Read Ebook: In the Border Country by Bacon Josephine Daskam Peck Clara Elsene Illustrator

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Ebook has 115 lines and 7571 words, and 3 pages

usly at her.

"The street? The street," he repeated, "my daughter, what are you thinking of? Look through this pane and recollect your whereabouts."

He pointed to an empty pane among the coloured pieces of the window through which, now and then, the wind blew powdery snow. She put her eyes to it and looked out upon a great bare moorland, white under a cold winter moon. Here and there sprang a fir tree, but for the most part the land stretched away to the horizon, empty as death--and as chill. So close to her eye that she must hold her head back in order to see it, rose a great square tower with stretches of tiled roof, mostly snow-covered, spreading out below it; this chapel was the end of the building, it was plain.

Now a strange, uncertain doubt fell over her, and forgetting the terrors of the dark cellar and the long vaults, she turned to the little door again.

"Open that," she said, "and I will try my luck at getting back. For I have come farther than I knew, it seems."

The friar crossed himself. "Back!" he cried, "back through those ancient tombs, Christ knows where? Never dream of it, my daughter! Besides," as she rushed to the door, "it would be impossible. The old key broke in the lock even as I laboured over it, and ten men could not stir it now."

"Tombs?" she murmured, fearfully, "what do you mean by tombs? I came through a cellar...."

"My daughter in Christ," said the friar, advancing firmly toward her and holding out with shaking hands an ivory crucifix so that it touched her breast, "if thou art a mad-woman only, God pity thee, but if thou art more--and worse--then know this sign, before Whom all devils tremble, and vanish! For thou art covered inches deep with the dust of tombs so old that they are forgotten utterly of us who tend the ashes of their descendants, and the cobweb that drapes thy body like a shawl so that I cannot tell for my life the fashion of thy garments, or if thou art young or old, maid or widow, has been a-thickening these hundred years and more!"

At this the moon struck sharply through the empty pane and she saw herself for what he had said and swooned with the cold and her deadly fear.

She came to herself in a soft whispering and rustling of skirts, and knew that women were moving around her.

"What will happen to her?" said one voice, "I had not thought such things possible, hadst thou, Alys?"

"Be still, girls, she is stirring at the eyelids! How is it with you, madam?"

She opened her eyes and saw three or four young women in fanciful dresses looped up with chains, with jewelled nets upon their heads, and seed pearls braided into their hair. Their gowns of brocaded silk clung closely to the body and left the neck and shoulders bare.

"This is evidently no monastery," she said, and then, "where am I? I am so cold!"

"Soon you will be warm, madam," said the tallest of the girls, with two long braids of dark hair over her shoulders and a wine-red gown trimmed with black fur; "could you find it possible to walk between two of us, think you? Come, Mawdlyn, your arm!"

But little Mawdlyn shrank back. "I am in great fear of all that cobweb, cousin Alys," she whimpered, and no scowls availed to move her.

"Let me help you, Mistress Alys," said, very gravely, a young boy, stepping forward with a plumed cap in his hand and a short hunting knife at his leather girdle.

The tired woman leaned heavily on his arm, and it was he that led her gently and carefully along the great hall between the moving tapestries. Before a curtained door he paused.

"I can go no farther, madam, but if I may ever serve you, which is my true hope, call for me. You will see me on the instant," he said softly, and Alys led her behind the curtain.

Upon a da?s sat a very beautiful young woman with deep eyes like brown stars and two great braids of hair like the inner side of chestnuts when they fall apart. She was all in shot-gold silk and on her dark hair lay a twisted golden coronet with rubies studded in it. A big ruby hung on a golden chain around her warm white neck. Below her lay a great silver bath full to the brim of steaming water, and as the two entered, she rose, took a carved ivory box from an old serving woman beside her, and sprinkled a handful of what looked to be white sea sand from it into the bath, which bubbled and clouded and turned milky like an opal.

"Quickly, quickly, Alys!" she cried, "give her to me!"

And as the woman tottered and drew back from the steamy clouds, she of the coronet hastened toward her, took her in her young powerful arms as if she had been an infant, and lifted her over the silver edge. Now the warmth restored her a little and she resisted feebly and protested.

For she perceived that she was being held so as to prevent her looking into the bath.

"Ah, madam, be guided, be guided! The Countess would not have you look!" cried Alys, but she turned in the strong arms that held her and peered into the milky waves, that smelt of roses, and her heart turned in her, for the bath had no bottom at all, and below the waves were the rocks of the sea itself, white and ribbed, stretching out endlessly! Great masts of ships were there and huge fishes oaring their way, and as the water touched her she did not feel it warm, but cold and salt. She struggled, but it reached her lips and she felt the Countess thrust her down, down.

"Push her, push her, Alys!" cried this cruel Countess, "press down her feet!" and she sank, gasping.

The water drew through her nostrils and the air was full of deep, tolling bells and at last a steady hum, as of bees. She knew nothing more.

At last, as one might waken after death, she breathed again, and felt herself being lifted from a warm, sweet bath and held, naked as a new child, on the knees of one who dried her softly with a towel of finest linen that smelt of roses.

"See how clean, my lady! Everything has gone!" She heard the voice of Alys, and peeped beneath her lids at where she had been plunged: it was but a great silver bath, clear, now, to the bottom, and quite empty.

"Where are my clothes?" she whispered, feeling strangely light and strong, "I am not cold any more; I can go on."

"Surely, if you will," said she whom they called the Countess, "but not till you have eaten and drunk and had of us new wear in the stead of that my bath has washed away."

And so, almost before she knew it, Alys and the old serving woman had put on her soft, fine linen and a shot-silver robe, looped up with a silver chain, and dressed her hair nobly. Over her neck and shoulders, no longer smoothly full like her own, this countess fastened a sort of cape of lace and silver, and on her feet the old woman fitted pointed velvet shoes. She watched them gravely, tingling still from that strange bath, trying to shape out in her mind what she would say to lead them to explain to her the place she had fallen upon, and why they played this pretty jest, and spoke and dressed so quaintly.

Now the Countess touched a silver bell and the old woman drew a heavy curtain before the bath and the da?s and placed a carved chair, and when Alys had led her to it, the same youth appeared with a tray in his hand, holding fine wheat bread and a graceful flagon of rosy wine and a fragment of honeycomb. He knelt before her, seriously, with eyes never raised above his silken knees, but his very presence moved her strangely and she put her hand softly on his head when he said, "Will you eat, madam, and refresh yourself?" and hastened to taste of all on his tray before he could be offended.

"And now, Alys, where is your mistress?" she said, when her strength was stayed and her eyes and voice bright again with the comforting wine, "for I must talk with her."

"Presently, madam, presently," said the girl, "none may speak with her at the moment, for she is gone to Mass--'tis the Count's name-day and the night, too, when God and St. Michael took him, fighting, and we have been out all day for holly for the chapel. We are all to go--will you come with us?"

"No," she said, thinking to make her way out when they were all gone and find out where this wild tract could be, "no, I will wait here. I am not of your religion, Alys."

The girl sprang back from her with frightened eyes and crossed herself.

"Madam!" she cried, "never speak so! If they thought a Moslem here--and to-night--hush, there go the men!"

There was a great tramping, and along the tapestries, before the drawn curtain, came a company of men-at-arms, clanking in full armour, with set, hard faces under the helmets.

She grasped at the arms of her oak chair wildly; these harsh men sent a chill through her--was some horrid treachery thus hinted to her? Then as Alys sped along behind them she felt her hand kissed softly and the little page-boy was there.

"There is none to hurt you--if you stay quiet here," he said softly, and she knew she dared not move or spy about.

Now arose a low chanting and then murmured prayers, and soon a smell of incense reached them. Then at last the mystic bell struck mellow on the night air and she knew that God was made and that men, maids, and Countess-widow were bowed before this mystery. The page bent low and crossed himself and a strange jealousy rushed over her that he should be of this sort, when she was not, for she loved the boy unreasonably.

"Your mother is a good Catholic, I see," she said, when the chant grew louder and covered her voice.

"I do not know, madam," he said.

"You do not know?" she cried, "and why not?"

"Because I do not know my mother, dear madam," he answered, and flushed to where his slim neck was hidden by his long hair.

Then a keen trouble rose in her and grew ever stronger, and the boy's eyes frightened her and yet she must watch him. Steadily she looked at him and sat as one in a dream and thought no more of going away, but when the Countess and her train came back and the men had vanished and the maids-in-waiting were whispering around the great fireplace, she put out her hand and caught the young widow's silken gown.

"Who--who is his mother?" she asked eagerly.

"Who should be?" the Countess answered strangely, "whom hath he a look of, guest of mine?"

The boy lifted his face as she put a shaking finger under his round chin and turned his eyes up to her, and a shiver ran through her--for they were her own eyes.

"This--this is no boy of mine!" she gasped, shaking with more than terror.

"He might have been," said the young Countess with grave gentleness, "but you would not have him. So that he must come to us."

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