“Some souls there are who, when they smite it, bring
Forth from the hardest rock its hidden spring.”
—LYTTON.
M. ANASTASE BERBIER had come home from the prolonged and painful scene of the trial, exhausted with fatigue, and ill with grief and horror. The horror was partly removed by the tidings of Tardif; but the violent pain in the head which had attacked him in the hall increased so alarmingly, that Elene, who was left alone with him, was almost wholly absorbed in trying to relieve him.
The sounds from the outside world, the trampling of innumerable feet, the noise of the drums, even the thrill of their sudden cessation, came to her but faintly as she changed the wet cloths on his burning brow, or held to his nostrils the restorative essence he had told her where to find. Philippe, to do him justice, would have done these things, and very efficiently too, for he was an excellent valet; but he had taken some petulant word of his master’s for leave of absence, and gone off in high glee to witness—not the death scene, which seemed to him a poor and tame affair, but the subsequent breaking upon the wheel of the victim’s lifeless body. His absence was to Elene a blessing in disguise. To her woman’s nature the prophecy of the woman poet was fulfilled—
“A child’s kiss set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man helped by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man nursed by thee shall make thee whole.”
Only once, save for a brief request or briefer “Thank you,” did Berbier speak to her. When the drums ceased, he said just one word, “Pray.”
Elene hesitated. “We Huguenots,” she said, “do not pray for those who are gone Home. We thank God for them.”
“Not for him—for me. There is something beyond this world—and better. He has found it. I would have my soul where his is.”
So Elene prayed—very simply—for Berbier, for herself, for Gaspard, for Tardif, and for their persecuted people. Then, with faltering voice, she gave thanks for him whose prayers were all answered, and his desires all fulfilled.
The next day was almost a blank. It was like the day after death enters a home, when life seems to stand still, in silent reverence, before the dread visitor; only that here there was nothing left—nothing to claim the tender farewells of the living, or the last offices in which earthly love and reverence find their sad consolation.
Late in the evening Tardif came, drew Gaspard apart, and said to him, “Come out with me.”
After some hesitation, Gaspard consented, and Tardif brought him to the wine-shop where they had lodged on their former visit to Montpellier. Locking the door upon them both, he said, “No one can disturb us here. There’s not a safe corner in M. Fontanes’ house, nor any house that holds Philippe Darcheau. Well, boy, what are you going to do now?”
“I have not thought. It is too soon,” said Gaspard.
“It is just the right time,” returned Tardif. “What has been done works for your salvation. For, see, the town is full of Huguenots. They have come from Nimes, from the Cevennes, from the Vivarais, from farther places even. They must be let go home again. Even Baville can’t arrest them all. And I think he would not, if he could.”
“Would not?”
“Ay, would not. They say his Excellency is in a rather mild mood just now, wonderful for him. I know not. But, mixing with all sorts of folk here, I do know that Catholic and Protestant are better minded toward each other now than I ever thought to see them. There’s a spirit abroad as if that—that scaffold had brought a message of peace. Many an honest Catholic would like well enough to do his folk a kindness just now. And few, I think, would care to earn the informer’s pay.”
“Perhaps,” said Gaspard, “some may be led to follow his Faith.”
“I don’t know about that. The thing now is to get you and mademoiselle where you may follow it in peace. And, as I have said, the time is more favorable than it is like to be again. What think you of trying the sea? Since the Peace, there are Dutch ships about, and English.”
“But then,” Gaspard said slowly, “we have M. Berbier to think of. He has been like a father to Elene and to me. How can we leave him, ill and sorrowful as he is now?”
“If I know M. Berbier, he is not the man to keep you to your own undoing—as it would be, unless indeed you change your religion.”
“Would you ask us to do that—now?”
There was a light in Tardif’s eyes as he answered, “No. But I am making a plan to get you out of France, which may prove the easiest, the quickest, and the least toilsome. It will cost money, though.” Gaspard looked grave. “I know M. Berbier will help us,” he said after a pause. “But he is not rich—not very. And already he has spent much on us, and I suppose on the unsuccessful effort to find aerie’s little brother. I don’t want to take more from him.”
“Don’t know if it matters much. That scamp Philippe is like enough, in the end, to get hold of all he has. But, for all that, you need not come upon him. Wait a minute.”
Tardif undid a button or two, plunged a hand into his bosom, and, after some fumbling, took out a small heavy parcel, wrapped in a bit of scarlet cloth and tied up with a boot lace. Having opened it carefully, he poured out on the table, before the astonished eyes of Gaspard, a shining heap of louis d’ors. “Count them,” he said.
Far too much amazed to do it, Gaspard stood motionless, staring at the gold. There was fear in his face, as well as astonishment. How could Tardif have got all that gold, save by plying his old trade? Which indeed he could easily have done, in a great city like Toulouse, where he was left almost entirely to his own devices; and yet more easily here in Montpellier, with the town full of strangers, as it was then. “Tardif,” he said at last, “how did you get that gold?”
“I know what you are thinking of,” Tardif answered, with a laugh. “But no. I have done with stealing now. Unless, indeed, I could do the trick with my left hand, which is not likely. For my right” (he stretched it out) “does no more such work forever. That vow I made when his hand clasped mine on the boat.”
Gaspard caught the outstretched hand in his. “Dear Tardif, I would he knew it.” After a pause, he went on, “I knew thou hadst money in Mende, when we met.”
“Only a little. Tilat is gone long ago, and after it what M. Berbier gave me in Toulouse. Yet there, as you see, are forty-eight good louis—no, forty-three, for I have spent five—very much at your service, M. Gaspard. They are fairly won too.”
“And thou hast never told me.”
“No; and I take shame for it. Wait a moment—I am going to tell the truth now, and clear my soul. Dost remember that when I did one of the few good deeds of my life, and rid the world of that villain De Rignac, you found me standing there, looking down on his dead body?”
“I do.”
“I sent you back again to the young lady, you nothing loth—I have got my eyes, M. Gaspard. Then I clambered down, and examined my prize of war. Those were what I found; though there ought to have been fifty. Is there not a story about some saint who found honey in the carcass of a lion? though this was more like the carcass of a hound. Well, I pouched the gold, which was fair and right. What was not right was the keeping it from thee, my comrade. But I thought, M. Berbier is well off. He has neither son nor daughter—no one but that ill-conditioned Philippe, who is safe enough to feather his own nest. He loves M. Gaspard; he will give all they need to him and to the young lady, to take them out of the country. This is my prize of war. I shall go with them to foreign parts, bring it with me, and make much more of it by carrying on the smuggling trade in league with my old friends here. So I shall grow rich—rich—” He stopped, and his eyes turned, with a hungry gleam in them, towards the shining heap on the table.
“I don’t see that thou didst any wrong,” said Gaspard. “The gold was thine.” (It did not occur to either of them that, De Rignac’s possessions having been confiscated, the gold was really the king’s.)
Tardif went on, “Yes, it is mine. But—when I stood on the boat with him, I thought, ‘Money makes all things easy. I will use that gold to get him safe over the frontier.’ You know the rest. He would not gohe who said he was afraid. I took that hard, Gaspard. A man who lives my kind of life does not look before him more than he can help. Still, there was a voice that used to ring in my ears—often, too, in the midst of feasting and drinking— ‘Think of thy latter end, my lad. ‘Tis most like to be with broken bones on a bed of wood!’ and I could see the iron bar come down—and down—and down—and hear the cries of agony. Faith, I was afraid then, I promise you. So I took it hard, for him. I felt angry and bitter of soul because he would not go. You saw me pitch the useless file into the water. And I came near to flinging the gold after it, in my rage. But I thought, ‘No, I may use it for him yet, and that will be some comfort.’ So, Gaspard, it is for thee—thee whom he loved. Take it, as from him.”
“No,” said Gaspard, much moved. “There may be a better way than that. What would he have wished?”
“Wished it used for his people, such as thee, no doubt. ‘Twas for them he lived—and died. Put it up, and I will go back with thee to the Rue des Augustins. I want to know how M. Berbier is tonight. May he be well enough to speed you on your way!”
“Nay, nay, Tardif. Keep the gold thyself, at least until we have taken counsel with M. Berbier.” And then, in the gathering twilight, they set out for the goldsmith’s house.
“Let us go through the shop,” said Gaspard. “M. Berbier gave me a message for M. Fontanes, but he was out when I went with thee.”
They found the jeweler and his assistant both in the shop; but not wishing to disturb them, as they were talking earnestly together, they stood apart, waiting their leisure. As they waited, a customer came in. He passed close to Gaspard, who saw in the waning light a man of middle stature but of powerful frame, and with very strong, muscular hands. Tardif apparently saw something more, for he caught Gaspard’s arm in a grasp that hurt him, while he put a warning finger on his lip. Strangest of all, Fontanes’ staid and sober assistant took to his heels and fled, promptly followed by Fontanes himself.
The goldsmith however returned almost instantly, but alone, and with a ruffled countenance. Taking his place behind the counter, he asked the customer, “What is your pleasure, monsieur?” but he spoke in a voice of constraint, and without looking at him.
“I want a silver cup, monsieur—a good one,” said the man, who seemed civil and quiet enough.
Fontanes, still silent, took down several, and placed them on the counter. To enable his customer to examine them properly, he lit a lamp, which was always left ready there. Then Gaspard saw a hard, strong face, that had in it a strange look of aloofness, as of a man set solitary and apart from his fellows, either by misfortune or by crime.
He was just saying the cup was not good enough, and asking for handsomer and more costly ones. Fontanes turned to his shelves, from which he took some others, and laid them before him, briefly naming their price.
After careful examination and rejection of three or four, the customer took up a handsome three-handled goblet of the kind named after Henri Quatre. “I like the shape of this one, and the design upon it,” he said, “save at this side, where the Royal Arms, methinks, are out of proportion to the rest.” He pointed this out to Fontanes, who took the cup from him, but in doing so avoided touching his hand.
“I have another,” he said briefly. Throughout the interview he used as few words as possible.
The other one proved satisfactory. So did the price, heavy though it was and very satisfactory indeed, in the eyes of most tradesmen, would have looked the well-filled purse the customer took out to pay for it. But Fontanes drew back, and said, before he touched the gold, in a tone almost of loathing, “Excuse me, monsieur, but I am obliged to ask whence have you that money?”
“Not whence you think. I have had it by me for a year.”
“Were it otherwise I would not have touched it,” said the goldsmith, in a voice full of meaning.
Then the public executioner, for he it was, leant over the counter, and in a low, confidential tone, spoke out what was in his heart. “It seems, monsieur, you are such a one as a man may open his lips to,” he said. “Well, I have executed more than two hundred condemned persons, but not one of them has made me tremble like M. Brousson. When he was led into the torture chamber, the commissary and the judges were more pale and more trembling than he. He only raised his eyes to heaven, and prayed. If I had dared, I would have run away rather than put such a man to death. And if I dared to speak now, I could tell you many more things about him. Certainly he died like a saint.”
Then, as if he could not trust himself to say another word, he laid down his money in full tale, took up the silver cup, and left the place.
The horrible office he filled—in those days horrible beyond anything we conceive of now—was also often in those days hereditary; therefore it need not always have argued in its possessor the original callousness of heart that would have chosen it willingly. But what must have been the effect produced by its continual exercise? And yet this man, so sadly severed from his kind, and with so much to brutalize and degrade him, was still able to recognize, and to revere, the likeness of Christ, when he saw it in one of His servants. May we not hope that he too, as well as the Abbe Creuzet, saw his victim again in the kingdom of the Father?
The day just ended was the 5th of November 1698. Whilst these things were being done in France, men were keeping in England the tenth anniversary of the landing of William of Orange on her shores. As they remembered with thankfulness, “How the glassed waters lulled to aid the landing at Torbay,” they perhaps understood a little though only a little—of that from which God had saved them then by His mighty Hand and by His outstretched Arm. Never since—thank God!—have such scenes as those which we have feebly tried to portray in their horror and their glory been possible in England. And never again
“Till the sea wash her level with the shore”
—shall they be possible there, if God keep England true to herself and to Him.