Chapter 1:
WHO HE WAS
AT THE DARKEST HOUR of a dark night, towards the close of the year 1569, two young men were walking up and down the market-place of Nismes. When the moon, struggling through dense masses of cloud, cast a fitful and occasional gleam on their figures and faces, an observer might have noticed that they contrasted strangely with each other. The dress and bearing of the elder betokened him a gentleman; his features were noble and thoughtful, but careworn, a life of constant peril and suffering had left little to tell of youth on his furrowed brow and wasted cheek. His arm was linked within that of his younger and less dignified companion, whose coarse woolen doublet sufficiently marked his station.
“You are right, monsieur le Pasteur," said the peasant youth in tones hoarse with suppressed anguish. "You must leave us. It is written: 'When they persecute you in one city, flee unto another.'
“Yet it is hard to leave the flock which He has given me, the 'beautiful flock,' in the very mouth of the lion.”
Perhaps Emile de Rochet spoke rather to his own heart than to his companion, yet the artisan understood and answered him.
“Can you save them, monsieur, by remaining? Could you save my— my only brother, who perished this day upon yonder spot?" And he pointed to a trampled, blackened spot in the market-place, which the moonbeams at that moment illumined with a cold and ghastly light.
'They who have fallen asleep in Christ' have not 'perished,' “returned the pastor.
“I know it, monsieur," said the youth, "I know it; how else could I bear to live?" His voice trembled, and his strong frame shook with emotion. After a pause, he resumed more calmly: "It was the Lord's mercy, monsieur le Pasteur, that you were not taken when he was. But the good Master knew we could not spare you yet.”
“Ill could we spare Jules Maderon," said De Rochet, sadly. "The young, gifted, zealous disciple— he to whose dauntless spirit and strong hand I looked to raise the standard if I fell, or rather when I fell. I have not foregone my trust in the faithfulness of Him who reigns above, but surely His 'way is in the sea, his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known.’”
“True, monsieur, true. Only think of it; I was absent at Genlis, working at my trade and fearing no evil, when he went to that assembly and prayed with the poor people. The governor hears of it (alas! that a man whose hairs are white, and who has but a few years more to live, should be so pitiless! —God forgive him!) he sends his spies Jules is taken; and when I come back he lies fettered in that tower; waiting for his doom. I see him no more until— until this day. I stood close beside him to the last; I told the halberdiers (for I was desperate), that I feared neither the swords they carried nor the fagots they kindled. We clasped each other's hands— I had meant to strengthen him, but I could not say one word. He said to me, 'Good night, brother; we shall meet in the morning of the resurrection.' And so we shall, but the night is a long one, monsieur.
“The day that follows will be glorious, Jacques, and its 'sun shall no more go down.’”
“One thing is strange to me, very strange," resumed the artisan. "Why he was taken— he who could do so much for the cause— gifted as you know he was. He had the good Book all by heart. Never a priest or monk but he could reason down and leave without a word. O monsieur, when he spoke of the blessed Savior, and what He has done for us, and how good He is, and how loving— it made our hearts burn within us. While I, though his own brother, am a rough, ignorant lad, who never yet could say three words to purpose. I can saw and plane with the best, I know my trade, but, God help me, I know nothing more.”
“Yes, my friend, thou dolt know one thing more: 'Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'”
“Jesus Christ!" The softened reverent tones in which the youth repeated the Name which is above every name were enough to show how he loved it, and how that love had changed and raised his whole nature. There must have been tears in his eyes, though they were not allowed to fall.
“Monsieur," he said, "I was wild and thoughtless, I cared not for these things. Plenty of food, a dance in the evening with the girls, a game at tennis with the apprenice lads— this was all I wanted. Then He came home from his travels, so strangely changed. He talked to me about the Mass, and the Virgin, and the saints; but I could not tell you half he said. At last he would have me go with him to the field-preaching; and because we were but two, and we so loved each other, I would not say him nay.
“There I heard you preach, monsieur. I forget your words, for it was not your voice I heard, but the voice of One who spake through you, and who said a word to me I never shall forget. That Word was, 'Seek My face.' I sought Him; I prayed (mine were poor prayers surely, but the good Lord understands us all). I went again to the field-preaching, and again I heard His voice. This time the words were, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee; go in peace.' Monsieur, do you marvel that my heart is nigh to breaking this hour, because I was not the one to be burned instead of my young brother? Surely the best use the Master could have made of me was to let me die for Him. I can never persuade any one to love Him; but I could have stood firm at the stake, thinking of those blessed words of His; and then Jules might have lived to do such great things for His Name's sake.”
“He knows best," returned the pastor. "And thou canst not doubt, Jacques, that He who hath spoken those two words to thee, speaks another also, 'Son, go work today in My vineyard.'”
"I work, monsieur? How?”
“With all that you have, which is His, since thou thyself art His.”
“Ah, monsieur, I have nothing save my hammer and my plane, my saw with its file, and the power to use them.”
“Then use them in His service.”
“How so, monsieur?”
“Go and ask Him. This much at least I tell thee, Jacques Maderon, He never yet refused any offering brought by a grateful heart— from the gold, frankincense, and myrrh, spread before Him by the kings of the East to the palm-branches gathered by the feeble hands of the children of Jerusalem.”
“I partly understand you, monsieur," said Maderon slowly and thoughtfully. "You mean that I must work well and honestly, and work hard too, that I may have wherewith to help our poor brethren, who are oppressed and plundered by the Governor. One thing I know," he added, "neither Jeannette nor her aged father shall want for bread whilst Jacques Maderon can saw a board in two.”
“Jeannette?”
“Ah, monsieur, you did not know then. She and my Jules loved each other from childhood.”
De Rochet seemed to shiver with pain, as one might do if a wound were heedlessly touched.
“Are not all these things with Thee, my God?" he, said, half aloud. "Dost Thou not mark every cry and tear, and every silent agony?— And the poor girl?" he asked.
Maderon sighed, but answered, "She has her father and her brother." He added after a pause, "The old man is nearly past labor, and Chariot still an apprentice.”
Perhaps this was not said without a slight gleam of satisfaction. The only earthly thought, which just then could give Jacques Maderon any feeling akin to pleasure, was his purpose of toiling night and day for those bound to him by the double tie of love to his martyred brother, and faithful service to his Lord and theirs.
“Jacques," said De Rochet, "the hour is late; thou shouldst return to thine home.”
“I have no home now, monsieur," replied Maderon. "The spot most like home to me in the whole world is this, where I last saw his face. But you, monsieur, have you arranged all things for your escape on the morrow?”
“I have, my friend; or rather, our brethren have arranged for me, and I trust to avoid suspicion. Now, at this midnight hour, a little band await me in the Rue des Carmes, to meet for the last time at our Father's footstool. Wilt thou thither with me?”
“No, monsieur le pasteur, no! Tonight I could not bear the faces of our friends and their questions. With your leave, however, I will walk with you to the gate.”
They walked on in silence till they reached the door of a house in the street named by De Rochet.
“Now, farewell, my brother!" said the pastor, extending his hand. "Remember the words our Lord bath said to thee; keep them in thy heart, and live them in thy life, until He says that other word, perchance the best of all, 'Friend, go up higher.’”
“Farewell! God bless and preserve you, Monsieur de Rochet. You have indeed been His messenger to me.”
He turned away. The pastor looked after him for a moment, then knocked at the gate— a low peculiar knock. Someone, who was on the watch, admitted him noiselessly and without delay, then closed and bolted the door, leaving Jacques Maderon in the deserted street alone.
Chapter 2:
WHO WERE HIS FRIENDS
THE YEAR in which Jacques Maderon wept his only brother, and Emile de Rochet fled to Genlis to escape the cruelty of the governor of Nismes, was a very dark one in the history of the Huguenots. They had been forced to take up arms in defense, not so much of their liberties as of their very lives; but the God of battles had not, in His mysterious providence, seen fit to give the victory to those who were maintaining His own cause. In the beginning of October the Huguenot army sustained the disastrous defeat of Moncontour, a defeat which nearly struck despair into the steadfast heart of the wise and good Coligny. Amongst the glimpses now and then afforded by history, not only of what men said and did, but of what they really were, few are more touching than that of the retreat from Moncontour. Two princes still in their boyhood the Prince of Navarre and the Prince de Conde— were at this time the nominal chiefs of the Huguenot army; but the responsibility devolved, in fact, upon the venerable Admiral. D'Aubigne, the historian of his brother Huguenots, in his Histoire Universelle, thus depicts at once the weakness and the strength, the sorrow and the faith, of this true soldier of the cross. "Surrounded by weakened towns, terrified garrisons, foreigners without baggage, himself without money, pursued by an enemy pitiless to all, without mercy for him, he was abandoned by every one save by a woman, Queen Jeanne, who had already reached Niort, to hold out her hand to the afflicted, and assist in retrieving their affairs. This old man, consumed by fever, as they carried him in his litter, lay revolving all these bitter things, and many others which were gnawing at his heart, their sting more grievous than his painful wound, when L'Estrange, an aged gentleman, and one of his principal counselors, traveling wounded in the same manner, ordered his litter, where the road widened, to be a little advanced in front of the other, and, putting forward his head, looked for some time fixedly at his chief. Then the tears filling his eyes, he turned away with these words, "Si est ce que Dieu est tres doux" (Yet God is a sweet consolation). And so they parted, perfectly understanding each other's thoughts, though quite unable to utter more. But this great captain has been heard to confess to his intimates, that this one little word from a friend sufficed to raise his broken spirits, and restored him to better thoughts of the present, and firm resolutions for the future.”
God "who comforteth those that are cast down," was indeed preparing in many ways "a little help" for His tried and suffering servants; and amongst the means by which it was his good pleasure to aid them in their distress, not the least was one resulting from a train of thought which about this time occupied the mind of Maderon, the carpenter of Nismes.
The lonely silent Huguenot artisan steadily pursued his daily toil, working with his hands, not so much to supply his own necessities as those of his friends who were imprisoned or reduced to poverty on account of their steadfast adherence to the truth. He was comforted concerning his brother, for to him, as well as to the great and wise Coligny, God was a sweet consolation. From that lodging in a narrow street many prayers went up which did not fail to reach the ears of the Highest, and such an answer of peace did they bring to the heart of him who prayed, that he soon began again to chant the psalms of Clement Marot while engaged in his work, although when he did so he almost always made choice of the songs of Zion in her days of distress and affliction. Nor was his work itself without a helpful and soothing influence. It was an interesting problem, were any one competent to solve it, to calculate how much sorrow, morbidness, and even despair is put to flight from time to time by hard and continuous toil, still more by such work as requires and repays the exercise of mind.
Jacques Maderon did not forget his self-imposed duty towards the family his martyred brother had loved. He ministered to their wants, read the Book with them in the evenings, when the doors were shut, and exercised a salutary influence over Charlot, a thoughtless though well-disposed and amiable youth.
On his way from their lodging to his own, Maderon always passed near the Porte des Cannes. There was something there which might have attracted the eye of a stranger, though few uneducated men, born and bred upon the spot, would have regarded it with particular interest. The town of Nimes was then and is now supplied with water by means of a Roman aqueduct, which conveys the waters of two springs— the Airon and the Ure— a distance of twenty-five miles, by the celebrated Pont du Gard, to a fountain within the town. Between the Porte des Carmes and the castle, the waters flow through a channel which is closed by a grating.
One evening Maderon looked thoughtfully at this grating as he passed. "I wish those bars were gone," he said to himself, "so could our brethren from Genlis enter unobserved, and take the town for the Princes.”
The next evening and the next, the same idea recurred to him, and each time with added force. "I wish I could file away those bars," he thought, and the thought went with him to his lonely lodgings, haunted him while he slept, and then mingled with his dreams.
Upon the following evening, Maderon again passed slowly near the Porte des Cannes, thinking this time of the sentinel who stood all night under the castle wall, just above the channel, as if for the express purpose of guarding that one entrance to the strongly fortified town. On this occasion his musings were brought to a close by Jeannette's young brother Charlot, who had been in search of him, and accosted him hastily and with emotion.
“Come home with me, Maderon," he said. "We are in bitter sorrow. Our father—”
“Speak lower, boy," interrupted Maderon. "The passers-by will hear thee. Well?”
“Our father has been seized by the governor's men and thrown into prison.”
“Alas, alas!" cried Maderon. "From the governor's prison there is no escape save by denying the faith, and that brave old Pierre Mallard will never do.”
“I marvel the townsfolk suffer these things," said the youth, "there are so many among them who think with us.”
“What of thy sister, Chariot?”
“She weeps— it is well enough for girls and women to weep— but men—”
“I tell thee, lad, be silent till we leave the street. Here we are!”
They had reached the door of the humble dwelling, and were about to climb the steep and narrow stair which led to the room occupied by the Mallards. The sound of a loud, energetic voice struck upon Maderon's ear before the door was opened. A few neighbors who shared the same religious opinions had come in to comfort the afflicted family. When Maderon and Chariot entered, a blacksmith, whose Huguenot leanings were well known; was, haranguing the group with the volubility and violent gesticulation so usual amongst his countrymen upon far less exciting occasions.
“We are sheep," he cried, 'and, like sheep we are letting ourselves be dragged one by one to the slaughter. Where are the lords, the knights, and the gentlefolk who talked so loudly of the Gospel in the good times, before the Peace was broken, and the country turned into a slaughterhouse? Ah, they are safe enough at Genlis, or elsewhere, little thinking how the yoke presses upon us poor souls. There was our pastor, Monsieur de Rochet—”
“Not a word against the pastor at thy peril, Jean Brusson," interrupted an old man. "He has the heart of a martyr.”
“Nor is Jean Brusson the man to deny it," replied the blacksmith. "But this I say, if the exiles of Genlis care for us, let them come back to us like men, and strike one blow for our liberties and lives, trusting us to strike the second. Had I nothing but my hammer, with a strong hand to grasp it, it would do good service against the old tyrant who is starving our brethren in his dungeons, and shedding their blood on his scaffolds. Jacques Maderon, let us hear thy mind on the matter.”
Maderon had been listening, thoughtfully. "My mind is this, friend Brusson," he answered. "The less said and the more thought and done, the better. Keep thy hammer ready, though, the time may come for thee to use it”
He paused, then added, with some hesitation, "It is written in that Book for which our dear brethren are suffering even unto death, `Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.' If we strike for vengeance, with wrath and bitter hatred in our hearts, the good Lord will not give us the victory. But it may be that if we ask Him He will have mercy on us, and show us some way to save alive a remnant of His little flock in this great wicked cruel city.”
Having said this, he crossed the room, and spoke to the weeping Jeannette and two or three women who were with her. The girl's tears ceased to flow, and she looked up with interest as he told her that he had found means before this to visit his Huguenot brethren confined in the town prison, and to supply them with food and other necessaries, and he would not fail to do as much for his faithful friend, Pierre Mallard.
“Can you take me to see him?" asked Jeannette.
“Perhaps so," returned Jacques, and he stooped down, and added very low, "It may be God will give him back to thee ere long. Good night, my girl." He then gave some directions to Charlot, passed out of the room and went quietly home.
Chapter 3:
THE USE OF a FILE
CHARIOT," said Maderon, as the youth entered his workshop by appointment on the evening of the day after Pierre Mallard's arrest, "wilt thou aid me to save thy father's life?”
“Try me, friend Jacques," was the eager reply.
“I would have thee count the cost," returned Maderon; "dost thou fear to peril thine own?”
“Not in such a cause," said Chariot.
“Canst thou bear fatigue, and cold, and long watching? Canst thou wait as well as work, Chariot?”
“If I know myself, I can.”
Maderon looked at him earnestly for some moments.
“One question more," he said at length. "Canst thou keep silence— such silence as the dead keep in their graves— until I bid thee speak?”
“Shall I swear it?”
“Promise rather— God hears every word.”
“I promise, as I stand in His presence.”
“Good, now go back to thy sister. Tell her I want thee for some work, and as we must labor late, thou shalt stay the night with me. Say I will pay thy time, and thou mayest bring food and wine to the father tomorrow. Take thy cloak and return as quickly as thou canst.”
Chariot did as he was directed. When he returned Maderon stood before him, equipped in his coarsest and strongest doublet. He looked pale, but there was an expression of quiet determination in his face; something that told of courage to do, to dare, and to endure. With just such a look he would have mounted the scaffold or clasped the stake, and he would have done so with just as little consciousness that he was performing any but the most ordinary Christian duty.
“With the good help of God," he said, "I am going to file the bars of the grating in the channel at the Porte des Carmes, that our brethren from Genlis may enter to take the town, and to deliver thy father and all the other Huguenots in this oppressed city.”
Chariot gazed at him, speechless with astonishment. At last he said, "Who put thee upon this business? Who counseled thee, bade thee do it?”
“God," said Maderon reverently.
“What dost thou mean?" asked Chariot, awed by the solemnity of his manner.
“That I believe and am sure He wills me to do this work, and that He will aid me to accomplish it.”
“But," said Chariot, "the sentinel who stands by the castle, wilt thou work under his very eyes?”
“I have considered all," replied Maderon. "The sentinel is changed every hour. He rings a bell when his time has expired, and before his place is taken by a comrade there is an interval in which a man might count three, four, or even five hundred. Those are the precious moments God gives me to do my work in. See" —he raised his doublet and showed Mallard a cord which he had wound many times round his waist, —"I will lie in the ditch, and thou must stand by the wall in a dark, safe place I have discovered, holding the end of this cord (it is long enough); when the bell rings and the soldier leaves his post, thou shalt pull it, and that will be my signal to work as if for life; when the soldier returns, another pull, and I lie safe and quiet until the next hour gives me my chance again. So on until the morning light.”
“Maderon, the work will take us a year.”
“It will not," returned Maderon quietly, nor even a month.”
“'Twill be freezing work too in that ditch these winter nights.”
“Better I should freeze than thy father should burn.”
“If the sound of thy file should betray thee?" suggested Chariot.
“The rushing of the water will drown it; and lest the light should discover what is done in the darkness (though it be no deed of darkness), I will hide the traces of my work every morning with mud and wax. Chariot, dost thou hesitate? Wilt thou make me repent that I have chosen to aid me in this deed, in preference to any man in Nismes, a lad who has his father to save from the burning pile, or the slow death in prison, which is worse?”
“No, Jacques, no! I will stand beside thee to the last, God helping me.”
“God help us both, and establish the work of our hands upon us." Maderon took a file from among his tools, saying as he did so, "The Lord hath need of thee. Monsieur de Rochet was right. Come, Chariot, every moment is precious.”
The two young men went out together, and that night they began their work.
Chapter 4:
a PRISON SCENE
IN ONE OF THE GLOOMIEST CELLS of the gloomy town prison of Nismes, Pierre Mallard lay on his straw pallet, heavily ironed. His frame was wasting under the influence of the prison fever, the pestilence that walked in the darkness of those abodes of misery, piercing with its subtle shafts many an unknown and unnoticed victim. In those evil days Christ had His martyrs in the dungeon as well as on the scaffold and at the stake. Nor were all so fortunate as Mallard. It was evident from a few simple comforts and even luxuries which the cell contained that friends had been permitted to visit him and to minister to his wants. No day, however, since his imprisonment had been so marked with white as this, the fourteenth since those gloomy gates had closed upon him. He heard the key grate heavily in the door, which was then swung open by the rough though not unfeeling prison official as he ushered in a young girl, closely veiled, and with a basket on her arm.
“Prisoner Mallard, thy daughter has come to see thee.”
In a moment father and child were locked in each other's arms, with emotions those alone can understand in whose hearts sorrow has deepened everything, even the capacity to enjoy.
Mallard was the first to speak. "So thou hast come to me, thou! How didst thou gain admission?”
“Jacques is acquainted with the second jailer; he managed all, he is good to us, my father.”
“There are many good to us, my child, and One above them all who hears the sighing of His prisoners.”
Jeannette could not help mentally concluding the passage,— "With the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die," and the words became a passionate prayer, a wild, bitter cry for help, almost ending in tears. So sadly changed was the dear face on which she looked, "appointed to die" seemed indeed to be written there.
She said as calmly as she could whilst she caressed the hand she held, "My dear father is ill.”
“Not very ill, my child. I have no pain, I am only weak and weary. It refreshes me to see thee; thy face is more to me than sunshine, and so it has ever been.”
“But not like the sunshine, Father," said Jeannette, "not at least of late—too often dim with tears. Ah, I was ungrateful to weep the past so bitterly, whilst thou wert left with me. If the good God will only give thee back to us, no more vain tears shall fall, it shall be all thankfulness, even in this poor heart of mine.”
“Child, our Father knows our frame, and, I doubt not, will sometimes be tenderer to us than we are to ourselves. It is not said sorrow not,' only not 'without hope.' But our time is short; tell me of thyself, of Charlot.”
“We have lacked nothing, Father," she answered in a trembling voice. "Yet do not think we are leaning altogether on our kind friends. Chariot works hard after hours with Jacques Maderon, with whom, indeed, he, stays the night, that he may not go to and fro at unseasonable hours.”
“Poor boy! he must not work too hard." "It is his pleasure, my father, to work for thee, and for me also. See, he bath sent thee this," and she took a flask of wine from her little basket.
“Would I could share it with some of my poor brethren who are not so well provided," said Mallard.
“I have more to tell thee of Chariot," Jeannette resumed. "God ofttimes gives great comfort where He sends great trouble. My father, Chariot is changed.”
Mallard's eye brightened; he half raised himself, and looked eagerly at his daughter.
“None would know the wild thoughtless lad, who gave thee so many anxious hours by-joining the foolish frolics of his brother apprentices. It would seem as if, in leaving us, thou hadst left thy spirit behind with him. He is tender, thoughtful, serious, and depressed, as I doubt not with anxious thoughts of thee, perhaps also of himself. Last night he said to me, 'Sister, pray for me; I have more need for prayer than thou canst know.'”
“Now God be praised!" said the old man, while tears of grateful joy filled his eyes, "I knew He would hear my prayer. Jeannette, if He should in His love and mercy call me home by this quiet path, by a death which is not like other deaths thou hast known of—Nay, do not shudder, do not weep. His death was glorious, my child, the greatest glory man can have on this poor earth, greater perhaps than the bright angels have, who behold the Father's face. Only I am so weak, too weak, I fear, to be a blessed martyr like him thou mournest; therefore, I will thank my Savior if He sends His messenger some day or night to this lonely room, and calls me out of the darkness into His presence, where there is light and joy.”
“Do not speak so, my father," said Jeannette through her tears. "There is hope of deliverance.”
“What hope, my poor child? I would not sadden thee with needless fears, but neither would I have thee stay thy heart upon false hopes. Without denying his faith, no Huguenot leaves this prison save for the marketplace.”
“There is hope," said Jeannette earnestly. "I can scarcely tell from whence the light comes, but I see it. Chariot hopes. Sometimes he drops dark hints of deliverance possible— near. He said yester eve, 'When my father comes home, I will tell him why I go no more to the tennis court.' I answered, `Alas, brother, when?' He said, donning his cloak and his beret, 'Thou shalt know a week hence.' And sometimes— But hark, the jailer returns. Can it be that the time has passed?”
It was true. The father and child were forced to part, neither knowing whether another meeting would be theirs on this side of the grave. Still they were both calm, at least in outward appearance, as they committed each other to the love and care of their heavenly Protector.
And yet, notwithstanding the hopefulness with which she spoke, the heart of Jeannette was very sorrowful when she saw the prison-gate closed, and went her way homeward. Her father's words of mournful resignation echoed in her ears and lingered in her heart. She did not think, as the happy sometimes do, that death was a strange impossible thing, which should not and could not invade the charmed circle of her loved ones. He who „ had been dearest to her upon earth "was not," and death, when it has once drawn near to deep natures, stands close at hand for evermore. The same stroke that bids them mourn for one bids them tremble for all the rest.
A fortnight had passed away, and still Maderon toiled on with untiring perseverance. Every morning found him half frozen with cold and worn out with fatigue, but rejoicing in the progress made during the few precious moments in which he was permitted to work. He was cheerful and hopeful, scarcely once, from the commencement of his arduous undertaking until its conclusion, doubting its final accomplishment. Perhaps the secret of his success lay in the use made of the long idle hours as much as in the brief intervals during which he employed his file.
In those hours his work was prayer, and no work is half so rich in results. He sometimes feared lest the long watching might prove too severe a trial for his youthful companion, and injure a frame which had not yet attained the full strength of manhood. Under this apprehension he proposed to Chariot that they should confide their secret to another friend, who might take his turn at the place of watching.
“'Twere a strange way to serve thy father,” he said, "were I to deprive him of an only son.”
“Never fear for me, Jacques," replied the youth. "I am able for my work, which, besides, is nothing to thine," he added, "and I really love my place beneath the wall. I have thought more there than elsewhere in all my life.”
“Courage then," replied Maderon, "courage and patience. The work is almost forward enough to give our friends a word of warning.”
And after fifteen nights of labor, mysterious rumors of deliverance at hand were spread abroad amongst the Huguenots of Nismes; while Jacques Maderon departed early in the morning for Genlis, taking with him his tools, that the uninitiated might suppose his object was merely to seek for work.
Chapter 5:
CONCLUSION
IN A LITTLE "TEMPLE" at Genlis, Emile de Rochet was expounding the Scriptures to a congregation chiefly composed of refugees from Nismes, when Maderon entered silently, and took his place upon a bench amongst the listeners. The pastor's quick eye marked and recognized him immediately, and the thought passed through his mind that he too had been forced by persecution to flee from his native city. As soon, therefore, as his discourse was concluded, and before his hearers were dispersed, he summoned the carpenter to his side, feeling sure that all the refugees would listen with interest to the tidings brought by their humble fellow-townsman.
Every eye fixed on Maderon as he walked quickly through the room and took his place beside De Rochet. Having, grasped his extended hand and wrung it warmly, he looked around on the little assembly in which were many faces that he knew.
“My brethren," he said, and he spoke very calmly, without hesitation or embarrassment, "come with me to Nismes. God has given the city into our hands.”
“Art thou mad, or dreaming, Jacques Maderon?" cried one voice and another from amongst the listeners.
“I am neither," replied Maderon. "Listen to me. I have filed the bars of the grating which closes the channel at the Porte des Carmes, and any man of you who chooses may enter Nismes this night.”
“Impossible! He is a spy, traitor! It is some snare!" Such exclamations as these, from different parts of the room, evinced the difficulty which the refugees not unnaturally felt in accepting a statement, so improbable in itself, from the lips of a humble artisan.
It had not occurred to Maderon that they would doubt his word, or hesitate to engage in the enterprise to which he summoned them. A look of grief and disappointment passed across his face, and he said simply, but with intense earnestness, "My brethren, your friends are dying every day in the governor's dungeons. They call upon you to deliver them, and upon your heads their blood will rest if you refuse to obey the call.”
He paused, then added, with an appealing glance at De Rochet, "Monsieur le pasteur, tell them that I speak the truth.”
Then De Rochet spoke out, his clear deep voice stilling every murmur in the assembly. "I would stake my life, and every other life I prize, upon the truth of Maderon's words. To prove what I say, I go back with him this hour to Nismes. Who volunteers to accompany us?”
“God bless you, monsieur!" cried Maderon.
“Well, monsieur le Pasteur," said a young Huguenot gentleman in the assembly, "if you, will risk your neck upon this errand, it shall never be said that we of the sword and hauberk proved less daring than a man of peace.”
And a stout tradesman added, "If your jeweled broadsword lead the way, chevalier, I have a good cutlass in a strong hand to follow you.”
Stimulated by the example and influence of the pastor and the chevalier, one and another and another volunteered, until a little band was formed, which De Rochet and Maderon judged sufficient for the enterprise.
A very brief preparation sufficed them, and after a short but most fervent prayer for their success, offered by the pastor, they began their march, while the shades of evening darkened over Genlis. The weather was settled, and seemed to afford them the prospect of a night cairn and fine, yet sufficiently dark to favor their enterprise.
“Now, carpenter," said the chevalier to Maderon, "should we find that thou halt led us into a snare, 'twill fare ill with thee.”
“First take Nismes, monsieur le chevalier," replied Maderon, "then do what you wilt with me.”
“Look! See! What was that?" cried the Huguenots, standing still and gazing at each other with pale, agitated faces.
A vivid flash of lightning, followed by a heavy peal of thunder, was the cause of their alarm. This sudden frown of nature, coming as it did where all had seemed but a few moments before so calm and untroubled, brought dismay into hearts not emancipated from the childish superstitions of the age. Nor were all the little band of such resolute temper as De Rochet and Maderon.
Startled and terrified, they crowded together like a flock of sheep, and seemed disposed to turn their faces again in the direction of Genlis. But De Rochet raised his voice once more to animate them.
“Courage, my brethren!" he cried; "the lightning shows that God Himself will fight for us." And throwing himself into the midst of the wavering group, he besought them earnestly, and with impassioned gestures, to persevere in the good work they had undertaken, and not to doubt the presence and assistance of Him whose cause they were maintaining.
Meanwhile the Catholics of Nismes had retired to rest, little anticipating any disturbance of their quiet slumbers. Not so the persecuted Huguenots. Under the direction of Maderon, Charlot Mallard had hinted to many of them that they should hold themselves in readiness. Between the night and the morning a cry was raised, which the silent, anxious watchers recognized as the expected signal. They seized whatever weapons came first to hand, and rushed eagerly from their houses to the scene of action. Only about twenty of the exiles from Genlis entered by the way so strangely opened by Maderon; and by this little band the Huguenots of Nismes were not so much delivered from their oppressors as given courage to effect their own deliverance. The Catholics, astonished and terrified, had few means of resistance at hand; the Huguenots were numerous, and fighting for faith, and freedom, and even for life; and after a short, sharp, confused struggle in the streets, the town was theirs.
Jean Brusson did good service with his hammer in the melee, and better still in the prison, whither the victorious Huguenots rushed, eager to taste the sweetest fruit of victory, the joy of delivering their captive brethren. Brusson, performed, with noisy glee, the agreeable task of freeing them from their fetters; while Maderon, with deeper and less demonstrative joy, found his way to the prison of Mallard, accompanied by Char-lot.
It took some time to make the old man believe that the city was in the hands of his brethren, and that he was safe and free. When at last he did so, tears of grateful joy came more readily to his eyes than words to his lips. So deeply was he moved, that Maderon thought it wisest to defer one of the best parts of his communication, the tidings that his beloved Chariot had been greatly instrumental in bringing about this happy result. He soon found that Mallard longed for his home, for the close room in a narrow street was as truly home to him as if it had been a chalet amidst the snow-clad Alps. He contrived, therefore, a crude litter with the aid of the willing, happy Chariot, and in a short time the old man was lying on his own bed, tended lovingly by Jeannette.
The young girl busied herself in little tender cares for his comfort, scarcely daring to indulge in a moment's retrospective thought, lest she should be rendered incapable of action. She was very thankful; from that day and hour a subdued and quiet trustfulness, that was almost happiness, began to take the place of mournful dreams of the past, and gloomy anticipations of the future. Never again did that blackness of darkness return upon her soul, which, in those first days after the martyrdom of Jules Maderon, had seemed to veil both earth and heaven from her sight. God had set His bow in the cloud that overshadowed her; He had shown her a token not to be mistaken, of His watchful care and tender love; and that love, which includes within itself the promise and the essence of all good, she would never afterward permit herself to doubt.
“What am I, an empty talker, beside this great doer?" said Martin Luther, when he heard of the victorious faith and heroic fortitude of an obscure martyr. A similar thought filled the mind of De Rochet, as he entered Maderon's workshop towards the close of the following day. Perhaps, unconsciously to himself, he expected some change in the appearance, speech, and conduct of the man, corresponding to the strange revolution which had transformed the humble mechanic into a hero. If so, he was disappointed. The carpenter was seated at his bench, engaged upon a rather elaborate piece of work, and as truly "a whole man" to that "one thing," as if he had no thought or aspiration beyond.
De Rochet laid his hand on his shoulder, "What, my friend, at work today?" he said.
Maderon rose quickly, and saluted the pastor as usual, with respect and cordiality.
“My work would not wait, monsieur," he said. "I have promised it tomorrow; and moreover, a little extra pains may not be amiss. I would have these Catholic gentlemen say, 'Huguenot tradesmen are always the best.”
“Faithful in the least, faithful also in much," thought De Rochet, and he could not help adding aloud, "Show me the man who performs every little daily task as unto the Lord, and I will show you one who will not fail when called to do or to suffer greatly for His sake. Maderon, thou hast fulfilled nobly the charge I gave thee that night in the market-place.”
Maderon replied with a frank simplicity in which there was no mixture of pride or self-consciousness. "And I have found, monsieur, that the Master needed me, Jacques Maderon the carpenter, just as I was; and since I had only my hands to serve Him with, He had a work for my hands to do. But, monsieur, what of the castle? the Catholics hold that still.”
“They cannot continue to hold it more than a few days. A messenger has been dispatched this morning to inform the Princes and the Admiral that the town is theirs. 'Twill be happy tidings to them, and to all who have the good cause at heart.”
“True, monsieur; but the Lord's great mercy has done most of all for us, the poor Huguenots of Nismes, who may now lie down to sleep at night and go to our work by day in peace and safety, none making us afraid." He added with a thoughtful, half-doubting glance at De Rochet, "Is it possible—think you—that—that—my brother Jules may know of these things?”
“I dare not say so, Jacques; there are passages in Scripture which would seem to intimate the contrary. But what matters it? We are quite sure that he knows the end, that he rests in the full certainty that truth and right will triumph at last. Why then should we care that he should know every little step of the way?”
“You are right, monsieur, only I would have liked—" his lip trembled, and he turned his face away for a moment. Then he resumed calmly, "I see that the same Lord who wanted him in His bright home above, wanted me in this poor workshop here. Doubtless, when my work is done, He will call me also to Himself. Meanwhile I will work on hopefully and happily, knowing that each day's toil is done unto Him, as truly as it was for His sake I filed the grating at the Port des Carmes.”