LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE

BY

G.P.R. JAMES.

PHILADELPHIA
CHILDS AND PETERSON,
602 ARCH STREET.
1858.

I. WATY

Lord Montagu's Page:

AN
HISTORICAL ROMANCE
OF THE
Seventeenth Century.

By
G. P. R. JAMES,
Author of

"RICHELIEU," "DARNLEY," "MARY OF BURGUNDY," "OLD DOMINION," ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
CHILDS & PETERSON, 602 ARCH ST.
1858.

[BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.]
[Prefatory Dedication.]
[LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE.]
[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
[CHAPTER XV.]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
[CHAPTER XX.]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
[CHAPTER XXX.]
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
[CHAPTER XL.]
[CHAPTER XLI.]
[CHAPTER XLII.]
[CHAPTER XLIII.]
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
[CHAPTER XLV.]
[CHAPTER XLVI.]
[CHAPTER XLVII.]
[CHAPTER XLVIII.]
[CHAPTER XLIX.]
[CHAPTER L.]
[CHAPTER LI.]

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by
CHILDS & PETERSON,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO.
PHILADELPHIA.
PRINTED BY DEACON & PETERSON.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

[From Allibone's forthcoming Dictionary of Authors.]

George Payne Rainsford James was born in London about the year 1800, and commenced his literary career at an early age by anonymous contributions to the journals and reviews which catered to the literary taste of "a discerning public." Some of these juvenile effusions fell under the notice of Washington Irving, and this gentleman, with his usual kindness of heart, encouraged the young author to venture upon something of a more important character than the fugitive essays which had hitherto employed his pen. Thus strengthened in his literary proclivity, the young aspirant nibbed his "gray-goose quill," commenced author in earnest, and gave to the world in 1822 his first work,—a Life of Edward the Black Prince. Mr. James now turned his attention to a field which had recently been cultivated with eminent success,—historical romance,—and completed in 1825 his novel of Richelieu, which, having received the favorable verdict of Sir Walter Scott, made its appearance in 1829. This was followed in the next year by Darnley and De L'Orme.

Richelieu was so fortunate as to secure the favor of the formidable Christopher North of Blackwood; but this invaluable commendation was withheld from Darnley:—

"Mr. Colburn has lately given us two books of a very different character, Richelieu and Darnley. Richelieu is one of the most spirited, amusing, and interesting romances I ever read; characters well drawn—incidents well managed—story perpetually progressive—catastrophe at once natural and unexpected—moral good, but not goody—and the whole felt, in every chapter, to be the work of a—Gentleman."—Noctes Ambrosianæ, April, 1830; Blackw. Mag., xxvii. 688, q.v.

From this time to the present Mr. James has been no idler in the Republic of Letters, as the following alphabetical list of his writings amply proves:—

1. Adra, or the Peruvians; a Poem, 1 vol. 2. Agincourt, 1844, 3 vols. 3. Agnes Sorrel, 1853, 3 vols. 4. Arabella Stuart, 1853, 3 vols. 5. Arrah Neil, 1845, 3 vols. 6. Attila, 1837, 3 vols. 7. Beauchamp, 1848, 3 vols. 8. Blanche of Navarre; a Play, 1839, 1 vol. 9. Book of the Passions, 1838, 1 vol. 10. Cameralzaman; a Fairy Drama, 1848,1 vol. 11. Castelneau; or, The Ancient Régime, 1841, 3 vols. 12. Castle of Ehrenstein, 1847, 3 vols. 13. Charles Tyrrell, 1839, 2 vols. 14. City of the Silent; a Poem, 1 vol. 15. Commissioner; or, De Lunatico Inquirendo, 1842, 1 vol. 16. Convict, 1847, 3 vols. 17. Corse de Leon, the Brigand, 1841, 3 vols. 18. Dark Scenes of History, 1849, 3 vols. 19. Darnley, 1830, 3 vols. 20. Delaware, 3 vols; subsequently published under the title of Thirty Years Since, 1848, 1 vol. 21. De L'Orme, 1830, 3 vols. 22. Desultory Man, 3 vols. 23. Educational Institutions of Germany, 1 vol. 24. Eva St. Clair, and other Tales, 1843, 2 vols. 25. False Heir, 1843, 3 vols. 26. Fate, 1851, 3 vols. 27. Fight of the Fiddlers, 1848, 1 vol. 28. Forest Days, 1843, 3 vols. 29. Forgery; or, Best Intentions, 1848, 3 vols. 30. Gentleman of the Old School, 1839, 3 vols. 31. Gipsy, 1835, 3 vols. 32. Gowrie; or, The King's Plot, 1 vol. 33. Heidelberg, 1846, 3 vols. 34. Henry Masterton, 1832, 3 vols. 35. Henry Smeaton, 1850, 3 vols. 36. Henry of Guise, 1839, 3 vols. 37. History of Charlemagne, 1832, 1 vol. 38. History of Chivalry, 1 vol. 39. History of Louis XIV., 1838, 4 vols. 40. History of Richard Cœur de Lion, 1841-42, 4 vols. 41. Huguenot, 1838, 3 vols. 42. Jacquerie, 1841, 3 vols. 43. John Jones's Tales from English History, for Little John Joneses, 1849, 2 vols. 44. John Marston Hall, 1834, 3 vols; subsequently published under the title of Little Ball o' Fire, 1847, 1 vol. 45. King's Highway, 1840, 3 vols. 46. Last of the Fairies, 1847, 1 vol. 47. Life of Edward the Black Prince, 1822, 2 vols. 48. Life of Henry IV. of France, 1847, 3 vols. 49. Life of Vicissitudes, 1 vol. 50. Man-at-Arms, 1840, 3 vols. 51. Margaret Graham, 1847, 2 vols. 52. Mary of Burgundy, 1833, 3 vols. 53. Memoirs of Great Commanders, 1832, 3 vols. 54. Morley Ernstein, 1842, 3 vols. 55. My Aunt Pontypool, 3 vols. 56. Old Dominion; or, The Southampton Massacre, 1856, 3 vols. 57. Old Oak Chest, 3 vols. 58. One in a Thousand, 1835, 3 vols. 59. Pequinillo, 1852, 3 vols. 60. Philip Augustus, 1831, 3 vols. 61. Prince Life, 1855, 1 vol. 62. Revenge, 1851, 3 vols; so styled by the bookseller, without the author's consent. It was originally published in papers under a different name. 63. Richelieu, 1829, 3 vols. 64. Robber, 1838, 3 vols. 65. Rose D'Albret, 1840, 3 vols. 66. Russell, 1847, 3 vols. 67. Sir Theodore Broughton, 1847, 3 vols. 68. Smuggler, 1845, 3 vols. 69. Stepmother, 1846, 3 vols. 70. Story without a Name, 1852, 1 vol. 71. String of Pearls, 1849, 2 vols. 72. Ticonderoga; or, The Black Eagle, 1854, 3 vols. 73. Whim and its Consequences, 1847, 3 vols. 74. Woodman, 1847, 3 vols.

It will be seen that the above list presents a total of 188 vols.,—viz: 51 works in 3 vols. each, 2 in 4 vols. each, 6 in 2 vols. each, and 15 in 1 vol. each. Almost all of these volumes are of the post-octavo size. Mr. James is also the editor of the Vernon Letters, illustrative of the times of William III., 1841, 3 vols. 8vo; and of Wm. Henry Ireland's historical romance of David Rizzio, 1849, 3 vols. p. 8vo; and was associated with Dr. E. E. Crowe in the Lives of the Most Eminent Foreign Statesmen, 1832-38, 5 vols. p. 8vo, (4 vols. were Mr. James's, and 1 vol. Dr. Crowe's,) and with Mr. Maunsell B. Field in the composition of Adrian, or The Clouds of the Mind, 1852, 2 vols. p. 8vo.

To this list may be added Norfolk and Hereford, (in a collection entitled Seven Tales by Seven Authors,) and enough articles in various periodicals to fill eight or ten volumes. Perhaps we should not omit to notice that a work entitled A Brief History of the United States Boundary Question, drawn up from official papers, published in London, 1839, 8vo, and ascribed to Mr. James, is not his production; nor had he any share (further than writing a preface, or something of that kind) in another work often credited to him,—Memoirs of Celebrated Women, 1837, 2 vols. p. 8vo. During the reign of William IV. the author received the appointment of historiographer of Great Britain; but this post was resigned by him many years since.

There have been new editions of many of Mr. James's novels, and some or all of them have appeared in Bentley's Series of Standard Novels. There has been also a Parlor-Library Edition. A collective edition was published by Smith, Elder & Co., commencing in June, 1844, and continued by Parry, and by Simpkin, Marshall & Co. In America they have been very popular and published in large quantities.

About 1850 Mr. James, with his family, removed permanently to the United States, and resided for two or three years in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. Since 1852 he has been British Consul at Richmond, Virginia. The space which we have occupied by a recital of the titles only of Mr. James's volumes necessarily restricts the quotation of criticisms upon the merits or demerits of their contents. It has fallen to the lot of few authors to be so much read, and at the same time so much abused, as the owner of the fertile pen which claims the long list of novels commencing with Richelieu in 1829 and extending to the Old Dominion in 1856. That there should be a family likeness in this numerous race—where so many, too, are nearly of an age—can be no matter of surprise. The mind, like any other artisan, can only construct from materials which lie within its range; and, when no time is allowed for the accumulation and renewal of these, it is vain to hope that variety of architecture will conceal the identity of substance. Yet, after all, the champion of this popular author will probably argue that this objection against the writings of Mr. James is greatly overstated and extravagantly overestimated. The novelist can draw only from the experience of human life in its different phases, and these admit not of such variety as the inordinate appetite of the modern Athenians unreasonably demands. A new series of catastrophes and perplexities, of mortifications and triumphs, of joys and sorrows, cannot be evoked for the benefit of the reader of each new novel. Again, Mr. James's admirer insists that this charge of sameness so often urged against our novelist's writings is perhaps overstated. Where one author, as is frequently the case, gains the reputation of versatility of talent by writing one or two volumes, it is not to be believed that Mr. James exhibits less in one or two hundred. He who composes a library is not to be judged by the same standard as he who writes but one book. And even if the charge of "sameness" be admitted to its full extent, yet many will cordially concur with the grateful and graceful acknowledgment of one of the most eminent of modern critics:—

"I hail every fresh publication of James, though I half know what he is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape, and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial. But I am charmed with the new amusement which he brings out of old materials. I look on him as I look on a musician famous for 'variations.' I am grateful for his vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied and vivid landscapes, for his power of painting women at once ladylike and loving, (a rare talent,) for making lovers to match, at once beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this has afforded me, sometimes over and over again, in illness and in convalescence, when I required interest without violence, and entertainment at once animated and mild."—Leigh Hunt.

Two of the severest criticisms to which Mr. James's novels have been subjected are, the one in the London Athenæum for April 11, 1846, and the one in the North American Review, by E. P. Whipple, for April, 1844.

We have spoken of Mr. James's champions and admirers; and such are by no means fabulous personages, notwithstanding the severe censures to which we have alluded. A brief quotation from one of these eulogies will be another evidence added to the many in this volume of a wide dissimilarity in critical opinions:—

"His pen is prolific enough to keep the imagination constantly nourished; and of him, more than of any modern writer, it may be said, that he has improved his style by the mere dint of constant and abundant practice. For, although so agreeable a novelist, it must not be forgotten that he stands infinitely higher as an historian.... The most fantastic and beautiful coruscations which the skies can exhibit to the eyes of mankind dart as if in play from the huge volumes that roll out from the crater of the volcano.... The recreation of an enlarged intellect is ever more valuable than the highest efforts of a confined one. Hence we find in the works before us, [Corse de Leon, the Ancient Régime, and The Jacquerie,] lightly as they have been thrown off, the traces of study,—the footsteps of a powerful and vigorous understanding."—Dublin University Magazine, March, 1842.

The Edinburgh Review concludes some comments upon our author with the remark,

"Our readers will perceive from these general observations that we estimate Mr. James's abilities, as a romance-writer, highly: his works are lively and interesting, and animated by a spirit of sound and healthy morality in feeling, and of natural delineation in character, which, we think, will secure for them a calm popularity which will last beyond the present day."

We have before us more than thirty (to be exact, just thirty-two) commendatory notices of our author, but brief extracts from two of these is all for which we can find space.

"He belongs to the historical school of fiction, and, like the masters of the art, takes up a real person or a real event, and, pursuing the course of history, makes out the intentions of nature by adding circumstances and heightening character, till, like a statue in the hands of the sculptor, the whole is in fair proportion, truth of sentiment, and character. For this he has high qualities,—an excellent taste, extensive knowledge of history, a right feeling of the chivalrous, and a heroic and a ready eye for the picturesque: his proprieties are admirable; his sympathy with whatever is high-souled and noble is deep and impressive. His best works are Richelieu and Mary of Burgundy."—Allan Cunningham: Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years, 1833.

The critic next to be quoted, whilst coinciding in the objections prominently urged against Mr. James as an author,—repetition, tediousness, and deficiency of terseness,—yet urges on his behalf that

"There is a constant appeal in his brilliant pages not only to the pure and generous, but to the elevated and noble sentiments; he is imbued with the very soul of chivalry; and all his stories turn on the final triumph of those who are influenced by such feelings over such as are swayed by selfish or base desires. He possesses great pictorial powers, and a remarkable facility of turning his graphic pen at will to the delineation of the most distant and opposite scenes, manners, and social customs.... Not a word or a thought which can give pain to the purest heart ever escapes from his pen; and the mind wearied with the cares and grieved at the selfishness of the world reverts with pleasure to his varied compositions, which carry it back, as it were, to former days, and portray, perhaps in too brilliant colors, the ideas and manners of the olden time."—Sir Archibald Alison: Hist. of Europe, 1815-52, chap, v., 1853. See also Alison's Essays, 1850, iii. 545-546; North British Review, Feb. 1857, art, on Modern Style.

Prefatory Dedication.

TO

GUSTAVUS A. MYERS, ESQ.

My dear Sir:—

In dedicating to you the following pages, I am moved not more by private friendship and regard, than by esteem for your abilities, and respect for your many and varied acquirements. It might seem somewhat presumptuous in me to call for your acceptance or seek your approbation of this work, when not only your general acquaintance with, but your profound knowledge of, almost every branch of modern and ancient literature qualify and might be expected to prompt you to minute and severe criticism. But I have always found, in regard to my own works at least, that those who were best fitted to judge were the most inclined to be lenient, and that men of high talent and deep learning condescended to tolerate, if not to approve, that which was assailed by very small critics, or scoffed at by men who, calling themselves humorists, omitted the word "bad" before the appellation in which they gloried.

To your good humor, then, I leave the work, and will only add a few words in regard to the object and construction of the story.

We have in the present day romances of many various kinds; and I really know not how to class my present effort. It is not a love-story, for any thing like that which was the great moving power of young energies—at least in less material days than these—has very little part in the book. I cannot call it a novel without a hero, because it is altogether dedicated to the adventures of one man. I cannot call it a romance without a heroine, because there is a woman in it, and a woman with whom I am myself very much in love. I cannot call it absolutely a historical romance, because there are several characters which are not historical, and I am afraid I have taken a few little liberties with Chronology which, were she as prudish a dame as some of the middle-aged ladies whom I could mention, would either earn me a box of the ear, or produce so much scandal that my good name would be lost forever. Plague take the months and the days! they are always getting in one's way. But I do believe I have been very reverent and respectful to their grandmothers the years, and, with due regard for precedence and the Court Guide, have not put any of the latter out of her proper place.

I do not altogether wish to call this a book of character; for I do not exactly understand that word as the public has lately been taught to understand it. There is no peasant, or cobbler, or brick-layer's apprentice, in the whole book, endowed with superhuman qualities, moral and physical. There is no personage in high station—given as the type of a class—imbued with intense selfishness or demoniac passions, wicked without motive, heartless against common sense, and utterly degraded from that noble humanity, God's best and holiest gift to mankind. There is no meek, poor, puling, suffering lover, who condescends humbly to be bamboozled and befooled through three volumes, or Heaven knows how many numbers, for the sake of marrying the heroine in the end. I therefore cannot properly, in the present day, call it a work of character.

I might call it, perhaps,—although the hero is an Englishman,—a picture of the times of Louis XIII; but, alas! I have not ventured to give a full picture of these times. We have become so uncommonly cleanly and decorous in our own days, that a mere allusion to the dirt and indecency of the age of our great-grandmothers is not to be tolerated. In order, indeed, to preserve something like verisimilitude, I have been obliged to glance, in one chapter, at the freedom of manners of the days to which I refer; but it has been a mere glance, and given in such a manner that the cheek of one who understands it, in the sense in which one of those very days would understand it, must have lost the power of blushing. At all events, it can never sully or offend the pure, nor lead the impure any further wrong.

There are a great many explanations and comments, in illustration of the times, which I should like to give for the benefit of that part of my readers who have put on the right of knowing all things at the same time that the third change was made in their dress, and I would have done so, in notes; but, unfortunately, I do not write Greek; and a little incident prevented me from writing those notes in Latin. A work—a most interesting work—was published a few years ago in London, called the Bernstein Hexe, or Amber Witch. More than one translation appeared; and one of these had the original notes,—some written in Latin where they were peculiarly anatomical and indecent; but, to my surprise, I found that several ladies were fully versed in that sort of Latinity. I cannot flatter myself with having a sufficient command of the Roman tongue to be enabled to veil the meaning more completely from the unlearned.

Only in the case of two personages have I attempted to elaborate character,—in regard to my hero, and in regard to the Cardinal de Richelieu. The former, though not altogether fictitious, must go with very little comment. I wished to show how a young heart may be hardened by circumstances, and how it may be softened and its better feelings evolved by a propitious change. The latter, I will confess, I have labored much; because I think the world in general, and I myself also, have done some injustice to one of the greatest men that ever lived. Very early in life I depicted him when he had reached old age,—that is to say, his old age; for he had not, at the time of his death, numbered as many years as are now upon my own head. He had then been tried in the fire of the most terrible circumstances which perhaps ever assayed a human heart; not only tried, but hardened; and even then, upon his death-bed, his burst of tenderness to his old friend, Bois Robert, his delight in the arts, and passion for flowers, showed that the tenderer and—may I not say more noble?—feelings of the man had not been swallowed up by the hard duties of the statesman, or the galling cares of the politician. I now present him to the reader at a much earlier period of life,—young, vigorous, successful, happy,—when the germs of all those qualities for which men have reproached or applauded him were certainly developed, were growing to maturity; when the severity which afterwards characterized him, and the gentleness which he as certainly displayed, had both been exercised; but when the briers and thorns had not fully grown up, and before the soft grass of the heart had been trampled under foot.

All men have mixed characters. I do not believe in perfect evil or in perfect goodness on this earth; but at various times of life the worse or the better spirit predominates, according to the nourishment and encouragement it receives. How far Richelieu changed, and when and how he changed, would require a longer discussion than can be here afforded. But one thing is to be always remembered,—that he was generally painted by his enemies; and, where they admit high qualities and generous feelings, we may be sure that it was done with even a niggard hand, and add something to the tribute of the unwilling witness.

In regard to critics, it may be supposed that I have spoken, a few pages back, somewhat irreverently: I do not mean to do so in the least. Amongst them are some most admirable men,—some who have done great, real, tangible service to the public,—who have guided, if not formed, public taste; and for them I have the greatest possible respect. I speak not of the contributors to our greater and more pretentious Reviews,—although, perhaps, a mass of deeper learning, more close and acute investigation, and purer critical taste, cannot be found in the literature of the world than that contained in their pages; but I speak of the whole body of contemporary critics, many of whose minor articles are full of astute perception and sound judgment. But there are others for whom, though I have the most profound contempt, I have a most humble fear. It is useless in Southern climates, such as that which I inhabit, to attempt to prevent oneself from being stung by mosquitos or to keep one's ears closed against their musical but venomous song. The only plan which presents any chance of success—at least, it is as good as any other—is to go down upon your knees and humbly to beseech them to spare you. I therefore most reverently beseech the moral mosquitos, who are accustomed to whistle and sing about my lowly path, to forbear as much as possible; and, although their critical virulence may be aroused to the highest pitch by seeing a man walk quietly on for thirty years along the only firm path he can find amongst the bogs and quagmires of literature, to spare at least those parts which are left naked by his tailor and his shoemaker; to remember, in other words, that, besides the faults and errors for which I am myself clearly responsible, there is some allowance to be made for the faults of my amanuensis and for the errors of my printer. I admit that I am the worst corrector in the whole world; but I do hope that the liberality of criticism will not think fit to see, as has been lately done, errors of mind in errors clearly of the printer; especially in works which, by some arrangement between Mr. Newby and the Atlantic, I never by any means see till the book has passed through the press. But, should they still be determined to lay the whole blame upon the poor author's shoulders, I may as well furnish them with some excuse for so doing. The best that I know is to be found in the following little anecdote:—

When I was quite a young boy, there was a painter in Edinburgh, of the name of Skirven, celebrated both for his taste and genius, and his minute accuracy in portrait-painting. A very beautiful lady of my acquaintance sat to him for her portrait in a falling collar of rich and beautiful lace. Unfortunately, there was a hole in the lace. As usual, he did not suffer her to see the portrait till it was completed; and, when she did see it, there was a portrait of the hole as well as herself. "Well, Mr. Skirven," she said, "I think you need not have painted the hole."

"Well, madam," answered the painter, "then you should have mended it first."

G. P. R. James.

Ashland, Virginia,
December, 1857.

LORD MONTAGU'S PAGE.

CHAPTER I.

It was a dark and stormy night,—a very dark night indeed. No dog's mouth, whether terrier, mastiff, or Newfoundland, was ever so dark as that night. The hatches had been battened down, and every aperture but one, by which any of the great, curly-pated, leaping waves could jump into the vessel, had been closed.

What vessel? the reader may perhaps inquire. Well, that being a piece of reasonable curiosity,—although I do wish, as a general thing, that readers would not be so impatient,—I will gratify it, and answer the inquirer's question; and, indeed, would have told him all about it in five minutes if he would but have given me time.

What vessel? asks the reader. Why, a little, heavy-looking, fore-and-aft, one-masted ship, somewhat tubbish in form, which had battled with a not very favorable gale during a long stormy day, and had, as the sun went down, approached the coast of France, it might be somewhat too close for safety. The atmosphere in the cabin below was hot and oppressive. How indeed could it be otherwise, when not one breath of air, notwithstanding all the bullying and roaring of Boreas, had been able to get in during the whole day? But such being the case, and respiration in the little den being difficult, the only altogether terrestrial animal—sailors are, of course, amphibious—which that vessel contained had forced his way up to the deck through the only narrow outlet which had been left open.

The amphibia have always a considerable dislike and some degree of contempt for all land-animals, and the five sailors, with their skipper, who formed all the crew so small a craft required, would probably have driven below the intruder upon their labors, had they had time, leisure, or light to notice him at all. But for near two hours he stood at the stern on the weather side of the ship, holding on by the bulwarks, wet to the skin, with his hat blown off and probably swimming back toward Old England, and his hands numbed with cold and with hard grasping.

There is something in the very act of holding on tight which increases the natural tenacity of purpose that exists in some minds, and, if I may use a very vulgar figure, thickens the glue. At the end of the two hours, one of the sailors, who had something to do at the stern in a great hurry, ran up to the spot where the only passenger was clinging and nearly tumbled over him. Then, of course, he cursed him, as men in a hurry are wont to, and exclaimed, "Get down below! What the devil are you doing up here, where you are in everybody's way? Get down, I say!"

"I will not," was the reply, in a quiet, and even sweet, but very resolute, voice.

"Then I'll knock you overboard, by ——!" said the seaman, adding an oath which did not much strengthen the threat in the ears to which it was addressed.

"You cannot, and you dare not try," answered the other. But then the voice of the skipper, who had been working hard at the tiller, was heard exclaiming, "Let him alone, Tom;" and he beneficently called down condemnation not only upon the eyes but upon all the members of his subordinate. "Mind your own work, and let him alone."

Now, it may be worth while to ask what sort of a personage was this, whom the somewhat irascible Master Tom threatened to knock overboard, and who replied with so little reverence for the threat. He could not be a very formidable person, at least in appearance,—a very necessary qualification of the assertion; for I have known very formidable snakes the most pitiful-looking reptiles I ever beheld; and some of the most dangerous men ever seen, either on the same stage of life where we are playing our parts with them, or on the wider boards of history, have been the least impressive in person, and the meanest-looking of creatures. But, as I was saying,—for it is too late to finish that sentence now,—the single passenger could not be very formidable in appearance; for Tom was probably too wise and too experienced to engage in what he considered even an equal struggle on so dark a night, while the wind was blowing a gale, and the little craft heeling gunwale to. Yet he could not be one without some powers, internally if not externally, which rendered him fully as careless of consequences as the other. Well, he was only a lad of some five feet eight or nine in height, slight-looking in form, and dressed in a common sailor's jacket. But in a leathern belt round his waist was a large caseknife, on the handle or hilt of which, while he continued to hold on to the rail of the bulwark with his left hand, he clasped the fingers of his right in a very resolute and uncompromising manner. We all know that bowie-knives, in one land at least, are very useful companions, and in all lands very formidable weapons. Now, the knife in the lad's black leather belt was not at all unlike a bowie-knife, and not in the least less formidable. There was the slight insinuating curve, the heavy haft, the tremendously long blade, the razor-like edge, and the sharp, unfailing point; so that it is not improbable that the youth's confidence was mightily strengthened by the companionship of such a serviceable friend, although he was not half the size of his adversary and not above a third of his weight. Boys, however, are always daring; and he could not at the utmost have passed much more than seventeen years on the surface of this cold earth.

Now, all this account would have been spared the beloved reader had not a trait of character at the outset of the career of any personage, in a poem, novel, romance, or tale, been worth half a volume of description afterward. It would have been spared, indeed, simply because the little incident ended just where we have left it. Tom, the sailor, though a reckless, ill-conditioned fellow, was obedient to the voice of his commander, and, after having boused the boom a little to the one side or the other of the vessel,—which side I neither know nor care,—he returned to the bow, muttering a few objurgations of the youth, implying that if it had not been for him they would never have come upon that d——d voyage at all, and that probably they all would go to the bottom for having such a Jonah on board.

The truth is, Tom had left his sweetheart at Plymouth.

As soon as he was gone, the skipper called the lad a little nearer and said, "Tom says true enough, Master Ned. You were better below on every account. I don't see what you want to come up for on such a night as this."

"Because I do not want to be smothered, Captain Tinly," replied Master Ned. "I had rather be frozen than stewed; rather be melted by the water like a piece of salt or sugar than baked like a pasty. Besides, what harm do I do here? I am in no one's way, and that sea-dog could do his work as well with me here as without me. But I'll tell you what, captain, we are getting into smoother water. Some land is giving us a lee. We ought soon to see a light."

"Why, were you ever here before, youngster?" asked the master.

"Ay, twice," said the boy; "and I know that when the sea smooths down as it is now doing, we cannot be far from the island; and you will soon see the lantern."

"Well, keep a sharp look-out, then," was the reply: "you can see better where you stand than I can, and it's so dark those fellows forward may miss it. A minute or two to-night may save or sink us."

"It matters not much which," answered the young man. A strange thought for one at the age when life is brightest! but there are cases when the disappointment of all early hopes—when the first grasp of misfortune's iron hand has been so hard that it seems to have crushed the butterfly of the heart even unto death,—when it is not alone the gay colors have been brushed off, the soft down swept away, but when Hope's own life seems extinguished.

Happily, it is but for a time. There is immortality in Hope. She cannot die; The fabled Phœnix of the ancients was but an emblem, like every other myth; and, if the painting of Cupid burning a butterfly over a flame was the image of love tormenting the soul, the Phœnix rising from her ashes was surely a figure of the constant resurrection of Hope. Ay, from her very ashes does she rise to brighter and still brighter existence, till, soaring over the cold Lethe of the grave, she spreads her wings afar to the Elysian fields beyond!

It is an old axiom, never to say "die;" and though there be those who say it, ay, and in a momentary madness give the word the form of action, did they but wait, they themselves would find that, though circumstances remained unchanged, the prospect as rugged or the night as dark, the sunshine of Hope would break forth again to cheer, or her star twinkle through the gloom to guide.

The boy felt what he said at the time, but it was only for the time; and there were years before him in which he never felt so again.

"Captain, there is a light surely toward the southwest," said the lad: "that must be the light at St. Martin's-on-Re. It seems very far off. We must be hugging the main shore too close."

"I don't see it," answered the skipper; "but there is one due east, or half a point north. What the devil is that?"

The boy ran across the deck nearly at the risk of his life; for though the sea and wind had both fallen, the little craft still pitched and heeled so much that he lost his footing and had wellnigh gone overboard. He held on, however, was up in a moment, and exclaimed, "Marans! The light in Maran's church! You'll be on the sands in ten minutes! Put about, put about, if you would save the ship!"

A great deal of hurry and confusion succeeded; and there was much unnecessary noise, and still more unnecessary swearing. The youth who had discovered the danger was the most silent of the party; but he was not inactive, aiding the captain with more strength than he seemed to possess, to bring the ship's head as near to the wind as possible. And the manœuvre was just in time; for the lead at one time showed that they were just up the very verge of the sands at the moment when, answering the helm better than she did at first, she made way toward the west, and the danger was past. In half an hour—for their progress was slow—the light upon the Isle de Re could be distinctly seen, and one by one other lights and landmarks appeared, rendering the rest of the voyage comparatively safe.

Still the lad kept his place upon the deck, addressing hardly a word to any one, but watching with a keen eye the eastern line of shore, which was every now and then visible notwithstanding the darkness. The moon, too, began to give some light, though she could not be seen; for the clouds were still thick, and their rapid race across the sky told that, though the sea under the lea of the Isle de Re had lost all its fierceness, the gale was blowing with unabated fury.

The lad quitted his hold of the bulwarks and walked slowly to the captain's side, as if to speak to him; but the skipper spoke first. His professional vanity was somewhat mortified, or perhaps he was afraid that his professional reputation might suffer by the lad's report in the ears of those whose approbation was valuable to him; and consequently he was inclined to put a little bit of defensive armor on a spot where he fancied himself vulnerable.

"We had a narrow squeak of it just now, Master Ned," he said. "However, it was no fault of mine. I could not help it. It is twenty years since I was last at this d——d place, and the chart they gave me is a mighty bad one. Besides, those beastly gales we have had ever since Ushant might puzzle the devil,—and this dark night, too!"

"You've saved the ship, captain," answered the lad: "that is all we have to do with;" and then, perhaps thinking he might as well add something to help the good skipper's palliatives for wellnigh running the ship ashore, he added, "Besides, there is a strong current running,—what between the sands of Oleron and the point of Re, and the Pertuis d'Antioche—I do not know very well how it is; but I was so told by one of the men last time I was here."

"Ay, 'tis so, I dare say," answered the captain. "Indeed, it must be so; for we could never have got so far to the eastward without one of those currents. I wish to heaven some one would put them all down, for one can't keep them all in one's head, anyhow. You tell the duke, when you see him again, about the currents, Master Ned."

"What is the use of telling him any thing at all but that we got safe to Rochelle?" asked the lad. "If we get there—as there is now no doubt—he will ask no questions how; and if we don't, anybody may blame us who likes: it will make little difference to you or me."

The skipper was about to answer; but just at that moment a light broke suddenly out upon that longish point of land which a boat that keeps under the western shore of France has to double—as the reader very well recollects—before it can make the port of La Rochelle; and the boy as suddenly laid his hand on the captain's arm, saying, "Make for that light as near as you can, captain; keep the lead going; drop your anchor as close as you can, and send me ashore in a boat."

"Why, Master Ned, I was told to land you at Rochelle," replied the other.

"You were told to do as I bade you," answered the lad, as stoutly as if he had been a captain of horse,—adding the saving clause, "in every thing except the navigation of your vessel. I must be put ashore where you see that light. So send down for my bags, have the boat all ready, and when I am landed go on to Rochelle and wait till you hear more."

The captain of the vessel did not hesitate to obey. The ship ran speedily for the shore and approached perhaps nearer than was altogether safe; the boat was lowered to the water, and the lad sprang in without bidding adieu to any one. There was a heavy sea running upon the coast, and it required no slight skill and strength on the part of the two stout rowers to land him in safety; but he showed neither fear nor hesitation, though probably he knew the extent of the danger and the service better than any one; for, when he sprang out into the shallow water where the boat grounded, he gave each of the men a gold-piece, and then watched them with somewhat anxious eyes till they had got their boat through the surf into the open sea.

CHAPTER II.

What an extraordinary world it is! Men in general are mere shellfish, unapproachable except at certain tender points; such as the eyes of the crab, or the soft yellow skin under an alligator's gullet,—Achilles' heels which have been neglected by the mothers of those sapient reptiles when they were dipped in Styx. But perhaps it is as well as it is; for if a man were tender all over, and once began to think of all the misery that is going on around him, the faces he would make would be horrible to see. Reader, at this very moment there are thousands dying in agony, there are many starving for lack of food, there is a whole host of gentle hearts watching the expiring lamp of life in the eyes of those most dearly loved, there are multitudes of noble spirits and mighty minds struggling in doubt for to-morrow's daily crust, there is crime, folly, sorrow, anguish, shame, remorse, despair, around us on every side; and yet we are as merry as a grasshopper unless somebody snaps off one of our own legs. There is not an instant of time that does not bring with it a thousand waves of agony over the stormy sea of human existence; and yet every man's light boat dances on, and the mariner sings, till one of the many billows overwhelms him. It is quite as well as it is.

Some, however, are blessed—or cursed, as it may be—with a faculty of feeling for others; and that boy, as he took his way up from the shore toward the little hillock of sand on which a bonfire of pine logs was blazing,—with two heavy bags on his arms, and the rain dashed by the fierce wind in his face,—could not help thinking of the roofless heads and chilled hearts he knew were in the world.

"Poor souls!" he thought; "in an hour I shall be warm and dry and comfortable, and to-morrow all this will be forgotten; but for them there is no comfort, no better to-morrow."

Stay a minute, my lad! Do not go too fast and reckon without your host, either for yourself or others. Joy may light up the dim eye, hope fan the aching brow; and you,—after all you have seen and undergone even in your short life,—how dare you count upon the events of the next hour,—nay, of the next moment?

He climbed the hill stoutly but slowly; for it was steep, and his bags were heavy. The wicked wind, too, fought with him all the way up, and the rain, which had lately begun to fall, came loaded with small particles of hail, as if it sought to aid the wind in keeping him back till their united force could put out the beacon-fire. But the pine was full of resin, and it burned on, with the flame and the smoke whirled about by the wind but never extinguished, until at length he stood on the windward side of the fire and looked round, as if expecting to see the man who lighted it.

There was no one there, however; and the youth, who, it must be acknowledged, was of a somewhat eager and impatient temper and apt to come to hasty conclusions, fancied for a moment or two that those he should have found there had grown weary of waiting in that boisterous night, and had left him to enjoy its pleasures or its terrors by himself. A moment after, however, as the flame swayed a little more to the westward, he caught a glimpse of the ground on the other side of the hill sinking rapidly down into a little dell where some less arid soil seemed to have settled,—enough at least to bear some scanty herbage, a few low bushes, and some thin pines; and there, amongst the latter, appeared a small fixed light. It might be a candle in a cottage-window, and probably was; for it was too red for a jack-o'lantern.

"Ah! I can at least find out where I am," thought the lad; "but I dare say the men are there, taking care of their own skins and little caring about mine."

Thus thinking, he began to descend, and had not proceeded far when a voice hailed him in French. The lad made no answer, but went on; for, to say sooth, he was somewhat moody with all the events of the last three or four days.

"Is that you, Master Ned, I say?" repeated the voice, in English, but with a very strong foreign accent.

"Ay, ay!" replied the youth; "but how the devil did you expect me to find you if you did not stay by the fire?"

"Oh, we kept a good look-out," answered a stout man of some five-and-thirty years of age, who was advancing to meet him. "We have waited for you by the fire long enough these two last nights; and, as we could see any one who came across the blaze, there was no use of our getting frozen, or melted, or blown away on the top of the hill. But what has made you so long behind? You were to have been here on Tuesday night: so the letters said. What kept you?"

"Head-winds all the way from Ushant," replied the boy. "But let us go on, Jargeau, for we must be far from the town, and time enough has been lost already."

"Well, come down to the cottage," said the other, in a musing sort of tone. "You want something to refresh you while the horses are being saddled. Here; let me carry your bags." And as he spoke he laid his hand upon one of the large leather-covered cases.

"Not that one," said the boy, sharply, pushing away his hand: "here; you may take this." The man laughed, saying, "Ay, as sharp as ever!" and they descended to the pines, where the light still glimmered behind one of the few remaining panes of glass in the window of a dilapidated cottage, on the leeward side of which stood three horses, tethered but without their saddles.

The interior of the building offered no very cheerful aspect; but, seeing that the boy had not eaten any thing for the last twelve hours, that he was weary, wet, and cold, the sight of a very tolerable supply of viands on the floor,—for there was furniture of no kind within,—and a large black bottle fitted to hold at least a gallon, was very consolatory.

The only other objects which the cottage contained were the rosin candle fixed into a split log, and a lean but apparently strong man of perhaps forty, whose face had evidently had at least a ten years' intimacy with the brandy-flask. He was stretched out at length upon the ground, but with his head and arm within reach of the viands and bottle; and though, in answer to some observations of his comrade of the watch, he swore manfully that he had touched neither, yet he wiped his mouth upon the sleeve of his coat, as if he felt that something might be clinging to his lips which would contradict him.

"Ah, Master Ned!" he exclaimed, in French, but without moving from where he lay, "I am right glad you have come, for my throat is as dry as an ear of rye, and Jargeau there would not have the cold meat touched nor the bottle broached till you came."

"By the Lord, you have broached it, though!" exclaimed the other, who had been stooping down: "the neck is quite wet, you vagabond; and, if we did not need you, I would give you a touch of my knife for disobeying my orders. But come, Master Ned, sit down on the floor and eat. There is enough left in the bottle for you, at all events; and, on my soul, he shall not have another drop till both you and I have finished."

The other man only laughed, and the boy applied himself to the food with a good will. When he had eaten silently for some ten minutes, he stretched out his hand, saying, "Give me the bottle, Jargeau: I will have one draught of wine, and then I am ready. Pierrot, get up and put the saddles on the horses."

"No wine will you get here," replied Jargeau; "but this is better for you, wet as you are,—as good eau-de-vie as ever came from Tonnay Charente. Take a good drink: you will need it."

"Get up and saddle the horses," said the boy before he drank, addressing somewhat sharply the lean gentleman on the ground. "Have you forgotten St. Martin's, good Pierrot?"

"I will have my drink first," answered the other, grinning. "I brought the bottle here; and drop for drop all round is fair play."

As the quickest mode of ending all dispute, the youth drank and gave the bottle to Pierrot; but it remained so long at his lips that Jargeau snatched it angrily from him, swearing he would not leave a drop. He seemed loath to part with it, but at length raised his long limbs from the floor, and, lighting another rosin candle, went forth to perform his task.

"And now, Master Ned," said Jargeau, "I have news for you which you may be will not like. You are not going to La Rochelle to-night. There is no one there whom you want to see."

"I must go," said the boy, thoughtfully, as if speaking to himself. "I must go."

"But just listen, Master Ned," said Jargeau. "I know you are somewhat hard-headed; but what is the use of going to a place where there is no one to deal with? Now, the Prince de Soubise and the Duc de Rohan are both at the Chateau of Mauzé; and with them are all the people you want to see."

The lad paused and mused for several minutes without making any answer, and Jargeau pressed him to take some more of the brandy, saying that he would have a ride of thirty miles. But still he replied nothing, till at length, awaking from his reverie, he asked, "Who is to guide me? I do not know the way to Mauzé."

"Oh, Pierrot is here for the very purpose," answered Jargeau: "he will guide you, and though, by one way or another, he will find means to make all you leave of the brandy disappear, you know he is never drunk enough not to find his way."

Master Ned, as they called him, again fell into thought for a moment or two, and then answered, "It would be better for you to go yourself. But perhaps you are wanted in Rochelle?"

"No," answered the other, in an indifferent tone; "I have got to go to Fontenay, where some of our friends—you understand?—are to have a meeting to-morrow night."

"Then you must be there, of course," replied Master Ned; "but, if Pierrot is to ride thirty miles with me, the poor devil had better have some food. He has tasted nothing but the brandy."

"That is enough for him," answered Jargeau: "he cares nothing for meat when he can get drink."

"Well, then, let him have enough of what he likes best," answered the lad; "and in the mean time I will get a cloak out of the bag, for we shall have a wet ride as well as a long one." Thus saying, he rose, took the bags into the farther corner of the cabin, and certainly took a cloak out of one of them. Whether he brought forth any thing else I do not say; but the cloak was soon over his shoulders, and a moment after Pierrot appeared at the door, saying that the beasts were saddled.

"Here, Pierrot," exclaimed the lad; "come in and devour that chicken, and then you shall have some more of the devil's drops."

"Take some more yourself, Ned," said Jargeau: "'tis the only way to prevent catching the fever."

The lad assented, and, taking the bottle with both hands, put it to his lips; but whether any of its contents passed beyond them I am doubtful, seeing that the throat, which was fully exposed by his falling collar, showed no signs of deglutition. He then handed the liquor to Pierrot, who by this time had torn a large fat fowl to pieces and swallowed one-half of it. The brandy fared still worse; for, although Jargeau frowned upon him fiercely while he drank, the bottle, whatever remained of the contents when he put it to his mouth, left that organ quite empty.

"You drunken beast, you have swallowed it all!" said Jargeau.

"True," answered Pierrot, with a watery and somewhat swimming eye: "my mouth is not large, but it is deep. I wish the Pertuis d'Antioche could be filled with the same stuff and my mouth be laid at the other end. There would be only one current then, Monsieur Jargeau."

The lad and the elderman both eyed him keenly as he spoke; but, strange to say, the sight seemed to please the former more than the latter, and, as they issued forth to mount, Jargeau drew Pierrot aside and said something to him in a low but angry voice.

The lad took not the slightest notice of this little interlude, but, advancing to where the horses stood with bent heads, not liking the rain at all, he selected the one which seemed to him the strongest and best, without asking consent of any one, placed his bags, tied together with a strong leathern thong, over the pommel of the saddle, and then sprang into his seat. "Come on, Pierrot!" he cried; "we have far to ride, it seems, and but little time." Jargeau advanced to his side and said, in a whisper, "That beast is half drunk. Take care of him. You remember it is the Chateau of Mauzé you are going to. He may turn refractory."

"Oh, no fear," replied Master Ned. "I can drive him as well as any other ass. I have driven him before. Mauzé?—that is upon the road to Niort, is it not?"

"Yes," answered the other. "Where the road forks, keep to the right, and then straight on: you cannot miss it. I think the moon will get the better of the clouds and shine out."

"Good!" said the youth. "We want a little light."

Thus saying, he struck the horse with his heel, and the beast started forward. Pierrot, who by this time had contrived to mount, followed, and Jargeau returned to the cottage, as he said, to put out the light.

CHAPTER III.

There had been something a little peculiar in the way in which Master Ned had pronounced the words, "We want a little light," which, if Jargeau had remarked the curl of his lip as they were uttered, might have induced him to turn his horse's head toward Rochelle instead of Fontenay; for in truth the lad spoke of other than moonlight. Ned rode on in silence, however, for some minutes, along a small road, or rather path, which led from the old cottage, first to a small straggling village, such as is still to be seen in the Bocage and its neighborhood, and then to a place of junction with the highroad running from Marans to Mauzé. It was called a highroad then, God wot; but it has fallen into a second-class way now, and was in all but name a very low road always.

Pierrot was silent too,—not that he had not a strong impulse toward eloquence upon him, but that he felt a certain confusion of thought which did not permit of seeing distinctly which was the head, which the tail, of a subject. The last draught of brandy had been a deep one. Yet Pierrot was practised in all the various phases of drunkenness, and in general knew how to carry his liquor discreetly; but this was in fact the reason that he abstained from using his tongue, feeling an intense conviction that it would either speak some gross nonsense, or betray some secret, or commit some other of those lamentable blunders in which drunken men's tongues are wont to indulge, if he once opened his mouth.

It was not an easy task to keep quiet, it is true; and, had he not been a very experienced man, he could not have accomplished it. But the struggle was soon brought to a conclusion; for, when they had ridden about half a mile, Master Ned turned sharp upon him, and asked, abruptly, "What was that Jargeau said to you, just as we were coming away, Pierrot?"

"Oh, nothing," answered Pierrot, in a muddled voice, "but to lead you right."

"Where?" demanded the lad, sternly.

"Why, to Mauzé, to-be-sure," replied Pierrot.

"What a pity he gave himself such unnecessary trouble!" answered the lad, in a quiet tone: "neither you nor I go to Mauzé to-night, Pierrot."

"Then where, in Satan's name, are you going?" demanded his companion, checking his horse.

"To Rochelle," replied Master Ned. "Jog on, Maître Pierrot. It is the next turn on the right we take, I think. Jog on, I say. Why do you stop?"

"Because I ought to go back and tell Jargeau, and ask him what I am to do," answered the other, half bewildered with drink and astonishment.

"You are to do what I tell you, and to do it at once," replied the lad; "and, if you do not, I have got a persuader here which will convince you sooner than any other argument I can use." And as he spoke he drew one of the large horse-pistols of that day from beneath his cloak and pointed it straight at Pierrot's head. "It is the same argument that stopped your running away and leaving us in the enemy's teeth at St. Martin's-in-Rhé," he said.

"You young devil, the ball is in my leg still," answered Pierrot. "But this is not fair, Master Ned. You might be right enough then, for you thought I was going to betray you; though, on my life and soul, I was only afraid. Now you want me to disobey those I am bound to serve, and do not even give me a reason."

"I will give you a reason, though I have not much time, for fear the powder in the pan should get damp," replied the boy; "but my reason is that I was told to go to Rochelle and see Maître Clement Tournon; and therefore I am going. Now, in the Isle de Rhé I did not think you were going to betray us, and knew quite well it was mere fear; but at present I do think Jargeau is seeking to betray me,—or mislead me, which is as bad. At all events, you have got to go with me to Rochelle, or have the lead in your head, Pierrot: so choose quickly, because you know I do not wait long for any one."

"Well, I vow you are too hard upon me, Master Ned," said Pierrot, in a whimpering tone. "You take the very bread out of my mouth and give me over to the vengeance of that cold-blooded devil Jargeau."

"You will find me a worse devil still," replied Master Ned, coldly; but even as he spoke he fell into a fit of thought, and then added, "Listen to me, Pierrot, if the brandy has left you any brains, or ears either. I want a man like you to go with me a long way, perhaps. It will not be I who pay you, for I have got little enough, as you know; but I will be your surety that you shall be well paid as long as you serve well. I know you to the bottom. You are honest at heart, whether you are drunk or sober; though liquor has not the same effect upon you as upon most men. You are brave enough when you are sober, but a terrible coward when you are drunk. Now, if you like to go with me, you shall have enough to live on, and to get drunk on, when I choose to let you get drunk."

"How often will that be?" asked Pierrot, interrupting him.

"I will make no bargain," answered the lad; "but this much I will say: you may drink whenever I do not tell you I have important business on hand. When I do tell you that, you shall taste nothing stronger than water."

"Good! good!" said Pierrot: "strong water you mean, of course."

"Well-water," said the lad, sharply. "But, remember, I am not to be trifled with. As to Jargeau, I will take care he does nothing to injure you. If it be as I think, I have got his head under my belt, and he will soon know that it is so. Now choose quickly, for we have stood here too long."

"Well, I'll go," said Pierrot; "but I am terribly afraid of that Jargeau. However, your pistol is nearest; and so I'll go. I know you are not to be trifled with, well enough; but I must find some way of letting Jargeau know I have left him. It would be a shame to go without telling him, you know, Master Ned."

"We shall find means enough in Rochelle of sending him word," answered the lad, putting up his pistol and resuming his journey.

Pierrot followed with sundry half-articulate grunts; but he appeared soon to recover both good humor and spirits, for ere they had gone half a mile he burst forth into song, broken and irregular indeed, now a scrap from one lay, now from another; but, at all events, the music seemed to show that no very heavy thing was resting on his mind. His rambling scraps of old ditties ran somewhat as follows:—

"Whither go you on this dark, dark night, Wayfaring cavalier? Go you to love, or go you to fight? Either is better by clear moonlight, Venturous cavalier.

"By my life, the moon is beginning to break through,—though how she will manage it I don't know; for there is mud enough in yonder sky to swallow up the tallest horse I ever rode.

"Oh, tell-tale moon, You are up too soon For the long train of kisses yet on the way. Your eyes so bright Make all the world light: We might just as well kiss in the full of the day."

"She has got behind the cloud again. Moons and maidens don't know their own minds.

"Katy went to the cupboard-door, Ah, Katy, Katy! What want you in your grandam's store? Cunning little Katy."

The concluding stanzas, if they were neither very excellent nor very tender, were at least an indication that his mind was settling down into a calmer state than when he began. They were connected, at all events; and continuity of thought is a great approach to reason, which dwelleth not in the brains of any man together with much brandy. The finer spirit was, therefore, apparently getting the better of the coarser; and Master Ned thought the time was come for him to take advantage of the change of dynasty and see whether he could not obtain some advantage from the new ruler.

"Well, Pierrot," he said, "this is a very pretty business you have been engaged in. After having had the honor of serving the King of England and fighting for the liberty of the Protestants of France, you have been persuaded to aid in trying to betray me into the hands of the enemy, though you did not know that I might not be the bearer of important messages to your own people."

"Whew!" cried Pierrot, with a long whistle. Now, whistles mean all kinds of things, from the ostracism of a play-house gallery to the signal of love or housebreaking; but the whistle of good Pierrot was decidedly a whistle of astonishment, and so Master Ned interpreted it.

"Do not affect ignorance or surprise, Pierrot," he said: "that will not do with me. Jargeau is a traitor: that is clear."

"Well, well, Master Ned," interposed his companion, "you are a mighty sharp lad, beyond question; but sometimes you ride your horse too fast, notwithstanding. Just stop a bit till my head gets a little—a very little bit—clearer, and I'll set you right. As you think the matter worse than it is, I may as well show you it is better. I don't mean to say they did not want to trick you; but not the way you fancy."

"Why, are not all the towns round in the hands of the Papists?" asked the lad. "We have had that news in England for the last four months."

"No, no, no," answered Pierrot: "the Papists may have the upper hand in most of them, it is true; but stop a bit, and I'll tell you all clearly. Your long pistol half sobered me; and when I can get to a spring and put my head in, that will wash out the rest of the brandy. It is of no use giving you a muddled tale."

"Take care you do not make one up," answered Master Ned. "I shall find you out in five minutes."

Pierrot laughed. "I'd as soon try to cheat the devil," he said. "But let us ride on. There is a well just where the roads cross, and it will serve my turn. Brandy is a fine thing, but a mighty poor counsellor."

The lad followed the suggestion, for he did not wish to give his companion too much time to think, and, urging their horses on, in about five minutes they reached the spot where two highways crossed, and where a large stone trough received the waters of a beautiful and plentiful spring, affording solace to many a weary and thirsty horse in those days of saddle-travelling. There Pierrot dismounted, slowly and deliberately, for he could not precisely ascertain to what extent he retained a balancing power till his feet touched the ground. With more directness of purpose, however, than could have been expected, he made his way to the trough, and, kneeling down, plunged his head once or twice into the cool water. He then rose, with his long rugged black hair still streaming; and, after the horses had been suffered to drink, the two travellers resumed their way. The moon by this time had completely scattered the clouds; glimpses of dark-blue sky appeared between the broken masses, and the keen eye of the young lad could mark every change in the expression of Pierrot's face as he went on.

"Now, Master Ned," he said, "I think my noddle has got clear enough of the fumes to let you know something of what people have been about here, which you do not know rightly, I can see. Rochelle is going to be taken by the Catholics: that's clear to me."

"Unless the great Duke of Buckingham drive the Catholics beyond the Loire, it must be taken," answered the lad. "You can never stand against all France. But what makes you give up hope, Pierrot?"

"First, the King of France, and his devil of a Cardinal, are drawing together a great army all around us," answered Pierrot,—"a greater army than ever approached Rochelle before. That we could manage to resist, perhaps. But then they are going very coolly to work fortifying every town and well-pitched village of the Papists within fifty miles of the city, and filling them with soldiers, so that every egg that comes to market will have to be fought for. Well, that we could perhaps manage too, for we could get supplies from England. But look here, Master Ned: there are two parties in Rochelle. Our best lords and wisest citizens, our chief generals and captains, know well that our only hope is in the support of England; but there is a more numerous, if not a stronger, party, who do not like your great duke, would have nothing to do with your good country, and would have us stand alone and fight it out by ourselves. One of their chief men is Jargeau."

"I see," said the lad. "But what did he seek by trying to entrap me to go to Mauzé?"

"First, your letters were likely either to fall into the hands of the Catholics, and, by showing how firmly Rochelle could count upon English help, frighten them and make them reasonable," answered Pierrot, "or, secondly, they might fall into the hands of Miguet and his other friends, who would take care they should never reach their destination. That was the plan, Master Ned."

"And not a bad plan, either," answered the other, thoughtfully, "supposing I had any letters. But, as you say, Rochelle is in a bad way; for, if her leaders are afraid to let each other know their exact position and what they may count upon, she is a house divided against herself, and cannot stand. But what made Jargeau think I had letters? Nobody told him so, I think."

"No; but they told him you would have messages for our principal people," answered Pierrot,—adding, not unwilling, perhaps, to show a little scorn for one whose strong will had exercised what may be called an unnatural ascendency over him more than once, "and Jargeau never believed that they would trust messages to such a young boy as you."

"He must have thought my memory very bad," replied the lad, "not to be able to carry a message from England to France. But my memory is not so bad, good Pierrot, as he may find some day. At all events, if Rochelle is to be lost by the intrigues of a man who does not choose his comrades to know where succor lies when they like to seek it, all the world shall know who ruined a good cause. But I suppose, Pierrot, all he told me of the meeting of the Reformed leaders at Mauzé was a mere lure."

"No, no; it is all true," answered Pierrot. "The prince is there, and Rohan, and a dozen of others; and if you could have got safe through without the loss of your bags, you would have found some of those you want; but I suppose he had provided against that. I don't know: he never told me; but it is likely."

"Very likely," replied Master Ned; "but you say 'some of those I want.' I only want one person; and him I must see if it be possible. Is Maître Clement Tournon in the city?"

"He is not with those in the Chateau of Mauzé," replied Pierrot. "I know little of him. He is a goldsmith,—a very quiet man?"

"Probably," answered the lad: "quiet men are the best friends in this world. So, on to Rochelle! Will they let us pass the gates at night?"

"'Tis a hard question to answer," said Pierrot. "Sometimes they are very strict, sometimes lax enough. But it is somewhat late, young lad, and, if none of the guard is in love with moonlight, we shall find them all asleep."

"Asleep in such times as these!" exclaimed the young man.

"Why, either the Papists are trying to throw us off our guard," said Pierrot, "or they are too busy cutting off each others' heads to mind ours. They have not troubled us much as yet. True, they have taken a town or two, and stopped some of our parties into the country, and begun what they call lines; but not a man of their armies has come within cannon-shot. And there is not much more strictness than in the times of the little war which has been going on for the last fifty years. But the people in the town vary from time to time. When one man commands, the very nose of a Catholic will be fired at; and, when another is on duty, the gates will be opened to Schomberg, or the devil, or any one else who comes in a civil manner. But there is Rochelle peeping over the trees yonder, just as if she had come out to see the moon shine."

"Well, then, mark me, good Pierrot," said Master Ned, "I expect you to do all you can to make them open the gates to us. You understand what that means, I suppose?"

"That I shall have a shot in my other leg or through my head if I do not, I presume," answered Pierrot. "But don't be afraid. When you have given me a crown, I shall have taken service with you; and then you know, or ought to know, I will serve you well."

The lad, it would seem, had some reason to judge that the estimate which his companion put upon such a bond was just. Indeed, in those days the act of taking service, confirmed by earnest-money, implied much more than it does in our more enlightened times. Then a man who had thus bound himself thought himself obliged to let nobody cheat his master but himself, to feel a personal interest in his purposes and in his safety. Now, alas! we hire a man to rob us himself and help all others to rob us,—to brush our coats in the evening, and cut our throats in the morning if we have too many silver spoons. However, Master Ned put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a piece of money, which he held out to Pierrot, who seemed for a moment to hesitate to take it. "I wish I had told Jargeau I was going to quit him," he said: "not that he ever gave me a sol, but plenty of promises. How much is it, Master Ned?"

"A spur rial," replied the boy,—"worth a number of your French crowns."

"Lead us not into temptation!" cried Pierrot, taking and pocketing the money. "And now tell me what I am to do."

"All you can to make them open the gates," answered Master Ned. "You have got the word, of course?"

"Nay, 'faith, not I," replied Pierrot: "Jargeau got it this evening, but I did not think of asking. Never mind, however: all the people in Rochelle know me, and I will get in if any one can."

He was destined to be disappointed, however. In the little suburb, just before the gate, he and his companion passed a little tavern where lights were burning and people singing and making a good deal of noise; but it was in vain that Pierrot knocked at the large heavy door or shouted through a small barred aperture. No one could be made to hear; and he and Master Ned were forced to retreat to one of the cabarets of the faubourg and await the coming of daylight.

CHAPTER IV.

"Who is that boy?" said one of the early shopkeepers of Rochelle, speaking to his neighbor, who was engaged in the same laudable occupation as himself,—namely, that of opening his shop for the business of the day. At the same time he pointed out a handsome lad, well but plainly dressed, who was walking along somewhat slowly toward the better part of the city. "Who is that boy, I wonder?"

"He's a stranger, by that cloak with the silver lace," replied the other: "most likely come over in the ship that nearly ran upon the pier last night. He carries a sword, too. Those English make monkeys even of their children; but he is a good-looking youth nevertheless, and bears himself manly. Ah! there is that worthless vagabond, Pierrot la Grange, speaking to him. And now Master Pierrot is coming here. I will have naught to do with him or his." And, so saying, he turned into his shop.

The other tradesman waited without, proposing in his own mind to ask Pierrot sundry questions regarding his young companion; for, although he had no curiosity, as he frequently assured his neighbors, yet he always liked to know who every-body was, and what was his business.

Pierrot, however, had only had time to cross over from the other corner of the street and ask, in a civil, and even sober, tone, where the dwelling of Monsieur Clement Tournon could be found, when the good tradesman exclaimed, "My life! what is that?" and instantly darted across the street as fast as a somewhat short pair of legs could carry him.

Now, the street there was not very wide; but it was crossed by one much broader within fifty yards of the spot where the shopkeeper was standing, called in that day "Rue de l'Horloge." It may have gone by a hundred names since. The street was quite vacant, too, when Pierrot addressed the tradesman; but the moment after, two sailors came up the Rue de l'Horloge, and one of them, as soon as he set eyes on Master Ned, who was standing with his back to the new-comers, laid his hand upon his shoulder and said something in a tone apparently not the most civil, for the lad instantly shook himself free, turned round, and put his hand upon the hilt of the short sword he carried. It seemed to the good shopkeeper that he made an effort to draw it; but whether it fitted too close, or it had got somewhat rusted to the scabbard during the previous rainy night, it would not come forth; and in the mean time the sailor struck him a thundering blow on the head with a stick he carried. The youth fell to the ground at once, but he did not get up again, and the two tradesmen ran up, crying, "Shame! shame! Seize the fellow!"

"You've killed him, Tom, by the Lord!" cried the other sailor. "You deserve hanging; but get back to the ship if you would escape it. Quick! quick! or they will stop you."

"He was drawing his sword on me!" cried our friend Tom, whose quarrel—not the first one—with Master Ned we have already seen as the ship neared the Isle of Rhé. But, not quite confident in the availability of his excuse, he took his companion's advice and began to run, turning the corner of the Rue de l'Horloge. One of the tradesmen pursued him, however, shouting, "Stop him! stop him!" and the malevolent scoundrel had not run thirty yards, when he was seized by a strong, middle-aged man, who was walking up the street with an elderly companion and was followed by two common men dressed as porters.

The sailor made a struggle to get free, but it was in vain; and the shopkeeper, who was pursuing, soon made the whole affair known to his captors.

The elderly man with the white beard put one or two questions to the prisoner, to which he received no reply; for since that untoward event of the Tower of Babel the world is no longer of one speech, and Tom was master of no other than his own.

"Take him to the prison," said the old man, addressing the two men who had been following him. "Do not use him roughly, but see that he does not escape."

"He shall not get away, Master Syndic," replied one of the porters; and, while the syndic was speaking a few whispered words to his companion, Tom was carried off to durance vile.

The two gentlemen then walked on with the tradesman by their side, and were soon on the spot where the assault had been committed. By this time a good many people had gathered round poor Master Ned; and the other English sailor had lifted the lad's head upon his knee, while Pierrot was pouring some water on his face. The shopkeeper, to whom the latter had been speaking when the misadventure had occurred, was trying to stanch the blood which flowed from a severe cut on the head; but the moment he saw the syndic approach he exclaimed, "Ah, Monsieur Clement Tournon, this poor lad was inquiring for you when that brute felled him."

"Indeed!" said the old man, with less appearance of interest than might perhaps have been expected. "Leave stopping the blood: its flow will do him good; and some one carry him to my house, where he shall be well tended."

Pierrot had risen from his knee as the syndic spoke, and now whispered a word in his ear, which he evidently thought of much consequence; but the old man remained unmoved, merely saying, "Not quite so close, my friend! I tell you he shall be well tended. Neighbor Gasson, for charity, call two or three of your lads and let them carry the poor lad up to my dwelling."

At this moment the younger and stouter man who had seized and held Master Ned's brutal assailant suggested that it would be better to take the boy to his dwelling, as it was next door but one to the house of the famous physician Cavillac.

"Nay, nay, Guiton," replied the syndic, "my poor place is hard by; and yours," he added, in a lower tone, "may be too noisy. You go and send down the doctor,—though I think the lad is but stunned, and will soon be well again. Pierrot la Grange, follow us up, if you be, as you say, his servant,—though how he happened to hire such a drunken fellow I know not. Yes, I know you, Master Pierrot, though you have forgotten me." Thus saying, he drew the personage whom he had called Guiton aside and spoke to him during a few moments in a whisper. In the mean time, two or three stout apprentices had been called forth from the neighboring houses; and the youth, being raised in their arms, was being carried along the Rue de l'Horloge. Clement Tournon followed quickly, leaving his friend Guiton at the corner; and at the tenth door on the left-hand side the party stopped and entered the passage of a tall house standing somewhat back from the general line of the street. It was rather a gloomy-looking edifice, with small windows and heavy doors plated on the inner side with iron; but whether sad or cheerful mattered little to poor Master Ned, for the state of stupor in which he lay was not affected by the act of bearing him thither, nor by the still more troublesome task of carrying him up a narrow stairs. That he was not dead his heavy breathing showed; but that was almost the only sign of life which could be discovered by a casual observer.

"Carry him into the small room behind the saloon," said Clement Tournon, who was at this time following close; and in another minute the lad was laid upon a bed in a room situated in the back of the house, where little noise could penetrate, and which was cheerful and airy enough.

"Thank you, lads; thank you!" said the syndic, speaking to the apprentices. "Now leave us. You, Pierrot la Grange, stay here: undress him and get him between the sheets."

The noise and the little crowd going up the steps had brought forth several women-servants, belonging to Monsieur Tournon's household, in large, helmet-shaped, white caps; and, after gazing in silence for a moment or two, with wonder and compassion, upon the handsome pale countenance, all bedabbled with blood, of the poor lad, they began to make numerous suggestions to their master, who answered nothing, but inquired, "Where is Lucette?"

She was gone, they told him, to Madame Loraine's school; and then, rejecting all their counsels, and merely telling them that Dr. Cavillac would soon be there, he ordered the room to be cleared of every one but Pierrot and himself.

The old syndic paused for a moment or two after his commands had been obeyed, gazing upon the pale face before him with a look of greater interest than he had yet suffered to appear upon his countenance. Then, suddenly turning to Pierrot, he said, "Now tell me all you know about this youth. Who is he? What did he come hither for? What is his business with me?"

"What is his business with you, Monsieur Tournon? I do not know," replied Pierrot la Grange. "What he came hither for was to bring letters or messages from England; and as to who or what he is or was, that is very simple. He is Lord Montagu's page."

"And his name?" asked the syndic.

"We used to call him Master Ned," replied Pierrot. "That was when I was with the English army in the Isle de Rhé; but his name by rights, I believe, is Edward Langdale." The old man continued silent; and Pierrot, whose tendency to loqua-city easily broke bounds, went on to tell how Etienne Jargeau had received, some days before, information that Master Ned would arrive upon the coast on business of importance, with directions to have a small beacon-fire lighted that night, and every night after, on a little hill just above the trou bourbé, till the lad appeared. "You know Jargeau used to be a retainer of the Prince de Soubise, monsieur," Pierrot continued; "but of late he has left his service and has gone over—some say bought—to the French party."

"I trust we are all of the true French party," replied Monsieur Tournon. "But the lad landed last night, you say. Had he no baggage with him?"

"Yes, two large leather bags with padlocks on them," rejoined Pierrot: "they are left safe under lock and key at the Coq d'Or, where we were obliged to rest last night because the guard was so sound asleep that we could not wake them to let us in."

"Ay? so sluggardly? This must be amended," said the syndic. "At the Coq d'Or, in the suburb? That is no safe place for such bags."

"So I was just thinking," replied Pierrot: "I will go up and fetch them. He has got the key of the room in his pocket."

The worthy gentleman made a movement toward the bed, as if to take the key; but Clement Tournon stopped him with a somewhat sarcastic smile, saying, "If the Coq d'Or is no safe depository, Pierrot la Grange is no safe messenger."

The man's face flushed. "You do me wrong, sir!" he exclaimed. "Bad enough I may be; but I never stole a thing in my life."

"Not a cup of brandy?" asked the syndic, with another smile.

Pierrot laughed. "Fair booty, fair booty!" he cried: "strong waters are fair booty everywhere, monsieur."

"Well, I suspect you of nothing worse," replied Tournon; "but, if you were once to go for the bags, Heaven knows when we should see you again; and then you would come without the bags; for there would be plenty of people to lighten you of your load. Besides, the people of the cabaret would not let you take them. I will send my head-polisher with you and give him an order to receive the baggage in my name. They dare not refuse my order. Get the key gently. I do not love putting my hands into other people's pockets."

As soon as the key had been obtained, Clement Tournon led his companion into a large, curious-looking apartment on the floor below, where round the room appeared a number of dingy glass cases, through the small panes of which came the gleam of various articles of gold and silver, while in different parts of the room were several anvils and work-benches, with some half-dozen men filing, hammering, and polishing. Near the window was a tall desk within a sort of iron cage, and two clerks writing. Every thing was orderly in the house of Clement Tournon; and, advancing to one of the scribes, he directed him to write the order he had promised, saw it made out and signed it, and then called a strong, middle-aged man from a bench, whom he ordered to accompany Pierrot to the tavern and return with him. He then took his way back to the little room behind the great saloon and sat down by the bedside of Master Ned, murmuring, "Poor boy! poor boy! He reminds me of my own poor Albert."

Ere five minutes were over, he was joined by the physician,—a man celebrated in his day, well advanced in years, and with that peculiar look of mysterious noncompromising solemnity which many a doctor still affects, and which was then as necessary to the profession as rhubarb. As a description of medical treatment in those times, though it might prove in some degree interesting to those who are fond of "picking the bare bone of antiquity," would neither interest nor instruct the general reader, I will pass over in silence all the remedial means resorted to in the case of Master Ned. I only know that cataplasms were applied to the soles of his feet, and that some blood was taken from his arm. The doctor, after examination, declared that the skull was not fractured,—which might well have been the case; for, by a curious arrangement of nature, those whose brains are the best worth preserving have uniformly the thinnest cases in which to put them. "No, the skull was not fractured," Monsieur Cavillac said; but the lad had received a severe concussion of the brain, which was sometimes worse. He, however, held out good hope, though he told the syndic that he did not anticipate any change till the sun went down, and read him a lecture upon the effect of the various changes of the moon, and even of the day, upon the human frame, assuring him—a fact in which many still believe—that a scotched viper never dies till the sun sets.

After he was gone, Clement Tournon took care to have all the directions carried out to the letter, and the cataplasms had just been prepared and applied when Pierrot and the polisher returned with the bags.

"Take him below," said the syndic, addressing his workman, and indicating Pierrot by a nod of his head toward him,—"take him below, and let him feed with our people; but take care that he does not get at strong drink. Now, keep this place as quiet as possible, but tell old Marton to come here in half an hour: for I have affairs, and must go at that time."

"Can I not stay and attend upon my young master?" asked Pierrot, in a respectful tone.

"No," said the syndic, dryly: "men who drink are always noisy."

When left alone with the door shut, what imaginations came upon the good old merchant! "Would that I knew the lad's errand!" he thought; and his eyes turned toward the bags, which had been set down at the foot of the bed. "His letters must be in there," said Tournon to himself, "and the key of the padlocks is doubtless in his pocket."

Ah, Mr. Syndic, it is a moment of temptation.

"Perhaps his business is matter of life and death, and an hour even may be of vast consequence to me, to the city, to the Protestant cause. Indeed, it must be so, or they never would have sent him over in such stormy weather." So said fancy,—a quality much more nearly allied to curiosity than people think; and Clement Tournon rose from his seat. But the fine moral sense that was in him interfered. "No, never!" he said; "no, never! I will not touch them so long as he lives. They shall not be fingered by any one in my house."

Still, he felt strongly tempted; and after a while he rose again and went to call Marton, feeling it would be better for him not to remain in that room alone. His large-capped pippin-faced maid-servant was then duly imbued with all the doctor's directions, warned to change the cataplasms every two hours and to keep the wet cloths on the head cool; and then Clement Tournon walked forth from his house toward the fine old town-hall.

Marton sat and sewed. The invalid did not stir, and an hour passed by. "It must be time to change the cataplasms," she thought: "he will not wake till I come back: would Heaven he could, poor lad!" and down she went to the kitchen where what she needed had been left to keep warm.

In the mean time, we may as well look about the room. It was a very pretty little chamber, well and even luxuriously furnished withal. Two windows looked out to the back court, and the sunshine came in over a lower house behind. The rays first fell upon a small writing-desk of dark carved oak, then touched upon a small bookcase in the same style, well provided with books, and then upon a large armory, as it was then called, or wardrobe, as we should now term it. There was moreover a corner cupboard, also richly carved, with a glass door on two sides, showing a number of little knick-knacks selected with great taste, some ivory figures exquisitely cut, and a child's sampler of not the best needlework.

Suddenly the door opened, and, with a quick step, but so light that one could not hear a footfall, there entered a creature that seemed like a dream, or a fairy, or a wreath of morning mist with fancy to shape it into the form of a young girl. She could not be more than fifteen years of age; but yet there were traces of early womanhood in neck and shoulders and rounded limbs. But we may have to describe her hereafter, and here we only stop to speak of the look of strange surprise which opened the long, blue, deeply-fringed eyes more wide, and expanded the nostril of the delicate nose, and raised the arched eyebrow, and showed the pearl-like teeth between the rosy lips, as she beheld the pale and bloody figure of the poor lad lying upon her own bed. She stood for a moment in silent astonishment, and then was approaching slowly on tiptoe—as if her foot could have made any noise—toward the bedside, when a soft voice behind her said, "Lucette."

She started and turned round, and the old syndic, who stood in the doorway, beckoned her into the passage beyond.

"My dear child," he said, "I have been obliged to give your room to a poor young lad who has been sadly hurt, because it was the only one where he could have perfect quiet. I will put you in the blue room on the other side, where you may have some noise; but I know your good heart will not let you feel annoyed at giving up your chamber for a day or two to him and our good Marton, who has to nurse him."

"I will nurse him myself," said the young girl, "or at least help Marton. Annoyed, grandfather? Could you think I would be annoyed in such a case as his? Poor fellow! I will go and speak to him." And, before the old man could tell her that it was in vain, she ran up to the bedside, and said, in a low, sweet voice, "Be of good cheer, young gentleman: we will nurse and tend you till you are quite well."

Her lips almost touched his ear as she spoke; and, whether it was that the soft breath fanned him sweetly, or that the sound of a woman's tongue had something that found a way to his heart when even hearing failed, Ned Langdale turned suddenly in his bed, murmuring, "Mother, dear mother, do not leave me."

CHAPTER V.

About nine o'clock in the evening the invalid wakened to a consciousness of existence; but how wild and strange a consciousness! His speech was incoherent, his eye vague and wandering. He seemed to make vehement efforts to recover the power of reason and thought; but it was all in vain. If in answer to a question he uttered a few connected words, the next instant all was confused and senseless in the attempt at a sentence; and, when Dr. Cavillac visited him at half-past ten, his pulse was beating as if it would have burst the artery, and his eyes were bloodshot and wild.

"Perfect silence, absence of light, with diet and blood-letting," said the doctor,—"those are the only means to save him. Thank Heaven, he is finely delirious. He can neither understand nor try to answer any question. If he could but reason and talk, he were a dead youth. Now, mark me, syndic: let there be a finger on every lip; let everybody in your house be dumb for the next three days. If he speak, do not answer him. If he do not speak, keep silence. Give him the drinks I told you; and to-morrow I will bleed him again. In three days we shall know more, and probably at that time he will recover his senses, it may be for life, it may be for death; but all depends upon good nursing."

The prognosis of the physician was verified. At the end of three days Edward Langdale did recover his senses; but some events had taken place in the mean time which must be noticed before we follow his history further. We must, in the first place, begin with that most interesting personage, Master Pierrot, who is going to be introduced in a new character,—that of a philosopher. Although the press very generally assumes the form of majesty, and indulges in the plural number, probably in the proud consciousness of its sovereign power over the minds, and perhaps the bodies, of a certain number of human beings, it was with no such vain confidence that the last sentence began, "We must," &c. That formula was merely adopted to include you and me, dear reader, who, having to jog over a good space of country together, had better agree upon our line of travel before we set out upon each day's journey. It was, therefore, merely a sort of suggestion on my part that we should first look after Pierrot, and to be understood as implying nothing more.

Now, during the last few hours Pierrot had met with a number of severe mortifications,—those somewhat sharp lessons of life which sometimes do a man a great deal of good. In the first place, poor Master Ned had, in very plain language, told him that he was a coward when drunk, if he was a brave man when sober; and, as there was a certain consciousness in Pierrot's breast that there was a good deal of truth in the lad's assertion, of course the accusation was the more unpalatable. Secondly, the conduct of Clement Tournon showed him that one bad habit could deprive and had deprived him of the last scrap of confidence amongst people of any character; and, lastly, the refusal to let him attend upon his young master showed that even his fidelity and affection were doubted. Now, Pierrot was really an affectionate fellow, and this mortified him more than any thing else. It is probable that many a time in life, since by an evil practice he had lost wealth and station and consideration, Pierrot had resolved to cast the vice from him. He might have so resolved a hundred or a hundred and fifty times; but he had never kept his resolution. Never before, however, had any one doubted his qualities of heart; and on the present occasion, with a good deal of time to spare,—in fact, it was all to spare, as he sat in the kitchen or passages of the syndic's house,—he bestowed the golden superfluity upon thought. His mind was not naturally a weak one, though there is no denying that it had been weakened by intemperance; and it was now making a great effort.

"So," he said to himself, "I am not even to be trusted in the boy's sick-room. Well, that is somewhat hard. No, it is not. The old man is quite right. He knows I am a drunken rascal, and thinks I am not to be trusted in any thing. Hang me if I have not a mind to make him think better of me. But it is of no use: I should only begin again. Why need I begin again at all? Master Ned knows me better than any of them; and he only requires me not to drink when there is any thing important in the wind. He knows I cannot help it at other times. But why cannot I help it at other times, if I can help it then? I can help it if I like; and, by Heaven, I will not drink any more, except when he gives me leave; and I'll ask him never to give me leave. So we will settle the matter that way. I do love that lad, though he gave me a shot in the leg to keep me from running away and disgracing myself. I did not drink one drop last night at the inn, because he told me not. I am mighty sick at my stomach, however. I wish I had a drop of brandy, just to settle it. I have a mind to go out and get just one gill to settle it,—only one gill. No, I won't; for then I should take another, and so forth. It shall not be said that my young master was lying sick and I went and got drunk. Let my stomach take care of itself; and, if it chooses to be sick, it must be so. I wonder if he will die, poor boy. He has a good heart, though he is as hasty as a tinker's cur, and as stern as a general. Marton," he continued, to the good woman who entered seeking something, "how is Master Ned?"

"Much the same, Pierrot," answered Marton. "The doctor says there will be no change yet a while."

"Marton, I am resolved not to drink any more," said Pierrot, in a solemn tone.

"Keep to it," she replied, with a laugh, but evidently with very little confidence. "Why, Pierrot la Grange, for the last ten years you have been forever at the flask. You were a very good young man before that, and well to do; ay, and a handsome man too. I have seldom seen a more personable man than you were then, before you took to that filthy custom of making a beast of yourself; but now your face is all over blotches, and your nose is so red you might fire a cannon with it."

"Well, well, you shall see, Marton," rejoined Pierrot. "I have taken a resolution, and fallen upon a plan by which I can keep it, too; and you may tell the syndic that I will drink no more. Why, just now, I thought to go out and get myself some brandy, with a spur rial—as he calls it—which Master Ned gave me, because I am sick at the stomach; but I resisted, and would not stir a step on account of my resolution."

"Ah! are you sick at the stomach?" said Marton, quietly. "Suppose I get you a little cloves and strong waters."

Pierrot evidently hesitated; but then he suddenly exclaimed, "Not a drop, Marton, thank you; not a drop. I was once sober for three whole days, and, I dare say, should have continued so, but that fellow Jargeau got hold of me and persuaded me to drink. It was his cue to make me drunk then. So those who know me will never ask me to take a drop, if they love me."

"That they certainly will not," said Marton, going away with what she had come to fetch.

Her conversation with Pierrot had one good effect, however. She told her master that she really believed La Grange intended not to drink any more, not only inasmuch he told her so, but because he refused a glass of cloves and strong waters which she had offered him on account of his being sick at the stomach.

"Most likely sick because he has not had his morning's draught," said Clement Tournon. "However, encourage all good resolutions, and do not offer him any more. Marton, I will speak with him myself in the course of the day, and can judge better than you can."

The worthy syndic could not keep his promise, however. The day passed over, and he did not see Pierrot; for the town of Rochelle was in considerable agitation at that time, the events passing round it being sufficiently menacing to impress all minds with anxiety, but not sufficiently urgent to produce unanimity by the presence of immediate danger. Pierrot kept his resolution, however; and the day passed by without his having tasted any fluid stronger than water. The next morning, though he did not feel himself altogether comfortable, his nausea had departed, and he was more bold in his purpose. About ten he was sent for to speak with the syndic, who was much too wise a man to ask him questions which had any relation to brandy. Clement Tournon, however, examined him closely in regard to his knowledge of Edward Langdale, what letters he brought, when he had sailed from England, whether the intimations Jargeau had received had been accompanied by no information of the young man's objects in coming to Rochelle.

"He had a long and stormy passage: that I know," answered Pierrot; "and as to Jargeau, if he had any information he kept it to himself, as he always does. But you can ask him himself, syndic. Whether the lad has any letters, you should know better than I do; for, if he have, they must be in his bags,—and you have had bags and keys too in your hands these two days, when I have never had either at all."

"I pry not where I have no right," replied Clement Tournon, coldly. "No hand opens his bags while he is alive and in my house. As for Jargeau, he sees not matters as I do, or I would ask him for information. The Lord Montagu I do not know, though you say the youth is his page; and I cannot divine why that lord has sent him to me. Indeed, I heard his lordship was in France."

"But he is the great Duke of Buckingham's right hand," said Pierrot; "and perhaps Master Ned has been sent to you by the duke."

"I have some suspicion it may be so," answered the syndic. "I once had some diamond pendants made for him in great haste; and perhaps he wishes to employ me again."

"In making cannon-balls this time, perhaps, monsieur," said Pierrot, dryly; but, to his surprise, the syndic answered, quite calmly, "Perhaps so; for I am told that this morning at daybreak a fleet of ships-of-war was descried standing in toward Rochelle, and the people thought it was under English colors."

He looked keenly at Pierrot as he spoke; but the countenance of the latter at once showed that he had not been trying to deceive any one as to the amount of his knowledge; and he clapped his hands, exclaiming, "Hurrah! We shall have some stirring times again, then, and shall not have to lie here cooped up like rats in a trap, but have fighting every day, and——"

"Plenty of brandy," said the syndic, finishing the sentence for him.

"Not a drop, upon my salvation!" said Pierrot.

"Well, your salvation may a good deal depend upon your keeping that resolution," replied the syndic, "for a man does many things when he is drunk for which drunkenness can be no excuse, though it may be an aggravation. But hark! What is that? It was a cannon-shot, was it not? The fleet must be nearing the town. I must to the council. Well, you may go in and see the young gentleman. But mind, be as still as death. Say nothing to him; and, if he recognises you, and asks you any questions, answer shortly and quietly, and leave him. You said he was of gentle birth, I think. You are sure he is of gentle birth?"

Though Pierrot might, and in fact did, think it strange that a merchant of Rochelle should lay such stress upon gentle—otherwise noble—birth, he assured the syndic, from what he had seen of the English, that all the household pages of British noblemen were selected from good families; and, while they were still speaking together, one of the goldsmith's apprentices came to call the syndic to the city council, telling him that a boat had just landed from the English fleet.

Clement Tournon called for his gown and chain; and, after giving repeated directions to Pierrot as to his demeanor in the chamber of Master Ned, and donned his robes in the man's presence, he proceeded to the town-hall, followed by two of his men.

The inclinations, if not the affections, of Pierrot were divided. He would fain have gone to the hall to know the news of the day,—news, as it proved, much more important than he dreamed of. But then again came the thought of his poor young master; and, being a conscientious man when he was sober, and sometimes a conscientious man even when he was drunk, he fancied it a duty to visit Master Ned. He soon found, however, that he could do nothing in the world for him. The lad's mind still wandered terribly; and, though he gave some indications of recollecting Pierrot, he asked him no questions, and called him "My Lord Duke." Pierrot might then have turned his steps to the hall, but in one of Ned's half-muttered speeches the name of Jargeau was uttered; and, remembering that personage would inevitably be at the place of meeting, the good man thought it better to wait for tidings till the syndic returned.

The news arrived soon enough for Pierrot's mortification, and immediately spread through the whole house. It was to the effect that the Lord Denbigh, in command of a powerful British fleet, had come to offer assistance to the town of Rochelle; that there had been a warm and even angry debate in the council, but in the end the anti-English party had prevailed, and all that Tournon and Guiton could obtain was, that a civil reply should be made to the English admiral, thanking him and King Charles for their proffered aid, but declining it on the score that no previous intimation had been given to the citizens of the approach of a fleet to their port.

CHAPTER VI.

"Sweet chimes the bell, O'er slope and woodland pealing, Mellow'd by distance to a tranquil sound; Sweetly the rill, Through moss-bank gently stealing, Speaks peace around.

"Calm sinks the sun Unto his golden slumber, And folds the clouds around his radiant head: Up springs the moon; Her star-train without number Say, 'Nought is dead!'

"All live again, Although their life be hidden; For the short space of earth's dominion here. By Heaven's own voice, The soul of man is bidden To hope midst fear.

"All Nature's works, Though into ashes turning, Fill the whole heart with a consoling voice:— Be ready, man! And, with thy lamp still burning, Watch and rejoice!"

So sang Lucette,—or, rather, such is a very poor translation of her song. At the best it was but an old ditty, composed probably by some of the early Protestants of France. It may have been written by Clement Marot, or his friend, the poet and printer, Lyon Jamets, for aught I know. It is so long since I have read the works of either that I have forgotten somewhat more than half of all their pens produced.

However, so sang Lucette in the chamber now assigned to Edward Langdale, while Marton sat beside her, knitting, and from time to time fixing her eyes upon the face of the invalid.

It may seem strange that Lucette should choose such a time and such a place to indulge in music, though her voice was marvellously sweet and had been cultivated to a degree rare in those days, and though people who have sweet voices, well cultivated, and, moreover, the love, the spirit, the inspiration of music in them, are fond of breaking forth into song at very unseasonable times.

But, as it happened, it was not an unseasonable time, as Lucette herself explained to Clement Tournon. When she turned her head, after her song had ended, to take up her embroidery-frame, she saw the old syndic standing in the doorway, looking somewhat surprised to hear her voice then and there, but perfectly quiet and still. Without a word, she rose and noiselessly approached the door, saying, in a very low voice, "He is better. He has been speaking sensibly; but he grew drowsy after a moment and fell asleep quite calmly, murmuring, 'Sing to me, mother; sing to me,'—as if he did not well know where he was. So I thought it best to humor him."

"You did right, my child," replied the syndic, putting his hand upon her head, round which the light-brown hair with golden gleams upon it was wound in many a long, silky tress. "The doctor is below: I hear his step coming along the passage."

Why all doctors should have creaking shoes I never could divine; but it is clearly an idiosyncrasy. They cannot help it. Perhaps the leather gets affected by the close air of sick men's chambers; perhaps it becomes imbued with sighs and groans,—a novel sort of tanning, but one well calculated to give a creaking sound; or perhaps the doctors themselves carry so far the necessary precaution of warming their nethermost coverings that the material becomes too dry and cries out for very thirst.

However that may be,—and I will not venture to decide the question,—Dr. Cavillac's shoes did creak most lamentably; but they had no effect upon the slumber of the poor invalid.

The doctor, the syndic, and Lucette spoke together for a few moments at the door; but Cavillac did not go in. It is likely that he was conscious of noisy feet. "It is critical," he said: "do not disturb him for the world; let him sleep as long as he will. Let him be well watched; and, when he wakes, speak low and gently to him; give him a few spoonfuls of good old wine, (for he will be as weak as a child,) and then let me know. You had better watch, my pretty Lucette, for there is no such good nurse as a young girl with a kind heart,—except an old woman who does not drink; and she is apt to have the rheumatism."

"But, doctor, Lucette must have repose, and these sleeps sometimes last very long," said Clement Tournon. "I must not; I am bound not to let fatigue affect her own health."

"I am not the least tired, dear father," said Lucette, with a bright look. "His first sensible word did me more good than a whole night's sleep. Do you think, doctor, that he will wake in his right mind again?"

"Certainly, my dear," answered the other. "I am sure he will; but his recovery may be slow and will require much care."

"Then I will watch till he does wake," answered the beautiful young girl. "I will watch as hopefully as ever Egyptian did to hear the morning voice of Memnon."

"Listen to the little pagan!" said Cavillac, with a smile. "But I will tell you a better plan, my child. He certainly will not wake for some hours. You may see that by his great paleness. You go and lie down for a short time; then let Marton call you. Come with me, syndic: I wish to speak with you." And he drew the old man to the top of the stairs.

"Have you heard," he said, "that the cardinal has sent down a thousand men to complete the lines round about us? This is growing serious."

"It is indeed!" said Clement Tournon, with a very sad look; "and those rash men, either from obstinacy and over-confidence, or jealousy and perhaps treachery, rejected yesterday the offer of succor from England, and the fleet has sailed away."

"We should have had a hospital for fools long ago," said Cavillac. "It is the great want of the city. But there are other things to be attended to now. Send out everywhere for stores, my good friend, if you spend the last livre of the city money. Depend upon it, this cardinal will try to starve us out."

"He cannot do that while our port is open," answered the syndic.

"How long will it be open?" asked the physician, with a very meaning look. "I have heard a whisper, my friend, that he will find means to close it, either by a fleet from all the neighboring ports, or in some other way. Look to it; look to it. There is less time to spare than the men of Rochelle fancy."

Thus saying, he left Clement Tournon meditating in no very hopeful mood over the state of the city, and the prospect, clear as a picture to his calm reasoning eye, of all those horrors that were but too soon to fall upon unhappy Rochelle. The house soon fell into profound silence: the hours of labor were over, the sounds of hammer, tongs, and file were still, and in about an hour Clement Tournon took his place by Edward Langdale's bedside, sending good old Marton to seek some repose herself. Twilight faded away into darkness; a little silver lamp was trimmed and shaded in the corner of the chamber, and two or three hours passed in silence, the good old man nodding from time to time, but never giving way to sleep.

At length the light step of Lucette was heard in the deep stillness,—it would not have been heard had there been the buzzing of a fly,—and, approaching the bed, she gazed and listened.

"He lies sleeping sweetly," she said to the old man. "How differently he breathes now! I can hardly hear him. Marton will be here in a minute. Leave him to us, father, and take some rest yourself."

"As soon as she comes," answered the syndic. "What is the hour?"

"The great clock has just struck one," answered Lucette.

"I was drowsy, and did not hear it," said the syndic. "Have the wine near, Lucette, and give him a spoonful at once when he wakes."

He made a movement toward the other side of the room as he spoke, and Lucette took his place in the large chair; but hardly was she seated when a voice was heard from the bed which made her start. "Where am I?" asked Edward Langdale: "what has happened to me?"

"You are with dear friends," replied the sweet voice of Lucette at once. "You have met with a little accident, but you are recovering fast. Here; take a spoonful of wine. The doctor orders it."

"I will take any thing you give me," said the lad, "for I feel very weak."

"Hush! silence! silence!" said Lucette, in a low but cheerful tone: "you are to keep quite quiet, and take some wine from time to time, and try to sleep again. To-morrow you will be quite well, I doubt not."

So saying, she poured the wine quietly between his lips; but the poor lad could not refrain from saying, "That is very nice; and you are very kind."

It is probable he would have added "and very beautiful," if he could have descried in the dim light more than the faint outline of that fair face and form; but Lucette replied, "I shall think you very unkind if you say one word more, except to ask for what you want."

"You understand it better than I do, Lucette, I see," said the old syndic, in a whisper. "Woman, woman! for such tasks no hands are like hers! But here comes Marton, and I will leave you."

The youth gazed after him as he departed, and looked at Marton curiously as she moved slowly about the room; but his eyes found something more satisfactory in the form of Lucette, although he could distinguish little except that there was something graceful and more of his own age before him, while from time to time she poured the wine between his lips. He was feeble, however, and inclined to sleep; and before good Dr. Cavillac, roused out of his bed, came to visit him, his eyes were again closed, and he had relapsed into slumber.

It is one of the strange but frequent results of disease or of accident of any kind which affects the brain, to blot out, as it were, from memory all the events which have taken place within a certain preceding period. It is sometimes a long, sometimes a short, period, according to circumstances not very easily reduced to any rule. I have known a man lose a language with which he had been for years familiar, and remember one which he had long forgotten. I have known memory acutely distinct in regard to events which had occurred a month or two before, and a perfect blank as to those more recent.

Edward Langdale recollected nothing after a certain period, when he had sped over from the town of Antwerp to London, bearing intelligence from the Lord Montagu to the Duke of Buckingham, although he had perfectly recovered his senses and some degree of strength, on the day following that night when the delirium first left him. By degrees, however, confused images of after-things began to present themselves: his voyage from Portsmouth, the storms which had baffled and delayed his course, even the approach to Rochelle, came back indistinctly. It only wanted, in fact, the ringing of the bell to cause the curtain of oblivion to rise, and the whole scene of the past to be revealed before the eyes of memory.

There is nothing in the physical world at all like the sudden flash of illumination carried along the many links which bind event to event in a chain almost invisible, except the operation of the electric telegraph. One touch applied, establishing the connection by the smallest possible point, and thought—living thought—flashes on to its object, setting at nought time and space and obstacle.

The connecting touch in the case of Master Ned was destined to be the sudden appearance in his chamber of our friend Pierrot, who came in both to see his young new master and to speak with good Clement Tournon. The syndic held up his finger to the man as he entered, as a warning not to trouble the young gentleman with speech, for the lad was still extremely weak and could hardly turn in his bed. But the moment Edward Langdale beheld him, he carried his hand suddenly to his head, saying, "Pierrot la Grange! Pierrot la Grange! I remember it all now. Good Heaven! and I have been lying here so long—God knows how long—and forgetting the message to Clement Tournon! I must get up and seek him. Pierrot, get me my clothes. I must get up."

"Lie still! lie still!" said the old syndic: "Clement Tournon is here, my young friend. I am he. But we can have no talk now, for the physician says you must still remain quite quiet and without agitation of any kind."

"If you be Clement Tournon," answered the youth, "it will agitate me more to be silent than to speak; but speak I must, if I die. Come hither, nearer, I pray you, sir. Bend down your head. Do you remember certain pendants of diamonds and the man you made them for? If so, give his name in a low voice."

"The most gracious Duke of Buckingham," said the syndic, in a whisper.

"Then he bids me tell you," said Master Ned, "that his brother-in-law, the Earl of Denbigh, will be here in three days with a puissant fleet, and he begs you to prepare the minds of the citizens to give him a worthy reception, for he hears you are somewhat divided here. I have more to say; but that is the burden of it all. Pray lose no time. Good Heavens! three days! How long have I been here?"

Clement Tournon's face assumed an expression of deep and even painful thought for one moment; but he replied, in a calm, well-assured tone, "Give yourself no uneasiness, my son. The whole has been settled, notwithstanding the accident that happened to you. We will talk about these matters more to-morrow. At present I must leave you, for I have business of importance to transact; but Marton will tend you carefully, and Lucette will come and sing to you, if you like it."

Do not let us pause upon the convalescence of our young friend; but for the present at least let us follow Clement Tournon's movements, which had some results at an after-period. He took his course straight to the city prison, into the dark mysteries of which we need not pry.

Every prison was in those days hideous, and this, like others, had its dungeons and cells, one hour's tenancy of which was a punishment hardly merited by aught but murder. There was, moreover, what we should now call a justice-room in the jail,—at least, a place where justice or injustice was administered, according to the character of the functionary who presided.

Here Clement Tournon seated himself by the side of one of the other magistrates of the town, and Tom the sailor was brought before them. He was followed by one of his companions, and by the captain of the little vessel, which still lay in the port, while the two tradesmen who had witnessed the assault were likewise present. The faces of the two magistrates were grave and even stern, and probably had Master Tom shown a swaggering and insolent air, such as he not unfrequently bore, they might have dealt hardly with him. But Tom was one of those men whom we not unfrequently meet with, and though apt to bully and even to fight when he thought there was some advantage on his side, he was easily cowed and depressed when he knew or believed that there were odds, or even equality, on the other side. Besides, he had now been kept for several days in what modern writers would call a loathsome cell, fed upon bread and water, and had no companion but solitude. Now, beef and good company are great promoters of swagger, and the absence of both had terribly reduced Tom's usual tone. He was indeed inclined to whimper, pleaded that he and Master Ned had quarrelled on board ship, that Ned had attempted to draw sword upon him, and that he himself had been drinking when he struck the blow. These excuses availed him little with the magistrates; and, strange to say, he found no support either from his captain or the man who had been his companion. The latter bore testimony that when he first laid hands on the lad's shoulder he told him "that he had got him safe on shore now, and would thrash him soundly;" and the captain merely said, "I trust your honors will liberate this man and put him in my hands. I warned him more than once on the voyage to let the young gentleman alone. I suspect he has done more mischief than he knows; and if you give him up to me I will put him in irons till I get home, and then make him over to those who will deal with him severely enough."

"The young gentleman is in a fair way of recovery," replied the syndic, who understood the language in which the skipper spoke; "but a serious offence has been committed in the streets of the city of Rochelle; and we should certainly punish this man ourselves were it not for the honor and respect which we bear the King of England. Much mischief he certainly has done,—as those who sent Master Edward Langdale hither will probably know by this time. But, captain, if you demand the prisoner in the name of King Charles, and promise to convey full intelligence of all that has occurred to those who are best qualified to judge of the case, and moreover to give this man up to them, I will speak with my friend here, who understands no English, but who probably will agree with me that our reverence for your sovereign requires us to follow your suggestion."

The captain willingly promised all that was demanded, and sealed his assurance with an oath; and the prisoner was then placed in his custody.

"And now, captain, when do you set sail?" asked Clement Tournon. "The wind is now fair, and the weather fine."

"I cannot go before Master Ned tells me," said the captain. "My cutter is to be at his orders till he has done with her."

"I know not that he can yet write even his name," said the syndic; "but you can come up to my house, where he now lies, this evening, and if the physician permits he can speak with you."

"See what you have done, you d——d scoundrel!" said the captain, turning sharply toward Tom. "I will be up at your house, sir, by five, and hope the young gentleman will let me go, for I am tired of this voyage."

The following morning, at daybreak, the little craft got under way, bearing a letter in Clement Tournon's hand; and Edward Langdale remained alone in France.

CHAPTER VII.

Oh, the calm lapses in the turbulent and turbid stream of life which Heaven sometimes graciously affords us,—the short breathing-spaces in the race,—the still pauses in the battle,—how sweet, how comforting they are! Such a pause had fallen upon the city of Rochelle and all its inhabitants. True, there were individual griefs and sufferings: the door of the closet with the skeleton in it can never be altogether shut. But to the city generally, and to its denizens generally, there was a lull in the storm. It was nowhere more pleasantly felt than in the house of good old Clement Tournon. He was a calm—a very calm—man; had been so all his life. He had met with sorrows which had touched him deeply; but he had borne them calmly. He had known pleasures; but he had enjoyed them calmly. He had mingled with angry parties, and seen strife and blood-shed; but he had been calm through all; and that very calmness—which, by-the-way, is one of the most impressive qualities in regard to our fellow-men which any one can possess—had won for him great reverence upon the part of his neighbors.

Young Edward Langdale, too, shared in the temporary tranquillity. "Sweet are the uses of adversity." It is a good text, and a true one also, if we use the adversity wisely; but sometimes we do not; and, although Master Ned had known more adversity than most youths of his age, we must acknowledge that he had found it all very severe, and had not had wisdom enough to discover honey in the stony rock. He had been hardened, sharpened, rendered stern, in the rough school through which he had passed. His character must have seemed to the reader somewhat harsh and remorseless; at least so I intended it to appear. But he had now suffered a long and heavy sickness: his frame was still feeble; his activity, for the time at least, was lost; and some traits in his character which seemed to have been smothered by coarser things revived and shone out. There was a latent poetry in his nature, a love and appreciation of all that was beautiful, a sense of harmony, and a delight in music, together with those strong affections which are so often combined with strength of character. These, in the body's feebleness, asserted their power. Strange how the corporeal and the mental wage such continual warfare upon each other! But even at times when the bodily force and the strong will had possessed the most perfect sway, and given him command and rule over men much older and higher than himself, those qualities of heart and mind, though latent, had acted unseen to win affection also.

Six days after his arrival in Rochelle, the little saloon in Clement Tournon's house presented as calm and pleasant a scene as ever the eye rested upon. There was the old man himself, with his small velvet cap upon his head; and there was Master Ned, leaning back in a large chair, with the hue of returning health coming back into his cheek,—always a pleasant sight; and there was beautiful Lucette, who had just been singing to the two, and who was now sitting on a low footstool, with her fair, delicate hand resting on the head of a lute. A beautiful silver lamp, with three burners,—modelled from those graceful lamps which we see in the hands of the Tuscan peasantry,—gave light to the chamber; for the wax tapers in two exquisitely-wrought candlesticks had been extinguished to save the eyes of Master Ned from the glare; and a water-pitcher and goblet, finely shaped from the antique and covered with grotesque figures, stood on a little table at the youth's left hand, to cool his lips, still dry and hot from his recent illness.

The eyes of Edward Langdale were fixed upon those specimens of the old syndic's art, and he was expressing his admiration of the delicacy and fineness of the designs, when Lucette observed, quietly, "He has much more beautiful things than those, Master Ned. I wish, father, I might bring and show him the pyx that was sent from Rome."

"Do so, my child," said Tournon. "And hark, Lucette——"

He whispered a word in the young girl's ear, and she left the room, but returned in a minute or two, bringing with her two objects in soft leathern covers,—one of which was a pyx, probably from the hands of Benvenuto Cellini.

Edward took it from her hands and admired it greatly, gazing at the various curious arabesques with which it was decorated, and at the medallions displaying exquisitely-chiselled figures, while the old syndic untied the other cover, and took forth a large cup, or hanap, of pure gold, ornamented by a row of precious stones encircling it in a sort of garland, which again was supported by some beautiful sculptured figures. Master Ned rose feebly to lay the pyx upon the table, but the moment his eyes lighted on the cup he stood still, gazing at it as if sight had suspended every other faculty. "Good Heaven!" he exclaimed, at length, addressing the merchant, who was watching him closely: "where did you get that?"

"I bought it some four years ago, when I was in England," answered Clement Tournon. "Something seems to surprise you. Did you ever see it before?"

"See it!" exclaimed Master Ned. "Yes, often, my good friend,—ay, several times every year, since I could see any thing, till just four years ago last Martinmas. Every birthday—every festival-day—it was brought forth; for it must be the same. Oh, yes! Is there not 'Edward Langdale' engraved on one side of the foot, and 'Buckley Hall' upon the other?"

"There is," said the syndic; "and that is the very reason I told Lucette to bring it. I wished to ask you if you are any relation of those Langdales of Buckley Hall. Edward Langdale! The two names are the same."

"They are, indeed," said Master Ned. "That cup is mine, my good friend: at least, it ought to be,—it and much more which is now lost to me forever."

"If it ought to be, it is thine still, my son," said the old syndic. "Now, God forbid that I should withhold the rightful property of another! But tell us how all this happened. Let me hear what you can recollect of your own life and fate. I know something of Buckley Hall, for it was in Huntingdon that I bought that cup. I would not purchase it at first, because I thought it was stolen,—most likely from the court of King James, who was then at Royston; but the goldsmith who had it told me that he had bought it fairly from Master Richard Langdale, the owner, and showed me a receipt for the money. I would fain hear how all this happened."

"Not to-night; not to-night," answered the youth. "The sight of that cup has shaken me much, my father; and to speak of those days would shake me still more in my weak state. To-morrow I shall be stronger, I trust; and then I will tell you all. I have often thought it would do me good if I were to talk over the whole of those sad things with some one; for they only seem to rankle and fester in the silence of my own bosom, and to make me reckless and ill-tempered. But I must get a little better and stronger first. Now I think I will go to bed."

He turned to go, but then paused, and, taking up the cup, gazed at it earnestly for several minutes, saying, "I was just nine years old when my father had my name engraved on it and gave it to me on my birthday, bidding me never to fill it too full nor empty it too often."

"Wise counsel," said the old man; "but, if it be thine, take it, my son. I am not a receiver of stolen goods."

"No," said Edward Langdale. "You knew not that he who sold it had no right to do so; neither did he from whom you purchased it. Orphans are often wronged, Monsieur Tournon; but I ought not to have been wronged by him who wronged me. Well, to-morrow we will talk more of all these matters."

A little after nightfall on the following day, the same three sat together in the same room. There had been no music, however, that evening; and Lucette was leaning her fair head upon the old merchant's knee. Edward Langdale was evidently stronger and better,—though he said he had slept but little. Yet there was more color in his cheek and lips, and his face and air had more their usual character of bold decisive frankness, than on the preceding night.

"Now I will tell you my whole story," he said, "beginning with my earliest recollections. Indeed, there is not much to tell, and it may be done very shortly."

MASTER NED'S HISTORY.

"Amongst the first of my remembrances is the burning of my father's house. I recollect the house itself quite well; and a very handsome place it was. There were four great octangular towers at the corners,—one on the southwestern side, all covered with ivy, in which a number of cream-colored owls used to make their abode during the day sunshine. A deer-park surrounded the house, full of fern and hawthorn-trees, and at the bottom of a bank was the highroad, with the river brawling and rushing on by its side.

"Of the interior of the house I do not remember much, although there is an impression on my mind of large rooms and furniture which had seen better days. Of the events which there took place I can recall nothing till the night of the fire,—the great fire, as it was called for many a year. And well it deserved the name; for in its progress it not only destroyed the house, but ate up the buttery, which was detached, and consumed the farm-buildings and stabling, in which were lost many fine horses and an immense quantity of agricultural produce.

"I remember on that night, the 18th of August, being startled out of my sleep by loud cries and shrieks and all sorts of noises,—especially a rushing, roaring sound, which frightened me more than all the rest. I was a boy about seven years old at the time; and sleep clings to one at that age like a tight garment, so that though I was as it were roused, and even alarmed, I was half asleep still. It was more like an ugly dream than a reality; and perhaps I might have lain down and fallen into sound slumber again, had not some one suddenly thrown open the door, rushed to the bed, and caught me up in her arms. I saw not distinctly to whose bosom I was pressed, yet I felt sure. Whose could it be but a mother's? She ran wildly with me to the door and there made a short hesitating pause, then dashed along the corridor through flames and smoke, ran down the stone steps, out of one of the back doors, upon the smooth lawn behind, and laid me down under a large mulberry-tree. Hard by were several persons, weeping and wringing their hands; but amongst them was my little sister, some three years younger than myself. 'He is safe! he is safe!' cried my mother. 'Run, some one, and tell Sir Richard.'

"My father, who was at that time about forty years of age, joined us in a few minutes, kissed me and my mother, remarked that she was scorched a good deal and her beautiful hair much burned; but he left us speedily, and returned to see what could be done to save the valuable property in the house. I have been told since that he was evidently agitated and confused, and his orders contradictory, and that much more might have been saved if he had displayed more presence of mind. Corporeally, he was undoubtedly a very brave man, and had shown himself such; but he was not a man of ready action or strong determination. However, almost all the plate was saved, and some of the pictures, which were fine; but several boxes of papers of much importance, I am told, could not be found in the confusion of the moment, and were undoubtedly lost. Memory breaks off about that time; and I only remember that the whole house was burned, and the greater part of the walls fell in, with the exception of those of the ivy-tower, which were very ancient and much thicker than the rest. Even there the woodwork was all consumed, and the stairs fell, except where a few of the stone steps, about half-way up, still clung to the masonry.

"My father often talked of rebuilding the house; but I believe his finances had been previously embarrassed, and he had suffered a heavy loss. We went then to live at Buckley Hall, which had fallen to my mother from her uncle some two years before, and which was not many miles distant from the old house. It was a more modern building, with fine gardens, in stiff figures of all shapes, with urns, and fountains, and many quaint devices; but it had no deer-park, and I sadly missed the fern, and the hawthorn, and the wild broomy dells.

"My next remembrance is of being ill and confined to bed, and my mother singing to me as I began to grow a little better; and I recollect quite well her coming in one day, looking very anxious, and my asking her to sing, with all the thoughtless impatience of youth. Well, she sang; but the tears rolled down her cheeks; and when I was suffered to go out of my room I could find my little sister no more. I never saw her again; and she must have died, I suppose, of the same malady from which I had suffered. My mother's health waned from that hour, slowly,—so slowly as to be hardly seen to change between day and day,—but none the less certainly. Gentle and sweet, patient and uncomplaining, she would not burden any one even with a knowledge of what she felt. My father was all kindness to her and to me; but he was sometimes too light and thoughtless, I believe,—vowed that society would cheer her, and filled his house with company,—not always the most considerate or the most quiet. There was upon me, young as I was, an impression that my mother was not well, that she loved tranquillity, that noise disturbed her; and I did my best to keep still, and even silent, when I was near her. I would sit with her for hours, reading; for when we came over to Buckley we found a good teacher there, and I had rapidly learned to read. Then, when I could bear inactivity no longer, I would go out and get my pony, saddle him myself, and ride wild over the country, or wander about the gardens and think. I learned a good deal about this time; for my father was very expert in all manly exercises, and took a pleasure in teaching me, and the good parson of the parish—a very learned but singular man—took great care of my studies.

"At length, when I was about ten years old, the terrible moment came when I was to lose a mother. I will not dwell upon that sad time; but my heart seemed closed,—shut up. I cared for nothing,—loved nothing,—took no interest in any thing; and yet I was cast more than ever upon my own thoughts, for the good old parson, whose instructions might have afforded me some diversion for the mind, removed suddenly to a much better living, some fifteen miles distant.

"My father still gave me instruction in fencing, wrestling, the use of the broad-sword; but he gave them and I received them languidly. At length, one day, he said to me, 'Edward, you are sad, my boy; and it is time you should resume your studies. I shall be very lonely without you; but I think it will be better for you to go over to good Dr. Winthorne's, whom you love so well, and who, I am sure, will receive you as a pupil. We shall only be fifteen miles apart, and I can see you often.'

"I made no objection, for Buckley had grown odious to me: every thing there revived regrets: and in about a week I was quietly installed in the neat and roomy parsonage, the glebe and garden of which were bounded by the same stream which ran past the old house in which I was born. It had been there a brawling stream; but here, some ten miles farther down upon its winding course, it had become a slow and somewhat wide river.

"I wish I had time to tell you how I learned, and what I learned, under the good clergyman's instruction. He had his own notions—and very peculiar notions—in every thing. Latin and Greek he taught me; but he taught me French and Italian too,—and taught them all at once. His lessons were very short, for it was his maxim never to weary attention; but he took especial care that my bodily faculties should not lose any thing for want of exercise. He would say that he had known very clever hunchbacks and very learned and ingenious lame men, but that each of them had some peculiarity of judgment which showed that a straight intellect seldom inhabited a crooked body, or a strong mind a feeble one. He would make me wrestle and play at quoits and cudgels with plough-boys, shoot with the gamekeepers of neighboring estates, ride my pony over a rough country and dangerous leaps, and himself lead the way. He was a devout man, notwithstanding, and was highly esteemed by his parishioners, and by a small circle of noble gentlemen, to some of whom he was allied and who were not unfrequent guests at the parsonage. All this went on for about nine months, a considerable part of which time my father was absent from Buckley, travelling, as they said, for his health, in Italy, where he had spent some years when quite a young man. At length, when he returned, I went home to pass some time with him; but I found him not alone."

"Had he married again so early?" asked Clement Tournon, with a look of consternation.

"Oh, no!" replied Master Ned: "he never married again; but there was a young gentleman with him, some twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, tall, very handsome, but with a dark and heavy brow, which almost spoiled his beauty. He spoke English with a strong foreign accent, and had altogether the appearance of a foreigner. I naturally presumed he was a guest, and treated him as such; but it was evident that he was an exceedingly favored guest, and all the servants seemed to pay him the most profound attention. I know not why, but I speedily began to dislike him: perhaps it was a certain sort of patronizing air he assumed toward me,—not exactly that of an elder to a younger person, but that of a superior to an inferior. My father's conduct, too, was very strange. He did not introduce the visitor to me by name, but presented me to him, saying, 'My son Edward,' and during the rest of the day called him simply Richard. On the following morning I detected—or fancied I detected—the servants looking at me, watching me with an appearance of interest that almost amounted to compassion. They were all very fond of me, and each seemed to regard Master Ned—the only name I went by—as his own child; but when they now gazed upon me there was an air of vexation—almost of pity—on their faces, and once or twice I thought the old steward was about to tell me something of importance in private; but he broke off, and turned his conversation to common subjects.

"All this, however, was so disagreeable to me, that, after having stayed two days at Buckley, I returned to my old preceptor's house at Applethorpe, feeling more wretched than I had felt since the first sad shock of my mother's death.

"The same night, after supper, Dr. Winthorne questioned me closely as to my visit, and asked what had caused me to return so soon. Whether he saw any thing in my manner, or had heard of any thing from others, I did not know; but I told him all frankly, and he fell into a fit of thought which lasted till bedtime. On the following morning my studies, my exercises, and my amusements were renewed with increased activity. There was something more I wished to forget, as well as the irreparable loss of my mother; and I left not one moment unemployed. It was now the month of May, and the season had been both cold and rainy; but I never suffered either cold or rain, either snow or sleet, to keep me within-doors; and no naked Indian could be more hardy than I was. At length, some warm skies, with flying clouds and showers, came to cheer us; and, with my rod in my hand, I sallied forth one morning early to lure the speckled tyrants of the stream out of the water. I walked on with good success for about two miles, and arrived at a shadowy reach of the river, where it lapsed into some deep pools, and then, tumbling over a shelf of rock in a miniature cascade, rushed on deep and strong toward the east. I have said I was early; but there was some one there before me. A powerful-looking man, of some four or five and twenty years of age, was wading the stream with a rod in his hand and a pair of funnel-shaped boots upon his legs. Where he stood, the water did not come much above his knees; but I knew that a little farther on it deepened, and the bed of the stream was full of holes, in which the finest trout usually lay; but the stranger seemed a skilful angler, and, I doubted not, knew the river as well as I did. Not to disturb his sport, I sat quietly down on the bank and watched him. He was not very prepossessing in appearance, for his features were large and coarse, and though there was a certain sort of dignity about his carriage, yet his form was more that of a man accustomed to robust labor than to the more graceful sports of a gentleman. However, as I was gazing, he hooked a large fish, apparently somewhat too stout for his tackle; and, to prevent the trout from getting among the roots and stones while he played him, the fisherman kept stepping backward, with his face toward me and his back toward the deep run and the pool. 'Take care! take care!' I cried. But my warning came too late: his feet were already on the ridge of rock, and the next instant he fell over into the very deepest part of the water. He rose instantly, but whether he was seized with cramp, or that his large heavy boots filled with water, I know not; but he sank again at once with a loud cry, and I ran along the ridge of stone to give him help. The stream was much swollen with the late rains, and even there it was running very strong, so that I could hardly keep my footing; but I contrived to get to a spot near which he was just rising again, and held out the thickest end of my rod to him. It was barely within his reach; but he grasped it with one hand so sharply as almost to pull me over into the pool with him. I got my feet between two large masses of stone, however, and pulled hard, drawing him toward me till he could get hold of the rock with his hands. His safety was then easily insured; and I only remarked two things peculiar in his demeanor: one was, that he never thanked me; and the other, that in all the struggle he had contrived to retain his fishing-rod.

"'Can you not swim?' he asked, as soon as we had both reached the bank. I answered in the negative, and he added, 'Learn to swim. Please God, it may save your life some day. Learn to swim.' I offered to take him up to the parsonage that he might dry his clothes; but he refused, not very civilly; and then he asked my name, looking me very steadily in the face, without the slightest expression of gratitude for the aid I had rendered him, and no trace of either agitation or trouble from the danger he had run. 'You have kept your rod,' I said, 'but you have broken your line.'

"'I never let go my hold,' he answered; 'but, as you say, I have broken my line and lost my fish. Are you Sir Richard Langdale's son, the man up at Buckley?' I answered that I was, and in a few minutes after we parted. I did not forget his advice, however, for a part of every day during that summer I passed in the water, learning and practising the art of swimming, till none could swim better or longer. I have never seen that man since; but he has fully repaid my service by inducing me to learn that which has more than once been of great service to me.

"It was the month of October before I once more visited Buckley; and then my father sent for me. I found the same young man still there whom I had seen on my former visit; but now my father removed all doubt of who he was, by saying, 'Edward, it is time that you should know that this is your brother Richard,—your elder brother.'

"I need not dwell upon the mortification and annoyance which this announcement caused me. I was very young, as you may know when I tell you that this occurred about five years ago, and, though of a somewhat sensitive character, I might have thought little of the matter after the first shock, had my brother's manner pleased me, had he shown kindness or affection for me. But, with a sort of presentiment of what he was to become, I disliked him from the first; and he repaid me well, treating me with a sort of supercilious coldness I could not bear. On the morning of the fourth day, when he had gone out fowling with a number of servants and dogs, I went into my father's chamber and announced to him my intention of going back that morning to pursue my studies with good Dr. Winthorne. Perhaps my tone was somewhat too decided and imperative for one so young toward his father; but it certainly was respectful, and my father did not oppose my purpose. He merely spoke—almost in an apologetic manner—of my brother and myself, intimated that he saw my annoyance, and, attributing it to motives which had never crossed my mind, added, 'You will have fortune enough, Ned. You surely need not grudge your brother his share.' I did not reply; but his words set me musing, and, an hour after, I left Buckley and returned to Applethorpe. There, as before, I told my worthy preceptor all that had occurred, and he somewhat censured my conduct, but at the same time condoled with and comforted me. 'This young man,' he said, 'must be the son of an Italian lady, to whom, according to a vague rumor current about the time your father married your mother, he had been previously wedded in her own country. It was said her relations had separated her from him on account of his religion and had shut her up in a convent, where she had died of grief. What he said about your fortune being sufficient, alluded of course to the Buckley estate, which, being derived from your mother, must descend to you.'

"'I never thought of fortune,' I answered, 'and should be glad to have a brother whom I could love; but I cannot like this young man.'

"I had now seen my father for the last time in life. A quarrel, it would seem, took place between him and one of the gentlemen of the neighborhood, and about six months after the period of my visit they met and fought. Both were good swordsmen; and my father killed his adversary on the spot. He was much wounded in the encounter, however, and died some four-and-twenty hours after. Sir Richard, his son, had not thought fit to send for me; but, as soon as the news reached Applethorpe, Dr. Winthorne went over with me to Buckley. There a scene took place which I shall never think of without pain. My brother's whole thoughts were of the rich succession which had fallen to him. He had four or five lawyers with him, some from the country, others brought post-haste from London. He claimed the whole estates,—Buckley, and all that it contained; and his lawyers showed that, the estate having fallen to my mother after her marriage, without any deed of settlement having reserved it to herself and her heirs, it had passed in pure possession to my father, and descended to his eldest son. There was some dispute between him and Dr. Winthorne, who, with the village attorney, advocated my cause warmly; but in the end the good clergyman took my arm, saying, 'Come away, Edward: there are too many bad feelings here already: there will be more if we stay. Your brother, who strips you of your mother's fortune because she perhaps trusted too far his father and yours, cannot deprive you of Malden farm, which was left you by your great-uncle. Indeed, I will not believe that your father did not intend to do you justice. His last words to you implied it; and probably, Mr. Sykes, Sir Richard did make a will, which we must leave you to have produced, if there be one.'

"These last words were addressed to my firm friend, the village lawyer, who, though aged and a good deal deformed, wanted no energy. He had always loved my mother, and whenever I could I had sent him game and fish. I always see him when I am in England. But no will was ever found: proofs of my father's marriage to the Signora Laura Scotti were produced, and also of her death some five years before the marriage of my mother, and my brother Richard remained possessed of all that had once seemed destined for me. He found the property greatly encumbered, it is true, paid no debt that he could by any means evade, and, being naturally of a profuse and luxurious disposition, soon found it necessary to sell much plate and jewels, many of which, beyond doubt, were my mother's own. Among the rest must have gone the cup I saw last night. As for myself, the little farm of Malden was all that was left me, the annual income of which is not quite two hundred pounds a year,—enough, perhaps, for any right ambition; but I had been educated in high expectations, and I had received a shock which changed, or seemed to change, my whole nature.

"One night, when we had been talking of these things, Dr. Winthorne laid his hand upon my shoulder, saying, 'Ned, you must make yourself a name and an estate. There are two courses before you: either pursue your studies vigorously for a few years, and then go to the university and push your fortunes in the Church or at the bar, or put yourself in the way of another sort of advancement, and mingle in the strife of courts and camps. You have talent for the one if you choose to embrace it; your animal qualities may fit you for the other. If the latter be your choice, among my noble kinsfolks I can put you on the entrance of the road; but you are not a boy who can remain idle. Think over it till to-morrow at this hour; and then tell me of your resolve.'

"My determination was soon formed. I could not make up my mind, especially with the feelings that were then busy in me, to devote myself to mere dry and thoughtful studies; and I chose the more active scenes. The very next night Dr. Winthorne wrote to the Lord Montagu, distantly related to his mother, and in about two months after I received the appointment of gentleman-page in his household, the only path now open in England to honor and renown. In this career I have met with many vicissitudes, and have learned much in a harsher and sterner school than that of good Dr. Winthorne. I have not suffered, I trust, in mind or in body, and, if my character has been hardened, I do believe the change took place, not in the four last years of action and endeavor, but in the few months of suffering and endurance which immediately preceded and followed my father's death. Let it not be thought, my excellent friend, that in any thing I have said I wished to cast a reproach upon his memory. I am sure that he intended to secure to me what by right and equity was mine, whatever mere law may say; but probably the duel in which he fell was hasty; and it was a habit of his mind to put off both consideration and action as long as he could. Thought was a labor that troubled him, and he often would not see dangers because reflection upon the best way of meeting them would have been painful. As to my brother, I have never seen him again: I hear he has returned to Italy, there to spend what remains to him of his wealth. Thus, you see that, though that cup is mine by right, it is no more mine by law than the estate of Buckley, which has gone from me forever."

The old merchant mused, and Lucette exclaimed, eagerly, that Sir Richard Langdale's conduct was cruel and unjust; but Master Ned answered, very mildly,—more so, indeed, than he might have done had not sickness softened him,—"There is much that is both cruel and unjust in the law; but, when I think of the contrast between my home before and after he appeared in it, and when I think of what my own heart was before and after he put his icy hand upon it, how he took from it its gentleness, and its kindness, and its confidence, I cannot but believe he has been cruel, and, though the same blood may and does flow in our veins, his is mingled with another stream, which is noway akin to mine."

"You must take that cup, Master Edward," said the syndic. "I cannot keep it in conscience. Every time I saw it in the cupboard, I should——" But his sentence was broken in upon, and all discussion stopped, by the entrance of Marton, introducing a stout man in plain travelling-attire, who was a stranger at least to Edward Langdale.

CHAPTER VIII.

The old syndic did not seem to know much more of his visitor than Edward Langdale; but he called him Master Jean Baptiste, and asked him what news from Niort.

"Nothing very good, monsieur," answered the stranger: "half a league more of the Papist lines is finished, and it is hard to get through. It was all done so quick and so quietly, no one knew any thing of it till the day before yesterday, when some troops and a large supply of flour were sent down to Ferriac."

"And where is the king himself?" demanded Clement Tournon, somewhat anxiously.

"He is still at Nantes," replied the visitor. "But I want some talk with you, Mr. Syndic, when I can have it alone; and it must be to-night, too, for I have to go on by to-morrow at daybreak, if I can get a boat."

The old man at once raised a candlestick from the table and led the stranger into another room, while Lucette and Edward remained together.

Now, the most natural thing in the world for a young lad between sixteen and seventeen, and a young girl a year or two younger, when so thrown upon their own resources, would have been to make love, or, at least, to fall into it; and there was also a strong incentive in the gratitude Edward felt for all Lucette's kind nursing and all the interest which Lucette had taken in his illness and recovery. But the truth must be told. They did not make love in any of the many ways in which that article is prepared in any of the kingdoms of the earth. Moreover, they did not fall in love in the least. I am sorry for it; for of all the sweet and charming things which this world produces, that which is scornfully called calf's love is the sweetest and most charming. If it has really any thing to do with a calf at all, it is the sweetbread. Oh, that early love! that early love! how pure, and tender, and soft, and timid, and bright, and fragrant, it is! It is the opening of the rose-bud of life, which may in after-times display warmer colors, give forth more intense odor, but loses in delicacy and grace with every petal that unfolds. But, as I have said, the truth must be told. They neither talked of love nor thought of love, although Lucette was very beautiful and believed Edward Langdale to be very handsome. She merely made him describe to her the scenes in which his youth had been spent. She talked to him of his mother, too; and he told her how sweetly that mother had sung, and said to her that Lady Langdale's voice was very like her own; and then he besought her to sing to him again; and she sang to please him; and they fell into thought, and spoke of a thousand things more, in which the reader would take no manner of interest, but which interested them so much that, when Clement Tournon returned, they fancied he had been gone but a few minutes; and he had been absent an hour and a half.

His visitor did not come back with him, for he had taken some supper and retired to rest; but the good old syndic's brow was gloomy, and the news he had received, whatever it was, did not seem to have been very favorable.

"To bed, to bed, Lucette!" said the old man: "we must not keep Master Ned up late o' night. He will soon have to go travelling again; and he must gather strength."

Lucette did not receive the intelligence that Ned must soon depart very sadly, though she would have very well liked him to stay. She laughed and kissed the old man, and ran away; but the syndic silently took hold of the youth's hand and prevented him from retiring till the bright girl was gone. "Stay a minute," he said, at length. "I have something to speak to you about. How do you feel your strength and health to-night?"

"Oh, much improved," replied Master Ned. "I shall be as strong as ever in a couple of days."

"That is well! that is well!" said Clement Tournon. "And whither do you turn your steps when you leave Rochelle?"

"I have to traverse the whole of France, and even to approach close to Paris," answered Master Ned; "for the end of my journey, as far as I yet know, is to be at Dammartin. First, however, I must go to Mauzé, where, I hear, the Duc de Rohan and Monsieur de Soubise are to be found. I have letters for each."

The reply seemed to puzzle the old man a little, for he shook his head, saying, "It will not do."

"Have they left Mauzé?" asked Edward. "This illness has been very unfortunate."

"If you do not find them there, you will hear of them," answered the syndic. "What I mean is, you cannot get straight to Mauzé. Things have changed since you arrived, my son. The Papist troops are between us and Mauzé; and you will have to make a long deviation from your way and come upon the castle from the north."

"So be it!" said Master Ned. "If we can but have a fair wind, we can get to Marans, and, running up the Sevres, reach Mauzé from the north. It is not much longer, if I recollect right. I would embark to-morrow morning, but I have still some preparations to make."

"You seem to know the country well, my son," said the old man, "and your scheme is a good one. But what preparations can you have to make?—not, indeed, that I would have you go too soon, lest your health should suffer. I should think as soon as you feel strong enough you will be all ready."

"Not quite, Monsieur Tournon," answered the lad. "I must follow my orders, and those I have are very reasonable commands. I have, as I just said, to cross three-quarters of France, which I could not do as an Englishman, since these last troubles, without a safe-conduct. One has been procured for me, however, from young Sir Peter Apsley, who obtained it in order to go to Geneva to study. He has changed his mind since, and I am to represent him; but, as there are mentioned in the paper a page and two servants, I must engage such followers of the most trusty character I can find. I have already got Pierrot la Grange, who is an adept at masquerading, and I did think of bribing Jargeau to accompany me; but I had some suspicions of him before I landed, and soon found that he is treacherous. I must therefore look for a man and a boy here to-morrow; and you must help me, my good father, for it is of much consequence that they should be trusty."

"They will soon be found," answered the syndic; "but I fear me you will be soon discovered, my son. This cardinal has eyes in every quarter, and almost, I might say, in every house. As to the page, I may have to think a little," and then he added, musingly: "Did pages wear long tunics, as in my young days, Lucette might do; but I doubt whether she would put on boys' clothes as they are worn now."

"Lucette!" exclaimed Edward Langdale, in a tone of unfeigned astonishment. "That would never do. She could not ride half through France at the pace I should have to go; and besides——But tell me, in the name of Heaven, could you part with her so easily and on such a journey?"

The old syndic smiled faintly, saying, "I could and must part with her whenever it is for her good, my son; but I did not propose she should go with you farther than Mauzé, where you would have to find another page. There she must go before Saturday, as I will explain. Listen; for it is fit you should know all that is going on here, that you may tell it to those whom you are about to see. I will make it all clear to you, and then I will go and consult my pillow till to-morrow morning. The king and the cardinal are determined to crush out Rochelle. We have stood a siege here before, and may perhaps do so now,—though I do not think it, for Richelieu is not following the rash measures of those who went before him. He has been hovering over this devoted city like an eagle over a hare half hidden in the brushwood, and now he is ready to swoop. They say that he and King Louis have been stayed at Nantes by some troubles in the court; but nothing is neglected: day by day the troops are gathering round, and we are now wellnigh hemmed in by land. The sea is still open to us; but I have learned from a sure hand this night that the cardinal has gathered together a navy of small armed vessels in all the neighboring ports,—Rochefort, Marennes, Royan, Bourgneuf, Painbœuf, and others. They will soon be off our harbor,—on Monday next, they say; and though, thank Heaven, we have ships and good ones, yet in point of numbers we are nothing. The foolish men of what they call the French party refused, as you know, to give entrance to the Earl of Denbigh's fleet, which would have kept the sea open to us and insured us against blockade forever. But, as things stand now, I cannot expose a girl like Lucette to the horrors of a siege with probably no escape. Indeed, every useless mouth we can remove from Rochelle the better for us; and, besides, those who have a right have required me to send her out of the city without loss of time."

"Had you not better go with her yourself?" asked Master Ned.

"I will not run away from my post," answered the syndic. "I once could have struck a good blow in defence of my native city; and, though that is past, I can still aid her with counsel. Besides, where could I go? Nowhere but to England. I may send what gold I have got to that country, if I can find means; but my fate is with Rochelle, and Lucette's must lie far away. God help us! we are at a dangerous pass, my son; and the hunter's toils are tighter round us than some of our senseless citizens will believe. As to Jargeau, you cannot trust him. Of Pierrot I have doubts,—not of his honesty, for he is truthful and sturdy when he is sober, nor of his ability, for he is a thing we often see in this strange world, a clever fool,—shrewd enough in every thing that imports but little, but weak as water in matters on which his own fortunes and his soul's salvation rest. I doubt his power to abstain from a vice which has ruled him for ten long years. True, he has been sober ever since he has been here, and he promises sturdily; but, alas! my son, I have seen so many a drunkard fall away from all good resolutions with the first moment of a strong temptation that I wish you had a better follower."

"I will keep him sober," answered Master Ned, boldly. "He knows I am not to be trifled with. I think he has every inclination to reform but only wants the strength of mind. I will give him the strength. Many a man is feeble in some point till he has support, just as a pea trails upon the ground till we plant a strong pole by it. I will be his pea-stick, Monsieur Tournon. But as to another man and the page. If Mademoiselle Lucette only goes to Mauzé, and you will trust her with me, I will see her safe there if I get there myself, upon my honor; but I know not why she should have to change her dress, for the distance is so small from Maran's that——"

"You may be stopped and have to show your safe-conduct," answered the syndic. "You know not how rapidly this cardinal is drawing the net around us. But surely we can equip her so that she shall remain concealed and yet not shock her modesty."

"Oh, yes," replied Master Ned: "'tis still the mode with us to wear a loose, long, hanging coat over the justaucorps in cool weather; and this is cool enough. I have one in my bags, and they are so freely fitted that it matters not whether it be somewhat large or not. But what I fear is her long, beautiful, amber hair. No boy's head ever bore such a profusion,—though it is the custom now to wear it very long behind."

"We must have it cut," said the syndic, with as little reverence for love-locks as any Puritanical preacher of the coming epoch: "a woman may well yield her hair to save her liberty and her religion,—nay, perhaps her life. But we will talk more to-morrow, my son, and we had better both seek rest now and rise by dawn to-morrow."

The results of this conversation may easily be divined by the reader, whose business it is, in a novel as well as in a tragedy, to supply from his own wit or imagination all the little facts and circumstances which it may please an author to omit. Yes, dear reader, always recollect that you have your responsibilities as well as your privileges, your duties as well as your powers, and then if you and I do not understand each other it is not your fault.

The following evening, about seven o'clock, there assembled in the little saloon, the syndic, Edward Langdale, a strong, supple-looking man, of whom more hereafter, Pierrot la Grange, and a beautiful boy, apparently some two years younger, and much shorter, than Master Ned. He entered the last, dressed in one of the broad-brimmed hats of the day, a handsome doublet, and a loose black velvet coat with hanging sleeves. It descended nearly to the knees, and almost met a pair of large riding-boots, which, together with the hat and feather, and a small gold-hilted dagger on the left hip, gave the wearer a sort of cavalier look which accorded well with the character assumed,—yes, assumed; for a warm mantling blush that spread over Lucette's fair face, and the shy impulse with which she threw herself into the old man's arms, would have betrayed her sex to any one who was not in the secret. Every thing, however, was now hurry, for a good-sized fishing-boat had been engaged for a somewhat earlier hour; and, with a few words of admonition to Lucette from the syndic, and some directions to the men, the whole party set out for the port. Marton gave them egress, kissing Lucette tenderly as she passed the door; and in ten minutes Clement Tournon held the young girl in his arms by the side of the boat, taking one last embrace. He wept not, it is true; but he heaved a heavy sigh. Edward Langdale lifted her into the little bark, and, as the boat pushed off, he felt that tears had fallen upon his bosom.

CHAPTER IX.

Although there can be few things more pleasant to many of the senses with which our dull clay is vivified than to sail over a shining sea under a moonlight sky,—although the feeling of repose which emanates from rapid easy motion is then most sweetly tasted,—yet when we are in haste we would always wish the breeze to be favorable and full. We could bear a little more rocking of our sea-cradle did we but know that our progress was all the faster. In this respect, at least, Edward Langdale was not to be gratified that night. The wind, it is true, was not exactly adverse; but it was not quite favorable, and, moreover, it was light. The boat did not make three miles an hour through the water, and was obliged to take a good stretch to the westward in order to avoid sands and shoals.

In the mean time, the party in the boat was arranged very properly: Lucette sat near the stern, and Master Ned next to her, with Pierrot on his left; while on the other side were the newly-engaged servant and two sailors. But Lucette was silent, and Edward thought it better for a time to leave her so, as tears—springing from what sources it is not worth while to inquire—were still flowing, and the youth heard every now and then a gentle sob. For his part, he talked a little to Pierrot, who told him that he had twice seen the good-man Jargeau that day, had honestly notified him of his dereliction of his service, and had returned him his two horses, as he, Pierrot, had been ordered. Jargeau, he said, had been somewhat supercilious, somewhat triumphant, had shown that he knew all about Master Ned's encounter in Rochelle, and its consequences, observed that it would have been better for the youth if he had followed good counsel, and had laughed heartily at Pierrot's own resolutions of temperance, which he tried hard to make him break on the spot.

"I saw he had a great contempt for me, Master Ned," said the man; "but I showed him I could resist."

"He will laugh at you ten times more if ever you break your resolution," answered Edward Langdale; "and then he will laugh with some reason. Of course you gave him no cause to think we were going to-night?"

The man replied in the negative, and Edward—judging not amiss of the precise moment when comfort is most available—applied himself to soothe his beautiful young companion. It is a very delicate and even dangerous task for a young man of any thing short of sixty; and it would be vain to say that Edward Langdale did not perform the office of consoler warmly. The nature of the case inspired tenderness; the gentleness and care with which she had nursed him required it; and their very youth justified it. He called her "dear Lucette" several times; and he tried hard to prompt hope of a speedy return to Rochelle and a reunion with her excellent father.

At the latter word Lucette gave a little start. "You mistake, Edward," she said: "he is not my father, though indeed he has been a father, and more than a father, to me. But you are protecting an orphan, my friend. I have neither father nor mother living."

"Then is he your grandfather, as you first called him?" asked the youth. "I thought he was very old to have a daughter of your age."

"He is no relation whatever," she answered, gravely, "but is as dear to me as any parent could have been. It is a long story, which I may some time or other have an opportunity of telling you; but enough for the present that he has had the care of my education in Rochelle for some years, and has ever shown to me the affection of a father and won from me the love and reverence of a child. I weep to part with him; but I weep from many other causes. Rochelle has been to me like the nest to a young bird; and now I am going forth into a world where I am almost a stranger, to a fate that I know not, but which can hardly be a peaceful one. Let us not talk of it; for it is better not even to think of it. What will come must come; and I must bear all with patience."

"Well, then, let us look at that beautiful sea," said Edward Langdale. "Is it not like an ocean of melted silver? Look there! Here comes a great wave curling over in the moonlight: now we rise above it, and it is past. So it is, Lucette, with the misfortunes of this world: they seem ready to overwhelm us; but with good steering and a strong mind we rise above them and leave them behind us."

"But who shall teach me to steer my boat?" asked Lucette, sadly.

Had it been a few years later in his life, Edward would probably have said, "Let me;" but he did not say it, and he was wise. He applied himself, however, with more earnestness than ever, to soothe his sweet companion and to wean her thoughts from subjects of pain or anxiety; nor did he do so without success. His mind was stored with the riches of much and very various study, and he found, too, that her young hours had not been employed in vain. She could talk with him of things which few of her age and her country could converse upon; and, to his delight, he found that she spoke English as well as he did himself, with hardly any accent, and with perfect facility. Thenceforward their conversation was carried on in his mother-tongue; and his mind easily saw the many advantages which might arise, should any impediment present itself on their journey, from their perfect acquaintance with two languages.

It was all very perilous for the two young people; and really, could it have been avoided, they should not have been placed in such a situation; but there are times and circumstances when proprieties must be forgotten and folks must take their chance or die. Now, the period was rapidly approaching when not a mouse could get out of Rochelle; and old Clement Tournon foresaw its coming. To take advantage of Edward's journey was all that was left for him; and that was almost too late. Besides, decorum came in with George the First, and little of it was known in the world at large before the time of William the Taciturn. Nevertheless, was it not dangerous to set two young souls, full of early life, and with all its passions and imaginations just budding, to sail over "the moonlight sea" together, talking a language unknown to their companions, with mystery and misfortune and interest on one side, and gratitude, compassion, and curiosity on the other? They did not, it is true, get out of that boat with the same feelings they carried into it; but then all these matters are progressive, except in Italy, and some parts of Spain, and two or three other countries I could name,—countries where people jump into love with their eyes open, or fall into it with their eyes shut. In England we slide into it. But, as I was remarking, all such things—with the exceptions already specified—are progressive; and there were several little accidents which helped the matter on. Lucette was cold, and Edward fastened the agrafes of the loose coat over her fair bosom; and then he wrapped a cloak round her; and then the wind shifted and the sea began to run very high, and he had to put his arm about her to keep her steady on the seat. Then, what between fear and headache, she leaned her brow upon his shoulder; and he had to comfort and reassure her the best way he could. There is something in animal magnetism, dear reader, depend upon it,—although I think it acts in a different way from that generally attributed to it.

But, to pause no more upon such discussions,—which are always very fruitless,—I must say their situation soon became very unpleasant, and even critical. The wind and the currents carried the little craft far to the westward of Marans, and the boat shipped many a heavy sea. She was good and stanch, however, and the sailors were fearless, hardy, and experienced; but that comforted poor Lucette very little, so that all her consolation was to cling through long hours to Edward Langdale and to ask him from time to time if there was any danger. At length, however,—just when, having run a good way to the northwest, they had contrived to tack and lay their course with a better wind toward Marans,—the sun began to rise, and Edward whispered, "Now we shall soon be there, dear Lucette."

But he was mistaken. Expectation is always mistaken. There really seems a perversity about those ladies with the distaff and scizzors which leads them to spin the thread of our life with knots and tangles, to cut it short at the very moment of fruition, and—especially when they see any one foolish enough to calculate upon success—to ravel the whole skein into inextricable confusion. The boat could only approach the shore by continual tacking; and I would tell all the tacks she made, and how long each took,—but, unhappily, I know nothing of nautical matters, except that a ship has a head and a stern, as most other things have; that a fair wind carries people rapidly to port, and a foul wind delays them often a long time. The sun had passed the meridian at least three hours when the boat at last reached the mouth of the Sevre Niortaise, which would at that time float small vessels very comfortably. I know not what it will do now; for the sands upon the west coast of France have so encroached upon the domains of old Ocean that Hennebon was once within a short distance of the sea and is now actually an inland town, only to be reached by a post-road or a good long sail up the river Blavet. As good fortune would have it, however, and thanks to the paternal care of good Clement Tournon, there were plenty of provisions on board the boat; and the Sevre Niortaise received them less hungry than might otherwise have been the case. The ascent of the river as far as the spot where it was proposed to stop occupied two hours more; but all was calm now, and the change from danger to security is a great promoter of rash hope. The color came back into Lucette's face, and she and Edward Langdale talked gayly of the coming hours. At length they ran up to a little landing where a few houses, all occupied by Protestants, lined the shore, headed by a good-looking cabaret with white walls and a brush upon the top of a pole. The Rochellois boatmen were well known to the host, and his welcome was joyful; but when, after seeing Lucette comfortably lodged in a room by herself,—although the landlord seemed to think that too much care was taken of a boy who ought to take care of himself,—Master Ned proceeded to inquire into the facilities for reaching Mauzé, he found more serious impediments than he had expected. No horses were to be bought nearer than Marans, some three miles distant; and between the river and the chateau of Mauzé the host reported several large bodies of Catholic soldiers and workmen, whose conduct, according to his account, was not over-scrupulous. Horses, however, had to be procured at all events; for to reach the chateau if possible Edward Langdale was bound; and accordingly, with some hesitation, he despatched Pierrot la Grange to Marans, with a strong injunction to temperance. Pierrot's virtue was probably not very severely tried; for the wine—the only wine to be procured in that part of the country—was execrable; and brandy at that time, notwithstanding the proximity of Rochelle, found its way to Marans in very small quantities. At all events, toward ten o'clock at night he reappeared at the cabaret with the four horses and their equipments, as his young master had required, and a boy leading the two last-bought, while he himself, mounted on one, led another by the bridle.

The landlord was conversing with the boatmen at the door, while Edward was calmly sleeping on a bench in the kitchen; but the former seemed to have received some intimation that the page was not exactly what he appeared, for he requested Pierrot in a whisper to tell his young lord that there was a minister in the hamlet, and that young people could be married there just as well as at Mauzé.

In about an hour the whole party were mounted and on their road, Pierrot having assured his master that he could guide him to Mauzé as well as any man born on the spot. Nor did he exaggerate his knowledge, but proceeded perfectly steadily and carefully, till at length the little bridle-path they followed lost itself in the moors which cover that part of the country.

The moon, however, was shining as brightly as it had done the night before, and there seemed no difficulty in finding the way; but the wide expanse before them looked solitary and cheerless with its gray shadows and stunted bushes and pieces of fenny swamp, while here and there rose a small clump of low rugged pines, or a deep pit obstructed the advance of the travellers. At the end of about two hours, Pierrot remarked, "We are not three miles from Mauzé now, sir, and we had better be a little careful; for, if there be any folks we have to fear, they must be about here." Hardly had he spoken when a line of lights came in sight, which Master Ned instantly understood to proceed from scattered watchfires; and, halting for a few minutes, he held a short council with his followers, in which their future proceedings were determined. The lights extended some way to the right and left; and it was conjectured that the lines which it was known the king's army were employed in constructing stopped at a certain point on one side or the other, leaving a passage round the extremity, by which the little village and its castle could be reached. The question only was which side was free, and Edward resolved to ride on in advance with one of the men and reconnoitre, leaving Lucette and the other man at the first sheltered spot they could find. One of the deep pits which I have mentioned was soon met with, and its edge, on the opposite side from that which the little party approached, was edged with a fringe of low wood, which concealed it well. A road which had been cut for the purpose of digging gravel—Heaven knows for what purpose the gravel itself was wanted, as gravel walks were few in that part of the country—led right into the pit; and along it Edward and his party found their way in. He lifted Lucette from her horse, and, being more considerate than most lads of his age, he paused to think which of the men he should leave with her. That was soon settled. The man he had hired in Rochelle was well known to Clement Tournon. His name was Jacques Beaupré, by-the-way; and the good syndic had guaranteed his honesty, adding, that he was a courageous man and witty. Now, Jacques had not uttered three words since he had been in Edward's service, and therefore of his wit the young gentleman knew nothing; but his honesty and his courage were much more important on the present occasion. Pierrot, Master Ned knew, could be trusted in all things but one; but there was much to be remembered. He himself might be taken; and, once delivered from the restraint of his presence, Edward naturally concluded that the bottle might have too great temptations for his worthy follower, and Lucette be left to the perilous guardianship of a drunken man. Jacques Beaupré was therefore left with Lucette. The bags were taken off the horses and deposited in his care, with orders to make his way to Mauzé, should any misadventure occur to Edward, and to place them and Lucette under the care of the Prince de Soubise. A warning was also given him to destroy, if possible, the bag which had a red cross marked upon it, in case he saw that he could not escape the Catholic army. It may be supposed that all these directions alarmed poor Lucette a good deal; but she did not give way to her fears, although she fully forgave Edward for making his parting embrace a little warmer than even the customs of that day justified.

We are too apt in this world to make no allowance for the customs of different times and phases of society. Some fall into this fault from ignorance of any state of society but their own, with a vague idea of something having been strange in the customs of the Greeks and Romans and the people whom Mr. Hallam wrote about. Some who have read the chronicles of other times forget the minute particulars in their attention to more important facts. But believe me, dear reader, the times and the country, the climate and the water, do make very great difference in the notions which obtain regarding customs, and even morals,—ay, morals. Half the morals in the world are made by society,—and all the customs. I remember a Turkish ambassador, being present at a dance, and asking, gravely, "What does all that palming come to?" Since then the Turks have very generally left off their petticoats, and have acquired a good many new notions; but they still object to the "palming," and think its tendencies not desirable,—the Koran notwithstanding. However, the age of which I am now writing was a kissing age,—an age of embrassades. Everybody kissed everybody—on certain occasions; but it was specified that, in public and before witnesses, the kisses were to be bestowed on the right and left cheek, and not upon the mouth,—especially in the case of young gentlemen and ladies. Now, the dereliction of poor Edward Langdale was that his lips did not altogether confine themselves to the cheek of Lucette. Where they went, Heaven knows; but I do not. However, she forgave him; and I do not see why we should not do so too. I am sure I should have kissed her lips if I had had the opportunity; for they were rich, and soft, and full, and her breath was as fragrant as new-mown hay.

After that kiss, he jumped upon his horse again and rode away, leaving all his precious things behind him,—both those he had brought from England and those he had found in Rochelle.

The title I have affixed to this book compels me to adhere to the adventures of Master Ned; but, as that night was one of critical influence upon his fate, I cannot finish its events at the fag-end of a chapter which is already somewhat too long for the reader's patience, and for the writer's too.

CHAPTER X.

Now, Edward Langdale was a very acute and intelligent lad before he touched the shores of France on that journey. He had learned more of the world and mankind in the few years he had been page to Lord Montagu than many another youth does in a dozen. His previous education had fitted him for such acquisition; and the circumstances in which he had afterward been placed—circumstances which required the exercise of every faculty—had acuminated every faculty. But, strange to say, each sense seemed to acquire more acuteness after he left Lucette. He had no notion in the world how it was so. He thought of those valuable leathern bags of his, and of the letters which were in them, and of the chance there was of their falling into an enemy's hands. He believed that was all; but still, as the reader has a right to be let into all secrets, a vague, indefinite, misty idea of danger to Lucette mingled with all other considerations and sharpened every perception.

With Pierrot by his side, and taking advantage of every thing which could screen his approach, he advanced as close to the king's lines as he could without being perceived. He then rode along, seeing groups of soldiers and sappers lying on the ground by their watchfires, without one man seemingly wakeful enough to have killed a rat had it invaded his quarters. The end of the line on the right was soon reached; but now there were evident signs of completed trenches and a more strict guard; and, retreating a little to get under cover of the trees, which had become both taller and closer in that quarter, he turned his course toward the left, where the lines tended toward the Sevre Niortaise. Still, nothing stirred; and at length Edward, to his great satisfaction, perceived the spot where the rapidly-progressing works had been abandoned at the set of sun, and where shovels and pickaxes and hatchets were piled up after the labors of the day. Beyond was a wide extent of moor and brushwood; and, after having gazed for a minute or two, he determined to push his horse far enough round to make sure that the passage was free before he went back for Lucette. His course was through some marshy ground broken by brushes. The last fire of the French lines was at a full quarter of a mile's distance, and every moment Edward became more and more convinced that the way was quite open and the passage safe. Suddenly, however, he checked his horse, making a sign to Pierrot to stop, and saying, "Hark!"

"Horse, on my life!" cried Pierrot.

"Coming up from the left," replied Master Ned. "Down, down! and amongst the bushes! Let the beasts take their own course. It may mislead them."

Each sprang to the ground in a moment. The horses, cast loose with a sharp blow in the flank, scampered across the moor, and the youth and Pierrot kneeled down amongst the shrubs. But the manœuvre was in vain. The moon was still shining brightly: they had been marked; and the pursuers but too plainly perceived that the two horses which scampered off were now without riders. There was a momentary search amongst the bushes, and then a hard hand was laid upon Master Ned's shoulder. It might have been a dangerous experiment at another moment; but there were so many soldiers round as to render resistance hopeless; and Master Ned rose quietly without uttering a word.

It was a somewhat lawless age; and in lawless ages some men's fingers have a strange affection for other men's pockets. The worthy trooper, whose right hand still retained its grasp of Edward's shoulder, felt his left impelled by irresistible powers toward the spot where purses in those days were generally carried; but he suddenly found his wrist grasped with a strength which he had no idea lay in the slight-looking limbs of his prisoner, who at the same time raised his voice aloud, shouting, in the French tongue, "Officer! officer!"

The trooper had either miscalculated his distance from his companions, or Master Ned's powers of endurance; for, while he struggled to free his wrist from the clinging fingers which grasped it, half a dozen more soldiers came up, with a gentleman in a handsome buff coat, or buffle, laced with gold, who was evidently the leader of the band.

"How now, young man? how now?" cried the officer, regarding him by the moonlight. "What! resisting the king's authority?"

"By no means, seigneur," replied Edward, who still held the soldier fast by the wrist. "I am merely resisting plunder, which I know is not by the king's authority. This man's hand was in my pocket. His intention might be to take my purse,—which I should care little about, as there is not much in it, and I can get more; but it might be to take my safe-conduct, which I will not part with, but for proper examination, to any one."

"Ho, ho! a safe-conduct!" said the officer. "How dare you try to rob him, Guillaume Bheel? Let him go, this instant."

"I can't," answered the man, with a good-humored roar of laughter: "the young devil has got my wrist as tight as if every finger was a vice. My hand was not in his pocket; for, by St. Ann, he did not let me get it fairly in. I was only going to search him."

"Let the man's hand go, young gentleman," said the officer. "You mention a safe-conduct. Let me see it."

"It is here," said Edward Langdale, drawing forth a handsome gilt leather case. "I beg you to promise that it shall be returned to me when you have examined it."

"It shall, if I find it all in proper form," replied the other; "but, in the mean time, you will have to go to the lines, for I cannot examine passes by moonlight. Some one see and catch the two horses. Have you found the other man? Ah, there he is. Catch the horses, I say."

In the mean time he had opened the case and taken out the passport, which, when spread out in the pale light, showed all the appearance of an ordinary safe-conduct; and Edward, anxious to prevent any search for Lucette and her guard, observed, in a quiet tone, "You will remark that the paper covers more than myself and my servant; but, hearing that there was danger on the road to Niort, we left the others behind."

"Then tell me, sir," said the officer, gravely, "how came it, when you were furnished with such a safe-conduct as this, you attempted to pass the lines without showing it, and tried to hide yourself when you saw my party?"

"Oh, in Rochelle they tell very bloody tales of you gentlemen up here," replied Edward, laughing; "and I thought that at Niort I could show it with less trouble."

"Then you come from Rochelle, do you?" said the officer. "Probably you came over in Lord Denbigh's fleet?"

"No," answered the young man, boldly. "I came over before, in a merchant-vessel; but I was obliged to stay some days in Rochelle to hire servants and to get well; for I was ill there."

"Indeed," said the officer,—not in any tone of interest, but merely as one of those insignificant ejaculations which men employ to stop a gap when they have nothing else to say; and he continued humming some of the Parisian airs which are now technically known as Pont neufs, till the horses were caught,—which was not till after half an hour's ineffectual effort; for they had some spirit and some skittishness. Indeed, it might have been as well—under fear of the critics—to tell the reader that the part of the country which we are now treading is rather famous for the sale of horses, which, though not so good as the Limousin, are of the same race, very hardy and sometimes very fleet.

At length the beasts were inveigled by some of the many methods of deceit which men use to entrap bipeds or quadrupeds; and, mounted on that which he indicated as his own, Master Ned, between two soldiers, was led to the end of the trench, followed by Pierrot, as well guarded, who had the good sense to keep his tongue under a rigorous rein. The two were civilly inducted into a small building constructed of unplaned boards, and, with a sentinel at the door, were left together while the officer went to examine the safe-conduct: at least, so he said. In truth, he went to show it to a superior officer.

Edward Langdale, however, took the opportunity, in a hurried manner, of indoctrinating Pierrot in regard to what he was to say and what not to say. He could have done it quite at leisure, it is true, for the officer was full two hours absent; but the time was occupied with various comments and discussions which might, under most circumstances, have been of great use. Man almost always makes calculations in vain. He stands upon a small point, unable to see an inch before his nose, while Fate is working in the background beyond his sight, weaving round him a web of fine threads, through which he cannot break, let him flutter as hard as he will.

At length the officer reappeared, with the passport in its case. He returned it to the young gentleman with a polite bow, saying, "Sir, your safe-conduct seems in good form, and signed by the cardinal himself."

There he paused for a moment, and Edward replied, "Then I suppose I am at liberty to proceed. Now you see, sir, how much better it would have been for me to ride on straight to Niort, where in half an hour I could have had a good supper and a bottle of wine."

"Your pardon, sir," said the other. "We can give you the bottle of wine here,—though all you can have for supper, I am afraid, will be some sardines, d'Olonne, and bread. But, as to proceeding, you will have to make a little turn out of your way and go to Nantes. You will have four soldiers out of my troop for protection,—merely for protection."

"As a prisoner, in short," said Edward, gravely. "I had thought the cardinal's name was more potent in France."

"It is very potent," replied the officer, with a smile. "But he knows his signature better than we do; and the truth is, although the seal is certainly official, we had an intimation yesterday, about three o'clock, that a young English gentleman, with three attendants, would endeavor to pass the lines, and that it was necessary to stop him, as he was an agent of the enemy. You have but one attendant; but your pass says three, and you have yourself acknowledged that you have left two behind."

"This is the work of some private enemy," said Master Ned, gravely; for the situation was not at all pleasant. "The intimation, of course, came from Rochelle?"

The officer nodded. "Then," continued the youth, "you put faith in your enemies rather than in the signature of your own prime minister."

"Jargeau," whispered Pierrot. But the officer cut discussion short, saying, "I act under orders, gentlemen, and can only say further that you do not exactly go as prisoners, and may regulate your marches as you please. You can set out at once if you please, or you can wait till daybreak."

"At once," said Edward, somewhat sternly: "the end of my journey is Geneva or Savoy, and I am anxious to get out of a country as soon as possible where even a regular passport does not protect one from detention."

"But the wine and the sardines?" said Pierrot.

"They can be brought while the men are making ready," replied the officer; and, with a polite bow, he left them still under guard.

The wine and the sardines d'Olonne were brought and rapidly consumed. Their horses' feet were heard before the door, and, mounting, Pierrot and Master Ned, with four soldiers accompanying them, rode away in the direction of Nantes. It is a long and rather dreary ride at all times, and to Edward it was particularly unpleasant, for he had to remember a fact which the reader has probably forgotten, namely, that people who took advantage without right of other people's safe-conducts were in those days very frequently hanged. Now, Master Ned had a mortal aversion to hemp. All depends upon the application of things. An old saw well applied is excellent, detestable when wrongly introduced. A Burgundy-pitch plaster on the chest is a capital remedy for incipient bronchitis, but has quite a contrary effect when applied to the mouth and nose. It is all the same with hemp. Used in rigging a ship, it is all very well; in the abstract it is a soft though somewhat tenacious fibre, which would not much hurt a fly; but when twisted into several strands and used as a tight cravat it is unpleasant, and often dangerous. In this light it was viewed by Edward Langdale; but he had run a good many hair's-breadth risks since he had been Lord Montagu's page, and the idea of the hemp did not exclude from his mind the idea of Lucette. (There are two "ideas" in the last sentence, which the verbal critics may call tautologous; but I will let them both stand, for it were well if there were as many ideas in most people's noddles.)

However, as it is a very dreary road from Mauzé toward Nantes, and as the reflections of poor Edward Langdale were drearier still, I will not pause upon the details, but merely say that thought after thought followed each other through his head,—sometimes of the danger which he himself ran, sometimes of the dangers which surrounded Lucette, and sometimes of the chances of making his escape. This continued for some three hours, during which time the body was suffering hardly less than the mind. Barely recovered from severe illness, he had quitted Rochelle too early: he had since undergone the fatigues of a storm at sea, a long anxious ride, a short imprisonment, and now a three hours' journey, with little food and only one hour's sleep out of thirty-six, upon the banks of the Sevre Niortaise. As day began faintly to dawn, fatigue and drowsiness overpowered him; and twice he swung to the side of his horse as if he were about to fall.

The soldier who rode by his side, and who was well aware that his superiors had considerable doubt as to whether they were right or wrong in sending the young gentleman to Nantes at all, seeing his state, addressed him civilly, telling him that two miles in advance there was the village of Le Breuil Bertin, where he would find a good clean cabaret and could both have an excellent breakfast and repose for a few hours in comfort.

"I thought we were to go to Nantes as fast as we could," said Master Ned.

"Monsieur is the master," replied the man. "I was only told to see you safe to Nantes and show you all attention on the road. So I shall certainly take your orders as to where we shall stop, and how long. At all events, we must feed the horses at Le Breuil."

"Well, then, I will stay and rest there," said Edward, very glad to obtain time for somewhat clearer and more composed reflection than the state of his brain had heretofore permitted; and at Le Breuil they accordingly paused.

In the two hundred and odd revolutions of the great humming-top which have since taken place, Le Breuil Bertin, which was then a very flourishing village, with a pretty church, a very tolerable inn, and, at a little distance, a royal abbey, has become a mere hamlet; but then the cabaret appeared a blessed haven of repose to Edward Langdale: every thing had a clean and smiling air, and the very sight was a refreshment. He ordered breakfast, which was in those days always accompanied by wine, and, though he ate little, he felt stronger for the meal. Then, after calling Pierrot apart and admonishing him in regard to brandy, he said he should like to rest for a few hours, and was shown to a chamber where was a bed of wool as soft as down. It is true that there was but one staircase leading to the room assigned him, and that, Le Breuil being built upon a gentle hill, and the inn upon the edge of the hill, the window had a fall of thirty feet below it,—quite as good, under all ordinary circumstances, as iron bars. But Edward did not meditate escape just then, and all he expected was thought and repose.

Weariness and wakefulness are sometimes strangely combined. "Too tired to sleep," say people very often; and they say rightly; but it generally happens—at least in my own case—that fatigue of mind has been added to fatigue of body when we cannot woo to our pillow "tired nature's sweet restorer." We have in short been spurring both horses so hard that their sides are sore. So it was with Edward Langdale. He could not close an eye: he could not think,—at least collectedly. His mind went rambling about, first to one subject of consideration, then to another, without resting upon any. This continued for about two hours; but when the sergeant, corporal, lunce prisade, or whatever he was, looked in to see whether he would like to go to mass, the young gentleman was as sound asleep as he could be, and did not hear the opening or closing door.

Now, the soldier was a native of Le Breuil Bertin, and, moreover, he had been brought up a Protestant,—born a Protestant, I had better have said; for I fear me much that, both in regard to religion and politics, birth has a good deal to do with the matter. However, being but an indifferent controversialist, and meeting with a wise Catholic priest, and having some interest in the army, and the greater part of the population being of the Romish Church, he had four good reasons for being converted; and he was so. But the worthy man was mild in his apostasy, and, as a native of Le Breuil, did not care how long a gentleman, whether Huguenot or Papist, kept him there, nor whether he went to mass or conventicle.

Thus Edward was suffered to slumber undisturbed from nine till one, when he turned on his other side without waking, and then from one till six, when a little noise about the inn made some impression on his senses.

The sun by this time was so far down as to have left an eye of gray in the sky; but it was not yet dark; and Edward had just swung his feet over the edge of the bed, and was rubbing his eyes with a certain doubtfulness whether he would lie down again or not, when his door opened, and the soldier appeared, supporting a boy dressed in a loose black velvet overcoat, and asking, "Pray, sir, is this your page?"

Edward started forward at once and took her hand, answering, "Certainly. How came he here?"

The man was about to reply; but as he uttered the first words Lucette began to sink, and the color quite forsook her lips. Edward caught her in his arms before she fell and laid her gently on the bed from which he had just risen, saying, "Send Pierrot here, good sir,—my servant, I mean."

The man smiled slightly, but departed; and, before Pierrot appeared, Lucette somewhat revived, saying, in a low, faint voice, "I am so tired, Edward, and have been so frightened. I fear I may have betrayed you by my weakness."

"Get some wine, Pierrot!" exclaimed the lad, as the man entered. "Or stay you here, and I will see for it myself. Fear not, dear Lucette. All will go well."

They were vague words of comfort enough,—such as a man speaks when his only trust is in Providence; yet they comforted Lucette. And some water which Pierrot held to her lips did her good also; but, to tell the truth, that which revived her most was the reappearance of Edward Langdale. He brought wine with him,—the first he could find; but he could hardly pour out a glassful when the good mistress of the house entered and stayed his hand, saying, "Leave her to me, young gentleman. Do not be foolish. Your secret shall be safe with me, upon my honor,—if it be a secret; but all the world can see this is no boy. I have girls myself, and will treat her like a daughter." And, gently putting the two men out, she shut and locked the door.

CHAPTER XI.

"My good sir," said Edward Langdale, addressing the chief of the guard, whom he found conversing with two troopers whom he had not before seen,—"my good sir, I think it will be necessary for me to change my mode of travelling. I have just recovered from a severe illness, and am still weak. So much riding on horseback fatigues me, as you may see by my long sleep this day; and I would be glad if I could procure a coach. You can guard us as well, or better then than if we continue as we have begun. Why are you smiling?"

The last words had a slight tone of iritation in them; for Edward had remarked a previous smile with which the man had brought Lucette into his chamber, and he had arrived at that point on the road to love where one feels vexed at the very thought of any reflection upon a sweetheart's name or character.

But the soldier answered, civilly, "I was thinking, sir, that if you can, being sick and weak, keep such a tight hold as you did last night upon Guillaume Bheel's wrist, what sort of a grip you must take when you are well and strong. But, as to a carrosse, there is none in the village, and we shall have to send to Aligre, or Marans, as it is sometimes called, to get one; and Aligre is three leagues off. However, we can very well stop the night if you please."

"Well, have the kindness to send for one," said the youth: "there is a piece of gold for the messenger, and I will pay the owner well. Let it be here early,—by daybreak, if possible; for I am anxious to arrive at Nantes soon, as I shall certainly be liberated from this sort of captivity there."

It were vain to deny that the arrival of Lucette, while it relieved his mind considerably in one respect, embarrassed it considerably in another. Lucette was safe; but could he answer that she would continue so? What was he to do with her? What would become of her at Nantes if he were imprisoned there, or perhaps executed? All these questions he put to himself; and they were difficult to answer. Still, to treat the matter commercially, when he put down on the one side of the account all the difficulties and dangers, and on the other the happiness of knowing she was safe, and the delight of having her with him, he could not for the life of him think the balance was against him. But then it was evident that poor Lucette's disguise had not the effect of a disguise at all, and Edward was as thoughtful of her reputation as a prude. Oh, sweet delicacy of early youth, how soon thou art rubbed off in the grating commerce of the world! I fear me that it rarely happens—with men, at least—that the soft bloom remains on the plum a day after it is separated from the parent tree. Yet it was so with Edward still; for he had hitherto had to deal with the harder, not the softer, things of life; and his nascent love for Lucette rendered the feeling still more fine and sensitive. Sequiter Deum, however, could only be his motto; for at present he had no power over his own fate.

With these thoughts and feelings he returned to the door of the room where he had slept so long, and knocked for admission, which was given at once.

"She is getting quite well now," said the good landlady, "but you will have to stay here to-night, for she is too tired to go farther."

Edward explained that he had sent for a coach, which could not arrive till the following morning, and, sitting down beside Lucette, began to converse with her in English, while the landlady continued at the table listening to the strange language, and apparently trying if she could make any thing of it. In that tongue Lucette, whose sweet lips had regained their color and her beautiful eyes their sparkle, told him all that had happened to her since he had left her,—how, with anxiety and fear, she had remained in her place of concealment hour after hour till near the dawn of day,—how good Jacques Beaupré had tried to console and comfort her in vain, till at length suspense became unendurable, and she had determined to go forth and try to pass the royalist lines herself,—how Jacques had remonstrated,—how she had persisted, and how she had not gone three hundred yards before she was challenged, stopped, and taken to the little house occupied by Monsieur de Lude, who commanded in that quarter. Her companion, she said, had disappeared at the very moment of her own arrest, and she did not know what had become of him. Monsieur de Lude, however, was an elderly man and very courteous, who asked her a number of questions.

"And what, in Heaven's name, did you tell him, dear Lucette?" asked Edward.

"Not much," replied the sweet girl. "I determined at once that I would speak no French; and, as he could speak no English, he gained nothing from me. At length he put pen and paper before me, and made signs to me to write down who and what I was. I then wrote that I was your page, who had remained behind you, being frightened, but who, repenting of my cowardice, had come on, thinking to overtake you. The old gentleman sent for some of his officers who knew a little English; and between them they made out what I had written."

"Did you write my own name, dear girl?" asked Edward, with some anxiety.

"Nay," replied Lucette, "I wrote the name you told us was in your pass,—Sir Peter Apsley,—and I described you as well as I could. Then, to my great joy, I heard Monsieur de Lude say to the officers, 'I am afraid we have made a mistake in stopping him. That was clearly the cardinal's safe-conduct; and we must send the page after him. Richelieu dislikes too much as well as too little zeal; and, on my life, it is likely we shall be scolded for not having properly reverenced his signature.' I do think, dear Edward, I could have persuaded him to let us all go on our way, if I had dared to speak French to him; but, after having pretended not to understand a word, I was afraid."

Now, good casuists have clearly shown two things,—that it is perfectly justifiable to deceive on some occasions, and that we had better not do it on any. The present is a good elucidation. If ever a girl was justified in feigning, Lucette was so; but still she got nothing by it, except a long ride in the way she did not want to go, and she lost all the advantages of her little innocent trick by the very trick itself. So it seems to me, at least,—although there may be people who differ with me on the subject, and, if so, I beg to state that I will not enter with them into a further discussion of the subject, at least on paper.

One advantage, however, which neither Edward nor Lucette then knew, but which had accrued from her interview with Monsieur de Lude, was this: the officers had let the men understand that they were all very doubtful as to whether they had done right or wrong in ignoring the name of Richelieu—then becoming very terrible—written at the bottom of the safe-conduct, and that therefore the young gentleman and his suite were to be treated with the utmost respect and consideration. The soldiers who had escorted Lucette had communicated this to those who had guarded Edward Langdale, and the intelligence was not without a great effect upon men who knew that those who present themselves with agreeable intelligence find a good reception and often a reward, whereas those who come upon a blundering errand get kicks for their only recompense.

To return to my story, however. I will not dwell upon the passing of that night. As far as Edward and Lucette were concerned, it passed as properly and as decently as possible; and, if any one suspects the contrary, it is the fault of his own imagination. The next morning, though not exactly at day-break, the coach—or carrosse, as the people called it—arrived from Marans, and all was soon ready for departure. Edward and his pretty page took their seats within. Pierrot, mounted, led one horse beside the carriage; one of the guards led another, and the whole cortège set out for Nantes at a brisk pace of three miles an hour, or thereabouts. There are other countries in the world where one can still go at the same pace; but, as Nantes was about ninety miles distant, it was very evident three days must be consumed in the journey. Now, it was very pleasant to Edward Langdale to sit side by side with Lucette, especially when, by way of emphasis to any thing of particular importance he was saying, he took her soft little hand in his; indeed, it often rested there quite tranquilly for full ten minutes; and, as he had no inclination to arrive at Nantes at all, he certainly did not hurry the horses. Youth has the power of removing evil days,—of multiplying the intervening hours; and the first part of the journey was very sweet to both, although the gloomy-looking Nemesis of Nantes was still before them. But, after Sevigné was passed, and Marans, where they only stopped to water the horses, the two young people began to think seriously—somewhat sadly—of the future, and to consider whether it would not be both prudent and possible to escape. Now, this change of thoughts and purposes probably took place from the simple fact of both being refreshed and reinvigorated by repose; but, certainly, things began to seem quite practicable to Edward, and even very feasible, which had before seemed impossible, or highly perilous. The country now became fertile in windmills, country-houses, and canals, and Edward proposed to get out and ride a little. Lucette gazed at him timidly with a "do-not-leave-me" look; but he explained to her that he was going to sound the leader of their escort, and she made no opposition. He was soon mounted, and rode forward with the good Bertinois, saying, in a gay tone, "I am not going to run away."

The man made no reply till they were out of ear-shot of the rest; but then he answered, "If you did, monsieur, I should not try to stop you; but others might."

There was so much gained. "Perhaps the others may be out of the way at some place upon the road," said Edward, "and I dare say we might slip away easily without being noticed."

He looked keenly in the man's face as he spoke; but the soldier did not move a muscle.

"Perhaps such a thing might be done," said the man, after pausing for a moment or two. "We were not told to watch you very closely; and during one of the nights it would not be very difficult; but of course you do not intend to try."

"I am not very fond of going to Nantes," said Master Ned.

"Why?" asked the soldier, with an air of great simplicity.

"First, because it is out of my way," answered Edward; "secondly, because I have no clothes with me, and I should have to appear at the court; and thirdly, because probably before I get to Nantes my purse, which is not now very full, will probably be emptier by a thousand livres."

The reason last assigned seemed to have some weight with the man: "It is bad to have an empty purse," he said. "But come, sir, these cannot be your only reasons. I wish you would give one which might touch an honest man and a loyal servant of the king."

A bright thought struck Edward at that moment. He knew not whether the man was trying to entrap him into a confession of some sinister design, or whether in good faith he sought—as many a man will do—an excuse to himself for acting as he wished. Now, it was evident that Lucette's disguise was of no avail,—that the soldier himself knew that she was no page, and that the truth would be made manifest at Nantes. Riding closer to him, therefore, he said, in a low and confidential voice, "It is not for myself I so much care; but cannot you comprehend that I have got one with me whom I would not have discovered for the world?"

"Whew!" cried the soldier, with a long whistle: "I see! I see!" and then, holding out his hand to Edward, he added, "Count upon me, monsieur; count upon me. I can manage the other men. But how happens it that neither of you have any baggage? Sapristi! you must have come away in a great hurry; and you are both very young."

"The baggage was left with my other servant, who stayed behind but was to follow soon. I trust it is at Niort by this time."

A conversation of an hour's length ensued; in the course of which Edward Langdale convinced himself that his companion was sincere in his professions; and at the end of that time he returned to the carriage, carrying with him hope nearly touching joy.

The party were now entering, or had entered, upon a tract of country singular in its nature, its aspect, and its habits. It is called Les marais, (the marshes,) and, as it may perhaps have something to do with our story, it must have a very brief description. This might be difficult to give, as I have never seen more than the extreme verge of the district; but, luckily, at my hand lies the account of one who knew it well, had passed long months there, and who lived much nearer the times of which I write. Thus he speaks:—"The inhabitant of the marshes is taller than the inhabitant of the plain: he is stouter; his limbs are more massive; but he wants both health and agility. He is coarse, apathetic, and narrow in his views. A cabin of reeds, a little meadow, some cows, a boat,—which serves him for fishing, and often for stealing forage along the river-banks,—a gun to shoot wild fowl, are all his fortune, and his only means of subsistence. Exposed continually at his own fireside to all sorts of maladies, his constitution must be very strong not to give way entirely. His food is barley-bread mixed with rye, abundance of vegetables, salt meat, and curds. His habitual drink is the water of the canals and ditches,—a source of innumerable maladies. The agricultural proprietors, or great farmers, known by the name of Cabiners, (cabaniers,) lead a very different life, and do not deny themselves any of the comforts they can procure.

"The inhabitants of this picturesque abode appear, at first sight, the most wretched of mankind. Their cottages of brush and mud are covered with reeds. Unknown to the rest of the world, upon a tongue of land of from twenty-five to thirty paces wide, they live in the depths of inaccessible labyrinths, with their wives, their children, and their cattle. The silence of these swampy deserts, which is only broken by the cry of the water-fowl, the mysterious shadow spread over the canals by the intertwined boughs above them, the paleness and miserable air of the people, that narrow border which seems to place an immense interval between them and all mankind, the sombre hue of the landscape,—all inspire at the first glance a painful and melancholy feeling, which it is difficult to get rid of. But, on penetrating into the interior, the freshness of these cradles, the meanderings of these water paths, the innumerable varieties of birds one meets at every step and which one meets nowhere but there, cause the first sensations to be followed by a feeling of peaceful retirement, which is not without its charm."

Such was the scene, or rather the country, upon which Edward and Lucette entered just as the sun was within half an hour of setting, when every little ridge or hillock cast a long blue shadow upon the brown moor, and the many intricate canals and little rivers acted as mirrors to the glories of the western sky, flashing back the last red rays, as if rubies were dissolved in the calm waters. It was a fine country to escape in.

CHAPTER XII.

As much consideration and caution were necessary in proceeding after the sun was set, as a young man requires on his first outset in a court. The darkness was as profound, there were as many unseen dangers, pitfalls, ponds, and swamps around; and, though the stars were all out and shining, no queenly moon was in the sky to light one on the long way. Night after night she was now rising at a later hour; and the beams which had cheered the course of the two young travellers on their sail from Rochelle would not be renewed ere their resting-place for the night was reached. At length, about eight o'clock, on looking from the portière of the coach, Edward thought he saw either a little mound or a heavy pile of building before him, and in about ten minutes the horses' feet clattered over the stone pavement of a court. The leader of the escort had gone on before; and now, as Master Ned and his fair companion alighted, they found the good soldier standing under a heavy stone portal, conversing with a man in a monk's gown.

"It looks like a prison," said Lucette, as she gazed up by the light of a lantern.

She spoke in a low voice; but her words caught the ear of the monk, who replied, "This is the Abbey of Moreilles, young gentleman. I will take you first to the strangers' parlor, and then will show you round the building, if you like; for your escort tells me you propose to go on by daybreak, and you should not miss the opportunity of seeing so famous an edifice."

Lucette replied that she was very tired, and should prefer to lie down to rest; but Edward caught eagerly at the proposal, from several motives. First, he was anxious to keep Lucette as far as possible from the monk's eye, and was even afraid that her sweet voice might betray her; and then he had his reasons for observing accurately every part of the building.

"Well, well, I will take you round in a minute or two," replied the monk; "but I must first see that some of the cells are ready, for this good gentleman tells me that you two young people are very devout, and would like best to sleep in cells where saints have lived and died in the odor of sanctity. Here, here is the parlor. Let me light a lamp. Most of the brethren have retired, for it has been very hot this evening. What changes of weather, good lack! Yesterday was as cold as Noël, and to-night it is as warm as St. John's."

While he spoke, he lighted a small lamp, with shaking hands, and then left the three in the parlor together, going himself to prepare the cells.

"Now listen, young people," said the soldier, as soon as the monk was gone, speaking quick, but low: "keep ready and wakeful, and at three o'clock it shall go hard but you shall find a boat, with a man in it, upon the canal at the back of the abbey. Go with that man wherever he rows you."

"But how shall I find the boat, or the canal either?" asked Edward. "Remember, I have never been here before."

"As we go round the building," replied the other, "I will show you the door which is always left open for the drones who sleep in this wing of the abbey to find their way to the church at matins. I will pinch your arm as we pass it. God wot! if they did not leave it open, their winking eyes would lead them into the canal. That old fellow must make haste, or we shall have my comrades with us; and it were better not till Master Page has gone to his cell. You had better give them plenty of drink, young gentleman, that they may stupefy themselves to-night and sleep heavily to-morrow morning. I have got two miles on foot to go to see a friend, but will be back in an hour or two. Ply them well while I am gone; but, mind you, keep your own head clear."

"But shall I find any liquor here?" asked Edward, in some surprise.

The soldier nodded his head, and pointed to a number of stains upon the table, saying, "I have had more than one roaring bout in this very room. Those stains were not made with water. Every thing can be had for money in a moustèr."

"But I had better give you what I promised before the monk comes back," said Edward,—the word money awakening many other ideas.

"Let me see how much you have got," said the man: "you will need some for your two selves; and, besides, there is that long thin fellow with a red face,—that servant of yours. Do not let him drink. Let us see."

Edward took out his purse of doeskin, which now contained about seventeen hundred livres in gold. What between the purchase of the horses, and various expenses at the inns, the rest was all spent, though it was better furnished when he left Rochelle; and there was more in his bags, probably lost forever.

"That is not enough to give me a thousand livres," said the man; "but the three horses are worth something. That one you ride is a good one, and so is the young lady's,—the page's, I mean. Give me five hundred, and write me a promise of the horses in payment of the rest of the sums I have advanced,—the horses to be given up to me when you get to the end of your journey, which will be here, I suppose, but which they will understand as Nantes. That will give me a right to claim them."

Now, it is quite possible that one, if not more, of my sagacious readers will be inclined to think that I have been drawing an inconsistent character. It is very true the soldier was a right generous and a kind-hearted fellow. He liked to do a good turn. He liked especially to help two young lovers,—by-the-way, he had been crossed in love himself, though his history would be too long to tell here,—and yet he was not unwilling to take money out of their pockets when they had little enough, and to secure their horses for his own advantage. It was very inconsistent,—very inconsistent indeed. But I have now lived a tolerable number of years in the world, and all my life I have been looking for consistent men, and have not found more than six at the utmost. The fact is, man is a bundle,—a bundle of very contrary qualities,—to say nothing of the mere absolute opposition of body and soul in the mass. There are packages of good feelings and packages of bad feelings; rolls of wit and rolls of dullness; papers full of sense and papers full of nonsense; a lump of generosity here and a lump of selfishness there; and all tied up so tightly together that in a damp and foggy world they sooner or later mould and mildew each other. Thus, if I hear of a great man doing a little action, or a wise man committing a foolish one, instead of crying out, "How inconsistent!" I say, "It is very natural." Now, if it be very natural everywhere, it is still more natural in France; for, having inhabited that beautiful country and lived amongst her gallant and intellectual people a great part of my life, I have come to the conclusion that the most varied creature upon the face of the earth per se—in himself, in his own nature and composition—is a Frenchman.

While the soldier has been making all his arrangements with Master Ned, and while we have been discussing the knotty point of his inconsistency, &c., the old monk, with the lantern in his hand, has been getting ready two cells at the farther end of the long corridor, and the troopers and Pierrot, together with the driver of the coach, have been taking care of the horses. But the monk, having the least to do,—for the furniture of a cell is not usually superabundant, nor its bed difficult to make,—returns first, and conducts Lucette to her sleeping-place, without the slightest idea that she is any thing but a very pretty boy; for his eyes are not very clear, and the lantern dimmer than his eyes, and the lamp upon the table duller than the lantern. Edward Langdale accompanied them to see her cell. It was next to his own,—a pleasant proximity; and, telling her he would presently bring her some refreshment, he left her. As he walked slowly back with the monk, he came upon the subject of some stronger liquor than water,—at which the old man looked shocked; but, upon Edward alluding to the stains upon the table, and bestowing a donation,—entirely for the abbey,—the ferocity of his temperance abated, and he ran to the refectory-man, or some other competent officer, with whom he shared his gains, and informed him what a generous young gentleman they had got under their roof. The supper did not suffer in consequence; but, while it was preparing, Edward and the soldier accompanied the old man through church and cloisters, passages and corridors. Neither gained much knowledge of architecture, or of the particular Abbey of Moreilles. I would advise no one who wishes to criticize that of Westminster to go there at night with nothing but a bad tallow candle in a dirty lantern; and, though I have it upon good authority that before the conflagration Moreilles was decorated with the most beautiful flamboyant arches, mouldings hardly surpassed in richness, and, moreover, twenty-six cluster-columns of prodigious height, each with an exquisite capital totally different from all the others, Edward saw nothing but dark vaults, masses of stone, and a door. But that door was all he wanted to see; and as he passed it the soldier gave him a good hard pressure on the arm. It was, luckily, within about ten paces of Lucette's cell.

However, on reaching the strangers' parlor, the little party found the troopers and Pierrot and the driver, and three more monks, and, what was more to the purpose, a table laid with several large pies and a quantity of barley-bread. The means of potation had not yet appeared, but tarried not long; and a meal ensued which I need not further describe than by saying that the pies comprised rabbits and wild ducks; and none of the unlearned can imagine what an excellent thing a wild-duck pie can be made by the mere process of skinning the ducks.

After a few mouthfuls, the leader of the guard rose and left the room, saying he must go and see his cousin, who, "as they all knew, lived hard by;" and the rest of the troopers set to serious work first upon some sour wine, and then upon some of that good or bad spirit which has crowned the name of Nantes with a certain sort of immortality. Poor Pierrot! it was a sore temptation for him, especially when his young master was gone to carry some refreshment to the page; but he resisted during the very short period of Edward's absence, and Master Ned's eye was a strong corroborative of resolution after his return. The monks tasted, at first shyly, and then more boldly; and Edward drew from them the important fact that there were very few brethren in the convent, some of them being absent on quête, some on leave. Moreover the abbey, he said, had never been very full, since the abbacy—as was so common in France—had been bestowed upon a well-known painter of Paris, a layman.

There was some deep drinking that night; but still Pierrot, though he could have emptied the most capacious flagon there at an easy draught, maintained the combat against habit gloriously, till at length, just as the leader of the party returned, at the end of two hours, the good Rochellois, finding himself weak with the labor of resistance, retired to rest, after having received a hint from his master, which happily he was in a state to profit by,—happily indeed for him. "The primrose path to the everlasting bonfire" men have strewed in their imaginations with all sorts of sweet things; but, take my word for it, it is paved by Example,—that most slippery and dangerous of all asphalts. Luckily for him, the troopers did not care a fig whether he drank or not, and thus all he had to resist was the sight of outstretched arms and full cups; but he had something better on the other side: he had the warning of rolling eyes, and hiccoughing throats, and maudlin faces, and embarrassed tongues, which he had never seen before when he was himself sober enough to appreciate them fully. "Well, drunkenness," he thought, as he left the room, "is a very beastly thing, it is true."

The monks withdrew nearly at the same time; and I am well pleased to say that, although they had shown during that night, amongst the pies and the pottles, no narrow objection to either those carnal or those spiritual things which some castes of Hindoos call the "creature comforts of life," not one of them had an uneven step or an unsteady head. Probably they drank seldom; for those who drink often deprive themselves of the power of drinking at all,—soberly.

The coach-driver was soon under the table; and the troopers, though most of them, when the last drop provided was emptied from the flask, could make their way by diagonals to the dormitory assigned to them, were in a state which promised no early rising on the following day; and Edward and his friendly soldier parted about eleven o'clock, the latter merely saying, "We shall have a heavy storm to-night. The clouds are rolling up like distant mountains. But all the better for your purpose. Remember three!"

The consequences! Good God! How frightful a thing it is to consider what—under an overruling hand and will omnipotent—may be the consequences of the smallest deed we do. The consequences immediate, proximate, future! How many lives, what an amount of misery, how much damnation, may depend upon a light word, an idle jest, a sportive trick!

Should such a consideration forbid us to act and do, to resolve and to perform? Far from it. Man is an active being, and his life is deeds. Each moment must have its thought or its action, or the whole is sleep; but the consideration of that strange thing, CONSEQUENCE,—that overruling of our deeds to ends that we see not,—should teach us so to frame thought, word, and act, that, be the consequences what they may, we may be able at the great end of all to say, boldly, "I did it in an honest heart." God himself is responsible for the result if man acts with purity of intent.

Not one man in that small room who had that night "sinned as it were with a cart-rope" ever saw the dawning of the morning; and it was a heavy thought to Edward Langdale for many a year after, "What share had I in this?" For himself, he took the little lamp which had been left for him, and sought the cell where his pallet lay. But he had no thought of sleep. As he went along the corridor, with the rays just gleaming upon the fretted stone-work, something like a flash reddened the dim panes of the painted windows, and some seconds afterward a distant roar was heard, as if of a heavy sea rolling along an extended shore. "It will thunder," he said to himself; but he thought of it no more; and, opening the door of the cell, on the little table beneath the window appeared the missal and the skull and cross-bones—the memento mori of the cloister.

CHAPTER XIII.

The table, the book, the pallet, the grinning emblem of death, and a little black crucifix hung up against the wall, were—with the exception of a large pitcher of very clear, cold water—all that the cell contained; and yet it was by no means without ornament, for each of those chambers looking to the western cloister had a window divided into two by a beautiful mullion and was garnished all round, even in the interior, with mouldings a foot in depth. The original small panes of stained glass were also there, but Edward could at first form no idea of the richness of the coloring; for, although the moon had now risen several hours, the face of heaven was black with clouds, and all without was darkness. About five minutes after he had entered the cell, however, the whole interior of the little room, where the feeble oil-lamp had only made the darkness visible, was pervaded by intense light, and an image of the stained-glass window was thrown upon the floor and opposite wall in colors the most intense and beautiful. Still, the thunder did not follow for several seconds; but when it did come the roar was awful. It seemed as if some one were pouring rocks and mountains in a stream upon the roof of the abbey, making the very solid walls and foundations shake. Edward drew forth his watch,—one of the rude contrivances of those days, but with the great advantage of having the figures on the dial plain and distinct,—and, holding it to the lamp, perceived it was a quarter past one. "Lucette must be awake," he thought: "she could not sleep through such a crash as that. I will wait five minutes and then go and call her."

In the mean time the flashes of lightning became more frequent, some followed by heavy thunder, some passing away in silence, till at length they grew so rapid in succession that one could not attach the roar to the flame. Edward's first knock brought Lucette, completely dressed, to the door; and he was surprised to see her cheek so pale. The thought of danger had never entered his own mind; but he clearly saw that she was much agitated. "You are not afraid, dear girl?" he asked: "it is but a little thunder."

"It is not fear, but awe, Edward," she said. "But is it time to go? I am ready."

"Not yet," he answered; "but we may as well stay here in the passage. If the storm should alarm the monks, and any one come out, we can say we are frightened too."

"Is not that some one crossing there?" asked Lucette; but almost as she spoke a sudden flash showed that what she took for a man was but a short pillar. Edward drew her closer to him and put his arm round her. She did not feel at all angry, but rather clung to his side. Fear is a great smoother away of all prudery; and, to say sooth, Lucette had very little of it to be planed down. The fact is, she was innocent in heart and mind as a young child; and innocence is never prudish,—nor is real delicacy.

"Ne fiez-vous a l'Angelus; Mais craignez les bois et les orages,"

says an old French song about two lovers somewhat similarly situated; but Edward and Lucette ran no danger from any thing but the lightning. It, however, was now really terrific. The clouds, crammed with electricity, were evidently directly over the abbey, and every instant the blaze was running across the windows, the various colors of which gave the flashes the effect of fireworks more brilliant than any that ever were constructed by the hand of man.

At length a sound, not the roaring roll of thunder, but an explosion, as it were, as if some mighty cannon had burst, shook the very ground on which they stood. Then came a moment's pause, and then a peculiar noise,—it might be thunder, or it might not, but it seemed more like the sound of stones rolling rapidly and heavily over each other and then falling from a height to the ground. The next instant a heavy bell began to toll, but ceased after three or four strokes had been struck, mingling strangely with a peal of thunder which was then echoing through the building.

A spirit of confusion now seemed to seize upon the abbey: the door at the end of the corridor was thrown open; monks were seen hurrying across, moving a little way up the passage and disappearing by another door. There were voices calling and screaming too, and Edward thought he could distinguish groans and shrieks; while ever and anon a little bell was heard ringing with a small, tinkling sound; and, in strange discord with all the rest, a solemn strain of music burst upon the ear whenever the little door on the left was opened.

Edward tried to ascertain from one of the passing monks what was the matter; but he could get no intelligible answer; and it was with infinite satisfaction that at length he saw Pierrot appear, coming toward them in haste.

"The great tower has been struck, sir," said the man, in answer to his inquiries; "and Heaven knows how much of it has tumbled down over the other cloisters. One of the monks is killed, they say, and several other people are crushed under the stones; but, what is worse than all, just as they were ringing the great bell, they found out that the lightning when it struck had set the tower on fire, for the rope broke short off, and the end that came down upon the sacristan's head was burning. There is no hope of getting it put out; for some are carrying off the ornaments of the church, some are praying, some are singing, some are whipping themselves; and the best thing we can do is to get out to the bank of the canal,—if we can find the way; for, though the hour you told me is not quite come, we can wait there more safely than here, where we are likely to have the roofs and buttresses on our heads every minute."

Edward pressed Lucette a little closer to him and whispered something, to which she answered, "Anywhere you will.—Trust you? Oh, yes!" And, getting her large hat from the cell, Edward placed it on her head so as to conceal as far as possible her wonderfully luxuriant hair: then, leading her down the passage, opened the door which the soldier had pointed out to him. Instantly a flash of lightning crossed their eyes; but it served to show, though it lived but a second, the dull, heavy features of the Marais, with not one, but half a dozen, streams of zigzag lightning playing through the sky,—some, as the levin-bolt is usually represented, darting down to earth like a flaming javelin, others twisting into all shapes, and even running up, like fiery serpents disporting themselves in the horrors of the storm. What was of more importance, however, to Edward and Lucette, that flash displayed, close before them, one of those long rows of willows and ash-trees which in that part of the country denote the course of the larger canals, and also showed a break in the line of wood, where the monks probably went down to fish from their own boats.

All the noises of the abbey were now heard far more distinctly, the thunder notwithstanding; and through every window of the great church, with its tall square tower, might be seen a red, ominous glare. But onward Edward supported Lucette, with Pierrot feeling his way before them, till a few steps brought them to the very edge of the water. Two boats were fastened to the bank by chains; but there was no boatman apparent, and Edward and his good servant consulted for a moment, with a running accompaniment of lightning, as to whether it would not be better to unloose one of the skiffs and seek safety somewhere.

"I can break the chain in a moment with a big stone, Master Ned," said Pierrot; "but, as we do not know where to go, we had better wait for some one to show us. Master George Brin, the good corporal, promised that some one should be here at two; and, depend on it, he will keep his word. Hark! I hear oars. It is not quite two yet; but you had better put the young lady under that ash-tree, for it is beginning to rain, thank God. That will soon put the thunder out; and pray Heaven it quenches the fire in the church, too! Those monks are good, simple souls and merry."

Not more than two minutes after he had done speaking, a boat came up quickly to the little landing-place, rowed by an elderly man, as far as Edward could see by the lightning, who carefully avoided touching the abbey boats, but, as soon as he backed his oars, looked round over the bank.

"Ah, there you are!" he said, in a tongue which, though it was not French at all, was a jargon quite understandable. "Get in! get in, quick! Here, young man, give me your hand." And, catching Lucette's arm, he lifted her in rather than aided her to embark. Edward and Pierrot followed, and without another word the boatman pushed off. It was all over in less than thirty seconds, and the boat had made some two hundred yards over the water, the man pushing her along with a pole, before he relinquished that instrument and sat down as if to resume his oars. The rain was now beginning to fall thick in heavy drops, and the boatman, as he pushed his bark along, had been scanning his party of passengers earnestly. "Here," he said, at length, dragging something large and shaggy from beneath one of the seats,—"here, you one in the large hat, put this on, or you will get wet. The sky may come down in drops without going through that."

"What is it?" asked Lucette, taking what the man offered, but not comprehending what it was.

"A peau de bique, to-be-sure," replied the boatman. "You are the girl that Georgy Brin told me of, are not you? I must not let you get wet; for he says you are weakly. 'Tis a bad business, anyhow!" And, with this sage reflection, he began vigorously to handle his oars.

Edward aided his fair companion to envelop herself in the water-proof garment then and still common in that part of France; and the boat shot on rapidly under the branches of the trees, which may be said to have interlaced above them. For about a quarter of a mile all was darkness, but at the end of that distance the boatman began to look up toward the sky wherever a small patch of the heavens could be seen through the overhanging trees. Edward, too, saw from time to time gleams of red light upon the water; and it seemed as if the sky itself had caught fire from the lightning and would soon be in one general blaze. Another quarter of a mile brought the travellers to a spot where were two reed cabins and an open space of ground round them; and there the boatman lay upon his oars. All eyes were now turned toward the abbey, where a sight at once sad and grand presented itself. The top of the great square tower, like an immense altar, bore a pyramid of flame up to the skies; and from every window and loop-hole issued forth a tongue of fire, licking the gray walls. The windows even of the church were painted in red upon the dark stone-work, whenever the cloud of smoke which surrounded the whole of the lower part of the building like a vast shroud suffered the masonry to appear.

"Alas for the poor monks!" said the boatman, with an unaffected sigh: "if they did not do much good, they did not do any harm; and we might have had worse people amongst us. That abbey has stood wellnigh four hundred years, they tell me; and it was never touched by lightning until now,—doubtless because they have given it to a lay abbot, and he turns all the revenues to the works of man which were devoted to the works of God. Well, we cannot help the poor souls." And, without further thought of the burning edifice, he plied his oars again, and the boat cut her way smoothly through the glassy waters, leaving long, fiery ripples behind her.

Two miles more of hard rowing brought the party to a small farm, where two or three of the same huts of mud, bushes, and reeds appeared close together on the bank; and the rower paused before the largest of the humble edifices, calling, in a loud voice, to persons who might not be without ear-shot but who were certainly not within sight, to inform them that he would not be home till daybreak. "The rain is falling," he said, as if speaking to himself, "but the whole abbey will be down: that is clear."

He then rowed on, pursuing for some three hundred yards the larger canal; but at the end of that distance he turned into a very narrow and sinuous channel, where he laid down his oars and propelled the boat solely with the pole. The labor seemed hard, and the progress slow, and Edward took the occasion to ask quietly whither they were going.

"To La Caponnière, to-be-sure," replied the man. "Did you not know that?"

"No," replied the youth: "Monsieur Brin merely told me that he would procure me a boat at two o'clock to carry us to a place of safety."

"Well, here is the boat," answered the man, "and La Caponnière is a place of safety. There are no better people in the world than old Madame Brin and her sons and daughters. They are cousins of his, you know, and by this time they are ready to receive you. She was his cousin before her marriage, you know, and then she married his first-cousin, who left Niort in the time of the troubles; and so they are doubly cousins, you know."

But, as Edward did not know any thing about it, he thought it better not to show his ignorance, and resumed his English conversation with Lucette.

The voyage—for we cannot call that a journey which was performed at night upon the water—was somewhat long and fatiguing to the boatman; but at length,—it must have been at least four o'clock in the morning,—after turning and twisting, and sometimes grating against the banks, the boat reached a spot where suddenly appeared a small, star-like light from what seemed the window of a better house than any they had yet passed, which, skipping over various indistinct objects, rested more fully on a small skiff at the shore. Some one started up as they approached: their boatman threw him a rope, and they were speedily drawn up to the bank and moored.

"Come this way," said the lad who had been waiting for them, holding out a great coarse hand to Lucette. "Here, mother; they are come." And, leading the poor girl on, followed by Edward, he conducted her through a little garden in which various kitchen-vegetables were more plentiful than flowers. Half-way between the house and the canal they were met by a goodly-sized dame of forty and a girl of some sixteen or seventeen, who took Lucette frankly in their arms and gave her a warm embrace. "So this is your young man, poor thing?" said the elder, looking at Edward; but then, immediately turning to the boatman, she inquired, eagerly, "What has been the meaning of all that red light out by the abbey?"

"There's no abbey by this time," answered the man. "But come, good dame, let us in to your kitchen-fire, if you've got one, and I will tell you all about it. We are all as wet as bull-frogs, except the girl; and I gave her my peau de bique."

Thus saying, he pushed past the rest and entered a large, roomy kitchen, well stored with every sort of salted and dried provisions, dependent from great racks suspended from the ceiling.

There a hearty welcome awaited the poor wayfarers: the fire, which had nearly gone out, was soon blown up into a cheerful blaze; warm soup was produced; and to Lucette the good dame of the house, though she weighed at least two hundred pounds, showed the tenderness and gentleness associated by poets and romance-writers solely with sylphlike forms and nymphlike graces. Her two good, buxom girls, who to very pretty faces added in form a promise of future extent worthy of the stock from which they sprang, joined in, somewhat more shyly, but with real kindness; and, for the first time since they left Rochelle, Edward and Lucette experienced that feeling of security which—to plagiarize a little—"wraps the whole heart up like a blanket."

CHAPTER XIV.

The house in which Edward Langdale found himself on waking the next morning was evidently one of those belonging to what they call in France the cultivateurs propriétaires, and in the Marais the cabaniers, or farmers possessing the freehold of the land they till. He had been placed in a little room not larger than the abbey cell; but his bed had been most comfortable, and he might have slept late had not the youth whom they had found in the boat the night before, and who was a son of the good dame of the house, come in to ask how he had rested and to invite him to go to the farther side of the farm to shoot some ducks for breakfast. Edward did not neglect the opportunity, thinking that he might obtain some important information by the way; but the youth, though perfectly and even profusely communicative, could tell him little of any thing beyond the precints of the Marais, because he knew little. They had heard, he said, from his cousin George, the night before, that at some hour in that night a young gentleman and lady who had run away to get married would come to their house for shelter and protection, which he bespoke for them particularly; and the good soldier had added many an injunction to secrecy and discretion. He had also asked that a boat might be sent with their neighbor Bonnet to the abbey wharf, with directions to take off the young gentleman and lady without saying a word.

This was the amount of young Brin's foreign intelligence,—for such to him it was; and as soon as it was given he proceeded to describe and eulogize his mother's farm, which he had not quitted more than two or three times in his life, and which he seemed to think both the richest and most beautiful spot of earth. Rich indeed it was; but to explain its sort of riches I must have recourse to that old author whom I have already quoted. I must premise, however, that the spot on which Edward Langdale now found himself was just at the edge of what are called the dried marshes, where they join on to the marais mouillans, which, at the time I write of, were much more extensive than at present. The farm, then, of La Caponnière comprised a portion of both; and, as the marais desséchés have been already described from the account of an eye-witness, I may be permitted a word or two from the same source in regard to the marais mouillans. "All these marshes," says my author, "are not equally inundated; and, in consequence, all parts are not equally sterile. The highest parts [of the marais mouillans] are under water from the middle of October to the middle of June, and sometimes later. The lower parts never dry; and, to make something of them, they have been cut by innumerable canals, all communicating, and only separated from each other by earth-banks of from twelve to fifteen feet in width, piled up from the excavated earth of the canals. These earth-banks are of prodigious fertility, many of them planted with willows, ashes, poplars, and sometimes oaks; so that one is often astonished to see so vigorous a forest springing out of the middle of the waters."

The traveller then goes on to tell the uses these forests are put to,—how the fagots are sent to Rochelle and the Isle de Rhé, and how the trunks of the trees, cut into firewood and called cosses de marais, are highly valued throughout the whole of the neighboring country, and burn better than any other trees. But, as the reader will probably never dabble in the cultivation of the marshes of Brétagne, he shall be spared the details. My author, however, goes on to state that the farms vary in extent from two hundred and forty to twelve hundred acres, and that each is divided by little canals into squares of about thirty acres, each canal being large enough to carry a small boat.

Now fancy, dear reader, what an interminable network of water-communication these canals, each hidden from the other by trees and shrubs, must form; how impossible for any but one born and bred in the country to find one's way along there; how easy for any one acquainted with their involutions to baffle the most skilful pursuer, to lie hid from the eyes of the most clear-sighted enemy. The Minotaur did not feel himself more safe in the depths of the Cretan labyrinth than Edward Langdale after their morning's row; and Edward was more safe than the Minotaur.

"Here," he thought, "we may stay till all pursuit is ended and all suspicions forgotten, till dear Lucette has recovered strength,—and, perhaps, till I can communicate with Mauzé or Rochelle."

All very well as a matter of probability; but where any thing is joined together by mere tacks—as is indeed the case with the fate of every one,—and not alone with his fate for years or months, but for a single hour—it is much better to remember, before we make any calculation at all, what tacks may fall out or get broken and the whole piece of machinery tumble to atoms.

Edward Langdale could shoot a duck; and, though the birding-piece which the young farmer trusted to his hands was a single barrelled gun of rather primitive construction, and the shot merely bits of lead cut small, not a bird got away from him,—more to the admiration than the liking of his companion, who had fancied that he could display some skill in the eyes of one whom he believed to be city bred.

However, the boat was plentifully loaded before they returned; and the young farmer guided it back by a different course from the marais mouillans to the firm land near the house, pointing out to Edward, with an air of pride and satisfaction, six or seven woolly beasts upon a tongue of the terrier, and telling him they were sheep.

At their return to the house they found the whole household up, with the exception of Lucette; but the result of their sport was very much commended, and one of the hearty breakfasts of the country was prepared. The living, indeed, seemed profuse, and, what though the cooking was for the land somewhat coarse, yet it was French, and therefore better than it would have been anywhere else in the same circumstances. There were ducks, and good bacon, and eggs, and fine fowls, and a ragout, and plenty of galette. Alas! there was no coffee, no chocolate,—nay, no tea; but there was excellent white wine of Logé, and there was as good red wine of Fay Moreau; for the age of hot stops had not yet arrived, and Noah's discovery blessed the land within ten leagues of them.

Lucette joined them before they sat down; and, for some reason, she blushed more at her boy's dress when there were women round her than she had done before; but her cheek soon became pale, and Edward thought, with some alarm, she did not look well. She assured him, however, that she merely suffered from fatigue.

The meal was not concluded when several of the peasantry from the neighboring country came to La Caponnière in their boats, bearing with them tidings of the fire of the preceding night, and of various other serious accidents which had occurred during the great storm. Numberless trees had been struck and two men killed by the lightning; but the facts of most interest—at least to Edward and Lucette—were those connected with the destruction of the abbey. One of the visitors had come that morning from Moreilles, and of course was the oracle of the occasion. Two-thirds of the great tower had fallen, he said, crushing the dormitory and the southern cloisters. The whole church was seriously injured, the Lady chapel being the only part preserved; and, although the monks themselves with one exception had escaped unhurt, it was generally rumored, the good man said, that some five or six persons—either guests, or people who came to assist—had been crushed under the part of the tower which first fell. Who they were the peasant could not tell; but the mention of the sad fact set both Lucette and Edward upon the track of imagination. It was then for the first time that Edward perceived that Pierrot la Grange had not been at the breakfast-table. On inquiring for him, Master Ned was answered by good Madame Brin's son that his servant had gone with the man who had rowed them the night before, to inquire about the fire,—a very imprudent act as it seemed to Edward; and yet he had a good deal of confidence in Pierrot's tact,—which was not ill placed. About twelve, his long figure appeared in the kitchen; and now the whole details were given. They were interesting to the good Cabanier family, for the principal new fact was that Monsieur George Brin, their relative, was safe and well, and had set out for the lines under Mauzé. The other soldiers, he said, had perished, with the exception of one, who still lived, terribly mangled. He was so drunk when he left the parlor, Pierrot said, that he could not get to the assigned sleeping-place, but fell upon the stairs, where he still lay when the tower was struck. Thus, though sadly beaten by detached stones, he had escaped crushing by the great mass of masonry.

Lucette felt very sorry for the poor soldiers; for hers was a very kindly and tender heart. Edward gave them a passing "Poor fellows!" and at his heart wished he had not made them so drunk. But still, as a man's mind is always a more business sort of article than a woman's, he argued from the premises that all chances of further pursuit and detention were at an end; and thus, though the troopers were to be pitied, their removal from this scene of care was no misfortune to him.

Now, all this shows, or may be supposed to show, that Master Ned was not of a very sensitive or sentimental disposition. In truth, dear reader, it only shows that he had mingled a good deal more with the world than most lads of his age, and that time and storms had hardened the outer shell. There was much that was soft within,—not about the head, but at the heart. That very night proved it; for Lucette, after having been somewhat languid all day, was suddenly seized about seven o'clock with a violent fit of shivering, and Edward had to behold the marsh-fever in all its horrors. Good old Madame Brin took upon herself to be physician: indeed, there was no other within thirty miles, except the barber at Fontenay le Comte; and he could not be got at. The eldest daughter was to be head nurse; but Lucette had another and a good one. She had nursed Edward through a severe illness, and he was resolved to nurse her in return. Happily, they were good, simple people there, and had no false notions of proprieties and decorums, so that Edward had his own way; and it was very sweet to poor Lucette to take her tisanes of écorce de chêne and thyme-flowers from his hand, and to gaze into his eyes as he bent over her and drink in a better medicine from his looks than any up to that time discovered,—or since, to say the truth.

Then, again, the household was a cheerful household. Though they lived in the midst of swamps and ponds and canals, like a family of frogs, there was nothing cold or chilly about them. Madame Brin had had the fever twice herself, she said: all her children had had it. She would soon get the dear little girl well; and a shake or two they thought nothing of in their country. Her poor dead husband had had hundreds of them, and died, drowned, at sixty and upward. The eldest girl and the young one, too, were also all kind cheerfulness; and Edward, who was certainly the most melancholy and apprehensive of the party, took care to hide that such was the case whenever he was in Lucette's room. When he was unwillingly away, his thoughts were very heavy; for, though it must be confessed they rested principally on his fair young companion, yet they would often turn to other subjects of care. Leave her amongst perfect strangers he could not,—he would not; but when he considered that he had lost valuable letters, much money, much time still more valuable, and asked himself whether he should still find Lord Montagu at the place of rendezvous, where he should find him, what secrets might not have been revealed to the enemy by his losses, how much he himself might be compromised and his passage through France endangered by the discoveries which probably had been made, there appeared a very tolerable bundle of cares for one young pair of shoulders to carry.

Nevertheless, good nursing, and that skill which is given by experience, did their usual services to poor Lucette. The fits of fever were retarded, lessened, ceased; and at the end of a fortnight she could sit at the door in the sunshine and look out. Often would she now gaze up at Edward; and at length she summoned courage to ask, in English, "Is it not time we should go forward?"

It did require a great effort of courage to put that question, for, what between weakness and some other sensations, Lucette had got into a frame of mind which would have made it even pleasant for her to remain there in the Marais all her life,—if Edward Langdale had remained with her.

There is always a good effect produced by looking difficulties and unpleasant things of all sorts in the face. We either discover some mode of getting rid of them, or else we learn to endure them. Very soon Edward and Lucette talked composedly over their future plans; and both agreed, with a sigh, that to proceed upon their journey as soon as she had recovered sufficient strength was unavoidable. They might both, perchance, have dreamed, and their dreams might have been somewhat wild; but with calm thought the sense of serious reality returned, and they felt that they must soon proceed together to part very soon.

"And when shall we meet again, Edward?" said Lucette, in a low voice.

Edward laid his hand upon hers, saying, sadly, "God only knows, Lucette. But I know and am sure we shall meet again. Till then, let us never part in heart. We cannot forget each other after all that has passed; and, oh, let the memory be as dear to you as it is to me, so that, when we do meet, it may be with the same feelings we now experience."

Lucette bent down her eyes, and there was a tear in them; but that tear seemed to Edward Langdale a promise.

This was the only word of love that passed between them; but there were other matters pressing for consideration. Neither of them knew the country round. Pierrot was as ignorant as themselves; and it was necessary to take Madame Brin not only into consultation but in some degree into their confidence. She was naturally a woman of strong sense; but she was wonderfully ignorant of the world beyond the Marais.

"This is a mad scheme," she said,—taking for granted all that she had heard from her cousin George, and never imagining that a corporal in the king's army could have been deceived. "You are both very young to run away and be married. Why, this boy can hardly be nineteen, and you, my child, cannot be more than fifteen; but, now you have been away so long together, it is the best thing for you. We can send for the minister to-morrow, and he can be here on Friday. But if you be Papists you will find the matter more difficult; for——"

Edward cut her short by informing her of the fact that they were both Huguenots, and at the same time attempting to undeceive her as to the purposes with which they left Rochelle. He told her briefly the principal events of the last month, and besought her to aid them in reaching at least Niort, where the number of Protestants still remaining insured them the means of ascertaining where the principal Huguenot leaders were to be found.

All this sudden intelligence threw the good lady into a deep fit of thought. "So you do not want to be married?" she said, in some bewilderment.

"Not immediately," answered Edward, with a smile he could not repress. "But I tell you, my dear lady, I do wish to be married to Lucette as soon as ever she wishes to be married to me." Lucette looked at him almost reproachfully; but he went on to say, "Her relations have of course to be consulted first; and, as I undertook to escort her safely to them, I must do so before I can even pretend to her hand."

"Well, then," said the mistress of La Caponnière, after several minutes' thought, "there is no way for you but to go boldly to Nantes. They will never suspect you there. 'Those who are nearest to the cardinal are safer from him than those who are far off,' they say. His arms are so long that they do not easily reach what is close by. You can then easily go round to Niort, and thence where you like; but go to Nantes first; go to Nantes first. It is the safest place."

This suggestion required long and much consideration; but at length it was adopted, though the minor arrangements afterward devised removed a great many of the objections which at first presented themselves. Edward was to be transformed into a young farmer of the Marais, and Lucette to appear as his sister, while Pierrot assumed the garb of one of the peasants. It took two days to procure the long-waisted, square-cut coat, and wide breeches for Master Ned, and a similar but coarser dress for Pierrot; for tailors were not plenty in the Marais, and clothing-shops were none,—so that the wardrobes of neighbors were to be ransacked. Lucette was more easily supplied with the manifold petticoats and the white cap to cover her immense luxuriance of hair. Changes of apparel, provisions of many kinds, and good wine, were stored in a boat; and, after about three weeks' residence in that wild and strange but not uninteresting district, with two stout boatmen for their guides, Lucette and her companions took their departure from La Caponnière, and entered upon a tract perhaps even more desolate and intricate than that which they quitted. By Tallemont, by La Motte Achard, and by Logé, they proceeded on the country-road, as it was called, toward Nantes, and at the end of the third day they began to approach a city the glory of which certainly has departed, but the interest of which—a melancholy interest—remains.

Before I close the chapter, however,—a chapter devoted to quiet if not dull subjects,—I may as well say a few words—a very few—upon the actual state of France, and the changes which had taken place within the last five weeks, which were not without their significance.

Every day had seen La Rochelle more and more closely hemmed in by the royal forces. Slowly, quietly, but steadily, troops had poured into the Sevres and the Aunis, and the ports in the neighborhood of the threatened city had become crowded with small armed vessels. Invested by land, the citizens of Rochelle might have felt alarm if their fine port had been also subjected to blockade; but their own powerful fleets, and the certain aid of England, made them contemn the small though numerous ships of the enemy, and they never comprehended, till too late, that the gigantic mind of their enemy was then planning a vast undertaking destined to deprive them of all the advantages of their position. Their egregious confidence was perhaps further increased by a knowledge that the court of France, and, indeed, the whole country, was fermenting with plots against the man whom they had most to dread; and it is not at all impossible that they were more or less aware that the most formidable conspiracy which had ever threatened the power of Richelieu was upon the very eve of explosion.

CHAPTER XV.

It was late in the afternoon of a bright, warm day, when three strangers to the city of Nantes took their way across the magnificent Cour St. Pierre,—one of the most beautiful public places in Europe,—somewhat hurrying their pace when they saw the number of gay groups with which that part of the town was crowded.

"This way,—this way, sir," said the seemingly tall, lean peasant, who carried a good-sized bundle on his arm. "I know the house exactly; and the sooner we are out of this the better."

"On my soul, a pretty little wench!" exclaimed one of a group of gay-looking gallants who were lounging about at the upper end of the square. "Let us take her from that young boor. My pretty maid, will you honor some poor gentlemen with your company to take a cool glass of wine?"

"Stand out of the way, sir, and let my sister pass," said Edward Langdale, in French, speaking as coolly as he could, for he knew the danger of a brawl in that place and at that moment.

"Ha!" said the other, with a cool stare: "though you speak mighty good French for a peasant of the Marais, yet I think we shall have to teach you some better manners, boy. Do you presume to push against a gentleman? This must give you a lesson." And he raised the cane he carried, as if to apply it to Edward's shoulders.

The lad's hand was instantly on the dagger concealed under the flaps of his broad-cut brown coat. But he had no occasion to use it; for, at the very moment when blood was on the point of being shed, a man of gentlemanly appearance, dressed altogether in black and without any arms, stepped in between Edward and his antagonist, saying, in a deep tone, "Hold!"

The uplifted cane had nearly descended upon his head; but the moment the young coxcomb beheld the face of the intruder his countenance changed, the color came into his face, and he turned the descending blow away, though he could not stop it entirely.

"I have seen all that has passed, Monsieur des Louches," said the stranger in black: "be so good as to retire into the chateau. His Majesty, as you know, is determined to stop all insolent brawls. It will be my duty to report your conduct to these two young people as soon as I return; and you shall hear the result."

The young gentleman said something about his only having said a word or two to some peasants of the Marais; but the other cut him short, observing that the treatment of the peasantry by the petite noblesse was at that very time attracting the royal attention.

"Petite noblesse, sir! Petite noblesse!" cried Monsieur des Louches, with a face as red as fire: "do you call me of the petite noblesse?"

"Certainly," replied the other; "but, as you do not retire as I have told you, it will be better that you should go in a different manner. Guard!" And he raised his hand toward the bridge of the chateau, where two or three of the king's soldiers were standing.

Two of the guard instantly ran up; but, before they arrived, Monsieur des Louches was moving sullenly toward the gate, and the stranger in black, without taking any further notice of him, turned to those who had gathered round, saying, "Have the goodness to disperse, gentlemen. I will take care of these young people."

The gay gallants of the French court might possibly have indulged in some merriment at the expense of the elderly gentleman who had taken a young girl out of their companion's hands; but there were at that moment some sinister rumors hovering about the city of Nantes, which a good deal depressed the courtly circle, although the courtiers endeavored still to keep up an air of sprightly carelessness, and sometimes, probably, overacted their part in public. On the present occasion, however, they dispersed quietly, one giving the good-day to the stranger by the name of Monsieur Tronson. As soon as the rest had passed away, the face of the stranger cleared, and, looking at Edward and Lucette with a good-humored smile, he asked, "And now, young people, where is it you want to go to?"

"To the Auberge du Soleil," answered Edward, using as few words as possible, for he remembered, perhaps a little too late, that his language and his dress did not correspond, and that, though his garb was that of the Marais, his tongue was not at all imbued with the jargon of its inhabitants.

Monsieur Tronson took no notice, however, and said he would show them how to find it; but, in walking slowly and soberly along, he began to chat about many things, asked if ever they had been in Nantes before, and not only proposed to show them some of the objects most worthy of attention in the place, but actually, as he admitted, led them a little out of their way to point out the crosses of Lorraine which had been scattered over one of the faces of the chateau when it was in the hands of the League. The cathedral, too, with its stunted towers and gigantic nave, he must needs show them; and he asked so many questions, waiting for replies, that both Edward and Lucette were forced to speak much more good French than was at all desirable.

At length a slight twinkle in their good companion's eye, and a little curl of the upper lip, led Master Ned to the complete certainty that they were discovered; and, taking a moment when M. Tronson, who seemed to be determined to know the whole party, was speaking with Pierrot, Edward suddenly bent down his head and whispered a few words in English to Lucette. "We are discovered, I fear," he said. "If any questions are asked, remember the words of the safe-conduct I showed you: tell how we were stopped in trying to quit Rochelle, and say that when the abbey was burned we escaped in a boat as best we could and came on here."

Lucette was about to remind him that she could no longer pass for the page named in the safe-conduct; but Monsieur Tronson finished his brief conversation with Pierrot and turned to the young people again, saying, with his placid air, "Now we will turn this way, and you will soon be at your resting-place. So I suppose you two are the children of some good rich proprietors of the Marais, and have got leave to come and see the world now the court is at Nantes?"

"No, sir, we are not," answered Edward, with perfect calmness; for he had now determined upon his course.

"Then, in Heaven's name, what are you, young people?" asked their companion. "Yours are not peasants' manners, nor peasants' tongues; but let me tell you that it is somewhat dangerous to be masquerading here just now."

"Very likely, sir," replied Edward; "but we shall not masquerade long,—if we are doing so at all. As to who we are, I shall have to explain that to a very high personage shortly, and to ask him if he will suffer his name and handwriting to be set at naught. I shall not show him so little respect as to talk to any one else about the affair before I talk to him, as I must see him, if possible, before I quit Nantes."

"You are discreet," said M. Tronson, leading the way through a street which ran down to the Loire at the back of the chateau. "There, where you see that tall pole and bush, is the Soleil; but, if you would take my advice, you would choose another auberge. That is not fit for your station; and, besides," he added, with a shrewd smile, "you will find nobody there who speaks any thing but the patois des Marais; and I suspect that would puzzle you."

Edward persisted, however, and the next moment their companion stopped at the door of a heavy stone house of small size, the back of which must have nearly touched the ditch of the old castle. "Here I stop," he said: "you see the inn. Good-evening."

They gladly bade him adieu, and hurried on down the street, Pierrot thanking Heaven that they had got so well out of his clutches. "He is a spy, I am sure," said Pierrot; "but, if we order the coach we were talking of, to be at the door by daybreak, we can get through the gates and be off before he has time to get his orders."

"His orders from whom?" demanded Edward, in some surprise.

"From the cardinal, to-be-sure," replied the other. "Do you not know that——" But by this time the three had reached the door of the Auberge du Soleil, and Edward had paused, not at all satisfied with the look of the place. There was an air, not exactly of discomfort, but of loose, disorderly carelessness about it which pained him to think of in connection with Lucette. She herself entered the passage without a word, but she looked sad and, as it were, bewildered; and the sallow walls, the dirty tiles of the floor, and various noises of singing and riot from neighboring rooms, did not serve to reassure her. Edward was at her side in a moment, and, laying his hand gently upon her arm, he said, "Lucette, this will not do. We must seek some other place."

The appearance of the landlord, who now presented himself, was not at all calculated to change this resolution; and, as he was somewhat inclined to be uncivil when he found that his guests were likely to go elsewhere, Edward left him to the management of Pierrot, and turned toward the door. There, however, he found, looking in, a servant in the livery of the court, with two men in military garb; and the former immediately saluted him civilly, saying, "I am ordered by my master to request your presence with the young lady and your servant."

"And who may be your master?" asked Edward, not at all liking the look of the guard.

"Monsieur Tronson, sir, secretary of the king's cabinet," replied the man.

"It is enough, sir," replied Edward: "we will accompany you if you will lead the way."

The servant bowed, and preceded them, and the two guards followed; but now Lucette and Edward found the great advantage of speaking two languages. Few were the minutes which they had to spare; but those few minutes were filled with words upon which, though their companions comprehended them not, depended their safety, and perhaps the life of one of them.

"We shall assuredly be asked, dear Lucette," said Edward, "how you came first to travel with me as a page, and since then have resumed your woman's apparel. May I, dear girl, say, in case of need, that we sought to be married in a foreign land because our friends at home thought us too young? Your liberty and my life may be perilled by any other course."

"Yes, say so; say so," replied Lucette. "Good Clement Tournon told me twice that if the Catholics caught me they certainly would shut me up in a convent till I adopted their faith."

"But what name shall I give you?" asked the youth, just as they reached the door of the house into which M. Tronson had turned.

"Call me Lucette de Mirepoix," answered the young girl: "it is one of my names, so that I have a right to take it."

"This way, sir," said the valet: "Monsieur Tronson is in the castle." And, passing the door, he led the way through a narrow building which from the street seemed like an ordinary dwelling-house, but which in reality was merely a sort of outwork of the chateau, with which it was connected by a bridge over the fosse.

Edward saw the two guards following; but he merely said, with a cold air, "Are you taking us to prison, sir?"

"No, monsieur; I am taking you to Monsieur de Tronson," replied the valet. "Please to step into this room." By this time they had passed the bridge and had taken some half-dozen steps along a dark passage through the thicker part of the outer walls; and, as the man spoke, he opened the door of a small room with one of those deep windows which almost formed another chamber within the first. The room was quite vacant, and, as soon as the travellers had entered, the servant left them with the door partly open, showing them the soldiers without as if upon guard. Poor Lucette trembled a good deal, but she lost not her presence of mind; and another hasty consultation took place between herself, Edward, and Pierrot, in the course of which their plans were finally settled,—as far as any plans can be settled when the events against which they are provided are still uncertain. They remained undisturbed for some five minutes, and then the servant reappeared with some glasses, a bottle of apparently very old wine, and a page carrying some cakes and comfits on a salver. These were hardly placed on the table and some seats drawn round, when Monsieur de Tronson himself appeared with a smiling countenance, and desired his young friends to sit down, as if they were honored guests. "Retire, and wait without," he added, turning to the valet and page: "we can serve ourselves. Take that good man with you, and see that he be well attended to. Now, Monsieur Apsley, have the kindness to taste this wine after I have helped the young lady, and tell me whether you could find any as good at the poor little cabaret where you were inclined to bestow yourself. My auberge is the best of the two, believe me."

"While we are treated with so much courtesy, sir," replied Edward, filling his glass. "But may I ask what has led you to believe that my name is Apsley?"

Monsieur de Tronson, who was pressing some of the confectionary upon Lucette, did not answer for a moment, but then, turning round, said, with his usual placid smile, "What was that? Oh, how I knew you? Why, my good sir, we have been expecting you for some time. His Eminence has letters for you, and very nearly a thousand crowns in gold, which a good man, called Jacques Beaupré, brought in about ten days ago. How I know you? Why, my young friend, do you suppose any thing is unknown at this court?"

He paused and looked straight in Edward's face. But the young man had passed through scenes which had given him a resolute firmness of character not easily discomposed; and he answered at once, without a change of countenance, "True, you may have known that Sir Peter Apsley was about to visit Nantes,—though that could be but a guess, for I did not intend to come this way till I was compelled; but it must have been a still shrewder guess to lead you to suppose a young man dressed as a peasant of the Marais to be an English gentleman."

"Guesses are good things," said Tronson: "in fact, almost every thing that man knows, or thinks he knows, is a mere guess. But, when we have good hooks to hang them on, we can shape them almost into certainties. You have heard of birds who when they hide their heads fancy their whole bodies hidden. Now, my young friend, when next you want to hide yourself in a peasant's dress, take the air as well as the garb; have something of the patois, and do not speak English to a fair companion when there are sharp ears near. Our good friends of the Marais speak little English, and when they walk they carry their shoulders round, and their heads somewhat slouching,—so." And he imitated the air of one of the peasants so well that even Lucette could hardly refrain a smile.

"Besides," continued their companion, "you hinted that you wished to see the cardinal before you quitted Nantes. Now, putting a good number of other facts to those I have just mentioned, it was easy to divine that you were the personage Jacques Beaupré was in search of."

"True," replied Edward; "and probably I should have taken more care if I had wished to be concealed much longer. But, as you say, sir, I must, if possible, have the honor of seeing his Eminence the prime minister. When do you think I can be so favored?"

"It will be somewhat difficult just now," said the other, with a much graver countenence than he had hitherto borne. "The cardinal is full of very serious and painful business. Certainly you cannot see him to-night."

"Then," said Edward, in a firm and confident tone, "we had better retire and seek some good inn, and I can send and crave an audience to-morrow."

"Nay, you will have to wait close at hand and snatch your audience when you can get it," replied Monsieur de Tronson,—adding, laughingly, "my auberge is the best for your purpose, depend upon it. But tell me, Monsieur Apsley, why did you disguise yourself at all, when, I have been told, you have a proper safe-conduct?"

"You mean, sir, why we put on Breton dresses?" replied Edward. "That was done for the best reason in the world:—because we had none other fit to wear. My whole baggage was lost, and one of my servants stopped, when it pleased some good officers near Mauzé to turn me from my straight road and send me toward Nantes. I trust Master Jacques has brought our clothing with him. If not, we must purchase more."

"I cannot tell," replied Monsieur de Tronson, gravely: "all he did bring is in the hands of his Eminence."

A consciousness that what the man had brought might prove his destruction, perhaps, induced Edward to imagine that M. Tronson laid a particular emphasis on the words "in the hands of his Eminence;" but still he lost not his coolness, and he replied, "Well, then, we had better proceed to our inn,—if you will recommend us to one; for that we saw but now will certainly not suit us. It is growing dusk, and I shall scarcely have time to-night to purchase clothing fit to appear in before the cardinal."

As he spoke, he rose; but the secretary of the king's cabinet repeated what he had before said:—"This is the best auberge for your purpose; and I will send for one of those tailors who always follow courts to relieve you from your unseemly attire. The young lady, too, had better have other clothing. That, too, shall be attended to."

Edward now saw that nothing but a direct question would bring forth the truth as to whether he was to consider himself a prisoner or not; and he put it much in the same words as he had used to the officer near Mauzé.

"You have been very discreet with your answers, my young friend," said Monsieur Tronson, still smiling: "let me advise you to be as discreet with your questions. But I can excuse a little anxiety, and therefore tell you that you must look upon yourself as a prisoner or not, just as you please. You will not be treated as such further than being lodged in this chateau, with a slight hint that you had better not try to leave it till you have seen his Eminence. If you will give me your word as an English gentleman not to make the attempt, you shall have all the liberty possible, and you shall be only like one of your good English lords kept in-doors by a fit of gout. You shall have as good a table at least as any auberge here could furnish, and you will save money by living at the king's expense. But if you do not make me that promise I am afraid there must be such things as keys sent for, and a turning of locks which might be disagreeable to the ear."

"I understand, sir," replied Edward, "and, of course, make the promise; but I certainly did not expect that when I came here furnished with a pass from his Eminence, it would imply so little."

"Let me see the pass," said the secretary, somewhat abruptly: "have you it with you?"

"Yes, it is here," answered Edward, drawing it forth. "As it is my only security in the present unfortunate state of affairs between the two countries, I have taken care not to lose that."

Tronson took it from his hand and carried it to the window to see better, saying, after he had gazed at it for a minute or two, "Yes, it is in due form. That is the signature of his Eminence, beyond all doubt. Here are mentioned Sir Peter Apsley, a page, and two serving-men. Am I to presume that mademoiselle is or was the page? Why, here are no end of transformations, it would seem."

People talk of blushing like a rose,—a very bad figure indeed. Roses do not blush. Their gentle color knows no sudden change. The soft emotion of the heart which sends the tell-tale blood into the cheek they never feel, but, as an image of eternal health, keep the same hue unchanged. No: Lucette blushed like the morning sky when, conscious of the coming of the sun, the whole face of heaven grows rosy and more rosy.

"May I ask you, sir," continued the secretary, "if you are married to this young lady? is she your wife? is she your sister?"

"Neither, sir," replied Edward,—"neither as yet. She may be some day my wife: till then she is to me as a sister. But, Monsieur Tronson, if I am to submit to interrogatories at all, I should prefer that they be put by his Eminence the cardinal himself."

"One more, and I have done," said the secretary. "How happens it that you two have been so long on the road? Could you find no means of coming to Nantes sooner?"

"If you know the time we have spent on the road, sir," replied Edward, "you should know likewise that Mademoiselle de Mirepoix's illness detained us."

"Mademoiselle de Mirepoix!" said De Tronson, with an air of surprise: "this is altogether a somewhat strange affair. But, as you say, it will be better all reserved for the cardinal himself. But as Mademoiselle Mirepoix is neither your wife nor your sister, Sir Peter, it will be necessary to place her under a lady's care while here."

"But," said Edward, fearing a longer and stricter separation from Lucette than he had calculated upon; but Monsieur de Tronson cut him short, gravely. "No buts, my young friend. It must be now as I say," he replied. "Wait here, mademoiselle: I will send some women to you in a few minutes. You, sir, follow me, and I will show you your apartment."

Resistance, of course, was not to be thought of; but Edward could not part from Lucette coldly, and, before going, he took her in his arms and kissed her warmly, whispering in English the first real words of love which had yet been spoken between them. "Love me, Lucette," he said; "love me, whatever befalls."

The tears rose in her beautiful eyes; but it was a moment when she felt there could be no coyness. "I do; I will," she murmured.

"Ho! ho!" said the secretary, with a smile: "is it so far gone?" And he led the youth from the room.

Passage after passage seemed to Edward to be placing a terrible distance between him and her he loved, and cold and dreary appeared, and indeed was, his walk through the palace of the king. At length, however, Monsieur de Tronson opened a door at the foot of some steps, and there, in a short sort of long vestibule, appeared the first human beings they had seen since they quitted the room of the secretary. The first person they beheld was the valet whom Edward had before seen; but at the other end of the corridor, near a heavy iron-plated door, was a guard with a halberd on his shoulder.

"The room is quite ready, sir," said the valet, addressing Monsieur de Tronson, and at the same time opening a door on the right. "I lighted the fire, as the chamber has not been occupied since Monsieur de Laval left."

"That was well," replied Tronson; "and you will remember to attend diligently upon this gentleman and see he has all he wants. You can put his own servant a bed in the dressing-closet, and let a tailor be sent for as soon as may be. And now, Monsieur Apsley, I will leave you for to-night. You can, when you desire exercise, take your walk in this passage and the neighboring rooms on that side; but a gentleman so well educated will, I know, remember that this is a palace, and not carry his peregrinations too far. On that side your walks will be impeded by the sentinel. Can I send you a book or any thing to amuse you?"

"If you have got a copy of Homer or Horace," said Edward.

Monsieur de Tronson shook his head with a laugh. "I fear you are too learned for us," he answered; "but I will see, and send you something, at all events. The room looks cheerful enough, does it not? and in the daytime there is a fine view over the Loire. The moon is late to-night. You had better bring more candles, Guillaume." And, with these words, he left the young Englishman, who, though the room was indeed a cheerful one and bright with lights and a warm fire, could not but feel that he was a prisoner.

CHAPTER XVI.

The first sensation in Edward's heart was certainly that of the loss of liberty. The next was of the loss of Lucette. But then came many unpleasant recollections; and not amongst the least unpleasant was the remembrance that he might very likely have incurred the loss of life. To take a false name, to enter a country with which his own was at war, with a false passport, to come, from a town actually in rebellion against her king, into that king's camp, and to be the bearer of letters to his enemies,—all gave him very much the character of a spy. Edward did not like his position at all; he did not like the steps which had led to it; he did not altogether like his own conduct. Yet what could he have done, when ordered by those he was bound to obey? He would do it again, he thought, if the same circumstances were to come over again; and yet to be hanged in a foreign country as a spy was a matter for which not all the orders of all the princes or potentates in the world could offer any consolation.

He had walked some fifty times up and down the room, the simmering of his heart and brain acting upon him like the boiler of a locomotive steam-engine, when an ecclesiastic entered with some books, and spoke a few words of bad Latin to him, to which Edward replied in so much better Latinity that the good man speedily beat a retreat.

Then came the tailor; and a tailor is always a relief, except when he makes garments too tight, or makes them too loose in one place for the purpose of making them too close in another. But this tailor was really a great man in his way; and he did succeed in amusing Edward's mind in a slight degree by the importance he attached to his calling and to every one of its accessories. He also estimated very highly his own station in that calling. He told Edward that although he had not the honor of clothing his Majesty,—because all the world knew he was very careless in his dress,—yet he made for all the handsomest young noblemen of the court. He himself, he assured his listener,—and he dropped his voice while he spoke,—had composed the dress in which the poor Count de Chalais had been arrayed on the very day of his arrest.

"Indeed!" said Edward. "Is he arrested? What are they going to do with him?"

"They will cut off his head, to a certainty," said the tailor. "Though he was the king's greatest favorite, his Eminence was his greatest enemy; and the enemies of the cardinal never escape."

This was such cold comfort to Edward Langdale that he brought the subject back to the matter of his own clothing. "I shall want one suit as soon to-morrow as possible," he said; "for I trust I shall have an early audience of his Eminence; and of course I cannot present myself before him in this garb."

"Of course, of course, seigneur," said the tailor, with a look of horror: "that would be as good as a confession. Of what may your lordship have been guilty to assume such a dress?—high treason?"

"I hope not," said the young man: "at least, if I have committed lèse-majesté, it must have been in my sleep. But what about the clothes, my good friend? Can I have them?"

"Assuredly, seigneur; assuredly," answered the man. "I have a beautiful haut-de-chausses, and a pourpoint, which will fit you exactly: they are in the best taste,—philimot velvet, opened with blue, and silver points. They were made for poor Monsieur de Courmerin; but he never had the opportunity of wearing them, for he put off doing so for one single day, and that night he was arrested and his head cut off before the end of the week. They will suit you perfectly. But the cloak I must make myself. I will keep the workmen up all night, sooner than disappoint you, however. You had better trust the whole arrangement to me,—the boots, the collar, the hat; and then all will correspond."

Edward readily agreed to the proposal; and, merely stipulating for a certain price, as his funds were running short, he dismissed the tailor, whose conversation had a certain ominous croak about it, which was all the more painful from the frivolities with which it was mixed.

Not ten minutes more passed ere supper was brought in,—good fare and excellent wine; and perhaps of the latter the poor youth did take more than he usually did, from a feeling that something was needful to raise his spirits. He felt more compassion that night for the faults of Pierrot la Grange than he had ever known before; but he did not follow his good servant's example, drinking not enough even to have the effect desired.

After supper he felt more melancholy than before; and that sensation increased as all noises died away in the castle and in the neighborhood, and the dull gloomy ripple of the Loire was the only sound that broke the stillness. The air of the room seemed oppressive to him. He looked at the door, and wondered if the last time the valet had gone out he had locked it; and he walked toward it and opened it. All in the corridor was as he had seen it before,—the guard at the door on the right, with his halberd on his shoulder, and two lamps burning pendant from the ceiling. The air seemed less oppressive there; and Edward determined to go forth and take his walk without, as he had been permitted. He turned to one side, and then to the other, without any notice being taken by the soldier, till once, approaching within some five paces of the iron-plated door, the man drew himself up, and, in a stern tone, told him to keep off. Edward retrod his steps, and passed up and down several times, till at length the door at the other end of the passage opened, and a tall, fine-looking man, in a large cloak, with hat and feathers, and a small silver candlestick in his hand, appeared, and walked straight toward him. The stranger's eyes were bent upon the ground, and at first he did not seem to see the youth; but, when he did, he stopped suddenly, and gazed at him from head to foot.

Edward walked quietly on, and passed the other without taking much notice, though he thought his stare somewhat rude. At the end of the corridor he turned again, just in time to see the stranger opening the iron-plated door with a key, while the guard stood in a statue-like attitude before him, with presented arms. When the door was opened, the light of the candle served just to show the top of a flight of stone steps, and all the rest was darkness. The door shut to with a bang the next moment, and the youth pursued his walk, feeling it would be impossible for him to sleep for some hours to come. Well nigh an hour went by, and the young Englishman was returning to his room, to try at least to sleep, when that heavy door opened, banged to, was locked, and the stranger, whom he had before seen, again passed him. This time, however, his head was borne high, and there was a strange look of triumph on his face; but he was evidently in haste, and, though he fixed his eyes upon Edward with a gaze that seemed to pierce through him, he paused not an instant, but passed on.

Why he could not tell, but all this excited the youth's imagination. There was something strange in it, he thought. Who could that man be to whom the guard paid such respect? It could not be the king, for Louis was not so tall, and had no such commanding carriage. It might be some high officer of the royal prison; and that door, with the dark stone steps beyond, might lead to the ancient dungeons, where many a prisoner, in ancient and in modern times, had awaited, au secret, as it was called, judgment or death.

"Such may soon be my fate," thought Edward; and, with that pleasant reflection, he re-entered his chamber, and, casting off his clothes, lay down to rest. It was long before sleep came; and then troublous dreams took from it the character of repose. He felt himself, in fancy, in the hands of the hang-man: the gibbet was over his head, and on a scroll fixed to his breast was written, in large letters, "A spy!"

Then, again, his dead body was lying in a chapel, and close by, at an illuminated altar, appeared Lucette, with a bright train of fair girls, just about to give her hand to a cavalier much older than herself, whose face bore a strange resemblance to that of the man who had twice passed him in the corridor, and with a start he awoke, crying, "She is mine!"

It was already day; and but a few minutes went by ere Pierrot presented himself. "I have seen Jacques Beaupré, Master Ned," he said, "and I trust all is safe. That fellow is shrewd; and he vows that he has not said a word. He escaped the troopers at Mauzé, found his way to the castle, and gave up the bags to Monsieur le Prince de Soubise. The prince opened them without any ceremony, took out a letter to himself, read it, and then sent him on with one of the bags, telling him to find you out at all risks. He was stopped immediately he reached Nantes; but he vows, even to my face, that he only knows you as Sir Peter Apsley; though I heard good old syndic Tournon call you by your right name to him himself. He says that the prince put several letters into the bag with the money and the clothes; and there is the only danger."

"How did you contrive to see him?" asked Edward, abruptly; for he feared every moment to be interrupted.

"Why, sir, there are various sorts of detention," said Pierrot: "there is imprisonment au plus grand secret; there is imprisonment au secret; there is simple arrest and imprisonment; there is surveillance; but there is nothing more. Now, as you, Master Ned, are simply under surveillance, they have left me, as your servant, to roam about as I please; and I made the best use of my time. Jacques Beaupré, I found——"

But, as he spoke, Monsieur de Tronson's valet entered, to tell Edward that breakfast would be served to him in a moment, and began to set the room in order. Edward tried to get rid of him, perhaps too apparently; but he did not succeed. In vain the young gentleman hinted that the tailor had not brought the clothes he had promised. The man replied, coolly, that he would seek him as soon as the breakfast was served; and, before there could be any further question upon the subject, two lackeys and a page appeared. Before the breakfast was carried away, the tailor was in the room; and before Edward was fairly dressed in his new apparel, Monsieur de Tronson himself appeared, and sent every one from the room,—Pierrot amongst the rest.

"I come to tell you," said the secretary, "that his Eminence will receive you at ten o'clock;" and then, after a short pause, during which he seemed to think deeply, he added, "If you will allow me, sir, as a friend, to advise you, you will deal in every thing frankly and sincerely with the cardinal. Men are often much mistaken as to his character. Deceit and trickery upon the part of his enemies have of course made him suspicious; but candor is soon perceived by him, and always appreciated."

"I really do not know to what you particularly refer," replied Edward; "but I shall certainly answer any questions his Eminence chooses to propound to me truly."

"That is well," said the other, somewhat dryly. "But will you answer me one question? Is not Mademoiselle de Mirepoix a near relation of the Duchess de Chevreuse? Reply frankly, I beg of you."

"I do not know," answered Edward, at once. "I only know that she is connected with the Prince de Soubise, and——"

"The same, the same," said his companion, interrupting him. "That is rather unfortunate; for neither Madame de Chevreuse nor the prince are in good odor at this court."

"The cardinal, I am sure," answered Edward, "is too generous to make a young girl who has never offended him suffer for the faults of others who have."

Monsieur de Tronson made no reply, but soon after left the young Englishman, merely saying, in a warning tone, "Remember: be frank."

Edward then proceeded to finish his toilet; and it cannot be denied that he felt more lightsome and at his ease in his new apparel. Still, he could not help revolving the coming interview; and, with that most foolish though common practice of us poor mortals in difficult circumstances, considering the answers he might make to questions which might never be asked. He would have given much for five minutes more of private conversation with Pierrot; but that worthy appeared no more, and for the simple reason that he was not permitted to leave the room to which he had been taken to breakfast. An hour thus passed in anxious and solitary thought, and then a man, in a black robe something like that of the verger of a cathedral, opened the door and summoned him to the presence of the cardinal prime minister. Edward answered nothing, but merely bowed his head and followed. He was conscious that he had felt some weakness; but, now that the all-important moment had arrived, he nerved himself to bear all firmly, and the very effort gave a dignity to his whole person which well accorded with the handsome and graceful dress he had assumed.

CHAPTER XVII.

We must leave Edward Langdale for some half-hour, and carry the gentle reader with us to another part of the old Chateau of Nantes. No one can venture to say that we have not adhered to him through good and evil with the tenacity of true friendship; but we must now either turn to a different personage and another scene, or embarrass our after-narrative with that most ugly beast, an explanation, which so frequently in romance and poem follows the most brilliant heroes and most beautiful heroines like an ill-favored cur.

In a fine long room with windows looking upon the Loire, about half-past ten o'clock in the morning, was a gentleman between forty and fifty years of age,—nearer the former than the latter period. The chamber was well tapestried, and furnished with chairs scattered about in different directions, and a large table a good deal to the right of the occupant of the room. A smaller table was close at his hand, covered with papers and materials for writing, which he was using slowly and deliberately, sometimes carrying his hand to his head as if in thought, and then again resuming the pen and writing a line or two. In person he was somewhat above the middle height, with straight, finely-cut features and hair very slightly mingled with gray. The face in itself was somewhat stern, and the small pointed beard and mustache gave somewhat of a melancholy look; but on that morning the expression was cheerful,—nay, even good-humored; and the hand that held the pen was as soft and delicate as that of a woman. His dress was principally scarlet, as that of a high ecclesiastic of the Romish Church; but above all he wore a light dressing-gown of dark purple trimmed with sable. Such was Richelieu as he appeared in 1627; and those who have been accustomed to associate his name with nothing but deeds of blood and tyranny might well feel surprised could they see the bland expression of that noble countenance, that smooth white hand, and, still more, could they look over his shoulder and perceive that what he was writing was no grave despatch, no terrible order, no elaborate state paper, but—some verses,—grave, indeed, but neither sad nor stern.

The door opened, and the cardinal laid down his pen. Monsieur de Tronson paused, as if for permission to advance, and Richelieu beckoned him forward, saying, "Come in, Mr. Secretary; come in. I am enjoying a space of leisure after so many busy and anxious days. Till one, I have little to do and less to think of."

"Your Eminence will allow me to remind you," said Tronson, advancing and standing by his side, "that this morning you appointed the hour of ten to see that young English gentleman."

"True," said the cardinal. "I have not forgotten." And he pointed with his hand to the larger table, on which lay one of Master Ned's unfortunate leathern bags; adding, "What do you make of the case? Think you he is the person he represents himself, or, as our hard-headed friends before Rochelle will have it, a spy from England?"

"The passport is evidently signed by your Eminence," answered Tronson; "and the young man himself has the manners of a gentleman of distinction. He is highly educated, too,—a profound Greek and Latin scholar: so says Father Morlais, whom I sent to have some conversation with him. He is somewhat bluff and abrupt in his manners, it is true, as most of these islanders are; but still his whole demeanor strikes me as dignified, and even graceful. He can be no common spy, your Eminence: that is clear; and if Buckingham has chosen him for an agent he has chosen strangely well."

"As to his learning," replied Richelieu, "that signifies little. Many a poor scholar is willing to risk his neck in the hope of promotion. We have employed such ourselves, my good friend. Then, as to dignity of manner, it is easily assumed. But his abruptness and brusquerie offer a different indication. It requires long habit to know when to be rude and harsh, when soft and gentle. How old did you say?"

"From eighteen to nineteen at the utmost," said Tronson: "he appears even less."

"Well, but this girl who is with him?" asked the cardinal: "what of her?"

"That seems easily explained, monseigneur," replied the secretary, with a smile: "she is, it would seem, of high family,—related to Monsieur de Soubise on the one side," (the cardinal's brow became ominously dark,) "and to Madame de Chevreuse on the other."

For an instant Richelieu's brow became darker still; and, with uncontrollable vehemence, he exclaimed, "Ah! she has escaped me, as she thinks; but she will find that I forget not my enemies,—nor my friends, Tronson,—nor my friends," he added, with one of those subtle smiles which had at least as much of the serpent in them as the dove.

Tronson turned a little pale, for that peculiar smile was known at the court by this time, and it was not supposed to be favorable to those on whom it was bestowed. But the secretary was too wise to notice it; and he merely asked, "Who has escaped, your Eminence?—this young lady? She was safe in the castle not an hour ago."

"No, no, man; no," answered Richelieu. "I mean Madame de Luynes,—Madame de Chevreuse, Tronson. Have you not heard? She quitted Nantes at daybreak this morning for Le Verger. Strange!" he continued, speaking to himself: "'twas only last night; and yet she must have heard enough to frighten her. Can the king betray himself and me? She must have learned something. What is the girl's name, Monsieur de Tronson?"

"Lucette du Mirepoix, she says," replied the secretary.

"Lucette de Mirepoix du Valais," said the cardinal, slowly and thoughtfully: "the same,—the same, Tronson. Do you not remember there was much contention, some six years ago, between Madame de Luynes and this scheming rebel Soubise, about the guardianship of this very girl? There the duchess was right, for she would have brought her into the bosom of the Church; but Soubise was too quick for her, and sent the child away,—perhaps to England, to make sure she should be brought up in heresy. But my fair duchess shall find me worse to deal with than Soubise. But you said just now," he continued, in a calmer tone, "that all could be easily explained. What did you mean, my friend?"

"Merely that her travelling with this youth is a problem easily solved," answered the secretary. "Last night, when they parted, there were some warm kisses passed,—not at all fraternal, your Eminence; and, putting those gentle signs in connection with some words and rosy blushes, I conclude that they are bent on matrimony. Probably they have found difficulties at home, and, as is not unfrequent with these English, they have gone off together."

"Is the young man of noble birth, think you?" asked the cardinal, thoughtfully.

"Not of high rank, even amongst the English," answered Tronson: "his very name shows it."

Richelieu smiled, but this time it was a bland and pleasant smile. "We will punish her," he said, speaking to himself,—"punish both!"

"But, your Eminence, if the safe-conduct be yours, as I think, and the young man be really what he pretends, you will hardly——"

"Hand me that leathern bag and the knife," said the minister, interrupting him, and seemingly paying not the slightest attention to the secretary's words. "And now," he continued, when De Tronson had obeyed, "let the youth be brought to me; and have the girl taken to the adjoining room, ready to be brought in when I require her: see that no one converses with her, my excellent good friend."

The secretary bowed his head and withdrew, repeating to himself, "'My excellent friend!'—I have someway offended him. His words are too kind!" But then, after a moment's thought, he murmured, in almost the same words which Richelieu had used a minute or two before, "Can the king have betrayed me? If so, he has betrayed himself too; for God knows I advised him solely for his benefit."

Louis XIII. had now been on the throne of France about sixteen years, and Richelieu had not been actually of the king's council more than three; but both had been long enough before the world's eyes for men to have learned that a king could betray his best friends from fear or weakness, and that a minister could be most gentle in manners when he was the most savage at heart. Richelieu was fond of cats, and perhaps learned some lessons from his favorites. However, in the present instance Tronson guessed rightly: the king had betrayed him to his powerful minister. The night before, nearly at midnight, the cardinal had carried to the king the confession of the unhappy Count de Chalais, drawn from him in his dungeon by the minister himself,—perhaps—nay, probably—by the most unworthy artifices. In recompense for an act which put an end to one of the monarch's painful fits of hesitation, Louis revealed to Richelieu the names of those who, in the confidence of loyal friendship, had opposed some of the minister's favorite schemes; and Tronson was one. Thus, he had guessed right. Whether Richelieu had guessed right likewise no one can tell. That Louis had communicated the confession of Chalais to some of his inferior confidants, who had warned Madame de Chevreuse to fly, is very probable; but most improbable that he had warned her himself. She was the friend, companion, counsellor of his unhappy queen, and was hated by himself as well as by his minister. The king's hatred, however, was merely the reflex of his hatred for another. The enmity of Richelieu was more personal and of long standing. When Marie de Rohan had married the Constable Duke of Luynes, the now potent cardinal had been but a petty agent of the queen-mother; and he had been treated by the proud woman with some contempt. Again, in appearance the king, the constable, and all the ministers had solicited for Richelieu the cardinal's hat from Rome, but he had discovered that Luynes secretly opposed what he publicly asked; and he attributed this treachery to the suggestions of the duchess.

When, after the death of her first husband, Marie de Rohan married the princely Duc de Chevreuse, and Richelieu rose rapidly to the height of power, the enmity between them was no longer concealed, except by the courtly varnish of external politeness,—and, indeed, not always by that.

Thus, when sitting there in his apartments in the Chateau of Nantes, there was perhaps no one in France whom Richelieu desired to mortify and humiliate personally more than Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse:—no, not even her distant relatives the Prince de Soubise and his brother the Duc de Rohan, though both had opposed the royal forces in the field, and the reduction of both to submission was essential to his policy. For them he had some respect, and no individual enmity; but toward her there was a rancor which prompted to any act that would sting rather than destroy. At that time even Richelieu had cause to follow the course which had been pursued by Luynes, and to avoid carrying resentments too far. He was not yet so firmly seated in power that, if he made great enemies, he might not be thrown aside by a fickle king. Otherwise it might seem strange that he dared not follow the same bold course against Madame de Chevreuse which he soon pursued against the unfortunate Chalais, and later against Montmorency and Cinq Mars. But, as I have said, his fingers were not so tightly fixed round the staff of command that he could venture to assail in front the mighty houses of Montbazon and Lorraine, while Vendôme and Condé were already his enemies. It was perhaps meditation upon subjects such as these that occupied the minister's deepest thoughts while he opened with a sharp penknife the leathern bag which De Tronson had brought him, took out several letters, cut the silk, and read the contents; for he did all with an absent air. But Richelieu's mind was one of those which can carry on two processes at once,—one deep, intense, and mighty, the consideration of vital questions, the other the mere observation and recognition of objects—for the time, at least—less important. He seemed to pay little attention to those letters; yet not one word escaped him, and when he had done he replaced them in the bag and cast it behind his chair, but within reach of his hand. He then took up, from the little table close by, the paper on which he had previously been writing, and was reading over the verses, when the door opened, and an exempt of the court appeared, looking at the minister with a sort of inquiring air. Richelieu bowed his head, and the man, stepping back, but holding open the door, introduced Edward Langdale and retired into the ante-chamber.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Edward Langdale entered the presence of the cardinal firm and upright; and, to say the truth, now tricked out with all the taste and ornament which the skill of a French tailor of the reign of Louis XIII., and the short time allowed for the operation, permitted, he was as handsome-looking a youth as you could easily see in this world of ugly hearts and indifferent faces. His air was perfectly calm and well assured, but not presumptuous; and the easy grace with which he carried his hat with its long plume in one hand, and the velvet case with the passport in the other, was not unnoticed by the cardinal, who was accustomed to observe slight indications and to draw his inferences from them,—not exactly taking for granted that they meant what they seemed to mean; for there was many a man in France and at the court who affected well more gayety than the lark when his heart was full of anxiety and sorrow, many a one who assumed a grave solemnity who within was as light a bubble as ever floated down the stream of time. But often he drew inferences the most opposite from the outside indications, and saw evidence of the pinchbeck in the fresh glitter of the gilding.

Richelieu did not make any motion to rise, but, pointing to a seat near him, he bent his head calmly, and said, "Be seated, sir. I am glad to see you in Nantes. How long is it since you arrived?"

"Yesterday evening, my lord," replied Edward, "I reached the city, having been delayed by several causes during many days. Indeed, it is probable I should not have visited this city at all had not some of the royal officers refused to recognise my safe-conduct."

"Perhaps they did not recognise your person," said the cardinal, softly, continuing to gaze at the young Englishman with a keen and scrutinizing look. "But I think, Monsieur Apsley, I must have seen your face somewhere before."

"That cannot be, may it please your Eminence," replied Edward, frankly. "I never had the honor of beholding you till now."

"You speak French with great purity," said the minister. "Did you never reside in this country?"

"I visited it some time ago, but did not remain more than a few months," the youth replied; "but I studied the language long in my own country, and spoke it continually with those who spoke it well."

"Well, indeed!" said Richelieu; "but they tell me you are learned in many ways, and doubtless you have given attention to our poets,—superior, in refinement at least, to any that the world can boast. Let me have a sample of your taste. What think you of these lines just sent to me by a young poet? The hand is inexperienced, but I think the head is good. You can read the language, of course." And he handed the lines to Edward, who, confounded by what was passing, took the paper and gazed at it for a moment in silence. Then, feeling that such silence might be dangerous, he proceeded to read the verses aloud, with good emphasis and a graceful delivery:—

"Who on the height of power would stand must be Hard as the rock to those who dare his arm; To the indifferent, cool; and tenderly Treat the young faults of those who mean no harm.

Whether he discovered by the similarity of the writing with the signature of the safe-conduct that the verses were the cardinal's own, or that he thought he saw some allusion to the minister's situation which discovered the author, I know not; but there were particular passages which he dwelt upon in reading; and the minister smiled approvingly, saying, "Well! exceedingly well, Monsieur Apsley. The poet loses nothing on your lips. Think you the verses good?"

"Very good, your Eminence," replied Edward. "Were the arrangement of the lines somewhat different, they would make an excellent speech in a tragedy."

"Ha! say you so?" said the minister, apparently well pleased: "I will give the author that hint. He has some small merit, and may perhaps hereafter aim at higher flights."

"He has chosen a high subject now, sir," replied Edward, "But, by your pardon, I did not come here to read poetry, however good, but to request your Eminence to recognise my safe-conduct and to let me go forward on my way."

Richelieu's brow became a little shaded. "So fast!" he said, as if speaking to himself, and then demanded, "Where do you wish to go?"

"First to Niort," answered Edward, boldly, "where I was going when I was stopped, and then, by Paris, into Switzerland."

The cardinal paused and gazed at him for a moment in silence, and then replied, "There are previously several matters to be inquired into. I trust we are here in France too courteous to stay any gentleman travelling through our country for purposes of mere pleasure or instruction, though there may be matters of enmity, and even war, between the two nations. I trust we are too honest to give a safe-conduct and then to deny its efficacy. But spies we hang, young gentleman."

The words sounded chilling upon Edward Langdale's ear; but he knew that a moment's silence might be destruction, and he replied, at once, "I am no spy, your Eminence; and, whatever I may have done that is indiscreet, I came not to examine or report, and never will, any thing I see in this country. It is as safe with me as with yourself, lord cardinal."

"Then you acknowledge you have done indiscreet things?" said Richelieu.

"Probably," answered the young man: "who has not? But, still, I am no spy."

"Of the character of a spy there may be many definitions," answered the minister; "and modern codes do not exactly limit themselves to the Hebrew interpretation of the term, to wit, that he is a person who goes out to see the nakedness of the land. But, that apart, we must know the meaning of what the letters in this bag contain." And, stretching back his hand, he took the wallet and drew out a letter, while Edward observed, as calmly as he could, "I am not responsible, your Eminence, for what those letters contain. I know not the contents of any one of them, but merely took them as requested to persons in France with whom the writers had no other means of communication."

He spoke the truth; for he had not seen and did not know the contents of any one of the letters he had borne across the channel, except that to the good syndic Clement Tournon, which announced the speedy arrival of Lord Denbigh's fleet.

Richelieu paid no apparent attention to what he said, but read from the letter he held in his hand: "'To the most mighty Prince the Duc de Rohan. These will be given to you by one in whom you can put all confidence. Yield him all credence in what he shall tell you on the part of a true friend.' 'To his Highness the Prince de Soubise. Monsieur: Let me commend to you most highly the bearer, a young English gentleman of good house, true, faithful, and worthy of all credit. He ought to be the possessor of great estate; but I assure your Highness that his merit is above his fortunes, and that the dearest trust you have you may confide to his keeping.' Signed with a large B. All the rest, sir, are of the same tenor,—without due signature, and in vague terms. What is the meaning of this?"

"Probably the writers foresaw," replied Edward, who had determined on his course, "that the letters might fall into the hands of your Eminence, and, knowing themselves not your friends, might not wish to make you my enemy."

"Bold, upon my life!" exclaimed Richelieu, in a tone of surprise.

"But true!" said Edward. "I much wish to see the Duc de Rohan or the Prince de Soubise, upon matters totally unconnected with those letters; and when your Eminence gives me permission to proceed I shall seek them instantly."

"When I give permission," said Richelieu, somewhat scornfully; "but well,—'tis very well. Sir, these letters are very suspicious, and would well justify the detention of the bearer. But I must ask some more questions. What seek you with Messieurs de Soubise and Rohan, two noblemen in arms against their sovereign?"

"My lord cardinal, my business with them is private. Those letters are suspicious or not, as they may be viewed: they are not criminal; and though, as you shall determine, they may perhaps justify my detention, yet I assure you once again I knew not their contents until this moment. You must be the judge of your own conduct. I know my own purposes, and can safely say my only object in seeking to see those two princes is one with which your Eminence has no concern."

"I am the judge of my own conduct, young gentleman," answered the minister, in a not ungentle voice. "But see you here. Sir Peter Apsley has been represented to me as a good, lubberly youth, whom his relations and guardians are fain to send to foreign lands to see if he can gather some grains of sense and learning amongst more quick-witted people. Now, here we have a young man well read, ready and quick, of a fine taste, and speaking many tongues. This is suspicious too,—unless indeed you have visited some shrine and the saint has worked a miracle."

"My lord cardinal, it would befit me ill to bandy words with you," replied Edward: "I should but fare the worse. Your qualities are not unknown in England; and, having said all I can rightly say, I would not willingly try to match my wit against yours."

"I know few who could do it better for your age," said the cardinal, perhaps remembering still with pleasure the youth's praise of his not super-excellent verses. "But now to another theme. Who is the girl that is travelling with you, first as a page, then in the habit of a peasant-girl? Your paramour, I trust, she is not."

The cheek of Edward Langdale glowed like fire. "You wrong us both, even by the thought, lord cardinal," he said, although Richelieu had spoken the last words with a somewhat threatening brow. "You have heard me avow that I have been perhaps guilty of some indiscretion; and I wish to Heaven she had never come with me; but I could not dream of wronging an innocent girl who has trusted entirely to me, and should think my love for her but a poor and false excuse were I to do so even in thought. As to her being with me, your Eminence may surmise many motives; but, believe me, all were honest."

"I am willing to suppose it," answered the cardinal, mildly. "You wish to marry: is it not so?"

Edward bowed his head.

"And you fear there may be difficulties raised by her family?" continued Richelieu, in a tone of inquiry.

"Many," replied the youth.

"Perhaps there is a difference in rank," suggested the cardinal.

"It may be so," answered Edward; "but yet I am a gentleman, and all my friends have been so, as far as we can trace the house."

"Well, we shall hear what she says herself," answered the minister, ringing a small silver bell.

The exempt immediately appeared at the door, and the cardinal bade him call Mademoiselle de Mirepoix from the neighboring room.

It is to be feared that Lucette was not a heroine. Her step was tottering, and her face pale, when, after a pause of one or two minutes, she entered the cardinal's presence. But the dress she now wore, rich and in very good taste, not only displayed the young beauties of her face and form, but made her look several years older than she really was. Edward, conscious of what she must feel, bent his eyes to the ground for an instant as she entered, but the next moment, with a sudden impulse, advanced, and, taking her hand, led her toward the minister.

Richelieu was evidently struck with her appearance: it was something very different from what he had expected to see, and the disappointment was a pleasant one. With dignified politeness he rose to meet her, and led her himself to a seat, saying, "I am glad to see you, mademoiselle. I trust you rested well last night?"

Lucette raised her eyes with a look of surprise at the unexpected kindness of his tone, and a warm blush passed over her cheek, while she replied, "I did not sleep at all, my lord: I was too much frightened."

"Nay, be not frightened here, my child," replied Richelieu, in a fatherly tone. "I must ask you a few questions, to which you must give me sincere answers; but it will soon be over. To the bold and daring, men in my position must be stern and harsh; but the timid and submissive will only meet kindness and protection. First, then, tell me, what is your name?"

"Lucette de Mirepoix," answered the beautiful young girl, in a low voice.

"De Mirepoix du Valais?" inquired the minister.

"The same," said Lucette, looking up again with some surprise.

"Now let me hear if you have ever been in England," said Richelieu, fixing his dark eyes upon her.

"Yes," answered Lucette, at once. "I have been in England for several years."

"Do you know why you were sent there?" asked the cardinal. "Surely this is a richer and more beautiful land than that cold, foggy island."

"Oh, no!" cried Lucette, eagerly. "It is true, I know nothing of the land of France except about Rochelle; but nothing can be more beautiful than England."

"And you would gladly marry an Englishman?" said Richelieu, with a smile. Lucette blushed deeply, but answered nothing, and the cardinal went on:—"You have not yet told me why you were sent to England."

"I do not personally know," answered Lucette; "but I have heard that a lady—I think, called Madame de Luynes—claimed me as my nearest relation, and that my other friends did not choose to give me up to her, which the law might have forced them to do if she could have found me in France."

Richelieu smiled. "That is a mistake," he said. "We would have found means to frustrate such an attempt. Do you know if she still persists in her purpose?"

"Oh, yes," answered Lucette, quickly: "at least, so I have been told. They said that she had power enough in England, through the Duke of Buckingham, to have me given up to her, even there. That was one reason why I returned to France."

"And not to wed this young gentleman?" said the cardinal.

Lucette blushed again, and was silent.

"But you love him, and are willing to wed him?" continued Richelieu, seeming to take a pleasure in the rosy embarrassment his questions produced.

Poor Lucette! It was indeed a painful moment for her; but she felt that her own fate, and that of Edward also, depended upon her words, and, with her eyes bent down, and her face all in a glow, she answered, in a low but firm tone, "Yes." Then, springing up as if she could bear the torturing interrogation no longer, she darted across, cast herself upon Edward's bosom, and wept.

"Answer enough, methinks," said Richelieu, speaking to himself. "And now, daughter," he continued, gravely, "only two more questions, and I have done. But your answers must be frank and open. Did your good friends in La Rochelle know and consent to your travelling alone with this young gentleman disguised as a page?"

"Oh, yes!" sobbed the poor girl: "they themselves proposed it. They knew they could trust to his honor, and so could I. But we were not alone; we had servants with us; and—and—"

"Enough," said Richelieu. "Monsieur de Soubise, you are a confident man."

These words might have shown Lucette that she and the cardinal had been playing in some sort at cross-purposes; but they were spoken in a low tone, and in her agitation she did not hear or take notice of them.

"Now for the last question," said Richelieu: "but you must first resume your seat;" and, taking her hand, he led her back to her chair. "Tell me,—and tell me true, my child: have you ever heard that young gentleman standing opposite to you called by any other name than Sir Peter Apsley?"

It was a terrible blow to poor Lucette. She had been educated in truth and honor; a lie was abhorrent to all her previous feelings and thoughts; and yet, if she told the truth, she knew or believed that she was condemning one whom she now felt she loved more than any one on earth, to an ignominious death. She turned deadly pale, and raised her eyes to Edward's face, as if seeking counsel or help.

Edward gave the help without a moment's hesitation. Stepping quickly forward so as to stand immediately before the prelate's chair, he said, "Ask her not that question, my lord cardinal. Neither make those sweet honest lips utter a word of falsehood, nor force them to betray a secret she thinks herself bound to keep. I will answer for her. She has heard me called by another name; but I could not have come into this country without obtaining the passport of Sir Peter Apsley,—a young man of my own age and height,—who had given up the intention of visiting France. My name is Edward Langdale, son of Sir Richard Langdale, of Buckley, of as good and old a family as his whose name I took."

Richelieu gazed at him coldly, without the least mark of surprise. "You have tried to deceive me," he said; "but you could not. It was a dangerous experiment, sir. And, now, what have you to say why the fate you have sought should not fall upon your head?"

"Not much, your Eminence," replied Edward; "and all I have to say is written here." And, as he spoke, he stretched forth his hand and took the verses he had before read from the small table at the cardinal's right hand, and repeated the first stanza:—

"'Who on the height of power would stand must be Hard as a rock to those who dare his arm; To the indifferent, cool; and tenderly Treat the young faults of those who mean no harm.'

"That is all I can plead in favor of forgiveness."

"And you have fairly won it," said Richelieu, gravely; "but it shall come in such a shape as perhaps you do not expect."

The words were ambiguous, and the cardinal's look was so cold that Lucette's heart fell. She hesitated a moment, and then cast herself at Richelieu's feet, murmuring, "Oh, spare him, my lord! spare him! He has told you the whole truth now."

"Whatever becomes of me," exclaimed Edward, "for God's sake, give not up this dear girl to Madame de Chevreuse."

He had touched the key-note; but it only served to confirm a half-formed purpose in the great minister's mind. A smile spread over his face, which was then eminently handsome, and, first turning to Lucette, he said, "He has told me the whole truth, has he? Still, he will be all the better of a safe-conduct in his own name. Shall I put in the page and all, young gentleman?" Then, ringing the silver bell again, he ordered the exempt, who had still waited without, to carry the passport of Sir Peter Apsley to one of his secretaries and bid him make a copy, substituting the name of Edward Langdale for Peter Apsley. "And hark," he continued; "bend down your ear."

The man obeyed. Richelieu whispered to him for a moment or two, and the exempt retired, closing the door.

Still, Edward Langdale did not feel altogether at ease as to the fate of Lucette. The smile upon the cardinal's lip when he proposed to "put in the page and all" evidently marked the words as a jest; and Richelieu now sat silent for several minutes, gazing upon the ground, as if still somewhat undecided.

At length he looked up. "Monsieur de Langdale," he said, pointing to the leathern case, "that belongs to you. It shall be sent to your room. In it you will find nine hundred and eighty crowns of gold, all told. Moreover, you can take the letters: I trust to your honor as a gentleman not to use them against the king's service. Your safe-conduct will be here in a few minutes; but, before I sign it, I will put the sincerity of yourself and this young lady to one more test."

He paused, and looked at them both gravely for a moment, adding, "You have given me to understand that you wish to unite your fates. You have travelled so long together unrestrained, that, whether your families consent or not, it is desirable, for the lady's sake, that there should be a sacred bond between you. I now ask you both, are you willing to plight your faith to each other at the altar?—now,—this very hour?"

Edward's heart beat high, it must be owned, with joy, although there were many other emotions in his bosom; and perhaps at that moment he regretted the loss of property which was rightfully his, more than he had ever done before.

Lucette bent down her eyes with a face suffused with blushes; but, when the cardinal again demanded, "What say you, Mademoiselle de Mirepoix?" she took his hand and kissed it for her sole reply.

"With joy, my lord," answered Edward. "But will our marriage—both under age—be valid without the consent of relations?"

Richelieu smiled. "Their consent you must obtain hereafter," he said; "but, in the mean time, I will make your union so firm that no power on earth or in hell can break it. By the power which the Church has given me, I will sweep away all obstacles. But remember, sir, for the time you separate at the altar. You may indeed convey Mademoiselle de Mirepoix to either the Prince de Soubise or the Duc de Rohan,—not as your bride, but with the same respect you assure me you have hitherto shown her. You must promise me, as a gentleman, to return here, and confer with me, as soon as you have seen the young lady safe under the protection of one of her two cousins. Tell him—whichever it is—that in the peculiar circumstances of the case the cardinal prime minister has judged it imperatively necessary that you should be married, and has himself seen the ceremony performed; that for two years you leave your bride with him, but at the end of that time you will claim her and take her, and that all my power shall be exerted to give her to you. He will find me more difficult to frustrate than Madame de Chevreuse."

"The gentlemen your Eminence was pleased to summon," said a servant at the door; and the next moment a number of different persons entered the room, amongst whom the only one known to Edward and Lucette was Monsieur de Tronson.

"Gentlemen, by your good leave, you are called as witnesses to a marriage," said Richelieu. "You, Monsieur de Bleville, have the kindness to take note in double of all the proceedings: there is paper. Go on to the chapel: the almoner is there by this time: I will follow in an instant. You will find two ladies there, I think. Tronson, stay with me for a moment. Monsieur de la Force, you are of good years: give Mademoiselle de Mirepoix your hand."

The crowd passed out, carrying with them Edward and Lucette, both feeling as if they were in a dream. Richelieu extended his hand gravely to Monsieur de Tronson, saying, "You see, De Tronson, even I can forgive."

The secretary pressed his hand respectfully, saying, "Those you do forgive, if they be generous and wise, will never offend again. But I understand not this matter, your Eminence."

"Not understand!" cried Richelieu, with a laugh. "Did I not say I would punish them both?—not these two pretty children, for I do believe I make them happy,—but the proud Duchesse de Chevreuse and the rebellious Prince de Soubise. What will be in the heart of Marie de Rohan when she hears that the heiress, on whose guardianship she had set her heart to strengthen herself by her marriage into some powerful house, is already married to a poor English gentleman? What will be in her heart, Tronson, I say? Hell! hell! To Soubise—if he submits,—as submit he must—we can make compensation. But there is much to be done, Tronson, and I must leave it to you to do; for in an hour I must be on my way to Beauregard, where I expect a visit from Monsieur this evening. First, these two lovers must set out to-night for Niort. Let a coach well horsed be ready for them. Then they must have some aged and prudent dame to bear them company; and next, a good sure man must keep his eye on the lad till he returns here, which will be in a day or two."

"Then does your Eminence still suspect him?" asked De Tronson.

"Suspect him? No, man, no: I know him!" answered Richelieu. "This is Edward Langdale, page to my Lord Montagu,—a brave, bold, honest, clever lad, who shall do me good service yet, without knowing it. He is going to join his lord somewhere on the frontier, or in Lorraine or in Savoy, doubtless with tidings from Buckingham,—though there be no letters from the gaudy duke amongst those he carries. I like the lad, and, were it possible to gain him—but that cannot be. Now, let us to the chapel. You see to the rest; I have but time to dispose of Madame de Chevreuse's fair ward, and make all so sure that she must fret in vain."[1]

CHAPTER XIX.

The state of France at that time was curious, and worthy of a short description. It shall be very short, reader, for I am aware how tiresome such details are to three classes of people,—to those who know every thing, to those who know nothing, and to those who want to "get on with the story." But it will save us a world of trouble hereafter, and spare us the use of that bad beast, Explanation, which is always trotting with the wrong leg foremost.

In England, the Wars of the Roses, the salutary severity of that great king, Richard the Third, the avarice of his successor, the tyranny of the eighth Henry and his two daughters, had swept away the exorbitant power and privileges which the feudal system had conferred upon the high nobility. But in France not even the wise rigor of some of her kings—not even the sanguinary struggles of the League—had effected nearly so much. Indeed, the termination of the wars of the League had wellnigh undone what had previously been accomplished toward restricting the inordinate independence of the nobles; for Henry IV., after having conquered his enemies, was obliged to buy them, and to make concessions which would have rendered the sceptre powerless in any hand less mighty than his own.

When the knife of Ravaillac placed Louis XIII. on the throne of France, troubles of various kinds succeeded, which not only weakened the royal authority but impoverished the kingdom; and at the moment when the Cardinal de Richelieu laid his strong hand upon the reins of government, the weak monarch, feeling his own incompetence, had fallen almost into a state of despair from the troubles and dangers around him. But the words of an author who wrote while despotism still existed theoretically in France will give us a good picture of the ideas of the day, though we may not coincide with him in his conclusions.

"Louis," says the writer of whom I speak, "to excuse the timidity of his council, did not fail to repeat the statements made to him every day about the weakness of his kingdom, and to assert that by a firmer course he would run the risk of bringing wars upon his hands which he could not support. The prelate [Richelieu] overthrew all these objections, by showing the young monarch the resources of France,—her immense population, the bravery of her inhabitants, the fertility of her soil, the abundance and variety of her productions, her beautiful forests, her quarries, the riches of her mines,—above all, her wine and her salt, gifts of Nature which other nations are obliged to come to her and ask for; her rivers almost all navigable, so favorable to internal commerce; her happy position between two seas, favorable to external; the strength of her frontiers, defended by rivers and mountains, natural ramparts, or by cities which a little art would render impregnable; in fine, the very constitution of her government, which gave to a single man the power to put all these resources in action by one word and in one instant.

"Richelieu then proceeded to assert that the principal cause of the depression of France amongst the nations was that she tolerated various religions in her bosom, and doubtless he had determined to root out that evil; but there was another which he clearly saw, but concealed from the king, and against which he afterward waged a continual war, by art, by arms, and by the axe: this was the independent power of the nobles, which, in fact, gave all its strength to religious faction."

In that day, every high noble had his city or his castle, which he did not scruple, on slight pretexts, to garrison against his sovereign, and very often resisted the royal troops with so much success as to force the monarch to purchase his submission. Such was the case, but two or three years before the time of which I write, with the Marquis de la Force at Montauban; such the case with the Count de Coligni at Aïgues Mortes. A marshal's baton, a large sum of money, the government of a province, the revenues of an abbey, were the reward of acts which Richelieu resolved should in future be rewarded by exile or the axe.

A report of the surprise of one of these feudal fortresses at this very period gives a vivid picture not only of the state of France in a time of profound peace, but of the strength of the castle itself. "They [the citizens of Château Renard]," says Monsieur de Fougeret, in his Relation, "obtained possession with the armed hand on the 27th May, 1621, at four o'clock in the afternoon, of the fortress called the Castellet, which commanded their town, and in which the lords of Chatillon had kept a garrison for the last twenty-five years. The walls were four toises and a half in thickness; and there were within many chambers, casemates, prisons, dungeons, cellars, a well, ovens, hand-mills, battering-pieces, falconets, powder, ammunition of every kind, and a private subterranean passage to come and go under cover all about the said fortress, all terraced within."

Instead of attempting to remedy this state of things, Louis had recognised and acted upon the system which he had found in existence, and about this time, in the case of Richelieu himself, not only permitted him to maintain a guard of musketeers, but gave him the town of Brouage "as a place of surety."

To strike at the root of such a system of legalized rebellion at once was impossible; but the cardinal had resolved to make his master, or his master's minister, King of France in reality as well as in name, to curb and humiliate the high nobility, and in the end to make them servants instead of rulers of the state. To effect this, the first step was to strike them with terror, and, although the name of Richelieu had already become redoubtable to many, to make it a word of omen to all. The first acts of a terrible tragedy arranged for that purpose were actually passing before the eyes of the court at the time when Edward Langdale arrived in Nantes. The Duke of Vendôme, the governor of the province of Brétagne, and his brother the Grand Prior of France, were both already prisoners in the castle of Amboise,—a place full of the memories of cruelty, treachery, and crime; and Marshal Ornano was in the prison of Vincennes. Chalais—once a great favorite, and still Master of the Robes to the King—was in the dungeons of Nantes, waiting trial and judgment by an iniquitous and illegal tribunal. No victims could have been better chosen for the gods whom Richelieu sought to propitiate: Vendôme and the Grand Prior were natural sons of Henry IV. and half-brothers of the actual monarch. The one humbled himself completely before the minister, and issued out of prison stripped of all his offices and property, and reduced to the revenue of a simple and even needy gentleman. The Grand Prior conceded nothing, confessed nothing, and died in prison. Ornano also died a captive, exclaiming, almost with his last breath, "Ah, cardinal, what power thou hast!" But the Count de Chalais was the choice victim, reserved for the most conspicuous sacrifice. Of the high house of Talleyrand-Perigord, grandson of the great and terrible Montluc, held up to envy by the favor of the king and the high dignities to which he seemed treading a rapid course, the news that he was arrested, thrown into a solitary dungeon, forbidden communication with any one, to be tried by a high commission, spread that air of fear and gloom over the court and city which Edward Langdale had remarked on entering Nantes. No one knew how far the conspiracy extended; no one knew who was next to fall. All were aware, however, that the number of noble gentlemen and ladies under suspicion was immense, and that the king's own brother himself trembled at the consequences of his rash acts and purposes. A pause of hope came in the midst of all these disquietudes. The commission had sat once, presided over by Marillac, the lord-keeper; and it began to be whispered that the prisoner had defended himself so well, had cast so much suspicion upon the documents produced against him, and had shown so clearly that the graver parts of the accusation were utterly improbable and probably false, that even the fickle king, whose affection he had long lost, expressed convictions in his favor. But that same day, in the darkness of the night, Richelieu's chamber was left vacant; that same night a muffled cavalier passed Edward Langdale and descended to the dungeons; that same night the jailer gave the stranger admission to the cell of the unhappy Count de Chalais; and that same night the king was roused to receive the cardinal, bearing him important intelligence.

Previous to that hour, Richelieu had been restless, imperious, anxious, irritable: the first proceedings of the commissioners had brought him, evidently, any thing but satisfaction; but a strange change came over him in a few hours. When De Tronson visited him on the morning of the day succeeding his mysterious interview with the prisoner Chalais, he found him calm, placable, even sportive. The mind was evidently at ease: he had slept, he said, like a child: some great object was accomplished,—some mighty triumph gained,—some move on the wide chess-board made which insured the game. There had been a moment of apprehension, a moment of danger: if he failed against Chalais, the fabric of his power, the cement of which was hardly dry, would tumble about his ears. But Richelieu was not destined to fail. He had taken the necessary course, however terrible, however unusual, however strange; and now he could not only repose in peace, but he could be as playful as his cat.

The cardinal's equipage had been ordered for his beautiful house of Beauregard, not far from the walls of Nantes, at one o'clock; and he set out for that place at the exact hour. Shortly after he was gone, the Duke of Anjou applied to see him at his usual apartments in the castle. The air of the king's brother was somewhat troubled,—not greatly, for he thought he had assured himself that the rumor of Chalais having made some unexpected confession was false. The duke was, as all the world knew, timid and feeble, and less personally brave than his brother; and the very first reports of a confession made by Chalais, which he feared might compromise himself, had induced him to see the king and ask his permission to go for a few days to the sea-side to recover his health. Louis, with his habitual hypocrisy, caressed his brother, whom he hated, but told him he must apply to the cardinal for the permission he required. The manner of the king was so gentle and so smooth that Gaston of Anjou was quite deceived. He mounted his horse within the hour, and, followed by a gay and brilliant company, rode out for Beauregard. Richelieu had watched his coming from the window, and met him at the top of the great stairs. He conducted the prince into his private cabinet, and then begged him to be seated, himself standing in the presence of his sovereign's brother.

"Monsieur le Cardinal, I am anxious to go to the sea-side for a short time," said Gaston, "and my brother has no objection; but he requires first that I shall obtain your consent."

"How does your royal Highness propose to travel?" asked the minister.

"Oh, quite simply," replied the prince; "in fact, incognito."

"Would it not be better for your Highness to wait," said Richelieu, "at least, till your marriage with Mademoiselle de Montpensier has taken place? Then you can travel as a prince."

That marriage had been the central point of all the plots and intrigues of the court for months. Richelieu, knowing the volatile and intriguing spirit of the prince, as well as his wild ambition, had determined that Gaston should wed a French gentlewoman, whatever wealth she might bring him, rather than a princess who would insure to him the dangerous support of foreign aid. Chalais and his party had opposed such a union; Gaston had joined them; and round this simple opposition, Richelieu had woven a web of mingled facts and falsehoods which was of a far stronger texture than the young duke fancied at that moment.

"If I wait till I am married to Mademoiselle de Montpensier," said the Duc d'Anjou, "I shall not get to the sea-side this summer, at least."

"Why so?" asked the cardinal. "Why cannot the marriage take place in a few days?"

"I do not feel well," said the prince, who did not venture to say he would not conclude the marriage at all: "I am ill, and would rather regain my health before I marry. The sea-air will do me good."

The serpent-smile came upon Richelieu's lips again. "Oh, I have a prescription," he said, "which will cure the malady of your Highness very rapidly."

"How soon?" asked the prince, in a hesitating tone, not liking that smile, which he had seen before.

"In ten minutes," answered Richelieu, "for it cannot take long to act." And, opening his portfolio, he took forth a paper all written in a hand which Gaston knew too well. There, before his eyes, all apparently in the writing of the unhappy Chalais, was a confession of a treasonable conspiracy against the king and the state, in which he himself, Gaston of Anjou, and the young Queen Anne of Austria, were implicated by name. How much was really written by Chalais, how much had been added by the cardinal's skilful secretaries, has never been known; but Gaston was conscious that he was lost if he did not make his peace. After a moment of stupefied astonishment, he agreed to the proposed marriage,—agreed that it should take place immediately; but then, remembering his high position as brother of the reigning monarch and heir-presumptive to the throne, he began to make conditions,—demanded some security for the life, at least, of his friend and partisan Chalais.

But the terrible words which had long been hanging on the cardinal's lips were spoken at last, when the prince proposed some stipulations. "Perhaps," he said, "in the position in which your Highness now stands, it would be better to content yourself with the promise of your own life and liberty."

The young duke stood like one stupefied. The audacious idea that he—he, Gaston of Anjou—might possibly be brought to trial, condemned, executed, or sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, was spoken with calm civility, with courtly reverence for his high rank, but in a tone so cold, so grave, so determined, as to show that it was not unfamiliar to him who uttered it. A vague impression of the character of the man with whom he had to do—no definite perception, no clear insight into his character, but a sort of instinct, which seemed given to him on a sudden for his preservation—took possession of Gaston of Anjou. He yielded at once and entirely. A faint, hypocritical effort in favor of the unhappy Chalais, which Richelieu well knew how to parry with soft words and half-promises, was all that the selfish prince ventured to attempt. Toward himself, however, the minister showed himself unbounded in liberality. Dukedoms, Government posts to the amount of a million of revenue, were promised and given on the marriage of Monsieur with Mademoiselle de Montpensier; and the contract was sealed with the blood of Chalais. It was a part of Richelieu's system.

Vialart, Bishop of Avranches, a contemporary, remarks that the great minister was accustomed, in dealing with those nobles who had any real pretensions, to grant them even more than they could rightly claim; but, if they showed themselves insensible to such conduct, from that moment he had no mercy on them. It was a part of his system, also, to teach one to betray another. The weaknesses of the men with whom he had to do served him as much as their strength.

The art of fathoming the characters of those who surround us, and the science of applying their strong qualities against our enemies and using their weaknesses against themselves, is the great secret of ambition. By it, every usurper has risen to power; by it, most have maintained themselves in authority; and when they have fallen, it has been more frequently by a mistake in the character of others than by want of force in their own. It may seem a Machiavelian axiom; but, had I the wisdom of the great Florentine, I should not be at all ashamed of being compared, even in one short passage, to that wise, virtuous, much-misunderstood man. The axiom, however, applies as closely to nations as to individuals. It resolves itself simply into this:—Who knows a nation best will rule that nation best. We have a thousand illustrations of the fact; and Richelieu certainly knew the French nation—that is to say when speaking of those times—knew the nobility, as well as man could know them,—in the mass, and individually; and, whenever it suited his purpose to be stern, he knew no pity, showed no compassion; whenever there was no object in severity, he was kind, or gentle, or sportive.

The well-known anecdote of Boisrobert and Mademoiselle de Gournay, when the former induced Richelieu to bestow upon the good old poetess, first a pension of a hundred crowns for herself, then a pension of fifty crowns for her chambermaid, then a pension of twenty crowns for her cat, and, lastly, a pistole for each of the cat's kittens, shows to what extent his good-humor could be carried. On the other hand, the fate of Chalais, Montmorency, Cinq Mars, De Thou, Marillac, and a host of others, gives fearful evidence of his relentless vengeance. At the period of which I write, however, the harsher points of his character had not fully developed themselves: perhaps they were not fully formed; for the minister whom we see represented on the stage, at this very period of his history, as an old and almost decrepit man struggling with an imaginary conspiracy, was really only forty-two years of age, and vigorous in body as in intellect.[2]

CHAPTER XX.

The marriage-ceremony of Edward Langdale and Lucette de Mirepoix du Valais was over. Act was taken, as it was then sometimes called, of the fact, signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all present; and Richelieu's own name stood first in the list of witnesses.

Every one well knows that in those days clandestine marriages took place frequently between persons very young, and also that the omnipotent power of the Romish Church was not uncommonly called in to dissolve a rite which the Church itself pronounced a sacrament. But the presence of Richelieu as prelate, cardinal, and prime minister was enough to secure the union of Edward and Lucette against any machinations of unconsenting friends in the courts, either civil or ecclesiastical. But the great minister left nothing undone to prevent the possibility of such a result: not a word was omitted which could render the ceremony binding; and Spada, the pope's nuncio, himself, was easily induced to give his formal sanction to an act which recognised to a certain degree the authority of the Romish Church and struck a heavy blow at one of the greatest Protestant leaders.

But a few words were spoken by the cardinal to the young bridegroom after the marriage; but they seemed to be important; for, though they were for the most part uttered in a whisper, all those who were still around heard the question, "Do you promise me, upon your honor as a gentleman?" and Edward's reply, "I do, most solemnly."

"Now, De Tronson," said the cardinal, "give our young friends an hour or two to compose their minds after so much agitation, and then forward them, as I directed, to wherever they may find the Prince de Soubise or his brother."

In five minutes after Lucette was left alone with her young husband, his arms were thrown around her, and her blushing face and tearful eyes were hidden on his bosom.

"Have we done right, Edward?" she said, after some pause.

"It was the only thing left for us to do, my love," he answered, kissing her tenderly. "And yet, Lucette, I fear it may not be so much for our happiness as it would seem. I foresee that your great relations will make every effort to annul our marriage or to keep us forever separate."

"That they shall never do, my love,—my husband," said Lucette, warmly: "they may separate us now; doubtless they will: but the time must come when I shall be my own mistress; and whenever that time does come, and you desire it, I will go to join you anywhere,—as, indeed, I am in duty bound to do."

"Then, my own dear girl," said the youth, "this marriage is not a forced union on your part, but as full of love and willingness as on mine? Oh, speak, Lucette!"

"Can you doubt it, Edward?" she answered. "I only feared for a moment that our own feelings might have led us to seize upon the cardinal's proposal too eagerly for our duty and respect toward others; but, on reflection, I think we could not avoid it. It was our only chance of safety."

"I think so too," answered her young husband. "But yet it is almost cruel of the cardinal not to have carried his kindness one step further, and suffered me to take you with me, as my wife, wherever fate may lead me. But yet, dear girl, perhaps he was wise. We are both too young."

"But, if we are too young, is this marriage binding? Can they not break it?" asked Lucette, with a look of apprehension which was of very sweet assurance to Edward Langdale.

"Oh, no," he replied: "the cardinal made sure of that. I could see he took especial pains at every point of the ceremony, that there might not be a flaw now nor a quibble hereafter. Did you not remark how he corrected two words in the act with his own hand? They cannot break it, Lucette,—except, perhaps, with your consent."

"That they shall never have," replied Lucette. "Oh, Edward, let us both swear to each other never to consent that this contract shall be broken between us. Let us do it solemnly; let us go down upon our knees before the God who sees all hearts, and be married again by our own holy promises."

As she spoke, she knelt, holding the youth's hand in hers, and, carried away by her simple love, he knelt beside her; and, with the confidence of early youth, they repeated the vows of everlasting faith to each other, and solemnly promised never to consent to a dissolution of their union, but each to seek the other at the first call.

Had Lucette known more of the world and worldly things, had her heart or her thoughts been less pure and spotless, Edward might have had a difficult task that day; for the cardinal had bound him by a promise similar to the injunction which the King of the Genii imposed upon Prince Zeyn Alasnum in the book which has enchanted all young and imaginative brains. But her innocence saved him from all suspicion of coldness; and the very undisguised love with which she rested on his bosom or received his kisses—warmer though not more affectionate than her own—spared all explanation, and gave to hope all the coloring of joy.

But they had much else to discuss,—how to communicate with each other when they were separated, how they were to act toward the Prince de Soubise when they found him, what they were to tell and what they were to conceal. Just let the reader sit down and fancy all that could and might be said by two people who had passed through so much during the last few hours, who had so much to pass through still, who were so strangely situated, who knew so little of each other and yet who loved each other so well, and his imagination will supply much more of their conversation than I am skilled to tell. That conversation lasted long. One hour went away after another: they were left totally alone; (and for that, too, Richelieu had his reasons;) and two o'clock had passed ere any one disturbed them. Then a servant came to announce to them that their mid-day meal was served in an adjoining chamber, and they proceeded thither, with feelings very strange:—happy, and yet not fully; composed, in comparison with their feelings not many hours before, yet agitated; with warm hope for the future, but many a bewildering doubt and some apprehension.

But the first sight that presented itself on entering the little hall where their dinner was served gave matter for fresh thought to Edward. As to Lucette, her thoughts had employment enough: she was married; she was a wife, and one act of the life-drama of a woman was over: the curtain was down for the time.

But there, on two sides of the table, each behind a chair, appeared Pierrot la Grange and Jacques Beaupré; and Edward's dinner was rendered tedious by his anxiety to learn from the latter the particulars of his escape near Mauzé and all that followed. While the court laquais was in the room, of course nothing could be said; but the man soon delivered the party from his presence, retiring as soon as the dinner—which was somewhat meagre—was over and the dessert placed upon the table. Pierrot had, indeed, before the man left the room, boldly apologized to his young master for not returning to him that morning, saying plainly that he had been stopped by the servants of the chateau. "I hear, however," he added, with a smile and a reverence, "that all has ended happily; and I beg humbly to offer my congratulations to monsieur and madame." Jacques, in his grave way, and the laquais, with courtly fluency, added their compliments upon the occasion; and Edward felt his scanty purse under tax.

"And now, Jacques," he said, as soon as they were free from the presence of the stranger, "tell me, as quickly and succinctly as possible, what has occurred since we last met."

"Why, sir, what happened to me can be little to you," answered the man: "suffice it I got through a small hole in the lines when my young lady stuck in a large one. I reached the Chateau of Mauzé easily, bags and all, and, as you had ordered, went straight to the Prince de Soubise. I found the whole party there ready to break up, for the Papists were getting too many for them in the neighborhood,—the prince and duke having but three hundred men with them, while the enemy had three thousand round about. Monsieur de Soubise roared like a cow that has lost her calf when he heard that you and Pierrot were in all likelihood captured, and still worse when he learned that mademoiselle was certainly in the hands of the enemy; but the bags seemed a great consolation to him, and he plunged into them for refreshment as a tired man does into a cool river. He took out all the letters and papers, and fingered the gold and counted it; and then he read a letter which had his own name on it, and looked at all the rest one by one. Some he put aside, and the others he returned to the bag again with the money, and he and Monsieur de Rohan, with two or three others, went into the window and talked together for full half an hour. At the end of that time they came back and opened the other bag; but they seemed to have no great love for a frippery; for, finding there was nothing in it but purfled shirts and laced collars and some suits of clothes, they soon shut it up again, and then told me I must come with them, for Mauzé was likely to be turned into a rat-trap. As I had found by this time there was very little cheese in the trap, I was as glad as any one to get out, and we travelled for two days, having a brush now and then with the king's soldiers. Sometimes we had a little the better and sometimes a little the worse; but we contrived to get through all in the end, and we also made three prisoners. From them Monsieur le Prince learned that you had been sent to Nantes and that mademoiselle had been sent after you; and thereupon he proposed to me to follow you, taking with me your money and such letters as he said could do no harm. I was to inquire for you diligently but quietly; and his Highness told me of several places in the town where I certainly should find friends, and perhaps information. Well, sir, I made my conditions, as all wise men do. I stipulated for a good horse, and for leave to go round by Meile and St. Maixens, (for we were by this time at a good farm hard by St. Jean,) and for money enough to carry me there and bring me back, and a little to spare. All this was granted, and I set out. But in one of the places where I was certain to find friends in Nantes, the good folks were so very friendly that they thought I should be better lodged and fed in the chateau, and therefore let his blessed Majesty or some of his people know that I was in the city inquiring for one Sir Peter Apsley, who was soon to arrive. Thereupon I was brought up here with my bag by two archers and an exempt; and here have I been entertained at the royal expense ever since."

"But you have not been a prisoner?" asked Edward. "Pierrot told me you were at liberty."

"You have seen a mouse just after a cat has caught it, sir?" said the man. "I was just in that state. I underwent a good mumbling in the shape of an examination when first I came, and then I was told I was set free because Sir Peter Apsley was under the cardinal's particular protection; but, whenever I tried to go a hundred yards, pat came a paw upon me; and I fully made up my mind that, like poor madame mouse, I was only to be played with till I was eaten up. But at length I heard you were here; and last night I was chewed up in another examination; but I always took refuge in utter ignorance. I only knew that you had arrived at Rochelle in a merchant-ship,—not in Lord Denbigh's fleet, for that they asked me particularly; that, you and I being both anxious to get out of that God-forgotten place, I had taken service with you, as you wanted another man, having but one attendant and a page; that you were neither very tall nor very short, neither very brown nor very fair; that you spoke some French, but more English, looked for a beard with good hope, and were altogether a personable young gentleman about nineteen."

"You did me more than justice, Jacques," replied Edward. "However, you have acted well and discreetly; and I trust all present danger has passed away."

"Ah, sir," replied the man, "danger is always present. Neither you nor I can tell that twelve hours ago you were in greater peril than you are at this moment."

"Good Heaven! what does he mean, Edward?" exclaimed Lucette, turning pale. "What new peril does he speak of?"

"None, madame, in particular," replied Jacques Beaupré. "My father was killed by the fall of a beam on the celebration of his wedding-day. My uncle served under King Henry the Fourth, and fought in ten battles, but died from running a nail into his foot. My eldest brother was a sailor, and saw many a storm, but was drowned while bathing in the Sevre Niortaise; and by the time that I was twenty I had learned that in this world there is no such thing as danger, no such thing as security, and that the only way to be happy is to be ready at all times and fearful at none."

"A good philosophy, upon my word," said Edward. "But now our thought must be, where we can find Monsieur de Soubise."

"You might as well try to ride in a carriage after a hawk," answered Jacques: "he is here and there and everywhere in a day. But Monsieur de Rohan you will find more easily. He is probably at St. Martin des Rivières, the little castle which, just in the fork of the two rivers, can be defended by a handful against an army."

"There, then, we must go," said Edward. "But it is strange, dear Lucette, that we have seen no one for the last three hours. I thought Monsieur de Tronson said he would rejoin us."

Edward little knew the multitude of events which were passing within the sombre walls of that chateau,—some great, some small, but all tending more or less to the promotion of those mighty results which were now marching on in France, all full of deep personal concern to the various personages around him, and amongst which the fate of himself and his Lucette was but as a petty interlude, which could excite nothing but a transient feeling of interest or amusement.

Half an hour more went by; and then was heard the sound of many feet passing along through some chamber near. At the end of above five minutes the door opened, and Monsieur de Tronson led in an elderly lady habited as if for a journey.

"Madame de Langdale," said the secretary of the cabinet, addressing Lucette, "Madame de Lagny, with whom you passed last night, will have the pleasure of accompanying you and Monsieur de Langdale on your journey. The carriage has been ready for an hour; but, the council having sat later than usual, I could not leave my post. Monsieur will do me the honor of accompanying me to his chamber below, where I will put him in possession of his money and his safe-conduct, together with his baggage, while you prepare for travelling, which, as it is, must, I fear, be protracted into the night."

Edward followed him down several flights of steps, conversing with him, as he went, upon the arrangements for their journey, telling him that he feared from his servant's information they would be obliged to proceed beyond Niort to St. Martin des Rivières, and that, consequently, at least two days more than he had calculated upon must pass ere he could fulfil the promise he had given to return.

But De Tronson seemed thoughtful and absent; for, in truth, he had just come from a painful scene;[3] and, although he heard, and answered all his young companion said, it was by an effort, and evidently without interest.

All the arrangements were soon made, however. Edward's property was restored to him; the tradesmen he and Lucette had employed were paid; and then the secretary led him to the little court, where stood one of the large clumsy carriages of the day with four tall horses. A stout man on horseback was also there, holding by the rein the horse which Jacques Beaupré had ridden to Nantes, and, as no beast had been provided for Pierrot, he mounted beside the coachman. Lucette and her companion were already in the vehicle, and, with a kind adieu from M. de Tronson, Edward took his place beside them, and the vehicle rolled on.

CHAPTER XXI.

It was a beautiful evening in July, the sky flecked with light clouds just beginning to look a little rosy with a consciousness that Phœbus was going to bed. They cannot get over that modest habit; for, although they have seen the god strip himself of his garmenture of rays and retire to rest every day for—on a very moderate calculation—six or seven thousand years, they will blush now and then when they see him entering his pavilion of repose and ready to throw off his mantle. There is much pudency about clouds. All other things get brazen and hardened by custom, but clouds blush still.

It was a beautiful evening in July when the carriage which contained Lucette, Edward, and Madame de Lagny arrived in sight of the chateau of St. Martin des Rivières; but, when they did come in sight, how to get at it became a question of some difficulty. There, on a little mound, stood the building,—not large, but apparently very massive and well fortified,—within a hundred yards of the confluence of two deep and rapid rivers, the passage of each commanded by the guns on the ramparts and on the keep. No bridge, no boat, was to be seen, and for some time the party of visitors made various signals to the dwellers in the chateau; but it was all in vain, and at length Edward Langdale resolved to mount the good strong horse of Jacques Beaupré and swim the nearest stream.

Educated in a city, it was not without terror and a sweet, low remonstrance that Lucette saw her young husband undertake and perform a feat she had never seen attempted before; but Edward, though borne with his horse a good way down the stream by the force of the water, reached the other side in safety, and his companions could see him ride to the draw-bridge and enter the castle.

During some twenty minutes nothing further could be descried; and then, at a point where one of the outworks came down to the river, what I think was called in those days a water-gate was opened, and a boat shot out with two strong rowers.

Edward Langdale himself did not appear; but one of the boatmen walked up to the carriage and informed the ladies that his lord, the Duc de Rohan, would be happy to receive them in the chateau, but that the carriage and the men must remain on that side of the river, as the boat could only contain four persons and none other could be had.

"Ah, that is the reason Monsieur de Langdale did not return for us," said Madame de Lagny, with whom Edward had become a great favorite. "I was sure he had too much politeness to send servants for his lady if he could come himself."

A few minutes passed in placing Lucette's little wardrobe in the boat, and then, with a heart somewhat faint and sad, she followed Madame de Lagny to the water-side, remembering but too acutely that on the opposite bank she was to be received by persons who, however near akin, were but strangers to her, and there, too, very soon to part from him whom she was not now ashamed to own to herself she loved better than any one on earth.

The boat shot off from the shore, and though carried so far down by the force of the current that the water-gate could not be reached, yet after some hard pulling the shore was gained, and the two ladies turned toward the drawbridge over which they had seen Edward Langdale pass. Madame de Lagny looked toward the great gate, but the young husband did not appear. In his place, however, was seen a stout middle-aged man, with hair somewhat silvered, and his breast covered by a plain corslet of steel. There were two or three other persons a step farther under the arch; and Madame de Lagny whispered, "That must be the duke himself. But where can Monsieur Edward be?"

Lucette's heart was asking her the same question; but by this time the Duc de Rohan was advancing to meet her and her companion, and in a moment more he was near enough to take Madame de Lagny's hand and raise it courteously to his lips.

"You have come to a rude place, madame," he said, "and among somewhat rude men; but we must do what we can to make your stay tolerable."

"Oh, my lord duke," replied the lady, with a courtly inclination of the head, "I must away as soon as possible. I am expected back at the court directly. But where is Monsieur de Langdale? I do not see him."

"He is in the chateau, madame," replied the duke; "but he has been telling me so strange a tale that I have judged it best, before he and this—["girl," he was in the act of saying; but he checked himself, and substituted the words "young lady">[—before he and this young lady meet again, to have from her lips and from yours what are the facts of the case. Pray, let us go in."

"The facts of the case are very simple, my lord," replied the old lady, with some stiffness. "Monsieur de Langdale is the husband of this young lady, formerly Mademoiselle de Mirepoix, whom you do not seem to recognise, my lord duke, though she is your near of kin. He married her in the presence of the cardinal and the whole court."

"More impudent varlet he!" exclaimed the duke, angrily. "And you, mademoiselle,—what have you to say to all this fine affair? Why, you are a mere child! This marriage can never stand!—without any one's consent! It is a folly!"

"Not at all, duke," said Madame de Lagny. "Pray, recollect, sir, that Madame de Rambouillet was married at twelve,—I myself at sixteen. Madame is nearly fifteen, she tells me; and, as to the marriage not standing, you will find yourself much mistaken. The man who made it is not one to leave any thing he undertakes incomplete, as you will discover. They are as firmly married as any couple in the land, and that with the full authority of the king, which in this realm of France supersedes the necessity for any other consent whatever. She is a ward of the crown, sir; and her father having died in rebellion is no bar to the rights of the monarch."

"Madame, I beseech you, use softer words," said the duke, in a calmer tone. "My good cousin De Mirepoix died in defence of his religion, without one thought of rebellion, and really in the service of his Majesty, whose plighted word had been violated not by himself, but by bad ministers who usurped his name. Make room, gentlemen. This way, madame. We shall find in this hall a more private place for our conference."

So saying, he led the way into the large room in the lower story of the keep, and there begged Madame de Lagny to be seated. Lucette he took by the arm and gazed into her face for a moment, saying,—

"Yes; she is very like. Here, take this stool, child: we have no fauteuils here. Now, answer my question. What had you to do with this marriage? Did it take place at his request or yours?"

Lucette's heart had at first sunk with alarm and disappointment at the harsh reception she had received, having little idea what a chattel—what a mere piece of goods—a rich orphan relation was looked upon amongst most of the noble families of France. But the very harshness which had terrified her at first at length roused her spirit; and, though she colored highly, she replied, in a firm tone, "At neither his request nor mine, my lord."

"Ah! good!" cried the duke. "Then neither of you consented? The marriage of course——"

"We did both consent," said Lucette, interposing. "Did he not tell you the circumstances? Did he not give you the cardinal's message?"

"He told me a good deal, and he said something about the Eminence; but, by my faith, I was so heated by the tale that I did not much attend to the particulars. Let me hear your story, mademoiselle. What did the cardinal say?"

"My lord, we had been stopped near Mauzé by some of the royal officers, and sent on under guard toward Nantes——"

"Oh, I know all about that," interrupted the duke. "What have you been doing since? I trust, not masquerading about Nantes dressed up as a page; though, by my faith, ladies are now getting so fond of men's clothes that they will soon leave us none to wear ourselves. Why, there was my good cousin De Chevreuse, with her young daughter, rode across the country, both in cavaliers' habits, and, finding no other gîte, stayed all night with the good simple curé of the parish, who never found out they were women till they were gone. Well, where have you been, and what have you been doing, since that affair at Mauzé?"

"The Abbey de Moreilles was burned by lightning, my lord," replied Lucette, whose cheek had not lost any part of its red from De Rohan's language. "We escaped into the Marais, where I was taken ill of the fever common there. As soon as I could travel, we went direct to Nantes, intending to come round at once and seek for Monsieur de Soubise. In consequence of his having sent a man with some of my husband's baggage to that city, we were discovered and arrested."

"Your husband, little child?" exclaimed the duke. "But go on; go on. What happened next?"

"I was separated from Edward, who had treated me with the kindness of a brother," said Lucette.

"Ay, I dare say," again interrupted De Rohan;—"with something more than the kindness of a brother."

"For shame, Monsieur le Duc!" said Madame de Lagny, sharply. "You said very truly just now that we had come to a rude place and amongst rude men. If the cardinal had known what sort of reception this poor lady would meet with, I am sure he would have followed the course Monsieur de Tronson hinted at and given her up to Madame de Chevreuse. There at least she would have been treated with respect and kindness."

At the mere name of Madame de Chevreuse the duke's countenance changed. Without knowing it, good old Madame de Lagny had touched a chord which was sure to vibrate in the heart of any of the Rohan Rohans as soon as one of the Rohan Montbazons was mentioned; and after a moment's pause the prince answered, with a very much less excited air, "His Eminence acted courteously and well in not giving up my fair young cousin to a lady who has no right to her guardianship, who was her father's enemy, whose conduct is not fit for the eyes of a young girl even to witness. But tell me, mademoiselle, what was the message his Eminence sent to my brother to account for his conduct in bestowing—in attempting to bestow—your hand upon an unknown English lad, who may be of good family or may not, but who is no match for any one of the name of Rohan?"

"He said, sir," answered Lucette, "that we were to tell you or the Prince de Soubise, whichever we might find, that, under the peculiar circumstances of the case,—by which, I presume, he meant our having travelled so long together,—the cardinal prime minister had judged it imperatively necessary we should be married, and had himself seen the ceremony performed; that for two years Edward should leave me with you, but that at the end of that time he should claim me and take me, and that all his Eminence's power should be exerted to give me to him. He added, in a lower tone, 'They will find me more difficult to frustrate than Madame de Chevreuse.'"

"That is true, as I live!" said the duke. "But yet this is hard. Why, girl, it will drive my brother Soubise quite mad,—if he be not mad already, as I sometimes think he is."

"His madness will not serve him much against the cardinal," said Madame de Lagny, dryly. "But, my lord, we must bring this discussion to an end, for it is growing dark, and I and Monsieur de Langdale must be treading our way back to Nantes. He is but, as it were, a prisoner upon parole; and I promised my cousin De Tronson I would make no delay."

"Madame, in all the agitation and annoyance this affair has cost me," said Rohan, "I have somewhat, I am afraid, forgotten courtesy. I ordered refreshments for you, indeed, as soon as I heard of your coming; but I did not remember to ask you to partake of them. They will be here in a moment."

"We can hardly stay," said the old lady. "But I beg, sir, you would let Monsieur Edouard be called, both to accompany me and to take leave of his wife."

The duke bit his lips; but after a moment's thought he answered, "Pray, madame, take some refreshment. As to this lad, he may come and wish her good-bye; but no private interview, if you please!"

The old marquise was a good deal offended at all that had passed, and it was not without satisfaction she replied, "Oh, I dare say they have said all to each other they want to say, Monsieur le Duc. They have had private interviews enough since their marriage to make all their arrangements. Is it not so, dear Lucette?"

But Lucette was weeping, and De Rohan, with a cloudy brow, quitted the room.

In a few moments some refreshments were brought in and placed upon the table, and the duke appeared, accompanied by Edward Langdale. The youth's look was serious, and even angry, but that of De Rohan a good deal more calm. "Sit down, monsieur, and take some food," said the latter as they entered; but Edward answered at once, "I neither eat nor drink in your house, sir. I did you and your family what service I could, honestly and faithfully; and—because, under force I could not resist, and to save myself and your fair cousin from a fate which you would not have wished to fall upon her nor I wish to encounter for myself, I yielded to a measure which God and she know I never proposed when it was fully in our power—you treat me with indignity. You much mistake English gentlemen, sir, if you suppose that such conduct can be forgotten in a few short minutes."

"By the Lord!" said De Rohan, with a laugh, "it is well you did not meet with Soubise; for you might have had his dagger in you for half what you have said."

"Or mine in him, if he had insulted me further," answered Edward, walking toward Lucette and taking her hand.

"A pretty bold gallant," said the duke, with a smile. "Madame de Lagny, I pray you, do more honor to my poor house than your young friend."

Now, it must be confessed, the good old lady was hungry; and hunger is an overruling passion. The duke helped her to food and wine, and then, having done what second thoughts had shown him was only courteous to a lady, he turned, under the influence of the same better thoughts, toward Edward, who was still talking in a whisper to Lucette, while she, on her part, could hardly answer a word for weeping.

"Young gentleman," said De Rohan, holding out his hand, "do not let us part bad friends. Remember, first, that if there be any validity in this marriage it is always better to keep well with a wife's relatives; and, secondly, that one of my house, above all others, may well feel mortified and enraged at an alliance which under no circumstances we could have desired or sanctioned. Recollect our family motto,—'Roi ne puis; prince ne daigne: Rohan je suis;' and pride is not so bad a thing as you may think it now. If it be pride of a right kind, it keeps a man from a world of meannesses. As to this young lady, I will take care of her, and, now that my first fit of passion is past, will treat her kindly. Be sure of that, Lucette; for I have even got a notion, by some bad experience, that a portion of love is no evil in the cup of matrimony. However, the question of this marriage must be a matter of consultation between my brother Soubise and myself, and the lawyers too; for I will not conceal from either of you that Soubise, who has more to do with the business than I have, will break it if he can."

Edward took the proffered hand; but he only replied, "His Eminence the cardinal said that he had made it so fast there was no power on earth or in hell to break it. But that must be determined hereafter, my lord duke. At the end of two years I will claim my wife. In the mean time, where is Monsieur de Soubise?"

"Go not near him! go not near him!" said De Rohan. "By my honor, there would be blood-shed soon! He is at Blavet, I fancy, now, on his way to England; but I will write to him this night, and, if possible, you shall have his answer at Nantes. You must not expect any thing very favorable to your pretensions; but, whatever it is, it shall be sent."

"My lord, if I might ask one favor, I would do it," said Edward. "It is this. From what you have yourself said, and from what others have told me, I infer that Monsieur de Soubise is of no very placable nor temperate disposition. He himself has had some share in producing both what you look upon as a misfortune and what had nearly proved the destruction of Lucette and myself, by sending—with very good intentions, doubtless, but I think very unadvisedly—letters and other matters to the very residence of the court, which betrayed our coming to his Eminence the cardinal. Had that not been done, we should in all probability have passed without question, and I should have been able to restore this dear girl to her relations as Mademoiselle de Mirepoix. As it is, my wife she is and must remain; but I would rather that she was under your care than that of the prince, for she has this evening suffered too much for an event, which she could not avoid without dooming herself and me to destruction; and I would fain that the same or perhaps more should not be inflicted upon her from another quarter. Lucette will explain to you much that I have not time to tell, for I see Madame de Lagny has risen, and it is growing so dark that I fear we must depart."

"I can promise nothing," said the duke, "but that I will do my best."