Max Pemberton
The Little Huguenot
A Romance of Fontainebleau
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066419448
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II AT THE GATE OF THE CHÂTEAU.
CHAPTER III GABRIELLE DE VERNET.
CHAPTER IV THE KINGFISHER AND THE CROWS.
CHAPTER V THE ABBÉ GONDY COUNTS HIS SPOONS.
CHAPTER VI IN THE BOWER OF VIOLETS.
CHAPTER VII THE ABBÉ GONDY WRITES A SERMON.
CHAPTER VIII MASKING IN THE WOODS.
CHAPTER IX PEPIN MAKES A BARGAIN.
CHAPTER X THE WOMAN AND THE PRIEST.
CHAPTER XI THE ABBÉ AND THE TREE.
CHAPTER XII DE GUYON HEARS THE NEWS.
CHAPTER I
PEPIN IS BLESSED.
The priest had a volume of Cicero upon his lap, and in his right hand there was a rosary carved of amber and of gold. Though the sun's beams fell soft in the glen, and the grass was green and rich, and a canopy of young leaves cast welcome shade upon his face, he continued to read the oration upon which his eyes had fallen, and to banish those seductive whisperings of the devil, that he should lay himself down and sleep. Insensible to the wooing music of the gushing cascade, or to that stillness which had come upon all nature as the heat of the day fell, he maintained a fine rigidity of posture as he sat upright upon a boulder of stone, and bent his whole soul to the study of the black-lettered text before him. Hours passed and found his attitude unchanged; a distant church bell chimed the quarters dolefully, and drew from him no other response than the mutter of an Ave; the shadows in the glen lengthened and lengthened; even the first freshness of night breathed upon the forest, and left him insensible to all but those problems of his faith which crowded upon his mind.
Death and sleep and eternity! A priest may think even of these. Six years before this year, 1772, Père Cavaignac was far too busy snatching souls in Paris to trouble himself with those more subtle reasonings to which a new philosophy had turned. But here in the depths of the forest of Fontainebleau, it was otherwise. The very atmosphere seemed dream-giving and full of spells. The unbroken silence of the thickets, the music of the glittering falls, the dark places of pools and caverns, threw back the man's mind upon itself, and wrung from him the question, To what end? Why was he an exile from the capital? Why was his home a hut of logs hidden even from the eyes of the woodlanders? For what cause did he eat black bread and drink sour wine? That he might sleep for ever after death as he had slept through eternity before his birth? Night and the new philosophy told him that here was his answer; day and the soul's voice rekindled his faith so that he seemed to behold the Christ walking in the forest before him. And in these moments, the remembrance that he was a hunted man, that when next he looked upon the city that he loved it would be for the last time, exalted his whole being, and lifted him up in visions to the gates of heaven itself.
Night began to come down in earnest when at last the Jesuit closed his book. He had sat so still in his meditation that a deer thrust herself through the bracken not fifty yards from him, and drank undisturbed at the rippling brook. A great eagle was soaring high above him; and oft as he listened he could hear the crafty patter of a wolf or the screech of a heron in the distant marsh. There was no tongue of the forest with which six years of exile had not made him familiar; no note of bird or beast that was novel enough to carry his mind from the path it followed. From man alone he turned, hiding himself in the very depths of the bracken, frequenting the darker caves, lurking in the glens where the springs bubbled and the adder sunned himself. It was not alone that the edict of banishment which had fallen upon his Order made men a danger to him. He had been indiscreet enough to believe that the broad principles of his faith were meant to bind prince and peasant alike; and he had even denounced the profligacy of kings from the pulpit; and this with so fanatical a zeal that men cried, "Here is a new Ravaillac—let his Majesty beware of him!" From that day there was no den dark enough to hide him in Paris, no friend so powerful that he could find shelter in his house. He fled to the forest, and lurked there waiting and watching, as his rector had commanded him.
The deer drank at the stream, and bounded into the thicket again; the silver birches swayed their branches before the gentle west wind; a clock in the distant village chimed the hour of seven. The priest rose from his seat, and wrapped himself in the warm black cape which served him for cloak by day and blanket by night. Then he forced his way through the bushes and struck upon a narrow, bramble-hidden path which carried him out upon the lawn-like sward above. Here were great gnarled oaks and groves of yoke-elms; undulating sweeps of the finest grass land all carpeted with violets; pools deep down in the shady glades; even beaches of the finest yellow sand, where the brooklets made music in their pebbly beds. But the Jesuit had eyes for none of these things. He stood at the glen's head, motionless, irresolute, perhaps even fearful. A small company of mounted men had debouched from the opposite wood; and seeing him, one of their number set spurs to the beast he rode and galloped furiously across the grass.
The man was ill-dressed, and odd enough to be remarkable anywhere. He wore a leather jerkin about his body, and a broad-brimmed hat with the stump of a feather in it. His calves were bound round with strips of bright green cloth, and his breeches were balloon-shaped and of prodigious size. He had a pair of little twinkling eyes which danced like the flame of a candle in the wind, and his cheeks were so fat that rolls of flesh almost hid his mouth. For sword he carried a cudgel of black wood; and from the holster, where his pistols should have been, the end of a four-holed flageolet protruded. But conspicuous among his accoutrements was a wine-skin with little in it, and this he held his hand upon lovingly while he addressed the Jesuit.
"Holy Mother of God, defend me from all devils!" said he, surveying the motionless priest with some curiosity; and then, in quick correction, he added:
"Thy blessing, my father!"
The