The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old Quebec

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  BODY AND MIND.

  Roussilac strode towards the river, and in that hour found it in hisheart to envy the meanest settler in the land. Like many a man who hasrisen from the ranks, he found himself destitute of friends. He hadcut himself off from his own relations, lest they should hinder hisascent, and none had come to take their place; the captains of noblebirth, his official equals, having refused to receive into friendshipthe son of a Normandy farmer. The home government was but using whatmilitary talents he possessed to their advantage; and when his serviceshad been rendered, he would be cast aside by the proud priest who ruledthe destinies of France, and another chosen in his stead.

  "Courage!" he muttered. "'Tis but imagination which makes a weaklingof me. I will to D'Archand, and inquire of him whether or no my namebe yet in favour. Then to stand up like a man, and sweep away myenemies, let them be priests, relations, or demons."

  D'Archand was idling upon deck, but at a word from the commandantentered his curtained cabin and produced a flask of Burgundy as an aidto conversation. First Roussilac sought to hear more particularly thenews of the world, and induced the master to expatiate upon therevolution of the Scottish Covenanters, the struggle of Charles formoney and ships, the resolute stand of John Pym for just law, theprosperity of France under Richelieu, and the breaking of the shorttreaty between that country and Holland. D'Archand warmed to hisdiscourse under the influence of the wine and a thrill of patriotism,as he concluded: "I have but recently crossed the high seas withoutsighting a hostile vessel. The Dutch privateers have gone home empty.The English coffers are bare. France now holds the world. I drink tothe Cardinal and our King."

  Abstractedly Roussilac lifted his glass. When the master leaned overand emptied the flask between them, the commandant observed, with anassumption of indifference: "Didst hear any word of praise for my workin this land?"

  "My stay was short," D'Archand answered. "I heard no talk of you,commandant--at least, not upon the streets, and to be spoken of in thestreet is the only fame, I take it. But there were rumours afloatregarding the Abbe La Salle."

  "Perdition!" muttered Roussilac. "Shall these priests never confinethemselves to their own affairs?"

  "Your princes of the Church are statesmen now rather than priests,"said the master. "The Abbe La Salle comes of a renowned family. 'Twassaid that he is wasted in this colony. I also heard it said--acceptthe rumour as you will--that his Holiness has set a cross against hisname."

  "What means that?" asked the commandant hastily.

  "Urbano the Eighth, who, I may tell you, has recently bestowed thetitle of Eminence upon his Cardinals, having suitably enriched hisfamily and acquired the Duchy of Urbino, now seeks strong men, priestswho are fighters rather than scholars, to aid him in the execution ofhis plans, and he who has the cross set against his name may be assuredof sudden promotion. A canon of Notre Dame, who is much in favour withCardinal Richelieu, informed me that La Salle may immediately berecalled. His Holiness will raise a parish priest to the cardinalate,through the grades of canon, dean, and bishop, in a month or less,according to his necessity for that man's help."

  "The _St. Wenceslas_ now bears for home with my despatches," saidRoussilac moodily. "I have mentioned the abbe as instrumental inholding heretics at bay."

  "His Holiness loves a fighter," muttered D'Archand significantly, as heopened another flask of Burgundy.

  A light glimmered here and there when Roussilac made his way homeward,and the murmur of the forest brushed his ears as he passed. The newsof another man's advancement hurt his selfish nature as though it werea premonition of his own failure. He hesitated where the path split,then hastened to his house, entered, and immediately found himself inthe presence of his aunt, who awaited his coming, knitting her fingersin the lamplight.

  "So!" she snapped, her little face hard and wrinkled like a sour apple."We have now open treachery at headquarters. Treachery against Churchand State. You, the representative of the King, the upholder of thefaith! You shall be stripped of your power and be disgraced. And Iwill walk a hundred miles barefoot, if there be need, to see sentenceexecuted upon you."

  Her attack was ill-timed. The commandant was then in no mood to bearwith a mutinous subject, though she had been his own mother.

  "Out of my sight," he said fiercely. "Out, I say. Madame, myforbearance is at an end, and I will be obeyed. Would you have meforget that you are a woman and a relative?"

  "Since you have forgot your duty to God and the King, forget thatalso," screamed the little woman. "Seducer, what have you done with mydaughter? Where have you hidden her? Abductor! You shall learn whatit means to defy Holy Church. Tell me, where have you taken her?"

  Roussilac's anger cooled at that, and he lowered his voice as heanswered: "I left my cousin not three hours ago in the place where sheis confined as an impenitent by the judgment of the Abbe Laroche.There you shall find her."

  "Arnaud," shrieked Madame, "deceive your men, cheat a priest, you may,but you shall not so prevail upon me. I know your deeds and thevileness of your heart. As a child you were ever false; as a man youhated your own people, because you had risen and they remained obscure;and now you stand before the mother of the girl whose heart you havehelped to harden, whom you have taken and hidden for your own purpose,and ask her what she means when she demands to know the truth."

  "If you have information, I will in my official capacity hear it,"Roussilac answered. "But forget not that my nature can be fiercer thanyours, and do not tempt my power."

  "Your power!" sneered Madame. "It has already departed from you. Ithank you, Arnaud, for having disowned your honest family. How ill thecloak of innocence lies upon your shoulders! Madeleine's cell standsempty, as you know well. Beside the door the sentry lies stabbedthrough the heart, murdered by your hand as surely as though youyourself had driven home the dagger. I have but come from there, andnone know what has been done, save you the doer, and I the accuser."

  Roussilac caught up his cloak, and wrapped it about his shoulders."What took you to her prison?" he demanded, his own nature being noless suspicious than hers.

  Madame laughed furiously.

  "You are a brave rogue, Arnaud. You plot, and murder, and seduce, andsmile through it all, and act the innocent like a mime. Know thatFather St Agapit came to me--a haughty priest, with no respect forage--to recommend that Madeleine should be entrusted to his care, thathe might obtain her conversion by a new method. 'Let her not becrossed,' quoth he. ''Tis human nature to offend more deeply in thefront of opposition. I would let her go free, and win her by gentlepersuasion to the fold.' What does a priest know of the pride of agirl's heart? 'Is the branch broken by persuasion for the fire?' saidI. 'No, you shall take it in hand strongly and break it by force.' Tothat the abbe said, 'You shall not compare the inanimate thing with theliving creature whom God has gifted with free-will. Go now to her andbe gentle. Try her with mother's milk rather than with the strong meatof human nature. I have bidden the sentry admit you.' So I went towin my erring child as the priest taught me, for I never yet havedisobeyed a Churchman, and what I found you know."

  "You are right, Madame, if what you say be true," said Roussilacsternly. "There is treachery here."

  "Behold my hand! It points at the traitor," screamed the pale woman,her fury surging back upon her. "You shall not escape with yourfellow-sinner. You shall not go from me until I hear from your ownlips where you have placed Madeleine, my child."

  "Woman, I know nothing," he snarled. "Is my position nothing to methat I should play so loosely?"

  A cry of animal rage broke that instant from his throat. Madame haddashed upon him, and, before he could beat her back, had clawed hisface like a maddened bird from cheek-bones to chin.

  At that terrible indignity the pusillanimous spirit of the commandantwas sobered into resolution. He hurled her back screaming, and put upa hand to his burning face. The finger-tips came awa
y reddened.

  He shivered from head to foot. Madame was raving. Roussilac steadiedhimself, then walked from that place, a cold, sinister figure, thehowling of the mad woman pealing into his ears.

  Scarce a minute had elapsed before he returned, accompanied by twosoldiers; and again facing Madame Labroquerie, whose bloodless face wasdistorted with the fury of her terrible nature, issued his orders in apitiless voice:

  "Secure that woman, and keep her in ward this night." He raised hishand, and smiled vengefully at the marks on his fingers, as he drew offhis ring, which he extended to the man nearest him with the words:"Take your authority. Spare not force, if force be wanted. Restorethis ring to me after sunrise, when you shall have hanged this womanupon the eastern side of the fortress."

  Again Roussilac smiled, and, turning quickly, passed outside. Oneterrible scream made him lift his hands to his ears, then he hurried upthe steep path, to see with his own eyes the cold body of the sentry,and the empty cell, and to learn that Madame had not lied.

  For a few moments he stood, like a man in a trance, seeing indeed hisproblem solved, but knowing that Madeleine was lost to him. He turnedto the dead body, and commanded it to speak; and when he understoodthat the spirit had passed for ever from his discipline, he spurned thecold matter with his foot, and in a fury cried: "I would give myposition and all I have to hear this dead man speak."

  "Listen, then," said a cold voice. "The dead are not silent." AndRoussilac cried out with superstitious fear, then started, when hebeheld a tall figure proceeding from the shadow of the doorway, andrecognised St Agapit, the priest.

  "Who has done this?" he demanded. "What lover of this girl has daredto enter the fortress, to stab one of my guards, and carry her offbeneath my eye?"

  "I am no reader of riddles," said St Agapit. "I came here to reasonwith the maid, because it seemed to me that her heart, young as it isand tender, must surely respond to the message of love. Why sherefuses the only faith by which mortals may be saved passed myunderstanding. But now I know that she has been driven into heresy bythe neglect of a father and the unnatural spirit of a mother, andstrengthened in her sin by the persecution of a cousin."

  "Father, I loved her."

  "Not so. You shall find at your heart passion, but not the warmth oflove. It is not the ice which produces the plant and the flower. Itis the warm rain and the sunshine. You offered her the storm, andwondered because she desired the sun."

  "Where has she gone?" cried the blind man.

  "To freedom. My blessing follows her, unbeliever though she be."

  The ascetic moved forward, thin and stern, and made the sign of thecross over the fallen sentry.

  "Bless me also," cried Roussilac, catching at his skirt. "Father, Ihave done much evil. Bless me before you go."

  "I may pity where I may not bless," said St Agapit, and passed withthat same dignified step which awed the Iroquois into silence when on adistant day they led him out to die. His shadow flickered once uponthe slope, went out, and the governor was alone with the dead.

  The soldiers who had been left to execute their commander's unnaturalorder glanced fearfully at one another, and he who held the ringmuttered a charm against the evil eye. That cry of impotent rage,which had caused Roussilac to stop his ears, fell from the lips ofMadame Labroquerie so soon as her mind caught the meaning of hersentence; and when the men at length advanced to take her, she writhedand bit the air, and hurled after her nephew words of execration whichcaused the soldiers to draw back and cross themselves in terror. Allthe hate and madness of the unhappy woman's ruined mind poured forth inone awful torrent, until she sank to the floor and settled there tosilence.

  Then the men took courage to seize her, believing that the blood whichthey saw issuing from her mouth was produced by the wounds which herown teeth had inflicted; but when the body fell limp in their arms theyrealised that nature had intervened.

  One at the head, the other at the feet, they carried through the nightthe silent shape of Madame Labroquerie, who was never to move, never torave, again. Yet so blindly obedient to their officer's word ofcommand were these men in the ranks, that they carried the body out andexecuted sentence upon it an hour after sunrise in the valley of St.Charles.

  At that same hour rumour went about the fortress--set in motion by asentry, who had seen the governor rushing down to the forest during thenight--to the effect that Roussilac was lying under a spell ofwitchcraft. This rumour became an established fact when the AbbeLaroche was seen proceeding from the church upon the hill with aspergesbrush and a shell of holy water.

  "Such is the end of ambition," murmured St Agapit, when they hadbrought him the evil tidings. "Can a clay body resist free spirits ofthe dead?"