CHAPTER X.
THE HOLLOW WAY.
The sun was descending, and the fields were silent and deserted. Fleur-de-Marie had reached the entrance to the hollow way, which it was necessary to cross in her walk to the rectory, when she saw a little lame lad, dressed in a gray blouse and blue cap, come out of the ravine. He appeared in tears, and directly he saw the Goualeuse he ran towards her.
"Oh, good lady, have pity on me, I pray!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands with a supplicating look.
"What do you want? What is the matter with you, my poor boy?" said the Goualeuse, with an air of interest.
"Alas, good lady! my poor grandmother, who is very, very old, has fallen down in trying to climb up the ravine, and hurt herself very much. I am afraid she has broken her leg, and I am too weak to lift her up myself. Mon Dieu! what shall I do if you will not come and help me? Perhaps my poor grandmother will die!"
The Goualeuse, touched with the grief of the little cripple, replied:
"I am not very strong myself, my child; but perhaps I can help you to assist your poor grandmother. Let us go to her as quickly as we can! I live at the farm close by here; and, if the poor old woman cannot walk there with us, I will send somebody to help her!"
"Oh, good lady, le bon Dieu will bless you for your kindness! It is close by here—not two steps down this hollow way, as I told you. It was in going down the slope that she fell."
"You do not belong to this part of the country?" said the Goualeuse, inquiringly following Tortillard, whom our readers have, no doubt, recognised.
"No, good lady, we came from Ecouen."
"And where are you going?"
"To a good clergyman's, who lives on the hill out there," said Bras Rouge's son, to increase Fleur-de-Marie's confidence.
"To the Abbé Laport's, perhaps?"
"Yes, good lady; to the Abbé Laport's. My poor grandmother knows him very, very well."
"And I was going there also. How strange that we should meet," said Fleur-de-Marie, advancing still farther into the hollow way.
"Grandmamma, I'm coming, I'm coming! Take courage, and I will bring you help!" cried Tortillard, to forewarn the Schoolmaster and the Chouette to prepare themselves to lay hands on their victim.
"Your grandmother, then, did not fall down far off from here?" inquired the Goualeuse.
"No, good lady; behind that large tree there, where the road turns, about twenty paces from here."
Suddenly Tortillard stopped.
The noise of a horse galloping was heard in the silence of the place.
"All is lost again!" said Tortillard to himself.
The road made a very sudden bend a few yards from the spot where Bras Rouge's son was with the Goualeuse. A horseman appeared at the angle, and when he came nigh to the young girl he stopped. And then was heard the trot of another horse; and some moments after there followed a groom in a brown coat with silver buttons, white leather breeches, and top-boots. A leathern belt secured around his waist his master's macintosh. His master was dressed simply in a stout brown frock-coat, and a pair of light gray trousers, which fitted closely. He was mounted on a thoroughbred and splendid bay horse, which he sat admirably, and which, in spite of the fast gallop, had not a bead of sweat on his skin, which was as bright and brilliant as a star. The groom's gray horse, which stood motionless a few paces behind his master, was also well-bred and perfect of his kind. In the handsome dark face of the gentleman Tortillard recognised the Vicomte de Saint-Rémy, who was supposed to be the lover of the Duchesse de Lucenay.
"My pretty lass," said the viscount to the Goualeuse, whose lovely countenance struck him, "would you be so obliging as to tell me the way to the village of Arnouville?"
Fleur-de-Marie's eyes sunk before the bold and admiring look of the young man, as she replied:
"On leaving the sunken road, sir, you must take the first turning to the right, and that path will lead you to an avenue of cherry-trees, which is the straight road to Arnouville."
"A thousand thanks, my pretty lass! You tell me better than an old woman, whom I found a few yards further on stretched under a tree, for I could only get groans and moans out of her."
"My poor grandmother!" said Tortillard, in a whining tone.
"One word more," said M. de Saint-Rémy, addressing La Goualeuse. "Can you tell me if I shall easily find M. Dubreuil's farm at Arnouville?"
Goualeuse could not prevent a shudder at these words, which recalled to her the painful scene of the morning. She replied:
"The farm-buildings border the avenue which you must enter to reach Arnouville, sir."
"Once more, many thanks, my pretty dear," said M. de Saint-Rémy; and he galloped off with his groom.
The handsome features of the viscount were in full animation whilst he was talking to Fleur-de-Marie, but when he was again alone they became darkened and contracted by painful uneasiness. Fleur-de-Marie, remembering the unknown person for whom they were so hastily preparing a pavilion at the farm of Arnouville by Madame de Lucenay's orders, felt convinced it was for this young and good-looking cavalier.
The sound of the horses' feet as they galloped on was heard for some time on the hard and frozen ground, and by degrees grew fainter, then were no longer heard, and all was once more hushed in silence. Tortillard breathed again. Desirous of encouraging and warning his accomplices, one of whom, the Schoolmaster, was concealed from the horsemen, Bras Rouge's son called out:
"Granny! granny! here I am! with the good lady who is coming to help you!"
"Quick, quick, my boy! The gentleman on horseback has made us lose some time," said the Goualeuse, walking at a quicker pace, that she might reach the turning into the hollow way.
She had scarcely entered it when the Chouette, who was hidden there, exclaimed:
"Now then, fourline!"
Then springing upon the Goualeuse, the one-eyed hag seized her by the neck with one hand, whilst with the other she pressed her mouth; and Tortillard, throwing himself at the young girl's feet, clung round her legs, that she might not be able to stir.
This took place so rapidly that the Chouette had no time to examine the Goualeuse's features; but during the few instants it required for the Schoolmaster to quit the hole in which he was ensconced, to grope his way along with his cloak, the beldame recognised her old victim.
"La Pegriotte!" she exclaimed, in great surprise. Then adding with savage delight, "What, is it you? Ah, the baker (the devil) sends you! It is your fate, then, to fall into my clutches! I have my vitriol in the fiacre now, and your white skin shall have a touch, miss; for it makes me sick to see your fine lady countenance. Come, my man, mind she don't bite; and hold her tight whilst we bundle her up."
The Schoolmaster seized the Goualeuse in his two powerful hands, and before she could utter a cry the Chouette threw the cloak over her head, and wrapped her up in it, tightly and securely. In a moment, Fleur-de-Marie, tied and enveloped, was without any power to move or call for assistance.
"Now take up your parcel, fourline," said the Chouette. "He, he, he! This is not such a load as the 'black peter' of the woman who was drowned in the Canal of St. Martin—-is it, my man?" And as the brigand shuddered at these words, which reminded him of his fearful vision, the one-eyed hag resumed, "Well, well, what ails you, fourline? Why, you seem frozen! Ever since the morning your teeth chatter as if you had the ague; and you look in the air as if you were looking for something there!"
"Vile impostor! He is looking to see the flies," said Tortillard.
"Come, quick! Haste forward, my man! Up with Pegriotte! That's it!" said the Chouette, as she saw the ruffian lift Fleur-de-Marie in his arms as he would carry a sleeping infant. "Quick to the coach! quick,—quick!"
"But who will lead me?" inquired the Schoolmaster, in a hoarse voice, and securing his light and flexible burden in his herculean arms.
"Old wise head!—he thinks of every thing!" said the Chouette.
Then, lifting aside her shawl, she unfastened a red pocket-handkerchief which covered her skinny neck, and, twisting it into its length, said to the Schoolmaster:
"Open your ivories, and take the end of this 'wipe' between them. Hold tight! Tortillard will take the other end in his hand, and you have nothing to do but to follow him. The good blind man requires a good dog! Here, brat!"
The cripple cut a caper, and made a sort of low and odd barking. Then, taking the other end of the handkerchief in his hand, he led the Schoolmaster in this way, whilst the Chouette hastened forward to apprise Barbillon. We have not attempted to paint Fleur-de-Marie's terror when she found herself in the power of the Chouette and the Schoolmaster. She felt all her strength leave her, and could not offer the slightest resistance.
Some minutes afterwards the Goualeuse was lifted into the fiacre which Barbillon drove, and although it was night they closed the window-blinds carefully; and the three accomplices went, with their almost expiring victim, towards the plain of St. Denis, where Thomas Seyton awaited them.