"Dear brother, I am obliged to help myself with a stranger's hand to write to you. I urge you earnestly, come to me to the castle without delay. Your presence is indispensable. One of the jailers is devoted to me. He will lead you by a circuitous route, where you are not likely to meet anyone. Come, come."
"Dear brother, I am obliged to help myself with a stranger's hand to write to you. I urge you earnestly, come to me to the castle without delay. Your presence is indispensable. One of the jailers is devoted to me. He will lead you by a circuitous route, where you are not likely to meet anyone. Come, come."
"Treachery!" repeated Serdan. "I tell you once more, their purpose is to lead you into a trap, an ambush!"
"Cornelius has heard from his prison the clamor of the people for his life, and for yours," added Monsieur Tilly. "There is even fear that the maddened mob may succeed in breaking into the prison, and do you suppose that your brother would call you to his side at such a moment? No, no! There is treachery in all this!"
"But suppose this letter was truly dictated by my brother!" cried John De Witt, interrupting Tilly. "Suppose that, finding himself about to die as the result of his torture, he wishes to die in my arms! Suppose he awaits my presence as a supreme consolation! Should I hesitate before a sacred duty? No, never!"
As John De Witt was uttering these last words Madam De Witt re-entered accompanied by her two daughters, Agnes and Mary, one thirteen, the other fifteen years of age. They brought their father's cloak and sword. Theircandid and smiling faces presented so painful a contrast to the dangers that threatened their father, that the witnesses of the scene felt their hearts wrung.
"Father," said Mary, handing John De Witt his cloak, and helping him to put it on, "since you are going to see our dear uncle in that horrid prison, that I am sure he will soon be free to leave, tell him for me that, although he was away from us, we always had him in mind."
"But, better still, father," added Agnes gaily, giving her father his sword, "bring us our dear uncle back soon. And while we wait for his return give him this kiss for me—"
"And this one from me," said Mary, embracing and kissing her father.
With a superhuman effort John De Witt controlled and concealed his afflicted thoughts, tenderly answered the caresses of his daughters by covering their young foreheads with kisses, and addressing his wife, said: "Adieu, my faithful friend; brave companion in evil days, adieu! I hope shortly to bring you better tidings of my brother," and he left abruptly, followed by Monsieur Tilly, Salaun Lebrenn, his son and Monsieur Serdan.
"The die is cast!" said Tilly to his friends in a low voice while John De Witt descended the stairs of his house. "Follow him! Guard him! My horse is waiting for me near by; I shall rejoin my company. We shall defend the prison with all our might."
"Rely upon us," answered Serdan; "all that three resolute men can do shall be done by us. May we be able to save John De Witt, and, with him, the Republic."
In the near vicinity of the palace, where the States General of the Republic of the Seven Provinces held their sessions, rose a vast edifice blackened by years and pierced with narrow, iron-barred windows. This ancient castle now did the services of a place of detention. Its principal façade, pierced with an ogive gate that was led up to by a few stairs, was separated from Buytenhoff Square by a closed iron-barred gate, before which, on this particular day, stood drawn up the cavalry troop of Monsieur Tilly. Up to that moment the troopers had, thanks to their coolness and the closeness of their ranks, prevented the mob that crowded the square from forcing the iron gate of the prison in which Cornelius De Witt lay. The tumultuous gathering that at first had been emitting furious howls and threats of death against the French party, now crowded in silence around several citizens of The Hague who, mounted upon posts, or standing upon the stairs, or upon carts, read aloud and commented on to the gaping mob letters recently received from the provinces that the armies of Louis XIV had invaded. Among the more fiery of the orators a rich goldsmith of The Haguewas prominent. His name was Henry Weroeff, who until recently was one of the most active members of the French party. Accordingly, when he jumped upon an unhitched wagon and announced that he wanted to speak, his voice was drowned under a volley of hoots. Weroeff held a letter in his hand, and motioned for silence while he shouted:
"My friends, deceived and misled like so many others, I belonged up to now to the French party—but I have come to apologize for my error, and to declare in the face of heaven and of man that the brothers De Witt, the heads of the party, deserve public execration. Either as accomplices, or the dupes of Louis XIV, they are responsible for the horrible deeds that the armies of that King are now committing in our provinces. Listen to this letter, which I received this morning from a relative who lives in Bodegrave:
"My dear friend, I write to you in haste. I owe my life to a miraculous accident. Our two burgs of Swamerdam and Bodegrave, each consisting of over six hundred houses, have just been reduced to ashes by the army of the King of France. Only one house is left standing—by the merest accident. The soldiers were especially bent upon destroying the Protestant churches. Not one escaped. The school houses and the City Hall, where the court met, were set on fire. In order to carry out their detestable work, the soldiers furnished themselves in Utrecht with torches of readily combustible material. This is a sight that I saw—a father, mother and children were locked up in their house, and then the place was forthwith set on fire. Those who soughtto escape the flames were massacred by the soldiers and transfixed with pikes—"[3]
"My dear friend, I write to you in haste. I owe my life to a miraculous accident. Our two burgs of Swamerdam and Bodegrave, each consisting of over six hundred houses, have just been reduced to ashes by the army of the King of France. Only one house is left standing—by the merest accident. The soldiers were especially bent upon destroying the Protestant churches. Not one escaped. The school houses and the City Hall, where the court met, were set on fire. In order to carry out their detestable work, the soldiers furnished themselves in Utrecht with torches of readily combustible material. This is a sight that I saw—a father, mother and children were locked up in their house, and then the place was forthwith set on fire. Those who soughtto escape the flames were massacred by the soldiers and transfixed with pikes—"[3]
An explosion of furious yells, born of the indignation aroused by Weroeff's letter, interrupted him at this point. A butcher of herculean stature, with red hair and beard, blood-shot eyes, and livid with rage, rushed forward, and jumping upon the cart from which the goldsmith was speaking, cried out in a stentorian voice that rang above the din: "The letter tells the truth! My sister lived in Swamerdam. Her two children were burnt to death in her house. She herself was violated—and then murdered by the royal soldiers!"
The infuriate man then drew a long knife from his belt, and brandishing it, cried:
"Massacre and death! In default of the King of France himself, I shall cut the throats of his good friends in Holland!"
"Death to the De Witts!" "Death to the accomplices of Louis XIV!" echoed the mob, whose exasperation rose to fever heat. "Death to the traitors!" "Upon them the blood that has flowed!"
Silence being restored by degrees, the goldsmith proceeded to read:
"Yesterday, when, upon the departure of the enemy, we returned to our burgs, and removed the ashes of our homes, we found everywhere charred bodies of men, women and children,the women often holding the lifeless and partially burnt corpses of their infants in their own charred stumps. Acts of unheard-of ferocity were committed in cold blood by the soldiery of Louis XIV. A blind and crippled old woman, the object of our people's compassion, was killed before the eyes of her four children, and then thrown, together with them, into the flames. A number of little children were found horribly mutilated. The soldiers took a cruel delight in cutting off their limbs; others would throw them up in the air and receive them on the points of their bayonets!"
"Yesterday, when, upon the departure of the enemy, we returned to our burgs, and removed the ashes of our homes, we found everywhere charred bodies of men, women and children,the women often holding the lifeless and partially burnt corpses of their infants in their own charred stumps. Acts of unheard-of ferocity were committed in cold blood by the soldiery of Louis XIV. A blind and crippled old woman, the object of our people's compassion, was killed before the eyes of her four children, and then thrown, together with them, into the flames. A number of little children were found horribly mutilated. The soldiers took a cruel delight in cutting off their limbs; others would throw them up in the air and receive them on the points of their bayonets!"
"Little children! Poor little children! Massacre and death! These atrocities must be revenged!" cried the butcher, whose voice broke the first silence caused by the stupor and consternation produced by Weroeff's reading. The butcher's cries were immediately followed by a volley of imprecations that it is impossible to reproduce. "Death and extermination!"
"Listen!" said Weroeff. "There is worse yet:
"Girls were violated before the eyes of their mothers, wives before the eyes of their husbands. The only act of charity on the part of the soldiers was to spare the victims of their brutalities the shame of surviving their dishonor—they drowned them in the canal, or murdered them on the spot—"
"Girls were violated before the eyes of their mothers, wives before the eyes of their husbands. The only act of charity on the part of the soldiers was to spare the victims of their brutalities the shame of surviving their dishonor—they drowned them in the canal, or murdered them on the spot—"
At these words, which reminded him of his sister's fate, the butcher, instead of breaking forth anew with violent imprecations, covered his face in both his hands and began to weep. The sight of this rough and rude man's tender sorrow produced a deep impression upon the crowd. The frightful ferment of a revengeful, inexorable and blindhatred caused even the coldest hearts to boil with indignation. The goldsmith finished his letter amid a mass of humanity that was panting for revenge, and impatient to slake its ire upon the partisans of the French:
"Greed, besides cruelty, animated both the French captain and his soldiers. They hanged men by the feet in the chimneys of their own houses, and lighted a fire under them in order that, suffocated and singed by the clouds of smoke that rose upward and the flames that licked their faces, they be driven to disclose where they had hidden their money and valuables. Often the victims possessed none of these, and they perished, the prey to barbarous greed. Other soldiers stripped the last shred of clothing from the women and girls whom they outraged, and drove them naked into the fields where they were left to die of hunger and cold. One officer (in justice to him be it said) finding two young ladies of the upper class in this condition, took pity upon them, gave them his cloak and some linen that he had with him, and, before returning to his post, recommended the unfortunate girls to the care of another officer. The latter, however, violated both the girls, and thereupon turned them over to his soldiers, who, after subjecting them to further and extreme outrage, mutilated them frightfully.[4]Their shapeless corpses were found day before yesterday near the dike that leads from Bodegrave to Woerden."From Nymwegen I learn that one of those butchers, who do not deserve the name of soldiers, and who was wicked enough to cut off the breasts of a lying-in mother and to sprinkle gunpowder upon her wounds, died yesterday in the agonies of a frightful delirium, caused by remorse for his crime. He believed he saw the distracted woman pursuing him, and heard her cries of pain. A boatman, the brother of my father's tenant farmer, was nailed by both his hands to the mainmast of his barge, while, underthe very eyes of the poor fellow, the soldiers indulged their depravity upon his daughter. Not even the dead are respected. Two funerals were stopped on the way to the graveyard, the corpses were stripped of their shrouds by the soldiers of Louis XIV, and then thrown into the canal."
"Greed, besides cruelty, animated both the French captain and his soldiers. They hanged men by the feet in the chimneys of their own houses, and lighted a fire under them in order that, suffocated and singed by the clouds of smoke that rose upward and the flames that licked their faces, they be driven to disclose where they had hidden their money and valuables. Often the victims possessed none of these, and they perished, the prey to barbarous greed. Other soldiers stripped the last shred of clothing from the women and girls whom they outraged, and drove them naked into the fields where they were left to die of hunger and cold. One officer (in justice to him be it said) finding two young ladies of the upper class in this condition, took pity upon them, gave them his cloak and some linen that he had with him, and, before returning to his post, recommended the unfortunate girls to the care of another officer. The latter, however, violated both the girls, and thereupon turned them over to his soldiers, who, after subjecting them to further and extreme outrage, mutilated them frightfully.[4]Their shapeless corpses were found day before yesterday near the dike that leads from Bodegrave to Woerden.
"From Nymwegen I learn that one of those butchers, who do not deserve the name of soldiers, and who was wicked enough to cut off the breasts of a lying-in mother and to sprinkle gunpowder upon her wounds, died yesterday in the agonies of a frightful delirium, caused by remorse for his crime. He believed he saw the distracted woman pursuing him, and heard her cries of pain. A boatman, the brother of my father's tenant farmer, was nailed by both his hands to the mainmast of his barge, while, underthe very eyes of the poor fellow, the soldiers indulged their depravity upon his daughter. Not even the dead are respected. Two funerals were stopped on the way to the graveyard, the corpses were stripped of their shrouds by the soldiers of Louis XIV, and then thrown into the canal."
The recital of such sacrilegious profanation—doubly abominable in the eyes of a Protestant people, who religiously guard their dead—caused the popular fury to boil over. It wanted instant victims to slake its thirst for revenge and for reprisals. Such victims were at hand—the brothers De Witt and the other chiefs of the French party, considered either the dupes or the accomplices of Louis XIV, as the mob declared with pitiless logic. The popular rage reached its highest pitch. An ear-rending cry went up from all throats—"Death to De Witt! To the prison! To the prison!"
By a spontaneous movement the whole mass of enraged humanity rolled against the prison, the approaches to which Tilly and his troopers had up to that moment managed to keep clear. So spontaneous was the rush against the prison, and so resolutely was it executed, that Tilly's horsemen, finding themselves assailed by a shower of stones, were constrained in self-defense to draw their sabers. They were on the point of falling upon their assailants when, with drums beating and amid the glad acclaims of the multitude, an infantry company of The Hague militia, known by the name of the "Blue Flag," and consisting exclusively of Orangemen, debouched uponthe square. The captain of this militia corps informed Monsieur Tilly that, in order to avoid an effusion of blood in a conflict with the populace, the Council of State had ordered the company of the Blue Flag to mount guard at the castle, and relieve the cavalry posted there. Monsieur Tilly had no choice but to obey and yield the place to his substitutes, although he had no doubt that the prison would now be speedily invaded by the delirious mob. The cavalry, its retreat covered by the infantry corps, withdrew from the square amidst the hootings, the vociferations and even the threats of the mob which now had reached a pitch of delirious paroxysm.
"After De Witt, to the others, and Tilly shall have his turn. We know where he lives!" yelled a bitter Orangeman. "He has taken a lot of French people into his house. Some of them are grand dames! I saw them yesterday on the balcony."
"Massacre and death! May lightning strike me if I do not take revenge for my sister upon those French women!" bellowed the butcher. "But forward, now! First bleed the De Witts. The prison is ours!"
The butcher's threats, directly alluding to Mademoiselle Plouernel and her aunt, were heard by Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and his son, who, having returned to the square, and being driven by the current of the mass, found themselves pushed in the direction of the prison. Vainly had they sought to keep their promise to Monsieur Tilly of protecting the life of John De Witt. When the venerable man left his house under the guidance of the jail grenadier,Serdan and his friends requested him to allow them to escort him. He consented. Together they crossed several narrow and quiet streets and presently an almost deserted lane. When, at the end of the same, they arrived before a gate that barred further passage and opened upon a corridor leading into the castle, the grenadier declared to the companions of John De Witt that they could go no further, his orders being to allow admission only to the Grand Pensionary of Holland. John De Witt urged his friends to withdraw, clasped their hands, and entered alone, the door being unlocked, then closed and re-locked after him by the grenadier who was furnished with a key. John De Witt was taken without delay to his brother, and there discovered the trap that was laid for him. His brother had not sent for him, and was greatly alarmed at what he considered a most inopportune visit, in view of the general popular excitement, and the riot at the prison gate. A heartrending scene took place between the two brothers. John sought to induce his brother to leave the prison, the doors of which, he argued, had to be opened to him, seeing he was sentenced to banishment. Cornelius declined, on the ground that he had appealed from the decree of proscription. He insisted that the judges pronounce him either innocent or guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. To quit the prison would be to accept the sentence which put a blot upon his name, and against which he protested. Unable to induce his brother to flee, John De Witt declared he would not leave him, and would share his fate. While this debate, a struggle of fraternal generosity, wasproceeding in the prison of Cornelius, two officers and four militiamen of the Blue Flag company forced themselves into the chamber in which the two brothers were conversing, and assailed them with violent threats.
Alas! son of Joel; I shall let an eye-witness of that lamentable event narrate it in his own words, and let us transmit the report to our descendants:
"The officers and the militiamen found Cornelius De Witt lying on his couch in a morning gown, and his brother seated near the head of the bed reading to him out of the Bible. The Grand Pensionary sought to awaken some sense of humanity in the maddened men who entered the room. They only redoubled their threats, and compelled the two brothers to rise and leave the room, saying they were to be taken to the place where criminals are executed. The De Witts embraced each other tenderly at the head of the stairs which led out of the castle, and bade each other their last adieus. Cornelius De Witt, who, in consequence of the torture, was very weak, descended leaning upon his brother's arm. The latter, preserving a most heroic calmness in sight of so imminent a danger, exhorted in kind language those who led him and his brother not to commit so great an iniquity as they threatened to be guilty of. 'My friends,' he said to them as he continued to descend the stairs, sustaining his brother, 'we are innocent, we are not traitors to the Republic; take us wherever you please, but take us to judges.' 'March! March!' the officers answered, brutally pushing him forward and causing him to trip and stumble over the lowest steps of the staircase; 'You will soon know where you are taken to, traitors!'"
The iron gate that served as a defense to the castle had been forced open. A portion of the mob penetrated into the outer yard which separated the square from the façade of the castle, and where a low stoop led up to an ogive door. The shadow, into which the vault of the door threw the inside, allowed but an indistinct view of the lowest steps of the staircase by which John and Cornelius De Witt descended. The instant the two brothers appeared at the top of the stoop, whither they were pushed by the militiamen of the Blue Flag, yells of hate and vengeance broke forth from all sides.
"There they are!" "We got them both!" "Death to the De Witts!" "Death to the traitors!" "Death to the French party!"
Separated from the two victims, and hemmed in by a compact mass of people, Serdan, Salaun Lebrenn and Nominoë were as impotent to bring the slightest help to Cornelius and John as to flee from the spectacle that they were about to witness. In that situation, and justly fearing to be recognized as Frenchmen and massacred on the spot, they controlled their grief and indignation, and only exchanged looks of despair as the tragedy was enacted before their eyes.
The moment the two De Witts, John sustaining his brother, stepped out upon the stoop, one of the militiamen raised his musket, holding it by the barrel, and dealt Cornelius De Witt a furious blow upon the head, shouting at the same time:
"Die, traitor! The blood, shed by the soldiers of LouisXIV, shall fall upon your head! Death to all the accomplices of the French King!"
Stunned by the blow, Cornelius staggered and reeled. Instantly the butcher seized him by the hair, and dragged him down to the bottom of the stoop, brandishing his knife. John De Witt rushed forward to his brother's help, but before he could descend two steps, a notary, Van Soenen by name, barred his way, and, exclaiming: "Die, traitor! Your friends the French murdered our prisoners at Swamerdam! Die, traitor, renegade!" hurled his pike into the face of the Grand Pensionary, transfixing it.
Blinded by the blood that spurted from his wound, John De Witt dropped on one knee. He immediately endeavored to rise, crying: "My brother! My brother!" But at that moment a man named Van Valen gripped him by the throat, threw him to the ground, and planting his foot upon De Witt's chest, discharged his pistol into the head of the prostrate man, loudly vociferating: "Die, wretch! You betrayed your country! So shall all the accomplices of Louis XIV die! Death to all papists!"
The corpse of John De Witt was dragged under the Buytenhoff Arcade beside his brother's, whom the butcher killed. The mob pounced like tigers upon the two bodies, riddled them with shots, stripped them naked, mutilated them beyond recognition—and, Oh, frightful reprisals that the two martyrs were the innocent victims of! each act of sacrilegious profanation was accompanied with a thousand imprecations intended to recall the atrocities committed by the soldiers of Louis XIV, who crowned theiracts of pillage, of incendiarism, of iniquities perpetrated upon women, and of murder, by outraging even the corpses which they stripped of their funeral robes, and deprived of burial!
Finally, the shapeless remains of the two great citizens were hung from the gibbet where common malefactors were executed.
Salaun Lebrenn, his son, and their friend, the witnesses to the massacre, stood shuddering with terror, when they were suddenly aroused by the cries of several voices: "And now for Tilly!" "Death to Tilly!" "To the sack of his house!" "Death to the traitors!" "Death to the friends of the French!"
"Vengeance and reprisals!" howled the most infuriated of the mob. "To Tilly's house! to Tilly's house! Sack the house of Tilly!"
The three Frenchmen, who were, until then, wedged in the compact mass of the mob, and compelled, despite themselves, to witness the sight of the popular fury, succeeded by dint of vigorous efforts in cleaving their way in a diagonal line across the press, and finally freed themselves entirely, while the mass of people took the direction of the house of Monsieur Tilly.
Madam Tremblay and Abbot Boujaron, faithful to the recommendations of Monsieur Tilly, kept the curtains of the windows closed, and abstained from showing their faces. Standing near one of the embrasures, and slightly parting the curtain, the Abbot sought to obtain a glimpseof what went on upon the street, and cast furtive looks upon the square.
"Abbot!—no imprudence!" cried the Marchioness.
Mademoiselle Plouernel sat steeped in revery at the opposite end of the parlor. Her mind dwelt indignantly upon the odious designs that her own family had dared to plot, and in which so ignoble a role was assigned to her. She remained an utter and indifferent stranger to all that was happening within and without the house.
"Well, Abbot," inquired Madam Tremblay, "do you see anything on the square?"
"Marchioness!" cried the Abbot, turning pale and stepping back from the window, "we are lost! A mob of men armed with pikes and axes is just turning into the square. They yell: 'Death to the French!' Listen! Listen! Do you hear them? The mob is running this way, howling and vociferating!"
Indeed, at that moment, a formidable clamor that drew ever nearer was heard on the square, and distinctly could be made out the furious cries:
"Death to Tilly!" "Death to the French!" "Sack the house!"
"They are coming to murder Tilly!" stammered the Abbot, livid with terror. "It is done for us! We are lost!"
"Abbot, you are losing your senses," replied the Marchioness endeavoring to allay her own alarm. "Matters are not at such an extremity."
"Madam, do you not hear those furious cries: 'Vengeance and reprisals!'" asked Mademoiselle Plouernel."These people are coming to take vengeance upon us for the atrocities committed by the troops of your master, at the instigation of your infamous Catholic clergy!"
The danger grew ever more threatening. Hurried steps were heard in the house, where the frightened servants were running about crying out to one another and precipitately and noisily closing and bolting the main door on the ground floor. The door, though thick and strong, and studded with iron nails, could not long resist the assailants. Already it shook under the repeated blows of axes and the butts of muskets, while a volley of stones, thrown from the street, broke with a crash the window-panes in the parlor. The shattered windows allowed the clamor from without to reach the parlor with distinctness. "My sister was violated and disemboweled by the soldiers of Louis XIV," cried the butcher in his stentorian voice; "Vengeance and reprisals! French women are housed in Tilly's residence! Fire upon the door and windows! We will get in! Massacre and fury!"
The sound of a discharge of musketry fire followed almost instantly upon the butcher's words. The house seemed to rock to its very foundations. The fusilade continued uninterrupted. At the same time the main door, already half broken down, was attacked with renewed blows of axes, and a lever was applied to its hinges.
Suddenly the ceiling of the parlor shook with the vibrations of heavy blows given with iron maces and by dint of which the main street door finally fell in with a great crash. The vociferations of the assailants, who irruptedinto the house, reached the ears of the Abbot, the Marchioness and Mademoiselle Plouernel. They stood petrified with terror. At that instant a little door, that communicated with, and was concealed by the drapery of the parlor flew open.
"The assassins are here!" stammered the Marchioness, almost dead with fright. "We are lost! Mercy! Mercy!"
"We are saved!" cried Bertha of Plouernel, as she recognized in the new arrivals Serdan and his two friends. "These are our liberators!"
The uproar and the distinct rush of hurrying and tumultuous steps announced that the assailants were mounting the staircase. Serdan ran to the principal door of the parlor, closed and double barred it. "Mademoiselle," he said hurrying back to the young lady and pointing to her the issue through which he had just entered, "flee by that door—the corridor leads to a concealed staircase."
Already the parlor door cracked under the repeated blows from without. Bertha, seized with a sort of vertigo, followed Serdan mechanically; the Abbot pushed the Marchioness before him, and disappeared after the two women in the corridor. The hall was left empty.
The parlor door, attacked with heavy axes, was rent and dashed into splinters, giving a passage to the butcher, who rushed in followed by his band. The Frenchwomen had vanished, but he saw the little door through which they escaped hurriedly closed. He ran forward to open it, or break it down with his fists. It resisted his efforts. Not having had time to bolt the little door from the inside,Nominoë had placed his back against it, and held it closed with his feet firmly planted against the side-walls. Finding himself unable to force his passage, the butcher called out for a hatchet in order to break down the obstacle that now barred his progress.
"We can do better!" exclaimed one of the assailants. "Let us discharge our muskets against the door. The balls will pierce the wood and kill the man. Death to the traitors! Death to the French!"
Three muskets were lowered and fired.
While these incidents were following one another with the rapidity of thought, the fugitives had crossed the corridor and descended the steps of a masked staircase that led to a little inside yard, which opened upon a narrow lane, into which a number of dark and vaulted passages, common in The Hague, ran out. Serdan, being long familiar with the entrances to Monsieur Tilly's residence, and bent upon endeavoring to snatch Mademoiselle Plouernel from the frightful peril that threatened her, the means of escape offered by these devious passages, of which the assailants knew nothing, occurred to him. Through the same secret passages the servants of Monsieur Tilly's household now took flight.
"Monsieur," said Bertha to Salaun in a fainting voice, "I implore you, acquaint me with the name of the man to whom I owe my life and honor! Give me the name of my generous deliverer!"
"Nominoë Lebrenn, my son, a mariner of the port of Vannes as is his father, mademoiselle."
At that moment the detonations of the shots, fired upon the door which Nominoë defended, resounded through the narrow corridor which the fugitives had just left. The reverberations were immediately followed by the distant and expiring cry of the young mariner: "Adieu, father! Flee! Flee!"
"Unhappy boy! They have killed him!" cried Salaun Lebrenn in a heartrending voice. "They have killed my dear Nominoë!"
Leaving Mademoiselle Plouernel to the care of Serdan, who just returned after exploring the lane, Salaun Lebrenn re-ascended the flight of stairs and ran to his son's aid.
"Come! Come, mademoiselle," said Serdan. "The lane is deserted. Night is upon us. I answer for your safety the moment we have entered the first vaulted passage."
Mademoiselle Plouernel did not seem to hear the words of her guide. She stood motionless; her eyes roamed about bewildered; she murmured to herself: "I am the cause of his death. They killed him! They killed my liberator! Woe is me!"
"Make haste, madam; cross the yard, then the alley and enter into the first passage to your right; then wait for me there," said Serdan to the Marchioness and the Abbot, whose terror inspired them with the strength to follow Serdan's instructions.
Serdan himself speedily joined them, sustaining, in fact carrying Mademoiselle Plouernel, who had lost consciousness.
As Salaun Lebrenn was rushing to the assistance of hisson, he ran in the corridor against the butcher. "Wretch! You killed my son!" he cried; and seizing the tall fellow by the throat threw him down. The two men struggled on the floor. The obstruction of the narrow passage by the two combatants impeded the advance of the butcher's companions. That instant a ruddy glow projected itself into the corridor. It was the first flickering flames of the conflagration that the men who remained in the parlor had started. Salaun Lebrenn leaped up; the butcher, finding himself free, fled back through the parlor, before escape from the fire were too late. The Breton discovered his son lying prone and bathed in his own blood. He took him on his shoulder, hastened to the masked staircase, to the yard, to the alley, and, only then considering himself safe, laid down his precious burden, ignorant as yet whether his son lived or was dead. God be praised! Salaun Lebrenn felt the heart of Nominoë beat.
Mademoiselle Plouernel having returned to consciousness, she could be supported by Serdan to a carriage, and conveyed, together with the Marchioness and the Abbot, to the port of Delft. Before leaving The Hague the young girl had at least the consolation to know that, although serious, the wounds received by Nominoë were not mortal. The guide to whom Serdan entrusted the three fugitives inquired, upon his arrival in Delft, after any outgoing vessel. A captain of Hamburg, a neutral city whose merchant vessels had, consequently, nothing to fear from the French, the English or the Dutch squadrons, agreed to convey the three passengers to Havre-de-Grace. Thatsame day the vessel set sail for France, where it calculated to arrive safely after a short passage.
On the same day of the double murder of the De Witts the Assembly of the States of Holland despatched a courier to the young Prince of Orange, then encamped with his army at Alpen on the banks of the Rhine, between Leyden and Woerden. The courier arrived as the Prince was about to sit down to table. He opened one of the two despatches brought to him, read it and said: "Gentlemen, I have good news to announce to the friends of Fagel, who is greatly endeared to me. He was appointed yesterday Grand Pensionary of Holland in consequence of the resignation of John De Witt. Let us drink to the health of Grand Pensionary Fagel."
The Prince thereupon opened the second despatch and read it. His face remained impassive; not the least emotion did his features betray. He refolded the despatch, and sitting down where the cover was laid for him, remarked: "I learn that both De Witts were yesterday massacred at The Hague by the populace. May God pardon them, if it is true that they betrayed the fatherland!" And turning to his chaplain, the Prince added with unction: "You will order prayers to be read for the repose of the souls of the two De Witts. May God be merciful unto them!"
These were the only words that the young Prince vouchsafed to the memory of Cornelius and John De Witt.
The burg of Mezlean, situated on the coast of Brittany and at about equal distances from the port of Vannes and from the druid stones of Karnak, was inhabited mainly by Protestant families. Their ancestors, at the time when the Reformation invaded and spread over Brittany, and subsequently during the religious wars of the Sixteenth Century, had quitted Vannes and founded, so to speak, this burg, in which they raised a temple. This temple, destroyed in the reactionary days of the League, of which lower Brittany was the last hot-bed, was replaced by a Catholic church, and was later again rebuilt after the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes by Henry IV. Upon that event, and for a long time after, the reformers of Mezlean were not disturbed in the exercise of their faith. The revival of the spirit of intolerance, however, which later caused the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, speedily manifested itself in Brittany also, and the Bishop of Vannes claimed the right of restoring the temple of Mezlean to the Catholic cult. In pursuit of the Bishop's designs, a thousand difficulties were thrown inthe path of, and a thousand vexations inflicted upon, the Protestants of the burg. The rectors and curates of the neighboring Catholic parishes took the hint, and rekindled religious animosities among their flocks by pointing at their neighbors of Mezlean as stiff-necked heretics.
One day, towards the end of the month of May, in the year 1673, the burg of Mezlean was, since early dawn, in great bustle over the preparations for a wedding. The curious blocked the neighborhood of the shop of Paskou the Long, so nicknamed for his thinness and tall stature. Paskou the Long was a tailor by trade, besides being renowned for miles around as a poet. His songs and plaintive love ditties caused him always to be chosen for the function of "Baz-valan," or messenger of love, to the girls of the place. Thanks to his good-heartedness, his witty sallies and his irresistible humor, Paskou the Long was greatly beloved by the people of Mezlean. The man's personal qualities, coupled with his poetic talents, rendered him a matchless "Baz-valan." When, mounted upon a white horse with braided mane gaily decked in ribbons, Paskou the Long departed to negotiate some marriage, holding in his hands the symbolic twig of broom in bloom, the emblem of love and unity, the lover was almost certain to see the "Baz-valan" return the bearer of happy tidings, unless, on his outward trip, he encountered a magpie, or saw a crow perched upon a tree—sinister auguries that would cause Paskou the Long to turn back his horse's head. If, on the contrary, a turtle dove, nestled among the leaves, cooed on the passage of the messenger of love, theBaz-valan felt certain of the success of his mission. It was a treat to hear him sing the praises of his client, set into relief the good points of the swain's personal appearance, laud his character, enumerate the cattle in his stables, the bushels of garnered wheat in his granary, readily and gaily meet the objections of the parents of thedemanded girl, in short, exhibit his matchless skill at cheering the most morose, or at proving to the most incredulous that his client would be the Phoenix of all husbands.
On that particular day, the curious of the burg of Mezlean thronged around the door of Paskou the Long's house, which was contiguous to an inn, the yard and outlying stables of which were crowded with wagons hitched to the oxen or horses of the peasants who were to join the nuptial procession charged with fetching the bride from her paternal house, about a league away. The bridegroom, Nominoë Lebrenn, and his father, Salaun Lebrenn, were in an upper chamber of Paskou the Long's house. Nominoë seemed to be a prey to some secret anxiety. His pale and haggard face bore the stamp of concentrated grief. Seated near a table with his elbow resting upon it, he reclined his care-worn forehead upon his hand. Standing beside his son, Salaun contemplated him with amazement, and said to him considerately: "Verily, my son, I can hardly believe that I heard you rightly. What! our relatives, our friends, all assembled in the neighboring house, are waiting to join you in the procession to your cousin Tina's house, and to bring her to Mezlean where your wedding is to be celebrated in the temple—and all of a sudden,without any reason therefor, you appear to waver before this marriage that has been decided and agreed upon for so long a time!"
"Father," answered Nominoë with an effort, "I am not irrevocably engaged until the Baz-valan has gone and taken my betrothed from her house—not until after that last ceremony has been performed, is it forbidden to me unless I am ready to be taken for a faithless man, heartless and without honor, to retract my word."
Salaun listened to his son with increased amazement and replied: "Am I awake, or am I dreaming? Is not this union, so much desired by your mother's brother and me, and planned, I may say, since your and Tina's birth—is it not also the constant aspiration of you two? Did you not exchange rings shortly after our voyage to The Hague? Finally, was it not in concert with your uncle, his daughter and yourself, that recently, upon our return from our cruise along the coasts of Saintonge and Guyenne, the day for your marriage was fixed? And, now, you mean to pretend that, in the absence of an insignificant formality, you would still be free to break an engagement that you voluntarily accepted and remained true to for so many years! I seek in vain for the cause of this change, an inconceivable change, a change that is so unexpected!"
Nominoë answered without raising his eyes to his father: "I was weak; I failed in sincerity; but, I still can draw back before a fatal final step. Brought up with Tina, habituated to see in her the future companion of my life, I believed I loved her. I mistook for that sentiment thefraternal affection that I entertained for her since childhood. But little by little the truth dawned upon my heart, and I discovered that Tina was not and never could be aught to me but a sister. Unfortunately I did not have the courage to destroy the poor girl's illusion. I recoiled before the thought of the grief that the rupture of this alliance between our two families would cause you and my uncle. I admit it—I recoiled before the declaration that, however tardily, I now feel forced to make, at last. Now, when the hour is approached in which I was to unite my fate with Tina's, I interrogate myself with the inexorable severity of a judge, and I declare to you, father, that I fear, were I to marry Tina, I could not render her as happy as she deserves to be. Finally, there is another grave reason for my decision not to contract this union: At any moment now, the insurrection, that has so long been brewing in Brittany, may break out with fury. I hold it would be an act of imprudence on my part to wed Tina on the eve of a civil war, in which I may be killed. Looked at from any side we choose, it is preferable that the wedding do not take place."
The face of Salaun Lebrenn grew sadder and more serious. His son's embarrassment, and the weakness of the reasons that he adduced to justify his sudden change, clearly betrayed the fact that the young man was but beating about for pretexts for a rupture, the real reason for which he sought to conceal.
"My son," replied Salaun in a firm and grave tone, "this is the first time in your life, I think, that you havelowered yourself before me by resorting to a ruse, to equivocation, and even to untruth! You dare not look me in the face, and you stammer out your pretended reasons for a rupture that you feel ashamed of!"
And the father, taking pity upon his son's prostration, softened the severity of his tone by adding: "Nominoë, I shall now address myself to your loyalty of heart. I wish to believe, I do believe that your scruples, so tardily expressed, are sincere. You fear you may not render Tina as happy as the good girl deserves. You fear to plunge her into mortal anxiety for your life, perhaps into the mourning of widowhood, should the insurrection of Brittany break out to-morrow. To all that my answer is: You would have to be a man of selfish heart before I could believe you capable of rendering unhappy a creature who loves you with all her heart and soul. But you are what you are. Now, then, I swear to God, whatever the nature may be of your affection for your wife, she will have nothing for which to envy the happiest of wives. My conviction on that head is complete, absolute. Do you imagine that, if I believed otherwise, I would fail to be the first to wish, in fact, to order you, however late the hour, to break off the match? No, no, my son, I have more confidence in you than you seem to have in yourself. There, then, remains this one objection—the imminence of an uprising in which we would take part, and, consequently, Tina's anxiety for your safety. As to that, you are right, my son; your apprehensions are well founded; but the sorrows that you foresee for your bride are not pressing,while, on the other hand, I see a certain sentence of death for the poor girl in your refusal to marry her."
"Great God!" exclaimed Nominoë with a shudder, unable to prevent himself from sharing his father's fears.
"Listen to me. At this very hour that I am speaking to you, Tina, surrounded by her girl companions, her head decked with the bridal ribbons, is awaiting you from minute to minute, with her eyes upon the Mezlean road, her heart beating with joy and tender impatience. Instead of the nuptial procession, preceded by the radiant Baz-valan holding in his hand the twig of broom in bloom, she is to see him from a distance on the road, coming to her sad, alone and with the twig broken. The poor girl will understand the symbol, the ruin of her hopes. She will feel herself deserted, considered by you unworthy of being your wife. She will not complain. Not a single reproach will escape her lips. She will even endeavor to appease her father's indignation. She will say to him: 'Nominoë is master of his own heart; he has loved me; he loves me no more; I was his promised wife, but am not to be his wedded wife. What did I do to be deserted? I know not, and am resigned. May he be happy. As children we were put to sleep in the same cradle. He always was the friend of my youth. My only wish is that he may be happy. It is my last wish!' And as she utters these words," Salaun proceeded to say in a shaken voice, "tears will wet the pale and sweet countenance of Tina. In silence the poor girl will untie her bridal ribbons, will put off her wedding robes, and returning to her household work, will resume her distaff—all without expressing one bitter word. She will suffer without complaining. The period of her sufferings will be more or less prolonged, and then," added Salaun, tears beginning to interfere with his speech, "and then, at the end of this month, perhaps before the end of this week, the people of the burg of Mezlean will say: 'You know little Tina, the daughter of Tankeru the blacksmith? Well, she died!'"
At these last words, pronounced by Salaun with poignant simplicity, Nominoë could no longer hold back his tears. The natural kindness of his heart triumphed over his indecision, and he cried:
"Oh, father! You are right. My desertion of her would cause Tina's death! I shall not be guilty of the murder. You shall live, dear child! You shall live! Hap what hap may, I shall make you happy. Let my destiny be fulfilled!"
"And you also will be happy!" replied Salaun with joy, as he took his son in his arms. "Come, dear boy! My insistence is the presentiment of the bliss that awaits you two. You are worthy the one of the other. You will both be happy, dear children!"
Saying this, Salaun ran to the door that opened upon the staircase of the tailor's shop, opened it and called down from the banister: "To horse, Paskou the Long! To horse, joyful Baz-valan! Call our relatives and friends! Worthy herald of nuptial ceremonies, take your gay sprig of broom in bloom, and to horse!"
"It is done!" said Nominoë to himself while his fatherwas calling to the Baz-valan. "Adieu, insane hopes! Adieu, deceitful, senseless visions, yet so dear to my heart! Adieu, gilded dream, a dream as distant from reality as heaven is from the pit! This morning, when I learned of the arrival of Mademoiselle Plouernel at Mezlean, I intended to break off this match. Poor fool! Return to your senses, to earth! Your marriage will put an end to the visions that led your mind astray!"
"Let us depart, my son! Make haste! Poor Tina must have begun to feel uneasy," observed Salaun to his son. "All our relatives and friends are waiting for us. Quick, to horse!"
A moment later the nuptial procession, headed by the Baz-valan and Nominoë, left the burg of Mezlean and took the road to the house of Tankeru the blacksmith, the father of Tina, the bride.
Tankeru was both blacksmith and wheelwright. After having long resided at Vannes with his mother and daughter, he moved with them and settled down in an isolated house situated about a league outside of Mezlean in a hollow, at the crossing of two roads one of which skirted the forest of Mezlean. Several reasons had combined to determine Tankeru's choice of the lonesome locality. The first was that the house stood at the foot of two bluffs which rose over a granite soil, rough, rocky and uneven, where the horses and oxen that drew the heavy wagons over the road could not choose but lose some nails of their shoes as they climbed the steep ascent; the blacksmith would be on the spot ready to repair the damage. In the second place, Tankeru counted upon indulging in the hunt in the forest of Mezlean, a sport to which he was passionately addicted. In the teeth of all the punishments decreed against illegal hunting—the prison, the whipping post, the galley, even the gallows—Tankeru gave a loose to his controlling passion in full security of conscience, claiming that the wandering beasts of the forests belonged to the best marksman, and that, moreover, it was a good office tokeep down the number of wild beasts. Game belongs to all—to the villein as to the nobleman.
On this day there was great animation in Tankeru's home. His smithy and wheelwright shop were full of relatives, friends and vassals of the neighborhood—a pale and haggard crowd, pinched by privation, all dressed in their best rags, and, for a moment, oblivious of their misery as they came to rejoice over the wedding of Tina and Nominoë. They emptied the pots of cider, ate the bacon from the salt-tub, and the cakes of black bread. The daughters and wives of the invited guests, congregated in the upstairs room of the house, were lending a hand in the last touches of the bride's toilet. Tankeru was a man of about forty years of age, of an open and resolute face, tall of stature, and endowed with an athletic strength that often won for him the prize in the wrestling matches at the rustic festivals. The host was fulfilling at his best the duties of hospitality.
"Friends," said the blacksmith, "let us empty the barrel, the salt-tub and the bread-bin. Whatever is eaten and drunk escapes the clutches of the King's men, the seigneurs and the clergy!" And Tankeru added sardonically: "Fire and flames! The devil take the armed troopers and the tonsured gentry! Comrades, we are honest folks, may Satan take the Pope!"
"If we are honest folks, Tankeru, we are also poor folks!" replied a white-haired peasant. "Very poor folks! The royal taxes, the seigniorial imposts, the tithes of the church are ever on the increase—and still I hear rumorsof fresh taxes. Why, they took almost everything away from us. If they take still more, what will be left to us?"
"Why, our skin will be left to us—and who knows but they may want that also to turn it into hose for themselves!" put in Tankeru. "Listen, by force of forging, shoeing, mending wagons and saving from my daily bread for twenty years and more, I laid by a little sum for my daughter's dower. In less than twenty months three-fourths of the sum has passed into the bag of the tax collectors. Fire and flames! We are honest folks! Let us empty the barrel, the salt-tub and the bread-bin! What has been drunk and eaten is not seized! The devil take the tonsured fraternity and the troopers!"
"Tankeru, you are always saying—'We are honest folks,'" again put in the old peasant. "You mean by that, I suppose, that we are a lot of fools to allow ourselves to be plucked to the quick. But what would you have us do, otherwise than repeat with you—'The devil take the troopers and the tonsured fraternity!'"
Tankeru's eyes fell upon a yoke used for oxen. Its nails had fallen out, and it stood against the wall. He took it up, showed it to the vassals, broke it over his knees, and throwing the pieces at his feet said: "The devil take the tonsured fraternity and the troopers! That's what's to be done!"
These short words, together with the energetic expression of the blacksmith's countenance, produced upon the vassals an instantaneous effect. They all rose simultaneously, clenched their fists threateningly, and some of themstamped angrily with their heels upon the fragments of the yoke that Tankeru had broken. Desirous that his guests remain under the sway of the thoughts that the incident had awakened in their minds, Tankeru said to them:
"I am going upstairs to see whether my daughter is ready with her toilet. It will not be long before her bridegroom will be here."
Tina, the betrothed of Nominoë, surrounded with her friends and relatives who joined her grandmother in prinking up the girl, was seated in their midst in the old dame's bedroom. It would be hard to depict to oneself a more charming and dainty girl than "Little Tina," as she was commonly called by her companions. Her blonde hair shone like gold in the sun; her eyes, bluer than the cornflower, reflected the sweetness of her angelic disposition. Everything breathed gladness around her, and yet her delicate features, full of candor and grace, were expressive of profound sadness. Alas! Her moist eyes, piercing the glass in the leaden frame of the narrow window in the room, wandered far away, vainly expecting for a long time to see the nuptial procession at the head of which her betrothed was to appear. Tina's friends exchanged a few words in a low voice, while the grandmother held in her hands the nuptial ribbons—white, signifying the innocence of the bride; red, her beauty; and black, her sorrow at leaving her family. As the grandmother was about to tie the symbolic bunting on Tina's head, the girl emerged from her revery, took the knot of ribbons in herhand, gazed upon it in silence, and pointing with her finger to the black, said with a heartrending sigh:
"Grandma, this should be the only color of my nuptial ribbons—black, like the wings of a crow."
"Still harping on the memory of that presage of evil!" said the grandmother in a voice of affectionate reproach. "To entertain such sad thoughts on such a beautiful day is to offend God."
"It is to listen to God, grandma! In His goodness He sends us omens in order to prepare us for misfortune," answered Tina pensively. "Early this morning I stood at the window. The sun had hardly risen, but already my eyes wandered in the direction of Mezlean. From that quarter I saw flying towards me, with wings outstretched—a crow. He flew over my head and circled over our house emitting his lugubrious screech. A little turtle dove, nestled among the leaves of the large apple tree that shades our well, was at the time cooing its song of love and tenderness. The moment she heard the cawing of the crow she hid herself from sight among the foliage. The crow detected and pounced down upon her. In her attempt to escape she fluttered about, and happening to stumble near the edge of the well, fell in and was drowned," Tina mused aloud to herself. "God sends us omens to prepare us for misfortune! Black should be the only color of my nuptial ribbons, grandma! Only black! Nominoë does not come. The hour has passed—he will not come."
The belief in omens was so general in Brittany that, however singular or unreasonable in appearance, Tina'spersistency in her presentiments impressed her companions. Nevertheless, Janik, the dearest of her friends, sought to reassure the bride and said, forcing a smile upon her own lips:
"That you should take the sweet little turtle dove to personify yourself, I agree to, little Tina; but to see your betrothed, Nominoë, so handsome, so good and so enamoured a youth—aye, to see him in that ugly and wicked crow—fie, little Tina, fie! How can such a thought occur to you!"
"Janik is right," put in the grandmother. "Your cousin has loved you since your childhood. You have been long betrothed. As late as yesterday he was here. Did he not say, as he was taking leave: 'Till to-morrow, my sweet Tina. Fools are they who are often seen to look for happiness at a distance when they can have it near at hand. Happiness to me consists in joining my fate to yours. Till to-morrow, my sweet Tina!' And after such words, you foolish child, and simply on account of a delay of perhaps an hour in the arrival of the nuptial procession, you begin to have evil dreams and to talk to us of black ribbons, crows and birds of death! Come, cast off such mournful thoughts!"
"In the crow I see bad luck, grandma," persisted Tina, more and more absorbed in her sad presentiments, and her eyes ever resting on the desert road of Mezlean. "I see in the crow the bad luck that threatens, and perhaps is to punish me."
"Punish you!" replied the grandmother no less surprisedthan the bride's companions. "What harm have you ever done to anybody, dear, innocent creature, as pure and innocent as a dove?"
"I had the vanity and pride of imagining myself beloved of Nominoë. Alas! I know it; I am his own cousin; often did we sleep together, as children, in the same cradle; but I am only a poor, ignorant girl, while Nominoë is clever and cultured like a clerk. He has traveled and seen distant countries. He and my uncle Salaun Lebrenn are the best mariners of Vannes. They own their own vessel. They are rich, compared to my father, who only has his forge and a few gold coins that he deprived himself of for my sake." Tina paused and then proceeded in a tone of bitter self-reproach: "Oh, what I have just said is not right—it is a wrong to Nominoë. He desert me out of avarice! No! no! His heart is too generous for that. Seeing how much I loved him, he took pity upon me. He feared to grieve me if he did not love me. He is so good! Yes, last night, as he thought of his coming here to-day to take me for his wife, he must have realized that he loved me only out of compassion. That is the reason of his absence!"
"Nominoë to put such an affront upon you! upon your father! upon your family!" cried the grandmother interrupting Tina. "My child, you are losing your senses! What nonsense, to imagine such cruel things simply because your bridegroom is a little late in coming! Return to your senses!"
"Why," remarked Janik, "I can easily guess the reasonof his delay. It must be the fault of the Baz-valan. That Paskou the Long, the longest and most talkative of all tailors that I have ever seen, must have had the notion of composing a new song in honor of your wedding, and he is trying to commit it to memory. That is the reason of the delay. But they must now be on the way."
Suddenly Tina, who, unmindful of the consoling words with which her grandmother and friends strove to allay her fears, did not remove her fixed and moist eyes from the deserted Mezlean road—suddenly Tina seemed electrified; she rose, uttered a slight cry of joy, and, transfigured and radiant, stretched out both her arms towards an object in the distance. The shock of joy, the sudden revulsion from despair, caused her to turn pale and stagger. She leaned upon her grandmother, embraced her effusively, and muttered in a voice that gladness seemed to choke: "Nominoë is coming! There he is now! There he comes!"
The bride's friends crowded to the window. At a distance they saw the front ranks of the nuptial procession descending the slope of the highway, preceded by the Baz-valan, who bestrode his little white horse and held aloft the sprig of broom in blossom. Tankeru entered at that moment, announcing gaily:
"Attention! There comes the procession! Are you ready, my little daughter? What! Your nuptial ribbons are not yet tied in your hair!"
Only at that moment did the blacksmith notice the pallor of Tina's face, and the traces of recent tears in her eyes.Turning to the grandmother, uneasy and even alarmed, he inquired: "Mother! What has happened? The girl has been weeping. She weeps—and on such a day as this! What is the cause of her grief?"
"Good father!" answered Tina to whose plump and chaste cheeks the roses were rapidly returning, "I was crazy! A sad presage oppressed me this morning, despite myself. The procession was delayed so long in coming—I thought Nominoë had deserted me!"
"Fire and flames!" cried the blacksmith, his face assuming an ominous appearance. "Such an outrage!" But immediately interrupting himself he addressed his daughter in a tone of affectionate reproof: "It is you, dear child, who, surely without intending it, wronged Nominoë and his father, the husband of your mother's sister, in believing them capable of breaking faith."
"Friend Tankeru, they are waiting for you!" said one of the peasants, stepping into the room. "The Baz-valan has alighted. He has knocked twice at the house door. Cousin Madok, in his capacity of 'Brotaer,' is going to answer the summons of Paskou the Long. The one is as pert as the other. The answer will match the demand."
"Quick, quick, little Tina!" said the grandmother. "Let me adjust the ribbons in your hair. The Brotaer will call for you in a minute. Come! Make haste! We must be ready when called!"
"Oh! Grandma," said Tina, bending to her grandmother her virginal forehead, "the Brotaer will not have to call me twice!" And radiant with joy and pink with agitation,she raised to heaven her limpid eyes, that a moment before were veiled in sadness, but now shone sweetly, like a cornflower glistening in the morning dew.
When the nuptial procession was near the house of the bride it stopped. The guests alighted from their rustic wagons and formed a circle. Paskou the Long leaped to the ground, entrusted his mount to one of his apprentices who officiated as a page, and holding in his hand his fresh sprig of broom, and swaying his long body with the conscious importance of a personage upon whom all eyes are centered, the Baz-valan stepped alone to the house door, which was kept closed, and knocked. The door opened; a relative of Tankeru, a miller named Madok, a pert and jolly fellow, appeared at the threshold. He was to fill the office of "Brotaer," or god-father to the bride, and meet and answer the Baz-valan, the bridegroom's messenger. Paskou the Long began his oration, modulating his voice to a slow rythm, that imparted to his sentences the sound of a measured recitative:
"In the name of the Lord God—peace to this house, and blessings upon its roof-tree—and greater bliss than I enjoy on earth."
"What is the matter with you, friend?" mischievously interrupted Madok the Brotaer. "Why should not your heart be glad—the heart of one who causes others to laugh so much—to laugh at your long neck and your long legs, and your long arms! Paskou the Long, my friend, what is the grief that you nurse at your heart?"
"Tut! Tut! Tut! my friend Madok," the Baz-valan replied,"very long are my legs; still, they do not prevent the King's men from catching me, from grabbing me by the neck and saying: 'Pay! pay! pay!—pay over again! pay all the time!' Very long are my arms, but the arms of the bailiff of our seigneur, and of the tithes-collector of the curate are longer still! They are so long that they can reach down to the very bottom of my pockets, even if they were as bottomless as the wells of Melusine! Quite long is my neck—and yet, Monseigneur the Governor of Brittany could stretch it out still longer—aye, my poor long neck! That is the reason, my friend, why I am not among the most gladsome of earth."
"Oh! how true is the proverb—how squarely the proverb hits the nail upon the head when it says: It takes nine tailors to make one man. The proverb is applicable to you," replied Madok.
"It takes just as many asses to make one miller, friend Brotaer—or, I should rather say, Seigneur Windmill!" returned Paskou the Long. "Go to, and grind your grain!"
"Well answered, Seigneur of the Needle and Thread!" said Madok. "And yet, I repeat it—what a poor, inconsequential one-ninth of a man you are! There you are, whimpering and all in a fright as you speak of monseigneur, of monseigneur our Governor. Aye, your long face frowns and becomes still longer. And yet, just tell me, when you start to speak of a good fat pig, good and fat, a pig with such a belly that he can hardly move his body, so club-cheeked that one can no longer see his little peepers, hidden under three folds of fat—tell me, is it not true thatthen your long face grows longer still—so much do you rejoice, so brimful of admiration are you when you speak of such a fat and incomparable pig? How comes it, then, my friend, that you do not likewise rejoice when you speak of monseigneur—of monseigneur our Governor? Answer my question."
The wedding guests received with loud outbursts of laughter the allusion of Madok the miller to the enormous obesity of Monseigneur the Duke of Chaulnes, the Governor of Brittany, whom the people nicknamed the Fat Pig, and whom all classes execrated on account of his severity, his haughtiness and his merciless exactions. Paskou the Long waited until the hilarity of the audience subsided, and then proceeded:
"Certes, friend Brotaer, I rejoice greatly at the thought of a big and honest pig—provided his profitable body is intended for the salt-tub. But, Lord, when I think of a huge boar, wicked and unprofitable, who fattens, pastures and wallows upon and in my own meager pittance, in return for which the gormandizer grunts, steps upon my feet, turns me black and blue butting against me, and bites me—is it at all astonishing if then my long face should grow still longer and look sad? But that is not the cause of my grief."
"What may be the cause of your grief? Speak! Let me know it, friend Baz-valan," demanded the Brotaer.
Instead of answering the Brotaer's question, Paskou the Long replied: "I had in my dovecote a beautiful pigeon—its plumage turned to all imaginable colors. I also had alittle white dove, the constant love of my handsome pigeon. But, alas! my dove flew away—she flew away from my dovecote. Did you, perhaps, see her around here?"
"No, my friend; I have not seen your dove. I do not care for such small birds. A fine hen suits me better."
"But some neighbors informed me that she alighted in your yard. I entreat you, friend, go in and inquire after my little dove. If I do not find her, I assure you my poor pigeon will die of sadness in my dovecote."
"In order to satisfy you, friend, I shall inquire after your dove."
Saying these words, the Brotaer went back into the bride's house, closed the door after him, and reopened it after a short interval holding in his hand and leading out a little girl of about five years. He presented her to the Baz-valan and said:
"I went into my yard. I did not see your dove there, but I saw a large number of fresh buds of eglantine. Here," pointing to the child, "is one of them. She will gladden the eyes of your pigeon, and he will feel consoled for his loss. I make you a present of the little bud, in the place of your dove."
The Baz-valan embraced the child and answered: "Fresh and charming is the little bud—but my pigeon is too sad—too sad is he over the loss of his dove—too sad to forget her at the sight of a little flower, however pretty it be. Go in again, my friend, and look and see if perhaps my dove did not fly into your garret."
"Be satisfied—but as true as every time that he sets out—thegood old mother of the ferocious Marquis of Guerrand—rings, with tears and shudderings—the alarm bell of the castle—to warn the vassals of the Marquis to be on their guard against her merciless son—just so stubborn are you in the search of your dove—as stubborn as the taxcollectors in pursuit of the poor folks."
With these words Madok the Brotaer re-entered the house of the bride, and speedily reappeared, leading by the hand a buxom matron of about thirty years of age, saying: "I climbed into my garret. The tithes, the taxes and the imposts extorted from us by the King, the castle and the curate, leave nothing for us to glean but wisps after the harvest. Nevertheless, in my garret did I find, escaped by accident from the rapacity of the tax-gatherers, this beautiful ripe ear of tasteful and golden wheat," and he pointed to the matron. "This beautiful ear of wheat will console your pigeon, and he will cease to pine for his dove. I give you my ripe ear of wheat to replace your dove. Take it with you."
"However tasteful, however golden they be, the grains of that beautiful ripe ear will never tempt my pigeon. Alas, with the loss of his little white dove he lost the taste for both eating and drinking. Friend, friend, I entreat you, go down into your cellar. See if, perchance, my white dove did not seek refuge there. Search in all the corners of your cellar, you may find my white dove there."
"Be at your ease, but, by heaven! the men of the royal fisc, when they pounce upon our poor houses, in pursuit of taxes and imposts, even they are not skilful as you inrummaging a dwelling from the cellar to the garret. I shall go look again, and see whether, by accident, your dove has fled into my cellar."
For a third time Madok the Brotaer re-entered the bride's house, whence he soon again emerged holding by the hand a very old and venerable looking woman, and said: "Into my cellar I went; I did not see your dove there. But I did find a good old fruit," pointing to the old grandmother, "that was gathered long, very long ago. Despite its wrinkles, however, it has preserved its taste and flavor. Good fruit gains with time. I offer it to you for your pigeon."
"Certes, my friend, the wrinkles of good fruit do far from hurt its quality. Always nourishing and wholesome, such fruit ever seems more precious, and sweeter, when, winter having come, the summer fruits are gone. But, alas! my pigeon cares not either for your good fruit, or for your beautiful ear of ripe wheat, or for your fresh bud of eglantine. Go, if you please, and sow your pearls before monseigneur our Governor. What my pigeon wants is his own white dove. She is here; I know she is. You only refuse to return her to me. I shall go in and look for her myself. I must have my dear white dove, and I shall have her."
"Friend, I shall save you the trouble. Come with me, Baz-valan, come. Your little dove is not lost. I kept her safe myself, for you. I kept her in an ivory cage, a cage with bars of gold and silver. Yes, your dove is here. Sheis here, gentle, beautiful, and decked quite gaily. Your handsome pigeon need not die."
Saying this, the Brotaer opened the house door to the Baz-valan. The latter beckoned to Nominoë to alight from his mount, took him by the hand, and led him into the house of his bride, followed by his relatives and friends. Tina soon appeared, led by the Brotaer and accompanied by her father and grandmother. The first looks of the young girl were for Nominoë; and he, seeing her so charming, above all so radiant with happiness, no longer regretted having overpowered his reluctance to contract the marriage. He thought to himself: "My father was right—my refusal would have been death to her!" Beside Nominoë stood Salaun and his brother Gildas Lebrenn, a vassal of the Count of Plouernel on the farm of Karnak. The more distant relatives and friends ranked themselves along the wall of the blacksmith's shop, leaving an empty space in the middle in which the bride and bridegroom were placed by the Baz-valan and the Brotaer. The faces of these two officials looked no less roguish than jovial, yet serious and solemn. The touching expression on the face of Paskou the Long caused his ridiculous thinness to be for a moment lost sight of. Tankeru and Salaun each delivered a silver ring to the Baz-valan, which he put upon the fingers of Nominoë and Tina. After this ceremony the Brotaer said to them:
"On your knees, my children!"
The couple knelt down upon the bare floor, and the Brotaer proceeded:
"Exchange the rings given to you by the Baz-valan, in token of your indissoluble alliance."
The bride and bridegroom exchanged rings, and the Brotaer added in a grave voice:
"Nominoë Lebrenn, Tina Tankeru, do you swear to be joined on earth, the one to the other as your finger to your ring?"
"Oh, I swear!" answered Tina with an expression of celestial bliss, and she approached to her lips the ring which her bridegroom had temporarily carried on his finger.
"I swear!" responded Nominoë.
At the moment of binding his life to his cousin's, Nominoë was constrained to wrestle for a last time with his irresolution. Before pronouncing the irrevocable oath he was silent for an instant. The interval was imperceptible to all except Salaun Lebrenn. The father of the bridegroom realized that, at that solemn moment, his son underwent a supreme struggle with himself. His heart was gripped with pain.
"Tina Tankeru, Nominoë Lebrenn," resumed the Brotaer, "be you two for evermore united, as the ring is to the finger. We live in evil days, oppressed and harassed as we are by the men of the King, the seigneurs and the clergy. Lean upon each other in your journey through these sad times. May your children see better days. And now, let us proceed to the temple. The Lord will bless those whom man has united. Let us all proceed."
The ceremony being over, Paskou the Long took Nominoë's horse by the bridle and led the animal to the doorof the house. A lighter saddle, provided behind the principal one, enabled the husband to take his wife on the crupper of his mount. The two were considered married with the exchange of rings. Nominoë leaped upon his horse. The Brotaer, in the exercise of his office, raised Tina, light and supple as a child, in his arms, and placed her behind her husband. The nuptial procession again put itself in motion, now back to Mezlean, whither it was preceded by a band of Armorican bag-pipers, playing lustily. Behind them came Paskou the Long, cantering on his little white horse, and Madok the miller astride of his ass. They were followed by Nominoë with little Tina behind him—happy—Oh, as happy as one may think, at having her arms around the waist of her well-beloved husband. Salaun Lebrenn and Tankeru rode behind the married couple upon hired horses, while Gildas Lebrenn, his wife, and all the other relatives and friends were seated in wagons drawn by heavy Breton oxen. A large crowd of men, women and children on foot brought up the rear.