I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from the earth at my feet.

A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree, leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook, I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.

My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking hand in hand. "Welcome to Vlais and Giron!" cried one. "Welcome to Giron and Vlais!" cried the other. And then, before I could answer, "You come on a happy day," cried both together.

I could not help smiling. "I am glad of that," I said. "May I ask what is the reason of your meeting?"

"The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron," they answered, speaking alternately, "are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of Vlais, beat as one."

I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity; fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of a Watteau fÊte. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.

"But, Monsieur, this is nothing," one of them answered with perfect gravity. "It is not only that the boundaries of communes are disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence, beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all Frenchmen are of all provinces!"

"That is a fine idea," I said.

"No son of France will again shed French blood!" he continued.

"So be it."

"Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace! There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich."

They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same naÏve confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair, and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit, was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked; and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.

I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook me.

"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.

"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town to-night."

"I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village."

And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in silence.

"I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly.

He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their barns burned and their throats cut."

"I hope not," I said.

"Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But even so Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!"

"What? If that be its fruit?" I asked.

"Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot; sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King! And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were."

"A Protestant?" I hazarded.

"Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de GÉol, at your service."

I gave him my name in return.

"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a wife----"

"On the contrary, M. le Baron."

"Then a mother, a sister?"

"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."

"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or the chance of employment?"

"Yes," I said, "that is so."

"Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement, "have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist! I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at Coutras--I do not exist!"

"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.

"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the clock back again. That is why I am on the road."

"You are going to Milhau?"

"I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I am not going home now. I am going farther--to NÎmes."

"To NÎmes?" I said in surprise.

"Yes," he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes, where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me. I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain, where the mountains recede from the river.

"You are doubtless going to the inn?" he said, as we entered the outskirts. I assented. "Then we part here," he continued. "To-morrow, if you are going to NÎmes---- But you may prefer to travel alone."

"Far from it," I said.

"Well, I shall be leaving the east gate--about eight o'clock," he answered grudgingly. "Good-night, Monsieur."

I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town: passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen, people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square, the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!

I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their arms. "Is this the inn?" I said to those nearest tome; striving to appear at my ease.

"Yes! yes!" they cried with one voice, "that is the inn!"

"My horse----"

"We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!"

I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and, almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for "M. Flandre! M. Flandre!"

Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what was the matter. "Ventre de Ciel!" he cried. "Is this my house or yours, rascals? Who is this?"

"The Capuchin! The Capuchin!" cried a dozen voices.

"Ho! ho!" he answered, before I could speak. "Bring a light."

Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads gazed at me curiously. "Ho! ho!" he said again. "The Capuchin is it? So you have got him."

"Do I look like one?" I cried angrily, thrusting back those who pressed on me most closely. "Nom de Dieu! Is this the way you receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?"

"You are not the Capuchin monk?" he said, somewhat taken aback, I could see, by my boldness.

"Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in boots and spurs?" I retorted.

"Then your papers!" he answered curtly. "Your papers! I would have you to know," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "that I am Mayor here as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers, Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other."

"Before your friends here?" I said contemptuously.

"They are good citizens," he answered.

I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had made a mistake.

It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest lanterne with the same stolid complaisance.

When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had taken me.

"A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte," he said. "A very dangerous fellow, who is known to be travelling with two ladies--all to NÎmes; and orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him."

"But I am alone!" I protested. "I have no ladies with me."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just so, M. le Vicomte," he answered. "But we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore, that he is now alone."

"Oh," I said. "So now you only want him? And what is the charge against him?" I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father BenÔit before his departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces of another here.

"He is charged," M. Flandre answered pompously, "with high treason against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the people."

"And the ladies?" I said smiling. "Have they too been corrupting----"

"No, M. le Vicomte. But it is believed that wishing to return to NÎmes, and learning that the roads were watched, he disguised himself and joined himself to them. Doubtless they are dÉvotes."

"Poor things!" I said, with a shudder of compassion; every one seemed to be so good-tempered, and yet so hard. "What will you do with them?"

"I shall send for orders," he answered. "In his case," he continued airily, "I should not need them. But here is your supper. Pardon me, M. le Vicomte, if I do not attend on you myself. As Mayor I have to take care that I do not compromise--but you understand?"

I said civilly that I did; and supper being laid, as was then the custom in the smaller inns, in my bedroom, I asked him to take a glass of wine with me, and over the meal learned much of the state of the country, and the fermentation that was at work along the southern seaboard, the priests stirring up the people with processions and sermons. He waxed especially eloquent upon the excitement at NÎmes, where the masses were bigoted Romanists, while the Protestants had a following, too, with the hardy peasants of the mountains behind them. "There will be trouble, M. le Vicomte, there will be trouble there," he said with meaning. "Things are going too well for the people la bas. They will stop them if they can."

"And this man?"

"Is one of their missionaries."

I thought of Father BenÔit, and sighed. "By the way," the Mayor said abruptly, gazing at me in moony thoughtfulness, "that is curious now!"

"What?" I said.

"You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?"

"Well?"

"So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners."

"From Cahors?"

"Yes. It is odd now," he continued, rubbing his chin, "but when I read your commission I did not think of that."

I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. "It does not follow that I am in the plot," I said. "For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open the case again. You have seen my papers, and----"

"Tut! tut!" he said. "That is not my meaning. But you may know these persons."

"Oh!" I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors, of all places? "How do they call themselves?" I asked.

"Corvas," he answered.

"Oh! Corvas," I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.

"Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her."

"I don't remember the name," I answered.

"Still, you may know them," he rejoined, with the dull persistence of a man of few ideas. "It is just possible that we have made a mistake, for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed suspicious."

"What was that?"

"A red cockade."

"A red cockade?"

"Yes," he answered. "The badge of the old Leaguers, you know."

"But," I said, "I have not heard of any party adopting that."

He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. "No," he said, "that is true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales. However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to see them. You may be able to speak for or against them."

"If you do not think that it is too late?" I said, shrinking somewhat from the interview.

"Prisoners must not be choosers," he answered, with an unpleasant chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.

"The ladies are not here, then?" I said.

"No," he answered, with a wink. "Safe bind, safe find! But they have nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink, so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house."

At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his portly person in a cloak, we passed out of the house. The square outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising, and now blew keenly across the open space. The yellow glare of the lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and above it was a small grille.

"Safe bind, safe find!" the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but, instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the bars of the grille.

The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took the lead, and we passed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed passage barely wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of the passage, and threw it open.

M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the passage; and the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that the walls of the passage in which I stood were dingy and trickling with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.

The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!

It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly assumed, to linger an instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed him.

There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes passed from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a gasping cry, and stood staring at me.

It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.

"Hallo!" said the Mayor. "What is this?"

"A mistake, I fear," I said hoarsely, in words I had already composed. "I am thankful, Madame," I continued, bowing to her with distant ceremony, and as much indifference as I could assume, "that I am so fortunate as to be here."

She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet recovered herself.

"You know the ladies?" the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked from one to the other of us sharply.

"Perfectly," I said.

"They are from Cahors?"

"From that neighbourhood."

"But," he said, "I told you their names, and you said that you did not know them, M. le Vicomte?"

For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I could do nothing else. "You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was Corvas," I muttered.

"Yes," he said.

"But Madame's name is CorrÉas."

"CorrÉas?" he repeated, his jaw falling.

"Yes, CorrÉas. I dare say that the ladies," I continued with assumed politeness, "did not in their fright speak very clearly."

"And their name is CorrÉas?"

"I told you that it was," Madame answered, speaking for the first time, "and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this last," she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in passionate appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--"I say again, on my honour!"

I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. "Yes, M. le Maire," I said, "I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can answer for Madame as for myself."

The Mayor rubbed his head.