The Count de Meyrand stared at him with a look of haughty surprise; but he found that the priest was as indifferent as he could be, and he relapsed for a minute or two into silence, while the page of Bernard de Rohan came up to disarm his lord. The operation was somewhat long, and, by the time it was accomplished, the trestles had been brought forth from their corner, the long wooden boards which, joined up the middle, served for a table, had been taken from the wall against which they stood and laid upon those trestles, and over all a fine white tablecloth had been spread, with the salt in the midst.
Plate after plate of well-cooked viands, emitting an odour most savoury to hungry men, was next placed on the board by the neat hostess, and the count, with Bernard de Rohan in the buff jerkin he had worn under his armour, moved to take their seats at the head of the table. The priest sat down beside his young travelling companion, while a sneering smile curled the lip of Meyrand, and he could not refrain from saying, in a low but not inaudible voice, "Why, baron, what a princely youth you have become, to travel with your fool, and in canonicals too."
Bernard did not reply; and the priest, though he heard every word, said nothing till, the attendants having all ranged themselves at the lower end of the table, together with the host and hostess, he proceeded to bless the meat. He had scarcely concluded, however, when the door of the inn suddenly opened, and a person rushed in in the garb of a servant. He was without hat or cloak, and there was a cut, though but a slight one, upon his forehead. "Help! help!" he cried, gazing eagerly around the circle; "help! help! they are carrying away my Lord of Masseran and my young lady to murder them in the mountains."
These words produced a very different effect upon the persons who heard them. The Count of Meyrand sat perfectly still and indifferent, listening with his usual air of cool self-possession to all that the man said, and never ceasing to carve with his dagger the meat that was before him, on which he had just commenced when the interruption took place.
On the other hand, Bernard de Rohan and each of his servants, as if moved by the same impulse, started up at once. The young gentleman's left hand fell naturally to grasp the scabbard of his sword, and, before the man had done speaking, he had taken three steps towards the door of the inn.