In the Days of Chivalry | Page 8

in those times, the doctor and the scribe, as well as the spiritual
adviser, of his entire flock; and he was so much trusted and esteemed
that all men told him their affairs and asked advice, not in the
confessional alone, but as one man speaking to another in whom he has
strong personal confidence.
The twin brothers knew that during the years when their dead mother
had resided at the mill with honest Jean and Margot (they began greatly

to wonder now why she had so lived in hiding and obscurity), she had
been constantly visited by the holy Father, and that she had told him
things about herself and her history which were probably known to no
other human being beside. Brought up as the youths had been, and
trained in a measure beneath the kindly eye of the priest, they would in
any case have asked his counsel and blessing before taking any overt
step in life; but all the more did they feel that they must speak to him
now, since he was probably the only person within their reach who
could tell them anything as to their own parentage and history that they
did not know already.
"We will go to him upon the morrow," said Gaston with flashing eyes.
"We will rise with the sun -- or before it -- and go to him ere his day's
work is begun. He will surely find time to talk with us when he hears
the errand upon which we come. I trow now that when he has sat at our
board, and has bent upon our faces those glances I have not known how
to read aright, he has been wondering how long it would be ere we
should awake to the knowledge that this peasant life is not the life of
the De Brocas race, guessing that we should come to him for counsel
and instruction ere we spread our wings to flee away. They call us
eaglets in sooth; and do eaglets rest for ever in their mountain eyry?
Nay, they spread their wings as strength comes upon them, and soar
upwards and onwards to see for themselves the great world around;
even as thou and I will soar away, Brother, and seek other fortunes than
will ever be ours here in Sauveterre."
With these burning feelings in their hearts, it was no wonder that the
twins uttered a simultaneous exclamation of satisfaction and pleasure
when, as they approached the mill, they were aware of the familiar
figure of Father Anselm sitting at the open door of the living house,
engaged, as it seemed, in an animated discussion with the worthy miller
and his good wife.
The look which the Father bent upon the two youths as they
approached betrayed a very deep and sincere affection for them; and
when after supper they asked to speak with him in private, he readily
acceded to their request, accepting the offer of a bed from the miller's

wife, as already the sun had long set, and his own home was some
distance away.
The faces of Jean and Margot were grave with anxious thought, and
that of the priest seemed to reflect something of the same expression;
for during the course of the simple meal which all had shared together,
Gaston had told of the unlooked-for encounter with the proud Sieur de
Navailles in the forest, and of the defiance he had met with from the
twin eaglets. As the good miller and his wife heard how Gaston had
openly declared his name and race to the implacable foe of his house,
they wrung their hands together and uttered many lamentable
exclamations. The present Lord of Saut was terribly feared throughout
the neighbourhood in which he dwelt. His fierce and cruel temper had
broken forth again and again in acts of brutality or oppression from
which there was practically no redress. Free as the Gascon peasant was
from much or the serfdom and feudal servitude of other lands, he was
in some ways worse off than the serf, when he chanced to have roused
the anger of some great man of the neighbourhood. The power of the
nobles and barons -- the irresponsible power they too often held -- was
one of the crying evils of the age, one which was being gradually
extinguished by the growing independence of the middle classes. But
such changes were slow of growth, and long in penetrating beyond
great centres; and it was a terrible thing for a brace of lads, unprotected
and powerless as these twin brothers, to have brought upon themselves
the hostility and perchance the jealousy of a man like the Sieur de
Navailles. If he wished to discover their hiding place, he would have
small difficulty in doing