CHAPTER XXI.
A DISAPPEARANCE.
THE old Seigneur del' Peyra was not exactly a changed man since hisdescent into and release from the oubliette; he was rather the man hehad been of old with his dullness, inertness intensified. He spoke verylittle, never referred to his adventures--it might almost be thoughtthat he had forgotten them, but that on the smallest allusion to Le GrosGuillem his eye would fire, all the muscles of his face quiver, and hewould abruptly leave the society of such as spoke of the man who had soill-treated him.
Except for the sudden agitations into which he was thrown by suchallusions, he was almost torpid. He took no interest in his land, in hispeople, in his castle. He sat much on a stone in the sun when the sunshone, looking at the ground before him. When the cold and rainy weatherset in, then he sat in the fire-corner with his eyes riveted on theflames. One thing he could not endure, and that was darkness. The comingon of night filled him with unrest. He could not abide in a room wheredid not burn a light. He would start from sleep during the night severaltimes to make sure that the lamp was still burning.
At first Jean had spoken to his father relative to the incidents of hiscapture, and had asked him particulars about his treatment, but desistedfrom doing so as he saw how profoundly it affected the old man, and howslow he was of recovering his equanimity after such an attempt toextract his recollections from him. Nor could he consult him about theaffairs of the Seigneurie. The old man seemed incapable of fixing hismind on any such matters. Not that his brain had ceased to act, but thatit was preoccupied with one absorbing idea, from which it resenteddiversion.
Jean made an attempt to sound his father's thoughts, but in vain, and hesatisfied himself that the only course open to him was to leave the oldman alone, and to trust to the restorative forces of Nature to recoverhim. He had received a shock which had shaken his powers but had notdestroyed them. If left alone he would in time be himself again.
There was much to occupy the mind and take up the time of Jean del'Peyra.
The winter had set in. The leaves had been shed from the trees. Therehad set in a week of rain, and the river Vezere had swelled to a floodred-brown in colour, sweeping away the soil rich in phosphates thatoverlay the chalk, and which alone sustained vegetation. If the Vezerewere in flood, so also was the Dordogne, and both rivers beingimpassable, the little Seigneurie of Le Peuch Ste. Soure was safe. Itwas divided from its foe at Domme by these swollen dykes.
But floods would subside in time, the weather would clear, and althoughit was not probable that Le Gros Guillem would attempt reprisals duringthe winter, yet it would be injudicious not to maintain watch and beprepared against an attack.
The peasant, impulsive and inconsiderate, was not to be trusted withoutdirection, and required to be watched so as to be kept to the ungratefultask of semi-military service. He was easily stirred to acts of furiousviolence, and as easily allowed himself to lapse into blind security.Having taken and destroyed l'Eglise and beaten back the _routiers_ onthe Beune, the peasants considered that they had done all that could berequired of them; they hastily reconverted their swords into theploughshares that they had been, and dismounted their spears to employthem for their proper use as pruning-hooks. At the same time that theythus turned their implements of husbandry to peaceful ends, so did theydismantle themselves of all military ambition, and revert to thecondition of the boor, whose thoughts are in the soil he turns andreturns, whose produce he reaps and mows. The peasant mind is notflexible, and it is very limited in its range. It can think of but onething at a time, and it is wholly void of that nimbleness which isacquired by association with men of many avocations and of intellectualculture. For a moment, stirred by intolerable wrongs, his passions hadflared into an all-consuming flame. Now he was again the ploddingploughman, happy to handle the muckfork and the goad.
Jean found it impossible to rouse the men to understand the necessity ofbeing ever on the alert against the foe. Gros Guillem, said they, hadpillaged Ste. Soure; he had done his worst; now he would go and plunderelsewhere. He had tried conclusions with them and had been worsted; infuture he would test his strength against weaker men. _Allons!_ we havehad enough of fighting--there is much to be done on the farm. Jean del'Peyra foresaw danger, and would not relax his efforts to be prepared tomeet it. He established sentinels to keep watch night and day, and hemarshalled the peasants and drilled them. They grumbled, and endeavouredto shirk, and he had hard matter to enforce discipline. He receivedtidings from Domme, and ascertained that the feet of the Captain werecompletely restored; and that he was about the town and citadel asusual.
He had matter to occupy him and divert his attention from Le Peuch. Forsome time the great stress of war between the French and the English hadbeen in the north; there the Maid of Orleans had led to victory, andthere she had been basely deserted and allowed to fall into the hands ofthe English. No sooner, however, had these latter burnt "the sorceress"than they turned their attention to Guyenne. There matters had not beenfavourable to the three Leopards. Bergerac, on the Dordogne, animportant mercantile centre devoted to the French cause, and which hadbeen long held by the English, had been freed, and had the Lilies wavingfrom its citadel. Then suddenly the English forces from Bordeaux hadappeared under the walls, and the garrison, unable to defend itselfunassisted, had fled, and once more the Lilies were thrown down and theLeopards unfurled. But recently, owing to some outrage committed in thetown by some of the soldiers of the castle, the whole of the inhabitantshad risen in a mass, had surprised the garrison, and had butchered themto a man. Bergerac was again French. For the last time it had borne theEnglish yoke. During three hundred years, with the exception of a fewintervals, it had been under English dominion (1150-1450), many a timehad French and English fought under its walls for the possession of sucha strong point, which by its position commanded the course of theDordogne. Tradition even says that in one day the town passed thriceinto English and thrice into French hands.
The recovery of Bergerac by the Count of Penthievre, the Lieutenant ofthe King of France in Guyenne, and the treatment of the garrison by thecitizens, alarmed Le Gros Guillem. He was keenly alive to thedisaffection of the town of Domme. He was in a less satisfactoryposition than the commandant of Bergerac. For this latter place wassurrounded by strongholds of barons attached to the English cause, noton principle, but for their own interest; the nearest town up the river,Le Linde, was a _bastide_ in English hands. The heights bristled withcastles, all held by men strongly opposed to the crown of France, allready to harass in every way the citizens who had dared to freethemselves. The situation at Domme was other. Nearly in face of it was atown almost as important in population, quite as securely defended byNature, and dominated by a castle of exceptional inexpugnability. TheGovernor of this place was the brother of the Bishop of Sarlat, andcould not be bribed to betray his charge. From his eyrie every movementof Guillem was watched. La Roque was a stronghold with the whole countyof Sarlat at its back, and thence it could be filled with men unseenfrom Domme, to organise a sudden attack on the enemy's position. Thatalone might be repelled, but that aided by treachery within the wallsmight succeed.
Consequently Guillem was engaged in filling his ranks and accumulatingmaterial of war. Desire as he might, and did, to chastise those at Ste.Soure, he could not do so at the moment.
Never did he ride by La Roque without casting on it a covetous gaze. Itwas the key to the whole of the Black Perigord--the county of Sarlat.
Jean del' Peyra's mind reverted often to Noemi. He had not seen hersince that incident of the ring. Then, attended by Amanieu and Roger,she had ridden away at full gallop and had escaped. At the same time hehad succeeded in cutting the bands that held the arms of Heliot, and hadsuffered him to ride away as well. Jean was naturally adverse to deedsof bloodshed; and though the fellow justly merited death, he had nodesire that the peasantry should constitute themselves at once accusers,judges, and executioners. Jean t
hought repeatedly of that strangescene--his engagement by ring to Noemi, forced on him to save her fromthe violence of the angry peasants--the only means available to him atthe moment for evading the question as to her parentage.
But though he had quickly proclaimed her to be his affianced bride, hedid not seriously purpose to make her his. Though he loved her, thoughhis heart eagerly recognised her generosity of feeling, the realgoodness that was in her, he could not forget to what stock shebelonged. It would not be possible for him to consider her as one whowould be his--when he was at deadly enmity with the father. It would notbe decent, natural, to take to his side the child of the ruffian who hadtreated his own father in a manner of refined barbarity. It was knownthroughout the country what Guillem had done--and the whole countrywould point the finger of scorn at him if he so condoned the outrage asto marry the daughter of the perpetrator of it. But, more than that, hewas certain to be engaged in hand-to-hand fight with Guillem. He did notfor a moment doubt that this man would seize the first opportunity ofattacking and probably of overwhelming him with numbers. When next theymet the meeting would be final, and fatal to one or the other. Either heor Le Gros Guillem would issue from the struggle with his hands wet withthe blood of the other. It mattered not which turn matters took, whatthe result was--either precluded union with Noemi.
He would have liked to have seen her, to have parted from her with wordsof gratitude for what she had done for him and his father. He would haveliked to come to an understanding with her. She was not a child, surelyshe did not hold those words spoken by him, that ring put on her finger,as binding them together?
He was thinking over this, scheming how he could meet her, when one ofhis men came to him and said--
"Monsieur Jean, have you seen your father?"
"When? Just now?"
"Yes," said the man, "recently."
"No, Antoine, not for several hours."
"Nor has anyone else."
"Not seen my father?"
"No, Monsieur Jean, we have been looking for him in every direction, andcannot find him."
"He is in the castle."
"No, Monsieur Jean, there he is not."
"He is in the field."
"No, Monsieur Jean, he is nowhere."
"That is not possible."
"He is nowhere that we can find, and no one has seen him leave--no oneknows whether he has been carried off again, and if so, how, when, or bywhom?"
It was so--Ogier del' Peyra had vanished, not leaving a trace behindhim.