"But should they go still farther," said the Count, "should they attempt to interdict altogether the exercise of our religion; should they take the child from the mother, the sister from the care of the brother; should they force upon us Roman rites, and demand from us confessions of papistical belief, what are we to do then, my good old friend?"
"Our religious duties," replied the pastor, "we must not forbear to exercise, even if the sword hung over us that was to slay us at the first word. As for the rest, I trust and believe that it will not come to pass; but if it should, there will be no choice left us but resistance or flight. Ask me not, Albert, to decide now upon which of the two we should choose. It must ever be a dark, a painful, and a terrible decision when the time comes that it is necessary to make it; and perhaps the decision itself may be affected far more by the acts of others than by our own. We must determine according to circumstances; but, in the mean time, let us as far as possible be prepared for either of the two painful alternatives. We must make great sacrifices, Albert, and I know that you are one of those who would ever be ready to make such for your fellow Christians. If we are driven to flee from the land of our birth, and to seek a home in other countries; if by the waters of Babylon we must sit down and weep, thinking of the Jerusalem that we shall never behold again, there will be many, very many of our brethren compelled to fly with but little means of support, and perhaps it may be long before in other lands they obtain such employment as will enable them to maintain themselves by the work of their own hands. Those who are richer must minister unto them, Albert. Luckily I myself can do something in that sort, for long ago, when there was no thought of this persecution, I sold what little land I had, intending to spend the amount in relieving any distress that I might see amongst my people, and to trust to the altar that I served for support in my old age. But little of this sum has been as yet expended, and if I did but know any hands in which I could trust it in a foreign land, either in England or in Holland, I would transmit it thither instantly. You too, Albert, if I have heard right, derived considerable wealth in money from some distant relation lately. For your own sake as well as others, it were better to place that in safety in foreign lands, for I find that it would be dangerous now to attempt to sell any landed possessions, and if you were forced to leave this country you might find yourself suddenly reduced to want in the midst of strangers."
"I have not only thought of this before," replied the Count, "but I have already taken measures for transmitting that sum to Holland. As soon as I heard of the unjust prohibitions regarding the sale of lands by Protestants, I wrote to Holland to a banker whom I knew there in days of old, an honest man and a sincere friend, though somewhat too fond of gain. The sum I can thus transmit is far more than enough to give me competence for life, and if you please I can transmit thither the little store you speak of also."
"Willingly, willingly," replied the pastor; "it may be a benefit to others if not to me.--Albert," he added, "I shall never quit this land! I feel it, I know it! My ministry must be accomplished here till the last: and whether I shall be taken from you by some of the ordinary events of nature, or whether God wills it that I should seal with my blood the defence of my faith and my testimony against the church of Rome, I know not; but I am sure, I feel sure, that I shall never quit the land in which I was born."
Albert of Morseiul did not attempt to argue with Claude de l'Estang upon this prejudice, for he knew it was one of those which, like some trees and shrubs, root themselves but the more firmly from being shaken, and from an ineffectual endeavour being made to pluck them out.
For nearly two hours the young Count remained at the house of the clergyman discussing all the various topics connected with their situation, while his servants were scattered about in different dwellings of the village. At the end of that time, however, Master Jerome Riquet made his appearance at the pastor's house, to inform his lord (from a participation in whose actions he judged he had been too long excluded) that the storm had passed away; and, ordering his horses to be brought up, after a few more words with Claude de l'Estang, the Count mounted and pursued his way homeward to the château of Morseiul.
Throwing his rein to the groom, the young nobleman walked on through the vestibule, and entered the great hall. It was calm and solitary, with the bright evening sunshine streaming through the tall windows and chequering the stone floor. Nothing was moving but a multitude of bright motes dancing in the sunbeam, and one of the banners of the house of Morseiul shaken by the wind as the door opened and closed on the Count's entrance. The whole aspect of the place told that it had not been tenanted for some time. Every thing was beautifully clean indeed, but the tall-backed chairs ranged straight along the walls, the table standing exactly in the midst, the unsullied whiteness of the stone floor, not even marked with the print of a dog's foot, all spoke plainly that it had been long untenanted. The Count gazed round it in silent melancholy, marked the waving banner and the dancing motes, and, if we may use the term, the solemn cheerfulness of that wide hall; and then said to himself, ere he turned again to leave it,
"Such will it be, and so the sun will shine, when I am gone afar--or in the grave."