It wanted an hour or two perhaps of sunset, on a lowering
September evening, when a small group of men and horses
were assembled on an elevated knoll, commanding an extensive
view of the country, which at that period was mostly covered
by unbroken forest; although a large and seemingly muchtravelled
road could be seen at intervals, for a distance of
many miles, with here and there the dark square outlines of a
church-tower, or of some castellated mansion, distinctly visible
above the trees, among which the causeway wandered devious.
All else was wild and savage. The huge beech forest, a portion
of the great wood of Ardennes, which, little circumscribed
in that day of its limits as described by the great Roman,
swept off in solid masses to the eastward, to join beyond the
Rhine the vaster solitudes of the Hercynian forest — clothed
every hill and hollow for many a league around with dense
and shadowy woodland. Except the line of road, and the

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

scattered buildings, and here and there a wreath of smoke
curling up blue and ghostly in the distance, above some sylvan
hamlet or small borough town, nothing could be discovered
even to the misty, ill-defined horizon, but one vast sea of waving
branches, now tinged with the first solemn tints of autumn.
The knoll, which had been occupied by the party grouped
around its summit as a post of observation, was admirably
adapted for that purpose; rising abruptly from the top of a gentle
hill, to the height of at least two hundred feet, and being
the only elevation of the kind for many a league of distance.
The top of it was bare, and covered with thin grass sprouting
up scantily from the crevices of the sandstone rock which
composed it, but the sides were well clothed with luxuriant
coppice, high enough to conceal the head of the tallest man,
and very intricate and tangled. Immediately around its base
the high-road wheeled, after ascending the gentle slope on the
eastern side, and was soon lost to view in a deep-wooded valley
to the westward.

The group which occupied this station consisted of four
armed men with their horses; beside a monk, as he appeared
from his gray frock and tonsured head, mounted upon a sleek,
well-favored mule. The principal personage of the party was
one well meriting from his appearance, for it was singular in
the extreme, a brief description. He was above six feet in
height, and gaunt almost to meagerness, but with extremely
broad, square shoulders, and arms of disproportionate length
terminating in huge, bony hands. His face was even more remarkable
than his person, and his accoutrements, and dress
perhaps exceeded both. He had a very high but narrow forehead,
ploughed deeply by the lines of fierce and fiery passions.
His deep set eye (for he had but one, the left having been
utterly destroyed by a wound, the scar of which severing the
eyebrow near the insertion of the nose, seamed his whole

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

cheek, and might be traced by a white line far through the
thick and matted beard which clothed his chin jaw), gleamed
out with a sinister and lurid glare from beneath his shaggy,
overhanging brow. His nose had been originally of the keenest
aquiline, high, thin, and well shaped; but its bridge had been
broken years before by a cross-cut which had completely severed
it, and which, though skilfully healed, had left a strange
and disfiguring depression. His mouth, as far as could be
judged from the vast crop of mustache and beard which covered
all the lower half of his countenance with a tangled mass
of red, grizzled hair, was well cut, bold, and decided, but the
whole aspect of the man was strangely repulsive and disgusting.
There was an air of reckless and undaunted courage, it
is true, stamped on his scarred and weather-beaten features;
but it was their sole redeeming trait, and it, too, was so mixed
up and blended with effrontery, and pride, and cruelty, and
brute licentiousness, that it was lost and obscured, except when
it would flash out at rare intervals in time of deadly peril, and
banish for a moment by its brightness the clouds of baser passions.
His dress had been in the first instance, a splended suit
of complete tilting armor of the most ponderous description;
but many parts of it had been lost or broken, and replaced by
others of inferior quality and construction. Thus while he
still retained the corslet and plastron with the gorget and vant
braces of fluted Milan steel, painted to suit the caprice of the
wearer, of a deep blood-red, his cuishes, and the splents which
protected his leg from the knee downward, were of plain Flemish
iron, once brightly polished, but now sordid and defaced
with rust, and recent blood-stains. His head was covered
by a heavy casque, with cerveilliere and avantaille of steel, of
a different construction from his breastplate, but like it lacquered
with dark crimson, and throwing a dreadful and unnatural
reflection from its raised visor over a face which needed

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

no additions to render it in the last degree appalling. He had
an iron chain across his shoulders instead of a baldric, to which
was attached a long two-edged straight broad-sword. The
belt about his waist was filled with knives and daggers of every
shape and size; and pitched into the ground beside his horse,
a powerful and active charger, with a steel demipique and an
axe slung at the saddlebow, but unencumbered by defensive
armor, stood his long lance with its steel head and crimson
pennon. He had gauntlets on his hands, and spurs upon his
heels, but they were not the gilded spurs of knighthood, nor
was there any plume or crest on his burgonet, nor any bearings
on the plain, blood-red shield which hung about his neck.
The other three armed persons, who stood at little way aloof,
were ordinary men-at-arms of the period, ruffianly-looking fellows
enough, and with none of that gallant and spirited demeanor
which marked the chivalric soldier of the day. They
were powerful athletic men, however, strongly and completely,
though variously, armed one with the corslet and steel bonnet,
brassards and taslets, of a well-appointed trooper, one with the
hauberk and mail hose which were becoming at that time somewhat
obsolete — and the third in a brigantine or shirt of light
chain armor on the body, his limbs protected by the usual defences
of plate, and his head by a stout iron morion. They all
wore broad-swords and long lances, and several daggers in
their belts; beside which they had each a long bow and a
sheaf of arrows at his back. Their horses were stout, active
animals, in good condition, though somewhat low in flesh, and
the whole appearance of both men and beasts, although decidedly
irregular, was soldier-like and serviceable. The priest
who sat upon his mule, chatting sociably with the leader of
the party, was a round oily-looking little figure, with a soft,
sneering smile and a twinkle of marvellous shrewdness in his
quick, dark eye; altogether, however, he was as unclerical

[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]

looking a personage as ever drew a cowl over a tonsored head,
and it is probable at least, that had his garment been subjected
to a close scrutiny, some most unpriest-like appendages might
there have been encountered.

“Well, priest — well! well!” said the red leader, interrupting
him impatiently, in the middle of a prolix description, “but
what said Talebard?”

“Talebard Talebardin,” answered the little monk, pompously,
“sent greeting to the Rouge Batard, and prayed that he would
give him the rencontre, with as many men and horses as he can
make, at the stone cross in the backwood near Braine-la-Leud,
on the third morning. It seems he hath got tidings of a strong
castle, weakly guarded, with a fair châtelaine within, and store
of wealth to boot. Her lord hath ridden forth to join John
Lackland at Mirepoix!”

“By God's head, and I will,” returned the other, “and there
is little time enough to spare. The third morning — may the
fiend else receive me! — is to-morrow. Ho! Jean Lenoir
draw your belt tight, and mount your trotting gelding, and ride
for life to Wavre on the Dyle, Bras-de-fer must be there, ere
this, with thirty lances — spare not for spurring, and bid him
bring his men up with all speed, and meet me at the broken
bridge! You know the place — begone! I look for you ere
midnight.”

“But my fair son and penitent,” interposed the monk, “how,
if we spare Lenoir, shall we be able to deal with the goodly
company of merchants, and win the pretty demoiselles I told
you of, and the rich sumpter mules? we shall he but three
men-at-arms, and they have four armed serving-men!”

“Jean must go, monk,” the other answered sharply, “Jean
must go, and forthwith, by God! but he shall leave his bow
and shafts with you, and you shall strip the gray frock off, and

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

don the cold iron, as you have done before! — but were the
demoiselles so lovely?”

“Else may I never more kiss ruby lips, or drain a foaming
flagon,” answered the worthy monk, stripping off, as he spoke,
his gray frock, and showing himself dressed in a suit of closefitting
chamois leather, with a light jazeran, or coat-of-mail,
covering all his body, and a belt round his waist, well stored
with poniards and stilettoes. In a moment or two he had
rolled up his clerical dress, and deposited it in a little wallet
fastened to the crupper of his saddle; from which, after a
moment's fumbling, he brought out a strong pothelmed of black
iron. With this he speedily covered his shaven crown, and
taking the bow and quiver, which the trooper resigned to him
as he spurred his horse down the side of the hill appeared in
a style far more suitable to his real profession than he had done
before the alteration of his dress.

Scarcely had he finished his preparations, before, casting
his eye down the road to the eastward, he exclaimed: “Now,
by the good saint Martin! — here come the knaves. Look
here, Messire! here, over that big chestnut, you may perceive
the fluttering of their garments down in the valley of the stream!
We have no time to spare — they will be here within ten minutes.”

“Right, by our lady! Right monk!” cried the Rouge Batard,
“and for your tidings you shall choose you a paramour, as
soon as I am served.”

“Not so, by God!” interrupted one of the others, “it is my
turn this bout — the unfrocked priest gets ever in the luck on't.
When we look Ferté-sous-jouarre, last Whitsuntide, the brightest
eye and the rosiest cheek of the lot fell to our confrere
Benedict!”

“Look sharp, lad — look sharp, André,” returned the chief,
with a sinister glare of his single eye, and a malignant sneer,

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

“lest instead of red lips, and white arms to clasp your neck,
you find a hempen knot to grace it, for by the God that made
you, dispute one other word of mine, and you shall swing for
it! To horse! to horse!” he added, seeing that his reproof
was effectual, and that no further admonitions were required.
“You, monk, lead, André and Le Balafré down to the thicket
just below the angle of the road at the hill foot. The moment
they come, give them a flight of arrows, and see you make
sure of the men-at-arms. Shoot each into the face, under the
eyeball, if you may; and then charge, sword in hand, and shout
our war-cry. I will be with you on the word. Away! be
steady, sure, and silent!”

Not a word more was needed; the priest and his companions
scrambled down into the road, and rode off as quickly as
was consistent with complete silence, while he who was called
the Rouge Batard led his horse slowly down the side of the
steep knoll; and, having reached the road just as his followers
disappeared round an abrupt turn of the causeway, tightened
his girths carefully, and sprang into the saddle without putting
hand to mane, or foot to stirrup, his horse standing motionless
all the while as a carved statue. Settling himself firmly in his
demipique, he lowered the visor over his hideous features;
loosened his broadsword in its scabbard, and, seeing that the
battle-axe which was suspended at the saddle-bow was ready
to his grasp, laid his long lance into its rest, and, keeping the
point elevated, walked his horse gently down the sandy road.

His seat was firm and graceful; his hand light, delicate, and
easy; and as the noble animal which bore him curvetted down
the gentle slope, despite the singular color of his harness, its
want of complete uniformity and neatness, and the ruffianism
of his whole appearance, it could not be denied that he was an
accomplished horseman, and altogether a showy, martial-looking
soldier.

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

In a few moments he reached the spot where he had placed
his ambuscade, and halted. It was indeed a place adapted for
the purpose — the road, which here was perfectly level, ran
between almost impervious thickets of hazel, ash, and alders,
much interfaced with creepers and wild briers; and was overhung
with timber-trees, so that at noonday it was ever twilight
there; and in the early evening, profound darkness. The
causeway at this point turned suddenly, directly at right angles,
so that of two parties travelling in opposite directions, neither
could see or suspect the approach of the other till they were
in close contact; and here, well knowing that his men lay in
the thicket close before him, the Routier halted, with his lance
in the rest, and eye, ear, heart, on the alert, ready to dash in
on the travellers at the first signal of the robber-priest. His
horse, endowed as it would seem with an instinctive knowledge
of what was in the wind, did not so much as champ its
bits, much less paw up the ground, or neigh, or whinny. Not
a sound was to be heard in the wooded defile except the hoarse
cooing of a distant wood pigeon, the wild, laughter-like scream
of the green-headed woodpecker, and the tinkling gurgle of a
little rivulet which crossed the road some fifty yards below.

The company which was approaching, and which had been
accurately reconnoitred by the priest during their noontide
halt at the little village of Merk-Braine, consisted of no less
than twelve individuals, beside a long train of sumpter mules
loaded with costly merchandise. First rode, well mounted on
stout, black, Flemish horses, four of the ordinary armed servants
or retainers of the day, dressed in strong doublets of
buff-leather, with morions and breastplates, and heavy halberds
in their hands, and long swords girded on their thighs. Close
upon these came three persons, the principals evidently of the
party, riding abreast; and as it would seem engaged in earnest
conversation. He on the right hand side was a tall, portly

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

figure, with a broad brow and handsome features; but his hair
was already tinged with many a streak of gray, and the deep
lines of thought and care upon his cheek and forehead told as
distinctly as words could have done, that he had spent long.
years amid the toils and trials of the world; and that two thirds
at least of his mortal course had been run through whether for
good or evil. Next to him, curbing lightly a beautiful Spanish
jennet; there rode as lovely a girl as ever man's eyes looked
upon. Still in her early youth, there was no stain, no blight
of sin or passion on her sweet innocent features; her full,
black eye danced with an eloquent and lightsome mirth, and
there was a continual smile on her ripe, ruby lips; her form
was tall and slender, yet exquisitely rounded in all its flowing
outlines; and so symmetrically full, that her young, glowing
bust might have been chosen for a sculptor's model. As near
to her upon the left as he could guide his eager horse, hanging
on every word she uttered as though his soul were balanced
on the low, soft sound, and gazing into her eyes with an
impassioned, earnest tenderness, was a fine, noble looking
youth of twenty-five or twenty-six years; handsomely clad in
a pourpoint of morone colored velvet, with a rapier at his side,
and a richly-mounted poniard in his girdle. These were again
followed by two serving-women, fair, buxom-looking lasses,
with the dark eyes and rich complexions of the sunny south;
and an old steward, or major-domo, riding unarmed beside
them. The train was brought up by two common grooms, or
serving-men, without any weapons, either offensive or defensive,
driving a string of laden mules, the whole forming the
retinue, as the quick eye of the Routier's emissary had not
failed to detect, of a rich Fleming merchant, travelling with
his family and chattels toward the capital of France.

Just as they neared the lurking-place of the banditti, the
fair girl raised her eyes to the fast darkening heaven, and a

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

slight shiver running through her graceful form, “Uncle,” she
said, addressing the elder rider, “I would we were at our halting-place
for the night. I know not why it is — for never did
I feel aught like it before — but there comes over me a secret
dread and horror, as I look out into these dreary woods, and
see the shadows of approaching night darkening the giant trees.
Is there no peril here?”

“None, my girl,” replied the portly burgher, “no peril, or I
would not have exposed you to it. That fierce marauder, Talebard
Talebardin, as he calls himself, and his more barbarous
associate, the Red Bastard, have marched away, as I learned
beyond all doubt, ere we crossed the frontier, to join the bad
king John, at Mirepoix, where he is even now in arms against
his brother's son. And the great Philip, as I hear, is hurrying
hitherward with such a train of bannerets and barons as
has made all the roads secure as the streets of Paris. But we
will trot on, for the night is darkening, and we have four
leagues yet to traverse ere we reach Braine-la — God of heaven!
what have we here!”

His last words were caused by a fierce and discordant yell
from the thicket, accompanied by the simultaneous twang of
three bowstrings, and the deadly whistling of the gray goose
shafts; and almost instantly — before, indeed, the words had
well left his lips — three of the four men-at-arms fell headlong
to the earth, each shot in the face with a barbed arrow, and,
after a few seconds' struggle, lay cold and senseless as the
clods around them. The remaining trooper set spurs to his
horse, and drove furiously forward, accompanied by the chargers
of his slains companions, which, freed from all restraint
and mad with terror, tossing their heads aloft, and yerking out
their heels, dashed diverse into the deep forest.

What has occupied many lines to relate, occurred almost
with the speed of light; and, while the long ear-piercing shriek

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

yet quivered on the lips of Marguerite Beaufroy, her uncle
snatched her bridle-rein, and, putting spurs to his own horse,
struck into a furious gallop, crying, “Ride, ride! for life! for
life! we are waylaid — God aid us!” But as he did so, from
the thicket forth charged Le Balafré and his companion, followed
by the pretended monk. Cutting into the middle of the
train they separated the younger merchant from his fair cousin
and his father, rode down the old steward, and one attacking
the youth, sword in hand, while the others coolly cut down and
stabbed the unarmed servitors, were masters of the field in five
minutes' space. For a moment or more it seemed as though
the first fugitives were about to escape; for they had already
interposed a considerable space between themselves and the
ruffians, and were just wheeling round the angle of the wood,
when, full in front rose the appalling war-cry, well known by
fame through every province of fair France, “Ha! ha! Saint
Diable pour le Rouge Batard!” — and as the awful sound smote
on the ears of the trembling voyagers, a scene of no less terror
presented itself to their eyes, the fearful form of the Red Routier
charging in full career against their servant, who scarce
had power to wield his halberd, so utterly had terror overcome
his heart and palsied his strong arm. One instant — one loud
thundering crash, with a wild cry of mortal anguish ringing
above the clang and clatter — and the short strife was over.
Man and horse rolled in the dust, one to rise no more, and still
with lance unbroken and in rest, its point and pennon reeking
with the hot life-blood, the Rouge Batard came on. But as he
came, he saw that all the strife was over, excepting the protracted
struggle between La Balafré and the young lover. He
jerked his lance up quickly, when its head was within a foot
of the elder merchant's breast; and curbed his charger up so
suddenly that he stood motionless, thrown almost on his haunches,
scarce a yard distant from the Spanish jennet of the unhappy

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

Marguerite. “Hold your hands! — all!” he shouted, “hear
you me not, La Balafré? Hold your hands, man! And you
Sir Fool, down with your silly sword, before worse come of
it! Sweet lady, I salute you,” he continued, “by God but thou
art wondrous fair, and worthy to be, as thou shalt, ere long, the
world-famed mistress of Le Rouge Batard. You sirs,” he went
on speaking very rapidly, addressing the merchants, “down
from your horses, on the instant! Point out to these good men
the costliest and least bulky of your wares, yield up your purses
and your jewels, and, seeing we have lost no blood, we will be
merciful to day, and suffer you to go at large, reserving to ourselves
your demoiselles, whom, by the spirit of thunder, we
will console right worthily.”

“That thou shalt never do, dog!” cried the young man, aiming
with the words a tremendous blow at the head of the
Routier. Sparks of fire flashed from the dinted casque of the
Red Bastard, and his head was bent forward almost to the
saddle-bow; but ere his bold assailant could repeat the blow
he had set spurs to his charger, and, letting fall his own lance,
seized the youth by the throat with the tremendous gripe of
his gauntlet, and, throttling him for a moment savagely, lifted
him clear out of the saddle and hurled him to the earth with
such violence that he lay stunned and motionless. “Take
that,” he said, with a bitter sneer, “take that, to teach you
manners! And, since you deign not to accept our mercy, by
Heaven, you shall fare the worse of it. Hold my horse, monk,”
he added, as he leaped to the ground, and stood up to the prostrate
youth. “Who is that groaning there?” he exclaimed, as
a faint acclamation of pain reached his ear, from the old steward,
who, sorely bruised and shaken by his fall, was just recovering
his senses. “Par Dieu! I can not hear myself think
for the noise. Jump down from your horse, Le Balafré, and
cut his throat at once; cut it close under the jaws, down to

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

the back-bone; that will stop his cursed clamor; and then
come hither with your knife.”

The brutal mandate was executed in an instant, despite the
feeble struggles of the old man, and the screams of the servant-girls,
who were so near the wretched being that his blood
literally spirted over their feet and the hems of their dresses;
and then, bearing the deadly instrument, a huge double-edged
knife, with a blade of a hand's-breadth, and two-feet in length,
still reeking with the evidence of slaughter, the scarred and
savage ruffian approached his chief; who, with his vizor raised,
stood perfectly unmoved and calm, contemplating his victims
with an air of quiet, easy satisfaction. The man looked at
him for a sign, and he replied to the look; “Wait! wait a little
while! he is coming to — and it were pity he should die without
feeling it!”

“O God! O God! be merciful — spare him, thou man of
blood — spare him, and I will bless thee, pray for thee, love
thee! yea, bribe thee to the deed of mercy, with all I hold on
earth!” exclaimed the lovely Marguerite, flinging herself from
her horse before his knees, and clasping them in agony as she
grovelled at his feet; while her uncle heaped offer upon offer
of ransoms that on a foughten field would have bought dearly
an earl's freedom.

“By all that's holy,” answered the brute, “but thou art wondrous
beautiful!” and with the words he raised her from the
ground, and held her for a moment's space at his arms' length,
gazing with a critical eye into her pale but lovely face; then
drawing her suddenly to him, he clasped her to his breast in
the closest embrace, and pressed a long, full kiss on her reluctant
lips. “Thou art most wondrous fair, and thy lip is as soft
and fragrant as a rosebud! I would do much to earn the love
of one so beautiful; but thou hast nothing, sweet one, wherewith
to bribe me, save thine own person, and that is mine

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

already, as thou shalt learn ere long! Cease thy absurd, unmeaning
prayers, old man, they are of no avail. Balafré, the good
youth, is alive enough to feel now!” and, at his word, the ruffian
knelt down coolly, and plunged his weapon three several times
into the bosom of his unresisting victim, while with one fearful,
shivering shriek, Marguerite fainted in the arms of the Red
Bastard.

“That is well! that is well! now seeing that this worthy
senior hath somewhat more of sense than young hopeful, we
will give him a choice for life. Gag him, and tie him to yon
chestnut-tree; if he survive till morning, without the wolves
discovering him, he may live yet many a day. Look sharp,
my men! Bring out your mule, monk, and bear me this fair
dame before you. Carefully, sir — and, mark me, see that you
do not dare so much as look or breathe upon her lovingly!
The maids will ride on with us, on their own hackneys; and,
hark ye, silly hussies, no wrong shall be done to you, save that
women in their hearts deem no wrong, phrase it as they may!
so ye keep silent! but just shriek once again, and ye shall
share the fate of that old dotard. André, and you, Le Balafré,
bring up the mules. Away! away! or we shall scarce meet
Talebard by daybreak!”

His orders were performed upon the instant, and to the very
letter. The terrified girls ceased from their painful sobbings;
the old man, in despite of desperate resistance, was made fast
to the tree; and the monk, bearing on his saddle-bow the lovely
maiden, still, happily for her, insensible, the Rouge Batard
mounted his potent charger, and, with his captives and his
booty, rode at a rapid pace into the forest, the depths of which
were now as dark as midnight.

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