Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

With the loud banging of the cottage door a great and signal silence fell upon the dwelling of the 'fisherman's widow,' even upon the cupboard upstairs and its occupant. For La Vireville was filled in the first place with an access of prudence which urged him to make no sound until he was tolerably sure that the house was really empty; in the second with a certain ironical satisfaction. Into a memory not over well stored with such literature had come the words of the Psalmist concerning such as dug a pit and fell into the midst of it themselves, and he stayed to savour them. Poor Mme. de Guéfontaine! she had paid dearly for her vengeful instincts. Moreover, in spite of the poetical justice which had overtaken her, she might have that revenge even yet. La Vireville was helpless, even in the empty house. Grain d'Orge would certainly not come till dusk, always supposing that he were free to come at all. Before his advent, too, the village authorities might return to search the house; it seemed strange, indeed, that they had not already done so.

But, however precarious one's position, it is impossible to live without food. La Vireville hobbled downstairs and found a loaf of bread and some sour milk, with which he clambered back to his little room. Eating the bread thoughtfully, as he sat on his devastated bed, he considered the case of Mme. de Guéfontaine. So 'Alexis' had been the unfortunate du Coudrais, the victim of an odious charge made against him (whether in good faith or for some ulterior object Fortuné had never felt quite sure) by a near kinsman of La Vireville's own, the Marquis of that name! La Vireville himself had only arrived at Coblentz a few days after the duel which ensued upon the Marquis's denunciation of du Coudrais at the Three Crowns, to which Mme. de Guéfontaine had made hot reference; but émigré circles were still ringing with the scandal, and the Marquis de la Vireville, his own arm in a sling, was better able to explain to his cousin how he had run du Coudrais through the lungs than to satisfy him—or anybody else—of the ill-starred gentleman's dishonour. But du Coudrais, when he recovered from his wound, had to leave Coblentz nevertheless . . . and, having left it, was abundantly cleared, too late, of the charge against him by the dramatic unmasking of another man as a professional sharper. And for this affair, in which ironically enough, La Vireville had by no means supported his cousin, of whose past record he knew too much, he had been himself within an ace of paying the penalty—might, indeed, yet pay it.

It was quite clear to him why Mme. de Guéfontaine had taken him for her late brother's aggressor. He had confessed to his name, he had mentioned having been at Coblentz at the time, and he bore a close family resemblance to his kinsman—close enough, at least, to deceive anyone who relied merely on a verbal description; for it was tolerably certain that Mme. de Guéfontaine had never seen the Marquis de la Vireville. Evidently she had been devotedly attached to her brother; had shared in his schemes, worked and plotted for him here at Porhoët, in a position of no small danger, and then, fresh from the shock of that brother's violent death, was called upon—so she thought—to shelter and to help to install in his place the man who had been his worst enemy! She was a woman of strong feelings; she had found the situation, as she had declared to him, intolerable, and in a moment of wild impulse she had resolved to put a term to it and to avenge her brother in one and the same act. And, reviewing the episode dispassionately, La Vireville found he could not blame her overmuch . . . especially as she had failed. True, there was always something of a nauseous flavour about delation, but the matter of the cold steel had a primitive and heroic touch—Jael and Sisera. "And if," he said to himself, "if I had given her a minute longer she need not have been put to the shift of betraying me to the authorities!" . . . Yet, after all, he doubted whether she would have had the nerve to use the knife. And, whatever her intentions with regard to the National Guard, it was by no means certain that she had carried them out. He did not see how she could have done so in the time. And because he found himself oddly reluctant to associate her with the idea of just that form of treachery, he settled that she had not had time. . . . But she was, no doubt of it, a remarkable woman!

And so, commending her spirit, as though he had not nearly been its victim, La Vireville arrived, as the long, featureless day was beginning to close in, at a certain decision.

When the dusk had quite fallen the owl's cry, as he had expected, came prudently to his ears. He answered it, and in a little while the countenance of Grain d'Orge was visible at the window, whence the misleading sheet still trailed into the garden.

"Come in," said his leader, without moving from the chair whereon he sat, with his legs extended on another. "A pretty sort of refuge you selected for me!"

The Chouan scrambled over the sill on to the bed, and broke into violent and ashamed protestations, mingled with horrible curses on the unknown informer. It was plain that he did not suspect where the guilt really lay.

"Never mind," remarked La Vireville carelessly. "I have fallen upon circumstances which you could not possibly have foreseen, and I harbour no grudge against you, mon gars. But have you any plan for getting me away?"

"There will be two horses to-night at the cross-roads, a quarter of a mile away, if you think you can get so far, Monsieur Augustin, and if we have the luck not to be seen."

"I can get there," said La Vireville. "Repose has benefited my foot. But we have a little matter that demands our attention in Porhoët first. You know that Mme. Rozel has been arrested?"