"A bugle!" cried the soldier; "a cow's-horn blown by a sow-driver, you mean. None of the duke's bugles ever blew a blast like that, something between the groaning of a blacksmith's bellows and the grunting of a hog. But there they are," he continued, "sure enough, lances and all, as I live. We must to cover, Hugh, we must to cover! Quick--thy hand, boy--they are coming down, straggling like fallow deer!"
So saying, Matthew Gournay sprang up the high bank, in falling over which the little stream formed the cascade we have noticed; and, as he climbed the rock himself, he assisted, or rather dragged up after him, his young companion, whose hand he held locked in his own, with a grasp which no slight weight could have unbent.
For a moment, they paused on the top of the crag, to take another look at the approaching party, and then plunged into the long shrubs and tangled brushwood that clothed the sides of the winding glen, down which the stream wandered previous to its fall.
CHAPTER II.
The party, whose approach had interrupted the conversation of Matthew Gournay and his young companion, were not long before they reached the little open spot in the forest, from which they had scared the other two; and, as it was at that point that their road first fell in with the stream, they paused for a moment, to water their horses ere they proceeded. Their appearance and demeanour corresponded well with the peculiar sound of the horn which they had blown upon the hill; for though the instrument which announced their approach was martial in itself, yet the sounds which they produced from it were anything but military; and though swords and lances, casques and breastplates, were to be seen in profusion amongst them, there was scarcely one of the party who had not a certain burgher rotundity of figure, or negligence of gait, far more in harmony with furred gowns and caps à la mortier than with war-steeds and glittering arms.
The first, who paused beside the stream, had nearly been thrown over his horse's head, by the animal suddenly bending his neck to drink; and it was long before the rider could sufficiently compose himself again in the saddle, to proceed with some tale which he had been telling to one of his companions, who urged him to make an end of his story, with an eagerness which seemed to show that the matter was one of great interest to him at least.
"Well-a-day, Master Nicholas, well-a-day!" cried the discomposed horseman, "let me but settle myself on my stool--saddle, I mean. God forgive me! but this cursed beast has pulled the bridle out of my hands. So ho! Bernard, so ho!--there, there, surely thou couldst drink without bending thy head so low."
While he thus spoke, by a slow and cautious movement--not unlike that with which a child approaches a sparrow, to perform the difficult task of throwing salt upon its tail--he regained a grasp of the bridle-rein which the horse had twitched out of his hand, and then went on with his story, interrupting it, however, every now and then, to address sundry admonitions to his horse, somewhat in the following style:--
"Well, where was I, worthy Master Nicholas? I was saying--so ho! beast! The devil's in thee, thou wilt have me into the river. I was saying that, after the castle was taken, and every soul put to the sword, even the poor boy, Hugh,--for which last, I hear, the duke is very much grieved,--be quiet, Bernard, hold up thy head!--Count Adolphus himself fled away by a postern-door, and is now a prisoner in--"
"Nay, but, Master Martin, you said they were all put to death," interrupted one of his companions.