"Le donz chans d'un auzelh,
Tue chantava en un plays,
Me desviet l'autr'ier
De mon camin--"
He knew not why this particular song should come to his mind: he had never till now thought of it but with sorrow, but to-day he sang it with clear voice and joyous heart.
As he approached the convent at evening, his mood became quieter, and his brow clouded. With fast beating heart he knocked at the gate, and delivering the letter through a grating to a lay-sister, awaited a message from the abbess. Before long the answer came, saying the command of the Count would be obeyed, that with the dawn of morning both the young girls would be given over to the messenger's charge, and that meanwhile he might spend the night at the house of the convent bailiff, who was accustomed to receive strangers, and dwelt in the vineyards of Mont Salvair.
The night, however, seemed long to the youth, for his trusty friend sleep came not as usual to speed it away; he envied the servant (who had only arrived about midnight with the baggage-horse,) the influence of the strong convent wine, and the deep unconsciousness that followed. In Geoffroy there was something awake which was stronger than wine or fatigue.
Once more it was day: they saddled their horses, took leave of the bailiff, and rode to the gate of Mont Salvair, there to await the youthful Countess. They were not there long before the door opened, the abbess came out, her train of nuns behind her, and in their midst the young Garcinde and her foster-sister, who were about to enter upon life and liberty, while the sisters returned to their pious bondage. There were so many tears and sighs, embraces and benedictions, that Geoffroy had still to wait some time before he could see the face of his cousin, now lost to him under one veil after another. But one glance of her black eyes, and the sheen of her fair hair, had wrought such an effect upon him, that he stood by his horse in utter confusion of mind, and hardly heard the abbess, who enquired in evident wonder whether he were really the messenger who yesterday brought Count Malaspina's letter, and to whom his daughter was to be confided. The servant, who was standing by with folded hands and open mouth, staring at the holy women, had to nudge the youth with his elbow before he came to himself, and reverentially bowed assent to what he had only imperfectly heard. "Sir Hugo himself," he said, his eyes still fixed on his cousin's fair hair, "had been prevented coming. He had charged him to ride slowly, and to spend the night at La Vaquiera." By mentioning this prudent plan, he hoped to remove any scruple the abbess might have in confiding the maiden to so young an escort. He seemed however, to have produced a quite contrary effect, for after one perturbed heavenward look, the noble lady turned away to some of the older nuns, and began in a low voice to take counsel with them. Then when the bailiff had led out the horses for the young women, and while some of the lay-sisters helped the servant to load the baggage horse with clothes and provisions, a lively face emerged from the living hedge of black and white veils. It belonged to Aigleta, the child of Garcinde's nurse, who had grown up to be a blooming maiden, and who now approached the mute messenger, holding out a small but vigorous hand, and exclaiming, "In God's name be welcome, Sir Geoffroy! Is it you?" After which she went up to the abbess and whispered a word or two in her ear which seemed to dispel all anxiety. The pious lady depended too fully on the lessons of wisdom and virtue, which her charge had imbibed with conventual milk, to hold it possible that she should give her heart to a nameless illegitimate cousin, especially at a time when, in all probability, a distinguished alliance awaited her. Accordingly she clasped Garcinde--who burst into tears--in her motherly embrace, herself helped her to mount the old convent grey, while Aigleta was lifted by Geoffroy on to a spirited pony, and with much sobbing and waving of hands and handkerchiefs, the small cavalcade was at last sent off from the old arched gate of Mont Salvair, through which the band of the Brides of Heaven slowly and mournfully returned.
But the young travelling-companions, too, proceeded on their way more silently and thoughtfully than might be expected, when a knightly youth, on the fairest of summer days, guides two fair maidens mounted on fresh horses upon their first expedition into a smiling world. After a hasty question as to how her father was, Garcinde had not again addressed Geoffroy, influenced, perhaps, by the curt although reverential manner in which he had seemed to avoid entering into further details. But Aigleta, who for her part had not allowed the departure from Mont Salvair to weigh the least upon her spirits, took up a livelier tone, and after a sigh of gratitude for being at last delivered from the pious monotony of cloistered life, began to give Geoffroy an amusing account of its course from day to day. She was an excellent mimic, and counterfeited the voices of the different sisters, their mild whispers, and downcast eyes, their unrestrained laughing and screaming as soon as they were unobserved, their petty spiteful quarrels, their cloying affectionateness to each other, ready at a moment's notice to turn into deadly enmity. In the midst of all this she introduced the solemn bass voice of the abbess, exhorting to peace, and painting the dangers of the world; and finally she concluded with a wild medley of pious and godless speeches, in which the nuns were supposed to express their feelings on the departure of the young Countess, their envy, their fear that Satan with all his crew might be waiting for them outside the gates; lastly the prayer of the abbess for their deliverance from all dangers, especially from the temptations of bold knights, and suspicious young cousins.
Garcinde who had been riding a yard or two in advance, now cut short this burst of spirits, and with her gentle voice--without, however, turning towards Aigleta--rebuked her frivolous tone. It was sinful, she said, after all the love and kindness they had enjoyed, to expose to view the weaknesses of the poor and sadly limited life, and she at least should never forget that when orphaned, she had found there a second home. Whereupon the pert girl, who in Geoffroy's presence did not at all approve of having this well-merited sermon addressed to her, only replied with a couple of proverbs, "Each bird sings according as it is fed," and--