III.

This solemn midnight, which sounds from all the bells of the town, falls sadly into the pale night of the sick. The hospital is silent, lit only by the night-lamps suspended from the ceiling. Great running shadows flit over the beds and bare walls in a perpetual balancing, which seems to image the heavy respiration of all the sufferers lying there.

At times, dreamers talk high in their feverish sleep, or groan in the clutches of nightmares; while from the street there mounts up a vague rumor of feet and voices, mingled in the cold and sonorous night like sounds made under a cathedral porch.

Salvette feels the gathering haste, the mystery of a religious feast crossing the hours of sleep, the hanging forth in the dark village of the blind light of lanterns and the illumination of the windows of the church.

"Are you asleep, Bernadou?"

Softly, on the little table next his comrade's bed, Salvette has placed a bottle of _vin de Lunel_ and a loaf of bread, a pretty Christmas loaf, where the twig of holly is planted straight in the centre.

Bernadou opens his eyes encircled with fever. By the indistinct glow of the night-lamps and under the white reflection of the great roofs where the moonlight lies dazzlingly on the snow, this improvised Christmas feast seems but a fantastic dream.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Hospital]

"Come, arouse thee, comrade! It shall not be said that two sons of Provence have let this midnight pa.s.s without sprinkling a drop of claret!" And Salvette lifts him up with the tenderness of a mother. He fills the goblets, cuts the bread, and then they drink and talk of Provence.

Little by little Bernadou grows animated and moved by the occasion,--the white wine, the remembrances! With that child-like manner which the sick find in the depths of their feebleness he asks Salvette to sing a Provencal Noel. His comrade asks which: "The Host," or "The Three Kings," or "St. Joseph Has Told Me"?

"No; I like the 'Shepherds' best. We chant that always at home."

"Then, here's for the 'Shepherds.'"

And in a low voice, his head between the curtains, Salvette began to sing.

All at once, at the last couplet, when the shepherds, coming to see Jesus in His stable, have placed in the manger their offerings of fresh eggs and cheeses, and when, bowing with an affable air,

"Joseph says, 'Go! be very sage: Return, and make you good voyage, Shepherds, Take your leave!'"

--all at once poor Bernadou slipped and fell heavily on the pillow. His comrade thought he had fallen asleep, and called him, shook him. But the wounded boy rested immovable, and the little twig of holly lying across the rigid cloth, seemed already the green palm they place upon the pillows of the dead.

Salvette understood at last. Then, in tears, a little weakened by the feast and by his grief, he raised in full voice, through the silence of the room, the joyous refrain of Provence,--

"Shepherds, Take your leave!"

_A Breton Peasant's Romance._

"Eyes dark; face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister."

_d.i.c.kens._

THE WOLF TOWER.

I.

Long ago, in Brittany, under the government of St. Gildas the Wise, seventh abbot of Ruiz, there lived a young tenant of the abbey who was blind in the right eye and lame in the left leg. His name was Sylvestre Ker, and his mother, Josserande Ker, was the widow of Martin Ker, in his lifetime the keeper of the great door of the Convent of Ruiz.

The mother and the son lived in a tower, the ruins of which are seen at the foot of Mont Saint Michel de la Trinite, in the grove of chestnut-trees that belongs to Jean Marechal, the mayor's nephew. These ruins are now called the Wolf Tower, and the Breton peasants shudder as they pa.s.s through the chestnut-grove; for at midnight, around the Wolf Tower, and close to the first circle of great stones erected by the Druids at Carnac, are seen the phantoms of a young man and a young girl--Pol Bihan and Matheline du Coat-Dor.

The young girl is of graceful figure, with long, floating hair, but without a face; and the young man is tall and robust, but the sleeves of his coat hang limp and empty, for he is without arms.

Round and round the circle they pa.s.s in opposite directions, and, strange to tell, they never meet, nor do they ever speak to each other.

Once a year, on Christmas night, instead of walking they run; and all the Christians who cross the heath to go to the midnight Ma.s.s hear from afar the young girl cry,--

"Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my beauty!" and the deep voice of the young man adds, "Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my strength!"

II.

And this has lasted for thirteen hundred years; therefore you may well think there is a story connected with it.

When Martin Ker, the husband of Dame Josserande, died, their son Sylvestre was only seven years old. The widow was obliged to give up the guardianship of the great door to a man-at-arms, and retire to the tower, which was her inheritance; but little Sylvestre Ker had permission to follow the studies in the convent school.

The boy showed natural ability, but he studied little except in the cla.s.s of chemistry, taught by an old monk named Thael, who was said to have discovered the secret of making gold out of lead by adding to it a certain substance which no one but himself knew; for certainly, if the fact had been communicated, all the lead in the country would have been quickly turned into gold.

As for Thael himself, he had been careful not to profit by his secret, for Gildas the Wise had once said to him,--

"Thael, Thael, G.o.d does not wish you to change the work of His hands.

Lead is lead, and gold is gold. There is enough gold, and not too much lead. Leave G.o.d's works alone; if not, Satan will be your master."

Most a.s.suredly such precepts would not be well received by modern industry; but St. Gildas knew what he said, and Thael died of extreme old age before he had changed the least particle of lead into gold.

This, however, was not from want of will, which was proved after his death, as the rumor spread about that Thael did not altogether desert his laboratory, but at times returned to his beloved labors. Many a time, in the lonely hours of the night, the fishermen, in their barks, watched the glimmer of the light in his former cell; and Gildas the Wise, having been warned of the fact, arose one night before Lauds, and with quiet steps crossed the corridors, thinking to surprise his late brother, and perhaps ask of him some details of the other side of the dreaded door which separates life from death.

When he reached the cell he listened, and heard Thael's great bellows puffing and blowing, although no one had yet been appointed to succeed him. Gildas suddenly opened the door with his master-key, and saw before him little Sylvestre Ker actively employed in relighting Thael's furnaces.

St. Gildas was not a man to give way to sudden wrath; he took the child by the ear, drew him outside, and said to him, gently,--

"Ker, my little Ker, I know what you are attempting and what tempts you to make the effort; but G.o.d does not wish it, nor I either, my little Ker."

"I do it," replied the boy, "because my dear mother is so poor."

"Your mother is what she is; she has what G.o.d gives her. Lead is lead and gold is gold. If you go against the will of G.o.d, Satan will be your master."

Little Ker returned to the tower crestfallen, and never again slipped into the cell of the dead Thael; but when he was eighteen years old a modest inheritance was left him, and he bought materials for dissolving metals and distilling the juice of plants. He gave out that his aim was to learn the art of healing; for that great purpose he read great books which treated of medical science and many other things besides.

He was then a youth of fine appearance, with a n.o.ble, frank face, neither one-eyed nor lame, and led a retired life with his mother, who ardently loved her only son.

No one visited them in the tower except the laughing Matheline, the heiress of the tenant of Coat-Dor and G.o.d-daughter of Josserande; and Pol Bihan, son of the successor of Martin Ker as armed keeper of the great door.

Both Pol and Matheline often conversed together, and upon what subject do you think? Always of Sylvestre Ker. Was it because they loved him?