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"Charlie!" he cried; "Charlie, my boy! where are you?" We stood around him in dread silence and expectancy, a group for a picture. St. Aubyn in the midst, with white quivering face and clasped hands, the two Raouls on either side, listening intently, the dogs motionless and eager, their ears erect, their hair bristling round their stretched throats.
There were others I've read of, just as wicked and high-handed: but their castle was not to blame for its master's crimes! Besides, the last of the proud Enguerrands and Thomases and Raouls, Seigneurs of the line, was son-in-law to Edward III of England; so all their sins were expiated long ago. "The Boches were jealous of our Coucy," said the Frenchman, with a sigh.
And ever, since that Christmas Eve, said the two Raouls, their grandfather found himself when the sacred time came round again, year after year, possessed of a new and extraordinary power, that of seeing with the inward senses of the spirit whatever he desired to see, and this as plainly and distinctly, miles distant, as at his own threshold.
Their immediate sire, Gluck, was the property of a community of monks living fourteen miles distant in the Arblen valley; and though the Raouls were not aware that he had yet distinguished himself by any remarkable exploit of a clairvoyant character, he was commonly credited with a goodly share of the family gift. "And the mule?" I asked thoughtlessly.
We stood still, and looked down into the green valley, green even in mid-winter, where a score of goats were browsing in the sunshine. Here my friend would have descended, but the Raouls bade him trust the leadership of the dogs. "Follow them, monsieur," said Theodor, impressively; "they can see, and you cannot. It is the good God that conducts them.
A wooden bench by the hearth was accorded them, the great dogs couched at their feet, pipes were lit here and there among the circle; and the scene, embellished by the ruddy glow of the flaming pine-logs, the unfamiliar costume of the peasantry, the quaint furniture of the chalet-kitchen in which we sat, and enhanced by the strange circumstances of our journey and the yet stranger story now recounted by the two Raouls, became to my mind every moment more romantic and unworld-like.
One by one the members of the group around us rose, knocked the ashes from their pipes, and with a few brief words quitted the chalet. In a few minutes there remained only our host, the two Raouls, with their dogs, my friend, and myself. Then St. Aubyn found his voice.
Aubyn and myself, the two Raouls, and a couple of villagers carrying the requisite implements of mountaineering, while the two dogs, Fritz and Bruno, trotted on before us.
In the fire-lighted woods and on the ground yet stained by the red of battle, it played quaint old tunes, waltzes and polkas and roundelays, and once more the stalwart Pierres and Raouls and Luciens and Etiennes, clasping one another in their arms, whirled in wild dances before the fires. The heavy clouds opened bye and bye, and then all save the sentinels fled to shelter.
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