Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

"You will play sentry, eh?" finished La Vireville, smiling up at him. "Very well, only you must promise on no account to go outside the cave. We shall leave it as soon as it is dark. That is," he added to himself, "if this accursed head of mine is steady enough for me to walk by then." For he was beginning to fear that it might not be, and it was therefore with relief that he accepted Anne's suggestion, and closed his eyes again.

Left to his own devices, the Comte de Flavigny sat for quite a long time solemnly and sympathetically regarding his prostrate companion—rather as that companion had, earlier, studied him. M. le Chevalier looked so long, lying there, longer even, Anne thought, than when he was on his feet. Then the watcher got up and proceeded to make a careful tour round his domain. A meticulous search yielded nothing of more interest than an empty water-keg, similar to their own, abandoned in a corner. Having exhausted the hopeful emotions of this quest, Anne looked longingly at the entrance of the cave, whence he could see a slit of sea and sky, and hear the waves and the gulls. He desired greatly to go out, but his promise rendered that impossible. So he returned to his heap of seaweed, and wondered if François the fisherman had got nearly home by now; for he did not in the least doubt the explanation of recent events that had been given him, though he did not much care to dwell upon them. Then he thought of his grandfather, and speculated as to what he was doing; he thought also of Elspeth, and Baptiste, and the exotic Lal Khan. He would soon be seeing them again now.

M. le Chevalier stirred in his sleep—if indeed he were really asleep, of which Anne was not sure—threw out an arm, and said something that sounded angry.

Suddenly Anne bethought him that he had not said his prayers since . . . he could not exactly remember when. So he knelt down on the seaweed and applied himself to his devotions, adding a special petition on behalf of the Chevalier de la Vireville. After that he himself fell asleep again.

(3)

It was quite dark in the cave when La Vireville dragged himself to his feet and told Anne that it was time for them to be leaving it. The subsequent Odyssey was, to Anne at least, full of interest, and undoubtedly possessed more reality to him than to his half-dazed companion. After they had made their way through the narrow opening of the cave they had to scramble over many rocks full of pools in which, so Anne opined, there might be crabs, only it was too dark to see them—even though it was not so dark outside the cave as in it. His views on their alleged presence, and the likelihood of their seizing hold of the travellers' feet and retaining them willy-nilly till the tide came up again, were discouraged by La Vireville (or at least their utterance was), and he was told that he must not speak above a whisper. So in silence they clambered, in silence they arrived upon a beach which was first sand, where the waves were coming in gently, and then pebbles, which not only made a noise but also hurt the feet. Here La Vireville picked up Anne under one arm and so carried him. Then, when they were at the top of the bank of pebbles, they had to climb a low cliff where there was a path, somewhat difficult to see. After that they were on the level, on grass, and soon after in a strange, tunnel-like lane, very deep and dark indeed, and so narrow that they could only just go abreast. Soon there were great trees growing on the banks of this lane, and it became so dark that Anne could only see a few feet in front, but M. le Chevalier went on without hesitating, though not very fast. Sometimes Anne walked by his side, his hand in his; sometimes he was carried. Then they were out of the lane, in among more and more trees. Anne began to be tired, and M. le Chevalier seemed tired too, for he stopped and sat down occasionally, and once or twice he said things to himself which Anne did not understand.

There was some animal or bird among these trees which kept making a strange noise, and this M. le Chevalier would now and then imitate exactly. Anne asked what it was, and was told that it was an owl. After a little it seemed to Anne that there were people too in the forest, strange shadowy forms in curious garments. He commented on this, and M. le Chevalier told him not to be frightened, that they were all friends, and would do him no harm, and that it was, in fact, they who made the sound like an owl which he had answered. And, almost as he said it, two men seemed to come up out of the ground, two men with great wide-brimmed hats and long loose hair. They each carried a gun. It was too dark to see their faces. M. de la Vireville spoke to one in a strange tongue, and then he said to Anne, "Let him carry you, little one, and don't be frightened." So the man took him up in his arms, and Anne, being tired, was glad of this, though he had to struggle against a certain amount of the alarm which he had promised to try never to feel again.

M. le Chevalier, who was of course too big to be carried, however tired he might feel, took the arm of the other man, and they went on again. And then, just as Anne was thinking that he would ask to be put down—for, after all, the man who carried him smelt almost too disagreeably—they came to a little hut roofed with branches, and one of the men knocked, and made the noise of the owl, and the door opened and they all went in.

In the hut was another man in strange dress, and here, by a couple of rushlights, Anne, when he was deposited on his feet, had his first full view of a Chouan.

By his side there stood an oldish man, not very tall, with enormously powerful shoulders and rather a short neck. On the lank, grizzled hair that fell to these shoulders was a large wide-brimmed hat; he wore the strangest breeches that Anne had ever seen, made of some dirty white material, pleated and full like a woman's skirt; from these to his sabots his legs were clad in deerskin gaiters. But his coat engaged the little boy's attention almost more, for it was blue, very short, and appeared to have another underneath it, and the front was elaborately embroidered in whorls of yellow and red. Pinned on to it was a tiny soiled square of linen, roughly worked with the emblem of the Sacred Heart, and a rosary was looped through one of the button-holes. The man's little twinkling eyes, set deep in his head, looked, Anne decided, rather wicked, and he had never seen a face which seemed so much as if it never could be washed clean, so grey and leathery was the wrinkled skin. The Chouan carried a musket slung across his back, and a knife and two pistols in a leather belt.