‘She shall pass for none but mine!—I part with thee, indeed! All that is left me of thy father!—the poor little orphaned innocent, that no one loves but her mother!’

‘Madame—Mademoiselle, this is not common sense! Why, how can you hide yourself? how travel with a baby on your neck, whose crying may betray you?’

‘She never cries—never, never! And better I were betrayed than she.’

‘If it were a boy–’ began Perrine.

‘If it were a boy, there would be plenty to care for it. I should not care for it half so much. As for my poor little lonely girl, whom every one wishes away but her mother—ah! yes, baby, thy mother will go through fire and water for thee yet. Never fear, thou shalt not leave her!’

‘No nurse can go with Madame. Simonette could not leave her home.’

‘What needs a nurse when she has me?’

‘But, Madame,’ proceeded the old woman, out of patience, ‘you are beside yourself! What noble lady ever nursed her babe?’

‘I don’t care noble ladies—I care for my child,’ said the vehement, petulant little thing.

‘And how—what good will Madame’s caring for it do? What knows she of infants? How can she take care of it?’

‘Our Lady will teach me,’ said Eustacie, still pressing the child passionately to her heart; ‘and see—the owl—the ring-dove—can take care of their little ones; the good God shows them how—He will tell me how!’

Perrine regarded her Lady much as if she were in a naughty fit, refusing unreasonably to part with a new toy, and Nanon Rotrou was much of the same mind; but it was evident that if at the moment they attempted to carry off the babe, the other would put herself into an agony of passion, that they durst not call forth; and they found it needful to do their best to soothe her out of the deluge of agitated tears that fell from her eyes, as she grasped the child so convulsively that she might almost have stifled it at once. They assured her that they would not take it away now—not now, at any rate; and when the latent meaning made her fiercely insist that it was to leave her neither now nor ever, Perrine made pacifying declarations that it should be just as she pleased—promises that she knew well, when in that coaxing voice, meant nothing at all. Nothing calmed her till Perrine had been conducted away; and even then Nanon could not hush her into anything like repose, and at last called in the minister, in despair.

‘Ah! sir, you are a wise man; can you find how to quiet the poor little thing? Her nurse has nearly driven her distracted with talking of the foster-parents she has found for the child.’

‘Not found!’ cried Eustacie. ‘No, for she shall never go!’

‘There!’ lamented Nanon—‘so she agitates herself, when it is but spoken of. And surely she had better make up her mind, for there is no other choice.’

‘Nay, Nanon,’ said M. Gardon, ‘wherefore should she part with the charge that God has laid on her?’

Eustacie gave a little cry of grateful joy. ‘Oh, sir, come nearer! Do you, indeed, say that they have no right to tear her from me?’

‘Surely not, Lady. It is you whose duty it is to shield and guard her.’

‘Oh, sir, tell me again! Yours is the right religion. Oh, you are the minister for me! If you will tell me I ought to keep my child, then I will believe everything else. I will do just as you tell me.’ And she stretched out both hands to him, with vehement eagerness.

‘Poor thing! This is no matter of one religion or another,’ said the minister; ‘it is rather the duty that the Almighty hath imposed, and that He hath made an eternal joy.’

‘Truly,’ said Nanon, ashamed at having taken the other side: ‘the good pasteur says what is according to nature. It would have gone hard with me if any one had wished to part me from Robin or Sara; but these fine ladies, and, for that matter, BOURGEOISES too, always do put out their babes; and it seemed to me that Madame would find it hard to contrive for herself—let alone the little one.’

‘Ah! but what would be the use of contriving for myself, without her?’ said Eustacie.

If all had gone well and prosperously with Madame de Ribaumont, probably she would have surrendered an infant born in purple and in pall to the ordinary lot of its contemporaries; but the exertions and suffering she had undergone on behalf of her child, its orphanhood, her own loneliness, and even the general disappointment in its sex, had given it a hold on her vehement, determined heart, that intensified to the utmost the instincts of motherhood; and she listened as if to an angle’s voice as Maitre Gardon replied to Nanon—

‘I say not that it is not the custom; nay, that my blessed wife and myself have not followed it; but we have so oft had cause to repent the necessity, that far be it from me ever to bid a woman forsake her sucking child.’

‘Is that Scripture?’ asked Eustacie. ‘Ah! sir, sir, tell me more! You are giving me all—all—my child! I will be—I am—a Huguenot like her father! and, when my vassals come, I will make them ride with you to La Rochelle, and fight in your cause!’

‘Nay,’ said Maitre Gardon, taken by surprise; ‘but, Lady, your vassals are Catholic.’

‘What matters it? In my cause they shall fight!’ said the feudal Lady, ‘for me and my daughter!’

And as the pastor uttered a sound of interrogative astonishment, she continued—

‘As soon as I am well enough, Blaise will send out messages, and they will meet me at midnight at the cross-roads, Martin and all, for dear good Martin is quite well now, and we shall ride across country, avoiding towns, wherever I choose to lead them. I had thought of Chantilly, for I know M. de Montmorency would stand my friend against a Guisard; but now, now I know you, sir, let me escort you to La Rochelle, and do your cause service worthy of Nid de Merle and Ribaumont!’ And as she sat up on her bed, she held up her little proud head, and waved her right hand with the grace and dignity of a queen offering an alliance of her realm.

Maitre Gardon, who had hitherto seen her as a childish though cheerful and patient sufferer, was greatly amazed, but he could not regard her project as practicable, or in his conscience approve it; and after a moment’s consideration he answered, ‘I am a man of peace, Lady, and seldom side with armed men, nor would I lightly make one of those who enroll themselves against the King.’

‘Not after all the Queen-mother had done!’ cried Eustacie.

‘Martyrdom is better than rebellion,’ quietly answered the old man, folding his hands. Then he added ‘Far be it from me to blame those who have drawn the sword for the faith; yet, Lady, it would not be even thus with your peasants; they might not follow you.’

‘Then,’ said Eustacie, with flashing eyes, ‘they would be traitors.’

‘Not to the King,’ said the pastor, gently. ‘Also, Lady, how will it be with their homes and families—the hearths that have given you such faithful shelter?’

‘The women would take to the woods,’ readily answered she; ‘it is summer-time, and they should be willing to bear something for my sake. I should grieve indeed,’ she added, ‘if my uncle misused them. They have been very good to me, but then they belong to me.’

‘Ah! Lady, put from you that hardening belief of seigneurs. Think what their fidelity deserves from their Lady.’

‘I will be good to them! I do love them! I will be their very good mistress,’ said Eustacie, her eyes filling.

‘The question is rather of forbearing than of doing,’ said the minister.

‘But what would you have me do?’ asked Eustacie, petulantly.

‘This, Lady. I gather that you would not return to your relations.’

‘Never! never! They would rend my babe from me; they would kill her, or at least hide her for ever in a convent—they would force me into this abhorrent marriage. No—no—no—my child and I would die a hundred deaths together rather than fall into the hands of Narcisse.’

‘Calm yourself, Lady; there is no present fear, but I deem that the safest course for the little one would be to place her in England. She must be heiress to lands and estates there; is she not?’

‘Yes; and in Normandy.’

‘And your husband’s mother lives? Wherefore then should you not take me for your guide, and make your way—more secretly than would be possible with a peasant escort—to one of your Huguenot towns on the coast, whence you could escape with the child to England?’

‘My belle-mere has re-married! She has children! I would not bring the daughter of Ribaumont as a suppliant to be scorned!’ said Eustacie, pouting. ‘She has lands enough of her own.’

‘There is no need to discuss the question now,’ said M. Gardon, gravely; for a most kind offer, involving much peril and inconvenience to himself, was thus petulantly flouted. ‘Madame will think at her leisure of what would have been the wishes of Monsieur le Baron for his child.’

He then held himself aloof, knowing that it was not well for her health, mental or bodily, to talk any more, and a good deal perplexed himself by the moods of his strange little impetuous convert, if convert she could be termed. He himself was a deeply learned scholar, who had studied all the bearings of the controversy; and, though bound to the French Reformers who would gladly have come to terms with the Catholics at the Conference of Plassy, and regretted the more decided Calvinism that his party had since professed, and in which the Day of St. Bartholomew confirmed them. He had a strong sense of the grievous losses they suffered by their disunion from the Church. The Reformed were less and less what his ardent youthful hopes had trusted to see them; and in his old age he was a sorrow-stricken man, as much for the cause of religion as for personal bereavements. He had little desire to win proselytes, but rather laid his hand to build up true religion where he found it suffering shocks in these unsettled, neglected times; and his present wish was rather to form and guide this little willful warm-hearted mother—whom he could not help regarding with as much affection as pity—to find a home in the Church that had been her husband’s, than to gain her to his own party. And most assuredly he would never let her involve herself, as she was ready to do, in the civil war, without even knowing the doctrine which grave and earnest men had preferred to their loyalty.

He could hear her murmuring to her baby, ‘No, no, little one, we are not fallen so low as to beg our bread among strangers.’ To live upon her own vassals had seemed to her only claiming her just rights, but it galled her to think of being beholden to stranger Huguenots; and England and her mother-in-law, without Berenger, were utterly foreign and distasteful to her.

Her mood was variable. Messages from Blaise and Martin came and went, and it became known that her intended shelter at Chollet, together with all the adjacent houses, had been closely searched by the younger Ribaumont in conjunction with the governor; so that it was plain that some treachery must exist, and that she only owed her present freedom to her detention in the ruined temple; and it would be necessary to leave that as soon as it was possible for her to attempt the journey.

The plan that seemed most feasible to the vassals was, that Rotrou should convey her in a cart of fagots as far as possible on the road to Paris; that there his men should meet her by different roads, riding their farm-horses—and Martin even hoped to be able to convey her own palfrey to her from the monastery stable, and thence, taking a long stretch across country, they trusted to be able to reach the lands of a dependant of the house of Montmorency, who would not readily yield her up to a Guise’s man. But, whether instigated by Perrine, or by their own judgment, the vassals declared that, though Madame should be conducted wherever she desired, it was impossible to encumber themselves with the infant. Concealment would be impossible; rough, hasty rides would be retarded, her difficulties would be tenfold increased, and the little one would become a means of tracing her. There was no choice but to leave it with Simonette.

Angrily and haughtily did Eustacie always reject this alternative, and send fresh commands back by her messenger, to meet the same reply in another form. The strong will and practical resolution of the stout farmers, who were about to make a terrible venture for her, and might reasonably think they had a right to prescribe the terms that they thought best. All this time Maitre Gardon felt it impossible to leave her, still weak and convalescent, alone in the desolate ruin with her young child; though still her pride would not bend again to seek the counsel that she had so much detested, nor to ask for the instruction that was to make her ‘believe like her husband.’ If she might not fight for the Reformed, it seemed as if she would none of their doctrine!

But, true lady that she was, she sunk the differences in her intercourse with him. She was always prettily and affectionately grateful for every service that he rendered her, and as graciously polite as though she had been keeping house in the halls of Ribaumont. Then her intense love for her child was so beautiful, and there was so much sweetness in the cheerful patience with which she endured the many hardships of her situation, that he could not help being strongly interested in the willful, spirited little being.

And thus time passed, until one night, when Martin ventured over the farm with a report so serious that Rotrou, at all risks, brought him up to communicate his own tidings. Some one had given information, Veronique he suspected, and the two Chevaliers were certainly coming the next day to search with fire the old buildings of the temple. It was already dawning towards morning, and it would be impossible to do more at present than to let Rotrou build up the lady in a vault, some little way off, whence, after the search was over, she could be released, and join her vassals the next night according to the original design. As to the child, her presence in the vault was impossible, and Martin had actually brought her intended nurse, Simonette, to Rotrou’s cottage to receive her.

‘Never!’ was all Eustacie answered. ‘Save both of us, or neither.’

‘Lady,’ said M. Gardon as she looked towards him, ‘I go my way with my staff.’

‘And you—you more faithful than her vassals—will let me take her?’

‘Assuredly.’

‘Then, sir, even to the world’s end will I go with you’

Martin would have argued, have asked, but she would not listen to him. It was Maitre Gardon who made him understand the project. There was what in later times has been termed an underground railway amid the persecuted Calvinists, and M. Gardon knew his ground well enough to have little doubt of being able to conduct the lady safely to some town on the coast, whence she might reach her friends in England. The plan highly satisfied Martin. It relieved him and his neighbours from the necessity of provoking perilous wrath, and it was far safer for her herself than endeavouing to force her way with an escort too large not to attract notice, yet not warlike enough for efficient defence. He offered no further opposition, but augured that after all she would come back a fine lady, and right them all.

Eustacie, recovering from her anger, and recollecting his services, gave him her hand to kiss, and bade him farewell with a sudden effusion of gratitude and affection that warmed the honest fellow’s heart. Rewards could not be given, lest they should become a clue for her uncle; and perhaps they would have wounded both him and their kind hosts, who did their best to assist her in their departure. A hasty meal was provided by Nanon, and a basket so stored as to obviate the need of entering a village, on that day at least, to purchase provisions; Eustacie’s money and jewels again formed the nucleus of the bundle of clothes and spare swaddling-banks of her babe; her peasant dress was carefully arranged—a stout striped cloth skit and black bodice, the latter covered by a scarlet Chollet kerchief. The winged white cap entirely hid her hair; a gray cloak with a hood could either fold round her and her child or be strapped on her shoulders. Her sabots were hung on her shoulder, for she had learnt to go barefoot, and walked much more lightly thus; and her little bundle was slung on a staff on the back of Maitre Gardon, who in his great peasant’s hat and coat looked so like a picture of St. Joseph, that Eustacie, as the light of the rising sun fell on his white beard and hair, was reminded of the Flight into Egypt, and came close to him, saying shyly, ‘Our Blessed Lady will bless and feel for my baby. She knows what this journey is.’

‘The Son of the Blessed Mary assuredly knows and blesses,’ he answered.

CHAPTER XIX. LA RUE DES TROIS FEES

And round the baby fast and close Her trembling grasp she folds. And with a strong convulsive grasp The little infant holds.—SOUTHEY.

A wild storm had raged all the afternoon, hail and rain had careered on the wings of the wind along the narrow street of the Three Fairies, at the little Huguenot bourg of La Sablerie; torrents of rain had poached the unpaved soil into a depth of mud, and thunder had reverberated over the chimney-tops, and growled far away over the Atlantic, whose angry waves were tossing on the low sandy coast about two miles from the town.

The evening had closed in with a chill, misty drizzle, and, almost May though it were, the Widow Noemi Laurent gladly closed the shutters of her unglazed window, where small cakes and other delicate confections were displayed, and felt the genial warmth of the little fire with which she heated her tiny oven. She was the widow of a pastor who had suffered for his faith in the last open persecution, and being the daughter of a baker, the authorities of the town had permitted her to support herself and her son by carrying on a trade in the more delicate ‘subtilties’ of the art, which were greatly relished at the civic feasts. Noemi was a grave, sad woman, very lonely ever since she had saved enough to send her son to study for the ministry in Switzerland, and with an aching heart that longed to be at rest from the toil that she looked on as a steep ladder on her way to a better home. She occupied two tiny rooms on the ground-floor of a tall house; and she had just arranged her few articles of furniture with the utmost neatness, when there was a low knock at her door, a knock that the persecuted well understood, and as she lifted the latch, a voice she had known of old spoke the scriptural salutation, ‘Peace be with this house.’

‘Eh quoi, Master Issac, is it thou? Come in—in a good hour—ah!’

As, dripping all round his broad hat and from every thread of his gray mantle, the aged traveller drew into the house a female figure whom he had been supporting on his other arm, muffled head and shoulders in a soaked cloak, with a petticoat streaming with wet, and feet and ankles covered with mire, ‘Here we are, my child,’ he said tenderly, as he almost carried her to Noemi’s chair. Noemi, with kind exclamations of ‘La pauvre! la pauvre!’ helped the trembling cold hand to open the wet cloak, and then cried out with fresh surprise and pity at the sight of the fresh little infant face, nestled warm and snug under all the wrappings in those weary arms.

‘See,’ said the poor wanderer, looking up to the old man, with a faint smile; ‘she is well—she is warm—it hurts her not.’

‘Can you take us in?’ added M. Gardon, hastily; ‘have you room?’

‘Oh yes; if you can sleep on the floor here, I will take this poor dear to my own bed directly,’ said Noemi. ‘Tenez’ opening a chest; ‘you will find dry clothes there, of my husband’s. And thou,’ helping Eustacie up with her strong arm, and trying to take the little one, ‘let me warm and dry thee within.’

Too much worn out to make resistance, almost past speaking, knowing merely that she had reached the goal that had been promised her throughout these weary days, feeling warmth, and hearing kind tones, Eustacie submitted to be led into the inner room; and when the good widow returned again, it was in haste to fetch some of the warm potage she had already been cooking over the fire, and hastily bade M. Gardon help himself to the rest. She came back again with the babe, to wash and dress it in the warmth of her oven fire. Maitre Gardon, in the black suit of a Calvinist pastor, had eaten his potage, and was anxiously awaiting her report. ‘Ah! la pauvre, with His blessing she will sleep! she will do well. But how far did you come to-day?’

‘From Sainte Lucie. From the Grange du Temple since Monday.’

‘Ah! is it possible? The poor child! And this little one—sure, it is scarce four weeks old?’

‘Four weeks this coming Sunday.’

‘Ah! the poor thing. The blessing of Heaven must have been with you to bear her through. And what a lovely infant—how white—what beauteous little limbs! Truly, she has sped well. Little did I think, good friend, that you had this comfort left, or that our poor Theodore’s young wife had escaped.’

‘Alas! no, Noemi; this is no child of Theodore’s. His wife shared his martyrdom. It is I who am escaped alone to tell thee. But, nevertheless, this babe is an orphan of that same day. Her father was the son of the pious Baron de Ribaumont, the patron of your husband, and of myself in earlier days.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Noemi, startled. ‘Then the poor young mother—is she—can she be the lost Demoiselle de Nid de Merle?’

‘Is the thing known here? The will of Heaven be done; but she can send to her husband’s kindred in England.’

‘She might rest safely enough, if others beside myself believed in her being your son’s widow,’ said Noemi. ‘Wherefore should she not be thought so?’

‘Poor Esperance! She would willingly have lent her name to guard another,’ said Master Gardon, thoughtfully; ‘and, for the sake of the child, my little lady may endure it. Ah! there is the making of a faithful and noble woman in that poor young thing. Bravely, patiently, cheerfully, hath she plodded this weary way; and, verily, she hath grown like my own daughter to me—as I never thought to love earthly thing again; and had this been indeed my Theodore’s child, I could hardly care for it more.’

And as he related how he had fallen in with the forlorn Lady of Ribaumont, and all that she had dared, done, and left undone for the sake of her little daughter, good Noemi Laurent wept, and agreed with him that a special providence must have directed them to his care, and that some good work must await one who had been carried through so much. His project was to remain here for a short time, to visit the flock who had lost their pastor on the day of the massacre, and to recruit his own strength; for he, too, had suffered severely from the long travelling, and the exposure during many nights, especially since all that was warm and sheltered had been devoted to Eustacie. And after this he proposed to go to La Rochelle, and make inquiries for a trusty messenger who could be sent to England to seek out the family of the Baron de Ribaumont, or, mayhap, a sufficient escort with whom the lady could travel; though he had nearly made up his mind that he would not relinquish the care of her until he had safely delivered her to her husband’s mother.

Health and life were very vigorous in Eustacie; and though at first she had been completely worn out, a few days of comfort, entire rest, and good nursing restored her. Noemi dressed her much like herself, in a black gown, prim little white starched ruff, and white cap,—a thorough Calvinist dress, and befitting a minister’s widow. Eustacie winced a little at hearing of the character that had been fastened upon her; she disliked for her child, still more than for herself, to take this bourgeois name of Gardon; but there was no help for it, since, though he chief personages of the town were Huguenot, there could be no safety for her if the report were once allowed to arise that the Baronne de Ribaumont had taken refuge there.

It was best that she should be as little noticed as possible; nor, indeed, had good Noemi many visitors. The sad and sorrowful woman had always shut herself up with her Bible and her meditations, and sought no sympathy from her neighbours, nor encourage gossip in her shop. In the first days, when purchasers lingered to ask if it were true that Maitre Gardon had brought his daughter-in-law and grandchild, her stern-faced, almost grim answer, that ‘la pauvre was ill at ease,’ silenced them, and forced them to carry off their curiosity unsatisfied; but it became less easy to arrange when Eustacie herself was on foot again—refreshed, active, and with an irrepressible spring of energy and eagerness that could hardly be caged down in the Widow Laurent’s tiny rooms. Poor child, had she not been ill and prostrate at first, and fastened herself on the tender side of the good woman’s heart by the sweetness of an unselfish and buoyant nature in illness, Noemi could hardly have endured such an inmate, not even half a Huguenot, full of little Catholic observances like second nature to her; listening indeed to the Bible for the short time, but always, when it was expounded, either asleep, or finding some amusement indispensable for her baby; eager for the least variety, and above all spoilt by Maitre Gardon to a degree absolutely perplexing to the grave woman.

He would not bid her lay aside the observances that, to Noemi, seemed almost worship of the beast. He rather reverted to the piety which originated them; and argued with his old friend that it was better to build than to destroy, and that, before the fabric of truth, superstition would crumble away of itself. The little he taught her sounded to Noemi’s puzzled ears mere Christianity instead of controversial Calvinism. And, moreover, he never blamed her for wicked worldliness when she yawned; but even devised opportunities for taking her out for a walk, to see as much life as might be on a market-day. He could certainly not forget—as much as would have been prudent—that she was a high-born lady; and even seemed taken aback when he found her with her sleeves turned up over her shapely-delicate arms, and a thick apron before her, with her hands in Veuve Laurent’s flour, showing her some of those special mysterious arts of confectionery in which she had been initiated by Soeur Bernardine, when, not three years ago, she had been the pet of the convent at Bellaise. At first it was half sport and the desire of occupation, but the produce of her manipulations was so excellent as to excite quite a sensation in La Sablerie, and the echevins and baillis sent in quite considerable orders for the cakes and patties of Maitre Gardon’s Paris-bred daughter-in-law.

Maitre Gardon hesitated. Noemi Laurent told him she cared little for the gain—Heaven knew it was nothing to her—but that she thought it wrong and inconsistent in him to wish to spare the poor child’s pride, which was unchristian enough already. ‘Nay,’ he said sadly, ‘mortifications from without do little to tame pride; nor did I mean to bring her here that she should turn cook and confectioner to pamper the appetite of Baillis La Grasse.’

But Eustacie’s first view was a bright pleasure in the triumph of her skill; and when her considerate guardian endeavoured to impress on her that there was no necessity for vexing herself with the task, she turned round on him with the exclamation, ‘Nay, dear father, do you not see it is my great satisfaction to be able to do something for our good hostess, so that my daughter and I be not a burden to her?’

‘Well spoken, my Lady,’ said the pastor; ‘there is real nobility in that way of thinking. Yet, remember, Noemi is not without means; she feels not the burden. And the flock contribute enough for the shepherd’s support, and yours likewise.’

‘Then let her give it to the poor creatures who so often come in begging, and saying they have been burned out of house and home by one party or the other,’ said Eustacie. ‘Let me have my way, dear sir; Soeur Bernadine always said I should be a prime menagere. I like it so much.’

And Madame de Ribaumont mixed sugar and dough, and twisted quaint shapes, and felt important and almost light-hearted, and sang over her work and over her child songs that were not always Marot’s psalms; and that gave the more umbrage to Noemi, because she feared that Maitre Gardon actually like to hear them, though, should their echo reach the street, why it would be a peril, and still worse, a horrible scandal that out of that sober, afflicted household should proceed profane tunes such as court ladies sang.