Noémi

Noémi

CHAPTER I.

THE STAIR PERILOUS

Jean del' Peyra was standing scraping a staff to form a lance-shaft. The sun shone hot upon him, and at his feet lay his shadow as a blot.

He was too much engrossed in his work to look about him, till he heard a voice call from somewhere above his head —

"Out of the way, clown!"

Then there crashed down by him a log of wood that rolled to his feet and was followed by another piece.

Now only did Jean look up, and what he saw made him drop his half-finished shaft and forget it. What Jean saw was this: a girl at some distance above him on the face of the rock, swaying a long-handled hammer, with which she was striking at, and dislodging, the steps by which she had ascended, and by means of which alone could she return.

The cliff was of white limestone, or rather chalk, not such as Dover headlands are composed of, and which have given their name to Albion, but infinitely more compact and hard, though scarcely less white. The appearance of the stone was that of fine-grained white limestone. A modern geologist peering among its fossils would say it was chalk. But the period of this tale far antedates the hatching out of the first geologist.

The cliff was that of La Roque Gageac, that shoots up from the Dordogne to the height of four hundred and sixty feet above the river. The lower portion is, however, not perpendicular; it consists of a series of ledges and rapid inclines, on which stands clustered, clinging to the rock, the town of Gageac. But two thirds of the height is not merely a sheer precipice, it overhangs. Half-way up this sheer precipice the weather has gnawed into the rock, where was a bed of softer stone, forming a horizontal cavern, open to the wind and rain, with a roof extending some forty feet, unsupported, above the hard bed that served as floor.

At some time unknown a stair had been contrived in the face of the rock, to reach this terrace a hundred feet above the roofs of the houses below; and then a castle had been built in the cave, consisting of towers and guard-rooms, halls and kitchens; a well had been sunk in the heart of the mountain, and this impregnable fastness had been made into a habitation for man.

It could be reached in but one way, by the stair from below. It could not be reached from above, for the rock overhung the castle walls.

But the stair itself was a perilous path, and its construction a work of ingenuity. To make the position – the eagle nest in the rock – absolutely inaccessible to an enemy, the stair had been contrived so that it could be wrecked by those flying up it, with facility, and that thereby they might cut off possibility of pursuit.

The method adopted was this.

Holes had been bored into the rock-face in gradual ascent from the platform at the foot of the rock to the gate-tower of the castle, nestled on the platform in the precipice. In each such hole a balk or billet of wood was planted, sliced away below where it entered, and this end was then made fast by a wedge driven in under it. From each step, when once secured, that above it could next be made firm. To release the steps a tap from underneath sufficed to loosen the wedge and send it and the balk it supported clattering down.

And now the girl was striking away these steps. What was her purpose? Had she considered what she was doing? To destroy the means of ascent was easy enough; to replace it a labour exacting time and patience. Was she a fool? was she mad?

There was some method in her madness, for she had not knocked away a succession of steps, but two only, with one left in position between.

"'Ware, fool!"

And down the face of the rock and clattering to his feet fell a third.

This was too much.

Jean ran to the foot of the stair and hastened up it till he reached the gap. Further he could not proceed – a step had been dislodged; the next remained intact. Then came another break, a second step in place, and then the third break. Above that stood the girl, swinging the long-handled mallet with which she had loosened the wedges and struck down the steps they held up. She was a handsome girl with dusky skin, but warm with blood under it, dark loose hair, and large deep brown eyes. She stood, athletic, graceful, poised on her stage, swaying the hammer, looking defiantly, insolently, at the youth, with lips half open and pouting.

"Do you know what you are about, madcap?" said he.

"Perfectly. Making you keep your distance, fool."

"Keep distance!" said the youth. "I had no thought of you. I was not pursuing you – I did not know you were here!"

"And now I have woke you to see me."

"What of that? You had acted like a mad thing. I cannot help you, I cannot leap to you. Nothing would make me do so."

"Nothing? Not if I said, 'Come, assist me down'?"

"I could not leap the space. See you – if one step only were thrown down I might venture, but not when every alternate one between us is missing. To leap up were to ensure my fall at the next gap."

"I do not need your help. I can descend. I can spring from one step to the next over the gaps."

"And risk a fall and a broken neck?"

"Then there is one madcap the less in this world."

"For what have you done this?"

"A prank."

"A prank! Yes; but to replace the steps takes time and pains."

"I shall expend neither on them."

"It will give trouble to others."

"If it amuses me, what care I?"

The young man looked at the strange girl with perplexity.

"If every peg of wood were away," said she, "I could yet descend."

"How? Are you a bird – can you fly? Not a cat, not a squirrel could run up or down this rock."

"Fool! I should slip down by the rope. Do you not know that there is a windlass? Do you suppose they take their kegs of wine, their meat, their bread, their fuel up this spider stair? I tell you that there is a rope, and at the end of it a bar of wood. They let this down and bring up what they want affixed to the bar. At pleasure, any man may go up or down that way. Do you not see? It must be so. If they were fast and all the ladders were gone, how should they ever descend? Why, they could not mend the stairs from aloft. It must be done step by step from below. Do you see that, fool?"

"I see that perfectly."

"Very well; I have but to run up, make love to the custodian, and he would swing me down. There; it is easy done!"

"You had best cast down the hammer and let me replace the steps."

"I'll come down without them and without a rope. I can leap. If I cannot creep up as a cat, I can spring down like one – aye! and like a squirrel, too, from one lodging place to another. Stand back and see me."

"Stay!" said Jean. "Why run the risk when not needed?"

"Because I like the risk – it is pepper and mustard to my meat of life. Stand back, clown, or I will spring and strike you over – and down you go and crack your foolish pate."

"If I go – you go also – do you not see that?"

"Look aloft!" said the girl. "Up in that nest – whenever the English are about, up goes into it the Bishop of Sarlat, and he takes with him all his treasure, his gold cups and patens, his shrines for holy bones all set with gems, and his bags of coin. There he sits like an old grey owl, Towhit! towhoo – towhit! towhoo! and he looks out this way, that – to see where houses are burning and smoke rises, and when at night the whole world is besprent with red fires – as the sky is with stars, where farms and homesteads are burning. And he says 'Towhit! towhoo! I have my cups and my patens and my coin-bags, and my dear little holy bones, all safe here. Towhit! towhoo! And best of all – I am safe – my unholy old bones also, whoo! whoo! whoo! Nobody can touch me – whoo! whoo! whoo!'"

"Is he there now?"

"No, he is not. There is no immediate danger. Only a few as guard, that is all. If I were a man, I'd take the place and smoke the old owl out, and rob him of his plunder. I'd keep the shrines, and throw the holy rubbish away!"

"How would you do that?"

"I have been considering. I'd be let down over the edge of the cliff and throw in fireballs, till I had set the castle blazing."

"And then?"

"Then I'd have grappling-irons and crook them to the walls, and swing in under the ledge, and leap on the top of the battlements, and the place would fall. I'd cast the old bishop out if he would not go, and carry off all his cups and shrines and coin."

"It would be sacrilege!"

"Bah! What care I?" Then, after enjoying the astonishment of the lad, she said: "With two or three bold spirits it might be done. Will you join me? Be my mate, and we will divide the plunder." She burst into a merry laugh. "It would be sport to smoke out the old owl and send him flying down through the air, blinking and towhooing, to break his wings, or his neck, or his crown there – on those stones below."

"I'm not English – I'm no brigand!" answered the young man vehemently.

"I'm English!" said the girl.

"What? An English woman or devil?"

"I'm English – I'm Gascon. I'm anything where there is diversion to be got and plunder to be obtained. Oh, but we live in good times! Deliver me from others where there is nothing doing, no sport, no chevauchée 1 no spoil, no fighting."

Then suddenly she threw away the hammer and spread her arms as might a bird preparing to fly, bent her lithe form as might a cricket to leap.

"Stand aside! Go back! 'Ware, I am coming!"

The lad hastily beat a retreat down the steps. He could do no other. Each step was but two feet in length from the rock. There was no handrail; no two persons could pass on it. Moreover, the impetus of the girl, if she leaped from one foothold to the next, and the next, and then again to the stair where undamaged, would be prodigious; she would require the way clear that she might descend bounding, swinging down the steep flight, two stages at a leap, till she reached the bottom. An obstruction would be fatal to her, and fatal to him who stood in her way.

No word of caution, no dissuasion was of avail. In her attitude, in the flash of her eyes, in the tone of her voice, in the thrill that went through her agile frame, Jean saw that the leap was inevitable. He therefore hastened to descend, and when he reached the bottom, turned to see her bound.

He held his breath. The blood in his arteries stood still. He set his teeth, and all the muscles of his body contracted as with the cramp.

He saw her leap.

Once started, nothing could arrest her.

On her left hand was the smooth face of the rock, without even a blade of grass, a harebell, a tuft of juniper growing out of it. On her right was void. If she tripped, if she missed her perch, if she miscalculated her weight, if she lost confidence for one instant, if her nerve gave way in the slightest, if she was not true of eye, nimble of foot, certain in judging distance, then she would shoot down just as had the logs she had cast below.

As certainly as he saw her fall would Jean spring forward in the vain hope of breaking her fall, as certainly to be struck down and perish with her.

One – a whirl before his eyes. As well calculate her leaps as count the spokes in a wheel as it revolves on the road.

One – two – three – thirty – a thousand – nothing!

"There, clown!"

She was at the bottom, her hands extended, her face flushed with excitement and pleasure.

"You see – what I can dare and do."

CHAPTER II.

WHO IS THE FOOL NOW?

There boiled up in the youth's heart a feeling of wrath and indignation against the girl who in sheer wantonness had imperiled her life and had given to him a moment of spasm of apprehension.

Looking full into her glittering brown eyes, he said —

"You have cast at me ill names. I have been to you but clown and fool; I have done nothing to merit such titles; I should never have thrown a thought away on you, but have gone on scraping my shaft, had not you done a silly thing – a silly thing. Acted like a fool, and a fool only!"

"You dare not do what I have done."

"If there be a need I will do it. If I do it for a purpose there is no folly in it. That is folly where there is recklessness for no purpose."

"I had a purpose!"

"A purpose? – what? To call my attention to you, to make me admire your daring, all to no end. Or was it in mere inconsiderate prank? A man is not brave merely because he is so stupid that he does not see the consequences before him. A blind man may walk where I should shrink from treading. And stupidity blinds some eyes that they run into danger and neither see nor care for the danger or for the consequences that will ensue on their rashness."

The girl flushed with anger.

"I am not accustomed to be spoken to thus," she said, and stamped her foot on the pavement of the platform.

"All the better for you that it is spoken at last."

"And who are you that dare say it?"

"I – I am Jean del' Peyra."

The girl laughed contemptuously. "I never heard the name."

"I have told you my name, what is yours?" asked the boy, and he picked up his staff and began once more to point it.

There was indifference in his tone, indifference in the act, that exasperated the girl.

"You do not care – I will not say."

"No," he answered, scraping leisurely at the wood. "I do not greatly care. Why should I? You have shown me to-day that you do not value yourself, and you do not suppose, then, that I can esteem one who does not esteem herself."

"You dare say that!" The girl flared into fury. She stooped to pick up the hammer. Jean put his foot on it.

"No," said he. "You would use that, I suppose, to knock out my brains, because I show you no homage, because I say that you have acted as a fool, that your bravery is that of a fool, that your thoughts – aye, your thoughts of plunder and murder against the Bishop of Sarlat, your old owl – towhit, towhoo! are the thoughts of a fool. No – I do not care for the name of a fool."

"Why did you run up the steps? Why did you cry to me to desist from knocking out the posts? Why concern yourself a mite about me, if you so despise me?" gasped the girl, and it seemed as though the words shot like flames from her lips.

"Because we are of like blood – that is all!" answered Jean, coolly.

"Like blood! Hear him – hear him! He and I —he– he and I of like blood, and he a del' Peyra! And I – I am a Noémi!"

"So – Noémi! That is your name?"

"And I," continued the girl in her raging wrath, "I – learn this – I am the child of Le Gros Guillem. Have you ever heard of the Gros Guillem?" she asked in a tone of triumph, like the blast of a victor's trumpet.

Jean lowered his staff, and looked steadily at her. His brows were contracted, his lips were set firm.

"So!" he said, after a pause. "The daughter of Gros Guillem?"

"Aye – have you heard of him?"

"Of course I have heard of him."

"And of the del' Peyras who ever heard?" asked the girl with mockery and scorn, and snapped her fingers.

"No – God be thanked! – of the del' Peyras you have never heard as of the Gros Guillem."

"The grapes – the grapes are sour!" scoffed the girl.

"I wonder at nothing you have done," said the boy sternly, "since you have told me whence you come. Of the thorn – thorns; of the nettle – stings; of the thistle – thistles – all after their kind. No! God be praised!" The boy took off his cap and looked up. "The Gros Guillem and my father, Ogier del' Peyra, are not to be spoken of in one sentence here, nor will be from the White Throne on the Day of Doom."

Looking steadily at the girl seething with anger, with mortified pride, and with desire to exasperate him, he said —

"I should never have thought that you sprang from the Gros Guillem. The likeness must be in the heart, it is not in the face."

"Have you seen my father?" asked the girl.

"I have never seen him, but I have heard of him."

"What have you heard?"

"That he is very tall and spider-like in build; they call him 'le gros' in jest, for he is not stout, but very meagre. He has long hands and feet, and a long head with red hair, and pale face with sunspots, and very faint blue eyes, under thick red brows. That is what I am told Le Gros Guillem is like. But you – "

"Describe me – go on!"

"No!" answered Jean. "There is no need. You see yourself every day in the glass. When there is no glass you look at yourself in the water; when no water, you look at yourself in your nails."

"When there is no water, I look at myself in your eyes, and see a little brown creature there – that is me. Allons!"

She began to laugh. Much of her bad temper had flown; she was a girl of rapidly changing moods.

It was true that she was mirrored in Jean del' Peyra's eyes. He was observing her attentively. Never before had he seen so handsome a girl, with olive, transparent skin, through which the flush of colour ran like summer lightning in a summer cloud – such red lips, such rounded cheek and chin; such an easy, graceful figure! The magnificent burnished black hair was loose and flowing over her shoulders; and her eyes! – they had the fire of ten thousand flints lurking in them and flashing out at a word.

"How come you here?" asked Jean, in a voice less hard and in a tone less indifferent than before. "This place, La Roque Gageac, is not one for a daughter of Le Gros Guillem. Here we are French. At Domme they are English, and that is the place for your father."

"Ah!" said the girl in reply, "among us women French or English are all the same. We are both and we are neither. I suppose you are French?"

"Yes, I am French."

"And a Bishop's man?"

"I live on our own land – Del Peyraland, at Ste. Soure."

"And I am with my aunt here. My father considers Domme a little too rough a place for a girl. He has sent me hither. At the gates they did not ask me if I were French or English. They let me through, but not my father's men. They had to ride back to Domme."

"He cannot come and see you here?"

The girl laughed. "If he were to venture here, they would hang him – not give him half an hour to make his peace with Heaven! – hang him – hang him as a dog!"

"So! – and you are even proud of such a father!"

"So! – and even I am proud to belong to one whose name is known. I thank my good star I do not belong to a nobody of whom none talk, even as an Ogier del' Peyra."

"You are proud of your father – of Le Gros Guillem!" exclaimed Jean; and now his brow flushed with anger, and his eye sparkled. "Proud of that routier and rouffien, 2 who is the scourge, the curse of the country round! Proud of the man that has desolated our land, has made happy wives into wailing widows, and glad children into despairing orphans; who has wrecked churches, and drunk – blaspheming God at the time – out of the gold chalices; who has driven his sword into the bowels of his own Mother Country, and has scorched her beautiful face with his firebrands! I know of Le Gros Guillem – who does not? – know of him by the curses that are raised by his ill deeds, the hatred he has sown, the vows of vengeance that are registered – "

"Which he laughs at," interrupted Noémi.

"Which he laughs at now," pursued the boy angrily, and anger gave fluency to his tongue. "But do you not suppose that a day of reckoning will arrive? Is Heaven deaf to the cries of the sufferers? Is Humanity all-enduring, and never likely to revolt – and, when she does, to exact a terrible revenge? The labourer asks for naught but to plough his land in peace, the merchant nothing but to be allowed to go on his journey unmolested, the priest has no higher desire than to say his Mass in tranquillity. And all this might be but for Le Gros Guillem and the like of him. Let the English keep their cities and their provinces; they belong to them by right. But is Le Gros Guillem English? Was Perducat d'Albret English? What of Le petit Mesquin? of the Archpriest? of Cervolle? Were they English? Are those real English faces that we fear and hate? Are they not the faces of our own countrymen, who call themselves English, that they may plunder and murder their fellow-countrymen and soak with blood and blast with fire the soil that reared them?"

Noémi was somewhat awed by his vehemence, but she said —

"Rather something to be talked about than a nothing at all."

"Wrong, utterly wrong!" said Jean. "Rather be the storm that bursts and wrecks all things than be still beneficent Nature in her order which brings to perfection? Any fool can destroy; it takes a wise man to build up. You – you fair and gay young spirit, tell me have you ever seen that of which you speak so lightly, of which you jest as if it were a matter of pastime? Have you gone tripping after your father, treading in his bloody footprints, holding up your skirts lest they should touch the festering carcases on either side the path he has trod?"

"No," answered the girl, and some of the colour went out of her face, leaving it the finest, purest olive in tint.

"Then say no more about your wish to have a name as a routier and to be the terror of the countryside, till you have experienced what it is that terrorises the land."

"One must live," said Noémi.

"One may live by helping others to live – as does the peasant, and the artisan, as the merchant; or by destroying the life of others – as does the routier and the vulgar robber," answered Jean.

Then Noémi caught his wrist and drew him aside under an archway. Her quick eye had seen the castellan coming that way; he had not been in the castle in the face of the rock, but in the town; and he was now on his way back. He would find the means of ascent broken, and must repair it before reaching his eyrie.

"Who is the fool now?" said Jean del' Peyra. "You, who were knocking away the steps below you, calculating that if you destroyed that stair, you could still descend by the custodian's rope and windlass. See – he was not there. You would have been fast as a prisoner till the ladder was restored; and small bones would have been made of you, Gros Guillem's daughter, for playing such a prank as that!"

Unseen they watched the man storming, swearing, angrily gathering up the pegs and wedges and the hammer, and ascending the riskful flight of steps to replace the missing pieces of wood in their sockets, and peg them firmly and sustainingly with their wedges.

"What you did in your thoughtlessness, that your father and the like of him do in their viciousness, and do on a grander scale," said Jean. "They are knocking away the pegs in the great human ladder, destroying the sower with his harvest, the merchant with his trade, the mason, the carpenter, the weaver with their crafts, the scholar with his learning, the man of God with his lessons of peace and goodwill. And at last Le Gros Guillem and such as he will be left alone, above a ruined world on the wreckage of which he has mounted, to starve, when there is nothing more to be got, because the honest getters have all been struck down. Who is the fool now?"

"Have done!" said the girl impatiently. "You have moralised enough – you should be a clerk!"

"We are all made moralists when we see honesty trampled under foot. Well for you, Noémi, with your light head and bad heart – "

"My bad heart!"

"Aye, your bad heart. Well for you that you are a harmless girl and not a boy, or you would have followed quick in your father's steps and built yourself up as hateful a name."

"I, a harmless girl?"

"Yes, a harmless girl. Your hands are feeble, and however malicious your heart, you can do none a mischief, save your own self."

"You are sure of that?"

"Mercifully it is so. The will to hurt and ruin may be present, but you are weak and powerless to do the harm you would."

"Is a woman so powerless?"

"Certainly."

She ran up a couple of steps, caught him by the shoulders, stooped, and kissed him on the lips, before he was aware what she was about to do.

"Say that again! A woman is weak! A woman cannot ravage and burn, and madden and wound – not with a sword and a firebrand, but – "

She stooped. The boy was bewildered – his pulses leaping, his eye on fire, his head reeling. She kissed him again.