The Chaplet of Pearls, Charlotte M. Yonge [superbooks4u .TXT] 📗

cannot be otherwise.’ Then with a brisker, more eager voice, he continued: ‘Monsieur knows that the family burial-place is Bellaise? Well, to-morrow, at ten o’clock, all the household, all the neighbourhood, will come and sprinkle holy water on the bier. The first requiem will be sung, and then will all repair to the convent. There will be the funeral mass, the banquet, the dole. Every creature in the castle—nay, in all the neighbourhood for twenty miles round—will be at the convent, for the Abbess has given out that the alms are to be double, and the bread of wheat. Not a soul will remain here, save the two gendarmes on guard at that door, and the poor Aime, whom no one will miss, even if any person could be distinguished in their black cloaks. Madame la Comtesse has given him this key, which opens a door on the upper floor of the keep, unknown to the guards, who, for that matter, shall have a good tankard of spiced wine to console and occupy them. Then is the way clear to the castle court, which is not over looked by their window, the horses are in the stables, and we are off,—that is if M. le Baron will save a poor youth from the wrath of M. de Nid-de-Merle.’

‘You are and honest fellow!’ cried Philip, shaking him vehemently by the hand. ‘You shall go with us to England, and we will make a brave man of you.’

‘We shall owe you our lives,’ said Berenger, warmly, ‘and be ever bound to you. Tell your lady that THIS is magnanimity; that now I truly thank her as our preserver, and shall bless her all the days of the life she gives us. But my servants?’

‘Guibert is a traitor,’ said Aime; ‘he has been so ever since you were at Paris. Breathe no word to him; but he, as a Catholic, shall be invited to the funeral. Your stout Englishman should by all means be with us.’

‘My Norman also,’ added Berenger,—‘my dear foster-brother, who has languished in the dungeon for three years;’ and when the explanation had been made, Aime assented, though half-unwillingly, to the necessity, and presently quitted them to bear back their answer to his lady. Philip shook his hand violently again, patted him on the back, so as almost to take away his breath, and bade him never fear, they would be sworn brothers to him for ever; and then threw up his hat into the air, and was so near astonishing the donjon walls with a British hurrah, that Berenger had to put his hand over his mouth and strangle the shout in his very throat.

The chief of that night was spent in enlarging the hole in Osbert’s wall, so as to admit of his creeping through it; and they also prepared their small baggage for departure. Their stock of money, though some had been spent on renewing their clothes, and some in needful gratuities to the servants and gendarmes, was sufficient for present needs, and they intended to wear their ordinary dress. They were unlikely to meet any of the peasants in the neighbourhood; and, indeed, Berenger had so constantly ridden out in his black mask, that its absence, now that his scars were gone, was as complete a change as could be effected in one whose height was of unusual.

‘There begins the kneel,’ said Philip, standing at the window. ‘It’s our joy-bell, Berry! Every clang seems to me to say, “Home! home! home!”

‘For you, Phil,’ said Berenger; ‘but I must be satisfied of Eutacie’s fate first. I shall go first to Nissard—whither we were bound when we were seized—then to La Rochelle, whence you may—-’

‘No more of that,’ burst out Philip. ‘What! would you have me leave you now, after all we have gone through together? Not that you will find her. I don’t want to vex you, brother, on such a day as this, but you conjurer’s words are coming true in the other matter.’

‘How? What mean you, Phil?’

‘What’s the meaning of Aime?’ asked Philip. ‘Even I am French scholar enough for that. And who sends him?’

Meantime the court was already filling with swarms of persons of every rank and degree, but several anxious hours had passed before the procession was marshaled; and friars and monks, black, white, and gray,—priests in rich robes and tall caps,—black-cloaked gentlemen and men-at-arms,—all bearing huge wax tapers,—and peasants and beggars of every conceivable aspect,—filed out of the court, bearing with them the richly-emblazoned bier of the noble and puissant knight, the Beausire Charles Eutache de Ribaumont Nid-de-Merle, his son walking behind in a long black mantle, and all who counted kindred of friendship following two and two; then all the servants, every one who properly belonged to the castle, were counted out by the brothers from their windows, and Guibert among them.

‘Messieurs,’ a low, anxious voice sounded in the room.

‘We will only fetch Osbert.’

It was a terrible only, as precious moments slipped away before there appeared in the lower chamber Berenger and Humfrey, dragging between them a squalid wretch, with a skin like stained parchment over a skeleton, tangled hair and beard, staring bewildered eyes, and fragments of garments, all dust, dirt, and rags.

‘Leave me, leave me, dear master,’ said the object, stretching his whole person towards the fire as they let him sink down before it. ‘You would but ruin yourself.’

‘It is madness to take him,’ said Aime, impatiently.

‘I go not without him,’ said Berenger. ‘Give me the soup, Philip.’

Some soup and wine had been placed by the fire, and likewise a shirt and a suit of Humfrey’s clothes were spread before it. Aime burst out into the yard, absolutely weeping with impatience, when, unheeding all his remonstrances, his three companions applied themselves to feeding, rubbing, and warming Osbert, and assuring him that the pains in his limbs would pass away with warmth and exercise. He had been valiant of heart in his dungeon; but his sudden plunge into upper air was like rising from the grave, and brought on all the effects of his dreary captivity, of which he had hardly been sensible when he had first listened to the voice of hope.

Dazzled, crippled, helpless, it seemed almost impossible that he should share the flight, but Berenger remained resolute; and when Aime returned from his fourth frantic promenade, he was told that all was ready.

But for the strength of Berenger and Humfrey the poor fellow could never have been carried up and up, nearly to the top of the keep, then along a narrow gallery, then down again even to the castle hall, now empty, though with the candle-sticks still around where the bier had been. Aime knelt for a moment where the head had been, hiding his face; Osbert rested in a chair; and Philip looked wistfully up at his own sword hung over the chimney.

‘Resume your swords, Messieurs,’ said Aime, observing him; ‘Madame desires it; and take pistols also.’

They gladly obeyed; and when, after this short delay, they proceeded, Osbert moved somewhat less painfully, but when they arrived at the stable only four horses stood there.

‘Ah! this miserable!’ cried Aime, passionately, ‘he ruins all my arrangements.’

‘Leave me,’ again entreated Landry. ‘Once outside, I can act the beggar and cripple, and get back to Normandy.’