The Huguenot Part 19

The degree of impatient anxiety under which he had laboured had caused him to make the two first days' journeys as long as possible, so that not above ten or twelve miles, or at most fifteen, lay between him and his own chateau, when he set out on that third morning from the inn.

Nothing occurred to disturb his journey; every thing pa.s.sed in peace and tranquillity; known, loved, and respected in that part of the country, the people vied with each other as to which should show him the most affectionate civility, and no news either from the capital or Poitiers had reached him to dissipate the apparent calm around. Every thing wore the aspect of peace throughout the country. The peasant's wife sunned herself at the door of her cottage, with distaff and spindle in hand, plying lightly her daily toil, while her children ran or crawled about before her, full of enjoyment themselves, and giving enjoyment to her who beheld them. The peasant pursued his labour in the fields, and cheered it by a song; and although the Count knew many of those whom he saw to be Protestants, there was no appearance of anxiety or apprehension amongst them. Every thing was cheerful, and contented, and tranquil, and the peace of the scene sank into his heart. Angels may be supposed to look upon this earth's pleasures with a feeling of melancholy though not sadness, from a knowledge of their fragility; and so Albert of Morseiul, though he felt in some degree calmed and tranquillised by what he saw, yet could not prevent a sensation of deep melancholy from mingling with his other feelings, as he thought, "This can but last for a very, very little time."

At length he turned into the very wood where he had encountered the robbers, which now bore, of course, a very different aspect in the full daylight from that which it had borne in the depth of the night.

The summer suns.h.i.+ne was now streaming through the green leaves, and far away between the wide bolls of the trees, the mossy ground might be seen carpeted with velvet softness, and chequered with bright catches and streams of light. The road, too, though not in the full suns.h.i.+ne, was crossed here and there by long lines of radiance, and the sky over head was seen clear and blue, while every projecting branch of the tall trees above caught the light, and sparkled with a brighter green.

The aspect of this scene was more tranquillising still than the last; but it did not chase the Count's deep melancholy; and, finding that he was riding very slow, which only afforded time for thought when thought was useless, he turned round to see if his attendants were near, intending to ride on faster, if they were within sight. The road was very nearly straight; and, at the distance of four or five hundred yards, pa.s.sing one of the soft green refres.h.i.+ng shadows cast by the wood, he saw the body of servants riding gaily on after him, conversing together. Between him and them, however, just issuing from one of the green wood paths, which joined the high road, was another figure, which immediately called the Count's attention. It was that of an old man, plain and simple in his own appearance, but mounted on a mule, gaily tricked and caparisoned, as was the universal custom in those days, with fringes and k.n.o.bs of red worsted, and bells of many a size and shape about its collar and head-stall. The rider was not one of those whom men forget easily; and, though he was at a considerable distance as well as the attendants, the Count instantly recognised good Claude de l'Estang.

Seeing the Count pause, the old man put his mule into a quicker pace, and rode on towards him. When he came near he wished his young friend joy of his return, but his own face was any thing but joyful.

"We shall all be indeed glad to see you, my dear Albert," he said, "for we have very great need of your return on every account. Besides all these grievous and iniquitous proceedings against the Protestants, we have in our own bosom men who I hear had the impudence even to attack you; but who have since committed various other outrages of a marked and peculiar character. One man, I learn, has been shot dead upon the spot, another has been wounded severely, a third has been robbed and maltreated. But I cannot discover that any one has met with harshness, except such as are distinguished for a somewhat inordinate zeal in favour of the Catholic faith. Not a Protestant has been attacked, which marks the matter more particularly, and the peasantry themselves are beginning to notice the fact, so that it will not be long before their priests take notice of it, and the eyes of the state will be turned angrily upon us."

"I fear indeed that it will be so," replied the Count; "but whether the result will or will not be evil, G.o.d in his wisdom only knows."

"How is this, my dear Albert?" exclaimed the clergyman. "You sent to me to ask that I should draw up a humble pet.i.tion to the King, representing the Protestants as peaceful, humble, obedient subjects, and surely we must take every measure that we may not by our own actions give the lie to our own words."

"I will certainly, my dear friend," replied the Count, "take every measure that it is possible for man to take, to put down this evil system of plunder and violence, whether it be carried on by Protestants or Catholics. There is a notorious violation of the law, and I am determined to put it down if it be possible, without any regard whatsoever to distinction between the two religions. The pet.i.tion to the King was necessary when I wrote about it, and is so still, for it was then our only hope, and it may now be taken as a proof that even to the last moment we were willing to show ourselves humble, devoted, and loyal. I expect nothing from it but that result; but that result itself is something."

"I fear, my son," said the old man, "that you have heard bad news since you wrote to me."

"The worst," replied the Count, with a melancholy shake of the head, "the very worst that can be given. They intend, I understand from authority that cannot be doubted, to suppress entirely the free exercise of our religion in France, and to revoke the edict of our good King Henry which secured it to us."

The old man dropped the reins upon his mule's neck, and raised his eyes appealingly to heaven. "Terrible, indeed!" he said; "but I can scarcely credit it."

"It is but too true--but too certain!" replied the Count; "and yet terrible as this is--horrible, infamous, detestable as is the cruelty and tyranny of the act itself, the means by which it is to be carried into execution are still more cruel, tyrannical, and detestable."

The old man gazed in his face as if he had hardly voice to demand what those means were; but after a brief pause the Count went on: "To sum up all in one word, they intend to take the Protestant children from the Protestant mother, from the father, from the brother, and forbidding all intercourse, to place them in the hands of the enemies of our faith, to be educated in the superst.i.tions that we abhor."

"G.o.d will avert it!" said the old man; "it cannot be that even the sins and the follies of him who now sits upon the throne of France should deserve the signal punishment of being thus utterly given up and abandoned by the spirit of G.o.d to the tyrannical and brutal foolishness of his own heart. I cannot believe that it will ever be executed. I cannot believe that it will ever be attempted. I doubt not they will go on as they have begun; that they will send smooth-faced priests with cunning devices, as they have done indeed since you went hence, to bribe and buy to the domination of Satan the weak and wavering of our flocks, and send lists of them to the King, to swell his heart with the pride of having made converts. I can easily conceive that they will be permitted to take from us places and dignities, to drive us by every sort of annoyance, so that the gold may be purified from the dross, the corn may be winnowed from the chaff. All this they will do, for all this undoubtedly we sinners have deserved. But I do not believe that they will be permitted to do more, and my trust is not in man but in G.o.d. For the sins that we have committed, for the weakness we have displayed, for murmurs and rebellion against his will, for sinful doubts and apprehensions of his mercy, from the earthliness of our thoughts, and the want of purity in all our dealings, G.o.d may permit us to be smitten severely, terribly; but the fiery sword of his vengeance will not go out against his people beyond a certain point. He has built his church upon a rock, and there shall it stand; nor will I ever believe that the reformed church of France shall be extinguished in the land, nor that the people who have sought G.o.d with sincerity shall be left desolate. We will trust in him, my son! We will trust in him!"

"Ay," said the Count; "but my excellent old friend, it now becomes our duty to think seriously what, means, under G.o.d's will, we may use in defence of his church. I myself have thought upon it long and eagerly, but I have thought of it in vain, for the subject is so difficult and so embarra.s.sed, that without some one to counsel me, some one to aid me, I can fix upon no plan that offers even a probability of success.

I must speak with you before to-morrow be over, long and earnestly. I know not why I should not turn to your dwelling with you even now," he added; "I know not when I may be taken away from the midst of you, for much personal danger threatens myself. But, however, what I have to say must be said alone, and in private. The man Riquet is behind, and though I believe he is faithful to me, and holds but loosely by his Popish creed, I must not trust too far. Let us turn towards your dwelling."

"Be it so, be it so," replied the old man; and wending on their way through the forest for some distance farther, they took the first road that turned to the right, and pursued the forest path that ran along through the bottom of the deep valleys, in which some part of the wood was scattered.

It had been a bright and a beautiful day, but the air was warm and sultry; and the horses of the Count looked more fatigued than might have been expected from so short a journey. The old clergyman and his young friend spoke but little more as they went along; and it was only to comment upon the tired condition of the horses, and the oppressive state of the atmosphere that they did so.

"It is as well, my son," said Claude de l'Estang at length, "it is as well that you have turned with me, for depend upon it we shall have a storm. Do you not see those large harsh ma.s.ses of cloud rising above the trees?"

"I have remarked them some time," replied the Count, "and twice I thought I saw a flash."

"Hark!" exclaimed the clergyman, and there was evidently a sound of thunder not very distant. "Let us ride a little quicker," the old man continued; "we are just coming to the slope of the hill where the wood ends, and then we are not far from Auron."

The Count did as the pastor asked him, and the moment after they issued out from the wood, upon the shoulder of a gentle eminence, with green slopes declining, from either side of the road, into the valleys. A tall hill rose gradually to the left, along the side of which the highway was cut; and full in their view to the right,--but two or three miles on, across the valley, left by the eminence along which they rode--appeared the high conical hill of Auron, crowned, as we have before described it, with the little village spire.

Though there were some detached ma.s.ses of cloud sweeping over the sky above them, and twisting themselves into harsh curious forms, the sun was still s.h.i.+ning warm and strong upon the spot where they were, while the storm, the voice of which they had heard in the wood, was seen treading the valleys and hills beyond towards Auron, wrapped in a mantle of dark vapours and shadows. The contrast between the bright suns.h.i.+ne and sparkling light around them, with the sweeping thunder clouds that were pouring forth their mingled wrath upon the beautiful country beyond, was very fine, and the Count drew in his horse for a moment to gaze upon it more at ease.

"You see, though they have been busy in seducing my flock, over there," said the pastor, fixing his eyes with a look of affection upon Auron, "you see they have still left me my spire to the church. I fear, not from any good will to me or mine," he added, "but because they say it acts as a sort of landmark at sea."

The Count made no reply, for he thought that the time was not far distant when that peaceful village would be the scene of persecution, if not of desolation, and the building where a quiet and industrious population had wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d for ages, according to the dictates of their own consciences, would be taken from them. His only answer then was a melancholy smile, as he rode slowly on again, still gazing on the village and the storm, the flashes of the lightning blazing across the path from time to time, as if the cloud from which they issued had been close above the travellers. Scarcely, however, had the Count and his companion gone a hundred yards along the side of the hill, when a bright fitful line of intense light darted across the curtain of the dark cloud before their eyes, aimed like a fiery javelin cast by the unerring hand of the destroying angel at the pointed spire of the village church. The shape of the spire was instantly changed; a part evidently fell in ruins; and, the next moment, the whole of that which stood, blazed forth in flames, like a fiery beacon raised on the highest hill of an invaded land to tell that strife and bloodshed have begun.

"It is accomplished!" cried the pastor, as he gazed upon the destruction of the spire. "It is accomplished! Oh, Albert, how natural is weakness and superst.i.tion to the human heart! Can we see the fall of that building in which for many a long year our pure faith has offered up its prayers, unmingled with the vanities of a false creed, and not feel as if the will of G.o.d were against us--as if that were a sign unto us that his favour had past from us, at least in this land--as if it were a warning for us to gird ourselves, and, shaking off the dust of our feet, to seek another place of abiding?"

He paused not while he spoke, however, but rode on quickly, in order to aid and direct in saving any part of the building that yet remained; but as they went he still continued to pour forth many a sorrowful e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, mingling, with personal grief for the destruction of an object which had for long years been familiar with his eye, and a.s.sociated with every feeling of home, and peace, and of happy dwelling amongst his own people, and of high duties well performed, vague feelings of awe, and perhaps of superst.i.tion, as he read in that sight a warning, and a sign, and a shadowing forth of the Almighty will, that the church whereof he was a member was destined to destruction also.

Before the party reached the village, the spire had been completely consumed; but the peasantry had fortunately succeeded in preventing the fire from reaching the body of the building, and the rain was now pouring down in torrents, as the tears of an angel of wrath over the accomplishment of his painful mission; so that all that remained was to ascertain what damage had been done. Both the clergyman and the Count remarked several strangers standing round the church offering no a.s.sistance to any one, and only communing together occasionally in a low voice on the proceedings of the Protestant population. Albert of Morseiul gazed upon them with some surprise, and at length said, "I think, gentlemen, you might have given some little aid and a.s.sistance in this matter."

"What!" cried one of the men, "aid in upholding a temple of heretics!

What, keep from the destruction with which G.o.d has marked it, a building which man should long ago have pulled down!"

"I did not know you, gentlemen," replied the Count. "There are some circ.u.mstances in which people may be expected to remember that they are fellow-men and fellow-Christians, before they think of sects or denominations."

Thus saying, he turned and left them, accompanying Claude de l'Estang to his dwelling.

"Never mind them, Albert, never mind them," said the pastor as they walked along. "These are the men who are engaged daily in seducing my flock. I have seen them more than once as I have been going hither and thither amongst the people; but I have heeded them not, nor ever spoken to them. Those who can sell themselves for gold--and gold is the means of persuasion that they are now adopting--are not steadfast or faithful in any religion, and are more likely to corrupt others, and to lead to great defection by falling away in a moment of need, than to serve or prop the cause to which they pretend to be attached.

I trust that G.o.d's grace will reach them in time; but in a moment of increasing danger like this, I would rather that they showed themselves at once. I would rather, if they are to sell themselves either for safety or for gold, that they should sell themselves at once, and let us know them before the fiery ordeal comes. I would rather have to say, they went forth from us, because they were not of us, than think them children of light, and find them children of darkness."

"I fear," said the Count in a low voice, "I fear that they are waging the war against us, my good friend, in a manner which will deprive us of all unanimity. It is no longer what it was in former times, when the persecuting sword was all we had to fear and to resist. We have now the artful tongues of oily and deceitful disputants. We have all the h.e.l.lish cunning of a sect which allows every means to be admissible, every falsehood, every misstatement, every perversion, every deceit, to be just, and right, and righteous, so that the object to be obtained is the promotion of their own creed. Thus the great ma.s.s of the weak or the ill-informed may be affected by their teachers; while at the same time gold is held out to allure the covetous--the deprivation of rank, station, office, and emolument, is employed to drive the ambitious, the slothful, and the indifferent--and threats of greater severity of persecution, mental torture, insult, indignity, and even death itself, are held over the heads of the coward and the fearful."

They thus conversed as they went along, and the opinion of each but served to depress the hopes of the other more and more. Both were well acquainted with the spirit of doubt and disunion that reigned amongst the Protestants of France, a spirit of disunion which had been planted, fostered, and encouraged by every art that a body of cunning and unscrupulous men could employ to weaken the power of their adversaries. On arriving at the house of Claude de l'Estang, the pastor put into the hands of his young friend the pet.i.tion to the King which he had drawn up, and which perfectly meeting his views, was immediately sent off for general signature, in order to be transmitted to Paris, and presented to the monarch. Long before it reached him, however, the final and decisive blow had been struck, and, therefore, we shall notice that paper no more.

A long conversation ensued between the pastor and his young friend; and it was evident to the Count de Morseiul, that the opinions of Claude de l'Estang himself, stern and fervent as they had been in youth, now rendered milder by age, and perhaps by sorrow, tended directly to general and unquestioning submission, rather than to resistance: not indeed to the abandonment of any religious principle, not to the slightest sacrifice of faith, not to the slightest conformity of what he deemed a false religion. No; he proposed and he advised to suffer in patience for the creed that he held; to see even the temples of the reformed church destroyed, if such an extreme should be adopted; to see persons of the purer faith excluded from offices and dignity, and rank and emoluments; even to suffer, should it be necessary, plunder, oppression, and imprisonment itself, without yielding one religious doctrine; but at the same time without offering any resistance to the royal authority.

"But should they go still farther," said the Count, "should they attempt to interdict altogether the exercise of our religion; should they take the child from the mother, the sister from the care of the brother; should they force upon us Roman rites, and demand from us confessions of papistical belief, what are we to do then, my good old friend?"

"Our religious duties," replied the pastor, "we must not forbear to exercise, even if the sword hung over us that was to slay us at the first word. As for the rest, I trust and believe that it will not come to pa.s.s; but if it should, there will be no choice left us but resistance or flight. Ask me not, Albert, to decide now upon which of the two we should choose. It must ever be a dark, a painful, and a terrible decision when the time comes that it is necessary to make it; and perhaps the decision itself may be affected far more by the acts of others than by our own. We must determine according to circ.u.mstances; but, in the mean time, let us as far as possible be prepared for either of the two painful alternatives. We must make great sacrifices, Albert, and I know that you are one of those who would ever be ready to make such for your fellow Christians. If we are driven to flee from the land of our birth, and to seek a home in other countries; if by the waters of Babylon we must sit down and weep, thinking of the Jerusalem that we shall never behold again, there will be many, very many of our brethren compelled to fly with but little means of support, and perhaps it may be long before in other lands they obtain such employment as will enable them to maintain themselves by the work of their own hands. Those who are richer must minister unto them, Albert. Luckily I myself can do something in that sort, for long ago, when there was no thought of this persecution, I sold what little land I had, intending to spend the amount in relieving any distress that I might see amongst my people, and to trust to the altar that I served for support in my old age. But little of this sum has been as yet expended, and if I did but know any hands in which I could trust it in a foreign land, either in England or in Holland, I would transmit it thither instantly. You too, Albert, if I have heard right, derived considerable wealth in money from some distant relation lately. For your own sake as well as others, it were better to place that in safety in foreign lands, for I find that it would be dangerous now to attempt to sell any landed possessions, and if you were forced to leave this country you might find yourself suddenly reduced to want in the midst of strangers."

"I have not only thought of this before," replied the Count, "but I have already taken measures for transmitting that sum to Holland. As soon as I heard of the unjust prohibitions regarding the sale of lands by Protestants, I wrote to Holland to a banker whom I knew there in days of old, an honest man and a sincere friend, though somewhat too fond of gain. The sum I can thus transmit is far more than enough to give me competence for life, and if you please I can transmit thither the little store you speak of also."

"Willingly, willingly," replied the pastor; "it may be a benefit to others if not to me.--Albert," he added, "I shall never quit this land! I feel it, I know it! My ministry must be accomplished here till the last: and whether I shall be taken from you by some of the ordinary events of nature, or whether G.o.d wills it that I should seal with my blood the defence of my faith and my testimony against the church of Rome, I know not; but I am sure, I feel sure, that I shall never quit the land in which I was born."

Albert of Morseiul did not attempt to argue with Claude de l'Estang upon this prejudice, for he knew it was one of those which, like some trees and shrubs, root themselves but the more firmly from being shaken, and from an ineffectual endeavour being made to pluck them out.

For nearly two hours the young Count remained at the house of the clergyman discussing all the various topics connected with their situation, while his servants were scattered about in different dwellings of the village. At the end of that time, however, Master Jerome Riquet made his appearance at the pastor's house, to inform his lord (from a partic.i.p.ation in whose actions he judged he had been too long excluded) that the storm had pa.s.sed away; and, ordering his horses to be brought up, after a few more words with Claude de l'Estang, the Count mounted and pursued his way homeward to the chateau of Morseiul.

Throwing his rein to the groom, the young n.o.bleman walked on through the vestibule, and entered the great hall. It was calm and solitary, with the bright evening suns.h.i.+ne streaming through the tall windows and chequering the stone floor. Nothing was moving but a mult.i.tude of bright motes dancing in the sunbeam, and one of the banners of the house of Morseiul shaken by the wind as the door opened and closed on the Count's entrance. The whole aspect of the place told that it had not been tenanted for some time. Every thing was beautifully clean indeed, but the tall-backed chairs ranged straight along the walls, the table standing exactly in the midst, the unsullied whiteness of the stone floor, not even marked with the print of a dog's foot, all spoke plainly that it had been long untenanted. The Count gazed round it in silent melancholy, marked the waving banner and the dancing motes, and, if we may use the term, the solemn cheerfulness of that wide hall; and then said to himself, ere he turned again to leave it,

"Such will it be, and so the sun will s.h.i.+ne, when I am gone afar--or in the grave."

CHAPTER III.

NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

We will now lead the reader into another and very different scene from any of those into which we have as yet conducted him. It is a small but cheerful sitting-room, or parlour, in the house of a comfortable citizen of the town of Morseiul. There was every thing that could be required for comfort, and a little for show. The corner cupboard which protruded its round stomach into the room, like that of some fat alderman of the olden time, was ornamented with a variety of little gewgaws, and nick-nacks of silver, displayed in quaint array upon the shelves; and, besides several bra.s.s lamps and sconces wonderfully well polished, which were never lighted, were a number of articles of porcelain, of a kind which was then somewhat rare, and is now nearly invaluable. The two windows of this little parlour looked out upon the great square or market place, towards the southern corner of which it was situated, and commanded a view of a large blacksmith's forge on the opposite side, close by the gate leading down to what was called the Count's road. There was a door out of this parlour, a black oaken door, with panels richly carved and ornamented, which appeared to lead into a room at the back, and another similar door at the side, opening into the pa.s.sage which went straight through the house from the square into the garden behind.