The Marchioness hastened to rejoin the Count of Plouernel and the Abbot, who were no less surprised, alarmed and angry than herself at Mademoiselle Plouernel's unexpected outing. The Marquis of Chateauvieux could prolong his stay at the castle only a couple of hours, so that,if Bertha did not return before his departure the marriage would have to undergo a further postponement. Accordingly, not satisfied with sending several of his men in quest of his sister in all directions through the park, the Count himself took horse together with the Marquis of Chateauvieux in the hope of meeting Mademoiselle Plouernel; while, anxious not to be themselves idle in the search, Abbot Boujaron and the Marchioness of Tremblay went out in a carriage.
As has already been told, the ruins of the ancient feudal manor of Plouernel rose on the crest of an abruptly rising ridge that once was wholly stripped of vegetation, but that was since planted with trees, seeing it was one of the views from the new castle, the park of which it bounded from the north. The antique dungeon, like all fortified seigniorial castles of the middle ages, had a secret and subterranean issue which opened at a considerable distance from the manor itself. Thanks to this issue, the seigneur, who was always involved in feuds with his neighbors, could flee and elude his enemies if he found his lair on the point of being forced. The subterranean passage of the dungeon of Plouernel which was cut through the living stone by the labor of serfs, communicated, at its near end, with the floors that were constructed below the level of the ground, where were located the prison cells, the torture rooms, and the oubliettes of the manor, and, at the further end, with a precipitous slope at the foot of the mountain, at the top of which rose the dungeon itself. This outer issue opened just outside of but close to the park. One of the numerous gates of the park, the one nearest to the modern castle,opened on the outside upon an avenue, cut through the forest that belonged to the domain of the Count of Plouernel. To the right of the avenue, which ran into the highroad to Rennes, extended a thick wood of old trees, and about two hundred paces from the edge of the same, where the wood grew thickest, was the location of the outer issue of the underground passage from the dungeon. This issue, obstructed in the course of many centuries by underbrush and the slow rise of the soil, bore marks of having recently been cleared, although a curtain of ivy and wild trailing vines, that fell over a natural platform formed by a rocky projection upon which the tangled vegetation had taken root, was left to mask the entrance. Thanks to his family archives, Salaun Lebrenn was aware of this entrance to the dungeon, and he and his son having put themselves in touch with some of the Count's vassals—resolute men and leaders in the projected uprising—he had acquainted them with the secret passage that communicated with the open country, and which offered a safe place for the deposit of arms and munitions of war. The mouth of the passage, partially masked by the vines, lay about twenty paces from a clump of old trees that surrounded a little clearing carpeted with grass. In the middle of the clearing rose an enormous oak, so old, so very old, that,crownedwith age, as foresters say, its sap had dried out, and not a leaf greened its immense spread of branches. A living spring furnished a natural reservoir at the extremity of the clearing. A narrow path, worn across the copse of thewood by the hoofs of the does and stags who came during the night to drink at the spring, ran out into the road.
At the hour when Mademoiselle Plouernel's family was searching for her in the park, Nominoë Lebrenn, standing with his back against the dead oak tree in the middle of the clearing, was a prey to profound anxiety. Pale, worn, with his head drooping, his eyes fixed upon the ground, and his arms crossed on his breast, he was saying to himself:
"No, she will not come! Oh! now that this desperate attempt has been made, I recognize how insensate it was! To write to Dame Marion, to beg her to place in the hands of Mademoiselle Plouernel the letter that accompanied my note, to entrust the package to the gateman at the castle with the words: 'For Dame Marion,' and then run back to wait for her at this place! To believe that she would come! It is a crazy man's dream! No, she will not come."
After a short pause Nominoë resumed:
"Who knows but she may have lost her way! But the directions in my letter were accurate—'Take, to the right of the avenue, that runs from the park, the first path that leads to a clearing where rises a big dead oak near a running spring of water.' Oh, I know this wood! For the last two days I have prowled around it like a bandit! I also know that underground passage," added Nominoë, turning his head in the direction of the issue masked by the ivy and wild vines. "In that underground place have bleached the bones of one of my ancestors—a serf of a sire of Plouernel." With a start Nominoë continued: "Strangefatality! Woe is me! It is for a daughter of this race—a race that mine has so often cursed across the ages—it is for a daughter of the Nerowegs that I am consumed with delirious love—and soon, perhaps—but no! Go to! Set your hopes at rest, poor fool! She will not come. No, however generous her heart may be, she cannot forget that she is of noble origin, and that my family are vassals to her brother! No! she will not come—and if she did—would I dare to meet her gaze! Have I not virtually imposed this rendezvous upon her gratitude! Did I not write to her: 'He who at The Hague saved your life and your honor—waits for you—you will come if you have preserved the remembrance of the service he rendered you.' If she does come, will it not be with a haughty front and a severe mien?"
Suddenly, as he turned his ear toward the wood, a tremor ran through Nominoë's frame. He quickly straightened up. His heart, that before heaved heavily, now stopped beating. His strength failed him. He attempted to take a step, but fell upon his knees on the grass and clasped his hands as in prayer. Mademoiselle Plouernel entered the clearing, holding her silken mask in her hand.
What was his surprise and joy! The features of Mademoiselle Plouernel, so far from expressing the sentiment of wounded pride, revealed profound tenderness. She advanced with steady step towards Nominoë, who remained on his knees; pulled off her glove, and extended to him her charming hand that illness, alas! had thinned. Presently, her beautiful face suffused with a slight blush, she saidwithout attempting to restrain the tears that enhanced the brilliancy of her large black eyes:
"Thanks to you, Monsieur Lebrenn. You afford me at last the opportunity of telling you that never have I forgotten that on the coast of Holland you saved my life—and in The Hague you saved my honor! Yes, thanks to you," repeated the young girl in an accent of ineffable tenderness, while sweet tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. "I owe to you the only happy moment that I have tasted for a long time."
Mademoiselle Plouernel's emotion, her words, her tone, the cordiality of her gesture as she extended her hand to Nominoë, threw him into such confusion that, remaining on his knees and contemplating the young girl with a sort of adoration, he tremblingly received the hand which she offered him, wet it with his tears, and pressed his burning front upon it. Sobs smothered his words.
Bertha gently withdrew her hand from Nominoë's, saying in a moved voice:
"Monsieur Lebrenn, rise—"
And noticing a few steps from where they were a rock covered with moss, a sort of natural bench, the young girl added:
"I am barely convalescent—my weakness is still great. I feel tired; allow me to repose on that rock."
Nominoë rose, and obeyed a sign of Mademoiselle Plouernel, who, after seating herself, invited him to a place beside her. The girl remained silent for a moment and then proceeded:
"Situations that seem difficult, and even false, become, I think, easy and right, thanks to straightforwardness of conduct. I shall be frank. You also will be sincere, Monsieur Lebrenn. You will answer all my questions."
"I feel grateful to you, mademoiselle, that you judge me so favorably," answered Nominoë. "You will find me straightforward and sincere in all things."
"First of all, in order to render intelligible what may otherwise seem inexplicable to you, Monsieur Lebrenn, I must inform you that even before I owed my life—and then my honor—to you, I already felt a deep interest, if not in you personally, at least in all the members of your family."
And in response to a gesture of surprise on the part of Nominoë, Bertha added:
"I am acquainted with a part of your family legend."
"You, mademoiselle! You are acquainted with our plebeian legends!"
"Yes; thanks to a manuscript left to us by Colonel Plouernel, one of my ancestors."
"Does that manuscript date back to the last century?" inquired Nominoë, struck by a sudden recollection. "Colonel Plouernel, a Huguenot, intended those pages for his son. Yes, indeed, our family narrative mentions the fact."
"My mother discovered the manuscript in the library of the castle. My mother suffered a great deal, Monsieur Lebrenn; she was a woman of great understanding and of a large heart. Therefore, so far from embittering her disposition, her sufferings rendered her still more generous.Herself acquainted with sorrow, she sympathized all the more with the sorrows of others. A victim of iniquity, she felt tender compassion for the victims of all iniquity, and a vigorous hatred for all oppression. Although she was of patrician origin, and although the wife of the Count of Plouernel, my mother, ripened by misfortune and by reflection, being instructed by the revelations contained in your family narratives, embraced the convictions of the Huguenot colonel who was the friend of your ancestor Odelin Lebrenn, the armorer of La Rochelle. Oh, I have not forgotten a single incident of that interesting narrative."
"What, mademoiselle! You remember that obscure name?"
"That obscure name was the name of an honorable man and one of the brave soldiers of Admiral Coligny, wrote Colonel Plouernel in the pages that he destined for his son. You seem surprised at the accuracy of my memory, Monsieur Lebrenn," added Bertha with a melancholy smile; "and yet my recollections are not circumscribed to that incident alone. At this moment there is present to my memory the name of another of your ancestors—Den-Brao the mason, who, assisted by other serfs, cut the underground gallery, one of the issues of which you can see yonder." With these words the young girl pointed to the orifice of the vault cut in the rock, and added, with a shiver, "It is a mournful history, that history of your ancestor Den-Brao! He was starved to death in the passage his own hands had built."
Nominoë and Bertha looked at each other in silence. Bertha proceeded:
"Do you know why I now recall those narratives? It is that you may understand what a deep impression was bound to be produced upon my mother—and then upon myself—by the account contained in the manuscript of Colonel Plouernel. Yes, judge what we must have felt, especially when we learned that one of the descendants of that Gallic race was in our own days among the vassals of the seigniory of Plouernel, on the domain of Mezlean. 'Oh! my child,' my mother would say to me, 'is not this revelation of the iniquities and barbaric acts committed from century to century by your father's family upon the family of this poor vassal, a providential revelation? Should not such a revelation induce us to step upon the path of expiation for so many iniquities and barbarisms committed from century to century? Alas! Had I any power in this place, I would call around us the descendants of that family, who are to-day our vassals; I would strive to appease their resentment with acts of kindness, and with delicate consolation. I would be their protectress, their friend.'"
"Oh, generous heart!" exclaimed Nominoë, touched to tears. "How else could it be, but that, brought up by such a mother, Mademoiselle Plouernel, you should prove worthy of her!"
"Never shall I forget her lessons and her example. Finally, at the time that a sudden illness carried my mother away, she and I were on the point of going to Mezlean,in order to visit the leasehold peasant Gildas Lebrenn, who, as I subsequently learned, is your father's brother. That excursion never took place. I lost my mother, I had to leave Brittany. I went to Versailles with my aunt. Perhaps you learned from your friend, Monsieur Serdan, the object that, without my being made privy to the plot, was contemplated by those who were taking me to England?"
"Yes, mademoiselle; it was that which enabled Monsieur Serdan to discover the loftiness of your sentiments and the grandeur of your nature."
"The oddness of our meeting has caused you extreme surprise; is it not true, monsieur? Well, imagine what my feeling must have been when, at The Hague, I, Bertha of Plouernel," the young girl proceeded, fixing her beautiful eyes upon Nominoë, "learned that he who had saved my life, and who, subsequently, at the price of his blood, saved my honor, was descended from that very family to whom mine had so much to atone for—when I discovered that my savior's heart was as great as his courage—when it was granted to me to know—to appreciate you."
The accents of Mademoiselle Plouernel's voice, and the expression of her face as she uttered these last words, denoted such tenderness, such nobility, such affection—the silence into which she immediately relapsed seemed so significant to Nominoë, that a sudden thought flashed through his mind. Despite his own modesty, despite his diffidence in himself, despite the seemingly insane improbability of the hope that caused his heart to bound—he believed himselfloved. The intoxication of bliss emboldened him. In a tremulous voice he cried:
"And you, mademoiselle, imagine what my feelings must be at this moment, when I hear you recall to my memory the running conflict between our two families across the ages—and then to hear you pronounce the words of atonement and reparation! In what can that reparation consist? Despite myself—an insane hope enters my heart. Alas! I know but too well that my hope is insensate! Pronounce my sentence!"
"What do you hope?" asked Bertha in a firm voice.
"No; I should never have the courage to tell you—I dread to arouse your just disdain—your mockery—your anger—"
"If I could disdain you, would I now be near you? The future of us both is too somber for me to think of mocking! You promised sincerity to me."
Nominoë grew paler than he was before; he lowered his head; he murmured in a trembling, desperate, passionate voice:
"I love you! I love you to distraction!"
"I also, Nominoë, love you!" answered Mademoiselle Plouernel solemnly. "Yes," she proceeded, holding her head high, and serene; "I love you—with all my soul—I fear not to make the admission."
"Oh, joy in heaven!" cried the young man, falling upon his knees and clasping his hands before Bertha. "You love me! I am not the sport of a dream! You love me?"
"Yes, I love you; I tell you so without blushing, becauseI hold you worthy of such a love, Nominoë! 'Joy in heaven!' did you say? Oh, you spoke truly. Our joys will be celestial—our future looks dark here on earth—but yonder—yonder, where, according to the belief of your fathers, we shall live anew, body and soul—yonder our future will shine in splendor. You seek to fathom the meaning of my words, Nominoë! Rise, sit down here beside me, listen to me! You shall be made acquainted with all my thoughts."
Racked by doubt and hope, intoxicated by the confession of Mademoiselle Plouernel, discouraged, almost frightened by her last words, Nominoë rose silently, approached again the moss-covered bench, and sat down beside Bertha, who proceeded:
"The first time I saw you was in the midst of a storm that threatened to engulf our vessel, and dash it against the coast of Holland. I preserved my self-possession despite the threatening danger—because I do not fear death. Thus I could follow your manoeuvres with inexpressible interest. I admired your devotion. I was touched by your youth. Shortly after, as our vessel rode safely at anchor, I had the opportunity of appreciating your nature and the dignity of your character by the answer you gave to the offer of remuneration made to you by the Abbot, our traveling companion. I then thought I would never see you again, Nominoë! Nevertheless, I felt happy at being bound to you by the bond of gratitude. Since that day your image took its place in my heart!"
"Oh! Since that day also, your image has been ever present in my thoughts. How was I ever to forget themoment when, as I approached your brigantine in the hope of saving it, I saw you at the poop of the vessel so beautiful, so calm, smiling at the tempest! It was to me a dazzling vision! Alas! often did the vision reappear in my dreams! Finally, when on that same day, I read in your eyes the grief it caused you to see the humiliation that I had to suffer—I divined the benignity and the nobility of your heart! Your remembrance became still dearer to me! Oh! I loved you passionately!"
"I believe you, Nominoë! Why should not the feelings that you experienced have been as strong as the feelings experienced by myself? Then came that unhappy, that frightful day when, wounded by gunshots, you came near perishing in order to shelter me from dishonor," continued Mademoiselle Plouernel with a tremulous voice and eyes moist with tears; "in short, the day when I learned—Oh, providential coincidence!—that my savior belonged to that vassal family whose history I knew. The discovery, coming, as it did, upon the heels of the shocks of that same day, quite overthrew me; it dealt me a last blow. Nevertheless, when, after Monsieur Serdan had furnished us with the conveyances to leave The Hague, he gave me warrant to entertain the hope that your wounds would not prove fatal, and with a few heartfelt words praised you in a way that filled my soul with bliss, I recovered heart. I swear to you, Nominoë, had I not at that moment felt prostrated by the first symptoms of a grave illness that was to prey upon me for a long time; had my mind not been upset and my strength exhausted by so many violentemotions, I would not have left The Hague that night without first seeing you—without expressing to you all the gratitude and admiration that your generous conduct evoked in me. But all the springs of my spirit had snapped; I could only weep—sterile, cowardly tears!—in that I left you in that city; dying, perhaps; a victim of your devotion to me! We departed for France. The fatigues of the journey, coupled with a slow fever, left me in an almost desperate condition when we arrived at Versailles. For two or three months I hovered between life and death. Thanks to the care of able physicians and to my youth, I finally emerged from the desperate state in which I languished. It seemed to me that I awoke from a frightful dream—by little and little the events in The Hague and of my return to France came back to me. Those recollections, rendered as they were doubly dear to my heart by our separation, awoke within my breast a sentiment towards you more tender than mere gratitude. I loved you, Nominoë! In doing so I yielded above all to the irresistible attraction of the thought that I loved in you the descendant of that family that had so long been persecuted by my own. My love became an atonement for the past! I saw something providential in the events that had thrown us together! Did I not owe life, honor, to you, the descendant of those vassals who had themselves been so often smitten in their lives, in the honor of their daughters and of their wives, by my ancestors! Oh! Nominoë, if you only knew with what fervor I thanked God for having inspired me with the desire of taking formy husband, I, a daughter of Neroweg the Frank, a son of Joel the Gaul! Was not the atonement of the daughter of the oppressors a just one to the son of the oppressed? Was not the marriage, that would consecrate the union of the conquered race with the conqueror, a natural one? Was not that love celestial that had its source in justice? I felt happy at the thought of that fusion of our two races!"
Words are impotent to express certain emotions. His visage bathed in tears, Nominoë remained silent. Suddenly a voice from afar, fresh and pure—the voice of a young girl—began to sing or rather to recite to a slow and melancholy rythm, one of those bardings or national Breton songs, some of which, popular still in these days, go back to the oldest possible antiquity. The singer was taking her sheep to pasture upon one of the shaded slopes of the ridge, at the crest of which rose the ruins of the feudal dungeon. The sweet voice, thinned by the distance, seemed to descend from the skies. At the sound of the first lines of the song, despite his emotion, Nominoë felt thrilled; he listened a moment, and said to Mademoiselle Plouernel:
"Strange coincidence! That chant, traditional in Brittany for centuries and centuries, recounts the death of a young girl of our family in the days of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar."
"The death of a young girl!" echoed Mademoiselle Plouernel with an indefinable smile.
The last couplet of the song barely reached the ears of Bertha and Nominoë because the shepherdess was climbingthe slope as she sang, and soon her voice was lost in space. Mademoiselle Plouernel had listened to the chant with profound attention, clasped hands, and eyes raised heavenward.
Awaking from her revery and addressing Nominoë with an agony, the cause of which he was unable to explain, Bertha said to him:
"Is the legend of the brave and sweet Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the daughter of your ancestor Joel, also preserved in your family? The virgin who sacrificed herself to appease the anger of Hesus?"
"Yes, mademoiselle; it is one of the legends of our family. To the narrative is attached a little gold sickle, a sort of symbolic and sacred piece of jewelry that female druids wore in their belts."
"So it is, Nominoë! I remember that in his manuscript Colonel Plouernel says that to each of your family narratives there is attached some trinket that is almost always symbolic and was left by the author of the story, and that, in that way, from generation to generation, the humble and antique collection of your family relics was gathered. Monsieur Plouernel mentions among others a little silver cross, left by your ancestral grandmother Genevieve, who witnessed the execution of Jesus of Nazareth in Jerusalem! What mementoes! What magnificent mementoes!"
Bertha relapsed into a pensive mood, and then asked:
"Tell me, Nominoë, are the sacred stones of Karnak, mentioned in the ballad of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the same that are seen to this day?"
"They are the same; and already in the days of Julius Caesar their origin was lost in the night of remote ages."
"I visited those stones during my recent trip to Mezlean. They are gigantic; their colossal avenues extend to the very edge of the sea, which breaks at their feet! Their granite ribs have defied the ages! They are at this hour what they were on the day when your ancestress offered her innocent life to the gods, in order to appease their anger, and save Gaul from the foreign invader! Sublime devotion! Its memory is perpetuated down to our own days! Oh, Nominoë! My proud family boasts of the antiquity of its stock and the nobility of its origin! How much older and truly noble is yours! It is you, my friend, it is you who wouldstoop low, as they say, if this union, that I have dreamed about—"
And answering a gesture of the young man, Bertha added:
"Did I not tell you, Nominoë—our joys will be celestial, not terrestrial! Providence so wills it—you must submit to the providential decree. We must know how to resign ourselves, my friend."
"Bertha, I implore you, have mercy upon my feverish brain. What is happening to me hurls me into a sort of vertigo. I know not whether I am dreaming, or whether I am awake. I doubt what I see, what I hear, what I feel! A moment ago you pronounced the word marriage. Despite myself I yielded to the intoxication of an insane hope. Oh, truly insane!"
"I have not yet finished my confessions to you, Nominoë.That ballad, the thoughts it awakened in me; the memories that it recalled to your mind, interrupted our conversation. Listen further. I saw in our marriage an atonement, a reparation of the wrongs that your family suffered from century to century at the hands of mine. In the measure that my health improved, that project grew to a rooted thought. But doubts and misgivings assailed me. First of all, you might not love me—perhaps, on learning that I was a daughter of the Nerowegs, you might entertain an instinctive aversion for me, one of those racial antipathies that often are invincible, and, unhappily, but too well justified. I often doubted whether you could love me. Again, when I considered this marriage in the light of the world's prejudices, deep abysses of difficulties seemed to yawn before my eyes. Nothing frightened me away—I continued to love you bravely, Nominoë. Long did I cudgel my brains in the effort to overcome so many obstacles, above all to ascertain whether you remembered me at all. Finally my ponderings arrived at the following conclusions: I would, first of all, make certain of the nature of your feelings towards me, by addressing myself directly to you with the tranquility of a straightforward heart and a pure soul. You were a sailor of the port of Vannes, your father told me; other members of your family were vassals of the domain of Mezlean, and leasehold peasants of Karnak. Consequently, I had to return to Brittany. There I would be certain of an opportunity to meet you. My fate and yours would then be ascertained and determined. This decision put an end to the anxieties that had longbeset me, and operated a wholesome reaction in my health. My recovery made rapid progress. In the spring of this year, the physician to whom I communicated my desire to return to Brittany not only approved, but added that my native climate was alone able to finish my cure. As my aunt and my brother could not then leave Versailles, they let me depart for Plouernel in the escort of an old equerry and accompanied by my old nurse Marion, a good and worthy woman who never left my side. She is honest, faithful, devoted and of Breton extraction; her family lives in Vannes. Immediately upon my arrival at Plouernel I ordered Marion to write to one of her relatives and beg him to inquire, whether Monsieur Lebrenn and his son, mariners of the port of Vannes, were still residents of the town. Marion received answer that you and your father were away, but were soon expected back. I waited. At about this time—I must conceal nothing from you—my brother came to Plouernel. The plans he had formed concerning myself, at the time of our projected journey to England, had extinguished all the affection, all the esteem I entertained for him. I told him so one day; since that, self-esteem and a sense of personal dignity prevented me from again touching upon the subject with him. But court people are so constituted that they speedily forget one unworthy act in the commission of another. Although all the new plans of my brother were honorable, compared with the first, yet were they stamped with his characteristic and profound selfishness. He wished to marry me off. The ambition and greed of Monsieur Plouernel saw considerableadvantage in the marriage that he now proposed. However great the strain upon my candor, I did not formally reject his new projects. Thanks to this seeming readiness on my part, my brother showed himself tolerant towards what he calls my eccentricities. In that way it happened that, learning of your return to Vannes from Marion's relative, I could, without encountering the Count's opposition, undertake a trip to Mezlean, accompanied by my nurse and the old equerry. It was on the road to the burg that I saw you again for the first time—when—when—I met—"
Mademoiselle Plouernel could proceed no further. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her tears, her silence, the heaving of her bosom, betrayed such painful emotions that Nominoë turned suddenly pale and shuddered. Only then did he remember what in the confusion of his thoughts he had forgotten until that moment—that he was leading Tina to the altar as his bride when he met Mademoiselle Plouernel, and that she could not choose but be informed of his wedding. Overwhelmed at that thought, he dared not raise his eyes to Bertha; he felt his last hopes melting away! He dropped from heaven to the earth.
After a pause Mademoiselle Plouernel recovered control over her emotions, wiped her tears, and proceeded:
"Nominoë, this was my purpose in going to Mezlean: I meant to write to you and request you to come to the manor. The wish, so natural a wish, of expressing my gratitude to you for the services you had rendered me, justified the step. I expected you to respond to my invitation, Irelied upon my sincere and penetrating love to discover at our very first interview whether you shared the sentiments that you inspired in me, and whether the loftiness of your heart was equal to my expectations. If so, I was to make to you the admission that I made to you so shortly ago, and I meant to add: 'Nominoë, I am master over my person—my family's unworthy conduct towards me has forever snapped the bonds that held me subject to its wishes, it has snapped all the bonds of deference to them; I offer you my hand; I know that, in France, a pastor may fear to consecrate our union, dreading the resentment of so powerful a house as mine; let us pledge ourselves to each other to-day; let us exchange our pledges in the presence of God and of your father; to-morrow we shall depart with him from Vannes for England on board of the vessel that he owns; once in London a magistrate will marry us; I shall not speak of my property; it may be confiscated from me; but I have my mother's jewelry and a sum large enough to secure to us a modest comfort; we shall live in England in case we should think it too risky to return to France; would you prefer to face such risks rather than expatriation? I love you, I am brave, your wishes shall be mine, Nominoë'—That was my plan, such were my ardent wishes! Accordingly, on the day following my arrival at Mezlean, I was on my way to the burg for the purpose of ascertaining your residence and addressing my letter to you, when I encountered a nuptial procession which the soldiers of the King had stopped—and—the very moment when I learned that that nuptial procession wasyours, Nominoë—yours—I saw you fleeing at a distance, distractedly fleeing, to the painful astonishment of your father and your bride. The cause of your flight was unexplainable to me; but that did not matter; your heart was no longer free—the charming beauty of the young girl whom you are to marry justifies your love for her! I returned to Plouernel the day after our meeting. I arrived broken with grief. I had not left my room since my return when, this morning, Marion delivered to me your letter—and I came. Now you know it all, Nominoë. Perhaps, in the course of this interview, I wrongly reproached you with insincerity when you protested the constancy of your love for me. You are an honorable man, incapable of having meant to deceive the young girl who is to be your wife. And yet, you claim to have always loved me! Well! I believe you! Did I not believe you, my confession would have remained forever buried in my heart! Yes, the human soul is at times so strange a mystery, that another affection may have found its place beside your love for me—a love that you looked upon as a dream. But, at least, the remembrance of your love will remain sweet and dear to you, because it will have been noble and pure. On my part, Nominoë, the remembrance of you will also remain ever dear to me, because it was you who inspired me with a generous thought, a thought of justice and reparation. Yes, when, according to our common belief, we shall meet again in yonder other worlds, we shall meet with countenances radiant with celestial bliss. I said to you, my friend, our joys are not to be of this world."
Nominoë raised his face bathed in tears, and, making an effort to steady his voice:
"Listen to me, in turn—above all, mademoiselle, I implore you—believe in my sincerity—"
"Nominoë, call me Bertha. The fraternal familiarity will be in the nature of a consolation to me."
"Oh, God! Is it your purpose to render my despair still more distressful by reminding me, with such a token of familiarity, of the happiness that I have forfeited!" exclaimed Nominoë amid heartrending sobs. "Pardon, Bertha, pardon me such an answer to the touching proof of your affection; but if you only knew, alas! how much I suffer! Since that journey to The Hague I have loved you, loved you passionately! Do you know, Bertha, what it was that rendered that love irresistible? It was an attraction exactly the counterpart of that which drew you to me. Yes, however singular, however unexplainable it may seem, I loved in you, above all, the daughter of the Nerowegs! Yes, that hopeless love, that insane love, promised only disappointment, grief, suffering, and annihilation to me! And yet it had for me the fatal charm of the void, that drags us to an abyss! I felt at once I know not what sad and tender sentiment by loving in you the descendant of the race that, since earliest childhood, I had learned to curse! You were in my eyes an angel of pardon and of concord! Oh, Bertha! However legitimate hatred may be, it is so bitter, and pardon so sweet! In you I spoke your ancestors free from guilt! So far from considering you one with their iniquities, I considered them one withyour virtues! Yes, you redeemed the wicked of your race, as Christ redeemed the world by his virtues, his kindness, his evangelical grace!"
"Nominoë! How proud I am of my love for you!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel with indescribable ecstasy, and moved to the profoundest depths of her soul by Nominoë's words and the accent in which they were uttered. "Oh! I was not mistaken when I said to you, our love draws its inspiration from sentiments too celestial, ever to be of this world."
"In this world, as in the next ones where we shall proceed to live, our love, I feel it, will last through all eternity! Its source is too lofty ever to be untrue to itself—it is providential. On the very morning of my marriage, at the moment when I was to proceed to my bride's house to lead her to the temple, I learned of your arrival at Mezlean. I was unaware of, I could not even suspect your intentions. Nevertheless, an invincible presentiment came over me! I wished to break off my wedding! Betrothed to my cousin almost from childhood, I had loved her as the future companion of my life, until my return from The Hague. But ever since I met you I have lived only for the intoxicating passion, the fatal passion, the folly of which I realized but too well. In the meantime the day for my marriage with my cousin approached. I confess it, the fear of dealing a painful blow to the poor child by breaking a union that was planned so long, the fear of grieving my father, then the further thought that surely I would never again see you—finally, the hope of finding in thesweet delights of the family hearth oblivion for an insane love, induced me to consent to the marriage."
"All is now clear to me, Nominoë," put in Mademoiselle Plouernel with a sigh of ineffable relief. "Oh! I believe you; I feel happy in believing you."
"When I saw you again, Bertha, on the road to Mezlean, I lost my head—an irresistible power carried me away—I fled demented. During that night I wandered like one insane in the forest. Presently my agitation subsided, I contemplated the reality. My marriage with my cousin was no longer possible—it was absolutely impossible."
"Impossible?" echoed Mademoiselle Plouernel with a tremor. "Why impossible, Nominoë?"
"Because I am a man of honor! Because no human power could now induce me to marry that poor child, now that I know, Bertha, that you love me. I therefore left Mezlean without seeing my family; I had not the courage to face their indignation. I came to Plouernel, obsessed with the hope of an interview with you, and then, Bertha, I swear before God, who hears and judges me—"
"Nominoë, before God, who hears and judges us, answer me," said Mademoiselle Plouernel solemnly, so to speak transfigured with the radiance of unutterable hope. "Are you firmly resolved to persist in the rupture of your marriage?"
"No human power can compel me to a marriage that would render my cousin and myself wretched."
"And are you resolved to expatriate yourself?"
"Yes. I never again would dare to see my father, whowould curse me—who, perhaps, has already cursed me!"
"When do you propose to leave?"
"To-day," answered Nominoë swallowing a sob. "I shall engage myself as a sailor at Nantes, on some vessel sailing to the Indies. We shall never again meet here below, Bertha!"
Mademoiselle Plouernel remained steeped in silent reflection. Presently she asked abruptly:
"Is there near Nantes, along the coast, any small and little-frequented port where one may embark secretly?"
"Yes, St. Renan," answered Nominoë, raising his head and looking at Bertha with surprise; "St. Renan, near the mouth of the Loire."
"Are you sure you could find there a vessel that could attempt the passage to England?"
"St. Renan is a fishermen's port; their vessels are decked, and are excellent sailers; they can cross the channel with ease."
"How long would it take to reach the place from here on a good horse?"
"From seven to eight hours, including stops. The horse would have to be rested on the hills."
"Is the road that leads to St. Renan a frequented one?"
"Very slightly; it is only a cross-road."
"Can one take ship at St. Renan at any tide?"
"No; only when the tide is high."
"At what hour could one embark to-morrow?"
"At this part of the month the tide must be high betweeneleven and twelve at night. One would have to be at St. Renan at midnight."
"Could you, between now and to-morrow," asked Bertha, "procure a carriage drawn by a good horse?"
"Yes," answered Nominoë, hardly able any longer to resist the intoxication of a hope that caused his heart to beat to the breaking point.
"There will be wanted, besides," said Mademoiselle Plouernel, "two mantles with hoods attached, of the kind worn by peasant women. Nominoë," she proceeded, controlling her voice which, however, vibrated under the strain of the emotions that agitated her soul at that solemn moment, "to-morrow, at three o'clock in the afternoon, wait for me a hundred paces from here, at the road of the Cross, with the carriage that you will drive. Do not forget the two hooded cloaks—one is for me, the other for Marion. The hoods will hide our faces. My leaving the castle at full daylight, and at the usual hour for my promenade, will awaken no suspicion. We shall then start instantly for St. Renan, where we shall set sail for England, and there, Nominoë," added Bertha, giving herself finally over to the impulse of her love and breaking out into tears of celestial sweetness, "our marriage—shall be consummated."
"Your mask! Put your mask on! There is someone coming! Great God, my father!" cried Nominoë, perceiving Salaun Lebrenn and Serdan as they cautiously emerged from the underground gallery that led to the ruins of the dungeon of Plouernel.
Mademoiselle Plouernel hastened to hide her face in thesilken mask that she had laid down beside her at the start of her interview with Nominoë. The latter, stupefied at the sight of his father and Monsieur Serdan, remained silent and in consternation, while Bertha, masked, standing motionless, her arms crossed over her palpitating bosom awaited anxiously the issue of the unexpected encounter.
Despite the anger that his face revealed, Salaun Lebrenn could not restrain a sigh of relief at seeing his son, concerning whom he had been racked with anxiety since the day of his disappearance. Serdan contemplated with inquisitive and suspicious eyes the masked woman whom they found in a tête-à-tête with Nominoë, not far from one of the park gates of the Castle of Plouernel. Reassured upon his son's fate, Salaun was about to give a loose to his indignation, but the presence of the unknown masked woman restrained him. While asking himself who the woman could be and what relations she could have with Nominoë, he said to the latter in a peremptory tone, accompanying the words with a gesture of authority:
"Follow us, my son! Your uncle and I must speak with you."
"Father, please let me know where I shall meet you. I shall place myself at your orders at sunset."
"Follow me instantly!" replied Salaun imperiously. "Come on the spot! What we have to say to you will brook no delay."
"It is hard for me to disobey you, father—but at this moment I can not accompany you," answered Nominoë, stepping towards Bertha. "I can not leave the lady alone—laterI shall obey you. I shall go to whatever place you may please to appoint."
"You dare resist your father's orders—unhappy boy!"
"Father, do not insist—it is useless—I will and must stay here."
"Heaven and earth!" cried Salaun, beside himself with rage at his son's refusal—"man without faith and without honor!"
"Oh! Enough! For mercy's sake, father!" retorted Nominoë in a hollow voice, turning pale with both pain and anger at hearing himself insulted by his own father in the presence of Mademoiselle Plouernel.
But she, taking the young man's hand, said to him in a low and suppliant voice:
"Obey your father!"
"Lebrenn! For heaven's sake, collect yourself!" put in Serdan, continuing to eye Bertha attentively. "It is imprudent to allow yourself to be carried away by your just indignation—before a strange woman."
"That strange woman!" cried Salaun, interrupting his friend. "That strange woman!" And taking with a menacing mien a step towards Mademoiselle Plouernel: "Woman without honor! It is you who corrupted, you who drove my son to perdition! Who are you? Answer me, wretch that you are!"
"Oh! God have mercy! Such an insult to her! to her!" cried Nominoë, and, dashing forward towards Salaun: "Father, you know not whom you are speaking to. Not another word!"
"A threat! And to me!" exclaimed Salaun, exasperated. "A threat, when you should drop at my feet repentant and suppliant—cowardly assassin!"
"Assassin! I!" stammered Nominoë, thunderstruck at Salaun's aspect, while the latter, more and more enraged, addressed Mademoiselle Plouernel:
"Infamous creature—you are the accomplice in the murder!"
"Murder?" repeated Nominoë, stupefied.
"Yes; murder; the murder of Tina, your bride—"
"Great God! Father! What is that you are saying!" cried Nominoë, shuddering with horror. "Tina, my bride—"
"You killed her, wretch! You killed her by deserting her!" answered Salaun in a voice broken with sobs. "She died—the poor child is no more."
"Down on our knees before your father! Let us weep over the dead on our knees, Nominoë!" said Mademoiselle Plouernel, throwing her mask far away. "Let us weep for the ill-starred Tina."
And pale, her face in tears, overwhelmed with grief and almost fainting, she fell down, like Nominoë, upon her knees before Salaun, while Serdan, jumping back a step, cried out:
"Mademoiselle Plouernel! In this place!"
Salaun, recognizing, as Serdan had done, the young girl whom he had not seen again since leaving The Hague, remained speechless. Remembering how he had admired the loftiness of the young girl's sentiments, he now regrettedthe vehemence of the language he had just used towards her. Now, no longer doubting the love with which she inspired Nominoë, he understood the cause of his son's irresolution on the very morning of the wedding, and why he had fled like one demented, when the nuptial procession was about to resume its march to the temple. Upon these thoughts, this other followed: His son loved a daughter of the Nerowegs! a descendant of that race that the descendants of Joel had so often cursed across the ages! And yet, the beauty and the tears of Mademoiselle Plouernel, now prostrated at his feet, moved Salaun despite himself, especially when Bertha said to him in heartrending accents:
"I was not aware of the death of Nominoë's bride, when, a minute ago, I say it without blushing, I offered my hand to your son."
"You?" cried Salaun, hardly believing what he heard. "You, mademoiselle! A Plouernel!"
"This union of one of the descendants of Joel with a daughter of Neroweg was, in my estimation, to repair the iniquities that for centuries my family whelmed yours with."
"Noble and generous heart!" cried Serdan.
Salaun remained silent and pensive. Nominoë, still upon his knees beside Bertha, and overcome with sorrow by the death of Tina, dared at this moment to raise his moist and suppliant eyes to his father. His looks seemed to say:
"Do you still deem me so guilty for loving Mademoiselle Plouernel?"
"It is upon my knees, monsieur, that I expected to confess to you a love that I, nevertheless, feel proud of! But, alas! this love has caused the death of an innocent girl! Therefore, also, it is upon my knees that I wish to ask your pardon for that misfortune, seeing that, although unwittingly, yet, Oh, just heavens! I am not a stranger to it! Now, Nominoë, rise!" added Bertha, herself rising with dignity. "Your father, I doubt not, has restored me to his esteem. For this esteem I am grateful to you, monsieur; I shall not be unworthy of it," observed the young girl, answering a gesture of approbation from Salaun.
And turning towards Nominoë, who had also risen from the ground, she proceeded in a trembling and resigned voice, and endeavoring to control the pangs of her soul:
"Our marriage, even with the approval of your father, is henceforth impossible, Nominoë! The remembrance, the shadow of that ill-starred girl would always rise between us!" said Bertha shuddering.
But proceeding with a poignant smile:
"Courage, my friend! Thanks to God, our life is not confined to the life of this world! At this moment, when I take my leave of you, I say to you not adieu! I say till we meet again, Nominoë! Perhaps, although still very young, I may precede you to one of those mysterious worlds where my mother awaits me—and whither that sweet girl, your bride, has taken flight! Oh! At least, I shall be able to meet their eyes without fear, I shall then tell all to them. And the day when, departing from this earth, you will come to join us, the hearts of all us three will fly to meetyour spirit! Till we meet, then, my friend! Alas, my presentiments did not deceive me. My love was kindled in sentiments too celestial to be for this world;—having come from yonder, on high, it must reascend to its divine source!" and Bertha pointed Nominoë heavenward with a mien of sublime simplicity.
Nominoë, his father, and Serdan listened to Mademoiselle Plouernel with inexpressible emotion, while Madok the miller came out of the underground gallery, looking hither and thither with precaution. An instant he remained motionless with surprise at the sight of Serdan and Lebrenn conversing with Mademoiselle Plouernel, whom he had seen on the road to Mezlean on the day of Tina's wedding. Casting thereupon a look of somber reproach upon Nominoë, seeing he now met him again for the first time since the nuptial ceremony at which he filled the role of "Brotaer," the miller beckoned to Salaun to step aside and said to him in an undertone:
"What is thedemoiselledoing here? She is as good as her brother is wicked, but—she is a daughter of Plouernel."
"And our men?" inquired Salaun interrupting Madok, and not considering the moment opportune for answering his question. "Have they arrived? Did they bring the arms that were promised us, the pikes, muskets and ammunition?"
"Yes, they brought the last load of arms concealed among faggots and green branches. They went down into the underground gallery through the ruins of the dungeon. They report everything ready for to-night in the parishes.The tocsin is to sound with the rising of the moon. A package-carrier who went through Plouernel left the news that the people of Nantes and Rennes have risen in revolt, and that fighting is going on in the suburbs. The troops are getting the worst of it."
"That I knew," answered Salaun. "We must not be found behindhanded. Wait here for me; I shall return immediately."
Salaun walked back to his son and Mademoiselle Plouernel, who said to him in a voice that she strove to render firm:
"Monsieur Lebrenn, I shall now return to the castle; to-morrow I shall depart for the manor of Mezlean, where I desire to live in absolute seclusion. I shall not see you again, Nominoë; but at least I carry with me in my solitary retreat your father's respect, and the remembrance of a love that I am proud of, because it sprang from a generous sentiment. In offering my hand to your son, Monsieur Lebrenn, I meant to do a worthy act."
"Infamy and treason! Her hand to a vassal!" suddenly broke in a voice that shook with rage. "Malediction upon the miserable woman!"
And emerging from the copse behind which they had for an instant lain concealed, there suddenly appeared upon the clearing the Count of Plouernel and the Marquis of Chateauvieux.
After having explored the avenues of the park, the Count had come across several of his forester guardsmen, from whom he inquired whether they had seen MademoisellePlouernel. They saw her, was their answer, about two hours ago, walking in the direction of one of the park gates, which they found open; great was their surprise upon first noticing on the dust of the road the imprint of Bertha's little feet; but their surprise redoubled when they saw the tracks of the young girl running towards the narrow and shaded path that led to the clearing. Agitated by a vague presentiment, the Count alighted from his mount, the Marquis did likewise, and the Count ordered one of the equerries who accompanied him to run back immediately, and by all means to return with the forester guardsmen, whom he had just met. Thereupon the Count of Plouernel and the Marquis of Chateauvieux, leaving their horses in charge of another equerry, dived into the copse, followed the path and, arriving at the clearing, stood petrified at the sight of Bertha conversing with strangers. Finally, as they listened they caught the last words that Mademoiselle Plouernel was addressing to Salaun Lebrenn on the subject of her love for Nominoë. Informed by his bailiff that two members of the Lebrenn family, a vassal family of his own domains, and mariners of the port of Vannes, were pointed out as mutinous and dangerous people, the Count was fired with an incontrollable fury at hearing his sister admit her love for a miserable mariner of the vassal race. The love, at which the Count's family pride rose in revolt, furthermore dashed the projected double marriage that he pursued. He now could explain to himself the cause of Bertha's continuous delays in giving her consentto her marriage with the Marquis of Chateauvieux. The latter, no less wounded in his vanity than the Count of Plouernel felt wounded in his family pride, shared his friend's fury and followed him, when, unable any longer to control himself, the Count dashed into the clearing.
The Count of Plouernel drew his sword and with the flat of the blade struck Nominoë across the face, crying:
"Vile clown! That is for your having dared to raise your eyes to Mademoiselle Plouernel—while you wait to be hanged from the gibbet!"
Such was the violence of the blow that although it was given with the flat of the sword blood spurted out of Nominoë's cheek and forehead. He emitted a terrible cry, and clenched his fists, but noticing a traveling cutlass hanging at Serdan's side he seized it and precipitated himself upon the Count of Plouernel.
"Count!" shouted the Marquis of Chateauvieux, also drawing his sword, "let us kill the vassal like a dog!"
Salaun ran to the help of his son, who was attacked by two adversaries at once; jumped at the neck of the Marquis of Chateauvieux; threw him to the ground; and, despite all the resistance that he offered, disarmed him; while Nominoë, after dexterously parrying a blow aimed at him by the Count of Plouernel, struck back so heavily with the reverse of the cutlass upon the Count's wrist that his hand was paralyzed and dropped the sword. All this happened with the swiftness of thought. Despite the Count's conduct towards her, Mademoiselle Plouernel emitted a cryof terror at the sight of her brother engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Nominoë. At the risk of being struck by both in the heat of the combat, she rushed forward to separate them. Trembling at the danger that the young girl ran, Serdan threw his arms around her and held her back. The girl uttered a piercing cry, staggered, became ashen pale; her head fell backward, she fainted away overcome with terror, and would have dropped to the ground but for Serdan holding her up and seating her gently upon the grass with her back supported by the old oak tree. Mademoiselle Plouernel had lost all consciousness. In the midst of the tumult, the forester guardsmen whom one of the Count's equerries had gone in search of as ordered by his master, stepped upon the scene, armed with their muskets and hunting knives.
"To me, guardsmen! Arrest these assassins! Do not kill them, I shall bring them to justice!" cried the Count of Plouernel, whom the blow of Nominoë's cutlass had rendered helpless, and who held his bleeding and mutilated right hand in his left, while Nominoë himself, seeing Bertha lying unconscious at the foot of the old dead oak, flung away his cutlass, and thinking only of Mademoiselle Plouernel, threw himself upon his knees beside the young girl.
At the call of their seigneur, the guardsmen, to the number of eight, rushed upon Salaun Lebrenn and Serdan. Disarmed by Nominoë, the latter could offer no effective resistance to the men who sought to seize him. Salaun, however, drawing his mariner's sword, returned thrust forthrust to the guardsmen who attacked him, and called out to his son, who was on his knees beside Bertha:
"Up, Nominoë! Defend yourself! Let us defend ourselves!"
Salaun's voice expired upon his lips. He was knocked down by a heavy blow, dealt from behind with the butt of a musket by one of the guardsmen while he fought two others in front, one of whom he succeeded in wounding. Serdan was also floored, and then pinioned with the shoulder straps of the guardsmen, the same as Salaun, who had dropped to the ground dazed by the blow which he received. Finally, Nominoë, delirious with grief, was, upon a sign from the Count of Plouernel torn from Bertha by the foresters. His mind seemed to wander. He allowed himself to be bound without offering any resistance whatever.
"Monseigneur," a lackey came and said to the Count of Plouernel, "Madam the Marchioness and Monsieur the Abbot took a carriage to join in the search for mademoiselle; they met the equerry who was bringing the forester guardsmen; their carriage is near by; Madam the Marchioness sent me to receive monseigneur's orders."
"Go and tell Monsieur the Abbot that I request him to come here without delay. We need his services," the Count of Plouernel answered the lackey.
And addressing the Marquis of Chateauvieux:
"My friend, you will have to help the Abbot to transport my sister to the carriage. I shall join you there—Ican hardly hold myself on my feet; I am losing so much blood that I am afraid I shall faint."
Then, finally, turning to the three prisoners, who stood with lowering brows, motionless and silent, and firmly bound, the Count cried:
"Bandits! Murderers! I am vested with low and high judicial powers in my seigniory. You shall be tried to-night—and hanged to-morrow."
"Marquis, were there not four of these brigands? I only see three. What became of the fourth?"
"Indeed, it seems to me there were four of them—one of them had a white vest on," answered the Marquis of Chateauvieux, remembering having seen Madok the miller, who, at the approach of the forester guardsmen disappeared in the thickest of the wood.
"Monseigneur," said one of the foresters to the Count, "as we entered the clearing we saw a man flee through the copse; he was probably the companion of the prisoners, the one you are missing."
"The wood will have to be beaten and the bandit found—he shall be hanged with his accomplices."
Abbot Boujaron arrived at that moment. He looked bewildered. He was informed of the tragic adventure and helped the Marquis of Chateauvieux to transport to the carriage Mademoiselle Plouernel, who, pale and inert, seemed dead but for the convulsive tremors that shook her frame from time to time. She was laid down upon the cushions of the carriage near the Marchioness. The Count took a seat beside his sister, and the carriage returned to the castle at full speed.
Bertha was taken to her own apartment and locked up with her nurse. She was not to come out again but to be consigned to a cloister by orders of the King. Before nightfall, Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son, whom the foresters led off, were separately imprisoned in the cells of the manor—the sumptuous Renaissance palace was furnished with its subterranean prisons, the same as the ancient feudal dungeon, seeing that the seigneur of the Seventeenth exercised, like his ancestor of the Eleventh Century, the functions of high and low judicial magistrate. Reassured on the score of the wound received by the Count of Plouernel, the Marquis of Chateauvieux hastened to obey the orders of the Governor of Brittany, who summoned him to Rennes without delay, together with the two companies of his regiment; but he left, however, with the Count, for the latter's security, the detachment of Sergeant La Montagne, which he had summoned to Plouernel the day before.
It was close on midnight. The moon, now on the wane, had just risen in a cloudless sky. Hardly had the silvery crescent lifted itself above the horizon when the parish bells, spread over an area of about ten square leagues round about the burg of Plouernel sounded the tocsin at their loudest. At the signal, a troop of peasants armed with hatchets, hay-forks, scythes and old halberds, and preceded by a sort of vanguard consisting of fifty men armed with muskets, sallied out of the burg of Plouernel. They followed in silence the long avenue that led to the iron gate of the court of honor before the castle. At the head of this vanguard marched Gildas Lebrenn, the leasehold peasant of Karnak, Madok the miller, three leasehold peasants of the domain of Plouernel itself, and Tankeru. Tankeru carried, flung over his shoulder, his heavy blacksmith's hammer into the head of which he had cut the Breton words: EZ-LIBR—To Be Free. His arms were bare; in the pocket of his leathern apron was a roll of paper partly visible above the edge. The light of the moon illumined Tankeru's face. In two nights the sturdy man'shair had turned grey. His features were hardly recognizable since Tina's death. Despair had left its stamp upon them. He stopped at about a hundred paces from the iron gate of the castle, and said to Madok in a hollow voice:
"We swore to Salaun Lebrenn that we would follow his advice and place justice on our side before coming to blows, and to submit the Peasant Code for the approval of the Seigneur Count. Perhaps he has already hanged Salaun; but, dead or alive, Salaun has our word. We shall keep it! Tell our men to stop at the avenue. We shall enter the castle unarmed."
The order was given and executed. The vanguard, together with the troop of armed vassals, halted under the trees of the avenue. Tankeru and his five companions advanced to the iron gate, which closed the entrance to the court of honor and stood between two pavilions, where the gateman or porter was housed. The vestibule and all the windows on the first floor of the castle could be seen brilliantly illuminated. Tankeru drew near the gate and called:
"Halloa! Porter! Porter! Come out!"
The porter, clad in a rich livery, came out of one of the pavilions, and approaching Tankeru, inquired:
"Who goes there? What do you want?"
"We want to speak with your master, and on the spot. Open the gate of the castle."
"You, clown?" answered the porter, with the insolence of a lackey, as he spied through the iron bars the blacksmithand his companions, all of whom were poorly clad. "Go your ways! Go, barefooted rabble! If you don't, I shall take my cane and come out—and then, look to your backs!"
"If you do not open, I shall force the gate!" cried Tankeru to the porter, who started to return to his pavilion grumbling.
Tankeru seized his hammer in both his hands, swung it, and with one blow snapped the lock of the gate. It flew open. The frightened porter ran towards the winding staircase of the castle, shouting:
"Help!"
The six vassals entered the court of honor, and walked across it at a rapid pace. Suddenly Tankeru stopped. His eyes had caught sight of three gibbets, recently reared, as shown by the fresh earth that was thrown up at their feet. He called Gildas's attention to the instruments of death, and said:
"We arrive on time! The gibbets are intended for Salaun, his friend Serdan, and—"
The blacksmith did not mention the name of Nominoë. His features contracted and assumed a frightful expression. The robust man smothered a sob, clenched with convulsive rage the handle of his heavy hammer, and pursued his march a few stops ahead of his companions.
The frightened gateman rushed into the vestibule of the castle where a large number of other lackeys were playing cards. Among the gamesters was Sergeant La Montagne and his corporal. The soldiers of his detachment, tiredout with their recent tramp, were resting in one of the adjoining out-buildings.
"A number of vassals have forced open the gate!" shouted the porter as he tumbled in. "They demand to see monseigneur immediately! Go and tell the Count, and ask his orders!"
One of the lackeys ran off to carry the news to his master. The Count was at that moment discussing with his bailiffs, Abbot Boujaron and the Marchioness of Tremblay the sentence that was to be pronounced upon the three "murderers" early next morning. At first stupefied at the audacity of his vassals, the Count bounded up with indignation, and left the hall, followed by his bailiffs and Abbot Boujaron. As the Abbot crossed the vestibule he perceived Sergeant La Montagne, stepped towards him, and gave him a few hurried instructions in a low voice. The sergeant forthwith called to him his corporal, and both left the antechamber by an inside staircase. With his arm in a sling, followed by his bailiffs, and surrounded by a bevy of gallooned lackeys carrying torches in their hands, the Count of Plouernel presented himself upon the stairway of the castle at the moment when Tankeru was ascending the lower steps. The blacksmith and his friends had reached the middle of the stairs when the Abbot said in an undertone to the young Count of Plouernel:
"Gain time—a quarter of an hour, or if but ten minutes. The sergeant has gone out to wake up the soldiers and arm them, together with the forester guards. We shall bag the whole pack."
The Count of Plouernel nodded with his head approvingly to the Abbot, and addressed his vassals in an angry tone:
"Wretches, who forced the gate of my court! What do you want? What do you come for?"
"You shall know in a minute, monseigneur," answered Tankeru in a firm voice as he drew the scroll of paper from the pocket of his leathern apron. While so doing, he ascended the steps that separated him from the landing where the Count of Plouernel stood, and handed him the writing: "Read this, if you please, monseigneur."
"What is this silly paper that you hand me, rustic?"
"It is the PEASANTCODE, monseigneur. Our code, the code of the poor, of the rustics, as you call us, Count of Plouernel."
"In other words, ye clowns, you presume to discuss!"
"Monseigneur," replied Tankeru, "we here are six honorable men who are delegated by your vassals of Mezlean and Plouernel. In that writing, which contains the Peasant Code, we humbly present our grievances, and we endeavor to lay down, as clearly as is in our power, the rules that it may please you to observe towards us, monseigneur, from this day on. It is in great humbleness that we present our code to you, monseigneur."
"A code! Rules dictated by this rustic rabble!" stammered the Count of Plouernel, beside himself with rage. "The audacity! Is it insolence, carried to a climax? Is it folly? Or are these clowns simply drunk? Go back, rustics! Back to your work!"
"Humor the miscreants," whispered the Abbot to the Count; "entertain them, gain time; the soldiers and the foresters must be here soon—we must bag the whole pack."
"Indeed, my clowns. You present your grievances?" proceeded the Count of Plouernel, thus admonished, with supreme disdain not unmixed with stupefaction. "So you have drawn up rules that it may please me to observe towards you! The grievances of this plebs must be droll to read!"
"We have taken the liberty, monseigneur, to submit our grievances to you. We are at the end of our endurance; this must change! In short, we demand of you no longer to be treated worse than draft animals; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be driven with sticks applied to our backs; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be overwhelmed with taxes imposed at yourgood pleasure; we demand of you, monseigneur, no longer to be thrown into prison, whipped with switches, sent to the galleys, or hanged if we kill your stags, or your boars, when they enter our fields and ravage our crops; finally, we demand of you—but read the paper, monseigneur, and you will see that all we ask is Justice—read the Peasant Code! Accept it; it will not ruin you—far from it! But then at least, we and our families would no longer die of hunger, neither worse nor better than foundered horses! We shall still continue to work for you from dawn to dusk, monseigneur, you will still have the larger share, we the smaller;—but then you would allow us to live as the creatures of the good God should live! Accept the Peasant Code, monseigneur; signit; be, then, faithful to your signature, and we will be faithful to our agreement—it will mean peace—a good peace for you and for our families."
"Ho! Ho!" broke in the Count of Plouernel, whom the audacity of his vassals threw into all manner of wrathful transports. "So, then, if I accept your code, we shall have peace? Whence it follows that, in case I refuse—please complete your sentence!"
"'Sdeath! It will then be war, monseigneur! And, take notice, it will then be your fault, not ours," answered Tankeru resolutely. "Finally, in order to cancel the whole bill, we demand of you that it may please you to set free three prisoners whom you are holding in the castle. You intend to have them hanged. Well, monseigneur, you must deliver them to us, if you please; they must be set free—without further delay. If not—"
"If not?" cried the Count of Plouernel at the end of his patience. "If I refuse to set the prisoners free, what will you do? Please answer, miserable fellow! What will you do? I would like to know!"
"'Sdeath! Monseigneur, we shall set them free ourselves! We shall open the war. It will be you who will have made the choice!"
"This is too much!" cried the Count of Plouernel. But suddenly breaking off and listening to windward, he turned to the Abbot and asked: "Is not that the ringing of the tocsin that I hear from afar?"
"Yes, monseigneur," observed Tankeru in a hollow voice that now waxed threatening. "With the rise of themoon, the tocsin was rung in all the parishes of your seigniories of Plouernel and Mezlean—it is now ringing at Rennes—at Nantes—at Quimper, where the fight is on. Everywhere the revolt is on—war everywhere—in case our seigneurs refuse to accept the Peasant Code. Decide on the spot!"
And pointing with his hand in the direction of the avenue to the castle, where the troop of armed vassals was assembled, the blacksmith added:
"All the people of Plouernel and other parishes are yonder under arms; they are waiting for your answer, monseigneur! It will be peace, if you sign the Peasant Code and deliver us the prisoners; if not—fire and flames!—it will be war! War without mercy towards you, as you have been towards us, merciless and pitiless."
"Sergeant! Kill these rebels with your bayonets, or the brigands down the avenue will hear the fire of your muskets and run to their help!" suddenly ordered the Count of Plouernel addressing Sergeant La Montagne, who, at the head of his men and hidden in the dark, had noiselessly crept along the façade of the castle. "This way, foresters!" added the Count in a ringing voice. "The castle is going to be attacked! Kill, kill the malignant rustic plebs—kill them all!"
"Run the clowns through! Let not one escape! Head and bowels! They tried to disarm us on the road to Mezlean!" cried Sergeant La Montagne. "This is our revenge! Prick them through and through! Death to the rustics!"
At the word of command the soldiers suddenly rushed forth upon the staircase, charging Tankeru and his companions with their bayonets.
While the soldiers turned to obey the order to massacre the vassals upon the stairway of the castle, Nominoë was awaiting death in his cell, whither the forester guards of the Count had taken him. The bailiff of the seigniory, assisted by his registrar, had proceeded to interrogate the prisoner, who was charged with a murderous attempt, followed by wounds, upon the person of the very high, very powerful and very redoubtable seigneur, etc. Nominoë remained silent, declining to answer any of the bailiff's questions. The only words he uttered were to inquire about the condition of Mademoiselle Plouernel. Not considering it fit to impart the information to the prisoner, the officer of justice once more urged him to consider that his refusal to answer the charges against him was equivalent to a confession of guilt on his part, and that the crime, in which he was caught red-handed, was punishable with death. The prisoner was to appear early the next morning at the bar of the seigniorial tribunal, together with his two accomplices, guilty like himself of attempted murder, also followed by serious wounds upon the person of the very high, very powerful and very redoubtable seigneur, etc. The execution of the sentence was immediately to follow the judgment. The three gibbets were to be erected that same night. Nominoë persisted in his silence. Thereupon the bailiff and the registrar took their departure, and he was left alone.