Clash of Arms: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

It had been arranged, when all arose that morning, that it would be best Andrew should seek some place where he could remain as long as he desired to be in the neighbourhood; until, as he himself had said, "the work was done." The work which, as he reflected, meant so much more now than the slaying of De Bois-Vallée, namely, the finding of Marion Wyatt, and, if all was as Debrasques had said, the rescuing her. That was now the first and most important part of what he had to do, the other would follow in due course.

Also it was impossible, or almost so, that he should remain in Gaspard's hut. Soldier, adventurer, as he was, used on occasion to hard living, he could not stay there; he and his beast would be starved as the least of evils, while, in case prompt action became necessary--swift movement on his part one way or another, either in pursuing De Bois-Vallée should he again elude him, or in fleeing from him for a time and from any whom he might summon to his assistance, should Andrew be able to carry off Marion Wyatt from Bois-le-Vaux--the hut was no suitable place. Therefore he had decided, after taking counsel with the others, that Plombières must be his abiding place until the work was done. It was, they said, a quiet little village, well situated for leaving at any moment, since good roads led to all four quarters, and, as it was some five miles from Remiremont and two more from the house on which his attention was fixed, his presence there was not likely to be known to De Bois-Vallée until he himself proclaimed it.

"And meanwhile," he said, "I shall be near enough to him to move at any moment, near enough to present myself before him when the time comes. It will do very well."

And now he and Laurent set forth to descend to that spot whence he could overlook the house into which he meant ere long to obtain entrance, the house from which he meant to rescue Marion Wyatt if things were as he believed and as Debrasques had, by nods and glances from his sick bed, hinted; the house, or the surroundings of which, he meant to make the scene of De Bois-Vallée's death. For that it should be the scene of his own death, that he should fail in what he had set himself to do, he never permitted himself to imagine. If the idea arose it was banished as soon as it came. It was, he told himself, an impossible one. He would not fail!

Following his guide he passed swiftly down paths that seemed made only for rabbits, so narrow were they; through groves and copses of oak and fir trees, from which a sweet, delicious aroma was diffused through the morning air; and, pushing aside bushes in which the wild raspberry grew in profusion, though now the fruit was gone, they came at last to an open space below which was a fringe of more fir trees.

"We must skirt this," Laurent remarked, "otherwise we may be seen from the grounds down there. Observe beneath that line of trees," and he pointed to the fringe below, "the woods and pastures. All those are his property. If he, or any, are outside the house this morning, none could pass down this open spot without being seen."

"Come then," replied Andrew, "let us skirt this glade and so continue"; whereon, keeping beneath the wood that grew all along the side, they descended still further.

A few moments later and they were above the house--looking down on to the roof and back of it. From where they had thrown themselves flat after creeping to the very edge of the slope (they being, indeed, so near the wall which had been built up as a facing to that slope that they could touch its topmost stones with their hands) they might, as Laurent had said, have thrown a rolled-up piece of paper on to the roof. Yet there were full twenty feet between those topmost stones and the parapet of the house, which was itself some twenty feet lower than the summit of the wall and lip of the slope! A space wide and yawning, through which, if any should fall, instant annihilation would await them at the bottom on the hard stones. A space over which projectiles might be hurled from cannon or, in older days, from catapult and warlike engine, but across which neither man nor deer could leap and hope to reach the other side below.

"Safe enough from all attack this way," said Andrew, while he gazed down at the topmost windows of the ancient house, "safe enough. A regiment might demolish it by firing on it from here, but nought else would avail. And how many would be picked off by musket ball and caliver from masked windows and loopholes while doing so? 'Twould be a perilous attack!"

"Gaspard's thought is," whispered Laurent, as though fearing their voices might be carried across the chasm on the morning air, and so reach any within the gloomy house, "that burning brands cast down on it at night, when all slept, might easily cause destruction. Observe, all is of wood above, even the roof. The old man is right. It would burn well. Must burn well some day!"