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This resemblance in our fortunes contributed much to the uniting of our affections, which I persuaded myself were reciprocal, and I resolved to carry her to Holland. Indeed, there was nothing more easy, for Machecoul, whither we were come from Beaupreau, was no more than half a league from the sea.
Oh, Margaret, am I looking very ill? Or have I grown old and ugly with being shut up so long?" But the Maid of Galloway heard her not. She was pondering on the meaning of Laurence's presence in the Castle of Machecoul. "Perhaps William hath sent Laurence to spy us out, and is even now coming from his French duchy with an army.
But the cripple lay back on the settle where Sholto had placed him, his lips white and gluey. And as he lay he muttered audibly, "La Meffraye! La Meffraye! Oh, what will become of poor Cæsar Martin this night!" It was a strange night that which the three Scots spent in the little house standing back from the street of Saint Philbert on the gloomy edges of the forest of Machecoul.
Laurence had been a month at Machecoul and had not yet worn out his welcome. He was sunning himself with certain young clerks and choristers of the marshal's privy chapel of the Holy Innocents. Suddenly Clerk Henriet appeared under the arches at the upper end of the pretty cloisters, in the aisles of which the youths were seated.
There remained but Machecoul, more remote and also darker in repute than any of the other dwelling-places of Gilles de Retz. As they rode westward towards it, they became day by day more conscious of the darkening down of the atmosphere of fear and suspicion, which, murky and lowering, overhung all that fair land of southern Brittany.
The shadow of the Lord of Machecoul lay heavy upon them. Clerk Henriet stood awhile watching the lads and listening to their talk behind the carved lattice of Caen stone, with its lace-like tracery of buds and flowers, through which the natural roses pushed their way, and over which the clematis tangled its twining stems.
"Die die!" cried the hag, sharply, angered at the child's persistence. "'Tis easy to talk. To snuff a candle out is to die. Poof, 'tis done! But the young and beautiful like you, my dearies, do not so die at Machecoul. No; rather as a dying candle flickers out falls low, and rises again, so they die.
So, having received the money, the Scots returned as they went to the men whom they had left in the forest. After this repulse they had gone round and round the vast walls of Machecoul seeking a place vulnerable, but finding none. The ramparts rose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowded night and day with men on the watch.
At all events, on March 10, the insurrection began with the massacre of Machecoul, and on March 12, 1793, Dumouriez wrote a letter to the Convention which was equivalent to a declaration of war. He then tried to corrupt his army, but failed, and on April 4, 1793, fled to the Austrians. Meanwhile, La Vendée was in flames.
Did she play about any cottage door and fashion daisy chains, as I have seen you do, my pretties, long ere you came to Machecoul or even heard of the Sieur de Retz? Hath La Meffraye ever lain in any man's bosom save as the tigress crouches upon her prey?" She paused and smiled still more bitterly and malevolently than before upon the two maidens.
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