CHAPTER XLVI
THE COUNTRY OF THE DREAD
The three remaining Scottish palmers were riding due west into asunset which hung like a broad red girdle over the Atlantic. All thesky above their heads was blue grey and lucent. But along the horizon,as it seemed for the space of two handbreadths, there was suspendedthis bandolier of flaming scarlet.
The adventurers were not weary of their quest. They were only sick atheart with the fruitlessness of it.
First upon leaving Paris they had gone on to the Castle of Champtoce,and from beneath had surveyed the noble range of battlements crowningthe heights above the broad, poplar-guarded levels of the Loire. TheChateau de Thouars also they had seen, a small white-gabled house,most like a Scottish baron's tower, which the Marshal de Retzpossessed in virtue of his neglected wife Katherine. In it her sisterthe Lady Sybilla had been born. Solitary and tenantless, save for acouple of guards and their uncovenanted womenkind, it looked down onits green island meadows, while on the horizon hung the smoke of thewood fires lit at morn and eve by the good wives of Nantes.
To that place the three had next journeyed and had there beheld thegreat Hotel de Suze, set like an enemy's fortress in the midst of theturbulent city, over against the Castle of the King. But the Hotel,though held like a place of arms, was untenanted by the marshal, hisretinue, or the lost Scottish maids.
Next they found the strong Castle of Tiffauges, above the green andrippling waters of the Sevres, void also as the others. No lightgleamed out of that window of sinister repute, high up in thecliff-like wall, from which strange shapes were reported to look fortheven at deep midnoon.
North, south, and east the three had ridden through the country ofRetz. There remained but Machecoul, more remote and also darker inrepute than any of the other dwelling-places of Gilles de Retz. Asthey rode westward towards it, they became day by day more consciousof the darkening down of the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, which,murky and lowering, overhung all that fair land of southern Brittany.
The vast pine forests from which rose the lonely towers of this themarshal's most remote castle could now be seen, serrated darklyagainst the broad belt of the sky. The sombre blackness of theirspreading branches, the yet blacker darkness where the gaps betweentheir red trunks showed a way into the wood, increased the gloom ofthe weary travellers. Yet they rode on, Sholto eagerly, Malise grimly,and the Lord James with the dogged resignation of a good knight whomay be depended on to see an adventure through, however irksome it maybe proving.
James of Avondale thought within himself that the others had greaterinterests in the quest than he--the younger MacKim having at stake thehonour of his sweetheart Maud, the elder the life of his youngmistress, the last of the Galloway house of Douglas.
Yet it was with that jolly heart of his beating strong and loyal underhis brown palmer's coat, that James Douglas rode towards Machecoul,only whistling low to himself and wishing that something would happento break the monotony of their journey.
Nor had he long to wait. For just as the sun was setting they rode allthree of them abreast into the little hamlet of Saint Philbert, andsaw the sullen waters of the Etang de Grande Lieu spread marshy andbrackish as far as the eye could reach, edged by peat bogs andoverhung perilously by gloomy pines nodding over pools blacker thanscrivener's ink.
As the three Scots looked into the stockaded entrance of the village,they could see the children playing on the long, irregular street, andthe elder folk sitting about their doors in the evening light.
But as soon as the clatter of horses' hoofs was heard, borne from fardown the aisles of the forest, there arose a sudden clamour and acrying. From each little sparred enclosure rushed forth a woman whosnatched a baby here and there and drove a herd of children before herindoors, glancing around and behind her as she did so with the anxiouslook of a motherly barn-door fowl when the hawk hangs poised in thewindless sky.
By the time the three men had entered the gate and ridden up thevillage street, all was silent and dark. The windows were shut, thedoors were barred, and the village had become a street of livingtombs.
"What means this?" said the Lord James; "the people are surely afraidof us."
"'Tis doubtless but their wonted welcome to their lord, the Sieur deRetz. He seems to be popular wherever he goes," said Malise, grimly;"but let us dismount and see if we can get stabling for our beasts.Did they not tell us there was not another house for miles betwixthere and Machecoul?"
So without waiting for dissent or counter opinion, the master armourerwent directly up to the door of the most respectable-appearing housein the village, one which stood a little back from the road and wassurrounded by a wall. Here he dismounted and knocked loudly with hissword-hilt upon the outer gate. The noise reverberated up and down thestreet, and was tossed back in undiminished volume from the green wallof pines which hemmed in the village.
But there was no answer, and Malise grew rapidly weary of his ownclamour.
"Hold my bridle," he said curtly to Sholto, and with a single push ofhis shoulders he broke the wooden bar, and the two halves of the outergate fell apart before him. A great, smooth-haired yellow dog of thecountry rushed furiously at the intruders, but Malise, who was asdexterous as he was powerful, received him with so sound a buffet onthe head that he paused bewildered, shaking his ears, whereat Malisepicked him up, tucked him under his arm, and with thumbs about hiswindpipe effectually choked his barking. Then releasing him, Malisetook no further notice of this valorous enemy, and the poor, loyal,baffled beast, conscious of defeat, crept shamefacedly away to hidehis disgrace among the faggots.
But Malise was growing indignant and therefore dangerous and ill tocross.
"Never did I see such mannerless folk," he growled; "they will noteven give a stranger a word or a bite for his beast."
Then he called to his companions, "Come hither and speak to thesecravens ere I burst their inner doors as well."
At this by no means empty threat came the Lord James and spoke aloudin his cheery voice to those within the silent house: "Good people, weare no robbers, but poor travellers and strangers. Be not afraid. Allwe want is that you should tell us which house is the inn that we mayreceive refreshment for ourselves and our horses."
Then there came a voice from behind the door: "There is no inn nearerthan Pornic. We are poor people and cannot support one. We pray yourhighness to depart in peace."
"But, good sir," answered James Douglas, "that we cannot do. Oursteeds are foot weary with a long day's journey. Give us the shelterof your barns and a bundle of fodder and we will be content. We havefood and drink with us. Open, and be not afraid."
"Of what country are you? Are you of the household of the Sieur deRetz?"
"Nay," cried James again, "we are pilgrims returning to our own cityof Albi in the Tarn country. We know nothing of any Sieur de Retz.Look forth from a window and satisfy yourself."
"Then if there be treachery in your hearts, beware," said thetremulous voice again; "for I have four young men here by me whosepowder guns are even now ready to fire from all the windows if youmean harm."
A white face looked out for a moment from the casement, and as quicklyducked within. Then the voice continued its bleating.
"My lords, I will open the door. But forgive the fears of a poor oldman in a wide, empty house."
The door opened and a curious figure appeared within. It was a manapparently decrepit and trembling, who in one hand carried a lanternand in the other a staff over which he bent with many wheezings ofexhausted breath.
"What would you with a poor old man?" he said.
"We would have shelter and fodder, if it please you to give them to usfor the sake of God's grace."
The old man trembled so vehemently that he was in danger of shakingout the rushlight which flickered dismally in his wooden lantern.
"I am a poor, poor man," he quavered; "I have naught in the world savesome barley meal and a little water."
"That will do famously," sai
d James Douglas; "we are hungry men, andwill pay well for all you give us."
The countenance of the cripple instantly changed. He looked up at thespeaker with an alert expression.
"Pay," he said, "pay--did you not say you would pay? Why, I thoughtyou were gentlefolks! Now, by that I know that you are none, but ofthe commonalty like myself."
James Douglas took a gold angel out of his belt and threw it to him.The cripple collapsed upon the top of the piece of money and gropedvainly for it with eager, outspread fingers in the dust of the yard.
"I cannot find it, good gentleman," he piped, shrill as an east wind;"alas, what shall I do? Poor Caesar cannot find it. It was not a pieceof gold;--do tell me that it was not a piece of gold; to lose a pieceof gold, that were ruin indeed."
Sholto picked up the lantern which had slipped from his tremblinghand. The tallow was beginning to gutter out as it lay on its side,and a moment's search showed him the gold glittering on some farmyardrubbish. With a little shrill cry like a frightened bird the old manfell upon it, as it had been with claws.
"Bite upon it and see if the gold be good," said Sholto, smiling.
"Alas," cried the cripple, "I have but one tooth. But I know the coin.It is of the right mintage and greasiness. O lovely gold! Beautifulgentlemen, bide where you are and I will be back with you in amoment."
And the old man limped away with astonishing quickness to hide hisacquisition, lest, mayhap, his guests should repent them and retracttheir liberality.