THE NEW COMPANION.

One of the strangest features of a strange time was the manner in which families were broken up and neighbours were at feud. The same individuals shifted sides and were one day boozing together at table and the next meeting in deadly conflict. Discord was in families. In the house of Limeuil the father was French, the son English; and the son was English merely because he desired to turn his father out of the ancestral heritage and lord it in his room. Limeuil was stormed by the son, then retaken by the father; now sacked by English troops, and then sacked again by French troops, who cared nothing for the national causes of France or England. Prevost de la Force and Perducat d'Albret had castles facing each other on opposite sides of the Dordogne. Each desired to draw some money out of the commercial town of Bergerac on the plea that he was empowered to protect it from the other. Accordingly, one called himself French, the other English; and Perducat, when it suited his convenience, after having been English, became French. Domestic broils determined the policy of the turbulent seigneurs. If they coveted a bit of land, or a village, or a castle that belonged to a brother or a cousin of one persuasion, they went over to the opposed to supply them with an excuse for falling on their kinsmen. The Seigneur de Pons, because his marriage settlement with his wife did not allow him sufficient liberty to handle her means, turned French, and his wife threw open her gates to the Duke of Lancaster. Whereupon the seigneur fought the English, to whom he had formerly been devoted, retook his town, and chastised his wife. The man who was French to-day was English to-morrow, and French again the day after. Some were very weathercocks, turning with every wind, always with an eye to their own advantage.

Consequently, families were much mixed up with both parties. Unless a seigneur was out on a raid, he would associate on terms of friendliness with the very men whom he would hang on the next occasion. Kinsfolk were in every camp. The seigneurs had allies everywhere; but their kinsfolk were not always their allies—were often their deadliest enemies.

The mother of NoÉmi was akin to the family of Tarde. Indeed, her aunt was the mother of Jean and Jacques, who were, accordingly, her first cousins. The Tarde family were French; no one in Gageac was English. By interest, by tradition, the place was true to the Lilies.

A little way up the river, on the further side, was Domme, which was held by the English. NoÉmi passed from the English to the French town, and nothing was thought of it that she was as much at home with her cousins in La Roque Gageac as among her mother's attendants at Domme. Even the young Tardes might have gone to the market in the English town and have returned unmolested.

The bullies of Guillem in like manner swaggered where they listed, penetrated to Gageac, when there was a dance or a drinking bout; and, so long as they came unarmed, were allowed admittance.

No one could say whether there was peace or war. There was a little of one and a little of the other. Whenever a roysterer was weary of doing nothing, he gathered his men together and made a raid; whenever a captain wanted to pay his men, he plundered a village. Otherwise, all went on tolerably quietly. There was no marching across the country of great bodies of armed men, no protracted sieges, no battles in which whole hosts were engaged. But there was incessant fear, there were small violences, there was no certainty of safety. There was no central power to control the wrong-doers, no justice to mete out to them the reward of their deeds. When the lion and the wolf and the bear are hungry, then they raven for food; when glutted, they lie down and sleep. The barons and free captains and little seigneurs were the lions, wolves, and bears that infested Guyenne and PÉrigord. They were now on the alert and rending, then ensued a period of quietude.

Little passed between Jean del' Peyra and NoÉmi on the way. She was mounted on a fresh horse, and attended by two serving-men of the Tardes, as Jacques and Jean could not accompany her, having duties connected with the little town to discharge that day which required their presence. Jean del' Peyra was on his fagged steed, and could not keep up with the rest. Jean was not sanguine that the girl would prevail with her father, but he was grateful that she should make the attempt.

On reaching the point at the junction of the Beune with the VÉzÈre where the roads or tracks diverged, the one to the Church of Guillem, the other to the ford at Tayac, NoÉmi halted till Jean came up.

"I am going to see my father," she said. "I will come on to Ste. Soure when I have his answer—but I trust I shall bring to you your men."

"I thank you," answered the lad.

"Come, Jean," said the girl; "you will not think so ill of me as you have done. Give me your hand."

"I cannot think ill now of one who is doing her best to relieve my father and me in a case of pressing necessity, and of saving seven families from worse than death."

He put out his hand and pressed hers, but without cordiality. The hand he took was that of the daughter of the scourge of the country. He could not forget that; he touched the hand of the child of the man who had brought desolation into the home of the Rossignols.

NoÉmi left the attendants with her horse at the foot of the steep ascent that led to the Church of Guillem.

The ascent was up a slope of crumbled chalk and flints hardly held together by a little wiry grass, some straggling pinks, and bushes of box and juniper. The incline was as rapid as that of a Gothic house-roof. Of path there was none, for every man who scrambled up mounted his own way, and his footprints sent shale and dust over the footprints of his predecessor. The plateau through which the river has sawn its way is some four hundred feet at the highest point above the bed of the stream; in some places the cliffs are not only perpendicular, they overhang. They rise at once from the river that washes their bases and undermines them, or from the alluvial flats that have been formed by floods. This was not the case at L'Eglise Guillem. The stronghold of Guillem occupied a terrace in the abrupt scarp where it rose out of an immense slope of rubble, very much as at Ste. Soure, a little below it on the further bank. Here, as there, the rubble slope was a protection as great as a precipice. It was not as difficult to climb, but it could not be climbed without those in the stronghold being able to roll down rocks, discharge weapons at such as were laboriously endeavouring to mount. NoÉmi reached a spring that issued from the side of the cliff in a dribble, was received in a basin, and the overflow nourished a dense growth of maidenhair-fern and moss. It was thence that the occupants of the castle derived their drinking-water. Hard by was the gateway. Here she was challenged, gave her name, and was admitted.

L'Eglise Guillem was oddly constructed. The depth of the caves or concave shelters was not great, not above twelve to fifteen feet, consequently would not admit of chambers and halls in which many men could move about. To gain space, beams had been driven into the natural wall of rock at the back of the caves, and brought forward to project some eight feet over the edge of the cliff. On these projecting rafters walls of timber filled in with stone had been erected, and lean-to roofs added to cover them, socketed into the cliff above the opening mouth of the cave or series of caves. This is still a method of construction in the country, with this exception—that such modern dwellings are not pendulous in mid-air, as were those of the free captains, but are now on solid floors, and consist of rooms, one half of which are caves, and the other half artificial excrescences.

By means of this overhanging portion of the castle, by a ladder a chamber could be reached, cut out in the face of the cliff immediately above the mouth of the natural cavern, a chamber at the present day visible, but absolutely inaccessible, since the wooden excrescence has disappeared by which it was reached. This upper chamber was the treasury of the castle.

To the present day not two miles up the valley of the Beune is a hamlet, a cluster of houses, called Grioteaux, built in a huge cave, but with the fronts somewhat beyond the upper lip of the cave; and in the face of the precipice above is precisely such a treasure-chamber, only to be reached by means of a ladder from the roof of the house below it.

"What—you here!" exclaimed the Great Guillem in surprise, when he saw the girl enter the one room in which were himself and his men, about a table, on which were scattered chalices from churches, women's jewellery, silken dresses, even sabots plucked off the feet of peasants. The captain was dividing spoil.

The Great Guillem was much as Jean del' Peyra had described him—tall, gaunt, with a high head, and baldness from his forehead to the crown, his hair sandy and turning grey, dense bushy red eyebrows, the palest of blue eyes, and a profusion of red hair about his jaws. The mouth was large, with thin lips, and teeth wide apart and pointed, as though they had been filed sharp. Men said he had a double row in his jaw. It was the mouth of a shark.

"Come here, little cat!" shouted the freebooter. "Here are we dogs of war dividing the plunder."

"What plunder, father? Did you get all these silks and trinkets from Ste. Soure?"

"From Ste. Soure indeed! Not that; nothing thence but wine-casks and grain; and a fine matter we have had hauling the barrels up into our kennel. What do you want with us, child?"

The girl looked at the men; there were a dozen, and her father the thirteenth. They were in rough and coarse clothing, each with a red cross on his left arm—a badge of allegiance to the Cross of St. George. Some of the companies wore a white or blue cross when serving no political party, but the Great Guillem was ostensibly in the English service, and as such had been given the commandantship of Domme. The men had been drinking, and were flushed, partly with wine, partly with excitement, as the division of the plunder was made by lot, the lot being a knucklebone in a bassinet. A lawless, insolent company, and one difficult to treat with.

NoÉmi was puzzled what to do. But she was a bold, spirited girl, and she said: "This is the first time I have been here. I claim largesse."

"Largesse!" laughed one of the men; "I say—the first time anyone enters he pays footing."

"He, yes," said the girl; "but with a woman it is other. I claim largesse."

"What do you mean? A share of the loot?"

"A large share," answered NoÉmi.

"I have two lots to one; I will surrender one to you," said Guillem.

"Of all the spoil?"

"Of all for which we are raffling."

"And the men—the seven men you took?"

"They are not in the game. We wait till the ransom comes, and that will be divided not by lot but by shares. Money is so divided, not——" Her father tossed over some odds and ends with which the table was cumbered.

"I want the seven men," said NoÉmi.

A roar of laughter greeted this demand.

"A hundred livres! That is a fine largesse," said one.

"It cannot be," said Guillem. "They belong to us all."

"Little one," shouted one half-drunken fellow, "we only divide among ourselves—merry companions. We take from those who are outside the band."

"But I am the Captain's daughter."

"That matters not; you are not a companion."

"Father, give me a lot."

"I will—my lot."

"And grant me a request."

"If you draw the highest lot, you shall have what you will—save a share in the loot, and to that you can have no right. We have our laws and are bound to abide by them."

"Let us draw, then."

The bassinet was passed round, and each drew. There were fourteen knucklebones in it. NoÉmi put in her hand first and drew, then each in succession.

"Hands open," shouted Guillem, and each fist was thrust forward on the table and opened flat, exposing the bone. The knuckles were numbered up to fourteen.

"Fourteen!" exclaimed Guillem, as he looked at the rude die in his daughter's palm.

"Best of three," said a man.

"Again!" called the Captain, after the bones had been thrown into the bassinet and shaken.

The same proceeding was gone through. Again each hand was exposed on the table.

"Fourteen again!"

"A woman and the devil have luck!" shouted one of the men. "There is no beating that!"

"Aye! but there is. If next time she draws one," retorted another. "She is a woman; I wish her well."

"Ah! you Roger; always honour the petticoat."

"Again!" thundered the Captain.

Once more hands were plunged into the iron cap, withdrawn, and placed clenched on the table.

"Reveal!" cried Guillem, and immediately the hands were turned up with the knuckle-bones.

"Fourteen!" again he shouted, as he held up the piece his daughter had exposed.

"Was ever luck like this!" stormed one man. "And I—I never draw above five."

"Well; what is your request?" asked Guillem.

"You have sworn to grant it me."

"Yes; if not against rule."

"Then make me one of the Company!"

A pause, then a shout: "The Red Cross! The Red Cross! Vive the new Companion!"

In an instant a piece of crimson silk brocade, an ecclesiastical vestment, was torn to shreds, and the rough hands of the freebooters were fastening two strips crosswise to NoÉmi's arm.