Jérome passed again, after they had gone a few yards, and nodded and beckoned. They ran and kept up with his horse, till he stopped opposite the post-house. He told them hastily that he was to be stationed here; and he was glad of it, as it was expected that the party would halt at the post-house. He desired the boys to keep close behind, at his horse’s tail, where nobody would meddle with them. They must not notice him till spoken to, and must take care of his horse’s tread: all the rest they might leave to him. There was presently an opportunity for him to speak a few words more to them; and he could not help saying how sorry he was to see how they had been crying since he had left their cottage. Of course, this brought out the story of Charles, and the new misfortune threatened to the family. Jérome was not the only one who heard the tale. His smoking comrade was by his side: and it was exactly the kind of story to which his ears were most open. The two soldiers conversed together in a low voice for a minute or two, and then sat bolt upright and silent, as if they had been made of stone, and had not each carried a pitying heart under his stiff uniform and steady countenance. When the military music was heard coming nearer and nearer, and distant cheers were borne on the breeze, the commanding officer rode by, and saw nothing in the demeanour of these two soldiers to distinguish them from all the rest of the line, who were thinking only of themselves or the Dauphiness.
She came, preceded by so many attendants on horseback, and inferior carriages, which passed without taking any notice of the post-house, that Robin and Marc heard the people about them lamenting that there would be no halt, and that they should barely see the Princess after all. They were mistaken, however. It was one of the plans of the journey that the royal carriage should stop for a few moments at every post-house, whether fresh horses were wanted or not, in order that the loyal feeling of the people should be cherished by a sight of her who was to be their queen, and whose appearance was indeed likely to captivate all eyes and hearts.
The six bay horses were checked precisely at the right spot: and all which preceded the royal carriage halted at the same moment. The air was rent by a cheer, such a cheer as convinced the Count and his family how faint in comparison their welcome had been, when they had appeared from the by-road to the chateau half an hour before. When his train had taken their station at the entrance of Saint Menehould, there had been a few cries of “Long live the Count our lord!” but they were a mere whisper compared with the acclamation which greeted the Dauphiness.
The royal carriage was open almost all round, so that the Princess was conspicuously visible. She was full as beautiful as any of the gazers had expected. Her complexion was fresh and fair, her countenance smiling, and her blue eyes full of spirit and feeling; and though she looked no more than fifteen (her actual age), all thought, as she moved her stately head in answer to their greeting, that they had never seen so dignified a lady.
In about two minutes from the halting of her carriage, Jérome turned his head round with a hasty smile to the boys; and before they knew what it meant, his and his comrade’s horses began scrambling and sliding. Jérome’s opened a way for the boys to escape into the road from the danger of a kick; and as soon as they were safe there, the horses began to prance, and make yet more confusion. The Dauphiness looked that way, as Jérome intended that she should; and when her attention was fairly fixed, he called to the boys to come back to their places.
As Jérome had hoped, their doleful faces, all swollen with crying, attracted the notice of the Princess, who had hitherto met only smiling countenances wherever she turned, since she had entered her new country. These traces of tears carried back her thoughts to her own weeping, some days before, on leaving Vienna; and she suddenly beckoned to the children. In a moment a hundred voices bade them go forward to the carriage; a hundred hands pointed and pushed, so that they were presently within hearing of the kind questions of the young Princess.
She asked what made them so unhappy on this day, when every one else looked pleased and joyful. They could scarcely help crying again at the question; but they were old enough to know that everything might depend on their behaviour at this moment; and they strove to speak, and to speak plainly. Had they been ill? The Princess asked, observing to her ladies that they looked sadly thin. No, they had not been ill, they replied; they were only very unhappy to-day.
The bailiff, who was in attendance on the Count’s family, now put himself forward to explain, not to the Dauphiness herself (that would have been too bold), but to one of her ladies, on the other side of the carriage, about his having taken away the boys’ rabbits and pigeons according to law.
“ ’Tis not that,” cried Marc, indignantly, as he heard this. “We left off crying about the rabbits and pigeons long ago: did not we, Robin? It is about Charles and Marie.”
“Tell me about Charles and Marie,” said the Princess, in broken French, “and then all about your pigeons.”
“Charles and our sister were just going to be married, and we had begun a house in the wood for them; and we have had to pull it to pieces again; and this morning the Count says Charles must go for a soldier for three years; and Marie is crying at home so—”
Marc could not go on for his own tears.
The Count’s sons had, by this time, made their way through the closing crowd, to hear what was going on.
“Casimir,” said his brother, “your bad work of this morning must be undone, you see. Do your part with a good grace. Bring my father to receive the commands of the Dauphiness.”
Casimir yielded. While he was gone, his brother explained to the Princess the rights which the Count had over this family, as over the other peasants of the neighbourhood. He ventured to answer for his father, that he would see the hardship of this particular case, and would permit some arrangement to be made, by which Charles might be spared the threatened misfortune, and restored to his hopes of a speedy marriage.
“Where is this Charles?” asked the Princess. “I will not ask to see the tearful Marie before so many eyes.”
Robin had seen Charles, just before, near the spot; for Charles was desperate, and would neither hide nor attempt to escape. He roamed about, half-mad with the suffering of his mind, among the holiday groups of Saint Menehould; and when called, was not long in presenting himself.
“Alas! Is this the bridegroom?” asked the Princess, shrugging her shoulders, with an expression of pity.
“He looks better than that sometimes, when he plays with us,” said Marc, zealous for his friend Charles.
“But his dress!” said a lady, who had seldom before seen a peasant, and was not familiarised with the coarse woollen garment and leathern belt, so common among the country people.
“It is just what father wears, and everybody,” maintained Marc.
By this time the Count was waiting the pleasure of the Princess, ready to assure her of his patronage of any persons she might please to favour. The Dauphiness asked whether such poverty as she witnessed was not a thing hitherto unheard of—whether such misery could be common in the country she had just entered? The bridling of some of her ladies, and the annoyance in the faces of some gentlemen of her suite, showed her that she had asked an imprudent question. Yet she was only fifteen, and was to be hereafter the queen of this country; and if she had never done worse things than asking such questions, she might have lived beloved, and died lamented, in a good old age.
She saw another thing in the countenances of her attendants—that it was time to be gone. She therefore requested of the Count, as a favour to herself, that he would settle Charles advantageously on his lands; and smiling at the young man, she declared that she would answer for Charles’s fidelity to his lord. Charles was on his knees at the word, too much overpowered to speak, but promising all by his clasped hands and heaving breast. The Count declared he should have a cottage and a field that very day, and his hearty consent to take Marie home as soon