The House of the Wolf | Page 5

three
men could hold the gate at the bottom of the ramp against a score. Oh,
he will not try that!"
"Certainly not!" I agreed. And so we crushed Marie. "But for Louis de
Pavannes--"
Catherine interrupted me. She came out quickly looking a different
person; her face flushed with anger, her tears dried.

"Anne!" she cried, imperiously, "what is the matter down below --will
you see?"
I had no difficulty in doing that. All the sounds of town life came up to
us on the terrace. Lounging there we could hear the chaffering over the
wheat measures in the cloisters of the market-square, the yell of a dog,
the voice of a scold, the church bell, the watchman's cry. I had only to
step to the wall to overlook it all. On this summer afternoon the town
had been for the most part very quiet. If we had not been engaged in
our own affairs we should have taken the alarm before, remarking in
the silence the first beginnings of what was now a very respectable
tumult. It swelled louder even as we stepped to the wall.
We could see--a bend in the street laying it open--part of the Vidame's
house; the gloomy square hold which had come to him from his mother.
His own chateau of Bezers lay far away in Franche Comte, but of late
he had shown a preference--Catherine could best account for it,
perhaps--for this mean house in Caylus. It was the only house in the
town which did not belong to us. It was known as the House of the
Wolf, and was a grim stone building surrounding a courtyard. Rows of
wolves' heads carved in stone flanked the windows, whence their bare
fangs grinned day and night at the church porch opposite.
The noise drew our eyes in this direction; and there lolling in a window
over the door, looking out on the street with a laughing eye, was Bezers
himself. The cause of his merriment--we had not far to look for it--was
a horseman who was riding up the street under difficulties. He was
reining in his steed--no easy task on that steep greasy pavement--so as
to present some front to a score or so of ragged knaves who were
following close at his heels, hooting and throwing mud and pebbles at
him. The man had drawn his sword, and his oaths came up to us,
mingled with shrill cries of "VIVE LA MESSE!" and half drowned by
the clattering of the horse's hoofs. We saw a stone strike him in the face,
and draw blood, and heard him swear louder than before.
"Oh!" cried Catherine, clasping her hands with a sudden shriek of
indignation, "my letter! They will get my letter!"

"Death!" exclaimed Croisette, "She is right! It is M. de Pavannes'
courier! This must be stopped! We cannot stand this, Anne!"
"They shall pay dearly for it, by our Lady!" I cried swearing myself.
"And in peace time too--the villains! Gil! Francis!" I shouted, "where
are you?"
And I looked round for my fowling piece, while Croisette jumped on
the wall, and forming a trumpet with his hands, shrieked at the top of
his voice, "Back! he bears a letter from the Vicomte!"
But the device did not succeed, and I could not find my gun. For a
moment we were helpless, and before I could have fetched the gun
from the house, the horseman and the hooting rabble at his heels, had
turned a corner and were hidden by the roofs.
Another turn however would bring them out in front of the gateway,
and seeing this we hurried down the ramp to meet them. I stayed a
moment to tell Gil to collect the servants, and, this keeping me,
Croisette reached the narrow street outside before me. As I followed
him I was nearly knocked down by the rider, whose face was covered
with, dirt and blood, while fright had rendered his horse unmanageable.
Darting aside I let him pass --he was blinded and could not see me--and
then found that Croisette--brave lad! had collared the foremost of the
ruffians, and was beating him with his sheathed sword, while the rest of
the rabble stood back, ashamed, yet sullen, and with anger in their eyes.
A dangerous crew, I thought; not townsmen, most of them.
"Down with the Huguenots!" cried one, as I appeared, one bolder than
the rest.
"Down with the CANAILLE!" I retorted, sternly eyeing the ill- looking
ring. "Will you set yourselves above the king's peace, dirt that you are?
Go back to your kennels!"
The words were scarcely out of my mouth, before I saw that the fellow
whom Croisette was punishing had got hold of a dagger. I shouted a
warning, but it came too late.