Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846. Various

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      Presently the old woman moved uneasily in her chair, and, placing her hands firmly upon its arms, as if about to rise from her seat, she exclaimed aloud —

      "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will avenge the blood of the righteous!"

      Both Jocelyne and Alayn turned; but, before the fair girl could hurry to her grandmother's side, she had sunk down again into her chair, murmuring —

      "No, no! enough of blood! enough of vengeance! God pardon him, and turn the hearts of those who counseled him to this deed."

      "Give me my Bible, Jocelyne my girl," said again the old woman after a pause. "It seems I have not read it for many a long hour. God forgive me! But my poor head wanders strangely. Ah! is it you Alayn? Good-day to you," she continued, as if she had then first become aware of the presence of her grandson.

      Jocelyne hastily gave her grandmother the volume which she had laid down upon the table; and whispering in her cousin's ear, as she passed, "She has spoken, she will be better now," sat down once more by her side.

      A silence again pervaded that still room, when suddenly a noise of steps resounded upon a wooden stair. They approached the door, upon which a hurried knocking was now heard. Before Jocelyne, who, at the sound of these steps, had clasped her hands before her, with an expression of surprise and almost of alarm, had fully risen from her seat, the door was flung open, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and with a jewelled hat sunk low upon his brow, entered hastily.

      He closed the door, and then gazed with a rapid glance around him.

      Jocelyne had sprung up with a suppressed cry.

      "Ah! I am not mistaken," said the man advancing, and removing his hat. "Jocelyne! Dame Perrotte! I am a fugitive, and I seek a shelter at your hands. I could not trust myself to those who call themselves my friends; others who might have protected me, I know not where to find, but I bethought myself of you – of you, Jocelyne – and" —

      "Philip! Monseigneur," stammered the astonished girl. "You – here – and a fugitive!"

      "Do you not know me?" said the fugitive to Dame Perrotte, who had risen from her chair, and stood staring at him as if with a return of troubled intellect.

      "Not know you?" exclaimed the old woman rising. "I know you well, Philip de la Mole! And is it you, the Catholic, who seek a shelter beneath the roof of the proscribed and outlawed Huguenot?"

      "But it is in the cause of your religion that I have conspired, my good woman, and that I am now compelled to fly," replied La Mole; "it was for one, who, as chief of your party, would have espoused your quarrel, and re-established your influence in the land."

      "Ay, for your master, the shallow Duke of Alençon," responded Perrotte coldly. "False, hollow ambition all! And ye call that the cause of religion – Mockery! Yes, I know you well, Philip de la Mole, who in the hour of bloodshed," she continued, growing more and more excited, "could approve the hellish deed, and who now can babble of sacrifice and self-offering in the cause of our religion."

      "You belie me, woman," said La Mole proudly.

      "Yes, I know you, Philip de la Mole," pursued the old woman with knitted brows and flashing eyes; "you, who, to amuse your hours of idleness, could talk of love to a poor trusting girl, heedless how you destroyed her peace of mind, had you but your pastime and your jest of it."

      "Grandmother!" cried Jocelyne in the bitterest distress.

      "It was he, then!" exclaimed Alayn, advancing upon the fugitive nobleman, with the gun-barrel raised in his arm.

      "If you love me, forbear!" screamed his cousin, flinging herself before him.

      "I had hoped to have found shelter among honest hearts, whom misfortune should have taught pity," said the fugitive proudly, and unmoved; "and I have erred – unjust hate, prejudice, inhospitality, are the only virtues practised beneath this roof. I will again brave the danger, and seek elsewhere that kindly feeling I find not here. Jocelyne, my sweet pretty Jocelyne, farewell!"

      With these words La Mole moved towards the door. The old woman regarded him motionless, and with the same cloud of irritation on her brow. Alayn seemed equally inclined to prosecute his first hostile intention; but Jocelyne sprang after the retreating nobleman and caught him by the arm.

      "Grandmother," she said, drawing herself up to her full height, and leaning fondly against La Mole – "if any one have erred, it is I, and I alone. It was I chose him forth as the noblest, the brightest, the best among those who glittered about the court, in which we humbly lived. I had given him my heart ere he had deigned to cast a look upon me. If I have loved him – if I love him still – it is because I alone have sought it should be so."

      "Jocelyne! be still, sweet girl," said La Mole, affected, and moving towards the door.

      "And were he our bitterest enemy," continued the excited girl, still clinging to his arm, "he is now a proscribed fugitive – no matter why – God sends him to us – and it is ours to save, not to condemn him."

      "But it is said, that the enemy of the righteous shall perish from the earth," said her grandmother sternly; "it is not I condemn or kill him. If it be the will of God that his cause of error cease, let him go forth and die."

      "If he die, mother," exclaimed Jocelyne with energy, "I shall die too. I have given him my heart, my life, my soul – punish me as you will – trample me at your feet. But I love him, mother; and, if you drive him forth to be hunted by his enemies to the death, your child will not survive it."

      Alayn had turned away in bitterness of heart, and the old Huguenot woman, although giving way more and more to that excitement, which, at times, fully troubled her reason, only wrung her hands, as if moved by the address of the agitated girl.

      "Stay! stay, Monseigneur," continued Jocelyne, as La Mole again pressed her hand and turned to depart. "She relents – she has a kind heart; and she would not, surely, deliver up the guest who begs shelter at her threshold, into the hands of those who seek to capture and to kill him."

      "Let me go forth, Jocelyne! farewell!" repeated La Mole.

      "Mother!" again commenced the unhappy girl, throwing herself down to clasp the knees of her grandmother, who, overcome by the violence of her feelings, had sunk back again into her chair. "Mother! would your husband, or your son, have driven even their deadliest enemy from their door?"

      "Speak not of my son, girl; or you will drive me mad!" cried Perrotte, clasping her hands before her face.

      Jocelyne sprang up with a look of despair, and returned to detain once more La Mole.

      As they thus stood, and before the old woman had again stirred, or Alayn interfered, a rumour from the street formed by the bridge, caught the ear of the excited girl.

      "What is that?" she exclaimed, starting in alarm.

      "The agents of the Queen-mother sent in my pursuit, probably," replied La Mole coolly, and disengaging himself from the convulsive embrace of Jocelyne. "How they have tracked me, I know not. So be it, then. I had hoped for the sake of others to avoid their hands; but I am prepared to meet my fate."

      "No, no," screamed Jocelyne. "It cannot be! Mother – mother, would you see him made a prisoner in your own house – murdered, perhaps, before your very face!"

      Alayn moved towards the door; and СКАЧАТЬ