Chapter XXXI: Part I (1)

Once upon a time, some sixty years ago, on one of the bleakest points of the coast of Picardy, high perched like a light-house overhanging the sea, there was a building called the Fortress. You may see the ruins of it yet. It had been an abbey in olden times, and credible tales were told of a bearded abbot who “walked” at high water on the western parapet when the moon was full. One wing of the Fortress was a ruin at the time this story opens; the other had braved the stress of time and tempest, and looked out over the sea defiant as the rock on which it stood. The Caboffs lived in it. Jean Caboff was a wiry, lithe old man of seventy—a seafaring man every inch of him. His wealth was boundless, people said, and they also said that he had gained it as a pirate on the high seas. There was no proof that this was true; but every one believed it, and the belief invested Jean Caboff with a sort of wicked prestige which was not without its fascination in the eyes of the peaceful, unadventurous population of Gondriac. Caboff had a wife and three sons; the two eldest were away fighting with Bonaparte on the Rhine; Marcel, the youngest, was at home. A shy, awkward lad, he kept aloof from the village boys, never went bird’s-nesting or fishing with them, but moped like an owl up in his weather-beaten home. They were unsocial people, the Caboffs; they never asked any one inside their door; but the few who accidentally penetrated within the Fortress told wonderful stories of what they saw there; they talked of silken hangings and Persian carpets, and mirrors and pictures in golden frames, and marble men and maidens writhing and dancing in fantastic attitudes; of costly cabinets and jewelled vases, until the old corsair’s abode was believed to be a sort of enchanted castle. The stray visitors were too dazzled to notice certain things that jarred on this profuse magnificence. They did not notice that the damp had eaten away the gilded cornices, and the rats nibbled freely at the rich carpets, or that Jean Caboff smoked his pipe in a high-backed wooden chair, while Mme. Caboff cut out her home-spun linen on a stout deal table, the two forming a quaint and not unpicturesque contrast to the silken splendor of their surroundings.

Some five miles inland, beyond a wide stretch of gorse-grown moor, rose a wood, chiefly of pine-trees, and within the wood, a castle—a fine old Gothic castle where the De Gondriacs had dwelt for centuries. The castle and its owners, their grandeur and state and power, were the pride of the country, every peasant along the coast for fifty miles knew the history of the lords of Gondriac as well as, mayhap sometimes better than, he knew his catechism. The family at present consisted of Rudolf, Marquis de Gondriac, and his son Hermann. The Marquis was a hale man of sixty; Hermann a handsome lad of eighteen, who was at college now in Paris, so that M. le Marquis had no company but his books and his gun in the long autumn days. He was a silent, haughty man, who lived much alone and seldom had friends to stay with him. When Hermann was at home the aspect of the place changed; the château opened its doors with ancient hospitality, and laughter and music woke up the echoes of the old halls, and the village was astir as if a royal progress had halted on the plain; but when Hermann departed things fell back into the stagnant life he had stirred for a moment. It was natural that the young man’s holidays were eagerly looked forward to at Gondriac. But one August came, and, instead of returning home, Hermann joined a regiment that was on its way to the frontier. He went off in high-hearted courage as to the fulfilment of his boyish dreams. M. le Marquis, who had himself served in the guards of the Comte d’Artois, was proud of his son, of his soldier-like bearing and manly spirit, and kept the anguish of his own heart well out of sight as he bade the boy farewell. “I will come back a marshal of France, father,” was Hermann’s good-by.

Not long after his departure tidings were received of the death of Hugues Caboff, the old pirate’s eldest son. He had fallen gloriously on the field of battle; but glory is a sorry salve for broken hearts, and there was weeping in the Fortress that day—a mother weeping and refusing to be comforted. Old Jean Caboff bore his grief with an attempt at stoicism that went far to soften men’s hearts towards him—farther than his gold, which they said was ill-got, and his charity, which they called ostentation.

“Who may tell what will come next?” said Peltran, the host of the village inn.

“They say that M. le Marquis has been over to see the Caboffs,” said a customer, who dropped in to discuss the event. People felt for the Caboffs, but, there was no denying it, this sad news was a break in the dull monotony of Gondriac life.

“I saw his carriage at the foot of the cliff,” said Peltran; “he stayed full fifteen minutes up at the Fortress. Père Caboff conducted him down to his carriage, and Marcel stood watching them till it was out of sight.”

“It must have consoled them mightily to have M. le Marquis come in and sit talking to them in that neighborly fashion,” remarked lame Pierre, a hero who had lost a leg and an eye at Aboukir; “that, and poor Hugues being killed by a cannon-ball under the emperor’s own eye, ought to cheer up the Caboffs wonderfully.”

“Ay, ay,” said Peltran; “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”

“M. le Marquis looked as down-hearted as if he had lost a child of his own,” observed Pierre; “may be he was thinking whose turn it might be next.”

“There goes Mère Virginie with the little one!” said Peltran; and all present turned their heads towards the window and looked out with an expression of interest, as if the objects in view were a rare and pleasant sight. And yet it was one that met them in their daily walks by the roadside and on the cliff—the little old lady in her nun-like dress, with her keen gray eyes and sweet smile, and the dark-eyed, elfin-looking child whose name was Alba. Alba was always singing.

“Is not your little throat tired, my child?” said Virginie, as the blithe voice kept on soaring and trilling by her side.

“I am never tired singing, petite mère! Do the angels tire of it sometimes, I wonder?”

“Nay, the angels cannot tire; they are perfectly happy.”

“And I, petite mère—am I not perfectly happy?”

“Is there nothing you long for, nothing you would be the happier for having?”

“Oh! many things,” cried Alba: “I wish I were grown up; I wish I were as beautiful as the flowers; I wish I had a voice like the nightingale—like a whole woodful of nightingales; I wish I lived in a castle; I wish I were so rich that I might make all the poor people happy in Gondriac; I wish everybody loved me as you do. Oh! I should like them all to adore me, petite mère,” cried the child, clasping her little hands with energy.

“Nay, my child, we must adore none but God; woe to us if we do!” said Virginie, and her face contracted as with a sudden pain. “But it seems to me, with so many wishes unfulfilled, you are a long way off from perfect happiness yet?”

“But I am always dreaming that they are fulfilled, and that does as well, you know.”

Yes, perhaps it did, Virginie thought, as she bent a wistful smile on the young dreamer’s face. Alba’s face was full of dreams—beautiful and passionate, changeful as the sunbeams, tender and strong, pleading and imperious by turns. How would the dreams evolve themselves from out that yearning, untamed spirit that shone with a dangerous light through the dark eyes? Would they prove a mirage, luring her on to some delusive goal, and leaving her to perish amidst the golden waste of sands, or would they be a loadstar beckoning faithfully to a safe and happy destiny?

The child gave promise of rich fruit; her instincts were pure and true, her heart was tender; but there was a wild element in her nature that might easily overrule the rest, and work destruction to herself and others, unless it were reduced in time to serviceable bondage. Who could tell how this would be—whether the flower would keep its promise and prove loyal to the bud, or whether the fair blossom would perish in its bloom, and the tree bring forth a harvest of bitter fruit?

“It will be as you will it,” a wise man had said to Virginie; “the destiny of the child is in the hands of the mother, as the course of the ship is in the hands of the pilot.”

“Then Alba’s will be a happy one!” Virginie replied; “if love be omnipotent here below, my treasure is safe.”

* * * * *

Hermann de Gondriac had won his epaulets. Every post brought letters to the castle full of battles and victories; and though the young soldier was modest in his warlike narrative, it was clear to M. le Marquis that Hermann shone like a bright, particular star even in the galaxy of the _grande armée_, and that now, as in olden times, France had reason to be proud of the De Gondriacs. If the boy would but calm his rhapsodies about Bonaparte! M. le Marquis’ patrician soul heaved at the sight of this enthusiasm for the upstart who had muzzled his country and usurped the crown of her lawful princes. But he was a great captain, and it was natural, perhaps, that his soldiers should only think of this when he led them in triumph from field to field.

So far Hermann bore a charmed life. Not so the Caboffs. One day, some eight months after the death of the eldest son, the second brother followed him—“killed gloriously on the immortal field of Wagram,” the official letter announced in its most soothing style. M. le Marquis’ carriage was again seen standing at the foot of the cliff, and Peltran informed the population that he had remained over twenty minutes this time at the Fortress.

“M. le Marquis is a true _grand seigneur_, and never begrudges any condescension for the good of his inferiors,” observed the old tory host. “This time it was only Marcel who accompanied him down the cliff. Old Caboff, they say, was more cut up by this last blow; still, grief ought not to make a man selfish and unthankful.”

“Just so,” said lame Pierre, who sat puffing in the bar; “and it’s only what those two poor lads had to expect; moreover, since a man must die, better be killed in battle than die of the small-pox.”

“All the same, it’s hard on the folks up yonder,” remarked a bystander, “and it isn’t their money-bags—no, nor even M. le Marquis’ good words—that can comfort them to-day.”

Soon after this M. le Marquis left Gondriac rather suddenly one morning. After reading his letters he ordered his valise to be got ready, and in an hour he was posting to X——. There he dismissed the postchaise, and no one knew whither or how he had continued his route. Gondriac busied itself in endless conjectures as to the purport and destination of this mysterious journey. Had M. le Marquis been summoned to Paris to assist the government in some political crisis? Had he gone over to England to pour oil on the angry waters there? For the king of England was full of wrath and jealousy against the great emperor, and it was well known at Gondriac that he was plotting foul play of some sort against France. Or, again, could M. le Marquis’ hasty departure have had any reference to M. le Comte? Perhaps M. le Comte was wounded or a prisoner; who could tell? So the wiseacres gossiped, adopting first one theory, then another.

A month went by without throwing any light on the mystery. Then the cold set in suddenly, and the gossips had something else to talk about. The cruel winter was down upon them, catching them unprepared, so how were they to face it? They were only in October, and the wind blew from the northeast as if it were March, keeping up its shrill, hard whistle day and night, and the sea, as if it were exasperated by the sound, roared and foamed and thundered, till it seemed like a battle between them which should make most noise. And it was hard to say who carried the day.

One night, when the battle was at its fiercest, the wind shrieking its loudest, and the sea rolling up its biggest waves, Alba sat at her window watching the tempest with thrills of sympathetic terror. Virginie thought the child was in bed and asleep hours ago, and she was glad of it; for the storm drove right against the cottage, and burst upon it every now and then with a violence that shook her in her chair and made the walls rock. She was knitting away, but between the stitches many a prayer went up for those who were out breasting the fury of the hurricane. Suddenly a sound came up from the sea that made her start to her feet with a cry. Boom! boom! boom! it came in quick succession, leaping over the rocks with a sharp, dull crash. The door of the little sitting-room was thrown open, and Alba stood on the threshold, white as a ghost, her dark eyes gleaming. “It is the signal-gun, mother!” she cried. “There is a ship in distress!”

“How came you up and dressed, child?” exclaimed Virginie.

“Mother, I could not sleep; I have been watching the storm. Hark! there it is again. Why don’t they answer it? Let us hurry down to the beach.”

“Of what use would we be there, my child?” said Virginie. “Let us rather kneel down and pray that help may come.”

“I cannot pray; I cannot stay here safe and quiet while that gun is firing! Hark! there it is again. Oh! why don’t they make haste? Mother, I must go! If you won’t come I will go by myself.” Alba, as she spoke, threw back her head with the wild, free movement that Virginie knew, and knew that she could no more control than she could check the flight of a bird on the wing.

“I will go with you,” she cried, and, wrapping a cloak round Alba, she flung another round herself, and then lighted her lantern, and the two sallied forth into the storm, clinging fast to one another for support until they got under the shelter of the overhanging cliff. Lights were glancing here and there, hurrying down from the cottages, and a few fishermen were already on the beach watching the distressed ship, helpless and hopeless. Presently old Caboff appeared, holding his lantern high above his head—an aged, shrivelled man, likely to be of little use in this desperate strait; but such was the prestige which his supposed antecedents lent him in the eyes of the panic-stricken group that of one accord they turned to him as to the only one who might give help or counsel. The night was pitch dark, and the blinding rain and deafening roar of the breakers seemed to make the darkness thicker. It was impossible to see the ship, except when the flash of the gun lighted up the scene for a second. In the lull of the billows—that is, between the heavy sweep of their rise and fall—the cries of the crew and the whistle of the captain issuing his commands were faintly audible. How was it with the ship? Had she struck upon a rock, or was she simply going down before the storm? It was impossible to say. On finding that her signals were heard and her position seen from land, she slackened fire, and the gun only spoke every three minutes or so. In the interval of unbroken darkness all conjecture as to the immediate cause of the peril was at a stand-still. Caboff said she had struck upon a rock; the others thought she was simply disabled and rolling in the trough of the sea.

“Can we put out a boat? Who is for risking it?” said Caboff, pitching his voice to a whistle that was heard distinctly above the roar of the black breakers clamoring for the moon. There was no answer, but heads were shaken and hands gesticulated in strong dissent.

Alba pushed her way into the midst of the group. “What does it matter what the danger is? Go and help them!” she cried. “If you don’t help them they will all perish!”

“We cannot help them, little one,” said an old fisherman. “No boat could live in such a sea. See how the waves run up in mountains to our very feet, and think what it must be out yonder! See, now the signal-gun lights it up! Look! again it flashes.”

It was an appalling sight while the flashes lasted. The waves, rushing back, left the side of the ship visible, and then, returning with a tremendous sweep, broke over her and buried her out of sight in foam. The stoutest heart might well recoil from venturing to put out in such a sea.

“Naught but a miracle could do it,” said one of the oldest and hardiest of the fishermen; “and we none of us can work miracles.”

“God can!” cried Alba, and she looked like the spirit of the storm, her dark hair streaming, the light of courage and scorn and beseeching hope illuminating her face with an unearthly beauty—“God can, and he does for brave men; but ye are cowards!”

“Gently, little one; men will risk their lives to do some good, but it is suicide to rush on death where there is not a chance of saving any one.”

It was Caboff who spoke, and his words were followed by strong approval from the rest.

“Ye are cowards!” repeated Alba passionately. “God would work the miracle, if ye had courage and trusted him. See, there is the light now!” She pointed to the sky, where, as if to justify her promise, the moon came forth, and, scattering the darkness, shed her full blue radiance over sea and shore. The storm was now at its height. The guns had ceased to give tongue, and the crowd stood watching the scene in mute horror, while the reverberating shore shook under their feet at every shock of the furious billows.

Caboff was right. The ship had struck upon the Scissors, and, caught between the two blade-like rocks, was rapidly falling to pieces. The deck was deserted. The crew had either gone down into the cabin to meet their fate or they had been swept away by the devouring waters. One man alone was descried by Caboff’s keen eyes clinging to the broken mast. “I will risk it!” cried the old pirate, after watching the wreck for some minutes intently. “I will risk it; my old life may as well go out in saving his. Come, boys, help me to push down a boat. I must have three pairs of hands. Who is to the fore?”

A dozen men rushed forward; the boat was at the water’s edge in a moment, and after a short scuffle—for now all were fighting for precedence—three men got into it, and the others, putting their hands to the stern, launched it with their might. A cheer rang out from the shore; but close upon it came a cry, piercing and full of terror. It was Marcel Caboff, who was flying down the cliff, and reached the scene just as the boat put off.

“Father! father!” cried the lad, and he fell on his knees sobbing.

“Don’t be afraid, Marcel,” said Alba, falling on her knees beside him; “he is a brave man, and God will protect him!”

Something in the tone of the child’s voice made him turn and look at her, and as he caught sight of the beam of confidence, almost of exultation, on her face, he felt his courage rise and despair was silenced. But what meant that shout?

The boat was no sooner borne out on the receding wave than it went down into the sea as if never to rise again; there was a moment of breathless suspense, and then the wave rose and tossed it violently to and fro, and flung it back upon the shore. The men who had launched it were still upon the spot, and rushed forward to seize the boat and help the brave fellows out again. One was so stunned by the force of the shock that he became insensible and had to be lifted out. Old Caboff refused to stir.

“It is madness to try it again,” said his companions. “A cork could not live in such a sea!”

“I will risk no man’s life,” said Caboff. “I will go alone. Here, my men, lend a hand once more!”

There was a clamor of expostulation from all present; but the old man was not to be moved.

“I will go with you, father,” said Marcel, stepping in and seizing an oar.

“You here, lad! And your mother?”

“She sent me to look after you. _Allons! mes amis_; push us out and say God speed us!”

But there was now a third figure in the boat. “Now we are three, and God will make a fourth!” cried Alba; then, turning to the men, “Push us out,” she said, “and then go home, lest ye take cold here in the rain!”

“Good God! the child is mad,” cried Virginie, rushing forward to snatch her away. But it was too late; a heavy wave rolled in and made the boat heave suddenly, which the men seeing, with one impulse put their hands to it, till the breaker washed under it and swept it out to sea once more. Virginie stood there like one turned to stone, watching in dumb horror the boat drifting away on to the seething waters. Alba was on her knees, her arms outstretched, her face uplifted in the moonlight, transfigured into an apparition of celestial beauty—a heaven-sent messenger from Him who can unchain the storm and bid the winds and waves be still. The rough men, subdued by the sublimity of the scene, knelt down like little children and began to pray.

Gallantly the little boat rode on, now drowned out of sight, now rising lightly on the crest of the wave, while the sea, as if enraged at so much daring, redoubled in fury and pitched it to and fro like a ball. Old Caboff, grown young again, worked away like a sea-horse. Many a time had he and Death looked into each other’s faces, but never closer than now; and it was not the old seaman who quailed. Marcel, feeble Marcel, seemed endowed with the energy and strength of an athlete. They were now close upon the sinking ship; but the peril grew as they approached it. There was a lull for one moment, as if in very weariness the hurricane drew a breath; then a huge wave rose up like a mighty water-tower, oscillated for a moment like a house about to fall, and, dashing against the boat, swallowed it up in an avalanche of foam. Five seconds of mortal suspense followed; not a gasp broke the horrible silence on the beach. But the boat reappeared and rode bravely on to within a stone’s throw of the ship. The solitary man on deck was signalling to them with one hand, while with the other he clung to the mast. At last the little skiff was close under the bows. Old Caboff threw up a rope-ladder; it missed its aim, once, twice, three times. “How the old fellow is swearing! I can see it by his fury,” cried one of the fishermen, stamping in sympathetic rage. “Ha! the poor devil has caught it. Bravo! Hurrah! He is in the boat!”

Then there was a cheer, as if the very rocks had found a voice to applaud the brave ones who had conquered the storm. Wind and tide were with them as they returned, the waves pitching the boat before them like an angry boy kicking a stone, until one final plunge sent it flying on the beach.

“Vive Caboff! Vive Marcel! Vive la petite Alba!” And every hand was stretched out in welcome. Then there was a pause, a sudden hush, as when some strong emotion is checked by another.

“Monsieur le Marquis!”

“Yes, my friends, thanks to these brave hearts I am amongst you and alive.”

He was the first to step from the boat; then he took Alba in his arms and lifted her ashore into Virginie’s. Marcel alighted next, and was turning to assist his father when M. le Marquis pushed him gently aside and held out both hands to his deliverer. But the old man still grasped his oar and made no sign.

“Mon père!” cried Marcel, laying a hand on his arm, “mon père!”

But old Caboff did not answer him. He was dead.

* * * * *

The _grande armée_ was still winning famous victories, ploughing up sunny harvest-fields with cannon-balls, and making homes and hearts desolate.

“There is one comfort,” said old Peltran, sitting moodily in his deserted bar: “when things come to the worst they must get better.”

“They’ve not come to the worst yet,” observed a neighbor. “There’s lots of things that might happen, that haven’t happened yet; the plague might come, or the blight, or the _grande armée_ might get beaten. We’ve not come to the worst yet, believe you me.”

“There’s one thing anyhow that can’t happen,” said Peltran: “there can’t be another recruitment in Gondriac, for there isn’t a man left amongst us fit to shoulder a musket; we are all either too old, or lame, or blind of an eye.”

“There’s young Caboff is neither one nor the other. To be sure, he’s not the stuff to make a soldier out of; but when they’ve used up all the men they must make the best of the milk-sops.”

“Marcel is a widow’s only son; he’s safe,” said Peltran.

“From one day to another the last reserves may be called out,” observed the neighbor; “it will be hard on the mother, after two of her sons going for cannon’s meat. It was a plucky thing of the old father putting out that night. I wonder if he knew for certain who was on the deck of the ship.”

“If he didn’t he wouldn’t have been such an ass as to put out,” said Peltran. “Why should he fling away his bit of life for a stranger that he owed nothing to?”

“For the matter of that, he owed nothing to M. le Marquis; the Caboffs, they say, are rich enough to buy up every inch of land in Gondriac.”

“Folks may owe more than money can pay,” retorted Peltran. “M. le Marquis was very kind to the old man when his sons were killed, and, whatever Caboff’s sins may have been, he had a fine sense of his natural obligations. It didn’t surprise me much when I saw how handsomely he paid off his debt to M. le Marquis.”

“They say that monseigneur swore to Mme. Caboff that if ever she asked him a favor, whatever it was, he would grant it,” said the neighbor.

“Very likely,” remarked the host. “M. le Marquis has a grand-seigneur way of doing everything. I hope the Caboffs will have the delicacy never to abuse it.”

Not many days after this conversation Mme. Caboff was to be seen walking across the moor on her way to the castle. She looked an older woman than she was; sorrow had broken her down, and it would take little now to destroy the frail tenure of life that remained to her.

This was the first time she had ever entered the castle. Under other circumstances the visit would have thrown the widow into some trepidation. She would have been pleasantly fluttered at the prospect of an interview with the great lord in his own halls, and would have been much exercised on her way thither as to what she should say to him; but her mind was full of other cares to-day.

M. le Marquis was at home. He had spent the morning over a letter from Captain Hermann de Gondriac, which contained a graphic personal narrative of the retreat from Moscow of that disastrous expedition from which, out of the fifty thousand cavalry who went forth, only one hundred and twenty-five officers returned. A pang of anguish and patriotic indignation wrung the old nobleman’s heart as he read and re-read the terrible story, but tears of deep thankfulness fell from the father’s eyes at the thought that his son was spared and was returning safe and unhurt with that decimated army of starved, exasperated spectres. The marquis was perusing the letter for the tenth time when Mme. Caboff was announced. He rose to receive her with a warmth of welcome that boded well for her petition.

“M. le Marquis, you made me give you a promise once—that night; do you remember it?” she said, holding his white hand lightly between her two black-kidded ones, and looking up into his face with the meek and hungry look of a dog begging for a bone which may be refused and a kick given instead.

“Remember it? Yes,” replied the Marquis, returning the timid pressure with a cordial grasp. “You are in trouble; sit down, madame, and tell me what there is that I can do to make it lighter for you.”

“My son, my last and only son, Marcel, is called out, M. le Marquis!”

“And you want to find a substitute for him. It shall be done. I will set about it without an hour’s delay.”

“M. le Marquis, it cannot be done; there are no more substitutes to be had. I would give every penny I possess to get one, but there are none left. The widows’ only sons were the last spared, and now they must go. Marcel has been to the prefecture, and they told him there was no help for it: he must join the new levy to-morrow at X——M. le Marquis, have pity on me! It will kill me to let him go; and, oh! it is so dreadful to see the boy.”

“He is frightened at the prospect of going to battle?” There was an imperceptible ring of scorn under the courteous tone of the aristocrat as he put the question.

“He is mad with delight, M. le Marquis; he has always been wild to follow his brothers and be killed as they were.”

“Brave lad! But he shall not have his wish; he shall not be made food for Bonaparte’s cannon,” said the Marquis. “Go home in peace, madame, and break the bad news to him as tenderly as you can.”

“Thank God! God bless you, M. le Marquis!” said the widow fervently. “But is it indeed possible? I can hardly believe in so great a joy.”

M. le Marquis was silent for a moment, as if making a calculation; then he said musingly:

“The emperor is in Paris to-day; I will start in an hour from this and see him to-night. He owes me something. I never thought to have asked a favor at his hands; but I will stoop to ask him that your son be exempted from the service.”

“O M. le Marquis!” Mme. Caboff began to cry with joy; but remembering suddenly that this great emperor was conquering the whole world and turning kings in and out like valets—for Gondriac heard of his fine doings and was very proud of them—it occurred to her that he might by possibility refuse a request proffered even by so great a man as M. le Marquis. “You think his majesty is sure not to refuse you, monsieur?” she added timidly.

M. de Gondriac was too well cased in his armor of pride to be touched by the poor woman’s unconscious insult; he smiled and replied with a quiet irony that escaped his visitor: “I think that is very unlikely, Mme. Caboff. Be at rest,” he continued kindly. “I pledge you my word that your son shall not be taken from you. Instead of going to-morrow to X——, he had better start off at once with a letter which I will give him to the prefect.”

He wrote the letter and handed it to Mme. Caboff.

* * * * *

It was late that evening when M. de Gondriac arrived in Paris. He drove straight to the Tuileries. Time was precious, and he had travelled in court dress, so as not to lose an hour at the end of the journey. It did not occur to him that there could be any delay in reaching the presence of the emperor. Petitioners of his class were not so common at the great man’s door that it should close upon them because of some informal haste in their demand for admittance. He handed in his card and asked to see the lord chamberlain. After some delay he was shown into the presence of that high functionary, to whom he stated his desire for an immediate audience of his majesty. The lord chamberlain smilingly informed him that this was impossible; mortals were not admitted into the august presence in this abrupt manner; but he—the lord chamberlain—would present the request at his earliest opportunity to-morrow, and communicate in due time with M. le Marquis.

“Things do not proceed so summarily at court,” he added graciously. The marquis felt his blood boil. This mushroom duke telling a De Gondriac how things were done at court!

“I know enough of courts to be aware that on occasions etiquette must yield to weightier reasons,” he replied. “Oblige me, M. le Duc, by taking my message at once to the emperor.”

There was something in his tone which compelled the obsequious courtier to obey. He withdrew, and returned presently with a face full of amazed admiration to announce to the visitor that his majesty was willing to receive him.

The emperor was standing with his hands behind his back in the embrasure of a window when M. de Gondriac entered. He did not turn round at once, but waited until the door closed, and then, walking up to M. de Gondriac, he said brusquely: “I have invited you many times, marquis, and you have never come. What brings you here to-night?” The speech was curt, but not insolent; it did not even sound uncivil.

“Sire, I am an old man, and it is so long since I have been at court that I have forgotten how to behave myself. My lord chamberlain was deeply shocked, I could perceive, at my breach of ceremony in coming to the palace in this abrupt way without going through the usual observances. My motive will, I hope, excuse me to your majesty.”

“Yes, yes, I will let you off easier than Bassano,” said the emperor. “But what do you want of me?” He had his hands still behind his back, and, without desiring his visitor to be seated, he turned to pace up and down the room.

“I have come to ask a favor of your majesty.”

“Ha! that is well. I am glad of that. Do you know, that boy of yours has behaved admirably,” he said, facing round and looking at the marquis.

“We are accustomed to fight, sire,” replied M. de Gondriac. “It came naturally to my son; he had, moreover, the advantage of drawing his maiden sword under a great captain.”

“I mean to keep him by me. I have appointed him on my own staff. We are not done with war. I am raising troops for a campaign in the spring.”

“Sire, I am aware of it; it is precisely about that that I have come to speak to your majesty. There is in my village a widow whose two sons have fallen in the service of the country; there remains to her one more son, a lad of nineteen....”

“And she is ambitious that he should share the glorious fate of his brothers; that is natural,” broke in the emperor.

“Sire, she is a widow, and this boy is all she has in the world. It is no longer possible to procure a substitute; therefore I come to crave at your hands his exemption from the service.”

“What! you would rob France of a soldier, when they are so scarce that gold cannot buy one? Is this your notion of duty to your country, M. de Gondriac? Is it thus you aristocrats understand patriotism?” The emperor confronted him with a flashing eye.

“My son has answered that question, sire.”

“Tut! And because, forsooth, your son has done his duty, you would have other men’s sons betray theirs! A peasant makes as good a soldier as a peer, let me tell you. Because your son condescended to share the glory of the _grande armée_ you expect me to make you a present of a strong young soldier! I do not understand such sentimental logic.”

“Neither do I, sire. I was not putting forward the services of my son as a claim for this poor lad, but those of his two brothers who lost their lives, one at Wagram, the other at Friedland.”

“What better could have befallen them?”

“Nothing, in my estimation; but their mother....”

“France is their mother; she claims their allegiance and their life before any one. The man who puts his mother before his country is a fool or a coward!”

“This young man has not asked to be exempted; his mother came and besought me to have him spared to her, and, counting on your gratitude and generosity, sire, I have come to lay her petition at your feet. The boy himself is frantic to be off and die like his brothers.”

“Then he shall have his wish and France shall count one more hero. Tell his mother she shall have a pension. Give me her name, and it shall be done at once.”

“She is not in want of it, sire; she has wealth enough to buy a score of men, if they were to be had.”

“But they are not, and so her son must go.”

“This is your last word, sire?”

“Yes, marquis, my last.”

“Then I have only to crave your majesty’s forgiveness for my intrusion.” M. de Gondriac bowed and was moving towards the door, when the emperor called out:

“Stay a moment. What motive have you in pleading this widow’s cause so strongly?”

The marquis in a few words told the story of that memorable night when Caboff saved him at the cost of his own life. The emperor listened to the end without interrupting him; then he resumed his walk, and, speaking from the other end of the room, “You are naturally anxious to pay back so heavy a debt,” he said. “Would this feeling carry you the length of making some sacrifice?”

How could Bonaparte ask the question? Did not M. de Gondriac’s presence here to-night answer it exhaustively?

“I think I have proved that, sire,” he answered coldly.

The emperor was silent for a while; then, turning round, he looked fixedly at the marquis and said:

“I withdraw my unconditional refusal. I will let you know to-morrow on what terms I consent to exempt the son of your deliverer from dying on the field of battle.”

M. de Gondriac bowed low. “I have the honor to salute your majesty.”

“_Au revoir_, marquis.”

What did he mean, and what was this condition so mysteriously hinted at, and only to be declared after the night’s preparation?

M. de Gondriac was sitting over his breakfast next morning when an estafette rode up to his old hôtel, bearing a large official envelope stamped with the imperial arms and the talismanic words, “Maison de l’Empereur.” M. le Marquis broke the seal and ran his eye down the large sheet, and then tossed it from him with an exclamation of anger and contempt.

“Enter _his_ service! Play lackey at the court of an upstart who is drenching my country in blood from sheer vanity and ambition—a usurper who is keeping my liege sovereign in exile, and the best part of my kindred in idleness, or else in a servitude more humiliating than the dreariest inactivity! A De Gondriac tricked out in the livery of a mountebank king like him! Ha! ha! M. de Bonaparte, when you give that spectacle to the gods, ... _je vous en fais mon compliment_!”

M. le Marquis laughed a low, musical laugh as he muttered these reflections to himself. But presently he ceased laughing and his face took a dark and troubled look. The emperor made his acceptance of this offer the price of Marcel Caboff’s exemption. If he rejected it, the lad must join. “Would gratitude carry you the length of a sacrifice?” When the question had been put to him, it seemed to M. de Gondriac that he had forestalled it; but the emperor evidently did not think so, and now he was putting him to the test. It was the severest he could have chosen. When Hermann de Gondriac took service under Bonaparte, the old nobleman considered his son was making a fine sacrifice of personal pride to patriotism; but the service here, at least, was a noble one, and rendered to France rather than to the upstart who had captured her. But this other was of a totally different order. Even in the bygone days, when France had a legitimate king and real court, the De Gondriacs had been shy of taking office in the royal household, preferring the service of the camp, diplomacy abroad, or statesmanship at home; to stoop now to be a courtier to Bonaparte was a degradation not to be calmly contemplated. If the tyrant had asked any sacrifice but this, M. le Marquis said to himself, he would have made it gladly; but this was impossible. It meant the surrender of his self-respect, of those principles whose integrity he had hitherto proudly maintained at no small personal risk and cost. Before he had finished his coffee, the question was settled, and he rose to write his answer.

Trifles sometimes affect us with the force of great repellant causes. The act of taking the pen in his hand brought before him vividly the last time he had held it: it was in his library at Gondriac; the widow sat watching him with a swelling heart, made glad by his promise solemnly given: “I pledge you my word that your son shall not be taken from you.” M. le Marquis laid down his pen and fell to thinking. “No, I can’t do it,” he said after a long pause. “I can’t belie the traditions of my race; I can’t stain the old name and turn saltimbanque in my old age.” He took up the pen and wrote to the emperor, declining his offer.

The next day the town of X—— was full of excitement. The new recruits were pouring in, sometimes in boisterous crowds, singing and hurrahing, sometimes in sober knots of twos and threes, sometimes singly, accompanied by weeping relatives, mostly women. There had been an official attempt to get up a show of warlike enthusiasm, but it had failed; people were growing sick of the glories of war, sick of sending sons and brothers and husbands to be massacred for Bonaparte’s good pleasure. The recruits were called out by name, and answered sullenly as they passed through the Mairie out to the market-place, where the sergeant was waiting to give them their first lesson in drill, showing them how to stand straight and get into position.

“Marcel Caboff!” called out the recruiting agent.

“_Remplacé!_”

“By whom?”

“Rudolf, Marquis de Gondriac!”

TO BE CONTINUED.

HIGHER.

I have lifted up my eyes unto the mountains, whence help shall come to me.—_Ps._ cxx.

Too late have I known thee, O Infinite Beauty! too late have I loved thee, O Beauty ever ancient and new!—_St. Augustine._

I.

'Mid wide green meadows, made more fair with flowers—
Tall, golden lilies, swaying in the sun,
Slight, clustering rue that web of silver spun—
I lingered dreaming through the day’s first hours.
About me men in work-day toil were bent,
Swift levelling the daisies’ drift of snow,
The clover’s purple sweetness laying low,
And ripened grain whose summer life was spent.
I sat where leafy trees a shadow wrought
Amid the broad, warm sunshine of the plain,
Where, undisturbed, poured forth the wood-birds’ strain
And fancy’s magic played with every thought:
A whole life centred in each daisy-round,
And work-day toil seemed but a slumbrous sound.

II.

Low rippling at my feet a loitering stream
Slipt, murmuring music to each listening stone,
Or flung its silver laughter where soft shone
The slant sunbeam breaking the shadows’ dream;
Betwixt the robins’ song the swift blue-bird
Flashed like a heavenly message through the shade
Where with the sunshine gentlest breezes played,
And quiet shadows to soft motion stirred.
Between me and the meadow’s smitten flow’rs
The fresh June roses wreathed the rude fence bars,
Frail elder trailed its galaxy of stars,
While butterflies sped by in golden show’rs—
Far, far beyond, the earth-haze shining through,
Rose the great mountains’ dim and misty blue.

III.

So far and strange those misty hills! so near
And intimate the little, shady nook,
The skies reflected in the merry brook—
Those distant heights so lonely and austere!
Scarce e’en the busy mowers of the field
Lifted their eyes to those dim gates of blue
Where all their gathered harvest must pass through,
Its grass and stubble be one day revealed.
As grew the day, more clear the summits grew;
Springing from shadow, radiant waterfalls
Flung trails of sunshine o’er the stern rock-walls—
Such sunshine as the valley never knew!
Paled the June roses, fading in my hand,
Tarnished the lowland river’s golden sand!

IV.

Then seemed to stir the trembling leaves amid,
To mingle with the robins’ cheerful call,
A low, sad voice, as if the hills let fall
Faint, wandering echoes of sweet music hid
In dark ravine, on solitary height.
I dropped my roses, gone their ravishment;
I passed the mowers o’er their harvest bent;
I sought those distant mountain-lands of light.
Wild, thorny brambles stretched across my way,
Sharp rocks were weary pathways for my feet,
Yet ever lured me on those accents sweet
Whose very sadness was my weakness’ stay,
With every step more intimate and near—
“Take heart, poor child! ’tis I; have thou no fear.

V.

“Take heart, and I thy faltering steps will lead
Above the earth-mists and the brier-strewn road
To my far mountain-tops, the pure abode
Of heaven-born stream, and fair enamelled mead
Whose flow’rs immortal fells not any scythe.
Long have I sought thee 'mid the withering flowers
Wherewith thou smiling crown’dst the fading hours,
Weaving fine fancies 'mid the murmuring blithe
Of lowland stream, and birds, and pattering leaves;
Long have I called thee, waiting for thy voice,
So faint it rose above the troublous noise
Of earthly harvesters among their sheaves;
Long have I waited thy dear heart to win,
So long desired to reign with thee therein.”

VI.

O sorrow-stricken Voice, so piercing sweet!
Blinding my eyes with tears, smiting my heart
Like some fire-pointed, swift-descending dart,
And giving strength unto my climbing feet
Seeking those dim and misty hills of blue.
Lo! the great mountains at thy music thrilled,
And all their deep recesses echoes filled—
Near and more near the sunlit summits grew!
The little birds that gathered, unafraid,
On berry-laden boughs beside my way
Mingled thy cadence with their roundelay—
Its joyousness grown sweeter through thy shade.
O Voice of love and grief, sad for my sin,
What ways were thine so poor a thing to win!

VII.

O thou Almighty Lord of life and death,
Thou that hast led me out the wilderness
And shown me thy great hills’ pure strength to bless,
Guard in my soul, lest still it perisheth!
The cross thou gavest still I strive to bear—
So light it grows that half, at times, I fear
My trust is lost, sign of thy service dear—
Dost thou bear all, dear Lord, for me no share?
So in thy steps to follow still I seek,
The wearing way thy patient feet have pressed,
The blood-stained way thy heavy cross hath blessed—
Dost thou hold me to suffer aught too weak?
E’en when I strive one little thorn to grasp
It turns to tender roses in my clasp.

VIII.

The very stones win smoothness from thy feet,
Beneath whose tread immortal flowers spring,
Holding within their snowy hearts no sting,
And breathing spices for love’s incense meet.
The lark, swift rising thy approach to greet,
The fulness of his heavenly song to pour
No higher than thy breast divine need soar,
There hiding life and song in joy complete!
Though sheltering trees o’ershadow not my way
To ward the sultry glow of noonday sun,
Yet 'neath thy cross the coolest shade is won
That dims no ray of that eternal day
That from yon unstained hills of peace doth shine,
Whereto thou leadest me, O Love Divine!

IX.

Yet many bitter tears I needs must weep,
Remembering the glimmer of the plain
Where nodding lilies and the bending grain
Seemed rarest treasure in their gold to keep;
Those thoughtless hours ere I learned to look
Beyond my roses to the misty hills—
The far-off pastures only God’s hand tills;
Where lost I in the laughter of the brook
And song of earthly birds that loving Voice,
That patient call, alas! too long denied.
Still in my heart in weeping woe must bide,
E’en in His breast who bids my soul rejoice,
The mem’ry of that day’s ingratitude
When God in vain for love his creature sued.

THE IRON AGE OF CHRISTENDOM.