“Hush, Pauline!” said her mother. “Of course we shall be glad to serve the Count—Henry, help Michel and Regnard to place your master in the carriage.—Michel, give me your arquebuse; I will hold it till you have done.—Henry, support your master’s head.”
But Pauline took that post upon herself, notwithstanding a look from the Marchioness, if not intended to forbid, at least to disapprove. The young lady, however, was too much agitated with all that had occurred to remark her mother’s looks, and following the first impulse of her feelings, while the servants carried him slowly to the carriage, she supported the head of the wounded Cavalier on her arm, though the blood continued to flow from the wound in his forehead, and dripped amidst the rich slashing of her Spanish sleeves, dabbling the satin with which it was lined.
“Oh Mademoiselle!” said the Page, when their task was accomplished, “this has been a sad day’s hunting. But if I might advise,” he continued, turning to the Marchioness, “the drivers must be told to go with all speed.”
“Saucy as a page!” said the old lady, “is a proverb, and a good one. Now, Monsieur La Mothe, I do not think the drivers must go with all speed; for humbly deferring to your better opinion, it would shake your master to death.”
The Page bit his lip, and his cheek grew somewhat red, in answer to the high dame’s rebuke, but he replied calmly, “You have seen, Madam, what has happened to-day, and depend on it, if we be not speedy in getting out of this accursed forest, we shall have the same good gentry upon us again, and perhaps in greater numbers. Though they have wounded the Count, they have not succeeded in their object; for he has still about him that which they would hazard all to gain.”
“You are in the right, boy,” answered the lady: “I was over-hasty. Go in, Pauline. Henry, your master’s horse must carry one of my footmen, of whom the other three can mount behind the carriage—thus we shall go quicker. You, with the Count’s servants, mix with my horsemen, and keep close round the coach; and now bid them, on, with all speed.” Thus saying, she entered the vehicle; and the rest having disposed themselves according to her orders, the whole cavalcade was soon in motion on the road to St. Germain.
CHAPTER II.
In which new characters are brought upon the stage, and some dark hints given respecting them.
THE sun had long gone down, and the large clear autumn moon had risen high in his stead, throwing a paler, but a gentler light upon the wood of Laye, and the rich wild forest-scenery bordering the road from St. Germain to Mantes. The light, unable to pierce the deeper recesses of the wood, fell principally upon those old and majestic trees, the aristocracy of the forest, which, raising their heads high above their brethren of more recent growth, seemed to look upon the beam in which they shone, as the right of elder birth, and due alone to their aspiring height. The deep shadows of their branches fell in long sombre shapes across the inequalities of the road, leaving but glimpses every now and then, to light the footsteps of whatever being might wander there at that hour of silence.
On one of those spots where the full beams fell, stood the cottage of Philip, the woodman: and the humble hut with its straw thatch, the open space of ground before it, with a felled oak which had lain there undisturbed till a coat of soft green moss had grown thick over its rugged bark, the little stream dammed up to afford a sufficient supply of water for the horses, and the large square block of stone to aid the traveller in mounting, all were displayed in the clear moonlight as plainly as if the full day had shone upon them.