"Sound again, beau sire!--sound again!" cried the old man. "I will know your blast among ten thousand, if you be a De Coucy; and if you be my young lord, I will know it in all the world."
De Coucy put his horn to his lips and reiterated his blast, when instantly the old man exclaimed--"'Tis he!--'tis he, Calord!--Open the gates--open the gates, quick! lest I die of joy before I see his face again! 'Tis he himself! The blessed Virgin, queen of heaven, be praised for all things--Give me the keys--give me the keys, Calord!" and no sooner were the doors pushed back, than casting himself on his knees before his lord's horse, with the tears of joy coursing each other rapidly down his withered face, the old seneschal exclaimed, "Enter, noble châtelain! and take your own; and God be praised, my dear boy! and the holy Virgin, and St. John, and St. Peter, but more especially St. Martin of Tours! for having brought you safe back again from the dangers of Palestine, where your noble father has left his valiant bones! Here are the keys, which I offer into your hand, beau sire," he continued, looking earnestly at De Coucy, and wiping the salt rheum that obscured his sight. "And yet I can scarce believe," he added, "that young Guy, the last of the three fair youths--he who was not up to my shoulder when he went, whom I first taught to draw a bow, or wheel a horse--that young Guy, the page--and a saucy stripling he was too--my blessing on his waggish head!--that young Guy the page should have grown into so tall and strong a man as you, beau sire!--Are you not putting upon me? Was it truly you that blew that blast?" and his eye ran over the persons who followed behind his lord.--"But no!" he added, "it must be he! I know his blue eye, and the curl of his lip; and I have heard how he is a great knight now-a-days, and slays Saracens, and bears away the prizes at tournays:--I have heard it all!"
De Coucy calmly let the old man finish his speech, without offering to take the keys, which from time to time he proffered, as a sort of interjection between the various parts of his disjointed discourse. "It is even I, good Onfroy," replied he at last: "keep the keys!--keep the keys, good old man!--they cannot be in worthier hands than yours. But now let us in. I bring you, as you see, no great reinforcement; but I hope your garrison is not so straitened for provisions, that you cannot give us some supper, for we are hungry, though we be few."
"We will kill a hog--we will kill a hog, beau sire!" replied the old man. "I have kept chiefly to the hogs, beau sire, since you were gone, for they cost nothing to keep--the acorns of the forest serve them--and they have increased wonderfully! Oh, we have plenty of hogs; but as to cows, and sheep, and things of that kind, that eat much and profit little, I was obliged to abandon them when I sent you the last silver I could get, as you commanded."
De Coucy signified his perfect indifference as to whether his supper consisted of mutton, beef, or pork; and riding through the barbican, into the enclosure of the walls, he crossed the court and alighted at the great gates of the hall, which were thrown open to receive him.
Calord, the servant or varlet of the seneschal, had run on before, to light a torch; for the day was beginning to fail, and the immense apartment was of its own nature dark and gloomy; but still, all within was dim. The rays of the torch, though held high, and waved round and round, scarcely served to show some dark lustreless suits of armour hung against the walls; and the figures of some of the serfs, who had stolen into the farther extremity of the hall, to catch a glimpse of their returned lord, seemed like spirits moving about on the dark confines of another world; while more than one bat, startled even by the feeble light, took wing and fluttered amongst the old banners overhead. At the same time, as if dreary sounds were wanting to complete the gloominess of the young knight's return, the clanging of his footsteps upon the pavement of the empty hall, awoke a long, wild echo, which, prolonged through the open doors communicating with untenanted halls and galleries beyond, seemed the very voice of solitude bewailing her disturbed repose.
It all fell cold upon De Coucy's heart; and, laying his hand on the old seneschal's shoulder, as he was about to begin one of his long discourses:--"Do not speak to me just now, good Onfroy!" said the young knight; "I am not in a vein to listen to any thing. But throw on a fire in yon empty hearth; for, though it be July, this hall has a touch of January. Thou hast the key of the books too:--bring them all down, good Onfroy; I will seek some moral that may teach contentment.--Set down my harp beside me, good page." And having given these directions, De Coucy cast himself into the justice-chair of his ancestors, and, covering his eyes with his hands, gave himself up to no very sweet contemplations.
CHAPTER XIII.
It would seem a strange command in our day, were any one to order his servant to bring down the library; and certainly would infer a much more operose undertaking than fell to the lot of old Onfroy, the seneschal, who, while Calord, his man, cast almost a whole tree in the chimney, and the varlets of De Coucy unloaded his baggage-horses, easily brought down a small wooden box, containing the whole literature of the château. And yet, perhaps, had not the De Coucys, from father to son, been distinguished trouvères, no such treasure of letters would their castle have contained; for, to count the nobles of the kingdom throughout, scarce one in a hundred could read and write.
De Coucy, however, had wasted--as it was then called--some of his earlier years in the study of profane literature, till the death of his two elder brothers had called him from such pursuits; from which time his whole course of reading had been in the romances of the day, where figured either Charlemagne with his peers and paladins, or the heroes, writers, and philosophers of antiquity, all mingled together, and habited as knights and magicians.