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- Herausgeber: Robert Buchanan
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
"Rohan, Rohan! Can you not hear me call? It is time to go. Come, come! It frightens me to look down at you. Will you not come up now, Rohan?"The voice that cries is lost in the ocean-sound that fills the blue void beneath; it fades away far under, amid a confused murmur of wings, a busy chattering of innumerable little newborn mouths; and while the speaker, drawing dizzily back, feels the ground rise up beneath her feet and the cliffs prepare to turn over like a great wheel, a human cry comes upward, clear yet faint, like a voice from the sea that washes on the weedy reefs of blood-red granite a thousand feet below.The sun is sinking far away across the waters, sinking with a last golden gleam amid the mysterious Hesperides of the silent air, and his blinding light comes slant across the glassy calm till it strikes on the scarred and storm-rent faces of these Breton crags, illuminating and vivifying every nook and cranny of the cliffs beneath, burning on the summits and brightening their natural red to the vivid crimson of dripping blood, changing the coarse grass and yellow starwort into threads of emerald and glimmering stars, burning in a golden mist around the yellow flowers of the overhanging broom, and striking with fiercest ray on one naked rock of solid stone which juts out like a huge horn over the brink of the abyss, and around which a strong rope is noosed and firmly knotted.
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Table of contents
Chapter 1. FULL SUNSHINE
Chapter 2. ROHAN AND MARCELLE
Chapter 3. ROHAN'S CATHEDRAL
Chapter 4. THE MENHIR
Chapter 5. MASTER ARFOLL
Chapter 6. "RACHEL, MOURNING FOR HER CHILDREN"
Chapter 7. CORPORAL DERVAL DEFENDS HIS COLOURS
Chapter 8. THE CORPORAL'S FIRESIDE
Chapter 9. ST. NAPOLEON
Chapter 10. AT THE FOUNTAIN
Chapter 11. THE RED ANGEL
Chapter 12. CORPORAL DERVAL HARANGUES THE CONSCRIPTS
Chapter 13. THE DRAWING OF LOTS. "ONE!"
Chapter 14. A DAY AT SEA
Chapter 15. "THE KING OF THE CONSCRIPTS?"
Chapter 16. A GOOD MAN'S BLESSING
Chapter 17. IN THE STORMY NIGHT
Chapter 18. THE PRAYERS OF TWO WOMEN
Chapter 19. DOWN BY THE SHORE
Chapter 20. "THE POOL OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST"
Chapter 21. THE DREAM
Chapter 22. MIKEL GRALLON
Chapter 23. CORPORAL DERVAL GALLOPS HIS HOBBY
Chapter 24. "A TERRIBLE DEATH"
Chapter 25. THE JUNE FESTIVAL--AN APPARITION
Chapter 26. MIKEL GRALLON MAKES A DISCOVERY
Chapter 27. THE HUE AND CRY
Chapter 28. ON THE CLIFFS
Chapter 29. THE FACES IN THE CAVE
Chapter 30. A PARLEY
Chapter 31. IN THE CAVE
Chapter 32. A SIEGE IN MINIATURE
Chapter 33. HUNGER AND COLD
Chapter 34. A FOUR-FOOTED CHRISTIAN
Chapter 35. VIGIL
Chapter 36. VICTORY
Chapter 37. THE MIRAGE OF LEIPSIC
Chapter 38. "HOME THEY BROUGHT THEIR WARRIOR DEAD"
Chapter 39. "A CHAPEL OF HATE"
Chapter 40. INTRODUCES A SCARECROW OF GLORY
Chapter 41. GLIMPSES OF A DEAD WORLD
Chapter 42. THE AQUEDUCT
Chapter 43. "THE NIGHT OF THE DEAD"
Chapter 44. DELUGE
Chapter 45. "MID WATERS WILD"
Chapter 46. MARCELLE
Chapter 47. THE GROWING OF THE CLOUD
Chapter 48. "VIVE LE ROI!"
Chapter 49. THE CORPORAL'S CUP IS FULL
Chapter 50. THE HERO OF THE HOUR
Chapter 51. BREATHING-SPACE
Chapter 52. RESURGAM!
Chapter 53. "IBI OMNIS EFFUSIS LABOR!"
Chapter 54. THE LAST CHANCE
Chapter 55. THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Chapter 56. UNCLE EWEN GETS HIS FURLOUGH
Chapter 57. BONAPARTE
Chapter 58. "SIC SEMPER TYRANNUS"
Chapter 1. FULL SUNSHINE
Chapter 2. ROHAN AND MARCELLE
To creep where foot of man has never crept before, to crawl on the great cliffs where even the goats and sheep are seldom seen, to know the secret places as they are known to the hawk and the raven and the black buzzard of the crags, this is the joy and glory of the man's life--this is the rapture that he shares with the winged, the swimming, and the creeping things. He swims like a fish, he crawls like a fly, and his joy would be complete if he could soar like a bird! His animal enjoyment, meantime, is perfect. Not the peregrine, wheeling in still circles round the topmost crags, moves with more natural splendour on its way.
All the peasants and fishers of Kromlaix are cragsmen too, but none possess his cool sublimity of daring. Rohan Gwenfern will walk almost erect where no other fowler, however experienced, would creep on hands and knees. In the course of his lifelong perils he has had ugly falls, which have only stimulated him to fresh exploits.
He began, when a mere child, by herding sheep and goats among these very crags, and making the lonely caverns ring with his little goatherd's horn. By degrees he familiarized himself with every feature of the storm-rent terrible coast; so that even when he grew up towards manhood, and joined his fellows in fishing expeditions far out at sea, he still retained his early passion for the crags and cliffs. While others were lounging on the beach or at the door of the calozes, while these were drinking in the cabaret and those were idling among their nets, Rohan was walking in some vast cathedral not made with hands, or penetrating like a spectre, torch in hand, into the pitch-black cavern where the seal was suckling her young, or swimming naked out to the cormorant's roost on the base of the Needle of Gurlan.
Even in wildest winter, when for days together the cormorants sat on the ledges of the cliffs and gazed despairingly at the sea, starving, afraid to stir a feather lest the mighty winds should dash them to pieces against the stones; when the mountains of foam shook the rocks to their foundation; when the earthquakes of ocean were busy, and crag after crag loosened, crumbled, and swept like an avalanche down to the sea,--even in the maddest storms of nature's maddest season, Rohan was abroad,--not the great herring-gull being more constant a mover along the black water-mark than he.
Hence there had arisen in him, day by day and year by year, that terrible and stolid love for Water which wise critics and dwellers in towns believe to be the special and sole prerogative of the poets, particularly of Lord Byron, and which, when described as an attribute of a Breton peasant or a Connaught "boy," they refer to the abysses of sentimentality. Does a street-girl love the street, or a ploughman love the fields, or a sailor love the ship that sails him up and down the world? Even so, but with an infinitely deeper passion, did Rohan love the sea. It is no exaggeration to say that even a few miles inland he would have been heartily miserable. And that he should love the sea as he did, not with a sentimental emotion, not with any idea of romancing or attitudinizing, but with a vital and natural love, part of the very beatings of his heart, was only just. He was its foster-child.
Weird and thrilling superstitions are still afloat on this wild coast; grotesque and awful legend; many of them full of deep faith and pathetic beauty, still pass from mouth to mouth; but among them there is one which is something more than a mere legend, something more than a fireside dream. It tells of the sore straits and perils on the lonely seas during "the great fishing," and how, one summer night, a fisher, Raoul Gwenfern, took with him to sea his little golden-haired child. That very night, blowing the trumpets of wrath and death, Euroclydon arose. Lost, shrieking, terror-stricken, the fleet of boats drifted before the wind in the terrible mountainous sea; and at last, when all hope had fled, the crew of this one lugger knelt down together in the darkness for the last time--knelt as they had often done side by side in the little chapel on the cliff; and invoked the succour of Our Blessed Lady of Safety;--and no less than the others prayed the little child, shivering and holding his father's hand. And at last, amid all the darkness of the tempest and the roaring of the sea, there dawned a solemn shining, which for a moment stilled the palpitating waters around the vessel; and that one innocent child on board, he and none other beside, saw with his mortal eyes, amid that miraculous light, and floating upon the waters--all spangled and silver as she stands, an image, up there in the little chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde--the face and form of the Mother of God!
Be that as it may, the storm presently abated, and the fleet was saved; but when the light dawned, and the fishers on board the lugger came to their senses again they missed one man. The child cried "Father!" but no father answered; he had been washed over in the darkness, and his footprints in the land of men were never seen more. It was then that the child, wailing for his beloved parent, told what he had seen upon the waters in that hour of prayer. Whether it was a real vision, or a child's dream, or a flash of memory illuminating the image he had often seen and thought so lovely, who can tell? But that day he ran and flung himself into his mother's arms, an orphan child; and from that day forth he had no father but the Sea.
His mother, a poor widow now, dwelt in a stone cottage just outside the village, and under the shelter of a hollow in the crag. Her son, the only child of her old age, the child of her prayers and tears, obtained by the special intercession of the Virgin and her cousin St. Elizabeth, grew fairer and fairer as he approached manhood, and ever on his face there dwelt a brightness which the mother, in her secret heart, deemed due to that celestial vision.
Now, tales of wonder travel, and in due course the legend travelled to the priest; and the priest came and saw the child, and (being a little bit of a phrenologist) examined his head and his bumps, and saw the shining of his fair face with no ordinary pleasure. It is not every day that the good God performs a miracle, and this opportunity was too fine a one to be lost. So the curé, a remarkable man in his way, and one of considerable learning, then and there made the widow a proposition which caused her to weep for joy, and cry that St. Elizabeth was her friend indeed. It was this--that Rohan should be trained in holy knowledge, and in due season become a priest of God. Of course the offer was joyfully accepted, and Rohan was taken from the solitary crags, where he had been herding goats to eke out the miserable pittance that his mother earned, to live in the house of the priest. For a time the change was pleasing, and Rohan was taught to read and write, and to construe a little Latin, and to know a word or two of Greek; he was, moreover, a willing child, and he would get up without a murmur on the darkest and coldest winter's morning to serve the curé's mass. He evinced, on the other hand, an altogether stupendous capacity for idleness and play. As he grew older his inclinations grew more irrepressible, and he would slip off in the fishing boats that were going out to sea, or run away for a long day's ramble among the crags, or spend the summer afternoon on the shore, alternately bathing naked and wading for shrimps and prawns. When most wanted he was often not to be found. One day he was carried home with his collar-bone broken, after having in vain attempted to take the nest of an indignant raven. Twice or thrice he was nearly drowned.
This might have been tolerated, though not for long; but presently it was discovered that Master Rohan had a way of asking questions which were highly puzzling to the priest. It was still Revolution time. Though the kingdom was an Empire, and though the terrible ideas of '93 had scarcely reached Kromlaix, the atmosphere was full of strange thoughts. The little acolyte began secretly to indulge in a course of secular reading; the little eyes opened, the little tongue prattled; and the good priest discovered, to his disgust, that the child was too clever.
When the time came for the boy, in the natural course of things, to be removed from the village, Rohan revolted utterly. He had made up his mind, he said, and he would never become a priest!
That was a bitter blow for the mother, and for a space her heart was hard against the boy; but the priest, to her astonishment, sided with the revolter.
"Come, mother!" he said, nodding his big head till his great hollow cheeks trembled with his earnestness. "After all, it is ill to force a lad's inclination. The life of a priest is a hard one, see you, at the best. The priesthood is well enough, but there are better ways of serving the good God."
Rohan's heart rejoiced and the widow cried, "Better ways!--ah, no, m'sieu le curé."
"But yes," persisted his reverence. "God's will is best of all; and better even a good ropemaker than a bad priest!" It was settled at last, and the boy returned to his home. The truth is, the priest was glad to be rid of his bargain. He saw that Rohan was not the stuff that holy men are made of, and that, sooner or later, he would be inventing a heresy or adoring a woman. He did not relinquish his charge without a sigh, for that business of the miraculous vision, if consummated by a life of exemplary piety, would have been a fine feather in the Church's cap. He soon found a more fitting attendant, however, and his former annoyances and disappointments were forgotten.
Meantime, Rohan returned to his old haunts with the rapture of a prisoned bird set free. He soon persuaded his mother that it was all arranged for the best; for would he not, instead of being taken away as a priest must be, remain with her for ever, and supply his father's place, and be a comfort to her old age? There were two sorts of lives that he detested with all his heart, and in either of these lives he would be lost to home and to her. He would never become a Priest, because he liked not the life, and because (he naïvely thought to himself) he could never marry his little cousin Marcelle! He could never become a Soldier (God and all the saints be praised for that!), because he was a widow's only son.
But it was the year 1813, the "soote spring season" of that year, and the great Emperor, after having successfully allayed the fear of invasion which had filled all France ever since his disastrous return from Moscow, was preparing a grand coup by which all his enemies were utterly to be annihilated. There were strange murmurs afloat, but nothing definite was yet known. The air was full of that awful silence which precedes thunderstorm and earthquake.
Down here at Kromlaix, however, down here in the loneliest and saddest corner of the Breton coast, the sun shone and the sea sparkled as if Moscow had never been, as if becatombs of French dead were not lying bleaching amid the Russian snows, as if martyred France had never in her secret heart shrieked out a curse upon the Avatar. The sounds of war had echoed far away, but Rohan had heeded them little. Happiness is uniformly selfish, and Rohan was happy. Life was sweet to him. It was a blessed thing to breathe, to be, to remain free; to raise his face to the sun, to mark the cliffs and caves, to watch the passing sails, or the blue smoke curling from the chimneys of the little fishing village; to listen to the plump curé, "fatter than his cure;" to hear the strange stories of bivouac and battle-field told by the old Bonapartist burnpowder, his uncle; to hear Alain or Jannick play wild tunes on the biniou, or bagpipe; to hunt the nests of gulls and seapies; to go out on calm nights with his comrades and net the shining shoals of herring: best of all, to walk with Marcelle along the sward or shore; to kneel at her side, holding her hand, before the statue of Our Lady; to look into her eyes, and, pleasanter still, to kiss her ripe young lips. What life could be better, what life, all in all, could be sweeter than this?
And Marcelle?
His mother's sister's child, and only niece of the quaint old corporal with whom she lives, with her four great brothers, each strong as Anak. Since they were children together--and he first appalled her young heart by his reckless daring--they have been accustomed to meet in all the innocence of Nature. While her great brothers care not for her society, but haunt the cabaret or go courting when ashore, Rohan seeks the maiden, and is more gentle than any brother, though still her kin. He loves her dark eyes and her hidden black hair, and her gentle ways, and her tender admiration of himself. She has been his playmate for years--now she is, what shall we say? his companion--soon, perhaps, to be known by a nearer name. But the marriage of such close kin is questionable in Brittany, and a special consent from the Bishop will be needed to bring it about; and besides, after all, they have never exchanged one syllable of actual love.
Doubtless they understand each other; for youth is electrical, and passion has many tones far beyond words, and it is not in Nature for a man and a maiden, both beautiful, to look upon each other without joy. To their vague delicious feeling in each other's society, however, they have never given a name. They enjoy each other as they enjoy the fresh sweet air, and the shining sun, and the happy blue vault above, and the sparkling sea below. They drink each other's breathing, and are glad. So is the Earth glad, whenever lovers so unconscious stir and tremble happily in her arms.
Mark them again, as Rohan rises from the cliff, and stands by the girl's side, and listens to her laughing rebuke. How does he answer? He takes her face between his two hands and kisses her on either cheek.
She laughs and blushes slightly; the blush would be deeper if he had kissed her on the lips.
Then he turns to the block of granite where he has left his hat and sabots, and slowly begins to put them on.
The sunset is fading now upon the ocean.
The vision of El Dorado, which has been burning for an hour on the far sea-line, will soon be lost for ever. The golden city with its purple spires, the strange mountains of pink-tinged snow beyond, the dark dim cloud-peak softly crowned by one bright green opening star, are dissolving slowly, and a cold breath comes now from those ruined sunset shores. The blood-red reefs, the wet sands, the flashing pools of water along the shingle and beneath the crags, are burning with dimmer and dimmer colours; the crows are winging past to some dark rookery inland; the sea-fowl are settling down with many murmurs on the nests among the cliffs; the night-owl is fluttering forth in the dark shadow of a crag; and the fishing lugger yonder is drifting on a dark and glassy sea.
Rohan looks down.
The lugger glides along on the swift ebb tide, and he can plainly see the men upon her deck, bare-headed, with hands folded in prayer and faces upraised to the very crags on which he stands; for not far beyond him, on the very summit of the cliffs, stands the little Chapel of Our Lady of Safety--the beloved beacon of the homeward-bound, the last glimpse of home the fisher sees as he sails away to the west, and the help, night and day, of all good mariners.
All this picture Rohan has taken in at a glance, and now, grasping his fowler's hook in one hand, and coiling the rope around his arm, he moves along the summit of the cliff followed by Marcelle. A well-worn path along the scanty sward leads to the door of the little Chapel, and this path they follow.
They have not proceeded far when a large white goat, which has been busy somewhere among the cliffs, climbs up close by, and stands looking at them curiously. The inspection is evidently satisfactory, for it approaches them slowly with some signs of recognition.
"See!" cries the girl. "It is Jannedik."
Jannedik answers by coming closer and rubbing its head against her dress. Then it turns to Rohan, and pushes its chin into his outstretched hand.
"What are you doing so far from home, Jannedik?" he asks, smiling, surprised. "You are a rover, and will some day break your neck. It is nearly bed-time, Jannedik!"
Jannedik is a lady among goats, and she belongs to the mother of Rohan. It is her pleasure to wander among the cliffs like Rohan himself; and she knows the spots of most succulent herbage and the secretest corners of the caves. There is little speculation in her great brown eyes, but she comes to the whistle like a dog, and she will let the village children ride upon her back, and she is altogether more instructed than most of her tribe, in which the cliffs abound.
As Rohan and Marcelle wander on to the little Chapel, Jannedik follows, pausing now and then to browse upon the way; but when they enter--which they do with a quiet reverence--Jannedik hesitates for a moment, stamps her foot upon the ground, and trots off homeward by herself.
She has many points of a good Christian, but the Church has no attractions for her.
The little Chapel stands open night and day. It was built by sailor hands, for sailor use, and with no small labour were the materials carried up hither from the village below. It is very tiny, and it nestles in the highest cliff like a white bird, moveless in all weathers.
It is quite empty, and as Rohan and Marcelle approach the altar, the last light of sunlight strikes through the painted pane, illumining the altar-piece within the rails--a rudely painted picture of shipwrecked sailors on a raft, raising eyes to the good Virgin, who appears among the clouds. Close to the altar stands the plaster figure of Our Lady, dressed in satin and spangles. Strewing the pedestal and hanging round her feet are wreaths of coloured beads, garlands of flowers cut in silk and satin, little rude pictures of the Virgin, medals in tin and brass, wooden rosaries, and strings of beads.
Marcelle crosses herself and falls softly upon her knees.
Rohan remains standing, hat in hand, gazing on the picture of the Virgin on the altar-piece behind the rails.
The little Chapel grows darker and darker, the rude timbers and storm-stained walls are very dim, and the last sunlight fades on Marcelle's bent head and on the powerful lineaments of Rohan.
Faith dwells here, and the touch of a passionate peace and love which are worth more.
Peace be with them and with the world to-night--peace in their hearts, love in their breasts, peace and love in the hearts and breasts of all mankind!
But ah! should to-morrow bring the Shadow of the Sword!
Chapter 3. ROHAN'S CATHEDRAL
Not far from the Chapel of Our Lady of Safety, but situated on the wild sea-shore under the crags, stands a Cathedral fairer than any wrought by man, with a roof of eternal azure, walls of purple, crimson, green, gold, and a floor of veritable "mosaic paven." Men name its chief entrance the Gate of St. Gildas, but the lovely Cathedral itself has neither name nor worshippers.
At low water this Gate is passable dry-shod, at half-tide it may be entered by wading waist-deep, at three-quarters or full flood it can only be entered by an intrepid swimmer and diver.
Two gigantic walls of crimson granite jut out from the mighty cliff-wall and meet together far out on the edge of the sea, and where the sea touches them it has hollowed their extremity into a mighty arch, hung with dripping moss.
Entering here at low water, one sees the vast walls towering on every side, carved by wind and water into fantastic niches and many-coloured marble forms; with no painted windows, it is true, but with the blue cloudless heaven for a roof far above, where the passing sea-gull hovers, small as a butterfly, in full sunlight. A dim religious light falls downward, lighting up the solemn place, and showing shapes which superstition might fashion into statues and images of mitred abbots and cowled monks and dusky figures of the Virgin; and here and there upon the floor of weeds and shingle are strewn huge blocks like carven tombs, and in lonely midnights the seals sit on these and look at the moon like black ghosts of the dead.
Superstition has seen this place, and has transformed its true history into a legend.
Here indeed in immemorial time stood a great abbey reared by hands, and surrounded by a fertile plain; but the monks of this abbey were wicked, bringing their wantons into the blessed place, and profaning the name of the good God. But the good God, full of His mercy, sent a Saint--Gildas indeed by name--to warn these wicked ones to desist from their evil ways and think of the wrath to come. It was a cold winter night when Gildas reached the gate, and his limbs were chill and he was hungry and athirst, and he knocked faintly with his frozen hand; and at first, being busy at revel, they did not hear; he knocked again and they heard, but when they saw his face, his poor raiment, and his bare feet, they bade him begone. Then did Gildas beseech them to receive and shelter him for Our Lady's sake, warning them also of their iniquities and of God's judgment; but even as he spoke, they shut the gate in his face. Then St. Gildas raised his hands to Heaven and cursed them and that abbey, and called on the great sea to arise and destroy it and them. So the sea, though it was then some miles away arose and came; and the wicked ones were destroyed, the likeness of the abbey was changed, and the great roof was washed away. Even unto this day the strange semblance remains as a token that these things were so.
We said this Cathedral had no worshippers. It had two, at least.
Within it sat, not many days after they had stood together in the little chapel, Rohan and Marcelle. It was morte mer, and not a ripple touched the light cathedral floor; but it was damp and gleaming with the last tide, and the weed-hung granite tombs were glittering crimson in the light.
They sat far within, on a dry rock close under the main cliff, and were looking upward. At what? At the Altar.
Far up above them stretched the awful precipices of stone, but close over their heads, covering the whole side of the cliff for a hundred square yards, was a thick curtain of moss, and over this moss, from secret places far above, poured little runlets of crystal water, spreading themselves on the soft moss-fringes and turning into innumerable drops of diamond dew: here scattering countless pearls over a bed of deepest emerald, there trickling into waterfalls of brightest silver filagree, and again gleaming like molten gold on soft trembling folds of the yellow lichen; and over all this dewy mass of sparkling colours there ebbed and flowed, and flitted and changed, a perpetually liquid light, flashing alternately with all the colours of the prism.
A hundred yards above, all was rent again into fantastic columns and architraves. Just over the Altar, where the dews of heaven were perpetually distilling, was a dark blot like the mouth of a Cave.
"Is it not time to go?" said Marcelle, presently. "Suppose the sea were to come and find us here, how dreadful! Hoël Grallon died like that!"
Rohan smiled--the self-sufficient smile of strength and superior wisdom.
"Hoël Grallon was a great ox, and should have stayed praying by his own door. Look you, Marcelle! There are always two ways out of my Cathedral; when it is neap tide and not rough you can wait for the ebb up here by the Altar--it will not rise so far; and when it is stormy and blows hard you can climb up yonder to the Trou"--and he pointed to the dark blot above his head--"or even to the very top of the cliff."
Marcelle shrugged her shoulders.
"Climb the cliff!--why, it is a wall, and every one has not feet of a fly."
"At least it is easy as far as the Trou. There are great ledges for the feet, and niches for the hands."
"If one were even there, what then? It is like the mouth of Hell, and one could not enter."
Marcelle crossed herself religiously.
"It is rather like the little Chapel above, when one carries a light to look around. It is quite dry and pleasant; one might live there and be glad."
"It is, then, a cave?"
"Fit for a sea-woman to dwell in and bring up her little ones."
Rohan laughed, but Marcelle crossed herself again.
"Never name them, Rohan!--ah, the terrible place!"
"It is not terrible, Marcelle; I could sleep there in peace--it is so calm, so still. It would be like one's own bed at home but for the blue doves stirring upon the roosts, and the bats that slip in and out into the night."
"The bats--horrible! my flesh creeps!"
Marcelle, though a maid of courage, had the feminine horror of unclean and creeping things. Charlotte Corday slew the rat Marat, but she shivered at the sight of a mouse.
"And as for the crag above," said Rohan, smiling at her, "I have seen Jannedik climb it often, and I should not fear to try it myself; it is easier than St. Gurlan's Craig. Many poor sailors, when their ship was lost, have been saved like that, when the wind is off the sea; and they have felt God's hand grip them and hold them tight against the precipice that they might not fall--God's hand or the wind, Marcelle, that is all one?"
After this there was silence for a time. Marcelle kept her great eyes fixed upon the glittering curtain of moss and dew, while Rohan dropped his eyes again to a book which he held upon his knee--an old, well-thumbed, coarsely printed volume, with leaves well sewn together with waxed thread.
He read, or seemed to read; yet all the time his joy was in the light presence by his side, and he was conscious of her happy breathing, of the warm touch of her dress against his knee.
Presently he was disturbed in his enjoyment. Marcelle sprang to her feet.
"If we stay longer," she cried, "I shall have to take off my sabots and stockings. For my part, Rohan, I shall run."
And the girl passed rapidly towards the Gate and looked for Rohan to follow her.
Rohan, however, did not stir.
"There is time," he said, glancing through the Gate at the sea, which seemed already preparing to burst and pour in between the granite archway. "Come back, and do not be afraid. There is yet a half-hour, and as for the sabots and stockings, surely you remember how we used to wade together in the blue water of old. Come, Marcelle, and look!"
Marcelle complied. With one doubtful side-glance at the wall of water which seemed to rise up and glimmer close to the Gate, she stole slowly back, and seated herself by her cousin's side. His strength and beauty fascinated her, as it would have fascinated any maiden on that coast, and while she placed her soft brown hand on his knees, and looked up into his face, she felt within her the mysterious stirs of a yearning she could not understand.
"Look, then," he said, pointing out through the Gate; "does it not seem as if all the green waters of the sea were about to rush in and cover us, as they covered the great abbey long ago?"
Marcelle looked.
To one unaccustomed to the place it seemed as if egress were already impossible; for the great swell rose and fell close up against the archway, closing out all glimpses of blue air or sky. Out beyond the arch swam a great grey-headed seal looking with large wistful eyes into the Cathedral, and just then a flight of pigeons swooped through the Gate, scattered in swift flight as they passed overhead, and disappeared in the darkness of the great cave above the Altar.
"Let us go!" said Marcelle in a low voice.
She was superstitious, and the allusion to the old legend made her feel uncomfortable in that solemn place.
"Rest yet," answered Rohan, as he rose and closed his book and touched her arm. "In half an hour, not sooner, the Gate will be like the jaws of a great monster. Do you remember the story of the great Sea-beast and the Maiden chained to a rock, and the brave Youth with wings who rescued her and turned the beast to stone?"
Marcelle smiled and coloured slightly.
"I remember," she answered.
More than once had Rohan, who had a taste for mythology and fairy legend, told her the beautiful myth of Perseus and Andromeda; and more than once had she pictured herself chained in that very place, and a fair-haired form--very like Rohan's--floating down to her on great outspread wings from the blue roof above her head; and although in her dream she herself wore sabots and coarse stockings, and had her dark hair pinned in a coif while Perseus wore sabots too, and the long hair and loose raiment of a Breton peasant, was it any the less delicious to think of? As to slaying a monster, Rohan was quite equal to that, she knew, if occasion came; and taking his reckless daring and his wild cliff-flights into consideration, he really might have been born with wings.
Just then the incoming tide began to be broken into foam below one arch of the gateway, and the rocks with jagged teeth to tear the sea, and the whole side of the Gate, blackly silhouetted against the green water, seemed like the head and jaws of some horrible monster, such as the Greek sailor saw whenever he sailed along his narrow seas; such as the Breton fisher sees to this hour when he glides along the edges of his craggy coast.
"There is the great Sea-beast," said Rohan, "crouching and waiting."
"Yes! See the huge red rock--it is like a mouth."
"If you could stop here and watch, you would say so truly. In a little it will begin to lash and tear the water till the red mouth is white with foam and black with weeds, and the water below it is spat full of foam, and the air is filled with a roar like the bellowing of a beast. I have sat here and watched till I thought the old story was come true and the monster was there; but that was in time of storm."
"You watched it--up in the Trou?"
"It caught me one tide, and I had to sit shivering until sunset; and then the storm went down, but the tide was high. The water washed close to the roof of the Gate, and when the wave rose there was not room for a fly to pass--it surged right up yonder against the walls. Well, I was hungry, and knew not what to do. It was pleasant to see the water turn crystal green all along the cavern floor, and to watch it washing over the rocks and stones where we sat to-day, and to see the seals swimming round and round and trying in vain to find a spot to rest on. But all that would not fill one's stomach. I waited, and then it grew dark, but the tide was still high. It was terrible then, for the stars were clustered up yonder, and the shapes of the old monks seemed coming down from the walls, and I felt afraid to stay. So I left my hat and sabots at the mouth of the cave, and slipped down from ledge to ledge, and dropped down into the water--it was dark as death!"
Marcelle uttered a little terrified "Ah!" and clutched Rohan's arm.
"At first I thought the fiends were loose, for I fell amid a flock of black cormorants, and they shrieked like mad things; and one dived and seized me by the leg, but I shook him away. Then I struck out for the Gate, and as I drew near with swift strokes I saw the great waves rising momently and shutting out the light; but when the waves fell there was a glimmer, and I could just see the top of the arch. So I came close, treading on the sea, till I could almost touch the arch with my hand, and then I watched my chance and dived! Mon Dieu, it was a sharp minute! Had I swum awry, or not dived deep enough, I should have been lifted up and crushed against the jagged stones of the arch; but I held my breath and struck forward--eight, nine, ten strokes under water, when choking, I rose!"
"And then?"
"I was floating on the great wave just outside the arch, with the sea before me and the stars above my head. Then I thought all safe, but just then I saw a billow like a mountain coming in; I drew in a deep breath, and just as the wave rose above me I dived again; when I rose it had passed and was shrieking round the Gate of St. Gildas. So all I had to do then was to swim on for a hundred yards, and turn in and land upon the sands below the Ladder of St. Triffine."
The girl looked for a moment admiringly on her herculean companion--then she smiled.
"Let us go, now," she cried, "or the sea will come again, and this time one at least would drown."
"I will come."
"There, that last wave ran right down into the passage. We must wade, after all."
"What then? The water is warm."
So Rohan still standing rapidly pulled off his sabots and stockings; while Marcelle, sitting on a low rock, drew off hers--nervously, and with less sped. Then she rose, making a pretty grimace as her little white feet touched the cold shingle. Rohan took her hand, and they passed right under the portal, close up against which the tide had by this time crept.
At every step it grew deeper, and soon the maiden had to resign his hand; and gathering up her clothes above the knee, she moved nervously on.
No blush tinged her cheek at thus revealing her pretty limbs; she knew they were pretty, of course, and she felt no shame. True modesty does not consist in a prurient veiling of all that nature has made fair, and perhaps there is no more uncleanness in showing a shapely leg than in baring a well-formed arm.
On one point, however, Marcelle's modesty was supreme. According to the custom of the country, she carefully curled up and coifed her locks, which, unlike those of most Breton maidens, were long enough to reach her shoulders. Her hair was sacred from seeing. Even Rohan in all their later rambles had never beheld her without her coif.
They had reached the portal and were only knee-deep, but before them stretched for several yards a solid wall connected with the Gate, and round the end of this wall they must pass to reach the safe shingle beyond.
Marcelle stood in despair.
Before her stretched the great fields of the ocean, illimitable to all seeming--still but terrible, with here and there a red sail glimmering and following the shining harvest. On every side the tide had risen, and around the outlying wall it was quite deep.
"Ay me!" cried the girl in a pretty despair; "I told you so, Rohan."
Rohan, standing like a solid stone in the water, merely smiled.
"Have no fear," he replied, coming close to her. "Hold your apron!"
She obeyed, holding up her apron and petticoat together; and then, after putting in her lap his and her own sabots and stockings, with the book he had been reading, he lifted her like a feather in his powerful arms.
"You are heavier than you used to be," he said, laughing; while Marcelle, gathering her apron up with one hand, clung tightly round his neck with the other. Slowly and surely, step by step, he waded with her seaward along the moss-hung wall; he seemed in no hurry, perhaps because he had such pleasure in his burthen; but at every step he went deeper, and when he reached the end of the wall the water had crept to his hips.
"If you should stumble!" cried Marcelle.
"I shall not stumble," answered Rohan quietly.
Marcelle was not so sure, and clung to him vigorously. She was not afraid, for there was no danger; but she had the true feminine dread of a wetting. Place her in any circumstance of real peril, call up the dormant courage within her, and she would face the very sea with defiance, with pride, dying like a heroine. Meantime, she was timid, disliking even a splash.
The wall was quickly rounded, and Rohan was wading with his burthen to the shore, so that he was soon only knee-deep again. His heart was palpitating madly, his eyes and cheeks were burning, for the thrill of his delicious load filled him with strange ecstasy; and he lingered in the water, unwilling to resign the treasure he held within his arms.
"Rohan! quick! do not linger!"
It was then that he turned his face up to hers for the first time; and lo! he saw a sight which brought the bright blood to his own cheeks and made him tremble like a tree beneath his load. Porphyro, gazing on his mistress.
"Half hidden like a mermaid in seaweed," and watching her naked beauty gleam like marble in the moonlight, felt no fairer revelation.
Rohan, too, "felt faint."
And why? It was only this--in the excitement and struggle of the passage Marcelle's white coif had fallen back, and her black hair, loosened from its fastenings, had rained down in one dark shower, round cheeks and neck; and cheeks and neck, when Rohan raised his eyes, were burning crimson with a delicious shame.
Have we not said that the hair of a Breton maid is virgin, and is as hallowed as an Eastern woman's face, and is only to be seen by the eyes of him she loves?
Rohan's head swam round.
As his face turned up, burning like her own, the sacred hair fell upon his eyes, and the scent of it--who knows not the divine perfume even scentless things give out when touched by Love?--the scent of it was sweet in his nostrils, while the thrill of its touch passed into his very blood. And under his hands the live form trembled, while his eyes fed on the blushing face.
"Rohan! quick! set me down!"
He stood now on dry land, but he still held her in his arms. The sweet hair floated to his lips, and he kissed it madly, while the fire grew brighter on her face.
"I love you, Marcelle!"
Chapter 4. THE MENHIR
There is one supreme emotion in the life of Love which is never to be known again when once its holy flush has passed; there is one divine sensation when the wave of life leaps its highest and breaks softly, never to rise quite so high again in sunlight or starlight; there is one first touch of souls meeting, and that first touch is divinest, whatever else may follow. The minute, the sensation, the touch, had come to Rohan and Marcelle. Passion suddenly arose full-orbed and absolute. The veil was drawn between soul and soul, and they knew each other's tremor and desire.
Many a day had the cousins wandered alone together for hours and hours. From childhood upwards they had been companions, and their kinship was so close that few coupled their names together as lovers, even in jest. Now, when Rohan was three or four and twenty and Marcelle was eighteen, they were attached friends as ever, and no surveillance was set upon their meetings. Walking about with Rohan had been only like walking with Hoël, or Gildas, or Alain, her tall brothers.
Not that either was quite unconscious of the sweet sympathy which bound them together. Love feels before it speaks, thrills before it sees, wonders before it knows. They had been beautiful in each other's eyes for long, but neither quite knew why.
So their secret had been kept, almost from themselves.
But that disarrangement of the coif that loosening of the virgin hair, divulged all. It broke the barrier between them, it bared each to each in all the nudity of passion. They had passed in an instant from the cold clear air to the very heart of Love's fire, and there they moved, and turned to golden shapes, and lived.
Then, they passed out again, and through the flame, into the common day.
All this time he held her in his arms, and would not let her go. Her hair trembled down upon his face in delicious rain. She could not speak, now, nor struggle.
At last he spoke again.
"I love you, Marcelle!--and you?"
There was only a moment's pause, during which her eyes trembled on his with an excess of passionate light; then, stirring not in his arms, she closed her eyes, and in answer to him, then and for ever, let her lips drop softly down on his!
It was better than all words, sweeter than all looks; it was the very divinest of divine replies, in that language of Love which is the same all over the wide earth. Their lips trembled together in one long kiss, and all the life-blood of each heart flowed through that warm channel into the other.
Then Rohan set her down, and she stood upon her feet, dazzled, and trembling; and lo! as if that supreme kiss was not enough, he kissed her hands over and over, and caught her in his arms, and kissed her lips and cheeks again.
By this time, however, she had recovered herself; so she gently released herself from his embrace.
"Cease, Rohan!" she said softly. "They will see us from the cliffs."
Released by Rohan, she picked up her stockings and sabots, which had fallen on the dry sand, together with those of Rohan, and the book; all the contents of her lap. Then she sat down with her back to Rohan, and drew on her stockings, and could he have marked her face just then, he would have seen it illumined with a strange complacent joy. Then she softly up-bound her hair within its coif. When she rose and turned to him she was quite pale and cool--and the sweet hair was hid.
In these consummate episodes a woman subdues herself to joy sooner than a man. Rohan had put on his stockings and sabots, but he was still trembling from head to foot.
"Marcelle! you love me? ah, but you give me good news--it is almost too good to bear!"
He took both her hands in his, and drew her forward to him, but this time he kissed her brow.
"Did you not know?" she said softly.
"I cannot tell; yes, I think so; but now it seems so new. I was afraid because I was your cousin you might not love me like that. I have known you all these years, and yet it now seems most strange."
"It is strange also to me."
As she spoke she had drawn one hand away, and was walking on up the beach.
"But you love me, Marcelle?" he cried again.
"I have loved you always."
"But not as to-day?"
"No, not as to-day;" and she blushed again.
"And you will never change?"
"It is the men that change, not we women."
"But you will not?"
"I will not."
"And you will marry me, Marcelle?"
"That is as the good God wills."
"So!"
"And the good God's bishop."
"We shall have his blessing too."
"And my brothers also, and my Uncle the Corporal."
"Theirs also."
After that there was a brief silence. To be candid, Rohan was not quite sure of his uncle, who was a man of strange ideas, differing greatly from his own. The Corporal might see objections, and if he saw them he would try, being a man of strong measures, to enforce them. Still, the thought of him was only a passing cloud, and Rohan's face soon brightened.
It was a clear bright day, and every nook and cranny of the great cliffs was distinct in the sunlight. The sea was like glass, and covered as far as the eye could see with a dim heat, like breath on a mirror. Far up above their heads two ravens were soaring in beautiful circles, and beyond these dark specks the skies were all harebell-blue and white feathery clouds.
They soon sought and found a giddy staircase which, entering the very heart of the cliff, wound and wound until it reached the summit; it was partly natural, partly hewn by human hands: here and there it was dangerous, for the loose stone steps had fallen away and left only a slippery slide.
This was the Ladder of St. Triffine.
It was a hard pull to the summit, and for a great part of the way Rohan's arm was round Marcelle's waist. Again and again they stopped for breath, and saw through airy loop-holes in the rock the sea breaking far below them with a cream-white edge on the ribbed sands, and the great boulders glistening in the sun, and the white gulls hovering on the water's brim. At last they reached the grassy plateau above the cliffs, and there they sat and rested,--for Marcelle was very tired.
They could have lingered so for ever, since they were so happy.
It was enough to breathe, to be near each other, to hold each other's hands. The veriest commonplace became divine on their lips, just as the scenes around, common to them, became divine in their eyes. Love is easily satisfied. A look, a tone, a perfume will content it for hours. As for speech, it needs none, since it knows the language of all the flowers and stars, and the secret tones of all the birds.
When the lovers did talk, walking homeward along the greensward, their talk was practical enough.
"I shall not tell my uncle yet," said Marcelle, "nor any of my brothers, not even Gildas. It wants thinking over, and then I will tell them all. But there is no hurry."
"None," said Rohan. "Perhaps they may guess?"
"How should they if we are wise? We are cousins, and we shall meet no oftener than before."
"That is true."
"And when one meets, one need not show one's heart to all the world."
"That is true also. And my mother shall not know."
"Why should she? She will know all in good time. We are doing no wrong, and a secret may be kept from one's people without sin."
"Surely!"
"All the village would talk if they knew, and your mother perhaps most of all. A girl does not like her name carried about like that, unless it is a certain thing."
"Marcelle! is it not certain?"
"Perhaps--yes, I think so--but nevertheless who can tell?"
"But you love me, Marcelle!"
"Ah yes, I love you, Rohan!"
"Then nothing but the good God can keep us asunder, and He is just!"
So speaking, they had wandered along the green plateau until they came in sight of a Shape of stone, which, like some gigantic living form, dominated the surrounding prospect for many miles. It was a Menhir, so colossal that one speculated in vain over the means that had been adopted to raise it on its jagged end.
It surveyed the sea-coast like some dark lighthouse, but no ray ever issued from its awful heart. On its summit was an iron cross, rendered white as snow by the sea-birds; and down its sides, also, the same white snow dripped and hardened, making it hoary and awful as some bearded Druidic god of the primeval forest.
The cross was modern--a sign of capture set there by the new faith. But the Menhir remained unchanged, and gazed at the sea like some calm eternal thing.
