CHAPTER XXXIII.
AND ONE WAS NOT!
And this was how it chanced. All that was hidden from Serra, thefist-faced son of a Murcian witch, from Felieu, the querulous Esplugan,and from Andres, the little ape with the bat's ears, shall be madeclear.
With one exception, the family of La Masane was resolved to go back toFrance, where, if the country was still disturbed, at least there was noInquisition.
"I," said the Professor, "know not whether I shall ever teach in myclass-room again--not, at least, while the Leaguers bear rule in Paris.But I have a little money laid aside in a safe place, which will atleast buy us a vineyard----"
"And I," said the Miller-Alcalde, "have enough gold Henries, safe withPereira, the Jew of Bayonne, to hire a mill or two. Good bread andwell-ground wheat wherewith to make it, are the two things that mancannot do without. I can provide these, if no better."
"And what better can there be?" cried Don Jordy. "I--I am learned incanon law, which is the same all the world over. I grieve to leave mygood Bishop Onuphre. But since he cannot protect me--nay, goes as muchin fear of the Holy Office as I myself--Brother Anatole must e'en hireme by the day in his vigne, or Jean-Marie there make me as dusty ashimself in his mills."
"And your mother, lads, have you forgotten her?" said Madame Amelie.
"You are coming with us, mother," they cried, in chorus, "you andClaire. It is for you that we go!"
"And pray you, who will care for my rabbits, my poultry, and thepigeons? All the _basse cour_ of La Masane?" cried the Senora.
"That also will be arranged, mother," said Don Jordy. "I will put in aman who will care for all, till the better days come--a servant andfavourite of Don Raphael. This inquisitioning and denouncing cannot lastfor ever--any more than Raphael our landlord or Philip our king."
"Ah," said his mother, "but both of them are like to last beyond mytime. And the fair white house to which your father brought me, a bride!And the sea--on which, being weary, I have so often looked out and beenrefreshed--the cattle and the vines and the goats I tended--am I to seethem no more?"
"Mother," said the Professor, taking her hand and drawing it away fromher face, "here are we your three sons. We can neither stay nor leaveyou. They of the Inquisition would revenge on you all that we havecheated them of--taken out of their hands."
"They are welcome to my old bones," said the Senora, with a gesture ofdiscouragement.
"No," interrupted Don Jordy, "listen, mother. You are none so ill off.Here are we, three sons, hale, willing, and unwed, all ready to stand byyou, and to work for you--with our hands if need be. Are there manymothers who can say as much?"
"Besides," added the Alcalde-Miller, "after all, it is not so far to thefrontier, and, in case of need, I have charged certain good lads I knowof--accustomed to circumvent the King's revenue--to make a clean houseof La Masane. So if aught goes awry--well, I do not promise, but it ispossible that the cattle, and your household gods, mother, with DonJordy's books and the Professor's green gown, may find themselves atNarbonne ere many weeks are over!"
"And for yourself?" said Don Jordy, "your mills, your property?"
The miller laughed and patted his two brothers on the back.
"The good God, who made all, perhaps did not give me so clever ahead-piece as He gave you two. But He taught me, at least, to send everygold 'Henry' over the frontier as soon as I had another to clink againstit. For the rest, ever as I ground the corn, I took my pay. The millsand the machinery down there are not mine. I am worth no more this sideof the frontier than the clothes I stand up in. My ancient friendPereira, the Israelite of Bayonne, has the rest."
So that is the reason why, when the three familiars of the Holy Officeappeared hot on the trail, they found at La Masane nothing more humanthan Don Jordy's white mule, that knew no better than to resist friendlyhands, break a head-stall, and set off after her master, to her ownpresent undoing.
But what happened when the family of La Masane started for the shore,where Jean-Marie, on his way home from the Fanal Mill, had anchored theboat? As he worked his heart was more than a little sore that he shouldno more hear that musical song, the tremulous rush of the sailsoverhead, or the blithe pour of the rich meal through the funnel intothe sack. Best of all he loved the Fanal Mill, both because thesea-water lashed up blue-green beneath, and because from the door hecould see Claire's white dress moving about the garden of La Masane.
This was their plan.
To place Claire in safety was no difficulty. The light land-breezeswould carry them swiftly along the shore towards the Narbonne coast. Itwas in Madame Amelie that the brothers found their stumbling-block. Notthat the good old lady, so imperious upon her own ground of La Masane,meant in the least to be difficult. But she felt uprooted, degraded,fallen from her high estate, divorced from her own, and she trembledpiteously as she tottered on stout Jean-Marie's arm down towards thebeach.
Two days before Jean-aux-Choux had brought the Abbe John to La Masane.At first no one, certainly not Claire, appeared to make him particularlywelcome. The Professor retrieved some of his old professorial authority.Don Jordy was frankly jealous. Old Madame Amelie found him finicking andfine. Only the burly Miller-Alcalde drew to the lad, and tried in hisgruff, semi-articulate way to make the young Gascon understand that, inspite of his Bourbon birth and Paris manners, he had a friend in thehouse of La Masane. And this the young man understood very well, andrepaid accordingly. He understood many things, the Abbe John--all,indeed, except Claire Agnew's coldness. But even that he tookphilosophically.
"He who stands below the cherry-tree with his mouth open, expecting thewind to blow the cherries into his mouth, waits a long time hungry," hemeditated sententiously; "I will shake the trees and gather."
All the same, the rough grip and kindly "Come-and-help," or"Stand-out-of-the-way" manner of the miller went to his heart. Indeed,he could hardly have kept his ground at La Masane without it, and he wasgrateful in proportion.
"They think little of me because I look young and my hair curls," hemuttered, as he tried in vain to smooth it out with abundant water, "butwait--I will show them!"
And the time for showing them came when Jean-aux-Choux, carefullyscouting ahead, thrust his head over a bank of gravel and reportedseveral men in possession of the boat which Jean-Marie had so carefullyanchored in the little Fanal Bay just round the point out of sight ofthe Castle. Worst of all, one of the captors was Don Raphael Llorienthimself.
Almost at the same moment, the last individual rear-guard of the littleparty, a slim young lad called in this chronicle the Abbe John,discovered that they were being tracked from behind. They had indeedwalked into the sack without a hole at the other end. They stood betweentwo fires. For they had on their hands good old Madame Amelie, ready atthe first discouragement to sink down on the sand, and give up all forlost.
He dared not therefore speak openly. Cautiously the Abbe John called themiller to his side, and imparted his discovery.
"A quarter of an hour at the most, and they will have us!" he whispered.
"Umm!" said the Miller-Alcalde. "I suppose we could not--eh--you and I?What think you? I can strike a good buffet and you with your point! Areyou ready?"
"Ready enough," said the Abbe John, "but they would call out at thefirst sight of us--indeed, either crack of pistol or clash of swordwould bring up Don Raphael and his folk. We must think of somethingelse. For men it might do, but there is your mother to consider--andClaire!"
"I wish it had been the bare steel--or else the cudgel," said themiller; "I am no hand at running and plotting!"
But the Abbe John was.
"Here," he said abruptly, stripping the silk-lined cloak from hisshoulders, "take that. Get me Claire's lace mantilla and her wrapperwith the capuchin hood. I have made a good enough maid before at therevels of carnival. They always chose me to act Joan of Domremy at theSorbonne on Orleans Day. It is Claire they are after. Moreover, they arein a hurry. Be quick--bid her give them to you. But tel
l her nothing!"
And so the blunt Alcalde-Miller went up to Claire, who was busilysupplying consolation to Madame Amelie.
"Your lace mantilla," he said, "your cloak and hood! Quick--we have needof them!" he said abruptly. "Take this."
Now Claire had served too long an apprenticeship to dangers and strangeunexplained demands during her father's wanderings to show any surprise.She put them on the miller's arm without a single question. It was onlywhen he added, "Now--put this on," and threw the silken court-cloakbelonging to the Abbe John over her shoulders, that she stammeredsomething.
"This--why this--is--is----"
"Never mind what it is," growled the Miller-Alcalde; "at any rate, itwill not bite you, and you may need it before the night is out!"
And so without a good-bye--only just settling the lace mantilla asbecomingly as possible upon his head and drawing the waist-ribbon of thegirl's cloak close round his middle, the Abbe John, with a wave of hishand and a low-spoken "Take good care of her" to the miller, saunteredcarelessly back through the maze of sand-hills in the direction of thesethree good and faithful bloodhounds of the Holy Inquisition, Felieu theEsplugan, Andres the Ape, and the giant Serra of the African smile, wholoved his work for his work's sake.
And between his teeth John d'Albret muttered these words, "I will showthem."
Also once, just when he came within hearing of the stealthy creep of thepursuers, he added, "And I will show her!"
He did. For when next Claire Agnew looked back, the One for whom shelooked was not.
The White Plumes of Navarre: A Romance of the Wars of Religion Page 34