Ghost Stories of an Antiquary | Page 3

her whom he called
Blessed among women. With that a profound quiet seemed to fall for
the first time that day upon the little town, and Dennistoun and the
sacristan went out of the church.
On the doorstep they fell into conversation.
'Monsieur seemed to interest himself in the old choir-books in the
sacristy.'
'Undoubtedly. I was going to ask you if there were a library in the
town.'
'No, monsieur; perhaps there used to be one belonging to the Chapter,
but it is now such a small place--' Here came a strange pause of
irresolution, as it seemed; then, with a sort of plunge, he went on: 'But
if monsieur is amateur des vieux livres, I have at home something that
might interest him. It is not a hundred yards.'

At once all Dennistoun's cherished dreams of finding priceless
manuscripts in untrodden corners of France flashed up, to die down
again the next moment. It was probably a stupid missal of Plantin's
printing, about 1580. Where was the likelihood that a place so near
Toulouse would not have been ransacked long ago by collectors?
However, it would be foolish not to go; he would reproach himself for
ever after if he refused. So they set off. On the way the curious
irresolution and sudden determination of the sacristan recurred to
Dennistoun, and he wondered in a shamefaced way whether he was
being decoyed into some purlieu to be made away with as a supposed
rich Englishman. He contrived, therefore, to begin talking with his
guide, and to drag in, in a rather clumsy fashion, the fact that he
expected two friends to join him early the next morning. To his surprise,
the announcement seemed to relieve the sacristan at once of some of
the anxiety that oppressed him.
'That is well,' he said quite brightly--'that is very well. Monsieur will
travel in company with his friends: they will be always near him. It is a
good thing to travel thus in company--sometimes.'
The last word appeared to be added as an afterthought and to bring with
it a relapse into gloom for the poor little man.
They were soon at the house, which was one rather larger than its
neighbours, stone-built, with a shield carved over the door, the shield of
Alberic de Mauléon, a collateral descendant, Dennistoun tells me, of
Bishop John de Mauléon. This Alberic was a Canon of Comminges
from 1680 to 1701. The upper windows of the mansion were boarded
up, and the whole place bore, as does the rest of Comminges, the aspect
of decaying age.
Arrived on his doorstep, the sacristan paused a moment.
'Perhaps,' he said, 'perhaps, after all, monsieur has not the time?'
'Not at all--lots of time--nothing to do till tomorrow. Let us see what it
is you have got.'

The door was opened at this point, and a face looked out, a face far
younger than the sacristan's, but bearing something of the same
distressing look: only here it seemed to be the mark, not so much of
fear for personal safety as of acute anxiety on behalf of another. Plainly
the owner of the face was the sacristan's daughter; and, but for the
expression I have described, she was a handsome girl enough. She
brightened up considerably on seeing her father accompanied by an
able-bodied stranger. A few remarks passed between father and
daughter of which Dennistoun only caught these words, said by the
sacristan: 'He was laughing in the church,' words which were answered
only by a look of terror from the girl.
But in another minute they were in the sitting-room of the house, a
small, high chamber with a stone floor, full of moving shadows cast by
a wood-fire that flickered on a great hearth. Something of the character
of an oratory was imparted to it by a tall crucifix, which reached almost
to the ceiling on one side; the figure was painted of the natural colours,
the cross was black. Under this stood a chest of some age and solidity,
and when a lamp had been brought, and chairs set, the sacristan went to
this chest, and produced therefrom, with growing excitement and
nervousness, as Dennistoun thought, a large book, wrapped in a white
cloth, on which cloth a cross was rudely embroidered in red thread.
Even before the wrapping had been removed, Dennistoun began to be
interested by the size and shape of the volume. 'Too large for a missal,'
he thought, 'and not the shape of an antiphoner; perhaps it may be
something good, after all.' The next moment the book was open, and
Dennistoun felt that he had at last lit upon something better than good.
Before him lay a large folio, bound, perhaps, late in the seventeenth
century, with the arms of