The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times

by Eugène Sue

"I shall pick up courage, father, as you wish. I shall surmount my idle terrors and my childish fears."

"Were it not for the imperious duty that made us undertake this journey, I would say to you: 'Let's return to our peaceful home in Nantes, where you are happy and gay from morning to evening.' If your smile cheers my soul," Bezenecq added in a voice deeply moved, "every tear you drop falls upon my heart!"

"Behold me," said Isoline. "Would you say I look apprehensive, alarmed?" And saying this she pressed against the merchant her charming face, that had recovered its serenity and confidence. The townsman contemplated for a moment in silence the beloved features of his daughter. A tear of joy then gathered in his eye, and endeavoring to subdue his emotion, he cried out: "The devil take these crupper saddles! They prevent one even from embracing his own child with ease!" Whereupon the young girl, with a movement full of gracefulness, threw her arms on her father's shoulders, and drew her rosy face so close to Bezenecq's that he had but to turn his head to kiss the lassie on her forehead and cheeks, which he did repeatedly with ineffable happiness.

During this tender exchange of words and carresses between the merchant and his daughter, the other travelers, before proceeding upon either of the two routes that opened before them, had gathered in the middle of the crossing to consider which to take. Both roads led to Angers. One of them, that marked by the post surmounted with a serpent-dragon, after making a wide circuit, traversed a sombre forest; it was twice as long as the other. Each of the two roads having its own advantages and disadvantages, several of the travelers insisted upon the road of the post with the three eagle's talons. Simon, the monk whose face was almost wholly concealed under his cowl, strove, on the contrary, to induce his companions to take the other road. "Dear brothers! I conjure you;" cried Simon, "believe me ... do not cross the territory of the seigneur of Plouernel.... He has been nick-named 'Worse than a Wolf' and the reprobate but too well justifies the name.... Every day stories are heard of travelers whom he arrests and plunders while crossing his grounds."

"My dear brother," put in a townsman, "I can testify, like you, that the keeper of Plouernel is a wicked man, and his donjon a terrible donjon. More than once from the ramparts of our city of Nantes have we seen the men of the Count of Plouernel, bandits of the worst stripe, pillage, burn, and ravage the territory of our bishop, with whom Neroweg was at war over the possession of the ancient abbey of Meriadek."

"Is that the abbey where the prodigious miracle of about four hundred years ago happened?" inquired another bourgeois. "Saint Meroflede, abbess of the monastery, summoned by the soldiers of Charles Martel to surrender the place, invoked heaven, and the miscreants, overwhelmed by a shower of stones and fire, were asphyxiated in the fumes of burning sulphur and pitch, whither they were dragged by horned, clawed and hairy demons, frightful to behold. And so it happened that the venerable abbess died in the odor of sanctity."

"An ineffable odor that has lasted down to our own days. The common people entertain a particular devotion for the chapel of Saint Meroflede, which has been raised on the borders of a large lake, close by the very place where the miracle was accomplished."

"The chapel is never empty of the faithful. The offerings furnish a large revenue to the incumbent. As the abbess was of the house of the Nerowegs, the seigneur of Plouernel laid claim to, and sought to reacquire the property of the chapel. Hence the wars between the count and the Bishop of Nantes. Those were fearful wars, my friends. They happened at the season when the bishop was marrying his last daughter, whom he gave for a dower the benefice of Saint Paterne. It was a beautiful wedding. The wife and the daughter of his grace the bishop were beautifully ornamented. The young bride wore a necklace of inestimable value."

The moment the name of the Bishop of Nantes was mentioned, Simon the monk pulled down the cowl of his cloak, trying to hide his face completely.

"Sure enough, my beloved companions," interjected another townsman, "we know that the Sieur 'Worse than a Wolf' is a brigand. But do you imagine that the Sieur Draco, seigneur of Castel-Redon, is a lamb? It is as perilous to cross the territory of the one as of the other, and yet there is no other way out. The road to the east, barred by a river, runs out upon a bridge that is guarded by the men of the seigneur of Castel-Redon; the road to the west, bordered by vast swamps, runs out upon a path guarded by the men of the seigneur of Plouernel. By taking the shorter of the two routes we reduce by one-half the chances of danger."