The Scourge of God. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ at a walk, making his way on slowly through the mountains to the village of Montvert.

      "Three months," he said, "three months since I set out for Switzerland--for Geneva and Lausanne--and now, even now, but little nearer to the end than before. Coming here, I was told that it was almost impossible that Cyprien de Beauvilliers could have settled in the Cévennes without being known; travelling on to Savoy and to Lausanne, I learn at last that he did most undoubtedly come here from Geneva years ago. Shall I ever know--ever find out?"

      A league or so accomplished at a walking pace, for his poor beast was almost exhausted now, it having been ridden across the mountains from St. Victor de Gravière since daybreak, and from Geneva within the last three weeks, and the banks of a river named Le Tarn being slowly followed, the rider entered Montvert, and passing across the bridge, proceeded slowly up the village street. Yet even as he did so he cast his eyes on a house at the side of that bridge and on the small trim garden between it and the stream, muttering to himself:

      "Ah! Monsieur l'abbé! Monsieur l'abbé! you are one of the firebrands who stir up dissension in these valleys--you and your familiar spirit, Baville. Also your evil fame has travelled far. You are known and hated in Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey--maybe in Holland by now. 'Tis best you pray to Heaven to avert your fate. 'Tis threatened! And, if all the stories of you be true, it is almost deserved, no matter in what form it comes."

      Proceeding still farther along the little main street of the bourg, he came to a wooden house also standing in a small trimly-kept garden, in which there grew all kinds of simple flowers that made the place gay with their colours, and here he dismounted, while calling to a boy who was raking the crushed shells on the path, he bade him take his horse to the stable in the rear.

      "For you see, Armand," he said with a pleasant smile, "here I am back again, after a long while--yet still back."

      The boy smiled a greeting and said all would be glad to welcome him, then did as he was bid and led the animal away, while Martin, going up to the door, knocked lightly on it and asked, as he threw his voice into the passage, if the pasteur was within.

      To which, in answer, there came down toward the door an elderly gray-haired man, who held out both his hands and shook those of the younger one cordially.

      "Back! Back!" he exclaimed joyously. "Ah! this is good. Come in. Come in. The room is always ready, the bed kept aired, the lavender in the drawers. Welcome! Welcome!" Then, after looking at him and saying that his journey had not harmed him, he exclaimed: "Well, what news? Or--is it disappointment again?"

      "But little news; scarcely, in truth, more than before. Yet something. I met a man at Geneva who had known Cyprien de Beauvilliers, but he was very old and, alas! it is forty years and more since he set eyes on him."

      "Forty years! A lifetime!"

      "Ay, a lifetime--long enough for him to have disappeared from all human knowledge, to have died. That, I fear, is what has happened. Otherwise, this man says, they of the reformed faith would almost surely have heard of him."

      "Not of necessity," the pastor answered. "If he so hated his kin and their religion that he was determined to break off forever from them and their customs, he may have resolved to obliterate every clew. He told the princess's husband that he renounced his name, his birthright. Other men have resolved on that, and kept their resolution."

      While they had been speaking the pastor had led Martin Ashurst into his little salon, and he called now to an elderly woman to prepare the evening meal.

      "And a good one to-night, Margot; a good one to-night to welcome back the wanderer."

      Whereon the old servant smiled upon that wanderer and murmured also some words of greeting, while she said it should be a good one. Fichtre, but it should!

      "Soit! Let us see," went on her master. "First for the solids. Now, there is a trout, caught this morning and brought me by Leroux--oh, such a trout! Two kilos if an ounce, and with the true deep speckles. Ma foi! he was a fool, he clung too much to the neighbourhood of the lower bridge, derided Leroux with his wicked eye; yet, observe, Leroux has got him. Si! Si! Half an hour hence he will be truite au vin blanc, a thing not half so wholesome for him as the stream and the rushes. Hein!"

      Martin smiled to himself, yet gravely, as always now since his aunt's dying revelation. How far off seemed to him the merry days, or nights, at Locket's and Pontac's, and the jokes and jeers and flashes of wit of Betterton and Nokes, Vanburgh and gentle Farquhar!--while still the good old pastor prattled on, happy at preparing his little feast.

      "Truite au vin blanc. Ha! And the right wine, too, to wash it down. Ha! The Crépi, in the long, tapering glasses that the Chevalier de Fleuville brought me from Villefranche. Poor de Fleuville! Poor, poor de Fleuville! Then, Margot, the ragoût and the white chipped bread, and, forget not these, clean serviettes to-night, if we never have others, and the cheese from Joyeuse. Oh! we will faire la noce to-night, mon brave. God forgive me," he broke off suddenly, his voice changing, "that even your return should make me think of feasts and noces at such a time as this--a time of blood and horror and cruelty!"

      Over the meal, the trout being all that was expected of him, and the Crépi a fitting accompaniment thereto, they talked on what had been the object of "Monsieur Martin's" journey into Switzerland, then neutral in both religion and politics, and offering, consequently, a home for refugees of all classes and denominations; talked also of what results that journey had had, or had failed to have. But all ended, or was comprised, in what the young man had already told the other--namely, that it seemed certain that Cyprien de Beauvilliers had at first gone to Geneva and Lausanne after he renounced his family and his religion, and that from there he had come to Languedoc, meaning to settle in the one spot in France where Protestantism was in its strongest force.

      "He would thereby," the pastor said, as now they reached the fromage de Joyeuse, nestling white and creamy in the vine leaves, "be able to enjoy his religion in peace for many years, until--until the unhappy events of '85. Alas! that revocation! That revocation, born of that fearful woman! What--what will be the outcome of all, for even now it is but beginning to bear its worst fruits. Martin," he continued, "Martin, mon ami, we are but at the commencement. I fear for what will happen here ere long. I fear, I fear, I fear."

      "Here! Is it as bad as that?"

      "It is dreadful, appalling. My friend, they will suffer no longer. They can support neither Baville's tyranny, which extends over all the district, nor--here, in this little village once so happy--the monstrous cruelties of the abbé."

      "The abbé! Du Chaila! What is he doing now?"

      "Tongue scarce dare tell for fear of not being believed. In after years, in centuries to come, when religion is free and tolerant, as some day it must be--it must! it must!--those who read of what we have suffered will deem the story false. O Martin! there, in that house by the bridge, are done things that would almost excite the envy of the Inquisition, ay! of Torquemada himself, were he still in existence. And he, this abbé, is the man who will light the flame in this tranquil spot. I pray God it may be extinguished almost ere lit." And Martin Ashurst saw that even as he spoke his hands were folded under the table, as though in prayer, and that his lips moved.

      "But what," he said, "what do you fear? Also to what extremes does he now proceed?"

      "'Proceed!' Ah, Martin, listen. There in that house by the bridge, once Fleuville's, who was hung by De Genne upon the bridge itself, so that his wife might see the thing each morning when she rose, he tortures us, the Protestants. СКАЧАТЬ