LITMIR.BIZ

CHAPTER VII. THE SUPPER.

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      Reine, hiding her emotion, joined her father. Raimond V. kissed his daughter’s brow tenderly, then, taking her arm, descended the last steps of the staircase which led from the tower. He wore an old green military coat, braided with gold, somewhat tarnished, scarlet breeches, great boots of sheepskin covered with mud, and long spurs of rusty iron.

      He held his gray cap in his hand, and although the weather was quite cold, the wrinkled and sunburnt brow of Raimond V. was covered with sweat.

      By the light of a torch, a valet, holding by the bridle the treacherous and obstreperous Mistraon, whose flanks were foaming with perspiration, could be seen in the court of the castle.

      A great black hunting dog with long hair, and a little yellow and white spaniel, were lying at the feet of the stallion from Camargne.

      The dog was panting; his ears lying on his head, his mouth open and filled with foam, his eyes half closed, and the feverish palpitation of his sides, all announced that he had just run a rapid race. The sight of Mistraon added to Reine’s annoyance by recalling the scene on the rocks. But the baron, preoccupied by the success of the chase, had not the penetration to discover the agitation of his daughter.

      He detached a leather strap which held a large hare to the bow of his saddle, and proudly presented the game to Reine, as he said:

      “Would you believe it, Eclair,” and at the name the dog lifted his fine intelligent head, “caught this hare in thirteen minutes on the marshes of Savenol. It was old Genêt,” and at this name the little spaniel lifted his head, “that put him on the track. Mistraon is so fleet that I did not lose sight of Eclair from the time I began to climb the hill of black stones. I made, I am sure, more than a league and a half.”

      “Oh, father, why will you ride this horse, after the frightful experience you have had with him?”

      “Manjour!” cried the old gentleman, with an air of mock gravity, “never shall it be said that Raimond V. succumbed to one of the indomitable sons of Camargne.”

      “But, father—”

      “But, my daughter, I yield no more on land than on sea, and I say that, because I have just been visiting the seines that those rascals in La Ciotat wish to prevent my laying beyond the rocks of Castrembaou. Just now, too, I met the consul Talebard-Talebardon on his nag, and he talked about it And he had the effrontery to threaten me with the tribunal of overseers, of which the watchman is the assignee! Manjour, I laughed so much, that this demon, Mistraon, took advantage of my distraction and flew like an arrow.”

      “More dangers, father; this horse will be the death of you!”

      “Be easy, my child, although I have not such a vigorous fist as the half savage young Muscovite who so adroitly arrested Mistraon on the border of a precipice, the bridle and the spur and the whip know how to reason with a vicious horse and his pranks. But permit me, my beautiful lady of the castle, to offer you the foot of the animal that I have captured.”

      And the baron drew a knife from his pocket, cut off the right foot of the hare, and gallantly presented it to his daughter, who accepted, not without some repugnance, this trophy of the chase.

      Mistraon was led back to the stable, but Eclair and Genêt, favourites of the baron, followed him side by side, as, leaning on the arm of his daughter, he made what he called his evening inspection, while waiting for the hour of supper.

      The women and young girls were spinning at the wheel, the men mending their nets and cleaning implements of husbandry. Master Laramée, the old sergeant of the company raised by the baron during the civil troubles, and majordomo and commander of the castle garrison, exacted that all of the baron’s tenants, who, in turn, performed the service of sentinel on the terrace which bordered the sea, should be armed in military style.

      Others were engaged in decorating long lances, destined for jousts on the water, or to be used in jumping the cross-bar, the usual Christmas amusements, in the colours of the baron, red and yellow. Some, more seriously occupied, prepared the seed for late sowing; some were weaving, with great care, baskets out of rushes, to hold presents of fruit, made at Christmas.

      These occupations were enlivened by songs peculiar to the country, sometimes accompanied by some marvellous legend, or terrible recital of the cruelties of pirates.

      In an upper hall filled with fruit, children and old men were busy in examining long garlands of grapes, which hung from the rafters of the ceiling, or packing in baskets sweet-smelling figs, dried upon layers of straw.

      Farther on was the laundry, where the washerwomen, under the supervision of a gentlewoman, Dulceline, the housekeeper, were occupied in perfuming the linen of the castle, by putting between its folds, whiter than snow, the leaves of aromatic herbs.

      Often the sharp voice of Dulceline rose above the songs of the washerwomen, as she reprimanded some idlers.

      By the side of the laundry was the pharmacy of the castle, where the peasants of the neighbourhood found all their remedies. This pharmacy belonged to the department of the baron’s chaplain, Abbé Mascarolus, an old and excellent priest of angelic piety and rare simplicity. The chaplain had an extensive acquaintance with medical men and their attainments, and firmly believed in the strange pharmacy of that time.

      In spite of the continual apprehension of a visit from the pirates, all the inhabitants of Maison-Forte shared the traditional

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