The knight, however, seemed to have been sweated out of his Celtic irascibility; for, although conscious that to the villainous trick of his dependant he owed all his misfortunes, he turned upon him a look more in sorrow than in anger.
“Alas!” said he, with a heavy sigh, “that he who has eaten of my bread, and drunk of my cup, with all his uncles and grandmothers before him, should at last have served me so unrighteous a turn!”
“I could not help it,” replied Hugues, whimpering, yet deriving courage from the placid grief of his master—“St. Gildas is my judge, I could not help it! Yet what, my master! it was but a ducking at the best; only fancy it rain water, and it will be dry before thou hast time to take off thy morning’s draught.”
“Out on thee, false knave!” said the knight—“thinkest thou I care for a wet doublet? It was not the water, alas! but the wine—”
“Holy saints! and what have I to do with that?” ejaculated Hugues. “If it was not water—ay, and right foul and muddy water too—that thou and I played our gambols in, may I never taste another drop of wine in my life!”
“It was the wine, Hugues—and yet it was the water; for thou shalt know that a superabundance of the one can only be cured by a like quantity of the other. And yet, alas! it was not the wine, but the lateness of the hour; although this being the consequence of the lapse of time, and that of the action of drinking, which again was caused by water, thou, beast that thou art! art at the bottom of all.—Well, well, what is passed and gone may not now be helped; it behooves a wise man to enjoy the present and prepare for the future: hand me therefore my morning’s draught, and let us consider of what is to be done; for I vow and protest that I do perspire from my very inmost marrow at the thoughts of the approaching night!’’ The sire then raising himself up in bed, with the assistance of Hugues, applied to his lips, at short intervals, a capacious silver flagon filled with hippocras, and between whiles narrated at full length to the confidant the story of his mishaps.
In the consultation which followed it was determined that Hugues should start off incontinent on a fleet steed with a letter to Father Etienne of Ploërmel, the knight’s confessor, imploring his immediate presence at the castle of Keridreux; and it was fondly hoped that, by virtue of the prayers and anathemas of that holy man, the evil hour of twilight, when the sire might otherwise expect to be driven forth to resume the nightly character of a loup-garou, would pass over in peace.
“Hie thee away, good Hugues—hie thee away!” said the knight; “ride for life and death, if thou lovest me; and as the holy monk is somewhat of the slowest in equestrian matters, even fix a pillion to thy own horse, and fetch him hither behind thee.”
It was not the custom of the Dame of Keridreux to permit egress from the castle without knowing all the whys and wherefores of the matter; and Hugues, who had been trained to turn and double like a hare in such cases, hesitated as to the plan he should adopt to smuggle himself out. Recollecting, however, that in whatever manner he might manage for himself, it would be difficult to compel his steed to crawl upon knees and haunches, or even to repress the joyful neigh with which he was wont to enter upon a journey—and moreover, bethinking himself that, in reality, there was nothing detrimental to the power and dignity of the dame in her husband’s desiring to see his confessor in circumstances so critical, he went boldly to the stable, and saddled his horse, only taking care to conceal the pillion with an old cloak, for fear of raising the devil in the jealous mind of his mistress.
“And whither away, good Hugues?” asked the lady, popping in her head just at the moment when man and horse were about to dart from the stable—“whither away so fast, and whither away so late?”
“To Ploërmel,” answered Hugues, “with the permission of God.”
“And thine errand, if it be not a secret?”
“To order a mass to be said for the deliverance of my master from the power of evil spirits.”
“A right holy errand! Our Lady speed thee, amen!”
“Amen!” repeated Hugues; and scarcely conscious that he had told a lie, so much was he in the habit of that figure of speech when in conversation with the dame, he was in the act of clapping his heels to his horse’s sides.
“Stay!” said the lady; “I bethink me that I have here a memorandum for my own confessor at Ploërmel; and truly it is the duty of a good wife to seek assistance from holy church, in circumstances so strange and trying. Deliver this with commendations to Father Bonaventure; thou wilt distinguish it from thy master’s, if he have given a written order for the mass, by its want both of seal and address; for the thoughts of the innocent require no protection from the curiosity either of men or spirits.”
When Hugues, who loved a good gallop with all his heart, arrived at the oak of Mi-voie, he bethought himself of his despatches, and slackening his pace, pulled them forth from his breast, to assure Himself of their safety.
“This is my lady’s,” thought he; “for although I cannot read a single letter, yet I have learning enough to know that here there is neither seal nor address; while the other—Holy Mary! what hath come to pass?” and turning it round in consternation, he discovered that the second letter was in precisely the same predicament. The knight, in his anxiety and confusion had forgotten the customary forms; arid the two letters, to the unpractised eyes of Hugues, were as indistinguishable as two peas. Although sorely afraid, however of the consequences of a blunder, where the vixen dame of Keridreux was concerned, he determined stoutly to be in the right on his master’s side, and to try Father Etienne with both, should the first prove to be the wrong one. Fortifying himself with this resolution, he resumed his gallop, and speedily came within sight of the town of Ploërmel.
The avenues to this town were nothing more than the tracks from the neighbouring huts and castles; no great road appeared in its vicinity, like an artery, spreading wealth abroad into its dependencies; and no navigable river or canal supplied the want of a highway on terra firma. For this reason Ploërmel, although a considerable place, had something singularly melancholy and solitary in its aspect; the houses too were old and black; and the convent, now visible on the brow of a hill, seemed to guard with sullen austerity the strange quiet of the scene. Hugues crossed himself mechanically as he entered the town, and mentally resolved that nothing short of sorcery should detain him beyond sunset within its precincts.
Father Etienne was a precise and somewhat sour-looking elderly man, and Hugues was rejoiced to find, on delivery of the letter, that he had committed no mistake. The priest’s countenance expressed both the grief and surprise that were natural on such an occasion; and after a moment’s deliberation he told the messenger that he should be ready to accompany him to Keridreux in a few minutes. He then retired to read over again without witnesses the singular epistle he had received, which ran as follows:—
“I fear thy ingratitude for my preference; yet nevertheless, I would confer with thee in private this evening on matters which may concern us both. My husband, it seems, is translated into a loup-garou! I would inquire whether there be not force enough in thy prayers to restore him to his human form, and deprive him of the power of getting into mischief again. If thou understand me not, stay where thou art; but if thou be what I take thee for, and would fain find thee, come to me in the dusk, ascend the private stair, for fear of interruption, and I will meet thee in the closet.”
“Oh, woman, woman!” exclaimed the priest; “and will nothing less than a monk content thee? And a monk of my standing in the convent, and of my sanctity of character? But, nevertheless, I will go—yea, I will attend the rendezvous, and inquire into the real situation of my poor son in the spirit, the Knight of Keridreux. Peradventure the dame will not offer violence; but if she does, I will struggle in prayer and invocation,—no saint will I leave unsummoned, and no martyred virgin unsolicited. But, in the mean time, it is necessary to beware of Brother Bonaventure, the dame’s former confessor, whose eyes, as sharp at all times as those of a
lynx, will now be made ten times more so by jealousy and wounded vanity. Let me first see that the coast is clear, and then steal out to— what may betide.”
Father Bonaventure, to whom Hugues delivered the other letter, was a sleek, plump, oily monk of thirty-five, with an appearance of great good-humour in his countenance, belied at second sight by a sinister cast in one eye.
“Hum!” said he, reading the epistle of the afflicted knight; “this is well; the influence of the dame must have gone far indeed, when the Sire of Keridreux sends to me for a shrift or a benison! But can there be no blunder?—Hark thee, fellow, from whom hadst thou this letter?’’
“From the Dame of Keridreux.”
“Right, right; why, this is as it should be; but as for the loup-garou, and the midnight howling,—Hark thee again, fellow,—how didst thou leave thy master?”
“Queerish, may it please your holiness—a little queerish.”
“Drunk—I thought so. I’faith, she is a clever woman, that Dame of Keridreux. To make her very husband send for me! But we must have a care of brother Etienne, the knight’s confessor; the rogue half suspects me already; and when he knows that I have supplanted him with the husband, there will be no keeping his jealous eyes from my affair with the wife. In the mean time, let us see that the coast is clear, and then hie we to inquire into the malady of our loup-garou.”
Hugues, being at length dismissed by Father Bonaventure, ran anxiously to Father Etienne, to entreat him to mount and away; but the latter encountering his brother monk on his road to the stable-door, where the horse waited, pretended to have forgotten something, and hastily re-entered the convent. As for Father Bonaventure, he started back with the same confusion, and from the same cause, so that neither perceived the perplexity of the other; and thus the two rivals kept playing at bo-peep till Hugues was ready to tear his beard for very vexation. The sun at length set, and the warder’s horn sounding from tower to tower, struck upon the heart of the faithful squire like a voice of despair.
“A curse on that monk,” cried he, “and on all his grandfathers! Does he mean to transport the relics of the convent, one by one, to our castle, that he thus goes and comes, and fetches and carries, without beginning or end? My poor master will he out in the forest, and stripped to the buff, long before we reach Keridreux; and at every howl we hear on that lonely road, I am sure my heart will leap higher in my mouth than it did when I plunged head foremost into the fisherman’s well.”
Father Etienne, at this moment, approached to within a single pace of the expectant horse; and while he stopped to look cautiously about him, Hugues, at the last grain of patience, and in the fear of his life that the monk meant to turn tail again, whipped him up in his arms, and clapping him upon the saddle, sprang himself upon the pillion behind, and made off with his prize at full gallop. The terrified ecclesiastic, seizing fast hold of the horse’s mane with one hand, and of Hugues’s uncombed beard with the other, kept his seat with admirable firmness, the motion of the animal jolting out sometimes a prayer and sometimes a curse, as they happened to come uppermost; while the venturous squire, looking pertinaciously to the quarter of their destination, already beginning to be covered with the shades of evening, and laying it stoutly into the horse with whip, spur, and tongue, all at one moment, had no time to think of the sacrilege he committed in stealing a churchman.
In the mean time, Father Bonaventure perceiving the absence of his rival, although without imagining the cause, led his own palfrey in an instant out of the stable, and leaping nimbly on his back, scoured off in the same direction. The first monk no sooner observed the pursuit, than in the confused consciousness of intended secrecy, and perhaps of not overly virtuous intention, he uttered a cry of alarm, and forgetting his dread of equestrian exercises, began to belabour the beast with his heels, and shower upon him the verbal insults which all over the world have so powerful an effect on the exertions of the sensitive and intelligent horse. Hugues, terrified at this exhibition of terror, did not dare to look round for the cause, but griped the monk still closer in his arms, and whipped, and spurred, and prayed with all his might; while Father Bonaventure, seeing a double-loaded steed maintain the pas so bravely, began to fear that his own nag was only trifling with him, and putting heel, and whip, and voice into furious requisition, dashed helter-skelter, neck or nothing, after.
On went the horsemen as if a whole legion of devils were at their heels; and it would have been an even bet which should gain the race, had not Father Bonaventure’s palfrey suddenly stumbled in leaping a ditch. When Father Etienne saw his pursuer disappear all at once from the face of the earth, he was struck dumb with amazement; but soon, attributing the appearance to what seemed its probable cause, he wiped the sweat from his brow, and anathematized the phantom horseman with the bitterest curses of the church.
In a few minutes more he was set down at his destination; and Hugues, without even waiting to receive a blessing for his safe conduct, dragged his horse abruptly and sulkily to the stable, swearing to himself, by every saint he could remember, that he would never ride double with a priest again in his life.
Although it was only dusk out of doors, when Father Etienne gained the secret stair he found himself in utter darkness. He had not groped his way long, however, till he heard a “hist!” sounding along the corridor; and presently the Dame of Keridreux, encountering his hand, very unceremoniously threw her arm round his neck.
“And at last, my ghostly father!” said she, in a whisper, “what in the name of all the devils has detained thee? Another moment would have ruined all; for out of very madness, I would either have sworn a conspiracy against thee to the knight, or poniard myself, where I stood here, by turns shivering and burning, in this cold, dark corridor.”
Father Etienne blessed himself secretly that he was as yet only on the threshold of an intrigue with such a firebrand; and feeling his heart beat strongly, nay almost audibly, with virtuous resolution, he began to cast about for some means of edging himself out of the adventure.
“Thou knowest,” continued the dame, with a sort of chuckle which made her confidant’s blood run cold, “that the only way to deprive a loup-garou of the faculty of resuming his human shape in the morning, is to take away the clothes which he strips off on his conversion into a wolf. Ha! ha! I cannot choose but laugh to think of my dear baron coming smelling, and smelling in vain, for his doublet. How he would glare and snort—ha! ha!—and howl—hoo-oo-oo! Father Etienne’s hair stood on end as the malicious dame, with impressible gayety, began to howl in imitation of a wolf; nor was his horror lessened when, shortly after, a sound resembling an echo appeared to come from the direction of the knight’s chamber.
“As I live,” cried the lady, “he is at it already! Now will he forth presently into the wood to turn a loup-garou; and what we have to do must be done at once. Stay where thou art; stir not; speak not for thy life, till I come again!” and the dame glided along the corridor towards the chamber of her lord.
Father Etienne was no sooner left alone than, throwing himself upon his hands and knees, for fear of doing himself a mischief upon the steep dark stairs, he crept down like a cat, and with stealthy pace betook himself to the stable, determined to saddle the first horse he could lay hands upon, and ride full speed home to his convent, were it at the hazard of a hundred necks. It was now, however, quite dark; and although he could hear the panting of a steed, there was either no saddle in the stable, or it was hung out of his reach. In this predicament he lay down upon the straw, and waited in great agitation for the coming of some of the servants.
A considerable time elapsed, and the meditations of the holy man became more confused every moment; till at length Hugues, bearing in one hand a lantern, and with the other dragging a large bundle, made his appearance at the stable-door. “Oh heavens!” said he, holding up his lantern, “and is it thou after all? Well, I thought my lady must have been wrong when she talked of a monk and his palfrey, for here be no monks but thou, and
no palfreys but my own precious Dapple.”
“I pray thee, son,” said the father, “tell me no more of thy lady, but take me incontinent to the place thou broughtest me from, if thou settest aught of value on the prayers of a wretched but holy monk.”
“Well, did ever mortal hear the like! I take thee, quotha! May the great dev— No matter. At an hour like this, and my master just turning a loup-garou, and after thou thyself, monk though thou be, didst nothing but screech and sweat with fear all the way hither, although the darkness was no more to be compared to this than heaven is to hell! I take thee! I will see thee nay, I say nothing; there is my precious Dapple, whom I love as my own soul,—take him, he is thine for this night. Mount, mount, and be thankful, since thou wilt travel at such untimely hours; and if thou dost not pray heartily for the lender, monk though thou be, thou wilt surely go to—Ploërmel by some worse conveyance! There, thou sittest like a knight—On with thee, in the name of Saint Gildas!”
The monk having suffered Hugues, without expostulation, to perch him upon the horse, and fasten the bundle, although wherefore, he was too down-hearted to take the trouble of asking, behind him, set forth upon his dreary road with no other sign of farewell than a heavy sigh.
While wayfaring gently along, with the perfect concurrence of Dapple, on whose spirits the late race had had a sedative effect, his thoughts were busy with the circumstances of this strange journey. It was evident that some traitorous design was on foot against the knight. Who were the conspirators? Why, the Dame of Keridreux, and he himself, Father Etienne! His presence at the castle on the fatal night, if fatal it was to be, could be proved; he had met the lady by special appointment in secrecy and darkness, and she had imparted her evil intentions without a word of disapprobation on his part. Thus it appeared that his own safety was inextricably wound up with that of the lady; and the monk cursed from the bottom of his bowels the unlucky stars which had made him a party perhaps to a murder, or at least to the impiety of condemning an unfortunate gentleman to the forest for life, in the capacity of a wolf.
The Best Werewolf Short Stories 1800-1849 Page 6