unseen being out of reach, than towards a courteously-mannered, pale, suffering-looking youth close beside her. She had enough affection for Eustacie to have grieved much at her wanderings and at her fate; and now the sorrow-stricken look that by no effort could be concealed really moved her towards the youth bereaved husband. Besides, were not all feuds on the point of being made up by the excellent device concocted between her brother and her niece?

Meantime, Philip was in raptures with the kindness of the beautiful Madame de Selinville. He, whom the Mistresses Walsingham treated as a mere clumsy boy, was promoted by her manner to be a man and a cavalier. He blushed up to the roots of his hair and looked sheepish whenever one of her entrancing smiles lit upon him; but then she inquired after his brother so cordially, she told him so openly how brilliant had been Berenger's career at the court, she regretted so heartily their present danger and detention, and promised so warmly to use her interest with Queen Catherine, that in the delight of being so talked to, he forgot his awkwardness and spoke freely and confidentially, maybe too confidentially, for he caught Berenger frowning at him, and made a sudden halt in his narrative, disconcerted but very angry with his brother for his distrust.

When the ladies had ridden away to the convent in the summer evening, and the two brothers had returned to their prison, Philip would have begun to rave about Madame de Selinville, but his mouth was stopped at once with 'Don't be such a fool, Phil!' and when Perrine shut his eyes, leant back, and folded his arms together, there was no more use in talking to him.

This exceeding defection continued for a day or two, while Berenger's whole spirit chafed in agony at his helplessness, and like demons there ever haunted him the thoughts of what might betide Eustacie, young, fair, forsaken, and believing herself a widow. Proudly defiant as he showed himself to all eyes beyond his tower, he seemed to be fast gnawing and pining himself away in the anguish he suffered through these long days of captivity.

Perhaps it was Philip's excitement about any chance of meeting Madame de Selinville that first roused him from the contemplation of his own misery. It struck him that if he did not rouse himself to exert his influence, the boy, left to no companionship save what he could make for himself, might be led away by intercourse with the gendarmes, or by the blandishments of Diane, whatever might be her game. He must be watched over, and returned to Sir Marmaduke the same true-hearted honest lad who had left home. Nor had Berenger lain so long under Cecily St. John's tender watching without bearing away some notes of patience, trust, and dutifulness that returned upon him as his mind recovered tone after the first shock. The whispers that had bidden him tarry the Lord's leisure, be strong, and commit his way to Him who could bring it to pa.s.s, and could save Eustacie as she had already been saved, returned to him once more: he chid himself for his faintness of heart, rallied his powers, and determined that cheerfulness, dutifulness, and care for Philip should no longer fail.

So he reviewed his resources, and in the first place arranged for a brief daily worship with his two English fellow-prisoners, corresponding to the home hours of chapel service. Then he proposed to Philip to spend an hour every day over the study of the Latin Bible; and when Philip showed himself reluctant to give up his habit of staring over the battlements, he represented that an attack on their faith was not so improbable but that they ought to be prepared for it.

'I'm quite prepared,' quoth Philip; 'I shall not listen to a word they say.'

However, he submitted to this, but was more contumacious as to Berenger's other proposal of profiting by Sidney's copy of Virgil. Here at least he was away from Mr. Adderley and study, and it pa.s.sed endurance to have Latin and captivity both at once. He was more obliged for Berenger's offer to impart to him the instruction in fencing he had received during his first visit to Paris; the Chevalier made no difficulty about lending them foils, and their little court became the scene of numerous encounters, as well as of other games and exercises. More sedentary sports were at their service, chess, tables, dice, or cards, but Philip detested these, and they were only played in the evening, or on a rainy afternoon, by Berenger and the Chevalier.

It was clearly no part of the old gentleman's plan to break their health or spirits. He insisted on taking them out riding frequently, though always with four gendarmes with loaded arquebuses, so as to preclude all attempt at escape, or conversation with the peasants. The rides were hateful to both youths, but Berenger knew that so many hours of tedium were thus disposed of, and hoped also to acquire some knowledge of the country; indeed, he looked at every cottage and every peasant with affectionate eyes, as probably having sheltered Eustacie; and Philip, after one visit paid to the convent at Bellaise, was always in hopes of making such another. His boyish admiration of Madame de Selinville was his chief distraction, coming on in accesses whenever there was a hope of seeing her, and often diverting Berenger by its absurdities, even though at other times he feared that the lad might be led away by it, or dissension sown between them. Meetings were rare-now and then Madame de Selinville would appear at dinner or at supper as her father's guest; and more rarely, the Chevalier would turn his horse's head in the direction of Bellaise, and the three gentlemen would be received in the unpart.i.tioned parlour, and there treated to such lemon cakes as had been the ruin of La Sablerie; but in general the castle and the convent had little intercourse, or only just enough to whet the appet.i.te of the prisoners for what const.i.tuted their only variety.

Six weeks had lagged by before any answer from Paris was received, and then there was no reply from Walsingham, who had, it appeared, returned home immediately after King Charles's funeral. The letter from the Council bore that the Queen-mother was ready to accept the Baron de Ribaumont's excuses in good part, and to consider his youth; and she had no doubt of his being treated with the like indulgence by the King, provided he would prove himself a loyal subject, by embracing the Catholic faith, renouncing all his illegitimate claims to the estates of Nid de Merle, and, in pledge of his sincerity, wedding his cousin, the Countess de Selinville, so soon as a dispensation should have been procured. On no other consideration could he be pardoned or set at liberty.

'Then,' said Berenger, slowly, 'a prisoner I must remain until it be the will of Heaven to open the doors.'

'Fair nephew!' exclaimed the Chevalier, 'make no rash replies. Bethink you to what you expose yourself by obstinacy; I may no longer be able to protect you when the King returns. And he further went on to represent that, by renouncing voluntarily all possible claims on the Nid de Merle estates, the Baron would save the honour of poor Eustacie (which indeed equally concerned the rest of the family), since they then would gladly drop all dispute of the validity of the marriage; and the lands of Selinville would be an ample equivalent for these, as well as for all expectations in England.

'Sir, it is impossible!' said Berenger. 'My wife lives.'

'Comment! when you wear mourning for her.'

'I wear black because I have been able to procure nothing else since I have been convinced that she did not perish at La Sablerie. I was on my way to seek her when I was seized and detained here.'

'Where would you have sought her, my poor cousin?' compa.s.sionately asked the Chevalier.

'That I know not. She may be in England by this time; but that she escaped from La Sablerie, I am well a.s.sured.'

'Alas! my poor friend, you feed on delusion. I have surer evidence-you shall see the man yourself-one of my son's people, who was actually at the a.s.sault, and had strict orders to seek and save her. Would that I could feel the least hope left!'

'Is the man here? Let me see him,' said Berenger, hastily.

He was at once sent for, and proved to be one of the stable servants, a rough, soldierly-looking man, who made no difficulty in telling that M. de Nid de Merle had bidden his own troop to use every effort to reach the Widow Laurent's house, and secure the lady. They had made for it, but missed the way, and met with various obstacles; and when they reached it, it was already in flames, and he had seen for a moment Mademoiselle de Nid de Merle, whom he well knew by sight, with an infant in her arms at an upper window. He had called to her by name, and was about to send for a ladder, when recognizing the Ribaumont colours, she had turned back, and thrown herself and her child into the flames. M. de Nid de Merle was frantic when he heard of it, and they had searched for the remains among the ruins; but, bah! it was like a lime-kiln, nothing was to be found-all was calcined.

'No fragment left?' said Berenger; 'not a corner of tile or beam?'

'Not so much wood as you could boil an egg with; I will swear it on the Ma.s.s.'

'That is needless,' said Berenger. 'I have seen the spot myself. That is all I desired to ask.'

The Chevalier would have taken his hand and condoled with him over the horrible story; but he drew back, repeating that he had seen Widow Laurent's house, and that he saw that some parts of the man's story were so much falsified that he could not believe the rest. Moreover, he knew that Eustacie had not been in the town at the time of the siege.

Now the Chevalier bona fide believed the man's story, so far as that he never doubted that Eustacie had perished, and he looked on Berenger's refusal to accept the tale as the mournful last clinging to a vain hope. In his eyes, the actual sight of Eustacie, and the total destruction of the house, were mere matters of embellishment, possibly untrue, but not invalidating the main fact. He only said, 'Well, my friend, I will not press you while the pain of this narration is still fresh.'

'Thank you, sir; but this is not pain, for I believe not a word of it; therefore it is impossible for me to entertain the proposal, even if I could forsake my faith or my English kindred. You remember, sir, that I returned this same answer at Paris, when I had no hope that my wife survived.'

'True, my fair cousin, but I fear time will convince you that this constancy is unhappily misplaced. You shall have time to consider; and when it is proved to you that my poor niece is out of the reach of your fidelity, and when you have become better acquainted with the claims of the Church to your allegiance, then may it only prove that your conversion does not come too late. I have the honour to take my leave.'

'One moment more, sir. Is there no answer as to my brother?'

'None, cousin. As I told you, your country has at present no Amba.s.sador; but, of course, on your fulfillment of the conditions, he would be released with you.'

'So,' said Philip, when the old knight had quitted the room, 'of course you cannot marry while Eustacie lives; but if--'

'Not another word, profane boy!' angrily cried Berenger.

'I was only going to say, it is a pity of one so goodly not to bring her over to the true faith, and take her to England.'

'Much would she be beholden to you!' said Berenger. 'So!' he added, sighing, 'I had little hope but that it would be thus. I believe it is all a web of this old plotter's weaving, and that the Queen-mother acts in it at his request. He wants only to buy me off with his daughter's estates from a.s.serting my claim to this castle and lands; and I trow he will never rise up here till-till--'

'Till when, Berry?'

'Till mayhap my grandfather can move the Queen to do something for us; or till Madame de Selinville sees a face she likes better than her brother's carving; or, what can I tell? till malice is tired out, and Heaven's will sets us free. May Eustacie only have reached home! But I'm sorry for you, my poor Phil.'

'Never heed, brother,' said Philip; 'what is prison to me, so that I can now and then see those lovely eyes?'

And the languishing air of the clumsy lad was so comical as to beguile Berenger into a laugh. Yet Berenger's own feeling would go back to his first meeting with Diane; and as he thought of the eyes then fixed on him, he felt that he was under a trial that might become more severe.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. THE DARK POOL OF THE FUTURE

Triumph, triumph, only she That knit his bonds can set him free.

-SOUTHEY No change was made in the life of the captives of Nid de Merle after the answer from Paris, except that Pere Bonami, who had already once or twice dined at the Chevalier's table, was requested to make formal exposition of the errors of the Reformers and of the tenets of his own Church to the Baron de Ribaumont.

Philip took such good care not to be deluded that, though he sat by to see fair play, yet it was always with his elbows on the table and his fingers in his ears, regardless of appearing to the priest in the character of the deaf adder. After all, he was not the object, and good Pere Bonami at first thought the day his own, when he found that almost all his arguments against Calvinism were equally impressed upon Berenger's mind, but the differences soon revealed themselves; and the priest, though a good man, was not a very happily-chosen champion, for he was one of the old-fashioned, scantily-instructed country priests, who were more numerous before the Jesuit revival of learning, and knew nothing of controversy save that adapted to the doctrines of Calvin; so that in dealing with an Anglican of the school of Ridley and Hooker, it was like bow ad arrow against sword. And tin those days of change, controversial reading was one of the primary studies even of young laymen, and Lord Walwyn, with a view to his grandson's peculiar position, had taken care that he should be well instructed, so that he was not at all unequal to the contest. Moreover, apart from argument, he clung as a point of honour to the Church as to the wife that he had accepted in his childhood; and often tried to recall the sketch that Philip Sidney had once given him of a tale that a friend of his designed to turn into a poem, like Ariosto's, in terza rima, of a Red Cross knight separated from his Una as the true faith, and tempted by a treacherous Duessa, who impersonated at once Falsehood and Rome. And he knew so well that the last relaxation of his almost terrified resistance would make him so entirely succ.u.mb to Diane's beauty and brilliancy, that he kept himself stiffly frigid and reserved.

Diane never openly alluded to the terms on which he stood, but he often found gifts from unknown hands placed in his room. The books which he had found there were changed when he had had time to study them; and marks were placed in some of the most striking pa.s.sages. They were of the cla.s.s that turned the brain of the Knight of La Mancha, but with a predominance of the pastoral, such as Diane of George of Montemayor and his numerous imitators-which Philip thought horrible stuff-enduring nothing but a few of the combats of Amadis de Gaul or Palmerin of England, until he found that Madame de Selinville prodigiously admired the 'silly swains more silly than their sheep,' and was very anxious that M. le Baron should be touched by their beauties; whereupon honest Philip made desperate efforts to swallow them in his brother's stead, but was always found fast asleep in the very middle of arguments between Damon and Thyrsis upon the devoirs of love, or the mournings of some disconsolate nymph over her jealousies of a favoured rival.

One day, a beautiful ivory box, exhaling sweet perfume, appeared in the prison chamber, and therewith a sealed letter in verse, containing an affecting description of how Corydon had been cruelly torn by the lions in endeavouring to bear away Sylvie from her cavern, how Sylvie had been rent from him and lost, and how vainly he continued to bewail her, and disregard the loving lament of Daphne, who had ever mourned and pined for him as she kept her flock, made the rivulets, the brooks, the mountains re-echo with her sighs and plaints, and had wandered through the hills and valleys, gathering simples wherewith she had compounded a balsam that might do away with the scars that the claws of the lions had left, so that he might again appear with the glowing cheeks and radiant locks that had excited the envy of the G.o.d of day.

Berenger burst out laughing over the practical part of this poetical performance, and laughed the more at Philip's hurt, injured air at his mirth. Philip, who would have been the first to see the absurdity in any other Daphne, thought this a pa.s.sing pleasant device, and considered it very unkind in his brother not even to make experiment of the balsam of simples, but to declare that he had much rather keep his scars for Eustacie's sake than wear a smooth face to please Diane.

Still Berenger's natural courtesy stood in his way. He could not help being respectful and attentive to the old Chevalier, when their terms were, apparently at least, those of host and guest; and to a lady he COULD not be rude and repellant, though he could be reserved. So, when the kinsfolk met, no stranger would have discovered that one was a prisoner and the others his captors.

One August day, when Madame de Selinville and her lady attendants were supping at the castle at the early hour of six, a servant brought in word that an Italian pedlar craved leave to display his wares. He was welcome, both for need's sake and for amus.e.m.e.nt, and was readily admitted. He was a handsome olive-faced Italian, and was followed by a little boy with a skin of almost Moorish dye-and great was the display at once made on the tables, of 'Lawn as white as driven snow, Cyprus, black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as fragrant posies, Masks for faces and for noses;'

and there was a good deal of the eager, desultory bargaining that naturally took place where purchasing was an unusual excitement and novelty, and was to form a whole evening's amus.e.m.e.nt. Berenger, while supplying the defects of his scanty traveling wardrobe, was trying to make out whether he had seen the man before, wondering if he were the same whom he had met in the forest of Montipipeau, though a few differences in dress, hair, and beard made him somewhat doubtful.

'Perfumes? Yes, lady, I have store of perfumes: ambergris and violet dew, and the Turkish essence distilled from roses; yea, and the finest spirit of the Venus myrtle-tree, the secret known to the Roman dames of old, whereby they secured perpetual beauty and love-though truly Madame should need no such essence. That which nature has bestowed on her secures to her all hearts-and one valued more than all.'

'Enough,' said Diane, blushing somewhat, though with an effort at laughing off his words; 'these are the tricks of your trade.'

'Madame is incredulous; yet, lady, I have been in the East. Yonder boy comes from the land where there are spells that make known the secrets of lives.'

The old Chevalier, who had hitherto been taken up with the abstruse calculation-derived from his past days of economy-how much ribbon would be needed to retrim his murrey just-au-corps, here began to lend an ear, though saying nothing. Philip looked on in open-eyed wonder, and nudged his brother, who muttered in return, 'Jugglery!'

'Ah, the fair company are all slow to believe,' said the pedlar. 'Hola, Alessio!' and taking a glove that Philip had left on the table, he held it to the boy. A few unintelligible words pa.s.sed between them; then the boy pointed direct to Philip, and waved his hand northwards. 'He says the gentleman who owns this glove comes from the North, from far away,' interpreted the Italian; then as the boy made the gesture of walking in chains, 'that he is a captive.'

'Ay,' cried Philip, 'right, lad; and can he tell how long I shall be so?'

'Things yet to come,' said the mountebank, 'are only revealed after long preparation. For them must he gaze into the dark poor of the future. The present and the past he can divine by the mere touch of what has belonged to the person.'