The Huguenot: A Tale of the French Protestants. Volumes I-III

by G. P. R. James

"You will be as safe as in your own château, then," said the blacksmith; "but you must not go for a couple of days, as where he will be tomorrow, and next day, I cannot tell. But if, on the day after, you will be just at the hour when the but begins to flit, at a little turn of the river about six miles down.--You know the high rock just between the river and the forest, with the tall tree upon it, which they call the chêne vert."

"I know it well. I know it well," said the Count. "But on which side of the rock do you mean? the tall face flanks the river, the back slopes away towards the wood."

"At the back, at the back," replied the blacksmith. "Amongst the old hawthorns that lie scattered down the slope. You will find him there at the hour I mention."

"I will be there," said the Count in reply, "and I will allow the intervening time for the band to quit the woods of Morseiul. But if it have not done so by the morning after, there will be a difference between us, which I should be sorry for."

Thus saying, the Count left the worthy townsman, and took his way back to the château.

In the two days that intervened, nothing occurred to vary the course of his existence. He entertained some expectation of receiving letters from Poitiers, but none arrived. He heard nothing from the governor, from the Chevalier d'Evran, or from Clémence de Marly; and from Paris, also, the ordinary courier brought no tidings for the young Count. A lull had come over the tempestuous season of his days, and we shall now follow him on his expedition to the chênt vert, under which, be it said, we have ourselves sat many an hour thinking over and commenting upon the deeds we now record.

The Count, as he had said, took but two servants with him, and rode slowly on through, the evening air, with his mind somewhat relieved by the absence of any fresh excitement, and by the calm refreshing commune of his spirit with itself. On the preceding day there had been another thunder storm; but the two which had occurred had served to clear and somewhat cool the atmosphere, though the breath of the air was still full of summer.

When at the distance of about a mile and a half from the spot which the blacksmith had indicated, the Count gave his horse to his servants, and bade them wait there for his return. He wandered on slowly, slackening his pace as much to enjoy the beauty and brightness of the scene around, as to let the appointed time arrive for his meeting with the leader of the band we have mentioned. When he had gone on about a hundred yards, however, he heard in the distance the wild but characteristic notes of a little instrument, at that time, and even in the present day, delighted in throughout Poitou, and known there by the pleasant and harmonious name of the musette. Sooth to say, it differs but little, though it does in a degree, from the ordinary bagpipe; and yet there is not a peasant in Poitou, and scarcely a noble of the province either, who will not tell you that it is the sweetest and most harmonious instrument in the world. It requires, however, to be heard in a peculiar manner, and at peculiar seasons: either, as very often happens in the small towns of that district, in the dead of the night, when it breaks upon the ear as the player walks along the street beneath your window, with a solemn and plaintive melody, that seems scarcely of the earth; or else in the morning and evening tide, heard at some little distance amongst the hills and valleys of that sunny land, when it sounds like the spirit of the winds, singing a wild ditty to the loveliness of the scene.

The Count de Morseiul had quite sufficient national, or perhaps we should say provincial, feeling to love the sound of the musette; and he paused to listen, as, with a peculiar beauty and delicacy of touch, the player poured on the sounds from the very direction in which he was proceeding. He did not hasten his pace, however, enjoying it as he went; and still the nearer and nearer he came to the chênt vert, the closer he seemed to approach to the spot whence the sounds issued. It is true the player could not see him, as he came in an oblique line from the side of the water, to which at various places the wood approached very near. But the moment that the Count turned the angle of the rock which we have mentioned, and on the top of which stood the large evergreen oak, from which it took its name, he beheld a group which might well have furnished a picture for a Phyllis and a Corydon to any pastoral poet that ever penned an idyl or an eclogue.

Seated on a little grassy knoll, under one of the green hawthorns, was a girl apparently above the common class, with a veil, which she seemed to have lately worn over her head, cast down beside her, and with her dark hair falling partly upon her face as it bent over that of a man, seated, or rather stretched, at her feet, who, supporting himself on one elbow, was producing from the favourite instrument of the country the sounds which the Count had heard.