Bertrand now returned with the courier prisoner, whom he had met in the ravine. "Behold," said Lacoste to himself, "all corresponds, either these are slyer devils, than they have ever been considered, or there is some other devilry in the game, which is still strange enough."
The courier, a rather elderly man, was raised from his horse, his dispatches had already been taken from him. "Who are you?" asked Cavalier. "Ah your excellency," stammered the embarrassed man, "Now I am, indeed, nothing but an insignificant ambassador, formerly a surgeon in the royal guards."
"Your Name?"
"Dubois, by your leave."
When he announced himself as surgeon, he was commanded to bind up the wounds of Ravanel and several of the other brethren. Cavalier and Roland discovered from the papers the position of the royal troops, and it was decided to anticipate the attack. As they intended to dispatch a trusty person to reconnoitre the country, Edmond stepped forward and said: "As yet I have not been able to do any thing for you, my dearest brethren, intrust this commission to me." It was granted to him, and he retired to dress according to his own ideas, in a manner befitting his design; Lacoste, who would never separate from him, now pressed forward again as his companion. As soon as they had discussed and ordered every thing, Cavalier proposed, that the courier should be detained until they should have brought their plan to a fortunate conclusion, and Castanet with his young wife repaired to the leafy hut, that had been got ready for them both, while the darkness of night set in.
CHAPTER VIII.
Edmond intended visiting the valleys under pretext of inquiring after and purchasing an estate and castle in the district, that were abandoned by the owner, and now for sale. He had become acquainted with an aged secular priest, who dwelt in a beautifully situated village of a charming valley, and his companion had under other pretences taken up his quarters in a neighbouring village. As Edmond wandered solitarily through the enchanting landscape, for the purpose of acquainting himself with its conveniences, his heart became oppressed as he struggled to know if the object, that led him hither might in itself be a good, whether it might be a justifiable one. "Shall I," said he to himself, "bring war into these peaceful valleys, where hitherto no noise of arms has ever resounded? Here the monsters still slumber, which we are going to awaken, in order to provide victims even in these communes for their grim jaws." He quieted his perturbed feelings with the thought, that without his assistance the royalists would march hither, for the purpose of entangling and, if possible, extirpating his new brethren from this part of the country, which was almost wholly in the possession of Catholic inhabitants.
His host, the Catholic priest, was a very little grey-haired man, who, with just as old and amiable a housekeeper lived under the vines and olive trees, that shaded his dwelling so quietly and peaceably, that Edmond on his first entrance was involuntarily reminded of the fable of Philemon and Baucis. He could not divest himself of the idea, that in this habitation the earliest and dearest recollections of his childhood were hovering round him, he was confounded at himself, that his wrath, his burning, religious zeal seemed here nearly exhausted, he was almost obliged to confess that it was forgotten. He meditated and dreamed in the rustling of the trees, by the murmuring of the little waterfall, how softly his soul melted away, and his resolution, like that of Rinaldo's in the enchanted garden of Armida, lost all its strength. When he could not regain his former energy in his waking dreams, as he strolled by the side of the brook, he called it the stream of oblivion, where he now enjoyed the vernal gales and flower breathing elysium and in Lethe separating himself for ever from the world of strife and suffering.
The clergyman had also received the youth with the greatest cordiality; whenever Edmond returned from his rambles, such pleasure beamed on the countenance of the old man, that the stranger felt himself bound to his host by kindliness and emotion. The latter frequently examined him fixedly and as if he had known him already at an earlier period, and then sank into a reverie as if he could not connect his recollections.
"My dear Chevalier de Valmont," (thus Edmond had named himself) commenced the old man on the second day, as they sat at table, "the longer you are with me, the greater pleasure do I experience in your society. An extraordinary resemblance to an old friend almost compels me to treat you as a beloved brother, nay, I may say as a son. It is long since any stranger has visited me in my solitude, here I learn but little of the world, and that is why such a visit as yours is so acceptable to me." "I too am delighted with your society," replied Edmond, "and I ask myself not without sadness, wherefore it should not be granted to man to spend his days in peaceful quiet, elevated and instructed by nature, enlivened and comforted by the simplest and most delightful enjoyments."