The cry, being repeated by the other peasants, reached the ears of the platoon of soldiers that blocked the head of the procession. These rushed back to the aid of their comrades, driving aside the women and children with the butts of their guns. The mass of people, thus pushed back and crowded closely in the middle of the road, emitted shrieks of fright. All was confusion.
At the thickest of the turmoil a lackey on horseback rode up from the direction the procession was headed in, preceding by about twenty paces two other personages, also on horseback. The lackey reined in his mount, cracked his whip and cried:
"Room! Room for Mademoiselle Plouernel! Room for the sister of Monseigneur Neroweg of Plouernel! Make room! Make room, there!"
CHAPTER IV.
DESERTED!
It was, in fact, Mademoiselle Plouernel, who, coming from the manor of Mezlean, was approaching the spot of the tumult. She wore an elegant riding habit—a long skirt and closely fitting jacket of a pearl-grey material, trimmed with knots of ribbon of the same azure-blue color as her shoulder knot and the feathers in her broad-brimmed black felt hat. She rode with ease a palfrey white as snow, and richly caparisoned with a saddle-cloth of blue velvet trimmed in silver. An old equerry with grey hair and dressed, like the lackey, in the Plouernel livery—green, orange and silver—accompanied Bertha. Her beautiful, yet pale and delicate face, revealed the ravages of a protracted illness from which she was only recently recovered. The thinness of her cheeks imparted the appearance of abnormal size to her black and feverishly brilliant eyes. The melancholy of her physiognomy, coupled with a slight suggestion of despondency in her bearing, gave an irresistible charm to her person. Surprised at the cries and the clamor which she heard proceeding from the concourse ahead of her, from which she was still some hundred paces distant, she sent her equerry forward to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. He obeyed, and, arriving near a group of weeping women, was acquainted by them with the events that preceded. The equerry returned to his mistress and informed her that the bailiff of the Count of Plouernel had come to seize the teams and wagons of several peasants who were on their way to the temple in order to celebrate a wedding; that the bride's father was to be arrested for poaching; and that a quarrel had broken out between the peasants and the soldiers of the Crown Regiment who came to support the demands made by the Count's bailiff and the usher of the fisc. Seized with pity, Mademoiselle Plouernel whipped up her palfrey, and rode at a gallop towards the very center of the crowd, despite the humbly expressed apprehensions of her equerry.
Succumbing to the influence of the terror which they felt for the soldiers, most of the peasants had responded but hesitantly to Tankeru's call of "Let us disarm the red-coats!" The consequence of their irresolution was that the three or four soldiers, who were at first disarmed, were able to recover their weapons, to charge upon the Bretons, several of whom they wounded with their bayonets, and immediately to disengage their sergeant. Seeing the turn affairs were taking, Tankeru yielded to the entreaties of his daughter and friends, clambered up the bluff that bordered the road, glided through the hedges, and took flight across-field. He was out of danger.
The bailiff and the usher, on their part, had, since the start of the melee, endeavored to escape. They were in full flight when they encountered Mademoiselle Plouernel as she arrived at a gallop on her palfrey, which she immediately reined in upon recognizing them by their black habit and short cloak.
"Bailiff!" cried Bertha, warmly, "I order you, in the name of the Count of Plouernel, my brother, to renounce the seizure which you have effected. I order you to set at liberty the poacher whom you arrested!"
Aware of the recent arrival of Mademoiselle Plouernel at the manor of Mezlean, and seeing her accompanied by an equerry in the Count's livery, the bailiff did not question the young lady's identity. Respectfully bowing before her he answered:
"Mademoiselle's orders shall be executed."