Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe, in Normandy, where men whom the law exonerates may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal servitude.
And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend wholehearted, for he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne to a place where her future interference between them was not to be dreaded.
OUR LADY OF REFUGE
When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino, plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood, and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering ribbons, and merrily they cried together:
“Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the larger growth—patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment! For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse’ and ‘Cambrian,’ dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children—there is time for all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood ten thousand ‘eye-blows,’ and are but diamonds the keener. Come and see the ships—so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind in the rigging—and all for a paltry quarter-real!”
Their invitation excited no laughter, and but a qualified interest, among the loafing village ancients and sullen-faced women who appeared to be the sole responsible inhabitants of the place. A few turned their heads; a dog barked; that was all. Not though Caron and Pepino had come wearifully all the way from Rousillon, over the passes of the mountains, and down once more towards the plains of Figueras, that they might feel the atmosphere of home, and claim its sympathetic perquisites, was present depression to be forgotten at the call of a couple of antics. Twelve miles away was not there the fort of San Fernando, and the cursed French garrison, which had possessed it by treachery, beleagured in their ill-gotten holding by a force of two thousand Spaniards, which included all the available manhood of San Lorenzo? There would be warrant for gaiety, indeed, should news come of a bloody holocaust of those defenders; but that it did not, and in the meanwhile, blown from another quarter, flew ugly rumours of a large force of French detached somewhere from the north, and hastening to the relief of their comrades. True, a fool must live by his folly as a wise man by his wisdom; but then there was a quality of selection in all things. As becoming as a jack-pudding at a funeral was Caron in San Lorenzo at this deadly pass. Not so much as a child ventured to approach the peep-show.
The two looked at one another. They were faint and loose-lipped with travel.
“Courage, little Pepa!” said Caron. “There is no wit-sharpener like adversity. The hungry mouse has the keenest scent.”
It was odd, in the face of his caressing diminutive, that he held himself ostentatiously the smaller of the pair. He seemed to love to show the other’s stature fine and full by comparison. Pepino, in fact, was rather tall, with a faun-like roundness in his thighs and soft olive face. He was dressed, too, the more showily, the yellow handkerchief knotted under his hat being of silk, and his breeches, down the seams of which little bells tinkled, of green velvet. Caron, for his part, shrewd and lean and leather-faced, was content with a high-peaked hat and an old cloak of faded mulberry. His wit and merriment were his bright assets.
Pepino, for all his weariness, chuckled richly.