I was not very long kept in suspense, however, for by the time I had got my little coat off, and was still sitting on the edge of the bed crying, I heard the lady quit the good Father’s little study, and his voice speaking as he escorted her toward the door. I knew that Mariette could not have been awakened, dressed, and carried off in a quarter of an hour, and I went to bed and slept with a heart relieved. It was only a respite, however. Four days after that good Father Bonneville took an opportunity when Mariette and I were at play of telling her that she was that night to go away with her mamma, and take a long journey. He advised her therefore not to tire herself, but to keep as quiet as possible till the evening came, even if she could not lie down and take a little rest during the day.
The poor child’s agitation was extreme. The idea of seeing her mother evidently gave her great delight, but the thought of going away from a house where she had been made so happy, and from a companion who loved her so much, seemed not exactly to qualify her joy, but to tear her between two emotions. Her face was, for an instant, all smiles and radiant with satisfaction. The next instant, however, she burst into tears, and snatching Father Bonneville’s hand she kissed it once or twice. Then pointing to me, she said, “Cannot I take him with me?”
The good priest shook his head, and soon after left us to pass the time till the hour of separation came as best we might. I do not think he knew, and indeed it would be difficult to make any one comprehend, who has left the period of early youth far behind him, what were the feelings of Mariette and myself. I am very much inclined to believe from my own remembrances, that the pangs of childhood are much more severe than most grown persons will admit.
Day wore away; night came. Little Mariette was dressed and prepared, and about nine o’clock the bell rang. In a moment after the poor child was in her mother’s arms, and weeping with joy and agitation. Madame de Salins hardly sat down, however, and there was a look of hurry and anxiety as well as of grief in her face which told how much she had suffered, and how much she expected still to encounter.
“I am somewhat late,” she said, speaking to Father Bonneville; “for there were two men walking up and down before the house in which I have been concealed, and I dared hardly venture out. Let us lose no time, good Father. Who will show us the way?”
“Louis, my son, get the lantern,” said the good Father; and turning to Madame de Salins he added, “He will show you the way.”
These words first seemed to call the attention of the lady to myself, and advancing toward me she embraced me tenderly and with many thanks for the charge I had taken of her little girl in a moment of danger and of horror. I felt gratified, but I do not know that I altogether forgave her for coming to carry off my little companion, and I was also struggling with all my might not to show myself so unmanly as to shed tears; so that I replied somewhat ungracefully I am afraid. I went away for the lantern, however and by the direction of good Father Bonneville, lighted Madame de Salins and Mariette through the garden, and down the stair-case in the tower. I then proceeded to open the door for them, almost hoping that the key might be rusted in the lock so as to prevent their going. It turned easily enough, however, and when I opened the door I was startled at seeing the figure of a man standing at the top of the little path which led down to the foot of the hill. Madame de Salins, however, accosted him at once by his name, and he told her that Peter and Jerome were waiting down below. The parting moment was now evidently come, and it seemed as bitter to poor little Mariette as myself. She threw her arms around me. She held me tight. She kissed me again and again, and her tears wetted my cheek. At length, however, she was drawn away from me, and her mother holding her hand led her down the hill while the man followed. I looked after them for a moment or two, till they were nearly lost in the darkness. Then locked the door, and turned sadly toward the house.
——
THE FLIGHT.
Oh, how dull and tedious was the passing of the next month to me. There was a vacancy in all my thoughts which I cannot describe, a want of object and of interest, which nothing seemed to supply. But the dullness of the calm was soon to be succeeded by the agitation of the storm. The populace, particularly of the suburb, was becoming more fierce and unruly every hour. If at any previous period there had been such a thing as tyranny in France—of which I knew, and had felt nothing—it must have been the tyranny of one, far removed from the humble or even the middle stations of life, and much less terrible than the tyranny of many, which now came to the door of every house in the land. There was a butcher living in the lower part of the town, the terror of his neighbors, and an object of abhorrence to all good men. Fierce, licentious, and unprincipled, his courage—the only good quality he possessed—was the courage of a tiger. On more than one occasion in former years good Father Bonneville had had to reprove him, and it would seem he had not forgotten it.