Tiers of vines on the hillsides were mostly cut and trimmed like currant bushes, and disappointed Arthur, who had expected festoons on trellises. But this was the special time for beauty. The whole population, in picturesque costumes, were filling huge baskets with the clusters, and snatches of their merry songs came pealing down to the coche d’eau, as it quietly crept along. Towards evening groups were seen with piled baskets on their heads, or borne between them, youths and maidens crowned with vines, half-naked children dancing like little Bacchanalians, which awoke classical recollections in Arthur and delighted the children.
Poor Madame de Bourke was still much depressed, and would sit dreaming half the day, except when roused by some need of her children, some question, or some appeal for her admiration. Otherwise, the lovely heights, surmounted with tall towers, extinguisher-capped, of castle, convent, or church, the clear reaches of river, the beautiful turns, the little villages and towns gleaming white among the trees, seemed to pass unseen before her eyes, and she might be seen to shudder when the children pressed her to say how many days it would be before they saw their father.
An observer with a mind at ease might have been much entertained with the airs and graces that the two maids, Rosette and Babette, lavished upon Laurence, their only squire; for Maître Hébert was far too distant and elderly a person for their little coquetries. Rosette dealt in little terrors, and, if he was at hand, durst not step across a plank without his hand, was sure she heard wolves howling in the woods, and that every peasant was ‘ce barbare;’ while Babette, who in conjunction with Maître Hébert acted cook in case of need, plied him with dainty morsels, which he was only too apt to bestow on the beggars, or the lean and hungry lad who attended on the horses. Victorine, on the other hand, by far the prettiest and most sprightly of the three, affected the most supreme indifference to him and his attentions, and hardly deigned to give him a civil word, or to accept the cornflowers and late roses he brought her from time to time. ‘Mere weeds,’ she said. And the grapes and Queen Claude plums he brought her were always sour. Yet a something deep blue might often be seen peeping above her trim little apron.
Not that Lanty had much time to disport himself in this fashion, for the Abbé was his care, and was perfectly happy with a rod of his arranging, with which to fish over the side. Little Ulysse was of course fired with the same emulation, and dangled his line for an hour together. Estelle would have liked to do the same, but her mother and Mademoiselle Julienne considered the sport not convenable for a demoiselle. Arthur was once or twice induced to try the Abbé’s rod, but he found it as mere a toy as that of the boy; and the mere action of throwing it made his heart so sick with the contrast with the ‘paidling in the burns’ of his childhood, that he had no inclination to continue the attempt, either in the slow canal or the broadening river.
He was still very shy with the Countess, who was not in spirits to set him at ease; and the Abbé puzzled him, as is often the case when inexperienced strangers encounter unacknowledged deficiency. The perpetual coaxing chatter, and undisguised familiarity of La Jeunesse with the young ecclesiastic did not seem to the somewhat haughty cast of his young Scotch mind quite becoming, and he held aloof; but with the two children he was quite at ease, and was in truth their great resource.
He made Ulysse’s fishing-rod, baited it, and held the boy when he used it—nay, he once even captured a tiny fish with it, to the ecstatic pity of both children. He played quiet games with them, and told them stories—conversed on Télémaque with Estelle, or read to her from his one book, which was Robinson Crusoe—a little black copy in pale print, with the margins almost thumbed away, which he had carried in his pocket when he ran away from school, and nearly knew by heart.
Estelle was deeply interested in it, and varied in opinion whether she should prefer Calypso’s island or Crusoe’s, which she took for as much matter of fact as did, a century later, Madame Talleyrand, when, out of civility to Mr. Robinson, she inquired after ‘ce bon Vendredi.’
She inclined to think she should prefer Friday to the nymphs.
‘A whole quantity of troublesome womenfolk to fash one,’ said Arthur, who had not arrived at the age of gallantry.
‘You would never stay there!’ said Estelle; ‘you would push us over the rock like Mentor. I think you are our Mentor, for I am sure you tell us a great deal, and you don’t scold.’
‘Mentor was a cross old man,’ said Ulysse.
To which Estelle replied that he was a goddess; and Arthur very decidedly disclaimed either character, especially the pushing over rocks. And thus they glided on, spending a night in the great, busy, bewildering city of Lyon, already the centre of silk industry; but more interesting to the travellers as the shrine of the martyrdoms. All went to pray at the Cathedral except Arthur. The time was not come for heeding church architecture or primitive history; and he only wandered about the narrow crooked streets, gazing at the toy piles of market produce, and looking at the stalls of merchandise, but as one unable to purchase. His mother had indeed contrived to send him twenty guineas, but he knew that he must husband them well in case of emergencies, and Lady Nithsdale had sewn them all up, except one, in a belt which he wore under his clothes.
He had arrived at the front of the Cathedral when the party came out. Madame de Bourke had been weeping, but looked more peaceful than he had yet seen her, and Estelle was much excited. She had bought a little book, which she insisted on her Mentor’s reading with her, though his Protestant feelings recoiled.
‘Ah!’ said Estelle, ‘but you are not Christian.’
‘Yes, truly, Mademoiselle.’
‘And these died for the Christian faith. Do you know mamma said it comforted her to pray there; for she was sure that whatever happened, the good God can make us strong, as He made the young girl who sat in the red-hot chair. We saw her picture, and it was dreadful. Do read about her, Monsieur Arture.’
They read, and Arthur had candour enough to perceive that this was the simple primitive narrative of the death of martyrs struggling for Christian truth, long ere the days of superstition and division. Estelle’s face lighted with enthusiasm.
‘Is it not noble to be a martyr?’ she asked.
‘Oh!’ cried Ulysse; ‘to sit in a red-hot chair! It would be worse than to be thrown off a rock! But there are no martyrs in these days, sister?’ he added, pressing up to Arthur as if for protection.
‘There are those who die for the right,’ said Arthur, thinking of Lord Derwentwater, who in Jacobite eyes was a martyr.
‘And the good God makes them strong,’ said Estelle, in a low voice. ‘Mamma told me no one could tell how soon we might be tried, and that I was to pray that He would make us as brave as St. Blandina! What do you think could harm us, Monsieur, when we are going to my dear papa?’
It was Lanty who answered, from behind the Abbé, on whose angling endeavours he was attending. ‘Arrah then, nothing at all, Mademoiselle. Nothing in the four corners of the world shall hurt one curl of your blessed little head, while Lanty Callaghan is to the fore.’
‘Ah! but you are not God, Lanty,’ said Estelle gravely; ‘you cannot keep things from happening.’
‘The Powers forbid that I should spake such blasphemy!’ said Lanty, taking off his hat. ‘’Twas not that I meant, but only that poor Lanty would die ten thousand deaths—worse than them as was thrown to the beasts—before one of them should harm the tip of that little finger of yours!’
Perhaps the same vow was in Arthur’s heart, though not spoken in such strong terms.
Thus they drifted on till the old city of Avignon rose on the eyes of the travellers, a dark pile of buildings where the massive houses, built round courts, with few external windows, recalled that these had once been the palaces of cardinals accustomed to the Italian city feuds, which made every house become a fortress.
On