The loneliness of the place finally overwhelmed me. I sat down and tried to think of some landmark that might help me find my way out.
If I could only see the sea again, I would know what direction to take. From the cliffs, I knew, one could see the island of Groix.
I put down my gun, knelt behind a rock, and lit my pipe. Then I checked my watch.
It was nearly four o’clock.
I might have wandered a very long way from Kerselec since sunrise.
The day before, when I had stood with old Goulven on the cliffs below Kerselec, these dark moors had looked almost flat, like a meadow stretching to the horizon. I had known that distance could be deceptive, but I had never imagined how deceptive.
Those little grassy hollows I had seen from Kerselec were actually deep valleys covered with gorse and heather. The scattered rocks were not rocks at all, but enormous granite cliffs.
“It’s a dangerous place for a stranger,” Goulven had warned me. “You’d better take a guide.”
“I won’t get lost,” I had replied.
Now, sitting there with the sea wind blowing straight into my face, I knew perfectly well that I was lost.
The moor stretched endlessly in every direction, covered with flowering gorse, heather, and huge granite stones. There was not a tree in sight.
There was certainly no house.
After a while, I picked up my gun, turned my back to the sun, and started walking again.
Following the little streams that crossed my path was useless. Instead of running toward the sea, they disappeared inland into pools and marshes hidden among the hollows.
I tried following several of them.
Every one led me to a swamp or a silent little pond. Snipe suddenly burst from the reeds, calling sharply as they flew away in panic.
I was growing tired. The gun was cutting into my shoulder despite its padded strap.
The sun sank lower and lower, casting long golden light across the yellow gorse and the dark pools.
As I walked, my enormous shadow seemed to lead me forward, growing longer with every step.
The gorse scratched against my leggings and cracked beneath my boots, scattering blossoms over the brown earth. Ferns bent and waved along my path.
Rabbits darted from the heather and disappeared into the bracken.
From the marsh grass came the sleepy quacking of wild ducks.
Once, a fox slipped silently across my path.
Later, when I bent down to drink from a fast-running stream, a heron rose heavily from the reeds beside me and flapped away.
I turned and looked toward the sun.
It seemed almost to be touching the edge of the plain.
At last I admitted that there was no point in going farther. I would have to spend at least one night on the moor.
Completely exhausted, I dropped to the ground.
The evening sunlight still felt warm against my body, but the sea wind was rising, and the cold from my wet shooting boots was beginning to creep through me.
Far above, gulls wheeled and tossed through the sky like scraps of white paper.
From a distant marsh came the lonely cry of a curlew.
Slowly, the sun disappeared into the plain, and the sky above me began to glow with the last light of evening.
I watched it change from pale gold to pink, then to a deep, smoldering red.
Clouds of tiny midges danced overhead. High in the still air, a bat swooped and climbed again.
My eyes began to close.
I was almost asleep when a sudden crash in the bracken startled me awake.
I looked up.
A huge bird was hovering above my face, its wings trembling in the air.
For a moment I could not move.
Then something rushed through the ferns beside me.
The bird suddenly rose, wheeled in the air, and plunged headfirst into the bracken.
I sprang to my feet and peered through the gorse.
There was a violent rustling in a patch of heather nearby.
Then everything became silent.
I stepped forward with my gun ready.
But when I reached the heather, the gun dropped beneath my arm.
I stood there in complete astonishment.
A dead hare lay on the ground.
Standing on top of it was a magnificent falcon. One sharp talon was buried in the hare’s neck, while the other rested firmly on its limp body.
That alone would not have surprised me. I had seen falcons with their prey before.
What astonished me was the equipment on the bird.
Both its talons were attached to a small leash, and hanging from it was a round piece of metal that jingled like a tiny sleigh bell.
The falcon turned its fierce yellow eyes toward me.
Then it bent its head and drove its curved beak into the hare.
At that instant I heard hurried footsteps through the heather.
A girl suddenly appeared in the cover.
She did not even look at me.
She walked straight toward the falcon, slipped her gloved hand beneath its breast, and lifted it from the dead hare.
Then she quickly placed a small hood over the bird’s head.
Holding the falcon on her gloved arm, she bent down and picked up the hare.
She tied a cord around the hare’s legs and fastened the other end to her belt.
Then she turned and began walking back through the heather.
As she passed me, I raised my cap.
She acknowledged me with the slightest inclination of her head.
I had been so fascinated by the strange scene that I had completely failed to realize what it meant.
This girl could save me.
But as she walked away, I suddenly remembered that if I did not want to spend the night alone on that freezing moor, I had better start speaking.
“Mademoiselle!”
She stopped.
When I stepped in front of her, I thought I saw fear flash across her beautiful eyes.
I quickly explained my situation.
Her face flushed with surprise.
“Surely you didn’t come from Kerselec?” she asked.
Her voice was sweet and unlike any accent I knew.
Yet there was something strangely familiar about it, something old-fashioned and mysterious, like a melody from a song I had heard long ago.
I explained that I was an American, that I knew nothing about Finistère, and that I had come there simply to hunt for pleasure.
“An American,” she repeated in that strange, musical voice. “I have never seen an American before.”
She was silent for a moment.
Then she looked at me.
“If you walked all night, you could not reach Kerselec now, even with a guide.”
That was certainly not what I wanted to hear.
“But if I could find a peasant’s hut somewhere,” I said, “I might at least get something to eat and a place to sleep.”
The falcon fluttered on her arm and shook its hooded head.
She gently stroked its glossy feathers and looked at me.
“Look around you,” she said softly. “Can you see where these moors end?”
I looked around.
“Look north. South. East. West. What do you see?”
“Nothing but moorland and bracken.”
“Exactly. This moor is wild and desolate. It is easy enough to enter, but sometimes those who enter never leave.”
She paused.
“There are no peasant huts here.”
“Well,” I said, “if you could only tell me which direction Kerselec lies, I could return tomorrow. Surely it cannot take me longer to get back than it took me to come here.”
She looked at me almost sadly.
“Ah,” she said. “Coming here is easy. It takes only hours.”
She lowered her eyes.
“Going back is different. It may take centuries.”
I stared at her.
For a moment I wondered if I had misunderstood her.
Before I could ask what she meant, she pulled a small whistle from her belt and blew it.
“Sit down and rest,” she said. “You have come a long way, and you are tired.”
She gathered up her pleated skirts and motioned for me to follow.
She picked her way delicately through the gorse until we reached a flat rock surrounded by ferns.
“They will be here soon,” she said.
She sat at one end of the rock and invited me to sit at the other.
The afterglow was fading from the sky.
A single star appeared through the pink haze.
A long line of waterfowl drifted southward overhead, and plovers called from the marshes around us.
“They are very beautiful,” she said quietly. “These moors.”
“Beautiful, yes,” I replied. “But cruel to strangers.”
“Beautiful and cruel,” she repeated dreamily.
“Beautiful and cruel.”
“Like a woman,” I said foolishly.
“Oh!”
There was a small catch in her voice.
She looked directly at me.
Her dark eyes met mine, and for an instant I thought she looked angry—or frightened.
“Like a woman,” she whispered.
Then she looked away.
“How cruel of you to say that!”
She was silent for a moment.
Then, almost as if she were speaking to herself, she murmured,
“How cruel for him to say that!”
I have no idea what kind of apology I gave her for my foolish remark.
Whatever I said, she seemed deeply troubled by it.
I began to wonder whether I had accidentally said something terribly offensive. The French language has traps enough for foreigners, and I suddenly remembered how easily a harmless sentence can acquire an entirely different meaning.
While I was desperately trying to figure out what I might have said wrong, voices drifted across the moor.
The girl stood.
“No,” she said, and there was the faintest smile on her pale face. “I will not accept your apology, monsieur.”
She looked at me.
“But I must prove you wrong. That will be my revenge.”
She pointed toward the approaching figures.
“Look. Here come Hastur and Raoul.”
Two men appeared through the twilight.
One carried a sack over his shoulder.
The other carried a large circular frame in front of him, almost like a waiter carrying a tray.
The frame was strapped to his shoulders.
Three hooded falcons perched around its edge, each fitted with tiny bells that jingled softly as they moved.
The girl walked over to the falconer.
With one quick movement, she transferred her own falcon to the frame.
The bird immediately moved sideways and settled among the others.
The three falcons shook their hooded heads and ruffled their feathers, making the little bells on their jesses ring.
The other man stepped forward, bowed respectfully, took the hare, and dropped it into his game bag.
“These are my piqueurs,” the girl said, turning to me with quiet dignity.
“Raoul is an excellent falconer. One day I shall make him grand veneur.”
She smiled.
“And Hastur is incomparable.”
The two silent men bowed respectfully to me.
“Did I not tell you, monsieur, that I would prove you wrong?”
She looked toward the endless moor.
“This, then, is my revenge.”
She smiled.
“You must do me the honor of accepting food and shelter at my house.”
Before I could answer, she spoke to the falconers.
They immediately set off across the heath.
With a gracious gesture, she followed them, and I walked beside her.
“I hope you are not very tired,” she said.
I had completely forgotten my exhaustion in her presence.
I told her so.
“Don’t you think your gallantry is a little old-fashioned?” she asked.
I looked embarrassed.
She smiled.
“Oh, I like it. I like everything old-fashioned.”
Her voice softened.
“And it is delightful to hear you say such pretty things.”
The moor was almost completely silent now, covered in a ghostly blanket of mist.
The plovers had stopped calling.
The crickets and every other little creature of the fields seemed to have fallen silent as we passed.
Yet I had the strange feeling that I could hear them beginning to stir again far behind us.
Ahead, the two tall falconers strode through the heather.
From a distance came the faint, rhythmic jingling of the hawks’ bells.
Suddenly a magnificent hound burst from the mist ahead of us.
Then another appeared.
Then another.
Within moments, half a dozen hounds were bounding and leaping around the girl beside me.
She stroked them with her gloved hand and spoke to them in strange, old-fashioned expressions I remembered from ancient French manuscripts.
Then the falcons perched on the frame carried by the falconer ahead began beating their wings and screaming.
From somewhere beyond the mist came the sound of a hunting horn.
The hounds raced ahead and disappeared into the twilight.
The falcons flapped and cried from their perch.
The girl listened to the horn, then began humming the same tune.
Her voice was clear and warm in the night air.
“Chasseur, chasseur, chassez encore,
Quittez Rosette et Jeanneton,
Tonton, tonton, tontaine, tonton,
Ou, pour rabattre, dès l’aurore,
Que les Amours soient de planton,
Tonton, tontaine, tonton.”
As I listened to her beautiful voice, a huge gray shape slowly emerged from the mist ahead.
The hunting horn rang out again, bright and joyful above the noise of the hounds and falcons.
A torch flickered beside a gate.
Light poured through an open doorway.
We stepped onto a wooden bridge.
It trembled beneath our feet.
Behind us, it began to rise with a long creak and groan.
We crossed the moat and entered a small stone courtyard surrounded by walls.
A man appeared from the open doorway.
He bowed and offered the girl beside me a cup.
She accepted it and touched her lips to the rim.
Then she lowered it and turned toward me.
“I bid you welcome,” she said softly.
One of the falconers came forward with another cup.
Before giving it to me, however, he handed it first to the girl.
She tasted it.
The falconer reached out to take it back.
But she hesitated.
Then she stepped toward me and offered the cup to me herself.
I understood that this was an extraordinary gesture of courtesy.
But I had no idea what I was supposed to do.
I hesitated before drinking.
The girl’s face suddenly turned crimson.
I realized I had to act quickly.
“Mademoiselle,” I said awkwardly, “a stranger whom you have rescued from dangers he may never fully understand now raises this cup to the gentlest and loveliest hostess in France.”
“In His name,” she whispered.
She crossed herself as I emptied the cup.
Then she stepped through the doorway.
With a graceful little gesture, she took my hand in hers and led me inside.
“You are very welcome,” she said.
Then she smiled.
“Indeed you are welcome to the Château d’Ys.”