The little dale which I have described was traversed by two separate ways: one, a regular road, so far as any roads of the fourteenth century could be called regular, and adapted for horses and such rude vehicles as the age and the country required; the other, a narrow, winding foot-path, following the bends of the rivulet, which the other crossed by a picturesque wooden bridge, at about five hundred yards below the well-head and the chapel.
At the moment when my tale commences, the doors of the chapel were thrown wide open, and the little bell was tinkling with a merry chime that harmonized well with the gay aspect of nature—the music of the rejoicing birds which were filling the air with their glee, and the lively ripple of the stream fretting over its pebbly bed.
As if summoned by the joyous cadence of the bells, a numerous party was now seen coming up the foot-path by the edge of the rivulet, apparently from the hamlet in the larger valley, wending their way toward the chapel. It needed but a glance to discover the occasion. It was a bridal-procession, headed by the gray-haired village priest in full canonicals, and some of the elders of the village.
Behind these, lightly tripped six young girls, dressed in white, with crowns of May-flowers on their heads, and garlands of the same woven like scarfs across their bosoms. They were all singularly pretty, having been chosen probably for their beauty from among their playmates: they had all the rich, dark hair, flowing in loose ringlets down their backs; the fine, expressive, dark eyes; the peach-like bloom on the sunny cheeks, and the ripe, red lips, which constitute the peculiar beauty which is almost characteristic of the south of France. Each of these fair young beings carried on her arm a light wicker basket, filled with the bright field-flowers of that sunny land and season—the purple violet, the rich jonquil, and pale narcissus, the many-colored crocuses from the mead, the primrose from the hedgerow-bank, the lily of the valley from the cool, shadowy grove—and strewed them, as they passed along, before the footsteps of the bride; chanting, as they did so, in the quaint old Gascon tongue, the bridal strain:—
“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,
So fair a bride shall leave her home,
Should blossom, should bloom with garlands gay,
So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”
After these, followed by her bridesmaids, the bride stepped daintily and demurely along, the acknowledged beauty of the village, happy, and bright, and innocent—the young bride Marguerite.
Her hair was of the very deepest shade of brown—so dark, that at first thought you would have deemed it black; but when you looked again, you discovered, by the absence of the cold, metallic gloss upon its wavy surface, and by the rich, warm hue with which it glowed under the sunlight, what was its true color. Her forehead was not very high, but broad and beautifully formed, and as smooth as ivory; while her arched eyebrows showed as black as night, and as soft and smooth as though they had been stripes of sable Genoa velvet. Her nose, if not absolutely faultless—for it had the slight upward turn which was so charming in Roxabara—added an arch and sprightly expression to features which were otherwise passive and voluptuous rather than mirthful; but her eyes, her eyes were wonderful—like to no eyes on earth that have ever met my gaze, save thine, incomparable——, which still shine upon my soul, though long unseen, and far away, never, never to be forgotten!—not star-like, but like wells of living, loving, languid lustrousness—brown of the deepest shade, filled with a humid, rapturous tenderness, yet brighter than the brightest, but with a soft, voluptuous, luminous brightness; not flashing, not sparkling, but penetrating and imbuing the beholder with love at once and magic light. They were fringed, too, with lashes so long and dark, that, when her lids were lowered, they showed like fringes of raven-hued silk against the delicate blush of her round cheek. Her mouth, though perhaps rather wide, was exquisitely shaped, with the arched upper lip and full, pouting lower lip, of the color of the ripe clove-carnation, that woos the kiss so irresistibly; with teeth as bright as mother-of-pearl, and a breath sighing forth sweeter than Indian summer.
Such was the face of Marguerite, the bride of that May morning; nor was her form inferior to it. Modelled in the fullest and roundest mould that is consistent with symmetry and grace, her figure was the very perfection, the beau-ideal of voluptuous, full-blown, yet youthful womanhood. The broad, falling shoulders; the fully-developed, glowing bust, swelling into twin hills of panting snow; the round, shapely arms, bare to the shoulder; the graceful and elastic waist; the rich curve of the arched hips, and the wavy outlines of her lower limbs, suggesting, by the rustling folds of her draperies as she walked the dewy greensward like a queen, the beauty of their unseen symmetry: these, combined with the exquisite features, the singular expression uniting, what would appear to be incongruous and contradictory, much roguish archness, something that was almost sensual in the wreathed smile, and yet withal the most perfect modesty and innocence, rendered Marguerite, the May-bride of Castel de Roche d’or, one of the loveliest, if not the very loveliest creature that ever walked to church with her affianced lover in that fair land of France.
She wore, like her bridesmaids—who, all pretty girls, were utterly eclipsed by her radiant beauty—a May-wreath on her head, and a large bouquet of fresh violets on the bosom of her low-cut white dress, which was looped up at one side with bunches of narcissus and violets, to show an under-skirt of pale peach-colored silk, the tints of which showed faintly through the thin draperies of her tunic; but, unlike them, she wore a long gauze veil, intertwined with silver threads, floating down among her luxuriant tresses, below her shapely waist.
Never was there seen in that region a lovelier, a purer, or a happier bride. Immediately behind the bridesmaids, supported in his turn by an equal number of tall, sinewy, well-formed youths, dressed in their best attire, half-agricultural, half-martial, as feudal vassals of their lord, bound to man-service in the field, came on the stalwart bridegroom. He was a tall, athletic, well-made man of twenty-nine or thirty years, erect as a quarter-staff, yet showing in every motion an elastic pliability and grace, which, although in reality the mere result of nature, appeared to be the consequence either of innate gentility or of long usance to the habits of the upper classes.