His complexion was that of the south—rich, sunny olive, without a tinge of color in the clear, dark cheek; his hair black as the raven’s wing, and his eyes of that wild, fiery shade of black which perhaps indicates a taint of Moorish blood. His features were very regular, and very calm in their regularity, though there was nothing pensive nor anything very grave in their expression. It was the calmness of latent passions, not the calmness of controlling principles—the stillness which precedes the thunderburst, not the stillness of the subsident and overmastered storm: for the firmly-compressed lips, the square outlines of the hard, massive jaw, the immense muscular development of the neck, and the deeply-indented frown between the eyebrows, intersecting a furrow crossing the forehead from brow to brow, would have indicated at once to the physiognomist that Maurice Champrèst was a man of the fiercest and most fiery energy and passions, concealed but not controlled—existing perhaps unsuspected, but utterly unchecked by any principle—and certain to start into a blaze at the first spark that should enkindle them.
His dress was the usual attire of a man in his station at the period, though of finer materials than was ordinary, consisting of a dark forest-green gambison, or short tunic of fine cloth, not very different in form from the blouse of the modern Frenchman, gathered about his waist by a broad belt of black leather, fastened in front by a brazen buckle, and supporting on one side a heavy, buckhorn-hilted wood-knife, and on the other a large pouch or purse of black cordovan, bound with silver; his hose were of the same color with the tunic, fitting close to the shapely thigh, and above these he wore long boots of russet-tawny leather. His black hair fell in two heavy clubs or masses over each ear, nearly to the collar of his doublet, from beneath the cover of a small cap of black velvet, set jauntily on one side, and adorned with a single white-cock’s feather.
His appearance on the whole, though he was very far inferior in regard of personal beauty to the exquisite creature whom he was so soon to call his wife, was manly and imposing; while the character of his dress and equipments, as well as the decorations of Marguerite and her attendant maidens, showed at once that they were all of a quality and station to the serfs employed in the cultivation of the lands of the great seigneurs, and indeed to that of the ordinary armed vassals and feudal tenants of the day.
In truth, Maurice Champrèst was not only the richest farmer, but the highest military vassal under the fief of Raoul de Canillac, the marquis of Roche d’or, his ancestor having been banner-bearer to the first lord of the name, and his people having held and cultivated the same farm for many a century, bound only to homage and free man-service in the field under the banner of his lord, to which in war he was held to bring five spearsmen and as many archers in full bodynge, as it was then technically termed, and effeyre-of-war. He was, in short, though not noble, nor what could be exactly termed a gentleman, of the very highest of feudal territorial vassals, not far removed from the class which were in England designated as franklins, although with fewer privileges and smaller real freedom, France having always been more rigidly feudal than the neighboring island, owing to the absence of the large admixture of Saxon blood and Saxon liberty, the latter of which soon began to preponderate in the white-rocked isle of ocean. His beautiful bride Marguerite, though not his equal in birth—for her grandfather and grandmother, nay, her father himself, in his early youth, had been serfs—was a free-born and a gently-nurtured woman; the old people having been manumitted and presented with a few acres of land, in consequence of the gallantry with which he had rescued the then seigneur of Roche d’or, when unhorsed and at the mercy of the German communes at the bloody battle of Bovines, stricken between Philip the August and his rebellious barons.
This event had taken place years before the birth of Marguerite, and in fact when her father was a mere stripling; and, as her mother was a woman of free lineage, neither serf nor villeyn, she was, of course, beyond the reach of cavil. Nay, more than this, the unusual courage of the old man on that dreadful day, and the consideration always manifested toward him by the then marquis and his immediate successor, had won for him a far higher standing than was usually accorded to manumitted serfs by the class next above them. Her family, moreover, in both the last generations, had prospered in worldly wealth, for the old serf was shrewd and wary, had hoarded money, and increased the extent of his rural demesne, till Marguerite, who was an only daughter, was not only a beauty but an heiress; and probably, with the exception of her husband, would be, on the death of her parents, the richest person in the hamlet. She had received, moreover, advantages at that period very unusual indeed; for having, when a mere child, attracted the attention of the late marchioness de Canillac by her grace, her beauty, and the artless naïveté of her manners, she had been selected to attend, rather as a companion than a servant, on Mademoiselle de Roche d’or, a girl a few years her senior.
The young lady had become much attached to Marguerite, and on being sent to a convent in the principal town of the department for her education, as was usual, had obtained permission that Marguerite might attend her still; so that the young peasant had enjoyed all the advantages of mental culture granted to the high-born damsel; had profited by them to the utmost; and had parted from her orphaned mistress only when, after the death of her parents, she was removed with her brother, the present marquis, to the guardianship of their next relative, the prince of Auvergne. In the meantime, while the marquis and his sister had breathed the atmosphere of courts and large cities, far away from their native province, Marguerite had returned to the humble home of her parents which she had filled with happiness by the light of her loving eyes, and the harmonies of her soft, low voice; had expanded from the bud into the full-blown flower, admired and beloved of all; had burst from the frail and graceful girl into the exquisite and complete woman; and, having long been loved of Maurice Champrèst, and bestowed upon him all the tenderness and truth of her maiden affections, was now about to surrender her hand also to him unto whom she had been during the whole of the last year affianced.
And now, with pipe and tabor, with the old, time-honored bridal-chorus, with flowers scattered along the way, and garlands swinging from the hedgerows by which she was to pass, and decorating the rude pillars and stern arches of the old Gothic church in which she was to wed, with all the village in her train, carolling and rejoicing at so suitable, so sweet a bridal, Marguerite, the bride of May, was led to the ceremony that should of the twain make one for ever and for ever, of which the word of God himself declared that whom he hath united no man shall put asunder.
Merrily, with louder strains and blither minstrelsey, they wound up the little dell among the oaks, paused for a moment at the rustic fount to cross their brows with its holy waters, and entered the low portals of the village-chapel. The bells ceased tinkling; the brief ceremony was performed by the old priest who had baptized them both; the hand of the down-eyed, blushing bride, still sparkling and smiling amid her happy, soft confusion, was placed in the ardent grasp of Maurice, and she was now her own no longer, but a wedded wife.
She was wept over, blessed, caressed, and kissed, by half the company, and many a fervent prayer was breathed for the happiness, the complete and perfect bliss of Marguerite, the bride of May—alas for human hopes and the vain prayers of mortals!—and then, while the bells struck up a livelier, louder chiming, and the bride-maidens trolled the chorus forth more cheerily—
“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!”—