Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 1.djvu/65

He led the way, and the three repaired to an adjoining room. There, falling on his knees, he confessed to his astonished hearers that his bride was no other than Yolande, whom he had substituted for the daughter of Moutrodeix, the latter having been induced to retire into a convent, and being perfectly reconciled to her present life.

Nothing could exceed the just rage of the Lord of Montrodeix at this revelation; he rushed with frantic gestures from the Castle, and hastened back to his own domain.

The consequences may be readily foreseen: he gathered together all the followers he could collect, and came back with a strong force to the castle of the Cascade before they had time to make preparations of defence, or to remove the lady and her child from danger. A fearful struggle ensued: the Baron fell defending his son, and Yolande, with her infant in her arms, leaped from a window into the gardens of the castle, from whence she escaped to the mountains, where she wandered about for some time, not knowing where to seek refuge.

She beheld the flames rising from the roof where she had passed so many happy hours, and in despair, saw turret after turret sink in the blazing ruins.

Still holding her child, she approached as near as she dared to the scene of conflagration, and, by the light of the raging fires, she beheld her husband engaged hand to hand with the father of her whom she had supplanted. The combat was furious; but Orbert had nearly got the better of his adversary, when, looking suddenly up, he discovered her standing on a rock above. That glance was fatal; the sword of Montrodeix pierced his breast, and he fell.

Yolande uttered a piercing shriek, which was heard by his foe. He turned, and saw her, and darting up the rocks to where she stood, pursued her as she fled with frantic terror, till she reached the very verge of the precipice, down which the impetuous waters pour their flood;—her strength was gone, her limbs gave way; she uttered one cry, and the mother and her infant were swept away by the torrent, and dashed into the foaming abyss below.

The Baron de Montrodeix lived long after this, and the ruins of his castle may be seen by the traveller, not far from the gigantic mountain of the Puy de Dome, whose bleak blasts arc for ever directed against its blackened walls, constructed of basaltic rocks piled one against the other. He was the most gloomy and ferocious of all the lords of that country; and whenever he descended from his strong-hold the neighbouring hamlets trembled. He had besieged and burnt to the ground the castle of Coupladour, of which not a stone remains, except, about half-way down the mountain, a heap cast there by the fury of the flames, which at evening before a tempest is seen to assume the form of a Capucin monk, covered with his cowl, who seems descending the hill towards the little waterfall at its foot.

By the side of the Great Cascade, when the air is troubled, and the mists rise from the valleys, is seen an appearance like a female figure, holding in her arms a young child: then shrieks and cries are often heard in the dark nights of winter by the inhabitants of the valley of the Dordogne; and it is well known that the apparition of Yolande la Fière and her infant son are the precursors of a tempest, such as only happens in the mountains of the Mont-Dore.

It is then that the demons of the storm are abroad along the whole range of the Mont d'Angle; whoever has courage to mount the Puy de Chabano, or any of the peaks which bristle, the surface of the earth in