It may well be conceived that the time now seemed to lag; and, when I at length set off upon my journey towards Champigny, every league seemed extended to two or three, every minute was protracted into days. I was the first in the saddle in the morning, the last to feel fatigue at night. But still, as all the various military movements had disturbed the posts, and we rode our own horses, our journey was in reality slow, and seemed to me still slower.
There were but few events in that journey which I need dwell upon. The party which went through it was divided by their particular circumstances, by their religion and habits, and each kept much apart from the other. I, belonging to the higher class of the land, was separated from the rest both by my rank and by my faith; and my servants, being Protestants, were, of course, not sought by the attendants of the Duke of Montpensier. The intendant, indeed, of the Prince d'Auvergne generally rode by my side, a step farther back, endeavouring to beguile the way with different stories of the scenes which he had seen in a long life, and the descriptions of objects which I had never beheld. He told a tale pleasantly enough, and his descriptions were vivid and accurate. I showed a sufficient degree of interest in what he said to flatter his vanity a little, and induce him to go on.
But he saw that I was deeply melancholy, and sometimes appeared to suppose that his conversation wearied me, and ceased it for an hour or two. Thus, however, some little conversation took place between the Catholics and Protestants; but it was very different with the Jews, who formed the third division of our party. They were spoken to, indeed, by both the Catholics and Protestants from time to time, and were treated with great kindness and with substantial courtesy, having every protection and assistance given to them whenever they needed it; but the servants, like their masters, looked upon them evidently as an inferior race, and kept up as little communication with them as possible. To ensure that they were well treated and had nothing to complain of--for the Prince d'Auvergne had given me authority to regulate such matters on the march--I generally made Solomon and Miriam come and sit with me for an hour after our day's journey was over, somewhat to the scandal, I believe, of good Master Arnon the intendant, who thought it strange that a French nobleman should permit a Jew to sit in his presence.
By this means an intimacy--if that can be so called which consisted almost altogether in tokens of respect and reverence on the one side, and protection on the other--took place between me and the Jew and his daughter; they clung to me as the only being that treated them with real kindness, and Miriam used to strive to amuse me with a thousand little engaging youthful ways: she would dance to me to the sound of her own singing, which was very sweet, though in a tongue that I did not understand; and she would play to me at other times, either upon a small instrument which she called a cithern, or upon a lute, with a skill and perfection that I had never heard before. She used to watch my looks, too, as if to see whether she amused me; but she was too young for idle thoughts to enter into the head of any one with regard to her; and I do not think I was of a character, even if she had been two or three years older, to fancy that she was in love with me, because she had a grateful regard for me.
The Jew himself, I believe, would have trusted her anywhere with me, as by this time he would have trusted me with any jewel of his store; and one evening, when he himself had arrived at the inn, weary and somewhat unwell, he sent his daughter to amuse me, and to tell me that he himself had retired to rest. Well might he do so; and yet the conversation that we had together was as tender and as full of thrilling interest as it is possible to conceive. I had been musing sadly over my fate and that of Louise, and my eyes were buried in my hands when her entrance roused me, so that it was evident enough to her that she had just recalled me from a painful dream.
"You are sad, seigneur," she said, drawing a seat close up beside me, and laying her small, clear, olive hand upon mine. "You are sad, and you do not tell Miriam what you are sad about."
"Oh, you would not care to hear, Miriam," I replied, "and could do me no good if you did hear."
"Oh, but I should care to hear," she said, "for I love you very much, seigneur. I loved you, from the first moment I saw you, almost as much--no, not so much as I love him."
"Were you going to say your father, Miriam?" I said.
"No," she said, "Not him. I was going to say as Martin Vern." And the girl coloured a little as she spoke, but added immediately, "But he loves you too, and told me how kind you had been to him when he was at the siege of Angoulême, and how you had given him your hand to help him up into the breach, and how you had carried him down in your arms when he was wounded, and saved his life, and been to him like a brother; which, for a lord and a soldier like you, he thought very kind indeed."