"Awestruck, the much-admiring crowd Before the virgin vision bowed, Gaz'd with an ever-new delight, And caught fresh virtues at the sight."--EDWARD MOOR?S Fables.
On the 24th of June, in the year 708, merry crowds were thronging toVazon Forest. It was a lovely spot. The other portions of the islandwere bare and somewhat rugged; here the humidity of the soil favouredthe growth of fine, vigorous timber. On the low ground flourished oakand sycamore, torn and bent near the shore where the trees met the forceof the Atlantic gales, growing freely and with rich verdure where betterprotected. On the higher slopes were massed beech, birch, and the sweetchestnut which was even then domesticated in the island. Glades,bursting with a wealth of flowers nurtured by the mildness of theclimate, penetrated the wood in every direction; streams bubbling upfrom springs, and forming little cascades where their course was checkedby granite boulders, lent an additional charm. Towards the centre of theforest these streams united to form a lake, or rather a natural moat,surrounding an island in the midst of which stood a gigantic oak. Thiswas the only tree on the island; round it, at even distances, wereplaced twelve stones, beyond which a meadow glittering with varied huesextended to the surrounding water.
It was to this island that the holiday-makers were wending their way:young men and maidens, and such elders as had vigour enough to traversethe rough tracks leading from the interior. They were a small race,lithe and active, with strong black hair and dark eyes now twinklingwith merriment They poured over the wooden bridges into the precincts ofthe towering oak, under which the elders seated themselves with themusicians, the younger people streaming off to the clear ground betweenthe stones and the water.
When all were assembled the music struck up at a signal from an elder.The instruments were akin to the goat-skin pipes of Lower Brittany; themusic wild, weird, appealing to the passion if not melodious to the ear.At any rate the effect was inspiriting. First, the men danced, themaidens seating themselves round the dancers and chanting the followingwords, to the rhythm of which they swayed their bodies gracefully:--
"Mille Sarrazins, mille Sarmates, Un jour nous avons tu閟. Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille Perses, Nous cherchons ?present."
The dance, footed to this truculent chant, had no warlike features;beginning with a march, or rather a tripping walk, it ended with featsin which each dancer defied his neighbour to out-spring him; nor did thevocalists appear to expect representations of strife and doughty deeds.The words, Roman by origin, as is clear from the allusion to thePersians, had been adapted to a native air by the conquerors, and hadbeen left by them as a legacy to the islanders. Next, the maidens trod ameasure, the men standing round and applauding; the dance was quiet andsoft, consisting principally of graceful movements of the body as if thedancers were getting themselves into training for greater efforts; inthis case the dancers themselves chanted words suitable to the music.This ended, there was a pause before the principal business of the daybegan, the dance in which both sexes joined, to be followed by thebestowal of a wreath on the loveliest of the maidens.
During the pause it was evident that an unusual incident had occurred.The best-looking of the girls were pouting, the attention of the youthswas distracted. During the latter part of the dance the applause hadbeen intermittent; towards the close it had almost ceased. The elders,looking about under their shaggy eyebrows, had not been long indiscovering the cause, and when they had found it allowed theirattention to wander also.
The disturbing element was, indeed, not far to seek. Close to one of thebridges was seated a maiden, unknown to all of them, but lovely enoughto hold the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall andfair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered overher blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. Bydegrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluffmanners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs theyretired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, amember of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spotdiscovered the sleeping troops of the Grand Sarrazin, was admired andbeloved both by youths and maidens. First in every sport, having showncourage and resource in times of peril both by sea and land, tender ofglance and gentle of tongue, he held a pre-eminence which none disputed,and which was above the reach of envy. The fair stranger, from his firstglance at her, had fascinated, enthralled him: his eyes fastenedgreedily on her every movement; he noted well her reception of those whohad addressed her, and when he approached he came, bare-headed, with alow obeisance and a deferential air. He seated himself by her insilence, after murmuring a few words of welcome to the feast, to whichshe made no answer. Presently he spoke again, softly and courteously;she replied without constraint, speaking his own language fluently,though with a foreign accent. The ice once broken their talk rippled on,as is the wont of light words, brightly uttered. Jean drank in eachgentle phrase, watched every graceful gesture; his heart bounded whenshe carelessly smiled. But he lost not his daring: when the musiciansagain struck up he boldly asked her to join in the dance.
She was not offended, her look showed no displeasure, but she refused;he renewed his request; suddenly a change came over her face, she lookedrapidly round as though searching for some one who was not present, aflash came into her eyes, she sprang to her feet. "Why should I notdance!" she said; "they are merry, why should I alone be sad!" She lethim lead her into the ring. If she had been enchanting when seated, whatwas her power when she moved! She was a model of grace and loveliness;the contrast of her colouring to that of her neighbours inspired thesuperstitious with some terror, but made the braver spirits gaze morecuriously, indifferent to the half-concealed anger and affected disdainof their partners. Every moment she gained more hearts, though she lether eyes rest only on those of Jean. After the dance was over she seatedherself in her former position; the women then, according to custom,retired outside the stone circle, while the men clustered round the oakto award the prize. The ceremony had up to this day been looked on as apure formality: for the last two summers the wreath had been by commonconsent placed on the brows of Suzanne Falla, and none who woke thatmorning had doubted that it would rest there again before night. But nowthe men's heads were turned; there was commotion both outside and insidethe circle; then a hush, as the old men rose in their places and theyoung men formed a lane to the tree. Jean stepped out, and taking thestranger by the hand, led her to where a white-haired veteran stood withthe wreath in his hand. The next moment it was placed on her brows, andthen all voices burst into a song of triumph, which rang to the remotestglades of the forest. Suzanne did not join in the song; her little heartwas breaking; all the passion of her hot nature was roused; she feltherself unfairly, unjustly, treated; insulted on the very day that wasto have crowned her pride. She could not control herself, nor could sheaccept her defeat: she stamped her foot on the ground, and poured out atorrent of objurgation, accusing Jean of treachery, demanding to knowwhence he had produced her rival, appealing to the elders to revise thejudgment. Then, suddenly ceasing, as she saw by the looks of thosearound her that while in some her fate created pity, in others it gaverise to amusement, in many to the pleasure which poor human nature feltthen as now in a friend's misfortune, her mood altered: she turned and,rapidly leaving the crowd, crossed one of the bridges. Hastening hersteps, but not watching them, she tripped over the straggling root of ayew, and fell, her temple striking a sharp boulder, one of many croppingup in the forest. Poor girl! in one moment passion and pride had flown;she lay senseless, blood streaming from the wound.
A quick revulsion of feeling swept through the impressionable people.Her departure had been watched, the fall observed, and the seriousnature of the accident was soon known; all hurried to the spot where shelay, full of sympathy and distress. Jean, perhaps not altogetherunremorseful, was among the first to proffer aid; the stranger, leftalone, took off the wreath and placed it on one of the stones of thecircle, by which she stood contemplating the scene.
The blow, struck deep into the temple, was beyond any ordinary means ofcure; life indeed seemed to be ebbing away. "Send for Marie!" the crysprang from many mouths: "send for Marie the wise woman! she alone cansave her!" Three or four youths ran hastily off.
"Wish ye for Marie Torode's body or her spirit?" said a harsh femalevoice; "her body ye can have! but what avail closed eyes and rigidlimbs? Her spirit, tossed by the whirling death-blast, is beyond yourreach!"
The speaker, on whom all eyes turned, was an aged woman of unusualheight; her snow-white hair was confined by a metal circlet, her eyeswere keen and searching, her gestures imperious; her dress was simpleand would have been rude but for the quaintly ornamented silver girdlethat bound her waist, and the massive bracelets on her arms. Like thegirl she was seen for the first time; her almost supernatural appearanceinspired wonder and awe. She bent over the prostrate form: "Marie saidwith her last breath," she muttered to herself, "that ere the oaks weregreen again the sweetest maidens in the island would be in her embrace,but she cannot summon this one now! her vext spirit has not yet thepower!"
She examined the wound, and raising herself said, "No human hand cansave her. The Spirits alone have power: those Spirits who prolong humanlife regardless of human ills; but they must be besought, and who willcare to beseech them?"
"Prayers may save her," answered a stern voice, "but not prayers todevils! The Holy Virgin should we beseech, by whom all pure maidens arebeloved. She will save her if it be God's will, or receive her into herbosom if it be decreed that she should die."
The words were those of Father Austin, one of the monks of Lihou,distinguished by his sanctity and the austerity of his habits. He wasspare, as one who lived hardly; his grey eyes had a dreamy lookbetokening much inward contemplation, though they could be keen enoughwhen, as now, the man was roused; there was a gentleness about his mouthwhich showed a nature filled with love and sympathy.
The woman drew herself to her full stature, and turned on him a defiantlook.
"Gods or devils!" she said in a ringing tone--"which you will! What canan immured anchorite know of the vast mysteries of the wind-bornespirits? Is this child to live or die? My gods can save her; if yourscan, let them take her! She is nought to me."
"When Elijah wrestled with the prophets of Baal, where did victoryrest?" said the priest, and he too stooped down and inspected the wound."She is past cure," he said, rising sadly; "it remains but to pray forher soul."
At this critical moment an agonizing shriek rang through the forest. Thesame runners who had sped to Marie Torode's cottage and had learnt therethat the wise woman had in truth passed away, had brought back withthem Suzanne's mother, who threw herself on her child's bodyendeavouring to staunch the blood, and to restore animation. Finding herefforts vain, she had listened anxiously to the words that had passed,and on hearing the priest's sentence of doom she burst into franticgrief and supplication. Turning to each disputant she cried--"Save her!save her young life! I suckled her, I reared her, I love her!--oh, how Ilove her!--do not let her die!"
"She can be saved!" curtly responded the stranger. The priest wassilent. A murmur arose. Austin, who had trained himself to study thoseamong whom he laboured, saw that the feeling was rising strongly againsthim. His antagonist saw it also, and pressed her victory.
"Yes!" she said scornfully, "it is a small matter for my Gods to saveher, but they will not be besought while this bald-pate obtrudes hispresence. Let him leave us!"
The priest was much perplexed. He knew the skill of these lonely women;secretly he had faith in their power of witchcraft, though attributingit to the direct agency of Satan. He thought it not impossible thatthere was truth in the boast; and his heart was wrung with the mother'sgrief. On the other hand, the public defeat was a sore trial; but it wasclear to him that for the present at least the analogy of Elijah'sstruggle was imperfect: he must wait, and meanwhile bear hisdiscomfiture with meekness. He prepared to retire. The victor was not,however, even now satisfied. "Take with you," she said, "yon idol thatdefaces the sacred oak!"
The good fathers, following their usual practice of associating emblemsof heathen with those of Christian worship, in the hope of graduallydiverting the reverence to the latter without giving to the former aruder shock than could be endured, had suspended a small cross on theoak, hoping eventually to carve the tree itself into a sacred emblem; itwas to this that the woman was pointing with a sneer.
But this time she had made a blunder. Father Austin turned to thecrucifix and his strength and fire returned. Taking it from the tree,reverently kissing it and holding it aloft, he said solemnly--"Let mybrothers and sisters come with me! We will pray apart, where no profanewords can reach us. Perchance our prayers may be granted!" Not a few ofthe hearers followed him; sufficient indeed to make an imposingprocession: the triumph of the Evil One was at least dimmed.
But his adversary did not appear to notice their departure. She gave asharp glance in the direction of the oak, and the now discrowned girlwas quickly at her side. Receiving some rapid instructions, the latterdisappeared into the wood, and shortly returned with some herbs, whichshe passed to her companion; she then resumed her position by the stone.The old woman placed some leaves, which she selected, on the wound: thebleeding at once ceased; squeezing juice from the herbs, she applied anointment made from it; then, opening a phial attached to her waist-belt,she poured some drops of liquid into the girl's mouth, gently partingher lips. This done, she stood erect and began an incantation, or rathera supplication, in an unknown tongue. As she proceeded her form becamerigid, her eye gleamed, her arms, the hands clenched, were raised aboveher head. The sun flashed on the circlet, glittered on the embossedgirdle: on the right arm was a heavy bracelet, composed of a goldenserpent winding in weird folds round a human bone; the head was towardsthe wearer's wrist, and the jewelled eyes which, being of large size,must have been formed of rare stones, glowed and shot fire as the redbeams struck on them through the branches. It seemed that a forkedtongue darted in and out, but this may have been imagined by the heatedfancies of the bystanders. The prayer ended; the stillness of deathrested a moment on man and nature; then a wild gust of wind, strikingthe oak without any preliminary warning, bent and snapped the upperbranches, and crashed inland through the swaying forest. The watcherssaw the colour return to the cheeks of the wounded girl, who opened hereyes and sate up. "Take her home," said the sorceress, now quitecomposed, to the mother; "she is yours again!--till Marie calls her!"she added in a low voice to herself. The happy mother, shedding tears ofjoy, but in vain attempting to get her thanks accepted, obeyed theinjunction.
As she and her friends disappeared, the old woman, turning to the awedpeople who seemed more than ever disposed to look on her as asupernatural being, said sternly--"Why linger you here? Are youunmindful of your duties? See you not how the shadows lengthen?" Thesewords produced a magical effect: the deep emotions by which the mass hadbeen recently swayed were swiftly replaced by equally profound feelingsof a different nature, as cloud succeeds cloud in a storm-swept sky.
And now a singular scene was enacted. A procession was formed, headed bythe old men, bare-headed; the musicians followed, behind whom walkedwith solemn step the younger members of the community. This procession,emerging from the western border of the forest, slowly climbed theslopes of the Rocque du Guet, and arriving at the summit bent its wayseaward, halting at the edge of the precipitous cliff.
The sun was nearing the horizon. The scene was one of unsurpassedloveliness. Behind lay the central and southern portions of the island,hushed as if their primaeval rocks were still tenantless. The outlinesof the isles of Herm and Jethou were visible, but already sinking intothe shades of evening. On the left the bold bluffs of L'Er閑 and Lihou,on the right the rugged masses of the Grandes and the Grosses Rocques,the Gros Commet, the Grande and Petite Fourque, lay in sharpenedoutline, the lapping waves already assuming a grey tint. These massesformed the framework of a picture which embraced a boundless wealth ofcolour, an infinite depth of softness. Straight from the sun shot outacross Cobo Bay a joyous river of gold, so bright that eye could illbear to face its glow; here and there in its course stood outquaintly-shaped rocks, some drenched with the fulness of the gloriousbath, others catching now and again a sprinkling shower. On each side ofthe river the sea, clear to its depths where alternate sand and rockmade a tangle of capriciously mingled light and shade; its surface, hereblue as the still waters of the Grotta Azzurra, there green as theolive, here again red-brown as Carthaginian marble, lay waveless, aswith a sense that the beauty was too perfect to be disturbed. Suddenlythe scene was changed; the lustrous outflow was swiftly drawn in andabsorbed; a grey hue swept over the darkening surface; in the distancethe round, blood-coloured, orb hung above the expectant ocean.
Then all assembled fell on their knees. The music gave out sharpplaintive notes which were answered by the voices of men and women inshort, wailing, as it were inquiring, rhythm; this continued till thesun was on the point of disappearance, when music and voices togetherburst into a sad chant, seemingly of farewell; the kneeling peopleextending their hands seaward with an appealing gesture. One figure onlywas erect; on the projecting boulder, which is still so conspicuous afeature of the Rocque du Guet, stood the sorceress, her arms alsooutstretched, her figure, firm, erect, sharply outlined, such asTurner's mind conceived when he sketched the Last Man.
Father Austin contemplated the scene from a distance. By his side washis favourite convert, Jean Letocq.
"Strange!" he said, placing his hand on his companion's shoulder. "Yourrace are not sun-worshippers. Never, except on this day of the year, dothey show this feeling; but who that saw them to-day would doubt thatthey are so! Is it that from old times their intense love of nature hasled them to show in this way their sadness at its decay? or do they bymourning over the close of the sun's longest day symbolize theirrecognition of the inevitable end of the longest life of man? I cannottell. But, blind as this worship is, it is better than that of the workof man's hands. By God's will your countrymen may be led from kneelingto the created to mount the ladder till they bend the knee only to theCreator. It may be well, too, that their chosen object of veneration isthe only object in nature which dies but to rise again. Thus may they beled to the comprehension of the great truth of the resurrection. ButSatan," he added with warmth, "must be wrestled with and cast down,specially when he takes the forms of temptation which he has assumedto-day: those of power and beauty. Prayer and fasting are sorelyneeded."
For once his pupil was not altogether docile. "Thou hast taught me,father," he replied, "the lesson of charity. This old woman is sinful,her error is deep, but may she not be converted and saved?"
"The devils can never regain Paradise," replied the priest sternly. "Armthyself, Jean, against their wiles, in which I fear thou art alreadyentangled. The two forms we have to-day seen are but human in seeming:demons surely lurked beneath."
Jean was now in open rebellion. "Nay, good father," he said decisively,"the maiden was no fiend; if her companion be an imp of darkness, aswell she may, be it my task to rescue her from the evil snare into whichshe has fallen!" He had indeed a vivid recollection of the soft, humanhand to which he had ventured to give a gentle pressure when he hadassisted in placing the wreath on the fair, marble, brow, and had nodoubt of the girl's womanhood. As he spoke he vanished from the side ofthe priest, who, seeing the two objects of his pious aversion enteringthe darkening glades of the wood, was at no loss to divine the cause ofhis disappearance. The holy father shook his head, and sighed deeply. Hewas accustomed to disappointments, but this day his path had to anunusual extent been beset with thorns. His faith was unshaken, and hehumbly laid the fault on his own shoulders, promising further privationsto his already sorely afflicted body. Meanwhile he descended the hill,directing his course to Lihou. Pausing on his way through the forest toreplace the cross on the oak, he saw Jean, walking slowly homewards, hislistless step showing that his quest had failed. The Evil One had, hethought, for the time at least, forborne to press his advantage. Furtheroff he heard the scattered voices of the dispersing throng.