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WHO FOUND IT
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Concho was so impatient to reach the camp and deliver his good news to his companions that more than once the stranger was obliged to command him to slacken his pace. “Is it not enough, you infernal Greaser, that you lame your own mule, but you must try your hand on mine? Or am I to put Jinny down among the expenses?” he added with a grin and a slight lifting of his baleful eyelid.
When they had ridden a mile along the ridge, they began to descend again toward the valley. Vegetation now sparingly bordered the trail, clumps of chemisal, an occasional manzanita bush, and one or two dwarfed “buckeyes” rooted their way between the interstices of the black-gray rock. Now and then, in crossing some dry gully, worn by the overflow of winter torrents from above, the grayish rock gloom was relieved by dull red and brown masses of color, and almost every overhanging rock bore the mark of a miner's pick. Presently, as they rounded the curving flank of the mountain, from a rocky bench below them, a thin ghost-like stream of smoke seemed to be steadily drawn by invisible hands into the invisible ether. “It is the camp,” said Concho, gleefully; “I will myself forward to prepare them for the stranger,” and before his companion could detain him, he had disappeared at a sharp canter around the curve of the trail.
Left to himself, the stranger took a more leisurely pace, which left him ample time for reflection. Scamp as he was, there was something in the simple credulity of poor Concho that made him uneasy. Not that his moral consciousness was touched, but he feared that Concho's companions might, knowing Concho's simplicity, instantly suspect him of trading upon it. He rode on in a deep study. Was he reviewing his past life? A vagabond by birth and education, a swindler by profession, an outcast by reputation, without absolutely turning his back upon respectability, he had trembled on the perilous edge of criminality ever since his boyhood. He did not scruple to cheat these Mexicans,--they were a degraded race,--and for a moment he felt almost an accredited agent of progress and civilization. We never really understand the meaning of enlightenment until we begin to use it aggressively.
A few paces further on four figures appeared in the now gathering darkness of the trail. The stranger quickly recognized the beaming smile of Concho, foremost of the party. A quick glance at the faces of the others satisfied him that while they lacked Concho's good humor, they certainly did not surpass him in intellect. “Pedro” was a stout vaquero. “Manuel” was a slim half-breed and ex-convert of the Mission of San Carmel, and “Miguel” a recent butcher of Monterey. Under the benign influences of Concho that suspicion with which the ignorant regard strangers died away, and the whole party escorted the stranger--who had given his name as Mr. Joseph Wiles--to their camp-fire. So anxious were they to begin their experiments that even the instincts of hospitality were forgotten, and it was not until Mr. Wiles--now known as “Don Jose”--sharply reminded them that he wanted some “grub,” that they came to their senses. When the frugal meal of tortillas, frijoles, salt pork, and chocolate was over, an oven was built of the dark-red rock brought from the ledge before them, and an earthenware jar, glazed by some peculiar local process, tightly fitted over it, and packed with clay and sods. A fire was speedily built of pine boughs continually brought from a wooded ravine below, and in a few moments the furnace was in full blast. Mr. Wiles did not participate in these active preparations, except to give occasional directions between his teeth, which were contemplatively fixed over a clay pipe as he lay comfortably on his back on the ground. Whatever enjoyment the rascal may have had in their useless labors he did not show it, but it was observed that his left eye often followed the broad figure of the ex-vaquero, Pedro, and often dwelt on that worthy's beetling brows and half-savage face. Meeting that baleful glance once, Pedro growled out an oath, but could not resist a hideous fascination that caused him again and again to seek it.
The scene was weird enough without Wiles's eye to add to its wild picturesqueness. The mountain towered above,--a heavy Rembrandtish mass of black shadow,--sharply cut here and there against a sky so inconceivably remote that the world-sick soul must have despaired of ever reaching so far, or of climbing its steel-blue walls. The stars were large, keen, and brilliant, but cold and steadfast. They did not dance nor twinkle in their adamantine setting. The furnace fire painted the faces of the men an Indian red, glanced on brightly colored blanket and serape, but was eventually caught and absorbed in the waiting shadows of the black mountain, scarcely twenty feet from the furnace door. The low, half-sung, half-whispered foreign speech of the group, the roaring of the furnace, and the quick, sharp yelp of a coyote on the plain below were the only sounds that broke the awful silence of the hills.
It was almost dawn when it was announced that the ore had fused. And it was high time, for the pot was slowly sinking into the fast-crumbling oven. Concho uttered a jubilant “God and Liberty,” but Don Jose Wiles bade him be silent and bring stakes to support the pot. Then Don Jose bent over the seething mass. It was for a moment only. But in that moment this accomplished metallurgist, Mr. Joseph Wiles, had quietly dropped a silver half dollar into the pot!
Then he charged them to keep up the fires and went to sleep--all but one eye.
Dawn came with dull beacon fires on the near hill tops, and, far in the East, roses over the Sierran snow. Birds twittering in the alder fringes a mile below, and the creaking of wagon wheels,--the wagon itself a mere cloud of dust in the distant road,--were heard distinctly. Then the melting pot was solemnly broken by Don Jose, and the glowing incandescent mass turned into the road to cool.
And then the metallurgist chipped a small fragment from the mass and pounded it, and chipped another smaller piece and pounded that, and then subjected it to acid, and then treated it to a salt bath which became at once milky,--and at last produced a white something,--mirabile dictu! --two cents' worth of silver!
Concho shouted with joy; the rest gazed at each other doubtingly and distrustfully; companions in poverty, they began to diverge and suspect each other in prosperity. Wiles's left eye glanced ironically from the one to the other.
“Here is the hundred dollars, Don Jose,” said Pedro, handing the gold to Wiles with a decidedly brusque intimation that the services and presence of a stranger were no longer required.
Wiles took the money with a gracious smile and a wink that sent Pedro's heart into his boots, and was turning away, when a cry from Manuel stopped him. “The pot,--the pot,--it has leaked! look! behold! see!”
He had been cleaning away the crumbled fragments of the furnace to get ready for breakfast, and had disclosed a shining pool of QUICKSILVER!
Wiles started, cast a rapid glance around the group, saw in a flash that the metal was unknown to them,--and then said quietly: “It is not silver.”
“Pardon, Senor, it is, and still molten.” Wiles stooped and ran his fingers through the shining metal.
“Mother of God,--what is it then? --magic?”
“No, only base metal.” But here, Concho, emboldened by Wiles's experiment, attempted to seize a handful of the glistening mass, that instantly broke through his fingers in a thousand tiny spherules, and even sent a few globules up his shirt sleeves, until he danced around in mingled fear and childish pleasure.
“And it is not worth the taking?” queried Pedro of Wiles.
Wiles's right eye and bland face were turned toward the speaker, but his malevolent left was glancing at the dull red-brown rock on the hill side.
“No!” --and turning abruptly away, he proceeded to saddle his mule.
Manuel, Miguel, and Pedro, left to themselves, began talking earnestly together, while Concho, now mindful of his crippled mule, made his way back to the trail where he had left her. But she was no longer there. Constant to her master through beatings and bullyings, she could not stand incivility and inattention. There are certain qualities of the sex that belong to all animated nature.
Inconsolable, footsore, and remorseful, Concho returned to the camp and furnace, three miles across the rocky ridge. But what was his astonishment on arriving to find the place deserted of man, mule, and camp equipage. Concho called aloud. Only the echoing rocks grimly answered him. Was it a trick? Concho tried to laugh. Ah--yes--a good one,--a joke,--no--no--they HAD deserted him. And then poor Concho bowed his head to the ground, and falling on his face, cried as if his honest heart would break.
The tempest passed in a moment; it was not Concho's nature to suffer long nor brood over an injury. As he raised his head again his eye caught the shimmer of the quicksilver,--that pool of merry antic metal that had so delighted him an hour before. In a few moments Concho was again disporting with it; chasing it here and there, rolling it in his palms and laughing with boy-like glee at its elusive freaks and fancies. “Ah, sprightly one,--skipjack,--there thou goest,--come here. This way,--now I have thee, little one,--come, muchacha,--come and kiss me,” until he had quite forgotten the defection of his companions. And even when he shouldered his sorry pack, he was fain to carry his playmate away with him in his empty leathern flask.
And yet I fancy the sun looked kindly on him as he strode cheerily down the black mountain side, and his step was none the less free nor light that he carried with him neither the brilliant prospects nor the crime of his late comrades.
|
{
"id": "2661"
}
|
3
|
WHO CLAIMED IT
|
The fog had already closed in on Monterey, and was now rolling, a white, billowy sea above, that soon shut out the blue breakers below. Once or twice in descending the mountain Concho had overhung the cliff and looked down upon the curving horse-shoe of a bay below him,--distant yet many miles. Earlier in the afternoon he had seen the gilt cross on the white-faced Mission flare in the sunlight, but now all was gone. By the time he reached the highway of the town it was quite dark, and he plunged into the first fonda at the wayside, and endeavored to forget his woes and his weariness in aguardiente. But Concho's head ached, and his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that he bethought him of a medico,--an American doctor,--lately come into the town, who had once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, that if he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of his money. The grotesque extravagance of life, of fruit and vegetables, in California was inconsistent with infinitesimal doses. In Concho's previous illness the doctor had given him a dozen 4 grain quinine powders.
The following day the grateful Mexican walked into the Doctor's office--cured. The Doctor was gratified until, on examination, it appeared that to save trouble, and because his memory was poor, Concho had taken all the powders in one dose. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and--altered his practice.
“Well,” said Dr. Guild, as Concho sank down exhaustedly in one of the Doctor's two chairs, “what now? Have you been sleeping again in the tule marshes, or are you upset with commissary whisky? Come, have it out.”
But Concho declared that the devil was in his stomach, that Judas Iscariot had possessed himself of his spine, that imps were in his forehead, and that his feet had been scourged by Pontius Pilate.
“That means 'blue mass,'” said the Doctor. And gave it to him,--a bolus as large as a musket ball, and as heavy.
Concho took it on the spot, and turned to go.
“I have no money, Senor Medico.”
“Never mind. It's only a dollar, the price of the medicine.”
Concho looked guilty at having gulped down so much cash. Then he said timidly: “I have no money, but I have got here what is fine and jolly. It is yours.” And he handed over the contents of the precious tin can he had brought with him.
The Doctor took it, looked at the shivering volatile mass and said, “Why this is quicksilver!”
Concho laughed, “Yes, very quick silver, so!” and he snapped his fingers to show its sprightliness.
The Doctor's face grew earnest; “Where did you get this, Concho?” he finally asked.
“It ran from the pot in the mountains beyond.”
The Doctor looked incredulous. Then Concho related the whole story.
“Could you find that spot again?”
“Madre de Dios, yes,--I have a mule there; may the devil fly away with her!”
“And you say your comrades saw this?”
“Why not?”
“And you say they afterwards left you,--deserted you?”
“They did, ingrates!”
The Doctor arose and shut his office door. “Hark ye, Concho,” he said, “that bit of medicine I gave you just now was worth a dollar, it was worth a dollar because the material of which it was composed was made from the stuff you have in that can,--quicksilver or mercury. It is one of the most valuable of metals, especially in a gold-mining country. My good fellow, if you know where to find enough of it, your fortune is made.”
Concho rose to his feet.
“Tell me, was the rock you built your furnace of red?”
“Si, Senor.”
“And brown?”
“Si, Senor.”
“And crumbled under the heat?”
“As to nothing.”
“And did you see much of this red rock?”
“The mountain mother is in travail with it.”
“Are you sure that your comrades have not taken possession of the mountain mother?”
“As how?”
“By claiming its discovery under the mining laws, or by pre-emption?”
“They shall not.”
“But how will you, single-handed, fight the four; for I doubt not your scientific friend has a hand in it?”
“I will fight.”
“Yes, my Concho, but suppose I take the fight off your hands. Now, here's a proposition: I will get half a dozen Americanos to go in with you. You will have to get money to work the mine,--you will need funds. You shall share half with them. They will take the risk, raise the money, and protect you.”
“I see,” said Concho, nodding his head and winking his eyes rapidly. “Bueno!”
“I will return in ten minutes,” said the Doctor, taking his hat.
He was as good as his word. In ten minutes he returned with six original locaters, a board of directors, a president, secretary, and a deed of incorporation of the 'Blue Mass Quicksilver Mining Co.' This latter was a delicate compliment to the Doctor, who was popular. The President added to these necessary articles a revolver.
“Take it,” he said, handing over the weapon to Concho. “Take it; my horse is outside; take that, ride like h--l and hang on to the claim until we come!”
In another moment Concho was in the saddle. Then the mining director lapsed into the physician.
“I hardly know,” said Dr. Guild, doubtfully, “if in your present condition you ought to travel. You have just taken a powerful medicine,” and the Doctor looked hypocritically concerned.
“Ah,--the devil!” laughed Concho, “what is the quicksilver that is IN to that which is OUT? Hoopa, la Mula!” and, with a clatter of hoofs and jingle of spurs, was presently lost in the darkness.
“You were none too soon, gentlemen,” said the American Alcalde, as he drew up before the Doctor's door. “Another company has just been incorporated for the same location, I reckon.”
“Who are they?”
“Three Mexicans,--Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel, headed by that d----d cock-eyed Sydney Duck, Wiles.”
“Are they here?”
“Manuel and Miguel, only. The others are over at Tres Pinos lally-gaging Roscommon and trying to rope him in to pay off their whisky bills at his grocery.”
“If that's so we needn't start before sunrise, for they're sure to get roaring drunk.”
And this legitimate successor of the grave Mexican Alcaldes, having thus delivered his impartial opinion, rode away.
Meanwhile, Concho the redoubtable, Concho the fortunate, spared neither riata nor spur. The way was dark, the trail obscure and at times even dangerous, and Concho, familiar as he was with these mountain fastnesses, often regretted his sure-footed Francisquita. “Care not, O Concho,” he would say to himself, “'tis but a little while, only a little while, and thou shalt have another Francisquita to bless thee. Eh, skipjack, there was a fine music to thy dancing. A dollar for an ounce,--'tis as good as silver, and merrier.” Yet for all his good spirits he kept a sharp lookout at certain bends of the mountain trail; not for assassins or brigands, for Concho was physically courageous, but for the Evil One, who, in various forms, was said to lurk in the Santa Cruz Range, to the great discomfort of all true Catholics. He recalled the incident of Ignacio, a muleteer of the Franciscan Friars, who, stopping at the Angelus to repeat the Credo, saw Luzbel plainly in the likeness of a monstrous grizzly bear, mocking him by sitting on his haunches and lifting his paws, clasped together, as if in prayer. Nevertheless, with one hand grasping his reins and his rosary, and the other clutching his whisky flask and revolver, he fared on so rapidly that he reached the summit as the earlier streaks of dawn were outlining the far-off Sierran peaks. Tethering his horse on a strip of tableland, he descended cautiously afoot until he reached the bench, the wall of red rock and the crumbled and dismantled furnace. It was as he had left it that morning; there was no trace of recent human visitation. Revolver in hand, Concho examined every cave, gully, and recess, peered behind trees, penetrated copses of buckeye and manzanita, and listened. There was no sound but the faint soughing of the wind over the pines below him. For a while he paced backward and forward with a vague sense of being a sentinel, but his mercurial nature soon rebelled against this monotony, and soon the fatigues of the day began to tell upon him. Recourse to his whisky flask only made him the drowsier, until at last he was fain to lie down and roll himself up tightly in his blanket. The next moment he was sound asleep.
His horse neighed twice from the summit, but Concho heard him not. Then the brush crackled on the ledge above him, a small fragment of rock rolled near his feet, but he stirred not. And then two black figures were outlined on the crags beyond.
“St-t-t!” whispered a voice. “There is one lying beside the furnace.” The speech was Spanish, but the voice was Wiles's.
The other figure crept cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked over. “It is Concho, the imbecile,” said Pedro, contemptuously.
“But if he should not be alone, or if he should waken?”
“I will watch and wait. Go you and affix the notification.”
Wiles disappeared. Pedro began to creep down the face of the rocky ledge, supporting himself by chemisal and brush-wood.
The next moment Pedro stood beside the unconscious man. Then he looked cautiously around. The figure of his companion was lost in the shadow of the rocks above; only a slight crackle of brush betrayed his whereabouts. Suddenly Pedro flung his serape over the sleeper's head, and then threw his powerful frame and tremendous weight full upon Concho's upturned face, while his strong arms clasped the blanket-pinioned limbs of his victim. There was a momentary upheaval, a spasm, and a struggle; but the tightly-rolled blanket clung to the unfortunate man like cerements.
There was no noise, no outcry, no sound of struggle. There was nothing to be seen but the peaceful, prostrate figures of the two men darkly outlined on the ledge. They might have been sleeping in each other's arms. In the black silence the stealthy tread of Wiles in the brush above was distinctly audible.
Gradually the struggles grew fainter. Then a whisper from the crags: “I can't see you. What are you doing?”
“Watching!”
“Sleeps he?”
“He sleeps!”
“Soundly?”
“Soundly.”
“After the manner of the dead?”
“After the fashion of the dead!”
The last tremor had ceased. Pedro rose as Wiles descended.
“All is ready,” said Wiles; “you are a witness of my placing the notifications?”
“I am a witness.”
“But of this one?” pointing to Concho. “Shall we leave him here?”
“A drunken imbecile,--why not?”
Wiles turned his left eye on the speaker. They chanced to be standing nearly in the same attitude they had stood the preceding night. Pedro uttered a cry and an imprecation, “Carramba! Take your devil's eye from me! What see you? Eh,--what?”
“Nothing, good Pedro,” said Wiles, turning his bland right cheek to Pedro. The infuriated and half-frightened ex-vaquero returned the long knife he had half-drawn from its sheath, and growled surlily: “Go on then! But keep thou on that side, and I will on this.” And so, side by side, listening, watching, distrustful of all things, but mainly of each other, they stole back and up into those shadows from which they might like evil spirits have been poetically evoked.
A half hour passed, in which the east brightened, flashed, and again melted into gold. And then the sun came up haughtily, and a fog that had stolen across the summit in the night arose and fled up the mountain side, tearing its white robes in its guilty haste, and leaving them fluttering from tree and crag and scar. A thousand tiny blades, nestling in the crevices of rocks, nurtured in storms and rocked by the trade winds, stretched their wan and feeble arms toward Him; but Concho the strong, Concho the brave, Concho the light-hearted spake not nor stirred.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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4
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WHO TOOK IT
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There was persistent neighing on the summit. Concho's horse wanted his breakfast.
This protestation reached the ears of a party ascending the mountain from its western face. To one of the party it was familiar.
“Why, blank it all, that's Chiquita. That d----d Mexican's lying drunk somewhere,” said the President of the B. M. Co.
“I don't like the look of this at all,” said Dr. Guild, as they rode up beside the indignant animal. “If it had been an American, it might have been carelessness, but no Mexican ever forgets his beast. Drive ahead, boys; we may be too late.”
In half an hour they came in sight of the ledge below, the crumbled furnace, and the motionless figure of Concho, wrapped in a blanket, lying prone in the sunlight.
“I told you so,--drunk!” said the President.
The Doctor looked grave, but did not speak. They dismounted and picketed their horses. Then crept on all fours to the ledge above the furnace. There was a cry from Secretary Gibbs, “Look yer. Some fellar has been jumping us, boys. See these notices.”
There were two notices on canvas affixed to the rock, claiming the ground, and signed by Pedro, Manuel, Miguel, Wiles, and Roscommon.
“This was done, Doctor, while your trustworthy Greaser locater,--d--n him,--lay there drunk. What's to be done now?”
But the Doctor was making his way to the unfortunate cause of their defeat, lying there quite mute to their reproaches. The others followed him.
The Doctor knelt beside Concho, unrolled him, placed his hand upon his wrist, his ear over his heart, and then said: “Dead.”
“Of course. He got medicine of you last night. This comes of your d----d heroic practice.”
But the Doctor was too much occupied to heed the speaker's raillery. He had peered into Concho's protuberant eye, opened his mouth, and gazed at the swollen tongue, and then suddenly rose to his feet.
“Tear down those notices, boys, but keep them. Put up your own. Don't be alarmed, you will not be interfered with, for here is murder added to robbery.”
“Murder?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, excitedly, “I'll take my oath on any inquest that this man was strangled to death. He was surprised while asleep. Look here.” He pointed to the revolver still in Concho's stiffening hand, which the murdered man had instantly cocked, but could not use in the struggle.
“That's so,” said the President, “no man goes to sleep with a cocked revolver. What's to be done?”
“Everything,” said the Doctor. “This deed was committed within the last two hours; the body is still warm. The murderer did not come our way, or we should have met him on the trail. He is, if anywhere, between here and Tres Pinos.”
“Gentlemen,” said the President, with a slight preparatory and half judicial cough, “two of you will stay here and stick! The others will follow me to Tres Pinos. The law has been outraged. You understand the Court!”
By some odd influence the little group of half-cynical, half-trifling, and wholly reckless men had become suddenly sober, earnest citizens. They said, “Go on,” nodded their heads, and betook themselves to their horses.
“Had we not better wait for the inquest and swear out a warrant?” said the Secretary, cautiously.
“How many men have we?”
“Five!”
“Then,” said the President, summing up the Revised Statutes of the State of California in one strong sentence; “then we don't want no d----d warrant.”
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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5
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WHO HAD A LIEN ON IT
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It was high noon at Tres Pinos. The three pines from which it gained its name, in the dusty road and hot air, seemed to smoke from their balsamic spires. There was a glare from the road, a glare from the sky, a glare from the rocks, a glare from the white canvas roofs of the few shanties and cabins which made up the village. There was even a glare from the unpainted red-wood boards of Roscommon's grocery and tavern, and a tendency of the warping floor of the veranda to curl up beneath the feet of the intruder. A few mules, near the watering trough, had shrunk within the scant shadow of the corral.
The grocery business of Mr. Roscommon, although adequate and sufficient for the village, was not exhausting nor overtaxing to the proprietor; the refilling of the pork and flour barrel of the average miner was the work of a brief hour on Saturday nights, but the daily replenishment of the average miner with whisky was arduous and incessant. Roscommon spent more time behind his bar than his grocer's counter. Add to this the fact that a long shed-like extension or wing bore the legend, “Cosmopolitan Hotel, Board or Lodging by the Day or Week. M. Roscommon,” and you got an idea of the variety of the proprietor's functions. The “hotel,” however, was more directly under the charge of Mrs. Roscommon, a lady of thirty years, strong, truculent, and good-hearted.
Mr. Roscommon had early adopted the theory that most of his customers were insane, and were to be alternately bullied or placated, as the case might be. Nothing that occurred, no extravagance of speech nor act, ever ruffled his equilibrium, which was as dogged and stubborn as it was outwardly calm. When not serving liquor, or in the interval while it was being drank, he was always wiping his counter with an exceedingly dirty towel,--or indeed anything that came handy. Miners, noticing this purely perfunctory habit, occasionally supplied him slily with articles inconsistent with their service,--fragments of their shirts and underclothing, flour sacking, tow, and once with a flannel petticoat of his wife's, stolen from the line in the back-yard. Roscommon would continue his wiping without looking up, but yet conscious of the presence of each customer. “And it's not another dhrop ye'll git, Jack Brown, until ye've wiped out the black score that stands agin ye.” “And it's there ye are, darlint, and it's here's the bottle that's been lukin' for ye sins Saturday.” “And fwhot hev you done with the last I sent ye, ye divil of a McCorkle, and here's me back that's bruk entoirely wid dipping intil the pork barl to giv ye the best sides, and ye spending yur last cint on a tare into Gilroy. Whist! and if it's fer foighting ye are, boys, there's an illigant bit of sod beyant the corral, and it may be meself'll come out with a shtick and be sociable.”
On this particular day, however, Mr. Roscommon was not in his usual spirits, and when the clatter of horses' hoofs before the door announced the approach of strangers, he absolutely ceased wiping his counter and looked up as Dr. Guild, the President, and Secretary of the new Company strode into the shop.
“We are looking,” said the President, “for a man by the name of Wiles, and three Mexicans known as Pedro, Manuel, and Miguel.”
“Ye are?”
“We are!”
“Faix, and I hope ye'll foind 'em. And if ye'll git from 'em the score I've got agin 'em, darlint, I'll add a blessing to it.”
There was a laugh at this from the bystanders, who, somehow, resented the intrusion of these strangers.
“I fear you will find it no laughing matter, gentlemen,” said Dr. Guild, a little stiffly, “when I tell you that a murder has been committed, and the men I am seeking within an hour of that murder put up that notice signed by their names,” and Dr. Guild displayed the paper.
There was a breathless silence among the crowd as they eagerly pressed around the Doctor. Only Roscommon kept on wiping his counter.
“You will observe, gentlemen, that the name of Roscommon also appears on this paper as one of the original beaters.”
“And sure, darlint,” said Roscommon, without looking up, “if ye've no better ividince agin them boys then you have forninst me, it's home ye'd bether be riding to wanst. For it's meself as hasn't sturred fut out of the store the day and noight,--more betoken as the boys I've sarved kin testify.”
“That's so, Ross, right,” chorused the crowd, “We've been running the old man all night.”
“Then how comes your name on this paper?”
“O murdher! will ye listen to him, boys? As if every felly that owed me a whisky bill didn't come to me and say, 'Ah, Misther Roscommon,' or 'Moike,' as the case moight be, sure it's an illigant sthrike I've made this day, and it's meself that has put down your name as an original locater, and yer fortune's made, Mr. Roscommon, and will yer fill me up another quart for the good luck betune you and me. Ah, but ask Jack Brown over yar if it isn't sick that I am of his original locations.”
The laugh that followed this speech, and its practical application, convinced the party that they had blundered, that they could obtain no clue to the real culprits here, and that any attempt by threats would meet violent opposition. Nevertheless the Doctor was persistent: “When did you see these men last?”
“When did I see them, is it? Bedad, what with sarvin up the liquor and keeping me counters dry and swate, I never see them at all.”
“That's so, Ross,” chorused the crowd again, to whom the whole proceeding was delightfully farcical.
“Then I can tell you, gentlemen,” said the Doctor, stiffly, “that they were in Monterey last night, that they did not return on that trail this morning, and that they must have passed here at daybreak.”
With these words, which the Doctor regretted as soon as delivered, the party rode away.
Mr. Roscommon resumed his service and counter wiping. But late that night, when the bar was closed and the last loiterer was summarily ejected, Mr. Roscommon, in the conjugal privacy of his chamber, produced a legal-looking paper. “Read it, Maggie, darlint, for it's meself never had the larning nor the parts.”
Mistress Roscommon took the paper: “Shure, it's law papers, making over some property to yis. O Moike! ye havn't been spekilating!”
“Whist! and fwhotz that durty gray paper wid the sales and flourishes?”
“Faix, it bothers me intoirely. Shure it oin't in English.”
“Whist! Maggie, it's a Spanish grant!”
“A Spanish grant? O Moike, and what did ye giv for it?”
Mr. Roscommon laid his finger beside his nose and said softly, “Whishky!”
PART II. --IN THE COURTS
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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6
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HOW A GRANT WAS GOT FOR IT
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While the Blue Mass Company, with more zeal than discretion, were actively pursuing Pedro and Wiles over the road to Tres Pinos, Senors Miguel and Manuel were comfortably seated in a fonda at Monterey, smoking cigarritos and discussing their late discovery. But they were in no better mood than their late companions, and it appeared from their conversation that in an evil moment they had sold out their interest in the alleged silver mine to Wiles and Pedro for a few hundred dollars,--succumbing to what they were assured would be an active opposition on the part of the Americanos. The astute reader will easily understand that the accomplished Mr. Wiles did not inform them of its value as a quicksilver mine, although he was obliged to impart his secret to Pedro as a necessary accomplice and reckless coadjutor. That Pedro felt no qualms of conscience in thus betraying his two comrades may be inferred from his recent direct and sincere treatment of Concho, and that he would, if occasion offered or policy made it expedient, as calmly obliterate Mr. Wiles, that gentleman himself never for a moment doubted.
“If we had waited but a little he would have given more,--this cock-eye!” regretted Manuel querulously.
“Not a peso,” said Miguel, firmly.
“And why, my Miguel? Thou knowest we could have worked the mine ourselves.”
“Good, and lost even that labor. Look you, little brother. Show to me now the Mexican that has ever made a real of a mine in California. How many, eh? None! Not a one. Who owns the Mexican's mine, eh? Americanos! Who takes the money from the Mexican's mine? Americanos! Thou rememberest Briones, who spent a gold mine to make a silver one? Who has the lands and house of Briones? Americanos! Who has the cattle of Briones? Americanos! Who has the mine of Briones? Americanos! Who has the silver Briones never found? Americanos! Always the same! Forever! Ah! carramba!”
Then the Evil One evidently took it into his head and horns to worry and toss these men--comparatively innocent as they were--still further, for a purpose. For presently to them appeared one Victor Garcia, whilom a clerk of the Ayuntamiento, who rallied them over aguardiente, and told them the story of the quicksilver discovery, and the two mining claims taken out that night by Concho and Wiles. Whereat Manuel exploded with profanity and burnt blue with sulphurous malediction; but Miguel, the recent ecclesiastic, sat livid and thoughtful.
Finally came a pause in Manuel's bombardment, and something like this conversation took place between the cooler actors: Miguel (thoughtfully). “When was it thou didst petition for lands in the valley, friend Victor?”
Victor (amazedly). “Never! It is a sterile waste. Am I a fool?”
Miguel (softly). “Thou didst. Of thy Governor, Micheltorena. I have seen the application.”
Victor (beginning to appreciate a rodential odor). “Si! I had forgotten. Art thou sure it was in the valley?”
Miguel (persuasively). “In the valley and up the falda.” * * Falda, or valda, i. e., that part of the skirt of a woman's robe that breaks upon the ground, and is also applied to the final slope of a hill, from the angle that it makes upon the level plain.
Victor (with decision). “Certainly. Of a verity,--the falda likewise.”
Miguel (eying Victor). “And yet thou hadst not the grant. Painful is it that it should have been burned with the destruction of the other archives, by the Americanos at Monterey.”
Victor (cautiously feeling his way). “Possiblemente.”
Miguel. “It might be wise to look into it.”
Victor (bluntly). “As why?”
Miguel. “For our good and thine, friend Victor. We bring thee a discovery; thou bringest us thy skill, thy experience, thy government knowledge,--thy Custom House paper.” * * Grants, applications, and official notifications, under the Spanish Government, were drawn on a stamped paper known as custom House paper.
Manuel (breaking in drunkenly). “But for what? We are Mexicans. Are we not fated? We shall lose. Who shall keep the Americanos off?”
Miguel. “We shall take ONE American in! Ha! seest thou? This American comrade shall bribe his courts, his corregidores. After a little he shall supply the men who invent the machine of steam, the mill, the furnace, eh?”
Victor. “But who is he,--not to steal?”
Miguel. “He is that man of Ireland, a good Catholic, at Tres Pinos.”
Victor and Manuel (omnes). “Roscommon?”
Miguel. “Of the same. We shall give him a share for the provisions, for the tools, for the aguardiente. It is of the Irish that the Americanos have great fear. It is of them that the votes are made,--that the President is chosen. It is of him that they make the Alcalde in San Francisco. And we are of the Church like him.”
They said “Bueno” altogether, and for the moment appeared to be upheld by a religious enthusiasm,--a joint confession of faith that meant death, destruction, and possibly forgery, as against the men who thought otherwise.
This spiritual harmony did away with all practical consideration and doubt. “I have a little niece,” said Victor, “whose work with the pen is marvellous. If one says to her, 'Carmen, copy me this, or the other one,'--even if it be copper-plate,--look you it is done, and you cannot know of which is the original. Madre de Dios! the other day she makes me a rubric* of the Governor, Pio Pico, the same, identical. Thou knowest her, Miguel. She asked concerning thee yesterday.”
* The Spanish “rubric” is the complicated flourish attached to a signature, and is as individual and characteristic as the handwriting.
With the embarrassment of an underbred man, Miguel tried to appear unconcerned, but failed dismally. Indeed, I fear that the black eyes of Carmen had already done their perfect and accepted work, and had partly induced the application for Victor's aid. He, however, dissembled so far as to ask: “But will she not know?”
“She is a child.”
“But will she not talk?”
“Not if I say nay, and if thou--eh, Miguel?”
This bit of flattery (which, by the way, was a lie, for Victor's niece did not incline favorably to Miguel), had its effect. They shook hands over the table. “But,” said Miguel, “what is to be done must be done now.” “At the moment,” said Victor, “and thou shalt see it done. Eh? Does it content thee? then come!”
Miguel nodded to Manuel. “We will return in an hour; wait thou here.”
They filed out into the dark, irregular street. Fate led them to pass the office of Dr. Guild at the moment that Concho mounted his horse. The shadows concealed them from their rival, but they overheard the last injunctions of the President to the unlucky Concho.
“Thou hearest?” said Miguel, clutching his companion's arm.
“Yes,” said Victor. “But let him ride, my friend; in one hour we shall have that that shall arrive YEARS before him,” and with a complacent chuckle they passed unseen and unheard until, abruptly turning a corner, they stopped before a low adobe house.
It had once been a somewhat pretentious dwelling, but had evidently followed the fortunes of its late owner, Don Juan Briones, who had offered it as a last sop to the three-headed Cerberus that guarded the El Refugio Plutonean treasures, and who had swallowed it in a single gulp. It was in very bad case. The furrows of its red-tiled roof looked as if they were the results of age and decrepitude. Its best room had a musty smell; there was the dampness of deliquescence in its slow decay, but the Spanish Californians were sensible architects, and its massive walls and partitions defied the earthquake thrill, and all the year round kept an even temperature within.
Victor led Miguel through a low anteroom into a plainly-furnished chamber, where Carmen sat painting.
Now Mistress Carmen was a bit of a painter, in a pretty little way, with all the vague longings of an artist, but without, I fear, the artist's steadfast soul. She recognized beauty and form as a child might, without understanding their meaning, and somehow failed to make them even interpret her woman's moods, which surely were nature's too. So she painted everything with this innocent lust of the eye,--flowers, birds, insects, landscapes, and figures,--with a joyous fidelity, but no particular poetry. The bird never sang to her but one song, the flowers or trees spake but one language, and her skies never brightened except in color. She came out strong on the Catholic saints, and would toss you up a cleanly-shaven Aloysius, sweetly destitute of expression, or a dropsical, lethargic Madonna that you couldn't have told from an old master, so bad it was. Her faculty of faithful reproduction even showed itself in fanciful lettering,--and latterly in the imitation of fabrics and signatures. Indeed, with her eye for beauty of form, she had always excelled in penmanship at the Convent,--an accomplishment which the good sisters held in great repute.
In person she was petite, with a still unformed girlish figure, perhaps a little too flat across the back, and with possibly a too great tendency to a boyish stride in walking. Her brow, covered by blue-black hair, was low and frank and honest; her eyes, a very dark hazel, were not particularly large, but rather heavily freighted in their melancholy lids with sleeping passion; her nose was of that unimportant character which no man remembers; her mouth was small and straight; her teeth, white and regular. The whole expression of her face was piquancy that might be subdued by tenderness or made malevolent by anger. At present it was a salad in which the oil and vinegar were deftly combined. The astute feminine reader will of course understand that this is the ordinary superficial masculine criticism, and at once make up her mind both as to the character of the young lady and the competency of the critic. I only know that I rather liked her. And her functions are somewhat important in this veracious history.
She looked up, started to her feet, leveled her black brows at the intruder, but, at a sign from her uncle, showed her white teeth and spake.
It was only a sentence, and a rather common-place one at that; but if she could have put her voice upon her canvas, she might have retrieved the Garcia fortunes. For it was so musical, so tender, so sympathizing, so melodious, so replete with the graciousness of womanhood, that she seemed to have invented the language. And yet that sentence was only an exaggerated form of the 'How d'ye do,' whined out, doled out, lisped out, or shot out from the pretty mouths of my fair countrywomen.
Miguel admired the paintings. He was struck particularly with a crayon drawing of a mule. “Mother of God, it is the mule itself! observe how it will not go.” Then the crafty Victor broke in with, “But it is nothing to her writing; look, you shall tell to me which is the handwriting of Pio Pico;” and, from a drawer in the secretary, he drew forth two signatures. One was affixed to a yellowish paper, the other drawn on plain white foolscap. Of course Miguel took the more modern one with lover-like gallantry. “It is this is genuine!” Victor laughed triumphantly; Carmen echoed the laugh melodiously in child-like glee, and added, with a slight toss of her piquant head, “It is mine!” The best of the sex will not refuse a just and overdue compliment from even the man they dislike. It's the principle they're after, not the sentiment.
But Victor was not satisfied with this proof of his niece's skill. “Say to her,” he demanded of Miguel, “what name thou likest, and it shall be done before thee here.” Miguel was not so much in love but he perceived the drift of Victor's suggestion, and remarked that the rubric of Governor Micheltorena was exceedingly complicated and difficult. “She shall do it!” responded Victor, with decision.
From a file of old departmental papers the Governor's signature and that involved rubric, which must have cost his late Excellency many youthful days of anxiety, was produced and laid before Carmen.
Carmen took her pen in her hand, looked at the brownish-looking document, and then at the virgin whiteness of the foolscap before her. “But,” she said, pouting prettily, “I should have to first paint this white paper brown. And it will absorb the ink more quickly than that. When I painted the San Antonio of the Mission San Gabriel for Father Acolti, I had to put the decay in with my oils and brushes before the good Padre would accept it.”
The two scamps looked at each other. It was their supreme moment. “I think I have,” said Victor, with assumed carelessness, “I think I have some of the old Custom-House paper.” He produced from the secretary a sheet of brown paper with a stamp. “Try it on that.”
Carmen smiled with childish delight, tried it, and produced a marvel! “It is as magic,” said Miguel, feigning to cross himself.
Victor's role was more serious. He affected to be deeply touched, took the paper, folded it, and placed it in his breast. “I shall make a good fool of Don Jose Castro,” he said; “he will declare it is the Governor's own signature, for he was his friend; but have a care, Carmen! that you spoil it not by the opening of your red lips. When he is fooled, I will tell him of this marvel,--this niece of mine, and he shall buy her pictures. Eh, little one?” and he gave her the avuncular caress, i. e., a pat of the hand on either cheek, and a kiss. Miguel envied him, but cupidity outgeneraled Cupid, and presently the conversation flagged, until a convenient recollection of Victor's--that himself and comrade were due at the Posada del Toros at 10 o'clock--gave them the opportunity to retire. But not without a chance shot from Carmen. “Tell to me,” she said, half to Victor and half to Miguel, “what has chanced with Concho? He was ever ready to bring to me flowers from the mountain, and insects and birds. Thou knowest how he would sit, oh, my uncle, and talk to me of the rare rocks he had seen, and the bears and the evil spirits, and now he comes no longer, my Concho! How is this? Nothing evil has befallen him, surely?” and her drooping lids closed half-pathetically.
Miguel's jealousy took fire. “He is drunk, Senorita, doubtless, and has forgotten not only thee but, mayhap, his mule and pack! It is his custom, ha! ha!”
The red died out of Carmen's ripe lips, and she shut them together with a snap like a steel purse. The dove had suddenly changed to a hawk; the child-girl into an antique virago; the spirit hitherto dimly outlined in her face, of some shrewish Garcia ancestress, came to the fore. She darted a quick look at her uncle, and then, with her little hands on her rigid lips, strode with two steps up to Miguel.
“Possibly, O Senor Miguel Dominguez Perez (a profound courtesy here), it is as thou sayest. Drunkard Concho may be; but, drunk or sober, he never turned his back on his friend--or--(the words grated a little here)--his enemy.”
Miguel would have replied, but Victor was ready. “Fool,” he said, pinching his arm, “'tis an old friend. And--and--the application is still to be filled up. Are you crazy?”
But on this point Miguel was not, and with the revenge of a rival added to his other instincts, he permitted Victor to lead him away.
On their return to the fonda, they found Master Manuel too far gone with aguardiente, and a general animosity to the average Americano, to be of any service. So they worked alone, with pen, ink, and paper, in the stuffy, cigarrito-clouded back room of the fonda. It was midnight, two hours after Concho had started, that Miguel clapped spurs to his horse for the village of Tres Pinos, with an application to Governor Micheltorena for a grant to the “Rancho of the Red Rocks” comfortably bestowed in his pocket.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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7
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WHO PLEAD FOR IT
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There can be little doubt the coroner's jury of Fresno would have returned a verdict of “death from alcoholism,” as the result of their inquest into the cause of Concho's death, had not Dr. Guild fought nobly in support of the law and his own convictions. A majority of the jury objected to there being any inquest at all. A sincere juryman thought it hard that whenever a Greaser pegged out in a sneakin' kind o' way, American citizens should be taken from their business to find out what ailed him. “S'pose he was killed,” said another, “thar ain't no time this thirty year he weren't, so to speak, just sufferin' for it, ez his nat'ral right ez a Mexican.” The jury at last compromised by bringing in a verdict of homicide against certain parties unknown. Yet it was understood tacitly that these unknown parties were severally Wiles and Pedro; Manuel, Miguel, and Roscommon proving an unmistakable alibi. Wiles and Pedro had fled to lower California, and Manuel, Miguel, and Roscommon deemed it advisable, in the then excited state of the public mind, to withhold the forged application and claim from the courts and the public comment. So that for a year after the murder of Concho and the flight of his assassins “The Blue Mass Mining Company” remained in undisturbed and actual possession of the mine, and reigned in their stead.
But the spirit of the murdered Concho would not down any more than that of the murdered Banquo, and so wrought, no doubt, in a quiet, Concho-like way, sore trouble with the “Blue Mass Company.” For a great Capitalist and Master of Avarice came down to the mine and found it fair, and taking one of the Company aside, offered to lend his name and a certain amount of coin for a controlling interest, accompanying the generous offer with a suggestion that if it were not acceded to he would be compelled to buy up various Mexican mines and flood the market with quicksilver to the great detriment of the “Blue Mass Company,” which thoughtful suggestion, offered by a man frequently alluded to as one of “California's great mining princes,” and as one who had “done much to develop the resources of the State,” was not to be lightly considered; and so, after a cautious non-consultation with the Company, and a commendable secrecy, the stockholder sold out. Whereat it was speedily spread abroad that the great Capitalist had taken hold of “Blue Mass,” and the stock went up, and the other stockholders rejoiced--until the great Capitalist found that it was necessary to put up expensive mills, to employ a high salaried Superintendent, in fact, to develop the mine by the spending of its earnings, so that the stock quoted at 112 was finally saddled with an assessment of $50 per share. Another assessment of $50 to enable the Superintendent to proceed to Russia and Spain and examine into the workings of the quicksilver mines there, and also a general commission to the gifted and scientific Pillageman to examine into the various component parts of quicksilver, and report if it could not be manufactured from ordinary sand-stone by steam or electricity, speedily brought the other stockholders to their senses. It was at this time the good fellow “Tom,” the serious-minded “Dick,” and the speculative but fortunate “Harry,” brokers of the Great Capitalist, found it convenient to buy up, for the Great Capitalist aforesaid, the various other shares at great sacrifice.
I fear that I have bored my readers in thus giving the tiresome details of that ingenuous American pastime which my countrymen dismiss in their epigrammatic way as the “freezing-out process.” And lest any reader should question the ethics of the proceeding, I beg him to remember that one gentleman accomplished in this art was always a sincere and direct opponent of the late Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler.
But for once the Great Master of Avarice had not taken into sufficient account the avarice of others, and was suddenly and virtuously shocked to learn that an application for a patent for certain lands, known as the “Red-Rock Rancho,” was about to be offered before the United States Land Commission. This claim covered his mining property. But the information came quietly and secretly, as all of the Great Master's information was obtained, and he took the opportunity to sell out his clouded title and his proprietorship to the only remaining member of the original “Blue Mass Company,” a young fellow of pith, before many-tongued rumor had voiced the news far and wide. The blow was a heavy one to the party left in possession. Saddled by the enormous debts and expenses of the Great Capitalist, with a credit now further injured by the defection of this lucky magnate, who was admired for his skill in anticipating a loss, and whose relinquishment of any project meant ruin to it, the single-handed, impoverished possessor of the mine, whose title was contested, and whose reputation was yet to be made,--poor Biggs, first secretary and only remaining officer of the “Blue Mass Company,” looked ruefully over his books and his last transfer, and sighed. But I have before intimated that he was built of good stuff, and that he believed in his work,--which was well,--and in himself, which was better; and so, having faith even as a grain of mustard seed, I doubt not he would have been able to remove that mountain of quicksilver beyond the overlapping of fraudulent grants. And, again, Providence--having disposed of these several scamps--raised up to him a friend. But that friend is of sufficient importance to this veracious history to deserve a paragraph to himself.
The Pylades of this Orestes was known of ordinary mortals as Royal Thatcher. His genealogy, birth, and education are, I take it, of little account to this chronicle, which is only concerned with his friendship for Biggs and the result thereof. He had known Biggs a year or two previously; they had shared each other's purses, bunks, cabins, provisions, and often friends, with that perfect freedom from obligation which belonged to the pioneer life. The varying tide of fortune had just then stranded Thatcher on a desert sand hill in San Francisco, with an uninsured cargo of Expectations, while to Thatcher's active but not curious fancy it had apparently lifted his friend's bark over the bar in the Monterey mountains into an open quicksilver sea. So that he was considerably surprised on receiving a note from Biggs to this purport: “DEAR ROY--Run down here and help a fellow. I've too much of a load for one. Maybe we can make a team and pull 'Blue Mass' out yet. BIGGSEY.”
Thatcher, sitting in his scantily furnished lodgings, doubtful of his next meal and in arrears for rent, heard this Macedonian cry as St. Paul did. He wrote a promissory and soothing note to his landlady, but fearing the “sweet sorrow” of personal parting, let his collapsed valise down from his window by a cord, and, by means of an economical combination of stage riding and pedestrianism, he presented himself, at the close of the third day, at Biggs's door. In a few moments he was in possession of the story; half an hour later in possession of half the mine, its infelix past and its doubtful future, equally with his friend.
Business over, Biggs turned to look at his partner. “You've aged some since I saw you last,” he said. “Starvation luck, I s'pose. I'd know your eyes, old fellow, if I saw them among ten thousand; but your lips are parched, and your mouth's grimmer than it used to be.” Thatcher smiled to show that he could still do so, but did not say, as he might have said, that self-control, suppressed resentment, disappointment, and occasional hunger had done something in the way of correcting Nature's obvious mistakes, and shutting up a kindly mouth. He only took off his threadbare coat, rolled up his sleeves, and saying, “We've got lots of work and some fighting before us,” pitched into the “affairs” of the “Blue Mass Company” on the instant.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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8
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OF COUNSEL FOR IT
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Meanwhile Roscommon had waited. Then, in Garcia's name, and backed by him, he laid his case before the Land Commissioner, filing the application (with forged indorsements) to Governor Micheltorena, and alleging that the original grant was destroyed by fire. And why?
It seemed there was a limit to Miss Carmen's imitative talent. Admirable as it was, it did not reach to the reproduction of that official seal, which would have been a necessary appendage to the Governor's grant. But there were letters written on stamped paper by Governor Micheltorena to himself, Garcia, and to Miguel, and to Manuel's father, all of which were duly signed by the sign manual and rubric of Mrs.-Governor-Micheltorena-Carmen-de-Haro. And then there was “parol” evidence, and plenty of it; witnesses who remembered everything about it,--namely, Manuel, Miguel, and the all-recollecting De Haro; here were details, poetical and suggestive; and Dame-Quicklyish, as when his late Excellency, sitting not “by a sea-coal fire,” but with aguardiente and cigarros, had sworn to him, the ex-ecclesiastic Miguel, that he should grant, and had granted, Garcia's request. There were clouds of witnesses, conversations, letters, and records, glib and pat to the occasion. In brief, there was nothing wanted but the seal of his Excellency. The only copy of that was in the possession of a rival school of renaissant art and the restoration of antiques, then doing business before the Land Commission.
And yet the claim was rejected! Having lately recommended two separate claimants to a patent for the same land, the Land Commission became cautious and conservative.
Roscommon was at first astounded, then indignant, and then warlike,--he was for an “appale to onst!”
With the reader's previous knowledge of Roscommon's disposition this may seem somewhat inconsistent; but there are certain natures to whom litigation has all the excitement of gambling, and it should be borne in mind that this was his first lawsuit. So that his lawyer, Mr. Saponaceous Wood, found him in that belligerent mood to which counsel are obliged to hypocritically bring all the sophistries of their profession.
“Of course you have your right to an appeal, but calm yourself, my dear sir, and consider. The case was presented strongly, the evidence overwhelming on our side, but we happened to be fighting previous decisions of the Land Commission that had brought them into trouble; so that if Micheltorena had himself appeared in Court and testified to his giving you the grant, it would have made no difference,--no Spanish grant had a show then, nor will it have for the next six months. You see, my dear sir, the Government sent out one of its big Washington lawyers to look into this business, and he reported frauds, sir, frauds, in a majority of the Spanish claims. And why, sir? why? He was bought, sir, bought--body and soul--by the Ring!”
“And fwhot's the Ring?” asked his client sharply.
“The Ring is--ahem! a combination of unprincipled but wealthy persons to defeat the ends of justice.”
“And sure, fwhot's the Ring to do wid me grant as that thaving Mexican gave me as the collatherals for the bourd he was owin' me? Eh, mind that now!”
“The Ring, my dear sir, is the other side. It is--ahem! always the Other Side.”
“And why the divel haven't we a Ring too? And ain't I payin' ye five hundred dollars,--and the divel of Ring ye have, at all, at all? Fwhot am I payin' ye fur, eh?”
“That a judicious expenditure of money,” began Mr. Wood, “outside of actual disbursements, may not be of infinite service to you I am not prepared to deny,--but--” “Look ye, Mr. Sappy Wood, it's the 'appale' I want, and the grant I'll have, more betoken as the old woman's har-rut and me own is set on it entoirely. Get me the land and I'll give ye the half of it,--and it's a bargain!”
“But my dear sir, there are some rules in our profession,--technical though they may be--” “The divel fly away wid yer profession. Sure is it better nor me own? If I've risked me provisions and me whisky, that cost me solid goold in Frisco, on that thafe Garcia's claim, bedad! the loikes of ye can risk yer law.”
“Well,” said Wood, with an awkward smile, “I suppose that a deed for one half, on the consideration of friendship, my dear sir, and a dollar in hand paid by me, might be reconcilable.”
“Now it's talkin' ye are. But who's the felly we're foighten, that's got the Ring?”
“Ah, my dear sir, it's the United States,” said the lawyer with gravity.
“The States! the Government is it? And is't that ye're afeared of? Sure it's the Government that I fought in me own counthree, it was the Government that druv me to Ameriky, and is it now that I'm going back on me principles?”
“Your political sentiments do you great credit,” began Mr. Wood.
“But fwhot's the Government to do wid the appale?”
“The Government,” said Mr. Wood significantly, “will be represented by the District Attorney.”
“And who's the spalpeen?”
“It is rumored,” said Mr. Wood, slowly, “that a new one is to be appointed. I, myself, have had some ambition that way.”
His client bent a pair of cunning but not over-wise grey eyes on his American lawyer. But he only said, “Ye have, eh?”
“Yes,” said Wood, answering the look boldly; “and if I had the support of a number of your prominent countrymen, who are so powerful with ALL parties,--men like YOU, my dear sir,--why, I think you might in time become a conservative, at least more resigned to the Government.”
Then the lesser and the greater scamp looked at each other, and for a moment or two felt a warm, sympathetic, friendly emotion for each other, and quietly shook hands.
Depend upon it there is a great deal more kindly human sympathy between two openly-confessed scamps than there is in that calm, respectable recognition that you and I, dear reader, exhibit when we happen to oppose each other with our respective virtues.
“And ye'll get the appale?”
“I will.”
And he DID! And by a singular coincidence got the District Attorneyship also. And with a deed for one half of the “Red-Rock Rancho” in his pocket, sent a brother lawyer in court to appear for his client, the United States, as against HIMSELF, Roscommon, Garcia, et al. Wild horses could not have torn him from this noble resolution. There is an indescribable delicacy in the legal profession which we literary folk ought to imitate.
The United States lost! Which meant ruin and destruction to the “Blue Mass Company,” who had bought from a paternal and beneficent Government lands which didn't belong to it. The Mexican grant, of course, antedated the occupation of the mine by Concho, Wiles, Pedro, et al., as well as by the “Blue Mass Company,” and the solitary partners, Biggs and Thatcher. More than that, it swallowed up their improvements. It made Biggs and Thatcher responsible to Garcia for all the money the Grand Master of Avarice had made out of it. Mr. District Attorney was apparently distressed, but resigned. Messrs. Biggs and Thatcher were really distressed and combative.
And then, to advance a few years in this chronicle, began real litigation with earnestness, vigor, courage, zeal, and belief on the part of Biggs and Thatcher, and technicalities, delay, equivocation, and a general Fabian-like policy on the part of Garcia, Roscommon, et al. Of all these tedious processes I note but one, which for originality and audacity of conception appears to me to indicate more clearly the temper and civilization of the epoch. A subordinate officer of the District Court refused to obey the mandate ordering a transcript of the record to be sent up to the United States Supreme Court. It is to be regretted that the name of this Ephesian youth, who thus fired the dome of our constitutional liberties, should have been otherwise so unimportant as to be confined to the dusty records of that doubtful court of which he was a doubtful servitor, and that his claim to immortality ceased with his double-feed service. But there still stands on record a letter by this young gentleman, arraigning the legal wisdom of the land, which is not entirely devoid of amusement or even instruction to young men desirous of obtaining publicity and capital. Howbeit, the Supreme Court was obliged to protect itself by procuring the legislation of his functions out of his local fingers into the larger palm of its own attorney.
These various processes of law and equity, which, when exercised practically in the affairs of ordinary business, might have occupied a few months' time, dragged, clung, retrograded, or advanced slowly during a period of eight or nine years. But the strong arms of Biggs and Thatcher held POSSESSION, and possibly, by the same tactics employed on the other side, arrested or delayed ejectment, and so made and sold quicksilver, while their opponents were spending gold, until Biggs, sorely hit in the interlacings of his armor, fell in the lists, his cheek growing waxen and his strong arm feeble, and finding himself in this sore condition, and passing, as it were, made over his share in trust to his comrade, and died. Whereat, from that time henceforward, Royal Thatcher reigned in his stead.
And so, having anticipated the legal record, we will go back to the various human interests that helped to make it up.
To begin with Roscommon: To do justice to his later conduct and expressions, it must be remembered that when he accepted the claim for the “Red-Rock Rancho,” yet unquestioned, from the hands of Garcia, he was careless, or at least unsuspicious of fraud. It was not until he had experienced the intoxication of litigation that he felt, somehow, that he was a wronged and defrauded man, but with the obstinacy of defrauded men, preferred to arraign some one fact or individual as the impelling cause of his wrong, rather than the various circumstances that led to it. To his simple mind it was made patent that the “Blue Mass Company” were making money out of a mine which he claimed, and which was not yet adjudged to them. Every dollar they took out was a fresh count in this general indictment. Every delay towards this adjustment of rights--although made by his own lawyer--was a personal wrong. The mere fact that there never was nor had been any quid pro quo for this immense property--that it had fallen to him for a mere song--only added zest to his struggle. The possibility of his losing this mere speculation affected him more strongly than if he had already paid down the million he expected to get from the mine. I don't know that I have indicated as plainly as I might that universal preference on the part of mankind to get something from nothing, and to acquire the largest return for the least possible expenditure, but I question my right to say that Roscommon was much more reprehensible than his fellows.
But it told upon him as it did upon all over whom the spirit of the murdered Concho brooded,--upon all whom avarice alternately flattered and tortured. From his quiet gains in his legitimate business, from the little capital accumulated through industry and economy, he lavished thousands on this chimera of his fancy. He grew grizzled and worn over his self-imposed delusion; he no longer jested with his customers, regardless of quality or station or importance; he had cliques to mollify, enemies to placate, friends to reward. The grocery suffered; through giving food and lodgment to clouds of unimpeachable witnesses before the Land Commission and the District Court, “Mrs. Ros.” found herself losing money. Even the bar failed; there was a party of “Blue Mass” employees who drank at the opposite fonda, and cursed the Roscommon claim over the liquor. The calm, mechanical indifference with which Roscommon had served his customers was gone. The towel was no longer used after its perfunctory fashion; the counter remained unwiped; the disks of countless glasses marked its surface, and indicated other preoccupation on the part of the proprietor. The keen grey eyes of the claimant of the “Red-Rock Rancho” were always on the lookout for friend or enemy.
Garcia comes next. That gentleman's inborn talent for historic misrepresentation culminated unpleasantly through a defective memory; a year or two after he had sworn in his application for the “Rancho,” being engaged in another case, some trifling inconsistency was discovered in his statements, which had the effect of throwing the weight of evidence to the party who had paid him most, but was instantly detected by the weaker party. Garcia's preeminence as a witness, an expert and general historian began to decline. He was obliged to be corroborated, and this required a liberal outlay of his fee. With the loss of his credibility as a witness bad habits supervened. He was frequently drunk, he lost his position, he lost his house, and Carmen, removed to San Francisco, supported him with her brush.
And this brings us once more to that pretty painter and innocent forger whose unconscious act bore such baleful fruit on the barren hill-sides of the “Red-Rock Rancho,” and also to a later blossom of her life, that opened, however, in kindlier sunshine.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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9
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WHAT THE FAIR HAD TO DO ABOUT IT
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The house that Royal Thatcher so informally quitted in his exodus to the promised land of Biggs was one of those oversized, under-calculated dwellings conceived and erected in the extravagance of the San Francisco builder's hopes, and occupied finally in his despair. Intended originally as the palace of some inchoate California Aladdin, it usually ended as a lodging house in which some helpless widow or hopeless spinster managed to combine respectability with the hard task of bread getting.
Thatcher's landlady was one of the former class. She had unfortunately survived not only her husband but his property, and, living in some deserted chamber, had, after the fashion of the Italian nobility, let out the rest of the ruin. A tendency to dwell upon these facts gave her conversation a peculiar significance on the first of each month. Thatcher had noticed this with the sensitiveness of an impoverished gentleman. But when, a few days after her lodger's sudden disappearance, a note came from him containing a draft in noble excess of all arrears and charges, the widow's heart was lifted, and the rock smitten with the golden wand gushed beneficence that shone in a new gown for the widow and a new suit for “Johnny,” her son, a new oil cloth in the hall, better service to the lodgers, and, let us be thankful, a kindlier consideration for the poor little black-eyed painter from Monterey, then dreadfully behind in her room rent. For, to tell the truth, the calls upon Miss De Haro's scant purse by her uncle had lately been frequent, perjury having declined in the Monterey market, through excessive and injudicious supply, until the line of demarcation between it and absolute verity was so finely drawn that Victor Garcia had remarked that “he might as well tell the truth at once and save his soul, since the devil was in the market.”
Mistress Plodgitt, the landlady, could not resist the desire to acquaint Carmen De Haro with her good fortune. “He was always a friend of yours, my dear,--and I know him to be a gentleman that would never let a poor widow suffer; and see what he says about you!” Here she produced Thatcher's note and read: “Tell my little neighbor that I shall come back soon to carry her and her sketching tools off by force, and I shall not let her return until she has caught the black mountains and the red rocks she used to talk about, and put the 'Blue Mass' mill in the foreground of the picture I shall order.”
What is this, little one? Surely, Carmen, thou needst not blush at this, thy first grand offer. Holy Virgin! is it of a necessity that thou shouldst stick the wrong end of thy brush in thy mouth, and then drop it in thy lap? Or was it taught thee by the good Sisters at the convent to stride in that boyish fashion to the side of thy elders and snatch from their hands the missive thou wouldst read? More of this we would know, O Carmen,--smallest of brunettes,--speak, little one, even in thine own melodious speech, that I may commend thee and thy rare discretion to my own fair countrywomen.
Alas, neither the present chronicler nor Mistress Plodgitt got any further information from the prudent Carmen, and must fain speculate upon certain facts that were already known.
Mistress Carmen's little room was opposite to Thatcher's, and once or twice, the doors being open, Thatcher had a glimpse across the passage of a black-haired and a sturdy, boyish little figure in a great blue apron, perched on a stool before an easel, and on the other hand, Carmen had often been conscious of the fumes of a tobacco pipe penetrating her cloistered seclusion, and had seen across the passage, vaguely enveloped in the same nicotine cloud, an American Olympian, in a rocking chair, with his feet on the mantel shelf. They had once or twice met on the staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,--a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to try if there be not somewhere under the skin of this laughing Mercutio the flesh and blood of a Romeo. Thatcher was by nature a defender and protector; weakness, and weakness alone, stirred the depths of his tenderness,--often, I fear, only through its half-humorous aspects,--and on this plane he was pleased to place women and children. I mention this fact for the benefit of the more youthful members of my species, and am satisfied that an unconditional surrender and the complete laying down at the feet of Beauty of all strong masculinity is a cheap Gallicism that is untranslatable to most women worthy the winning. For a woman MUST always look up to the man she truly loves,--even if she has to go down on her knees to do it.
Only the masculine reader will infer from this that Carmen was in love with Thatcher; the more critical and analytical feminine eye will see nothing herein that might not have happened consistently with friendship. For Thatcher was no sentimentalist; he had hardly paid a compliment to the girl,--even in the unspoken but most delicate form of attention. There were days when his room door was closed; there were days succeeding these blanks when he met her as frankly and naturally as if he had seen her yesterday. Indeed, on those days following his flight the simple-minded Carmen, being aware--heaven knows how--that he had not opened his door during that period, and fearing sickness, sudden death, or perhaps suicide, by her appeals to the landlady, assisted unwittingly in discovering his flight and defection. As she was for a few moments as indignant as Mrs. Plodgitt, it is evident that she had but little sympathy with the delinquent. And besides, hitherto she had known only Concho, her earliest friend, and was true to his memory, as against all Americanos, whom she firmly believed to be his murderers.
So she dismissed the offer and the man from her mind, and went back to her painting,--a fancy portrait of the good Padre Junipero Serra, a great missionary, who, haply for the integrity of his bones and character, died some hundred years before the Americans took possession of California. The picture was fair but unsaleable, and she began to think seriously of sign painting, which was then much more popular and marketable. An unfinished head of San Juan de Bautista, artificially framed in clouds, she disposed of to a prominent druggist for $50, where it did good service as exhibiting the effect of four bottles of “Jones's Freckle Eradicator,” and in a pleasant and unobtrusive way revived the memory of the saint. Still, she felt weary and was growing despondent, and had a longing for the good Sisters and the blameless lethargy of conventual life, and then-- He came!
But not as the Prince should come, on a white charger, to carry away this cruelly-abused and enchanted damsel. He was sunburned, he was bearded like “the pard”; he was a little careless as to his dress, and pre-occupied in his ways. But his mouth and eyes were the same; and when he repeated in his old frank, half-mischievous way the invitation of his letter, poor little Carmen could only hesitate and blush.
A thought struck him and sent the color to his face. Your gentleman born is always as modest as a woman. He ran down stairs, and seizing the widowed Plodgitt, said hastily: “You're just killing yourself here. Take a change. Come down to Monterey for a day or two with me, and bring miss De Haro with you for company.”
The old lady recognized the situation. Thatcher was now a man of vast possibilities. In all maternal daughters of Eve there is the slightest bit of the chaperone and match-maker. It is the last way of reviving the past.
She consented, and Carmen De Haro could not well refuse.
The ladies found the “Blue Mass” mills very much as Thatcher had previously delivered it to them, “a trifle rough and mannish.” But he made over to them the one tenement reserved for himself, and slept with his men, or more likely under the trees. At first Mrs. Plodgitt missed gas and running water, and these several conveniences of civilization, among which I fear may be mentioned sheets and pillow cases; but the balsam of the mountain air soothed her neuralgia and her temper. As for Carmen, she rioted in the unlimited license of her absolute freedom from conventional restraint and the indulgence of her child-like impulses. She scoured the ledges far and wide alone; she dipped into dark copses, and scrambled over sterile patches of chemisal, and came back laden with the spoil of buckeye blossoms, manzanita berries and laurel. But she would not make a sketch of the “Blue Mass Company's” mills on a Mercator's projection--something that could be afterwards lithographed or chromoed, with the mills turning out tons of quicksilver through the energies of a happy and picturesque assemblage of miners--even to please her padrone, Don Royal Thatcher. On the contrary, she made a study of the ruins of the crumbled and decayed red-rock furnace, with the black mountain above it, and the light of a dying camp fire shining upon it, and the dull-red excavations in the ledge. But even this did not satisfy her until she had made some alterations; and when she finally brought her finished study to Don Royal, she looked at him a little defiantly. Thatcher admired honestly, and then criticised a little humorously and dishonestly. “But couldn't you, for a consideration, put up a sign-board on that rock with the inscription, 'Road to the Blue Mass Company's new mills to the right,' and combine business with art? That's the fault of you geniuses. But what's this blanketed figure doing here, lying before the furnace? You never saw one of my miners there,--and a Mexican, too, by his serape.” “That,” quoth Mistress Carmen, coolly, “was put in to fill up the foreground,--I wanted something there to balance the picture.” “But,” continued Thatcher, dropping into unconscious admiration again, “it's drawn to the life. Tell me, Miss De Haro, before I ask the aid and counsel of Mrs. Plodgitt, who is my hated rival, and your lay figure and model?” “Oh,” said Carmen, with a little sigh, “It's only poor Coucho.” “And where is Concho?” (a little impatiently.) “He's dead, Don Royal.” “Dead?” “Of a verity,--very dead,--murdered by your countrymen.” “I see,--and you know him?” “He was my friend.”
“Oh!”
“Truly.”
“But” (wickedly), “isn't this a rather ghastly advertisement--outside of an illustrated newspaper--of my property?”
“Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps.”
“Ay” (in Spanish), “as the dead.”
Carmen (crossing herself hastily), “After the fashion of the dead.”
They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering. But, being a woman, and tactful, she recovered her head first. “It is a study for myself, Don Royal; I shall make you another.”
And she slipped away, as she thought, out of the subject and his presence.
But she was mistaken; in the evening he renewed the conversation. Carmen began to fence, not from cowardice or deceit, as the masculine reader would readily infer, but from some wonderful feminine instinct that told her to be cautious. But he got from her the fact, to him before unknown, that she was the niece of his main antagonist, and, being a gentleman, so redoubled his attentions and his courtesy that Mrs. Plodgitt made up her mind that it was a foregone conclusion, and seriously reflected as to what she should wear on the momentous occasion. But that night poor Carmen cried herself to sleep, resolving that she would hereafter cast aside her wicked uncle for this good-hearted Americano, yet never once connected her innocent penmanship with the deadly feud between them. Women--the best of them--are strong as to collateral facts, swift of deduction, but vague as children are to the exact statement or recognition of premises. It is hardly necessary to say that Carmen had never thought of connecting any act of hers with the claims of her uncle, and the circumstance of the signature she had totally forgotten.
The masculine reader will now understand Carmen's confusion and blushes, and believe himself an ass to have thought them a confession of original affection. The feminine reader will, by this time, become satisfied that the deceitful minx's sole idea was to gain the affections of Thatcher. And really I don't know who is right.
Nevertheless she painted a sketch of Thatcher,--which now adorns the Company's office in San Francisco,--in which the property is laid out in pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the future instinct in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned her “wage,” as she believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to Thatcher. Whereat that gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a certain meprise, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl,--to be protected always,--to be feared, never. But even suspicion may be insidiously placed in noble minds.
Mistress Plodgitt, thus early estopped of matchmaking, of course put the blame on her own sex, and went over to the stronger side--the man's.
“It's a great pity gals should be so curious,” she said, sotto voce, to Thatcher, when Carmen was in one of her sullen moods. “Yet I s'pose it's in her blood. Them Spaniards is always revengeful,--like the Eyetalians.”
Thatcher honestly looked his surprise.
“Why, don't you see, she's thinking how all these lands might have been her uncle's but for you. And instead of trying to be sweet and--” here she stopped to cough.
“Good God!” said Thatcher in great concern, “I never thought of that.” He stopped for a moment, and then added with decision, “I can't believe it; it isn't like her.”
Mrs. P. was piqued. She walked away, delivering, however, this Parthian arrow: “Well, I hope 'TAINT NOTHING WORSE.”
Thatcher chuckled, then felt uneasy. When he next met Carmen, she found his grey eyes fixed on hers with a curious, half-inquisitorial look she had never noticed before. This only added fuel to the fire. Forgetting their relations of host and guest, she was absolutely rude. Thatcher was quiet but watchful; got the Plodgitt to bed early, and, under cover of showing a moonlight view of the “Lost Chance Mill,” decoyed Carmen out of ear-shot, as far as the dismantled furnace.
“What is the matter, Miss De Haro; have I offended you?”
Miss Carmen was not aware that anything was the matter. If Don Royal preferred old friends, whose loyalty of course he knew, and who were above speaking ill against a gentleman in his adversity--(oh, Carmen! fie!) if he preferred THEIR company to LATER FRIENDS--why--(the masculine reader will observe this tremendous climax and tremble)--why she didn't know why HE should blame HER.
They turned and faced each other. The conditions for a perfect misunderstanding could not have been better arranged between two people. Thatcher was a masculine reasoner, Carmen a feminine feeler,--if I may be pardoned the expression. Thatcher wanted to get at certain facts, and argue therefrom. Carmen wanted to get at certain feelings, and then fit the facts to THEM.
“But I am NOT blaming you, Miss Carmen,” he said gravely. “It WAS stupid in me to confront you here with the property claimed by your uncle and occupied by me, but it was a mistake,--no!” he added hastily, “it was not a mistake. You knew it, and I didn't. You overlooked it before you came, and I was too glad to overlook it after you were here.”
“Of course,” said Carmen pettishly, “I am the only one to be blamed. It's like you MEN!” (Mem. She was just fifteen, and uttered this awful 'resume' of experience just as if it hadn't been taught to her in her cradle.)
Feminine generalities always stagger a man. Thatcher said nothing. Carmen became more enraged.
“Why did you want to take Uncle Victor's property, then?” she asked triumphantly.
“I don't know that it is your uncle's property.”
“You--don't--know? Have you seen the application with Governor Micheltorena's indorsement? Have you heard the witnesses?” she said passionately.
“Signatures may be forged and witnesses lie,” said Thatcher quietly.
“What is it you call 'forged'?”
Thatcher instantly recalled the fact that the Spanish language held no synonym for “forgery.” The act was apparently an invention of el Diablo Americano. So he said, with a slight smile in his kindly eyes: “Anybody wicked enough and dexterous enough can imitate another's handwriting. When this is used to benefit fraud, we call it 'forgery.' I beg your pardon,--Miss De Haro, Miss Carmen,--what is the matter?”
She had suddenly lapsed against a tree, quite helpless, nerveless, and with staring eyes fixed on his. As yet an embryo woman, inexperienced and ignorant, the sex's instinct was potential; she had in one plunge fathomed all that his reason had been years groping for.
Thatcher saw only that she was pained, that she was helpless: that was enough. “It is possible that your uncle may have been deceived,” he began; “many honest men have been fooled by clever but deceitful tricksters, men and women--” “Stop! Madre de Dios! WILL YOU STOP?”
Thatcher for an instant recoiled from the flashing eyes and white face of the little figure that had, with menacing and clenched baby fingers, strode to his side. He stopped. “Where is this application,--this forgery?” she asked. “Show it to me!”
Thatcher felt relieved, and smiled the superior smile of our sex over feminine ignorance. “You could hardly expect me to be trusted with your uncle's vouchers. His papers of course are in the hands of his counsel.”
“And when can I leave this place?” she asked passionately.
“If you consult my wishes you will stay, if only long enough to forgive me. But if I have offended you unknowingly, and you are implacable--” “I can go to-morrow at sunrise if I like?”
“As you will,” returned Thatcher gravely.
“Gracias, Senor.”
They walked slowly back to the house, Thatcher with a masculine sense of being unreasonably afflicted, Carmen with a woman's instinct of being hopelessly crushed. No word was spoken until they reached the door. Then Carmen suddenly, in her old, impulsive way, and in a childlike treble, sang out merrily, “Good night, O Don Royal, and pleasant dreams. Hasta manana.”
Thatcher stood dumb and astounded at this capricious girl. She saw his mystification instantly. “It is for the old Cat!” she whispered, jerking her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the sleeping Mrs. P. “Good night,--go!”
He went to give orders for a peon to attend the ladies and their equipage the next day. He awoke to find Miss De Haro gone, with her escort, towards Monterey. And without the Plodgitt.
He could not conceal his surprise from the latter lady. She, left alone,--a not altogether unavailable victim to the wiles of our sex,--was embarrassed. But not so much that she could not say to Thatcher: “I told you so,--gone to her uncle. . . . To tell him ALL!”
“All. D--n it, WHAT can she tell him?” roared Thatcher, stung out of his self-control.
“Nothing, I hope, that she should not,” said Mrs. P., and chastely retired.
She was right. Miss Carmen posted to Monterey, running her horse nearly off its legs to do it, and then sent back her beast and escort, saying she would rejoin Mrs. Plodgitt by steamer at San Francisco. Then she went boldly to the law office of Saponaceous Wood, District Attorney and whilom solicitor of her uncle.
With the majority of masculine Monterey Miss Carmen was known and respectfully admired, despite the infelix reputation of her kinsman. Mr. Wood was glad to see her, and awkwardly gallant. Miss Carmen was cool and business-like; she had come from her uncle to “regard” the papers in the “Red-Rock Rancho” case. They were instantly produced. Carmen turned to the application for the grant. Her cheek paled slightly. With her clear memory and wonderful fidelity of perception she could not be mistaken. THE SIGNATURE OF MICHELTORENA WAS IN HER OWN HANDWRITING!
Yet she looked up to the lawyer with a smile: “May I take these papers for an hour to my uncle?”
Even an older and better man than the District Attorney could not have resisted those drooping lids and that gentle voice.
“Certainly.”
“I will return them in an hour.”
She was as good as her word, and within the hour dropped the papers and a little courtesy to her uncle's legal advocate, and that night took the steamer to San Francisco.
The next morning Victor Garcia, a little the worse for the previous night's dissipation, reeled into Wood's office. “I have fears for my niece Carmen. She is with the enemy,” he said thickly. “Look you at this.”
It was an anonymous letter (in Mrs. Plodgitt's own awkward fist) advising him of the fact that his niece was bought by the enemy, and cautioning him against her.
“Impossible,” said the lawyer; “it was only last week she sent thee $50.”
Victor blushed, even through his ensanguined cheeks, and made an impatient gesture with his hand.
“Besides,” added the lawyer coolly, “she has been here to examine the papers at thy request, and returned them of yesterday.”
Victor gasped: “And-you-you-gave them to her?”
“Of course!”
“All? Even the application and the signature?”
“Certainly,--you sent her.”
“Sent her? The devil's own daughter?” shrieked Garcia. “No! A hundred million times, no! Quick, before it is too late. Give to me the papers.”
Mr. Wood reproduced the file. Garcia ran over it with trembling fingers until at last he clutched the fateful document. Not content with opening it and glancing at its text and signature, he took it to the window.
“It is the same,” he muttered with a sigh of relief.
“Of course it is,” said Mr. Wood sharply. “The papers are all there. You're a fool, Victor Garcia!”
And so he was. And, for the matter of that, so was Mr. Saponaceous Wood, of counsel.
Meanwhile Miss De Haro returned to San Francisco and resumed her work. A day or two later she was joined by her landlady. Mrs. P. had too large a nature to permit an anonymous letter, written by her own hand, to stand between her and her demeanor to her little lodger. So she coddled her and flattered her and depicted in slightly exaggerated colors the grief of Don Royal at her sudden departure. All of which Miss Carmen received in a demure, kitten-like way, but still kept quietly at her work. In due time Don Royal's order was completed; still she had leisure and inclination enough to add certain touches to her ghastly sketch of the crumbling furnace.
Nevertheless, as Don Royal did not return, through excess of business, Mrs. Plodgitt turned an honest penny by letting his room, temporarily, to two quiet Mexicans, who, but for a beastly habit of cigarrito smoking which tainted the whole house, were fair enough lodgers. If they failed in making the acquaintance of their fair countrywoman, Miss De Haro, it was through the lady's pre-occupation in her own work, and not through their ostentatious endeavors.
“Miss De Haro is peculiar,” explained the politic Mrs. Plodgitt to her guests; “she makes no acquaintances, which I consider bad for her business. If it had not been for me, she would not have known Royal Thatcher, the great quicksilver miner,--and had his order for a picture of his mine!”
The two foreign gentlemen exchanged glances. One said, “Ah, God! this is bad,” and the other, “It is not possible;” and then, when the landlady's back was turned, introduced themselves with a skeleton key into the then vacant bedroom and studio of their fair countrywoman, who was absent sketching. “Thou observest,” said Mr. Pedro, refugee, to Miguel, ex-ecclesiastic, “that this Americano is all-powerful, and that this Victor, drunkard as he is, is right in his suspicions.”
“Of a verity, yes,” replied Miguel, “thou dost remember it was Jovita Castro who, for her Americano lover, betrayed the Sobriente claim. It is only with us, my Pedro, that the Mexican spirit, the real God and Liberty, yet lives!”
They shook hands nobly and with sentimental fervor, and then went to work, i. e., the rummaging over the trunks, drawers, and portmanteaus of the poor little painter, Carmen de Haro, and even ripped up the mattress of her virginal cot. But they found not what they sought.
“What is that yonder on the easel, covered with a cloth?” said Miguel: “it is a trick of these artists to put their valuables together.”
Pedro strode to the easel and tore away the muslin curtain that veiled it; then uttered a shriek that appalled his comrade and brought him to his side.
“In the name of God,” said Miguel hastily, “are you trying to alarm the house?”
The ex-vaquero was trembling like a child. “Look,” he said hoarsely, “look, do you see? It is the hand of God,” and fainted on the floor!
Miguel looked. It was Carmen's partly-finished sketch of the deserted furnace. The figure of Concho, thrown out strongly by the camp fire, occupied the left foreground. But to balance her picture she had evidently been obliged to introduce another,--the face and figure of Pedro, on all fours, creeping towards the sleeping man.
PART III. --IN CONGRESS
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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10
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WHO LOBBIED FOR IT
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It was a midsummer's day in Washington. Even at early morning, while the sun was yet level with the faces of pedestrians in its broad, shadeless avenues, it was insufferably hot. Later the avenues themselves shone like the diverging rays of another sun,--the Capitol,--a thing to be feared by the naked eye. Later yet it grew hotter, and then a mist arose from the Potomac, and blotted out the blazing arch above, and presently piled up along the horizon delusive thunder clouds, that spent their strength and substance elsewhere, and left it hotter than before. Towards evening the sun came out invigorated, having cleared the heavenly brow of perspiration, but leaving its fever unabated.
The city was deserted. The few who remained apparently buried themselves from the garish light of day in some dim, cloistered recess of shop, hotel, or restaurant; and the perspiring stranger, dazed by the outer glare, who broke in upon their quiet, sequestered repose, confronted collarless and coatless specters of the past, with fans in their hands, who, after dreamily going through some perfunctory business, immediately retired to sleep after the stranger had gone. Congressmen and Senators had long since returned to their several constituencies with the various information that the country was going to ruin, or that the outlook never was more hopeful and cheering, as the tastes of their constituency indicated. A few Cabinet officers still lingered, having by this time become convinced that they could do nothing their own way, or indeed in any way but the old way, and getting gloomily resigned to their situation. A body of learned, cultivated men, representing the highest legal tribunal in the land, still lingered in a vague idea of earning the scant salary bestowed upon them by the economical founders of the Government, and listened patiently to the arguments of counsel, whose fees for advocacy of claims before them would have paid the life income of half the bench. There was Mr. Attorney-General and his assistants still protecting the Government's millions from rapacious hands, and drawing the yearly public pittance that their wealthier private antagonists would have scarce given as a retainer to their junior counsel. The little standing army of departmental employes,--the helpless victims of the most senseless and idiotic form of discipline the world has known,--a discipline so made up of caprice, expediency, cowardice, and tyranny that its reform meant revolution, not to be tolerated by legislators and lawgivers, or a despotism in which half a dozen accidentally-chosen men interpreted their prejudices or preferences as being that Reform. Administration after administration and Party after Party had persisted in their desperate attempts to fit the youthful colonial garments, made by our Fathers after a by-gone fashion, over the expanded limits and generous outline of a matured nation. There were patches here and there; there were grievous rents and holes here and there; there were ludicrous and painful exposures of growing limbs everywhere; and the Party in Power and the Party out of Power could do nothing but mend and patch, and revamp and cleanse and scour, and occasionally, in the wildness of despair, suggest even the cutting off the rebellious limbs that persisted in growing beyond the swaddling clothes of its infancy.
It was a capital of Contradictions and Inconsistencies. At one end of the Avenue sat the responsible High Keeper of the military honor, valor, and war-like prestige of a great nation, without the power to pay his own troops their legal dues until some selfish quarrel between Party and Party was settled. Hard by sat another Secretary, whose established functions seemed to be the misrepresentation of the nation abroad by the least characteristic of its classes, the politicians,--and only then when they had been defeated as politicians, and when their constituents had declared them no longer worthy to be even THEIR representatives. This National Absurdity was only equaled by another, wherein an ex-Politician was for four years expected to uphold the honor of a flag of a great nation over an ocean he had never tempted, with a discipline the rudiments of which he could scarcely acquire before he was removed, or his term of office expired, receiving his orders from a superior officer as ignorant of his special duties as himself, and subjected to the revision of a Congress cognizant of him only as a politician. At the farther end of the Avenue was another department so vast in its extent and so varied in its functions that few of the really great practical workers of the land would have accepted its responsibility for ten times its salary, but which the most perfect constitution in the world handed over to men who were obliged to make it a stepping stone to future preferment. There was another department, more suggestive of its financial functions from the occasional extravagances or economies exhibited in its payrolls,--successive Congresses having taken other matters out of its hands,--presided over by an official who bore the title and responsibility of the Custodian and Disburser of the Nation's Purse, and received a salary that a bank-President would have sniffed at. For it was part of this Constitutional Inconsistency and Administrative Absurdity that in the matter of honor, justice, fidelity to trust, and even business integrity, the official was always expected to be the superior of the Government he represented. Yet the crowning Inconsistency was that, from time to time, it was submitted to the sovereign people to declare if these various Inconsistencies were not really the perfect expression of the most perfect Government the world had known. And it is to be recorded that the unanimous voices of Representative, Orator, and Unfettered Poetry were that it was!
Even the public press lent itself to the Great Inconsistency. It was as clear as crystal to the journal on one side of the Avenue that the country was going to the dogs unless the SPIRIT of the Fathers once more reanimated the public; it was equally clear to the journal on the other side of the Avenue that only a rigid adherence to the LETTER of the Fathers would save the nation from decline. It was obvious to the first-named journal that the “letter” meant Government patronage to the other journal; it was patent to that journal that the “shekels” of Senator X really animated the spirit of the Fathers. Yet all agreed it was a great and good and perfect government,--subject only to the predatory incursions of a Hydra-headed monster known as a “Ring.” The Ring's origin was wrapped in secrecy, its fecundity was alarming; but although its rapacity was preternatural, its digestion was perfect and easy. It circumvolved all affairs in an atmosphere of mystery; it clouded all things with the dust and ashes of distrust. All disappointment of place, of avarice, of incompetency or ambition, was clearly attributable to it. It even permeated private and social life; there were Rings in our kitchen and household service; in our public schools, that kept the active intelligences of our children passive; there were Rings of engaging, handsome, dissolute young fellows, who kept us moral but unengaging seniors from the favors of the fair; there were subtle, conspiring Rings among our creditors, which sent us into bankruptcy and restricted our credit. In fact it would not be hazardous to say that all that was calamitous in public and private experience was clearly traceable to that combination of power in a minority over weakness in a majority--known as a Ring.
Haply there was a body of demigods, as yet uninvoked, who should speedily settle all that. When Smith of Minnesota, Robinson of Vermont, and Jones of Georgia returned to Congress from these rural seclusions so potent with information and so freed from local prejudices, it was understood, vaguely, that great things would be done. This was always understood. There never was a time in the history of American politics when, to use the expression of the journals before alluded to, “the present session of Congress” did not “bid fair to be the most momentous in our history,” and did not, as far as the facts go, leave a vast amount of unfinished important business lying hopelessly upon its desks, having “bolted” the rest as rashly and with as little regard to digestion or assimilation as the American traveller has for his railway refreshment.
In this capital, on this languid midsummer day, in an upper room of one of its second-rate hotels, the Honorable Pratt C. Gashwiler sat at his writing-table. There are certain large, fleshy men with whom the omission of even a necktie or collar has all the effect of an indecent exposure. The Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, in his trousers and shirt, was a sight to be avoided by the modest eye. There were such palpable suggestions of vast extents of unctuous flesh in the slight glimpse offered by his open throat that his dishabille should have been as private as his business. Nevertheless, when there was a knock at his door he unhesitatingly said, “Come in!” --pushing away a goblet crowned with a certain aromatic herb with his right hand, while he drew towards him with his left a few proof slips of his forthcoming speech. The Gashwiler brow became, as it were, intelligently abstracted.
The intruder regarded Gashwiler with a glance of familiar recognition from his right eye, while his left took in a rapid survey of the papers on the table, and gleamed sardonically.
“You are at work, I see,” he said apologetically.
“Yes,” replied the Congressman, with an air of perfunctory weariness,--“one of my speeches. Those d----d printers make such a mess of it; I suppose I don't write a very fine hand.”
If the gifted Gashwiler had added that he did not write a very intelligent hand, or a very grammatical hand, and that his spelling was faulty, he would have been truthful, although the copy and proof before him might not have borne him out. The near fact was that the speech was composed and written by one Expectant Dobbs, a poor retainer of Gashwiler, and the honorable member's labor as a proof-reader was confined to the introduction of such words as “anarchy,” “oligarchy,” “satrap,” “palladium,” and “Argus-eyed” in the proof, with little relevancy as to position or place, and no perceptible effect as to argument.
The stranger saw all this with his wicked left eye, but continued to beam mildly with his right. Removing the coat and waistcoat of Gashwiler from a chair, he drew it towards the table, pushing aside a portly, loud-ticking watch,--the very image of Gashwiler,--that lay beside him, and, resting his elbows on the proofs, said: “Well?”
“Have you anything new?” asked the parliamentary Gashwiler.
“Much! a woman!” replied the stranger.
The astute Gashwiler, waiting further information, concluded to receive this fact gaily and gallantly. “A woman? --my dear Mr. Wiles,--of course! The dear creatures,” he continued, with a fat, offensive chuckle, “somehow are always making their charming presence felt. Ha! ha! A man, sir, in public life becomes accustomed to that sort of thing, and knows when he must be agreeable,--agreeable, sir, but firm! I've had my experience, sir,--my OWN experience,”--and the Congressman leaned back in his chair, not unlike a robust St. Anthony who had withstood one temptation to thrive on another.
“Yes,” said Wiles impatiently, “but d--n it, she's on the OTHER SIDE.”
“The other side!” repeated Gashwiler vacantly.
“Yes, she's a niece of Garcia's. A little she devil.”
“But Garcia's on our side,” rejoined Gashwiler.
“Yes, but she is bought by the Ring.”
“A woman!” sneered Mr. Gashwiler; “what can she do with men who won't be made fools of? Is she so handsome?”
“I never saw any great beauty in her,” said Wiles shortly, “although they say that she's rather caught that d----d Thatcher, in spite of his coldness. At any rate, she is his protegee. But she isn't the sort you're thinking of, Gashwiler. They say she knows, or pretends to know, something about the grant. She may have got hold of some of her uncle's papers. Those Greasers were always d----d fools; and, if he did anything foolish, like as not he bungled or didn't cover up his tracks. And with his knowledge and facilities too! Why, if I'd--” but here Mr. Wiles stopped to sigh over the inequalities of fortune that wasted opportunities on the less skillful scamp.
Mr. Gashwiler became dignified. “She can do nothing with us,” he said potentially.
Wiles turned his wicked eye on him. “Manuel and Miguel, who sold out to our man, are afraid of her. They were our witnesses. I verily believe they'd take back everything if she got after them. And as for Pedro, he thinks she holds the power of life and death over him.”
“Pedro! life and death,--what's all this?” said the astonished Gashwiler.
Wiles saw his blunder, but saw also that he had gone too far to stop. “Pedro,” he said, “was strongly suspected of having murdered Concho, one of the original locators.”
Mr. Gashwiler turned white as a sheet, and then flushed again into an apoplectic glow. “Do you dare to say,” he began as soon as he could find his tongue and his legs, for in the exercise of his congressional functions these extreme members supported each other,--“do you mean to say,” he stammered in rising rage, “that you have dared to deceive an American lawgiver into legislating upon a measure connected with a capital offense? Do I understand you to say, sir, that murder stands upon the record--stands upon the record, sir,--of this cause to which, as a representative of Remus, I have lent my official aid? Do you mean to say that you have deceived my constituency, whose sacred trust I hold, in inveigling me to hiding a crime from the Argus eyes of justice?” And Mr. Gashwiler looked towards the bell-pull as if about to summon a servant to witness this outrage against the established judiciary.
“The murder, if it WAS a murder, took place before Garcia entered upon this claim, or had a footing in this court,” returned Wiles blandly, “and is no part of the record.”
“You are sure it is not spread upon the record?”
“I am. You can judge for yourself.”
Mr. Gashwiler walked to the window, returned to the table, finished his liquor in a single gulp, and then, with a slight resumption of dignity, said: “That alters the case.”
Wiles glanced with his left eye at the Congressman. The right placidly looked out of the window. Presently he said quietly, “I've brought you the certificates of stock; do you wish them made out in your own name?”
Mr. Gashwiler tried hard to look as if he were trying to recall the meaning of Wiles's words. “Oh! --ah! --umph! --let me see,--oh, yes, the certificates,--certainly! Of course you will make them out in the name of my secretary, Mr. Expectant Dobbs. They will perhaps repay him for the extra clerical labor required in the prosecution of your claim. He is a worthy young man. Although not a public officer, yet he is so near to me that perhaps I am wrong in permitting him to accept a fee for private interests. An American representative cannot be too cautious, Mr. Wiles. Perhaps you had better have also a blank transfer. The stock is, I understand, yet in the future. Mr. Dobbs, though talented and praiseworthy, is poor; he may wish to realize. If some--ahem! some FRIEND--better circumstanced should choose to advance the cash to him and run the risk,--why, it would only be an act of kindness.”
“You are proverbially generous, Mr. Gashwiler,” said Wiles, opening and shutting his left eye like a dark lantern on the benevolent representative.
“Youth, when faithful and painstaking, should be encouraged,” replied Mr. Gashwiler. “I lately had occasion to point this out in a few remarks I had to make before the Sabbath school reunion at Remus. Thank you, I will see that they are--ahem! --conveyed to him. I shall give them to him with my own hand,” he concluded, falling back in his chair, as if the better to contemplate the perspective of his own generosity and condescension. Mr. Wiles took his hat and turned to go. Before he reached the door Mr. Gashwiler returned to the social level with a chuckle: “You say this woman, this Garcia's niece, is handsome and smart?”
“Yes.”
“I can set another woman on the track that'll euchre her every time!”
Mr. Wiles was too clever to appear to notice the sudden lapse in the Congressman's dignity, and only said, with his right eye: “Can you?”
“By G-d, I WILL, or I don't know how to represent Remus.”
Mr. Wiles thanked him with his right eye, and looked a dagger with his left. “Good,” he said, and added persuasively: “Does she live here?”
The Congressman nodded assent. “An awfully handsome woman,--a particular friend of mine!” Mr. Gashwiler here looked as if he would not mind to have been rallied a little over his intimacy with the fair one; but the astute Mr. Wiles was at the same moment making up his mind, after interpreting the Congressman's look and manner, that he must know this fair incognita if he wished to sway Gashwiler. He determined to bide his time, and withdrew.
The door was scarcely closed upon him when another knock diverted Mr. Gashwiler's attention from his proofs. The door opened to a young man with sandy hair and anxious face. He entered the room deprecatingly, as if conscious of the presence of a powerful being, to be supplicated and feared. Mr. Gashwiler did not attempt to disabuse his mind. “Busy, you see,” he said shortly, “correcting your work!”
“I hope it is acceptable?” said the young man timidly.
“Well--yes--it will do,” said Gashwiler; “indeed I may say it is satisfactory on the whole,” he added with the appearance of a large generosity; “quite satisfactory.”
“You have no news, I suppose,” continued the young man, with a slight flush, born of pride or expectation.
“No, nothing as yet.” Mr. Gashwiler paused as if a thought had struck him.
“I have thought,” he said, finally, “that some position--such as a secretaryship with me--would help you to a better appointment. Now, supposing that I make you my private secretary, giving you some important and confidential business. Eh?”
Dobbs looked at his patron with a certain wistful, dog-like expectancy, moved himself excitedly on his chair seat in a peculiar canine-like anticipation of gratitude, strongly suggesting that he would have wagged his tail if he had one. At which Mr. Gashwiler became more impressive.
“Indeed, I may say I anticipated it by certain papers I have put in your charge and in your name, only taking from you a transfer that might enable me to satisfy my conscience hereafter in recommending you as my--ahem! --private secretary. Perhaps, as a mere form, you might now, while you are here, put your name to these transfers, and, so to speak, begin your duties at once.”
The glow of pride and hope that mantled the cheek of poor Dobbs might have melted a harder heart than Gashwiler's. But the senatorial toga had invested Mr. Gashwiler with a more than Roman stoicism towards the feelings of others, and he only fell back in his chair in the pose of conscious rectitude as Dobbs hurriedly signed the paper.
“I shall place them in my portman-tell,” said Gashwiler, suiting the word to the action, “for safe keeping. I need not inform you, who are now, as it were, on the threshold of official life, that perfect and inviolable secrecy in all affairs of State”--Mr. G. here motioned toward his portmanteau as if it contained a treaty at least--“is most essential and necessary.”
Dobbs assented. “Then my duties will keep me with you here?” he asked doubtfully.
“No, no,” said Gashwiler hastily; then, correcting himself, he added: “that is--for the present--no!”
Poor Dobbs's face fell. The near fact was that he had lately had notice to quit his present lodgings in consequence of arrears in his rent, and he had a hopeful reliance that his confidential occupation would carry bread and lodging with it. But he only asked if there were any new papers to make out.
“Ahem! not at present; the fact is I am obliged to give so much of my time to callers--I have to-day been obliged to see half a dozen--that I must lock myself up and say 'Not at home' for the rest of the day.” Feeling that this was an intimation that the interview was over, the new private secretary, a little dashed as to his near hopes, but still sanguine of the future, humbly took his leave.
But here a certain Providence, perhaps mindful of poor Dobbs, threw into his simple hands--to be used or not, if he were worthy or capable of using it--a certain power and advantage. He had descended the staircase, and was passing through the lower corridor, when he was made the unwilling witness of a remarkable assault.
It appeared that Mr. Wiles, who had quitted Gashwiler's presence as Dobbs was announced, had other business in the hotel, and in pursuance of it had knocked at room No. 90. In response to the gruff voice that bade him enter, Mr. Wiles opened the door, and espied the figure of a tall, muscular, fiery-bearded man extended on the bed, with the bedclothes carefully tucked under his chin, and his arms lying flat by his side.
Mr. Wiles beamed with his right cheek, and advanced to the bed as if to take the hand of the stranger, who, however, neither by word or sign responded to his salutation.
“Perhaps I'm intruding?” said Mr. Wiles blandly.
“Perhaps you are,” said Red Beard dryly.
Mr. Wiles forced a smile on his right cheek, which he turned to the smiter, but permitted the left to indulge in unlimited malevolence. “I wanted merely to know if you have looked into that matter?” he said meekly.
“I've looked into it and round it and across it and over it and through it,” responded the man gravely, with his eyes fixed on Wiles.
“And you have perused all the papers?” continued Mr. Wiles.
“I've read every paper, every speech, every affidavit, every decision, every argument,” said the stranger as if repeating a formula.
Mr. Wiles attempted to conceal his embarrassment by an easy, right-handed smile, that went off sardonically on the left, and continued: “Then I hope, my dear sir, that, having thoroughly mastered the case, you are inclined to be favorable to us?”
The gentleman in the bed did not reply, but apparently nestled more closely beneath the coverlids.
“I have brought the shares I spoke of,” continued Mr. Wiles, insinuatingly.
“Hev you a friend within call?” interrupted the recumbent man gently.
“I don't quite understand!” smiled Mr. Wiles. “Of course any name you might suggest--” “Hev you a friend, any chap that you might waltz in here at a moment's call?” continued the man in bed. “No? Do you know any of them waiters in the house? Thar's a bell over yan!” and he motioned with his eyes towards the wall, but did not otherwise move his body.
“No,” said Wiles, becoming slightly suspicious and wrathful.
“Mebbe a stranger might do? I reckon thar's one passin' in the hall. Call him in,--he'll do!”
Wiles opened the door a little impatiently, yet inquisitively, as Dobbs passed. The man in bed called out, “Oh, stranger!” and, as Dobbs stopped, said, “Come yar.”
Dobbs entered a little timidly, as was his habit with strangers.
“I don't know who you be--nor care, I reckon,” said the stranger. “This yer man”--pointing to Wiles--“is Wiles. I'm Josh Sibblee of Fresno, Member of Congress from the 4th Congressional District of Californy. I'm jist lying here, with a derringer into each hand,--jist lying here kivered up and holdin' in on'y to keep from blowin' the top o' this d----d skunk's head off. I kinder feel I can't hold in any longer. What I want to say to ye, stranger, is that this yer skunk--which his name is Wiles--hez bin tryin' his d--dest to get a bribe onto Josh, and Josh, outo respect for his constituents, is jist waitin' for some stranger to waltz in and stop the d--dest fight--” “But, my dear Mr. Sibblee, there must be some mistake,” said Wiles earnestly.
“Mistake? Strip me!”
“No! No!” said Wiles, hurriedly, as the simple-minded Dobbs was about to draw down the coverlid.
“Take him away,” said the Hon. Mr. Sibblee, “before I disgrace my constituency. They said I'd be in jail afore I get through the session. Ef you've got any humanity, stranger, snake him out, and pow'ful quick, too.”
Dobbs, quite white and aghast, looked at Wiles and hesitated. There was a slight movement in the bed. Both men started for the door; and the next minute it closed very decidedly on the member from Fresno.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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11
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HOW IT WAS LOBBIED FOR
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The Hon. Pratt C. Gashwiler, M.C., was of course unaware of the incident described in the last chapter. His secret, even if it had been discovered by Dobbs, was safe in that gentleman's innocent and honorable hands, and certainly was not of a quality that Mr. Wiles, at present, would have cared to expose. For, in spite of Mr. Wiles's discomfiture, he still had enough experience of character to know that the irate member from Fresno would be satisfied with his own peculiar manner of vindicating his own personal integrity, and would not make a public scandal of it. Again, Wiles was convinced that Dobbs was equally implicated with Gashwiler, and would be silent for his own sake. So that poor Dobbs, as is too often the fate of simple but weak natures, had full credit for duplicity by every rascal in the land.
From which it may be inferred that nothing occurred to disturb the security of Gashwiler. When the door closed upon Mr. Wiles, he indited a note which, with a costly but exceedingly distasteful bouquet,--rearranged by his own fat fingers, and discord and incongruity visible in every combination of color,--he sent off by a special messenger. Then he proceeded to make his toilet,--an operation rarely graceful or picturesque in our sex, and an insult to the spectator when obesity is superadded. When he had put on a clean shirt, of which there was grossly too much, and added a white waistcoat, that seemed to accent his rotundity, he completed his attire with a black frock coat of the latest style, and surveyed himself complacently before a mirror. It is to be recorded that, however satisfactory the result might have been to Mr. Gashwiler, it was not so to the disinterested spectator. There are some men on whom “that deformed thief, Fashion,” avenges himself by making their clothes appear perennially new. The gloss of the tailor's iron never disappears; the creases of the shelf perpetually rise in judgment against the wearer. Novelty was the general suggestion of Mr. Gashwiler's full-dress,--it was never his HABITUDE;--and “Our own Make,” “Nobby,” and the “Latest Style, only $15,” was as patent on the legislator's broad back as if it still retained the shop-man's ticket.
Thus arrayed, within an hour he complacently followed the note and his floral offering. The house he sought had been once the residence of a foreign Ambassador, who had loyally represented his government in a single unimportant treaty, now forgotten, and in various receptions and dinners, still actively remembered by occasional visits to its salon; now the average dreary American parlor. “Dear me,” the fascinating Mr. X would say, “but do you know, love, in this very room I remember meeting the distinguished Marquis of Monte Pio;” or perhaps the fashionable Jones of the State Department instantly crushed the decayed friend he was perfunctorily visiting by saying, “'Pon my soul, YOU here;--why, the last time I was in this room I gossiped for an hour with the Countess de Castenet in that very corner.” For, with the recall of the aforesaid Ambassador, the mansion had become a boarding-place, kept by the wife of a departmental clerk.
Perhaps there was nothing in the history of the house more quaint and philosophic than the story of its present occupant. Roger Fauquier had been a departmental clerk for forty years. It was at once his practical good luck and his misfortune to have been early appointed to a position which required a thorough and complete knowledge of the formulas and routine of a department that expended millions of the public funds. Fauquier, on a poor salary, diminishing instead of increasing with his service, had seen successive administrations bud and blossom and decay, but had kept his position through the fact that his knowledge was a necessity to the successive chiefs and employes. Once it was true that he had been summarily removed by a new Secretary, to make room for a camp follower, whose exhaustive and intellectual services in a political campaign had made him eminently fit for anything; but the alarming discovery that the new clerk's knowledge of grammar and etymology was even worse than that of the Secretary himself, and that, through ignorance of detail, the business of that department was retarded to a damage to the Government of over half a million of dollars, led to the reinstatement of Mr. Fauquier--AT A LOWER SALARY. For it was felt that something was wrong somewhere, and as it had always been the custom of Congress and the administration to cut down salaries as the first step to reform, they made of Mr. Fauquier a moral example. A gentleman born, of somewhat expensive tastes, having lived up to his former salary, this change brought another bread-winner into the field, Mrs. Fauquier, who tried, more or less unsuccessfully, to turn her old Southern habits of hospitality to remunerative account. But as poor Fauquier could never be prevailed upon to present a bill to a gentleman, sir, and as some of the scions of the best Southern families were still waiting for, or had been recently dismissed from, a position, the experiment was a pecuniary failure. Yet the house was of excellent repute and well patronized; indeed, it was worth something to see old Fauquier sitting at the head of his own table, in something of his ancestral style, relating anecdotes of great men now dead and gone, interrupted only by occasional visits from importunate tradesmen.
Prominent among what Mr. Fauquier called his “little family” was a black-eyed lady of great powers of fascination, and considerable local reputation as a flirt. Nevertheless, these social aberrations were amply condoned by a facile and complacent husband, who looked with a lenient and even admiring eye upon the little lady's amusement, and to a certain extent lent a tacit indorsement to her conduct. Nobody minded Hopkinson; in the blaze of Mrs. Hopkinson's fascinations he was completely lost sight of. A few married women with unduly sensitive husbands, and several single ladies of the best and longest standing, reflected severely on her conduct. The younger men of course admired her, but I think she got her chief support from old fogies like ourselves. For it is your quiet, self-conceited, complacent, philosophic, broad-waisted paterfamilias who, after all, is the one to whom the gay and giddy of the proverbially impulsive, unselfish sex owe their place in the social firmament. We are never inclined to be captious; we laugh at as a folly what our wives and daughters condemn as a fault; OUR “withers are unwrung,” yet we still confess to the fascinations of a pretty face. We know, bless us, from dear experience, the exact value of one woman's opinion of another; we want our brilliant little friend to shine; it is only the moths who will burn their two-penny immature wings in the flame! And why should they not? Nature has been pleased to supply more moths than candles! Go to! --give the pretty creature--be she maid, wife, or widow--a show! And so, my dear sir, while mater-familias bends her black brows in disgust, we smile our superior little smile, and extend to Mistress Anonyma our gracious indorsement. And if giddiness is grateful, or if folly is friendly,--well, of course, we can't help that. Indeed it rather proves our theory.
I had intended to say something about Hopkinson; but really there is very little to say. He was invariably good humored. A few ladies once tried to show him that he really ought to feel worse than he did about the conduct of his wife; and it is recorded that Hopkinson, in an excess of good humor and kindliness, promised to do so. Indeed the good fellow was so accessible that it is said that young DeLancy of the Tape Department confided to Hopkinson his jealousy of a rival; and revealed the awful secret that he (DeLancy) had reason to expect more loyalty from his (Hopkinson's) wife. The good fellow is reported to have been very sympathetic, and to have promised Delaney to lend whatever influence he had with Mrs. Hopkinson in his favor. “You see,” he said explanatorily to DeLancy, “she has a good deal to attend to lately, and I suppose has got rather careless,--that's women's ways. But if I can't bring her round I'll speak to Gashwiler,--I'll get him to use his influence with Mrs. Hop. So cheer up, my boy, HE'LL make it all right.”
The appearance of a bouquet on the table of Mrs. Hopkinson was no rare event; nevertheless, Mr. Gashwiler's was not there. Its hideous contrasts had offended her woman's eye,--it is observable that good taste survives the wreck of all the other feminine virtues,--and she had distributed it to make boutonnieres for other gentlemen. Yet, when he appeared, she said to him hastily, putting her little hand over the cardiac region: “I'm so glad you came. But you gave me SUCH a fright an hour ago.”
Mr. Gashwiler was both pleased and astounded. “What have I done, my dear Mrs. Hopkinson?” he began.
“Oh, don't talk,” she said sadly. “What have you done, indeed! Why, you sent me that beautiful bouquet. I could not mistake your taste in the arrangement of the flowers;--but my husband was here. You know his jealousy. I was obliged to conceal it from him. Never--promise me now--NEVER do it again.”
Mr. Gashwiler gallantly protested.
“No! I am serious! I was so agitated: he must have seen me blush.”
Nothing but the gross flattery to this speech could have clouded its manifest absurdity to the Gashwiler consciousness. But Mr. Gashwiler had already succumbed to the girlish half-timidity with which it was uttered. Nevertheless, he could not help saying: “But why should he be so jealous now? Only day before yesterday I saw Simpson of Duluth hand you a nosegay right before him!”
“Ah,” returned the lady, “he was outwardly calm THEN, but you know nothing of the scene that occurred between us after you left.”
“But,” gasped the practical Gashwiler, “Simpson had given your husband that contract,--a cool fifty thousand in his pocket!”
Mrs. Hopkinson looked as dignifiedly at Gashwiler as was consistent with five feet three (the extra three inches being a pyramidal structure of straw-colored hair), a frond of faint curls, a pair of laughing blue eyes, and a small belted waist. Then she said, with a casting down of her lids: “You forget that my husband loves me.” And for once the minx appeared to look penitent. It was becoming; but as it had been originally practiced in a simple white dress, relieved only with pale-blue ribbons, it was not entirely in keeping with be-flounced lavender and rose-colored trimmings. Yet the woman who hesitates between her moral expression and the harmony of her dress is lost. And Mrs. Hopkinson was victrix by her very audacity.
Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the appearance of virtue. “But graces and accomplishments like yours, dear Mrs. Hopkinson,” he said oleaginously, “belong to the whole country.” Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeavored to represent. “And I shall want to avail myself of all,” he added, “in the matter of the Castro claim. A little supper at Welcker's, a glass or two of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is done.”
“But,” said Mrs. Hopkinson, “I've promised Josiah that I would give up all those frivolities, and although my conscience is clear, you know how people talk! Josiah hears it. Why, only last night, at a reception at the Patagonian Minister's, every woman in the room gossiped about me because I led the german with him. As if a married woman, whose husband was interested in the Government, could not be civil to the representative of a friendly power?”
Mr. Gashwiler did not see how Mr. Hopkinson's late contract for supplying salt pork and canned provisions to the army of the United States should make his wife susceptible to the advances of foreign princes; but he prudently kept that to himself. Still, not being himself a diplomat, he could not help saying: “But I understood that Mr. Hopkinson did not object to your interesting yourself in this claim, and you know some of the stock--” The lady started, and said: “Stock! Dear Mr. Gashwiler, for Heaven's sake don't mention that hideous name to me. Stock, I am sick of it! Have you gentlemen no other topic for a lady?”
She punctuated her sentence with a mischievous look at her interlocutor. For a second time I regret to say that Mr. Gashwiler succumbed. The Roman constituency at Remus, it is to be hoped, were happily ignorant of this last defection of their great legislator. Mr. Gashwiler instantly forgot his theme,--began to ply the lady with a certain bovine-like gallantry, which it is to be said to her credit she parried with a playful, terrier-like dexterity, when the servant suddenly announced, “Mr. Wiles.”
Gashwiler started. Not so Mrs. Hopkinson, who, however, prudently and quietly removed her own chair several inches from Gashwiler's.
“Do you know Mr. Wiles?” she asked pleasantly.
“No! That is, I--ah--yes, I may say I have had some business relations with him,” responded Gashwiler rising.
“Won't you stay?” she added pleadingly. “Do!”
Mr. Gashwiler's prudence always got the better of his gallantry. “Not now,” he responded in some nervousness. “Perhaps I had better go now, in view of what you have just said about gossip. You need not mention my name to this-er--this--Mr. Wiles.” And with one eye on the door, and an awkward dash of his lips at the lady's fingers, he withdrew.
There was no introductory formula to Mr. Wiles's interview. He dashed at once in medias res. “Gashwiler knows a woman that, he says, can help us against that Spanish girl who is coming here with proofs, prettiness, fascination, and what not! You must find her out.”
“Why?” asked the lady laughingly.
“Because I don't trust that Gashwiler. A woman with a pretty face and an ounce of brains could sell him out; aye, and US with him.”
“Oh, say TWO ounces of brains. Mr. Wiles, Mr. Gashwiler is no fool.”
“Possibly, except when your sex is concerned, and it is very likely that the woman is his superior.”
“I should think so,” said Mrs. Hopkinson with a mischievous look.
“Ah, you know her, then?”
“Not so well as I know him,” said Mrs. H. quite seriously. “I wish I did.”
“Well, you'll find out if she's to be trusted! You are laughing,--it is a serious matter! This woman--” Mrs. Hopkinson dropped him a charming courtesy and said, “C'est moi!”
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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12
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A RACE FOR IT
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Royal Thatcher worked hard. That the boyish little painter who shared his hospitality at the “Blue Mass” mine should afterward have little part in his active life seemed not inconsistent with his habits. At present the mine was his only mistress, claiming his entire time, exasperating him with fickleness, but still requiring that supreme devotion of which his nature was capable. It is possible that Miss Carmen saw this too, and so set about with feminine tact, if not to supplement, at least to make her rival less pertinacious and absorbing. Apart from this object, she zealously labored in her profession, yet with small pecuniary result, I fear. Local art was at a discount in California. The scenery of the country had not yet become famous; rather it was reserved for a certain Eastern artist, already famous, to make it so; and people cared little for the reproduction, under their very noses, of that which they saw continually with their own eyes, and valued not. So that little Mistress Carmen was fain to divert her artist soul to support her plump little material body; and made divers excursions into the regions of ceramic art, painting on velvet, illuminating missals, decorating china, and the like. I have in my possession some wax flowers--a startling fuchsia and a bewildering dahlia--sold for a mere pittance by this little lady, whose pictures lately took the prize at a foreign exhibition, shortly after she had been half starved by a California public, and claimed by a California press as its fostered child of genius.
Of these struggles and triumphs Thatcher had no knowledge; yet he was perhaps more startled than he would own to himself when, one December day, he received this despatch: “Come to Washington at once. --Carmen de Haro.”
“Carmen de Haro!” I grieve to state that such was the preoccupation of this man, elected by fate to be the hero of the solitary amatory episode of his story, that for a moment he could not recall her. When the honest little figure that had so manfully stood up against him, and had proved her sex by afterwards running away from him, came back at last to his memory, he was at first mystified and then self-reproachful. He had been, he felt vaguely, untrue to himself. He had been remiss to the self-confessed daughter of his enemy. Yet why should she telegraph to him, and what was she doing in Washington? To all these speculations it is to be said to his credit that he looked for no sentimental or romantic answer. Royal Thatcher was naturally modest and self-depreciating in his relations to the other sex, as indeed most men who are apt to be successful with women generally are, despite a vast degree of superannuated bosh to the contrary. To the half dozen women who are startled by sheer audacity into submission there are scores who are piqued by a self-respectful patience; and where a women has to do half the wooing, she generally makes a pretty sure thing of it.
In his bewilderment Thatcher had overlooked a letter lying on his table. It was from his Washington lawyer. The concluding paragraph caught his eye,--“Perhaps it would be well if you came here yourself. Roscommon is here; and they say there is a niece of Garcia's, lately appeared, who is likely to get up a strong social sympathy for the old Mexican. I don't know that they expect to prove anything by her; but I'm told she is attractive and clever, and has enlisted the sympathies of the delegation.” Thatcher laid the letter down a little indignantly. Strong men are quite as liable as weak women are to sudden inconsistencies on any question they may have in common. What right had this poor little bud he had cherished,--he was quite satisfied now that he had cherished her, and really had suffered from her absence,--what right had she to suddenly blossom in the sunshine of power to be, perhaps, plucked and worn by one of his enemies? He did not agree with his lawyer that she was in any way connected with his enemies: he trusted to her masculine loyalty that far. But here was something vaguely dangerous to the feminine mind,--position, flattery, power. He was almost as firmly satisfied now that he had been wronged and neglected as he had been positive a few moments before that he had been remiss in his attention. The irritation, although momentary, was enough to decide this strong man. He telegraphed to San Francisco; and, having missed the steamer, secured an overland passage to Washington; thought better of it, and partly changed his mind an hour after the ticket was purchased; but, manlike, having once made a practical step in a wrong direction, he kept on rather than admit an inconsistency to himself. Yet he was not entirely satisfied that his journey was a business one. The impulsive, weak little Mistress Carmen had prudently scored one against the strong man.
Only a small part of the present great trans-continental railway at this time had been built, and was but piers at either end of a desolate and wild expanse as yet unbridged. When the overland traveller left the rail at Reno, he left, as it were, civilization with it; and, until he reached the Nebraska frontier, the rest of his road was only the old emigrant trail traversed by the coaches of the Overland Company. Excepting a part of “Devil's Canyon,” the way was unpicturesque and flat; and the passage of the Rocky Mountains, far from suggesting the alleged poetry of that region, was only a reminder of those sterile distances of a level New England landscape.
The journey was a dreary monotony that was scarcely enlivened by its discomforts, never amounting to actual accident or incident, but utterly destructive to all nervous tissue. Insanity often supervened. “On the third day out,” said Hank Monk, driver, speaking casually but charitably of a “fare,”--“on the third day out, after axing no end of questions and getting no answers, he took to chewing straws that he picked outer the cushion, and kussin' to hisself. From that very day I knew it was all over with him, and I handed him over to his friends at 'Shy Ann,' strapped to the back seat, and ravin' and cussin' at Ben Holliday, the gent'manly proprietor.” It is presumed that the unfortunate tourist's indignation was excited at the late Mr. Benjamin Holliday, then the proprietor of the line,--an evidence of his insanity that no one who knew that large-hearted, fastidious, and elegantly-cultured Californian, since allied to foreign nobility, will for a moment doubt.
Mr. Royal Thatcher was too old and experienced a mountaineer to do aught but accept patiently and cynically his brother Californian's method of increasing his profits. As it was generally understood that any one who came from California by that route had some dark design, the victim received little sympathy. Thatcher's equable temperament and indomitable will stood him in good stead, and helped him cheerfully in this emergency. He ate his scant meals, and otherwise took care of the functions of his weak human nature, when and where he could, without grumbling, and at times earned even the praise of his driver by his ability to “rough it.” Which “roughing it,” by the way, meant the ability of the passengers to accept the incompetency of the Company. It is true there were times when he regretted that he had not taken the steamer; but then he reflected that he was one of a Vigilance Committee, sworn to hang that admirable man, the late Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, for certain practices and cruelties done upon the bodies of certain steerage passengers by his line, and for divers irregularities in their transportation. I mention this fact merely to show how so practical and stout a voyager as Thatcher might have confounded the perplexities attending the administration of a great steamship company with selfish greed and brutality; and that he, with other Californians, may not have known the fact, since recorded by the Commodore's family clergyman, that the great millionaire was always true to the hymns of his childhood.
Nevertheless, Thatcher found time to be cheerful and helpful to his fellow passengers, and even to be so far interesting to “Yuba Bill,” the driver, as to have the box seat placed at his disposal. “But,” said Thatcher, in some concern, “the box seat was purchased by that other gentleman in Sacramento. He paid extra for it, and his name's on your way-bill!” “That,” said Yuba Bill, scornfully, “don't fetch me even ef he'd chartered the whole shebang. Look yar, do you reckon I'm goin' to spile my temper by setting next to a man with a game eye? And such an eye! Gewhillikins! Why, darn my skin, the other day when we war watering at Webster's, he got down and passed in front of the off-leader,--that yer pinto colt that's bin accustomed to injins, grizzlies, and buffalo, and I'm bless ef, when her eye tackled his, ef she didn't jist git up and rar round that I reckoned I'd hev to go down and take them blinders off from HER eyes and clap on HIS.” “But he paid the money, and is entitled to his seat,” persisted Thatcher. “Mebbe he is--in the office of the Kempeny,” growled Yuba Bill; “but it's time some folks knowed that out in the plains I run this yer team myself.” --A fact which was self-evident to most of the passengers. “I suppose his authority is as absolute on this dreary waste as a ship captain's in mid ocean,” exclaimed Thatcher to the baleful-eyed stranger. Mr. Wiles--whom the reader has recognized--assented with the public side of his face, but looked vengeance at Yuba Bill with the other, while Thatcher, innocent of the presence of one of his worst enemies, placated Bill so far as to restore Wiles to his rights. Wiles thanked him. “Shall I have the pleasure of your company far?” Wiles asked insinuatingly. “To Washington,” replied Thatcher frankly. “Washington is a gay city during the session,” again suggested the stranger. “I'm going on business,” said Thatcher bluntly.
A trifling incident occurred at Pine-Tree Crossing which did not heighten Yuba Bill's admiration of the stranger. As Bill opened the double-locked box in the “boot” of the coach--sacred to Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express and the Overland Company's treasures--Mr. Wiles perceived a small, black morocco portemanteau among the parcels. “Ah, you carry baggage there too?” he said sweetly. “Not often,” responded Yuba Bill shortly. “Ah, this then contains valuables?” “It belongs to that man whose seat you've got,” said Yuba Bill, who, for insulting purposes of his own, preferred to establish the fiction that Wiles was an interloper; “and ef he reckons, in a sorter mixed kempeny like this, to lock up his portmantle, I don't know who's business it is. Who?” continued Bill, lashing himself into a simulated rage, “who, in blank, is running this yer team? Hey? Mebbe you think, sittin' up thar on the box seat, you are. Mebbe you think you kin see round corners with that thar eye, and kin pull up for teams round corners, on down grades, a mile ahead?” But here Thatcher, who, with something of Lancelot's concern for Modred, had a noble pity for all infirmities, interfered so sternly that Yuba Bill stopped.
On the fourth day they struck a blinding snow-storm, while ascending the dreary plateau that henceforward for six hundred miles was to be their roadbed. The horses, after floundering through the drift, gave out completely on reaching the next station, and the prospects ahead, to all but the experienced eye, looked doubtful. A few passengers advised taking to sledges, others a postponement of the journey until the weather changed. Yuba Bill alone was for pressing forward as they were. “Two miles more and we're on the high grade, whar the wind is strong enough to blow you through the windy, and jist peart enough to pack away over them cliffs every inch of snow that falls. I'll jist skirmish round in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels whar ye can't drag one o' them flat-bottomed dry-goods boxes through a drift.” Bill had a California whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by Thatcher, who had the next best thing to experience, the instinct that taught him to read character, and take advantage of another man's experience. “Them that wants to stop kin do so,” said Bill authoritatively, cutting the Gordian knot; “them as wants to take a sledge can do so,--thar's one in the barn. Them as wants to go on with me and the relay will come on.” Mr. Wiles selected the sledge and a driver, a few remained for the next stage, and Thatcher, with two others, decided to accompany Yuba Bill. These changes took up some valuable time; and the storm continuing, the stage was run under the shed, the passengers gathering around the station fire; and not until after midnight did Yuba Bill put in the relays. “I wish you a good journey,” said Wiles, as he drove from the shed as Bill entered. Bill vouchsafed no reply, but, addressing himself to the driver, said curtly, as if giving an order for the delivery of goods, “Shove him out at Rawlings,” and passed contemptuously around to the tail board of the sled, and returned to the harnessing of his relay.
The moon came out and shone high as Yuba Bill once more took the reins in his hands. The wind, which instantly attacked them as they reached the level, seemed to make the driver's theory plausible, and for half a mile the roadbed was swept clean, and frozen hard. Further on a tongue of snow, extending from a boulder to the right, reached across their path to the height of two or three feet. But Yuba Bill dashed through a part of it, and by skillful maneuvering circumvented the rest. But even as the obstacle was passed, the coach dropped with an ominous lurch on one side, and the off fore wheel flew off in the darkness. Bill threw the horses back on their haunches; but, before their momentum could be checked, the near hind wheel slipped away, the vehicle rocked violently, plunged backwards and forwards, and stopped.
Yuba Bill was on the road in an instant with his lantern. Then followed an outbreak of profanity which I regret, for artistic purposes, exceeds that generous limit which a sympathizing public has already extended to me in the explication of character. Let me state, therefore, that in a very few moments he succeeded in disparaging the characters of his employers, their male and female relatives, the coach builder, the station keeper, the road on which he travelled, and the travellers themselves, with occasional broad expletives addressed to himself and his own relatives. For the spirit of this and a more cultivated poetry of expression, I beg to refer the temperate reader to the 3d chapter of Job.
The passengers knew Bill, and sat, conservative, patient, and expectant. As yet the cause of the catastrophe was not known. At last Thatcher's voice came from the box seat: “What's up, Bill?”
“Not a blank lynch pin in the whole blank coach,” was the answer.
There was a dead silence. Yuba Bill executed a wild war dance of helpless rage.
“Blank the blank ENCHANTED thing to blank!”
(I beg here to refer the fastidious and cultivated reader to the only adjective I have dared transcribe of this actual oath which I once had the honor of hearing. He will I trust not fail to recognize the old classic daemon in this wild western objurgation.)
“Who did it?” asked Thatcher.
Yuba Bill did not reply, but dashed up again to the box, unlocked the “boot,” and screamed out: “The man that stole your portmantle,--Wiles!”
Thatcher laughed: “Don't worry about that, Bill. A 'biled' shirt, an extra collar, and a few papers. Nothing more.”
Yuba Bill slowly descended. When he reached the ground, he plucked Thatcher aside by his coat sleeve: “Ye don't mean to say ye had nothing in that bag ye was trying to get away with?”
“No,” said the laughing Thatcher frankly.
“And that Wiles warn't one o' them detectives?”
“Not to my knowledge, certainly.”
Yuba Bill sighed sadly, and returned to assist in the replacing of the coach on its wheels again.
“Never mind, Bill,” said one of the passengers sympathizingly, “we'll catch that man Wiles at Rawlings sure;” and he looked around at the inchoate vigilance committee, already “rounding into form” about him.
“Ketch him!” returned Yuba Bill, derisively, “why we've got to go back to the station; and afore we're off agin he's pinted fur Clarmont on the relay we lose. Ketch him! H-ll's full of such ketches!”
There was clearly nothing to do but to go back to the station to await the repairing of the coach. While this was being done Yuba Bill again drew Thatcher aside: “I allers suspected that chap's game eye, but I didn't somehow allow for anything like this. I reckoned it was only the square thing to look arter things gen'rally, and 'specially your traps. So, to purvent troubil, and keep things about ekal, ez he was goin' away, I sorter lifted this yer bag of hiz outer the tail board of his sleigh. I don't know as it is any exchange or compensation, but it may give ye a chance to spot him agin, or him you. It strikes me as bein' far-minded and squar';” and with these words he deposited at the feet of the astounded Thatcher the black travelling bag of Mr. Wiles.
“But, Bill,--see here! I can't take this!” interrupted Thatcher hastily. “You can't swear that he's taken my bag,--and--and,--blank it all,--this won't do, you know. I've no right to this man's things, even if--” “Hold your hosses,” said Bill gravely; “I ondertook to take charge o' your traps. I didn't--at least that d----d wall-eyed--Thar's a portmantle! I don't know who's it is. Take it.”
Half amused, half embarrassed, yet still protesting, Thatcher took the bag in his hands.
“Ye might open it in my presence,” suggested Yuba Bill gravely.
Thatcher, half laughingly, did so. It was full of papers and semi-legal-looking documents. Thatcher's own name on one of them caught his eye; he opened the paper hastily and perused it. The smile faded from his lips.
“Well,” said Yuba Bill, “suppose we call it a fair exchange at present.”
Thatcher was still examining the papers. Suddenly this cautious, strong-minded man looked up into Yuba Bill's waiting face, and said quietly, in the despicable slang of the epoch and region: “It's a go! Suppose we do.”
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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13
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HOW IT BECAME FAMOUS
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Yuba Bill was right in believing that Wiles would lose no time at Rawlings. He left there on a fleet horse before Bill had returned with the broken-down coach to the last station, and distanced the telegram sent to detain him two hours. Leaving the stage road and its dangerous telegraphic stations, he pushed southward to Denver over the army trail, in company with a half-breed packer, crossing the Missouri before Thatcher had reached Julesburg. When Thatcher was at Omaha, Wiles was already in St. Louis; and as the Pullman car containing the hero of the “Blue Mass” mine rolled into Chicago, Wiles was already walking the streets of the national capital. Nevertheless, he had time en route to sink in the waters of the North Platte, with many expressions of disgust, the little black portmanteau belonging to Thatcher, containing his dressing case, a few unimportant letters, and an extra shirt, to wonder why simple men did not travel with their important documents and valuables, and to set on foot some prudent and cautious inquiries regarding his own lost carpet bag and its important contents.
But for these trifles he had every reason to be satisfied with the progress of his plans. “It's all right,” said Mrs. Hopkinson merrily; “while you and Gashwiler have been working with your 'stock,' and treating the whole world as if it could be bribed, I've done more with that earnest, self-believing, self-deceiving, and perfectly pathetic Roscommon than all you fellows put together. Why, I've told his pitiful story, and drawn tears from the eyes of Senators and Cabinet Ministers. More than that, I've introduced him into society, put him in a dress coat,--such a figure! --and you know how the best folk worship everything that is outre as the sincere thing. I've made him a complete success. Why, only the other night, when Senator Misnancy and Judge Fitzdawdle were here, after making him tell his story,--which you know I think he really believes,--I sang 'There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,' and my husband told me afterwards it was worth at least a dozen votes.”
“But about this rival of yours,--this niece of Garcia's?”
“Another of your blunders; you men know nothing of women. Firstly, she's a swarthy little brunette, with dots for eyes; and strides like a man, dresses like a dowdy, don't wear stays, and has no style. Then, she's a single woman, and alone; and, although she affects to be an artist, and has Bohemian ways, don't you see she can't go into society without a chaperon or somebody to go with her? Nonsense.”
“But,” persisted Wiles, “she must have some power; there's Judge Mason and Senator Peabody, who are constantly talking about her; and Dinwiddie of Virginia escorted her through the Capitol the other day.”
Mistress Hopkinson laughed. “Mason and Peabody aspire to be thought literary and artistic, and Dinwiddie wanted to pique ME!”
“But Thatcher is no fool--” “Is Thatcher a lady's man?” queried the lady suddenly.
“Hardly, I should say,” responded Wiles. “He pretends to be absorbed in his swindle and devoted to his mine; and I don't think that even you--” he stopped with a slight sneer.
“There, you are misunderstanding me again, and, what is worse, you are misunderstanding your case. Thatcher is pleased with her because he has probably seen no one else. Wait till he comes to Washington and has an opportunity for comparison;” and she cast a frank glance at her mirror, where Wiles, with a sardonic bow, left her standing.
Mr. Gashwiler was quite as confident of his own success with Congress. “We are within a few days of the end of the session. We will manage to have it taken up and rushed through before that fellow Thatcher knows what he is about.”
“If it could be done before he gets here,” said Wiles, “it's a reasonably sure thing. He is delayed two days: he might have been delayed longer.” Here Mr. Wiles sighed. If the accident had happened on a mountain road, and the stage had been precipitated over the abyss, what valuable time would have been saved, and success become a surety. But Mr. Wiles's functions as an advocate did not include murder; at least, he was doubtful if it could be taxed as costs.
“We need have no fears, sir,” resumed Mr. Gashwiler; “The matter is now in the hands of the highest tribunal of appeal in the country. It will meet, sir, with inflexible justice. I have already prepared some remarks--” “By the way,” interrupted Wiles infelicitously, “where's your young man,--your private secretary,--Dobbs?”
The Congressman for a moment looked confused. “He is not here. And I must correct your error in applying that term to him. I have never put my confidence in the hands of any one.”
“But you introduced him to me as your secretary?”
“A mere honorary title, sir. A brevet rank. I might, it is true, have thought to repose such a trust in him. But I was deceived, sir, as I fear I am too apt to be when I permit my feelings as a man to overcome my duty as an American legislator. Mr. Dobbs enjoyed my patronage and the opportunity it gave me to introduce him into public life only to abuse it. He became, I fear, deeply indebted. His extravagance was unlimited, his ambition unbounded, but without, sir, a cash basis. I advanced money to him from time to time upon the little property you so generously extended to him for his services. But it was quickly dissipated. Yet, sir, such is the ingratitude of man that his family lately appealed to me for assistance. I felt it was necessary to be stern, and I refused. I would not for the sake of his family say anything, but I have missed, sir, books from my library. On the day after he left, two volumes of Patent Office reports and a Blue Book of Congress, purchased that day by me at a store on Pennsylvania avenue, were MISSING,--missing! I had difficulty, sir, great difficulty in keeping it from the papers!”
As Mr. Wiles had heard the story already from Gashwiler's acquaintances, with more or less free comment on the gifted legislator's economy, he could not help thinking that the difficulty had been great indeed. But he only fixed his malevolent eye on Gashwiler and said: “So he is gone, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And you've made an enemy of him? That's bad.”
Mr. Gashwiler tried to look dignifiedly unconcerned; but something in his visitor's manner made him uneasy.
“I say it is bad, if you have. Listen. Before I left here, I found at a boardinghouse where he had boarded, and still owed a bill, a trunk which the landlord retained. Opening it, I found some letters and papers to yours, with certain memoranda of his, which I thought ought to be in YOUR possession. As an alleged friend of his, I redeemed the trunk by paying the amount of his bill, and secured the more valuable papers.”
Gashwiler, whose face had grown apoplectically suffused as Wiles went on, at last gasped: “But you got the trunk, and have the papers?”
“Unfortunately, no; and that's why it's bad.”
“But, good God! what have you done with them?”
“I've lost them somewhere on the Overland Road.”
Mr. Gashwiler sat for a few moments speechless, vacillating between a purple rage and a pallid fear. Then he said hoarsely: “They are all blank forgeries,--every one of them.”
“Oh, no!” said Wiles, smiling blandly on his dexter side, and enjoying the whole scene malevolently with his sinister eye. “YOUR papers are all genuine, and I won't say are not all right, but unfortunately I had in the same bag some memoranda of my own for the use of my client, that, you understand, might be put to some bad use if found by a clever man.”
The two rascals looked at each other. There is on the whole really very little “honor among thieves,”--at least great ones,--and the inferior rascal succumbed at the reflection of what HE might do if he were in the other rascal's place. “See here, Wiles,” he said, relaxing his dignity with the perspiration that oozed from every pore, and made the collar of his shirt a mere limp rag. “See here, WE”--this first use of the plural was equivalent to a confession--“we must get them papers.”
“Of course,” said Wiles coolly, “if we CAN, and if Thatcher doesn't get wind of them.”
“He cannot.”
“He was on the coach when I lost them, coming East.”
Mr. Gashwiler paled again. In the emergency he had recourse to the sideboard and a bottle, forgetting Wiles. Ten minutes before Wiles would have remained seated; but it is recorded that he rose, took the bottle from the gifted Gashwiler's fingers, helped himself FIRST, and then sat down.
“Yes, but, my boy,” said Gashwiler, now rapidly changing situations with the cooler Wiles; “yes, but, old fellow,” he added, poking Wiles with a fat forefinger, “don't you see the whole thing will be up before he gets here?”
“Yes,” said Wiles gloomily, “but those lazy, easy, honest men have a way of popping up just at the nick of time. They never need hurry; all things wait for them. Why, don't you remember that on the very day Mrs. Hopkinson and I and you got the President to sign that patent, that very day one of them d--n fellows turns up from San Francisco or Australia, having taken his own time to get here,--gets here about half an hour after the President had signed the patent and sent it over to the office, finds the right man to introduce him to the President, has a talk with him, makes him sign an order countermanding its issuance, and undoes all that has been done in six years in one hour.”
“Yes, but Congress is a tribunal that does not revoke its decrees,” said Gashwiler with a return of his old manner; “at least,” he added, observing an incredulous shrug in the shoulder of his companion, “at least DURING THE SESSION.”
“We shall see,” said Wiles, quietly taking his hat.
“We shall see, sir,” said the member from Remus with dignity.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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14
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WHAT CULTURE DID FOR IT
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There was at this time in the Senate of the United States an eminent and respected gentleman, scholarly, orderly, honorable, and radical,--the fit representative of a scholarly, orderly, honorable, and radical Commonwealth. For many years he had held his trust with conscious rectitude, and a slight depreciation of other forms of merit; and for as many years had been as regularly returned to his seat by his constituency with equally conscious rectitude in themselves and an equal skepticism regarding others. Removed by his nature beyond the reach of certain temptations, and by circumstances beyond even the knowledge of others, his social and political integrity was spotless. An orator and practical debater, his refined tastes kept him from personality, and the public recognition of the complete unselfishness of his motives and the magnitude of his dogmas protected him from scurrility. His principles had never been appealed to by a bribe; he had rarely been approached by an emotion.
A man of polished taste in art and literature, and possessing the means to gratify it, his luxurious home was filled with treasures he had himself collected, and further enhanced by the stamp of his appreciation. His library had not only the elegance of adornment that his wealth could bring and his taste approve, but a certain refined negligence of habitual use, and the easy disorder of the artist's workshop. All this was quickly noted by a young girl who stood on its threshold at the close of a dull January day.
The card that had been brought to the Senator bore the name of “Carmen de Haro”; and modestly in the right hand corner, in almost microscopic script, the further description of herself as “Artist.” Perhaps the picturesqueness of the name, and its historic suggestion caught the scholar's taste, for when to his request, through his servant, that she would be kind enough to state her business, she replied as frankly that her business was personal to himself, he directed that she should be admitted. Then entrenching himself behind his library table, overlooking a bastion of books, and a glacis of pamphlets and papers, and throwing into his forehead and eyes an expression of utter disqualification for anything but the business before him, he calmly awaited the intruder.
She came, and for an instant stood, hesitatingly, framing herself as a picture in the door. Mrs. Hopkinson was right,--she had “no style,” unless an original and half-foreign quaintness could be called so. There was a desperate attempt visible to combine an American shawl with the habits of a mantilla, and it was always slipping from one shoulder, that was so supple and vivacious as to betray the deficiencies of an education in stays. There was a cluster of black curls around her low forehead, fitting her so closely as to seem to be a part of the seal-skin cap she wore.
Once, from the force of habit, she attempted to put her shawl over her head and talk through the folds gathered under her chin, but an astonished look from the Senator checked her. Nevertheless, he felt relieved, and rising, motioned her to a chair with a heartiness he would have scarcely shown to a Parisian toilleta. And when, with two or three quick, long steps, she reached his side, and showed, a frank, innocent, but strong and determined little face, feminine only in its flash of eye and beauty of lip and chin curves, he put down the pamphlet he had taken up somewhat ostentatiously, and gently begged to know her business.
I think I have once before spoken of her voice,--an organ more often cultivated by my fair country-women for singing than for speaking, which, considering that much of our practical relations with the sex are carried on without the aid of an opera score, seems a mistaken notion of theirs,--and of its sweetness, gentle inflexion, and musical emphasis. She had the advantage of having been trained in a musical language, and came of a race with whom catarrhs and sore throats were rare. So that in a few brief phrases she sang the Senator into acquiescence as she imparted the plain libretto of her business,--namely, a “desire to see some of his rare engravings.”
Now the engravings in question were certain etchings of the early Great Apprentices of the art, and were, I am happy to believe, extremely rare. From my unprofessional view they were exceedingly bad,--showing the mere genesis of something since perfected, but dear, of course, to the true collector's soul. I don't believe that Carmen really admired them either. But the minx knew that the Senator prided himself on having the only “pot-hooks” of the great “A,” or the first artistic efforts of “B,”--I leave the real names to be filled in by the connoisseur,--and the Senator became interested. For the last year, two or three of these abominations had been hanging in his study, utterly ignored by the casual visitor. But here was appreciation! “She was,” she added, “only a poor young artist, unable to purchase such treasures, but equally unable to resist the opportunity afforded her, even at the risk of seeming bold, or of obtruding upon a great man's privacy,” &c. &c.
This flattery, which, if offered in the usual legal tender of the country, would have been looked upon as counterfeit, delivered here in a foreign accent, with a slightly tropical warmth, was accepted by the Senator as genuine. These children of the Sun are so impulsive! We, of course, feel a little pity for the person who thus transcends our standard of good taste and violates our conventional canon,--but they are always sincere. The cold New Englander saw nothing wrong in one or two direct and extravagant compliments, that would have insured his visitor's early dismissal if tendered in the clipped metallic phrases of the Commonwealth he represented.
So that in a few moments the black, curly head of the little artist and the white, flowing locks of the Senator were close together bending over the rack that contained the engravings. It was then that Carmen, listening to a graphic description of the early rise of Art in the Netherlands, forgot herself and put her shawl around her head, holding its folds in her little brown hand. In this situation they were, at different times during the next two hours, interrupted by five Congressmen, three Senators, a Cabinet officer, and a Judge of the Supreme Bench,--each of whom was quickly but courteously dismissed. Popular sentiment, however, broke out in the hall.
“Well, I'm blanked, but this gets me.” (The speaker was a Territorial delegate.)
“At his time o' life, too, lookin' over pictures with a gal young enough to be his grandchild.” (This from a venerable official, since suspected of various erotic irregularities.)
“She don't handsome any.” (The honorable member from Dakota.)
“This accounts for his protracted silence during the sessions.” (A serious colleague from the Senator's own State.)
“Oh, blank it all!” (Omnes.)
Four went home to tell their wives. There are few things more touching in the matrimonial compact than the superb frankness with which each confides to each the various irregularities of their friends. It is upon these sacred confidences that the firm foundations of marriage rest unshaken.
Of course the objects of this comment, at least ONE of them, were quite oblivious. “I trust,” said Carmen, timidly, when they had for the fourth time regarded in rapt admiration an abominable something by some Dutch wood-chopper, “I trust I am not keeping you from your great friends:”--her pretty eyelids were cast down in tremulous distress:--“I should never forgive myself. Perhaps it is important business of the State?”
“Oh, dear, no! THEY will come again,--it's THEIR business.”
The Senator meant it kindly. It was as near the perilous edge of a compliment as your average cultivated Boston man ever ventures, and Carmen picked it up, femininely, by its sentimental end. “And I suppose I shall not trouble you again?”
“I shall always be proud to place the portfolio at your disposal. Command me at any time,” said the Senator, with dignity.
“You are kind. You are good,” said Carmen, “and I--I'm but,--look you,--only a poor girl from California, that you know not.”
“Pardon me, I know your country well.” And indeed he could have told her the exact number of bushels of wheat to the acre in her own county of Monterey, its voting population, its political bias. Yet of the more important product before him, after the manner of book-read men, he knew nothing.
Carmen was astonished, but respectful. It transpired presently that she was not aware of the rapid growth of the silk worm in her own district, knew nothing of the Chinese question, and very little of the American mining laws. Upon these questions the Senator enlightened her fully. “Your name is historic, by the way,” he said pleasantly. “There was a Knight of Alcantara, a 'De Haro,' one of the emigrants with Las Casas.”
Carmen nodded her head quickly, “Yes; my great-great-great-g-r-e-a-t grandfather!”
The Senator stared.
“Oh, yes. I am the niece of Victor Castro, who married my father's sister.”
“The Victor Castro of the 'Blue Mass' mine?” asked the Senator abruptly.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
Had the Senator been of the Gashwiler type, he would have expressed himself, after the average masculine fashion, by a long-drawn whistle. But his only perceptible appreciation of a sudden astonishment and suspicion in his mind was a lowering of the social thermometer of the room so decided that poor Carmen looked up innocently, chilled, and drew her shawl closer around her shoulders.
“I have something more to ask,” said Carmen, hanging her head,--“it is a great, oh, a very great favor.”
The Senator had retreated behind his bastion of books again, and was visibly preparing for an assault. He saw it all now. He had been, in some vague way, deluded. He had given confidential audience to the niece of one of the Great Claimants before Congress. The inevitable axe had come to the grindstone. What might not this woman dare ask of him? He was the more implacable that he felt he had already been prepossessed--and honestly prepossessed--in her favor. He was angry with her for having pleased him. Under the icy polish of his manner there were certain Puritan callosities caused by early straight-lacing. He was not yet quite free from his ancestor's cheerful ethics that Nature, as represented by an Impulse, was as much to be restrained as Order represented by a Quaker.
Without apparently noticing his manner, Carmen went on, with a certain potential freedom of style, gesture, and manner scarcely to be indicated in her mere words. “You know, then, I am of Spanish blood, and that, what was my adopted country, our motto was, 'God and Liberty.' It was of you, sir,--the great Emancipator,--the apostle of that Liberty,--the friend of the down-trodden and oppressed,--that I, as a child, first knew. In the histories of this great country I have read of you, I have learned your orations. I have longed to hear you in your own pulpit deliver the creed of my ancestors. To hear you, of yourself, speak, ah! Madre de Dios! what shall I say,--speak the oration eloquent,--to make the--what you call--the debate, that is what I have for so long hoped. Eh! Pardon,--you are thinking me foolish,--wild, eh? --a small child,--eh?”
Becoming more and more dialectical as she went on, she said suddenly, “I have you of myself offended. You are mad of me as a bold, bad child? It is so?”
The Senator, as visibly becoming limp and weak again behind his entrenchments, managed to say, “Oh, no!” then, “really!” and finally, “Tha-a-nks!”
“I am here but for a day. I return to California in a day, as it were to-morrow. I shall never, never hear you speak in your place in the Capitol of this great country?”
The Senator said hastily that he feared--he in fact was convinced--that his duty during this session was required more at his desk, in the committee work, than in speaking, &c., &c. “Ah,” said Carmen sadly, “it is true, then, all this that I have heard. It is true that what they have told me,--that you have given up the great party,--that your voice is not longer heard in the old--what you call this--eh--the old ISSUES?”
“If any one has told you that, Miss De Haro,” responded the Senator sharply, “he has spoken foolishly. You have been misinformed. May I ask who--” “Ah!” said Carmen, “I know not! It is in the air! I am a stranger. Perhaps I am deceived. But it is of all. I say to them, When shall I hear him speak? I go day after day to the Capitol, I watch him,--the great Emancipator,--but it is of business, eh? --it is the claim of that one, it is the tax, eh? it is the impost, it is the post-office, but it is the great speech of human rights--never, NEVER. I say, 'How arrives all this?' And some say, and shake their heads, 'never again he speaks.' He is what you call 'played--yes, it is so, eh? --played out.' I know it not,--it is a word from Bos-ton, perhaps? They say he has--eh, I speak not the English well--the party he has shaken, 'shook,'--yes,--he has the party 'shaken,' eh? It is right,--it is the language of Bos-ton, eh?”
“Permit me to say, Miss De Haro,” returned the Senator, rising with some asperity, “that you seem to have been unfortunate in your selection of acquaintances, and still more so in your ideas of the derivations of the English tongue. The--er--the--er--expressions you have quoted are not common to Boston, but emanate, I believe, from the West.”
Carmen de Haro contritely buried everything but her black eyes in her shawl.
“No one,” he continued, more gently, sitting down again, “has the right to forecast from my past what I intend to do in the future, or designate the means I may choose to serve the principles I hold or the party I represent. Those are MY functions. At the same time, should occasion--or opportunity--for we are within a day or two of the close of the Session--” “Yes,” interrupted Carmen, sadly, “I see,--it will be some business, some claim, something for somebody,--ah! Madre de Dios,--you will not speak, and I--” “When do you think of returning?” asked the Senator, with grave politeness; “when are we to lose you?”
“I shall stay to the last,--to the end of the Session,” said Carmen. “And NOW I shall go.” She got up and pulled her shawl viciously over her shoulders, with a pretty pettishness, perhaps the most feminine thing she had done that evening. Possibly, the most genuine.
The Senator smiled affably: “You do not deserve to be disappointed in either case; but it is later than you imagine; let me help you on the shorter distance in my carriage; it is at the door.”
He accompanied her gravely to the carriage. As it rolled away, she buried her little figure in its ample cushions and chuckled to herself, albeit a little hysterically. When she had reached her destination, she found herself crying, and hastily, and somewhat angrily, dried her eyes as she drew up at the door of her lodgings.
“How have you prospered?” asked Mr. Harlowe, of counsel for Royal Thatcher, as he gallantly assisted her from the carriage. “I have been waiting here for two hours; your interview must have been prolonged,--that was a good sign.”
“Don't ask me now,” said Carmen, a little savagely, “I'm worn out and tired.”
Mr. Harlowe bowed. “I trust you will be better to-morrow, for we expect our friend, Mr. Thatcher.”
Carmen's brown cheek flushed slightly. “He should have been here before. Where is he? What was he doing?”
“He was snowed up on the plains. He is coming as fast as steam can carry him; but he may be too late.”
Carmen did not reply.
The lawyer lingered. “How did you find the great New-England Senator?” he asked with a slight professional levity.
Carmen was tired, Carmen was worried, Carmen was a little self-reproachful, and she kindled easily. Consequently she said icily: “I found him A GENTLEMAN!”
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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15
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HOW IT BECAME UNFINISHED BUSINESS
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The closing of the ---- Congress was not unlike the closing of the several preceding Congresses. There was the same unbusiness-like, impractical haste; the same hurried, unjust, and utterly inadequate adjustment of unfinished, ill-digested business, that would not have been tolerated for a moment by the sovereign people in any private interest they controlled. There were frauds rushed through; there were long-suffering, righteous demands shelved; there were honest, unpaid debts dishonored by scant appropriations; there were closing scenes which only the saving sense of American humor kept from being utterly vile. The actors, the legislators themselves, knew it, and laughed at it; the commentators, the Press, knew it and laughed at it; the audience, the great American people, knew it and laughed at it. And nobody for an instant conceived that it ever, under any circumstances, might be otherwise.
The claim of Roscommon was among the Unfinished Business. The claimant himself, haggard, pathetic, importunate, and obstinate, was among the Unfinished Business. Various Congressmen, more or less interested in the success of the claim, were among the Unfinished Business. The member from Fresno, who had changed his derringer for a speech against the claimant, was among the Unfinished Business. The gifted Gashwiler, uneasy in his soul over certain other Unfinished Business in the shape of his missing letters, but dropping oil and honey as he mingled with his brothers, was King of Misrule and Lord of the Unfinished Business. Pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, prudently escorted by her husband, but imprudently ogled by admiring Congressmen, lent the charm of her presence to the finishing of Unfinished Business. One or two editors, who had dreams of a finished financial business, arising out of Unfinished Business, were there also, like ancient bards, to record with paean or threnody the completion of Unfinished Business. Various unclean birds, scenting carrion in Unfinished Business, hovered in the halls or roosted in the Lobby.
The lower house, under the tutelage of the gifted Gashwiler, drank deeply of Roscommon and his intoxicating claim, and passed the half-empty bottle to the Senate as Unfinished Business. But, alas! in the very rush, and storm, and tempest of the unfinishing business, an unlooked-for interruption arose in the person of a great Senator whose power none could oppose, whose right to free and extended utterance at all times none could gainsay. A claim for poultry, violently seized by the army of Sherman during his march through Georgia, from the hen-coop of an alleged loyal Irishman, opened a constitutional question, and with it the lips of the great Senator.
For seven hours he spoke eloquently, earnestly, convincingly. For seven hours the old issues of party and policy were severally taken up and dismissed in the old forcible rhetoric that had early made him famous. Interruptions from other Senators, now forgetful of Unfinished Business, and wild with reanimated party zeal; interruptions from certain Senators mindful of Unfinished Business, and unable to pass the Roscommon bottle, only spurred him to fresh exertion. The tocsin sounded in the Senate was heard in the lower house. Highly-excited members congregated at the doors of the Senate, and left Unfinished Business to take care of itself.
Left to itself for seven hours, Unfinished Business gnashed its false teeth and tore its wig in impotent fury in corridor and hall. For seven hours the gifted Gashwiler had continued the manufacture of oil and honey, whose sweetness, however, was slowly palling upon the congressional lip; for seven hours Roscommon and friends beat with impatient feet the lobby, and shook fists, more or less discolored, at the distinguished Senator. For seven hours the one or two editors were obliged to sit and calmly compliment the great speech which that night flashed over the wires of a continent with the old electric thrill. And, worse than all, they were obliged to record with it the closing of the ---- Congress, with more than the usual amount of Unfinished Business.
A little group of friends surrounded the great Senator with hymns of praise and congratulations. Old adversaries saluted him courteously as they passed by with the respect of strong men. A little woman with a shawl drawn over her shoulders, and held with one small brown hand, approached him timidly: “I speak not the English well,” she said gently, “but I have read much. I have read in the plays of your Shakspeare. I would like to say to you the words of Rosalind to Orlando when he did fight: 'Sir you have wrestled well, and have overthrown more than your enemies.'” And with these words she was gone.
Yet not so quickly but that pretty Mrs. Hopkinson, coming,--as Victrix always comes to Victor, to thank the great Senator, albeit the faces of her escorts were shrouded in gloom,--saw the shawled figure disappear.
“There,” she said, pinching Wiles mischievously, “there! that's the woman you were afraid of. Look at her. Look at that dress. Ah, Heavens! look at that shawl. Didn't I tell you she had no style?”
“Who is she?” said Wiles sullenly.
“Carmen de Haro, of course,” said the lady vivaciously. “What are you hurrying away so for? You're absolutely pulling me along.”
Mr. Wiles had just caught sight of the travel-worn face of Royal Thatcher among the crowd that thronged the stair-case. Thatcher appeared pale and distrait: Mr. Harlowe, his counsel, at his side, rallied him.
“No one would think you had just got a new lease of your property, and escaped a great swindle. What's the matter with you? Miss De Haro passed us just now. It was she who spoke to the Senator. Why did you not recognize her?”
“I was thinking,” said Thatcher gloomily.
“Well, you take things coolly! And certainly you are not very demonstrative towards the woman who saved you to-day. For, as sure as you live, it was she who drew that speech out of the Senator.”
Thatcher did not reply, but moved away. He HAD noticed Carmen de Haro, and was about to greet her with mingled pleasure and embarrassment. But he had heard her compliment to the Senator, and this strong, preoccupied, automatic man, who only ten days before had no thought beyond his property, was now thinking more of that compliment to another than of his success; and was beginning to hate the Senator who had saved him, the lawyer who stood beside him, and even the little figure that had tripped down the steps unconscious of him.
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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16
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AND WHO FORGOT IT
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It was somewhat inconsistent with Royal Thatcher's embarrassment and sensitiveness that he should, on leaving the Capitol, order a carriage and drive directly to the lodgings of Miss De Haro. That on finding she was not at home, he should become again sulky and suspicious, and even be ashamed of the honest impulse that led him there, was, I suppose, manlike and natural. He felt that he had done all the courtesy required; he had promptly answered her dispatch with his presence. If she chose to be absent at such a moment, HE had at least done HIS duty. In short, there was scarcely any absurdity of the imagination which this once practical man did not permit himself to indulge in, yet always with a certain consciousness that he was allowing his feelings to run away with him,--a fact that did not tend to make him better humored, and rather inclined him to place the responsibility of the elopement on somebody else. If Miss De Haro had been home, &c. &c., and not going into ecstasies over speeches, &c. &c., and had attended to her business, i. e., being exactly what he had supposed her to be,--all this would not have happened.
I am aware that this will not heighten the reader's respect for my hero. But I fancy that the imperceptible progress of a sincere passion in the matured strong man is apt to be marked with even more than the usual haste and absurdity of callous youth.
The fever that runs riot in the veins of the robust is apt to pass your ailing weakling by. Possibly there may be some immunity in inoculation. It is Lothario who is always self-possessed and does and says the right thing, while poor honest Coelebs becomes ridiculous with genuine emotion.
He rejoined his lawyer in no very gracious mood. The chambers occupied by Mr. Harlowe were in the basement of a private dwelling once occupied and made historic by an Honorable Somebody, who, however, was remembered only by the landlord and the last tenant. There were various shelves in the walls divided into compartments, sarcastically known as “pigeon holes,” in which the dove of peace had never rested, but which still perpetuated, in their legends, the feuds and animosities of suitors now but common dust together. There was a portrait, apparently of a cherub, which on nearer inspection turned out to be a famous English Lord Chancellor in his flowing wig.
There were books with dreary, unenlivening titles,--egotistic always, as recording Smith's opinions on this, and Jones's commentaries on that. There was a hand bill tacked on the wall, which at first offered hilarious suggestions of a circus or a steamboat excursion, but which turned out only to be a sheriff's sale. There were several oddly-shaped packages in newspaper wrappings, mysterious and awful in dark corners, that might have contained forgotten law papers or the previous week's washing of the eminent counsel. There were one or two newspapers, which at first offered entertaining prospects to the waiting client, but always proved to be a law record or a Supreme Court decision. There was the bust of a late distinguished jurist, which apparently had never been dusted since he himself became dust, and had already grown a perceptibly dusty moustache on his severely-judicial upper lip. It was a cheerless place in the sunshine of day; at night, when it ought, by every suggestion of its dusty past, to have been left to the vengeful ghosts, the greater part of whose hopes and passions were recorded and gathered there; when in the dark the dead hands of forgotten men were stretched from their dusty graves to fumble once more for their old title deeds; at night, when it was lit up by flaring gaslight, the hollow mockery of this dissipation was so apparent that people in the streets, looking through the illuminated windows, felt as if the privacy of a family vault had been intruded upon by body-snatchers.
Royal Thatcher glanced around the room, took in all its dreary suggestions in a half-weary, half-indifferent sort of way, and dropped into the lawyer's own revolving chair as that gentleman entered from the adjacent room.
“Well, you got back soon, I see,” said Harlowe briskly.
“Yes,” said his client, without looking up, and with this notable distinction between himself and all other previous clients, that he seemed absolutely less interested than the lawyer. “Yes, I'm here; and, upon my soul, I don't exactly know why.”
“You told me of certain papers you had discovered,” said the lawyer suggestively.
“Oh, yes,” returned Thatcher with a slight yawn. “I've got here some papers somewhere;”--he began to feel in his coat pocket languidly;--“but, by the way, this is a rather dreary and God-forsaken sort of place! Let's go up to Welker's, and you can look at them over a bottle of champagne.”
“After I've looked at them, I've something to show you, myself,” said Harlowe; “and as for the champagne, we'll have that in the other room, by and by. At present I want to have my head clear, and yours too,--if you'll oblige me by becoming sufficiently interested in your own affairs to talk to me about them.”
Thatcher was gazing abstractedly at the fire. He started. “I dare say,” he began, “I'm not very interesting; yet it's possible that my affairs have taken up a little too much of my time. However,--” he stopped, took from his pocket an envelope, and threw it on the desk,--“there are some papers. I don't know what value they may be; that is for you to determine. I don't know that I've any legal right to their possession,--that is for you to say, too. They came to me in a queer way. On the overland journey here I lost my bag, containing my few traps and some letters and papers 'of no value,' as the advertisements say, 'to any but the owner.' Well, the bag was lost, but the stage driver declares that it was stolen by a fellow-passenger,--a man by the name of Giles, or Stiles, or Piles--” “Wiles,” said Harlowe earnestly.
“Yes,” continued Thatcher, suppressing a yawn; “yes, I guess you're right,--Wiles. Well, the stage driver, finally believing this, goes to work and quietly and unostentatiously steals--I say, have you got a cigar?”
“I'll get you one.”
Harlowe disappeared in the adjoining room. Thatcher dragged Harlowe's heavy, revolving desk chair, which never before had been removed from its sacred position, to the fire, and began to poke the coals abstractedly.
Harlowe reappeared with cigars and matches. Thatcher lit one mechanically, and said, between the pulls: “Do you--ever--talk--to yourself?”
“No! --why?”
“I thought I heard your voice just now in the other room. Anyhow, this is an awful spooky place. If I stayed here alone half an hour, I'd fancy that the Lord Chancellor up there would step down in his robes, out of his frame, to keep me company.”
“Nonsense! When I'm busy, I often sit here and write until after midnight. It's so quiet!”
“D--mnably so!”
“Well, to go back to the papers. Somebody stole your bag, or you lost it. YOU stole--” “The driver stole,” suggested Thatcher, so languidly that it could hardly be called an interruption.
“Well, we'll say the driver stole, and passed over to you as his accomplice, confederate, or receiver, certain papers belonging--” “See here, Harlowe, I don't feel like joking in a ghostly law office after midnight. Here are your facts. Yuba Bill, the driver, stole a bag from this passenger, Wiles, or Smiles, and handed it to me to insure the return of my own. I found in it some papers concerning my case. There they are. Do with them what you like.”
Thatcher turned his eyes again abstractedly to the fire.
Harlowe took out the first paper: “A-w, this seems to be a telegram. Yes, eh? 'Come to Washington at once. --Carmen de Haro.'”
Thatcher started, blushed like a girl, and hurriedly reached for the paper.
“Nonsense. That's a mistake. A dispatch I mislaid in the envelope.”
“I see,” said the lawyer dryly.
“I thought I had torn it up,” continued Thatcher, after an awkward pause. I regret to say that here that usually truthful man elaborated a fiction. He had consulted it a dozen times a day on the journey, and it was quite worn in its enfoldings. Harlowe's quick eye had noticed this, but he speedily became interested and absorbed in the other papers. Thatcher lapsed into contemplation of the fire.
“Well,” said Harlowe, finally turning to his client, “here's enough to unseat Gashwiler, or close his mouth. As to the rest, it's good reading--but I needn't tell you--no LEGAL evidence. But it's proof enough to stop them from ever trying it again,--when the existence of this record is made known. Bribery is a hard thing to fix on a man; the only witness is naturally particeps criminis;--but it would not be easy for them to explain away this rascal's record. One or two things I don't understand: What's this opposite the Hon. X's name, 'Took the medicine nicely, and feels better?' and here, just in the margin, after Y's, 'Must be labored with?'”
“I suppose our California slang borrows largely from the medical and spiritual profession,” returned Thatcher. “But isn't it odd that a man should keep a conscientious record of his own villainy?”
Harlowe, a little abashed at his want of knowledge of American metaphor, now felt himself at home. “Well, no. It's not unusual. In one of those books yonder there is the record of a case where a man, who had committed a series of nameless atrocities, extending over a period of years, absolutely kept a memorandum of them in his pocket diary. It was produced in Court. Why, my dear fellow, one half our business arises from the fact that men and women are in the habit of keeping letters and documents that they might--I don't say, you know, that they OUGHT, that's a question of sentiment or ethics--but that they MIGHT destroy.”
Thatcher half-mechanically took the telegram of poor Carmen and threw it in the fire. Harlowe noticed the act and smiled.
“I'll venture to say, however, that there's nothing in the bag that YOU lost that need give you a moment's uneasiness. It's only your rascal or fool who carries with him that which makes him his own detective.”
“I had a friend,” continued Harlowe, “a clever fellow enough, but who was so foolish as to seriously complicate himself with a woman. He was himself the soul of honor, and at the beginning of their correspondence he proposed that they should each return the other's letters with their answer. They did so for years, but it cost him ten thousand dollars and no end of trouble after all.”
“Why?” asked Thatcher simply.
“Because he was such an egotistical ass as TO KEEP THE LETTER PROPOSING IT, which she had duly returned, among his papers as a sentimental record. Of course somebody eventually found it.”
“Good night,” said Thatcher, rising abruptly. “If I stayed here much longer I should begin to disbelieve my own mother.”
“I have known of such hereditary traits,” returned Harlowe with a laugh. “But come, you must not go without the champagne.” He led the way to the adjacent room, which proved to be only the ante-chamber of another, on the threshold of which Thatcher stopped with genuine surprise. It was an elegantly furnished library.
“Sybarite! Why was I never here before?”
“Because you came as a client; to-night you are my guest. All who enter here leave their business, with their hats, in the hall. Look; there isn't a law book on those shelves; that table never was defaced by a title deed or parchment. You look puzzled? Well, it was a whim of mine to put my residence and my work-shop under the same roof, yet so distinct that they would never interfere with each other. You know the house above is let out to lodgers. I occupy the first floor with my mother and sister, and this is my parlor. I do my work in that severe room that fronts the street: here is where I play. A man must have something else in life than mere business. I find it less harmful and expensive to have my pleasure here.”
Thatcher had sunk moodily in the embracing arms of an easy chair. He was thinking deeply; he was fond of books too, and, like all men who have fared hard and led wandering lives, he knew the value of cultivated repose. Like all men who have been obliged to sleep under blankets and in the open air, he appreciated the luxuries of linen sheets and a frescoed roof. It is, by the way, only your sick city clerk or your dyspeptic clergyman who fancy that they have found in the bad bread, fried steaks, and frowzy flannels of mountain picknicking the true art of living. And it is a somewhat notable fact that your true mountaineer or your gentleman who has been obliged to honestly “rough it,” does not, as a general thing, write books about its advantages, or implore their fellow mortals to come and share their solitude and their discomforts.
Thoroughly appreciating the taste and comfort of Harlowe's library, yet half-envious of its owner, and half-suspicious that his own earnest life for the past few years might have been different, Thatcher suddenly started from his seat and walked towards a parlor easel, whereon stood a picture. It was Carmen de Haro's first sketch of the furnace and the mine.
“I see you are taken with that picture,” said Harlowe, pausing with the champagne bottle in his hand. “You show your good taste. It's been much admired. Observe how splendidly that firelight plays over the sleeping face of that figure, yet brings out by very contrast its almost death-like repose. Those rocks are powerfully handled; what a suggestion of mystery in those shadows! You know the painter?”
Thatcher murmured, “Miss De Haro,” with a new and rather odd self-consciousness in speaking her name.
“Yes. And you know the story of the picture of course?”
Thatcher thought he didn't. Well, no; in fact, he did not remember.
“Why, this recumbent figure was an old Spanish lover of hers, whom she believed to have been murdered there. It's a ghastly fancy, isn't it?”
Two things annoyed Thatcher: first the epithet “lover,” as applied to Concho by another man; second, that the picture belonged to him: and what the d---l did she mean by-- “Yes,” he broke out finally, “but how did YOU get it?”
“Oh, I bought it of her. I've been a sort of patron of her ever since I found out how she stood towards us. As she was quite alone here in Washington, my mother and sister have taken her up, and have been doing the social thing.”
“How long since?” asked Thatcher.
“Oh, not long. The day she telegraphed you, she came here to know what she could do for us, and when I said nothing could be done except to keep Congress off, why, she went and DID IT. For SHE, and she alone, got that speech out of the Senator. But,” he added, a little mischievously, “you seem to know very little about her?”
“No! --I--that is--I've been very busy lately,” returned Thatcher, staring at the picture. “Does she come here often?”
“Yes, lately, quite often; she was here this evening with mother; was here, I think, when you came.”
Thatcher looked intently at Harlowe. But that gentleman's face betrayed no confusion. Thatcher refilled his glass a little awkwardly, tossed off the liquor at a draught, and rose to his feet.
“Come, old fellow, you're not going now. I shan't permit it,” said Harlowe, laying his hand kindly on his client's shoulder. “You're out of sorts! Stay here with me to-night. Our accommodations are not large, but are elastic. I can bestow you comfortably until morning. Wait here a moment while I give the necessary orders.”
Thatcher was not sorry to be left alone. In the last half hour he had become convinced that his love for Carmen de Haro had been in some way most dreadfully abused. While HE was hard at work in California, she was being introduced in Washington society by parties with eligible brothers who bought her paintings. It is a relief to the truly jealous mind to indulge in plurals. Thatcher liked to think that she was already beset by hundreds of brothers.
He still kept staring at the picture. By and by it faded away in part, and a very vivid recollection of the misty, midnight, moonlit walk he had once taken with her came back, and refilled the canvas with its magic. He saw the ruined furnace; the dark, overhanging masses of rock, the trembling intricacies of foliage, and, above all, the flash of dark eyes under a mantilla at his shoulder. What a fool he had been! Had he not really been as senseless and stupid as this very Concho, lying here like a log? And she had loved that man. What a fool she must have thought him that evening! What a snob she must think him now!
He was startled by a slight rustling in the passage, that ceased almost as he turned. Thatcher looked towards the door of the outer office, as if half expecting that the Lord Chancellor, like the commander in Don Juan, might have accepted his thoughtless invitation. He listened again; everything was still. He was conscious of feeling ill at ease and a trifle nervous. What a long time Harlowe took to make his preparations. He would look out in the hall. To do this it was necessary to turn up the gas. He did so, and in his confusion turned it out!
Where were the matches? He remembered that there was a bronze something on the table that, in the irony of modern decorative taste, might hold ashes or matches, or anything of an unpicturesque character. He knocked something over, evidently the ink,--something else,--this time a champagne glass. Becoming reckless, and now groping at random in the ruins, he overturned the bronze Mercury on the center table, and then sat down hopelessly in his chair. And then a pair of velvet fingers slid into his, with the matches, and this audible, musical statement: “It is a match you are seeking? Here is of them.”
Thatcher flushed, embarrassed, nervous,--feeling the ridiculousness of saying, “Thank you” to a dark somebody,--struck the match, beheld by its brief, uncertain glimmer Carmen de Haro beside him, burned his fingers, coughed, dropped the match, and was cast again into outer darkness.
“Let me try!”
Carmen struck a match, jumped briskly on the chair, lit the gas, jumped lightly down again, and said: “You do like to sit in the dark,--eh? So am I--sometimes--alone.”
“Miss De Haro,” said Thatcher, with sudden, honest earnestness, advancing with outstretched hands, “believe me I am sincerely delighted, overjoyed, again to meet--” She had, however, quickly retreated as he approached, ensconcing herself behind the high back of a large antique chair, on the cushion of which she knelt. I regret to add also that she slapped his outstretched fingers a little sharply with her inevitable black fan as he still advanced.
“We are not in California. It is Washington. It is after midnight. I am a poor girl, and I have to lose--what you call--'a character.' You shall sit over there,”--she pointed to the sofa,--“and I shall sit here;” she rested her boyish head on the top of the chair; “and we shall talk, for I have to speak to you, Don Royal.”
Thatcher took the seat indicated, contritely, humbly, submissively. Carmen's little heart was touched. But she still went on over the back of the chair.
“Don Royal,” she said, emphasizing each word at him with her fan, “before I saw you,--ever knew of you,--I was a child. Yes, I was but a child! I was a bold, bad child;--and I was what you call a--a--'forgaire'!”
“A what?” asked Thatcher, hesitating between a smile and a sigh.
“A forgaire!” continued Carmen demurely. “I did of myself write the names of ozzer peoples;” when Carmen was excited she lost the control of the English tongue; “I did write just to please myself;--it was my onkle that did make of it money;--you understand, eh? Shall you not speak? Must I again hit you?”
“Go on,” said Thatcher laughing.
“I did find out, when I came to you at the mine, that I had forged against you the name of Micheltorena. I to the lawyer went, and found that it was so--of a verity--so! so! all the time. Look at me not now, Don Royal;--it is a 'forgaire' you stare at.”
“Carmen!”
“Hoosh! Shall I have to hit you again? I did overlook all the papers. I found the application: it was written by me. There.”
She tossed over the back of her chair an envelope to Thatcher. He opened it.
“I see,” he said gently, “you repossessed yourself of it!”
“What is that--'r-r-r-e--possess'?”
“Why!” --Thatcher hesitated--“you got possession of this paper,--this innocent forgery,--again.”
“Oh! You think me a thief as well as a 'forgaire.' Go away! Get up. Get out.”
“My dear girl--” “Look at the paper! Will you? Oh, you silly!”
Thatcher looked at the paper. In paper, handwriting, age, and stamp it was identical with the formal, clerical application of Garcia for the grant. The indorsement of Micheltorena was unquestionably genuine. BUT THE APPLICATION WAS MADE FOR ROYAL THATCHER. And his own signature was imitated to the life.
“I had but one letter of yours wiz your name,” said Carmen apologetically; “and it was the best poor me could do.”
“Why, you blessed little goose and angel,” said Thatcher, with the bold, mixed metaphor of amatory genius, “don't you see--” “Ah, you don't like it,--it is not good?”
“My darling!”
“Hoosh! There is also an 'old cat' up stairs. And now I have here a character. WILL you sit down? Is it of a necessity that up and down you should walk and awaken the whole house? There!” --she had given him a vicious dab with her fan as he passed. He sat down.
“And you have not seen me nor written to me for a year?”
“Carmen!”
“Sit down, you bold, bad boy. Don't you see it is of business that you and I talk down here; and it is of business that ozzer people up stairs are thinking. Eh?”
“D--n business! See here, Carmen, my darling, tell me”--I regret to say he had by this time got hold of the back of Carmen's chair--“tell me, my own little girl,--about--about that Senator. You remember what you said to him?”
“Oh, the old man? Oh, THAT was business. And you say of business, 'd--n.'” “Carmen!”
“Don Royal!”
***** Although Miss Carmen had recourse to her fan frequently during this interview, the air must have been chilly, for a moment later, on his way down stairs, poor Harlowe, a sufferer from bronchitis, was attacked with a violent fit of coughing, which troubled him all the way down.
“Well,” he said, as he entered the room, “I see you have found Mr. Thatcher, and shown those papers. I trust you have, for you've certainly had time enough. I am sent by mother to dismiss you all to bed.”
Carmen still in the arm chair, covered with her mantilla, did not speak.
“I suppose you are by this time lawyer enough to know,” continued Harlowe, “that Miss De Haro's papers, though ingenious, are not legally available, unless--” “I chose to make her a witness. Harlowe! you're a good fellow! I don't mind saying to you that these are papers I prefer that my WIFE should not use. We'll leave it for the present--Unfinished Business.”
They did. But one evening our hero brought Mrs. Royal Thatcher a paper containing a touching and beautiful tribute to the dead Senator.
“There, Carmen, love, read that. Don't you feel a little ashamed of your--your--your lobbying--” “No,” said Carmen promptly. “It was business,--and if all lobbying business was as honest,--well? --”
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{
"id": "2661"
}
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1
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A FEUDAL CASTLE.
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IT was the age of chain armour and tournaments--of iron barons and barons' wars--of pilgrims and armed pilgrimages--of forests and forest outlaws--when Henry III. reigned as King of England, and the feudal system, though no longer rampant, was still full of life and energy; when Louis King of France, afterwards canonised as St. Louis, undertook one of the last and most celebrated of those expeditions known as the Crusades, and described as 'feudalism's great adventure, and popular glory.'
At the time when Henry was King of England and when Louis of France was about to embark for the East, with the object of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre from the Saracens, there stood on the very verge of Northumberland a strong baronial edifice, known as the Castle of Wark, occupying a circular eminence, visible from a great distance, and commanding such an extensive view to the north as seemed to ensure the garrison against any sudden inroad on the part of the restless and refractory Scots. On the north the foundations were washed by the waters of the Tweed, here broad and deep; and on the south were a little town, which had risen under the protection of the castle, and,--stretching away towards the hills of Cheviot,--an extensive park or chase, abounding with wild cattle and deer and beasts of game. At an earlier period this castle had been a possession of the famous house of Espec; and, when in after days it came into the hands of the Montacute Earls of Salisbury, Edward III. was inspired within its walls with that romantic admiration of the Countess of Salisbury which resulted in the institution of the Order of the Garter. During the fifth decade of the thirteenth century, however, it was the chief seat of Robert, Lord de Roos, a powerful Anglo-Norman noble, whose father had been one of the barons of Runnymede and one of the conservators of the Great Charter.
Like most of the fortresses built by the Norman conquerors of England, Wark consisted of a base-court, a keep, and a barbican in front of the base-court. The sides of the walls were fortified with innumerable angles, towers, and buttresses, and surmounted with strong battlements and hornworks. For greater security the castle was encompassed, save towards the Tweed, with a moat or deep ditch, filled with water, and fortified with strong palisades, and sharp stakes set thick all around the walls. Over the moat, at the principal gate, was the drawbridge, which was almost always raised, and the gate-house, a square building, having strong towers at each corner. Over the entrance and within the square of the gate-house was an arched vault, and over it was a chamber with apertures, through which, on occasion of an assault, the garrison, unseen the whilst, could watch the operations of the foe, and pour boiling water or melted lead on the foremost assailants. On the west side were the outworks, consisting of a platform with a trench half a mile in length, and breastworks, and covered ways, and mounds. The roofs of the building were bordered with parapets, guard walks, and sentry boxes.
But the whole space was not appropriated to works intended to ensure the stronghold against the assault of foes. Near the mound was the chapel dedicated to St. Giles. Under the outer wall was a military walk, five yards wide, and forty-eight yards in length. Underneath the walls, on the brink of the river, was a beautiful terrace, called the Maiden's Walk, where the lady of the castle and her damsels, after their labours at the loom, were wont to take air and exercise on a summer evening, ere the vesper bell rang, and the bat began to hunt the moth. Within the precincts of the building was the tiltyard, a broad space enclosed with rails, and covered with sawdust, where young men of gentle blood, in the capacity of pages and squires, acquired the chivalrous accomplishments which the age prized so highly.
In fact, the castle of Wark, like most feudal castles of that century, was a school of chivalry, whither the sons of nobles and knights were sent to serve their apprenticeship as warriors, taught their duty to God and the ladies, and trained to the skill in arms which enabled them to compel the respect of one sex and influence the hearts of the other.
First, on foot, they were taught to attack the pel, an imaginary adversary, which was simply the stump of a tree six feet in height; then, on horseback, they were made to charge the quintain, a wooden figure in the form of a Saracen, armed in mail and holding a sabre in one hand and a shield in the other, and so constructed to move on a pivot that, unless the youth was dexterous enough to strike the face or breast, it revolved rapidly, and dealt him a heavy blow on the back as he was retiring. As the lads became more expert they tilted at each other with blunt lances, practised riding at the ring, and learned to excel as equestrians by riding in a circle, vaulting from their steeds in the course of their career, and mounting again while they galloped.
At the same time they were trained to acquit themselves with credit in those encounters celebrated as combats at the barriers. At the sieges of cities, during the middle ages, knights of the besieging army were in the habit of going to the barriers, or grated palisades of the fortress, and defying the garrison to break a lance for the honour of their ladies. Indeed, this was so fashionable, that an army could hardly appear before a town without the siege giving rise to a variety of such combats, which were generally conducted with fairness on both sides. This mode of attack was early taught to the apprentice to chivalry, and assiduously practised by all who were ambitious of knightly honour.
Nor did the exercises of the tiltyard end at this stage. At the time of which I write, the name of Richard Coeur de Lion was famous in Europe and Asia; and his feats in arms were on every tongue. One of his great exploits at the battle of Joppa was especially the admiration of the brave. It seems that, when the Crusaders were surrounded and almost overwhelmed by the swarming host of Saladin, Richard, who, up to that moment, had neither given nor received a wound, suddenly sprang on his charger, drew his sword, laid his lance in rest, and with his sword in one hand, and his lance in the other, spurred against the Saracens, striking sparks from their helmets and armour, and inspiring such terror that his foes were completely routed. Naturally such an exploit made a strong impression on the imagination of aspirants to warlike fame, and the youth who had the dexterity and the equestrian skill to imitate it in mimic fray was regarded with admiration and envy.
Now our concern with Wark, and its tiltyard, is simply this--that, within the castle, there were trained in the exercises of chivalry, and qualified for its honours, two striplings, who, when St. Louis took the Cross, and undertook a holy war, embarked for the East, and figured, during a memorable expedition, as the Boy Crusaders.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
|
2
|
THE BROTHERS-IN-ARMS.
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ON the last Wednesday of the month of July, in the year 1248, the castle of Wark reposed in the sunshine and warmth of a bright merry summer's day; and, the exercises in the tiltyard being over for the morning, two of the apprentices to chivalry, whose dress indicated that they had attained the rank of squires, strolled slowly along the green border of the Tweed. Neither of them had passed the age of seventeen, but both were tall and strong and handsome for their years; and both had the fair hair, blue eyes, aquiline features, and air of authority which distinguished the descendants of the valiant Northmen who accompanied Rollo when he left Norway, sailed up the Seine, and seized on Neustria. But in one rather important respect there was a remarkable difference. One had a countenance which expressed gaiety of heart; the other had a countenance which expressed sadness of spirit. One bore the name of Guy Muschamp; the other the still greater name of Walter Espec.
'And so, good Walter, we are actually soldiers of the Cross, and vowed to combat the Saracens,' said Guy, as they walked along the grassy margin of the river, which flowed tranquilly on, while the salmon leaped in its silver tide, and the trouts glided like silver darts through the clear stream, and the white and brindled cows cooled their hoofs in the water; 'and yet I know not how it comes to pass, good Walter; but beshrew me if, at times, I do not fancy that it is a dream of the night.'
'In truth, brave Guy,' replied the other, 'I comprehend not how you can have any doubts on the subject, when you see the sacred badge on our shoulders, and when we have, even within the hour, learned that the ships of the great Saxon earl, in which we are to embark for the Holy Land, are now riding at anchor before the town of Berwick.'
'You are right, good Walter,' said Guy, quickly; 'and marry! worse than an infidel am I to have a doubt; and yet when I think of all the marvels we are likely to behold, I can scarce credit my good fortune. Just imagine, Walter Espec, the picturesque scenery--the palm-trees, the fig-trees, the gardens with flowers, and vines, and citrons, and pomegranates; the Saracenic castles, the long caravans of camels, and the Eastern women veiled in white, standing at fountains, and all the wonders that palmers and pilgrims tell of! Oh! the adventure appears so grand, that I now begin to dread lest some mischance should come to prevent us going.'
[Illustration: "I will go straightway with you, Walter," said Guy, "to the palace of the Caliph; and if he refuses to render you justice, I will challenge him to mortal combat on the spot." --p. 16.]
'And I,' observed Walter, calmly, 'have no dread of the kind; and I am, heart and soul, bent on the holy enterprise; albeit, I reck little of caravans of camels, or veiled women. But my heart yearns for that far land; for there it is that I am like to hear tidings of him I have lost. Ah! credit me, brave Guy, that you, and such as you, little know what it is to be alone in this world, without kith or kindred, or home, and how saddening is the thought, ever crossing my mind, that one, near and dear, does live; and--and--' He paused, bent his brow, clenched his hand, and cast his eyes on the ground, as tears streamed down his cheek.
'Good Walter, dear Walter,' said Guy, yielding to sympathy till he was almost equally affected; 'droop not, but be of good cheer. Forget not that we are brothers-in-arms, that I am your friend, your true and sworn friend; and I will aid your search. Nay, I know what you are going to say; but you do me wrong. I will not waste time in looking at the camels and the veiled women, of whom palmer and pilgrim tell; but I will go straightway with you to the palace of the caliph; and, if he refuse to render you justice, I will challenge him to mortal combat on the spot. So again I say, be of good cheer.'
Walter Espec smiled mournfully. His enthusiasm was not, in reality, less than that of his companion. But he had none of the gaiety, and little of the buoyant spirit, which enabled Guy Muschamp to make himself, at all times and seasons, a favourite in castle hall and lady's bower. 'I fear me, brave Guy,' said Walter, after a brief silence, 'that the caliph is too great a potentate to be dealt with as you would wish. But, come what may, I am sworn to laugh at danger in the performance of a duty. My dreams, awake and asleep, are of him who is lost; and I fantasied last night,' added he, lowering his voice, 'that my mother stood before me, as I last saw her when living, and implored me, in the name of St. Katherine, the patron saint of the Especs, to fulfil my vow of rescuing her lost son from captivity and from the enemies of Christ.'
'Oh, fear not, doubt not, good Walter,' cried Guy, with enthusiasm; 'it must, it shall, be done; and then we can go and conquer a principality, like Tancred, or Bohemund of Tarentum, or Count Raymond of St. Giles, and other old heroes.'
'Even the crown of Jerusalem may not be beyond our grasp, if fortune favour us,' said Walter, with a calm smile.
'Oh, fortune ever favours the brave,' exclaimed Guy; 'and I hold that nothing is impossible to men who are brave and ambitious; and no squire of your years is braver or more ambitious than you, Walter, or more expert in arms; albeit you never utter a boast as to your own feats, while no one is more ready to praise the actions of others.'
'Even if I had anything to boast of,' replied Walter, 'I should refrain from so doing; and therein I should only be acting according to the maxims of chivalry; for you know we are admonished to be dumb as to our own deeds, and eloquent in praise of others; and, moreover, that if the squire is vainglorious, he is not worthy to become a knight, and that he who is silent as to the valour of others is a thief and a robber.'
And thus conversing, the brothers-in-arms returned to the castle, and entered the great hall, which was so spacious and so high in the roof that a man on horseback might have turned a spear in it with all the ease imaginable. It was, indeed, a stately apartment; the ceiling consisting of a smooth vault of ashlar-work, the stones being curiously joined and fitted together; and the walls and roof decorated by some of those great painters who flourished in England under the patronage of King Henry and his fair and accomplished queen, Eleanor of Provence. Here was represented the battle of Hastings; there the siege of Jerusalem by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon and Robert Curthose; here the battle of the Standard; there the signing of the Great Charter by King John, under the oak of Runnymede. Around the hall might be traced the armorial bearings of the lord of the castle and the chief families with whom the lord of the castle was allied by blood--the three water-budgets of De Roos; the three Katherine-wheels of Espec; the engrailed cross of De Vesci; the seven blackbirds of Merley; the lion argent of Dunbar in its field of gules; and the ruddy lion of Scotland, ramping in gold; while on the roof was depicted the castle itself, with gates, and battlements, and pinnacles, and towers; and there also, very conspicuous, was the form of a rose, and around it was inscribed in Gothic letters the legend-- He who doth secrets reveal, Beneath my roof shall never live.
It was ten o'clock--in that age the hour of dinner--when Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp entered the great hall of the castle, and, the household having assembled for that important meal, a huge oaken table, which in shape resembled the letter T, groaned under massive sirloins. Attended by his jesters, the lord of the castle took his seat on the dais, which was reserved for his family and his guests of high rank; while the knights, squires, pages, and retainers ranged themselves above and below the salt, according to their claims to precedence; and hawks stood around on perches, and hounds lay stretched on the rushy floor, waiting their turn to be fed.
Much ceremony was of course observed. The sirloins were succeeded by fish and fowl, and dishes curiously compounded; and, as was the fashion of that feudal age, the dinner lasted three hours. But, notwithstanding the pride and pomp exhibited, the meal was by no means dull. The jesters and minstrels did their work. During the intervals the jesters exercised all their wit to divert the lord and his friends; and the minstrels, in the gallery set apart for their accommodation, discoursed flourishes of music, borrowed from the Saracens and brought from the East, for the gratification of the company, or roused the aspirations of the youthful warriors by some such spirit-stirring strain as the battle-hymn of Rollo.
'I marvel much, good Walter,' said Guy Muschamp to his brother-in-arms, 'I marvel much where we are destined to dine this day next year.'
'Beshrew me if I can even form a guess,' replied Walter Espec, thoughtfully; 'methinks no seer less potent than the Knight of Ercildoune, whom the vulgar call "True Thomas," could on such a point do aught to satisfy your curiosity.'
'Mayhap at Acre or Jerusalem,' suggested Guy, after a pause.
'By Holy Katherine,' exclaimed Walter, 'ere you named Acre and Jerusalem, my imagination had carried me to the palace of the caliph at Bagdad.'
|
{
"id": "26671"
}
|
3
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THE HEIRS OF THE ESPECS.
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IN the days when the Norman kings reigned in England, the Especs were of high account among the Anglo-Norman barons. Many were the brave and pious men who bore the name; but the bravest and most pious of them all was that Walter Espec, a great noble of the north, who maintained high feudal state at the castles of Wark, Helmsley, and Kirkham, and who figured so conspicuously as chief of the English at the battle of the Standard, and harangued the soldiers before the battle from the chariot from which the standard was displayed.
But not only as a warrior was Walter Espec known to fame. As a benefactor to religion, his name was held in honour and his memory regarded with veneration.
It seems that Walter Espec had, by his wife Adeline, an only son, who was a youth of great promise, and much beloved by his parents. Nothing, however, pleased him more than a swift horse; and he was so bold a rider that he would not have feared to mount Bucephalus, in spite of heels and horns. Leaping into the saddle one day, at the castle of Kirkham, and scorning the thought of danger, he spurred his charger beyond its strength, and, while galloping towards Frithby, had a fall at the stone cross, and was killed on the spot. Much afflicted at his son's death, Walter Espec sent for his brother, who was a priest and a rector.
'My son being, alas! dead,' said he, 'I know not who should be my heir.'
'Brother mine,' replied the priest, 'your duty is clear. Make Christ your heir.'
Now Walter Espec relished the advice, and proceeded to act on it forthwith. He founded three religious houses, one at Warden, a second at Kirkham, a third at Rievallé; and, having been a disciple of Harding, and much attached to the Cistercian order, he planted at each place a colony of monks, sent him from beyond the sea by the great St. Bernard; and, having further signalised his piety by becoming a monk in the abbey of Rievallé, he died, full of years and honours, and was buried in that religious house; while his territorial possessions passed to the Lord de Roos, as husband of his sister.
Nevertheless, the family of Espec was not yet extinct. A branch still survived and flourished in the north; and, as time passed over, a kinsman of the great Walter won distinction in war, and, though a knight of small estate, wedded a daughter of that Anglo-Saxon race the Icinglas, once so great in England, but of whom now almost everything is forgotten but the name. And this Espec, who had lived as a soldier, died a soldier's death; falling bravely with his feet to the foe, on that day in 1242 when the English under King Henry fought against such fearful odds, at the-village of Saintonge. But even now the Especs were not without representatives; for, by his Anglo-Saxon spouse Algitha, the Anglo-Norman warrior who fell in Gascony left two sons, and of the two one was named Walter, the other Osbert.
While Dame Algitha Espec lived, the young Especs scarcely felt the loss they had sustained in the death of their father. Nothing, indeed, could have been more exemplary than the care which the Anglo-Saxon dame bestowed on her sons. In a conversation which Walter Espec held on the battlements of the castle of Wark, with his brother-in-arms Guy Muschamp, the heir of an Anglo-Norman baron of Northumberland, he lauded her excellence as a woman, and her tenderness as a mother.
'I was in my tenth year,' said Walter, 'when my father, after having served King Henry as a knight in Gascony, fell in battle; and, albeit my mother, when she became a widow, was still fair and of fresh age, a widow she resolved to remain; and she adhered firmly to her purpose. In truth, her mouth was so accustomed to repeat the name of her dead husband that it seemed as if his memory had possession of her whole heart and soul; for whether in praying or giving alms, and even in the most ordinary acts of life, she continually pronounced his name.
'My mother brought up my brother and myself with the most tender care. Living at our castellated house of Heckspeth, in the Wansbeck, and hard by the abbey of Newminster, she lived in great fear of the Lord, and with an equal love for her neighbours, especially such as were poor; and she prudently managed us and our property. Scarcely had we learned the first elements of letters, which she herself, being convent-bred, taught us, when, eager to have us instructed, she confided us to a master of grammar, who incited us to work, and taught us to recite verses and compose them according to rule.'
It was while the brothers Espec were studying under this master of grammar, and indulging with spirit and energy in the sports and recreations fashionable among the boys of the thirteenth century--such as playing with whirligigs and paper windmills, and mimic engines of war, and trundling hoops, and shooting with bows and arrows, and learning to swim on bladders, that Dame Algitha followed her husband to a better world, and they found themselves orphans and unprotected. For both, however, Providence raised up friends in the day of need. Remembering what he owed to his connection with the Especs, the Lord de Roos received Walter into his castle of Wark, to be trained to arms; and another kinsman, who was a prior in France, received Osbert into his convent, to be reared as a monk. The orphans, who had never before been separated, and who were fondly attached, parted after many embraces, and many tears; and, with as little knowledge of the world into which they were entering as fishes have of the sea in which they swim, each went where destiny seemed to point the way.
On reaching the castle of Wark, Walter Espec felt delighted with the novelty of the scene, and entered with enthusiasm upon his duties as an aspirant to the honours of chivalry. Besides learning to carve, to sing, and to take part in that exciting sport which has been described as 'the image of war'--such as hawking, and hunting the hare, the deer, the boar, and the wolf--he ere long signalised himself in the tiltyard by the facility which he displayed in acquiring skill in arms, and in chivalrous exercises. Indeed, whether in assailing the pel, or charging the quintain on horseback, or riding at the ring, or in the combat at the barriers, Walter had hardly a rival among the youths of his own age; and, after being advanced to the rank of squire, he crowned his triumphs in the tiltyard by successfully charging on horseback, _à la_ Coeur de Lion, with a sword in one hand and a lance in the other.
But still Walter Espec was unhappy; and, even when his dexterity and prowess in arms moved the envy or admiration of his youthful compeers, his heart was sad and his smile mournful.
And why was the brave boy so sad?
At the time when Walter was winning such reputation at the castle of Wark, Jerusalem was sacked by the Karismians. A cry of distress came from the Christians in the East; and the warriors of the West were implored to undertake a new crusade, to rescue the Holy Sepulchre and save the kingdom founded by Godfrey and the Baldwins. The warriors of the West, however, showed no inclination to leave their homes; and the pope was lamenting the absence of Christian zeal, when a boy went about France, singing in his native tongue-- Jesus, Lord, repair our loss, Restore to us thy blessed cross; and met with much sympathy from those of his own age. Multitudes of children crowded round him as their leader, and followed his footsteps wherever he went. Nothing could restrain their enthusiasm; and, assembling in crowds in the environs of Paris, they prepared to cross Burgundy and make for Marseilles.
'And whither are you going, children?' people asked.
'We are going to Jerusalem, to deliver the Holy Sepulchre,' answered they.
'But how are you to get there?' was the next question.
'Oh,' replied they, 'you seem not to know how it has been prophesied that this year the drought will be very great, that the sun will dissipate all the waters, and that the abysses of the sea will be dry; and that an easy road will lie open to us across the bed of the Mediterranean.'
On reaching Marseilles, however, the young pilgrims discovered that they had been deluded. Some of them returned to their homes; but the majority were not so fortunate. Many lost themselves in the forests which then covered the country, and died of hunger and fatigue; and the others became objects of speculation to two merchants of Marseilles, who carried on trade with the Saracens. Affecting to act from motives of piety, the two merchants tempted the boy-pilgrims by offering to convey them, without charge, to the Holy Land; and, the offer having been joyfully accepted, seven vessels, with children on board, sailed from Marseilles. But the voyage was not prosperous. At the end of two days, when the ships were off the isle of St. Peter, near the rock of the Recluse, a tempest arose, and the wind blew so violently that two of them went down with all on board. The five others, however, weathered the storm, and reached Bugia and Alexandria. And now the young Crusaders discovered to their consternation how they had been deceived and betrayed. Without delay they were sold by the merchants to the slave-dealers, and by the slave-dealers to the Saracens. Forty of them were purchased for the caliph and carried to Bagdad, where they were forced to abjure Christianity, and brought up as slaves.
Now, among the boys who had yielded to the prevailing excitement, and repaired to Marseilles to embark for Syria, was Osbert Espec; and ever since Walter received from his kinsman, the prior, intelligence of his brother's disappearance, and heard the rumours of what had befallen the young pilgrims on their arrival in the East, his memory had brooded over the misfortune, and his imagination, which was constantly at work, pictured Osbert in the caliph's prison, laden with chains, and forced to forswear the God of his fathers; and the thought of his lost brother was ever present to his mind. And therefore was Walter Espec's heart sad, and therefore was his smile mournful.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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4
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ST. LOUIS.
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AMONG the names of the European princes associated with the history of the Holy War, that of St. Louis is one of the most renowned. Although flourishing in a century which produced personages like Frederick, Emperor of Germany, and our first great Edward, who far excelled him in genius and prowess--as wise rulers in peace and mighty chiefs in war--his saintliness, his patience in affliction, his respect for justice and the rights of his neighbours, entitle him to a high place among the men of the age which could boast of so many royal heroes. In order to comprehend the crusade, of which he was leader, it is necessary to refer briefly to the character and career of the good and pious king, who, in the midst of disaster and danger, exhibited the courage of a hero and the resignation of a martyr.
It was on the day of the Festival of St. Mark, in the year 1215, that Blanche of Castille, wife of the eighth Louis of France, gave birth, at Poissy, to an heir to the crown, which Hugh Capet had, three centuries earlier, taken from the feeble heir of Charlemagne. On the death of his father, Louis, then in his twelfth year, became King of France, at a time when it required a man with a strong hand to maintain the privileges of the crown against the great nobles of the kingdom. Fortunately for the young monarch Providence had blessed him with a mother, who, whatever her faults and failings--and chroniclers have not spared her reputation--brought to the terrible task of governing in a feudal age a high spirit and a strong will, and applied herself earnestly to the duty of bringing up her son in the way in which he should walk, and educating him in such a manner as to prepare him for executing the high functions which he was destined to fulfil. While, with the aid of her chivalrous admirer, the Count of Champagne, and the counsel of a cardinal-legate--with whom, by-the-bye, she was accused of being somewhat too familiar--Blanche of Castille maintained the rights of the French monarchy against the great vassals of France, she reared her son with the utmost care. She entrusted his education to excellent masters, appointed persons eminent for piety to attend to his religious instruction, and evinced profound anxiety that he should lead a virtuous and holy life.
'Rather,' she once said, 'would I see my son in his grave, than learn that he had committed a mortal sin.'
As time passed on, Blanche of Castille had the gratification of finding that her toil and her anxiety were not in vain. Lotus, indeed, was a model whom other princes, in their teens, would have done well to copy. His piety, and his eagerness to do what was right and to avoid what was wrong, raised the wonder of his contemporaries. He passed much of his time in devotional exercises, and, when not occupied with religious duties, ever conducted himself as if with a consciousness that the eye of his Maker was upon him, and that he would one day have to give a strict account of all his actions. Every morning he went to hear prayers chanted, and mass and the service of the day sung; every afternoon he reclined on his couch, and listened while one of his chaplains repeated prayers for the dead; and every evening he heard complines.
Nevertheless, Louis did not, like such royal personages as our Henry VI., allow his religious exercises so wholly to monopolise his time or attention as to neglect the duties which devolved upon him as king. The reverse was the case. After arriving at manhood he convinced the world that he was well qualified to lead men in war, and to govern them in peace.
It happened that, in the year 1242, Henry King of England, who was several years older than Louis, became ambitious of regaining the continental territory wrested from his father, John, by Philip Augustus; and the Count de la Marche, growing malecontent with the government of France, formed a confederacy against the throne, and invited Henry to conduct an army to the Continent. Everything seemed so promising, and the confederacy so formidable, that Henry, unable to resist the temptation of recovering Normandy and Anjou, crossed the sea, landed at Bordeaux, and prepared for hostilities. At first, the confederates were confident of succeeding in their objects; but, ere long, they discovered that they had mistaken their position, and the character of the prince whom they were defying.
In fact, Louis soon proved that he was no 'carpet knight.' Assembling an army, he buckled on his mail, mounted his charger; and placing himself at the head of his forces, marched to encounter his enemies. Reaching the banks of the Charente, he offered the confederates battle, near the bridge of Taillebourg; but his challenge was not accepted. By this time the confederates had lost faith in their enterprise; and while De la Marche was meditating a reconciliation with Louis, Henry, accusing the count of having deceived, and being about to betray, him, retreated precipitately, and never drew rein till he reached the village of Saintonge.
But Louis was unwilling to allow his royal foe to escape so easily. Nor, indeed, could Henry without reluctance fly from the peril he had provoked. At all events, on reaching Saintonge, the English turned to bay, and a battle began. But the odds were overwhelming; and, though the Anglo-Norman barons fought with characteristic courage, they were speedily worsted, and under the necessity of making for Bordeaux.
From the day on which this battle was fought, it was no longer doubtful that Louis was quite able to hold his own; and neither foreign kings nor continental counts cared to disturb his government or defy his power. In fact, the fame of the King of France became great throughout Christendom, and inspired the hopes of the Christians of the East.
Nor was it merely as a warrior that Louis signalised himself among his contemporaries. At the time when he was attending, with exemplary regularity, to his religious devotions, and keeping watch over the security of his dominions, he was devoting himself assiduously to his duties as sovereign and to the administration of justice.
One day, when Louis was at the castle of Hieros, in Provence, a Cordelier friar approached.
'Sire,' said the friar, 'I have read of unbelieving princes in the Bible and other good books; yet I have never read of a kingdom of believers or unbelievers being ruined, but from want of justice being duly administered. Now,' continued the friar, 'I perceive the king is going to France; let him administer justice with care, that our Lord may suffer him to enjoy his kingdom, and that it may remain in peace and tranquillity all the days of his life, and that God may not deprive him of it with shame and dishonour.'
Louis listened attentively to the Cordelier, and the friar's words sank deep into his mind. From that date he gave much attention to the administration of justice, and took especial care to prevent the poor being wronged by their more powerful neighbours. On summer days, after hearing mass, he was in the habit of repairing to the gardens of his palace, seating himself on a carpet, and listening to such as wished to appeal to him; at other times he went to the wood of Vincennes, and there, sitting under an oak, listened to their statements with attention and patience. No ceremony was allowed to keep the poor man from the king's justice-seat.
'Whoever has a complaint to make,' Louis was wont to say, 'let him now make it;' and when there were several who wished to be heard, he would add, 'My friends, be silent for awhile, and your causes shall be despatched one after another.'
When Louis was in his nineteenth year, Blanche of Castille recognised the expediency of uniting him to a princess worthy of sharing the French throne, and bethought her of the family of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, one of the most accomplished men in Europe, and whose countess, Beatrice of Savoy, was even more accomplished than her husband; Raymond and Beatrice had four daughters, all remarkable for their wit and beauty, and all destined to be queens. Of these four daughters, the eldest, Margaret of Provence, who was then thirteen, was selected as the bride of Louis; and, about two years before her younger sister, Eleanor, was conducted to England to be espoused by King Henry, Margaret arrived in Paris, and began to figure as Queen of France.
The two princesses of Provence who had the fortune to form such high alliances found themselves in very different positions. Eleanor did just as she pleased, ruled her husband, and acted as if everything in England had been created for her gratification. Margaret's situation, though more safe, was much less pleasant. In her husband's palace she could not boast of being in the enjoyment even of personal liberty. In fact, Queen Blanche was too fond of power to allow that which she had acquired to be needlessly imperilled; and, apprehensive that the young queen should gain too much influence with the king, she deliberately kept the royal pair separate. Nothing, indeed, could exceed the domestic tyranny under which they suffered. When Louis and Margaret made royal progresses, Blanche of Castille took care that her son and daughter-in-law were lodged in separate houses. Even in cases of sickness the queen-mother did not relent. On one occasion, when Margaret was ill and in the utmost danger, Louis stole to her chamber. While he was there, Blanche entered, and he endeavoured to conceal himself. Blanche, however, detected him, shook her head, and forcibly pushed him out of the door.
'Be off, sir,' said she, sternly; 'you have no right here.'
'Madam, madam,' exclaimed Margaret, in despair, 'will you not allow me to see my husband, either when I am living, or when I am dying?' and the poor queen fainted away.
It was while the young saint-king and his fair Provencal spouse were enduring this treatment at the hands of the old queen-mother that events occurred which fired Louis with the idea of undertaking a crusade, and gave Margaret an excellent excuse for escaping from the society of the despotic dowager who had embittered her life, and almost broken her heart.
One day, when Louis was recovering from the effects of a fever, which had so thoroughly prostrated him, that at times his attendants believed he was dead, he ordered a Cross to be stitched to his garments.
'How is this,' asked Blanche of Castille, when she came to visit her son on his sick bed.
'Madam,' whispered the attendants, 'the king has, out of gratitude for his recovery, taken the Cross, and vowed to combat the infidel.'
'Alas! alas!' exclaimed Blanche, terrified, 'I am struck as fearfully as if I had seen him dead.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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5
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TAKING THE CROSS.
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A CENTURY and a half had elapsed since Peter the Hermit roused Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, and since Godfrey and the Baldwins established the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem; and in the interval, many valiant warriors--including Richard Coeur de Lion, and Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa--had gone forth to light in its defence; and the orders of military monks--the Knights of the Temple, the Knights of St. John, the Knights of St. Katherine of Sinai, and the Teutonic Knights, had risen to keep watch over the safety of the Holy Sepulchre. But the kingdom of Jerusalem, constantly exposed to rude shocks, far from prospering, was always in danger of ruin; and in 1244 the Holy City, its capital, was taken and sacked by a wild race, without a country, known as the Karismians, who, at the sultan's instance, slaughtered the inhabitants, opened the tombs, burnt the bodies of heroes, scattered the relics of saints and martyrs to the wind, and perpetrated such enormities as Jerusalem, in her varying fortunes, had never before witnessed.
When this event occurred, the Christians of the East, more loudly than ever, implored the warriors of Europe to come to their rescue. But, as it happened, most of the princes of Christendom were in too much trouble at home to attend to the affairs of Jerusalem. Baldwin Courtenay, Emperor of Constantinople, was constantly threatened with expulsion by the Greeks; Frederick, Emperor of Germany, was at war with the Pope; the King of Castille was fighting with the Moors; the King of Poland was fully occupied with the Tartars; the King of Denmark had to defend his throne against his own brother; the King of Sweden had to defend his throne against the Tolekungers. As for Henry King of England, he was already involved in those disputes with the Anglo-Norman barons which ultimately led to the Barons' War. One kingdom alone was at peace; and it was France, then ruled by Louis IX., since celebrated as St. Louis, that listened to the cry of distress.
At that time Louis King of France, then not more than thirty, but already, as we have seen, noted for piety and valour, was stretched on a bed of sickness, and so utterly prostrate that, at times, as has been related, he was thought to be dead. Nevertheless, he did recover; and, snatched as if by miracle from the gates of death, he evinced his gratitude to Heaven by ordering the Cross to be fixed to his vestments, and vowing to undertake an expedition for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre.
The resolution of the saintly monarch was not quite agreeable to his family or his subjects, any more than to his mother, Blanche of Castille; and many of his lords made earnest efforts to divert him from his purpose. But remonstrance proved unavailing. Clinging steadfastly to his resolution, Louis summoned a Parliament at Paris, induced the assembled magnates to take the Cross, occupied three years with preparations on a great scale, and ultimately, having repaired to St. Denis, and received from the hands of the papal legate the famous standard known as the oriflamme of France, embarked at Aigues Mortes, and sailed for Cyprus, with his queen, Margaret of Provence, his brothers, the Counts of Artois, Poictiers, and Anjou, and many of the greatest lords of his kingdom.
Meanwhile, the barons of England were not indifferent to what was passing on the Continent. Many of them, indeed, were desirous to take part in the expedition. But King Henry not only forbade them to assume the Cross, but would not allow a crusade to be preached in his dominions. No general movement was therefore made in England. Nevertheless, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, grandson of the second Henry and Rosamond Clifford, determined on an 'armed pilgrimage,' and, in company with Lord Robert de Vere and others, vowed to join the French Crusaders and combat the Saracens. Henry, enraged at his mandate being disregarded, seized Salisbury's manors and castles; but the earl, faithful to his vow, embarked, with De Vere as his standard-bearer, and with two hundred English knights of noble name and dauntless courage, sworn to bring the standard back with glory, or dye it with their hearts' blood.
At the same time Patrick, Earl of March, the most illustrious noble who sprang from the Anglo-Saxon race, announced his intention of accompanying King Louis to the East. Earl Patrick had seen more than threescore years, and his hair was white, and his limbs stiff; but his head was still as clear, and his heart was still as courageous, as in the days when he had dyed his lance in Celtic blood, vanquished the great Somerled, and carried the Bastard of Galloway in chains to Edinburgh; and, with an earnest desire to couch against the enemies of Christianity the lance which he had often couched against the enemies of civilisation, he took the Cross, sold his stud on the Leader Haughs to pay his expenses, bade a last farewell to Euphemia Stewart, his aged countess, received the pilgrim's staff and scrip from the Abbot of Melrose, and left his castle to embark with his knights and kinsmen.
'I was young, and now I am old,' said Earl Patrick, with enthusiasm. 'In my youth I fought with the foes of my race. In my old age I will fare forth and combat the foes of my religion.'
It was under the banner of this aged hero that Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec were about to embark for the East; and, on the evening of the day preceding that on which they were to set out, they were conducted to the presence of the mother of the lord of the castle, who was the daughter of a Scottish king, that they might receive her blessing.
'My children,' said she, as they knelt before her, and she laid her hands on their heads, 'do not forget, when among strangers and exposed to temptation, the lessons of piety and chivalry which you have learned within these walls. Fear God, and He will support you in all dangers. Be frank and courteous, but not servile, to the rich and powerful; kind and helpful to the poor and afflicted. Beware of meriting the reproaches of the brave; and ever bear in mind that evil befalls him who proves false to his promises to his God, his country, and his lady. Be brave in war; in peace, loyal and true in thought and word; and Heaven will bless you, and men will hold your names in honour, and you will be dreaded in battle and loved in hall.'
Next morning the brothers-in-arms rose betimes; and, all preparations for their departure having been previously made, they mounted at daybreak, and leaving the castle of Wark, and riding through the great park that lay around it, startling the deer and the wild cattle as they went, took their way towards Berwick, before which rode the ships destined to convey them from their native shores.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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6
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EMBARKING FOR THE EAST.
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IT was Saturday; and the sun shone brightly on pool and stream, and even lighted up the dingy corners of walled cities, as the Earl of March proceeded on foot from the castle to the port of Berwick, and embarked with his knights and kinsmen.
The event created much excitement in the town. In fact, though the princes and nobles of Europe were weary of enterprises that had ruined so many great houses, the people still thought of the crusades with interest, and talked of them with enthusiasm. The very name of Palestine exercised a magical influence on the European Christians of that generation. At the mention of the Holy Land, their imagination conjured up the most picturesque scenery; Saracenic castles stored with gold and jewels; cities the names of which were recorded in the sacred book which the poorest knew by picture; and they listened earnestly as palmer or pilgrim told of Sharon with its roses without thorns; Lebanon with its cedars and vines; and Carmel with its solitary convent, and its summit covered with thyme, and haunted by the eagle and the boar, till their fancy pictured 'a land flowing with milk and honey,' by repairing to which sinners could secure pardon without penance in this world, and happiness without purgatory in the next.
It is not wonderful that, when such sentiments prevailed, the embarkation of a great noble for the Holy Land should have excited much interest; and, as Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec took their way from the castle to the port, crowded with ships, and passed warehouses stored with merchandise, the Red Hall of the Flemings resounding with the noise of artificers, the wealthy religious houses which kept alive the flame of ancient learning, and dispensed befitting charities, the streets presented a motley assemblage of seafaring men, monks, warriors, and soldiers; the wives and daughters of the burghers, all in holiday attire, crowded the housetops or gazed from the windows and balconies; and the burghers themselves, leaving their booths and warehouses, flocked to the port to gossip with each other, and to witness the departure of the armed pilgrims.
'Oh, good Walter,' exclaimed Guy Muschamp, whose spirit rose with the excitement, 'is not this a stirring scene? By St. John of Beverley, what rich armour! what gallant ships! what stately churches! And yet I would wager my basinet to a prentice's flat cap that it is not, for a moment, to be compared to Acre.'
'I deem that it can hardly be,' replied Walter, calmly; 'and, in truth, I am in no mood to look upon life with joyous emotions. But, brave Guy, I am pleased to see you pleased; albeit, I own frankly that I should be more than human did I not somewhat envy you your gaiety.'
'Be gay, good Walter.'
Walter shook his head.
'Vain would be the effort,' he replied, sadly; 'I can only pray to God and Holy Katherine to grant that I may return with a lighter heart.'
'As for me,' continued Guy, 'I am ever gay--gay as the lark; gay in the morning, gay at eve. It is my nature so to be. My mother is a Frenchwoman--a kinswoman of the Lord of Joinville--and scarce knows what sadness is. I inherit her spirit; and I doubt not that, if I am slain by the Saracens, I shall die laughing.'
With this conversation they reached the quay, just as Earl Patrick was stepping on board his ship, the 'Hilda,' which, if less graceful and elegant than the vessels of modern times, was imposing to look upon. Adorned with painting and gilding, it had armorial bearings and badges embroidered on various parts; banners of gay and brilliant colours floated from the masts; and the sails of azure and purple shone with work of gold. Armour glittered on deck; and martial music was not wanting to give variety to the display.
Meanwhile, amidst the bustle and shouts of the crew, the ports of the vessel were opened to allow the horses of the armed pilgrims to enter; and, as the ports were under water when the vessel was at sea, they were caulked and stopped up as close as a tun of wine. This operation over, and all the adventurers embarked, the skipper raised his hand for silence.
'My men, is your work done?' cried he to his people in the prow; 'are you ready?'
'Yes, in truth, we are ready,' answered the seamen.
And now, the priests who accompanied Earl Patrick having embarked, the captain made them mount to the castle of the ship, and chant psalms in praise of God, and to pray that He might be pleased to grant a prosperous voyage; and they, having ascended, sang the beautiful hymn of 'Veni, Creator' from beginning to end. While the priests sang, the mariners set their sails, and the skipper ordered them to haul up the anchor; and instantly a breeze filled the sails, and the ships moved slowly but proudly away from the shore.
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{
"id": "26671"
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7
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THE ARMED PILGRIMS AT CYPRUS.
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NOT with the very best grace did the King of France come to the resolution of sailing for Cyprus. Indeed, the safety of his army depended, in some degree, on the route selected; and the safest way to the Holy Land was understood to be by Sicily. Unluckily, however, Sicily was subject to the Emperor Frederick; and Frederick and his dominions had been excommunicated by the Pope; and Louis, with his peculiar notions, feared to set foot on a soil that was under the ban of the Church. At Lyons, where he received the papal blessing, he endeavoured to reconcile the Emperor and the Pope; but his Holiness declined to listen to mediation; and the saint-king, yielding to conscientious scruples, determined, without further hesitation, to sacrifice his plan of passing through Sicily to Syria, and announced his intention of proceeding by way of Cyprus to Egypt.
At that time the King of Cyprus was Henry de Lusignan, to whose family Richard Coeur de Lion had, in the twelfth century, given the throne, from which he dragged the Emperor Isaac; and no sooner did Louis reach the port of Limisso, than Henry, accompanied by nobles and clergy, appeared to bid him welcome. Nothing, indeed, could have exceeded the enthusiasm with which the French Crusaders were received; and when Louis was conducted with much ceremony to Nicosia, and entered that city, the capital of the island, the populace cheered loudly, and the clergy met him, singing 'Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.'
The glory of Nicosia has long since departed. Situated in the centre of Cyprus, on the river Pedia, in a low fertile plain, near the base of a range of mountains that intersects the island, and surrounded by walls, in the form of a hexagon, flanked with bastions, the capital has many fine houses; but these are mostly in ruins, and the inhabitants occupy tenements reared of mud and brick, and rather repulsive in appearance. At that time, however, the state of Nicosia was very different. As the capital of the Lusignans, the city exhibited the pomp and pride of feudal chivalry, with much of the splendour of oriental courts, and boasted of its palaces, castles, churches, and convents, and chapelries, and gardens, and vineyards, and pleasant places, and all the luxuries likely to render mediæval life enviable.
Now, when Louis landed at Limisso, and entered Nicosia, he had no intention of wintering in Cyprus. In fact, the saint-king was all eagerness to push forward and combat the Saracens. But circumstances proved stronger than his will. The Crusaders were highly captivated with all that they saw and heard. The aspect of the island was enchanting; the wine, which even Solomon has deigned to celebrate, was to their taste: the dark-eyed Greek women, who perhaps knew that the island had anciently been the favourite seat, of Venus, and who, in any case, enjoyed the reputation of being devoted to the worship of the goddess, were doubtless fascinating; and almost every one of the days that succeeded Louis's arrival was devoted to rejoicings and feastings. Not unnaturally, but most unfortunately, the Crusaders yielded to the fascinations of an existence which at first they all enjoyed, heart and soul; and with one accord they cried out, 'We must tarry here till spring. Let us eat, drink, and be merry.'
Accordingly the Crusaders did winter in Cyprus; and the consequences were most disastrous. Enervated by luxury, they soon forgot their vows, and rushed into every kind of extravagance and dissipation. Of course, their recklessness soon brought its own punishment. As time passed on, and winter set in, rain fell daily, and the intemperance, the strange climate, and the weather soon did their work. By-and-by, a pestilential disease made its appearance in the camp of the pilgrims, and carried off thousands of victims, including two hundred and fifty knights. Moreover, there was much discord and dissension. The Greek clergy and the Latin clergy began to quarrel; the Templars and the Knights of St. John began to fight; and the saint-king found his position the very reverse of satisfactory or agreeable.
By the time that the little fleet, on board of which were Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec, reached Cyprus, matters were not what they should have been; and the wise and prudent shook their heads, and predicted that an expedition conducted in such a fashion was too likely to end in disaster and ruin.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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8
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EASTWARD.
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IT was July, as I have intimated, when the ship 'Hilda,' which carried Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp, left the shores of England; and, soon after having lost sight of land, both began to experience a little of that vague fear of 'the blue above and the blue below,' which, in the thirteenth century, made some of the boldest feudal warriors, when they embarked, invoke the protection of the saints in Paradise.
'On my faith, good Walter,' remarked Guy, with less than his wonted gaiety, for the ship was beginning to toss, and he was beginning to feel rather sea sick, 'I cannot but think that the man is a great fool, who, having wronged any of his neighbours, or having any mortal sin on his conscience, puts himself in such peril as this; for, when he goes to sleep at night, he knows not if in the morning he may not find himself under the waves.'
'May the saints preserve us from such a fate,' replied Walter, thoughtfully; 'yet I own I feel so uneasy that I can hardly believe myself a descendant of the kings of the north who made the ocean their home, and called the tempest their servant, and never felt so joyous as when they were treading the pine plank, and giving the reins to their great sea horses.'
'On my faith,' said Guy, who was every moment becoming more uncomfortable,'I cannot but marvel much at the eccentricity of their tastes, and could almost wish myself back to the castle of Wark.'
'Nevertheless,' replied Walter, 'we must bear in mind that, having taken the Cross and vowed to combat the Saracens, it beseems us not, as Christians and gentlemen, to look backward.'
At the time when this conversation took place, the sea was comparatively calm, and the weather most favourable; and the skipper, naturally overjoyed with his good fortune in both respects, predicted a speedy voyage. In this, however, he was in some measure disappointed. Many circumstances occurred to retard the progress of the Saxon Earl and his companions towards Cyprus; and, what with prolonged calms, and contrary winds, and foul weather, it was late in autumn ere they neared the island where the King of France and his chivalry had, for their misfortune, resolved on passing the winter.
So far all was well, and the Boy Crusaders, now recovered from their sickness, rejoiced in the anticipation of soon reaching Cyprus. But the dangers of the voyage were not yet over, and one evening, about vespers, while Walter and Guy were regaling their imaginations with the prospect of being speedily in the company of the warriors of France, the mariners found that they were unpleasantly close to a great mountain of Barbary. Not relishing their position--for they had the fear of the Saracens of Barbary before their eyes--the mariners pressed on, and during the night made all the sail they could, and flattered themselves that they had run at least fifty leagues. But what was their surprise when day broke, to find that they were still off the mountain which they fancied they must have left behind. Great, moreover, was their alarm as they thought of the piratical natives; and, albeit they laboured hard all that day and all that night to make sail, when the sun rose next morning--it was Saturday--the mountain, from which they were so anxious to escape, was still near at hand. All on board expressed their alarm on discovering that the mariners deemed their position perilous; and the Earl, on learning how matters stood, appeared on deck, and summoned the master of the ship.
'In wonder's name, skipper,' said he, sternly, 'how happens this?'
'In truth, my lord earl,' replied the skipper, much perplexed, 'I cannot tell how it happens; but this I know, that we all run great risk of our lives.'
'In what way?'
'From the Saracens of Barbary, who are cruel and savage, and who are as likely as not to come down in swarms and attack us.'
The idea of captivity and chains occurred to every one who listened, and even the Earl changed countenance. At that moment, however, one of the chaplains stepped forward. He was a discreet churchman, and his words were ever treated with high respect.
'My lord earl and gentlemen,' said the chaplain; 'I never remember any distress in our parish, either from too much abundance or from want of rain, or from any other plague, but that God delivered us from it, and caused everything to happen as well as could have been wished, when a procession had been made three times with devotion on a Saturday.'
'Wherefore,' suggested the Earl, 'you would have us do likewise, as deeming the ceremony likely to deliver us from our peril?'
'Even so,' continued the churchman. 'I recommend, noble Earl, that, as this day is Saturday, we instantly commence walking in procession round the masts of the ship.'
'By all means,' replied the Earl, 'let us forthwith walk in procession as you recommend. Worse than foolish would it be on our parts to neglect such a ceremony. A simple remedy, on my faith, for such an evil.'
Accordingly, the skipper issued orders through the ship; and all on board were assembled on deck, and, headed by the priests, solemnly walked in procession round the masts, singing as they walked; and, however it came to pass, the ceremony seemed to have the effect which the chaplain had prognosticated. From that moment everything went smoothly. Almost immediately afterwards they lost sight of the mountain, and cast all fear of the Saracens of Barbary to the winds; and ere long they had the gratification of hearing the cry of 'Land,' and of seeing before their eyes the far-famed island of Cyprus.
It was latest autumn, however; and Cyprus did not look by any means so bright and beautiful as the Boy Crusaders had, during the voyage, anticipated. Indeed, clouds rested over the range of mountains that intersects the island lengthways. The rain had fallen somewhat heavily, and the aspect of the place was so decidedly dismal and disheartening, that, as the two squires landed, their countenances expressed much disappointment.
'Now, by St. John of Beverley,' exclaimed Guy, giving expression to his feelings, 'I marvel much that this lovely queen, Venus, of whom minstrels have sung so much, should, when she doubtless had her free choice as to a residence, have so highly favoured this place.
'Tastes differ,' replied Walter, rather gloomily. 'Certainly, had I my choice of a residence, I should fix my abode elsewhere.'
'But what have we here?' cried Guy, as he pointed to countless casks of wine piled high, one on the other, and to huge heaps of wheat, barley, and other grains, which the purveyors of King Louis had some time before prepared for his grand enterprise. 'Beshrew me, if, at a distance, I did not imagine the casks of wine to be houses, and the heaps of corn mountains.'
'Anyhow,' observed Walter, 'the sight of the wine and the corn should give us comfort; for it is clear that the King of France, however saintly, does not forget that men have mouths, nor mean his army to die of hunger or thirst.'
'On my faith,' said Guy, 'I have a strong desire to catch a glance of this miracle of saintliness. I marvel if he rides about Cyprus on a Spanish steed, magnificently harnessed, as chronicles tell of Richard Coeur de Lion doing, dressed in a tunic of rose-coloured satin, and a mantle of striped and silver tissue, brocaded with half moons, and a scarlet bonnet brocaded with gold, and wearing a Damascus blade with a golden hilt in a silver sheath--oh, what a fine figure the English king must have cut!'
'However,' said Walter, 'I fancy King Louis is not quite so splendid in his appearance as Coeur de Lion was. But we shall see him ere long.'
'Ay,' cried Guy; 'we must have a peep at the royal saint. Meanwhile, good Walter, one thing is certain--that we are in Cyprus.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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9
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AN ADVENTURE.
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IT was not the good fortune of all the warriors who had taken the Cross to escape the perils of the deep, and reach Cyprus in safety.
About a month after Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec had reached Limisso, a tall ship bearing a Crusader of noble name, who had left Constantinople to combat the Saracens under the banner of St. Denis, was sailing gallantly towards Cyprus, when a violent storm arose, and threatened her with destruction. The wind blew fiercely; the sea ran mountains high; and, though the ship for a time struggled sturdily with the elements, she could not resist her fate. Her cordage creaked, and her timbers groaned dismally; and, as she was by turns borne aloft on the waves crested with foam and precipitated headlong into the gulphs that yawned between, great was the terror, loud the wailing, and frightful the turmoil. In vain the mariners exerted their strength and skill. No efforts on their part could enable the vessel to resist the fury of the tempest.
Every minute matters became more desperate. The sea, recently calm, seemed to boil from its very depths; and the ship, incessantly tossed to and fro by the roaring billows, appeared, every moment, on the point of being engulphed. The skipper was lost in consternation; the Crusaders gave way to despair; and with death staring them in the face they ceased to hope for safety, and, kneeling, confessed to each other, and prayed aloud that their sins might be forgiven. At length, in spite of the efforts made by the mariners to resist the winds and waves, the ship, driven on the rocks near the island, filled with water, went to pieces, leaving those on board to struggle as they best might to escape a watery grave. The struggle was vain. Many, indeed, caught hold of the vessel's timbers with a vague hope of reaching the shore; but, unable to contend with the elements, they, one after another, disappeared and sank to rise no more.
Now this terrible shipwreck was not without witnesses. On that part of the coast of Cyprus where it occurred was a rude hamlet chiefly tenanted by fishermen; and men, women, and children crowded the beach, uttering loud cries, and highly excited, but unable to render any assistance. It seemed that no boat could live in such a sea; and the fishermen could only gaze mournfully on the heartrending scene, as the waves sprang up and rapaciously claimed their prey.
It was while the sea, agitated by the gale, was still running high; while the waves were leaping, and tearing, and dashing against the rocks; and while flocks of sea birds wheeled and screamed over the troubled waters, that a knight and two squires, who, having been caught in the storm, while riding towards Limisso, reined up, and not without difficulty learned from the natives, whose language they scarcely comprehended, the nature and extent of the disaster. The knight was an English Crusader, named Bisset, who had taken service with King Louis; the squires were Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp. All three, as they became aware of what had happened, crossed themselves and breathed a prayer for the souls of those who had gone to their account.
'We may as well ride on,'said Guy Muschamp, who, like his companions, was very much affected; 'all of them have perished, and are now beyond the reach of human aid.'
'Not all of them,' exclaimed Walter Espec, suddenly, as he sprang from his horse, and, with out-stretched arm, pointed to a white object which was carried hither and thither by the waves.
'By the might of Henry, sir squire, you are right,' cried the English knight, highly excited; 'it is a woman, as I live, and she is clinging to one of the ship's timbers.'
'And she may yet be saved,' said Walter, calmly; 'and by the Holy Cross the attempt must be made, if we are to escape the reproach of inhumanity and cowardice.'
And now the men, women, and children on the beach became much excited, and shouted loudly. No one, however, volunteered to go to the rescue. In fact, the aspect of the sea was so menacing and terrible, that the boldest and hardiest of the seafaring men felt that an attempt could only end in the destruction of those making it, and shook their heads with a significance there was no misunderstanding.
'It seems,' said the knight, mournfully, 'that the business is desperate; and yet----' 'And yet,' said Walter, taking up the word as the knight hesitated and paused, 'it shall never be told that a woman perished before my eyes, and that I stood looking on, without making an effort to save her.'
'He is mad,' muttered the fishermen, as they first eyed the English squire, and then exchanged glances with each other, and shrugged their shoulders.
But Walter Espec did not ponder or pause. Throwing his bridle-rein to Guy Muschamp, whose countenance expressed grave alarm, he quickly divested himself of his mantle and the belt bearing his sword, committed himself to the protection of Holy Katherine, the patron saint of his house, plunged into the water, and next moment was battling manfully with the waves. But everything was against him, even the tide; and, in spite of his skill as a swimmer, his efforts were at first abortive. But it was not his nature to yield easily; and, as he put forth all his strength, and made a desperate struggle, the affair began to wear another face.
'Good Walter,' murmured Guy, who stood, pale as death, watching the swimmer. 'Brave Walter!'
'Now, may our lady, the Virgin, aid and prosper him,' exclaimed the knight. 'Never have I witnessed a bolder attempt.'
As the knight spoke, a loud cheer burst from the crowd; and then there was silence. Walter drew nearer and nearer to the woman, for whose life he was freely venturing his own. In another minute he clutched her with one hand, turned towards the shore, and, favoured by the tide, came sailing towards the spot which the crowd occupied.
A dozen of the men dashed knee-deep into the water to relieve Walter of his burden; and as they did so, a dozen of the women stretched out their hands, and received the still unconscious form of her who had been rescued; meanwhile the knight and Guy Muschamp caught hold of Walter, who, fatigued and overcome with his almost superhuman exertions, would otherwise have fallen to the ground. However they laid him down carefully to rest; and, while Guy stood watching over him, Bisset went to look to the safety of the damsel who had been rescued.
'Sir squire,' said he, with enthusiasm, as he returned, 'you have done as noble a deed as it has ever been my fate to witness, and the King of France shall hear of it, as I am a living man; and,' continued he, in a whisper, 'hearken! you may at the same time congratulate yourself on having had the good luck to save a woman well worth saving.'
'What mean you, sir knight,' asked Walter, faintly.
'Simply this--that she is young, fair to behold, and evidently of high lineage.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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10
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ON THE LADDER OF LIFE.
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FOUR days passed over, and Walter Espec, quite recovered from the effects of his struggle with the waves, and of the salt water he had involuntarily imbibed during his perilous adventure on the coast of Cyprus, was at Nicosia, and engaged in chivalrous exercises, in the courtyard of the house occupied by the Earl of March; when he was accosted by Bisset, the English knight, who had been a witness of his daring exploit, and requested to repair to the presence of the King of France.
Walter was somewhat taken by surprise and startled by the summons. Recovering his serenity, however, as well as he could, he intimated his readiness; and with the air befitting a Norman gentleman who had existed from childhood in the consciousness that his name was known to fame, and who did not forget that he had noble blood of Icinglas in his veins, he accompanied the knight to the palace in which the saint-king was lodged.
At that time, Louis, not much satisfied with himself for having consented to winter in Cyprus, though little dreaming of the terrible misfortunes that awaited his army in the land for which he was bound, was seated at table and endeavouring to forget his cares, while conversing familiarly with a young and noble-looking personage of great strength and stature, with a head of immense size, and a countenance beaming with sagacity. In truth this was a very remarkable personage. He was then known as John, Lord of Joinville, and seneschal of Champagne; and he has since been famous as the chronicler of the triumphs and disasters of the Crusade in which he acted a conspicuous part.
'Seneschal,' said Louis, addressing Joinville, 'I marvel much that you do not mix water with your wine.'
'In truth, sire,' replied Joinville, half jocularly, 'I fear so to do; for physicians have told me I have so large a head, and so cold a stomach, that water might prove most injurious.'
'Nevertheless,' said Louis, earnestly, 'be advised by me, and do not allow yourself to be deceived. If you do not drink water till you are in the decline of life, you will then increase any disorders you may have.'
'But, sire,' asked Joinville, innocently, 'why should I drink water then more than now?'
'Ah,' answered Louis, 'simply because if you take pure wine in your old age, you will be frequently intoxicated; and verily it is a beastly thing for an honourable man to make himself drunk.'
'I acknowledge that it is very wrong, sire,' said Joinville; 'but I am one of those who endeavour to practise moderation in the use of the wine-cup.'
'And pray, seneschal,' asked Louis, after a pause, 'may I ask if you ever wash the feet of the poor?'
'Oh, sire, no,' answered Joinville, not without evincing surprise. 'I hardly deem that it would become such a person as I am.'
'In truth, seneschal,' exclaimed Louis, 'this is very ill said. You ought not to think that unbecoming which He, who was their Lord and Master, did for our example when He washed the feet of His apostles. I doubt not you would very unwillingly perform what the King of England does; for on Holy Thursday he washes the feet of lepers.'
'Oh, sire,' cried Joinville, in a conclusive tone, 'never will I wash the feet of such fellows.'
'Now, seneschal,' resumed Louis, still more seriously, 'let me ask you another question. Whether would you be a leper, or have committed a deadly sin?'
'Sire,' answered Joinville, frankly, 'rather than be a leper, I would have committed thirty deadly sins.'
'How could you make such an answer?' said Louis, reproachfully.
'Sire,' exclaimed Joinville, with decision, 'if I were to answer again, I should repeat the same thing.'
'Nevertheless,' urged Louis, with earnestness, 'you deceive yourself on the subject; for no leprosy can be so awful as deadly sin, and the soul that is guilty of such is like the devil in hell.'
It was when the conversation between the King of France and the Lord of Joinville had reached this stage, that Walter Espec, guided by the English knight, made his appearance, not without exhibiting symptoms of agitation when he found himself face to face with the monarch, who, of all the princes of Christendom, enjoyed, at that period, the highest reputation in Europe and the East.
But the appearance and aspect of Louis were not such as to daunt or dismay.
Nothing could have been more plain and simple than the dress worn by the royal chief of the crusaders. Indeed it was plain and simple to affectation; and the coat of camlet, the surcoat of tyretaine, the mantle of black sandal, contrasted remarkably with the splendid garments of princes who were his contemporaries, especially Henry, King of England, who, like most of the Plantagenets, was given to magnificence of attire, and generally regarded as by far the greatest dandy in his dominions. Nor had Louis been endowed by nature with the qualities which please the eye and impress the imagination. His figure, it is true, was tall and well proportioned; but his face and features were not calculated to dazzle. When compared with men of such noble presence and regal air as our English Edwards and Henrys, he was decidedly plain. He had the peculiar face and slanting features which distinguished so many of the descendants of Hugh Capet, and that large long straight nose, which, instead of keeping the Greek facial line, inclined forward, and hung slightly over the short upper lip. Not even flattery could have described the saint-king as a model of manly beauty.
[Illustration: "Young gentleman," said King Louis, "it has come to my knowledge that you have performed an action noble in itself, and worthy of the praises of the valiant." --p. 64.]
Now it happened that Walter Espec had never before seen a king, and was prepared to behold something very grand, like Coeur de Lion, with his scarlet bonnet, his rose-coloured tunic, and his mantle of striped silver tissue, and his Damascus blade with a golden hilt in a silver sheath. Naturally, therefore, he was at the first glance somewhat disappointed with the appearance of the monarch in whose presence he stood. But as Louis turned upon him a countenance which, albeit not beautiful, denoted energy and decision of character, and expressed at once goodness and good-nature, and high moral and intellectual superiority, the youth, whose instincts were strong, felt that he was in the presence of a man who was worthy of reigning.
'Young gentleman,' said Louis, mildly, as Walter bent his knee, 'it has come to my knowledge that you have performed an action noble in itself, and worthy of the praises of the valiant.'
'Sire,' replied Walter, colouring, and speaking with less than his wonted confidence, 'I scarce know to what your highness is pleased to refer.'
'Ah,' said Louis, glancing towards the Lord of Joinville, 'I can hardly credit your words. But such modesty is becoming in youth. However, I mean that, four days since, as I learn, you saved a noble demoiselle from the sea, at the most manifest peril to your own life.'
Walter bowed in acknowledgement of the compliment, but did not speak.
'Not,' continued Louis hastily, 'not that you should therefore be vainglorious, or puffed up with vanity, or think more highly of yourself than you ought to think on account of your achievement, however honourable; for I trust you know and feel that, before our Maker, we are all but as potter's clay.'
'My lord,' replied Walter, pausing in some perplexity, 'I would fain hope my ideas on the subject will ever be such as befit a Christian and a gentleman.'
'Well, well,' said Louis, hastily, 'on that point I meant not to express a doubt, and,' added he, 'seeing that you give promise of being a preuhomme, I pray God, out of His goodness, that you may prove a preudhomme as well as a preuhomme.'
'Sire,' said Walter, looking puzzled, 'you must pardon me when I confess that I comprehend not clearly the distinction.'
'Ah,' replied Louis, smiling, and shaking his head gravely, 'the distinction is of much consequence; for know that by preuhomme I mean a man who is valiant and bold in person, whereas by preudhomme I signify one who is prudent, discreet, and who fears God, and has a good conscience.'
Walter bowed again; and, being at a loss for words to answer, took refuge in silence. In fact, he began to feel so awkward that he wished nothing so fervently as that the interview would come to an end; and Louis, after condescending to ask some more questions, and inculcate some more lessons, dismissed him with words of encouragement, and gifted him with an amulet in the form of a ring, which bore on it this inscription-- Who wears me shall perform exploits, And with great joy return.
As Walter left the king's presence to depart from the palace, he turned to the knight who had been his conductor.
'On my faith, sir knight,' said he laughing, but rather nervously, 'this reminds me more of the adventures which in childhood I have heard related by pilgrims and pedlars at the chimney-corner, than aught I ever expected to meet with in the real breathing busy world.'
'Indeed,' said Bisset, quietly; 'methinks there is nothing so very wondrous about the business. It only seems to me that you have been born with luck on your side--not my own case--and that you have, without hazarding more than you are likely to do in the first battle with the Saracens, gained the privilege of climbing some steps up the ladder that leads to fortune and fame.'
'And yet,' observed Walter, as he laughed and looked at the ring which Louis had bestowed on him, 'beshrew me if I have had the courage to ask either the rank or name of the demoiselle to whom I had the fortune to render the service that has made my existence known to this good and pious king.'
'By the might of Mary,' exclaimed the knight, 'there is no reason why you should remain in ignorance who the demoiselle is, or what is her name. She is kinswoman of John de Brienne, who, in his day, figured as King of Jerusalem, and kinswoman also of Baldwin de Courtenay, who now reigns at Constantinople as Emperor of the East; and her name is Adeline de Brienne.'
'Holy Katherine,' muttered Walter, again looking closely at the inscription on the ring, as if for evidence that the whole was not a dream, 'I begin to think that I must assuredly have been born with luck on my side, as you say; and, with such luck on my side, I need not even despair of finding the brother I have lost.'
'Credit me, at all events,' said Bisset, looking wise, 'when I tell you that you have got upon the ladder of life.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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11
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THE VOYAGE.
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IT was the Saturday before Pentecost, in the year 1249, when the fleet of King Louis and the armed pilgrims, consisting of no fewer than eighteen hundred vessels, great and small, issued gallantly from the port of Limisso, and steered towards Egypt.
At first nothing could have been more gay and pleasant than the voyage of the Crusaders. It seemed as if the whole sea, so far as the eye could reach, was covered with cloth and with banners of bright colours. Everything appeared promising. The voyage, however, was not destined to prove prosperous. Suddenly the wind, which had been favourable, changed, and blew violently from the coast of Egypt. Great confusion was the consequence; and, though the Genoese mariners exerted all their skill, the fleet was utterly dispersed. Indeed, when King Louis, having put back, reached Limisso, he found, to his horror, that not more than two-thirds of the armed pilgrims remained in his company. Concluding that his companions had been drowned, the saintly monarch was grieved beyond measure, and on the point of giving way to despair.
It happened, however, that while Louis was mourning over the mishap, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, arrived at Cyprus with the English Crusaders, and administered some degree of consolation. In truth, Longsword was just the man to explain all in the most satisfactory manner. Having been accustomed from his youth to cross the narrow seas, he felt none of that vague terror of the ocean which made the French knights, when they embarked, invoke the protection of the saints; and he expressed his opinion that, in all probability, the missing vessels were safe on the Syrian coast. But the indifference which the earl showed for dangers at which the French trembled had the effect of making him many enemies, and arousing the natural jealousies which afterwards proved so baneful to the expedition.
It ought to be borne in mind, that at the period of St. Louis's crusade there existed no love between the nobles of France and the nobles of England; and it appears that the French were in the habit of treating the English with some degree of scorn. Nor was it unnatural that such should have been the case; for, during half a century, in almost every struggle between the kingdoms, the French had been victorious. Philip Augustus, after holding his own against Richard Coeur de Lion, had succeeded in driving John from the continent; and Louis, when forced to take the field against Henry, had pursued his royal brother-in-law from the bridge of Taillebourg to the gates of Bordeaux. Remembering such triumphs, the French, who have in all ages been vain and boastful, were continually vaunting about their prowess, and repeating the story of some Englishman having cut off the tail of Thomas à Becket's horse, and of Englishmen having ever after that outrage been born with tails like horses.
Such being the state of affairs, the Earl of Salisbury did not inspire the French nobles with any particular affection for him and his countrymen who had arrived at Cyprus, when they heard him speaking lightly of the dangers of the sea. In fact, the French lords, who a few hours earlier had been sinking under sea-sickness, trembling at the sound of raging billows, and wishing themselves safely in their own castles, cursed 'Longsword,' as the worst of 'English tails.'
But the King of France did not share the malice of his countrymen; and, much comforted by the words of the English earl, he resolved on again tempting the sea. Accordingly, on Monday morning, he ordered the mariners to spread their sails to the wind. The weather proving favourable, the fleet made gallantly for the shores of Egypt; and on the morning of Thursday, about sunrise, the watch on deck of the vessel that led the van, shouted 'Land!'
'Surely, not yet,' exclaimed several voices; but the pilot to make certain ascended to the round-top of the vessel.
'Gentlemen,' cried the pilot, 'it is all right. We are before Damietta, so you have nothing to do but to recommend yourselves to God.'
'Hurrah!' shouted the mariners; and from ship to ship the tidings passed; and, as the words of the pilot flew from deck to deck, a cry of joy burst from thousands of lips. Great was the excitement that prevailed; and the chiefs of the expedition hastily arrayed themselves to go on board the king's ship and hold a council of war.
And now all eyes were turned towards the shore; and it seemed that the Crusaders were likely to encounter a desperate resistance in any attempt to land. A fleet and formidable engines of war defended the mouth of the Nile. A numerous army of horse and foot appeared on the beach, as if bent on contesting every inch of ground. At the head of this mighty host, wearing armour of burnished gold, figured the Emir Fakreddin, one of the foremost of Saracen warriors. From the midst trumpets and drums sounded a stern defiance to the armament of the Christians. But, undaunted by the aspect of affairs, the armed pilgrims steadily pursued their course; and ship after ship, moving calmly forward, anchored within a mile of the shore.
Meanwhile, the pilgrims, princes, and nobles, had reached the king's ship; and Louis, leaning on his sword, received them with satisfaction on his countenance.
'Gentlemen,' said he, 'our voyage has not been without its perils, but let us be thankful that we are at length face to face with the enemies of Christ.'
'Yes, sire,' said the chiefs, 'and it is therefore expedient to form some plan of action.'
'And, under the circumstances,' added several, 'it will be prudent to await our comrades who have been separated from us by the tempest.'
It soon appeared that among the chiefs there was a general wish to await the coming of their missing comrades; but the king was young, and the drums and horns of the Saracens had so chafed his pride that he would not hear of delay.
'We have not come hither,' said he, excitedly, 'to listen to the insults of our enemies; nor have we any port in which to shelter from the wind. A second tempest may disperse what remains of our fleet. To-day God offers us a victory; another day He may punish us for having neglected to conquer.'
'Sire, be it as you will,' replied the assembled chiefs, not caring to debate the point with their king.
And so, with much less deliberation than was necessary under the circumstances, and without duly considering the resources of the enemy whom they had to combat, King Louis and the chief Crusaders resolved to disembark on the morrow and give battle. Meantime a strict watch was maintained, and several swift vessels were despatched towards the mouth of the Nile to observe the motions of the Saracens.
It happened that the Saracens, in spite of their dauntless show, were by no means in the best mood to make an obstinate resistance, nor were they in any sanguine mood as to the result of their preparations. At such a crisis, the presence of the sultan was necessary to sustain their spirits, and stimulate their fanaticism.
Now at that time Melikul Salih was Sultan of Egypt; but he was not at Damietta, and his absence caused much uncertainty and dismay among the warriors assembled to defend his dominions. Melikul Salih was then at Cairo; and almost every man in Fakreddin's army knew that Melikul Salih was dying.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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12
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AT DAMIETTA.
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ABOUT a mile from the sea, on the northern bank of the second mouth of the Nile, stood the city of Damietta, with its mosques, and palaces, and towers, and warehouses, defended on the river side by a double rampart, and on the land side by a triple wall. Fair and enchanting to the eye was the locality in which it was situated; and as the Crusaders directed their gaze towards the groves of oranges and citrons, loaded with flowers and fruit, the woods of palms and sycamores, the thickets of jasmines and odoriferous shrubs, the vast plains, with pools and lakes well stocked with fish, the thousand canals intersecting the land, and crowned with papyrus and reeds, they, feeling the influence of a rich climate and a beautiful sky, could not find words sufficiently strong to express their admiration and delight.
'Now, good Walter,' said Guy Muschamp, as the brothers-in-arms, having ascended to the castle of the 'Hilda,' looked earnestly towards the shore, 'who can deny that such a land is worth fighting to conquer?'
'On my faith,' exclaimed Walter Espec, with enthusiasm, 'it is so pleasant to the eye, that I could almost persuade myself I am looking upon that terrestrial paradise in which the father and mother of mankind lived so happily before eating the fatal apple.'
No wonder, when such was the aspect of the country around Damietta, that the armed pilgrims were impatient to land.
And no time was lost; for, of all the armed pilgrims, King Louis was perhaps the most eager to encounter the enemies of his religion; and, soon after daybreak, on the morning of Friday, a signal was given for the fleet to weigh anchor and draw near to the shore.
Meanwhile the Saracens, under the Emir Fakreddin, were on the alert; and while a bell, that had remained in the great mosque of Damietta ever since John de Brienne seized the city in 1217, tolled loudly to warn the inhabitants of the danger, the Moslem warriors got under arms, and with cavalry and infantry occupied the whole of that part of the strand at which the Crusaders had resolved to disembark.
But the armed pilgrims were nothing daunted by the sight of the formidable preparations made to oppose their landing. Getting into barques which had been provided for the purpose, they prepared to fight their way ashore, in defiance of all dangers. Ranging themselves in two lines, with their lances in their hands, and their horses by their sides, the knights and nobles stood erect in their boats, while in front, and on the wings of the armament, were placed crossbowmen to harass and keep off the foe. Nor did Louis in that hour appear in any way unworthy to be the leader of brave men. Attended by his brothers and his knights, the King of France, arrayed in chain-mail, with his helmet on his brow, his shield on his neck, and his lance in his hand, figured prominently on the right of his array. By his side stood the cardinal legate; and in front of him was a boat in which the oriflamme, brought from the abbey of St. Denis, was proudly displayed.
It was an exciting occasion, and the hearts of the saint-king and his mailed comrades beat high as the barques moved onward to the Egyptian strand. The warriors, standing steady and silent as graven images, gazed earnestly on their multitudinous foes. For a time no attempt was made to oppose their progress. No sooner, however, were they within bowshot, than a shower of arrows and javelins rattled against the mail of the Crusaders. For a moment the ranks of the Christian warriors were shaken. But the crossbowmen, without the delay of an instant, retaliated with damaging effect; and while their shafts carried death into the Saracen host, the rowers redoubled their efforts to reach the shore, and bring Christian and Moslem hand to hand and foot to foot.
Again the silence was unbroken, save by the plashing of oars and the tumultuous shock of the barques pressing on in disorder. Ere long, however, there was a loud shout. The Lord of Joinville, closely followed by Baldwin de Rheims, had reached the shore; and they were setting their men in battle order, and covering themselves with their shields, and presenting the points of their lances to check the impetuosity of the enemy.
And now King Louis lost all patience; and deeming it no time to stand on his regal dignity, he leaped from his barge, and plunging up to his shoulders in the water, struggled towards the shore. Inspired by his example, the Crusaders threw themselves into the sea in a body, and pressed eagerly onward, with cries of 'Montjoie! St. Denis!' Again the silence was unbroken, save by the clash of mail, the noise of a dense crowd of armed men struggling with the waves, which were so elevated by the rush, that they fell and broke at the feet of the Saracens. In a few moments, however, the oriflamme was landed, and the saint-king, with the salt water running off his armour, was on his knees giving thanks to God for having preserved him and his companions from the perils of the deep.
'And now, gentlemen,' said Louis, as he rose and looked excitedly around him, 'let us forthwith charge our enemies in the name of God.'
'Be patient, sire,' replied the knights, interfering; 'it is better to await the landing of our comrades, that we may fight with advantage.'
Louis allowed himself to be persuaded; and it speedily appeared that caution was necessary; for, while the Crusaders were still struggling ashore in disorder, the Saracen cavalry came down upon them with an impetuosity which convinced the French that their adversaries were not to be despised. But Joinville and Baldwin of Rheims rendered their comrades good service. Hastily closing their ranks, they contrived not only to stay the rush, but to present so impenetrable a front, that the Saracens retired baffled to prepare for a fresh spring.
And again, with an enthusiastic energy which would have struck terror into antagonists less bold, the Saracens under Fakreddin charged down upon the Crusaders; and then began, all along the coast, a confused conflict which raged for hours--Christian and Moslem fighting hand to hand; while the two fleets engaged at the mouth of the Nile; and the Queen of France and the Countess of Anjou, and other ladies of high rank, who remained on board at a distance, awaited the issue of the contest with terrible anxiety, and, with priests around them, sang psalms and prayed fervently for the aid and protection of the God of battles. At length the conflict came to an end. Both on the water and on the land the Crusaders were victorious. The Saracen fleet, after getting decidedly the worst of the combat, escaped up the Nile; and the Saracen soldiers, beaten and dispersed, retired precipitately, and flying in confusion towards Damietta, abandoned their camp, and left several of their emirs dead on the field.
After witnessing the flight of the Saracens, Louis ordered his pavilion, which was of bright scarlet, to be pitched on the ground where he had conquered, and caused the clergy to sing the Te Deum. The Crusaders then set up their tents around that of the king, and passed the night in rejoicing over the victory they had won.
Next day the Crusaders had still stronger reason to congratulate themselves on the good fortune which had attended their arms. At daybreak, looking towards Damietta, they observed that columns of smoke were rising from the bosom of the city, and that the whole horizon was on fire. Without delay the King of France sent one of his knights and a body of cavalry to ascertain the cause; and, on reaching Damietta, the knight found the gates open, and learned on entering that the Saracens, after setting fire to that part called the Fonde, which was a row of shops and warehouses, had abandoned the city. Returning to the camp at a gallop, while his men remained to extinguish the fire, the knight announced the glad tidings to the saint-king.
'Sire,' said he, 'I bring good news; Damietta may be taken possession of without striking a blow.'
It was not very easy, even after hearing all, to credit this knight's report; and Louis was somewhat suspicious of a stratagem. However, he gave orders for marching towards the gates, and moving slowly, and with much caution, took possession. It was clear that the city had been abandoned by its defenders; and the king, the cardinal legate, and the clergy, having formed in procession, walked to the grand mosque, which was speedily converted into a Christian church, and sang psalms of praise and thanksgiving.
And now the Crusaders, with Damietta in their possession, were indeed elate, and rather inclined to magnify their successes; and the Queen of France and the Countess of Anjou, and the other ladies were brought ashore and lodged in the palaces of the city; and five hundred knights were charged with the duty of guarding the ramparts and towers; and the warriors of the Cross, encamping in the plain outside the gates, gave themselves up to dissipation, and deluded themselves with the idea that no enterprise was too difficult for them to accomplish.
'Now,' said the French, as they quaffed the red wine and rattled the dice-box, 'we have only to await the coming of our companions from the coast of Syria, and of the Count of Poictiers, with the _arrière ban_ of France, to undertake the conquest of Egypt.'
'Ay,' said others, 'and then let the Saracens and their sultan tremble.'
'Nothing,' echoed a third party, 'can withstand the warriors of France, when animated by the presence and example of their king.'
'I dislike all this boasting,' remarked Bisset, the English knight, to Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp, 'and, albeit I wish not to be thought a prophet of evil, I predict that it will end in mischief and disaster.'
'The saints forbid,' exclaimed Guy, gaily. 'For my part I dread nothing but the thought of being devoured by some of the crocodiles which, men say, are hatched in the waters of the Nile.'
'Nevertheless, mark my words,' said Bisset, more gravely than it was his wont to speak. 'At present the Frenchmen believe that, because they have plied their swords with some effect, that henceforth the Saracens will fly before their scabbards. Now they are all singing songs of triumph; ere long, if you and I live, we'll hear them singing to a very different tune.'
'Ah, sir knight,' said Walter, smiling, 'you say this from national jealousy, and because they call us "English tails."' ' "English tails!"' repeated Bisset, scornfully; 'I tell you, for your comfort, that when the hour of real danger arrives, we "English tails" are likely to find our way so deep into the Saracens' ranks, that not a bragging Frenchman will venture to come nigh the tails of our war-steeds.'
'By St. John of Beverley,' exclaimed Guy, laughing merrily, 'I cannot but think that the French and English Crusaders are already inclined to hate each other much more than either French or English hate the Saracens.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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13
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INCURSIONS.
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AND what were the sultan and the Saracens saying and doing while the Crusaders were establishing themselves at Damietta, and delighting their souls with visions of the conquest of Egypt?
In order to ascertain we must, in imagination, pass from the camp at Damietta to the palace of Cairo.
Melikul Salih was under the influence of a malady which his physicians pronounced to be incurable. On that point there was no mistake. Nevertheless, when pigeons carried to Cairo intelligence of the French king's victory and Fakreddin's defeat, the sultan roused himself to energy, and, after having sentenced fifty of the principal fugitives to execution, and taken Fakreddin severely to task for allowing his men to be vanquished, he caused himself to be removed to Mansourah. On reaching that city, Melikul Salih expended his remaining strength in rallying his army and strengthening the fortifications, and at the same time sent men to attack the Crusaders in their camp, to kill the Franks and cut off their heads,--promising a golden besant for every head brought to him.
The Arab cavalry of the Desert, and bands of horsemen belonging to that wild nation known as the Karismians, were employed on this service; and the Crusaders found themselves exposed to dangers against which it seemed impossible to guard. As wild animals prowl around the habitations of men on the watch for prey, so around the Christian camp prowled the Arabs and Karismians by day and by night. If even at noon a soldier wandered from the camp he was lost; and, in hours of darkness, sentinel after sentinel disappeared, and knight after knight was struck dead, as if by invisible hands. Every morning the Crusaders had to listen to some new tale of horror which made their blood run cold.
Ere the Arabs and Karismians had carried alarm into the camp of the Crusaders, many of the warriors of the West had begun to suffer from the climate of Egypt; and among others who were prostrated, was the old Earl of March. For a time he seemed likely to fall a victim to the malady; but the natural vigour of his constitution at length prevailed; and he had almost recovered, when a sudden inroad of the enemy exposed him to a new peril.
It was the afternoon of an August day; and Earl Patrick was arraying himself to ride into Damietta to attend a council of war. His white charger stood at the entrance of his pavilion, and there sat Walter Espec, looking somewhat gloomy, as many of the armed pilgrims were already doing, when Guy Muschamp approached with a countenance from which much of the habitual gaiety had vanished.
'What tidings?' asked Walter, eagerly.
'On my faith, good Walter,' answered Guy, shaking his head, 'I now know of a truth that this Damietta is not quite such a paradise as we fancied when gazing at it from the sea.'
'Serpents often lurk where flowers grow,' said Walter; 'but what new tidings of mishap have clouded your brow?'
'Nothing less,' replied Guy, 'than that these foul Saracens have been marvellously near us. No later than last night they entered the camp, surprised the watch of Lord Courtenay, and this morning his body was found on the table; his head was gone.'
'By the saints!' exclaimed Walter, 'such warfare, waged by invisible foes, may well daunt the bravest; and albeit I trust much from the protection of the Holy Katherine, yet I at times feel a vague dread of being the next victim.'
At that moment, and almost ere Walter had spoken, there arose loud and shrill cries, and then loud shouts of alarm.
'By good St. George!' shouted Hugh Bisset, rushing in, 'the Saracens are upon us; they are carrying off the Lord Perron, and his brother the Lord Duval. Arm, arm, brave squires. To the rescue! to the rescue!'
As Bisset gave the alarm, the Earl of March came forth. He was arrayed in chain-mail, and his helmet was on his brow.
'What, ho!' cried the earl, with lofty indignation; 'do the sons of darkness, who worship Mahound and Termagaunt, venture where my white lion ramps in his field of red? Out upon them! My axe and shield.'
Mounting his white steed, the earl caused one of the sides of his pavilion to be raised, and issuing forth, spurred against the foe with shouts of 'Let him who loves me follow me! Holy Cross! Holy Cross!' Nor did the aged warrior confine his hostility to words. Encountering the leader of the Saracens face to face, he bravely commenced the attack, and, after a brief conflict, with his heavy axe cleft the infidel from the crown almost to the chest.
'Pagan dog!' exclaimed the earl, as the Saracen fell lifeless to the ground; 'I devote thine impure soul to the powers of hell.'
But this achievement was the last which Earl Patrick was destined to perform. As he spurred forward to pursue his success, his steed became refractory, and he was flung violently to the ground. Ere his friends could come to his aid, the Saracens gave him several blows with their clubs, and he would have been killed on the spot but for the arrival of Bisset, with Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec, who, having mounted, now came with a rush to the rescue. A sharp conflict then took place. Guy, advancing as gaily as if he had been in the tiltyard at Wark, gallantly unhorsed one Saracen with the point of his lance. Walter, going more gravely into the combat, killed another with his falchion, at the use of which he was expert. After much trouble the French lords were rescued; and such of the Saracens as had not fallen, fled, and galloped along the banks of the Nile.
Meanwhile the squires and grooms of the Earl of March raised him from the ground; and, supported by them, he contrived to reach his tent; but he was much bruised, and so exhausted that he could not muster voice to speak. When, however, surgeons and physicians were called, they expressed themselves hopefully, and, not comprehending his dangerous state, bled him freely in the arm, and then administering a composing draught, left him under the charge of the squires.
As evening was falling, the Earl of Salisbury, after a long conference with King Louis, during which the unfortunate quarrel of the English and French Crusaders were discussed with a view of averting fatal consequences, left the royal quarters, in company with the Lord of Joinville.
'Seneschal,' said Salisbury, 'I would fain visit the Earl of March; and I pray you to bear me company.'
'Right willingly,' replied Joinville; 'for he is a man of great valour and renown, and wise in council; and it were ill for our expedition if his wounds should prove fatal.'
'And how fares the earl?' asked Salisbury, as they reached the tent over which ramped that ancient lion argent, so terrible on many a foughten field.
'My lord,' said Walter Espec, in a hushed voice, as they came to the entrance, 'the earl sleeps; so pray tread softly, lest you should disturb his repose.'
They did so, and entering, found the earl lying on his mantle of minever, which covered him.
'He sleeps soundly,' whispered Walter, looking up.
'Boy,' said Salisbury, solemnly, 'he sleeps the sleep that knows no waking.'
Walter stooped down, and perceived that Salisbury was right. The earl was dead.
'May paradise be open to him,' said Salisbury, crossing himself with pious fervour.
'Amen,' said Joinville. 'May his soul repose in holy flowers.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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14
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A RENEGADE.
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IT was a sad day for Guy Muschamp and Walter Espec, when they suddenly found themselves deprived of the protection of the aged war-chief under whose banner they had embarked for the East. However, they were not long without patrons. Guy attached himself to the Lord of Joinville, who was his mother's kinsman. Walter became squire to the Earl of Salisbury, and in that capacity joined the English Crusaders. In fact, Longsword, having heard from Joinville of Walter's adventure at Cyprus, took a decided liking to the young northern man, examined him as to his lineage, his parentage, and his education, heard the sad story of his brother's disappearance, and spoke words of such kind encouragement, that the tears started to Walter's eyes, and his brave heart was quite won.
One day, soon after entering Longsword's service, Walter was standing at the entrance of the tent occupied by the chief of the English Crusaders, now thinking somewhat sadly of the green fields and oak forests of his native land, now longing to behold some of the wonders of the Nile, when a man of forty or thereabouts, handsome and well-dressed as a Frank, presented himself, and bowed low.
'You are of the English nation?' said he, in French.
'Yes,' replied Walter, examining him with curiosity.
'And you serve the great English lord, who is called Longsword?'
'It is my pride to serve that famous warrior,' replied Walter, quietly.
'And I would fain speak with him if you could obtain me a hearing.'
Walter shook his head significantly.
'Before I can make such an attempt,' said he, 'I must learn who you are, and what you want.'
'My name is Beltran. I am a Frank by birth, but for nine years I have been an inhabitant of Egypt.'
'Nine years!' exclaimed Walter. 'By the Holy Cross, you must know the country well-nigh as intimately as the Egyptians themselves.'
'Much knowledge I do possess of the country, and of the wonders it contains.'
'Well,' said Walter, 'I will put your knowledge to the test. Whence comes this river, the Nile, of which so many stories are told? Is it true that it takes its rise in the terrestrial paradise?'
'In truth,' replied Beltran, 'I would I could answer your question to your satisfaction. It is the report of the country that the Nile does come from the terrestrial paradise. But nothing certain is known on the subject. I have heard that the sultan has attempted to learn whence it came, by sending experienced persons to follow the course of it.'
'Yes,' said Walter, eagerly.
'These persons, on their return,' continued Beltran, 'reported that they had followed the river till they came to a large mountain of perpendicular rocks, which it was impossible to climb, and over these rocks fell the water. And it seemed to them that on the top of this mountain were many trees; and they saw strange wild beasts, such as lions, elephants, and other sorts, which came to gaze at them. And, not daring to advance further, they returned to the sultan.'
'And this is all that is known?' said Walter.
'Yes,' replied Beltran. 'Where the Nile enters Egypt, it spreads in branches over the plain. One of them flows to Damietta; a second to Alexandria; a third to Tunis; and a fourth to Rexi. About St. Remy's Day it expands itself into seven branches, and thence flows over the plains. When the waters retire, the labourers appear and till the ground with ploughs without wheels, and then sow wheat, barley, rice, and cumin, which succeed so well that nowhere are finer crops.'
'And whence,' asked Walter, 'comes this yearly increase of water?'
'I cannot tell, except that it comes from God's mercy. Some say that this overflowing is caused by heavy rains in Abyssinia; but many Arabs believe that a drop of dew falls into the river, and causes the inundation; and some declare they have seen it fall, like a star. The night when it falls is called the "drop-night." But certain it is that, were it not to happen, Egypt, from the great heat, would produce nothing; for, being near the rising sun, it scarcely ever rains, save at very long intervals.'
'Of a truth,' observed Walter, 'all this sounds strange to English ears.'
'Where the river enters Egypt,' continued Beltran, 'there are expert persons, who may be called the fishermen of this stream, and who, in the evening, cast their nets into the water, and in the morning frequently find many spices in them, such as ginger, cinnamon, rhubarb, cloves, lignum-aloes, and other good things, which they sell by weight.'
'But how come the spices into the water?' enquired Walter.
'Well, it is the belief of the country that they come from the terrestrial paradise, and that the wind blows them down from these fine trees, as, in your forests, the wind blows down the old dry wood. But such is mere surmise, albeit widely credited.'
'And the water of the Nile is deemed sweet to the taste?' said Walter.
'None in the world more sweet. The Arabs hold that, if Mahomet had once tasted it, he would have prayed that he might live for ever, so as unceasingly to enjoy its sweetness.'
'And yet it seems so turbid to the eye?'
'True; but, when the natives drink of it, it is clear as crystal. Towards evening, crowds come down to get water, and especially women, who, on such occasions, are decorated with all the ornaments they possess. You must understand that they come in companies, because it is not deemed decorous for a woman to go alone. And marvellous it is to see how they balance the water-pots on their head, and walk gracefully up steep banks which even you--agile as you may be--might have some difficulty in clambering up without any burden. Then they put into their vessels almonds or beans, which they shake well; and on the morrow the water is wondrous clear, and more refreshing than the daintiest wine.'
'On my faith!' said Walter, 'all this is so curious that, were it a time of truce, I should be tempted to adventure up this river and behold some of the strange things of which you tell. But here comes my lord.' And, as he spoke, the Earl of Salisbury rode up, and, while Walter held the stirrup, dismounted.
Immediately the stranger stepped forward, and, humbling himself, with respect offered Salisbury some lard in pots, and a variety of sweet-smelling flowers.
'I bring them to you, noble earl,' said the man, in French, 'because you are cousin of Prince Richard, who is called Earl of Cornwall, and because you are nephew of the Crusader whose memory is held in most respect and dread by the Saracens.'
'Of whom speak you?' asked Salisbury, a little surprised.
'I speak of King Richard of England,' was the reply; 'for he performed such deeds when he was in the Holy Land that the Saracens, when their horses are frightened at a bush or a shadow, cry out, "What! dost think King Richard is there?" In like manner, when their children cry, their mothers say to them, "Hush, hush! or I will bring King Richard of England to you."'
'On my faith!' said the earl, looking more and more surprised, 'I cannot comprehend you; for, albeit speaking French, and wearing the dress of a Frank, you seem from your words to be an inhabitant of this country.'
'It is true,' replied the man, slowly. 'You must know that I am a Christian renegade.'
'A Christian renegade!' exclaimed Salisbury, with pious horror. And then asked, 'But who are you, and why became you a renegade?'
'Well, it came to pass in this wise,' answered the man, frankly. 'I was born in Poictiers, whence I followed Richard, Earl of Cornwall, to the East, and found my way to Egypt, where I have acquired some wealth.'
'But,' demanded the earl, indignantly, 'know you not that if you were to die while leading your present life, you would descend straight to hell, and be for ever damned?'
'In truth,' replied the man, 'I know full well that there is not a better religion than that of the Christians. But what can I do? Suppose I returned to it and had to go back to France, I should assuredly suffer great poverty, and be continually reproached all my days, and be called "Renegado! renegado!"'
'Even with that prospect you ought not to hesitate,' said the earl; 'for surely it would be much better to suffer the scorn of the world than await your sentence in the day of judgment, when your evil deeds will be made manifest, and damnation will follow.'
'Nevertheless,' protested the renegade, 'I had rather live at my ease, as I am, like a rich man, than become an object of contempt.'
'I cannot brook your presence,' said the earl, growing very indignant: 'therefore begone; I can have no more to say to you.'
'Be not over-hasty,' said the renegade; 'for be it known to you, noble Earl, that I have that to tell which it will profit you much to know.'
'Speak, then,' said the earl, hesitating, 'but be brief; for my patience is not so long as was my father's sword.'
'It is of a rich caravan I would speak,' said the renegade, with a glance and a gesture of peculiar significance.
'Ah!' exclaimed the earl, pricking up his ears, and listening with evident interest.
'It is on its way to Alexandria, and will pass within six leagues of Damietta within four days,' said the renegade. 'And whoever can capture that caravan may gain an immense booty.'
'And how does this concern me?' asked the earl.
'My lord,' replied the renegade, 'I see not wherefore you should not seize the prize as well as another.'
'But how am I to trust your report? How am I to know that your intent is not to betray me?'
'My lord,' answered the renegade, 'I am in your power. I will answer for the truth of my story with my head; and, I promise you, I am as yet neither so old nor so weary of life as to hazard it needlessly.'
'One question further,' said the earl, who was by this time much excited with the prospect of a rich booty. 'How am I, being in a strange country, to find this caravan of which you speak?'
'I myself will be your guide,' replied the renegade.
'And wherefore do you hazard so much to put me in possession of this prize, when, by doing so, you expose yourself to the enmity of the Egyptians, among whom you have cast your lot?'
'Well, my lord,' said the renegade, after a pause, 'I will be frank. I expect my share of the spoil; and, besides, I see very clearly that this army of pilgrims is likely to conquer Egypt, in spite of all the resistance sultans and emirs may make; and, at such a time, I would fain have some powerful lord among the conquerors to befriend me.'
'Ha!' exclaimed Longsword, smiling grimly,'I am now convinced.'
'Of what, noble earl?'
'Either that I must have the caravan or your head.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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15
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CAPTURE OF A CARAVAN.
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WHILE King Louis lay at Damietta, awaiting the arrival of Crusaders from France and Syria, ere venturing to march into Egypt, the utmost disorder began to prevail in the camp. The armed pilgrims, left to inactivity in a delightful climate, under a bright sky, and surrounded by beautiful scenery, appeared once more to forget the oaths they had taken, and indulged in still worse riot and debauchery than when they wintered in Cyprus. Gambling was their daily occupation; and the rattle of the dice-box was constantly heard through the camp. And men with the Cross of Christ upon their shoulders had the name of the devil continually on their tongues. Nor was this the worst. Vice reigned all around in its grossest form; and the saint-king complained mournfully to the Lord of Joinville, that, within a stone's-throw of his own pavilion, houses of infamous repute were kept by his personal attendants.
At the same time, the jealousy between the French and English grew more and more intense, and threatened disastrous consequences. In vain did Louis exert his influence to restrain the insolence of his countrymen. The English were constantly reminded of their inferiority as a nation, and exposed to such insults as it was difficult to brook. Bitter taunts and insinuations of cowardice were unhesitatingly used to mortify the island warriors; and men who had disobeyed their king's mandate, and forfeited lands and living to combat the Saracens, were, day by day, driven nearer the conclusion that they would ere long be under the necessity of drawing their swords against their fellow-soldiers of the Cross.
Of all the French Crusaders, however, none were so foolishly insolent as Robert, Count of Artois, brother of King Louis. From a boy the French prince had been remarkable for the ferocity of his temper, and had early signalised himself by throwing a cheese at the face of his mother's chivalrous admirer, Thibault of Champagne. For some reason or other, the Count of Artois conceived a strong aversion to the Earl of Salisbury, and treated Longsword with the utmost insolence. And, though the Earl only retaliated by glances of cold contempt, it was known that his patience was wearing away, and it was feared that there would yet be bloodshed.
'By my father's sword!' said he, speaking partly to himself, partly to Walter Espec, one day after returning to his tent, 'I fear me that my spirit will not much longer brook the reproaches of that vain prince. Even this day, as he spoke, my hand stole to the hilt of my sword; and I panted to defy him to mortal combat on the spot.'
'My lord,' replied Walter, gravely and cautiously, 'I perceived that, albeit striving to be calm, you felt your ancestral blood boiling in your veins. And, in truth, I marvel not that such should have been the case; and yet---- 'And yet----Well, speak freely. I listen.'
'Well, my lord,' continued Walter, 'I was about to say that it seemed to me the part of a wise man, and one so renowned in arms, not to deign to answer a fool according to his folly.'
'Doubtless you are right,' replied the earl. 'And sinful, I feel, and calculated to provoke God's vengeance, would it be to draw the sword against one marked with the Cross, and engaged, like ourselves, in this holy war. Nevertheless, my patience may come to an end, as the patience of better men has done in such cases. However, a truce to such talk for the present; and see that, at daybreak, this renegade is ready to guide us on our expedition after the caravan; for I am weary of inactivity, and eager for change of scene.'
Accordingly, preparations for the expedition were made; and, next morning, Salisbury and his knights dashed away from Damietta to intercept the caravan that was reported to be on its way to Alexandria. For a time they waited patiently at a place where it was expected to pass. But this mode of spending time was not much to the taste of men whose spirits were raised by the novelty of everything around. Panting for action, Longsword left Walter Espec with a band of horse and Beltran the renegade to keep watch, and, at the head of his knights, went off in quest of adventure.
[Illustration: "I cannot but think," said Walter, "our post is one of danger, if the guards of this caravan are so numerous as reported. Nevertheless, it shall never be told that, for fear of odds, I retreated from a post which I had been entrusted to maintain." --p. 99.]
Hours passed; evening fell and deepened into night; and still neither the caravan nor the warriors who had determined to capture it made their appearance; and Walter and the renegade, for different reasons, began to entertain considerable alarm. As morning approached, however, one point was explained. In fact, a spy employed by Beltran reached the rendezvous, with intelligence that the Earl's intention to attack the caravan having been suspected, had caused the delay; but that, being aware that he was out of the way, its guards were preparing to hasten forward at dawn of day, confidently hoping to pass without being assailed, or to beat down any opposition that might be offered to its progress.
'On my faith,' said Walter, as he learned how matters were, 'I cannot but think our post is one of danger, if the guards of this caravan are so numerous as reported. Nevertheless, it shall never be told that, for fear of odds, I retreated from a post which I had been entrusted to maintain.' And he proceeded to place his men in such a position that they might elude the observation of the Saracens till close at hand, and then rush out and take the guards of the caravan by surprise.
Meanwhile, day was breaking; and, in the distance, Walter and his companions could descry the caravan, apparently guarded by a strong force: and gradually the white turbans and green caftans and long spears became more and more distinct. It was clear that, in the event of Salisbury not returning in time, Walter would have to fight against great odds; and the return of the earl in time to aid him now appeared so improbable that the squire ceased even to hope for his banners, and resolved to take what fortune might be sent him. Suddenly, however, a sound--a whisper on the breeze, and the heavy tread of horses--reached his ears; and, gazing round, he descried a body of horsemen approaching in the opposite direction from which the caravan came.
'Now, may the saints be praised, and may we be for ever grateful! exclaimed Walter, with a joyful heart, as he closely examined the banner that approached; 'for here come my Lord of Salisbury and his men of might.'
In a few minutes the Earl reached the spot, and, rapidly comprehending the situation of affairs, prepared for action. But there was hardly occasion to strike a blow. No sooner did the English move towards the caravan, and no sooner had the Saracens an opportunity of judging what manner of men their assailants were, than they halted in surprise, and gave way to terror; and when the Earl, on his bay charger, spurred forward, shouting his battle-cry, they only waited long enough to discharge a shower of arrows, and then fled like hares before the hounds. Routed in every direction, they left the caravan to its fate; and the English, pausing from the fray, found themselves in possession of oxen, buffaloes, camels, mules, and asses, laden with gold and silver, and silks and paintings.
'And now for Damietta!' said Longsword; 'for this is in truth a rich prize; and let us not risk the loss of it by loitering on the way.'
And without waste of time--for a rescue was not impossible--they secured their booty, and marched with what speed they could towards Damietta.
'Sir squire,' said Lord Robert de Vere, riding up to Walter Espec, whose conduct Longsword had commended, 'your position in the earl's absence was not quite so pleasant as a bed of roses.'
'In truth, my lord,' replied Walter, thoughtfully, 'now that the danger is over, I cannot but deem that you came just in time to save us from death or captivity.'
'And you marvelled that we tarried so long?'
'Much,' replied Walter; 'and had given up all hope of your return. However,' added he, 'I perceive that your time was by no means wasted.'
'You speak truly,' said De Vere. 'Never were men more successful in an adventure. By accident, we found ourselves hard by the castle of some wealthy Saracen, and determined to seize it; so, overcoming all resistance, we took it by storm, and found therein much booty, and a bevy of Saracen ladies; and, having given them to understand that they were captives of our swords and lances, we are carrying them to Damietta.'
'On my faith!' said Walter, laughing, 'Fortune seems to bestow her favours liberally on the pilgrims from England. No saying what great exploits my Lord of Salisbury and his knights may yet perform! One day we seize a castle and a caravan; another day it may be a kingdom.'
'And yet,' observed De Vere, the tone of his voice suddenly changing as he spoke, 'I am seldom in solitude without experiencing a vague feeling that calamity is impending.'
Now this adventure, successful as it appeared, involved the English Crusaders in serious troubles. When Salisbury, on his bay charger, rode into Damietta, with the captive Saracen ladies and the captured caravan, the French were moved with envy, and did not fail to express their sentiments in strong language. Perhaps the English did not bear their good fortune so meekly as they might have done. In any case, the French grew more and more exasperated; and at length the quarrel reached such a stage that the French, availing themselves of superior numbers, had recourse to violence, and forcibly carried off part of the booty which, at great peril and with some labour, Longsword and his men had won.
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{
"id": "26671"
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16
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A COUNCIL OF WAR.
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ON the morning after the return of the Earl of Salisbury to Damietta, and the violent proceedings of the French Crusaders against the English companions of their expedition, King Louis summoned a council of war to deliberate on the measures most likely to lead to the conquest of Egypt--the grand object of the saintly monarch's ambition.
By this time arrivals from various quarters had swelled the army that, under the banner of St. Denis, lay encamped at Damietta. Thither, under the grand masters of their orders, had come the Templars and the Hospitallers, whose discipline and knowledge of the East rendered them such potent allies. Thither had come the Duke of Burgundy, who had passed the winter in the Morea; and the Prince of Achaia, who forgot the perils surrounding the Latin empire of Constantinople, in his eagerness to combat the Moslem on the banks of the Nile; thither, recovered from their fright, had come the Crusaders whose vessels the storm had driven on the Syrian coast; and thither, with the _arrière ban_ of France, Alphonse, Count of Poictiers--'one of that princely quaternion of brothers which came hither at this voyage, and exceeded each other in some quality--Louis the holiest, Alphonse the subtlest, Charles the stoutest, and Robert the proudest.' No fewer than sixty thousand men--twenty thousand of whom were cavalry---were now encamped around the oriflamme; and with such an army, led by such chiefs, the saint-king would have been more than mortal if he had not flattered himself with the hope of accomplishing something great, to be recorded by chroniclers and celebrated by minstrels.
And the princes and nobles assembled to hold a council of war; and Louis, with his crown on his brow, took his place to preside, with that serene dignity which distinguished him. But, ere the proceedings began, the Earl of Salisbury rose, and intimated his desire to address the king on a subject of great importance. Louis immediately signified consent; and the earl, raising his hand to ensure silence, proceeded with a calm but resolute air:-- 'Sire,' said he, 'I crave your pardon, and that of the princes and noble warriors here assembled, for trespassing upon their time. But I have that to state which demands your attention and interference, inasmuch as it nearly concerns the safety and welfare and honour of the army of pilgrims, of which you are the recognised chief. Sire,' continued the earl, 'however others may plead ignorance of the circumstances, you, at least, are fully informed and well aware that, in taking the Cross, and coming from a distant land to aid you in the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, I made sacrifices of no ordinary kind. My doing so exposed me to the wrath of King Henry, my kinsman and liege lord, who took from me my earldom and all my substance. This, however, he did judicially, not in his anger, or any violence of self-will; and I do not blame him. But I came hither with my countrymen, and we have fought as faithfully for God's cause as any man in your army. Nevertheless we have been exposed to insults and injuries which brave men cannot long tolerate. The chief offender is your brother, the Count of Artois. I lay my complaint before you, and I ask you to judge between us. I promise to abide by your decision, and, if I am found to be in the wrong, to render every satisfaction for my fault. So help me God, and good St. George!'
Louis listened with attention to the earl's speech. Indeed, the grandeur of Longsword's aspect, and his eloquence, so frank and so manly, produced a strong impression both on the king and the assemblage, and many of the French, notwithstanding their prejudices, murmured approbation.
'This English earl,' said they, 'speaks words of truth and soberness, and he asks nothing more than the justice that ought not to be denied to the meanest man in the army of pilgrims.'
Louis, however, paused, and appeared to be in extreme perplexity.
'William Longsword,' he said, at length, 'you have spoken boldly; and I do not deny that you have spoken the truth. The Lord, who is ignorant of nothing, is aware of the injuries you have suffered. But what can I do? You know how serious an affair it would be for me to offend any of my nobles in the position in which I now am, and it therefore becomes you to exercise the patience becoming a soldier of the Cross.'
And now the Count of Artois started up, his face flushed and his limbs trembling with rage: 'King,' exclaimed he, in accents of menace, 'what mean you by the words you have spoken? Do you defend this Englishman and take part with him against Frenchmen, who are of your own country and kindred?'
The countenance of Louis expressed more annoyance than he was in the habit of exhibiting.
'Now, Longsword,' said he, turning with an imploring look to the earl, 'you see the position of affairs, and how easily a quarrel might arise; and God forbid it should occur in an army of Christians. At such a crisis it is necessary to endure much for the sake of Christendom.'
'Sire,' exclaimed Longsword, giving way to his indignation, 'if this is the only answer you can give to my complaint, I advise you to call yourself no longer a king; since you have no longer the privilege of being obeyed, or of administering justice, or punishing offenders.' And rising with a dignity which awed most of those present, he left the council.
'Frenchmen,' said Louis, reproachfully, 'why do you persecute this man? What madness excites you?'
'I do it,' cried the Count of Artois, 'because I dislike the tailed English, and because I think the army of Crusaders would be well purged of them.'
But none present ventured to give the count the support he seemed to expect; and the wise and prudent bent their brows, and intimated their disapprobation.
'The matter is too serious to be lightly spoken of,' said they, significantly; 'and this dispute is a sad presage of future events; and well will it be if the anger of the Most High is not provoked by such offences.'
'And now,' said Louis, anxious to drop the subject, 'let us to the business on which we assembled to deliberate. Let us consult on the line of march, and on the measures to be taken for completing the conquest of Egypt.'
'Sire,' said John de Valery, a baron, whose probity and courage were the admiration of the army, 'it seems to me that the best and safest policy is to undertake the siege of Alexandria. That city has a commodious port, where the fleet could find shelter, and where munitions and provisions could be procured with facility. My voice, therefore, is for marching to Alexandria.'
Many of those whose experience in war was greatest--among whom were the Master of the Temple and the Master of the Hospital---echoed John de Valery's opinion.
'For my part,' said the Count of Artois, with his characteristic rashness, 'I dislike timid counsels. Why not at once attack Cairo, which is the capital of Egypt? When you wish to kill the serpent,' added he, 'you ought always to endeavour to crush his head. Then, I say, let us on to Cairo.'
A warm and somewhat angry discussion ensued; and Louis, having given his opinion in favour of marching to Cairo, the project was adopted: and it was resolved to leave Queen Margaret, with the Countesses of Artois, Poictiers, and Anjou, at Damietta, to send the fleet with provisions and engines of war up the Nile, and then to march with banners displayed along the banks of the river.
'Gentlemen,' said Louis, as he dismissed the council, 'I feel assured that we shall have no reason to repent adopting the bolder of the projects discussed this day; for, with an army of sixty thousand men, and the blessing of God on our endeavours, I see no reason to despair of accomplishing something great against the enemies of Christ.'
'Sire,' replied John de Valery, 'may God grant that your hopes be realised.'
And the nobles and princes separated to make the necessary preparations for marching to Cairo.
Little did they foresee the terrible circumstances under which many of them were to reach that city.
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{
"id": "26671"
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17
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FACE TO FACE.
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WHILE the Crusaders were preparing to leave Damietta, march up the Nile, and attack Cairo, Melikul Salih, after struggling desperately with the great destroyer, yielded to his fate, and breathed his last at Mansourah. The death of the sultan was regarded by the emirs as most untimely; for his son, Touran Chah, was then in Mesopotamia, and they were apprehensive of the most serious troubles. At this crisis, however, a woman, whose great ability enabled her to comprehend the emergency and to deal with it, suggested measures for averting the ruin with which the empire of Egypt was menaced.
Her name was Chegger Eddour, and she is said to have been an Armenian. She had originally been brought to Cairo as merchandise, and purchased by Melikul Salih as a slave. But her wit and beauty won the sultan's heart, and he became so enamoured that he elevated her to the position of favourite sultana, and carried her about with him wherever he went. One son whom she had by the sultan died young. Nevertheless her influence daily increased; and the Arabian historians, while eloquent in praise of her courage, agree in saying, that 'no woman surpassed her in beauty, and no man excelled her in genius.'
No sooner did Melikul Salih depart this life, than Chegger Eddour assembled the principal emirs at Mansourah, and made them acknowledge Touran Chah as sultan. Moreover, she impressed upon them the necessity of concealing the death of her husband till the arrival of his successor. The policy she recommended was adopted. Orders were still issued in Melikul Salih's name; the Mamelukes still guarded the gates of the palace as if he had been living; and prayers for his recovery were still offered up in the mosques, where the Moslems worshipped. All these precautions, which were the work of the sultana, were skilfully taken, and for a time the Saracens hoped that Melikul Salih might yet recover from his malady, and save them from the foe by whom they were threatened.
Ere long, however, suspicion was aroused, and it became more and more difficult to conceal the truth. Of itself this was sufficient to create consternation; but, at the same time, rumour brought to Mansourah intelligence that the French, having left Damietta, and marched in hostile array along the banks of the Nile, had reached Pharescour; and the approach of the Crusaders converted the consternation into panic, which rapidly extended its influence to Cairo. Every cheek grew pale; and the Egyptians exhibited such anxiety and terror as had never before been felt in their cities.
At this crisis, Fakreddin, to whom the sultana had entrusted the command of the Egyptian army, took measures to reanimate his countrymen with courage and confidence, and called upon them to hazard their lives freely for their religion.
'In the name of God, and Mahomet his prophet,' said the emir, 'hasten, great and small--the cause of God has need of your arms and of your wealth; the Franks--Heaven curse them! --are arrived in our country, with their standards and their swords. They wish to obtain possession of our cities, and to ravage our provinces. What Mussulman can refuse to march against them, and avenge the glory of Islamism?'
But, at Cairo and Mansourah, the Egyptians only answered with sighs and groans; and, at first, Fakreddin's appeal failed to produce the effect he intended. The emir, however, was not dismayed. Indeed, he showed a courage worthy of the fame he had won by his military exploits, and gradually rallied the more courageous of his countrymen around him. Marching from Mansourah, he encamped at Djedilé, on the side of the canal known as the Achmoun, which has a deep bed and steep banks; and halted with the Nile on his left and the city in his rear.
'Here,' said he, addressing his men, 'I await the invaders. Be brave; we will yet avenge Islamism; and on Sebastian's-day I will dine in the scarlet tent of the French king.'
Meanwhile, the Crusaders continued their march, and they soon approached Mansourah. At this point, however, their progress was arrested by two obstacles--the canal of Achmoun, and the army of Fakreddin.
'Who is the leader of that army?' asked King Louis, as he looked earnestly across the canal to where the Saracens were encamped.
'Sire,' answered one of his knights, 'it is Fakreddin, the emir, who fled from Damietta; but who, nevertheless, as I learn, does not hesitate to boast that it is his intention to dine in your red tent on St. Sebastian's-day.'
'Does the emir intend to dine in my tent on St. Sebastian's-day?' said Louis, mildly; 'however, I will take good care to prevent him.'
'In truth, sire,' said the knight, smiling, 'I hold that you are much more likely to dine in the sultan's palace.'
'Be that as it may,' replied the king, 'one thing is certain. We and our foes are now face to face.'
And so they were. Face to face, separated only by the canal Achmoun, Christian and Moslem, headed by the King of France and the Emir Fakreddin, lay encamped and awaiting a favourable opportunity to fight, and to conquer or die for their countries and religions.
And it speedily appeared that face to face they were for some time likely to remain.
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{
"id": "26671"
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18
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DELAY AND DANGER.
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IT was January 1250, and King Louis, at the head of the Crusaders, was still on the banks of the Achmoun. But it was not from reluctance to prosecute their enterprise that the armed pilgrims submitted to delay. The aspect of the country through which they had passed on their way from Damietta had not been such as to diminish their ambition to be conquerors. It cannot be doubted that the fertility of the land of the Pharaohs must have made them more and more eager to become its masters.
In truth, there cannot be a more delightful sight than Egypt at either of two seasons of the year. Ascend some mountain in the month of July or August, when the Nile has risen, and you behold a vast sea, in which appear numerous towns and villages, with causeways leading from place to place, the whole interspersed with groves and fruit-trees, of which the tops are only visible, and bounded by woods and mountains. But it is the peculiarity of the Nile, unlike other rivers, which, in overflowing lands, wash away and exhaust their vivific moisture, that its waters serve to fatten and enrich the soil. Accordingly, ascend the same mountain in January or February, when the waters have subsided and the husbandman has done his work, and the country is like one beautiful meadow, dotted with flocks and herds, covered with crops of corn, enamelled with flowers, and perfumed with the blossoms of oranges and lemons.
Nor, considering the marvellous history of Egypt, could the imaginations of the Crusaders be otherwise than fascinated by the prospect of looking with their own eyes on its cities, its pyramids, its obelisks, its mummy pits, and all the relics of its ancient and mysterious civilisation. Persians, Macedonians, Romans, and Saracens, had come hither before them as conquerors. But it may be doubted whether the warriors of Cambyses, or Alexander, or the Cæsars, or Omar, felt a more thorough confidence in their own prowess and destiny, than did the warriors who marched from Damietta under the banner of St. Denis.
It was certainly mortifying to men in so elate a mood to have their progress arrested by a canal; and, in fact, the French warriors seem to have been startled out of their senses by its steep banks and deep bed. At all events, they, instead of looking for a ford, which was certainly the most natural way of getting over their difficulty, commenced the construction of a causeway.
Now, Fakreddin no sooner observed that the Crusaders were at work, than he perceived his advantage, and vowed that the causeway should never be completed; and, while workmen, protected by machines of war and wooden castles, were occupied with its construction, the Saracens spared no pains to retard the operations. As fast as the Crusaders heaped up the sand and stones, the Saracens dug away the earth in front, thus removing the opposite bank to a greater distance; and, moreover, they incessantly showered arrows and javelins at the workmen. Every day brought fresh annoyances; and every day the Saracens became more audacious in their attacks. Every night brought fresh surprises; and, in the conflicts which took place, the Crusaders had not always the best of the struggle.
'A large body of Turks,' says Joinville, 'made an attack on the Count of Poictiers and me. But be assured they were very well received. It was well for them that they found their way back as they came; but they left behind them great numbers of slain.'
'One night the Turks brought an engine, called by them _la perriere_, a terrible engine to do mischief, and placed it opposite the chas-chateils, which Sir Walter Curel and I were guarding. From this engine they flung such quantities of Greek fire, that it was the most horrible sight I ever witnessed. When my companion, the good Sir Walter, saw this shower of fire, he cried out, "Gentlemen, we are all lost without remedy; for should they set fire to our chas-chateils we must be burnt, and if we quit our post we are for ever dishonoured; from which, therefore, I conclude that no one can possibly save us from this peril but God, our benignant creator. I therefore advise all of you, whenever they throw any of this Greek fire, to cast yourselves on your hands and knees and cry for mercy to our Lord, in whom alone resides all power."
'As soon, therefore, as the Turks threw their fires, we flung ourselves on our hands and knees as the wise man had advised; and, this time, they fell between our two cats, into a hole in front, which our people had made to extinguish them; and they were instantly put out by a man appointed for that purpose.
'Each time that our good king, St. Louis, heard them make these discharges of fire, he cast himself on the ground, and with extended arms, and eyes turned to the heavens, cried with a loud voice to our Lord, and shedding heavy tears, said--"Good Lord God, preserve thou me, and all thy people:" and, believe me, his sincere prayers were of great service to us. Every time the fire fell near us he sent one of his knights to know how we were, and if the fire had hurt us. One of the discharges from the Turks fell beside a chas-chateil, guarded by the men of the Lord of Courtenay, struck the bank of the river in front and ran on the ground toward them, burning with flames. One of the knights of his guard instantly came to me, crying out, "Help us, my lord, or we are burnt; for there is a long train of Greek fire, which the Saracens have discharged, that is running straight for our castle."
'We immediately hastened thither, and good need was there, for as the knight had said, so it was. We extinguished the fire with much labour and difficulty; for the Saracens, in the meantime, kept up so brisk a shooting from the opposite bank, that we were covered with arrows and bolts.'
All this time Fakreddin was diligent in procuring what intelligence he could as to the position and plans of the Crusaders. This, however, was not an easy business. Indeed, no intelligence on such subjects could be obtained, save from captives, and the emir, therefore, offered a high reward for every Frank brought to his tent. But the Crusaders, taught by experience, had become marvellously vigilant, and showed a decided aversion to be captured. A Saracen, however, who was an expert swimmer, vowed not to be baffled, and performed an exploit, which Arabian chroniclers, while omitting much more important events, have carefully recorded.
It seems that this Saracen, having determined to carry a Christian as captive to Fakreddin's tent, and claim the reward, fell upon a somewhat whimsical plan for accomplishing his object. Having scooped out a melon, and thrust his head into the cavity, he threw himself into the canal, and swam down the stream in such a way that the melon appeared to float in the water. The trick succeeded in attracting the attention of the Crusaders, and as the melon was passing that part of the bank where the Lord of Joinville was encamped, there was much excitement among his men.
'Let us catch the melon,' cried one.
'Who is bold enough to make the attempt?' asked another.
'On my faith,' said a squire, laughing, 'I see no danger to daunt the most timid.'
[Illustration: Scarcely, indeed, had he stretched forward his hand, when he found himself seized by the Saracen, and dragged forcibly away in the direction of the camp on the opposite bank. --p. 118.]
As he spoke, the squire, doffing his upper garments, rushed into the water, and, striking out, grasped at the melon. But the adventure did not end so pleasantly as he had anticipated. Scarcely, indeed, had he stretched forward his hand, when he found himself seized by the Saracen, and dragged forcibly away in the direction of the camp on the opposite bank.
At first the Crusaders could hardly believe their eyes. But there was no mistake about it. Their comrade was gone, and a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens; and, as they considered what might be his fate, they raised such shouts of alarm, that their lord was attracted to the spot.
'In St. Denis' name,' said Joinville, after hearing sufficient to be aware of what had occurred, 'tell me, I pray you, who among my fellows has met with this mishap?'
'In truth, my lord,' replied one of the knights, 'it is the English squire who took service with you at Damietta.'
'May the God of his fathers protect him!' exclaimed Joinville, somewhat sadly; 'as matters are, we can do nothing in his behalf.'
And who was the squire, who had entered the service of Joinville at Damietta, and afterwards been taken prisoner by the Saracens?
It was one of the brothers-in-arms. It was Guy Muschamp.
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{
"id": "26671"
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19
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THE CAPTIVE.
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AT the time when Guy Muschamp was dragged away as a captive to the camp of the Saracens at Djedilé, the emir Fakreddin sat in his pavilion. It was a marvellous tent, in the centre of the camp, and formed so as to resemble a fortified city, being divided into streets, flanked with towers, and furnished with everything likely to contribute to the luxury of an oriental. In an apartment, ornamented with gold and gems, the emir sat, face to face with a dark-browed Saracen chief, and playing at chess. But the game did not by any means monopolise the attention of the persons engaged in it; for the companion of the emir was no less celebrated a person than Bibars Bendocdar, the chief of the Mamelukes; and between him and Fakreddin there was much discussion as to the best mode of dealing with the enemies who menaced the empire with ruin.
And who was Bibars Bendocdar? It is necessary that we should learn, in order to comprehend the events that were ere long to startle and terrify the nations of Christendom.
At the time when Louis, King of France, undertook his Crusade, it was the custom, when two eastern potentates went to war, for the conqueror to sell the subjects of the vanquished enemy as slaves; and many of these, bought by merchants, were carried to Egypt, and sold to the sultan, who had them trained from boyhood to serve him as soldiers. Carefully were these young captives reared; and, when their beards began to grow, they were taught to draw the bow and wield the sword. After becoming expert in military exercises, they were admitted into that famous body, which Saladin the Great had instituted, and known as Mamelukes. Their privileges were many. They were highly favoured by the sultan, wearing his emblazonments of pure gold, only adding bars of vermilion, with birds or roses or griffins for difference, and acting as his body-guard in time of war, and watching over his safety while he slept.
It seems that Bibars Bendocdar was originally brought to Egypt as a slave, and, in course of time, enrolled as one of the Mamelukes. As such he rose rapidly. His ambition was intense; and, being both able and unscrupulous, he had no reason to despair of his ambition being one day gratified. No position, indeed, could be more favourable to a man eager to emerge from obscurity to eminence, than that which he occupied; and he not only succeeded in winning the confidence of the sultan, but contrived to insinuate himself into the good graces of the soldiers. In truth, this with him was no difficult matter. He had profoundly studied human nature as it was exhibited around him; and he comprehended, above all things, the arts by which the hearts of fighting men are gained and retained, and the arts also by which military adventurers elevate themselves to supremacy in a state.
Besides, Bibars Bendocdar had other qualities likely to render him a formidable foe or a dangerous rival. He was skillful as a leader in war, courageous in conflict, cruel in the hour of victory, and remarkable for his penetration, sagacity, and activity. Moreover, he professed great faith in the Mahometan religion, and had great faith also in his own destiny. Such was the man who now watched events with the eagerness of a gambler, and who recognised, not without satisfaction, the danger and disorder, from the bosom of which a leader of courage and audacity might, by rekindling enthusiasm and restoring order, elevate himself to power. He was about to prove himself one of the most formidable foes whom the soldiers of the Cross had ever been under the necessity of encountering.
Into the presence of the Emir Fakreddin and Bibars Bendocdar young Guy Muschamp, drenched and agitated, was carried. Alarmed as he well might be, the squire exhibited a dauntless air and presented a bold front. In fact, his demeanour was such that the Saracen chiefs exchanged glances of surprise.
'Who are you?' asked Fakreddin.
'My name is Muschamp, and I am a subject of the King of England.'
'And what brought you to Egypt?'
'I came to fight for the Holy Sepulchre.'
'And,' asked Bibars Bendocdar, sternly, 'know you not that passage in the Koran which says that they who make war unjustly shall perish?'
'Saracen,' replied Guy, proudly, 'an Anglo-Norman gentleman does not regulate his conduct by the Koran.'
'However,' said Fakreddin, waving his hand, 'it is needful that you answer some questions as to the army of Franks, and that you answer truly.'
'Saracen,' replied Guy, resolutely, 'I will not answer a question on the subject.'
'Fool!' exclaimed Bibars Bendocdar, impatiently; 'know you not your danger? Know you not that we can instantly order your head to be struck off?'
'Doubtless,' replied Guy. 'And, in that case, I die the death of a martyr, and go straight to paradise.'
'Infidel!' cried Bibars, loudly; 'you know not of what you speak. You will have to account for your faith to the angels Munkir and Nakir.'
'Munkir and Nakir!' exclaimed Guy, with an air of perplexity; 'beshrew me if I ever before heard of their names.'
'You will know them soon enough, if you act not more discreetly,' said Bibars; 'for they are the two angels who interrogate the dead the moment they are in the grave, saying, "Who is thy lord?" and, "Who is thy prophet?"'
'On my faith, Saracen,' said Guy, compassionately, 'I marvel much that a man of your years can credit such pagan fables.'
'Dog!' exclaimed Bibars. 'This to my beard! Ho! there, guards! Strike off this Christian's head, and cast his carcase to the fishes!'
'No,' said Fakreddin, mildly, 'it is well that he should have time to reflect. Let him be kept as a prisoner till the morrow. He will then be more likely to answer the questions asked of him.'
Accordingly Guy Muschamp was led from the presence of the Saracen chiefs and shut up in a small apartment in the centre of Fakreddin's tent. The position was the reverse of pleasant; and he almost gave himself up for lost. Next morning, however, after he had eaten some food brought him by the jailer, he was startled, first by a commotion in the camp, and then by such a noise and tumult as if all the fiends had come thither from the infernal regions to fight their battles. Gradually, through the din, the ear of Guy recognised the clash of weapons and the rushing of steeds, and his suspense was agonising. For a time he endeavoured to make out what was occurring; but this was in vain. At length the noise ceased; and Guy moved to the door with the intention of making a desperate effort to break it open. Somewhat to his surprise, he found that it did not resist. In fact, the jailer was gone and the camp deserted.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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20
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PASSING THE ACHMOUN.
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MORE than six weeks had passed since the Crusaders found their progress arrested by the Achmoun; and still the causeway by which they had hoped to pass the canal was not constructed. Indeed, the workmen had made very little progress since the first week; and Louis was despairing of seeing the work brought to a completion, when, much to his gratification, he learned that there was a prospect of crossing the canal by the simplest of all processes.
On the day when Guy Muschamp was carried off as a captive, the Constable of France was surprised by a visit from a Bedouin, and demanded his business. The Bedouin thereupon offered, for five hundred golden bezants, to point out a ford by which the Crusaders might, without danger or difficulty, cross in safety to the opposite bank. The constable at once promised the required reward, in the event of the information proving satisfactory; but it was not till the money was told down that the Bedouin conducted him to the spot, and convinced him that the ford was there. Gladly hastening to Louis, the constable revealed the means of extricating the armed pilgrims from their embarrassment; and the king, assembling the princes and nobles, decided on leaving the Duke of Burgundy on the Damietta side with a sufficient force to guard the camp; and then, mastering their men and mounting their horses, they at midnight marched along the bank of the canal to the ford pointed out by the Bedouin, and awaited the break of day to dash through the water and move towards Mansourah.
It was the morning of Tuesday, the 8th of February, 1250--Shrove Tuesday--when the armed pilgrims, under the auspices of King Louis, halted on the Damietta side of the Achmoun, and awaited the signal to pass to that on which Mansourah was situated. Everything so far had gone quite as smoothly as could reasonably have been expected. Some horsemen, indeed, rode too near the margin of the canal, and, getting on soft and slippery ground, they and their horses fell in and were drowned. Among them was Sir John of Orleans, a valiant knight, who bore the French banner. But this was a slight misfortune compared with that which the folly and presumption of one man was preparing for that ill-starred host.
At all times, and under all circumstances, the Count of Artois was one of the most unreasonable of human beings; and at this moment, so important to Louis, to France, to the Crusaders, and to the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, nothing would satisfy his ambition but being the first to cross. Not unaware of his brother's failings, Louis protested; but the count persisted; and, promising to wait with patience on the opposite bank for the main army, he placed himself at the head of the van, which was formed of the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the English Crusaders, and dashed into the canal.
Now, at this moment the opposite bank was occupied by several hundred Saracen horsemen, who seemed prepared to oppose the landing of the Crusaders. No sooner, however, did the Saracens perceive that the Crusaders were fording the canal safely than they gave way, and fled towards the camp of the Emir Fakreddin at Djedilé.
It was then that, in spite of all the warnings he had received and all the promises he had made, the Count of Artois gave way to the impetuosity that was destined to lead to the ruin of the pilgrim army. At the sight of the flying Saracens, he threw all discretion to the winds, and, attended by his governor, an old deaf knight, who held his rein, pursued the fugitives towards the camp. In vain the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital shouted out remonstrances. The count paid no attention whatever; and the aged knight, who was too deaf to hear a word, urged on the pursuit, crying loudly, 'Hurrah! hurrah! Upon them! upon them!'
The Saracens who occupied the camp at Djedilé were panic-stricken; and, supposing that the whole French army was upon them, fled in confusion towards Mansourah. But there was one man who did not fly; and that man was Fakreddin. When the camp was invaded, the emir was in his bath, and having his beard coloured, after the custom of the Orientals; but he immediately roused himself, dressed himself hastily, and, springing on horseback, endeavoured to rally his troops, and attempted to resist. Inspired by Fakreddin's example, the Saracens who had not fled offered a feeble resistance. But it was unavailing, and they followed the fugitives streaming towards Mansourah. Fakreddin, however, disdaining either to fly or yield, continued to struggle bravely; until, left almost alone, he fell in the midst of his foes, covered with wounds, and consoling himself, as his breath went, that his end was glorious, that he died a martyr for Islamism, and that he would be conveyed to the banks of the celestial river.
'By the head of St. Anthony!' exclaimed the Count of Artois, looking fiercely on Fakreddin's mangled corpse, 'it was this emir who boasted that he would dine in the red tent of my lord the king; but now he will not grumble at a humbler resting-place.'
'My lord count,' said Salisbury, gravely, 'the emir, had he been ten times a Saracen, was a brave man; and let us merit the praises of the valiant by showing that we know how to honour the memory of our enemies as well as of our friends.'
'Amen,' said both the grand masters, in significant accents.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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21
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THE CARNAGE OF MANSOURAH.
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IT was still early morning, and King Louis was still on the Damietta side of the Achmoun, when the Count of Artois, the Earl of Salisbury, and the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, found themselves victors in the camp.
'Now, gentlemen,' said the Count of Artois, 'let us forward, and complete the rout of our foes while affairs prosper in our hands and they are in dismay. Speed will now avail more than strength; and the fewer we are the greater will be the honour of a victory. Forward then, and crush them at a blow!'
'Forward!' shouted the old deaf knight, who held the count's rein. 'Hurrah! hurrah! Upon them! upon them!'
But the count's companions hesitated, and exchanged glances of alarm.
'Noble prince,' said the Master of the Temple, after a pause, 'I give all praise to your valour; but I entreat you to be advised, and not to act rashly. Our men are weary; our horses are wounded; we are few in number; and we must not overvalue our victory, or suppose our enemies are vanquished because they have lost a handful of men. Let us, therefore, return to the king, that we may be strengthened by his counsel and aid.'
'In truth,' said the Grand Master of the Hospital, 'we should be foolhardy to attempt aught rashly. We are in a strange country; and our best instructors are behind. Let us stay for our lantern and not go forward in the dark.'
'Ah!' exclaimed the Count of Artois, swelling with pride and anger, 'this is ever the way with military monks. But for the treachery of the Templars, and the sedition of the Hospitallers, the Holy Land would long since have been won.'
'Noble count,' said the Grand Master of the Temple, reproachfully, 'you do us grievous wrong. Why should we take the habit of religion, and pass our lives in a foreign land amid perils and fatigues? Is it, think you, to overthrow the Church and betray the cause of Christ, that we abandon our homes and kindred? However,' added the Grand Master, waxing wrath, 'let us forward, in God's name, and try all together the fortunes of battle. Standard-bearer, unfurl the banner of the Temple. Ha! Beau-séant! Beau-séant!'
At this moment the Earl of Salisbury made an effort to save his comrades from the destruction on which they were about to rush.
'My lord,' said he, addressing the Count of Artois, 'I implore you to listen to the wholesome counsel of the grand masters. They have been long in this country, and learned by experience the craft as well as the strength of our foes. We, being strangers, are ignorant of the perils; but we know that, as far as the east is from the west, so far are my ways different from the ways of the Orientals.'
'Hearken to this Englishman!' exclaimed the count, scornfully. 'What cowardice there is in these English! But their timid counsel suits not us. Happy should I be if the Christian army were purged of the English tails!'
A flush of rage crimsoned the earl's bronzed cheek, and his eye flashed fire.
'Now, by my father's sword!' cried he, striving to be calm, though he literally quivered with indignation, 'this passes human patience! Ho! there, Lord Robert de Vere, raise my banner; and you, Count of Artois, lead on, and see if the danger of death hinders us from following. The touchstone must try which is gold and which is brass; and I swear, by good St. George, as I put on my helmet, that the English knights whom you have taunted with cowardice will this day penetrate farther in the ranks of our foes than any warrior of France--be he prince or paladin--will venture to do.'
And the dispute having there been terminated, the Count of Artois and his Crusaders put on their helmets and mounted their horses. At that moment the eye of Salisbury alighted on Walter Espec; and his countenance, which had expressed the most scornful indignation, suddenly changed, and expressed something like pity.
'Boy,' said he, in a low, kindly tone, 'fall back and wait for the French king. We are rushing on certain death; and you are too young to die.'
'Nay, my good lord,' replied Walter, calmly. 'A man, whether young or old, can die but once: I would rather fall fighting in the cause of our Redeemer, and under your banner, than in a less holy cause and in meaner company.'
'As you will,' said the earl. 'It shall never be told that I prevented knight or squire from dying the death of a martyr.'
'By the might of Mary! Master Espec,' whispered Bisset; the English knight, 'were I your age, and had my choice, certes, I should think twice ere hazarding life against such odds. Wherefore should you fall a victim to the madness of my Lord of Artois, or the pride of my Lord of Salisbury?'
'On my faith, I know not,' answered Walter, smiling. 'But this I do know, that a man can die but once, and that a Christian warrior who falls with the Cross on his shoulder is understood to win the crown of martyrdom.'
'Nevertheless, were I you, and of your years,' argued Bisset; 'I should little relish the notion of being killed; for, as the Saracens say, when man dies there is no hope of his living again; because, as they add truly, man is not a water-melon; when once in the ground he cannot grow again.'
By this time French and Templars and Hospitallers and English were mounted; and, without further argument, they dashed towards Mansourah. At first they encountered no obstacle; and, while the inhabitants fled in terror along the road to Cairo, the Count of Artois and his companions, after destroying one of the gates, so as to secure egress if necessary, penetrated into the city, carrying all before them; and, reaching the palace of the sultan, they commenced the work of pillage. But during this process they were rudely interrupted; for Bibars Bendocdar perceived the imprudence of which the Crusaders had been guilty, and suddenly, at the head of a Saracen army, appeared to give them battle.
And now the Crusaders were in a fearful predicament. Ere they had time to rally, they were fiercely attacked. From the roofs and windows of the houses around, the Saracens hurled stones, and poured heated sand and boiling water. Before them were the Mamelukes, headed by Bibars Bendocdar, fiery with fanaticism, and panting for blood. It was a terrible situation even for brave men; and the very bravest there felt a thrill of awe and terror.
'All is lost!' said Salisbury, in a whisper.
'The King of France may hear of our peril, and come to our rescue,' suggested Lord Robert de Vere.
'No hope of succour,' said Bisset, in a conclusive tone. 'But let us not droop. We can at least sell our lives dearly.'
A brief and painful silence succeeded, while still upon the Crusaders the Saracens hurled stones and poured boiling water.
'Englishmen and friends,' at length said Salisbury, raising his voice so as to be heard at a distance, 'it were vain at this moment to deny our peril. But take courage, my brave companions; and let us not faint in the hour of adversity. Everything, save dishonour, may be borne by valiant men; and adversity sheds a light upon the virtues of mankind, as surely as prosperity casts over them a shade. Here there is no room for retreat; for our enemies encompass us about; and to attempt to fly would be certain death. Be of good cheer, then, and let the urgency of the case sharpen your valour and nerve your arms. Brave men should either conquer nobly, or die with glory; and martyrdom is a boon which we should accept without reluctance. But, before we fall, let us, while we live, do what may avenge our deaths; and, while giving thanks to God that it is our lot to die as martyrs, let us, in our last efforts of valour and despair, prove ourselves worthy soldiers of the Cross.'
'Earl William,' said the Count of Artois, riding up, and now conscious of his folly, 'God fights against us. Resistance is vain, but escape is possible. Let us consult our safety, and fly while yet our horses can carry us.'
'Fly if you will!' answered the earl, scornfully; 'but God forbid that any but liars should ever have it in their power to tell that my father's son fled from the face of a Saracen.'
And now the heavens and the earth seemed to resound with the noise of horns and enormous kettle-drums; and, urged on by Bibars Bendocdar, the Saracens rushed upon their enemies. The plight of the Crusaders was desperate. But, few as they were in comparison with the swarming foe, they fought gallantly and well; and, though wounded and exhausted, maintained the conflict for hours after the flight of the Count of Artois. But fearful in the meantime was the carnage. Full fifteen hundred knights had fallen; and of these, three hundred were of the order of the Temple. Gradually the numbers diminished, till there remained not a dozen of the men who had that morning invaded Fakreddin's camp; and among these were the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Robert de Vere, the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, Bisset the English knight, and Walter Espec, still unwounded, and fighting as if he bore a charmed life, and felt invulnerable to javelins or arrows.
But all possibility of continuing to resist was now at an end, and every hope of succour had vanished. Salisbury, resolved to sell his life dearly, faced the Saracens with desperate valour, and used his battle-axe with such effect that a hundred Saracens are said to have fallen that day by his hand. At length his horse was killed under him; and, after rising to his feet, and fighting for awhile with disdain, he fell covered with wounds. Robert de Vere, already bleeding and exhausted, no sooner saw Salisbury sink than he wrapped the English standard round his body, and lay down to die by the great earl's side. Bisset, Walter Espec, and the two grand masters, found themselves surrounded by a host of foes, and defending themselves desperately against every species of assailant.
'Alas!' exclaimed the grand masters of the Temple, 'we are clearly doomed.'
'I would fain hope not,' answered Bisset, resolutely. 'Our weapons are not willow-wands; we can cut our way through the pagan rabble.'
'Shame upon us if we hesitate!' said Walter Espec.
And drawing close together, with a rush which for a time bore down opposition, the four survivors made a stern endeavour to reach the gate,--the axe of Bisset and the swords of the military monks doing terrible execution. Twice the Saracens formed in a mass to prevent their reaching the only gate which was not closed; as often Bisset, penetrating singly into the Saracen ranks, dealt death and destruction to his foes, and opened the way for his friends; till gradually, having by force of arm overthrown every obstacle in his path, he reached the gate, and, followed by the Grand Master of the Temple, dashed through the opening, with a shout of defiance at his assailants.
But the Grand Master of the Hospital and Walter Espec had not such good fortune as the Templar and the English knight. Bibars Bendocdar, enraged at the rumour that some Christians were escaping from the carnage, hastened to the open gate, and, with his arrival, every chance vanished. Dragged from his steed, the grand master was fain to surrender himself prisoner. Wounded by an arrow and a javelin, but still struggling to fight his way out, Walter Espec cut down a Saracen soldier, and, rising in his stirrups and shouting, 'St. Katherine for Espec!' made a fierce thrust at Bendocdar. But next moment he was felled to the ground; he felt that his blood was flowing fast, and that horsemen were riding over him; and then he lost all consciousness, and lay prostrate and insensible among the dead and the dying.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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22
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THE BATTLE.
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NO sooner did Guy Muschamp find the door of his prison opened, than he rushed out to ascertain the cause of the tumult to which he was indebted for liberty, and he discovered that the camp was deserted and abandoned, save by the wounded and the slain. However, he hastily donned his steel cap, possessed himself of a short sword; and having with little difficulty caught a stray horse, saddled and bridled, he mounted, and rode forth with the idea of following the Crusaders, who by this time were disappearing within the gates of Mansourah.
Fortunately, however, for Guy, he was not destined to share the fate of his gallant countrymen who fell victims to the vain folly of the Count of Artois. Nevertheless, his danger was great. By this time the Count of Brittany and a multitude of warriors were riding towards Mansourah to aid the Count of Artois; and, as the Saracens who came out to oppose their progress rapidly spread over the plain, Guy began to find his position somewhat perilous, and to give himself up for lost. At that moment, however, his eye and his ear were attracted by the gleaming of spears and the ringing of mail to a ruined house; and, cantering thither, he found to his joyful surprise, that the Lord of Joinville and his knights had taken shelter there, to await the arrival of the king, who was still engaged in passing the main body of his army over the Achmoun.
Nor had they long to wait. As with breathless anxiety they watched the Saracens, swarming like bees from their hives, and covering the plain, Louis, having at length crossed the canal, with sound of trumpets and clarions, rode up at the head of his cavalry, and, with a German sword in his hand, halted on an eminence to survey the field. And neither in air nor appearance did Louis, at that moment, look unworthy of the part he was acting as chief of the pilgrim army. His magnificent armour, his gilded helmet, and his noble bearing, gave him the appearance of being taller by the shoulders than any of his companions. As he reined up his white charger--the symbol of sovereignty--and, with the oriflamme displayed before him, endeavoured calmly to estimate the chances of the conflict, the Lord of Joinville and his knights, surrounded as they were with danger, could not but utter exclamations expressive of admiration.
'By St. James,' exclaimed Joinville, 'I never in my life saw a more handsome man under arms.'
'Certes,' replied one of the knights, 'I could almost believe that the angel of battles had come to our aid.'
While the king was still surveying the combat, that every moment became more fierce and sanguinary, the Constable of France rode up to inform him of the peril of the Count of Artois.
'Sire,' said the constable, 'your noble brother is shut up in Mansourah; and, albeit he and his comrades hold out gallantly, they must perish if not aided forthwith.'
'Well, constable,' answered Louis, 'on to the rescue, in God's name, and I will speedily follow.'
The constable, without more words, gave his horse the spur, and dashed towards Mansourah, whither the king and his knights also attempted to make their way. But this was no easy matter. Every moment the Saracens seemed to increase in numbers; and the Crusaders, while struggling bravely not to be overwhelmed by odds, were exposed to terrible hazard. Louis soon found himself in the thick of the fight and environed by foes. Nothing seemed to remain to him but to sell his life dearly; and six Saracens, rushing forward simultaneously, attempted to seize his bridle, and take him captive. But, at that moment, Louis--gentle and saintly as was his nature--used his German sword with a vigour and effect, scarcely excelled by Richard Coeur de Lion at Joppa, when he charged among the Mamelukes of Saladin, or by Edward Longshanks at Kakhow, when the sweep of his sword, and the rush of his grey steed, struck terror into the heart of the host of Bibars Bendocdar. Down before that short German sword went turban and caftan; till the French knights, aware of their king's danger, spurred in to his rescue, and, with a mighty effort, saved him from captivity.
And now another attempt was made to reach Mansourah. But it was too late. All was over with the brave band who had followed the Count of Artois into the city; and every moment the aspect of affairs became more menacing; for Bibars Bendocdar, elate with his victory within the walls, issued from the gate, animating his soldiers with the words--'God is powerful,' and hoping to deal with the French king, as he had dealt with the French king's brother. Nor, at first, did it appear that the Crusaders could escape utter defeat. Not aware what was occurring, and suddenly attacked by a mighty force led by a dauntless chief, they were pressed and whirled about and separated from each other, and forced to encounter countless odds at every disadvantage. Yet even in such circumstances the warriors of France maintained their high reputation for valour; and, as the combat proceeded and became keener and keener, many a strong Saracen went to his account.
On both sides, indeed, great was the display of personal prowess and courage; but there was no generalship. Amidst clouds of dust, and under a glowing sun, Christian and Moslem fought hand to hand, and steel to steel. Helmet and turban mingled confusedly in the struggle; while banners rose and fell, and knights were unhorsed, and saddles emptied. From Mansourah to Achmoun, and from the Nile to the ford pointed out by the Bedouin, the ground, literally covered with combatants, shook with the rush of their horses, and the sky was rent by the opposing war-cries of 'Islam! Islam!' and 'Montjoie, St. Denis!' What with the shouts of the living, the shrieks of the dying, and the yells of the Saracens, as they bore down on their adversaries like hawks on their prey, all was bloodshed, confusion, and clamour, and the carnage was such as few men, who fought on that field and survived it, ever remembered without a thrill of awe.
And as the day sped on and the battle continued to rage all over the plain, and warriors fell in heaps before and around him, Louis became painfully aware that Mansourah could not be reached, and that the Crusaders were no longer fighting to conquer the Saracens but to save themselves. And there was considerable danger of Bibars Bendocdar drawing near to the Achmoun, and cutting off all communication between the camp of the Duke of Burgundy, and the Christian army struggling for existence on the plains of Mansourah. On becoming aware of the danger, the king decided on falling back towards the canal, and, with the oriflamme displayed, moved in that direction.
Unfortunate were the consequences. A report immediately spread that the king was retreating because the Saracens were everywhere victorious, and immediately there was a panic, and several squadrons disbanded and rushed towards the canal. A terrible scene followed, and men and horses were drowned while struggling in the water. Nothing could have exceeded the disorder and dismay. Louis, indeed, made strenuous efforts to restore confidence, but his voice was scarcely heard in the tumult; and he must have rejoiced when night put an end to the conflict, and when Bibars Bendocdar retired to Mansourah, with the determination to attack the Crusaders on another day, as the tiger draws back to make a more terrible spring.
Repairing to Djédilé, Louis dismounted, and took possession of the camp which, at daybreak, had been occupied by the Emir Fakreddin; and when his red tent was pitched there, the Prior of Rosnay presented himself, and kissed the king's hand.
'Sire,' said he, wishing to break the news gently, 'I know not if you have heard tidings of your noble brother, the Count of Artois?'
'I know all,' answered Louis, mournfully.
'Sire,' said the prior, endeavouring to administer consolation, 'no King of France has ever reaped such honour as you have done this day. You have crossed a dangerous river; you have gained a victory; you have put your enemies to flight; you have captured their engines of war; and now you are taking possession of their camp.'
'May God be praised for all that I have, with His aid, been able to do in His cause,' said Louis, with a faltering voice, and tears rolling down his cheeks, as he entered his pavilion.
'On my faith, sir prior,' said John de Valery, with the tone of a man who has a presentiment of coming calamity, 'I marvel how you can speak of this day's work as a triumph of our arms. Often have I fought for victory; but this day I have felt too surely that I was fighting not for victory but for life.'
'In truth,' said the Lord of Joinville, who had joined them, 'I would fain hope for better fortune in the future; for, call this a victory if you will, such another victory would be worse than a defeat.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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23
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HOW JOINVILLE KEPT THE BRIDGE.
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WHEN the Constable of France informed King Louis that the Count of Artois was in extreme peril, and when Louis made an effort to go to the rescue of his brother--the Lord of Joinville, having previously left the ruined house, and joined the king, endeavoured to keep in the royal warrior's company. But all efforts with this object proved vain. The Saracens, raising clouds of dust and uttering ferocious yells as they advanced, came down upon the Crusaders with a force that was irresistible. The French were scattered in all directions; and Joinville was separated from Louis some minutes before the person of the saintly monarch was in such imminent danger. But in the meantime the seneschal's band had been reduced to six persons, including Guy Muschamp, who adhered with determination to Joinville's side; and between them and the king, then struggling to save his liberty, intervened thousands of Saracens.
'Impossible for us to make our way through such a crowd,' said Joinville; 'much better, therefore, will it be to wheel round and get on the other side of them.'
Accordingly they wheeled round, and gained the bank of the river, and began to descend. But at this moment the aspect of the field became most alarming to the armed pilgrims. The Crusaders and Saracens met on the banks, and many of the French, attempting to cross and form a junction with the Duke of Burgundy, were drowned; and the river was covered with lances, pikes, shields, and horses and men struggling in vain to save themselves.
By this time the Lord of Joinville, heading his knights, had reached a bridge on one of the roads to Mansourah; and on perceiving the miserable state of the army he halted.
'It is better,' said he, after looking round, 'to remain where we are, and guard this bridge; for, if we leave it, the Saracens may come and attack the king on this side, and, if he is assaulted from two quarters, he will surely be discomfited.'
Accordingly they posted themselves on the bridge which was between the canal Achmoun and the gates of Mansourah, and prepared to defend it against the Saracens. But such was the danger, that Joinville's heart, brave as it was, beat with terror, and he cried aloud for the protection of St. James.
'Good Lord St. James,' exclaimed he; 'succour me, I beseech thee, and come to my aid in this hour of need.'
It seemed to him and his companions that his prayer was answered. Almost as he uttered it, the Count of Soissons, who was his kinsman, appeared riding past the bridge; and Joinville hastened to secure his company.
'Sir count,' said he; 'I beg you to remain with us and guard this bridge; for, should it be lost, the king will have his enemies upon him both in front and rear.'
'Willingly, seneschal,' replied the count; and he placed himself on Joinville's right hand, while a French knight who was with him took his station on the left.
While Joinville and his companions were seated on their horses, prepared to keep the bridge at all hazards against all comers, the Saracens made repeated efforts to drive them from their post. But they remained firm as rocks. Trusting to accomplish by stratagem what they could not do by force, the Saracens attempted to lure them from the spot; and one stalwart horseman, galloping suddenly forward, felled one of the French knights with his battle-axe, and then retreated to his own people, hoping that he would be followed. But Joinville, who comprehended the purpose, would not be decoyed, and resolutely kept his ground, though annoyed and wounded by a rabble of half-armed Saracens, who incessantly threw darts, and large stones, and hard clods.
At length, however, the Saracens began to make themselves much more formidable, and to discharge Greek fire, which threatened to do much mischief, and pressed forward with savage yells.
'On my faith, we must take order with this rabble,' said the Count of Soissons, growing angry.
'As you will,' replied Joinville; and, without further hesitation, they charged the crowd, put them to flight, and resumed their post.
But no sooner did the Saracens perceive that the immediate danger was over, than they turned round, and, keeping at a safe distance, yelled out defiance.
'Heed them not, seneschal,' said the Count of Soissons, who, in the midst of peril, retained all the gaiety of soul which distinguished the French chevaliers from the thoughtful Saxon, and the haughty and somewhat grim Norman. 'Heed them not. Let this rascal canaille bawl and bray as they please. By St. Denis, you and I will live to talk of this day's exploits in the chambers of our ladies.'
'May God and good St. James grant it,' said Joinville, gravely.
'But who comes hither, and in such a plight?' asked the Count of Soissons, suddenly, as a Crusader, mounted on a strong horse, came galloping from the direction of Mansourah--his face wounded, blood gushing from his mouth, the reins of his bridle cut, and his hands resting, as if for support, on his charger's neck.
'In truth,' replied Joinville, after examining the horseman, 'it is the Count of Brittany;' as, closely pursued by Saracens, the wounded warrior gained the bridge, and ever and anon turned round and shouted mockingly to his pursuers.
'By St. Denis,' exclaimed the count, 'one thing is certain: he is not afraid of his pursuers.'
And almost as the Count of Soissons spoke, the Count of Brittany was followed by two warriors, who made their way through the Saracens, literally smiting to the earth all who came in their way. Nothing, it seemed, could resist their progress; and their path was tracked with blood. On they came, scornfully scattering their foes till they reached the bridge, when reining up where the Lord of Joinville was posted, they stopped to take breath, after their almost superhuman exertions. One had in his hand a battle-axe; the other a sword. The battle-axe was stained red with gore; the sword was hacked till it looked 'like a saw of dark and purple tint.' One was Bisset, the English knight, the other was the Grand Master of the Temple. The horses of both were wounded all over; the helmets of both were deeply dinted. Bisset's mail was almost hacked to pieces; the Templar's vestments were torn to rags, his cuirass pierced, and his eye and face wounded and bleeding.
'You bring tidings of woe?' said the Count of Soissons.
'Woe, in truth,' answered Bisset; for the grand master could not even muster voice to speak; 'of all who rode into Mansourah this morning, not a man, save ourselves, lives to tell the tale.'
'And what of the Count of Artois, sir knight?' asked Joinville.
'I know not,' replied Bisset, briefly; 'the count disappeared early, and doubtless died with the comrades of his jeopardy.'
'No,' interrupted the Count of Brittany, faintly, 'he was drowned while attempting to save himself by flight. At least,' added he, 'so I have been told.'
And in truth, to this day it is somewhat uncertain what became of Robert, Count of Artois, though the most probable account is that, seeing all was lost, he turned his horse's head, with a vague hope of reaching the main body of the Crusaders, and, while attempting to cross one of the branches of the Nile, sank never more to rise.
It was about this time that King Louis had moved towards the Achmoun; and the Constable of France, with the king's crossbowmen under his command, just as the sun was setting came to the bridge which had been so bravely defended.
'Seneschal,' said he, addressing Joinville, 'you and your comrades have behaved well in guarding this bridge; and now, all danger being over in this quarter, I pray you to accompany the Lord John de Valery to the king, who is about to go to his pavilion.'
And Joinville went as the constable requested; and while his companions were pursuing their way towards the king's red pavilion--that pavilion in which the Emir Fakreddin had boasted he would dine on the day of St. Sebastian--Guy Muschamp approached Bisset, the English knight, and entreated his attention.
'Sir knight,' said he, 'I would fain enquire if you know what has befallen the English squire, by name Walter Espec?'
'Boy,' replied Bisset, 'I know not what may have befallen him; but, if I were to hazard a guess, I should say that he died, and died bravely. I remember me that he fought to the last; and I hoped that he was destined to escape, as I did; but I grieve to say that he failed so to do.'
'Alas! alas!' said Guy sadly, and he clasped his hands, as if muttering a prayer for his comrade's soul; 'woe is me, that I should live to hear that my brother-in-arms, the good Walter, has fallen.'
'My brave youth,' urged Bisset, kindly, as he observed that the boy's face was suffused with tears, 'death has this day been the portion of many thousands of valiant men; and, for your brother-in-arms, I can testify for your comfort that he fought to the last with the courage of a hero, and I doubt not, that he faced death with the courage of a martyr.'
'And if we are to give the faith which our fathers did to the words of holy men,' added Guy, solemnly, 'the souls of all such as fall, fighting for the Cross, are purified from sin, and admitted straight to Paradise.'
'By the mass, I have heard priests say so,' replied Bisset, after a pause, during which he eyed the boy with evident surprise; 'and mayhap,' continued he, 'in the days of Peter the Hermit, and Godfrey of Bouillon, such was the case. But, credit me, in our day, armed pilgrims are guilty of such flagrant sins during their pilgrimage, and while decked with the Cross, that I hardly deem them likely to get access to Paradise on such easy terms.'
'By St. John of Beverley,' exclaimed the squire, in great astonishment, 'deem you that matters are so much changed, sir knight?'
'So much so,' answered Bisset, shaking his head, 'that seeing, save myself, you are almost the only Englishman left in this army of pilgrims, I am free to confess to you my opinion, that for aught we are likely to do for the Holy Sepulchre, we might as well have stayed at home, and hunted, and hawked, and held our neighbours at feud. On my life, I have seen enough of this army to feel sure that Blacas, the troubadour knight, is a wise man, when on being asked whether he will go to the Holy Land, answers, that he loves and is beloved, and that he will remain at home with his ladye love.'
And already, forgetting his wounds, and his bruises, his hair-breadth escape, and the terrible scenes in which he had that day acted a part, the knight, as he reached the tent of King Louis, and prepared to dismount, half chanted, half sung, the lines with which Blacas concludes his simple song:-- Je ferai ma pénitence, Entre mer et Durance, Auprès de son manoir.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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24
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THE FIRST FRIDAY IN LENT.
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ON the day when the city of Mansourah witnessed the carnage of the Crusaders under the Count of Artois, and a great battle shook the plain outside the walls, the Egyptians experienced by turns fear and hope, joy and sadness.
On the morning when the camp at Djédilé was taken, and the Emir Fakreddin slain, a pigeon carried intelligence of the disaster to Cairo; and the Egyptian capital was immediately in consternation. Believing that the days of Islamism were numbered, and the empire of the sultan on the verge of ruin, the inhabitants thought of nothing but escape from the danger that impended. Many departed for Upper Egypt, and sorrow reigned in the city--the inhabitants bewailing their misfortunes, and crying that the world was coming to an end. A second pigeon, however, carried thither tidings that the Count of Artois was defeated and slain; and Cairo became the scene of joy and rejoicing. Fear vanished from every face; and the Saracens gratefully extolled the courage of the Mamelukes, and of their chief, Bibars Bendocdar.
At the same time, an arrival of great importance took place at Mansourah. While the battle was raging on the plain, Touran Chah, the new sultan, reached the city, and was received with acclamations by the populace. The emirs, however, regarded the sultan with some suspicion. Unfortunately, Touran Chah did not come alone; and the jealousy of the emirs was aroused by the presence of the favourites who accompanied him from Mesopotamia. If the heir of Saladin could have foreseen what a price he was to pay for the happiness of having his favourites with him, he would doubtless have been discreet enough to leave them behind.
But, in the meantime, it was necessary for the safety and interests both of the sultan and the emirs, that the Crusaders should be destroyed; and Bibars Bendocdar was bent on pursuing his success. In the first place, he made several attempts to recapture the engines of war, and the French were repeatedly roused to defend them at the point of the sword. But these attacks led to a feeling of insecurity, and King Louis deemed it prudent to construct a bridge of wood over the Achmoun, so as to have the means of communicating readily with the Duke of Burgundy's camp. Who at that time could have imagined the mischief of which this bridge was subsequently to be the cause?
Meanwhile Bibars Bendocdar was doing his best to inflame the enthusiasm of the Mamelukes and soldiers. Nor, with that object, was he above practising a little deception. A cuirass covered with fleur-de-lis was publicly exhibited, and declared to be that of the French king. Heralds proclaimed that the Christian army, deprived of its chief, was like a trunk without a head; and the enthusiasm of the Saracens reached a high pitch. At length, the soldiers began to clamour to be led against the enemy, and Bibars Bendocdar fixed Friday, the 11th of February, as the day on which he would lead them to triumph.
It was the first Friday in Lent; and King Louis, having received warning that an attack was meditated, gave orders for fortifying the camp, and preparing for a conflict. At daybreak, accordingly, the Crusaders were under arms; and, in good time, Bibars Bendocdar appeared on the plain, setting his men in battle order. Placing his cavalry in the van, the infantry behind, and a strong reserve in the rear, the Mameluke chief extended his lines till his forces seemed to cover the plain. Nor was he sorry to observe that there was a prospect of a stern resistance; for the difficulties of his situation increased his importance in the eyes of his soldiers, and every step he took in overcoming perils, from which others shrank, brought him nearer to the object on which his heart was set--that object being neither more nor less than the throne of the sultans.
And now, noon having come, with horns and kettle-drums sounding an onset, Bibars Bendocdar advanced on the Crusaders, and attacked the Count of Anjou, who was at the head of the camp on the side towards the Nile. At first, the French cavalry calmly abided the assault; but they soon found themselves exposed to a kind of attack which they had not anticipated. In fact, the Saracen infantry, moving forward, overwhelmed the knights with Greek fire, and threw them into confusion. Surcoats and caparisons blazed, and the horses plunged, broke from the control of their riders, and galloped to and fro. While they were in disorder, Bibars Bendocdar, at the head of the Mamelukes, penetrated within the entrenchments, and the Count of Anjou found himself surrounded by foes.
Ere this, King Louis, aware of his brother's peril, despatched Bisset, the English knight, with a message assuring the count of speedy aid; but, ere the Englishman reached the Count of Anjou, he met the French cavalry flying in disarray. Bisset reined up, and addressed the fugitives.
'Christian warriors,' said he, 'I come from your king to ask whither are you flying? See you not that the horses of the unbelievers are swifter than yours?'
'It is too true,' replied the fugitives.
'Come then,' said Bisset, 'follow me, and I will show you what your king deems a safer road than flight;' and charging among the Mamelukes, in front of the French cavalry, the English knight succeeded in maintaining the conflict, which had commenced so inauspiciously for the French.
And aid was at hand; for Louis did not forget his promise of succour. Shouting his battle-cry, he spurred, lance in rest, to his brother's rescue, and, precipitating himself with his knights on the Moslem warriors, soon redeemed the disaster which had marked the opening of the battle. Nor did the saint-king exhibit the slightest dread of exposing his royal person. With a shout of 'Montjoie, St. Denis!' he charged into the midst of the foe--his banner flying, and his sword flashing--and by his example inspired the Crusaders with such courage that, after a sanguinary combat, they succeeded in expelling the Mamelukes from the camp, and driving back the infantry that threw the Greek fire.
By this time the battle had become general, and everywhere the Crusaders fought valiantly and well, though they had not always the advantage. In fact, Bibars Bendocdar, as a war chief, possessed such a degree of skill in handling masses of fighting men as neither Louis nor any of the Crusaders could boast of; and the discipline of the Mamelukes was such as to make them terrible foes to encounter.
Nevertheless the Crusaders held their ground, and performed prodigies of valour. At one point the warriors of Syria and Cyprus maintained their ground against fearful odds; at a second, the knights of Champagne and Flanders fought stoutly and well; at a third, such of the Templars as had not fallen at Mansourah, headed by their grand master who had so narrowly escaped the carnage, exhibited the fine spectacle of a handful of men baffling a multitude, and, despite the showers of Greek fire and missiles which fell so thick that the ground was literally covered with arrows and javelins, kept the enemy at bay. Even when the grand master fell mortally wounded, the Knights of the Temple continued to struggle; and when their entrenchments failed, and the Saracens rushed into the camp, the military monks closed their ranks and presented a front against which the assailants continued for hours to charge violently, but in vain.
But meanwhile the peril of the Count of Poictiers had been great and alarming. Composed of infantry, his division gave way before the rush of the Saracen cavalry, and dispersed in consternation. Nor was this the worst. The count himself, while endeavouring to rally his forces, was seized, and experienced the mortification of finding himself dragged off as a prisoner. But there was succour at hand.
The Lord of Joinville and his knights were luckily posted near the Count of Poictiers; but having all been so severely wounded in the battle of Shrove Tuesday as to be unable to bear their armour, they could take no prominent part in the conflict raging around them. No sooner, however, did they observe the count's predicament than they deemed themselves bound to interfere at all hazards; and Guy Muschamp, riding to the place where the sutlers and workmen and women of the army were posted, urged them to rouse themselves.
'Good people,' cried the squire, 'the brave Count of Poictiers is being carried into captivity. For our Leader's sake, succour the Count of Poictiers. To the rescue! to the rescue!'
Now the count was highly popular with the persons to whom this appeal was addressed; and no sooner did they learn the prince's danger than they displayed the utmost alacrity to aid him. Arming themselves with axes, and clubs, and sticks, and anything that came in their way, they rushed furiously forward, and, led on by the English squire, made so successful an attack that the Saracens were dispersed, and the count was rescued and carried back in triumph.
'Young gentleman,' said the count, gratefully, 'I owe you my liberty. I pray you, tell me to whom I am so deeply indebted.'
'Noble count,' replied Guy, after telling his name, 'I am a squire of England; and, for the present, I serve the Lord of Joinville.'
'Ah,' said the count, smiling, 'the seneschal must give you to me; for I would fain have an opportunity of proving how I can requite such good service.'
By this time Bibars Bendocdar perceived that he was wasting his strength in vain, and sounded a retreat. But the Mameluke chief was not without his consolation. He knew that he had ruined the enterprise of the Crusaders; that they were no longer in a condition to attempt a march to Cairo; and that they knew not on which side to turn.
But when the Saracens retreated towards Damietta, and the danger was over for the time being, the Crusaders were inclined to talk of their successful resistance as a victory; and the knights and barons when summoned that evening to the king's pavilion, went thither with the airs of conquerors.
'My lords and friends,' said Louis, kindly; 'we have much cause to be grateful to God our Creator. On Tuesday, aided by Him, we dislodged our enemies from their quarters, of which we gained possession. This day we have defended ourselves against them, though taken at advantage; many of us being left without arms or horses, while they were completely armed and on horseback, and on their own ground. And since you have all witnessed the grace which God our Creator has of late shown to us, and continues to do daily, I commend you all, as you are bounden to do, to return Him due thanksgiving.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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25
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MORTIFICATIONS AND MISERIES.
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NO longer could the armed pilgrims, so recently buoyed up with the hope of making themselves famous as the conquerors of Egypt, delude their imaginations with the project of advancing to Cairo.
'It is necessary to retreat to Damietta,' said the wise and prudent.
'A retreat to Damietta in the face of the foe is more than our pride can brook,' exclaimed the haughty and obstinate.
'Let us remain at Djédilé, and trust to the course of events,' suggested the reckless and the irresolute.
At Djédilé, accordingly, the Crusaders remained; and ere long, their calamities began in earnest, and daily increased in magnitude. First came disease; then came famine; and death and despair soon did more than the Saracens could with the utmost efforts have hoped to accomplish.
It appears that, after the two battles fought on the plains of Mansourah, the Crusaders had neglected to bury the slain; and the bodies thrown confusedly into the Achmoun, and floating on the water, stopped before the wooden bridge, and infected the atmosphere. A contagious disease was the consequence; and this, being increased by the abstinence during Lent, wrought such havoc, that nothing was heard in the camp but mourning and lamentation. Louis, sad, but still not in despair, exerted himself to mitigate the sufferings of his army. At length he also fell sick, and, every day, affairs wore a gloomier aspect.
'It seems,' said Guy Muschamp, who lay prostrate with sickness in the tent of the Lord of Joinville, 'it seems that Heaven has abandoned the soldiers of the Cross.'
'Hem,' replied Bisset, to whom this was addressed, 'I see not why Heaven should be blamed for the evils which men bring on themselves by their own folly. I warned you at Damietta what would be the end of all the boastings which were uttered hourly. A haughty spirit goes before a fall. Trust me, we have not yet seen the worst. By the might of Mary, we armed pilgrims may yet find ourselves under a necessity similar to that which made cannibals of the soldiers of King Cambyses when he made war in Egypt!'
'King Cambyses?' repeated Guy, enquiringly.
'Ay,' replied Bisset, 'he was King of Persia, and almost as great a monarch as King Louis; and when he was in this country his provisions ran short. At first his soldiers lived on herbs, roots, and leaves; when they could not get even these, they ate their horses and beasts of burden; and, when the horses and beasts of burden were finished, they began to devour one another; and every tenth man, on whom the lot fell, was doomed to serve as a meal for his companions. Marry, we are like to be in a similar plight; for famine begins to stare us in the face!'
Guy groaned aloud, and wondered why he had left England; and, at that time, indeed, the new and terrible danger daunted every heart. Resolved to cut off all communication between Damietta and the camp of the Crusaders, the sultan ordered a number of galleys to be transported overland, to form an ambuscade; and many French vessels were intercepted. For a time, Louis could not comprehend how no arrivals took place, and felt the gravest alarm. Ere long, however, one vessel, belonging to the Count of Flanders, escaped the vigilance of the galleys, and brought tidings that the sultan's flag was displayed all along the Nile. The Crusaders received this intelligence with horror; and, in a few days, the evil of famine was added to that of pestilence.
'What is to be done now?' asked they, giving way to despondency.
'It is quite clear,' said Louis, 'that, in order to save ourselves, we must treat with our enemies.'
No time was lost. Philip de Montfort, a knight of renown, was despatched as ambassador to the sultan, and was led to cherish hopes of success. The sultan not only expressed his readiness to treat, but actually nominated commissioners. At first everything went smoothly, and the Saracens appeared reasonable in their demands. But when the question of hostages came to be discussed, a difficulty arose.
'I am empowered to offer the Counts of Poictiers and Anjou as hostages,' said De Montfort.
'No,' replied the Saracens, 'the sultan requires the King of France.'
'You ought to know Frenchmen better,' exclaimed Geoffrey de Segrines, one of the commissioners; 'they would rather die than leave their king in pledge.'
After this, the negotiation was broken off; and the French prepared to cross the Achmoun by the bridge, and deliberate on the propriety of marching back to Damietta. But even the passage of the bridge was not effected without terrible danger and heavy loss. No sooner did the Crusaders begin to move, than the Saracens came down upon them, and made a furious attack; but Walter de Chatillon, a French baron of great fame, led on his companions to the encounter, and after being seconded by the Count of Anjou, succeeded in repulsing the foe. The Crusaders, however, after remaining some days in their old camp, found that they were a prey to the worst calamities, and, no longer hesitating, decided on a day for returning to Damietta.
Unfortunately for the armed pilgrims, their resolution was no secret to the Saracens, and when Touran Chah became aware of their intended movement down the Nile, he devised measures to intercept them. He himself harangued his soldiers, distributed money and provisions, reinforced them with Arabs attracted to his standard by the prospect of booty, and ordered boats with troops on board to descend the river, and join the fleet already there; while bodies of light horse were placed on all the roads by which the Crusaders were likely to make good their retreat.
Nevertheless, the Crusaders, finding their present position desperate, persevered in their resolution, and Tuesday, the 5th of April, was appointed for the perilous enterprise. On the arrival of that day, the sick, the wounded, the women, and the children, were embarked on the Nile, and, at the same time, several French nobles, and the papal legate, got on board a vessel. No doubt seems to have existed that Louis might have saved himself. Even the Arabian historians admit that the French king might have escaped, either in a boat or on horseback, if he would have abandoned his army. But, with characteristic generosity, he distinctly refused to separate his fate from theirs. Anxious about his safety, the soldiers ran along the bank, shouting to the boatmen not to set sail till the king embarked.
'Wait for the king--wait for the king!' cried they.
'No,' said Louis, his heart touched, but his resolution firm; 'go on. I will share weal or woe with my soldiers. I am not such a niggard of life, that I grudge to risk it in such company, and in such a cause.'
And now the boats began to descend the Nile; and at the same time the Duke of Burgundy, having broken up his camp, about nightfall commenced a retreat towards Damietta. But at this stage, the French were guilty of a piece of negligence that was destined to cost them dear. The king had ordered the wooden bridge over the Achmoun to be destroyed. In their agitation and haste, the French paid no attention to the order. In vain Bisset, the English knight, protested against such insane indifference to a manifest peril.
'My masters,' said he, bluntly, 'we can hardly be deemed otherwise than madmen, if we leave that bridge standing as it is, to afford the Saracens a safe passage over the canal, to attack us in the rear.'
'Sir knight,' replied the French drily, for they did not relish an Englishman's interference, 'it is not from that quarter that danger is most to be apprehended.'
'Nevertheless,' urged Bisset.
'We are wasting time to no purpose,' said the French; 'and this day, time is more precious than your counsel.'
'As you will, my masters,' replied Bisset; 'only credit me, that if you leave that bridge behind you to facilitate the operations of your enemies, you will place your army in such a predicament, that neither the craft of Alexander of Macedon, nor William the Norman--could either come from their graves to lead--would avail to save it from destruction ere reaching Damietta.'
And having administered this warning, Bisset withdrew, with the consolation of a man who has done at least his duty, and with the air also of a man much too reckless as to his personal safety to fear much on his own account from the consequences of the blunders and incapacity of others; then, arming himself, he saddled his steed, girded on his sword, hung his battle-axe at his saddle-bow, and went to attend King Louis during the perilous enterprise of marching through a country, with armed foes posted at the turn of every road.
'Hearken to that English tail,' said the French one to another, as Bisset withdrew; 'these islanders are so timid, that they will next be afraid of their own shadows.'
'By the head of St. Anthony,' said a knight, who had been attached to the Count of Artois, 'I hate the tailed English so, that I would leave the bridge as it is, if only to mortify one of them.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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26
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THE MASSACRE OF MINIEH.
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IT was already dark when the pilgrim army commenced a perilous retreat to Damietta, and when the King of France, surrounded by a band of brave knights, undertook the duty of bringing up the rear--on that occasion the post of honour.
But Louis was in no condition to occupy such a position with advantage. He was not fully recovered from his sickness, and so weak, that he could hardly bear the weight of his armour, or support himself on his white charger. Neither helmet nor cuirass wore he; nor had he any weapon save his sword; nor had he sufficient strength to wield his sword to any purpose in the event of a close encounter.
And, as it happened, the post of honour speedily became the post of danger. As Bisset had predicted, the Saracens lost not a minute in availing themselves of the bridge that had been left standing. In an incredibly brief space of time, they contrived to cross the canal in such numbers, that the plain on the Damietta side was covered with turbaned warriors, bent on the destruction of their foes; and, in the darkness of the night, their cavalry charged constantly, and with deadly effect, on the retiring and dispirited rear of the Crusaders.
Of course, the plight of Louis and his comrades every hour became more deplorable. They fell into disorder; they ran against and impeded each other; and cries of anger and despair were mingled with the neighing of horses, and the clash of arms. Earnestly they prayed for day, that they might, at least, ascertain their real position; but, when day came, it brought no comfort. In fact, when the rising sun revealed their diminished and diminishing numbers, and the formidable force of enemies who surrounded them--here a handful of men--there a host--the very boldest of the Crusaders gave themselves up for lost, and a simultaneous cry of terror and dismay broke from their scanty ranks.
'Gentlemen,' said Louis, calm in the midst of peril, 'droop not. At the great battle of Antioch, Godfrey of Bouillon, and his companions, had worse odds than we.'
'And they conquered,' said Walter de Chatillon, striving to banish apprehension, 'and we may conquer.'
'Yes,' replied Louis, 'they had faith in God's protection, and confidence in the holiness of their cause; and it seemed to them that while the struggle was well-nigh hopeless, the blessed martyrs--George, Demetrius, and Theodore, came to aid them, and assure them of victory.'
'Ha,' said Bisset, the English knight, as if speaking to himself, 'I have heard that some saw St. George in the air, with an army of white horses; but these did no doubt look through the spectacles of fancy.'
Louis turned, bent his brow, and darted upon the speaker a glance of keen reproach, which might have found fuller expression in words. But there was no time for argument or admonition; for at that moment the Saracens made one of their fiery charges, and though the French warriors defended themselves and their king with heroism, they could not hope that valour would ultimately save them. While Chatillon and Bisset, now charging singly, now side by side, did wonders in keeping a space clear around the king and the royal standard, Geoffrey de Segrines, adhering to the side of Louis, wielded his sword with such effect that he drove off, one by one, the horsemen who darted forth from the Saracen ranks.
'In truth,' said the brave Frenchman, when complimented by Bisset on his exploits, 'I know not how it is; but to me, it seems that the danger of this day has doubled my strength.'
'On my faith,' replied Bisset, 'I am at a loss whether more to admire your valour or your vigilance. Your care of your good king reminds me of the watchful servant who carefully drives away the flies from his master's cup.'
But brief were the intervals allowed even for such an exchange of sentiments. Now secure of victory, and stimulated by enthusiasm and fanaticism, the Saracens grew bolder and more audacious in their attacks. Urged on by their dervishes and imaums, who had flocked to the host of Saracens to remind them that they were fighting in the cause of the prophet, they became more and more eager for carnage and blood, and the Crusaders less and less capable of a stubborn resistance. At length, on reaching the little town of Minieh, the Crusaders acknowledged that they could no longer continue the retreat; and, halting, they drew up in a body outside the town, with the simple resolution of fighting till they fell.
But by this time Louis was utterly exhausted; and Segrines, conducting him into the court, lifted him from his steed, and carried him, 'weak as a child in its mother's lap,' into a house, expecting every moment to be his last. Nor did the prospects of the Crusaders outside improve in the king's absence. Alarming rumours, vaguely flying about the town, reached their ears and depressed their hearts; and, while they were still in panic and incertitude, the Saracens made an onset with more than their former ferocity. Soon all was confusion and carnage. It seemed, indeed, that nothing but the hearts' blood of the Crusaders would satisfy the vindictive cravings of their foes; and so utterly dispirited by adversity and defeat, and pestilence, were knights formerly renowned as brave among the bravest that they allowed themselves, almost without resisting, to be slaughtered in heaps.
Naturally, however, there were striking exceptions; and none were more remarkable than Chatillon and Bisset; who, when Louis was conducted into Minieh, took up their post hard by an orange grove, and close to a wall at the entrance of the narrow street leading to the house into which Segrines had carried the king.
Nothing could have exceeded Chatillon's fiery valour. At one moment he rushed like lightning among the Saracens, scattered them, and cut them down. Then after reining back to the wall to draw out the arrows and darts that adhered to his cuirass, he returned to the charge, rising in his stirrups, and shouting--'Chatillon, knights--Chatillon to the rescue.'
Meanwhile Bisset exerted himself with no less courage and prowess. Scorning his danger, and scorning his foes, he charged among the Saracens, with shouts of--'Holy Cross, Holy Cross! Down with the pagan dogs! Down with the slaves of Mahound and Termagaunt!' Nothing could resist the vehemence of his attack. In vain were all attempts to drag him from his steed. Before his mighty battle-axe the Saracens seemed to shake and fall as corn before the reaper.
At length Chatillon, mortally wounded, dropt from his horse, and the Saracen who had wounded him springing forward seized the French knight's steed, which was one sheet of blood and foam. Bisset cleft the Saracen's skull to the teeth, and laughed defiantly as he avenged the fall of his comrade-in-arms.
But Bisset was now alone; and his situation was so utterly desperate, that any ordinary man, even in that feudal and fighting age, would have relinquished all hope and yielded to fate. The English knight had no inclination to do anything of the kind. Rapidly his eye measured the ground; as rapidly his brain calculated the chances of reaching the orange grove; and as rapidly he arrived at the conclusion that he could cut his way through the crowd. No sooner had he settled this than he wasted not a moment in hesitation. Drawing back towards the wall, and halting for a moment, with his face to his foes, to breathe his panting steed, he once more, with battle-axe in hand, charged forward upon his now recoiling foes, but this time not to return. Nothing daunted by the darts and arrows that flew around him, he deliberately pursued the course which his eye had marked out, literally felling to the earth all who attempted to stop his progress, but skillfully avoiding foes whom it was not necessary to encounter. Only a man of the highest courage would have made such an attempt: only a man of the strongest will would have persevered.
Now Bisset had both courage and strength of will, and in spite of all the chances against him, he did reach the orange grove, and making his way through it as well as he could, found himself in the verge of a wood of palms and sycamores. But he himself was wounded; his horse was bleeding in a dozen places; and close behind him were three Saracens, well mounted, and thirsting for his blood. It may seem to the reader, that such being the circumstances, Bisset might as well have fallen at Mansourah or with Walter de Chatillon at the entrance to the narrow street leading to the house to which the king had been carried. But, certainly, that was by no means his view of the case; for he was one of those warriors who never despair; and he turned on his pursuers like a lion at bay.
'Surely,' said he, speaking to himself, 'wounded and weary as I am, I should be but a poor Christian knight if I could not deal with three pagan dogs.'
And terrible, even to brave foes, was the ferocity and fury with which Bisset turned upon the Saracens. Mighty was the force with which he swung a battle-axe, ponderous enough to have served as a weapon to Coeur de Lion. Crushed by one swoop of the axe fell the first of the pursuers--down, as it again swung on high, fell the second, who a moment earlier was uttering threats of vengeance. But the English knight had no inclination to encounter the third antagonist. His horse, as he felt, was sinking; he himself was weakened by loss of blood; and, quick as thought, he turned towards the wood of palms and sycamores.
But a new difficulty presented itself. Between Bisset and the wood was a very deep ditch which at another time would have made him pause. Now, however, he did not hesitate, even for an instant. He touched his steed with the spur; he spoke as if imploring the noble animal to make a last effort; and the result was a gallant bound. But the effort was too much. In exerting itself to scramble up the opposite bank, the good steed broke its back; and the knight, freeing his limbs from its corse, quickly drew his dagger and relieved it from suffering.
The delay, however, had proved dangerous. Even as he gained one bank of the ditch the Saracen was at the other, and preparing to launch a javelin. One moment only intervened between the Crusader and death; but that moment was not neglected. With his remaining strength Bisset raised his battle-axe, whirled it with irresistible force, and, as the weapon whizzed through the air, the Saracen dropped from his horse and rolled into the ditch, the water of which immediately became red with his blood.
Not a moment did Bisset now waste in getting under cover of the wood. For full five minutes he neither halted nor looked behind. At length he stopped under a palm tree; and taking out one of those little crosses which the Crusaders carried with them for purposes of prayer, and which are now symbolised by figures on the shield of many a Crusader's descendant, he knelt before it, and invoked the protection and aid of God and the saints to shield him from danger and restore him to the land of his fathers.
But almost ere the prayer was uttered, Bisset started at the sound of footsteps; and as he turned his head his brain reeled; and, after grasping at the tree for support, he sank motionless on the ground.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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27
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JOINVILLE IN PERIL.
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WHILE King Louis and the brave companions of his ill-starred retreat were seized as captives, or mercilessly massacred by the Saracens at Minieh, the sick and wounded Crusaders who embarked on the Nile were not more fortunate. In order to understand the extent of their dangers and sufferings, it is necessary to refer to the chronicle of the good Lord of Joinville--who, still suffering from disease, embarked with his knights and followers, including Guy Muschamp, not yet recovered from the sickness by which he had been prostrated.
Nor is it possible to peruse the seneschal's simple narrative without profound interest. In reading his account of this disastrous expedition, we are transported, in imagination, to the thirteenth century, and witness, with the mind's eye, the scenes in which he was an actor, and gradually come to feel as if we were not reading a chronicle penned centuries ago, but listening to a Crusader who, just returned from the East, and seated on the dais of the castle hall, tells his story over the wine-cup to his kinsmen and neighbours assembled at the festive board.
It was evening; and Joinville, who was suffering fearfully from the prevailing malady, perceiving that everyone was preparing to depart towards Damietta, withdrew to his galley, with his chaplain, and such of his company, including Guy Muschamp, as had escaped the pestilence, and the swords of the Saracens; and no sooner did darkness descend over the hill, than he commanded his captain to raise the anchor, and float down the stream.
'My lord,' replied the man, 'I dare not; for between us and Damietta are the large galleys of the Saracens, who would infallibly capture us.'
And at this moment a terrible spectacle arrested Joinville's attention. It happened that the king's seamen were waiting to take the sick and wounded on board; but many of the sick and wounded were still in the camp on the banks of the river. Suddenly, by the light of fires which the sailors had lighted for the comfort of the sick, Joinville saw the Saracens enter the camp, and gratify their thirst for blood by a general massacre. In great alarm, the king's seamen cut their cables; and while Joinville's men were raising their anchor, the huge galleys came down upon them with such force, that he expected every moment to be sunk. However he escaped this danger, and made some way down the Nile. But it speedily appeared that the Crusaders who had embarked on the river were not to be more fortunate in their attempt to reach Damietta than were those who remained on shore.
Joinville very soon discovered that he had scarcely a chance of escape. During the night, a tempest arose; and the wind blowing with great force towards Damietta drove the vessels of the Crusaders straight in the way of the sultan's fleet, and about break of day they found themselves close to the galleys of the Saracens. Immediately on observing the Crusaders approaching, the Saracens raised loud shouts, and shot large bolts, and threw Greek fire in such quantities, that it seemed as if the stars were falling from the heavens.
Great, of course, was the alarm of the Crusaders. Joinville and his company, however, gained the current, and endeavoured to push forward; but the wind becoming more and more violent drove them against the banks, and close to the Saracens, who, having already taken several vessels, were murdering the crews, and throwing the dead bodies into the river.
On seeing what was taking place, and finding that the Saracens began to shoot bolts at his galley, Joinville, to protect himself, put on his armour. He had hardly done so, when some of his people began to shout in great consternation.
'My lord, my lord,' cried they, 'because the Saracens menace us, our steersman is going to run us ashore, where we shall all be murdered.'
At that moment Joinville was so faint that he had seated himself, but instantly rising he drew his sword and advanced.
'Beware what you do,' said he; 'for I vow to slay the first person who attempts to run us ashore.'
'My lord,' said the captain in a resolute tone, 'it is impossible to proceed; so you must make up your mind whether you will be landed on shore, or stranded in the mud of the banks.'
'Well,' replied Joinville, 'I choose rather to be run on a mud bank than to be carried ashore, where even now I see our people being slaughtered.'
But escape proved impossible. Almost as he spoke, Joinville perceived four of the sultan's galleys making towards his barge; and, giving himself up for lost, he took a little casket containing his jewels, and threw it into the Nile. However, it turned out that, though he could not save his liberty, there was still a chance of saving his life.
'My lord,' said the mariner, 'you must permit me to say you are the king's cousin; if not, we are as good as murdered.'
'Say what you please,' replied Joinville.
And now Joinville met with a protector, whose coming he attributed to the direct interposition of heaven. 'It was God,' says he, 'who then, as I verily believe, sent to my aid a Saracen, who was a subject of the Emperor of Germany. He wore a pair of coarse trowsers, and, swimming straight to me, he came into my vessel and embraced my knees. "My lord," he said, "if you do not what I shall advise, you are lost. In order to save yourself, you must leap into the river, without being observed." He had a cord thrown to me, and I leaped into the river, followed by the Saracen, who saved me, and conducted me to a galley, wherein were fourteen score of men, besides those who had boarded my vessel. But this good Saracen held me fast in his arms.'
Shortly after, Joinville with the good Saracen's aid was landed, and the other Saracens rushed on him to cut his throat, and he expected no better fate. But the Saracen who had saved him would not quit his hold.
'He is the king's cousin,' shouted he; 'the king's cousin.'
'I had already,' says Joinville, 'felt the knife at my throat, and cast myself on my knees; but, by the hands of this good Saracen, God delivered me from this peril; and I was led to the castle where the Saracen chiefs had assembled.'
When Joinville was conducted with some of his company, along with the spoils of his barge, into the presence of the emirs, they took off his coat of mail; and perceiving that he was very ill, they, from pity, threw one of his scarlet coverlids lined with minever over him, and gave him a white leathern girdle, with which he girded the coverlid round him, and placed a small cap on his head. Nevertheless, what with his fright and his malady, he soon began to shake so that his teeth chattered, and he complained of thirst.
On this the Saracens gave him some water in a cup; but he no sooner put it to his lips, than the water began to run back through his nostrils. 'Having an imposthume in my throat,' says he, 'imagine what a wretched state I was in; and I looked more to death than life.'
When Joinville's attendants saw the water running through his nostrils, they began to weep; and the good Saracen who had saved him asked them why they were so sorrowful.
'Because,' they replied, 'our lord is nearly dead.'
And thereupon the good Saracen, taking pity on their distress, ran to tell the emirs; and one of them coming, told Joinville to be of good cheer, for he would bring a drink that should cure him in two days. Under the influence of this beverage, the seneschal ere long recovered; and when he was well, he was sent for by the admiral, who commanded the sultan's galleys.
'Are you,' asked the admiral, 'the king's cousin, as was reported?'
'No,' answered Joinville, 'I am not;' and he informed the admiral why it had been stated.
'You were well advised,' said the admiral; 'for otherwise you would have been all murdered, and cast into the river. Have you any acquaintance with the Emperor Frederic, or are you of his lineage?'
'Truly,' replied Joinville, 'I have heard my mother say that I am the emperor's second cousin.'
'Ah,' said the admiral, 'I rejoice to hear it; and I love you all the better on that account.'
It appears that Joinville became quite friendly with the admiral, and was treated by him with kindness; and, on Sunday, when it was ordered that all the Crusaders who had been taken prisoners on the Nile should be brought to a castle on the banks, Joinville was invited to go thither in the admiral's company. On that occasion, the seneschal had to endure the horror of seeing his chaplain dragged from the hold of his galley and instantly killed and flung into the water; and scarcely was this over when the chaplain's clerk was dragged out of the hold, so weak that he could hardly stand, felled on the head with a mortar, and cast after his master. In this manner the Saracens dealt with all the captives who were suffering from sickness.
Horrorstruck at such a destruction of human life, Joinville, by means of the good Saracen who had saved his life, informed them that they were doing very wrong; but they treated the matter lightly.
'We are only destroying men who are of no use,' said they; 'for they are much too ill with their disorders to be of any service.'
Soon after witnessing this harrowing spectacle, Joinville was requested by the Saracen admiral to mount a palfrey; and they rode together, over a bridge, to the place where the Crusaders were imprisoned. At the entrance of a large pavilion the good Saracen, who had been Joinville's preserver, and had always followed him about, stopped, and requested his attention.
'Sir,' said he, 'you must excuse me, but I cannot come further. I entreat you not to quit the hand of this boy, otherwise the Saracens will kill him.'
'Who is he?' asked Joinville.
'The boy's name,' replied the good Saracen, 'is Bartholomew de Bar, and he is son of the Lord Montfaucon de Bar.'
And now conducted by the admiral, and leading the little boy by the hand, Joinville entered the pavilion, where the nobles and knights of France, with more than ten thousand persons of inferior rank, were confined in a court, large in extent, and surrounded by walls of mud. From this court the captive Christians were led forth, one at a time, and asked if they would become renegades, yes or no. He who answered 'Yes,' was put aside; but he who answered 'No,' was instantly beheaded.
Such was the plight of the Christian warriors who so recently had boasted of being about to conquer Egypt. Already thirty thousand of the Crusaders had perished; and the survivors were so wretched, that they almost envied their comrades who had gone where the weary are at rest.
Now in the midst of all this suffering and anxiety, what had become of Guy Muschamp? Had the gay young squire, who boasted that if killed by the Saracens he would die laughing, been drowned in the Nile, or was he a captive in that large court surrounded by walls of mud? Neither. But as our narrative proceeds, the reader will see that Guy Muschamp's fate was hardly less sad than the fate of those who had found a watery grave, or of those who were offered the simple choice of denying their God or losing their lives.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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28
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NEWS OF DISASTER.
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WHILE Louis of France and his nobles and knights were exposed to such danger at the hands of their enemies, from whom they had no reason to expect forbearance, Queen Margaret remained at Damietta, with her ladies, expecting to hear of battles won and fortresses taken. At length, one morning about sunrise, a strange and heart-rending cry resounded through the city, and reached the ears of the queen in her palace. What was it? was it fire? No. Another and another wail of agony. What could it be? The approach of an enemy? No. It was merely tidings of the massacre of Minieh!
Margaret of Provence summoned to her presence Oliver de Thermes, whom King Louis had left at Damietta in command of the garrison.
'Sir knight,' said the queen, 'what is all that noise I hear?'
The warrior hesitated.
'Speak, sir,' said Margaret, losing patience; 'I command you to tell me what has happened.'
'Madam,' replied the knight, 'the news as yet is but vague and uncertain.'
'Answer me, directly,' said the queen, speaking in a tone of authority. 'What of the King of France? What of the warriors who marched from Damietta under the banner of St. Denis?'
'Alas, madam,' replied Sir Oliver, 'I would fain hope that the news is not true; but it certainly is bruited about that the king is a captive, and that the warriors of the Cross have fallen almost to a man.'
Margaret did not answer; she did not even attempt to speak. Her colour went, she shuddered, tottered, and would have fallen to the floor had not her ladies rushed to her support. It was indeed a terrible situation for that youthful matron, and--what made matters more melancholy--she was about to become a mother.
And now Damietta was the scene of consternation somewhat similar to that which pervaded Cairo, when a pigeon carried thither intelligence of the victory of the Count of Artois at Djédilé. The ladies of the Crusaders, the Countesses of Poictiers and Provence, and the widowed Countess of Artois, among the number, bewailed the fate of their lords; the queen was afflicted to a terrible degree as she thought of the king's peril; and many people only felt concerned about their own extreme peril. Of course much selfishness was exhibited under the circumstances; and the Pisans and Genoese set a bad example by preparing to save themselves, and leave the city to its fate. But, on hearing of their intention, the queen ordered that the chief persons among them should be brought to her presence, and addressed them in a way likely to convince them of the selfishness of their conduct.
'Gentlemen,' said Margaret, rousing herself from her prostration and raising her head; 'as you love God, do not leave this city; for if you do you will utterly ruin the king and his army, who are captives, and expose all within the walls to the vengeance of the Saracens.'
'Madam,' replied the Pisans and Genoese, utterly unmoved by the loyal lady's distress, 'we have no provisions left, and we cannot consent to remain at the risk of dying of hunger.'
'Be under no such apprehension,' said the queen quickly; 'you shall not die of hunger; I will cause all the provisions in Damietta to be bought in the king's name, and distributed forthwith.'
The Pisans and Genoese on hearing this assurance consented to remain in Damietta; and, after an expenditure of three hundred and sixty thousand livres, Margaret provided for their subsistence. But the men who were thus bribed to remain as a garrison were not likely to make any very formidable resistance in the event of an attack taking place; and such an event was no longer improbable. Indeed rumours, vague but most alarming, reached Damietta that a Saracenic host was already on its way to capture the city.
The rumour that the Moslems were actually coming made the bravest men in Damietta quake, and inspired the ladies who were in the city with absolute terror. Even the courage of the queen, who had just given birth to her son John, failed; and her faculties well-nigh deserted her. One moment her imagination conjured up visions of Saracens butchering her husband; at another she shrieked with terror at the idea that the Saracens had taken the city and were entering her chamber. Ever and anon she sank into feverish sleep, and then, wakened by some fearful dream, sprang up, shouting, 'Help! help! they are at hand. I hear their lelies.'
It was while Margaret of Provence was in this unhappy state of mind, that a French knight, who was eighty years of age, but whose heart, in spite of his four score of years, still overflowed with chivalry, undertook the duty of guarding the door of her chamber night and day.
'Madam,' said he, 'be not alarmed. I am with you. Banish your fears.'
'Sir knight,' exclaimed the unhappy queen, throwing herself on her knees before him, 'I have a favour to ask. Promise that you will grant my request.'
'I swear, madam, that I will comply with your wishes,' replied the aged knight.
'Well, then,' said the queen; 'what I have to request is this, that if the Saracens should take the city, you, by the faith you have pledged, will rather cut off my head than suffer me to fall into their hands.'
'Madam,' replied the veteran chevalier, 'I had already resolved on doing what you have asked, in case the worst should befall.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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29
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A WOUNDED PILGRIM.
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IT was long ere Walter Espec, struck down wounded and bleeding at Mansourah, recovered possession of his faculties sufficiently to recall the scenes through which he had passed or even to understand what was taking place around him. As time passed over, however, consciousness returned; and he one day became aware that he was stretched on a bed in a chamber somewhat luxuriously furnished, and tended by a woman advanced in years, who wore a gown of russet, and a wimple which gave her a conventual appearance.
Walter raised his head, and was about to speak, when she suddenly left the room, and the squire was left to guess, as he best might, where and under whose care he was. He attempted to rise; but the effort was in vain. He put his hand to his head; but he found that his long locks of fair hair were gone. He tried to remember how he had got there; but, try as he might, his memory would not bring him farther down the stream of time, than the hour in which he fell at Mansourah. All the rest was a blank or a feverish dream of being rowed on a river by Saracen boatmen, and left at the portal of a house which he had never seen before. Gradually recalling all his adventures since he left the castle of Wark, he remembered and felt his hand for the amulet with which he had been gifted by King Louis when at Cyprus. The ring was there, and as Walter thought of the inscription he felt something like hope.
But Walter was still weak from loss of blood and the fever which had been the consequence of wounds and exposure, and he soon sank into a slumber. When he again awoke to consciousness the woman in russet was standing near him, and conversing with a damsel whom Walter did not at first see, but whose tones, sweet and soft, manifested a strong interest in his recovery.
'He will yet live,' said the woman in russet, 'and rejoice we in it; for he is a young man; and to such life must needs be dear.'
'He will live,' repeated the girl, 'and our lady be praised therefor; for it is sweet to live.'
'In truth, noble demoiselle,' said the woman in russet, 'the youth owes much to your solicitude; but for your anxiety on his behalf, I hardly think he would have struggled through the fever. However, if you will remain and watch him for a brief space, I will attend to the commands of my lady the queen, and hasten to relieve you. Nay, it misbeseems not noble maiden to tend a wounded warrior, especially a soldier of the Cross; and, credit me, he will give you little trouble. He lies as quiet and calm as if he were in his shroud.'
With these words the woman in russet departed; and the damsel, treading so softly that her footstep made not the slightest noise, moved about the room in silent thought, now turning to gaze on the wounded squire, now looking from the casement. Walter, now fully awake, began to experience a strong feeling of curiosity; and turning his head directed his gaze, not without interest, towards his youthful nurse. She was not more than sixteen, and still more beautiful than young. She had features exquisitely lovely in their delicacy and expression, deep blue eyes with long dark fringes, and dark brown hair which, according to the fashion of the period, was turned up behind and enclosed in a caul of network. Her form was already elegant in its proportions; but it inclined to be taller, and gave promise of great perfection. Her charms were set off by the mourning dress which she wore, and by the robe called the quintise, which was an upper tunic without sleeves, with bordered vandyking and scalloping worked and notched in various patterns, worn so long behind that it swept the floor, but in front held up gracefully with one hand so as not to impede the step.
Walter was charmed, and a little astonished as his eye alighted on a face and form so fascinating; and, in spite of his prostration and utter weakness, he gazed on her with lively interest and some wonder.
'Holy Katherine!' exclaimed he to himself; 'what a lovely vision. I marvel who she is, and where I am; and, as he thus soliloquised, the girl turned round, and not without flutter and alarm perceived that he was awake and watching her.
'Noble demoiselle, heed me not;' said Walter earnestly, 'but rather tell me, since, if I understand aright, I owe my life to you--how am I ever sufficiently to prove my gratitude?'
'Ah, sir squire,' replied she, 'you err in supposing the debt to be on your side. It is I who owe you a life, and not you who owe a life to me; and,' added she, struggling to repress tears, 'my heart fills when I remember how you did for me, albeit a stranger, what, under the circumstances, no other being on earth would have ventured to do.'
'By Holy Katherine, noble demoiselle,' said Walter, wondering at her words; 'I should in truth deem it a high honour to have rendered such as you any service. But that is a merit which I cannot claim; for, until this hour, unless my memory deceives me, I never saw your face.'
The countenance of the girl evinced disappointment, and the tears started to her eyes.
'Ah, sir, sir,' said she, with agitation; 'I am she whom, on the coast of Cyprus, you saved from the waves of the sea.'
Walter's heart beat rather quick as he learned that it was Adeline de Brienne who stood before him; for, though her very face was unknown to him, her name had strangely mixed up with many of his day-dreams; and it was not without confusion that, after a pause, he continued the conversation.
'Pardon my ignorance, noble demoiselle,' said he, 'and vouchsafe, I pray you, to inform me where I now am; for I own to you that I am somewhat perplexed.'
'You are in Damietta.'
'In Damietta!' exclaimed Walter, astonished; 'and how came I to Damietta? My latest recollection is having been struck from my steed at Mansourah, after my lord, the Earl of Salisbury, and all the English warriors, had fallen before the weapons of the Saracens; and how I come to be in Damietta is more than I can guess.'
'Mayhap; but I can tell you,' said a frank hearty voice; and, as Walter started at the sound, Bisset, the English knight, stood before him; and Adeline de Brienne, not without casting a kindly look behind, vanished from the chamber.
'Wonder upon wonders,' cried Walter, as the knight took his hand; 'I am now more bewildered than before. Am I in Damietta, and do I see you, and in the body?'
'Even so,' replied Bisset; 'and for both circumstances we are wholly indebted to Beltran, the Christian renegade. He saved you from perishing at Mansourah, and conveyed you down the Nile, and brought you to the portal of this palace; and he came to me when I was at Minieh under a tree, sinking with fatigue, and in danger of bleeding to death; and he found the means of conveying me hither also; so I say that, were he ten times a renegade, he merits our gratitude.'
'Certes,' said Walter, 'and, methinks, also our prayers that his heart may be turned from the error of his ways, and that he may return to the faith which Christians hold.'
'Amen,' replied Bisset.
'But tell me, sir knight,' continued Walter, eagerly, what has happened, since that dreadful day, to the pilgrim army? and if you know aught of my brother-in-arms, Guy Muschamp?'
'Sir squire,' answered Bisset, sadly; 'for your first question, I grieve to say, that has come to pass which I too shrewdly predicted--all the boasting of the French has ended in disaster--the king and his nobles being prisoners, and most of the other pilgrims slain or drowned; and, for your second, as to Guy Muschamp, the English squire, who was a brave and gallant youth, I own I entertain hardly a doubt that, ere this, he is food for worms or fishes.'
Walter Espec uttered an exclamation of horror, and, without another word, sank back on his pillow.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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30
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ST. LOUIS IN CHAINS.
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WHEN King Louis was led away by the faithful Segrines, and when he was so exhausted that he had to be lifted from his steed and carried into a house, and when the Crusaders outside were in dismay and despair, Philip de Montfort entered the chamber where the saintly monarch was, and proposed to renew negotiations with the Saracens.
'Sire,' said De Montfort, 'I have just seen the emir with whom I formerly treated; and, so it be your good pleasure, I will seek him out, and demand a cessation of hostilities.'
'Go,' replied Louis; 'and, since it can no better be, promise to submit to the conditions on which the sultan formerly insisted.'
Accordingly De Montfort went; and the Saracens, still fearing their foes, and remembering that the French held Damietta, agreed to treat. A truce was, indeed, on the point of being concluded. Montfort had given the emir a ring; the emir had taken off his turban, and their hands were about to meet; when a Frenchman, named Marcel, rushed in and spoiled all.
'Seigneurs,' said he, interrupting the conference, 'noble knights of France, surrender yourselves all! The king commands you by me. Do not cause him to be put to death.'
On hearing this message, the emir withdrew his hand, returned De Montfort's ring, put on his turban, and intimated that the negotiation was at an end.
'God is powerful,' said he, 'and it is not customary to treat with beaten enemies.'
And now it was that there ensued such a scene as Minieh had never witnessed. Almost as the negotiation ended, Louis was seized, violently handled and put in chains. Both the Count of Poictiers and the Count of Anjou were at the same time made prisoners; and the bulk of the warriors accompanying the king had scarcely the choice between surrender and death; for nothing, as has been said, but their hearts' blood would satisfy the vindictive cravings of their foes; and, when the king's captivity became known, many of those who had formerly been most intrepid, remained motionless and incapable of the slightest resistance.
About the time when King Louis was put in chains, and when Bisset, the English knight, was endeavouring to escape death or rather captivity, the sultan arrived at Minieh, and, without any display of generosity for the vanquished, took measures for improving his victory to the utmost. The king and his brothers who, like himself, were bound hand and foot, were conducted in triumph to a boat of war. The oriflamme--that banner so long the pride of France--was now carried in mockery; the crosses and images, which the Crusaders had with them as symbols of their religious faith, were trampled scornfully under foot; and, with trumpets sounding and kettle-drums clashing, the royal captives were marched into Mansourah.
It was to the house of Fakreddin Ben Lokman, the secretary of the sultan, that Louis was escorted; and, on arriving there, he was given into the custody of the Eunuch Sahil. But, abandoned by fortune, and in the power of his enemies, Louis was still himself. In chains and captivity he exhibited the dignity of a king and the resignation of a Christian, and his jailers could not refrain from expressing their astonishment at the serene patience with which he bore adversity. Of all his property, he had only saved his book of psalms; and daily, while consoling himself with reciting from its pages, he was inspired with strength and resolution to bear his misfortunes, and to raise his thoughts far above the malice of his foes.
Meanwhile, at the court of the sultan, everything was not going smoothly. From the beginning, the emirs and Mamelukes had looked with envy and suspicion on the favourites brought by Touran Chah from Mesopotamia; and such feelings had not died away. Many of the favourites ere long were substituted for the ministers of the late sultan; and the emirs and Mamelukes not only complained loudly of this to Touran Chah, but reproached him bitterly for the way in which he disposed of the spoil of the Crusaders.
'How is this?' asked they; 'you are bestowing the spoils of the vanquished Franks, not on the men who have borne the burden of the war, but on men whose sole merit consists in having come from the banks of the Euphrates to the Nile.'
Now, the sultan's favourites were not unaware of the unfriendly feeling with which they were regarded by the Mameluke chiefs. Indeed, they saw all the dangers of their position, and considered it politic, under the circumstances, to reduce the influence of the emirs and Mamelukes by bringing about a treaty with the Crusaders.
'In these people,' said they to the sultan, 'you have enemies far more dangerous than the Christians. Nothing will content them but reigning in your stead. They never cease to boast of their victories, as if they alone had conquered the Franks, and as if the God of Mahomet had not sent pestilence and famine to aid you in triumphing. But hasten to terminate the war, that you may strengthen your power within; and then you will be able to reign in reality.'
As soon as Touran Chah was convinced that the emirs and Mamelukes entertained projects of ambition dangerous to his power, and that war was favourable to their designs, he resolved to show the chiefs how little he regarded their opinions; and, without even consulting them, he sent some of his favourites to the house of Lokman, and empowered them to treat with Louis.
'King,' said the ambassador, 'I come from the sultan, to inform you that he will restore you to liberty, on condition that you surrender to him the cities of Palestine now held by the Franks.'
'The cities of Palestine are not mine to give,' replied Louis, calmly; 'and I cannot pretend to dispose of them.'
'But beware of rashly refusing to submit to the sultan's terms,' said the ambassador; 'for you know not what may happen. He will send you to the caliph at Bagdad, who will imprison you for life; or he will cause you to be led throughout the East, to exhibit to all Asia a Christian king reduced to slavery.'
'I am the sultan's prisoner,' replied Louis, unmoved, 'and he can do with me what he pleases.'
On hearing this answer, the ambassadors intimated their intention of employing personal violence; and, one of them having stamped three times with his foot, the Eunuch Sahil entered, followed by the jailers, bearing that frightful instrument of torture, known as 'the bernicles.'
Now this terrible engine was made of pieces of wood pierced with holes, into which the legs of the criminal were put; and the holes were at so great a distance from each other, and could be forced to so great an extension, that the pain was about the most horrible that could be produced. Moreover, the holes being at various distances, the legs of the victim could be inserted into those that extended them to the greatest distance, and while the pain inflicted was more than flesh and blood could bear, means were, at the same time, used to break or dislocate all his small bones. It was an instrument of punishment reserved for the worst of criminals; and no torture was deemed so awful as that which it was capable of inflicting.
'What do you say to be put in this engine of punishment?' asked the ambassador, pointing significantly to the bernicles.
'I have already told you,' replied Louis, unmoved, 'that I am the sultan's prisoner, and that he can do with me as he pleases.'
In fact, the courage of Louis was proof against any danger to his own person; and he held all the menaces of his captors so cheap, that they scarcely knew how to deal with him. At length, the sultan determined to propose terms more likely to be acceptable to the saint-king, and again sent ambassadors to his prison, with the object of bringing about a treaty.
'King,' said the ambassador, 'the sultan has sent to ask how much money you will give for your ransom, besides restoring Damietta?'
'In truth,' replied Louis, 'I scarcely know what answer to make; but, if the sultan will be contented with a reasonable sum, I will write to the queen to pay it for myself and my army.'
'But wherefore write to the queen, who is but a woman?' asked the ambassador somewhat surprised.
'She is my lady and companion,' answered Louis, even at that moment mindful of the principles of chivalry; 'and it is only reasonable that her consent should be obtained.'
'Well,' said the ambassador, 'if the queen will pay a million golden bezants, the sultan will set you free.'
'However,' said Louis, with dignity, 'I must tell you that, as King of France, I cannot be redeemed by money; but a million of bezants will be paid as the ransom of my army, and Damietta given up in exchange for my own freedom.'
After some negotiations the terms were agreed to; and the sultan not only concluded the treaty joyfully, but expressed his admiration of the nobility of spirit which Louis had displayed.
'By my faith!' said Touran Chah to the ambassador, 'this Frenchman is generous and noble, seeing that he does not condescend to bargain about so large a sum of money, but instantly complies with the first demand. Go,' added the sultan, 'and tell him, from me, that I make him a present of a fifth of the sum, so that he will only have to pay four-fifths; and that I will command all the principal nobles and his great officers to be embarked in four of my largest galleys, and conducted safely to Damietta.'
It was Thursday before the Feast of Ascension; and, while the King of France, and the Crusaders were conveyed down the Nile in galleys, Touran Chah travelled by land from Mansourah, in order to receive Damietta, and perform the conditions of peace. On reaching Pharescour, however, the sultan halted to dine with his chiefs; and, while the other Crusaders lay in their galleys on the river, the king and his brethren were invited to land, and received into a pavilion, where they had an interview with the sultan, when Saturday was appointed for the payment of the golden bezants and the surrender of Damietta. But long ere Saturday a terrible tragedy was to occur, and render Pharescour memorable as the scene of a deed of violence, startling both to Asia and Europe. Already, while the sultan held his interview with the King of France and the Counts of Poictiers and Anjou, everything was prepared; and soon after Touran Chah had left Louis and his brothers shut up in the pavilion, they were roused by loud shouts of distress and a mighty tumult; and, while they breathlessly asked each other whether the French captives were being massacred or Damietta taken by storm, in rushed twenty Saracens, their swords red and reeking with blood, and spots of blood on their vestments and their faces, stamping, threatening furiously, and uttering fierce cries.
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31
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THE TRAGEDY OF PHARESCOUR.
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AT Pharescour, on the margin of the Nile, the Sultan of Egypt had a remarkable palace. It appears to have been constructed of wood, and covered with cloth of brilliant colours. At the entrance was a pavilion, where the emirs and chiefs were in the habit of leaving their swords, when they had audience of the sultan; and beyond this pavilion was a handsome gateway which led to the great hall where the sultan feasted; and adjoining the great hall was a tower, by which the sultan ascended to his private apartments.
Between the palace and the river was a spacious lawn, in which there was a tower, to which the sultan was wont to ascend when he wished to make observations on the surrounding country; and hard by was an alley which led towards the margin of the hill, and a summer-house formed of trellis-work and covered with Indian linen, where he frequently repaired for the purpose of bathing.
The chroniclers of the period who write of the crusade of St. Louis fully describe this palace. Indeed, the appearance of the place was strongly impressed on the memory of the Crusaders. It was there that Touran Chah, when on his way from Mansourah to Damietta, halted to receive the congratulations of the Moslem chiefs on the victory that had been achieved over the Franks; there, in their company, he celebrated his triumph by a grand banquet; and there was enacted the terrible tragedy that exposed the surviving pilgrims to new dangers and fresh trials.
By this time, indeed, the emirs and Mamelukes had become so exasperated at the elevation of the sultan's favourite courtiers that they vowed vengeance; and, in order to justify their project, they ascribed to him the most sinister designs. It was asserted that many of the emirs were doomed to die on a certain day; and that, in the midst of a nocturnal orgy, Touran Chah had cut off the tops of the flambeaux in his chamber, crying--'Thus shall fly the heads of all the Mamelukes.' In order to avenge herself for the neglect to which she was exposed under the new reign, Chegger Edour, the sultana who had played so important a part in the last days of Melikul Salih, exerted her eloquence to stimulate the discontent; and the emirs and Mamelukes, having formed a conspiracy, only awaited a convenient opportunity to complete their projects of vengeance at a blow.
It was the day after his arrival at Pharescour, on which Touran Chah gave a banquet to the chiefs of his army; and, as it happened, the company comprised the Mamelukes and the emirs who were, or who deemed themselves, in danger. It would seem that everything went forward quietly and ceremoniously till the feast was ended, and the sultan rose to ascend to his chamber. Not a moment, however, was then lost. As soon as Touran Chah moved from table, Bibars Bendocdar, who carried the sultan's sword, struck the first blow, and instantly the others rushed furiously upon their destined victim. Touran Chah parried the blow of the Mameluke chief with his hand; but the weapon penetrated between two of his fingers and cut up his arm.
'My lords,' said he, taken by surprise; 'I make my complaint against this man, who has endeavoured to kill me.'
'Better that you should be slain than live to murder us, as you intend to do,' cried all present, with the exception of an envoy of the caliph, who had arrived from Bagdad, and appeared much terrified at the scene so suddenly presented.
Touran Chah looked round him in amazement; and, as he did so, he was seized with terror. However, the instinct of self-preservation did not desert him. With a spring he bounded between the motionless guards, escaped into the lawn, took refuge in the tower, and looking from a window demanded of the conspirators what they really wanted; but they were not in a humour to spend time in talk.
'Come down,' cried they; 'you cannot escape us.'
'Assure me of safety, and I will willingly descend,' said the sultan.
At this stage the envoy of the caliph, having mounted his horse, came forward as if to interfere; but the conspirators menaced him with instant death if he did not return to his tent, and, still keenly bent on completing their work of murder, ordered the sultan to come down.
Touran Chah shook his head, as if declining the invitation.
'Fool,' cried the conspirators, scornfully, 'we have the means of compelling you to descend, or to meet a worse fate;' and without further parley they commenced assailing the tower with Greek fire.
The Greek fire caught the cloth and timber, and immediately the whole was in a blaze. Touran Chah could no longer hesitate. One hope remained to him, namely to rush towards the Nile, to throw himself into the water, and to take refuge on board one of the vessels that he saw anchored near the shore. Accordingly he leaped from the blazing tower, with the intention of rushing across the lawn. But the toils were upon him. A nail having caught his mantle, he, after remaining for a moment suspended, fell to the ground. Instantly sabres and swords waved over him; and he clung in a supplicating posture to Octai, one of the captains of his guard; but Octai repulsed him with contempt. Nevertheless, the conspirators hesitated; and they were still hesitating, when Bibars Bendocdar, who was never troubled either with fears or scruples, and who, indeed, had struck the first blow, made a thrust so stern that the sword remained sticking fast between the ribs of the victim. Still resisting, however, the sultan contrived to drag himself to the Nile, with a hope of reaching the galleys from which the captive Crusaders witnessed the outrage; but some of the Mamelukes followed him into the water; and close to the galley in which the Lord of Joinville was, the heir of Saladin--the last of the Eioubites--died miserably.
It was now that the Mamelukes rushed into the tent where Louis and his brothers were.
'King,' cried Octai, pointing to his bloody sword, 'Touran Chah is no more. What will you give me for having freed you from an enemy who meditated your destruction as well as ours?'
Louis vouchsafed no reply.
'What!' cried the emir, furiously presenting the point of his sword; 'know you not that I am master of your person? Make me a knight, or thou art a dead man.'
'Make thyself a Christian, and I will make thee a knight,' said Louis, calmly.
Rather cowed than otherwise with his reception, and with the demeanour of the royal captive, Octai retired; and the French king and his brothers once more breathed with as much freedom as men could under the circumstances. But they were not long left undisturbed. Scarcely had the Mameluke aspirant for knighthood disappeared when the tent was crowded with Saracens, who brandished their sabres and threatened Louis with destruction.
'Frenchman!' cried they, addressing the king, wildly and fiercely; 'art thou ignorant of thy danger, or what may be the fate that awaits thee? Pharescour is not Mansourah, as events may convince thee yet. Here thou mayest find a tomb instead of the house of Lokman, and the two terrible angels, Munkir and Nakir, instead of the Eunuch Sahil.'
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32
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PERILS AND SUSPENSE.
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THE Saracen chiefs, after having dyed their sabres in the blood of the sultan, did not confine their menaces and violent demonstrations to the tent in which the captive King of France was lodged. With swords drawn and battle-axes on their shoulders, thirty of them boarded the galley where Joinville was with the Count of Brittany, Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin, and the Constable of Cyprus, and menaced them with gestures and furious imprecations.
'I asked Sir Baldwin d'Ebelin,' writes Joinville, 'what they were saying; and he, understanding Saracenic, replied that they were come to cut off our heads, and shortly after I saw a large body of our men on board confessing themselves to a monk of La Trinité, who had accompanied the Count of Flanders. I no longer thought of any sin or evil I had done, but that I was about to receive my death. In consequence, I fell on my knees at the feet of one of them, and making the sign of the cross, said "Thus died St. Agnes." The Constable of Cyprus knelt beside me, and confessed himself to me, and I gave him such absolution as god was pleased to grant me the power of bestowing. But of all the things he had said to me, when I rose up I could not remember one of them.'
'We were confined in the hold of the galleys,' continues the chronicler, 'and laid heads and heels together. We thought it had been so ordered because they were afraid of attacking us in a body, and that they would destroy us one at a time. This danger lasted the whole night. I had my feet right on the face of the Count of Brittany, whose feet, in return, were beside my face. On the morrow we were taken out of the hold, and the emirs sent to inform us that we might renew the treaties we had made with the sultan.'
'So far, all seemed well. But the danger was not yet over, as the Crusaders were destined to feel. At first the form of the oaths to be taken by the king and the emirs presented much difficulty; and, even when it was settled, the emirs in council gravely discussed the propriety of putting the French king and his barons to death. Only one of them pleaded for keeping faith; and his voice would have been drowned in the clamour, but fortunately he used an argument which appealed irresistibly to their cupidity.'
'You may put these Franks to death if you will,' said he; 'but reflect ere doing so that dead men pay no ransom.'
Nevertheless, it really seemed that after all the Crusaders were doomed; and while they were on board the galleys, and this discussion was proceeding, an incident occurred which caused them to give themselves up for lost.
'One of the emirs that were against us,' says Joinville, 'threatening we were to be slain, came to the bank of the river, and shouted out in Saracen to those who were on board our galley, and, taking off his turban, made signs, and told them they were to carry us back to Babylon. The anchors were instantly raised, and we were carried a good league up the river. This caused great grief to all of us, and many tears fell from our eyes, for we now expected nothing but death.'
And what in the meantime was taking place in Damietta?
Nothing in truth could have exceeded the anxiety which prevailed within the walls of that city, when thither were carried tidings of the assassination of the Sultan of Egypt, and of the new danger to which the King of France and the captive Crusaders were exposed.
The aspect of affairs was indeed menacing; and it was not till messengers from King Louis came to announce that the treaty was to be maintained and the city evacuated, that something like confidence was restored. On the evening of Friday, Queen Margaret, with the Countesses of Anjou, Poictiers, and Artois, and the other ladies, went on board a Genoese vessel. As night advanced, Oliver de Thermes and all the Crusaders who had garrisoned Damietta embarked on the Nile, and Geoffrey de Segrines, having brought the keys to the emirs, the Saracens took possession. Next morning at daybreak the Moslem standards were floating over tower and turret. But still King Louis was in the hands of his enemies, and still the emirs were debating whether or not they ought to put him and the companions of his captivity to death.
At the mouth of the Nile, a Genoese galley awaited the king; and, while every eye was strained towards the shore with an anxiety which was not without cause, Walter Espec and Bisset, the English knight, stood on deck in no enviable frame of mind.
'I mislike all this delay,' said Walter, more agitated than he was wont to appear. 'What if, after all, these emirs should prove false to their covenant?'
'In truth,' replied Bisset, 'it would not amaze me so much as many things that have come to pass of late; and both the king and his nobles may yet find to their cost that their hopes of freedom are dashed; for we all know the truth of the proverb as to there being so much between the cup and the lip.'
At this moment they observed the galleys, on board of which Joinville and other captive Crusaders were, move up the Nile, and each uttered an exclamation of horror.
'Now may Holy Katherine be our aid,' cried Walter, 'for our worst anticipations are like to be realised.'
'The saints forbid,' replied Bisset; 'and yet I am not so hopeful as I might be, for I have long since learned not to holloa till out of the wood.'
It was indeed a critical moment for Louis and his nobles; but in the council of the emirs the milder views ultimately prevailed, and Bisset and Walter Espec observed with delight that the galleys which had moved up the Nile were brought back towards Damietta, and that Louis, attended by a multitude of Saracens who watched his movements in silence, was approaching. Immediately the Genoese galley moved towards the shore, and Louis, having been joined by the Count of Anjou and the Lord of Joinville, stepped on board, while the other knights and nobles hastened to embark in the vessels that lay in wait for them. As soon as the king was on board, Bisset made a signal; and, as he did so, eighty archers with their crossbows strung appeared on deck so suddenly that the crowd of Saracens who had been pressing forward immediately dispersed in alarm, and the galley moved from the shore. Ere long, the Count of Poictiers, who had remained as a hostage in Damietta till the ransom of the Crusaders was paid, came on board; and, all being now in readiness for leaving the place where he had experienced so many misfortunes and so much misery, the saint-king made a sign to the mariners, the sails were given to the wind, and the fleet of the armed pilgrims--the wreck of a brilliant army--glided away towards Syria. But thousands of the survivors still remained in captivity, and, albeit Louis was conscientiously bent on ransoming them, their prospect was gloomy, and the thought of their unhappy plight clouded the saint-king's brow.
And sad was the heart of Walter Espec, as he recalled the day when he landed at Damietta side by side with Guy Muschamp; and for the hundredth time asked himself mournfully whether his brother-in-arms had died for his faith, or whether a worse fate had befallen him.
But why linger on the Egyptian shore amid scenes suggestive of reminiscences so melancholy and so dismal--reminiscences of misfortunes and calamities and losses not to be repaired? Let us on to the Syrian coast, and gladden our eyes with a sight of the white walls of Acre, washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
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ACRE.
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AT the time when King Louis, sad but unsubdued, left Damietta and steered for the Syrian coast, Acre, situated on a promontory at the foot of Mount Carmel and washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, was a place of great strength, and renowned throughout Christendom for riches and splendour. For a long period previous to its destruction by the Mameluke Sultan--indeed, from the time of the seizure of Jerusalem by Saladin the Great--Acre was regarded as of higher importance than any city in the Christian kingdom of which Jerusalem had been the metropolis; and thither, when driven from other towns which they had called their own in the days of Godfrey and the Baldwins, most of the Christians carried such wealth as they could save from the grasp of sultans and emirs. Acre had, in fact, come to be regarded as the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and by far the finest of the cities in Syria.
Naturally enough, a capital so wealthy was rather tempting to men bent on conquest. But Acre had the advantage of being strongly fortified. On the land side it was surrounded by a double wall, with towers and battlements, and a broad and deep ditch, which prevented access to its ramparts, and towards the sea by a fortress at the entrance of the harbour, by the castle of the Templars, and by a stronghold known as 'The King's Tower;' and on the whole, the fortifications were such that no foe, not even such as Bibars Bendocdar, could have calculated on finding the place an easy prey.
Nor could the aspect of the city seem otherwise than strange and picturesque to such of the armed pilgrims as landed with the saint-king beneath its white walls, washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean. The interior was chiefly occupied by the houses of traders and artisans; but, between the two ramparts that defended the city on the east, stood the castles and palaces of the King of Cyprus, the Prince of Antioch, the representatives of France and Germany, and other men of high rank. The houses were built of square stones, all rising to an equal height; and most of them were surrounded with a terrace; and inside they were luxurious and resplendent, and lighted with windows of painted glass, which modified the glare of the oriental sun. Even the greatest kings in Europe could boast of nothing to compare with the pictures and marbles and rich furniture which the mansions of the magnates of Acre presented to the eyes of the weary and desponding Crusaders.
And Acre was not without busy life and striking ceremonies to give variety to the scene. The port was crowded with ships from Europe and Asia; the warehouses were stored with merchandise; the market-place was lively with bustle and excitement; monks, sailors, pirates, pilgrims, merchants, and warriors appeared in the streets; the squares and public places were screened from the heat by silken coverings; and there on certain days the magnates of the city, wearing golden crowns and vestments glittering with precious stones, walked to show themselves to the people, attended by splendid trains composed of men varying in language and manners, but unfortunately separated by jealousies and rivalries that frequently led to riot and bloodshed.
Around Acre, the country was fertile and fair to the eye of the gazer. Outside the walls were beautiful gardens where the citizens were wont to repair for recreation; and farther away groves and pleasure houses, and scattered villages and orchards, gave variety to the landscape.
Such was Acre when King Louis landed there with his queen and the remains of his once brilliant army; and when Walter Espec, penniless and pensive, but still hoping to hear tidings of his lost brother, leapt ashore with Bisset the English knight, and returned thanks to heaven for having escaped from the power of the Saracens and the perils of the sea.
'Sir knight,' said Walter, who was in a desponding mood, 'we have now, thanks be to God reached a place of safety; and yet, beshrew me if my heart does not fail me; for we are in a strange land, without money, without horses, almost without raiment befitting our rank.'
'In truth,' replied the knight, 'I own that our plight is not enviable. But it is not desperate. Still I am in the service of King Louis, and have claims which he cannot disregard; and, credit me, a king's name is a tower of strength. As for you, for lack of a more potent protector, attach yourself to me as squire, and we can struggle together against adverse fortune. So droop not, but take courage, my brave Englishman; and we will, with the aid of God and our lady, so contrive to make the best of our circumstances as to turn matters to our advantage.'
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A RESCUE.
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WALTER Espec, albeit since leaving England he had enacted the part of squire to two of the foremost earls in Christendom, was too much in need of a protector not to accept Bisset's offer with gratitude; and the English knight exercised his influence with such effect that both of them were soon provided with horses and raiment befitting their rank, and made a creditable figure among the Crusaders who thronged Acre. Indeed Walter, having now quite recovered from his illness, attracted much notice, and won the reputation of being one of the handsomest Englishmen who had ever appeared in the Syrian city.
Nevertheless, Walter was gloomy and despondent. All his enquiries after Osbert, his lost brother, resulted in disappointment. Guy Muschamp he regarded as one to be numbered with the dead; and Adeline de Brienne, who since their unexpected meeting at Damietta, where in days of dismay and danger they had conversed on equal terms, was now, as the grand-daughter of a King of Jerusalem, treated as a princess, and moved in too high a sphere to be approached by a simple squire. At first he was astonished to find that they were separated by so wide a gulf, and the Espec pride made him almost disdainful. Still, the fair demoiselle was present in all his visions by day and his dreams by night; and while consoling himself with building castles in the air when he was to reside in baronial state with her as his 'lady and companion,' he was under the necessity of contenting himself in the meantime with worshipping at a distance, as an Indian pays homage to his star. Ere long, however, fortune, which had ever been friendly to Walter, gave him an opportunity of acquiring a new claim on Adeline's gratitude.
It was about St. John the Baptist's day, in the year 1251, and the King of France, having undertaken an expedition against the Saracens, was at Joppa, while the queen and the ladies of the Crusade remained at Acre, which was garrisoned by a large body of infantry under the command of the Constable of Jerusalem, and a small party of cavalry under Bisset, whose courage and prowess still, in spite of his recklessness, made him a favourite with the royal saint. No danger, however, appeared to threaten the city. The citizens were occupying themselves as usual; and some of the ladies had gone to walk in the gardens outside the gate, when suddenly a body of Saracens, who had marched from Joppa, presented themselves before the walls, and sent to inform the constable that if he did not give them fifty thousand bezants by way of tribute, they would destroy the gardens. The threat was alarming, but the constable replied that he would give them nothing; and having sent a young knight of Genoa to order them off, he left the city and marched to the mount, where was the churchyard of St. Nicholas, to defend the gardens; while bowmen posted between them and the town kept up a brisk discharge of arrows, and Bisset at the head of a band of horsemen, attended by Walter Espec, charged forward and skirmished with the Saracens so as to retard their approach. Nevertheless, the Saracens continued to advance, and the Christian magnates who had been walking in the squares came to the battlements, and with anxiety on their faces watched the feats of arms that were performed, and especially those wrought by the young knight of Genoa.
Meanwhile Bisset and Walter Espec, while skirmishing with the Saracens, skirted their lines and made a circuit of the garden with the object of defending a gate by which it was feared an entrance might be effected. And in truth they found they had come too late to prevent the evil that was apprehended. Just as they approached their ears were hailed with loud cries of 'Help! help!' and to their horror they perceived that ten or twelve Saracens, well mounted, were issuing from the garden, one of whom was forcibly carrying off a lady without regard to her screams or her struggles.
'In the name of wonder!' said Bisset, staring in amaze, 'what is this I see?'
'By Holy Katherine!' exclaimed Walter wildly, 'the pagan dogs are carrying off a lady, and she is no other than Adeline de Brienne. To the rescue, sir knight! to the rescue!'
'Hold,' cried Bisset, 'or you will ruin all. See you not that their horses are swifter than ours, and we must go cunningly to work? Patience, Walter, patience. We must make a circuit and intercept them, without their being aware that we are in pursuit.'
Walter's blood boiled; his head seemed about to turn; and, in spite of the knight's admonition, he could hardly restrain his impetuosity as he saw the Saracens making off with their prize. Bisset, however, was calm, but, as usual, resolute; and it was not till he had posted part of his cavalry at the gate to prevent further intrusions that, at the head of half-a-dozen horsemen, he deliberately went in pursuit, and in such a direction that the Saracens had no suspicions that they were pursued. Indeed, they deemed themselves so secure that they gradually slackened their pace, and at length halted while two of their number rode back to ascertain the result of the combat that was taking place before Acre.
And what was the state of affairs before the city?
'As the Genoese knight was retiring with his body of infantry,' says Joinville, 'a Saracen suddenly moved by his courage came boldly up to him, and said in his Saracenic tongue that if he pleased he would tilt with him. The knight answered with pride that he would receive him; but, when he was on the point of beginning his course, he perceived on his left hand eight or nine Saracens, who had halted there to see the event of the tournament. The knight, therefore, instead of directing his course towards the Saracen who had offered to tilt with him, made for this troop, and, striking one of them with his lance, pierced his body through and killed him on the spot. He then retreated to our men, pursued by the other Saracens, one of whom gave him a heavy blow on his helmet with a battle-axe. In return, the knight struck the Saracen so severely on the head that he made his turban fly off. Another Saracen thought to give the knight a mortal blow with his Turkish blade, but he twisted his body in such wise that it missed him, and the knight, by a back-hand blow on the Saracen's arm, made his sword fall to the ground, and then made a good retreat with the infantry. These three famous actions did the Genoese knight perform in the presence of the constable, and before all the principal persons of the town who were assembled on the battlements.'
Nevertheless, the Saracens advanced with 'fierce faces threatening war,' when suddenly a band of those military monks who at the cry of battle armed 'with faith within and steel without,' and long white mantles over their chain mail, spurred with lances erect from the Castle of St. Katherine near the gate of St. Anthony, and, interposing between the Saracens and the city, formed a barrier that seemed impenetrable. They were the knights of the Order of St. Katherine of Mount Sinai, an Order instituted in honour of that saint in 1063, and bearing on their snowy mantles the instruments by which she suffered martyrdom--the half were armed with spikes and traversed by a sword stained with blood.
The Saracens halted in surprise at the sight of the Knights of St. Katherine, who were supposed at the time to be at the Castle of Kakhow; and, as if to provoke a conflict that they might have the satisfaction of conquering, one of the warrior monks, who seemed very young, at a signal from the marshal of the Order left his companions, and spurring gallantly forward, with marvellous skill unhorsed two of the Saracens without breaking his lance. On this, the leader of the Saracens, perceiving that the knight was alone, rode forward to meet him; but the youth charged him so fiercely that he was fain to retreat desperately wounded, and then returned leisurely to his comrades.
After some hesitation the Saracens withdrew, and the Knights of St. Katherine rode calmly back to their castle.
And now let us follow Bisset and Walter Espec.
About the distance of a league from Acre is a place which was then known as Passe-Poulain, where, shaded by foliage, were many beautiful springs of water, with which the sugar-canes were irrigated. It was at Passe-Poulain that the Saracens who carried off Adeline de Brienne halted to await the report of their comrades, and, little thinking of their danger, dismounted to quench their thirst and rest their steeds; the Saracen who had charge of the damsel alone remaining on horseback, and tenaciously keeping hold of his prize.
Suddenly all of them started in surprise; for one of the horses raised his head and neighed; and the Saracens had scarcely ceased their conversation and begun to listen, when, with loud shouts of 'Holy cross!' Bisset and his riders emerged from the foliage and dashed in amongst them. Resistance was vain, but the Saracens turned to bay, and a bloody fray, in which Bisset's axe did terrible execution, was the consequence. Only one attempted to escape,--he who had before him on his saddle the almost lifeless form of Adeline de Brienne; and after him Walter Espec, his sword drawn and his spur in his horse's flank, rode with furious shouts.
[Illustration: "Be of good cheer, noble Demoiselle," said Walter, "you are saved." --p. 220.]
It was a keen chase, both flyer and pursuer urging their steeds to the utmost; and under ordinary circumstances the Saracen would have escaped; but, hampered with his burden, and unable to exert his equestrian skill, he soon found that his pursuer was gaining on him rapidly, and turned to take the chance of an encounter. Fearful of hurting the damsel, but perceiving that even this must be hazarded, Walter met him in full course; and, exercising all his art in arms to elude a blow fiercely aimed at him, he dealt one on the Saracen's turban, which stretched the eastern warrior lifeless on the ground, and then leaping from his steed, quick as thought caught the form of the half-fainting maiden just as she was falling.
'Be of good cheer, noble demoiselle,' said Walter. 'You are saved.'
But Adeline de Brienne did not reply. She had fainted; and Walter, taking her in his strong arms, bore her tenderly to one of the springs of water, and was gradually bringing her back to consciousness when Bisset and his riders, having routed the other Saracens, came up in doubt as to the issue of the chase. Having succeeded in restoring the damsel, they placed her on Walter's steed, and, the squire leading her rein, conducted her to Acre.
'On my faith, sir squire,' said Bisset with a smile of peculiar significance, as Walter unbuckled his armour, 'I marvel at your good fortune in regard to the noble demoiselle, and perceive that I was right in saying that you had been born with luck on your side. A few more such exploits, and you will be known to fame.'
'At all events, sir knight,' replied Walter, trying not to appear too much elated, 'we can lay ourselves down to rest to-night with all the better conscience that we have this day performed an action worthy of minstrels' praise.'
'Marry,' exclaimed Bisset seriously, 'I look to deriving from this adventure some benefit more substantial than a sound sleep or minstrels' flattery; and, to speak truth, I am somewhat weary of this saint-king and this purposeless Crusade, and would fain go to aid the Emperor of Constantinople against the Greeks and the Turks; and Baldwin de Courtenay could not but accord a favourable reception to warriors who had saved his kinswoman from the Saracens. What thinkest thou of a movement to Constantinople?'
Walter mused, but did not answer.
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{
"id": "26671"
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35
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MISSION TO BAGDAD.
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AFTER the assassination of Touran Chah at Pharescour, the Mamelukes were very much at a loss on whom to bestow the crown so long worn by the chiefs of this family of Saladin. In their perplexity they elevated Chegger Edour to the throne, and proclaimed her 'Queen of the Mussulmen.' But the affairs of the sultana did not go smoothly. Moslems were aroused at the elevation of a woman to sovereignty; and the Caliph of Bagdad, when asked to send the rich robe which the caliphs were in the habit of sending by way of investiture to the Sultans of Egypt, demanded with indignation if a man capable of reigning could no longer be found. Every day the confusion increased and the troubles multiplied.
In order to make matters more pleasant, the sultana associated a Mameluke named Turcoman with her in the government, and even condescended so far as to unite herself with him in marriage. But the aspect of affairs became gradually more alarming, and Chegger Edour, yielding to the prevailing discontent, abdicated in favour of her husband. Turcoman, however, found that his crown was somewhat thorny; and at a critical period he aroused the jealousy of his wife by aspiring to wed an oriental princess.
The sultana vowed vengeance, and hastened to execute it by causing Turcoman to be assassinated in his bath. One night an emir, hastily summoned to the palace, found Chegger Edour seated on a couch with her feet resting on the dead body of her husband. The emir uttered an exclamation of horror; but she calmly stated that she had sent for him to offer her hand and her crown. The emir fled in terror, and next day the mother of the murdered man had the sultana put to death by her slaves, and caused her corpse to be thrown into a ditch.
A Mameluke named Koutouz was now elevated to the throne, and signalised himself by a victory over the Moguls or Tartars, hordes of wandering warriors who were now making themselves terrible both to Europe and Asia. Unfortunately for Koutouz, however, he at that time renewed a truce with the Christians of Syria, and raised the anger of his soldiers to such a height that his death was decreed. Accordingly, one day, when he had ridden out from Sallhie to hunt, a Mameluke chief suddenly spurred into the camp, his garments stained with blood.
'I have slain the sultan,' said he.
'Well, then, reign in his stead,' replied the bystanders.
The Mameluke chief was Bibars Bendocdar; and, having been proclaimed as successor to the man he had murdered, he ascended the throne, and, as sultan of Egypt and Syria, began to govern with despotic power.
Meanwhile, Louis was anxious to redeem from captivity the Crusaders who had been left in Egypt, and sent ambassadors to Cairo with the money that had been agreed on as their ransom. But the ambassadors could hardly get a hearing. At length they did obtain the release of four hundred of the Christian prisoners, most of whom had paid their own ransom; but when they pressed for the liberation of the others, they were plainly told that the King of France might deem himself fortunate that he had regained his own liberty; and that if he gave more trouble, he might expect the Mamelukes to besiege him at Acre. On hearing this Louis was much perplexed, and consulted his nobles, especially the Lord of Joinville.
'Sire,' said Joinville, after some consideration, 'this is a serious question, and one not to be hastily disposed of; for I remember that when I was on the eve of leaving home, my cousin, the Seigneur de Bollaincourt, said to me, "Now you are going beyond the seas, but take care how you return; no knight, either rich or poor, can come back without shame, if he leaves behind him, in the hands of the Saracens, any of the common people who leave home in his company." Now,' added the seneschal, 'these unhappy captives were in the service of the king, as well as the service of God, and never can they escape from captivity if the king should abandon them.'
On hearing this Louis was more perplexed than ever. In his anxiety, however, he bethought him of the caliph, and resolved, great as was the distance, to send ambassadors to Bagdad, where reigned Musteazem the Miser, the thirty-seventh of his dynasty.
Now, albeit Moslems were in the habit of paying great reverence to the caliph as the successor of Mahomet, he exercised very little substantial power over the fierce warriors who fought for Islamism. Nor, indeed, had the history of the caliphate been such as to add to the sacredness of the office, or to increase the superstitious veneration with which it was regarded. For several centuries, the East witnessed the spectacle of rival caliphs, both professing to be the representatives of the prophet, and each claiming all the privileges attaching to the character. The rivals were known as the Fatimites and the Abassides. The Fatimites claimed the caliphate as being the heirs of Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law, and established their throne at Cairo. The Abassides, who were Mahomet's male heirs, maintained their state at Bagdad. At length, in 1170, the struggle for supremacy was terminated by Saladin the Great, who killed the Caliph of Cairo with his mace, and rendered the Caliph of Bagdad undisputed chief of all Moslems; and, from that time, the Abassides, though sunk in effeminacy, and much given to sensual indulgences, continued to exercise their vague privileges and their shadowy authority.
Nevertheless, King Louis, bent on obtaining the relief of the captive Crusaders, despatched ambassadors to Bagdad to treat with the caliph. The ambassadors were a Templar, and Bisset the English knight; and with them, in their train, went Walter Espec, now, at length, hopeful of ascertaining something about his brother's fate.
It was not without encountering considerable danger, and having to endure much fatigue, that the Templar and the English knight, under the guidance of Beltran the renegade, who had opportunely appeared at Acre, and whom Bisset had pressed into the service, traversed the country; and, after many days' travel, drew nigh to the capital of the caliphate, which had been built, in the eighth century, by Al Mansour, one of the Abasside caliphs, out of the ruins of Ctesiphon, and afterwards enlarged and adorned by Haroun Alraschid, the great caliph of his dynasty.
But the journey had not been without its novelty and excitement; and Walter Espec was riding by the side of Beltran the renegade, towards whom, in spite of his prejudices as a Crusader, he felt the gratitude due to a man who had saved his life, when he was cut down at Mansourah. At present he was much interested with the account given by the renegade of the ostriches or camel-birds, and eager to learn how they were hunted.
'And so, good Beltran,' said he, 'you have actually hunted this bird, whose height is gigantic, whose cry at a distance resembles the lion's, and which is to be found in parched and desolate tracts, deserted even by antelopes and beasts of prey.'
'In truth have I,' replied Beltran.
'I envy you,' said Walter; 'nothing would please me more than such an enterprise.'
'Nevertheless,' rejoined the renegade, 'it is somewhat irksome, and requires much patience. But the Arabs have a proverb, that patience is the price that must be paid for all success, and act accordingly. They have horses trained for the purpose; and, when they first start the ostrich, they go off at an easy gallop, so as to keep the bird in view, without going so near as to alarm it. On discovering that it is pursued, the ostrich begins to move away, gently at first, but gradually increasing its speed, running with wings extended, as if flying, and keeps doubling. It generally takes two days to run one down; but the hunter gets the best of the race at last; and, when the ostrich finds itself exhausted and beaten, it buries its head in the sand; and the hunters, coming up, kill it with their clubs, taking care not to spoil the feathers.'
'On my faith,' said Walter, 'I do own that such a pursuit would be irksome; and I hardly think that my patience would brook so much delay.'
'However,' said Beltran, suddenly raising his hand and pointing forward, 'there lies before you the city of the caliph.'
Bagdad, as the reader may be aware, is situated on the Tigris, at the distance of two hundred miles above the junction of that river with the Euphrates, and the Tigris is here about six hundred feet in breadth. The city, which is of an oblong shape, and of which the streets are so narrow that not more than two horsemen can ride abreast, is surrounded with a high wall, flanked with towers, some of an immense size, built by the early caliphs; and several old buildings remain to attest its ancient magnificence--such as the Gate of the Talisman, a lofty minaret, built in 785; the tomb of Zobeida, the most beloved of the wives of Haroun Alraschid; and the famous Madressa College, founded in 1233 by the Caliph Mustenatser.
No traces, however, are left of the palace so long inhabited by the caliphs; nor does anything mark the place where, though its glory was about to depart, it still stood in all its pride, with the black banner of the Abassides floating over its portals, when the ambassadors of St. Louis reached Bagdad, and craved an audience of the heir of the prophet. It was a sight to impress even men accustomed to the wealth and splendour of Acre; and they thanked God for having conducted them in safety to a place where there was a prospect of food and rest.
But Walter Espec was not thinking of such things; his whole mind was occupied with the question, whether or not his lost brother was a captive within these walls.
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{
"id": "26671"
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36
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THE LAST OF THE CALIPHS.
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ASTONISHED as the Caliph Musteazem might be at the audacity which prompted a Frankish king to send ambassadors to the heir of the prophet, he did not venture to decline receiving the message of a prince who so recently had threatened the empire of Egypt with destruction, and might have the power of doing so again. Besides, Musteazem was not in the most celestial humour with the Mamelukes, who seemed inclined to defy his and every other person's authority; and, on hearing that the result of all the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already bribed with a purse of gold, that the King of France was liberal in money matters, and was ready to pay handsomely for the ransom of his captive countrymen, the caliph's ruling passion prevailed--his avarice got the better of his dignity; and, without farther words, he consented to grant an audience to the Franks.
Meanwhile, the ambassadors and their attendants were admitted within the gates of the palace, and conducted into an immense garden, there to wait till suitable apartments were assigned them. And this garden made them stare with wonder; its regal magnificence was so surprising as to make them start and stop simultaneously, and to make Bisset exclaim-- 'Of a truth, the lines of this pope of the infidels have fallen in pleasant places. None of King Henry's palaces can boast of anything like this. Surely it must be the terrestrial paradise.'
Now, this garden might well surprise the ambassadors. In the centre was a kiosk of the richest architecture, constructed entirely of marble and alabaster, with an arcade composed of countless marble pillars. In the court was a marble reservoir, surrounded with marble balustrades, which at each angle opened on a flight of stairs, guarded by lions and crocodiles sculptured of white marble; and alabaster baths with taps of gold. On one side of the garden was a large aviary; on the other a huge elephant, chained to a tree. The walks were set in mosaic of coloured pebbles, in all kinds of fanciful patterns; and around were groves, bowers, arbours, and trellis-covered paths, with streams, fountains, hedges of box and myrtle, flowers, cypresses, odoriferous plants, and trees groaning under the weight of lemons, oranges, citrons, and fruit in great variety. It was more like such a scene as magicians are supposed to conjure up, than reality; and the Crusaders gazed for a while with silent admiration.
'On my faith,' said Bisset, at length breaking the silence, 'this is marvellous to behold; and yet, had I the ear of the pope of the infidels, I should recommend an addition which would be to the purpose. I mean such a statue of the goddess Minerva as once stood in the great square of Constantinople.'
'And wherefore?'
'Because Minerva is the goddess who presides over prudence and valour; and my eyes have deceived me if, in this city, there is not a lack of both. Marked you not, as we rode along, that the place is well nigh without defences and fighting men; and think you that, with such spoil in prospect, the Mamelukes, not to mention the Moguls, would hesitate about seizing it?'
'You err,' replied the Templar: 'the caliph, as you say, is the pope of the infidels, and the Mamelukes hold everything he possesses as sacred.'
'So did they last century,' remarked Bisset, elevating his shoulders; 'and yet Saladin killed a caliph with his mace; and as for the Moguls, you know they are almost Christians, and Father Rubruquis is now in Tartary, completing their conversion. Beshrew me, sir Templar, if I deem not this caliph foolhardy to run the risk of being attacked, without fighting men to defend him.'
As the English knight spoke, an officer of the caliph appeared to conduct the ambassadors to their lodgings; and they, having refreshed themselves with the bath, and with food, were invited by the grand vizier to repair to the presence of the caliph.
It was not, however, without much ceremony, and some mystery, that the Templar and the English knight were admitted into the interior of a palace within whose precincts no Christian, save as a captive, had ever before set foot. First, they were guided through dark passages, guarded by armed Ethiopians, and then into open courts so richly and beautifully adorned, that they could not refrain from expressing their admiration.
'Certes,' exclaimed Bisset, halting, 'the caliph must, of all princes, be the richest; and I should not much marvel to hear that he had discovered the philosopher's stone, which turns everything into gold, and of which my countryman, Roger Bacon, is said to be in search. Nevertheless, he does not seem to have studied the Roman poet, who tells us that treasure is hardly worth having, unless it is properly used.'
'In truth, sir knight,' said the Templar, 'the farther we go, the greater is the splendour and state.'
At length the ambassadors reached a magnificent chamber, where the caliph awaited them. At first, however, he was concealed from them by a curtain wrought with pearls. But the grand vizier thrice prostrated himself to the ground; and, as he did so, the traverse was drawn aside, and the caliph appeared arrayed in gorgeous robes, seated on a throne of gold, and surrounded by his eunuchs, who seemed both surprised and grieved to see Christians in that place and presence.
And now the grand vizier kissed the caliph's hand, and, presenting the ambassadors, explained their errand. A long conversation, which was carried on chiefly by the Templar and the grand vizier, followed; and the caliph having expressed his willingness to treat, the grand vizier desired him, in token of his good faith, to give the ambassadors his hand. Musteazem, however, shook his head, to indicate that he was not prepared to derogate so far from his dignity. At length, after some persuasion, he consented to give them his hand, gloved.
'That will do,' said the grand vizier.
'I fear not,' replied the Templar, hesitating.
'Sir,' said Bisset, addressing the caliph--for by this time the English knight had recovered all his reckless audacity, and felt quite as much at home as if he had been in the palace of Westminster, and speaking to the good King Henry--'truth makes no holes to hide herself in; and princes, if they will covenant, must deal fairly and openly. Give us, therefore, your hand, if you mean to treat; we will make no bargains with your glove.'
But the caliph, still unsatisfied, stood upon his dignity, and refused to be persuaded. However, at the instance of the grand vizier, he consented to consider the subject, and promise the ambassadors another audience on the morrow. But who can tell what a day may bring forth? Ere the morrow, an event occurred which raised more important questions than whether he could, without degradation, give his ungloved hand to a Templar and an English knight.
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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37
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A RECOGNITION.
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WHEN the Templar and the English knight left the lodgings that had been assigned to them in the palace of Bagdad to enter the presence of the caliph, and were honoured with the audience described, Walter Espec, excited by the novelty of his situation, thinking of his lost brother, and bearing in mind that he had a mission to accomplish, strolled, heedless of rules or regulations, into the garden of the palace, and took his way along one of the walks, set in mosaic-coloured pebbles, towards the kiosk. He had not proceeded far, however, when he perceived, coming from the opposite direction, six youths, apparently about his own age. All were so fettered as to be impeded in their walking, and seemed to be under the charge of an aged Saracen, who, in his turban and flowing robes, looked a most venerable personage.
'Christian captives, as I live,' muttered Walter, compassionately.
Of the six youths, five paced moodily along, with their eyes bent sadly on the ground; the sixth neither seemed sad, nor had his eyes bent on the ground, but held his head aloft with the air of one whom circumstances could not depress; and Walter felt his heart beat and his brain whirl, and stopped suddenly, with an exclamation of surprise, as in this youth he recognised an old acquaintance.
Immediately it appeared that the recognition was mutual. Indeed, the captive no sooner observed Walter than, disregarding the remonstrances of the old Saracen, and forgetful for the moment of his chains, he broke away from his companions, and hobbling, not without danger of a fall, fairly flung himself into the Boy Crusader's arms.
'Oh, good Walter,' exclaimed he, 'what a surprise! The idea of your being here, and at a time when they are threatening to put me to death because I will not embrace the filthy religion of their false prophet. But, thanks to our lady the Virgin, I now feel that I am saved.'
'In truth, brave Guy,' replied Walter, much affected, 'you are saved, if my efforts can save you. I have mourned for you as for one dead; and I swear by holy Katherine, who hath preserved me miraculously through manifold dangers, that if I fail I remain to share your fate, for weal or for woe. But how came you hither?'
'By St. John of Beverley,' answered Guy, 'not with my own goodwill, as you may swear on the Evangelists. I was dragged out of the galley of the Lord of Joinville, and, with my hands chained behind my back, I was, in that base, unworthy plight, led captive to Cairo; and, when the Mamelukes killed their sultan, and the sultana, that dark-eyed woman, who outdoes Jezebel in wickedness, wished to propitiate the caliph, she sent me and five other Christian prisoners whom you see as a peace-offering. And so,' added Guy, looking down at his fetters, 'here you see me, an Anglo-Norman gentleman, of great name, in captivity and chains, and threatened with a cruel death; which, however, I would fain escape; for, tempting as may be the prospect of the crown of martyrdom, beshrew me, good Walter, if at my age I deem not life too sweet to part with willingly.'
And in spite of his fetters and his perilous plight, Guy looked as blithe and gay as he was wont to do in the tiltyard of the castle of Wark.
'By the Holy Cross,' said Walter, gravely, 'I cannot pretend to make light of the business; and yet I am not without hope; for a Templar, and Bisset, the stout knight whom I now serve, have come from the good King Louis as ambassadors to the caliph, and they will not fail you. But credit this, at least, that if the worst comes to the worst I will remain in this place, and not leave it--save in your company--tide what may.'
Guy was about to protest against Walter sacrificing himself to friendship; but further conversation was prevented by the approach of the aged Saracen; and Guy, however reluctant, was fain to rejoin the companions of his captivity. Walter, however, followed their steps, and watched their movements, till they disappeared in a door contiguous to that part of the palace in which the ambassadors were lodged with their train. But, warned by Beltran, the renegade, that it would be prudent to confine himself to the quarters assigned, he returned to his lodgings, and there, musing over this unexpected meeting with his brother-in-arms, awaited Bisset's return.
At length the English knight appeared. But he did not seem quite himself. The frank and joyous expression which characterised him had deserted his countenance, and he looked a changed man. Haughty sternness sat on his brow; his eye-brows were elevated; his eye glanced flame; his nostrils breathed fire; and he clenched and opened his hand excitedly, as if contemplating some ruthless deed, as he strode into the apartment and seized Walter's arm.
'Sir knight,' said Walter, amazed, and almost terrified, 'what aileth thee?'
'By the might of Mary!' exclaimed the knight hurriedly and sternly, 'I have seen a sight that has roused all the Norman within me, and made me thirst for gold and pant for conquest.'
'And what of the caliph?' asked Walter.
'Tush,' answered the knight, contemptuously. 'This caliph is nobody, save as master of this palace and city, and the treasure they contain. By my father's soul! the caitiff wretch is rolling in wealth. May the saints grant me patience to think of it calmly! The very throne of gold on which he sits would, if coined into money, furnish forth an army, capable, under a skilful and daring leader, of conquering kingdoms. Oh, for five hundred brave men in mail, and the cross on their shoulders! By the bones of Becket, I should, ere morning, be lord of all;' and, torturing himself with the idea of such a prize escaping his grasp, Bisset sunk into silence, and indulged in reflection.
'Sir knight,' said Walter, after a long pause, 'I have made a strange discovery. Guy Muschamp, the English squire, my brother-in-arms, is a captive in this palace, and in danger of death, because he will not abandon his faith as a Christian. I have seen him; I have spoken with him; I implore you to obtain his release; for,' added Walter, with tears in his eyes, 'I must tell you frankly, that otherwise I must remain to share his fate.'
'Fear not, boy,' said Bisset, touched with the squire's emotion; 'I will see to his being ransomed. In truth, I hardly think there will be much difficulty; for this caliph is a miser--a mean, detestable miser--and would sell anything for bezants--even his soul, if he had not already pawned it to Satan, through his brokers Mahound and Termagaunt.' And, too much occupied with his dream of seizing Bagdad, and carving out a kingdom with his sword, the knight relapsed into silence, and scarcely moved till evening fell.
It was just after sunset, and Bisset was rapt in thought, and Walter Espec perplexing his soul about Guy Muschamp, when suddenly they were aroused by the voice of the Muezzin, who, according to the custom of the Saracens, standing on the minaret of a mosque hard by, solemnly proclaimed three times--'There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet.'
Walter sprang up, quivering with pious horror, and hastily crossed himself.
'Sir knight,' said he, earnestly, 'I feel that this place is unholy.'
'Mayhap, boy,' replied the knight. 'But patter your prayers, and no evil will come nigh you. For the rest, Bagdad would be holy enough were the walls and towers manned by Christian warriors, and the mosques converted into churches, and I king, with the caliph's treasures to go forth against the Moslem, conquering and to conquer. Oh, credit me, it is a glorious vision. But it cannot be realised. Marry, I spoke too truly when I said that I was born without luck on my side.'
Night fell; the moon rose; and the Crusaders, after for a time looking out upon innumerable stars, glorious in the blue depths of an Asian sky, saw to the comfort and security of their attendants, and then stretched themselves to rest--Walter laying himself down at the door of the chamber which Bisset occupied. In spite of the knight's agitation and the squire's anxiety, both soon sank into sleep. But their repose was destined to be broken. About daybreak they were awakened by cries and tumult, that filled the palace of the caliph. Gradually, the noise increased, and was blended with strange cries, as of warriors storming the city. Bisset and Walter listened with breathless attention, as yell after yell, and whoop after whoop, intimated that some terrible catastrophe had occurred; and as they hearkened, the Templar, who had occupied an adjoining apartment, rushed in, calm, but pale as a ghost.
'Gentlemen,' said he, 'we are dead men.'
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{
"id": "26671"
}
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38
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WOE TO THE CALIPH.
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I HAVE mentioned that, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the Moguls, or Tartars, were the terror of Asia and Europe. In considering their energy and cruelty as warriors, is it wonderful that their movements should have been regarded with lively alarm? From the Yellow River to the banks of the Danube they had marched, conquering and slaughtering; marking their way with devastation, and making the two continents resound with the tumult of war and the crash of empires.
Originally a number of hordes, inhabiting the waste regions that lie between ancient Emaüs, Siberia, and China, and the sea of Kamschatka, the Tartars formed several nations of hunters and shepherds, living under tents, with their families subsisting on the produce of the chase and the flesh of their flocks, and acknowledging one God, the sovereign of heaven, but reserving their worship for the genii, who, as they believed, followed their steps, and watched over the safety of their families. They moved from place to place, despising agriculture, and not deigning to build. Even as late as the twelfth century, they had only one city--Karrakoroum--situated on the Orgon, in the country subsequently the residence of the Grand Lama. In short, they looked upon all the world as their own, and, disliking all neighbours and rivals, were frequently engaged in war, which they deemed the sole occupation worthy of their attention.
As warriors, the Tartars early proved themselves most formidable. Their valour and discipline were remarkable; and they had neither baggage nor provisions to encumber their marches. While the skins of sheep or bears served them for clothing, they made a little hardened milk, diluted with water, suffice them for food. On horseback, they were as much at home as a sea king on the deck of his war-ship, and their seat was so easy and firm, that they were in the habit of eating, and even sleeping, without taking the trouble to dismount. They fought with lance and bow, reared machines of terrible power; and all the stratagems of war were familiar to them. They excelled in the art of fighting while flying; and, with them, retreat was often the signal for victory.
It was in the twelfth century that Gheniskhan was elected by the Tartars as their ruler, and that, under his leadership, they struck terror into the surrounding nations. Under Gheniskhan, the Tartars made themselves masters of China, and the empire of Karismia; and, during the reign of his son Octai, they added Turkistan and India and Persia to their conquests. Moreover, at that time, they turned their eyes westward; and, having crossed the Volga, they overran Russia, ravaged Poland, desolated Hungary, devastated the frontiers of Germany, and caused such dread, that even England was agitated with the danger that threatened all Christendom.
About the year 1245, however, Mango, the grandson of Gheniskhan, professed a desire to embrace Christianity; and Oulagon, the brother of Mango, espoused a Christian woman; and, when King Louis was wintering in Cyprus, ambassadors from Tartary reached the island, with messages to the effect that the great khan had been baptised, and that he would readily aid the Crusaders in rescuing Jerusalem from the Moslems. The saint-king received the ambassadors with joy, entertained them hospitably, conducted them to church, and, when they departed, sent two monks with magnificent presents to the great khan, and exhortations to hold fast the profession of his faith without wavering. Even when the Tartars menaced Bagdad, an ambassador, despatched by King Louis from Acre, was at the court of the great khan, with the object of converting the Tartars; and it appears clear that, however little they might care for either faith, the Tartars, in the struggle of Christian and Moslem in the East, were ever ready to take the side of the Christian against the Moslem.
Such being the state of affairs, Mango sent his brother with an army to besiege Bagdad; and Oulagon, raising his banner, marched towards the city of the caliph. Now it happened that Musteazem, being at once under the influence of the most egregious vanity and of the most sordid avarice, neither believed in his danger, nor had the heart to expend money to provide the means of defence, but devoted to the hoarding of the jewels, gold, and treasures with which his palace abounded, the whole time that should have been employed in mustering armies and preparing for war.
However, when the caliph learned that Oulagon was approaching to attack Bagdad, he partially awoke from his dream, and sent offers to treat. Oulagon, who either suspected, or pretended to suspect, a snare, thereupon proposed that a marriage should take place between the children of the caliph and the great khan, as the best way of preserving peace; and Musteazem expressed his entire satisfaction with the proposal.
The Tartar then requested the caliph to send sixty of his chief men to treat of the marriage; and, when this was complied with, he demanded sixty more, that he might have full security for the fulfilment of the treaty. Not doubting Oulagon's good faith, Musteazem did as he was asked to do; and the royal Mogul smiled grimly.
'Now,' said Oulagon to his Tartars, 'seeing that we have in our hands six score of the caliph's chief counsellors and most wealthy subjects, I cannot doubt that the remainder are very common sort of people, and not likely to offer much resistance. My plans have been laid with such secrecy and caution, that nothing is suspected. I have only to appear before Bagdad, and take possession.'
And no time was wasted. In fact, Oulagon had no motive for sparing the seat of the caliphate; and no sooner did he get the six score of Musteazem's chief men into his hands, than he ordered them to be beheaded, and prepared for an attack. Nor, as he rightly anticipated, was there much danger of an obstinate resistance. In fact, not only was the city undefended by any regular force: it was divided against itself. The citizens were formed into various sects, all at daggers drawn, and much more earnest in their conflicts with each other than in resolution to repulse assailants.
It was early morning when the inhabitants of Bagdad were aroused from their slumbers with loud shouts of alarm, and cries that the Tartars were upon them. Resistance was vain; and equally vain was any hope of mercy. Having set up his machines of war, Oulagon gave the word of command, and the Tartars rushed to the assault with all the ferocity of their nature. Entering the city sword in hand, Oulagon gave it up to the fury of his soldiers. Carnage, and all the horrors of war, followed; the gutters ran with blood; and the caliph who, a few hours earlier, deemed his person so sacred that he would not even consent to touch the hand of a Frank, experienced such rough treatment that he shrunk and shuddered and sickened.
Oulagon, however, was in no mood to respect the person of the head of the Moslem religion. No allegiance did the grim Tartar owe to the heir of Mahomet. Having seized Musteazem in his palace, Oulagon, after severely reproaching him with meditating treachery, caused him to be confined in an iron cage; and, after keeping him in durance for some time, came to add insult to injury.
But, ere relating what passed, it is necessary to return to the Christian ambassadors.
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{
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39
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IN THE LION'S MOUTH.
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IT must be admitted that the position of the ambassadors was not enviable; and, when the Templar hastily stated that the Tartars were storming Bagdad, even Bisset's bold countenance fell, and his tongue faltered.
'I will not hide,' said he, recovering himself, 'that our doom looks dark; our heads are in the lion's mouth. But, as Christian warriors, we must trust in God and the saints; and, as brave men, we must do what we can to extricate ourselves.'
Without wasting more time in words, Bisset proceeded to buckle on his chain mail, while Walter Espec also arrayed himself; and, while the knight armed himself with his ponderous battle-axe, the squire unsheathed his falchion; and both, resuming their wonted air of dauntless courage, prepared, in case of the worst, to sell their lives dearly. Meanwhile, the attendants of the ambassadors filled the chamber, with alarm on their faces; and thither also Guy Muschamp and his fellow captives found their way, closely followed by the aged Saracen, who bowed himself before Bisset and exclaimed-- 'In the name of God, save me!'
'Save you, Saracen!' said Bisset. 'On my faith, I cannot but think that the man will do well this day who saves himself.'
'But,' asked the Saracen, 'do you not believe in a God, born of a woman, who was crucified for the salvation of the human race, and rose again the third day?'
'Assuredly, Saracen,' replied Bisset, regarding his questioner with a curious eye: 'as certainly as I believe that I am now in the palace of the caliph, and in greater danger than I pretend to relish.'
'In that case,' said the Saracen, 'place your hopes in your God; for, if he was able to recall himself to life, he will not want the power to deliver you from the evils that now threaten you.'
'On my faith,' replied Bisset, a little surprised, 'I must say that you speak the words of wisdom were you twenty times an infidel; and, for my own part, I would fain hope that God and the saints, especially good St. George, will befriend us in our jeopardy.'
Meanwhile the noise and tumult caused by the Tartars, as they forced their way into Bagdad, drew nearer, and shouts and shrieks were heard, which left no doubt that they had entered the palace. Bisset thereupon, grasping his battle-axe, took his post on one side of the door: the Templar, sword in hand, stationed himself on the other. Neither spoke, and such was the silence of those who were likely to share their fate, that a pin might have been heard to drop. But though the carnage was going on around them, they were left undisturbed; and they passed a full hour in breathless suspense.
At length a loud shout intimated that the Tartars had penetrated to the garden; and Bisset, wishing to tiring matters to a crisis, stepped forward so as to make himself visible, and then retreated to his post. Immediately twenty of the fierce Mogul warriors rushed towards the place, and with loud shouts prepared for fresh carnage. But, when they perceived the Templar and the English knight guarding the door with the air of men who could not fail to prove terrible antagonists, they hesitated, paused, and seemed to think that it was necessary to exercise caution.
Now, this delay was not without an important result. In the leader of the Tartars, Bisset to his astonishment saw a man whom he had met under other circumstances, and instantly turned his discovery to account.
'Hold, hold, brave warrior!' cried he, in a conciliating tone. 'With us you have no quarrel. We are ambassadors who were sent hither by the King of France to obtain the release of some captives, and in you I recognise one of the barons of Tartary who came to the court of the island of Cyprus, and to whom I myself, as a knight in the Christian king's service, rendered what service I could. With us, therefore, I repeat, you have no quarrel. Wherefore should we dye our weapons in each other's blood?'
The Tartar remained motionless, and eyed the knight keenly, and not without suspicion.
'It may be as you say,' replied he after some consideration; 'and yet I know not how I am to credit your words. Knowest thou that the Moslems have a proverb which says, "Hearken to a Frank, and hear a fable?"'
'You do me wrong by your suspicions,' exclaimed Bisset. 'On my honour as a Christian knight, I tell you naught but the truth.'
'Give me a token by which I may prove the truth of what you say,' suggested the Tartar. And Bisset forthwith related several incidents that had occurred during the residence of the Tartars at Nicosia.
'Enough,' said the Tartar. 'I now give credit to the words you have spoken; therefore let there be peace between thee and me, and between thy people and my people. For the present I leave to take measures for your security; and I will conduct you to the presence of Oulagon the brave, brother of the great khan, and grandson of him who received the title of "King of Kings" from a prophet who came down from heaven on a white horse.'
The ambassadors now breathed freely; and the attendants looked upon Bisset as almost more than mortal; and the knight congratulated himself on the prospect of getting his head out of the lion's den. It was not, however, till the morrow that the Templar and the English knight were led to the presence of Oulagon; a semi-savage warrior, with those Tartar features which naturally looked harsh to the eyes of men accustomed to the features of Norman and Saxon, and short of stature, but thickset, compact of body, and of prodigious strength. Bisset was at first by no means satisfied with Oulagon's look, but the Tartar manifested every disposition to treat the ambassadors as friends.
'The wrath of the King of Kings,' said he, 'is like the fire of a conflagration, which the slightest wind may light up, but which nothing but blood can quench. But between the King of Kings and the King of France there is peace and amity and goodwill. Wherefore, friend, say what you desire of me, and your will shall be granted.'
'Simply,' replied Bisset, 'permission to depart with my comrade and our train, and six Christian captives who have thrown themselves on our protection.'
'Be it as you will, Frank,' said Oulagon. 'But not till you have had fitting gifts; for this is the storehouse of the treasure of the world, and I would fain send gifts to the King of France; nor would I like his ambassadors to depart empty-handed.'
The knight and the Templar bowed.
'But,' said Oulagon with a cunning leer, 'ere departing you must visit the caliph in my company, that you may relate to the King of the Franks how the King of Kings punishes men who are the enemies of both.'
And without delay the Tartar led the ambassadors to the prison where he had on the previous day shut up Musteazem in an iron cage, and where he had since kept his captive without food.
'Caliph,' asked Oulagon approaching, 'dost thou hunger?'
'Yes,' answered Musteazem indignantly. 'I do hunger, and not without cause.'
[Illustration: "Ah, Caliph," said Oulagon with bitter scorn, "thou mayst now see thy great fault; for if thou hadst given part of thy treasures, which thou lovest so dearly, thou mightest have held out against me." --p. 251.]
'Then,' said Oulagon, 'thou shalt have that to eat which above all things thy heart loveth.' And the Tartar ordered a large golden platter, filled with jewels and precious stones, to be brought and set before the captive.
'Knowest thou these treasures, caliph?' asked he with an affectation of carelessness.
'Yes,' answered Musteazem sharply, 'I know them, for they are mine own.'
'And dost thou dearly love thy treasures?' asked Oulagon.
'Yes,' replied Musteazem, simply and frankly.
'Well, then,' said Oulagon, 'since thou lovest thy treasures so well, take of these jewels as many as thou wilt, and appease thy hunger.'
'They are not food to eat,' replied Musteazem, shaking his head with an air of great dejection.
'Ah, caliph,' said Oulagon with bitter scorn, 'thou mayest now see thy great fault; for if thou hadst given part of thy treasures, which thou lovest so dearly, to subsidise soldiers for thy defence, thou mightest have held out against me. But that which thou didst prize most highly has failed thee in the hour of need.'
And Oulagon withdrew with the Templar and the English knight; and soon after this interview Musteazem drew his last breath. But whether he perished of hunger, or of indignant despair, or by the violence of his conquerors, is not clearly ascertained. In the midst of the tumult and disorder which followed the sack of Bagdad, and the extinction of the caliphate, chroniclers neglected to record under what circumstances, and how, died the last of the caliphs.
But, however that may have been, the ambassadors next morning took their departure from Bagdad.
'Now God and all the saints be praised!' exclaimed Bisset: 'our heads are out of the lion's mouth.'
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{
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40
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END OF THE ARMED PILGRIMAGE.
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THE Templar and the English knight after a variety of adventures reached Acre, having on their way fallen in with Father Yves, whom King Louis had sent on a mission to 'the Old Man of the Mountains'--that remarkable personage to whose behests kings bowed, and at whose name princes trembled--and a knight of the noble House of Coucy, who had come from Constantinople, and whose accounts of the state of the Latin empire of the East much increased Bisset's desire to go and offer his sword to the Emperor Baldwin de Courtenay, then struggling desperately to maintain his throne against Greeks and Turks.
On reaching Acre, however, the ambassadors found that King Louis and the court were at Sajecte, and without delay repaired thither to present the gifts sent by Oulagon, and inform him of the unexpected event which had frustrated the object of their mission. Louis was deeply grieved at the failure of his attempt to open the prison doors of the unfortunate captives, and with tears bewailed their unhappy fate.
But soon after this, the saint-king found that the case was not desperate. The Sultan of Damascus went to war with the Mamelukes, and both parties craved the alliance of the French monarch. Louis, therefore, sent John de Valence to Cairo once more to demand the release of the captives, and this time he obtained something like satisfaction. Two hundred knights were immediately set at liberty, and allowed to depart for Acre, which they reached in safety.
At length, however, news came to King Louis, while he was at Sajecte, which compelled him to turn his thoughts towards France, where he was much wanted, and to deliberate on the expediency of returning to his own kingdom.
When it was known in France that the king was a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens, the utmost excitement prevailed throughout the land; and suddenly among the pastoral population appeared a man bearing a letter, to which he pretended to attach a mysterious importance.
'This,' said he, solemnly, 'I have received from the mother of God; and it commands me to assemble all the Christian shepherds and herdsmen, and to march at their head to deliver the king. Follow me then, and fear not, for the battle is not to the strong, but reserved for the weak and humble.'
It appears that this man's eloquence, and the mystery which he affected, fascinated the shepherds and herdsmen of France, and they flocked to him in multitudes; and his followers, having been joined by outlaws and exiles, ere long formed a formidable force, and caused much alarm.
At first, indeed, the queen-mother, Blanche of Castille, naturally anxious for her son's release, favoured the enterprise. But the priests, aware it might be that the leaders of the movement had ulterior objects in view, set their faces decidedly against it, and the leaders of the shepherds retaliated by stirring up the populace against the priests, and by the massacre of several ecclesiastics. On hearing this, Queen Blanche changed her policy, took part against the shepherds, caused their leader to be beheaded, and their army to be dispersed. Moreover, the populace, who had at first held the shepherds in high honour, began to suspect them of imposture, and slaughtered them without mercy; and all was still doubt and dismay and confusion, when messengers brought to Sajecte news that Queen Blanche had breathed her last.
Louis was profoundly affected when he heard of his mother's death, and mourned sadly for two or three days, without speaking with any one. However, at the end of that time, he was visited by the papal legate, and sent for the Lord of Joinville; and Joinville, who was on the point of going into a meadow to amuse himself with martial exercises, entered into conversation.
'Ah, seneschal,' began the king, mournfully, 'I have lost my mother.'
'Well, sire,' said Joinville, calmly, 'I am not surprised at such an event, seeing that she was no longer young, and that to all of us death must come some time; but, sire, I am surprised that so great a prince should grieve so outrageously; for you know that the wise man says, "Whatever grief the valiant man may suffer in his mind, he ought not to show it on his countenance; for he that does so causes pain to his friends and pleasure to his enemies."'
'However, seneschal,' said the legate, 'the king is much satisfied with the good and agreeable services you have rendered him, and earnestly wishes for your honour and advancement. He commands me to tell you, as he knows it will give you pleasure at heart, that he intends to embark for France on this side of Easter.'
'In truth, it does give me pleasure,' said Joinville. 'And I pray that the Lord may ever induce the king to act in accordance with his will.'
And soon after Louis, with his queen and his knights and nobles, returned to Acre, and made preparations for his departure.
It happened that when John de Valence and his associates went to Cairo, to treat for the release of the French captives, and also for the remains of some of the French warriors who fell at Mansourah, the Saracens suddenly reminded him of the Earl of Salisbury.
'I wonder,' said an emir, 'that you Christians, who venerate the ashes of the dead, make no inquiry for the bones of that most illustrious and noble-born William, to whom you give the name of Longsword; whereas we, seeing that he was slain in battle and on account of his illustrious qualities, have treated his remains with all respect.'
On hearing this, the ambassadors were somewhat confused.
'How,' asked they, one of another, 'can we disparage this man, because he was an Englishman, when even the Saracens accord the honour due to his nobility of soul?'
Accordingly, the Crusaders requested that Salisbury's bones might be given to them; they carried them to Acre, where they were laid, with much respect, in the church of the Holy Cross.
It was on the afternoon of the day when the burial took place that Bisset, who had been maturing his project of repairing to Constantinople, entered his lodgings, and took Walter Espec by one hand and Guy Muschamp by the other.
'Boys,' said he, 'this crusade, as I foresaw, has resulted in naught save disaster, and, as fighting men, it behoves us to consider whither we are now to carry our swords. For my part, I am resolved to turn the gifts of the Tartar warrior into money, and make without delay for Constantinople, and fight for the Latin Emperor. Are you willing to accompany me and share my fortunes, or must we part?'
'In truth, sir knight,' replied Walter, frankly, 'I sigh for the green fields and the oak forests of my native land; and, therefore, I would fain embark with the army of King Louis, and return to Europe.'
'As you will, sir squire,' said Bisset, a little mortified: 'albeit, I cannot but deem that you are not moved so much by the desire to visit your native land, as to be near to a certain noble demoiselle, on whose gratitude you have some claims. Well, on my life, I blame you not; for at your age I might have felt as you do, and, mayhap, lived to repent my delusion. But, be it known to you that, as matters stand, the Sultan of Damascus has intimated that he will permit any of the pilgrims to visit Jerusalem. Now, have you the courage--for courage will be needed--to enter the Holy City, held as it is by fierce Saracens, and kneel at the Holy Sepulchre?'
'By Holy Katherine, sir knight!' exclaimed Walter, bluntly, 'you must hold me excused. Happy, indeed, should I deem myself in the privilege of kneeling at the Holy Sepulchre, even at the cost of much labour and fatigue. But these are not the days of Godfrey and the Baldwins; and I care not to trust to the tender mercies of Bibars Bendocdar and his Mameluke myrmidons. I will not needlessly put my head again into the lion's mouth.'
'And what say you on the point, my gay and puissant warrior?' asked Bisset, turning to Guy Muschamp.
'Oh,' answered Guy, merrily, 'as says the good Walter, so say I, neither to Jerusalem nor to Constantinople do I go. I have a father and mother and kindred at home, whose faces I long to see. Wherefore, I go to England, and to no other place.'
Walter Espec sighed, as he was in the habit of doing, at the mention of kindred, and gave himself up to painful reminiscences.
'Sir knight,' said he, addressing Bisset, after a long silence, 'deem you that my lost brother can be in the hands of him who is known as the Old Man of the Mountains?'
'What!' exclaimed Bisset, 'rearing as an assassin? The saints forefend!'
'It is strange,' said Walter, after a pause, 'that I have begun to hope better things; for, as I lay asleep last night, methought I saw him in the flesh, and that he looked high and brave, and that he told me how the blessed Katherine had preserved him from evil.'
'May your dream be realised ere we depart from this holy land, good Walter!' said Guy, with sympathy.
'Amen,' added Bisset, earnestly. 'More unlikely things have come to pass.'
And, in truth, such a result was not altogether impossible; for at that moment Walter Espec and Osbert Espec were both within the walls of Acre. But Walter was preparing to embark for Europe; and Osbert was on the eve of setting out for the castle of Kakhow, not to return for many days. But the stars had decreed that they were to meet.
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{
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41
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A SUDDEN DISCOVERY.
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IT was evening, and shadows were closing over Acre. But the scene thus presented was fair to behold. The sky was richly coloured, the setting sun painted the landscape in brilliant hues, the wind sighed among the palms and lofty sycamores, and the waves of the Mediterranean murmured against the white walls and on the Syrian shore.
Walter Espec sat in the lodgings of Bisset, hard by the palace occupied by the King of France, and he was alone. Bisset had been summoned to attend the king; Guy Muschamp had gone to visit his kinsman, the Lord of Joinville; and Walter, left with his own thoughts, was reclining on a couch, and resting his head against a window, with his eyes fixed on the citizens who passed before him, on their way to breathe the air in the gardens outside the walls, when he was aroused by the tramp of cavalry, and the approach of a body of warriors, whose white mantles over their armour, and whole appearance, indicated that they were military monks. Walter's curiosity was aroused, and he shouted to make inquiries of a portly citizen who was passing at the moment, and who, as Walter knew, as a confirmed gossip.
'Good citizen,' said he, 'these are warrior monks, and yet they neither wear the habit of the Templars nor the Hospitallers. Canst tell me what knights they be who come along so proudly?'
'In faith can I, sir squire,' answered the citizen; 'and blithely will I do so. These be the knights of St. Katherine, of Mount Sinai; and they are brave men in hours of danger; albeit, like other Orders, overmuch given to amassing wealth, and more intent on keeping it than keeping the vows of their Order.'
'Thanks, good citizen,' said Walter, laughing heartily, as Crusaders generally did when reminded of the faults of the military monks. 'And, to requite your courtesy, I admonish you to speak in a whisper when you say aught in dispraise of Templars or Hospitallers; for you must be a bolder man than I pretend to be, if you fear not to provoke their enmity.'
'Gramercy for your warning, young squire,' replied the citizen, as, apparently much amused, and chuckling to himself, he proceeded on his way; while Walter, standing up, watched the warrior monks as they passed the window.
Now, Walter Espec had of course heard of the monks of St. Katherine, and especially what a stern front they had presented on the day when the Saracens threatened Acre, and carried off Adeline de Brienne. Moreover, he was naturally somewhat interested in an Order instituted in honour of the tutelar saint of his House: but he had never before seen them; and he looked out with no inconsiderable curiosity as, mounted on choice steeds, they came on and swept along, with bronzed visages, athletic forms, muscular limbs, and the air of men who believed implicitly in their own superiority over their compeers, and desired nothing so much as foes to conquer.
[Illustration: Suddenly Walter started in amazement, and uttered a cry; then remained for a moment silent, and quivered with agitation; then seized his cap, and, rushing from the house, hastened, with excitement on his countenance and wildness in his manner, after the warrior monk. --p. 262.]
But suddenly Walter started in amazement, and uttered a cry; then remained for a moment silent, and quivered with agitation; then seized his cap, and, rushing from the house, hastened, with excitement on his countenance and wildness in his manner, after the warrior monks, not losing sight of them till they disappeared within the gates of the castle of St. Katherine, which they possessed in Acre, near the gate of St. Anthony. Into this building he demanded to be admitted.
Two hours later, Walter Espec returned to his lodgings, and found Guy Muschamp awaiting his return, and impatient to tell him that everything was arranged for embarking for France in the king's ship in company with the Lord of Joinville. But observing that his friend's countenance wore a look of extraordinary elation, he, for the time being, quite forgot the communication he had intended to make, and eyed him with an expression of keen curiosity.
'Good Walter,' said he, quickly, and with interest, 'you appear so excited that I cannot but presume that something wonderful has befallen you since we parted?'
'In truth, brave Guy, you guess aright,' replied Walter, taking his friend's hand. 'Rejoice with me, my brother-in-arms, for I have found him who was lost.'
'Found your brother! --found Osbert Espec!' exclaimed Guy, in surprise.
'It is true as that I am a living man,' replied Walter, joyfully. 'When he reached Marseilles with the companions of his pilgrimage, instead, like them, of going back to die of hunger in the forests, or listening, like them, to the temptations of the two rascal merchants by whom they were ensnared, he embarked on board the "Christopher," which was on the point of sailing for Acre; and the skipper, having brought him ashore, carried him to the house of a Northern knight, who had long been fighting for the Cross. And this noble warrior, being about to return to England, placed him under the protection of the Grand Master of the Order of St. Katherine; and, when he was of a fitting age, the grand master, to whom the name of Espec was honourably known, made him take the vows of the Order. And now, thanks to God and Holy Katherine, he is in safety and honour, and rides bravely as the bravest among his brethren, with his white mantle over his chain mail.'
'By St. John of Beverley!' exclaimed Guy, in surprise, 'I much rejoice to hear that he was so graciously protected by the saints in the hour of danger, and that his fortune has been such as is worthy of a Norman gentleman.'
'And what is more,' said Walter, proudly, 'it was he who unhorsed the two Saracens with his lance without breaking it, and who wounded their leader on that day when they came hither to demand tribute.'
'A most worthy exploit, as it has been related to me,' replied Guy; 'and one that does credit to his strength and courage. But tell me, good Walter, how rejoiced he was to see you after so long a separation, and all your suffering on his account.'
A shade of disappointment appeared on Walter Espec's handsome countenance. After a pause, however, he replied-- 'In faith, brave Guy, to be frank with you, I must own that my brother, for whom I had so long mourned, manifested less enthusiasm than I expected; and when I talked to him of our castellated house of Heckspeth, on the Wansbeck, and of the tombs of our ancestors in the Abbey of Newminster, and even of my great namesake, the glory of our line, I perceived right well that he cared for none of these things. His heart and soul are in his Order, its renown and influence; and all his hopes are for the restoration of its glory. And nothing would serve him but attempting to induce me to take the vows of poverty and celibacy and obedience. But I answered readily, that such vows were not to my liking--that I despise not riches; that I rather love noble demoiselles; and that I am by nature more inclined to command than to obey; in short, that I will neither be a warrior monk nor a monk in minster. And so the great bell of the castle of St. Katherine tolled, and we parted; and at daybreak he mounts to ride to the castle of Kakhow, which the knights of his Order hold.
'And now, good Walter,' said Guy, 'having fulfilled your mission, for such you deemed it, you will return to England with a light heart.'
But Walter Espec only sighed, as his thoughts reverted to Adeline de Brienne and to the great gulf that seemed to interpose between them.
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{
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42
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HOMEWARD BOUND.
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ON the vigil of St. Mark, after Easter, the Crusaders having mustered at Acre, flocked on board their ships and prepared to set sail for Europe. On that day also the King of France, leaving Geoffrey de Segrines with a hundred knights to aid in the defence of what remained of the once grand kingdom of Godfrey and the Baldwins, left the palace which he had occupied, and, attended by the papal legate, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Christian nobles and knights of Palestine, walked on foot to the port, amid an immense crowd assembled to witness his departure, who all, while lamenting his departure, applauded him as the Father of the Christians, and implored Heaven to shower blessings on his head.
'This is the day of St. Mark, seneschal,' said Louis to Joinville, as they went on board; 'and on St. Mark's-day was I born at Poissy.'
'Sire,' replied Joinville, 'you may well say that you have been born again on St. Mark's-day; for you are escaping from a pestilent land, where you have remained so long.'
Bisset, the English knight, resolute to his purpose, had taken farewell of his companions, and embarked for Constantinople, to wield his ponderous battle-axe in the cause of Baldwin de Courtenay, whose empire was falling to ruins. But Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp were on board the king's vessel, through the influence of the Lord of Joinville; and there also was Beltran the renegade, who, touched with remorse, had abandoned his wealth in Egypt, and was doing penance by labouring as a seaman.
At length the fleet weighed anchor and set sail, with every prospect of a prosperous voyage. But, ere long, a somewhat alarming accident occurred. On Saturday, as the French approached Cyprus, about vespers, the vessels were suddenly enveloped in a thick fog, and the ship in which were the king and queen struck on a sandbank, and was so damaged that Louis was recommended to leave it without loss of time.
'Sire,' said the skipper, 'if you will believe me, you must remove from this ship to another. We well know that, since the keel has suffered so much damage, all the ribs must be started, and should there be a high wind, we fear she will be unable to bear the sea without sinking.'
'Now,' said the king, 'I put it to you on your faith and loyalty, to tell me truly, if the ship were your own, and full of merchandise, would you quit it?'
'No!' said the skipper; 'for we would rather risk our lives than lose a vessel worth forty or fifty thousand livres.'
'Why, then, do you advise me to quit it?' asked the king.
'Oh, sire,' answered the skipper, 'we are different sort of beings; for there is no sum, however great, that could compensate for the loss of yourself and the queen and your children; and we cannot advise you to run such a risk.'
'Ah,' replied the king, 'now that you have answered, I will tell you what I think of the matter. Suppose I quit this vessel, there are five hundred persons on board, who will remain in Cyprus for fear of the danger that may befall them should they stay on board. Now,' continued Louis, 'there is not one among them who is attached to his own person more than I am myself; and, if we land, they will lose all hope of returning to their own country. Therefore, I declare I will rather expose myself, the queen, and my children to some danger, under the providence of God, than make such numbers of people suffer as are now with me.'
The example which Louis set inspired the companions of his voyage with courage; and the fleet having resumed its course, encountered, but survived, a violent storm, took in water at Cyprus, and soon after came in sight of Lampedosa, an island which was then uninhabited. And here a strange incident occurred.
It happened that King Louis and his company, including Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp, landed, and, while climbing among the rocks, discovered a hermitage, with a handsome garden, planted with olives, figs, vines, and many other fruit trees, and watered by a beautiful spring. On going to the upper end of the garden, the king and his company found an oratory, the roof of which was painted white, with a red cross in the centre, and, in a chamber more retired, two bodies laid toward the East, with their hands on their breasts. Soon after the king and his company, conversing about what they had seen, returned on board their ship, and the skipper was about to weigh anchor, when it was discovered that one of the warriors who had gone ashore was missing; and this caused much excitement.
'I think I can account for this,' said the skipper. 'One of the sailors was desirous of turning hermit, and I doubt not he has seized so fair an opportunity.'
Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp exchanged glances. It was Beltran the renegade, who had thus devoted himself to solitude.
'Well,' said the king, on hearing this, 'let three sacks of biscuit be left on the shore; the man may find them, and, if so, they will serve for sustenance.'
Soon after this an accident happened to one of the squires on board the ship of one of the barons of Provence, which, at the time, was about half a league from that of the king. One morning, finding, as he lay in bed, that the sea dashed into his eyes and much annoyed him, he ordered the squire to stop it up. Having in vain attempted to do so from the inside, the squire went outside, and was endeavouring to stop the hole, when his foot dipped and he fell into the sea. The ship kept on her way without the mariners being aware of what had happened, and as the squire did not attempt to move, those on board the king's ship thought some piece of furniture had tumbled overboard. On coming nearer, however, they perceived that it was a human being, and Walter and Guy, with some mariners, lowered a boat, rowed to the rescue, and succeeded in saving him.
On being brought on board the king's ship, the squire related how he met with the accident, and was asked why he did not endeavour to save himself by swimming.
'In faith,' answered the squire, 'I had no occasion so to do; for, as I fell into the sea, I cried, "Our Lady of Valbert!" and she supported me by the shoulders till I was rescued.'
'In good sooth,' remarked the Lord of Joinville, on hearing this, 'it is truly marvellous; and, to perpetuate the memory of this miracle, I vow to have it painted on the windows of my chapel at Joinville, and also on the windows of the church at Blecourt;' and, on reaching home, the noble seneschal kept his word.
And now the ships tilted over the waters; and, after a voyage of ten weeks, they reached the Port of Hieros, in front of a castle which, in right of his spouse, belonged to the king's brother, the Count of Anjou. Louis, however, was not inclined to land. In vain the queen and his council advised him to disembark.
'No,' said he, 'I will not land till I can do so on my own territory; I will not disembark till I arrive at Aigues Mortes.'
Everybody looked extremely disappointed.
'Seneschal,' said Louis, turning to Joinville, 'what is your opinion?'
'Sire,' replied Joinville, 'it seems to me that you ought to land; for Madame de Bourbon, being once in this very port, put again to sea to land at Aigues Mortes, and she was tossed about for seven long weeks before she could make that harbour.'
'Seneschal,' said the king, 'you have persuaded me.' And soon after, to the joy of the queen and all on board, Louis landed at Hieros, and with Margaret and his children took up his residence in the castle, to rest from his fatigues ere setting out for his own dominions. Indeed, the saint-king was so weak, that Joinville had to carry him in his arms; and for some time he could hardly support the weight of his armour, or remain on horseback.
But Louis had yet many years of life before him; and after repairing for a time to recruit his health at Montpellier, where then, as in after ages, the medical science eminently flourished, he in the autumn arrived at Vincennes, and after prostrating himself before the altar of St. Denis and restoring the oriflamme to the abbot, he proceeded to Paris, where he was received with profound respect. But the saint-king bore on his brow traces of the sorrow caused by the multiplied disasters of his expedition, and still wore the symbol of salvation on his shoulder, as if to intimate that he was not yet done with the Holy Land.
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{
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43
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A ROYAL VISIT.
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THE countenance of the King of France did not belie his heart. He was sad, and much more dejected than when he was in captivity and chains at Mansourah, bullied by the Saracens, and threatened with the bernicles. Nor was there any affectation in his continuing to wear the cross on his shoulder; as he proved, sixteen years later, when he undertook his ill-fated expedition to Tunis, and died, on a bed of ashes, amid the ruins of Carthage, looking up to heaven, and exclaiming with his latest breath, 'I will enter into Thy house; I will worship in Thy holy tabernacle!'
Meanwhile the saint-king appeared inconsolable, and refused to be comforted. Even the affectionate welcome accorded him by his people failed to dispel his gloom or cheer his soul. Day and night he brooded over his defeats and disasters, and sighed dolefully as his memory recalled the humiliation to which, in his person, the cause of Christianity had been exposed at the hands of the Moslem.
Fortunately, at that time, Henry, King of England, being at Bordeaux, offered Louis a visit; and the saintly monarch, rousing himself to welcome his royal brother-in-law, made preparations for his reception. Moreover, when Henry's approach was announced, Louis mounted and went forth to meet his guest; and, ere long, the King of England with a magnificent train appeared in sight.
Henry was considerably older than Louis. Indeed, he had now attained the age of forty-seven. But his frame was vigorous; he had always enjoyed robust health; and, as he had taken life easily, time and trouble had not wrought so much havoc on him as on the French monarch. He was of the middle height, and compactly built, and would have been accounted handsome, but that one of his eyelids hung down in such a way as to conceal part of the eyeball, and rather spoiled a face which otherwise would have been pleasant to look upon. But, such as his person was, Henry did not neglect its adornment. He had all a Plantagenet's love of splendour, and the gorgeousness of his dress was such as to excite the wonder of his contemporaries. By his right hand rode his spouse, Eleanor of Provence, sister of the Queen of France, no longer young, but still preserving, in face and form, much of the beauty and grace which, twenty years earlier, made the name of the second daughter of Raymond Berenger celebrated at the courts of Europe.
Behind the King and Queen of England, on a black steed, which he bestrode with remarkable grace, rode their son, Edward, taller by the head and shoulders than other tall men, and already, though not out of his teens, renowned as one of the bravest and handsomest princes in Christendom. With him was his very juvenile wife, Eleanor of Castille, whom he had recently espoused at Burgos, and brought over the Pyrenees to Bordeaux, on his way to England.
But the procession did not stop here; for, as the chronicler tells us, 'the King of England had in his own retinue a thousand handsome horses, ridden by men of dignity and rank, besides waggons and sumpter cattle, as well as a large number of choice horses, so that the unusual novelty of the array caused great astonishment to the French.'
The meeting of the two kings was all that could have been desired by the most enthusiastic advocate of the French alliance who could have been found in England; and, 'at sight of one another, they rushed into each other's arms, and after mutual greeting, entered into conversation.' Naturally enough, the first subject on which they touched was the crusade from which Louis had just returned; and the saint-king seemed relieved to meet with a man to whom he could, without derogating from his dignity, unbosom his griefs.
'My friend,' said Louis, mournfully, 'you cannot imagine how pleasant your voice is to my ears; let us enjoy ourselves in talking together, for never, perhaps, shall we have such an opportunity. In truth,' added he, as they rode on side by side towards Paris, 'it is no easy matter to tell how much bitterness of spirit I endured while on my pilgrimage through love of Christ.'
'I believe it, Louis, my cousin,' said Henry quickly.
'And yet,' continued Louis, 'albeit everything turned against me, I return thanks to the Most High; for, on reflection, I rejoice more in the patience which God granted me, than if the whole world were to be made subject to my rule. And yet, my friend, when I think of all my mishaps, my heart saddens and my soul is heavy.'
'Cousin,' said Henry, kindly, 'beware of casting yourself into a life-wearying sorrow; for holy men will tell you that it is the stepmother of souls, and that it absorbs spiritual joy, and generates prejudice to the Holy Spirit. Recall to your mind the patience of Job, the endurance of Eustace.' And Henry proceeded to relate much that he knew, and much that he did not comprehend, of the history of both, and how, in the end, God rewarded them.
'My friend,' said Louis, 'if I were the only one to suffer the trouble and disgrace, and if my sins did not fall on the church universal, I could bear all with equanimity; but, woe is me, through me the whole of Christendom is enveloped in confusion and shame.'
'And, cousin,' said Henry, 'I perceive that you still wear the symbol of the cross on your raiment.'
'I do,' replied Louis, 'because I have not concluded my pilgrimage; I have only suspended it; therefore bear I the sacred symbol. And you also, Henry, you have taken the cross, and vowed to fight for the Holy Sepulchre.'
'Cousin,' answered Henry, gravely, but frankly, 'when I heard that you were a prisoner in the hands of the Saracens, I did take the cross and vow to go to the rescue; but now that, by God's grace, you are at liberty, I cannot but think that it is my duty to remain at home and minister to the welfare of my subjects.'
'And yet,' urged Louis, 'we are told that he who will not take up his cross and come with me, is not worthy of me; and I know you, Henry, to be a man who, albeit you are negligent in punishing Jews and heretics, are distinguished for attention to the things that belong to your eternal peace, and by your devotion to the Lord.'
'In truth, cousin,' replied Henry, not sorry perhaps, to leave the subject of the crusade, 'I am regular, at least, in my religious exercises; for it is my custom, every day, to hear three masses, with the notes, and, as I wish to hear more, I assiduously assist at the celebration of private masses; and when the priest elevates the Host, I usually hold the hand of the priest and kiss it.'
'Nevertheless, my friend,' remarked Louis, 'I cannot but deem that the attention ought not always to be devoted to the hearing of masses, but that we ought to hear sermons as often as possible.'
'Mayhap,' said Henry. 'And yet, by God's help, I would rather see a friend often than hear of him, even although I should hear nothing spoken of him but good.'
As the two kings conversed they entered Paris side by side, and the sight which met the eyes of the English might well, indeed, raise their admiration. The city, with its squares and bridges and churches and houses built of gypsum, was splendidly decorated with bowers of leaves and flowers; many of the mansions were three and four storeys in height, and the windows were crowded with people of both sexes, gaily dressed, and excited with the spectacle. Everything wore a holiday guise; and the citizens and the scholars of the University, especially those of English birth, suspending their readings and disputations, came forth in crowds, carrying branches of trees, and attended by bands of music. Everybody appeared eager to accord the royal guests a hearty welcome; and Louis, after thanking the scholars for showing his friends so much honour, turned to Henry.
'My friend,' said he, 'I place Paris at your disposal. Where will you be pleased to take up your abode? There is my palace in the middle of the city; or, if you prefer taking up your residence at the Old Temple, which is more roomy, it shall be so arranged.'
'Verily,' answered Henry, 'I think I must choose the Old Temple; for I hear it is roomy enough to lodge an army, and my company, as you see, is somewhat numerous; and there it is my purpose to give a banquet on the morrow, and I trust that you and your princes and nobles will honour it with your presence.'
'After which,' said Louis, 'you must come as my guest to my palace. Nay, nay,' continued he, as Henry sought to excuse himself, 'let it be so: for it is proper for me to perform all the duties of courtesy and hospitality. In my own kingdom I am lord,' he added, with a smile; 'and I will be master in my own house.'
'On my faith,' said Walter Espec to Guy Muschamp, as gallantly the brothers-in-arms rode in the train of the saint-king, 'this is a great day for England!'
'In truth it is,' replied Guy, gaily. 'Methinks there are Englishmen enough in Paris to take the city.'
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{
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44
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THE FEAST OF KINGS.
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ON the day after the arrival of Henry and his queen in Paris, that marvellous banquet, described as 'the feast of kings,' was given in the great hall of the Old Temple; and a mighty entertainment it appears to have been, if we are to judge from the description of the chronicler, who tells us that 'never in times past was there given such a rich and splendid banquet, even in the time of Esther, or of Arthur, or of Charles.' Besides three kings--those of Navarre, and France, and England, with their queens--there were present eighteen countesses, and twenty-five counts, and twelve bishops; not to mention a host of noble knights and ladies--knights illustrious for their valour, and ladies celebrated for their beauty.
As the guests were ranged according to their rank, some difficulty arose as to who was to preside. Henry requested Louis to assume the post of honour; but Louis protested.
'It is more fitting,' said he, 'that the master of the feast should occupy the chief seat.'
'Not so, my lord king,' urged Henry. 'It is more becoming and proper for you to sit in the middle; seeing that you are my sovereign and will be so, for the reason is plain.'
'Henry,' replied Louis, in a low voice, 'would that every one could obtain his right without injury. But in your case,' added he, alluding to Henry's claims on Normandy and Anjou, 'the pride of the French would never permit it. But enough of this.'
Now it happened that the great hall was, according to the continental custom, hung around with as many bucklers as the four walls would hold, and among them was the shield of Coeur de Lion; and when the feast was drawing to a close, the company began to look around and examine them.
'My lord,' said the Count of Anjou, jocularly addressing Henry, 'why have you invited the French to dine with you in this house of all others? See, there is the shield of the lion-hearted King Richard. I marvel that your guests have been able to eat without fear and trembling.'
Now this remark, uttered as it was in a tone of irony, was calculated to excite unpleasant sensations, and to recall disagreeable reminiscences; and Henry looked mortified, and Prince Edward threw his magnificent head disdainfully backward. But Louis, ever on the watch, hastened to soothe their rising ire.
'Would to God, Henry!' said he, earnestly, 'that the twelve peers of France and the barons would agree to my wishes. We should then be inseparable friends.'
'I believe it, Louis, my cousin,' exclaimed Henry, quickly.
'I grieve, my Lord knows,' continued Louis, 'that our feelings of affection cannot be cemented on all points; but I cannot bend the obstinacy of my barons; and therefore I perceive plainly that you will never recover your rights.'
'Nay, the future is with God and his saints,' said Henry; who, pacific as he was, by no means relished the idea of the Plantagenets being perpetually excluded from their inheritance. 'Meanwhile, cousin, there is peace between us, and let not the feast flag.'
'Henry,' said Louis, pausing, as he approached a painful subject, 'it grieves me sore to think that, of all the English who landed with me at Damietta, few, indeed, escaped the carnage of Mansourah. Nevertheless, I have brought home with me two English squires, who are anxious to return to their own country, and whom I would fain recommend to your gracious protection.'
'Cousin,' said Henry, responding with readiness and sympathy, 'for your sake I will both protect and honour them.'
Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp were immediately summoned, and, marching up the great hall between the tables, approached the two kings and bent their knees.
'Both of them,' explained Louis, mildly, 'have rendered good services, and encountered great perils, and undergone great sufferings for the cross. One saved my brother, the Count of Poictiers, from captivity; and the other saved my kinswoman, Adeline de Brienne, from still worse evils.' And the king looked towards the noble demoiselle, who, princess as she was, felt her heart beat rapidly, and was under the necessity of making a strong effort not to betray the interest which she felt in the fortunes of the young warrior, with whose fate, she had convinced herself, since the rescue at Passe-Poulain, her own was strangely intermingled.
'Wherefore,' continued Louis, 'I would fain, ere parting with them, give them a token of my appreciation of their piety, and the courage they have shown in hours of danger and disaster, as I have already admonished them how to act towards their God and their neighbour. Kneel.'
And as they obeyed, Louis gave each of them three blows on the shoulder with the flat of his weapon, mentioning the name of each, and repeating the formula--'In the name of God, of St. Michael, and St. George, I dub thee knight. Rise up, Sir Walter Espec, and Sir Guy Muschamp.'
And as Walter and Guy rose to their feet, blushing with this new and unexpected honour, Louis added-- 'And now you will accompany your king to England, and lose no time in winning your spurs, so as to justify me, in the eyes of men, for having thus distinguished you.'
'By St. George, cousin,' said Henry, laughing, 'I fear me that their patience will be put to the test; for at present I have not an enemy against whom to lead such redoubted warriors.'
'My lord and father,' said Prince Edward, interposing, 'if the young knights will enter my service, I will undertake to find them enough of work to keep their swords from rusting.'
'I doubt it not, Edward,' replied Henry, seriously, 'I doubt it not;' and, turning to Louis, he added by way of explanation, 'I have gifted my son with the principality of Wales, and recommended him to employ his youth in bringing the natives to obedience; and I know enough of the Welsh to be aware that he has before him an arduous duty. Now, young gentlemen,' said he, addressing Guy and Walter, 'will you take service with the prince, and go to war under his banner?'
'In truth, my lord,' answered Walter, 'nothing could be more to my mind than so to do.'
'And what say you, most doughty warrior?' said Henry, looking towards the heir of the Muschamps.
'My lord,' replied Guy, cheerfully, 'we are brothers in arms; and, as says Walter, so say I.' And when Henry and Queen Eleanor left Paris, and took leave of Louis and his court at Chartres to return to Bordeaux, Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp rode off in Prince Edward's train; Guy, laughing as he thought how much his new dignity would add to his importance when he reached his father's castle, and Walter, casting many a look behind to catch a last glance of Adeline de Brienne.
And so ended the adventures of the Boy Crusaders.
* * * * * FOOTNOTE: [1]Transcriber's Note: Although, generally, handwritten notes are not preserved in the final text, the proofreaders so enjoyed this edition's inscription that it was retained. An image can be seen in the html version.
Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
All instances of "Richard Coeur de Lion" used an oe-ligature. As this cannot be represented in a plain text file, it is instead noted here.
Both Djédilé and Djedilé were used in this text.
Page 60, "Icingla" changed to "Icinglas" (blood of Icinglas) Page 65, words obscurred in original, "per xity" changed to "perplexity" (in some perplexity) Page 65, " l" changed to "will" (will ever be such) Page 206, "Geoffery" changed to "Geoffrey" (Nile, and Geoffrey) Page 242, "Lovis" changed to "Louis" (King Louis from Acre) Page 281, "Posse-Poulain" changed to "Passe-Poulain" (the rescue at Passe-Poulain)
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1
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None
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It was raining and blowing at Eldridge's Crossing. From the stately pine-trees on the hill-tops, which were dignifiedly protesting through their rigid spines upward, to the hysterical willows in the hollow, that had whipped themselves into a maudlin fury, there was a general tumult. When the wind lulled, the rain kept up the distraction, firing long volleys across the road, letting loose miniature cataracts from the hill-sides to brawl in the ditches, and beating down the heavy heads of wild oats on the levels; when the rain ceased for a moment the wind charged over the already defeated field, ruffled the gullies, scattered the spray from the roadside pines, and added insult to injury. But both wind and rain concentrated their energies in a malevolent attempt to utterly disperse and scatter the “Half-way House,” which seemed to have wholly lost its way, and strayed into the open, where, dazed and bewildered, unprepared and unprotected, it was exposed to the taunting fury of the blast. A loose, shambling, disjointed, hastily built structure--representing the worst features of Pioneer renaissance--it rattled its loose window-sashes like chattering teeth, banged its ill-hung shutters, and admitted so much of the invading storm, that it might have blown up or blown down with equal facility.
Jefferson Briggs, proprietor and landlord of the “Half-way House,” had just gone through the formality of closing his house for the night, hanging dangerously out of the window in the vain attempt to subdue a rebellious shutter that had evidently entered into conspiracy with the invaders, and, shutting a door as against a sheriff's posse, was going to bed--i. e., to read himself asleep, as was his custom. As he entered his little bedroom in the attic with a highly exciting novel in his pocket and a kerosene lamp in his hand, the wind, lying in wait for him, instantly extinguished his lamp and slammed the door behind him. Jefferson Briggs relighted the lamp, as if confidentially, in a corner, and, shielding it in the bosom of his red flannel shirt, which gave him the appearance of an illuminated shrine, hung a heavy bear-skin across the window, and then carefully deposited his lamp upon a chair at his bedside. This done, he kicked off his boots, flung them into a corner, and, rolling himself in a blanket, lay down upon the bed. A habit of early rising, bringing with it, presumably, the proverbial accompaniment of health, wisdom, and pecuniary emoluments, had also brought with it certain ideas of the effeminacy of separate toilettes and the virtue of readiness.
In a few moments he was deep in a chapter.
A vague pecking at his door--as of an unseasonable woodpecker, finally asserted itself to his consciousness. “Come in,” he said, with his eye still on the page.
The door opened to a gaunt figure, partly composed of bed-quilt and partly of plaid shawl. A predominance of the latter and a long wisp of iron-gray hair determined her sex. She leaned against the post with an air of fatigue, half moral and half physical.
“How ye kin lie thar, abed, Jeff, and read and smoke on sich a night! The sperrit o' the Lord abroad over the yearth--and up stage not gone by yet. Well, well! it's well thar ez SOME EZ CAN'T SLEEP.”
“The up coach, like as not, is stopped by high water on the North Fork, ten miles away, aunty,” responded Jeff, keeping to the facts. Possibly not recognizing the hand of the beneficent Creator in the rebellious window shutter, he avoided theology.
“Well,” responded the figure, with an air of delivering an unheeded and thankless warning, “it is not for ME to say. P'raps it's all His wisdom that some will keep to their own mind. It's well ez some hezn't narves, and kin luxuriate in terbacker in the night watches. But He says, 'I'll come like a thief in the night!' --like a thief in the night, Jeff.”
Totally unable to reconcile this illustration with the delayed “Pioneer” coach and Yuba Bill, its driver, Jeff lay silent. In his own way, perhaps, he was uneasy--not to say shocked--at his aunt's habitual freedom of scriptural quotation, as that good lady herself was with an occasional oath from his lips; a fact, by the way, not generally understood by purveyors of Scripture, licensed and unlicensed.
“I'd take a pull at them bitters, aunty,” said Jeff feebly, with his wandering eye still recurring to his page. “They'll do ye a power of good in the way o' calmin' yer narves.”
“Ef I was like some folks I wouldn't want bitters--though made outer the simplest yarbs of the yearth, with jest enough sperrit to bring out the vartoos--ez Deacon Stoer's Balm 'er Gilead is--what yer meaning? Ef I was like some folks I could lie thar and smoke in the lap o' idleness--with fourteen beds in the house empty, and nary lodger for one of 'em. Ef I was that indifferent to havin' invested my fortin in the good will o' this house, and not ez much ez a single transient lookin' in, I could lie down and take comfort in profane literatoor. But it ain't in me to do it. And it wasn't your father's way, Jeff, neither!”
As the elder Briggs's way had been to seek surcease from such trouble at the gambling table, and eventually, in suicide, Jeff could not deny it. But he did not say that a full realization of his unhappy venture overcame him as he closed the blinds of the hotel that night; and that the half desperate idea of abandoning it then and there to the warring elements that had resented his trespass on Nature seemed to him an act of simple reason and justice. He did not say this, for easy-going natures are not apt to explain the processes by which their content or resignation is reached, and are therefore supposed to have none. Keeping to the facts, he simply suggested the weather was unfavorable to travelers, and again found his place on the page before him. Fixing it with his thumb, he looked up resignedly. The figure wearily detached itself from the door-post, and Jeff's eyes fell on his book. “You won't stop, aunty?” he asked mechanically, as if reading aloud from the page; but she was gone.
A little ashamed, although much relieved, Jeff fell back again to literature, interrupted only by the charging of the wind and the heavy volleys of rain. Presently he found himself wondering if a certain banging were really a shutter, and then, having settled in his mind that it WAS, he was startled by a shout. Another, and in the road before the house!
Jeff put down the book, and marked the place by turning down the leaf, being one of that large class of readers whose mental faculties are butter-fingered, and easily slip their hold. Then he resumed his boots and was duly caparisoned. He extinguished the kerosene lamp, and braved the outer air, and strong currents of the hall and stairway in the darkness. Lighting two candles in the bar-room, he proceeded to unlock the hall door. At the same instant a furious blast shook the house, the door yielded slightly and impelled a thin, meek-looking stranger violently against Jeff, who still struggled with it.
“An accident has occurred,” began the stranger, “and”--but here the wind charged again, blew open the door, pinned Jeff behind it back against the wall, overturned the dripping stranger, dashed up the staircase, and slammed every door in the house, ending triumphantly with No. 14, and a crash of glass in the window.
“'Come, rouse up!” said Jeff, still struggling with the door, “rouse up and lend a hand yer!”
Thus abjured, the stranger crept along the wall towards Jeff and began again, “We have met with an accident.” But here another and mightier gust left him speechless, covered him with spray of a wildly disorganized water-spout that, dangling from the roof, seemed to be playing on the front door, drove him into black obscurity and again sandwiched his host between the door and the wall. Then there was a lull, and in the midst of it Yuba Bill, driver of the “Pioneer” coach, quietly and coolly, impervious in waterproof, walked into the hall, entered the bar-room, took a candle, and, going behind the bar, selected a bottle, critically examined it, and, returning, poured out a quantity of whiskey in a glass and gulped it in a single draught.
All this while Jeff was closing the door, and the meek-looking man was coming into the light again.
Yuba Bill squared his elbows behind him and rested them on the bar, crossed his legs easily and awaited them. In reply to Jeff's inquiring but respectful look, he said shortly-- “Oh, you're thar, are ye?”
“Yes, Bill.”
“Well, this yer new-fangled road o' yours is ten feet deep in the hollow with back water from the North Fork! I've taken that yar coach inter fower feet of it, and then I reckoned I couldn't hev any more. 'I'll stand on this yer hand,' sez I; I brought the horses up yer and landed 'em in your barn to eat their blessed heads off till the water goes down. That's wot's the matter, old man, and jist about wot I kalkilated on from those durned old improvements o' yours.”
Coloring a little at this new count in the general indictment against the uselessness of the “Half-way House,” Jeff asked if there were “any passengers?”
Yuba Bill indicated the meek stranger with a jerk of his thumb. “And his wife and darter in the coach. They're all right and tight, ez if they was in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But I reckon he allows to fetch 'em up yer,” added Bill, as if he strongly doubted the wisdom of the transfer.
The meek man, much meeker for the presence of Bill, here suggested that such indeed was his wish, and further prayed that Jeff would accompany him to the coach to assist in bringing them up. “It's rather wet and dark,” said the man apologetically; “my daughter is not strong. Have you such a thing as a waterproof?”
Jeff had not; but would a bear-skin do?
It would.
Jeff ran, tore down his extempore window curtain, and returned with it. Yuba Bill, who had quietly and disapprovingly surveyed the proceeding, here disengaged himself from the bar with evident reluctance.
“You'll want another man,” he said to Jeff, “onless ye can carry double. Ez HE,” indicating the stranger, “ez no sort o' use, he'd better stay here and 'tend bar,' while you and me fetch the wimmen off. 'Specially ez I reckon we've got to do some tall wadin' by this time to reach 'em.”
The meek man sat down helplessly in a chair indicated by Bill, who at once strode after Jeff. In another moment they were both fighting their way, step by step, against the storm, in that peculiar, drunken, spasmodic way so amusing to the spectator and so exasperating to the performer. It was no time for conversation, even interjectional profanity was dangerously exhaustive.
The coach was scarcely a thousand yards away, but its bright lights were reflected in a sheet of dark silent water that stretched between it and the two men. Wading and splashing, they soon reached it, and a gully where the surplus water was pouring into the valley below. “Fower feet o' water round her, but can't get any higher. So ye see she's all right for a month o' sich weather.” Inwardly admiring the perspicacity of his companion, Jeff was about to open the coach door when Bill interrupted.
“I'll pack the old woman, if you'll look arter the darter and enny little traps.”
A female face, anxious and elderly, here appeared at the window.
“Thet's my little game,” said Bill, sotto voce.
“Is there any danger? where is my husband?” asked the woman impatiently.
“Ez to the danger, ma'am,--thar ain't any. Yer ez safe HERE ez ye'd be in a Sacramento steamer; ez to your husband, he allowed I was to come yer and fetch yer up to the hotel. That's his look-out!” With this cheering speech, Bill proceeded to make two or three ineffectual scoops into the dark interior, manifestly with the idea of scooping out the lady in question. In another instant he had caught her, lifted her gently but firmly in his arms, and was turning away.
“But my child! --my daughter! she's asleep!” --expostulated the woman; but Bill was already swiftly splashing through the darkness. Jeff, left to himself, hastily examined the coach: on the back seat a slight small figure, enveloped in a shawl, lay motionless. Jeff threw the bear-skin over it gently, lifted it on one arm, and gathering a few travelling bags and baskets with the other, prepared to follow his quickly disappearing leader. A few feet from the coach the water appeared to deepen, and the bear-skin to draggle. Jeff drew the figure up higher, in vain.
“Sis,” he said softly.
No reply.
“Sis,” shaking her gently.
There was a slight movement within the wrappings.
“Couldn't ye climb up on my shoulder, honey? that's a good child!”
There were one or two spasmodic jerks of the bear-skin, and, aided by Jeff, the bundle was presently seated on his shoulder.
“Are you all right now, Sis?”
Something like a laugh came from the bear-skin. Then a childish voice said, “Thank you, I think I am!”
“Ain't you afraid you'll fall off?”
“A little.”
Jeff hesitated. It was beginning to blow again.
“You couldn't reach down and put your arm round my neck, could ye, honey?”
“I am afraid not!” --although there WAS a slight attempt to do so.
“No?”
“No!”
“Well, then, take a good holt, a firm strong holt, o' my hair! Don't be afraid!”
A small hand timidly began to rummage in Jeff's thick curls.
“Take a firm holt; thar, just back o' my neck! That's right.”
The little hand closed over half a dozen curls. The little figure shook, and giggled.
“Now don't you see, honey, if I'm keerless with you, and don't keep you plump level up thar, you jist give me a pull and fetch me up all standing!”
“I see!”
“Of course you do! That's because you're a little lady!”
Jeff strode on. It was pleasant to feel the soft warm fingers in his hair, pleasant to hear the faint childish voice, pleasant to draw the feet of the enwrapped figure against his broad breast. Altogether he was sorry when they reached the dry land and the lee of the “Half-way House,” where a slight movement of the figure expressed a wish to dismount.
“Not yet, missy,” said Jeff; “not yet! You'll get blown away, sure! And then what'll they say? No, honey! I'll take you right in to your papa, just as ye are!”
A few steps more and Jeff strode into the hall, made his way to the sitting-room, walked to the sofa, and deposited his burden. The bear-skin fell back, the shawl fell back, and Jeff--fell back too! For before him lay a small, slight, but beautiful and perfectly formed woman.
He had time to see that the meek man, no longer meek, but apparently a stern uncompromising parent, was standing at the head of the sofa; that the elderly and nervous female was hovering at the foot, that his aunt, with every symptom of religious and moral disapproval of his conduct, sat rigidly in one of the rigid chairs--he had time to see all this before the quick, hot blood, flying to his face, sent the water into his eyes, and he could see nothing!
The cause of all this smiled--a dazzling smile though a faint one--that momentarily lit up the austere gloom of the room and its occupants. “You must thank this gentleman, papa,” said she, languidly turning to her father, “for his kindness and his trouble. He has carried me here as gently and as carefully as if I were a child.” Seeing symptoms of a return of Jeff's distress in his coloring face, she added softly, as if to herself, “It's a great thing to be strong--a greater thing to be strong AND gentle.”
The voice thrilled through Jeff. But into this dangerous human voice twanged the accents of special spiritual revelation, and called him to himself again, “Be ye wise as sarpints, but harmless as duvs,” said Jeff's aunt, generally, “and let 'em be thankful ez doesn't aboos the stren'th the Lord gives 'em, but be allers ready to answer for it at the bar o' their Maker.” Possibly some suggestion in her figure of speech reminded her of Jeff's forgotten duties, so she added in the same breath and tone, “especially when transient customers is waiting for their licker, and Yuba Bill hammerin' on the counter with his glass; and yer ye stand, Jeff, never even takin' up that wet bar-skin--enuff to give that young woman her death.”
Stammering out an incoherent apology, addressed vaguely to the occupants of the room, but looking toward the languid goddess on the sofa, Jeff seized the bear-skin and backed out the door. Then he flew to his room with it, and then returned to the bar-room; but the impatient William of Yuba had characteristically helped himself and gone off to the stable. Then Jeff stole into the hall and halted before the closed door of the sitting-room. A bold idea of going in again, as became a landlord of the “Half-way House,” with an inquiry if they wished anything further, had seized him, but the remembrance that he had always meekly allowed that duty to devolve upon his aunt, and that she would probably resent it with scriptural authority and bring him to shame again, stayed his timid knuckles at the door. In this hesitation he stumbled upon his aunt coming down the stairs with an armful of blankets and pillows, attended by their small Indian servant, staggering under a mattress.
“Is everything all right, aunty?”
“Ye kin be thankful to the Lord, Jeff Briggs, that this didn't happen last week when I was down on my back with rheumatiz. But ye're never grateful.”
“The young lady--is SHE comfortable?” said Jeff, accepting his aunt's previous remark as confirmatory.
“Ez well ez enny critter marked by the finger of the Lord with gallopin' consumption kin be, I reckon. And she, ez oughter be putting off airthly vanities, askin' for a lookin'-glass! And you! trapesin' through the hall with her on yer shoulder, and dancin' and jouncin' her up and down ez if it was a ball-room!” A guilty recollection that he had skipped with her through the passage struck him with remorse as his aunt went on: “It's a mercy that betwixt you and the wet bar-skin she ain't got her deth!”
“Don't ye think, aunty,” stammered Jeff, “that--that--my bein' the landlord, yer know, it would be the square thing--just out o' respect, ye know--for me to drop in thar and ask 'em if thar's anythin' they wanted?”
His aunt stopped, and resignedly put down the pillows. “Sarah,” she said meekly to the handmaiden, “ye kin leave go that mattress. Yer's Mr. Jefferson thinks we ain't good enough to make the beds for them two city women folks, and he allows he'll do it himself!”
“No, no! aunty!” began the horrified Jeff; but failing to placate his injured relative, took safety in flight.
Once safe in his own room his eye fell on the bear-skin. It certainly WAS wet. Perhaps he had been careless--perhaps he had imperiled her life! His cheeks flushed as he threw it hastily in the corner. Something fell from it to the floor. Jeff picked it up and held it to the light. It was a small, a very small, lady's slipper. Holding it within the palm of his hand as if it had been some delicate flower which the pressure of a finger might crush, he strode to the door, but stopped. Should he give it to his aunt? Even if she overlooked this evident proof of HIS carelessness, what would she think of the young lady's? Ought he--seductive thought! --go downstairs again, knock at the door, and give it to its fair owner, with the apology he was longing to make? Then he remembered that he had but a few moments before been dismissed from the room very much as if he were the original proprietor of the skin he had taken. Perhaps they were right; perhaps he WAS only a foolish clumsy animal! Yet SHE had thanked him--and had said in her sweet childlike voice, “It is a great thing to be strong; a greater thing to be strong and gentle.” He was strong; strong men had said so. He did not know if he was gentle too. Had she meant THAT, when she turned her strangely soft dark eyes upon him? For some moments he held the slipper hesitatingly in his hand, then he opened his trunk, and disposing various articles around it as if it were some fragile, perishable object, laid it carefully therein.
This done, he drew off his boots, and rolling himself in his blanket, lay down upon the bed. He did not open his novel--he did not follow up the exciting love episode of his favorite hero--so ungrateful is humanity to us poor romancers, in the first stages of their real passion. Ah, me! 'tis the jongleurs and troubadours they want then, not us! When Master Slender, sick for sweet Anne Page, would “rather than forty shillings” he had his “book of songs and sonnets” there, what availed it that the Italian Boccaccio had contemporaneously discoursed wisely and sweetly of love in prose? I doubt not that Master Jeff would have mumbled some verse to himself had he known any: knowing none, he lay there and listened to the wind.
Did she hear it; did it keep her awake? He had an uneasy suspicion that the shutter that was banging so outrageously was the shutter of her room. Filled with this miserable thought, he arose softly, stole down the staircase, and listened. The sound was repeated. It was truly the refractory shutter of No. 7--the best bedroom adjoining the sitting-room. The next room, No. 8, was vacant. Jeff entered it softly, as softly opened the window, and leaning far out in the tempest, essayed to secure the nocturnal disturber. But in vain. Cord or rope he had none, nor could he procure either without alarming his aunt--an extremity not to be considered. Jeff was a man of clumsy but forceful expedients. He hung far out of the window, and with one powerful hand lifted the shutter off its hinges and dragged it softly into No. 8. Then as softly he crept upstairs to bed. The wind howled and tore round the house; the crazy water-pipe below Jeff's window creaked, the chimneys whistled, but the shutter banged no more. Jeff began to doze. “It's a great thing to be strong,” the wind seemed to say as it charged upon the defenseless house, and then another voice seemed to reply, “A greater thing to be strong and gentle;” and hearing this he fell asleep.
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It was not yet daylight when he awoke with an idea that brought him hurriedly to his feet. Quickly dressing himself, he began to count the money in his pocket. Apparently the total was not satisfactory, as he endeavored to augment it by loose coins fished from the pockets of his other garments, and from the corner of his washstand drawer. Then he cautiously crept downstairs, seized his gun, and stole out of the still sleeping house. The wind had gone down, the rain had ceased, a few stars shone steadily in the north, and the shapeless bulk of the coach, its lamps extinguished, loomed high and dry above the lessening water, in the twilight. With a swinging tread Jeff strode up the hill and was soon upon the highway and stage road. A half-hour's brisk walk brought him to the summit, and the first rosy flashes of morning light. This enabled him to knock over half-a-dozen early quail, lured by the proverb, who were seeking their breakfast in the chaparral, and gave him courage to continue on his mission, which his perplexed face and irresolute manner had for the last few moments shown to be an embarrassing one. At last the white fences and imposing outbuildings of the “Summit Hotel” rose before him, and he uttered a deep sigh. There, basking in the first rays of the morning sun, stood his successful rival! Jeff looked at the well-built, comfortable structure, the commanding site, and the air of serene independence that seemed to possess it, and no longer wondered that the great world passed him by to linger and refresh itself there.
He was relieved to find the landlord was not present in person, and so confided his business to the bar-keeper. At first it appeared that that functionary declined interference, and with many head-shakings and audible misgivings was inclined to await the coming of his principal, but a nearer view of Jeff's perplexed face, and an examination of Jeff's gun, and the few coins spread before him, finally induced him to produce certain articles, which he packed in a basket and handed to Jeff, taking the gun and coins in exchange. Thus relieved, Jeff set his face homewards, and ran a race with the morning into the valley, reaching the “Half-way House” as the sun laid waste its bare, bleak outlines, and relentlessly pointed out its defects one by one. It was cruel to Jeff at that moment, but he hugged his basket close and slipped to the back door and the kitchen, where his aunt was already at work.
“I didn't know ye were up yet, aunty,” said Jeff submissively. “It isn't more than six o'clock.”
“Thar's four more to feed at breakfast,” said his aunt severely, “and yer's the top blown off the kitchen chimbly, and the fire only just got to go.”
Jeff saw that he was in time. The ordinary breakfast of the “Half-way House,” not yet prepared, consisted of codfish, ham, yellow-ochre biscuit, made after a peculiar receipt of his aunt's, and potatoes.
“I got a few fancy fixin's up at the Summit this morning, aunty,” he began apologetically, “seein' we had sick folks, you know--you and the young lady--and thinkin' it might save you trouble. I've got 'em here,” and he shyly produced the basket.
“If ye kin afford it, Jeff,” responded his aunt resignedly, “I'm thankful.”
The reply was so unexpectedly mild for Aunt Sally, that Jeff put his arms around her and kissed her hard cheek. “And I've got some quail, aunty, knowin' you liked em.”
“I reckoned you was up to some such foolishness,” said Aunt Sally, wiping her cheek with her apron, “when I missed yer gun from the hall.” But the allusion was a dangerous one, and Jeff slipped away.
He breakfasted early with Yuba Bill that morning; the latter gentleman's taciturnity being intensified at such moments through a long habit of confining himself strictly to eating in the limited time allowed his daily repasts, and it was not until they had taken the horses from the stable and were harnessing them to the coach that Jeff extracted from his companion some facts about his guests. They were Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield, Eastern tourists, who had been to the Sandwich Islands for the benefit of their daughter's health, and before returning to New York, intended, under the advice of their physician, to further try the effects of mountain air at the “Summit Hotel,” on the invalid. They were apparently rich people, the coach had been engaged for them solely--even the mail and express had been sent on by a separate conveyance, so that they might be more independent. It is hardly necessary to say that this fact was by no means palatable to Bill--debarring him not only the social contact and attentions of the “Express Agent,” but the selection of a box-seated passenger who always “acted like a man.”
“Ye kin kalkilate what kind of a pardner that 'ar yaller-livered Mayfield would make up on that box, partik'ly ez I heard before we started that he'd requested the kimpany's agent in Sacramento to select a driver ez didn't cuss, smoke, or drink. He did, sir, by gum!”
“I reckon you were very careful, then, Bill,” said Jeff.
“In course,” returned Bill, with a perfectly diabolical wink. “In course! You know that 'Blue Grass,'” pointing out a spirited leader; “she's a fair horse ez horses go, but she's apt to feel her oats on a down grade, and takes a pow'ful deal o' soothin' and explanation afore she buckles down to her reg'lar work. Well, sir, I exhorted and labored in a Christian-like way with that mare to that extent that I'm cussed if that chap didn't want to get down afore we got to the level!”
“And the ladies?” asked Jeff, whose laugh--possibly from his morning's experience--was not as ready as formerly.
“The ladies! Ef you mean that 'ar livin' skellington I packed up to yer house,” said Bill promptly, “it's a pair of them in size and color, and ready for any first-class undertaker's team in the kintry. Why, you remember that curve on Break Neck hill, where the leaders allus look as if they was alongside o' the coach and faced the other way? Well, that woman sticks her skull outer the window, and sez she, confidential-like to old yaller-belly, sez she, 'William Henry,' sez she, 'tell that man his horses are running away!'”
“You didn't get to see the--the--daughter, Bill, did you?” asked Jeff, whose laugh had become quite uneasy.
“No, I didn't,” said Bill, with sudden and inexplicable vehemence, “and the less you see of her, Jefferson Briggs, the better for you.”
Too confounded and confused by Bill's manner to question further, Jeff remained silent until they drew up at the door of the “Half-way House.” But here another surprise awaited him. Mr. Mayfield, erect and dignified, stood upon the front porch as the coach drove up.
“Driver!” began Mr. Mayfield.
There was no reply.
“Driver,” said Mr. Mayfield, slightly weakening under Bill's eye, “I shall want you no longer. I have”-- “Is he speaking to me?” said Bill audibly to Jeff, “'cause they call me 'Yuba Bill' yer abouts.”
“He is,” said Jeff hastily.
“Mebbee he's drunk,” said Bill audibly; “a drop or two afore breakfast sometimes upsets his kind.”
“I was saying, Bill,” said Mr. Mayfield, becoming utterly limp and weak again under Bill's cold gray eyes, “that I've changed my mind, and shall stop here awhile. My daughter seems already benefited by the change. You can take my traps from the boot and leave them here.”
Bill laid down his lines resignedly, coolly surveyed Mr. Mayfield, the house, and the half-pleased, half-frightened Jeff, and then proceeded to remove the luggage from the boot, all the while whistling loud and offensive incredulity. Then he climbed back to his box. Mr. Mayfield, completely demoralized under this treatment, as a last resort essayed patronage.
“You can say to the Sacramento agents, Bill, that I am entirely satisfied, and”-- “Ye needn't fear but I'll give ye a good character,” interrupted Bill coolly, gathering up his lines. The whip snapped, the six horses dashed forward as one, the coach plunged down the road and was gone.
With its disappearance, Mr. Mayfield stiffened slightly again. “I have just told your aunt, Mr. Briggs,” he said, turning upon Jeff, “that my daughter has expressed a desire to remain here a few days; she has slept well, seems to be invigorated by the air, and although we expected to go on to the 'Summit,' Mrs. Mayfield and myself are willing to accede to her wishes. Your house seems to be new and clean. Your table--judging from the breakfast this morning--is quite satisfactory.”
Jeff, in the first flush of delight at this news, forgot what that breakfast had cost him--forgot all his morning's experience, and, I fear, when he did remember it, was too full of a vague, hopeful courage to appreciate it. Conscious of showing too much pleasure, he affected the necessity of an immediate interview with his aunt, in the kitchen. But his short cut round the house was arrested by a voice and figure. It was Miss Mayfield, wrapped in a shawl and seated in a chair, basking in the sunlight at one of the bleakest and barest angles of the house. Jeff stopped in a delicious tremor.
As we are dealing with facts, however, it would be well to look at the cause of this tremor with our own eyes and not Jeff's. To be plain, my dear madam, as she basked in that remorseless, matter-of-fact California sunshine, she looked her full age-twenty-five, if a day! There were wrinkles in the corners of her dark eyes, contracted and frowning in that strong, merciless light; there was a nervous pallor in her complexion; but being one of those “fast colored” brunettes, whose dyes are a part of their temperament, no sickness nor wear could bleach it out. The red of her small mouth was darker than yours, I wot, and there were certain faint lines from the corners of her delicate nostrils indicating alternate repression and excitement under certain experiences, which are not found in the classic ideals. Now Jeff knew nothing of the classic ideal--did not know that a thousand years ago certain sensual idiots had, with brush and chisel, inflicted upon the world the personification of the strongest and most delicate, most controlling and most subtle passion that humanity is capable of, in the likeness of a thick-waisted, idealess, expressionless, perfectly contented female animal; and that thousands of idiots had since then insisted upon perpetuating this model for the benefit of a world that had gone on sighing for, pining for, fighting for, and occasionally blowing its brains out over types far removed from that idiotic standard.
Consequently Jeff saw only a face full of possibilities and probabilities, framed in a small delicate oval, saw a slight woman's form--more than usually small--and heard a low voice, to him full of gentle pride, passion, pathos, and human weakness, and was helpless.
“I only said 'Good-morning,'” said Miss Mayfield, with that slight, arch satisfaction in the observation of masculine bashfulness, which the best of her sex cannot forego.
“Thank you, miss; good-morning. I've been wanting to say to you that I hope you wasn't mad, you know,” stammered Jeff, desperately intent upon getting off his apology.
“It is so lovely this morning--such a change!” continued Miss Mayfield.
“Yes, miss! You know I reckoned--at least what your father said, made me kalkilate that you”-- Miss Mayfield, still smiling, knitted her brows and went on: “I slept so well last night,” she said gratefully, “and feel so much better this morning, that I ventured out. I seem to be drinking in health in this clear sunlight.”
“Certainly miss. As I was sayin', your father says his daughter is in the coach; and Bill says, says he to me, 'I'll pack--I'll carry the old--I'll bring up Mrs. Mayfield, if you'll bring up the daughter;' and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep--like in the corner, and bein' small, why miss, you know how nat'ral it is, I”-- “Oh, Mr. Jeff! Mr. Briggs!” said Miss Mayfield plaintively, “don't, please--don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year. You thought I was a child, I know, and--well, you find,” she said audaciously, suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a rifle, “you find--well?”
What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible. Miss Mayfield saw enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek. Thus does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over.
The color faded. “It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless, and to put everybody to such trouble, isn't it, Mr. Jeff? I beg your pardon--your aunt calls you Jeff.”
“Please call me Jeff,” said Jeff, to his own surprise rapidly gaining courage. “Everybody calls me that.”
Miss Mayfield smiled. “I suppose I must do what everybody does. So it seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get better or worse?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Therefore I won't detain you now. I only wanted to thank you for your gentleness last night, and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give me my death.”
She smiled and nodded her small head, and wrapped her shawl again closely around her shoulders, and turned her eyes upon the mountains, gestures which the now quick-minded Jeff interpreted as a gentle dismissal, and flew to seek his aunt.
Here he grew practical. Ready money was needed; for the “Half-way House” was such a public monument of ill-luck, that Jeff had no credit. He must keep up the table to the level of that fortunate breakfast--to do which he had $1.50 in the till, left by Bill, and $2.50 produced by his Aunt Sally from her work-basket.
“Why not ask Mr. Mayfield to advance ye suthin?” said Aunt Sally.
The blood flew to Jeff's face. “Never! Don't say that again, aunty.”
The tone and manner were so unlike Jeff that the old lady sat down half frightened, and taking the corners of her apron in her hands began to whimper.
“Thar now, aunty! I didn't mean nothin',--only if you care to have me about the place any longer, and I reckon it's little good I am any way,” he added, with a new-found bitterness in his tone, “ye'll not ask me to do that.”
“What's gone o' ye, Jeff?” said his aunt lugubriously; “ye ain't nat'ral like.”
Jeff laughed. “See here, aunty; I'm goin' to take your advice. You know Rabbit?”
“The mare?”
“Yes; I'm going to sell her. The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollars for her last week.”
“Ef ye'd done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o' keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off.” Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to “improve the occasion,” but preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the “improved.” “Well, I hope he mayn't change his mind.”
Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fifty miles of the “Half-way House.” Nevertheless he went briskly to the stable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while, and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red flannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it was displaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his arms around Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in the bosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment. Rabbit becoming uneasy, Jeff's mood changed too, and having caparisoned himself and charger in true vaquero style, not without a little Mexican dandyism as to the set of his doeskin trousers, and the tie of his red sash, put a sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle.
Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as a natural instinct, and not as a purely artificial habit of horse and rider, consequently he was not perched up, jockey fashion, with a knee-grip for his body, and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast's mouth, but rode with long, loose stirrups, his legs clasping the barrel of his horse, his single rein lying loose upon her neck, leaving her head free as the wind. After this fashion he had often emerged from a cloud of dust on the red mountain road, striking admiration into the hearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers, and leaving a trail of pleasant incense in the dust behind him. It was therefore with considerable confidence in himself, and a little human vanity, that he dashed round the house, and threw his mare skilfully on her haunches exactly a foot before Miss Mayfield--himself a resplendent vision of flying riata, crimson scarf, fawn-colored trousers, and jingling silver spurs.
“Kin I do anythin' for ye, miss, at the Forks?”
Miss Mayfield looked up quietly. “I think not,” she said indifferently, as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence.
Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards, caught her up sharply, swung her round on her off hind heel, permitted her to paw the air once or twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet, and then, with another dash forward, pulled her up again just before she apparently took Miss Mayfield and her chair in a running leap.
“Are you sure, miss?” asked Jeff, with a flushed face and a rather lugubrious voice.
“Quite so, thank you,” she said coldly, looking past this centaur to the wooded mountain beyond.
Jeff, thoroughly crushed, was pacing meekly away when a childlike voice stopped him.
“If you are going near a carpenter's shop you might get a new shutter for my window; it blew away last night.”
“It did, miss?”
“Yes,” said the shrill voice of Aunt Sally, from the doorway, “in course it did! Ye must be crazy, Jeff, for thar it stands in No. 8, whar ye must have put it after ye picked it up outside.”
Jeff, conscious that Miss Mayfield's eyes were on his suffused face, stammered “that he would attend to it,” and put spurs to the mare, eager only to escape.
It was not his only discomfiture; for the blacksmith, seeing Jeff's nervousness and anxiety, was suspicious of something wrong, as the world is apt to be, and appeased his conscience after the worldly fashion, by driving a hard bargain with the doubtful brother in affliction--the morality of a horse trade residing always with the seller. Whereby Master Jeff received only eighty dollars for horse and outfit--worth at least two hundred--and was also mulcted of forty dollars, principal and interest for past service of the blacksmith. Jeff walked home with forty dollars in his pocket--capital to prosecute his honest calling of innkeeper; the blacksmith retired to an adjoining tavern to discuss Jeff's affairs, and further reduce his credit. Yet I doubt which was the happier--the blacksmith estimating his possible gains, and doubtful of some uncertain sequence in his luck, or Jeff, temporarily relieved, boundlessly hopeful, and filled with the vague delights of a first passion. The only discontented brute in the whole transaction was poor Rabbit, who, missing certain attentions, became indignant, after the manner of her sex, bit a piece out of her crib, kicked a hole in her box, and receiving a bad character from the blacksmith, gave a worse one to her late master.
Jeff's purchases were of a temporary and ornamental quality, but not always judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark from Miss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steel fork, which was part of the table equipage of the “Half-way House,” he purchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as “split spoons,” and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not only repaired the window-shutter, but tempered the glaring window itself with a bit of curtain; he half carpeted Miss Mayfield's bed-room with wild-cat skins and the now historical bear-skin, and felt himself overpaid when that young lady, passing the soft tabbyskins across her cheek, declared they were “lovely.” For Miss Mayfield, deprecating slaughter in the abstract, accepted its results gratefully, like the rest of her sex, and while willing to “let the hart ungalled play,” nevertheless was able to console herself with its venison. The woods, besides yielding aid and comfort of this kind to the distressed damsel, were flamboyant with vivid spring blossoms, and Jeff lit up the cold, white walls of her virgin cell with demonstrative color, and made--what his aunt, a cleanly soul, whose ideas of that quality were based upon the absence of any color whatever, called--“a litter.”
The result of which was to make Miss Mayfield, otherwise lanquid and ennuye, welcome Jeff's presence with a smile; to make Jeff, otherwise anxious, eager, and keenly attentive, mute and silent in her presence. Two symptoms bad for Jeff.
Meantime Mr. Mayfield's small conventional spirit pined for fellowship, only to be found in larger civilizations, and sought, under plea of business, a visit to Sacramento, where a few of the Mayfield type, still surviving, were to be found.
This was a relief to Jeff, who only through his regard for the daughter, was kept from open quarrel with the father. He fancied Miss Mayfield felt relieved too, although Jeff had noticed that Mayfield had deferred to his daughter more often than his wife--over whom your conventional small autocrat is always victorious. It takes the legal matrimonial contract to properly develop the first-class tyrant, male or female.
On one of these days Jeff was returning through the woods from marketing at the Forks, which, since the sale of Rabbit, had became a foot-sore and tedious business. He had reached the edge of the forest, and through the wider-spaced trees, the bleak sunlit plateau of his house was beginning to open out, when he stopped instantly. I know not what Jeff had been thinking of, as he trudged along, but here, all at once, he was thrilled and possessed with the odor of some faint, foreign perfume. He flushed a little at first, and then turned pale. Now the woods were as full of as delicate, as subtle, as grateful, and, I wot, far healthier and purer odors than this; but this represented to Jeff the physical contiguity of Miss Mayfield, who had the knack--peculiar to some of her sex--of selecting a perfume that ideally identified her. Jeff looked around cautiously; at the foot of a tree hard by lay one of her wraps, still redolent of her. Jeff put down the bag which, in lieu of a market basket, he was carrying on his shoulder, and with a blushing face hid it behind a tree. It contained her dinner!
He took a few steps forwards with an assumption of ease and unconsciousness. Then he stopped, for not a hundred yards distant sat--Miss Mayfield on a mossy boulder, her cloak hanging from her shoulders, her hands clasped round her crossed knees, and one little foot out--an exasperating combination of Evangeline and little Red Riding Hood in everything, I fear, but credulousness and self-devotion. She looked up as he walked towards her (non constat that the little witch had not already seen him half a mile away!) and smiled sweetly as she looked at him. So sweetly, indeed, that poor Jeff felt like the hulking wolf of the old world fable, and hesitated--as that wolf did not. The California faunae have possibly depreciated.
“Come here!” she cried, in a small head voice, not unlike a bird's twitter.
Jeff lumbered on clumsily. His high boots had become suddenly very heavy.
“I'm so glad to see you. I've just tired poor mother out--I'm always tiring people out--and she's gone back to the house to write letters. Sit down, Mr. Jeff, do, please!”
Jeff, feeling uncomfortably large in Miss Mayfield's presence, painfully seated himself on the edge of a very low stone, which had the effect of bringing his knees up on a level with his chin, and affected an ease glaringly simulated.
“Or lie down, there, Mr. Jeff--it is so comfortable.”
Jeff, with a dreadful conviction that he was crashing down like a falling pine-tree, managed at last to acquire a recumbent position at a respectful distance from the little figure.
“There, isn't it nice?”
“Yes, Miss Mayfield.”
“But, perhaps,” said Miss Mayfield, now that she had him down, “perhaps you too have got something to do. Dear me! I'm like that naughty boy in the story-book, who went round to all the animals, in turn, asking them to play with him. He could only find the butterfly who had nothing to do. I don't wonder he was disgusted. I hate butterflies.”
Love clarifies the intellect! Jeff, astonished at himself, burst out, “Why, look yer, Miss Mayfield, the butterfly only hez a day or two to--to--to live and--be happy!”
Miss Mayfield crossed her knees again, and instantly, after the sublime fashion of her sex, scattered his intellect by a swift transition from the abstract to the concrete. “But you're not a butterfly, Mr. Jeff. You're always doing something. You've been hunting.”
“No-o!” said Jeff, scarlet, as he thought of his gun in pawn at the “Summit.”
“But you do hunt; I know it.”
“How?”
“You shot those quail for me the morning after I came. I heard you go out--early--very early.”
“Why, you allowed you slept so well that night, Miss Mayfield.”
“Yes; but there's a kind of delicious half-sleep that sick people have sometimes, when they know and are gratefully conscious that other people are doing things for them, and it makes them rest all the sweeter.”
There was a dead silence. Jeff, thrilling all over, dared not say anything to dispel his delicious dream. Miss Mayfield, alarmed at his readiness with the butterfly illustration, stopped short. They both looked at the prospect, at the distant “Summit Hotel”--a mere snow-drift on the mountain--at the clear sunlight on the barren plateau, at the bleak, uncompromising “Half-way House,” and said nothing.
“I ought to be very grateful,” at last began Miss Mayfield, in quite another voice, and a suggestion that she was now approaching real and profitable conversation, “that I'm so much better. This mountain air has been like balm to me. I feel I am growing stronger day by day. I do not wonder that you are so healthy and so strong as you are, Mr. Jeff.”
Jeff, who really did not know before that he was so healthy, apologetically admitted the fact. At the same time, he was miserably conscious that Miss Mayfield's condition, despite her ill health, was very superior to his own.
“A month ago,” she continued reflectively, “my mother would never have thought it possible to leave me here alone. Perhaps she may be getting worried now.”
Miss Mayfield had calculated over much on Jeff's recumbent position. To her surprise and slight mortification, he rose instantly to his feet, and said anxiously, “Ef you think so, miss, p'raps I'm keeping you here.”
“Not at all, Mr. Jeff. Your being here is a sufficient excuse for my staying,” she replied, with the large dignity of a small body.
Jeff, mentally and physically crushed again, came down a little heavier than before, and reclined humbly at her feet. Second knock-down blow for Miss Mayfield.
“Come, Mr. Jeff,” said the triumphant goddess, in her first voice, “tell me something about yourself. How do you live here--I mean; what do you do? You ride, of course--and very well too, I can tell you! But you know that. And of course that scarf and the silver spurs and the whole dashing equipage are not intended entirely for yourself. No! Some young woman is made happy by that exhibition, of course. Well, then, there's the riding down to see her, and perhaps the riding out with her, and--what else?”
“Miss Mayfield,” said Jeff, suddenly rising above his elbow and his grammar, “thar isn't no young woman! Thar isn't another soul except yourself that I've laid eyes on, or cared to see since I've been yer. Ef my aunt hez been telling ye that--she's--she--she--she--she--lies.”
Absolute, undiluted truth, even of a complimentary nature, is confounding to most women. Miss Mayfield was no exception to her sex. She first laughed, as she felt she ought to, and properly might with any other man than Jeff; then she got frightened, and said hurriedly, “No, no! you misunderstand me. Your aunt has said nothing.” And then she stopped with a pink spot on her cheek-bones. First blood for Jeff!
Now this would never do; it was worse than the butterflies! She rose to her full height--four feet eleven and a half--and drew her cloak over her shoulders. “I think I will return to the house,” she said quietly; “I suppose I ought not to overtask my strength.”
“You'd better let me go with you, miss,” said Jeff submissively.
“I will, on one condition,” she said, recovering her archness, with a little venom in it, I fear. “You were going home, too, when I called to you. Now, I do not intend to let you leave that bag behind that tree, and then have to come back for it, just because you feel obliged to go with me. Bring it with you on one arm, and I'll take the other, or else--I'll go alone. Don't be alarmed,” she added softly; “I'm stronger than I was the first night I came, when you carried me and all my worldly goods besides.”
She turned upon him her subtle magnetic eyes, and looked at him as she had the first night they met. Jeff turned away bewildered, but presently appeared again with the bag on his shoulder, and her wrap on his arm. As she slipped her little hand over his sleeve, he began, apologetically and nervously, “When I said that about Aunt Sally, miss, I”-- The hand immediately became limp, the grasp conventional.
“I was mad, miss,” Jeff blundered on, “and I don't see how you believed it--knowing everything ez you do.”
“How knowing everything as I do?” asked Miss Mayfield coldly.
“Why, about the quail, and about the bag!”
“Oh,” said Miss Mayfield.
Five minutes later, Yuba Bill nearly ditched his coach in his utter amazement at an apparently simple spectacle--a tall, good-looking young fellow, in a red shirt and high boots, carrying a bag on his back, and beside him, hanging confidentially on his arm, a small, slight, pretty girl in a red cloak. “Nothing mean about her, eh, Bill?” said as admiring box-passenger. “Young couple, I reckon, just out from the States.”
“No!” roared Bill.
“Oh, well, his sweetheart, I reckon?” suggested the box-passenger.
“Nary time!” growled Bill. “Look yer! I know 'em both, and they knows me. Did ye notiss she never drops his arm when she sees the stage comin', but kinder trapes along jist the same? Had they been courtin', she'd hev dropped his arm like pizen, and walked on t'other side the road.”
Nevertheless, for some occult reason, Bill was evidently out of humor; and for the next few miles exhorted the impenitent Blue Grass horse with considerable fervor.
Meanwhile this pair, outwardly the picture of pastoral conjugality, slowly descended the hill. In that brief time, failing to get at any further facts regarding Jeff's life, or perhaps reading the story quite plainly, Miss Mayfield had twittered prettily about herself. She painted her tropic life in the Sandwich Islands--her delicious “laziness,” as she called it; “for, you know,” she added, “although I had the excuse of being an invalid, and of living in the laziest climate in the world, and of having money, I think, Mr. Jeff, that I'm naturally lazy. Perhaps if I lived here long enough, and got well again, I might do something, but I don't think I could ever be like your aunt. And there she is now, Mr. Jeff, making signs for you to hasten. No, don't mind me, but run on ahead; else I shall have her blaming me for demoralizing you too. Go; I insist upon it! I can walk the rest of the way alone. Will you go? You won't? Then I shall stop here and not stir another step forward until you do.”
She stopped, half jestingly, half earnestly, in the middle of the road, and emphasized her determination with a nod of her head--an action that, however, shook her hat first rakishly over one eye, and then on the ground. At which Jeff laughed, picked it up, presented it to her, and then ran off to the house.
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His aunt met him angrily on the porch. “Thar ye are at last, and yer's a stranger waitin to see you. He's been axin all sorts o' questions, about the house and the business, and kinder snoopin' round permiskiss. I don't like his looks, Jeff, but thet's no reason why ye should be gallivantin' round in business hours.”
A large, thick-set man, with a mechanical smile that was an overt act of false pretense, was lounging in the bar-room. Jeff dimly remembered to have seen him at the last county election, distributing tickets at the polls. This gave Jeff a slight prejudice against him, but a greater presentiment of some vague evil in the air caused him to motion the stranger to an empty room in the angle of the house behind the barroom, which was too near the hall through which Miss Mayfield must presently pass.
It was an infelicitous act of precaution, for at that very moment Miss Mayfield slowly passed beneath its open window, and seeing her chair in the sunny angle, dropped into it for rest and possibly meditation. Consequently she overheard every word of the following colloquy.
The Stranger's voice: “Well, now, seein' ez I've been waitin' for ye over an hour, off and on, and ez my bizness with ye is two words, it strikes me yer puttin' on a little too much style in this yer interview, Mr. Jefferson Briggs.”
Jeff's voice (a little husky with restraint): “What is yer business?”
The stranger's voice (lazily): “It's an attachment on this yer property for principal, interest, and costs--one hundred and twelve dollars and' seventy-five cents, at the suit of Cyrus Parker.”
Jeff's voice (in quick surprise): “Parker? Why, I saw him only yesterday, and he agreed to wait a spell longer.”
The Stranger's voice: “Mebbee he did! Mebbee he heard afterwards suthin' about the goin's on up yar. Mebbee he heard suthin' o' property bein' converted into ready cash--sich property ez horses, guns, and sich! Mebbee he heard o' gay and festive doin's--chickin every day, fresh eggs, butcher's meat, port wine, and sich! Mebbee he allowed that his chances o' gettin' his own honest grub outer his debt was lookin' mighty slim! Mebbee” (louder) “he thought he'd ask the man who bought yer horse, and the man you pawned your gun to, what was goin' on! Mebbee he thought he'd like to get a holt a suthin' himself, even if it was only some of that yar chickin and port wine!”
Jeff's voice (earnestly and hastily): “They're not for me. I have a family boarding here, with a sick daughter. You don't think--” The Stranger's voice (lazily): “I reckon! I seed you and her pre-ambulating down the hill, lockin' arms. A good deal o' style, Jeff--fancy! expensive! How does Aunt Sally take it?”
A slight shaking of the floor and window--a dead silence.
The Stranger's voice (very faintly): “For God's sake, let me up!”
Jeff's voice (very distinctly): “Another word! raise your voice above a whisper, and by the living G--” Silence.
The Stranger's voice (gasping): “I--I--promise!”
Jeff's voice (low and desperate): “Get up out of that! Sit down thar! Now hear me! I'm not resisting your process. If you had all h-ll as witnesses you daren't say that. I've shut up your foul jaw, and kept it from poisoning the air, and thar's no law in Californy agin it! Now listen. What! You will, will you?”
Everything quiet; a bird twittering on the window ledge, nothing more.
The Stranger's voice (very huskily): “I cave! Gimme some whiskey.”
Jeff's voice: “When we're through. Now listen! You can take possession of the house; you can stand behind the bar and take every cent that comes in; you can prevent anything going out; but as long as Mr. Mayfield and his family stay here, by the living God--law or no law--I'll be boss here, and they shall never know it!”
The Stranger's voice (weakly and submissively): “That sounds square. Anythin' not agin the law and in reason, Jeff!”
Jeff's voice: “I mean to be square. Here is all the money I have, ten dollars. Take it for any extra trouble you may have to satisfy me.”
A pause--the clinking of coin.
The Stranger's voice (deprecatingly): “Well! I reckon that would be about fair. Consider the trouble” (a weak laugh here) “just now. 'Tain't every man ez hez your grip. He! he! Ef ye hadn't took me so suddent like--he! he! --well! --how about that ar whiskey?”
Jeff's voice (coolly): “I'll bring it.”
Steps, silence, coughing, spitting, and throat-clearing from the stranger.
Steps again, and the click of glass.
The Stranger's voice (submissively): “In course I must go back to the Forks and fetch up my duds. Ye know what I mean! Thar now--don't, Mr. Jeff!”
Jeff's voice (sternly): “If I find you go back on me--” The Stranger's voice (hurriedly): “Thar's my hand on it. Ye can count on Jim Dodd.”
Steps again. Silence. A bird lights on the window ledge, and peers into the room. All is at rest.
Jeff and the deputy-sheriff walked through the bar-room and out on the porch. Miss Mayfield in an arm-chair looked up from her book.
“I've written a letter to my father that I'd like to have mailed at the Forks this afternoon,” she said, looking from Jeff to the stranger; “perhaps this gentleman will oblige me by taking it, if he's going that way.”
“I'll take it, miss,” said Jeff hurriedly.
“No,” said Miss Mayfield archly, “I've taken up too much of your time already.”
“I'm at your service, miss,” said the stranger, considerably affected by the spectacle of this pretty girl, who certainly at that moment, in her bright eyes and slightly pink cheeks, belied the suggestion of ill health.
“Thank you. Dear me!” She was rummaging in a reticule and in her pocket, etc. “Oh, Mr. Jeff!”
“Yes, miss?”
“I'm so frightened!”
“How, miss?”
“I have--yes! --I have left that letter on the stump in the woods, where I was sitting when you came. Would you--” Jeff darted into the house, seized his hat, and stopped. He was thinking of the stranger.
“Could you be so kind?”
Jeff looked in her agitated face, cast a meaning glance at the stranger, and was off like a shot.
The fire dropped out of Miss Mayfield's eyes and cheeks. She turned toward the stranger.
“Please step this way.”
She always hated her own childish treble. But just at that moment she thought she had put force and dignity into it, and was correspondingly satisfied. The deputy sheriff was equally pleased, and came towards the upright little figure with open admiration.
“Your name is Dodd--James Dodd?”
“Yes, miss.”
“You are the deputy sheriff of the county? Don't look round--there is no one here!”
“Well, miss--if you say so--yes!”
“My father--Mr. Mayfield--understood so. I regret he is not here. I regret still more I could not have seen you before you saw Mr. Briggs, as he wished me to.”
“Yes, miss.”
“My father is a friend of Mr. Briggs, and knows something of his affairs. There was a debt to a Mr. Parker” (here Miss Mayfield apparently consulted an entry in her tablets) “of one hundred and twelve dollars and seventy-five cents--am I right?”
The deputy, with great respect: “That is the figgers.”
“Which he wished to pay without the knowledge of Mr. Briggs, who would not have consented to it.”
The official opened his eyes. “Yes, miss.”
“Well, as Mr. Mayfield is NOT here, I am here to pay it for him. You can take a check on Wells, Fargo & Co., I suppose?”
“Certainly, miss.”
She took a check-book and pen and ink from her reticule, and filled up a check. She handed it to him, and the pen and ink. “You are to give me a receipt.”
The deputy looked at the matter-of-fact little figure, and signed and handed over the receipted bill.
“My father said Mr. Briggs was not to know this.”
“Certainly not, miss.”
“It was Mr. Briggs's intention to let the judgment take its course, and give up the house. You are a man of business, Mr. Dodd, and know that this is ridiculous!”
The deputy laughed. “In course, miss.”
“And whatever Mr. Briggs may have proposed to you to do, when you go back to the Forks, you are to write him a letter, and say that you will simply hold the judgment without levy.”
“All right, miss,” said the deputy, not ill-pleased to hold himself in this superior attitude to Jeff.
“And--” “Yes, miss?”
She looked steadily at him. “Mr. Briggs told my father that he would pay you ten dollars for the privilege of staying here.”
“Yes, miss.”
“And, of course, THAT'S not necessary now.”
“No-o, miss.”
A very small white hand--a mere child's hand--was here extended, palm uppermost.
The official, demoralized completely, looked at it a moment, then went into his pockets and counted out into the palm the coins given by Jeff; they completely filled the tiny receptacle.
Miss Mayfield counted the money gravely, and placed it in her portemonnaie with a snap.
Certain qualities affect certain natures. This practical business act of the diminutive beauty before him--albeit he was just ten dollars out of pocket by it--struck the official into helpless admiration. He hesitated.
“That's all,” said Miss Mayfield coolly; “you need not wait. The letter was only an excuse to get Mr. Briggs out of the way.”
“I understand ye, miss.” He hesitated still. “Do you reckon to stop in these parts long?”
“I don't know.”
“'Cause ye ought to come down some day to the Forks.”
“Yes.”
“Good morning, miss.”
“Good morning.”
Yet at the corner of the house the rascal turned and looked back at the little figure in the sunlight. He had just been physically overcome by a younger man--he had lost ten dollars--he had a wife and three children. He forgot all this. He had been captivated by Miss Mayfield!
That practical heroine sat there five minutes. At the end of that time Jeff came bounding down the hill, his curls damp with perspiration; his fresh, honest face the picture of woe, HER woe, for the letter could not be found!
“Never mind, Mr. Jeff. I wrote another and gave it to him.”
Two tears were standing on her cheeks. Jeff turned white.
“Good God, miss!”
“It's nothing. You were right, Mr. Jeff! I ought not to have walked down here alone. I'm very, very tired, and--so--so miserable.”
What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? I fear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief, and said: “Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I've sent him off.”
“Nothing,” said Jeff hurriedly; and she saw that all his other troubles had vanished at the sight of her weakness. She rose tremblingly from her seat. “I think I will go in now, but I think--I think--I must ask you to--to--carry me!”
Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!
The next moment, Jeff, pale, strong, passionate, but tender as a mother, lifted her in his arms and brought her into the sitting-room. A simultaneous ejaculation broke from Aunt Sally and Mrs. Mayfield--the possible comment of posterity on the whole episode.
“Well, Jeff, I reckoned you'd be up to suthin' like that!”
“Well, Jessie! I knew you couldn't be trusted.”
Mr. James Dodd did not return from the Forks that afternoon, to Jeff's vague uneasiness. Towards evening a messenger brought a note from him, written on the back of a printed legal form, to this effect: DEAR SIR--Seeing as you Intend to act on the Square in regard to that little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink--respy yours, J. DODD.
In this latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of his heads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could see her “onct in a wile,” and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked, and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of his absence. “He might hev been ugly,” said Jeff. He did not know how, in this selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, active ugliness.
Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind was getting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on his porch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparition of Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usual refreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain from mixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill, partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowly drew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Bill without them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when he laid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, which gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.
“Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear up yer this evening,” said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, “I don't know ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!”
Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.
“Because ef ye ARE,” said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of the overgrown spiders with his fist, “I've got a word or two to say to the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word to him at the right time.”
“Bill,” said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--“thar's a sick woman in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low.”
Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more than his words, dropped his own.
“I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all your doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe that sneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't and wouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--ef I'd allowed it to be the square thing for ye. But I know ye, Jeff. I know what's in your BLOOD. I knew your father--allus dreamin', hopin,' waitin'; I know YOU, Jeff, dreamin', hopin', waitin' till the end. And I stood by, givin' you a free rein, and let it come!”
Jeff buried his face in his hands.
“It ain't your blame--it's blood! It ain't a week ago ez the kimpany passes me over a hoss. 'Three-quarters Morgan,' sez they. Sez I: 'Wot's the other quarter?' Sez they: 'A Mexican half-breed.' Well, she was a fair sort of hoss. Comin' down Heavytree Hill last trip, we meets a drove o' Spanish steers. In course she goes wild directly. Blood!”
Bill raised his glass, softly swirled its contents round and round, tasted it, and set it down.
“The kepple o' words I had to say to ye was this: Git up and git!”
Something like this had passed through Jeff's mind the day before the Mayfields came. Something like it had haunted him once or twice since. He turned quickly upon the speaker.
“Ez how? you sez,” said Bill, catching at the hook. “I drives up yer some night, and you sez to me, 'Bill, hev you got two seats over to the Divide for me and aunty--out on a pasear.' And I sez, 'I happen to hev one inside and one on the box with me.' And you hands out yer traps and any vallybles ye don't want ter leave, and you puts your aunt inside, and gets up on the box with me. And you sez to me, ez man to man, 'Bill,' sez you, 'might you hev a kepple o' hundred dollars about ye that ye could lend a man ez was leaving the county, dead broke?' and I sez, 'I've got it, and I know of an op'nin' for such a man in the next county.' And you steps into THAT op'nin', and your creditors--'spesh'ly Parker--slips into THIS, and in a week they offers to settle with ye ten cents on the dollar.”
Jeff started, flushed, trembled, recovered himself, and after a moment said, doggedly: “I can't do it, Bill; I couldn't.”
“In course,” said Bill, putting his hands slowly into his pockets, and stretching his legs out--“in course ye can't because of a woman!”
Jeff turned upon him like a hunted bear. Both men rose, but Bill already had his hand on Jeff's shoulder.
“I reckoned a minute ago there was a sick gal in the house! Who's going to make a row now! Who's going to stamp and tear round, eh?”
Jeff sank back on his chair.
“I said thar was a woman,” continued Bill; “thar allus is one! Let a man be hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his track is a woman's feet. I don't say anythin' agin this gal, ez a gal. The best of 'em, Jeff, is only guide-posts to p'int a fellow on his right road, and only a fool or a drunken man holds on to 'em or leans agin em. Allowin' this gal is all you think she is, how far is your guide-post goin' with ye, eh? Is she goin' to leave her father and mother for ye? Is she goin' to give up herself and her easy ways and her sicknesses for ye? Is she willin' to take ye for a perpetooal landlord the rest of her life? And if she is, Jeff, are ye the man to let her? Are ye willin' to run on her errants, to fetch her dinners ez ye do? Thar ez men ez does it; not yer in Californy, but over in the States thar's fellows is willing to take that situation. I've heard,” continued Bill, in a low, mysterious voice, as of one describing the habits of the Anthropophagi--“I've heard o' fellows ez call themselves men, sellin' of themselves to rich women in that way. I've heard o' rich gals buyin' of men for their shape; sometimes--but thet's in furrin' kintries--for their pedigree! I've heard o' fellows bein' in that business, and callin' themselves men instead o' hosses! Ye ain't that kind o' man, Jeff. 'Tain't in yer blood. Yer father was a fool about women, and in course they ruined him, as they allus do the best men. It's on'y the fools and sneaks ez a woman ever makes anythin' out of. When ye hear of a man a woman hez made, ye hears of a nincompoop. And when they does produce 'em in the way o' nater, they ain't responsible for 'em, and sez they're the image o' their fathers! Ye ain't a man ez is goin' to trust yer fate to a woman!”
“No,” said Jeff darkly.
“I reckoned not,” said Bill, putting his hands in his pockets again. “Ye might if ye was one o' them kind o' fellows as kem up from 'Frisco with her to Sacramento. One o' them kind o' fellows ez could sling poetry and French and Latin to her--one of HER kind--but ye ain't! No, sir!”
Unwise William of Yuba! In any other breast but Jeff's that random shot would have awakened the irregular auxiliary of love--jealousy! But Jeff, being at once proud and humble, had neither vanity nor conceit, without which jealousy is impossible. Yet he winced a little, for he had feeling, and then said earnestly: “Do you think that opening you spoke of would hold for a day or two longer?”
“I reckon.”
“Well, then, I think I can settle up matters here my own way, and go with you, Bill.”
He had risen, and yet hesitatingly kept his hand on the back of his chair. “Bill!”
“Jeff!”
“I want to ask you a question; speak up, and don't mind me, but say the truth.”
Our crafty Ulysses, believing that he was about to be entrapped, ensconced himself in his pockets, cocked one eye, and said: “Go on, Jeff.”
“Was my father VERY bad?”
Bill took his hands from his pockets. “Thar isn't a man ez crawls above his grave ez is worthy to lie in the same ground with him!”
“Thank you, Bill. Good night; I'm going to turn in!”
“Look yar, boy! G-d d--n it all, Jeff! what do ye mean?”
There were two tears--twin sisters of those in his sweetheart's eyes that afternoon--now standing in Jeff's!
Bill caught both his hands in his own. Had they been of the Latin race they would have, right honestly, taken each other in their arms, and perhaps kissed! Being Anglo-Saxons, they gripped each other's hands hard, and one, as above stated, swore!
When Jeff ascended to his room that night he went directly to his trunk and took out Miss Mayfield's slipper. Alack! during the day Aunt Sally had “put things to rights” in his room, and the trunk had been moved. This had somewhat disordered its contents, and Miss Mayfield's slipper contained a dozen shot from a broken Eley's cartridge, a few quinine pills, four postage stamps, part of a coral earring which Jeff--on the most apocryphal authority--fondly believed belonged to his mother, whom he had never seen, and a small silver school medal which Jeff had once received for “good conduct,” much to his own surprise, but which he still religiously kept as evidence of former conventional character. He colored a little, rubbed the medal and earring ruefully on his sleeve, replaced them in his trunk, and then hastily emptied the rest of the slipper's contents on the floor. This done, he drew off his boots, and, gliding noiselessly down the stair, hung the slipper on the knob of Miss Mayfield's door, and glided back again without detection.
Rolling himself in his blankets, he lay down on his bed. But not to sleep! Staringly wide awake, he at last felt the lulling of the wind that nightly shook his casement, and listened while the great, rambling, creaking, disjointed “Half-way House” slowly settled itself to repose. He thought of many things; of himself, of his past, of his future, but chiefly, I fear, of the pale proud face now sleeping contentedly in the chamber below him. He tossed with many plans and projects, more or less impracticable, and then began to doze. Whereat the moon, creeping in the window, laid a cold white arm across him, and eventually dried a few foolish tears upon his sleeping lashes.
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{
"id": "2695"
}
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4
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Aunt Sally was making pies in the kitchen the next morning when Jeff hesitatingly stole upon her. The moment was not a felicitous one. Pie-making was usually an aggressive pursuit with Aunt Sally, entered into severely, and prosecuted unto the bitter end. After watching her a few moments Jeff came up and placed his arms tenderly around her. People very much in love find relief, I am told, in this vicarious expression.
“Aunty.”
“Well, Jeff! Thar, now--yer gittin' all dough!” Nevertheless, the hard face relaxed a little. Something of a smile stole round her mouth, showing what she might have been before theology and bitters had supplied the natural feminine longings.
“Aunty dear!”
“You--boy!”
It WAS a boy's face--albeit bearded like the pard, with an extra fierceness in the mustaches--that looked upon hers. She could not help bestowing a grim floury kiss upon it.
“Well, what is it now?”
“I'm thinking, aunty, it's high time you and me packed up our traps and 'shook' this yar shanty, and located somewhere else.” Jeff's voice was ostentatiously cheerful, but his eyes were a little anxious.
“What for NOW?”
Jeff hastily recounted his ill luck, and the various reasons--excepting of course the dominant one--for his resolution.
“And when do you kalkilate to go?”
“If you'll look arter things here,” hesitated Jeff, “I reckon I'll go up along with Bill to-morrow, and look round a bit.”
“And how long do you reckon that gal would stay here after yar gone?”
This was a new and startling idea to Jeff. But in his humility he saw nothing in it to flatter his conceit. Rather the reverse. He colored, and then said apologetically,-- “I thought that you and Jinny could get along without me. The butcher will pack the provisions over from the Fork.”
Laying down her rolling-pin, Aunt Sally turned upon Jeff with ostentatious deliberation. “Ye ain't,” she began slowly, “ez taking a man with wimmen ez your father was--that's a fact, Jeff Briggs! They used to say that no woman as he went for could get away from him. But ye don't mean to say yer think yer not good enough--such as ye are--for this snip of an old maid, ez big as a gold dollar, and as yaller?”
“Aunty,” said Jeff, dropping his boyish manner, and his color as suddenly, “I'd rather ye wouldn't talk that way of Miss Mayfield. Ye don't know her; and there's times,” he added, with a sigh, “ez I reckon ye don't quite know ME either. That young lady, bein' sick, likes to be looked after. Any one can do that for her. She don't mind who it is. She don't care for me except for that, and,” added Jeff humbly, “it's quite natural.”
“I didn't say she did,” returned Aunt Sally viciously; “but seeing ez you've got an empty house yer on yer hands, and me a-slavin' here on jist nothin', if this gal, for the sake o' gallivantin' with ye for a spell, chooses to stay here and keep her family here, and pay high for it, I don't see why it ain't yer duty to Providence and me to take advantage of it.”
Jeff raised his eyes to his aunt's face. For the first time it struck him that she might be his father's sister and yet have no blood in her veins that answered to his. There are few shocks more startling and overpowering to original natures than this sudden sense of loneliness. Jeff could not speak, but remained looking fiercely at her.
Aunt Sally misinterpreted his silence, and returned to her work on the pies. “The gal ain't no fool,” she continued, rolling out the crust as if she were laying down broad propositions. “SHE reckons on it too, ez if it was charged in the bill with the board and lodging. Why, didn't she say to me, last night, that she kalkilated afore she went away to bring up some friends from 'Frisco for a few days' visit? and didn't she say, in that pipin', affected voice o' hers, 'I oughter make some return for yer kindness and yer nephew's kindness, Aunt Sally, by showing people that can help you, and keep your house full, how pleasant it is up here.' She ain't no fool, with all her faintin's and dyin's away! No, Jeff Briggs. And if she wants to show ye off agin them city fellows ez she knows, and ye ain't got spunk enough to stand up and show off with her--why”--she turned her head impatiently, but he was gone.
If Jeff had ever wavered in his resolution he would have been steady enough NOW. But he had never wavered; the convictions and resolutions of suddenly awakened character are seldom moved by expediency. He was eager to taste the bitter dregs of his cup at once. He began to pack his trunk, and make his preparations for departure. Without avoiding Miss Mayfield in this new excitement, he no longer felt the need of her presence. He had satisfied his feverish anxieties by placing his trunk in the hall beside his open door, and was sitting on his bed, wrestling with a faded and overtasked carpet-bag that would not close and accept his hard conditions, when a small voice from the staircase thrilled him. He walked to the corridor, and, looking down, beheld Miss Mayfield midway on the steps of the staircase.
She had never looked so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her in those soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalid femininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her present walking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment. There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the result of climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulse that had led her--a modest virgin--to seek a gentleman in this personal fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm, recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave or a worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts her charming little foot just over the threshold of Propriety.
“The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed must come to the mountain,” said Miss Mayfield. “Mother is asleep, Aunt Sally is at work in the kitchen, and here am I, already dressed for a ramble in this bright afternoon sunshine, and no one to go with me. But, perhaps, you, too, are busy?”
“No, miss. I will be with you in a moment.”
I wish I could say that he went back to calm his pulses, which the dangerous music of Miss Mayfield's voice had set to throbbing, by a few moments' calm and dispassionate reflection. But he only returned to brush his curls out of his eyes and ears, and to button over his blue flannel shirt a white linen collar, which he thought might better harmonize with Miss Mayfield's attire.
She was sitting on the staircase, poking her parasol through the balusters. “You need not have taken that trouble, Mr. Jeff,” she said pleasantly. “YOU are a part of this mountain picture at all times; but I am obliged to think of dress.”
“It was no trouble, miss.”
Something in the tone of his voice made her look in his face as she rose. It was a trifle paler, and a little older. The result, doubtless, thought Miss Mayfield, of his yesterday's experience with the deputy-sheriff.
Such was her rapid deduction. Nevertheless, after the fashion of her sex, she immediately began to argue from quite another hypothesis.
“You are angry with me, Mr. Jeff.”
“What, I--Miss Mayfield?”
“Yes, you!”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“Oh yes, you are. Don't deny it?”
“Upon my soul--” “Yes! You give me punishments and--penances!”
Jeff opened his blue eyes on his tormentor. Could Aunt Sally have been saying anything?
“If anybody, Miss Mayfield--” he began.
“Nobody but you. Look here!”
She extended her little hand with a smile. In the centre of her palm lay four shining double B SHOT.
“There! I found those in my slipper this morning!” Jeff was speechless.
“Of course YOU did it! Of course it was YOU who found my slipper!” said Miss Mayfield, laughing. “But why did you put shot in it, Mr. Jeff? In some Catholic countries, when people have done wrong, the priests make them do penance by walking with peas in their shoes! What have I ever done to you? And why SHOT? They're ever so much harder than peas.”
Seeing only the mischievous, laughing face before him, and the open palm containing the damning evidence of the broken Eley's cartridge, Jeff stammered out the truth.
“I found the slipper in the bear-skin, Miss Mayfield. I put it in my trunk to keep, thinking yer wouldn't miss it, and it's being a kind of remembrance after you're gone away--of--of the night you came here. Somebody moved the trunk in my room,” and he hung his head here. “The things inside all got mixed up.”
“And that made you change your mind about keeping it?” said Miss Mayfield, still smiling.
“No, miss.”
“What was it, then?”
“I gave it back to you, Miss Mayfield, because I was going away.”
“Indeed! Where?”
“I'm going to find another location. Maybe you've noticed,” he continued, falling back into his old apologetic manner in spite of his pride of resolution--“maybe you've noticed that this place here has no advantages for a hotel.”
“I had not, indeed. I have been very comfortable.”
“Thank you, miss.”
“When do you go?”
“To-night.”
For all his pride and fixed purpose he could not help looking eagerly in her face. Miss Mayfield's eyes met his pleasantly and quietly.
“I'm sorry to part with you so soon,” she said, as she stepped back a pace or two with folded hands. “Of course every moment of your time now is occupied. You must not think of wasting it on me.”
But Jeff had recovered his sad composure. “I'd like to go with you, Miss Mayfield. It's the last time, you know,” he added simply.
Miss Mayfield did not reply. It was a tacit assent, however, although she moved somewhat stiffly at his side as they walked towards the door. Quite convinced that Jeff's resolution came from his pecuniary troubles, Miss Mayfield was wondering if she had not better assure him of his security from further annoyance from Dodd. Wonderful complexity of female intellect! she was a little hurt at his ingratitude to her for a kindness he could not possibly have known. Miss Mayfield felt that in some way she was unjustly treated. How many of our miserable sex, incapable of divination, have been crushed under that unreasonable feminine reproof, “You ought to have known!”
The afternoon sun was indeed shining brightly as they stepped out before the bleak angle of the “Half-way House”; but it failed to mitigate the habitually practical austerity of the mountain breeze--a fact which Miss Mayfield had never before noticed. The house was certainly bleak and exposed; the site by no means a poetical one. She wondered if she had not put a romance into it, and perhaps even into the man beside her, which did not belong to either. It was a moment of dangerous doubt.
“I don't know but that you're right, Mr. Jeff,” she said finally, as they faced the hill, and began the ascent together. “This place is a little queer, and bleak, and--unattractive.”
“Yes, miss,” said Jeff, with direct simplicity, “I've always wondered what you saw in it to make you content to stay, when it would be so much prettier, and more suitable for you at the 'Summit.'”
Miss Mayfield bit her lip, and was silent. After a few moments' climbing she said, almost pettishly, “Where is this famous 'Summit'?”
Jeff stopped. They had reached the top of the hill. He pointed across an olive-green chasm to a higher level, where, basking in the declining sun, clustered the long rambling outbuildings around the white blinking facade of the “Summit House.” Framed in pines and hemlocks, tender with soft gray shadows, and nestling beyond a foreground of cultivated slope, it was a charming rustic picture.
Miss Mayfield's quick eye took in its details. Her quick intellect took in something else. She had seated herself on the road-bank, and, clasping her knees between her locked fingers, she suddenly looked up at Jeff. “What possessed you to come half-way up a mountain, instead of going on to the top?”
“Poverty, miss!”
Miss Mayfield flushed a little at this practical direct answer to her half-figurative question. However, she began to think that moral Alpine-climbing youth might have pecuniary restrictions in their high ambitions, and that the hero of “Excelsior” might have succumbed to more powerful opposition than the wisdom of Age or the blandishments of Beauty.
“You mean that poverty up there is more expensive?”
“Yes, miss.”
“But you would like to live there?”
“Yes.”
They were both silent. Miss Mayfield glanced at Jeff under the corners of her lashes. He was leaning against a tree, absorbed in thought. Accustomed to look upon him as a pleasing picturesque object, quite fresh, original, and characteristic, she was somewhat disturbed to find that to-day he presented certain other qualities which clearly did not agree with her preconceived ideas of his condition. He had abandoned his usual large top-boots for low shoes, and she could not help noticing that his feet were small and slender as were his hands, albeit browned by exposure. His ruddy color was gone too, and his face, pale with sorrow and experience, had a new expression. His buttoned-up coat and white collar, so unlike his usual self, also had its suggestions--which Miss Mayfield was at first inclined to resent. Women are quick to notice and augur more or less wisely from these small details. Nevertheless, she began in quite another tone.
“Do you remember your mother--MR.--MR.--BRIGGS?”
Jeff noticed the new epithet. “No, miss; she died when I was quite young.”
“Your father, then?”
Jeff's eye kindled a little, aggressively. “I remember HIM.”
“What was he?”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“What was his business or profession?”
“He--hadn't--any!”
“Oh, I see--a gentleman of property.”
Jeff hesitated, looked at Miss Mayfield hurriedly, colored, and did not reply.
“And lost his property, Mr. Briggs?” With one of those rare impulses of an overtasked gentle nature, Jeff turned upon her almost savagely. “My father was a gambler, and shot himself at a gambling table.”
Miss Mayfield rose hurriedly. “I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Jeff.”
Jeff was silent.
“You know--you MUST know--I did not mean--” No reply.
“Mr. Jeff!”
Her little hand fluttered toward him, and lit upon his sleeve, where it was suddenly captured and pressed passionately to his lips.
“I did not mean to be thoughtless or unkind,” said Miss Mayfield, discreetly keeping to the point, and trying weakly to disengage her hand. “You know I wouldn't hurt your feelings.”
“I know, Miss Mayfield.” (Another kiss.)
“I was ignorant of your history.”
“Yes, miss.” (A kiss.)
“And if I could do anything for you, Mr. Jeff--” She stopped.
It was a very trying position. Being small, she was drawn after her hand quite up to Jeff's shoulder, while he, assenting in monosyllables, was parting the fingers, and kissing them separately. Reasonable discourse in this attitude was out of the question. She had recourse to strategy.
“Oh!”
“Miss Mayfield!”
“You hurt my hand.”
Jeff dropped it instantly. Miss Mayfield put it in the pocket of her sacque for security. Besides, it had been so bekissed that it seemed unpleasantly conscious.
“I wish you would tell me all about yourself,” she went on, with a certain charming feminine submission of manner quite unlike her ordinary speech; “I should like to help you. Perhaps I can. You know I am quite independent; I mean--” She paused, for Jeff's face betrayed no signs of sympathetic following.
“I mean I am what people call rich in my own right. I can do as I please with my own. If any of your trouble, Mr. Jeff, arises from want of money, or capital; if any consideration of that kind takes you away from your home; if I could save you THAT TROUBLE, and find for you--perhaps a little nearer--that which you are seeking, I would be so glad to do it. You will find the world very wide, and very cold, Mr. Jeff,” she continued, with a certain air of practical superiority quite natural to her, but explicable to her friends and acquaintances only as the consciousness of pecuniary independence; “and I wish you would be frank with me. Although I am a woman, I know something of business.”
“I will be frank with you, miss,” said Jeff, turning a colorless face upon her. “If you was ez rich as the Bank of California, and could throw your money on any fancy or whim that struck you at the moment; if you felt you could buy up any man and woman in California that was willing to be bought up; and if me and my aunt were starving in the road, we wouldn't touch the money that we hadn't earned fairly, and didn't belong to us. No, miss, I ain't that sort o' man!”
How much of this speech, in its brusqueness and slang, was an echo of Yuba Bill's teaching, how much of it was a part of Jeff's inward weakness, I cannot say. He saw Miss Mayfield recoil from him. It added to his bitterness that his thought, for the first time voiced, appeared to him by no means as effective or powerful as he had imagined it would be, but he could not recede from it; and there was the relief that the worst had come, and was over now.
Miss Mayfield took her hand out of her pocket. “I don't think you quite understand me, Mr. Jeff,” she said quietly; “and I HOPE I don't understand you.” She walked stiffly at his side for a few moments, but finally took the other side of the road. They had both turned, half unconsciously, back again to the “Half-way House.”
Jeff felt, like all quarrel-seekers, righteous or unrighteous, the full burden of the fight. If he could have relieved his mind, and at the next moment leaped upon Yuba Bill's coach, and so passed away--without a further word of explanation--all would have been well. But to walk back with this girl, whom he had just shaken off, and who must now thoroughly hate him, was something he had not preconceived, in that delightful forecast of the imagination, when we determine what WE shall say and do without the least consideration of what may be said or done to us in return. No quarrel proceeds exactly as we expect; people have such a way of behaving illogically! And here was Miss Mayfield, who was clearly derelict, and who should have acted under that conviction, walking along on the other side of the road, trailing the splendor of her parasol in the dust like an offended goddess.
They had almost reached the house. “At what time do you go, Mr. Briggs?” asked the young lady quietly.
“At eleven to-night, by the up stage.”
“I expect some friends by that stage--coming with my father.”
“My aunt will take good care of them,” said Jeff, a little bitterly.
“I have no doubt,” responded Miss Mayfield gravely; “but I was not thinking of that. I had hoped to introduce them to you to-morrow. But I shall not be up so late to-night. And I had better say good-by to you now.”
She extended the unkissed hand. Jeff took it, but presently let the limp fingers fall through his own.
“I wish you good fortune, Mr. Briggs.”
She made a grave little bow, and vanished into the house. But here, I regret to say, her lady-like calm also vanished. She upbraided her mother peevishly for obliging her to seek the escort of Mr. Briggs in her necessary exercise, and flung herself with an injured air upon the sofa.
“But I thought you liked this Mr. Briggs. He seems an accommodating sort of person.”
“Very accommodating. Going away just as we are expecting company!”
“Going away?” said Mrs. Mayfield in alarm. “Surely he must be told that we expect some preparation for our friends?”
“Oh,” said Miss Mayfield quickly, “his aunt will arrange THAT.”
Mrs. Mayfield, habitually mystified at her daughter's moods, said no more. She, however, fulfilled her duty conscientiously by rising, throwing a wrap over the young girl, tucking it in at her feet, and having, as it were, drawn a charitable veil over her peculiarities, left her alone.
At half past ten the coach dashed up to the “Half-way House,” with a flash of lights and a burst of cheery voices. Jeff, coming upon the porch, was met by Mr. Mayfield, accompanying a lady and two gentlemen,--evidently the guests alluded to by his daughter. Accustomed as Jeff had become to Mr. Mayfield's patronizing superiority, it seemed unbearable now, and the easy indifference of the guests to his own presence touched him with a new bitterness. Here were HER friends, who were to take his place. It was a relief to grasp Yuba Bill's large hand and stand with him alone beside the bar.
“I'm ready to go with you to-night, Bill,” said Jeff, after a pause.
Bill put down his glass--a sign of absorbing interest.
“And these yar strangers I fetched?”
“Aunty will take care of them. I've fixed everything.”
Bill laid both his powerful hands on Jeff's shoulders, backed him against the wall, and surveyed him with great gravity.
“Briggs's son clar through! A little off color, but the grit all thar! Bully for you, Jeff.” He wrung Jeff's hand between his own.
“Bill!” said Jeff hesitatingly.
“Jeff!”
“You wouldn't mind my getting up on the box NOW, before all the folks get round?”
“I reckon not. Thar's the box-seat all ready for ye.”
Climbing to his high perch, Jeff, indistinguishable in the darkness, looked out upon the porch and the moving figures of the passengers, on Bill growling out his orders to his active hostler, and on the twinkling lights of the hotel windows. In the mystery of the night and the bitterness of his heart, everything looked strange. There was a light in Miss Mayfield's room, but the curtains were drawn. Once he thought they moved, but then, fearful of the fascination of watching them, he turned his face resolutely away.
Then, to his relief, the hour came; the passengers re-entered the coach; Bill had mounted the box, and was slowly gathering his reins, when a shrill voice rose from the porch.
“Oh, Jeff!”
Jeff leaned an anxious face out over the coach lamps.
It was Aunt Sally, breathless and on tiptoe, reaching with a letter. “Suthin' you forgot!” Then, in a hoarse stage whisper, perfectly audible to every one: “From HER!”
Jeff seized the letter with a burning face. The whip snapped, and the stage plunged forward into the darkness. Presently Yuba Bill reached down, coolly detached one of the coach lamps, and handed it to Jeff without a word.
Jeff tore open the envelope. It contained Cyrus Parker's bill receipted, and the writ. Another small inclosure contained ten dollars, and a few lines written in pencil in a large masculine business hand. By the light of the lamp Jeff read as follows:-- “I hope you will forgive me for having tried to help you even in this accidental way, before I knew how strong were your objections to help from me. Nobody knows this but myself. Even Mr. Dodd thinks my father advanced the money. The ten dollars the rascal would have kept, but I made him disgorge it. I did it all while you were looking for the letter in the woods. Pray forget all about it, and any pain you may have had from J. M.” Frank and practical as this letter appeared to be, and, doubtless, as it was intended to be by its writer, the reader will not fail to notice that Miss Mayfield said nothing of having overheard Jeff's quarrel with the deputy, and left him to infer that that functionary had betrayed him. It was simply one of those unpleasant details not affecting the result, usually overlooked in feminine ethics.
For a moment Jeff sat pale and dumb, crushed under the ruins of his pride and self-love. For a moment he hated Miss Mayfield, small and triumphant! How she must have inwardly laughed at his speech that morning! With what refined cruelty she had saved this evidence of his humiliation, to work her vengeance on him now. He could not stand it! He could not live under it! He would go back and sell the house--his clothes--everything--to pay this wicked, heartless, cruel girl, that was killing--yes, killing-- A strong hand took the swinging-lantern from his unsteady fingers, a strong hand possessed itself of the papers and Miss Mayfield's note, a strong arm was drawn around him,--for his figure was swaying to and fro, his head was giddy, and his hat had fallen off,--and a strong voice, albeit a little husky, whispered in his ear,-- “Easy, boy! easy on the down grade. It'll be all one in a minit.”
Jeff tried to comprehend him, but his brain was whirling.
“Pull yourself together, Jeff!” said Bill, after a pause. “Thar! Look yar!” he said suddenly. “Do you think you can drive SIX?”
The words recalled Jeff to his senses. Bill laid the six reins in his hands. A sense of life, of activity, of POWER, came back to the young man, as his fingers closed deliciously on the far-reaching, thrilling, living leathern sinews that controlled the six horses, and seemed to be instinct and magnetic with their bounding life. Jeff, leaning back against them, felt the strong youthful tide rush back to his heart, and was himself again. Bill, meantime, took the lamp, examined the papers, and read Miss Mayfield's note. A grim smile stole over his face. After a pause, he said again, “Give Blue Grass her head, Jeff. D--n it, she ain't Miss Mayfield!”
Jeff relaxed the muscles of his wrists, so as to throw the thumb and forefingers a trifle forward. This simple action relieved Blue Grass, alias Miss Mayfield, and made the coach steadier and less jerky. Wonderful co-relation of forces.
“Thar!” said Yuba Bill, quietly putting the coach lamp back in its place; “you're better already. Thar's nothing like six horses to draw a woman out of a man. I've knowed a case where it took eight mustangs, but it was a mulatter from New Orleans, and they are pizen! Ye might hit up a little on the Pinto hoss--he ain't harmin' ye. So! Now, Jeff, take your time, and take it easy, and what's all this yer about?”
To control six fiery mustangs, and at the same time give picturesque and affecting exposition of the subtle struggles of Love and Pride, was a performance beyond Jeff's powers. He had recourse to an angry staccato, which somehow seemed to him as ineffective as his previous discourse to Miss Mayfield; he was a little incoherent, and perhaps mixed his impressions with his facts, but he nevertheless managed to convey to Bill some general idea of the events of the past three days.
“And she sent ye off after that letter, that wasn't thar, while she fixed things up with Dodd?”
“Yes,” said Jeff furiously.
“Ye needn't bully the Pinto colt, Jeff; he is doin' his level best. And she snaked that ar ten dollars outer Dodd?”
“Yes; and sent it back to ME. To ME, Bill! At such a time as this! As if I was dead broke! --a mere tramp. As if--” “In course! in course!” said Bill soothingly, yet turning his head aside to bestow a deceitful smile upon the trees that whirled beside them. “And ye told her ye didn't want her money?”
“Yes, Bill--but it--it--it was AFTER she had done this!”
“Surely! I'll take the lines now, Jeff.”
He took them. Jeff relapsed into gloomy silence. The starlight of that dewless Sierran night was bright and cold and passionless. There was no moon to lead the fancy astray with its faint mysteries and suggestions; nothing but a clear, grayish-blue twilight, with sharply silhouetted shadows, pointed here and there with bright large-spaced constant stars. The deep breath of the pine-woods, the faint, cool resinous spices of bay and laurel, at last brought surcease to his wounded spirit. The blessed weariness of exhausted youth stole tenderly on him. His head nodded, dropped. Yuba Bill, with a grim smile, drew him to his side, enveloped him in his blanket, and felt his head at last sink upon his own broad shoulder.
A few minutes later the coach drew up at the “Summit House.” Yuba Bill did not dismount, an unusual and disturbing circumstance that brought the bar-keeper to the veranda.
“What's up, old man?”
“I am.”
“Sworn off your reg'lar pizen?”
“My physician,” said Bill gravely, “hez ordered me dry champagne every three hours.”
Nevertheless, the bar-keeper lingered.
“Who's that you're dry-nussin' up there?”
I regret that I may not give Yuba Bill's literal reply. It suggested a form of inquiry at once distant, indirect, outrageous, and impossible.
The bar-keeper flashed a lantern upon Jeff's curls and his drooping eyelashes and mustaches.
“It's that son o' Briggs o' Tuolumne--pooty boy, ain't he?”
Bill disdained a reply.
“Played himself out down there, I reckon. Left his rifle here in pawn.”
“Young man,” said Bill gravely.
“Old man.”
“Ef you're looking for a safe investment ez will pay ye better than forty-rod whiskey at two bits a glass, jist you hang onter that ar rifle. It may make your fortin yet, or save ye from a drunkard's grave.” With this ungracious pleasantry he hurried his dilatory passengers back into the coach, cracked his whip, and was again upon the road. The lights of the “Summit House” presently dropped here and there into the wasting shadows of the trees. Another stretch through the close-set ranks of pines, another dash through the opening, another whirl and rattle by overhanging rocks, and the vehicle was swiftly descending. Bill put his foot on the brake, threw his reins loosely on the necks of his cattle, and looked leisurely back. The great mountain was slowly and steadily rising between them and the valley they quitted.
And at that same moment Miss Mayfield had crept from her bed, and, with a shawl around her pretty little figure, was pressing her eyes against a blank window of the “Half-way House,” and wondering where HE was now.
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{
"id": "2695"
}
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The “opening” suggested by Bill was not a fortunate one. Possibly views of business openings in the public-house line taken from the tops of stage-coaches are not as judicious as those taken from less exalted levels. Certain it is that the “goodwill” of the “Lone Star House” promised little more pecuniary value than a conventional blessing. It was in an older and more thickly settled locality than the “Half-way House;” indeed, it was but half a mile away from Campville, famous in '49--a place with a history and a disaster. But young communities are impatient of settlements that through any accident fail to fulfil the extravagant promise of their youth, and the wounded hamlet of Campville had crept into the woods and died. The “Lone Star House” was an attempt to woo the passing travelers from another point; but its road led to Campville, and was already touched by its dry-rot. Bill, who honestly conceived that the infusion of fresh young blood like Jeff's into the stagnant current would quicken it, had to confess his disappointment. “I thought ye could put some go into the shanty, Jeff,” said Bill, “and make it lively and invitin'!” But the lack of vitality was not in the landlord, but in the guests. The regular customers were disappointed, vacant, hopeless men, who gathered listlessly on the veranda, and talked vaguely of the past. Their hollow-eyed, feeble impotency affected the stranger, even as it checked all ambition among themselves. Do what Jeff might, the habits of the locality were stronger than his individuality; the dead ghosts of the past Campville held their property by invisible mortmain.
In the midst of this struggle the “Half-way House” was sold. Spite of Bill's prediction, the proceeds barely paid Jeff's debts. Aunt Sally prevented any troublesome consideration of HER future, by applying a small surplus of profit to the expenses of a journey back to her relatives in Kentucky. She wrote Jeff a letter of cheerless instruction, reminded him of the fulfillment of her worst prophecies regarding him, but begged him, in her absence, to rely solely upon the “Word.” “For the sperrit killeth,” she added vaguely. Whether this referred figuratively to Jeff's business, he did not stop to consider. He was more interested in the information that the Mayfields had removed to the “Summit Hotel” two days after he had left. “She allowed it was for her health's sake,” continued Aunt Sally, “but I reckon it's another name for one of them city fellers who j'ined their party and is keepin' company with her now. They talk o' property and stocks and sich worldly trifles all the time, and it's easy to see their idees is set together. It's allowed at the Forks that Mr. Mayfield paid Parker's bill for you. I said it wasn't so, fur ye'd hev told me; but if it is so, Jeff, and ye didn't tell me, it was for only one puppos, and that wos that Mayfield bribed ye to break off with his darter! That was WHY you went off so suddent, 'like a thief in the night,' and why Miss Mayfield never let on a word about you after you left--not even your name!”
Jeff crushed the letter between his fingers, and, going behind the bar, poured out half a glass of stimulant and drank it. It was not the first time since he came to the “Lone Star House” that he had found this easy relief from his present thought; it was not the first time that he had found this dangerous ally of sure and swift service in bringing him up or down to that level of his dreary, sodden guests, so necessary to his trade. Jeff had not the excuse of the inborn drunkard's taste. He was impulsive and extreme. At the end of the four weeks he came out on the porch one night as Bill drew up. “You must take me from this place to-night,” he said, in a broken voice scarce like his own. “When we're on the road we can arrange matters, but I must go to-night.”
“But where?” asked Bill.
“Anywhere! Only I must go from here. I shall go if I have to walk.”
Bill looked hard at the young man. His face was flushed, his eyes blood-shot, and his hands trembled, not with excitement, but with a vacant, purposeless impotence. Bill looked a little relieved. “You've been drinking too hard. Jeff, I thought better of ye than that!”
“I think better of MYSELF than that,” said Jeff, with a certain wild, half-hysterical laugh, “and that is why I want to go. Don't be alarmed, Bill,” he added; “I have strength enough to save myself, and I shall! But it isn't worth the struggle HERE.”
He left the “Lone Star House” that night. He would, he said to Bill, go on to Sacramento, and try to get a situation as clerk or porter there; he was too old to learn a trade. He said little more. When, after forty-eight hours' inability to eat, drink, or sleep, Bill, looking at his haggard face and staring eyes, pressed him to partake, medicinally, from a certain black bottle, Jeff gently put it aside, and saying, with a sad smile, “I can get along without it; I've gone through more than this,” left his mentor in a state of mingled admiration and perplexity.
At Sacramento he found a commercial “opening.” But certain habits of personal independence, combined with a direct truthfulness and simplicity, were not conducive to business advancement. He was frank, and in his habits impulsive and selfishly outspoken. His employer, a good-natured man, successful in his way, anxious to serve his own interest and Jeff's equally, strove and labored with him, but in vain. His employer's wife, a still more good-natured woman, successful in her way, and equally anxious to serve Jeff's interests and her own, also strove with him as unsuccessfully. At the end of a month he discharged his employer, after a simple, boyish, utterly unbusiness-like interview, and secretly tore up his wife's letter. “I don't know what to make of that chap,” said the husband to his wife; “he's about as civilized as an Injun.” “And as conceited,” added the lady.
Howbeit he took his conceit, his sorrows, his curls, mustaches, broad shoulders, and fifty dollars into humble lodgings in a back street. The days succeeding this were the most restful he had passed since he left the “Half-way House.” To wander through the town, half conscious of its strangeness and novel bustling life, and to dream of a higher and nobler future with Miss Mayfield--to feel no responsibility but that of waiting--was, I regret to say, a pleasure to him. He made no acquaintances except among the poorer people and the children. He was sometimes hungry, he was always poorly clad, but these facts carried no degradation with them now. He read much, and in his way--Jeff's way--tried to improve his mind; his recent commercial experience had shown him various infelicities in his speech and accent. He learned to correct certain provincialisms. He was conscious that Miss Mayfield must have noticed them, yet his odd irrational pride kept him from ever regretting them, if they had offered a possible excuse for her treatment of him.
On one of these nights his steps chanced to lead him into a gambling-saloon. The place had offered no temptation to him; his dealings with the goddess Chance had been of less active nature. Nevertheless he placed his last five dollars on the turn of a card. He won. He won repeatedly; his gains had reached a considerable sum when, flushed, excited, and absorbed, he was suddenly conscious that he had become the centre of observation at the table. Looking up, he saw that the dealer had paused, and, with the cards in his motionless fingers, was gazing at him with fixed eyes and a white face.
Jeff rose and passed hurriedly to his side. “What's the matter?”
The gambler shrunk slightly as he approached. “What's your name?”
“Briggs.”
“God! I knew it! How much have you got there?” he continued, in a quick whisper, pointing to Jeff's winnings.
“Five hundred dollars.”
“I'll give you double if you'll get up and quit the board!”
“Why?” asked Jeff haughtily.
“Why?” repeated the man fiercely; “why? Well, your father shot himself thar, where you're sittin', at this table;” and he added, with a half-forced, half-hysterical laugh, “HE'S PLAYIN' AT ME OVER YOUR SHOULDERS!”
Jeff lifted a face as colorless as the gambler's own, went back to his seat, and placed his entire gains on a single card. The gambler looked at him nervously, but dealt. There was a pause, a slight movement where Jeff stood, and then a simultaneous cry from the players as they turned towards him. But his seat was vacant. “Run after him! Call him back! HE'S WON AGAIN!” But he had vanished utterly.
HOW he left, or what indeed followed, he never clearly remembered. His movements must have been automatic, for when, two hours later, he found himself at the “Pioneer” coach office, with his carpet-bag and blankets by his side, he could not recall how or why he had come! He had a dumb impression that he had barely escaped some dire calamity,--rather that he had only temporarily averted it,--and that he was still in the shadow of some impending catastrophe of destiny. He must go somewhere, he must do something to be saved! He had no money, he had no friends; even Yuba Bill had been transferred to another route, miles away. Yet, in the midst of this stupefaction, it was a part of his strange mental condition that trivial details of Miss Mayfield's face and figure, and even apparel, were constantly before him, to the exclusion of consecutive thought. A collar she used to wear, a ribbon she had once tied around her waist, a blue vein in her dropped eyelid, a curve in her soft, full, bird-like throat, the arch of her in-step in her small boots--all these were plainer to him than the future, or even the present. But a voice in his ear, a figure before his abstracted eyes, at last broke upon his reverie.
“Jeff Briggs!”
Jeff mechanically took the outstretched hand of a young clerk of the Pioneer Coach Company, who had once accompanied Yuba Bill and stopped at the “Half-way House.” He endeavored to collect his thoughts; here seemed to be an opportunity to go somewhere!
“What are you doing now?” said the young man briskly.
“Nothing,” said Jeff simply.
“Oh, I see--going home!”
Home! the word stung sharply through Jeff's benumbed consciousness.
“No,” he stammered, “that is--” “Look here, Jeff,” broke in the young man, “I've got a chance for you that don't fall in a man's way every day. Wells, Fargo & Co.'s treasure messenger from Robinson's Ferry to Mempheys has slipped out. The place is vacant. I reckon I can get it for you.”
“When?”
“Now--to-night.”
“I'm ready.”
“Come, then.”
In ten minutes they were in the company's office, where its manager, a man famous in those days for his boldness and shrewdness, still lingered in the dispatch of business.
The young clerk briefly but deferentially stated certain facts. A few questions and answers followed, of which Jeff heard only the words “Tuolumne” and “Yuba Bill.”
“Sit down, Mr. Briggs. Good-night, Roberts.”
The young clerk, with an encouraging smile at Jeff, bowed himself out as the manager seated himself at his desk and began to write.
“You know the country pretty well between the Fork and the Summit, Mr. Briggs?” he said, without looking up.
“I lived there,” said Jeff.
“That was some months ago, wasn't it?”
“Six months,” said Jeff, with a sigh.
“It's changed for the worse since your house was shut up. There's a long stretch of unsettled country infested by bad characters.”
Jeff sat silent. “Briggs.”
“Sir?”
“The last man but one who preceded you was shot by road agents.” * * Highway robbers.
“Yes, sir.”
“We lost sixty thousand dollars up there.”
“Yes?”
“Your father was Briggs of Tuolumne?”
“Yes, sir.” Jeff's head dropped, but, glancing shyly up, he saw a pleasant smile on his questioner's face. He was still writing rapidly, but was apparently enjoying at the same time some pleasant recollection.
“Your father and I lost nearly sixty thousand dollars together one night, ten years ago, when we were both younger.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jeff dubiously.
“But it was OUR OWN MONEY, Jeff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Here's your appointment,” he said briefly, throwing away his pen, folding what he had written, and handing it to Jeff. It was the first time that he had looked at him since he entered. He now held out his hand, grasped Jeff's, and said, “Good-night!”
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It was late the next evening when Jeff drew up at the coach office at Robinson's Ferry, where he was to await the coming of the Summit coach. His mind, lifted only temporarily out of its denumbed condition during his interview with the manager, again fell back into its dull abstraction. Fully embarked upon his dangerous journey, accepting all the meaning of the trust imposed upon him, he was yet vaguely conscious that he did not realize its full importance. He had neither the dread nor the stimulation of coming danger. He had faced death before in the boyish confidence of animal spirits; his pulse now was scarcely stirred with anticipation. Once or twice before, in the extravagance of his passion, he had imagined himself rescuing Miss Mayfield from danger, or even dying for her. During his journey his mind had dwelt fully and minutely on every detail of their brief acquaintance; she was continually before him, the tones of her voice were in his ears, the suggestive touch of her fingers, the thrill that his lips had felt when he kissed them--all were with him now, but only as a memory. In his coming fate, in his future life, he saw her not. He believed it was a premonition of coming death.
He made a few preparations. The company's agent had told him that the treasure, letters, and dispatches, which had accumulated to a considerable amount, would be handed to him on the box; and that the arms and ammunition were in the boot. A less courageous and determined man might have been affected by the cold, practical brutality of certain advice and instructions offered him by the agent, but Jeff recognized this compliment to his determination, even before the agent concluded his speech by saying, “But I reckon they knew what they were about in the lower office when they sent YOU up. I dare say you kin give me p'ints, ef ye cared to, for all ye're soft spoken. There are only four passengers booked through; we hev to be a little partikler, suspectin' spies! Two of the four ye kin depend upon to get the top o' their d----d heads blowed off the first fire,” he added grimly.
At ten o'clock the Summit coach flashed, rattled, glittered, and snapped, like a disorganized firework, up to the door of the company's office. A familiar figure, but more than usually truculent and aggressive, slowly descended with violent oaths from the box. Without seeing Jeff, it strode into the office.
“Now then,” said Yuba Bill, addressing the agent, “whar's that God-forsaken fool that Wells, Fargo & Co. hev sent up yar to take charge o' their treasure? Because I'd like to introduce him to the champion idgit of Calaveras County, that's been selected to go to h-ll with him; and that's me, Yuba Bill! P'int him out. Don't keep me waitin'!”
The agent grinned and pointed to Jeff.
Both men recoiled in astonishment. Yuba Bill was the first to recover his speech.
“It's a lie!” he roared; “or somebody has been putting up a job on ye, Jeff! Because I've been twenty years in the service, and am such a nat'ral born mule that when the company strokes my back and sez, 'You're the on'y mule we kin trust, Bill,' I starts up and goes out as a blasted wooden figgerhead for road agents to lay fur and practice on, it don't follow that YOU'VE any call to go.”
“It was my own seeking, Bill,” said Jeff, with one of his old, sweet, boyish smiles. “I didn't know YOU were to drive. But you're not going back on me now, Bill, are you? you're not going to send me off with another volunteer?”
“That be d----d!” growled Bill. Nevertheless, for ten minutes he reviled the Pioneer Coach Company with picturesque imprecation, tendered his resignation repeatedly to the agent, and at the end of that time, as everybody expected, mounted the box, and with a final malediction, involving the whole settlement, was off.
On the road, Jeff, in a few hurried sentences, told his story. Bill scarcely seemed to listen. “Look yar, Jeff,” he said suddenly.
“Yes, Bill.”
“If the worst happens, and ye go under, you'll tell your father, IF I DON'T HAPPEN TO SEE HIM FIRST, it wasn't no job of mine, and I did my best to get ye out of it.”
“Yes,” said Jeff, in a faint voice.
“It mayn't be so bad,” said Bill, softening; “they KNOW, d--n 'em, we've got a pile aboard, ez well as if they seed that agent gin it ye, but they also know we've pre-pared!”
“I wasn't thinking of that, Bill; I was thinking of my father.” And he told Bill of the gambling episode at Sacramento.
“D'ye mean to say ye left them hounds with a thousand dollars of yer hard-earned--” “Gambling gains, Bill,” interrupted Jeff quietly.
“Exactly! Well!” Bill subsided into an incoherent growl. After a few moments' pause, he began again. “Yer ready as ye used to be with a six-shooter, Jeff, time's when ye was a boy, and I uster chuck half-dollars in the air fur ye to make warts on?”
“I reckon,” said Jeff, with a faint smile.
“Thar's two p'ints on the road to be looked to: the woods beyond the blacksmith's shop that uster be; the fringe of alder and buckeye by the crossing below your house--p'ints where they kin fetch you without a show. Thar's two ways o' meetin' them thar. One way ez to pull up and trust to luck and brag. The other way is to whip up and yell, and send the whole six kiting by like h-ll!”
“Yes,” said Jeff.
“The only drawback to that plan is this: the road lies along the edge of a precipice, straight down a thousand feet into the river. Ef these devils get a shot into any one o' the six and it DROPS, the coach turns sharp off, and down we go, the whole kerboodle of us, plump into the Stanislaus!”
“AND THEY DON'T GET THE MONEY,” said Jeff quietly.
“Well, no!” replied Yuba Bill, staring at Jeff, whose face was set as a flint against the darkness. “I should reckon not.” He then drew a long breath, glanced at Jeff again, and said between his teeth, “Well, I'm d----d!”
At the next station they changed horses, Bill personally supervising, especially as regarded the welfare and proper condition of Blue Grass, who here was brought out as a leader. Formerly there was no change of horses at this station, and this novelty excited Jeff's remark. “These yar chaps say thar's no station at the Summit now,” growled Bill, in explanation; “the hotel is closed, and it's all private property, bought by some chap from 'Frisco. Thar ought to be a law agin such doin's!”
This suggested obliteration of the last traces of Miss Mayfield seemed to Jeff as only a corroboration of his premonition. He should never hear from her again! Yet to have stood under the roof that last sheltered her; to, perchance, have met some one who had seen her later--this was a fancy that had haunted him on his journey. It was all over now. Perhaps it was for the best.
With the sinking behind of the lights of the station, the occupants of the coach knew that the dangerous part of the journey had begun. The two guards in the coach had already made obtrusive and warlike preparations, to the ill-concealed disgust of Yuba Bill. “I'd hev been willin' to get through this yar job without the burnin' of powder, but ef any of them devils ez is waitin' for us would be content with a shot at them fancy policemen inside, I'd pull up and give 'em a show!” Having relieved his mind, Bill said no more, and the two men relapsed into silence. The moon shone brightly and peacefully, a fact pointed out by Bill as unfavorably deepening the shadows of the woods, and bringing the coach and the road into greater relief.
An hour passed. What were Yuba Bill's thoughts are not a part of this history; that they were turbulent and aggressive might be inferred from the occasional growls and interjected oaths that broke from his lips. But Jeff, strange anomaly, due perhaps to youth and moonlight, was wrapped in a sensuous dream of Miss Mayfield, of the scent of her dark hair as he had drawn her to his side, of the outlines of her sweet form, that had for a moment lightly touched his own--of anything, I fear, but the death he believed he was hastening to. But-- “Jeff,” said Bill, in an unmistakable tone.
“Yes,” said Jeff.
“THAT AR CLUMP O' BUCKEYE ON THE RIDGE! Ready there!” (Leaning over the box, to the guards within.) A responsive rustle in the coach, which now bounded forward as if instinct with life and intelligence.
“Jeff,” said Bill, in an odd, altered voice, “take the lines a minit.” Jeff took them. Bill stooped towards the boot. A peaceful moment! A peaceful outlook from the coach; the white moonlit road stretching to the ridge, no noise but the steady gallop of the horses!
Then a yellow flash, breaking from the darkness of the buckeye; a crack like the snap of a whip; Yuba Bill steadying himself for a moment, and then dropping at Jeff's feet!
“They got me, Jeff! But--I DRAWED THEIR FIRE! Don't drop the lines! Don't speak! For--they--think I'm YOU and you ME!”
The flash had illuminated Jeff as to the danger, as to Bill's sacrifice, but above all, and overwhelming all, to a thrilling sense of his own power and ability.
Yet he sat like a statue. Six masked figures had appeared from the very ground, clinging to the bits of the horses. The coach stopped. Two wild purposeless shots--the first and last fired by the guards--were answered by the muzzle of six rifles pointed into the windows, and the passengers foolishly and impotently filed out into the road.
“Now, Bill,” said a voice, which Jeff instantly recognized as the blacksmith's, “we won't keep ye long. So hand down the treasure.”
The man's foot was on the wheel; in another instant he would be beside Jeff, and discovery was certain. Jeff leaned over and unhooked the coach lamp, as if to assist him with its light. As if in turning, he STUMBLED, broke the lamp, ignited the kerosene, and scattered the wick and blazing fluid over the haunches of the wheelers! The maddened animals gave one wild plunge forwards, the coach followed twice its length, throwing the blacksmith under its wheels, and driving the other horses towards the bank. But as the lamp broke in Jeff's right hand, his practiced left hand discharged its hidden Derringer at the head of the robber who had held the bit of Blue Grass, and, throwing the useless weapon away, he laid the whip smartly on her back. She leaped forward madly, dragging the other leaders with her, and in the next moment they were free and wildly careering down the grade.
A dozen shots followed them. The men were protected by the coach, but Yuba Bill groaned.
“Are you hit again?” asked Jeff hastily. He had forgotten his saviour.
“No; but the horses are! I felt 'em! Look at 'em, Jeff.”
Jeff had gathered up the almost useless reins. The horses were running away; but Blue Grass was limping.
“For God's sake,” said Bill, desperately dragging his wounded figure above the dash-board, “keep her up! LIFT HER UP, Jeff, till we pass the curve. Don't let her drop, or we're--” “Can you hold the reins?” said Jeff quickly.
“Give 'em here!”
Jeff passed them to the wounded man. Then, with his bowie-knife between his teeth, he leaped over the dash-board on the backs of the wheelers. He extinguished the blazing drops that the wind had not blown out of their smarting haunches, and with the skill and instinct of a Mexican vaquero, made his way over their turbulent tossing backs to Blue Grass, cut her traces and reins, and as the vehicle neared the curve, with a sharp lash, drove her to the bank, where she sank even as the coach darted by. Bill uttered a feeble “Hurrah!” but at the same moment the reins dropped from his fingers, and he sank at the bottom of the boot.
Riding postilion-wise, Jeff could control the horses. The dangerous curve was passed, but not the possibility of pursuit. The single leader he was bestriding was panting--more than that, he was SWEATING, and from the evidence of Jeff's hands, sweating BLOOD! Back of his shoulder was a jagged hole, from which his life-blood was welling. The off-wheel horse was limping too. That last volley was no foolish outburst of useless rage, but was deliberate and premeditated skill. Jeff drew the reins, and as the coach stopped, the horse he was riding fell dead. Into the silence that followed broke the measured beat of horses' hoofs on the road above. He was pursued!
To select the best horse of the remaining unscathed three, to break open the boot and place the treasure on his back, and to abandon and leave the senseless Bill lying there, was the unhesitating work of a moment. Great heroes and great lovers are invariably one-ideaed men, and Jeff was at that moment both.
Eighty thousand dollars in gold-dust and Jeff's weight was a handicap. Nevertheless he flew forward like the wind. Presently he fell to listening. A certain hoof-beat in the rear was growing more distinct. A bitter thought flashed through his mind. He looked back. Over the hill appeared the foremost of his pursuers. It was the blacksmith, mounted on the fleetest horse in the county--Jeff's OWN horse--Rabbit!
But there are compensations in all new trials. As Jeff faced round again, he saw he had reached the open table-land, and the bleak walls and ghastly, untenanted windows of the “Half-way House” rose before him in the distance. Jeff was master of the ground here! He was entering the shadow of the woods--Miss Mayfield's woods! and there was a cut off from the road, and a bridle-path, known only to himself, hard by. To find it, leap the roadside ditch, dash through the thicket, and rein up by the road again, was swiftly done.
Take a gentle woman, betray her trust, outrage her best feelings, drive her into a corner, and you have a fury! Take a gentle, trustful man, abuse him, show him the folly of this gentleness and kindness, prove to him that it is weakness, drive him into a corner, and you have a savage! And it was this savage, with an Indian's memory, and an Indian's eye and ear, that suddenly confronted the blacksmith.
What more! A single shot from a trained hand and one-ideaed intellect settled the blacksmith's business, and temporarily ended this Iliad! I say temporarily, for Mr. Dodd, formerly deputy-sheriff, prudently pulled up at the top of the hill, and observing his principal bend his head forwards and act like a drunken man, until he reeled, limp and sideways, from the saddle, and noticing further that Jeff took his place with a well-filled saddle-bag, concluded to follow cautiously and unobtrusively in the rear.
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But Jeff saw him not. With mind and will bent on one object--to reach the first habitation, the “Summit,” and send back help and assistance to his wounded comrade--he urged Rabbit forward. The mare knew her rider, but he had no time for caresses. Through the smarting of his hands he had only just noticed that they were badly burned, and the skin was peeling from them; he had confounded the blood that was flowing from a cut on his scalp, with that from the wounded horse. It was one hour yet to the “Summit,” but the road was good, the moon was bright, he knew what Rabbit could do, and it was not yet ten o'clock.
As the white outbuildings and irregular outlines of the “Summit House” began to be visible, Jeff felt a singular return of his former dreamy abstraction. The hour of peril, anger, and excitement he had just passed through seemed something of years ago, or rather to be obliterated with all else that had passed since he had looked upon that scene. Yet it was all changed--strangely changed! What Jeff had taken for the white, wooden barns and outhouses were greenhouses and conservatories. The “Summit Hotel” was a picturesque villa, nestling in the self-same trees, but approached through cultivated fields, dwellings of laborers, parklike gates and walls, and all the bountiful appointments of wealth and security. Jeff thought of Yuba Bill's malediction, and understood it as he gazed.
The barking of dogs announced his near approach to the principal entrance. Lights were still burning in the upper windows of the house and its offices. He was at once surrounded by the strange medley of a Californian ranchero's service, peons, Chinese, and vaqueros. Jeff briefly stated his business. “Ah, Carrajo!” This was a matter for the major-domo, or, better, the padrone--Wilson! But the padrone, Wilson, called out by the tumult, appeared in person--a handsome, resolute, middle-aged man, who, in a twinkling, dispersed the group to barn and stable with a dozen orders of preparation, and then turned to Jeff.
“You are hurt; come in.”
Jeff followed him dazedly into the house. The same sense of remote abstraction, of vague dreaminess, was overcoming him. He resented it, and fought against it, but in vain; he was only half conscious that his host had bathed his head and given him some slight restorative, had said something to him soothingly, and had left him. Jeff wondered if he had fainted, or was about to faint,--he had a nervous dread of that womanish weakness,--or if he were really hurt worse than he believed. He tried to master himself and grasp the situation by minutely examining the room. It was luxuriously furnished; Jeff had but once before sat in such an arm-chair as the one that half embraced him, and as a boy he had dim recollections of a life like this, of which his father was part. To poor Jeff, with his throbbing head, his smarting hands, and his lapsing moments of half forgetfulness, this seemed to be a return of his old premonition. There was a vague perfume in the room, like that which he remembered when he was in the woods with Miss Mayfield. He believed he was growing faint again, and was about to rise, when the door opened behind him.
“Is there anything we can do for you? Mr. Wilson has gone to seek your friend, and has sent Manuel for a doctor.”
HER voice! He rose hurriedly, turned; SHE was standing in the doorway!
She uttered a slight cry, turned very pale, advanced towards him, stopped and leaned against the chimney-piece.
“I didn't know it was YOU.”
With her actual presence Jeff's dream and weakness fled. He rose up before her, his old bashful, stammering, awkward self.
“I didn't know YOU lived here, Miss Mayfield.”
“If you had sent word you were coming,” said Miss Mayfield, recovering her color brightly in one cheek.
The possibility of having sent a messenger in advance to advise Miss Mayfield of his projected visit did not strike Jeff as ridiculous. Your true lover is far beyond such trivialities. He accepted the rebuke meekly. He said he was sorry.
“You might have known it.”
“What, Miss Mayfield?”
“That I was here, if you WISHED to know.”
Jeff did not reply. He bowed his head and clasped his burned hands together. Miss Mayfield saw their raw surfaces, saw the ugly cut on his head, pitied him, but went on hastily, with both cheeks burning, to say, womanlike, what was then deepest in her heart: “My brother-in-law told me your adventure; but I did not know until I entered this room that the gentleman I wished to help was one who had once rejected my assistance, who had misunderstood me, and cruelly insulted me! Oh, forgive me, Mr. Briggs” (Jeff had risen). “I did not mean THAT. But, Mr. Jeff--Jeff--oh!” (She had caught his tortured hand and had wrung a movement of pain from him.) “Oh, dear! what did I do now? But Mr. Jeff, after what has passed, after what you said to me when you went away, when you were at that dreadful place, Campville, when you were two months in Sacramento, you might--YOU OUGHT TO HAVE LET ME KNOW IT!”
Jeff turned. Her face, more beautiful than he had ever seen it, alive and eloquent with every thought that her woman's speech but half expressed, was very near his--so near, that under her honest eyes the wretched scales fell from his own, his self-wrought shackles crumbled away, and he dropped upon his knees at her feet as she sank into the chair he had quitted. Both his hands were grasped in her own.
“YOU went away, and I STAYED,” she said reflectively.
“I had no home, Miss Mayfield.”
“Nor had I. I had to buy this,” she said, with a delicious simplicity; “and bring a family here too,” she added, “in case YOU”--she stopped, with a slight color.
“Forgive me,” said Jeff, burying his face in her hands.
“Jeff.”
“Jessie.”
“Don't you think you were a LITTLE--just a little--mean?”
“Yes.”
Miss Mayfield uttered a faint sigh. He looked into her anxious cheeks and eyes, his arm stole round her; their lips met for the first time in one long lingering kiss. Then, I fear, for the second time.
“Jeff,” said Miss Mayfield, suddenly becoming practical and sweetly possessory, “you must have your hands bound up in cotton.”
“Yes,” said Jeff cheerfully.
“And you must go instantly to bed.”
Jeff stared.
“Because my sister will think it very late for me to be sitting up with a gentleman.”
The idea that Miss Mayfield was responsible to anybody was something new to Jeff. But he said hastily, “I must stay and wait for Bill. He risked his life for me.”
“Oh, yes! You must tell me all about it. I may wait for THAT!”
Jeff possessed himself of the chair; in some way he also possessed himself of Miss Mayfield without entirely dispossessing her. Then he told his story. He hesitated over the episode of the blacksmith. “I'm afraid I killed him, Jessie.”
Miss Mayfield betrayed little concern at this possible extreme measure with a dangerous neighbor. “He cut your head, Jeff,” she said, passing her little hand through his curls.
“No,” said Jeff hastily, “that must have been done BEFORE.”
“Well,” said Miss Mayfield conclusively, “he would if he'd dared. And you brought off that wretched money in spite of him. Poor dear Jeff.”
“Yes,” said Jeff, kissing her.
“Where is it?” asked Jessie, looking round the room.
“Oh, just out there!”
“Out where?”
“On my horse, you know, outside the door,” continued Jeff, a little uneasily, as he rose. “I'll go and--” “You careless boy,” said Miss Mayfield, jumping up, “I'll go with you.”
They passed out on the porch together, holding each other's hands, like children. The forgotten Rabbit was not there. Miss Mayfield called a vaquero.
“Ah, yes! --the caballero's horse. Of a certainty the other caballero had taken it!”
“The other caballero!” gasped Jeff.
“Si, senor. The one who arrived with you, or a moment, the very next moment, after you. 'Your friend,' he said.”
Jeff staggered against the porch, and cast one despairing reproachful look at Miss Mayfield.
“Oh, Jeff! Jeff! don't look so. I know I ought not to have kept you! It's a mistake, Jeff, believe me.”
“It's no mistake,” said Jeff hoarsely. “Go!” he said, turning to the vaquero, “go! --bring--” But his speech failed. He attempted to gesticulate with his hands, ran forward a few steps, staggered, and fell fainting on the ground.
“Help me with the caballero into the blue room,” said Miss Mayfield, white as Jeff. “And hark ye, Manuel! You know every ruffian, man or woman, on this road. That horse and those saddle-bags must be here to-morrow, if you have to pay DOUBLE WHAT THEY'RE WORTH!”
“Si, senora.”
Jeff went off into fever, into delirium, into helpless stupor. From time to time he moaned “Bill” and “the treasure.” On the third day, in a lucid interval, as he lay staring at the wall, Miss Mayfield put in his hand a letter from the company, acknowledging the receipt of the treasure, thanking him for his zeal, and inclosing a handsome check.
Jeff sat up, and put his hands to his head.
“I told you it was taken by mistake, and was easily found,” said Miss Mayfield, “didn't I?”
“Yes,--and Bill?”
“You know he is so much better that he expects to leave us next week.”
“And--Jessie!”
“There--go to sleep!”
At the end of a week she introduced Jeff to her sister-in-law, having previously run her fingers through his hair to insure that becomingness to his curls which would better indicate his moral character; and spoke of him as one of her oldest Californian friends.
At the end of two weeks she again presented him as her affianced husband--a long engagement of a year being just passed. Mr. Wilson, who was bored by the mountain life, undertaken to please his rich wife and richer sister, saw a chance of escape here, and bore willing testimony to the distant Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield of the excellence of Miss Jessie's choice. And Yuba Bill was Jeff's best man.
The name of Briggs remained a power in Tuolumne and Calaveras County. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs never had but one word of disagreement or discussion. One day, Jeff, looking over some old accounts of his wife's, found an unreceipted, unvouched for expenditure of twenty thousand dollars. “What is this for, Jessie?” he asked.
“Oh, it's all right, Jeff!”
But here the now business-like and practical Mr. Briggs, father of a family, felt called upon to make some general remarks regarding the necessity of exactitude in accounts, etc.
“But I'd rather not tell you, Jeff.”
“But you ought to, Jessie.”
“Well then, dear, it was to get those saddle-bags of yours from that rascal, Dodd,” said little Mrs. Briggs meekly.
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“Pe far la to vendetta, Sta sigur’, vasta anche ella.”
--Vocero du Niolo.
Early in the month of October, 181-, Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil, a distinguished Irish officer of the English army, alighted with his daughter at the Hotel Beauveau, Marseilles, on their return from a tour in Italy. The perpetual and universal admiration of enthusiastic travellers has produced a sort of reaction, and many tourists, in their desire to appear singular, now take the _nil admirari_ of Horace for their motto. To this dissatisfied class the colonel’s only daughter, Miss Lydia, belonged. “The Transfiguration” has seemed to her mediocre, and Vesuvius in eruption an effect not greatly superior to that produced by the Birmingham factory chimneys. Her great objection to Italy, on the whole, was its lack of local colour and character. My readers must discover the sense of these expressions as best they may. A few years ago I understood them very well myself, but at the present time I can make nothing of them. At first, Miss Lydia had flattered herself she had found things on the other side of the Alps which nobody had ever before seen, about which she could converse _avec les honnetes gens_, as M. Jourdain calls them. But soon, anticipated in every direction by her countrymen, she despaired of making any fresh discoveries, and went over to the party of the opposition. It is really very tiresome not to be able to talk abut the wonders of Italy without hearing somebody say “Of course you know the Raphael in the Palazzo---- at ----? It is the finest thing in Italy!” and just the thing _you_ happen to have overlooked! As it would take too long to see everything, the simplest course is to resort to deliberate and universal censure.
At the Hotel Beauveau Miss Lydia met with a bitter disappointment. She had brought back a pretty sketch of the Pelasgic or Cyclopean Gate at Segni, which, as she believed, all other artists had completely overlooked. Now, at Marseilles, she met Lady Frances Fenwick, who showed her her album, in which appeared, between a sonnet and a dried flower, the very gate in question, brilliantly touched in with sienna. Miss Lydia gave her drawing to her maid--and lost all admiration for Pelasgic structures.
This unhappy frame of mind was shared by Colonel Nevil, who, since the death of his wife, looked at everything through his daughter’s eyes. In his estimation, Italy had committed the unpardonable sin of boring his child, and was, in consequence, the most wearisome country on the face of the earth. He had no fault to find, indeed, with the pictures and statues, but he was in a position to assert that Italian sport was utterly wretched, and that he had been obliged to tramp ten leagues over the Roman Campagna, under a burning sun, to kill a few worthless red-legged partridges.
The morning after his arrival at Marseilles he invited Captain Ellis--his former adjutant, who had just been spending six weeks in Corsica--to dine with him. The captain told Miss Lydia a story about bandits, which had the advantage of bearing no resemblance to the robber tales with which she had been so frequently regaled, on the road between Naples and Rome, and he told it well. At dessert, the two men, left alone over their claret, talked of hunting--and the colonel learned that nowhere is there more excellent sport, or game more varied and abundant, than in Corsica. “There are plenty of wild boars,” said Captain Ellis. “And you have to learn to distinguish them from the domestic pigs, which are astonishingly like them. For if you kill a pig, you find yourself in difficulties with the swine-herds. They rush out of the thickets (which they call _maquis_) armed to the teeth, make you pay for their beasts, and laugh at you besides. Then there is the mouflon, a strange animal, which you will not find anywhere else--splendid game, but hard to get--and stags, deer, pheasants, and partridges--it would be impossible to enumerate all the kinds with which Corsica swarms. If you want shooting, colonel, go to Corsica! There, as one of my entertainers said to me, you can get a shot at every imaginable kind of game, from a thrush to a man!”
At tea, the captain once more delighted Lydia with the tale of a _vendetta transversale_ (A vendetta in which vengeance falls on a more or less distant relation of the author of the original offence.) , even more strange than his first story, and he thoroughly stirred her enthusiasm by his descriptions of the strange wild beauty of the country, the peculiarities of its inhabitants, and their primitive hospitality and customs. Finally, he offered her a pretty little stiletto, less remarkable for its shape and copper mounting than for its origin. A famous bandit had given it to Captain Ellis, and had assured him it had been buried in four human bodies. Miss Lydia thrust it through her girdle, laid it on the table beside her bed, and unsheathed it twice over before she fell asleep. Her father meanwhile was dreaming he had slain a mouflon, and that its owner insisted on his paying for it, a demand to which he gladly acceded, seeing it was a most curious creature, like a boar, with stag’s horns and a pheasant’s tail.
“Ellis tells me there’s splendid shooting in Corsica,” said the colonel, as he sat at breakfast, alone with his daughter. “If it hadn’t been for the distance, I should like to spend a fortnight there.”
“Well,” replied Miss Lydia, “why shouldn’t we go to Corsica? While you are hunting I can sketch--I should love to have that grotto Captain Ellis talked about, where Napoleon used to go and study when he was a child, in my album.”
It was the first time, probably, that any wish expressed by the colonel had won his daughter’s approbation. Delighted as he was by the unexpected harmony on their opinions, he was nevertheless wise enough to put forward various objections, calculated to sharpen Miss Lydia’s welcome whim. In vain did he dwell on the wildness of the country, and the difficulties of travel there for a lady. Nothing frightened her; she liked travelling on horseback of all things; she delighted in the idea of bivouacking in the open; she even threatened to go as far as Asia Minor--in short, she found an answer to everything. No Englishwoman had ever been to Corsica; therefore she must go. What a pleasure it would be, when she got back to St. James’s Place, to exhibit her album! “But, my dear creature, why do you pass over that delightful drawing?” “That’s only a trifle--just a sketch I made of a famous Corsican bandit who was our guide.” “What! you don’t mean to say you have been to Corsica?”
As there were no steamboats between France and Corsica, in those days, inquiries were made for some ship about to sail for the island Miss Lydia proposed to discover. That very day the colonel wrote to Paris, to countermand his order for the suite of apartments in which he was to have made some stay, and bargained with the skipper of a Corsican schooner, just about to set sail for Ajaccio, for two poor cabins, but the best that could be had. Provisions were sent on board, the skipper swore that one of his sailors was an excellent cook, and had not his equal for _bouilleabaisse_; he promised mademoiselle should be comfortable, and have a fair wind and a calm sea.
The colonel further stipulated, in obedience to his daughter’s wishes, that no other passenger should be taken on board, and that the captain should skirt the coast of the island, so that Miss Lydia might enjoy the view of the mountains.
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On the day of their departure everything was packed and sent on board early in the morning. The schooner was to sail with the evening breeze. Meanwhile, as the colonel and his daughter were walking on the Canebiere, the skipper addressed them, and craved permission to take on board one of his relations, his eldest son’s godfather’s second cousin, who was going back to Corsica, his native country, on important business, and could not find any ship to take him over.
“He’s a charming fellow,” added Captain Mattei, “a soldier, an officer in the Infantry of the Guard, and would have been a colonel already if _the other_ (meaning Napoleon) had still been emperor!”
“As he is a soldier,” began the colonel--he was about to add, “I shall be very glad he should come with us,” when Miss Lydia exclaimed in English: “An infantry officer!” (Her father had been in the cavalry, and she consequently looked down on every other branch of the service.) “An uneducated man, very likely, who would be sea-sick, and spoil all the pleasure of our trip!”
The captain did not understand a word of English, but he seemed to catch what Miss Lydia was saying by the pursing up of her pretty mouth, and immediately entered upon an elaborate panegyric of his relative, which he wound up by declaring him to be a gentleman, belonging to a family of _corporals_, and that he would not be in the very least in the colonel’s way, for that he, the skipper, would undertake to stow him in some corner, where they should not be aware of his presence.
The colonel and Miss Nevil thought it peculiar that there should be Corsican families in which the dignity of corporal was handed down from father to son. But, as they really believed the individual in question to be some infantry corporal, they concluded he was some poor devil whom the skipper desired to take out of pure charity. If he had been an officer, they would have been obliged to speak to him and live with him; but there was no reason why they should put themselves out for a corporal--who is a person of no consequence unless his detachment is also at hand, with bayonets fixed, ready to convey a person to a place to which he would rather not be taken.
“Is your kinsman ever sea-sick?” demanded Miss Nevil sharply.
“Never, mademoiselle, he is as steady as a rock, either on sea or land!”
“Very good then, you can take him,” said she.
“You can take him!” echoed the colonel, and they passed on their way.
Toward five o’clock in the evening Captain Mattei came to escort them on board the schooner. On the jetty, near the captain’s gig, they met a tall young man wearing a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to his chin; his face was tanned, his eyes were black, brilliant, wide open, his whole appearance intelligent and frank. His shoulders, well thrown back, and his little twisted mustache clearly revealed the soldier--for at that period mustaches were by no means common, and the National Guard had not carried the habits and appearance of the guard-room into the bosom of every family.
When the young man saw the colonel he doffed his cap, and thanked him in excellent language, and without the slightest shyness, for the service he was rendering him.
“Delighted to be of use to you, my good fellow!” said the colonel, with a friendly nod, and he stepped into the gig.
“He’s not very ceremonious, this Englishman of yours,” said the young man in Italian, and in an undertone, to the captain.
The skipper laid his forefinger under his left eye, and pulled down the corners of his mouth. To a man acquainted with the language of signs, this meant that the Englishman understood Italian, and was an oddity into the bargain. The young man smiled slightly and touched his forehead, in answer to Mattei’s sign, as though to indicate that every Englishman had a bee in his bonnet. Then he sat down beside them, and began to look very attentively, though not impertinently, at his pretty fellow-traveller.
“These French soldiers all have a good appearance,” remarked the colonel in English to his daughter, “and so it is easy to turn them into officers.” Then addressing the young man in French, he said, “Tell me, my good man, what regiment have you served in?” The young man nudged his second cousin’s godson’s father gently with his elbow, and suppressing an ironic smile, replied that he had served in the Infantry of the Guard, and that he had just quitted the Seventh Regiment of Light Infantry.
“Were you at Waterloo? You are very young!”
“I beg your pardon, colonel, that was my only campaign.”
“It counts as two,” said the colonel.
The young Corsican bit his lips.
“Papa,” said Miss Lydia in English, “do ask him if the Corsicans are very fond of their Buonaparte.”
Before the colonel could translate her question into French, the young man answered in fairly good English, though with a marked accent: “You know, mademoiselle, that no man is ever a prophet in his own country. We, who are Napoleon’s fellow-countrymen, are perhaps less attached to him than the French. As for myself, though my family was formerly at enmity with his, I both love and admire him.”
“You speak English!” exclaimed the colonel.
“Very ill, as you may perceive!”
Miss Lydia, though somewhat shocked by the young man’s easy tone, could not help laughing at the idea of a personal enmity between a corporal and an emperor. She took this as a foretaste of Corsican peculiarities, and made up her mind to note it down in her journal.
“Perhaps you were a prisoner in England?” asked the colonel.
“No, colonel, I learned English in France, when I was very young, from a prisoner of your nation.”
Then, addressing Miss Nevil: “Mattei tells me you have just come back from Italy. No doubt, mademoiselle, you speak the purest Tuscan--I fear you’ll find it somewhat difficult to understand our dialect.”
“My daughter understands every Italian dialect,” said the colonel. “She has the gift of languages. She doesn’t get it from me.”
“Would mademoiselle understand, for instance, these lines from one of our Corsican songs in which a shepherd says to his shepherdess: “S’entrassi ‘ndru paradisu santu, santu, E nun truvassi a tia, mi n’escriria.”
(“If I entered the holy land of paradise and found thee not, I would depart!”)
--_Serenata di Zicavo_.
Miss Lydia did understand. She thought the quotation bold, and the look which accompanied it still bolder, and replied, with a blush, “Capisco.”
“And are you going back to your own country on furlough?” inquired the colonel.
“No, colonel, they have put me on half-pay, because I was at Waterloo, probably, and because I am Napoleon’s fellow-countryman. I am going home, as the song says, low in hope and low in purse,” and he looked up to the sky and sighed.
The colonel slipped his hand into his pocket, and tried to think of some civil phrase with which he might slip the gold coin he was fingering into the palm of his unfortunate enemy.
“And I too,” he said good-humouredly, “have been put on half-pay, but your half-pay can hardly give you enough to buy tobacco! Here, corporal!” and he tried to force the gold coin into the young man’s closed hand, which rested on the gunwale of the gig.
The young Corsican reddened, drew himself up, bit his lips, and seemed, for a moment, on the brink of some angry reply. Then suddenly his expression changed and he burst out laughing. The colonel, grasping his gold piece still in his hand, sat staring at him.
“Colonel,” said the young man, when he had recovered his gravity, “allow me to offer you two pieces of advice--the first is never to offer money to a Corsican, for some of my fellow-countrymen would be rude enough to throw it back in your face; the second is not to give people titles they do not claim. You call me ‘corporal,’ and I am a lieutenant--the difference is not very great, no doubt, still----” “Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” exclaimed Sir Thomas. “But the skipper told me you were a corporal, and that your father and all your family had been corporals before you!”
At these words the young man threw himself back and laughed louder than ever, so merrily that the skipper and his two sailors joined the chorus.
“Forgive me, colonel!” he cried at last. “The mistake is so comical, and I have only just realized it. It is quite true that my family glories in the fact that it can reckon many corporals among its ancestors--but our Corsican corporals never wore stripes upon their sleeves! Toward the year of grace 1100 certain villages revolted against the tyranny of the great mountain nobles, and chose leaders of their own, whom they called _corporals_. In our island we think a great deal of being descended from these tribunes.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” exclaimed the colonel, “I beg your pardon a thousand times! As you understand the cause of my mistake, I hope you will do me the kindness of forgiving it!” and he held out his hand.
“It is the just punishment of my petty pride,” said the young man, still laughing, and cordially shaking the Englishman’s hand. “I am not at all offended. As my friend Mattei has introduced me so unsuccessfully, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Orso della Rebbia; I am a lieutenant on half-pay; and if, as the sight of those two fine dogs of yours leads me to believe, you are coming to Corsica to hunt, I shall be very proud to do you the honours of our mountains and our _maquis_--if, indeed, I have not forgotten them altogether!” he added, with a sigh.
At this moment the gig came alongside the schooner, the lieutenant offered his hand to Miss Lydia, and then helped the colonel to swing himself up on deck. Once there, Sir Thomas, who was still very much ashamed of his blunder, and at a loss to know what he had better do to make the man whose ancestry dated from the year 1100 forget it, invited him to supper, without waiting for his daughter’s consent, and with many fresh apologies and handshakes. Miss Lydia frowned a little, but, after all, she was not sorry to know what a corporal really was. She rather liked there guest, and was even beginning to fancy there was something aristocratic about him--only she thought him too frank and merry for a hero of romance.
“Lieutenant della Rebbia,” said the colonel, bowing to him, English fashion, over a glass of Madeira, “I met a great many of your countrymen in Spain--they were splendid sharp-shooters.”
“Yes, and a great many of them have stayed in Spain,” replied the young lieutenant gravely.
“I shall never forget the behaviour of a Corsican battalion at the Battle of Vittoria,” said the colonel; “I have good reason to remember it, indeed,” he added, rubbing his chest. “All day long they had been skirmishing in the gardens, behind the hedges, and had killed I don’t know how many of our horses and men. When the retreat was sounded, they rallied and made off at a great pace. We had hoped to take our revenge on them in the open plain, but the scoundrels--I beg your pardon, lieutenant; the brave fellows, I should have said--had formed a square, and there was no breaking it. In the middle of the square--I fancy I can see him still--rode an officer on a little black horse. He kept close beside the standard, smoking his cigar as coolly as if he had been in a café. Every now and then their bugles played a flourish, as if to defy us. I sent my two leading squadrons at them. Whew! Instead of breaking the front of the square, my dragoons passed along the sides, wheeled, and came back in great disorder, and with several riderless horses--and all the time those cursed bugles went on playing. When the smoke which had hung over the battalion cleared away, I saw the officer still puffing at his cigar beside his eagle. I was furious, and led a final charge myself. Their muskets, foul with continual firing, would not go off, but the men had drawn up, six deep, with their bayonets pointed at the noses of our horses; you might have taken them for a wall. I was shouting, urging on my dragoons, and spurring my horse forward, when the officer I have mentioned, at length throwing away his cigar, pointed me out to one of his men, and I heard him say something like _‘Al capello bianco!’ _--I wore a white plume. Then I did not hear any more, for a bullet passed through my chest. That was a splendid battalion, M. della Rebbia, that first battalion of the Eighteenth--all of them Corsicans, as I was afterward told!”
“Yes,” said Orso, whose eyes had shone as he listened to the story. “They covered the retreat, and brought back their eagle. Two thirds of those brave fellows are sleeping now on the plains of Vittoria!”
“And, perhaps, you can tell me the name of the officer in command?”
“It was my father--he was then a major in the Eighteenth, and was promoted colonel for his conduct on that terrible day.”
“Your father! Upon my word, he was a brave man! I should be glad to see him again, and I am certain I should recognise him. Is he still alive?”
“No, colonel,” said the young man, turning slightly pale.
“Was he at Waterloo?”
“Yes, colonel; but he had not the happiness of dying on the field of battle. He died in Corsica two years ago. How beautiful the sea is! It is ten years since I have seen the Mediterranean! Don’t you think the Mediterranean much more beautiful than the ocean, mademoiselle?”
“I think it too blue, and its waves lack grandeur.”
“You like wild beauty then, mademoiselle! In that case, I am sure you will be delighted with Corsica.”
“My daughter,” said the colonel, “delights in everything that is out of the common, and for that reason she did not care much for Italy.”
“The only place in Italy that I know,” said Orso, “is Pisa, where I was at school for some time. But I can not think, without admiration, of the Campo-Santo, the Duomo, and the Leaning Tower--especially of the Campo-Santo. Do you remember Orcagna’s ‘Death’? I think I could draw every line of it--it is so graven on my memory.”
Miss Lydia was afraid the lieutenant was going to deliver an enthusiastic tirade.
“It is very pretty,” she said, with a yawn. “Excuse me, papa, my head aches a little; I am going down to my cabin.”
She kissed her father on the forehead, inclined her head majestically to Orso, and disappeared. Then the two men talked about hunting and war. They discovered that at Waterloo they had been posted opposite each other, and had no doubt exchanged many a bullet. This knowledge strengthened their good understanding. Turning about, they criticised Napoleon, Wellington, and Blucher, and then they hunted buck, boar, and mountain sheep in company. At last, when night was far advanced, and the last bottle of claret had been emptied, the colonel wrung the lieutenant’s hand once more and wished him good-night, expressing his hope that an acquaintance, which had begun in such ridiculous fashion, might be continued. They parted, and each went to bed.
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It was a lovely night. The moonlight was dancing on the waves, the ship glided smoothly on before a gentle breeze. Miss Lydia was not sleepy, and nothing but the presence of an unpoetical person had prevented her from enjoying those emotions which every human being possessing a touch of poetry must experience at sea by moonlight. When she felt sure the young lieutenant must be sound asleep, like the prosaic creature he was, she got up, took her cloak, woke her maid, and went on deck. Nobody was to be seen except the sailor at the helm, who was singing a sort of dirge in the Corsican dialect, to some wild and monotonous tune. In the silence of the night this strange music had its charm. Unluckily Miss Lydia did not understand perfectly what the sailor was singing. Amid a good deal that was commonplace, a passionate line would occasionally excite her liveliest curiosity. But just at the most important moment some words of _patois_ would occur, the sense of which utterly escaped her. Yet she did make out that the subject was connected with a murder. Curses against the assassin, threats of vengeance, praise of the dead were all mingled confusedly. She remembered some of the lines. I will endeavour to translate them here.
. . . “Neither cannon nor bayonets . . . Brought pallor to his brow. . . As serene on the battlefield . . . as a summer sky. He was the falcon--the eagle’s friend . . . Honey of the sand to his friends . . . To his enemies, a tempestuous sea. . . . . . . Prouder than the sun . . . gentler than the moon . . . He for whom the enemies of France . . . never waited . . . Murderers in his own land . . . struck him from behind . . . As Vittolo slew Sampiero Corso . . . Never would they have dared to look him in The face . . . Set up on the wall Before my bed . . . my well-earned cross of honour . . . red is its ribbon . . . redder is my shirt! . . . For my son, my son in a far country . . . keep my cross and my blood-stained shirt! . . . “. . . He will see two holes in it . . . For each hole a hole in another shirt! . . . But will that accomplish the vengeance? . . . I must have the hand that fired, the eye that aimed . . . the heart that planned!” . . . Suddenly the sailor stopped short.
“Why don’t you go on, my good man?” inquired Miss Nevil.
The sailor, with a jerk of his head, pointed to a figure appearing through the main hatchway of the schooner: it was Orso, coming up to enjoy the moonlight. “Pray finish your song,” said Miss Lydia. “It interests me greatly!”
The sailor leaned toward her, and said, in a very low tone, “I don’t give the _rimbecco_ to anybody!”
“The what?”
The sailor, without replying, began to whistle.
“I have caught you admiring our Mediterranean, Miss Nevil,” said Orso, coming toward her. “You must allow you never see a moon like this anywhere else!”
“I was not looking at it, I was altogether occupied in studying Corsican. That sailor, who has been singing a most tragic dirge, stopped short at the most interesting point.”
The sailor bent down, as if to see the compass more clearly, and tugged sharply at Miss Nevil’s fur cloak. It was quite evident his lament could not be sung before Lieutenant Orso.
“What were you singing, Paolo France?” said Orso. “Was it a _ballata_ or a _vocero_? Mademoiselle understands you, and would like to hear the end.”
“I have forgotten it, Ors’ Anton’,” said the sailor.
And instantly he began a hymn to the Virgin, at the top of his voice.
Miss Lydia listened absent-mindedly to the hymn, and did not press the singer any further--though she was quite resolved, in her own mind, to find out the meaning of the riddle later. But her maid, who, being a Florentine, could not understand the Corsican dialect any better than her mistress, was as eager as Miss Lydia for information, and, turning to Orso, before the English lady could warn her by a nudge, she said: “Captain what does _giving the rimbecco_ mean?”
“The rimbecco!” said Orso. “Why, it’s the most deadly insult that can be offered to a Corsican. It means reproaching him with not having avenged his wrong. Who mentioned the rimbecco to you?”
“Yesterday, at Marseilles,” replied Miss Lydia hurriedly, “the captain of the schooner used the word.”
“And whom was he talking about?” inquired Orso eagerly.
“Oh, he was telling us some odd story about the time--yes, I think it was about Vannina d’Ornano.”
“I suppose, mademoiselle, that Vannina’s death has not inspired you with any great love for our national hero, the brave Sampiero?”
“But do you think his conduct was so very heroic?”
“The excuse for his crime lies in the savage customs of the period. And then Sampiero was waging deadly war against the Genoese. What confidence could his fellow-countrymen have felt in him if he had not punished his wife, who tried to treat with Genoa?”
“Vannina,” said the sailor, “had started off without her husband’s leave. Sampiero did quite right to wring her neck!”
“But,” said Miss Lydia, “it was to save her husband, it was out of love for him, that she was going to ask his pardon from the Genoese.”
“To ask his pardon was to degrade him!” exclaimed Orso.
“And then to kill her himself!” said Miss Lydia. “What a monster he must have been!”
“You know she begged as a favour that she might die by his hand. What about Othello, mademoiselle, do you look on him, too, as a monster?”
“There is a difference; he was jealous. Sampiero was only vain!”
“And after all is not jealousy a kind of vanity? It is the vanity of love; will you not excuse it on account of its motive?”
Miss Lydia looked at him with an air of great dignity, and turning to the sailor, inquired when the schooner would reach port.
“The day after to-morrow,” said he, “if the wind holds.”
“I wish Ajaccio were in sight already, for I am sick of this ship.” She rose, took her maid’s arm, and walked a few paces on the deck. Orso stood motionless beside the helm, not knowing whether he had better walk beside her, or end a conversation which seemed displeasing to her.
“Blood of the Madonna, what a handsome girl!” said the sailor. “If every flea in my bed were like her, I shouldn’t complain of their biting me!”
Miss Lydia may possibly have overheard this artless praise of her beauty and been startled by it; for she went below almost immediately. Shortly after Orso also retired. As soon as he had left the deck the maid reappeared, and, having cross-questioned the sailor, carried back the following information to her mistress. The _ballata_ which had been broken off on Orso’s appearance had been composed on the occasion of the death of his father, Colonel della Rebbia, who had been murdered two years previously. The sailor had no doubt at all that Orso was coming back to Corsica _per fare la vendetta_, such was his expression, and he affirmed that before long there would be _fresh meat_ to be seen in the village of Pietranera. This national expression, being interpreted, meant that Signor Orso proposed to murder two or three individuals suspected of having assassinated his father--individuals who had, indeed, been prosecuted on that account, but had come out of the trial as white as snow, for they were hand and glove with the judges, lawyers, prefect, and gendarmes.
“There is no justice in Corsica,” added the sailor, “and I put much more faith in a good gun than in a judge of the Royal Court. If a man has an enemy he must choose one of the three S’s.” (A national expression meaning _schioppetto_, _stiletto_, _strada_--that is, _gun_, _dagger_, or _flight_.)
These interesting pieces of information wrought a notable change in Miss Lydia’s manner and feeling with regard to Lieutenant della Rebbia. From that moment he became a person of importance in the romantic Englishwoman’s eyes.
His careless air, his frank and good humour, which had at first impressed her so unfavourably, now seemed to her an additional merit, as being proofs of the deep dissimulation of a strong nature, which will not allow any inner feeling to appear upon the surface. Orso seemed to her a sort of Fieschi, who hid mighty designs under an appearance of frivolity, and, though it is less noble to kill a few rascals than to free one’s country, still a fine deed of vengeance is a fine thing, and besides, women are rather glad to find their hero is not a politician. Then Miss Nevil remarked for the first time that the young lieutenant had large eyes, white teeth, an elegant figure, that he was well-educated, and possessed the habits of good society. During the following day she talked to him frequently, and found his conversation interesting. He was asked many questions about his own country, and described it well. Corsica, which he had left when young, to go first to college, and then to the Ecole militaire, had remained in his imagination surrounded with poetic associations. When he talked of its mountains, its forests, and the quaint customs of its inhabitants he grew eager and animated. As may be imagined, the word _vengeance_ occurred more than once in the stories he told--for it is impossible to speak of the Corsicans without either attacking or justifying their proverbial passion. Orso somewhat surprised Miss Nevil by his general condemnation of the undying hatreds nursed by his fellow-countrymen. As regarded the peasants, however, he endeavoured to excuse them, and claimed that the _vendetta_ is the poor man’s duel. “So true is this,” he said, “that no assassination takes place till a formal challenge has been delivered. ‘Be on your guard yourself, I am on mine!’ are the sacramental words exchanged, from time immemorial, between two enemies, before they begin to lie in wait for each other. There are more assassinations among us,” he added, “than anywhere else. But you will never discover an ignoble cause for any of these crimes. We have many murderers, it is true, but not a single thief.”
When he spoke about vengeance and murder Miss Lydia looked at him closely, but she could not detect the slightest trace of emotion on his features. As she had made up her mind, however, that he possessed sufficient strength of mind to be able to hide his thoughts from every eye (her own, of course, excepted), she continued in her firm belief that Colonel della Rebbia’s shade would not have to wait long for the atonement it claimed.
The schooner was already within sight of Corsica. The captain pointed out the principal features of the coast, and, though all of these were absolutely unknown to Miss Lydia, she found a certain pleasure in hearing their names; nothing is more tiresome than an anonymous landscape. From time to time the colonel’s telescope revealed to her the form of some islander clad in brown cloth, armed with a long gun, bestriding a small horse, and galloping down steep slopes. In each of these Miss Lydia believed she beheld either a brigand or a son going forth to avenge his father’s death. But Orso always declared it was some peaceful denizen of a neighbouring village travelling on business, and that he carried a gun less from necessity than because it was the fashion, just as no dandy ever takes a walk without an elegant cane. Though a gun is a less noble and poetic weapon than a stiletto, Miss Lydia thought it much more stylish for a man than any cane, and she remembered that all Lord Byron’s heroes died by a bullet, and not by the classic poniard.
After three days’ sailing, the ship reached Les Sanguinaires (The Bloody Islands), and the magnificent panorama of the Gulf of Ajaccio was unrolled before our travellers’ eyes. It is compared, with justice, to the Bay of Naples, and just as the schooner was entering the harbour a burning _maquis_, which covered the Punta di Girato, brought back memories of Vesuvius and heightened the resemblance. To make it quite complete, Naples should be seen after one of Attila’s armies had devastated its suburbs--for round Ajaccio everything looks dead and deserted. Instead of the handsome buildings observable on every side from Castellamare to Cape Misena, nothing is to be seen in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Ajaccio but gloomy _maquis_ with bare mountains rising behind them. Not a villa, not a dwelling of any kind--only here and there, on the heights about the town, a few isolated white structures stand out against a background of green. These are mortuary chapels or family tombs. Everything in this landscape is gravely and sadly beautiful.
The appearance of the town, at that period especially, deepened the impression caused by the loneliness of its surroundings. There was no stir in the streets, where only a few listless idlers--always the same--were to be seen; no women at all, except an odd peasant come in to sell her produce; no loud talk, laughter, and singing, as in the Italian towns. Sometimes, under the shade of a tree on the public promenade, a dozen armed peasants will play at cards or watch each other play; they never shout or wrangle; if they get hot over the game, pistol shots ring out, and this always before the utterance of any threat. The Corsican is grave and silent by nature. In the evening, a few persons come out to enjoy the cool air, but the promenaders on the Corso are nearly all of them foreigners; the islanders stay in front of their own doors; each one seems on the watch, like a falcon over its nest.
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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4
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When Miss Lydia had visited the house in which Napoleon was born, and had procured, by means more or less moral, a fragment of the wall-paper belonging to it, she, within two days of her landing in Corsica, began to feel that profound melancholy which must overcome every foreigner in a country whose unsociable inhabitants appear to condemn him or her to a condition of utter isolation. She was already regretting her headstrong caprice; but to go back at once would have been to risk her reputation as an intrepid traveller, so she made up her mind to be patient, and kill time as best she could. With this noble resolution, she brought out her crayons and colours, sketched views of the gulf, and did the portrait of a sunburnt peasant, who sold melons, like any market-gardener on the Continent, but who wore a long white beard, and looked the fiercest rascal that had ever been seen. As all that was not enough to amuse her, she determined to turn the head of the descendant of the corporals, and this was no difficult matter, since, far from being in a hurry to get back to his village, Orso seemed very happy at Ajaccio, although he knew nobody there. Furthermore, Miss Lydia had a lofty purpose in her mind; it was nothing less than to civilize this mountain bear, and induce him to relinquish the sinister design which had recalled him to his island. Since she had taken the trouble to study the young man, she had told herself it would be a pity to let him rush upon his ruin, and that it would be a glorious thing to convert a Corsican.
Our travellers spent the day in the following manner: Every morning the colonel and Orso went out shooting. Miss Lydia sketched or wrote letters to her friends, chiefly for the sake of dating them from Ajaccio. Toward six o’clock the gentlemen came in, laden with game. Then followed dinner. Miss Lydia sang, the colonel went to sleep, and the young people sat talking till very late.
Some formality or other, connected with his passports, had made it necessary for Colonel Nevil to call on the prefect. This gentleman, who, like most of his colleagues, found his life very dull, had been delighted to hear of the arrival of an Englishman who was rich, a man of the world, and the father of a pretty daughter. He had, therefore, given him the most friendly reception, and overwhelmed him with offers of service; further, within a very few days, he came to return his visit. The colonel, who had just dined, was comfortably stretched out upon his sofa, and very nearly asleep. His daughter was singing at a broken-down piano; Orso was turning over the leaves of her music, and gazing at the fair singer’s shoulders and golden hair. The prefect was announced, the piano stopped, the colonel got up, rubbed his eyes, and introduced the prefect to his daughter.
“I do not introduce M. della Rebbia to you,” said he, “for no doubt you know him already.”
“Is this gentleman Colonel della Rebbia’s son?” said the prefect, looking a trifle embarrassed.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Orso.
“I had the honour of knowing your father.”
The ordinary commonplaces of conversation were soon exhausted. The colonel, in spite of himself, yawned pretty frequently. Orso, as a liberal, did not care to converse with a satellite of the Government. The burden of the conversation fell on Miss Lydia. The prefect, on his side, did not let it drop, and it was clear that he found the greatest pleasure in talking of Paris, and of the great world, to a woman who was acquainted with all the foremost people in European society. As he talked, he now and then glanced at Orso, with an expression of singular curiosity.
“Was it on the Continent that you made M. della Rebbia’s acquaintance?” he inquired.
Somewhat embarrassed, Miss Lydia replied that she had made his acquaintance on the ship which had carried them to Corsica.
“He is a very gentlemanly young fellow,” said the prefect, in an undertone; “and has he told you,” he added, dropping his voice still lower, “why he has returned to Corsica?”
Miss Lydia put on her most majestic air and answered: “I have not asked him,” she said. “You may do so.”
The prefect kept silence, but, an instant later, hearing Orso speak a few words of English to the colonel, he said: “You seem to have travelled a great deal, monsieur. You must have forgotten Corsica and Corsican habits.”
“It is quite true that I was very young when I went away.”
“You still belong to the army?”
“I am on half-pay, monsieur.”
“You have been too long in the French army not to have become a thorough Frenchman, I have no doubt?”
The last words of the sentence were spoken with marked emphasis.
The Corsicans are not particularly flattered at being reminded that they belong to the “Great Nations.” They claim to be a people apart, and so well do they justify their claim that it may very well be granted them.
Somewhat nettled, Orso replied: “Do you think, M. le Prefet, that a Corsican must necessarily serve in the French army to become an honourable man?”
“No, indeed,” said the prefect, “that is not my idea at all; I am only speaking of certain _customs_ belonging to this country, some of which are not such as a Government official would like to see.”
He emphasized the word _customs_, and put on as grave an expression as his features could assume. Soon after he got up and took his leave, bearing with him Miss Lydia’s promise that she would go and call on his wife at the prefecture.
When he had departed: “I had to come to Corsica,” said Miss Lydia, “to find out what a prefect is like. This one strikes me as rather amiable.”
“For my part,” said Orso, “I can’t say as much. He strikes me as a very queer individual, with his airs of emphasis and mystery.”
The colonel was extremely drowsy. Miss Lydia cast a glance in his direction, and, lowering her voice: “And I,” she said, “do not think him so mysterious as you pretend; for I believe I understood him!”
“Then you are clear-sighted indeed, Miss Nevil. If you have seen any wit in what he has just said you must certainly have put it there yourself.”
“It is the Marquis de Mascarille, I think, who says that, M. della Rebbia. But would you like me to give you a proof of my clear-sightedness? I am something of a witch, and I can read the thoughts of people I have seen only twice.”
“Good heavens! you alarm me. If you really can read my thoughts I don’t know whether I should be glad or sorry.”
“M. della Rebbia,” went on Miss Lydia, with a blush, “we have only known each other for a few days. But at sea, and in savage countries (you will excuse me, I hope)--in savage countries friendships grow more quickly than they do in society . . . so you must not be astonished if I speak to you, as a friend, upon private matters, with which, perhaps, a stranger ought not to interfere.”
“Ah, do not say that word, Miss Nevil. I like the other far better.”
“Well, then, monsieur, I must tell you that without having tried to find out your secrets, I have learned some of them, and they grieve me. I have heard, monsieur, of the misfortune which has overtaken your family. A great deal has been said to me about the vindictive nature of your fellow-countrymen, and the fashion in which they take their vengeance. Was it not to that the prefect was alluding?”
“Miss Lydia! Can you believe it!” and Orso turned deadly pale.
“No, M. della Rebbia,” she said, interrupting him, “I know you to be a most honourable gentleman. You have told me yourself that it was only the common people in your country who still practised the _vendetta_--which you are pleased to describe as a kind of duel.”
“Do you, then, believe me capable of ever becoming a murderer?”
“Since I have mentioned the subject at all, Monsieur Orso, you must clearly see that I do not suspect you, and if I have spoken to you at all,” she added, dropping her eyes, “it is because I have realized that surrounded, it may be, by barbarous prejudices on your return home, you will be glad to know that there is somebody who esteems you for having the courage to resist them. Come!” said she, rising to her feet, “don’t let us talk again of such horrid things, they make my head ache, and besides it’s very late. You are not angry with me, are you? Let us say good-night in the English fashion,” and she held out her hand.
Orso pressed it, looking grave and deeply moved.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “do you know that there are moments when the instincts of my country wake up within me. Sometimes, when I think of my poor father, horrible thoughts assail me. Thanks to you, I am rid of them forever. Thank you! thank you!”
He would have continued, but Miss Lydia dropped a teaspoon, and the noise woke up the colonel.
“Della Rebbia, we’ll start at five o’clock to-morrow morning. Be punctual!”
“Yes, colonel.”
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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5
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The next day, a short time before the sportsmen came back, Miss Nevil, returning with her maid from a walk along the seashore, was just about to enter the inn, when she noticed a young woman, dressed in black, riding into the town on a small but strong horse. She was followed by a sort of peasant, also on horseback, who wore a brown cloth jacket cut at the elbows. A gourd was slung over his shoulder and a pistol was hanging at his belt, his hand grasped a gun, the butt of which rested in a leathern pocket fastened to his saddle-bow--in short, he wore the complete costume of a brigand in a melodrama, or of the middle-class Corsican on his travels. Miss Nevil’s attention was first attracted by the woman’s remarkable beauty. She seemed about twenty years of age; she was tall and pale, with dark blue eyes, red lips, and teeth like enamel. In her expression pride, anxiety, and sadness were all legible. On her head she wore a black silk veil called a _mezzaro_, which the Genoese introduced into Corsica, and which is so becoming to women. Long braids of chestnut hair formed a sort of turban round her head. Her dress was neat, but simple in the extreme.
Miss Nevil had plenty of time to observe her, for the lady in the _mezzaro_ had halted in the street, and was questioning somebody on a subject which, to judge from the expression of her eyes, must have interested her exceedingly. Then, as soon as she received an answer, she touched her mount with her riding-switch, and, breaking into a quick trot, never halted till she reached the door of the hotel in which Sir Thomas Nevil and Orso were staying. There, after exchanging a few words with the host, the girl sprang nimbly from her saddle and seated herself on a stone bench beside the entrance door, while her groom led the horses away to the stable. Miss Lydia, in her Paris gown, passed close beside the stranger, who did not raise her eyes. A quarter of an hour later she opened her window, and saw the lady in the _mezzaro_ still sitting in the same place and in the same attitude. Not long afterward the colonel and Orso returned from hunting. Then the landlord said a few words to the young lady in mourning, and pointed to della Rebbia with his finger. She coloured deeply, rose eagerly, went a few paces forward, and then stopped short, apparently much confused. Orso was quite close to her, and was looking at her curiously.
“Are you Orso Antonio della Rebbia?” said she in a tremulous voice. “I am Colomba.”
“Colomba!” cried Orso.
And taking her in his arms he kissed her tenderly, somewhat to the surprise of the colonel and his daughter--but in England people do not kiss each other in the street.
“Brother,” said Colomba, “you must forgive me for having come without your permission. But I heard from our friends that you had arrived, and it is such a great consolation to me to see you.”
Again Orso kissed her. Then, turning to the colonel: “This is my sister,” said he, “whom I never should have recognised if she had not told me her name--Colomba--Colonel Sir Thomas Nevil--colonel, you will kindly excuse me, but I can not have the honour of dining with you to-day. My sister--” “But, my dear fellow, where the devil do you expect to dine? You know very well there is only one dinner in this infernal tavern, and we have bespoken it. It will afford my daughter great pleasure if this young lady will join us.”
Colomba looked at her brother, who did not need much pressing, and they all passed together into the largest room in the inn, which the colonel used as his sitting and dining room. Mademoiselle della Rebbia, on being introduced to Miss Nevil, made her a deep courtesy, but she did not utter a single word. It was easy to see that she was very much frightened at finding herself, perhaps for the first time in her life, in the company of strangers belonging to the great world. Yet there was nothing provincial in her manners. The novelty of her position excused her awkwardness. Miss Nevil took a liking to her at once, and, as there was no room disengaged in the hotel, the whole of which was occupied by the colonel and his attendants, she offered, either out of condescension or curiosity, to have a bed prepared in her own room for Mademoiselle della Rebbia.
Colomba stammered a few words of thanks, and hastened after Miss Nevil’s maid, to make such changes in her toilet as were rendered necessary by a journey on horseback in the dust and heat.
When she re-entered the sitting-room, she paused in front of the colonel’s guns, which the hunters had left in a corner.
“What fine weapons,” said she. “Are they yours, brother?”
“No, they are the colonel’s English guns--and they are as good as they are handsome.”
“How much I wish you had one like them!” said Colomba.
“One of those three certainly does belong to della Rebbia,” exclaimed the colonel. “He really shoots almost too well! To-day he fired fourteen shots, and brought down fourteen head of game.”
A friendly dispute at once ensued, in which Orso was vanquished, to his sister’s great satisfaction, as it was easy to perceive from the childish expression of delight which illumined her face, so serious a moment before.
“Choose, my dear fellow,” said the colonel; but Orso refused.
“Very well, then. Your sister shall choose for you.”
Colomba did not wait for a second invitation. She took up the plainest of the guns, but it was a first-rate Manton of large calibre.
“This one,” she said, “must carry a ball a long distance.”
Her brother was growing quite confused in his expressions of gratitude, when dinner appeared, very opportunely, to help him out of his embarrassment.
Miss Lydia was delighted to notice that Colomba, who had shown considerable reluctance to sit down with them, and had yielded only at a glance from her brother, crossed herself, like a good Catholic, before she began to eat.
“Good!” said she to herself, “that is primitive!” and she anticipated acquiring many interesting facts by observing this youthful representative of ancient Corsican manners. As for Orso, he was evidently a trifle uneasy, fearing, doubtless, that his sister might say or do something which savoured too much of her native village. But Colomba watched him constantly, and regulated all her own movements by his. Sometimes she looked at him fixedly, with a strange expression of sadness, and then, if Orso’s eyes met hers, he was the first to turn them away, as though he would evade some question which his sister was mentally addressing to him, the sense of which he understood only too well. Everybody talked French, for the colonel could only express himself very badly in Italian. Colomba understood French, and even pronounced the few words she was obliged to exchange with her entertainers tolerably well.
After dinner, the colonel, who had noticed the sort of constraint which existed between the brother and sister, inquired of Orso, with his customary frankness, whether he did not wish to be alone with Mademoiselle Colomba, offering, in that case, to go into the next room with his daughter. But Orso hastened to thank him, and to assure him they would have plenty of time to talk at Pietranera--this was the name of the village where he was to take up his abode.
The colonel then resumed his customary position on the sofa, and Miss Nevil, after attempting several subjects of conversation, gave up all hope of inducing the fair Colomba to talk, and begged Orso to read her a canto out of Dante, her favourite poet. Orso chose the canto of the Inferno, containing the episode of Francesca da Rimini, and began to read, as impressively as he was able, the glorious tiercets which so admirably express the risk run by two young persons who venture to read a love-story together. As he read on Colomba drew nearer to the table, and raised her head, which she had kept lowered. Her wide-open eyes, shone with extraordinary fire, she grew red and pale by turns, and stirred convulsively in her chair. How admirable is the Italian organization, which can understand poetry without needing a pedant to explain its beauties!
When the canto was finished: “How beautiful that is!” she exclaimed. “Who wrote it, brother?”
Orso was a little disconcerted, and Miss Lydia answered with a smile that it was written by a Florentine poet, who had been dead for centuries.
“You shall read Dante,” said Orso, “when you are at Pietranera.”
“Good heavens, how beautiful it is!” said Colomba again, and she repeated three or four tiercets which she had remembered, speaking at first in an undertone; then, growing excited, she declaimed them aloud, with far more expression than her brother had put into his reading.
Miss Lydia was very much astonished.
“You seem very fond of poetry,” she said. “How I envy you the delight you will find in reading Dante for the first time!”
“You see, Miss Nevil,” said Orso, “what a power Dante’s lines must have, when they so move a wild young savage who knows nothing but her _Pater_. But I am mistaken! I recollect now that Colomba belongs to the guild. Even when she was quite a little child she used to try her hand at verse-making, and my father used to write me word that she was the best _voceratrice_ in Pietranera, and for two leagues round about.”
Colomba cast an imploring glance at her brother. Miss Nevil had heard of the Corsican _improvisatrici_, and was dying to hear one. She begged Colomba, then, to give her a specimen of her powers. Very much vexed now at having made any mention of his sister’s poetic gifts, Orso interposed. In vain did he protest that nothing was so insipid as a Corsican _ballata_, and that to recite the Corsican verses after those of Dante was like betraying his country. All he did was to stimulate Miss Nevil’s curiosity, and at last he was obliged to say to his sister: “Well! well! improvise something--but let it be short!”
Colomba heaved a sigh, looked fixedly for a moment, first at the table-cloth, and then at the rafters of the ceiling; at last, covering her eyes with her hand like those birds that gather courage, and fancy they are not seen when they no longer see themselves, she sang, or rather declaimed, in an unsteady voice, the following _serenata_: “THE MAIDEN AND THE TURTLE-DOVE “In the valley, far away among the mountains, the sun only shines for an hour every day. In the valley there stands a gloomy house, and grass grows on its threshold. Doors and windows are always shut. No smoke rises from the roof. But at noon, when the sunshine falls, a window opens, and the orphan girl sits spinning at her wheel. She spins, and as she works, she sings--a song of sadness. But no other song comes to answer hers! One day--a day in spring-time--a turtle-dove settled on a tree hard by, and heard the maiden’s song. ‘Maiden,’ it said, ‘thou art not the only mourner! A cruel hawk has snatched my mate from me!’ ‘Turtle-dove, show me that cruel hawk; were it to soar higher than the clouds I would soon bring it down to earth! But who will restore to me, unhappy that I am, my brother, now in a far country?’ ‘Maiden, tell me, where thy brother is, and my wings shall bear me to him. ’” “A well-bred turtle-dove, indeed!” exclaimed Orso, and the emotion with which he kissed his sister contrasted strongly with the jesting tone in which he spoke.
“Your song is delightful,” said Miss Lydia. “You must write it in my album; I’ll translate it into English, and have it set to music.”
The worthy colonel, who had not understood a single word, added his compliments to his daughter’s and added: “Is this dove you speak of the bird we ate broiled at dinner to-day?”
Miss Nevil fetched her album, and was not a little surprised to see the _improvisatrice_ write down her song, with so much care in the matter of economizing space.
The lines, instead of being separate, were all run together, as far as the breadth of the paper would permit, so that they did not agree with the accepted definition of poetic composition--“short lines of unequal length, with a margin on each side of them.” Mademoiselle Colomba’s somewhat fanciful spelling might also have excited comment. More than once Miss Nevil was seen to smile, and Orso’s fraternal vanity suffered tortures.
Bedtime came, and the two young girls retired to their room. There, while Miss Lydia unclasped her necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, she watched her companion draw something out of her gown--something as long as a stay-busk, but very different in shape. Carefully, almost stealthily, Colomba slipped this object under her _mezzaro_, which she laid on the table. Then she knelt down, and said her prayers devoutly. Two minutes afterward she was in her bed. Miss Lydia, naturally very inquisitive, and as slow as every Englishwoman is about undressing herself, moved over to the table, pretended she was looking for a pin, lifted up the _mezzaro_, and saw a long stiletto--curiously mounted in silver and mother-of-pearl. The workmanship was remarkably fine. It was an ancient weapon, and just the sort of one an amateur would have prized very highly.
“Is it the custom here,” inquired Miss Nevil, with a smile, “for young ladies to wear such little instruments as these in their bodices?”
“It is,” answered Colomba, with a sigh. “There are so many wicked people about!”
“And would you really have the courage to strike with it, like this?” And Miss Nevil, dagger in hand, made a gesture of stabbing from above, as actors do on the stage.
“Yes,” said Colomba, in her soft, musical voice, “if I had to do it to protect myself or my friends. But you must not hold it like that, you might wound yourself if the person you were going to stab were to draw back.” Then, sitting up in bed, “See,” she added, “you must strike like this--upward! If you do so, the thrust is sure to kill, they say. Happy are they who never need such weapons.”
She sighed, dropped her head back on the pillow, and closed her eyes. A more noble, beautiful, virginal head it would be impossible to imagine. Phidias would have asked no other model for Minerva.
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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6
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It is in obedience to the precept of Horace that I have begun by plunging _in media res_. Now that every one is asleep--the beautiful Colomba, the colonel, and his daughter--I will seize the opportunity to acquaint my reader with certain details of which he must not be ignorant, if he desires to follow the further course of this veracious history. He is already aware that Colonel della Rebbia, Orso’s father, had been assassinated. Now, in Corsica, people are not murdered, as they are in France, by the first escaped convict who can devise no better means of relieving a man of his silver-plate. In Corsica a man is murdered by his enemies--but the reason he has enemies is often very difficult to discover. Many families hate each other because it has been an old-standing habit of theirs to hate each other; but the tradition of the original cause of their hatred may have completely disappeared.
The family to which Colonel della Rebbia belonged hated several other families, but that of the Barricini particularly. Some people asserted that in the sixteenth century a della Rebbia had seduced a lady of the Barricini family, and had afterward been poniarded by a relative of the outraged damsel. Others, indeed, told the story in a different fashion, declaring that it was a della Rebbia who had been seduced, and a Barricini who had been poniarded. However that may be, there was, to use the time-honoured expression, “blood between the two houses.” Nevertheless, and contrary to custom, this murder had not resulted in others; for the della Rebbia and the Barricini had been equally persecuted by the Genoese Government, and as the young men had all left the country, the two families were deprived, during several generations, of their more energetic representatives. At the close of the last century, one of the della Rebbias, an officer in the Neapolitan service, quarrelled, in a gambling hell, with some soldiers, who called him a Corsican goatherd, and other insulting names. He drew his sword, but being only one against three, he would have fared very ill if a stranger, who was playing in the same room, had not exclaimed, “I, too, am a Corsican,” and come to his rescue. This stranger was one of the Barricini, who, for that matter, was not acquainted with his countryman. After mutual explanations, they interchanged courtesies and vowed eternal friendship. For on the Continent, quite contrary to their practice in their own island, Corsicans quickly become friends. This fact was clearly exemplified on the present occasion. As long as della Rebbia and Barricini remained in Italy they were close friends. Once they were back in Corsica, they saw each other but very seldom, although they both lived in the same village; and when they died, it was reported that they had not spoken to each other for five or six years. Their sons lived in the same fashion--“on ceremony,” as they say in the island; one of them Ghilfuccio, Orso’s father, was a soldier; the other Giudice Barricini, was a lawyer. Having both become heads of families, and being separated by their professions, they scarcely ever had an opportunity of seeing or hearing of each other.
One day, however, about the year 1809, Giudice read in a newspaper at Bastia that Captain Ghilfuccio had just been decorated, and remarked, before witnesses, that he was not at all surprised, considering that the family enjoyed the protection of General -----. This remark was reported at Vienna to Ghilfuccio, who told one of his countrymen that, when he got back to Corsica, he would find Giudice a very rich man, because he made more money out of the suits he lost than out of those he won. It was never known whether he meant this as an insinuation that the lawyer cheated his clients, or as a mere allusion to the commonplace truth that a bad cause often brings a lawyer more profit than a good one. However that may have been, the lawyer Barricini heard of the epigram, and never forgot it. In 1812 he applied for the post of mayor of his commune, and had every hope of being appointed, when General ----- wrote to the prefect, to recommend one of Ghilfuccio’s wife’s relations. The prefect lost no time in carrying out the general’s wish, and Barricini felt no doubt that he owed his failure to the intrigues of Ghilfuccio. In 1814, after the emperor’s fall, the general’s protégé was denounced as a Bonapartist, and his place was taken by Barricini. He, in his turn, was dismissed during the Hundred Days, but when the storm had blown over, he again took possession, with great pomp, of the mayoral seal and the municipal registers.
From this moment his star shone brighter than ever. Colonel della Rebbia, now living on half-pay at Pietranera, had to defend himself against covert and repeated attacks due to the pettifogging malignity of his enemy. At one time he was summoned to pay for the damage his horse had done to the mayor’s fences, at another, the latter, under pretence of repairing the floor of the church, ordered the removal of a broken flagstone bearing the della Rebbia arms, which covered the grave of some member of the family. If the village goats ate the colonel’s young plants, the mayor always protected their owners. The grocer who kept the post-office at Pietranera, and the old maimed soldier who had been the village policeman--both of them attached to the della Rebbia family--were turned adrift, and their places filled by Barricini’s creatures.
The colonel’s wife died, and her last wish was that she might be buried in the middle of the little wood in which she had been fond of walking. Forthwith the mayor declared she should be buried in the village cemetery, because he had no authority to permit burial in any other spot. The colonel, in a fury, declared that until the permit came, his wife would be interred in the spot she had chosen. He had her grave dug there. The mayor, on his side, had another grave dug in the cemetery, and sent for the police, that the law, so he declared, might be duly enforced. On the day of the funeral, the two parties came face to face, and, for a moment, there was reason to fear a struggle might ensue for the possession of Signora della Rebbia’s corpse. Some forty well-armed peasants, mustered by the dead woman’s relatives, forced the priest, when he issued from the church, to take the road to the wood. On the other hand, the mayor, at the head of his two sons, his dependents, and the gendarmes, advanced to oppose their march. When he appeared, and called on the procession to turn back, he was greeted with howls and threats. The advantage of numbers was with his opponents, and they seemed thoroughly determined. At sight of him several guns were loaded, and one shepherd is even said to have levelled his musket at him, but the colonel knocked up the barrel, and said, “Let no man fire without my orders!” The mayor, who, like Panurge, had “a natural fear of blows,” refused to give battle, and retired, with his escort. Then the funeral procession started, carefully choosing the longest way, so as to pass in front of the mayor’s house. As it was filing by, an idiot, who had joined its ranks, took it into his head to shout, “Vive l’Empereur!” Two or three voices answered him, and the Rebbianites, growing hotter, proposed killing one of the mayor’s oxen, which chanced to bar their way. Fortunately the colonel stopped this act of violence.
It is hardly necessary to mention that an official statement was at once drawn up, or that the mayor sent the prefect a report, in his sublimest style, describing the manner in which all laws, human and divine, had been trodden under foot--how the majesty of himself, the mayor, and of the priest had been flouted and insulted, and how Colonel della Rebbia had put himself at the head of a Bonapartist plot, to change the order of succession to the throne, and to excite peaceful citizens to take arms against one another--crimes provided against by Articles 86 and 91 of the Penal Code.
The exaggerated tone of this complaint diminished its effect. The colonel wrote to the prefect and to the public prosecutor. One of his wife’s kinsmen was related to one of the deputies of the island, another was cousin to the president of the Royal Court. Thanks to this interest, the plot faded out of sight, Signora della Rebbia was left quiet in the wood, and the idiot alone was sentenced to a fortnight’s imprisonment.
Lawyer Barricini, dissatisfied with the result of this affair, turned his batteries in a different direction. He dug out some old claim, whereby he undertook to contest the colonel’s ownership of a certain water-course which turned a mill-wheel. A lawsuit began and dragged slowly along. At the end of twelve months, the court was about to give its decision, and according to all appearances in favour of the colonel, when Barricini placed in the hands of the public prosecutor a letter, signed by a certain Agostini, a well-known bandit, threatening him, the mayor, with fire and sword if he did not relinquish his pretensions. It is well known that in Corsica the protection of these brigands is much sought after, and that, to oblige their friends, they frequently intervene in private quarrels. The mayor was deriving considerable advantage from this letter, when the business was further complicated by a fresh incident. Agostini, the bandit, wrote to the public prosecutor, to complain that his handwriting had been counterfeited, and his character aspersed, by some one who desired to represent him as a man who made a traffic of his influence. “If I can discover the forger,” he said at the end of his letter, “I will make a striking example of him.”
It was quite clear that Agostini did not write the threatening letter to the mayor. The della Rebbia accused the Barricini of it and _vice versa_. Both parties broke into open threats, and the authorities did not know where to find the culprit.
In the midst of all this Colonel Ghilfuccio was murdered. Here are the facts, as they were elicited at the official inquiry. On the 2d of August, 18--, toward nightfall, a woman named Maddalena Pietri, who was carrying corn to Pietranera, heard two shots fired, very close together, the reports, as it seemed to her, coming from the deep lane leading to the village, about a hundred and fifty paces from the spot on which she stood. Almost immediately afterward she saw a man running, crouching along a footpath among the vines, and making for the village. The man stopped for a minute, and turned round, but the distance prevented the woman Pietri from seeing his features, and besides, he had a vine-leaf in his mouth, which hid almost the whole of his face. He made a signal with his head to some comrade, whom the witness could not see, and then disappeared among the vines.
The woman Pietri dropped her burden, ran up the path, and found Colonel della Rebbia, bathed in his own blood from two bullet wounds, but still breathing. Close beside him lay his gun, loaded and cocked, as if he had been defending himself against a person who had attacked him in front, just when another had struck him from behind. Although the rattle was in his throat, he struggled against the grip of death, but he could not utter a word--this the doctors explained by the nature of the wounds, which had cut through his lungs: the blood was choking him, it flowed slowly, like red froth. In vain did the woman lift him up, and ask him several questions. She saw plainly enough that he desired to speak, but he could not make himself understood. Noticing that he was trying to get his hand to his pocket, she quickly drew out of it a little note-book, which she opened and gave to him.
The wounded man took the pencil out of the note-book and tried to write. In fact, the witness saw him form several letters, but with great difficulty. As she could not read, however, she was unable to understand their meaning. Exhausted by the effort, the colonel left the note-book in the woman’s hand, which he squeezed tightly, looking at her strangely, as if he wanted to say (these are the witness’s own words): “It is important--it is my murderer’s name!”
Maddalena Pietri was going up to the village, when she met Barricini, the mayor, with his son Vincentello. It was then almost dark. She told them what she had seen. The mayor took the note-book, hurried up to his house, put on his sash, and fetched his secretary and the gendarmes. Left alone with young Vincentello, Maddalena Pietri suggested that he should go to the colonel’s assistance, in case he was still alive, but Vincentello replied that if he were to go near a man who had been the bitter enemy of his family, he would certainly be accused of having killed him. A very short time afterward the mayor arrived, found the colonel dead, had the corpse carried away, and drew up his report.
In spite of the agitation so natural on such an occasion, Monsieur Barricini had hastened to place the colonel’s note-book under seal, and to make all the inquiries in his power, but none of them resulted in any discovery of importance.
When the examining magistrate arrived the note-book was opened, and on a blood-stained page were seen letters written in a trembling hand, but still quite legible; the sheet bore the word _Agosti_--and the judge did not doubt that the colonel had intended to point out Agostini as his murderer. Nevertheless, Colomba della Rebbia, who had been summoned by the magistrate, asked leave to examine the note-book. After turning the leaves for a few moments, she stretched out her hand toward the mayor and cried, “There stands the murderer!” Then with a precision and a clearness which were astonishing, considering the passion of sorrow that shook her, she related that, a few days previously, her father had received a letter from his son, which he had burned, but that before doing so he had written Orso’s address (he had just changed his garrison) in the note-book with his pencil. Now, his address was no longer in the note-book, and Colomba concluded that the mayor had torn out the leaf on which it was written, which probably was that on which her father had traced the murderer’s name, and for that name the mayor, according to Colomba, had substituted Agostini’s. The magistrate, in fact, noticed that one sheet was missing from the quire on which the name was written, but he remarked also that leaves were likewise missing from other quires in the same note-book, and certain witnesses testified that the colonel had a habit of tearing out pages when he wanted to light a cigar--therefore nothing was more probable than that, by an oversight, he had burned the address he had copied. Further, it was shown that the mayor could not have read the note-book on receiving it from Maddalena Pietri, on account of the darkness, and it was proved that he had not stopped an instant before he went into his house, that the sergeant of the gendarmes had gone there with him, and had seen him light a lamp and put the note-book into an envelope which he had sealed before his eyes.
When this officer had concluded his deposition, Colomba, half-distracted, cast herself at his feet, and besought him, by all he held most sacred, to say whether he had not left the mayor alone for a single moment. After a certain amount of hesitation, the man, who was evidently affected by the young girl’s excitement, admitted that he had gone into the next room to fetch a sheet of foolscap, but that he had not been away a minute, and that the mayor had talked to him all the time he was groping for the paper in a drawer. Moreover, he deposed that when he came back the blood-stained note-book was still on the table, in the very place where the mayor had thrown it when he first came in.
Monsieur Barricini gave his evidence with the utmost coolness. He made allowances, he said, for Mademoiselle della Rebbia’s excitement, and was ready to condescend to justify himself. He proved that he had spent his whole evening in the village, that his son Vincentello had been with him in front of the house at the moment when the crime was committed, and that his son Orlanduccio, who had had an attack of fever that very day, had never left his bed. He produced every gun in his house, and not one of them had been recently discharged. He added, that, as regarded the note-book, he had at once realized its importance; that he had sealed it up, and placed it in the hands of his deputy, foreseeing that he himself might be suspected, on account of his quarrel with the colonel. Finally, he reminded the court that Agostini had threatened to kill the man who had written a letter in his name, and he insinuated that this ruffian had probably suspected the colonel, and murdered him. Such a vengeance, for a similar reason, is by no means unprecedented in the history of brigandage.
Five days after Colonel della Rebbia’s death, Agostini was surprised by a detachment of riflemen, and killed, fighting desperately to the last. On his person was found a letter from Colomba, beseeching him to declare whether he was guilty of the murder imputed to him, or not. As the bandit had sent no answer, it was pretty generally concluded that he had not the courage to tell a daughter he had murdered her father. Yet those who claimed to know Agostini’s nature thoroughly, whispered that if he had killed the colonel, he would have boasted of the deed. Another bandit, known by the name of Brandolaccio, sent Colomba a declaration in which he bore witness “on his honour” to his comrade’s innocence--but the only proof he put forward was that Agostini had never told him that he suspected the colonel.
The upshot was that the Barricini suffered no inconvenience, the examining magistrate was loud in his praise of the mayor, and the mayor, on his side, crowned his handsome behaviour by relinquishing all his claims over the stream, concerning which he had brought the lawsuit against Colonel della Rebbia.
According to the custom of her country, Colomba improvised a _ballata_ in presence of her father’s corpse, and before his assembled friends. In it she poured out all her hatred against the Barricini, formally charged them with the murder, and threatened them with her brother’s vengeance. It was this same _ballata_, which had grown very popular, that the sailor had sung before Miss Lydia. When Orso, who was in the north of France, heard of his father’s death, he applied for leave, but failed to obtain it. A letter from his sister led him to believe at first in the guilt of the Barricini, but he soon received copies of all the documents connected with the inquiry and a private letter from the judge, which almost convinced him that the bandit Agostini was the only culprit. Every three months Colomba had written to him, reiterating her suspicions, which she called her “proofs.” In spite of himself, these accusations made his Corsican blood boil, and sometimes he was very near sharing his sister’s prejudices. Nevertheless, every time he wrote to her he repeated his conviction that her allegations possessed no solid foundation, and were quite unworthy of belief. He even forbade her, but always vainly, to mention them to him again.
Thus two years went by. At the end of that time Orso was placed on half-pay, and then it occurred to him to go back to his own country--not at all for the purpose of taking vengeance on people whom he believed innocent, but to arrange a marriage for his sister, and the sale of his own small property--if its value should prove sufficient to enable him to live on the Continent.
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Whether it was that the arrival of his sister had reminded Orso forcibly of his paternal home, or that Colomba’s unconventional dress and manners made him feel shy before his civilized friends, he announced, the very next day, his determination to leave Ajaccio, and to return to Pietranera. But he made the colonel promise that when he went to Bastia he would come and stay in his modest manor-house, and undertook, in return, to provide him with plenty of buck, pheasant, boar, and other game.
On the day before that of his departure Orso proposed that, instead of going out shooting, they should all take a walk along the shores of the gulf. With Miss Lydia on his arm he was able to talk in perfect freedom--for Colomba had stayed in the town to do her shopping, and the colonel was perpetually leaving the young people to fire shots at sea-gulls and gannets, greatly to the astonishment of the passers-by, who could not conceive why any man should waste his powder on such paltry game.
They were walking along the path leading to the Greek Chapel, which commands the finest view to be had of the bay, but they paid no attention to it.
“Miss Lydia,” said Orso, after a silence which had lasted long enough to become embarrassing, “tell me frankly, what do you think of my sister?”
“I like her very much,” answered Miss Nevil. “Better than you,” she added, with a smile; “for she is a true Corsican, and you are rather too civilized a savage!”
“Too civilized! Well, in spite of myself, I feel that I am growing a savage again, since I have set my foot on the island! A thousand horrid thoughts disturb and torment me, and I wanted to talk with you a little before I plunge into my desert!”
“You must be brave, monsieur! Look at your sister’s resignation; she sets you an example!”
“Ah! do not be deceived! Do not believe in her resignation. She has not said a word to me as yet, but every look of hers tells me what she expects of me.”
“What does she expect of you, then?”
“Oh, nothing! Except that I should try whether your father’s gun will kill a man as surely as it kills a partridge.”
“What an idea! You can actually believe that, when you have just acknowledged that she has said nothing to you yet? It really is too dreadful of you!”
“If her thoughts were not fixed on vengeance, she would have spoken to me at once about our father; she has never done it. She would have mentioned the names of those she considers--wrongly, I know--to be his murderers. But no; not a word! That is because we Corsicans, you see, are a cunning race. My sister realizes that she does not hold me completely in her power, and she does not choose to startle me while I may still escape her. Once she has led me to the edge of the precipice, and once I turn giddy there, she will thrust me into the abyss.”
Then Orso gave Miss Nevil some details of his father’s death, and recounted the principal proofs which had culminated in his belief that Agostini was the assassin.
“Nothing,” he added, “has been able to convince Colomba. I saw that by her last letter. She has sworn the Barricini shall die, and--you see, Miss Nevil, what confidence I have in you! --they would not be alive now, perhaps, if one of the prejudices for which her uncivilized education must be the excuse had not convinced her that the execution of this vengeance belongs to me, as head of her family, and that my honour depends upon it!”
“Really and truly, Monsieur della Rebbia!” said Miss Nevil, “you slander your sister!”
“No. As you have said it yourself, she is a Corsican; she thinks as they all think. Do you know why I was so sad yesterday?”
“No. But for some time past you have been subject to these fits of sadness. You were much pleasanter in the earlier days of our acquaintance.”
“Yesterday, on the contrary, I was more cheery and happy than I generally am. I had seen how kind, how indulgent, you were to my sister. The colonel and I were coming home in a boat. Do you know what one of the boatmen said to me in his infernal _patois_? ‘You’ve killed a deal of game, Ors’ Anton’, but you’ll find Orlanduccio Barricini a better shot than you! ’” “Well, what was there so very dreadful in that remark? Are you so very much set upon being considered a skilful sportsman?”
“But don’t you see the ruffian was telling me I shouldn’t have courage to kill Orlanduccio!”
“Do you know, M. della Rebbia, you frighten me! The air of this island of yours seems not only to give people fevers, but to drive them mad. Luckily we shall be leaving it soon!”
“Not without coming to Pietranera--you have promised my sister that.”
“And if we were to fail in that promise, we should bring down some terrible vengeance on our heads, no doubt!”
“Do you remember that story your father was telling us, the other day, about the Indians who threatened the company’s agents that, if they would not grant their prayer, they would starve themselves to death?”
“That means that you would starve yourself to death! I doubt it very much! You would go hungry for one day and then Mademoiselle Colomba would bring you such a tempting _bruccio_[*] that you would quite relinquish your plan.”
[*] A sort of baked cream cheese, a national dish in Corsica.
“Your jests are cruel, Miss Nevil. You might spare me. Listen, I am alone here; I have no one but you to prevent me from going mad, as you call it. You have been my guardian angel, and now----!”
“Now,” said Miss Lydia gravely, “to steady this reason of yours, which is so easily shaken, you have the honour of a soldier and a man, and,” she added, turning away to pluck a flower, “if that will be any help to you, you have the memory of your guardian angel, too!”
“Ah, Miss Nevil, if I could only think you really take some interest!”
“Listen, M. della Rebbia,” said Miss Nevil, with some emotion. “As you are a child, I will treat you as I would treat a child. When I was a little girl my mother gave me a beautiful necklace, which I had longed for greatly; but she said to me, ‘Every time you put on this necklace, remember you do not know French yet.’ The necklace lost some of its value in my eyes, it was a source of constant self-reproach. But I wore it, and in the end I knew French. Do you see this ring? It is an Egyptian scarabaeus, found, if you please, in a pyramid. That strange figure, which you may perhaps take for a bottle, stands for ‘_human life_.’ There are certain people in my country to whom this hieroglyphic should appear exceedingly appropriate. This, which comes after it, is a shield upon an arm, holding a lance; that means ‘_struggle_, _battle_.’ Thus the two characters, together, form this motto, which strikes me as a fine one, ‘_Life is a battle_.’ Pray do not fancy I can translate hieroglyphics at sight! It was a man learned in such matters who explained these to me. Here, I will give you my scarabaeus. Whenever you feel some wicked Corsican thought stir in you, look at my talisman, and tell yourself you must win the battle our evil passions wage against us. Why, really, I don’t preach at all badly!”
“I shall think of you, Miss Nevil, and I shall say to myself----” “Say to yourself you have a friend who would be in despair at the idea of your being hanged--and besides it would be too distressing for your ancestors the corporals!”
With these words she dropped Orso’s arm, laughing and running to her father.
“Papa,” she said, “do leave those poor birds alone, and come and make up poetry with us, in Napoleon’s grotto!”
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There is always a certain solemnity about a departure, even when the separation is only to be a short one. Orso and his sister were to start very early in the morning, and he had taken his leave of Miss Lydia the night before--for he had no hope that she would disturb her indolent habits on his account. Their farewells had been cold and grave. Since that conversation on the sea-shore, Miss Lydia had been afraid she had perhaps shown too strong an interest in Orso, and on the other hand, her jests, and more especially her careless tone, lay heavy on Orso’s heart. At one moment he had thought the young Englishwoman’s manner betrayed a budding feeling of affection, but now, put out of countenance by her jests, he told himself she only looked on him as a mere acquaintance, who would be soon forgotten. Great, therefore, was his surprise, next morning, when, as he sat at coffee with the colonel, he saw Miss Lydia come into the room, followed by his sister. She had risen at five o’clock, and for an Englishwoman, and especially for Miss Nevil, the effort was so great that it could not but give him some cause for vanity.
“I am so sorry you should have disturbed yourself so early,” said Orso. “No doubt my sister woke you up in spite of my injunctions, and you must hate us heartily! Perhaps you wish I was hanged already!”
“No,” said Miss Lydia, very low and in Italian, evidently so that her father might not hear her, “but you were somewhat sulky with me yesterday, because of my innocent jokes, and I would not have you carry away an unpleasant recollection of your humble servant. What terrible people you are, you Corsicans! Well, good-bye! We shall meet soon, I hope.”
And she held out her hand.
A sigh was the only answer Orso could find. Colomba came to his side, led him into a window, and spoke to him for a moment in an undertone, showing him something she held under her _mezzaro_.
“Mademoiselle,” said Orso to Miss Nevil, “my sister is anxious to give you a very odd present, but we Corsicans have not much to offer--except our affection--which time never wipes out. My sister tells me you have looked with some curiosity at this dagger. It is an ancient possession in our family. It probably hung, once upon a time, at the belt of one of those corporals, to whom I owe the honour of your acquaintance. Colomba thinks it so precious that she has asked my leave to give it to you, and I hardly know if I ought to grant it, for I am afraid you’ll laugh at us!”
“The dagger is beautiful,” said Miss Lydia. “But it is a family weapon, I can not accept it!”
“It’s not my father’s dagger,” exclaimed Colomba eagerly; “it was given to one of mother’s ancestors by King Theodore. If the signorina will accept it, she will give us great pleasure.”
“Come, Miss Lydia,” said Orso, “don’t scorn a king’s dagger!”
To a collector, relics of King Theodore are infinitely more precious than those of the most powerful of monarchs. The temptation was a strong one, and already Miss Lydia could see the effect the weapon would produce laid out on a lacquered table in her room at St. James’s Place.
“But,” said she, taking the dagger with the hesitating air of one who longs to accept, and casting one of her most delightful smiles on Colomba, “dear Signorina Colomba . . . I can not . . . I should not dare to let you depart thus, unarmed.”
“My brother is with me,” said Colomba proudly, “and we have the good gun your father has given us. Orso, have you put a bullet in it?”
Miss Nevil kept the dagger, and to avert the danger consequent on _giving_ instruments that cut or pierce to a friend, Colomba insisted on receiving a soldo in payment.
A start had to be made at last. Yet once again Orso pressed Miss Nevil’s hand, Colomba kissed her, and then held up her rosy lips to the colonel, who was enchanted with this Corsican politeness. From the window of the drawing-room Miss Lydia watched the brother and sister mount their horses. Colomba’s eyes shone with a malignant joy which she had never remarked in them before. The sight of this tall strong creature, with her fanatical ideas of savage honour, pride written on her forehead, and curled in a sardonic smile upon her lips, carrying off the young man with his weapons, as though on some death-dealing errand, recalled Orso’s fears to her, and she fancied she beheld his evil genius dragging him to his ruin. Orso, who was already in the saddle, raised his head and caught sight of her. Either because he had guessed her thought, or desired to send her a last farewell, he took the Egyptian ring, which he had hung upon a ribbon, and carried it to his lips. Blushing, Miss Lydia stepped back from the window, then returning to it almost at once, she saw the two Corsicans cantering their little ponies rapidly toward the mountains. Half an hour later the colonel showed them to her, through his glasses, riding along the end of the bay, and she noticed that Orso constantly turned his head toward the town. At last he disappeared behind the marshes, the site of which is now filled by a flourishing nursery garden.
Miss Lydia glanced at herself in the glass, and thought she looked pale.
“What must that young man think of me,” said she, “and what did I think of him? And why did I think about him? . . . A travelling acquaintance! . . . What have I come to Corsica for? . . . Oh! I don’t care for him! . . . No! no! and besides the thing is impossible . . . And Colomba . . . Fancy me sister-in-law to a _voceratrice_, who wears a big dagger!”
And she noticed she was still holding King Theodore’s dagger in her hand. She tossed it on to her toilette table. “Colomba, in London, dancing at Almacks! . . . Good heavens! what a lion[*] that would be, to show off! . . . Perhaps she’d make a great sensation! . . . He loves me, I’m certain of it! He is the hero of a novel, and I have interrupted his adventurous career. . . . But did he really long to avenge his father in true Corsican fashion? . . . He was something between a Conrad and a dandy . . . I’ve turned him into nothing but a dandy! . . . And a dandy with a Corsican tailor! . . .” [*] At this period this name was used in England for people who were the fashion because they had something extraordinary about them.
She threw herself on her bed, and tried to sleep--but that proved an impossibility, and I will not undertake to continue her soliloquy, during which she declared, more than a hundred times over, that Signor della Rebbia had not been, was not, and never should be, anything to her.
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Meanwhile Orso was riding along beside his sister. At first the speed at which their horses moved prevented all conversation, but when the hills grew so steep that they were obliged to go at a foot’s pace, they began to exchange a few words about the friends from whom they had just parted. Colomba spoke with admiration of Miss Nevil’s beauty, of her golden hair, and charming ways. Then she asked whether the colonel was really as rich as he appeared, and whether Miss Lydia was his only child.
“She would be a good match,” said she. “Her father seems to have a great liking for you----” And as Orso made no response, she added: “Our family was rich, in days gone by. It is still one of the most respected in the island. All these _signori_ about us are bastards. The only noble blood left is in the families of the corporals, and as you know, Orso, your ancestors were the chief corporals in the island. You know our family came from beyond the hills, and it was the civil wars that forced us over to this side. If I were you, Orso, I shouldn’t hesitate--I should ask Colonel Nevil for his daughter’s hand.” Orso shrugged his shoulders. “With her fortune, you might buy the Falsetta woods, and the vineyards below ours. I would build a fine stone house, and add a story to the old tower in which Sambucuccio killed so many Moors in the days of Count Henry, _il bel Missere_.”
“Colomba, you’re talking nonsense,” said Orso, cantering forward.
“You are a man, Ors’ Anton’, and of course you know what you ought to do better than any woman. But I should very much like to know what objection that Englishman could have to the marriage. Are there any corporals in England?”
After a somewhat lengthy ride, spent in talking in this fashion, the brother and sister reached a little village, not far from Bocognano, where they halted to dine and sleep at a friend’s house. They were welcomed with a hospitality which must be experienced before it can be appreciated. The next morning, their host, who had stood godfather to a child to whom Madame della Rebbia had been godmother, accompanied them a league beyond his house.
“Do you see those woods and thickets?” said he to Orso, just as they were parting. “A man who had met with a misfortune might live there peacefully for ten years, and no gendarme or soldier would ever come to look for him. The woods run into the Vizzavona forest, and anybody who had friends at Bocognano or in the neighbourhood would want for nothing. That’s a good gun you have there. It must carry a long way. Blood of the Madonna! What calibre! You might kill better game than boars with it!”
Orso answered, coldly, that his gun was of English make, and carried “the lead” a long distance. The friends embraced, and took their different ways.
Our travellers were drawing quite close to Pietranera, when, at the entrance of a little gorge, through which they had to pass, they beheld seven or eight men, armed with guns, some sitting on stones, others lying on the grass, others standing up, and seemingly on the lookout. Their horses were grazing a little way off. Colomba looked at them for a moment, through a spy-glass which she took out of one of the large leathern pockets all Corsicans wear when on a journey.
“Those are our men!” she cried, with a well-pleased air. “Pieruccio had done his errand well!”
“What men?” inquired Orso.
“Our herdsmen,” she replied. “I sent Pieruccio off yesterday evening to call the good fellows together, so that they may attend you home. It would not do for you to enter Pietranera without an escort, and besides, you must know the Barricini are capable of anything!”
“Colomba,” said Orso, and his tone was severe, “I have asked you, over and over again, not to mention the Barricini and your groundless suspicions to me. I shall certainly not make myself ridiculous by riding home with all these loafers behind me, and I am very angry with you for having sent for them without telling me.”
“Brother, you have forgotten the ways of your own country. It is my business to protect you, when your own imprudence exposes you to danger. It was my duty to do what I have done.”
Just at that moment the herdsmen, who had caught sight of them, hastened to their horses, and galloped down the hill to meet them.
“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” shouted a brawny, white-bearded old fellow, wrapped, despite the heat, in a hooded cloak of Corsican cloth, thicker than the skins of his own goats. “The image of his father, only taller and stronger! What a splendid gun! There’ll be talk about that gun, Ors’ Anton’!”
“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” chorused the herdsmen. “We were sure you’d come back, at last!”
“Ah! Ors’ Anton’!” cried a tall fellow, with a skin tanned brick red. “How happy your father would be, if he were here to welcome you! The dear, good man! You would have seen him now, if he would have listened to me--if he would have let me settle Guidice’s business! . . . But he wouldn’t listen to me, poor fellow! He knows I was right, now!”
“Well, well!” said the old man. “Guidice will lose nothing by waiting.”
“Evvviva Ors’ Anton’!” And the reports of a dozen guns capped the plaudit.
Very much put out, Orso sat in the midst of the group of mounted men, all talking at once, and crowding round to shake hands with him. For some time he could not make himself heard. At last, with the air he put on when he used to reprimand the men of his company, or send one of them to the guard-room, he said: “I thank you, friends, for the affection you show for me, and for that which you felt for my father! But I do not want advice from any of you, and you must not offer it. I know my own duty.”
“He’s right! He’s right!” cried the herdsmen. “You know you may reckon on us!”
“Yes, I do reckon on you. But at this moment I need no help, and no personal danger threatens me. Now face round at once, and be off with you to your goats. I know my way to Pietranera, and I want no guides.”
“Fear nothing, Ors’ Anton’,” said the old man. “They would never dare to show their noses to-day. The mouse runs back to its hole when the tom-cat comes out!”
“Tom-cat yourself, old gray-beard!” said Orso. “What’s your name?”
“What! don’t you remember me, Ors’ Anton’? I who have so often taken you up behind me on that biting mule of mine! You don’t remember Polo Griffo? I’m an honest fellow, though, and with the della Rebbia, body and soul. Say but the word, and when that big gun of yours speaks, this old musket of mine, as old as its master, shall not be dumb. Be sure of that, Ors’ Anton’!”
“Well, well! But be off with you now, in the devil’s name, and let us go on our way!”
At last the herdsmen departed, trotting rapidly off toward the village, but they stopped every here and there, at all the highest spots on the road, as though they were looking out for some hidden ambuscade, always keeping near enough to Orso and his sister to be able to come to their assistance if necessary. And old Polo Griffo said to his comrades: “I understand him! I understand him! He’ll not say what he means to do, but he’ll do it! He’s the born image of his father. Ah! you may say you have no spite against any one, my boy! But you’ve made your vow to Saint Nega. [*] Bravo! I wouldn’t give a fig for the mayor’s hide--there won’t be the makings of a wineskin in it before the month is out!”
[*] This saint is not mentioned in the calendar. To make a vow to Saint Nega means to deny everything deliberately.
Preceded by this troop of skirmishers, the last descendant of the della Rebbia entered the village, and proceeded to the old mansion of his forefathers, the corporals. The Rebbianites, who had long been leaderless, had gathered to welcome him, and those dwellers in the village who observed a neutral line of conduct all came to their doorsteps to see him pass by. The adherents of the Barricini remained inside their houses, and peeped out of the slits in their shutters.
The village of Pietranera is very irregularly built, like most Corsican villages--for indeed, to see a street, the traveller must betake himself to Cargese, which was built by Monsieur de Marboeuf. The houses, scattered irregularly about, without the least attempt at orderly arrangement, cover the top of a small plateau, or rather of a ridge of the mountain. Toward the centre of the village stands a great evergreen oak, and close beside it may be seen a granite trough, into which the water of a neighbouring spring is conveyed by a wooden pipe. This monument of public utility was constructed at the common expense of the della Rebbia and Barricini families. But the man who imagined this to be a sign of former friendship between the two families would be sorely mistaken. On the contrary, it is the outcome of their mutual jealousy. Once upon a time, Colonel della Rebbia sent a small sum of money to the Municipal Council of his commune to help to provide a fountain. The lawyer Barricini hastened to forward a similar gift, and to this generous strife Pietranera owes its water supply. Round about the evergreen oak and the fountain there is a clear space, known as “the Square,” on which the local idlers gather every night. Sometimes they play at cards, and once a year, in Carnival-time, they dance. At the two ends of the square stands two edifices, of greater height than breadth, built of a mixture of granite and schist. These are the _Towers_ of the two opposing families, the Barricini and the della Rebbia. Their architecture is exactly alike, their height is similar, and it is quite evident that the rivalry of the two families has never been absolutely decided by any stroke of fortune in favor of either.
It may perhaps be well to explain what should be understood by this word, “Tower.” It is a square building, some forty feet in height, which in any other country would be simply described as a pigeon-house. A narrow entrance-door, eight feet above the level of the ground, is reached by a very steep flight of steps. Above the door is a window, in front of which runs a sort of balcony, the floor of which is pierced with openings, like a machicolation, through which the inhabitants may destroy an unwelcome visitor without any danger to themselves. Between the window and the door are two escutcheons, roughly carved. One of these bears what was originally a Genoese cross, now so battered that nobody but an antiquary could recognise it. On the other are chiselled the arms of the family to whom the Tower belongs. If the reader will complete this scheme of decoration by imagining several bullet marks on the escutcheons and on the window frames, he will have a fair idea of a Corsican mansion, dating from the middle ages. I had forgotten to add that the dwelling-house adjoins the tower, and is frequently connected with it by some interior passage.
The della Rebbia house and tower stand on the northern side of the square at Pietranera. The Barricini house and tower are on the southern side. Since the colonel’s wife had been buried, no member of either family had ever been seen on any side of the square, save that assigned by tacit agreement to its own party. Orso was about to ride past the mayor’s house when his sister checked him, and suggested his turning down a lane that would take them to their own dwelling without crossing the square at all.
“Why should we go out of our way?” said Orso. “Doesn’t the square belong to everybody?” and he rode on.
“Brave heart!” murmured Colomba. “. . . My father! you will be avenged!”
When they reached the square, Colomba put herself between her brother and the Barricini mansion, and her eyes never left her enemy’s windows. She noticed that they had been lately barricaded and provided with _archere_. _Archere_ is the name given to narrow openings like loopholes, made between the big logs of wood used to close up the lower parts of the windows. When an onslaught is expected, this sort of barricade is used, and from behind the logs the attacked party can fire at its assailants with ease and safety.
“The cowards!” said Colomba. “Look, brother, they have begun to protect themselves! They have put up barricades! But some day or other they’ll have to come out.”
Orso’s presence on the southern side of the square made a great sensation at Pietranera, and was taken to be a proof of boldness savouring of temerity. It was subject of endless comment on the part of the neutrals, when they gathered around the evergreen oak, that night.
“It is a good thing,” they said, “that Barricini’s sons are not back yet, for they are not so patient as the lawyer, and very likely they would not have let their enemy set his foot on their ground without making him pay for his bravado.”
“Remember what I am telling you, neighbour,” said an old man, the village oracle. “I watched Colomba’s face to-day. She had some idea in her head. I smell powder in the air. Before long, butcher’s meat will be cheap in Pietranera!”
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Orso had been parted from his father at so early an age that he had scarcely had time to know him. He had left Pietranera to pursue his studies at Pisa when he was only fifteen. Thence he had passed into the military school, and Ghilfuccio, meanwhile, was bearing the Imperial Eagles all over Europe. On the mainland, Orso only saw his father at rare intervals, and it was not until 1815 that he found himself in the regiment he commanded. But the colonel, who was an inflexible disciplinarian, treated his son just like any other sub-lieutenant--in other words, with great severity. Orso’s memories of him were of two kinds: He recollected him, at Pietranera, as the father who would trust him with his sword, and would let him fire off his gun when he came in from a shooting expedition, or who made him sit down, for the first time, tiny urchin as he was, at the family dinner-table. Then he remembered the Colonel della Rebbia who would put him under arrest for some blunder, and who never called him anything but Lieutenant della Rebbia.
“Lieutenant della Rebbia, you are not in your right place on parade. You will be confined to barracks three days.”
“Your skirmishers are five yards too far from your main body--five days in barracks.”
“It is five minutes past noon, and you are still in your forage-cap--a week in barracks.”
Only once, at Quatre-Bras, he had said to him, “Well done, Orso! But be cautious!”
But, after all, these later memories were not connected in his mind with Pietranera. The sight of the places so familiar to him in his childish days, of the furniture he had seen used by his mother, to whom he had been fondly attached, filled his soul with a host of tender and painful emotions. Then the gloomy future that lay before him, the vague anxiety he felt about his sister, and, above all other things, the thought that Miss Nevil was coming to his house, which now struck him as being so small, so poor, so unsuited to a person accustomed to luxury--the idea that she might possibly despise it--all these feelings made his brain a chaos, and filled him with a sense of deep discouragement.
At supper he sat in the great oaken chair, blackened with age, in which his father had always presided at the head of the family table, and he smiled when he saw that Colomba hesitated to sit down with him. But he was grateful to her for her silence during the meal, and for her speedy retirement afterward. For he felt he was too deeply moved to be able to resist the attack she was no doubt preparing to make upon him. Colomba, however, was dealing warily with him, and meant to give him time to collect himself. He sat for a long time motionless, with his head on his hand, thinking over the scenes of the last fortnight of his life. He saw, with alarm, how every one seemed to be watching what would be his behaviour to the Barricini. Already he began to perceive that the opinion of Pietranera was beginning to be the opinion of all the world to him. He would have to avenge himself, or be taken for a coward! But on whom was he to take vengeance? He could not believe the Barricini to be guilty of murder. They were his family enemies, certainly, but only the vulgar prejudice of his fellow-countrymen could accuse them of being murderers. Sometimes he would look at Miss Nevil’s talisman, and whisper the motto “Life is a battle!” over to himself. At last, in a resolute voice, he said, “I will win it!” Strong in that thought, he rose to his feet, took up the lamp, and was just going up to his room, when he heard a knock at the door of the house. It was a very unusual hour for any visitor to appear. Colomba instantly made her appearance, followed by the woman who acted as their servant.
“It’s nothing!” she said, hurrying to the door.
Yet before she opened it she inquired who knocked. A gentle voice answered, “It is I.” Instantly the wooden bar across the door was withdrawn, and Colomba reappeared in the dining-room, followed by a little ragged, bare-footed girl of about ten years old, her head bound with a shabby kerchief, from which escaped long locks of hair, as black as the raven’s wing. The child was thin and pale, her skin was sunburnt, but her eyes shone with intelligence. When she saw Orso she stopped shyly, and courtesied to him, peasant fashion--then she said something in an undertone to Colomba, and gave her a freshly killed pheasant.
“Thanks, Chili,” said Colomba. “Thank your uncle for me. Is he well?”
“Very well, signorina, at your service. I couldn’t come sooner because he was late. I waited for him in the _maquis_ for three hours.”
“And you’ve had no supper?”
“Why no, signorina! I’ve not had time.”
“You shall have some supper here. Has your uncle any bread left?”
“Very little, signorina. But what he is most short of is powder. Now the chestnuts are in, the only other thing he wants is powder.”
“I will give you a loaf for him, and some powder, too. Tell him to use it sparingly--it is very dear.”
“Colomba,” said Orso in French, “on whom are you bestowing your charity?”
“On a poor bandit belonging to this village,” replied Colomba in the same language. “This little girl is his niece.”
“It strikes me you might place your gifts better. Why should you send powder to a ruffian who will use it to commit crimes? But for the deplorable weakness every one here seems to have for the bandits, they would have disappeared out of Corsica long ago.”
“The worst men in our country are not those who are ‘in the country. ’” “Give them bread, if it so please you. But I will not have you supply them with ammunition.”
“Brother,” said Colomba, in a serious voice, “you are master here, and everything in this house belongs to you. But I warn you that I will give this little girl my _mezzaro_, so that she may sell it; rather than refuse powder to a bandit. Refuse to give him powder! I might just as well make him over to the gendarmes! What has he to protect him against them, except his cartridges?”
All this while the little girl was ravenously devouring a bit of bread, and carefully watching Colomba and her brother, turn about, trying to read the meaning of what they were saying in their eyes.
“And what has this bandit of yours done? What crime has driven him into the _maquis_?”
“Brandolaccio has not committed any crime,” exclaimed Colomba. “He killed Giovan’ Oppizo, who murdered his father while he was away serving in the army!”
Orso turned away his head, took up the lamp, and, without a word, departed to his bedroom. Then Colomba gave the child food and gunpowder, and went with her as far as the house-door, saying over and over again: “Mind your uncle takes good care of Orso!”
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It was long before Orso fell asleep, and as a consequence he woke late--late for a Corsican, at all events. When he left his bed, the first object that struck his gaze was the house of his enemies, and the _archere_ with which they had furnished it. He went downstairs and asked for his sister.
“She is in the kitchen, melting bullets,” answered Saveria, the woman-servant.
So he could not take a step without being pursued by the image of war.
He found Colomba sitting on a stool, surrounded by freshly cast bullets, and cutting up strips of lead.
“What the devil are you doing?” inquired her brother.
“You had no bullets for the colonel’s gun,” she answered, in her soft voice. “I found I had a mould for that calibre, and you shall have four-and-twenty cartridges to-day, brother.”
“I don’t need them, thank God!”
“You mustn’t be taken at a disadvantage, Ors’ Anton’. You have forgotten your country, and the people who are about you.”
“If I had forgotten, you would soon have reminded me. Tell me, did not a big trunk arrive here some days ago?”
“Yes, brother. Shall I take it up to your room?”
“You take it up! Why, you’d never be strong enough even to lift it! . . . Is there no man about who can do it?”
“I’m not so weak as you think!” said Colomba, turning up her sleeves, and displaying a pair of round white arms, perfect in shape, but looking more than ordinarily strong. “Here, Saveria,” said she to the servant; “come and help me!”
She was already lifting the trunk alone, when Orso came hastily to her assistance.
“There is something for you in this trunk, my dear Colomba,” said he. “You must excuse the modesty of my gifts. A lieutenant on half-pay hasn’t a very well-lined purse!”
As he spoke, he opened the trunk, and took out of it a few gowns, a shawl, and some other things likely to be useful to a young girl.
“What beautiful things!” cried Colomba. “I’ll put them away at once, for fear they should be spoiled. I’ll keep them for my wedding,” she added, with a sad smile, “for I am in mourning now!”
And she kissed her brother’s hand.
“It looks affected, my dear sister, to wear your mourning for so long.”
“I have sworn an oath,” said Colomba resolutely, “I’ll not take off my mourning. . . .” And her eyes were riveted on the Barricini mansion.
“Until your wedding day?” said Orso, trying to avoid the end of her sentence.
“I shall never marry any man,” said Colomba, “unless he has done three things . . .” And her eyes still rested gloomily on the house of the enemy.
“You are so pretty, Colomba, that I wonder you are not married already! Come, you must tell me about your suitors. And besides, I’m sure to hear their serenades. They must be good ones to please a great _voceratrice_ like you.”
“Who would seek the hand of a poor orphan girl? . . . And then, the man for whom I would change my mourning-dress will have to make the women over there put on mourning!”
“This is becoming a perfect mania,” said Orso to himself. But to avoid discussion he said nothing at all.
“Brother,” said Colomba caressingly, “I have something to give you, too. The clothes you are wearing are much too grand for this country. Your fine cloth frock-coat would be in tatters in two days, if you wore it in the _maquis_. You must keep it for the time when Miss Nevil comes.”
Then, opening a cupboard, she took out a complete hunting dress.
“I’ve made you a velvet jacket, and here’s a cap, such as our smart young men wear. I embroidered it for you, ever so long ago. Will you try them on?” And she made him put on a loose green velvet jacket, with a huge pocket at the back. On his head she set a pointed black velvet cap, embroidered with jet and silk of the same colour, and finished with a sort of tassel.
“Here is our father’s _carchera_“[*] she said. “His stiletto is in the pocket of the jacket. I’ll fetch you his pistol.”
[*] Carchera, a belt for cartridges. A pistol is worn fastened to the left side of it.
“I look like a brigand at the Ambigu-Comique,” said Orso, as he looked at himself in the little glass Saveria was holding up for him.
“Indeed, you look first-rate, dressed like that, Ors’ Anton’,” said the old servant, “and the smartest _pinsuto_[*] in Bocognano or Bastelica is not braver.”
[*] Pinsuto, the name given to men who wear the pointed cap, _barreta pinsuta_.
Orso wore his new clothes at breakfast, and during that meal he told his sister that his trunk contained a certain number of books, that he was going to send to France and Italy for others, and intended she should study a great deal.
“For it really is disgraceful, Colomba,” he added, “that a grown-up girl like you should still be ignorant of things that children on the mainland know as soon as they are weaned.”
“You are right, brother,” said Colomba. “I know my own shortcomings quite well, and I shall be too glad to learn--especially if you are kind enough to teach me.”
Some days went by, and Colomba never mentioned the name of Barricini. She lavished care and attention on her brother, and often talked to him about Miss Nevil. Orso made her read French and Italian books, and was constantly being surprised either by the correctness and good sense of her comments, or by her utter ignorance on the most ordinary subjects.
One morning, after breakfast, Colomba left the room for a moment, and instead of returning as usual, with a book and some sheets of paper, reappeared with her _mezzaro_ on her head. The expression of her countenance was even more serious than it generally was.
“Brother,” she said, “I want you to come out with me.”
“Where do you want me to go with you?” said Orso, holding out his arm.
“I don’t want your arm, brother, but take your gun and your cartridge-pouch. A man should never go abroad without his arms.”
“So be it. I must follow the fashion. Where are we going?”
Colomba, without answering, drew her _mezzaro_ closer about her head, called the watch-dog, and went out followed by her brother. Striding swiftly out of the village, she turned into a sunken road that wound among the vineyards, sending on the dog, to whom she made some gesture, which he seemed to understand, in front of her. He instantly began to run zigzag fashion, through the vines, first on one side and then on the other, always keeping within about fifty paces of his mistress, and occasionally stopping in the middle of the road and wagging his tail. He seemed to perform his duties as a scout in the most perfect fashion imaginable.
“If Muschetto begins to bark, brother,” said Colomba, “cock your gun, and stand still.”
Half a mile beyond the village, after making many detours, Colomba stopped short, just where there was a bend in the road. On that spot there rose a little pyramid of branches, some of them green, some withered, heaped about three feet high. Above them rose the top of a wooden cross, painted black. In several of the Corsican cantons, especially those among the mountains, a very ancient custom, connected, it may be with some pagan superstition, constrains every passer-by to cast either a stone or a branch on the spot whereon a man has died a violent death. For years and years--as long as the memory of his tragic fate endures--this strange offering goes on accumulating from day to day.
This is called the dead man’s _pile_--his “_mucchio_.”
Colomba stopped before the heap of foliage, broke off an arbutus branch, and cast it on the pile.
“Orso,” she said, “this is where your father died. Let us pray for his soul!”
And she knelt down. Orso instantly followed her example. At that moment the village church-bell tolled slowly for a man who had died during the preceding night. Orso burst into tears.
After a few minutes Colomba rose. Her eyes were dry, but her face was eager. She hastily crossed herself with her thumb, after the fashion generally adopted by her companions, to seal any solemn oath, then, hurrying her brother with her, she took her way back to the village. They re-entered their house in silence. Orso went up to his room. A moment afterward Colomba followed him, carrying a small casket which she set upon the table. Opening it, she drew out a shirt, covered with great stains of blood.
“Here is your father’s shirt, Orso!”
And she threw it across his knees. “Here is the lead that killed him!” And she laid two blackened bullets on the shirt.
“Orso! Brother!” she cried, throwing herself into his arms and clasping him desperately to her. “Orso, you will avenge him!”
In a sort of frenzy she kissed him, then kissed the shirt and the bullets, and went out of the room, leaving her brother sitting on his chair, as if he had been turned to stone. For some time Orso sat motionless, not daring to put the terrible relics away. At last, with an effort, he laid them back in their box, rushed to the opposite end of his room, and threw himself on his bed, with his face turned to the wall, and his head buried in his pillow, as though he were trying to shut out the sight of some ghost. His sister’s last words rang unceasingly in his ears, like the words of an oracle, fatal, inevitable, calling out to him for blood, and for innocent blood! I shall not attempt to depict the unhappy young man’s sensations, which were as confused as those that overwhelm a madman’s brain. For a long time he lay in the same position, without daring to turn his head. At last he got up, closed the lid of the casket, and rushed headlong out of the house, into the open country, moving aimlessly forward, whither he knew not.
By degrees, the fresh air did him good. He grew calmer, and began to consider his position, and his means of escape from it, with some composure. He did not, as my readers already know, suspect the Barricini of the murder, but he did accuse them of having forged Agostini’s letter, and this letter, he believed, at any rate, had brought about his father’s death. He felt it was impossible to prosecute them for the forgery. Now and then, when the prejudices or the instincts of his race assailed him, and suggested an easy vengeance--a shot fired at the corner of some path--the thought of his brother-officers, of Parisian drawing-rooms, and above all, of Miss Nevil, made him shrink from them in horror. Then his mind dwelt on his sister’s reproaches, and all the Corsican within him justified her appeal, and even intensified its bitterness. One hope alone remained to him, in this battle between his conscience and his prejudices--the hope that, on some pretext or other, he might pick a quarrel with one of the lawyer’s sons, and fight a duel with him. The idea of killing the young man, either by a bullet or a sword-thrust reconciled his French and Corsican ideas. This expedient adopted, he began to meditate means for its execution, and was feeling relieved already of a heavy burden, when other and gentler thoughts contributed still further to calm his feverish agitation. Cicero, in his despair at the death of his daughter Tullia, forgot his sorrow when he mused over all the fine things he might say about it. Mr. Shandy consoled himself by discourses of the same nature for the loss of his son. Orso cooled his blood by thinking that he would depict his state of mind to Miss Nevil, and that such a picture could not fail to interest that fair lady deeply.
He was drawing near the village, from which he had unconsciously travelled a considerable distance, when he heard the voice of a little girl, who probably believed herself to be quite alone, singing in a path that ran along the edge of the _maquis_. It was one of those slow, monotonous airs consecrated to funeral dirges, and the child was singing the words: “And when my son shall see again the dwelling of his father, Give him that murdered father’s cross; show him my shirt blood- spattered.”
“What’s that you’re singing, child?” said Orso, in an angry voice, as he suddenly appeared before her.
“Is that you, Ors’ Anton’?” exclaimed the child, rather startled. “It is Signorina Colomba’s song.”
“I forbid you to sing it!” said Orso, in a threatening voice.
The child kept turning her head this way and that, as though looking about for a way of escape, and she would certainly have run off had she not been held back by the necessity of taking care of a large bundle which lay on the grass, at her feet.
Orso felt ashamed of his own vehemence. “What are you carrying there, little one?” said he, with all the gentleness he could muster. And as Chilina hesitated, he lifted up the linen that was wrapped round the bundle, and saw it contained a loaf of bread and other food.
“To whom are you bringing the loaf, my dear?” he asked again.
“You know quite well, Ors’ Anton’: to my uncle.”
“And isn’t your uncle a bandit?”
“At your service, Ors’ Anton’.”
“If you met the gendarmes, they would ask you where you were going. . . .” “I should tell them,” the child replied, at once, “that I was taking food to the men from Lucca who were cutting down the _maquis_.”
“And if you came across some hungry hunter who insisted on dining at your expense, and took your provisions away from you?”
“Nobody would dare! I would say they are for my uncle!”
“Well! he’s not the sort of man to let himself be cheated of his dinner! . . . Is your uncle very fond of you?”
“Oh, yes, Ors’ Anton’. Ever since my father died, he has taken care of my whole family--my mother and my little sister, and me. Before mother was ill, he used to recommend her to rich people, who gave her employment. The mayor gives me a frock every year, and the priest has taught me my catechism, and how to read, ever since my uncle spoke to them about us. But your sister is kindest of all to us!”
Just at this moment a dog ran out on the pathway. The little girl put two of her fingers into her mouth and gave a shrill whistle, the dog came to her at once, fawned upon her, and then plunged swiftly into the thicket. Soon two men, ill-dressed, but very well armed, rose up out of a clump of young wood a few paces from where Orso stood. It was as though they had crawled up like snakes through the tangle of cytisus and myrtle that covered the ground.
“Oh, Ors’ Anton’, you’re welcome!” said the elder of the two men. “Why, don’t you remember me?”
“No!” said Orso, looking hard at him.
“Queer how a beard and a peaked cap alter a man! Come, monsieur, look at me well! Have you forgotten your old Waterloo men? Don’t you remember Brando Savelli, who bit open more than one cartridge alongside of you on that unlucky day?”
“What! Is it you?” said Orso. “And you deserted in 1816!”
“Even so, sir. Faith! soldiering grows tiresome, and besides, I had a job to settle over in this country. Aha, Chili! You’re a good girl! Give us our dinner at once, we’re hungry. You’ve no notion what an appetite one gets in the _maquis_. Who sent us this--was it Signorina Colomba or the mayor?”
“No, uncle, it was the miller’s wife. She gave me this for you, and a blanket for my mother.”
“What does she want of me?”
“She says the Lucchesi she hired to clear the _maquis_ are asking her five-and-thirty sous, and chestnuts as well--because of the fever in the lower parts of Pietranera.”
“The lazy scamps! . . . I’ll see to them! . . . Will you share our dinner, monsieur, without any ceremony? We’ve eaten worse meals together, in the days of that poor compatriot of ours, whom they have discharged from the army.”
“No, I thank you heartily. They have discharged me, too!”
“Yes, so I heard. But I’ll wager you weren’t sorry for it. You have your own account to settle too. . . . Come along, cure,” said the bandit to his comrade. “Let’s dine! Signor Orso, let me introduce the cure. I’m not quite sure he is a cure. But he knows as much as any priest, at all events!”
“A poor student of theology, monsieur,” quoth the second bandit, “who has been prevented from following his vocation. Who knows, Brandolaccio, I might have been Pope!”
“What was it that deprived the Church of your learning?” inquired Orso.
“A mere nothing--a bill that had to be settled, as my friend Brandolaccio puts it. One of my sisters had been making a fool of herself, while I was devouring book-lore at Pisa University. I had to come home, to get her married. But her future husband was in too great a hurry; he died of fever three days before I arrived. Then I called, as you would have done in my place, on the dead man’s brother. I was told he was married. What was I to do?”
“It really was puzzling! What did you do?”
“It was one of those cases in which one has to resort to the gunflint.”
“In other words?”
“I put a bullet in his head,” said the bandit coolly.
Orso made a horrified gesture. Nevertheless, curiosity, and, it may be, his desire to put off the moment when he must return home, induced him to remain where he was, and continue his conversation with the two men, each of whom had at least one murder on his conscience.
While his comrade was talking, Brandolaccio was laying bread and meat in front of him. He helped himself--then he gave some food to this dog, whom he introduced to Orso under the name of Brusco, as an animal possessing a wonderful instinct for recognising a soldier, whatever might be the disguise he had assumed. Lastly, he cut off a hunch of bread and a slice of raw ham, and gave them to his niece. “Oh, the merry life a bandit lives!” cried the student of theology, after he had swallowed a few mouthfuls. “You’ll try it some day, perhaps, Signor della Rebbia, and you’ll find out how delightful it is to acknowledge no master save one’s own fancy!”
Hitherto the bandit had talked Italian. He now proceeded in French.
“Corsica is not a very amusing country for a young man to live in--but for a bandit, there’s the difference! The women are all wild about us. I, as you see me now, have three mistresses in three different villages. I am at home in every one of them, and one of the ladies is married to a gendarme!”
“You know many languages, monsieur!” said Orso gravely.
“If I talk French, ‘tis because, look you, _maxima debetur pueris reverentia_! We have made up our minds, Brandolaccio and I, that the little girl shall turn out well, and go straight.”
“When she is turned fifteen,” remarked Chilina’s uncle, “I’ll find a good husband for her. I have one in my eye already.”
“Shall you make the proposal yourself?” said Orso.
“Of course! Do you suppose that any well-to-do man in this neighbourhood, to whom I said, ‘I should be glad to see a marriage between your son and Michilina Savelli,’ would require any pressing?”
“I wouldn’t advise him to!” quoth the other bandit. “Friend Brandolaccio has rather a heavy hand!”
“If I were a rogue,” continued Brandolaccio, “a blackguard, a forger, I should only have to hold my wallet open, and the five-franc pieces would rain into it.”
“Then is there something inside your wallet that attracts them?” said Orso.
“Nothing. But if I were to write to a rich man, as some people have written, ‘I want a hundred francs,’ he would lose no time about sending them to me. But I’m a man of honour, monsieur.”
“Do you know, Signor della Rebbia,” said the bandit whom his comrade called the cure, “do you know that in this country, with all its simple habits, there are some wretches who make use of the esteem our passports” (and he touched his gun) “insure us, to draw forged bills in our handwriting?”
“I know it,” said Orso, in a gruff tone; “but what bills?”
“Six months ago,” said the bandit, “I was taking my walks abroad near Orezza, when a sort of lunatic came up to me, pulling off his cap to me even in the distance, and said: ‘Oh, M. le Cure’ (they always call me that), ‘please excuse me--give me time. I have only been able to get fifty-five francs together! Honour bright, that’s all I’ve been able to scrape up.’ I, in my astonishment, said, ‘Fifty-five francs! What do you mean, you rascal!’ ‘I mean sixty-five,’ he replied; ‘but as for the hundred francs you asked me to give you, it’s not possible.’ ‘What! you villain! I ask you for a hundred francs? I don’t know who you are.’ Then he showed me a letter, or rather a dirty rag of paper, whereby he was summoned to deposit a hundred francs on a certain spot, on pain of having his house burned and his cows killed by Giocanto Castriconi--that’s my name. And they had been vile enough to forge my signature! What annoyed me most was that the letter was written in _patois_, and was full of mistakes in spelling--I who won every prize at the university! I began by giving my rascal a cuff that made him twist round and round. ‘Aha! You take me for a thief, blackguard that you are!’ I said, and I gave him a hearty kick, you know where. Then feeling rather better, I went on, ‘When are you to take the money to the spot mentioned in the letter?’ ‘This very day.’ ‘Very good, then take it there!’ It was at the foot of a pine-tree, and the place had been exactly described. He brought the money, buried it at the foot of the tree, and came and joined me. I had hidden myself close by. There I stayed, with my man, for six mortal hours, M. della Rebbia. I’d have staid three days, if it had been necessary. At the end of six hours a _Bastiaccio_, a vile money-lender, made his appearance. As he bent down to take up the money, I fired, and I had aimed so well that, as he fell, his head dropped upon the coins he was unearthing. ‘Now, rascal,’ said I to the peasant, ‘take your money, and never dare to suspect Giocanto Castriconi of a mean trick again!’
“The poor devil, all of a tremble, picked up his sixty-five francs without taking the trouble to wipe them. He thanked me, I gave him a good parting kick, and he may be running away still, for all I know.”
“Ah, cure!” said Brandolaccio, “I envy you that shot! How you must have laughed!”
“I had hit the money-lender in the temple,” the bandit went on, “and that reminded me of Virgil’s lines: . . . “‘Liquefacto tempora plumbo Diffidit, ac multa porrectum, extendit arena.’
“_Liquefacto! _ Do you think, Signor Orso, that the rapidity with which a bullet flies through the air will melt it? You who have studied projectiles, tell me whether you think that idea is truth or fiction?”
Orso infinitely preferred discussing this question of physics to arguing with the licentiate as to the morality of his action. Brandolaccio, who did not find their scientific disquisition entertaining, interrupted it with the remark that the sun was just going to set.
“As you would not dine with us, Ors’ Anton’,” he said, “I advise you not to keep Mademoiselle Colomba waiting any longer. And then it is not always wise to be out on the roads after sunset. Why do you come out without a gun? There are bad folk about here--beware of them! You have nothing to fear to-day. The Barricini are bringing the prefect home with them. They have gone to meet him on the road, and he is to stop a day at Pietranera, before he goes on to Corte, to lay what they call a corner-stone--such stupid nonsense! He will sleep to-night with the Barricini; but to-morrow they’ll be disengaged. There is Vincentello, who is a good-for-nothing fellow, and Orlanduccio, who is not much better. . . . Try to come on them separately, one to-day, the other to-morrow. . . . But be on the lookout, that’s all I have to say to you!”
“Thanks for the warning,” said Orso. “But there is no quarrel between us. Until they come to look for me, I shall have nothing to say to them.”
The bandit stuck his tongue in his cheek, and smacked it ironically, but he made no reply. Orso got up to go away.
“By the way,” said Brandolaccio, “I haven’t thanked you for your powder. It came just when I needed it. Now I have everything I want . . . at least I do still want shoes . . . but I’ll make myself a pair out of the skin of a moufflon one of these days.”
Orso slipped two five-franc pieces into the bandit’s hand.
“It was Colomba who sent you the powder. This is to buy the shoes.”
“Nonsense, Lieutenant!” cried Brandolaccio, handing him back the two coins. “D’ye take me for a beggar? I accept bread and powder, but I won’t have anything else!”
“We are both old soldiers, so I thought we might have given each other a lift. Well, good-bye to you!”
But before he moved away he had slipped the money into he bandit’s wallet, unperceived by him.
“Good-bye, Ors’ Anton’,” quoth the theologian. “We shall meet again in the _maquis_, some day, perhaps, and then we’ll continue our study of Virgil.”
Quite a quarter of an hour after Orso had parted company with these worthies, he heard a man running after him, as fast as he could go. It was Brandolaccio.
“This is too bad, lieutenant!” he shouted breathlessly, “really it is too bad! I wouldn’t overlook the trick, if any other man had played it on me. Here are your ten francs. All my respects to Mademoiselle Colomba. You have made me run myself quite out of breath. Good-night!”
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Orso found Colomba in a state of considerable anxiety because of his prolonged absence. But as soon as she saw him she recovered her usual serene, though sad, expression. During the evening meal the conversation turned on trivial subjects, and Orso, emboldened by his sister’s apparent calm, related his encounter with the bandits, and even ventured on a joke or two concerning the moral and religious education that was being imparted to little Chilina, thanks to the care of her uncle and of his worthy colleague Signor Castriconi.
“Brandolaccio is an upright man,” said Colomba; “but as to Castriconi, I have heard he is quite unprincipled.”
“I think,” said Orso, “that he is as good as Brandolaccio, and Brandolaccio is as good as he. Both of them are at open war with society. Their first crime leads them on to fresh ones, every day, and yet they are very likely not half so guilty as many people who don’t live in the _maquis_.”
A flash of joy shone in his sister’s eyes. “Yes,” he continued, “these wretches have a code of honour of their own. It is a cruel prejudice, not a mean instinct of greed, that has forced them into the life they are leading.”
There was a silence.
“Brother,” said Colomba, as she poured out his coffee, “perhaps you have heard that Carlo-Battista Pietri died last night. Yes, he died of the marsh-fever.”
“Who is Pietri?”
“A man belonging to this village, the husband of Maddalena, who took the pocket-book out of our father’s hand as he was dying. His widow has been here to ask me to join the watchers, and sing something. You ought to come, too. They are our neighbours, and in a small place like this we can not do otherwise than pay them this civility.”
“Confound these wakes, Colomba! I don’t at all like my sister to perform in public in this way.”
“Orso,” replied Colomba, “every country pays honour to its dead after its own fashion. The _ballata_ has come down to us from our forefathers, and we must respect it as an ancient custom. Maddalena does not possess the ‘gift,’ and old Fiordispina, the best _voceratrice_ in the country, is ill. They must have somebody for the _ballata_.”
“Do you believe Carlo-Battista won’t find his way safely into the next world unless somebody sings bad poetry over his bier? Go if you choose, Colomba--I’ll go with you, if you think I ought. But don’t improvise! It really is not fitting at your age, and--sister, I beg you not to do it!”
“Brother, I have promised. It is the custom here, as you know, and, I tell you again, there is nobody but me to improvise.”
“An idiotic custom it is!”
“It costs me a great deal to sing in this way. It brings back all our own sorrows to me. I shall be ill after it, to-morrow. But I must do it. Give me leave to do it. Brother, remember that when we were at Ajaccio, you told me to improvise to amuse that young English lady who makes a mock of our old customs. So why should I not do it to-day for these poor people, who will be grateful to me, and whom it will help to bear their grief?”
“Well, well, as you will. I’ll go bail you’ve composed your _ballata_ already, and don’t want to waste it.”
“No, brother, I couldn’t compose it beforehand. I stand before the dead person, and I think about those he has left behind him. The tears spring into my eyes, and then I sing whatever comes into my head.”
All this was said so simply that it was quite impossible to suspect Signorina Colomba of the smallest poetic vanity. Orso let himself be persuaded, and went with his sister to Pietri’s house. The dead man lay on a table in the largest room, with his face uncovered. All the doors and windows stood open, and several tapers were burning round the table. At the head stood the widow, and behind her a great many women, who filled all one side of the room. On the other side were the men, in rows, bareheaded, with their eyes fixed on the corpse, all in the deepest silence. Each new arrival went up to the table, kissed the dead face, bowed his or her head to the widow and her son, and joined the circle, without uttering a word. Nevertheless, from time to time one of the persons present would break the solemn silence with a few words, addressed to the dead man.
“Why has thou left thy good wife?” said one old crone. “Did she not take good care of thee? What didst thou lack? Why not have waited another month? Thy daughter-in-law would have borne thee a grandson!” A tall young fellow, Pietri’s son, pressed his father’s cold hand and cried: “Oh! why hast thou not died of the _mala morte_? [*] Then we could have avenged thee!”
[*] _La mala morte_, a violent death.
These were the first words to fall on Orso’s ear as he entered the room. At the sight of him the circle parted, and a low murmur of curiosity betrayed the expectation roused in the gathering by the _voceratrice’s_ presence. Colomba embraced the widow, took one of her hands, and stood for some moments wrapped in meditation, with her eyelids dropped. Then she threw back her _mezzaro_, gazed fixedly at the corpse, and bending over it, her face almost as waxen as that of the dead man, she began thus: “Carlo-Battista! May Christ receive thy soul! . . . To live is to suffer! Thou goest to a place . . . where there is neither sun nor cold. . . . No longer dost thou need thy pruning-hook . . . nor thy heavy pick. . . . There is no more work for thee! . . . Henceforward all thy days are Sundays! . . . Carlo-Battista! May Christ receive thy soul! . . . Thy son rules in thy house. . . . I have seen the oak fall, . . . dried up by the _libeccio_. . . . I thought it was dead indeed, . . . but when I passed it again, its root . . . had thrown up a sapling. . . . The sapling grew into an oak . . . of mighty shade. . . . Under its great branches, Maddele, rest thee well! . . . And think of the oak that is no more!”
Here Maddalena began to sob aloud, and two or three men who, on occasion, would have shot at a Christian as coolly as at a partridge, brushed big tears off their sunburnt faces.
For some minutes Colomba continued in this strain, addressing herself sometimes to the corpse, sometimes to the family, and sometimes, by a personification frequently employed in the _ballata_, making the dead man himself speak words of consolation or counsel to his kinsfolk. As she proceeded, her face assumed a sublime expression, a delicate pink tinge crept over her features, heightening the brilliancy of her white teeth and the lustre of her flashing eyes. She was like a Pythoness on her tripod. Save for a sigh here and there, or a strangled sob, not the slightest noise rose from the assembly that crowded about her. Orso, though less easily affected than most people by this wild kind of poetry, was soon overcome by the general emotion. Hidden in a dark corner of the room, he wept as heartily as Pietri’s own son.
Suddenly a slight stir was perceptible among the audience. The circle opened, and several strangers entered. The respect shown them, and the eagerness with which room was made for them, proved them to be people of importance, whose advent was a great honour to the household. Nevertheless, out of respect for the _ballata_, nobody said a word to them. The man who had entered first seemed about forty years of age. From his black coat, his red rosette, his confident air, and look of authority, he was at once guessed to be the prefect. Behind him came a bent old man with a bilious-looking complexion, whose furtive and anxious glance was only partially concealed by his green spectacles. He wore a black coat, too large for him, and which, though still quite new, had evidently been made several years previously. He always kept close beside the prefect and looked as though he would fain hide himself under his shadow. Last of all, behind him, came two tall young men, with sunburnt faces, their cheeks hidden by heavy whiskers, proud and arrogant-looking, and showing symptoms of an impertinent curiosity. Orso had had time to forget the faces of his village neighbours; but the sight of the old man in green spectacles instantly called up old memories in his mind. His presence in attendance on the prefect sufficed to insure his recognition. This was Barricini, the lawyer, mayor of Pietranera, who had come, with his two sons, to show the prefect what a _ballata_ was. It would be difficult exactly to describe what happened within Orso’s soul at that moment, but the presence of his father’s foe filled him with a sort of horror, and more than ever he felt inclined to yield to the suspicions with which he had been battling for so long.
As to Colomba, when she saw the man against whom she had sworn a deadly hatred, her mobile countenance assumed a most threatening aspect. She turned pale, her voice grew hoarse, the line she had begun to declaim died on her lips. But soon, taking up her _ballata_ afresh, she proceeded with still greater vehemence.
“When the hawk bemoans himself . . . beside his harried nest, . . . the starlings flutter round him . . . insulting his distress.”
A smothered laugh was heard. The two young men who had just come in doubtless considered the metaphor too bold.
“The falcon will rouse himself. . . . He will spread his wings. . . . He will wash his beak in blood! . . . Now, to thee, Carlo-Battista, let thy friends . . . bid an eternal farewell! . . . Long enough have their tears flowed! . . . Only the poor orphan girl will not weep for thee! . . . Wherefore should she moan? . . . Thou has fallen asleep, full of years, . . in the midst of thine own kin . . . ready to appear . . . in the presence of the Almighty. . . . The orphan weeps for her father . . . overtaken by vile murderers, . . struck from behind. . . . For her father, whose blood lies red . . . beneath the heaped-up green leaves. . . . But she has gathered up this blood, . . this innocent and noble blood! . . . She has poured it out over Pietranera . . . that it may become a deadly poison. . . . And the mark shall be on Pietranera . . . until the blood of the guilty . . . shall have wiped out the blood of the innocent man!”
As Colomba pronounced the last words, she dropped into a chair, drew her _mezzaro_ over her face, and was heard sobbing beneath it. The weeping women crowded round the _improvisatrice_; several of the men were casting savage glances at the mayor and his sons; some of the elders began to protest against the scandal to which their presence had given rise. The dead man’s son pushed his way through the throng, and was about to beg the mayor to clear out with all possible speed. But this functionary had not waited for the suggestion. He was on his way to the door, and his two sons were already in the street. The prefect said a few words of condolence to young Pietri, and followed them out, almost immediately. Orso went to his sister’s side, took her arm, and drew her out of the room.
“Go with them,” said young Pietri to some of his friends. “Take care no harm comes to them!”
Hastily two or three young men slipped their stilettos up the left sleeves of their jackets and escorted Orso and his sister to their own door.
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Panting, exhausted, Colomba was utterly incapable of uttering a single word. Her head rested on her brother’s shoulder, and she clasped one of his hands tightly between her own. Orso, though secretly somewhat annoyed by her peroration, was too much alarmed to reprove her, even in the mildest fashion. He was silently waiting till the nervous attack from which she seemed to be suffering should have passed, when there was a knock at the door, and Saveria, very much flustered, announced the prefect. At the words, Colomba rose, as though ashamed of her weakness, and stood leaning on a chair, which shook visibly beneath her hand.
The prefect began with some commonplace apology for the unseasonable hour of his visit, condoled with Mademoiselle Colomba, touched on the danger connected with strong emotions, blamed the custom of composing funeral dirges, which the very talent of the _voceratrice_ rendered the more harrowing to her auditors, skilfully slipped in a mild reproof concerning the tendency of the improvisation just concluded, and then, changing his tone-- “M. della Rebbia,” he said, “I have many messages for you from your English friends. Miss Nevil sends her affectionate regards to your sister. I have a letter for you from her.”
“A letter from Miss Nevil!” cried Orso.
“Unluckily I have not got it with me. But you shall have it within five minutes. Her father has not been well. For a little while we were afraid he had caught one of our terrible fevers. Luckily he is all right again, as you will observe for yourself, for I fancy you will see him very soon.”
“Miss Nevil must have been very much alarmed!”
“Fortunately she did not become aware of the danger till it was quite gone by. M. della Rebbia, Miss Nevil has talked to me a great deal about you and about your sister.”
Orso bowed.
“She has a great affection for you both. Under her charming appearance, and her apparent frivolity, a fund of good sense lies hidden.”
“She is a very fascinating person,” said Orso.
“I have come here, monsieur, almost at her prayer. Nobody is better acquainted than I with a fatal story which I would fain not have to recall to you. As M. Barricini is still the mayor of Pietranera, and as I am prefect of the department, I need hardly tell you what weight I attach to certain suspicions which, if I am rightly informed, some incautious individuals have communicated to you, and which you, I know, have spurned with the indignation your position and your character would have led me to expect.”
“Colomba,” said Orso, moving uneasily to his chair. “You are very tired. You had better go to bed.”
Colomba shook her head. She had recovered all her usual composure, and her burning eyes were fixed on the prefect.
“M. Barricini,” the prefect continued, “is exceedingly anxious to put an end to the sort of enmity . . . or rather, the condition of uncertainty, existing between yourself and him. . . . On my part, I should be delighted to see you both in those relations of friendly intercourse appropriate to people who certainly ought to esteem each other.”
“Monsieur,” replied Orso in a shaking voice, “I have never charged Barricini with my father’s murder. But he committed an act which must always prevent me from having anything to do with him. He forged a threatening letter, in the name of a certain bandit, or at least he hinted in an underhand sort of way that it was forged by my father. That letter, monsieur, was probably the indirect cause of my father’s death.”
The prefect sat thinking for a moment.
“That your father should have believed that, when his own hasty nature led him into a lawsuit with Signor Barricini, is excusable. But such blindness on your part really can not be admitted. Pray consider that Barricini could have served no interest of his own by forging the letter. I will not talk to you about his character, for you are not acquainted with it, and are prejudiced against it; but you can not suppose that a man conversant with the law----” “But, monsieur,” said Orso, rising to his feet, “be good enough to recollect that when you tell me the letter was not Barricini’s work, you ascribe it to my father. And my father’s honour, monsieur, is mine!”
“No man on earth, sir, is more convinced of Colonel della Rebbia’s honour than myself! But the writer of the letter is now known.”
“Who wrote it?” exclaimed Colomba, making a step toward the prefect.
“A villain, guilty of several crimes--such crimes as you Corsicans never pardon--a thief, one Tomaso Bianchi, at present confined in the prison at Bastia, has acknowledged that he wrote the fatal letter.”
“I know nothing of the man,” said Orso. “What can have been his object?”
“He belongs to this neighbourhood,” said Colomba. “He is brother to a man who was our miller--a scamp and a liar, unworthy of belief.”
“You will soon see what his interest in the matter was,” continued the prefect. “The miller of whom your sister speaks--I think his name was Teodoro--was the tenant of a mill belonging to the colonel, standing on the very stream the ownership of which M. Barricini was disputing with your father. The colonel, always a generous man, made very little profit out of the mill. Now Tomaso thought that if Barricini got possession of the stream there would be a heavy rent to pay, for it is well known that Barricini is rather fond of money. In short, to oblige his brother, Tomaso forged the letter from the bandit--and there’s the whole story. You know that in Corsica the strength of the family tie is so great that it does sometimes lead to crime. Please read over this letter to me from the attorney-general. It confirms what I have just told you.”
Orso looked through the letter, which gave a detailed relation of Tomaso’s confession, and Colomba read it over his shoulder.
When she had come to the end of it she exclaimed: “Orlanduccio Barricini went down to Bastia a month ago, when it became known that my brother was coming home. He must have seen Tomaso, and bought this lie of him!”
“Signorina,” said the prefect, out of patience, “you explain everything by odious imputations! Is that the way to find out the truth? You, sir, can judge more coolly. Tell me what you think of the business now? Do you believe, like this young lady, that a man who has only a slight sentence to fear would deliberately charge himself with forgery, just to oblige a person he doesn’t know?”
Orso read the attorney-general’s letter again, weighing every word with the greatest care--for now that he had seen the old lawyer, he felt it more difficult to convince himself than it would have been a few days previously. At last he found himself obliged to admit that the explanation seemed to him to be satisfactory. But Colomba cried out vehemently: “Tomaso Bianchi is a knave! He’ll not be convicted, or he’ll escape from prison! I am certain of it!”
The prefect shrugged his shoulders.
“I have laid the information I have received before you, monsieur. I will now depart, and leave you to your own reflections. I shall wait till your own reason has enlightened you, and I trust it may prove stronger than your sister’s suppositions.”
Orso, after saying a few words of excuse for Colomba, repeated that he now believed Tomaso to be the sole culprit.
The prefect had risen to take his leave.
“If it were not so late,” said he, “I would suggest your coming over with me to fetch Miss Nevil’s letter. At the same time you might repeat to M. Barricini what you have just said to me, and the whole thing would be settled.”
“Orso della Rebbia will never set his foot inside the house of a Barricini!” exclaimed Colomba impetuously.
“This young lady appears to be the _tintinajo_[*] of the family!” remarked the prefect, with a touch of irony.
[*] This is the name given to the ram or he-goat which wears a bell and leads the flock, and it is applied, metaphorically, to any member of a family who guides it in all important matters.
“Monsieur,” replied Colomba resolutely, “you are deceived. You do not know the lawyer. He is the most cunning and knavish of men. I beseech you not to make Orso do a thing that would overwhelm him with dishonour!”
“Colomba!” exclaimed Orso, “your passion has driven you out of your senses!”
“Orso! Orso! By the casket I gave you, I beseech you to listen to me! There is blood between you and the Barricini. You shall not go into their house!”
“Sister!”
“No, brother, you shall not go! Or I will leave this house, and you will never see me again! Have pity on me, Orso!” and she fell on her knees.
“I am grieved,” said the prefect, “to find Mademoiselle Colomba so unreasonable. You will convince her, I am sure.”
He opened the door and paused, seeming to expect Orso to follow him.
“I can not leave her now,” said Orso. “To-morrow, if----” “I shall be starting very early,” said the prefect.
“Brother,” cried Colomba, clasping her hands, “wait till to-morrow morning, in any case. Let me look over my father’s papers. You can not refuse me that!”
“Well, you shall look them over to-night. But at all events you shall not torment me afterward with your violent hatreds. A thousand pardons, monsieur! I am so upset myself to-night--it had better be to-morrow.”
“The night brings counsel,” said the prefect, as he went out. “I hope all your uncertainty will have disappeared by to-morrow.”
“Saveria,” Colomba called, “take the lantern and attend the Signor Prefetto. He will give you a letter to bring back to my brother.”
She added a few words which reached Saveria’s ear alone.
“Colomba,” said Orso, when the prefect was gone, “you have distressed me very much. Will no evidence convince you?”
“You have given me till to-morrow,” she replied. “I have very little time; but I still have some hope.”
Then she took a bunch of keys and ran up to a room on the upper story. There he could hear her pulling open drawers, and rummaging in the writing-desk in which Colonel della Rebbia had kept his business papers.
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Saveria was a long time away, and when she at last reappeared, carrying a letter, and followed by little Chilina, rubbing her eyes, and evidently just waked out of her beauty sleep, Orso was wound up to the highest possible pitch of impatience.
“Chili,” said Orso, “what are you doing here at this hour?”
“The signorina sent for me,” replied Chilina.
“What the devil does she want with her?” thought Orso to himself. But he was in a hurry to open Miss Lydia’s letter, and while he was reading it Chilina went upstairs to his sister’s room.
“My father, dear sir, has not been well,” Miss Nevil wrote, “and he is so indolent, besides, that I am obliged to act as his secretary. You remember that, instead of admiring the landscape with you and me the other day, he got his feet wet on the sea-shore--and in your delightful island, that is quite enough to give one a fever! I can see the face you are making! No doubt you are feeling for your dagger. But I will hope you have none now. Well, my father had a little fever, and I had a great fright. The prefect, whom I persist in thinking very pleasant, sent us a doctor, also a very pleasant man, who got us over our trouble in two days. There has been no return of the attack, and my father would like to begin to shoot again. But I have forbidden that. How did you find matters in your mountain home? Is your North Tower still in its old place? Are there any ghosts about it? I ask all these questions because my father remembers you have promised him buck and boar and moufflon--is that the right name for those strange creatures? We intend to crave your hospitality on our way to Bastia, where we are to embark, and I trust the della Rebbia Castle, which you declare is so old and tumble-down, will not fall in upon our heads! Though the prefect is so pleasant that subjects of conversation are never lacking to us--I flatter myself, by the way, that I have turned his head--we have been talking about your worshipful self. The legal people at Bastia have sent him certain confessions, made by a rascal they have under lock and key, which are calculated to destroy your last remaining suspicions. The enmity which sometimes alarmed me for you must therefore end at once. You have no idea what a pleasure this has been to me! When you started hence with the fair _voceratrice_, with your gun in hand, and your brow lowering, you struck me as being more Corsican than ever--too Corsican indeed! _Basta! _ I write you this long letter because I am dull. The prefect, alas! is going away. We will send you a message when we start for your mountains, and I shall take the liberty of writing to Signorina Colomba to ask her to give me a _bruccio, ma solenne_! Meanwhile, give her my love. I use her dagger a great deal to cut the leaves of a novel I brought with me. But the doughty steel revolts against such usage, and tears my book for me, after a most pitiful fashion. Farewell, sir! My father sends you ‘his best love.’ Listen to what the prefect says. He is a sensible man, and is turning out of his way, I believe, on your account. He is going to lay a foundation-stone at Corte. I should fancy the ceremony will be very imposing, and I am very sorry not to see it. A gentleman in an embroidered coat and silk stockings and a white scarf, wielding a trowel--and a speech! And at the end of the performance manifold and reiterated shouts of ‘God save the King.’ I say again, sir, it will make you very vain to think I have written you four whole pages, and on that account I give you leave to write me a very long letter. By the way, I think it very odd of you not to have let me hear of your safe arrival at the Castle of Pietranera!
“LYDIA.
“P.S.--I beg you will listen to the prefect, and do as he bids you. We have agreed that this is the course you should pursue, and I shall be very glad if you do it.”
Orso read the letter three or four times over, making endless mental comments each time as he read. Then he wrote a long answer, which he sent by Saveria’s hand to a man in the village, who was to go down to Ajaccio the very next day. Already he had almost dismissed the idea of discussing his grievance, true or false, against the Barricini, with his sister. Miss Lydia’s letter had cast a rose-coloured tint over everything about him. He felt neither hatred nor suspicion now. He waited some time for his sister to come down, and finding she did not reappear, he went to bed, with a lighter heart than he had carried for many a day. Colomba, having dismissed Chilina with some secret instructions, spent the greater part of the night in reading old papers. A little before daybreak a few tiny pebbles rattled against the window-pane. At the signal, she went down to the garden, opened a back door, and conducted two very rough men into her house. Her first care was to bring them into the kitchen and give them food. My readers will shortly learn who these men were.
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Toward six o’clock next morning one of the prefect’s servants came and knocked at the door of Orso’s house. He was received by Colomba, and informed her the prefect was about to start, and was expecting her brother. Without a moment’s hesitation Colomba replied that her brother had just had a fall on the stairs, and sprained his foot; and he was unable to walk a single step, that he begged the prefect to excuse him, and would be very grateful if he would condescend to take the trouble of coming over to him. A few minutes after this message had been despatched, Orso came downstairs, and asked his sister whether the prefect had not sent for him.
With the most perfect assurance she rejoined: “He begs you’ll wait for him here.”
Half an hour went by without the slightest perceptible stir in the Barricini dwelling. Meanwhile Orso asked Colomba whether she had discovered anything. She replied that she proposed to make her statement when the prefect came. She affected an extreme composure. But her colour and her eyes betrayed her state of feverish excitement.
At last the door of the Barricini mansion was seen to open. The prefect came out first, in travelling garb; he was followed by the mayor and his two sons. What was the stupefaction of the inhabitants of the village of Pietranera, who had been on the watch since sunrise for the departure of the chief magistrate of their department, when they saw him go straight across the square and enter the della Rebbia dwelling, accompanied by the three Barricini. “They are going to make peace!” exclaimed the village politicians.
“Just as I told you,” one old man went on. “Ors’ Anton’ has lived too much on the mainland to carry things through like a man of mettle.”
“Yet,” responded a Rebbianite, “you may notice it is the Barricini who have gone across to him. They are suing for mercy.”
“It’s the prefect who had wheedled them all round,” answered the old fellow. “There is no such thing as courage nowadays, and the young chaps make no more fuss about their father’s blood than if they were all bastards.”
The prefect was not a little astounded to find Orso up and walking about with perfect ease. In the briefest fashion Colomba avowed her own lie, and begged him to forgive it.
“If you had been staying anywhere else, monsieur, my brother would have gone to pay his respects to you yesterday.”
Orso made endless apologies, vowing he had nothing to do with his sister’s absurd stratagem, by which he appeared deeply mortified. The prefect and the elder Barricini appeared to believe in the sincerity of his regret, and indeed this belief was justified by his evident confusion and the reproaches he addressed to his sister. But the mayor’s two sons did not seem satisfied.
“We are being made to look like fools,” said Orlanduccio audibly.
“If my sister were to play me such tricks,” said Vincentello, “I’d soon cure her fancy for beginning them again.”
The words, and the tone in which they were uttered, offended Orso, and diminished his good-will. Glances that were anything but friendly were exchanged between him and the two young men.
Meanwhile, everybody being seated save Colomba, who remained standing close to the kitchen door, the prefect took up his parable, and after a few common-places as to local prejudices, he recalled the fact that the most inveterate enmities generally have their root in some mere misunderstanding. Next, turning to the mayor, he told him that Signor della Rebbia had never believed the Barricini family had played any part, direct or indirect, in the deplorable event which had bereft him of his father; that he had, indeed, nursed some doubts as to one detail in the lawsuit between the two families; that Signor Orso’s long absence, and the nature of the information sent him, excused the doubt in question; that in the light of recent revelations he felt completely satisfied, and desired to re-open friendly and neighbourly relations with Signor Barricini and his sons.
Orso bowed stiffly. Signor Barricini stammered a few words that nobody could hear, and his sons stared steadily at the ceiling rafters. The prefect was about to continue his speech, and address the counterpart of the remarks he had made to Signor Barricini, to Orso, when Colomba stepped gravely forward between the contracting parties, at the same time drawing some papers from beneath her neckerchief.
“I should be happy indeed,” she said, “to see the quarrel between our two families brought to an end. But if the reconciliation is to be sincere, there must be a full explanation, and nothing must be left in doubt. Signor Prefetto, Tomaso Bianchi’s declaration, coming from a man of such vile report, seemed to me justly open to doubt. I said your sons had possibly seen this man in the prison at Bastia.”
“It’s false!” interrupted Orlanduccio; “I didn’t see him!”
Colomba cast a scornful glance at him, and proceeded with great apparent composure.
“You explained Tomaso’s probable interest in threatening Signor Barricini, in the name of a dreaded bandit, by his desire to keep his brother Teodoro in possession of the mill which my father allowed him to hire at a very low rent.”
“That’s quite clear,” assented the prefect.
“Where was Tomaso Bianchi’s interest?” exclaimed Colomba triumphantly. “His brother’s lease had run out. My father had given him notice on the 1st of July. Here is my father’s account-book; here is his note of warning given to Teodoro, and the letter from a business man at Ajaccio suggesting a new tenant.”
As she spoke she gave the prefect the papers she had been holding in her hand.
There was an astonished pause. The mayor turned visibly pale. Orso, knitting his brows, leaned forward to look at the papers, which the prefect was perusing most attentively.
“We are being made to look like fools!” cried Orlanduccio again, springing angrily to his feet. “Let us be off, father! We ought never to have come here!”
One instant’s delay gave Signor Barricini time to recover his composure. He asked leave to see the papers. Without a word the prefect handed them over to him. Pushing his green spectacles up to his forehead, he looked through them with a somewhat indifferent air, while Colomba watched him with the eyes of a tigress who sees a buck drawing near to the lair where she had hidden her cubs.
“Well,” said Signor Barricini, as he pulled down his spectacles and returned the documents, “knowing the late colonel’s kind heart, Tomaso thought--most likely he thought--that the colonel would change his mind about the notice. As a matter of fact, Bianchi is still at the mill, so--” “It was I,” said Colomba, and there was scorn in her voice, “who left him there. My father was dead, and situated as I was, I was obliged to treat my brother’s dependents with consideration.”
“Yet,” quoth the prefect, “this man Tomaso acknowledges that he wrote the letter. That much is clear.”
“The thing that is clear to me,” broke in Orso, “is that there is some vile infamy underneath this whole business.”
“I have to contradict another assertion made by these gentlemen,” said Colomba.
She threw open the door into the kitchen and instantly Brandolaccio, the licentiate in theology, and Brusco, the dog, marched into the room. The two bandits were unarmed--apparently, at all events; they wore their cartridge belts, but the pistols, which are their necessary complement, were absent. As they entered the room they doffed their caps respectfully.
The effect produced by their sudden appearance may be conceived. The mayor almost fell backward. His sons threw themselves boldly in front of him, each one feeling for his dagger in his coat pocket. The prefect made a step toward the door, and Orso, seizing Brandolaccio by the collar, shouted: “What have you come here for, you villain?”
“This is a trap!” cried the mayor, trying to get the door open. But, by the bandits’ orders, as was afterward discovered, Saveria had locked it on the outside.
“Good people,” said Brandolaccio, “don’t be afraid of me. I’m not such a devil as I look. We mean no harm at all. Signor Prefetto, I’m your very humble servant. Gently, lieutenant! You’re strangling me! We’re here as witnesses! Now then, Padre, speak up! Your tongue’s glib enough!”
“Signor Prefetto,” quoth the licentiate, “I have not the honour of being known to you. My name is Giocanto Castriconi, better known as the Padre. Aha, it’s coming back to you! The signorina here, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing either, has sent to ask me to supply some information about a fellow of the name of Tomaso Bianchi, with whom I chanced to be shut up, about three weeks ago, in the prison at Bastia. This is what I have to tell you.”
“Spare yourself the trouble,” said the prefect. “I can not listen to anything from such a man as you. Signor della Rebbia, I am willing to believe you have had nothing to do with this detestable plot. But are you master in your own house? Will you have the door opened? Your sister may have to give an account of the strange relations in which she lives with a set of bandits.”
“Signor Prefetto!” cried Colomba, “I beseech you to listen to what this man has to say! You are here to do justice to everybody, and it is your duty to search out the truth. Speak, Giocanto Castriconi!”
“Don’t listen to him,” chorused the three Barricini.
“If everybody talks at once,” remarked the bandit, with a smile, “nobody can contrive to hear what anybody says. Well, in the prison at Bastia I had as my companion--not as my friend--this very man, Tomaso. He received frequent visits from Signor Orlanduccio.”
“You lie!” shouted the two brothers together.
“Two negatives make an affirmative,” pursued Castriconi coolly. “Tomaso had money, he ate and drank of the best. I have always been fond of good cheer (that’s the least of my failings), and in spite of my repugnance to rubbing shoulders with such a wretch, I let myself be tempted, several times over, into dining with him. Out of gratitude, I proposed he should escape with me. A young person--to whom I had shown some kindness--had provided me with the necessary means. I don’t intend to compromise anybody. Tomaso refused my offer, telling me he was certain to be all right, as lawyer Barricini had spoken to all the judges for him, and he was sure to get out of prison with a character as white as snow, and with money in his pocket, too. As for me, I thought it better to get into the fresh air. _Dixi_.”
“Everything that fellow has said is a heap of lies,” reiterated Orlanduccio stoutly. “If we were in the open country, and each of us had his gun, he wouldn’t talk in that way.”
“Here’s a pretty folly!” cried Brandolaccio. “Don’t you quarrel with the Padre, Orlanduccio!”
“Will you be good enough to allow me to leave this room, Signor della Rebbia,” said the prefect, and he stamped his foot in his impatience.
“Saveria! Saveria!” shouted Orso, “open the door, in the devil’s name!”
“One moment,” said Brandolaccio. “We have to slip away first, on our side. Signor Prefetto, the custom, when people meet in the house of a mutual friend, is to allow each other half an hour’s law, after departure.”
The prefect cast a scornful glance at him.
“Your servant, signorina, and gentlemen all!” said Brandolaccio. Then stretching out his arm, “Hi, Brusco,” he cried to his dog, “jump for the Signor Prefetto!”
The dog jumped; the bandits swiftly snatched up their arms in the kitchen, fled across the garden, and at a shrill whistle the door of the room flew open as though by magic.
“Signor Barricini,” said Orso, and suppressed fury vibrated in his voice, “I hold you to be a forger! This very day I shall charge you before the public prosecutor with forgery and complicity with Bianchi. I may perhaps have a still more terrible accusation to bring against you!”
“And I, Signor della Rebbia,” replied the mayor, “shall lay my charge against you for conspiracy and complicity with bandits. Meanwhile the prefect will desire the gendarmes to keep an eye upon you.”
“The prefect will do his duty,” said that gentleman sternly. “He will see the public order is not disturbed at Pietranera; he will take care justice is done. I say this to you all, gentlemen!”
The mayor and Vincentello were outside the room already, and Orlanduccio was following them, stepping backward, when Orso said to him in an undertone: “Your father is an old man. One cuff from me would kill him. It is with you and with your brother that I intend to deal.”
Orlanduccio’s only response was to draw his dagger and fly like a madman at Orso. But before he could use his weapon Colomba caught hold of his arm and twisted it violently, while Orso gave him a blow in the face with his fist, which made him stagger several paces back, and come into violent collision with the door frame. Orlanduccio’s dagger dropped from his hand. But Vincentello had his ready, and was rushing back into the room, when Colomba, snatching up a gun convinced him that the struggle must be unequal. At the same time the prefect threw himself between the combatants.
“We shall soon meet, Ors’ Anton’!” shouted Orlanduccio, and slamming the door of the room violently, he turned the key in the lock, so as to insure himself time to retreat.
For a full quarter of an hour Orso and the prefect kept their places in dead silence, at opposite ends of the room. Colomba, the pride of triumph shining on her brow, gazed first at one and then at the other, as she leaned on the gun that had turned the scale of victory.
“What a country! Oh, what a country!” cried the prefect at last, rising hastily from his chair. “Signor della Rebbia, you did wrong! You must give me your word of honour to abstain from all violence, and to wait till the law settles this cursed business.”
“Yes, Signor Prefetto, I was wrong to strike that villain. But I did strike him, after all, and I can’t refuse him the satisfaction he has demanded of me.”
“Pooh! no! He doesn’t want to fight you! But supposing he murders you? You’ve done everything you could to insure it.”
“We’ll protect ourselves,” said Colomba.
“Orlanduccio,” said Orso, “strikes me as being a plucky fellow, and I think better of him than that, monsieur. He was very quick about drawing his dagger. But perhaps I should have done the same thing in his place, and I’m glad my sister has not an ordinary fine lady’s wrist.”
“You are not to fight,” exclaimed the prefect. “I forbid it!”
“Allow me to say, monsieur, that in matters that affect my honour the only authority I acknowledge is that of my own conscience.”
“You sha’n’t fight, I tell you!”
“You can put me under arrest, monsieur--that is, if I let you catch me. But if you were to do that, you would only delay a thing that has now become inevitable. You are a man of honour yourself, monsieur; you know there can be no other course.”
“If you were to have my brother arrested,” added Colomba, “half the village would take his part, and we should have a fine fusillade.”
“I give you fair notice, monsieur, and I entreat you not to think I am talking mere bravado. I warn you that if Signor Barricini abuses his authority as mayor, to have me arrested, I shall defend myself.”
“From this very day,” said the prefect, “Signor Barricini is suspended. I trust he will exculpate himself. Listen to me, my young gentleman, I have a liking for you. What I ask of you is nothing to speak of. Just to stay quietly at home till I get back from Corte. I shall only be three days away. I’ll bring back the public prosecutor with me, and then we’ll sift this wretched business to the bottom. Will you promise me you will abstain from all hostilities till then?”
“I can not promise that, monsieur, if, as I expect, Orlanduccio asks me to meet him.”
“What, Signor della Rebbia! Would you--a French officer--think of going out with a man you suspect of being a forger?”
“I struck him, monsieur!”
“But supposing you struck a convict, and he demanded satisfaction of you, would you fight him? Come, come, Signor Orso! But I’ll ask you to do even less, do nothing to seek out Orlanduccio. I’ll consent to your fighting him if he asks you for a meeting.”
“He will ask for it, I haven’t a doubt of that. But I’ll promise I won’t give him fresh cuffs to induce him to do it.”
“What a country!” cried the prefect once more, as he strode to and fro. “Shall I never get back to France?”
“Signor Prefetto,” said Colomba in her most dulcet tones, “it is growing very late. Would you do us the honour of breakfasting here?”
The prefect could not help laughing.
“I’ve been here too long already--it may look like partiality. And there is that cursed foundation-stone. I must be off. Signorina della Rebbia! what calamities you may have prepared this day!”
“At all events, Signor Prefetto, you will do my sister the justice of believing her convictions are deeply rooted--and I am sure, now, that you yourself believe them to be well-founded.”
“Farewell, sir!” said the prefect, waving his hand. “I warn you that the sergeant of gendarmes will have orders to watch everything you do.”
When the prefect had departed-- “Orso,” said Colomba, “this isn’t the Continent. Orlanduccio knows nothing about your duels, and besides, that wretch must not die the death of a brave man.”
“Colomba, my dear, you are a clever woman. I owe you a great deal from having saved me from a hearty knife-thrust. Give me your little hand to kiss! But, hark ye, let me have my way. There are certain matters that you don’t understand. Give me my breakfast. And as soon as the prefect had started off send for little Chilina, who seems to perform all the commissions she is given in the most wonderful fashion. I shall want her to take a letter for me.”
While Colomba was superintending the preparation of his breakfast, Orso went up to his own room and wrote the following note: “You must be in a hurry to meet me, and I am no less eager. We can meet at six o’clock to-morrow morning in the valley of Acquaviva. I am a skilful pistol-shot, so I do not suggest that weapon to you. I hear you are a good shot with a gun. Let us each take a double-barrelled gun. I shall be accompanied by a man from this village. If your brother wishes to go with you, take a second witness, and let me know. In that case only, I should bring two with me.
“ORSO ANTONIO DELLA REBBIA.”
After spending an hour with the deputy-mayor, and going into the Barricini house for a few minutes, the prefect, attended by a single gendarme, started for Corte. A quarter of an hour later, Chilina carried over the letter my readers have just perused, and delivered it into Orlanduccio’s own hands.
The answer was not prompt, and did not arrive till evening. It bore the signature of the elder Barricini, and informed Orso that he was laying the threatening letter sent to his son before the public prosecutor. His missive concluded thus: “Strong in the sense of a clear conscience, I patiently wait till the law has pronounced on your calumnies.”
Meanwhile five or six herdsmen, summoned by Colomba, arrived to garrison the della Rebbia Tower. In spite of Orso’s protests, _archere_ were arranged in the windows looking onto the square, and all through the evening offers of service kept coming in from various persons belonging to the village. There was even a letter from the bandit-theologian, undertaking, for himself and Brandolaccio, that in the event of the mayor’s calling on the gendarmes, they themselves would straightway intervene. The following postscript closed the letter: “Dare I ask you what the Signor Prefetto thinks of the excellent education bestowed by my friend on Brusco, the dog? Next to Chilina, he is the most docile and promising pupil I have ever come across.”
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The following day went by without any hostile demonstration. Both sides kept on the defensive. Orso did not leave his house, and the door of the Barricini dwelling remained closely shut. The five gendarmes who had been left to garrison Pietranera were to be seen walking about the square and the outskirts of the village, in company with the village constable, the sole representative of the urban police force. The deputy-mayor never put off his sash. But there was no actual symptom of war, except the loopholes in the two opponents’ houses. Nobody but a Corsican would have noticed that the group round the evergreen oak in the middle of the square consisted solely of women.
At supper-time Colomba gleefully showed her brother a letter she had just received from Miss Nevil.
“My dear Signorina Colomba,” it ran, “I learn with great pleasure, through a letter from your brother, that your enmities are all at an end. I congratulate you heartily. My father can not endure Ajaccio now your brother is not there to talk about war and go out shooting with him. We are starting to-day, and shall sleep at the house of your kinswoman, to whom we have a letter. The day after to-morrow, somewhere about eleven o’clock, I shall come and ask you to let me taste that mountain _bruccio_ of yours, which you say is so vastly superior to what we get in the town.
“Farewell, dear Signorina Colomba.
“Your affectionate “LYDIA NEVIL.”
“Then she hasn’t received my second letter!” exclaimed Orso.
“You see by the date of this one that Miss Lydia must have already started when your letter reached Ajaccio. But did you tell her not to come?”
“I told her we were in a state of siege. That does not seem to me a condition that permits of our receiving company.”
“Bah! These English people are so odd. The very last night I slept in her room she told me she would be sorry to leave Corsica without having seen a good _vendetta_. If you choose, Orso, you might let her see an assault on our enemies’ house.”
“Do you know, Colomba,” said Orso, “Nature blundered when she made you a woman. You’d have made a first-rate soldier.”
“Maybe. Anyhow, I’m going to make my _bruccio_.”
“Don’t waste your time. We must send somebody down to warn them and stop them before they start.”
“Do you mean to say you would send a messenger out in such weather, to have him and your letter both swept away by a torrent? How I pity those poor bandits in this storm! Luckily they have good _piloni_ (thick cloth cloaks with hoods). Do you know what you ought to do, Orso. If the storm clears you should start off very early to-morrow morning, and get to our kinswoman’s house before they leave it. That will be easy enough, for Miss Lydia always gets up so late. You can tell them everything that has happened here, and if they still persist in coming, why! we shall be very glad to welcome them.”
Orso lost no time in assenting to this plan, and after a few moments’ silence, Colomba continued: “Perhaps, Orso, you think I was joking when I talked of an assault on the Barricini’s house. Do you know we are in force--two to one at the very least? Now that the prefect has suspended the mayor, every man in the place is on our side. We might cut them to pieces. It would be quite easy to bring it about. If you liked, I could go over to the fountain and begin to jeer at their women folk. They would come out. Perhaps--they are such cowards! --they would fire at me through their loopholes. They wouldn’t hit me. Then the thing would be done. They would have begun the attack, and the beaten party must take its chance. How is anybody to know which person’s aim has been true, in a scuffle? Listen to your own sister, Orso! These lawyers who are coming will blacken lots of paper, and talk a great deal of useless stuff. Nothing will come of it all. That old fox will contrive to make them think they see stars in broad midday. Ah! if the prefect hadn’t thrown himself in front of Vincentello, we should have had one less to deal with.”
All this was said with the same calm air as that with which she had spoken, an instant previously, of her preparations for making the _bruccio_.
Orso, quite dumfounded, gazed at his sister with an admiration not unmixed with alarm.
“My sweet Colomba,” he said, as he rose from the table, “I really am afraid you are the very devil. But make your mind easy. If I don’t succeed in getting the Barricini hanged, I’ll contrive to get the better of them in some other fashion. ‘Hot bullet or cold steel’--you see I haven’t forgotten my Corsican.”
“The sooner the better,” said Colomba, with a sigh. “What horse will you ride to-morrow, Ors’ Anton’?”
“The black. Why do you ask?”
“So as to make sure he has some barley.”
When Orso went up to his room, Colomba sent Saveria and the herdsmen to their beds, and sat on alone in the kitchen, where the _bruccio_ was simmering. Now and then she seemed to listen, and was apparently waiting very anxiously for her brother to go to bed. At last, when she thought he was asleep, she took a knife, made sure it was sharp, slipped her little feet into thick shoes, and passed noiselessly out into the garden.
This garden, which was inclosed by walls, lay next to a good-sized piece of hedged ground, into which the horses were turned--for Corsican horses do not know what a stable means. They are generally turned loose into a field, and left to themselves, to find pasture and shelter from cold winds, as best they may.
Colomba opened the garden gate with the same precaution, entered the inclosure, and whistling gently, soon attracted the horses, to whom she had often brought bread and salt. As soon as the black horse came within reach, she caught him firmly by the mane, and split his ear open with her knife. The horse gave a violent leap, and tore off with that shrill cry which sharp pain occasionally extorts from his kind. Quite satisfied, Colomba was making her way back into the garden, when Orso threw open his window and shouted, “Who goes there?” At the same time she heard him cock his gun. Luckily for her the garden-door lay in the blackest shadow, and was partly screened by a large fig-tree. She very soon gathered, from the light she saw glancing up and down in her brother’s room, that he was trying to light his lamp. She lost no time about closing the garden-door, and slipping along the wall, so that the outline of her black garments was lost against the dark foliage of the fruit-trees, and succeeded in getting back into the kitchen a few moments before Orso entered it.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired.
“I fancied I heard somebody opening the garden-door,” said Orso.
“Impossible! The dog would have barked. But let us go and see!”
Orso went round the garden, and having made sure that the outer door was safely secured, he was going back to his room, rather ashamed of his false alarm.
“I am glad, brother,” remarked Colomba, “that you are learning to be prudent, as a man in your position ought to be.”
“You are training me well,” said Orso. “Good-night!”
By dawn the next morning Orso was up and ready to start. His style of dress betrayed the desire for smartness felt by every man bound for the presence of the lady he would fain please, combined with the caution of a Corsican _in vendetta_. Over a blue coat, that sat closely to his figure, he wore a small tin case full of cartridges, slung across his shoulder by a green silk cord. His dagger lay in his side pocket, and in his hand he carried his handsome Manton, ready loaded. While he was hastily swallowing the cup of coffee Colomba had poured out for him, one of the herdsmen went out to put the bridle and saddle on the black horse. Orso and his sister followed close on his heels and entered the field. The man had caught the horse, but he had dropped both saddle and bridle, and seemed quite paralyzed with horror, while the horse, remembering the wound it had received during the night, and trembling for its other ear, was rearing, kicking, and neighing like twenty fiends.
“Now then! Make haste!” shouted Orso.
“Ho, Ors’ Anton’! Ho, Ors’ Anton’!” yelled the herdsman. “Holy Madonna!” and he poured out a string of imprecations, numberless, endless, and most of them quite untranslatable.
“What can be the matter?” inquired Colomba. They all drew near to the horse, and at the sight of the creature’s bleeding head and split ear there was a general outcry of surprise and indignation. My readers must know that among the Corsicans to mutilate an enemy’s horse is at once a vengeance, a challenge, and a mortal threat. “Nothing but a bullet-wound can expiate such a crime.”
Though Orso, having lived so long on the mainland, was not so sensitive as other Corsicans to the enormity of the insult, still, if any supporter of the Barricini had appeared in his sight at that moment, he would probably have taken vengeance on him for the outrage he ascribed to his enemies.
“The cowardly wretches!” he cried. “To avenge themselves on a poor brute, when they dare not meet me face to face!”
“What are we waiting for?” exclaimed Colomba vehemently. “They come here and brave us! They mutilate our horses! and we are not to make any response? Are you men?”
“Vengeance!” shouted the herdsmen. “Let us lead the horse through the village, and attack their house!”
“There’s a thatched barn that touches their Tower,” said old Polo Griffo; “I’d set fire to it in a trice.”
Another man wanted to fetch the ladders out of the church steeple. A third proposed they should break in the doors of the house with a heavy beam intended for some house in course of building, which had been left lying in the square. Amid all the angry voices Colomba was heard telling her satellites that before they went to work she would give each man of them a large glass of anisette.
Unluckily, or rather luckily, the impression she had expected to produce by her own cruel treatment of the poor horse was largely lost on Orso. He felt no doubt that the savage mutilation was due to one of his foes, and he specially suspected Orlanduccio; but he did not believe that the young man, whom he himself had provoked and struck, had wiped out his shame by slitting a horse’s ear. On the contrary, this mean and ridiculous piece of vengeance had increased Orso’s scorn for his opponents, and he now felt, with the prefect, that such people were not worthy to try conclusions with himself. As soon as he was able to make himself heard, he informed his astonished partisans that they would have to relinquish all their bellicose intentions, and that the power of the law, which would shortly be on the spot, would amply suffice to avenge the hurt done to a horse’s ear.
“I’m master here!” he added sternly; “and I insist on being obeyed. The first man who dares to say anything more about killing or burning, will quite possibly get a scorching at my hands! Be off! Saddle me the gray horse!”
“What’s this, Orso?” said Colomba, drawing him apart. “You allow these people to insult us? No Barricini would have dared to mutilate any beast of ours in my father’s time.”
“I promise you they shall have reason to repent it. But it is gendarme’s and jailer’s work to punish wretches who only venture to raise their hands against brute beasts. I’ve told you already, the law will punish them; and if not, you will not need to remind me whose son I am.”
“Patience!” answered Colomba, with a sigh.
“Remember this, sister,” continued Orso; “if I find, when I come back, that any demonstration whatever has been made against the Barricini I shall never forgive you.” Then, in a gentler tone, he added, “Very possibly--very probably--I shall bring the colonel and his daughter back with me. See that their rooms are well prepared, and that the breakfast is good. In fact, let us make our guests as comfortable as we can. It’s a very good thing to be brave, Colomba, but a woman must know how to manage her household, as well. Come, kiss me, and be good! Here’s the gray, ready saddled.”
“Orso,” said Colomba, “you mustn’t go alone.”
“I don’t need anybody,” replied Orso; “and I’ll promise you nobody shall slit my ear.”
“Oh, I’ll never consent to your going alone, while there is a feud. Here! Polo Griffo! Gian’ Franco! Memmo! Take your guns; you must go with my brother.”
After a somewhat lively argument, Orso had to give in, and accept an escort. From the most excited of the herdsmen he chose out those who had been loudest in their desire to commence hostilities; then, after laying fresh injunctions on his sister and the men he was leaving behind, he started, making a detour, this time, so as to avoid the Barricinis’ dwelling.
They were a long way from Pietranera, and were travelling along at a great pace, when, as they crossed a streamlet that ran into a marsh, Polo Griffo noticed several porkers wallowing comfortably in the mud, in full enjoyment at once of the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the water. Instantly he took aim at the biggest, fired at its head, and shot it dead. The dead creature’s comrades rose and fled with astonishing swiftness, and though another herdsman fired at them they reached a thicket and disappeared into it, safe and sound.
“Idiots!” cried Orso. “You’ve been taking pigs for wild boars!”
“Not a bit, Ors’ Anton’,” replied Polo Griffo. “But that herd belongs to the lawyer, and I’ve taught him, now, to mutilate our horses.”
“What! you rascal!” shouted Orso, in a perfect fury. “You ape the vile behaviour of our enemies! Be off, villains! I don’t want you! You’re only fit to fight with pigs. I swear to God that if you dare follow me I’ll blow your brains out!”
The herdsmen stared at each other, struck quite dumb. Orso spurred his horse, galloped off, and was soon out of sight.
“Well, well!” said Polo Griffo. “Here’s a pretty thing. You devote yourself to people, and then this is how they treat you. His father, the colonel, was angry with you long ago, because you levelled your gun at the lawyer. Great idiot you were, not to shoot. And now here is his son. You saw what I did for him. And he talks about cracking my skull, just as he would crack a gourd that lets the wine leak out. That’s what people learn on the mainland, Memmo!”
“Yes, and if any one finds out it was you who killed that pig there’ll be a suit against you, and Ors’ Anton’ won’t speak to the judges, nor buy off the lawyer for you. Luckily nobody saw, and you have Saint Nega to help you out.”
After a hasty conclave, the two herdsmen concluded their wisest plan was to throw the dead pig into a bog, and this project they carefully executed, after each had duly carved himself several slices out of the body of this innocent victim of the feud between the Barricini and the della Rebbia.
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Once rid of his unruly escort, Orso proceeded calmly on his way, far more absorbed by the prospective pleasure of seeing Miss Nevil than stirred by any fear of coming across his enemies.
“The lawsuit I must bring against these Barricini villains,” he mused, “will necessitate my going down to Bastia. Why should I not go there with Miss Nevil? And once at Bastia, why shouldn’t we all go together to the springs of Orezza?”
Suddenly his childish recollections of that picturesque spot rose up before him. He fancied himself on the verdant lawn that spreads beneath the ancient chestnut-trees. On the lustrous green sward, studded with blue flowers like eyes that smiled upon him, he saw Miss Lydia seated at his side. She had taken off her hat, and her fair hair, softer and finer than any silk, shone like gold in the sunlight that glinted through the foliage. Her clear blue eyes looked to him bluer than the sky itself. With her cheek resting on one hand, she was listening thoughtfully to the words of love he poured tremblingly into her ear. She wore the muslin gown in which she had been dressed that last day at Ajaccio. From beneath its folds peeped out a tiny foot, shod with black satin. Orso told himself that he would be happy indeed if he might dare to kiss that little foot--but one of Miss Lydia’s hands was bare and held a daisy. He took the daisy from her, and Lydia’s hand pressed his, and then he kissed the daisy, and then he kissed her hand, and yet she did not chide him . . . and all these thoughts prevented him from paying any attention to the road he was travelling, and meanwhile he trotted steadily onward. For the second time, in his fancy, he was about to kiss Miss Nevil’s snow-white hand, when, as his horse stopped short, he very nearly kissed its head, in stern reality. Little Chilina had barred his way, and seized his bridle.
“Where are you going to, Ors’ Anton’?” she said. “Don’t you know your enemy is close by?”
“My enemy!” cried Orso, furious at being interrupted at such a delightful moment. “Where is he?”
“Orlanduccio is close by, he’s waiting for you! Go back, go back!”
“Ho! Ho! So he’s waiting for me! Did you see him?”
“Yes, Ors’ Anton’! I was lying down in the heather when he passed by. He was looking round everywhere through his glass.”
“And which way did he go?”
“He went down there. Just where you were going!”
“Thank you!”
“Ors’ Anton’, hadn’t you better wait for my uncle? He must be here soon--and with him you would be safe.”
“Don’t be frightened, Chili. I don’t need your uncle.”
“If you would let me, I would go in front of you.”
“No, thanks! No, thanks!”
And Orso, spurring his horse, rode rapidly in the direction to which the little girl had pointed.
His first impulse had been one of blind fury, and he had told himself that fortune was offering him an excellent opportunity of punishing the coward who had avenged the blow he had received by mutilating a horse. But as he moved onward the thought of his promise to the prefect, and, above all, his fear of missing Miss Nevil’s visit, altered his feelings, and made him almost wish he might not come upon Orlanduccio. Soon, however, the memory of his father, the indignity offered to his own horse, and the threats of the Barricini, stirred his rage afresh, and incited him to seek his foe, and to provoke and force him to a fight. Thus tossed by conflicting feelings, he continued his progress, though now he carefully scrutinized every thicket and hedge, and sometimes even pulled up his horse to listen to the vague sounds to be heard in any open country. Ten minutes after he had left little Chilina (it was then about nine o’clock in the morning) he found himself on the edge of an exceedingly steep declivity. The road, or rather the very slight path, which he was following, ran through a _maquis_ that had been lately burned. The ground was covered with whitish ashes, and here and there some shrubs, and a few big trees, blackened by the flames, and entirely stripped of their leaves, still stood erect--though life had long since departed out of them. The sight of a burned _maquis_ is enough to make a man fancy he has been transported into midwinter in some northern clime, and the contrast between the barrenness of the ground over which the flames have passed, with the luxuriant vegetation round about it, heightens this appearance of sadness and desolation. But at that moment the only thing that struck Orso in this particular landscape was one point--an important one, it is true, in his present circumstances. The bareness of the ground rendered any kind of ambush impossible, and the man who has reason to fear that at any moment he may see a gun-barrel thrust out of a thicket straight at his own chest, looks on a stretch of smooth ground, with nothing on it to intercept his view, as a kind of oasis. After this burned _maquis_ came a number of cultivated fields, inclosed, according to the fashion of that country, with breast-high walls, built of dry stones. The path ran between these fields, producing, from a distance, the effect of a thick wood.
The steepness of the declivity made it necessary for Orso to dismount. He was walking quickly down the hill, which was slippery with ashes (he had thrown the bridle on his horse’s neck), and was hardly five-and-twenty paces from one of these stone fences, when, just in front of him, on the right-hand side of the road, he perceived first of all the barrel of a gun, and then a head, rising over the top of the wall. The gun was levelled, and he recognised Orlanduccio, just ready to fire. Orso swiftly prepared for self-defence, and the two men, taking deliberate aim, stared at each other for several seconds, with that thrill of emotion which the bravest must feel when he knows he must either deal death or endure it.
“Vile coward!” shouted Orso.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he saw the flash of Orlanduccio’s gun, and almost at the same instant a second shot rang out on his left from the other side of the path, fired by a man whom he had not noticed, and who was aiming at him from behind another wall. Both bullets struck him. The first, Orlanduccio’s, passed through his left arm, which Orso had turned toward him as he aimed. The second shot struck him in the chest, and tore his coat, but coming in contact with the blade of his dagger, it luckily flattened against it, and only inflicted a trifling bruise. Orso’s left arm fell helpless at his side, and the barrel of his gun dropped for a moment, but he raised it at once, and aiming his weapon with his right hand only, he fired at Orlanduccio. His enemy’s head, which was only exposed to the level of the eyes, disappeared behind the wall. Then Orso, swinging round to the left, fired the second barrel at a man in a cloud of smoke whom he could hardly see. This face likewise disappeared. The four shots had followed each other with incredible swiftness; no trained soldiers ever fired their volleys in quicker succession. After Orso’s last shot a great silence fell. The smoke from his weapon rose slowly up into the sky. There was not a movement, not the slightest sound from behind the wall. But for the pain in his arm, he could have fancied the men on whom he had just fired had been phantoms of his own imagination.
Fully expecting a second volley, Orso moved a few steps, to place himself behind one of the burned trees that still stood upright in the _maquis_. Thus sheltered, he put his gun between his knees, and hurriedly reloaded it. Meanwhile his left arm began to hurt him horribly, and felt as if it were being dragged down by a huge weight.
What had become of his adversaries? He could not understand. If they had taken to flight, if they had been wounded, he would certainly have heard some noise, some stir among the leaves. Were they dead, then? Or, what was far more likely, were they not waiting behind their wall for a chance of shooting at him again. In his uncertainty, and feeling his strength fast failing him, he knelt down on his right knee, rested his wounded arm upon the other, and took advantage of a branch that protruded from the trunk of the burned tree to support his gun. With his finger on the trigger, his eye fixed on the wall, and his ear strained to catch the slightest sound, he knelt there, motionless, for several minutes, which seemed to him a century. At last, behind him, in the far distance, he heard a faint shout, and very soon a dog flew like an arrow down the slope, and stopped short, close to him, wagging its tail. It was Brusco, the comrade and follower of the bandits--the herald, doubtless, of his master’s approach. Never was any honest man more impatiently awaited. With his muzzle in the air, and turned toward the nearest fence, the dog sniffed anxiously. Suddenly he gave vent to a low growl, sprang at a bound over the wall, and almost instantly reappeared upon its crest, whence he gazed steadily at Orso with eyes that spoke surprise as clearly as a dog’s may do it. Then he sniffed again, this time toward the other inclosure, the wall of which he also crossed. Within a second he was back on the top of that, with the same air of astonishment and alarm, and straightway he bounded into the thicket with his tail between his legs, still gazing at Orso, and retiring from him slowly, and sideways, until he had put some distance between them. Then off he started again, tearing up the slope almost as fast as he had come down it, to meet a man, who, in spite of its steepness, was rapidly descending.
“Help, Brando!” shouted Orso, as soon as he thought he was within hearing.
“Hallo! Ors’ Anton’! are you wounded?” inquired Brandolaccio, as he ran up panting. “Is it in your body or your limbs?”
“In the arm.”
“The arm--oh, that’s nothing! And the other fellow?”
“I think I hit him.”
Brandolaccio ran after the dog to the nearest field and leaned over to look at the other side of the wall, then pulling off his cap-- “Signor Orlanduccio, I salute you!” said he, then turning toward Orso, he bowed to him, also, gravely.
“That,” he remarked, “is what I call a man who has been properly done for.”
“Is he still alive?” asked Orso, who could hardly breathe.
“Oh! he wouldn’t wish it! he’d be too much vexed about the bullet you put into his eye! Holy Madonna! What a hole! That’s a good gun, upon my soul! what a weight! That spatters a man’s brains for you! Hark ye, Ors’ Anton’! when I heard the first _piff, piff_, says I to myself: ‘Dash it, they’re murdering my lieutenant!’ Then I heard _boum, boum_. ‘Ha, ha!’ says I, ‘that’s the English gun beginning to talk--he’s firing back.’ But what on earth do you want with me, Brusco?”
The dog guided him to the other field.
“Upon my word,” cried Brandolaccio, utterly astonished, “a right and left, that’s what it is! Deuce take it! Clear enough, powder must be dear, for you don’t waste it!”
“What do you mean, for God’s sake?” asked Orso.
“Come, sir, don’t try to humbug me; you bring down the dame, and then you want somebody to pick it up for you. Well! there’s one man who’ll have a queer dessert to-day, and that’s Lawyer Barricini! --you want butcher’s meat, do you? Well, here you have it. Now, who the devil will be the heir?”
“What! is Vincentello dead too?”
“Dead as mutton. _Salute a noi! _ The good point about you is that you don’t let them suffer. Just come over and look at Vincentello; he’s kneeling here with his head against the wall, as if he were asleep. You may say he sleeps like lead, this time, poor devil.”
Orso turned his head in horror.
“Are you certain he’s dead?”
“You’re like Sampiero Corso, who never had to fire more than once. Look at it there, in his chest, on the left--just where Vincileone was hit at Waterloo. I’ll wager that bullet isn’t far from his heart--a right and left! Ah! I’ll never talk about shooting again. Two with two shots, and bullets at that! The two brothers! If he’d had a third shot he’d have killed their papa. Better luck next time. What a shot! Ors’ Anton’! And to think that an honest poor chap like me will never get the chance of a right and a left two gendarmes!”
As he talked the bandit was scanning Orso’s arm, and splitting up his sleeve with his dagger.
“This is nothing,” said he. “But this coat of yours will give Signorina Colomba work to do. Ha! what’s this I see? this gash upon your chest? Nothing went in there, surely? No! you wouldn’t be so brisk as you are! Come, try to move your finger. Do you feel my teeth when I bite your little finger? Not very well? Never mind! It won’t be much. Let me take your handkerchief and your neckcloth. Well, your coat’s spoilt, anyhow! What the devil did you make yourself so smart for? Were you going to a wedding? There! drink a drop of wine. Why on earth don’t you carry a flask? Does any Corsican ever go out without a flask?”
Then again he broke off the dressing of the wound to exclaim: “A right and left! Both of them stone dead! How the Padre will laugh! A right and left! Oh, here’s that little dawdle Chilina at last!”
Orso made no reply--he was as pale as death and shaking in every limb.
“Chili!” shouted Brandolaccio, “go and look behind that wall!”
The child, using both hands and feet, scrambled onto the wall, and the moment she caught sight of Orlanduccio’s corpse she crossed herself.
“That’s nothing,” proceeded the bandit; “go and look farther on, over there!”
The child crossed herself again.
“Was it you, uncle?” she asked timidly.
“Me! Don’t you know I’ve turned into a useless old fellow! This, Chili, is the signor’s work; offer him your compliments.”
“The signorina will be greatly rejoiced,” said Chilina, “and she will be very much grieved to know you are wounded, Ors’ Anton’.”
“Now then, Ors’ Anton’,” said the bandit, when he had finished binding up the wound. “Chilina, here, has caught your horse. You must get on his back, and come with me to the Stazzona _maquis_. It would be a sly fellow who’d lay his hand on you there. When we get to the Cross of Santa Christina, you’ll have to dismount. You’ll give over your horse to Chilina, who’ll go off and warn the signorina. You can say anything to the child, Ors’ Anton’. She would let herself be cut in pieces rather than betray her friends,” and then, fondly, he turned to the little girl, “That’s it, you little hussy; a ban on you, a curse on you--you jade!” For Brandolaccio, who was superstitious, like most bandits, feared he might cast a spell on a child if he blessed it or praised it, seeing it is a well-known fact that the mysterious powers that rule the _Annocchiatura_[*] have a vile habit of fulfilling our wishes in the very opposite sense to that we give them.
[*] _Annocchiatura_, an involuntary spell cast either by the eye or by spoken words.
“Where am I to go, Brando?” queried Orso in a faint voice.
“Faith! you must choose; either to jail or to the _maquis_. But no della Rebbia knows the path that leads him to the jail. To the _maquis_, Ors’ Anton’.”
“Farewell, then, to all my hopes!” exclaimed the wounded man, sadly.
“Your hopes? Deuce take it! Did you hope to do any better with a double-barrelled gun? How on earth did the fellows contrive to hit you? The rascals must have been as hard to kill as cats.”
“They fired first,” said Orso.
“True, true; I’d forgotten that! --_piff, piff--boum, boum_! A right and left, and only one hand! If any man can do better, I’ll go hang myself. Come! now you’re safely mounted! Before we start, just give a glance at your work. It isn’t civil to leave one’s company without saying good-bye.”
Orso spurred his horse. He would not have looked at the two poor wretches he had just destroyed, for anything on earth.
“Hark ye, Ors’ Anton’,” quoth the bandit, as he caught hold of the horse’s bridle, “shall I tell you the truth? Well, no offence to you! I’m sorry for those poor young fellows! You’ll pardon me, I hope; so good-looking, so strong, so young. Orlanduccio, I’ve shot with him so often! Only four days ago he gave me a bundle of cigars, and Vincentello--he was always so cheery. Of course you’ve only done what you had to do, and indeed the shot was such a splendid one, nobody could regret it. But I, you see, had nothing to do with your vengeance. I know you’re perfectly in the right. When one has an enemy one must get rid of him. But the Barricini were an old family. Here’s another of them wiped out, and by a right and left too! It’s striking.”
As he thus spoke his funeral oration over the Barricini, Brandolaccio hastily guided Orso, Chilina, and Brusco, the dog, toward the Stazzona _maquis_.
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Meanwhile, very shortly after Orso’s departure, Colomba’s spies had warned her that the Barricini were out on the warpath, and from that moment she was racked by the most intense anxiety. She was to be seen moving hither and thither all over the house, between the kitchen and the rooms that were being made ready for her guests, doing nothing, yet always busy, and constantly stopping to look out of a window for any unusual stir in the village. Toward eleven o’clock, a somewhat numerous cavalcade rode into Pietranera. This was the colonel, with his daughter, their servants, and their guide. Colomba’s first word, as she welcomed them, was “Have you seen my brother?” Then she questioned the guide as to the road they had taken, and the hour of their departure, and having heard his answers, she could not understand why they had not met him.
“Perhaps,” said the guide, “your brother took the higher path; we came by the lower one.”
But Colomba only shook her head and asked more questions. In spite of her natural firmness of character, increased as it was by her proud desire to conceal any sign of weakness before strangers, she could not hide her anxiety, and as soon as she had informed them of the attempted reconciliation, and of its unfortunate issue, this was shared by the colonel and Miss Lydia. Miss Nevil became very uneasy, and wanted to have messengers sent off in every direction, and her father offered to remount at once and set out with the guide in search of Orso. Her guests’ alarm recalled Colomba to a sense of her duties as a hostess. She strove to force a smile as she pressed the colonel to come to table, and suggested twenty plausible reasons, which she herself demolished within an instant, to account for her brother’s delay. The colonel, feeling it to be his duty, as a man, to reassure the ladies, put forward his own explanation.
“I’ll wager,” he said, “that della Rebbia has come across some game or other. He has not been able to stand out against that temptation, and we shall soon see him come in with a heavy bag. ‘Pon my soul,” he went on, “we did hear four shots fired on the road. Two of them were louder than the others, and I said to my girl, ‘I’ll bet anything that’s della Rebbia out shooting! My gun is the only one that would make that noise. ’” Colomba turned pale, and Lydia, who was watching her closely, had no difficulty in guessing the suspicions with which the colonel’s conjecture had inspired her. After a few minutes’ silence, Colomba eagerly inquired whether the two louder reports had been heard before or after the others. But neither the colonel, his daughter, nor the guide had paid much attention to this all-important detail.
Toward one o’clock, as none of Colomba’s messengers had yet returned, she gathered all her courage, and insisted that her guests should sit down to table with her. But, except the colonel, none of them could eat. At the slightest sound in the square, Colomba ran to the window. Then drearily she returned to her place, and struggled yet more drearily to carry on a trivial conversation, to which nobody paid the slightest attention, and which was broken by long intervals of silence. All at once they heard a horse’s gallop.
“Ah! That must be my brother at last!” said Colomba, rising from her chair. But when she saw Chilina astride on Orso’s horse--“My brother is dead!” she cried, in a heart-rending voice.
The colonel dropped his glass. Miss Lydia screamed. They all rushed to the door of the house. Before Chilina could jump off her steed, she was snatched up like a feather by Colomba, who held her so tight that she almost choked her. The child understood her agonized look, and her first words were those of the chorus in Othello: “He lives!” Colomba’s grasp relaxed, and nimbly as a kitten Chilina dropped upon the ground.
“The others?” queried Colomba hoarsely. Chilina crossed herself with her first and middle finger. A deep flush instantly replaced the deadly pallor of Colomba’s face. She cast one fierce look at the Barricini dwelling, and then, with a smile, she turned to her guests.
“Let us go in and drink our coffee,” she said.
The story the bandit’s Iris had to tell was a long one. Her narrative, translated literally into Italian by Colomba, and then into English by Miss Nevil, wrung more than one oath from the colonel, more than one sigh from the fair Lydia. But Colomba heard it all unmoved. Only she twisted her damask napkin till it seemed as if she must tear it in pieces. She interrupted the child, five or six times over, to make her repeat again that Brandolaccio had said the wound was not dangerous, and that he had seen many worse. When she had finished her tale, Chilina announced that Orso earnestly begged he might be sent writing materials, and that he desired his sister would beseech a lady who might be staying in his house not to depart from it, until she had received a letter from him.
“That is what was worrying him most,” the child added; “and even after I had started he called me back, to bid me not forget the message. It was the third time he had given it to me.” When Colomba heard of her brother’s injunction she smiled faintly, and squeezed the fair Englishwoman’s hand. That young lady burst into tears, and did not seem to think it advisable to translate that particular part of the story to her father.
“Yes, my dear,” cried Colomba, kissing Miss Nevil. “You shall stay with me, and you shall help us.”
Then, taking a pile of old linen out of a cupboard, she began to cut it up, to make lint and bandages. Any one who saw her flashing eyes, her heightened colour, her alternate fits of anxiety and composure, would have found it hard to say whether distress at her brother’s wound, or delight at the extinction of her foes, were most affecting her. One moment she was pouring out the colonel’s coffee, and telling him how well she made it, the next she was setting Miss Lydia and Chilina to work, exhorting them to sew bandages, and roll them up. Then, for the twentieth time, she would ask whether Orso’s wound was very painful. She constantly broke off her own work to exclaim to the colonel: “Two such cunning men, such dangerous fellows! And he alone, wounded, with only one arm! He killed the two of them! What courage, colonel! Isn’t he a hero? Ah, Miss Nevil! How good it is to live in a peaceful country like yours! I’m sure you did not really know my brother till now! I said it--‘The falcon will spread his wings!’ You were deceived by his gentle look! That’s because with you, Miss Nevil--Ah! if he could see you working for him now! My poor Orso!”
Miss Lydia was doing hardly any work, and could not find a single word to say. Her father kept asking why nobody went to lay a complaint before a magistrate. He talked about a coroner’s inquest, and all sorts of other proceedings quite unknown to Corsican economy. And then he begged to be told whether the country house owned by that worthy Signor Brandolaccio, who had brought succour to the wounded man, was very far away from Pietranera, and whether he could not go there himself, to see his friend.
And Colomba replied, with her usual composure, that Orso was in the _maquis_; that he was being taken care of by a bandit; that it would be a great risk for him to show himself until he was sure of the line the prefect and the judges were likely to take; and, finally, that she would manage to have him secretly attended by a skilful surgeon.
“Above all things, colonel,” she added, “remember that you heard the four shots, and that you told me Orso fired last.”
The colonel could make neither head nor tail of the business, and his daughter did nothing but heave sighs and dry her eyes.
The day was far advanced, when a gloomy procession wended its way into the village. The bodies of his two sons were brought home to Lawyer Barricini, each corpse thrown across a mule, which was led by a peasant. A crowd of dependents and idlers followed the dreary _cortege_. With it appeared the gendarmes, who always came in too late, and the deputy-mayor, throwing up his hands, and incessantly repeating, “What will Signor Prefetto say!” Some of the women, among them Orlanduccio’s foster-mother, were tearing their hair and shrieking wildly. But their clamorous grief was less impressive than the dumb despair of one man, on whom all eyes were fixed. This was the wretched father, who passed from one corpse to the other, lifting up the earth-soiled heads, kissing the blackened lips, supporting the limbs that were stiff already, as if he would save them from the jolting of the road. Now and then he opened his mouth as though about to speak, but not a cry came, not a word. His eyes never left the dead bodies, and as he walked, he knocked himself against the stones, against the trees, against every obstacle that chanced to lie in his path.
The women’s lamentations grew louder, and the men’s curses deeper, when Orso’s house appeared in sight. When some shepherds of the della Rebbia party ventured on a triumphant shout, their enemy’s indignation became ungovernable. “Vengeance! Vengeance!” exclaimed several voices. Stones were thrown, and two shots, fired at the windows of the room in which Colomba and her guests were sitting, pierced the outside shutters, and carried splinters of wood on to the table at which the two ladies were working. Miss Lydia screamed violently, the colonel snatched up a gun, and Colomba, before he could stop her, rushed to the door of the house and threw it violently open. There, standing high on the threshold, with her two hands outstretched to curse her enemies: “Cowards!” she cried. “You fire on women and on foreigners! Are you Corsicans? Are you men? Wretches, who can only murder a man from behind. Come on! I defy you! I am alone! My brother is far away! Come! kill me, kill my guests! It would be worthy of you! . . . But you dare not, cowards that you are! You know we avenge our wrongs! Away with you! Go, weep like women, and be thankful we do not ask you for more blood!”
There was something terrible and imposing in Colomba’s voice and mien. At the sight of her the crowd recoiled as though it beheld one of those evil fairies of which so many tales are told on long winter evenings, in Corsica. The deputy-mayor, the gendarmes, and a few women seized the opportunity, and threw themselves between the two factions; for the della Rebbia herdsmen were already loading their guns, and for a moment a general fight in the middle of the square had appeared imminent. But the two parties were both leaderless, and Corsicans, whose rage is always subject to discipline, seldom come to blows unless the chief authors of their internecine quarrels are present. Besides, Colomba, who had learned prudence from victory, restrained her little garrison.
“Let the poor folks weep in peace,” she said. “Let the old man carry his own flesh home. What is the good of killing an old fox who has no teeth left to bite with, . . . Giudice Barricini! Remember the 2d of August! Remember the blood-stained pocket-book in which you wrote with your forger’s hand! My father had written down your debt! Your sons have paid it. You may go free, old Barricini!”
With folded arms and a scornful smile upon her lips, Colomba watched the bearers carry the corpses of her enemies into their home, and the crowd without it melt gradually away. Then she closed her own door, and, going back into the dining-room, she said to the colonel: “I beg, sir, you will forgive my fellow-countrymen! I never could have believed that any Corsican would have fired on a house that sheltered strangers, and I am ashamed of my country.”
That night, when Miss Lydia had gone up to her room, the colonel followed her, and inquired whether they had not better get out of a village where they ran incessant risk of having a bullet through their heads, the very next morning, and leave this country, seething with treachery and murder, as soon as possible.
Miss Nevil did not answer for some time, and her father’s suggestion evidently caused her considerable perplexity. At last she said: “How can we leave this poor young creature, just when she is so much in need of consolation? Don’t you think that would be cruel, father?”
“I only spoke on your account, child,” said the colonel. “And I assure you that if I once felt you were safe in the hotel at Ajaccio, I should be very sorry to leave this cursed island myself, without shaking that plucky fellow della Rebbia’s hand again.”
“Well then, father, let us wait a while, and before we start let us make quite sure we can not be of any use to them.”
“Kind soul!” said the colonel, as he kissed his daughter’s forehead. “It is a pleasure to see you sacrifice yourself for the sake of softening other people’s suffering. Let us stay on. We shall never have to repent having done right.”
Miss Lydia tossed sleeplessly to and fro in her bed. Sometimes she took the vague night sounds for preparations for an attack on the house. Sometimes, less alarmed on her own account, she thought of poor wounded Orso, who was probably lying on the cold earth, with no help beyond what she might expect from a bandit’s charity. She fancied him covered with blood, and writhing in hideous suffering; and the extraordinary thing was that whenever Orso’s image rose up before her mind’s eye, she always beheld him as she had seen him when he rode away, pressing the talisman she had bestowed upon him to his lips. Then she mused over his courage. She told herself he had exposed himself to the frightful danger he had just escaped on her account, just for the sake of seeing her a little sooner. A very little more, and she would have persuaded herself that Orso had earned his broken arm in her defence! She reproached herself with being the cause of his wound. But she admired him for it all the more, and if that celebrated right and left was not so splendid a feat in her sight as in Brandolaccio’s or Colomba’s, still she was convinced few heroes of romance could ever had behaved with such intrepidity and coolness, in so dangerous a pinch.
Her room was that usually occupied by Colomba. Above a kind of oaken _prie-dieu_, and beside a sprig of blessed palm, a little miniature of Orso, in his sub-lieutenant’s uniform, hung on the wall. Miss Nevil took the portrait down, looked at it for a long time, and laid it at last on the table by her bed, instead of hanging it up again in its place. She did not fall asleep till daybreak, and when she woke the sun had travelled high above the horizon. In front of her bed she beheld Colomba, waiting, motionless, till she should open her eyes.
“Well, dear lady, are you not very uncomfortable in this poor house of ours?” said Colomba to her. “I fear you have hardly slept at all.”
“Have you any news, dear friend?” cried Miss Nevil, sitting up in bed.
Her eye fell on Orso’s picture, and she hastily tossed her handkerchief upon it.
“Yes, I have news,” said Colomba, with a smile.
Then she took up the picture.
“Do you think it like him? He is better looking than that!”
“Really,” stammered Miss Nevil, quite confused, “I took down that picture in a fit of absence! I have a horrid habit of touching everything and never putting anything back! How is your brother?”
“Fairly well. Giocanto came here before four o’clock this morning. He brought me a letter for you, Miss Lydia. Orso hasn’t written anything to me! It is addressed to Colomba, indeed, but underneath that he has written ‘For Miss N.’ But sisters are never jealous! Giocanto says it hurt him dreadfully to write. Giocanto, who writes a splendid hand, offered to do it at his dictation. But he would not let him. He wrote it with a pencil, lying on his back. Brandolaccio held the paper for him. My brother kept trying to raise himself, and then the very slightest movement gave him the most dreadful agony in his arm. Giocanto says it was pitiful. Here is his letter.”
Miss Nevil read the letter, which, as an extra precaution, no doubt, was written in English. Its contents were as follows: “MADEMOISELLE: An unhappy fate has driven me on. I know not what my enemies will say, what slanders they will invent. I care little, so long as you, mademoiselle, give them no credence! Ever since I first saw you I have been nursing wild dreams. I needed this catastrophe to show me my own folly.
“I have come back to my senses now. I know the future that lies before me, and I shall face it with resignation. I dare not keep this ring you gave me, and which I believed to be a lucky talisman. I fear, Miss Nevil, you may regret your gift has been so ill-bestowed. Or rather, I fear it may remind me of the days of my own madness. Colomba will give it to you. Farewell, mademoiselle! You are about to leave Corsica, and I shall never see you again. But tell my sister, at least, that I still possess your esteem--and I tell you, confidently, that I am still worthy of it.
“O.D.R.” Miss Lydia had turned away while she read the letter, and Colomba, who was watching her closely, gave her the Egyptian ring, with an inquiring glance as to what it all meant. But Miss Lydia dared not raise her head, and looked dejectedly at the ring, alternately putting it on her finger and pulling it off again.
“Dear Miss Nevil,” said Colomba, “may I not know what my brother says to you? Does he say anything about his health?”
“Indeed,” said Miss Lydia, colouring, “he doesn’t mention it. His letter is in English. He desires me to tell my father--He hopes the prefect will be able to arrange----” With a mischievous smile, Colomba sat down on the bed, took hold of both Miss Nevil’s hands, and, looking at her with her piercing eyes-- “Will you be kind?” she said. “Won’t you answer my brother’s letter? You would do him so much good! For a moment I thought of waking you when his letter came, and then I didn’t dare!”
“You did very wrong,” replied Miss Nevil. “If a word from me could--” “I can’t send him any letter now. The prefect has arrived, and Pietranera is full of his policemen. Later on, we’ll see what we can do. Oh, Miss Nevil, if you only knew my brother, you would love him as dearly as I do. He’s so good! He’s so brave! Just think of what he has done! One man against two, and wounded as well!”
The prefect had returned. Warned by an express messenger sent by the deputy-mayor, he had brought over the public prosecutor, the registrar, and all their myrmidons, to investigate the fresh and terrible catastrophe which had just complicated, or it may be ended, the warfare between the chief families of Pietranera. Shortly after his arrival, he saw the colonel and his daughter, and did not conceal his fear that the business might take on an ugly aspect.
“You know,” he said, “that the fight took place without witnesses, and the reputation of these two unhappy men stood so high, both for bravery and cunning, that nobody will believe Signor della Rebbia can have killed them without the help of the bandits with whom he is now supposed to have taken refuge.”
“It’s not possible,” said the colonel. “Orso della Rebbia is a most honourable fellow. I’ll stake my life on that.”
“I believe you,” said the prefect. “But the public prosecutor (those gentry always are suspicious) does not strike me as being particularly well disposed toward him. He holds one bit of evidence which goes rather against our friend--a threatening letter to Orlanduccio, in which he suggests a meeting, and is inclined to think that meeting was a trap.”
“That fellow Orlanduccio refused to fight it out like a gentleman.”
“That is not the custom here. In this country, people lie in ambush, and kill each other from behind. There is one deposition in his favour--that of a child, who declares she heard four reports, two of which were louder than the others, and produced by a heavy weapon, such as Signor della Rebbia’s gun. Unluckily, the child is the niece of one of the bandits suspected of being his accomplices, and has probably been taught her lesson.”
“Sir,” broke in Miss Lydia, reddening to the roots of her hair, “we were on the road when those shots were fired, and we heard the same thing.”
“Really? That’s most important! And you, colonel, no doubt you remarked the very same thing?”
“Yes,” responded Miss Lydia quickly. “It was my father, who is so accustomed to firearms, who said to me, ‘There’s Signor della Rebbia shooting with my gun! ’” “And you are sure those shots you recognised were the last?”
“The two last, weren’t they, papa?”
Memory was not the colonel’s strong point, but as a standing rule, he knew better than to contradict his daughter.
“I must mention this to the public prosecutor at once, colonel. And besides, we expect a surgeon this evening, who will make an examination of the two bodies, and find out whether the wounds were caused by that particular weapon.”
“I gave it to Orso,” said the colonel, “and I wish I knew it was at the bottom of the sea. At least----Plucky boy! I’m heartily glad he had it with him, for I don’t quite know how he would have got off if it hadn’t been for my Manton.”
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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It was rather late when the surgeon put in an appearance. On his road up he had met with an adventure of his own. He had been stopped by Giocanto Castriconi, who, with the most scrupulous politeness, called on him to come and attend a wounded man. He had been conducted to Orso’s retreat, and had applied the first dressings to his wound. The bandit had then accompanied the doctor some distance on his way, and had greatly edified him by his talk concerning the most celebrated professors at Pisa, whom he described as his intimate friends.
“Doctor,” said the theologian, as they parted, “you have inspired me with such a feeling of respect that I think it hardly necessary to remind you that a physician should be as discreet as a confessor.” And as he said the words he clicked the trigger of his gun. “You have quite forgotten the spot at which we have had the honour of meeting. Fare you well! I’m delighted to have made your acquaintance.”
Colomba besought the colonel to be present at the post-mortem examination.
“You know my brother’s gun better than anybody,” she said, “and your presence will be most valuable. Besides there are so many wicked people here that we should run a great risk if there were nobody present to protect our interests.”
When she was left alone with Miss Lydia, she complained that her head ached terribly, and proposed that they should take a walk just outside the village.
“The fresh air will do me good,” she said. “It is so long since I’ve been out of doors.”
As they walked along she talked about her brother, and Miss Lydia, who found the subject tolerably interesting, did not notice that they had travelled a long way from Pietranera. The sun was setting when she became aware of this fact, and she begged Colomba to return. Colomba said she knew a cross-cut which would greatly shorten the walk back, and turning out of the path, she took another, which seemed much less frequented. Soon she began to climb a hill, so steep that to keep her balance she was continually obliged to catch hold of branches with one hand, while she pulled her companion up after her with the other. After about twenty minutes of this trying ascent, they found themselves on a small plateau, clothed with arbutus and myrtle, growing round great granite boulders that jutted above the soil in every direction. Miss Lydia was very tired, there was no sign of the village, and it was almost quite dark.
“Do you know, Colomba, my dear,” she said, “I’m afraid we’ve lost our way!”
“No fear!” answered Colomba. “Let us get on. You follow me.”
“But I assure you we’re going wrong. The village can’t be over there. I’m certain we’re turning our backs on it. Why, look at those lights, far away. Pietranera must be in that direction.”
“My dear soul,” said Colomba, and she looked very much agitated, “you’re perfectly right. But in the _maquis_--less than a hundred yards from here--” “Well?”
“My brother is lying. If you choose, I might see him, and give him one kiss.”
Miss Nevil made a gesture of astonishment.
“I got out of Pietranera without being noticed,” continued Colomba, “because I was with you, otherwise I should have been followed. To be so close to him, and not to see him! Why shouldn’t you come with me to see my poor brother? You would make him so happy!”
“But, Colomba--That wouldn’t be at all proper on my part----” “I see. With you women who live in towns, your great anxiety is to be proper. We village women only think of what is kind.”
“But it’s so late! And then what will your brother think of me?”
“He’ll think his friends have not forsaken him, and that will give him courage to bear his sufferings.”
“And my father? He’ll be so anxious!”
“He knows you are with me. Come! Make up your mind. You were looking at his picture this morning,” she added, with a sly smile.
“No! Really and truly, I don’t dare, Colomba! Think of the bandits who are there.”
“Well, what matter? The bandits don’t know you. And you were longing to see some.”
“Oh, dear!”
“Come, signorina, settle something. I can’t leave you alone here. I don’t know what might happen to you. Let us go on to see Orso, or else let us go back to the village together. I shall see my brother again. God knows when--never, perhaps!”
“What’s that you are saying, Colomba? Well, well, let us go! But only for a minute, and then we’ll get home at once.”
Colomba squeezed her hand, and without making any reply walked on so quickly that Miss Lydia could hardly keep up with her. She soon halted, luckily, and said to her companion: “We won’t go any farther without warning them. We might have a bullet flying at our heads.”
She began to whistle through her fingers. Soon they heard a dog bark, and the bandits’ advanced sentry shortly came in sight. This was our old acquaintance Brusco, who recognised Colomba at once and undertook to be her guide. After many windings through the narrow paths in the _maquis_ they were met by two men, armed to the teeth.
“Is that you, Brandolaccio?” inquired Colomba. “Where is my brother?”
“Just over there,” replied the bandit. “But go quietly. He’s asleep, and for the first time since his accident. Zounds, it’s clear that where the devil gets through, a woman will get through too!”
The two girls moved forward cautiously, and beside a fire, the blaze of which was carefully concealed by a little wall of stones built round it, they beheld Orso, lying on a pile of heather, and covered with a _pilone_. He was very pale, and they could hear his laboured breathing. Colomba sat down near him, and gazed at him silently, with her hands clasped, as though she were praying in her heart. Miss Lydia hid her face in her handkerchief, and nestled close against her friend, but every now and then she lifted her head to take a look at the wounded man over Colomba’s shoulder. Thus a quarter of an hour passed by without a word being said by anybody. At a sign from the theologian, Brandolaccio had plunged with him into the _maquis_, to the great relief of Miss Lydia, who for the first time fancied the local colour of the bandits’ wild beards and warlike equipment was a trifle too strong.
At last Orso stirred. Instantly, Colomba bent over him, and kissed him again and again, pouring out questions anent his wound, his suffering, and his needs. After having answered that he was doing as well as possible, Orso inquired, in his turn, whether Miss Nevil was still at Pietranera, and whether she had written to him. Colomba, bending over her brother, completely hid her companion from his sight, and indeed the darkness would have made any recognition difficult. She was holding one of Miss Nevil’s hands. With the other she slightly raised her wounded brother’s head.
“No, brother,” she replied. “She did not give me any letter for you. But are you still thinking about Miss Nevil? You must love her very much!”
“Love her, Colomba! --But--but now she may despise me!”
At this point Miss Nevil made a struggle to withdraw her fingers. But it was no easy matter to get Colomba to slacken her grasp. Small and well-shaped though her hand was, it possessed a strength of which we have already noticed certain proofs.
“Despise you!” cried Colomba. “After what you’ve done? No, indeed! She praises you! Oh, Orso, I could tell you so many things about her!”
Lydia’s hand was still struggling for its freedom, but Colomba kept drawing it closer to Orso.
“But after all,” said the wounded man, “why didn’t she answer me? If she had sent me a single line, I should have been happy.”
By dint of pulling at Miss Nevil’s hand, Colomba contrived at last to put it into her brother’s. Then, moving suddenly aside, she burst out laughing.
“Orso,” she cried, “mind you don’t speak evil of Miss Lydia--she understands Corsican quite well.”
Miss Lydia took back her hand at once and stammered some unintelligible words. Orso thought he must be dreaming.
“You here, Miss Nevil? Good heavens! how did you dare? Oh, how happy you have made me!”
And raising himself painfully, he strove to get closer to her.
“I came with your sister,” said Miss Lydia, “so that nobody might suspect where she was going. And then I--I wanted to make sure for myself. Alas! how uncomfortable you are here!”
Colomba had seated herself behind Orso. She raised him carefully so that his head might rest on her lap. She put her arms round his neck and signed to Miss Lydia to come near him.
“Closer! closer!” she said. “A sick man mustn’t talk too loud.” And when Miss Lydia hesitated, she caught her hand and forced her to sit down so close to Orso that her dress touched him, and her hand, still in Colomba’s grasp, lay on the wounded man’s shoulder.
“Now he’s very comfortable!” said Colomba cheerily. “Isn’t it good to lie out in the _maquis_ on such a lovely night? Eh, Orso?”
“How you must be suffering!” exclaimed Miss Lydia.
“My suffering is all gone now,” said Orso, “and I should like to die here!” And his right hand crept up toward Miss Lydia’s, which Colomba still held captive.
“You really must be taken to some place where you can be properly cared for, Signor della Rebbia,” said Miss Nevil. “I shall never be able to sleep in my bed, now that I have seen you lying here, so uncomfortable, in the open air.”
“If I had not been afraid of meeting you, Miss Nevil, I should have tried to get back to Pietranera, and I should have given myself up to the authorities.”
“And why were you afraid of meeting her, Orso?” inquired Colomba.
“I had disobeyed you, Miss Nevil, and I should not have dared to look at you just then.”
“Do you know you make my brother do everything you choose, Miss Lydia?” said Colomba, laughing. “I won’t let you see him any more.”
“I hope this unlucky business will soon be cleared up, and that you will have nothing more to fear,” said Miss Nevil. “I shall be so happy, when we go away, to know justice has been done you, and that both your loyalty and your bravery have been acknowledged.”
“Going away, Miss Nevil! Don’t say that word yet!”
“What are we to do? My father can not spend his whole life shooting. He wants to go.”
Orso’s hand, which had been touching Miss Lydia’s, dropped away, and there was silence for a moment.
“Nonsense!” said Colomba. “We won’t let you go yet. We have plenty of things to show you still at Pietranera. Besides, you have promised to paint my picture, and you haven’t even begun it so far. And then I’ve promised to compose you a _serenata_, with seventy-five verses. And then--but what can Brusco be growling about? And here’s Brandolaccio running after him. I must go and see what’s amiss.”
She rose at once, and laying Orso’s head, without further ceremony, on Miss Lydia’s lap, she ran after the bandits.
Miss Nevil, somewhat startled at finding herself thus left in sole charge of a handsome young Corsican gentleman in the middle of a _maquis_, was rather puzzled what to do next.
For she was afraid that any sudden movement on her part might hurt the wounded man. But Orso himself resigned the exquisite pillow on which his sister had just laid his head, and raising himself on his right arm, he said: “So you will soon be gone, Miss Lydia? I never expected your stay in this unhappy country would have been a long one. And yet since you have come to me here, the thought that I must bid you farewell has grown a hundred times more bitter to me. I am only a poor lieutenant. I had no future--and now I am an outlaw. What a moment in which to tell you that I love you, Miss Lydia! But no doubt this is my only chance of saying it. And I think I feel less wretched now I have unburdened my heart to you.”
Miss Lydia turned away her head, as if the darkness were not dark enough to hide her blushes.
“Signor della Rebbia,” she said, and her voice shook, “should I have come here at all if----” and as she spoke she laid the Egyptian talisman in Orso’s hand. Then, with a mighty effort to recover her usual bantering tone--“It’s very wrong of you, Signor Orso, to say such things! You know very well that here, in the middle of the _maquis_, and with your bandits all about me, I should never dare to be angry with you.”
Orso made an attempt to kiss the hand that held out the talisman. Miss Lydia drew it quickly back; he lost his balance, and fell on his wounded arm. He could not stifle a moan of pain.
“Oh, dear, you’ve hurt yourself, and it was my fault!” she cried, as she raised him up. “Forgive me!” They talked for some time longer, very low, and very close together.
Colomba, running hastily up, found them in the very same position in which she had left them.
“The soldiers!” she cried. “Orso! try to get up and walk! I’ll help you!”
“Leave me!” said Orso. “Tell the bandits to escape. What do I care if I am taken? But take away Miss Lydia. For God’s sake, don’t let anybody see her here!”
“I won’t leave you,” said Brandolaccio, who had come up on Colomba’s heels.
“The sergeant in charge is the lawyer’s godson. He’ll shoot you instead of arresting you, and then he’ll say he didn’t do it on purpose.”
Orso tried to rise; he even took a few steps. But he soon halted. “I can’t walk,” he said. “Fly, all of you! Good-bye, Miss Nevil! Give me your hand! Farewell!”
“We won’t leave you!” cried the two girls.
“If you can’t walk,” said Brandolaccio, “I must carry you. Come, sir, a little courage! We shall have time to slip away by the ravine. The Signor Padre will keep them busy.”
“No, leave me!” said Orso, lying down on the ground. “Colomba, take Miss Nevil away! --for God’s sake!”
“You’re strong, Signorina Colomba,” said Brandolaccio. “Catch hold of his shoulders; I’ll take his feet. That’s it! Now, then march!”
In spite of his protests, they began to carry him rapidly along. Miss Lydia was following them, in a terrible fright, when a gun was fired, and five or six other reports instantly responded. Miss Lydia screamed and Brandolaccio swore an oath, but he doubled his pace, and Colomba, imitating him, tore through the thicket without paying the slightest heed to the branches that slashed her face and tore her dress.
“Bend down, bend down, dear!” she called out to her companion. “You may be hit by some stray bullet!”
They had walked, or rather run, some five hundred paces in this fashion when Brandolaccio vowed he could go no further, and dropped on the ground, regardless of all Colomba’s exhortations and reproaches.
“Where is Miss Nevil?” was Orso’s one inquiry.
Terrified by the firing, checked at every step by the thick growth of the _maquis_, Miss Nevil had soon lost sight of the fugitives, and been left all alone in a state of the most cruel alarm.
“She has been left behind,” said Brandolaccio, “but she’ll not be lost--women always turn up again. Do listen to the row the Padre is making with your gun, Ors’ Anton’! Unluckily, it’s as black as pitch, and nobody takes much harm from being shot at in the dark.”
“Hush!” cried Colomba. “I hear a horse. We’re saved!”
Startled by the firing, a horse which had been wandering through the _maquis_, was really coming close up to them.
“Saved, indeed!” repeated Brandolaccio. It did not take the bandit more than an instant to rush up to the creature, catch hold of his mane, and with Colomba’s assistance, bridle him with a bit of knotted rope.
“Now we must warn the Padre,” he said. He whistled twice; another distant whistle answered the signal, and the loud voice of the Manton gun was hushed. Then Brandolaccio sprang on the horse’s back. Colomba lifted her brother up in front of the bandit, who held him close with one hand and managed his bridle with the other.
In spite of the double load, the animal, urged by a brace of hearty kicks, started off nimbly, and galloped headlong down a steep declivity on which anything but a Corsican steed would have broken its neck a dozen times.
Then Colomba retraced her steps, calling Miss Nevil at the top of her voice; but no answering cry was heard.
After walking hither and thither for some time, trying to recover the path, she stumbled on two riflemen, who shouted, “Who goes there?”
“Well, gentlemen,” cried Colomba jeeringly, “here’s a pretty racket! How many of you are killed?”
“You were with the bandits!” said one of the soldiers. “You must come with us.”
“With pleasure!” she replied. “But there’s a friend of mine somewhere close by, and we must find her first.”
“You friend is caught already, and both of you will sleep in jail to-night!”
“In jail, you say? Well, that remains to be seen. But take me to her, meanwhile.”
The soldiers led her to the bandits’ camp, where they had collected the trophies of their raid--to wit, the cloak which had covered Orso, an old cooking-pot, and a pitcher of cold water. On the same spot she found Miss Nevil, who had fallen among the soldiers, and, being half dead with terror, did nothing but sob in answer to their questions as to the number of the bandits, and the direction in which they had gone.
Colomba threw herself into her arms and whispered in her ear, “They are safe!” Then, turning to the sergeant, she said: “Sir, you can see this young lady knows none of the things you are trying to find out from her. Give us leave to go back to the village, where we are anxiously expected.”
“You’ll be taken there, and faster than you like, my beauty,” rejoined the sergeant. “And you’ll have to explain what you were after at this time of night with the ruffians who have just got away. I don’t know what witchcraft those villains practise, but they certainly do bewitch the women--for wherever there are bandits about, you are dead certain to find pretty girls.”
“You’re very flattering, sergeant!” said Colomba, “but you’ll do well to be careful what you say. This young lady is related to the prefect, and you’d better be careful of your language before her.”
“A relation of the prefect’s,” whispered one of the soldiers to his chief. “Why, she does wear a hat!”
“Hats have nothing to do with it,” said the sergeant. “They were both of them with the Padre--the greatest woman-wheedler in the whole country, so it’s my business to march them off. And, indeed, there’s nothing more for us to do here. But for that d----d Corporal Taupin--the drunken Frenchman showed himself before I’d surrounded the _maquis_--we should have had them all like fish in a net.”
“Are there only seven of you here?” inquired Colomba. “It strikes me, gentlemen, that if the three Poli brothers--Gambini, Sarocchi, and Teodoro--should happen to be at the Cross of Santa Christina, with Brandolaccio and the Padre, they might give you a good deal of corn to grind. If you mean to have a talk with the Commandante della Campagna, I’d just as soon not be there. In the dark, bullets don’t show any respect for persons.”
The idea of coming face to face with the dreaded bandits mentioned by Colomba made an evident impression on the soldiers. The sergeant, still cursing Corporal Taupin--“that dog of a Frenchman”--gave the order to retire, and his little party moved toward Pietranera, carrying the _pilone_ and the cooking-pot; as for the pitcher, its fate was settled with a kick.
One of the men would have laid hold of Miss Lydia’s arm, but Colomba instantly pushed him away.
“Let none of you dare to lay a finger on her!” she said. “Do you fancy we want to run away? Come, Lydia, my dear, lean on me, and don’t cry like a baby. We’ve had an adventure, but it will end all right. In half an hour we shall be at our supper, and for my part I’m dying to get to it.”
“What will they think of me!” Miss Nevil whispered.
“They’ll think you lost your way in the _maquis_, that’s all.”
“What will the prefect say? Above all, what will my father say?”
“The prefect? You can tell him to mind his own business! Your father? I should have thought, from the way you and Orso were talking, that you had something to say to your father.”
Miss Nevil squeezed her arm, and answered nothing.
“Doesn’t my brother deserve to be loved?” whispered Colomba in her ear. “Don’t you love him a little?”
“Oh, Colomba!” answered Miss Nevil, smiling in spite of her blushes, “you’ve betrayed me! And I trusted you so!”
Colomba slipped her arm round her, and kissed her forehead.
“Little sister,” she whispered very low, “will you forgive me?”
“Why, I suppose I must, my masterful sister,” answered Lydia, as she kissed her back.
The prefect and the public prosecutor were staying with the deputy-mayor, and the colonel, who was very uneasy about his daughter, was paying them his twentieth call, to ask if they had heard of her, when a rifleman, whom the sergeant had sent on in advance, arrived with the full story of the great fight with the brigands--a fight in which nobody had been either killed or wounded, but which had resulted in the capture of a cooking-pot, a _pilone_, and two girls, whom the man described as the mistresses, or the spies, of the two bandits.
Thus heralded, the two prisoners appeared, surrounded by their armed escort.
My readers will imagine Colomba’s radiant face, her companion’s confusion, the prefect’s surprise, the colonel’s astonishment and joy. The public prosecutor permitted himself the mischievous entertainment of obliging poor Lydia to undergo a kind of cross-examination, which did not conclude until he had quite put her out of countenance.
“It seems to me,” said the prefect, “that we may release everybody. These young ladies went out for a walk--nothing is more natural in fine weather. They happened to meet a charming young man, who has been lately wounded--nothing could be more natural, again.” Then, taking Colomba aside-- “Signorina,” he said, “you can send word to your brother that this business promises to turn out better than I had expected. The post-mortem examination and the colonel’s deposition both prove that he only defended himself, and that he was alone when the fight took place. Everything will be settled--only he must leave the _maquis_ and give himself up to the authorities.”
It was almost eleven o’clock when the colonel, his daughter, and Colomba sat down at last to their supper, which had grown cold. Colomba ate heartily, and made great fun of the prefect, the public prosecutor, and the soldiers. The colonel ate too, but never said a word, and gazed steadily at his daughter, who would not lift her eyes from her plate. At last, gently but seriously, he said in English: “Lydia, I suppose you are engaged to della Rebbia?”
“Yes, father, to-day,” she answered, steadily, though she blushed. Then she raised her eyes, and reading no sign of anger in her father’s face, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, as all well-brought-up young ladies do on such occasions.
“With all my heart!” said the colonel. “He’s a fine fellow. But, by G--d, we won’t live in this d---d country of his, or I’ll refuse my consent.”
“I don’t know English,” said Colomba, who was watching them with an air of the greatest curiosity, “but I’ll wager I’ve guessed what you are saying!”
“We are saying,” quoth the colonel, “that we are going to take you for a trip to Ireland.”
“Yes, with pleasure; and I’ll be the Surella Colomba. Is it settled, colonel? Shall we shake hands on it?”
“In such a case,” remarked the colonel, “people exchanges kisses!”
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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20
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None
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One afternoon, a few months after the double shot which, as the newspapers said, “plunged the village of Pietranera into a state of consternation,” a young man with his left arm in a sling, rode out of Bastia, toward the village of Cardo, celebrated for its spring, which in summer supplies the more fastidious inhabitants of the town with delicious water. He was accompanied by a young lady, tall and remarkably handsome, mounted on a small black horse, the strength and shape of which would have attracted the admiration of a connoisseur, although, by some strange accident, one of its ears had been lacerated. On reaching the village, the girl sprang nimbly to the ground, and, having helped her comrade to dismount, she unfastened the somewhat heavy wallets strapped to his saddle-bow. The horses were left in charge of a peasant. The girl, laden with the wallets, which she had concealed under her _mezzaro_, and the young man, carrying a double-barrelled gun, took their way toward the mountain, along a very steep path that did not appear to lead to any dwelling. When they had climbed to one of the lower ridges of the Monte Querico, they halted, and sat down on the grass. They were evidently expecting somebody, for they kept perpetually looking toward the mountain, and the young lady often consulted a pretty gold watch--as much, it may be, for the pleasure of admiring what appeared a somewhat newly acquired trinket, as in order to know whether the hour appointed for some meeting or other had come. They had not long to wait. A dog ran out of the _maquis_, and when the girl called out “Brusco!” it approached at once, and fawned upon them. Presently two bearded men appeared, with guns under their arms, cartridge-belts round their waists, and pistols hanging at their sides. Their torn and patched garments contrasted oddly with their weapons, which were brilliantly polished, and came from a famous Continental factory. In spite of the apparent inequality of their positions, the four actors in this scene greeted one another in terms of old and familiar friendship.
“Well, Ors’ Anton’,” said the elder bandit to the young man, “so your business is settled--the indictment against you has fallen through? I congratulate you. I’m sorry the lawyer has left the island. I’d like to see his rage. And how’s your arm?”
“They tell me I shall get rid of my sling in a fortnight,” said the young man. “Brando, my good friend, I’m going to Italy to-morrow--I wanted to say good-bye to you and to the cure. That’s why I asked you to come here.”
“You’re in a fine hurry,” said Brandolaccio. “Only acquitted yesterday, and you’re off to-morrow.”
“Business must be attended to,” said the young lady merrily. “Gentlemen, I’ve brought some supper. Fall to, if you please, and don’t you forget my friend Brusco.”
“You spoil Brusco, Mademoiselle Colomba. But he’s a grateful dog. You shall see. Here, Brusco,” and he held out his gun horizontally, “jump for the Barricini!”
The dog stood motionless, licking his chops, and staring at his master.
“Jump for the della Rebbia!” And he leaped two feet higher than he need have done.
“Look here, my friends,” said Orso, “you’re plying a bad trade; and even if you don’t end your career on that square below us,[*] the best you can look for is to die in the _maquis_ by some gendarme’s bullet.”
[*] The square at Bastia on which executions take place.
“Well, well,” said Castriconi, “that’s no more than death, anyhow; and it’s better than being killed in your bed by a fever, with your heirs snivelling more or less honestly all round you. To men who are accustomed to the open air like us, there’s nothing so good as to die ‘in your shoes,’ as the village folk say.”
“I should like to see you get out of this country,” said Orso, “and lead a quieter life. For instance, why shouldn’t you settle in Sardinia, as several of your comrades have done? I could make the matter easy for you.”
“In Sardinia!” cried Brandolaccio. “_Istos Sardos! _ Devil take them and their lingo! We couldn’t live in such bad company.”
“Sardinia’s a country without resources,” added the theologian. “For my part, I despise the Sardinians. They keep mounted men to hunt their bandits. That’s a stigma on both the bandits and the country. [*] Out upon Sardinia, say I! The thing that astounds me, Signor della Rebbia, is that you, who are a man of taste and understanding, should not have taken to our life in the _maquis_, after having once tried it, as you did.”
[*] I owe this criticism of Sardinia to an ex-bandit of my acquaintance, and he alone must bear the responsibility of it. He means that bandits who let themselves be caught by horse soldiers are idiots, and that soldiers who try to catch bandits on horseback have very little chance of getting at them.
“Well,” said Orso, with a smile, “when I was lucky enough to be your guest, I wasn’t in very good case for enjoying the charms of your position, and my ribs still ache when I think of the ride I took one lovely night, thrown like a bundle across an unsaddled horse that my good friend Brandolaccio guided.”
“And the delight of escaping from your pursuers,” rejoined Castriconi; “is that nothing to you? How can you fail to realize the charm of absolute freedom in such a beautiful climate as ours? With this to insure respect,” and he held up his gun, “we are kings of everything within its range. We can give orders, we can redress wrongs. That’s a highly moral entertainment, monsieur, and a very pleasant one, which we don’t deny ourselves. What can be more beautiful than a knight-errant’s life, when he has good weapons, and more common sense than Don Quixote had? Listen! The other day I was told that little Lilla Luigi’s uncle--old miser that he is--wouldn’t give her a dowry. So I wrote to him. I didn’t use threats--that’s not my way. Well, well, in one moment the man was convinced. He married his niece, and I made two people happy. Believe me, Orso, there’s no life like the bandit’s life! Pshaw! You’d have joined us, perhaps, if it hadn’t been for a certain young Englishwoman whom I have scarcely seen myself, but about whose beauty every one in Bastia is talking.”
“My future sister-in-law doesn’t like the _maquis_,” laughed Colomba. “She got too great a fright in one of them.”
“Well,” said Orso, “you are resolved to stay here? So be it! But tell me whether there is anything I can do for you?”
“Nothing,” said Brandolaccio. “You’ve heaped kindnesses upon us. Here’s little Chilina with her dowry ready, so that there’ll be no necessity for my friend the cure to write one of his persuasive letters to insure her marrying well. We know the man on your farm will give us bread and powder whenever we need them. So fare you well! I hope we shall see you back in Corsica one of these days.”
“In case of pressing need,” said Orso, “a few gold coins are very useful. Now we are such old friends, you won’t refuse this little _cartouche_. [*] It will help you to provide cartridges of another kind.”
[*] _Cartouche_ means a collection of gold pieces as well as a cartridge.
“No money between you and me, sir,” said Brandolaccio resolutely.
“In the world money is everything,” remarked Castriconi, “but in the _maquis_, all a man need care for is a brave heart, and a gun that carries true.”
“I don’t want to leave you without giving you something to remember me by,” persisted Orso. “Come, Brandolaccio, what can I leave with you?”
The bandit scratched his head and cast a sidelong glance at Orso’s gun.
“By my faith, if I dared--but no! you’re too fond of it.”
“What would you like?”
“Nothing! ‘Tisn’t anything at all. It’s knowing how to use it as well. I keep thinking of that devil of a double-shot of yours--and with only one hand, too! Oh! that never could happen twice over!”
“Is it the gun you fancy? I bought it for you. But see you don’t use it more than you are obliged.”
“Oh, I won’t promise to make as good use of it as you. But make your mind easy. When any other man has it, you may be certain it’s all over with Brando Savelli.”
“And you, Castriconi--what am I to give you?”
“Since you really insist on giving me some tangible keepsake, I’ll simply ask you to send me the smallest Horace you can get. It will amuse me, and prevent me from forgetting all my Latin. There’s a little woman who sells cigars on the jetty at Bastia. If you give it to her, she’ll see I get it.”
“You shall have an Elzevir, my erudite friend. There just happens to be one among some books I was going to take away with me. Well, good friends, we must part! Give me your hands. If you should ever think of Sardinia write to me. Signor N., the notary, will give you my address on the mainland.”
“To-morrow, lieutenant,” said Brando, “when you get out in the harbour, look up to this spot on the mountain-side. We shall be here, and we’ll wave our handkerchiefs to you.”
And so they parted. Orso and his sister took their way back to Cardo, and the bandits departed up the mountain.
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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21
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None
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One lovely April morning, Sir Thomas Nevil, his daughter, a newly made bride--Orso, and Colomba, drove out of Pisa to see a lately discovered Etruscan vault to which all strangers who came to that part of the country paid a visit.
Orso and his wife went down into the ancient building, pulled out their pencils, and began to sketch the mural paintings. But the colonel and Colomba, who neither of them cared much for archaeology, left them to themselves, and walked about in the neighbourhood.
“My dear Colomba,” said the colonel, “we shall never get back to Pisa in time for lunch. Aren’t you hungry? There are Orso and his wife buried in their antiquities; when once they begin sketching together, it lasts forever!”
“Yes,” remarked Colomba. “And yet they never bring the smallest sketch home with them.”
“I think,” proceeded the colonel, “our best plan would be to make our way to that little farm-house yonder. We should find bread there, and perhaps some _aleatico_. Who knows, we might even find strawberries and cream! And then we should be able to wait patiently for our artists.”
“You are quite right, colonel. You and I are the reasonable members of this family. We should be very foolish if we let ourselves by martyrized by that pair of lovers, who live on poetry! Give me your arm! Don’t you think I’m improving? I lean on people’s arms, wear fashionable hats and gowns and trinkets--I’m learning I don’t know how many fine things--I’m not at all a young savage any more. Just observe the grace with which I wear this shawl. That fair-haired spark--that officer belonging to your regiment who came to the wedding--oh, dear! I can’t recollect his name! --a tall, curly-headed man, whom I could knock over with one hand----” “Chatsworth?” suggested the colonel.
“That’s it! --but I never shall be able to say it! --Well, you know he’s over head and ears in love with me!”
“O Colomba, you’re growing a terrible flirt! We shall have another wedding before long.”
“I! Marry! And then who will there be to bring up my nephew--when Orso provides me with a nephew? And who’ll teach him to talk Corsican? Yes, he shall talk Corsican, and I’ll make him a peaked cap, just to vex you.”
“Well, well, wait till you have your nephew, and then you shall teach him to use a dagger, if you choose.”
“Farewell to daggers!” said Colomba merrily. “I have a fan now, to rap your fingers with when you speak ill of my country.”
Chatting thus, they reached the farm-house, where they found wine, strawberries, and cream. Colomba helped the farmer’s wife to gather the strawberries, while the colonel drank his _aleatico_. At the turning of a path she caught sight of an old man, sitting in the sun, on a straw chair. He seemed ill, his cheeks were fallen in, his eyes were hollow, he was frightfully thin; as he sat there, motionless, pallid, staring fixedly in front of him, he looked more like a corpse than like a living creature. Colomba watched him for some minutes, and with a curiosity so great that it attracted the woman’s attention.
“That poor old fellow is a countryman of yours,” she said. “For I know you are from Corsica by the way you talk, signorina! He has had great trouble in his own country. His children met with some terrible death. They say--you’ll excuse me, signorina--that when they quarrel, your compatriots don’t show each other very much mercy. Then the poor old gentleman, being left all alone, came over to Pisa, to a distant relation of his, who owns this farm. Between his misfortunes and his sorrow, the good man is a little cracked. . . . The lady found him troublesome--for she sees a great deal of company. So she sent him out here. He’s very gentle--no worry at all. He doesn’t speak three words the whole day long. In fact, his brain’s quite gone. The doctor comes to see him every week. He says he won’t live long.”
“There’s no hope for him, then!” said Colomba. “In such a case, death will be a mercy.”
“You might say a word to him in Corsican, signorina. Perhaps it would cheer him up to hear the speech of his own country.”
“I’ll see!” said Colomba, and her smile was mysterious.
She drew nearer to the old man, till her shadow fell across his chair. Then the poor idiot lifted his head and stared at Colomba, while she looked at him, smiling still. After a moment, the old man passed his hand across his forehead, and closed his eyes, as though he would have shut out the sight of Colomba. He opened them again, desperately wide this time. His lips began to work, he tried to stretch out his hands, but, fascinated by Colomba’s glance, he sat, nailed, as it were, to his chair, unable to move or utter a word. At last great tears dropped from his eyes, and a few sobs escaped from his heaving chest.
“‘Tis the first time I’ve seen him like this,” said the good woman. “This signorina belongs to your own country; she has come to see you,” said she to the old man.
“Mercy!” he cried in a hoarse voice. “Mercy! Are you not content? The leaf I burned. How did you read it? But why did you take them both? Orlanduccio! You can’t have read anything against him! You should have left me one, only one! Orlanduccio--you didn’t read _his_ name!”
“I had to have them both!” answered Colomba, speaking low and in the Corsican dialect. “The branches are topped off! If the stem had not been rotten, I would have torn it up! Come! make no moan. You will not suffer long! _I_ suffered for two years!”
The old man cried out, and then his head dropped on his breast. Colomba turned her back on him, and went slowly into the house, humming some meaningless lines out of a _ballata_: “I must have the hand that fired, the eye that aimed, the heart that planned.”
While the farmer’s wife ran to attend on the old man, Colomba, with blazing eyes and brilliant cheeks, sat down to luncheon opposite the colonel.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said. “You look just as you did that day at Pietranera, when they fired at us while we were at dinner.”
“Old Corsican memories had come back to me. But all that’s done with. I shall be godmother, sha’n’t I? Oh! what fine names I’ll give him! Ghilfuccio--Tomaso--Orso--Leone!”
The farmer’s wife came back into the room.
“Well?” inquired Colomba, with the most perfect composure. “Is he dead, or had he only fainted?”
“It was nothing, signorina. But it’s curious what an effect the sight of you had on him.”
“And the doctor says he won’t last long?”
“Not two months, very likely.”
“He’ll be no great loss!” remarked Colomba.
“What the devil are you talking about?” inquired the colonel.
“About an idiot from my own country, who is boarded out here. I’ll send from time to time to find out how he is. Why, Colonel Nevil, aren’t you going to leave any strawberries for Lydia and my brother?”
When Colomba left the farm-house and got into the carriage, the farmer’s wife looked after her for a while. Then, turning to her daughter: “Dost see that pretty young lady yonder?” she said. “Well, I’m certain she has the evil eye!”
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{
"id": "2708"
}
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1
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MEN OF THE OLD RÉGIME.
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“'See Naples, and then die!' That was a proud saying, Count, which we used to hear as we cruised under lateen sails about the glorious bay that reflects from its waters the fires of Vesuvius. We believed the boast then, Count. But I say now, 'See Quebec, and live forever!' Eternity would be too short to weary me of this lovely scene--this bright Canadian morning is worthy of Eden, and the glorious landscape worthy of such a sun-rising.”
Thus exclaimed a tall, fair Swedish gentleman, his blue eyes sparkling, and every feature glowing with enthusiasm, Herr Peter Kalm, to His Excellency Count de la Galissonière, Governor of New France, as they stood together on a bastion of the ramparts of Quebec, in the year of grace 1748.
A group of French and Canadian officers, in the military uniforms of Louis XV., stood leaning on their swords, as they conversed gaily together on the broad gravelled walk at the foot of the rampart. They formed the suite in attendance upon the Governor, who was out by sunrise this morning to inspect the work done during the night by the citizens of Quebec and the habitans of the surrounding country, who had been hastily summoned to labor upon the defences of the city.
A few ecclesiastics, in black cassocks, dignitaries of the Church, mingled cheerfully in the conversation of the officers. They had accompanied the Governor, both to show their respect, and to encourage, by their presence and exhortations, the zeal of the colonists in the work of fortifying the capital.
War was then raging between old England and old France, and between New England and New France. The vast region of North America, stretching far into the interior and southwest from Canada to Louisiana, had for three years past been the scene of fierce hostilities between the rival nations, while the savage Indian tribes, ranged on the one side and on the other, steeped their moccasins in the blood of French and English colonists, who, in their turn, became as fierce, and carried on the war as relentlessly, as the savages themselves.
Louisbourg, the bulwark of New France, projecting its mailed arm boldly into the Atlantic, had been cut off by the English, who now overran Acadia, and began to threaten Quebec with invasion by sea and land. Busy rumors of approaching danger were rife in the colony, and the gallant Governor issued orders, which were enthusiastically obeyed, for the people to proceed to the walls and place the city in a state of defence, to bid defiance to the enemy.
Rolland Michel Barrin, Count de la Galissonière, was remarkable no less for his philosophical attainments, that ranked him high among the savans of the French Academy, than for his political abilities and foresight as a statesman. He felt strongly the vital interests involved in the present war, and saw clearly what was the sole policy necessary for France to adopt in order to preserve her magnificent dominion in North America. His counsels were neither liked nor followed by the Court of Versailles, then sinking fast into the slough of corruption that marked the closing years of the reign of Louis XV.
Among the people who admired deeds more than words the Count was honored as a brave and skilful admiral, who had borne the flag of France triumphantly over the seas, and in the face of her most powerful enemies--the English and Dutch. His memorable repulse of Admiral Byng, eight years after the events here recorded,--which led to the death of that brave and unfortunate officer, who was shot by sentence of court martial to atone for that repulse,--was a glory to France, but to the Count brought after it a manly sorrow for the fate of his opponent, whose death he regarded as a cruel and unjust act, unworthy of the English nation, usually as generous and merciful as it is brave and considerate.
The Governor was already well-advanced in years. He had entered upon the winter of life, that sprinkles the head with snow that never melts, but he was still hale, ruddy, and active. Nature had, indeed, moulded him in an unpropitious hour for personal comeliness, but in compensation had seated a great heart and a graceful mind in a body low of stature, and marked by a slight deformity. His piercing eyes, luminous with intelligence and full of sympathy for everything noble and elevated, overpowered with their fascination the blemishes that a too curious scrutiny might discover upon his figure; while his mobile, handsome lips poured out the natural eloquence of clear thoughts and noble sentiments. The Count grew great while speaking: his listeners were carried away by the magic of his voice and the clearness of his intellect.
He was very happy this morning by the side of his old friend, Peter Kalm, who was paying him a most welcome visit in New France. They had been fellow-students, both at Upsal and at Paris, and loved each other with a cordiality that, like good wine, grew richer and more generous with age.
Herr Kalm, stretching out his arms as if to embrace the lovely landscape and clasp it to his bosom, exclaimed with fresh enthusiasm, “See Quebec, and live forever!”
“Dear Kalm,” said the Governor, catching the fervor of his friend, as he rested his hand affectionately on his shoulder, “you are as true a lover of nature as when we sat together at the feet of Linnaeus, our glorious young master, and heard him open up for us the arcana of God's works; and we used to feel like him, too, when he thanked God for permitting him to look into his treasure-house and see the precious things of creation which he had made.”
“Till men see Quebec,” replied Kalm, “they will not fully realize the meaning of the term, 'God's footstool.' It is a land worth living for!”
“Not only a land to live for, but a land to die for, and happy the man who dies for it! Confess, Kalm,--thou who hast travelled in all lands,--think'st thou not it is indeed worthy of its proud title of New France?”
“It is indeed worthy,” replied Kalm; “I see here a scion of the old oak of the Gauls, which, if let grow, will shelter the throne of France itself in an empire wider than Caesar wrested from Ambiotrix.”
“Yes,” replied the Count, kindling at the words of his friend, “it is old France transplanted, transfigured, and glorified,--where her language, religion, and laws shall be handed down to her posterity, the glory of North America as the mother-land is the glory of Europe!”
The enthusiastic Galissonière stretched out his hands and implored a blessing upon the land entrusted to his keeping.
It was a glorious morning. The sun had just risen over the hilltops of Lauzon, throwing aside his drapery of gold, purple, and crimson. The soft haze of the summer morning was floating away into nothingness, leaving every object fresh with dew and magnified in the limpid purity of the air.
The broad St. Lawrence, far beneath their feet, was still partially veiled in a thin blue mist, pierced here and there by the tall mast of a King's ship or merchantman lying unseen at anchor; or, as the fog rolled slowly off, a swift canoe might be seen shooting out into a streak of sunshine, with the first news of the morning from the south shore.
Behind the Count and his companions rose the white glistening walls of the Hôtel Dieu, and farther off the tall tower of the newly-restored Cathedral, the belfry of the Recollets, and the roofs of the ancient College of the Jesuits. An avenue of old oaks and maples shaded the walk, and in the branches of the trees a swarm of birds fluttered and sang, as if in rivalry with the gay French talk and laughter of the group of officers, who waited the return of the Governor from the bastion where he stood, showing the glories of Quebec to his friend.
The walls of the city ran along the edge of the cliff upwards as they approached the broad gallery and massive front of the Castle of St. Louis, and ascending the green slope of the broad glacis, culminated in the lofty citadel, where, streaming in the morning breeze, radiant in the sunshine, and alone in the blue sky, waved the white banner of France, the sight of which sent a thrill of joy and pride into the hearts of her faithful subjects in the New World.
The broad bay lay before them, round as a shield, and glittering like a mirror as the mist blew off its surface. Behind the sunny slopes of Orleans, which the river encircled in its arms like a giant lover his fair mistress, rose the bold, dark crests of the Laurentides, lifting their bare summits far away along the course of the ancient river, leaving imagination to wander over the wild scenery in their midst--the woods, glens, and unknown lakes and rivers that lay hid far from human ken, or known only to rude savages, wild as the beasts of chase they hunted in those strange regions.
Across the broad valley of the St. Charles, covered with green fields and ripening harvests, and dotted with quaint old homesteads, redolent with memories of Normandy and Brittany, rose a long mountain ridge covered with primeval woods, on the slope of which rose the glittering spire of Charlebourg, once a dangerous outpost of civilization. The pastoral Lairet was seen mingling its waters with the St. Charles in a little bay that preserves the name of Jacques Cartier, who with his hardy companions spent their first winter in Canada on this spot, the guests of the hospitable Donacana, lord of Quebec and of all the lands seen from its lofty cape.
Directly beneath the feet of the Governor, on a broad strip of land that lay between the beach and the precipice, stood the many-gabled Palace of the Intendant, the most magnificent structure in New France. Its long front of eight hundred feet overlooked the royal terraces and gardens, and beyond these the quays and magazines, where lay the ships of Bordeaux, St. Malo, and Havre, unloading the merchandise and luxuries of France in exchange for the more rude, but not less valuable, products of the Colony.
Between the Palace and the Basse Ville the waves at high tide washed over a shingly beach where there were already the beginnings of a street. A few rude inns displayed the sign of the fleur-de-lis or the imposing head of Louis XV. Round the doors of these inns in summer-time might always be found groups of loquacious Breton and Norman sailors in red caps and sashes, voyageurs and canoemen from the far West in half Indian costume, drinking Gascon wine and Norman cider, or the still more potent liquors filled with the fires of the Antilles. The Batture kindled into life on the arrival of the fleet from home, and in the evenings of summer, as the sun set behind the Côte à Bonhomme, the natural magnetism of companionship drew the lasses of Quebec down to the beach, where, amid old refrains of French ditties and the music of violins and tambours de Basque, they danced on the green with the jovial sailors who brought news from the old land beyond the Atlantic.
“Pardon me, gentlemen, for keeping you waiting,” said the Governor, as he descended from the bastion and rejoined his suite. “I am so proud of our beautiful Quebec that I can scarcely stop showing off its charms to my friend Herr Kalm, who knows so well how to appreciate them. But,” continued he, looking round admiringly on the bands of citizens and habitans who were at work strengthening every weak point in the fortifications, “my brave Canadians are busy as beavers on their dam. They are determined to keep the saucy English out of Quebec. They deserve to have the beaver for their crest, industrious fellows that they are! I am sorry I kept you waiting, however.”
“We can never count the moments lost which your Excellency gives to the survey of our fair land,” replied the Bishop, a grave, earnest-looking man. “Would that His Majesty himself could stand on these walls and see with his own eyes, as you do, this splendid patrimony of the crown of France. He would not dream of bartering it away in exchange for petty ends and corners of Germany and Flanders, as is rumored, my Lord.”
“True words and good, my Lord Bishop,” replied the Governor; “the retention of all Flanders now in the strong hands of the Marshal de Saxe would be a poor compensation for the surrender of a glorious land like this to the English.”
Flying rumors of some such proposal on the part of France had reached the Colony, with wild reports arising out of the endless chaffering between the negotiators for peace, who had already assembled at Aix la Chapelle. “The fate of America will one day be decided here,” continued the Governor; “I see it written upon this rock, 'Whoever rules Quebec will sway the destinies of the continent.' May our noble France be wise, and understand in time the signs of empire and of supremacy!”
The Bishop looked upwards with a sigh. “Our noble France has not yet read those tokens, or she misunderstands them. Oh, these faithful subjects of hers! Look at them, your Excellency.” The Bishop pointed toward the crowd of citizens hard at work on the walls. “There is not a man of them but is ready to risk life and fortune for the honor and dominion of France, and yet they are treated by the Court with such neglect, and burdened with exactions that take from life the sweet reward of labor! They cannot do the impossible that France requires of them--fight her battles, till her fields, and see their bread taken from them by these new ordinances of the Intendant.”
“Well, my Lord,” replied the Governor, affecting a jocularity he did not feel, for he knew how true were the words of the Bishop, “we must all do our duty, nevertheless: if France requires impossibilities of us, we must perform them! That is the old spirit! If the skies fall upon our heads, we must, like true Gauls, hold them up on the points of our lances! What say you, Rigaud de Vaudreuil? Cannot one Canadian surround ten New Englanders?” The Governor alluded to an exploit of the gallant officer whom he turned to address.
“Probatum est, your Excellency! I once with six hundred Canadians surrounded all New England. Prayers were put up in all the churches of Boston for deliverance when we swept the Connecticut from end to end with a broom of fire.”
“Brave Rigaud! France has too few like you!” remarked the Governor with a look of admiration.
Rigaud bowed, and shook his head modestly. “I trust she has ten thousand better;” but added, pointing at his fellow-officers who stood conversing at a short distance, “Marshal de Saxe has few the equals of these in his camp, my Lord Count!” And well was the compliment deserved: they were gallant men, intelligent in looks, polished in manners, and brave to a fault, and all full of that natural gaiety that sits so gracefully on a French soldier.
Most of them wore the laced coat and waistcoat, chapeau, boots, lace ruffles, sash, and rapier of the period--a martial costume befitting brave and handsome men. Their names were household words in every cottage in New France, and many of them as frequently spoken of in the English Colonies as in the streets of Quebec.
There stood the Chevalier de Beaujeu, a gentleman of Norman family, who was already famed upon the frontier, and who, seven years later, in the forests of the Monongahela, crowned a life of honor by a soldier's death on the bloody field won from the unfortunate Braddock, defeating an army ten times more numerous than his own.
Talking gayly with De Beaujeu were two gallant-looking young men of a Canadian family which, out of seven brothers, lost six slain in the service of their King--Jumonville de Villiers, who was afterwards, in defiance of a flag of truce, shot down by order of Colonel Washington, in the far-off forests of the Alleghenies, and his brother, Coulon de Villiers, who received the sword of Washington when he surrendered himself and garrison prisoners of war, at Fort Necessity, in 1754.
Coulon de Villiers imposed ignominious conditions of surrender upon Washington, but scorned to take other revenge for the death of his brother. He spared the life of Washington, who lived to become the leader and idol of his nation, which, but for the magnanimity of the noble Canadian, might have never struggled into independence.
There stood also the Sieur de Lery, the King's engineer, charged with the fortification of the Colony, a man of Vauban's genius in the art of defence. Had the schemes which he projected, and vainly urged upon the heedless Court of Versailles, been carried into effect, the conquest of New France would have been an impossibility.
Arm in arm with De Lery, in earnest conversation, walked the handsome Claude de Beauharnais,--brother of a former Governor of the Colony,--a graceful, gallant-looking soldier. De Beauharnais was the ancestor of a vigorous and beautiful race, among whose posterity was the fair Hortense de Beauharnais, who in her son, Napoleon III., seated an offshoot of Canada upon the imperial throne of France long after the abandonment of their ancient colony by the corrupt House of Bourbon.
Conspicuous among the distinguished officers by his tall, straight figure and quick movements, was the Chevalier La Corne St. Luc, supple as an Indian, and almost as dark, from exposure to the weather and incessant campaigning. He was fresh from the blood and desolation of Acadia, where France, indeed, lost her ancient colony, but St. Luc reaped a full sheaf of glory at Grand Pré, in the Bay of Minas, by the capture of an army of New Englanders. The rough old soldier was just now all smiles and gaiety, as he conversed with Monseigneur de Pontbriant, the venerable Bishop of Quebec, and Father de Berey, the Superior of the Recollets.
The Bishop, a wise ruler of his Church, was also a passionate lover of his country: the surrender of Quebec to the English broke his heart, and he died a few months after the announcement of the final cession of the Colony.
Father de Berey, a jovial monk, wearing the gray gown and sandals of the Recollets, was renowned throughout New France for his wit more than for his piety. He had once been a soldier, and he wore his gown, as he had worn his uniform, with the gallant bearing of a King's Guardsman. But the people loved him all the more for his jests, which never lacked the accompaniment of genuine charity. His sayings furnished all New France with daily food for mirth and laughter, without detracting an iota of the respect in which the Recollets were held throughout the colony.
Father Glapion, the Superior of the Jesuits, also accompanied the Bishop. His close, black soutane contrasted oddly with the gray, loose gown of the Recollet. He was a meditative, taciturn man,--seeming rather to watch the others than to join in the lively conversation that went on around him. Anything but cordiality and brotherly love reigned between the Jesuits and the Order of St. Francis, but the Superiors were too wary to manifest towards each other the mutual jealousies of their subordinates.
The long line of fortifications presented a stirring appearance that morning. The watch-fires that had illuminated the scene during the night were dying out, the red embers paling under the rays of the rising sun. From a wide circle surrounding the city the people had come in--many were accompanied by their wives and daughters--to assist in making the bulwark of the Colony impregnable against the rumored attack of the English.
The people of New France, taught by a hundred years of almost constant warfare with the English and with the savage nations on their frontiers, saw as clearly as the Governor that the key of French dominion hung inside the walls of Quebec, and that for an enemy to grasp it was to lose all they valued as subjects of the Crown of France.
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{
"id": "2735"
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2
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THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.
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Count de la Galissonière, accompanied by his distinguished attendants, proceeded again on their round of inspection. They were everywhere saluted with heads uncovered, and welcomed by hearty greetings. The people of New France had lost none of the natural politeness and ease of their ancestors, and, as every gentleman of the Governor's suite was at once recognized, a conversation, friendly even to familiarity, ensued between them and the citizens and habitans, who worked as if they were building their very souls into the walls of the old city.
“Good morning, Sieur de St. Denis!” gaily exclaimed the Governor to a tall, courtly gentleman, who was super-intending the labor of a body of his censitaires from Beauport. “'Many hands make light work,' says the proverb. That splendid battery you are just finishing deserves to be called Beauport. What say you, my Lord Bishop?” turning to the smiling ecclesiastic. “Is it not worthy of baptism?”
“Yes, and blessing both; I give it my episcopal benediction,” replied the Bishop, “and truly I think most of the earth of it is taken from the consecrated ground of the Hôtel Dieu--it will stand fire!”
“Many thanks, my Lord!” --the Sieur de St. Denis bowed very low--“where the Church bars the door Satan will never enter, nor the English either! Do you hear, men?” continued he, turning to his censitaires, “my Lord Bishop christens our battery Beauport, and says it will stand fire!”
“Vive le Roi!” was the response, an exclamation that came spontaneously to the lips of all Frenchmen on every emergency of danger or emotion of joy.
A sturdy habitan came forward, and doffing his red tuque or cap, addressed the Governor: “This is a good battery, my Lord Governor, but there ought to be one as good in our village. Permit us to build one and man it, and we promise your Excellency that no Englishman shall ever get into the back door of Quebec while we have lives to defend it.” The old habitan had the eye of a soldier--he had been one. The Governor knew the value of the suggestion, and at once assented to it, adding, “No better defenders of the city could be found anywhere than the brave habitans of Beauport.”
The compliment was never forgotten; and years afterwards, when Wolfe besieged the city, the batteries of Beauport repelled the assault of his bravest troops, and well-nigh broke the heart of the young hero over the threatened defeat of his great undertaking, as his brave Highlanders and grenadiers lay slain by hundreds upon the beach of Beauport.
The countenances of the hardy workers were suddenly covered with smiles of welcome recognition at the sight of the well-known Superior of the Recollets.
“Good morning!” cried out a score of voices; “good morning, Father de Berey! The good wives of Beauport send you a thousand compliments. They are dying to see the good Recollets down our way again. The Gray Brothers have forsaken our parish.”
“Ah!” replied the Superior, in a tone of mock severity, while his eyes overran with mirthfulness, “you are a crowd of miserable sinners who will die without benefit of clergy--only you don't know it! Who was it boiled the Easter eggs hard as agates, which you gave to my poor brother Recollets for the use of our convent? Tell me that, pray! All the salts and senna in Quebec have not sufficed to restore the digestion of my poor monks since you played that trick upon them down in your misnamed village of Beauport!”
“Pardon, Reverend Father de Berey!” replied a smiling habitan, “it was not we, but the sacrilegious canaille of St. Anne who boiled the Easter eggs! If you don't believe us, send some of the good Gray Friars down to try our love. See if they do not find everything soft for them at Beauport, from our hearts to our feather beds, to say nothing of our eggs and bacon. Our good wives are fairly melting with longing for a sight of the gray gowns of St. Francis once more in our village.”
“Oh! I dare be bound the canaille of St. Anne are lost dogs like yourselves--catuli catulorum.”
The habitans thought this sounded like a doxology, and some crossed themselves, amid the dubious laughter of others, who suspected Father de Berey of a clerical jest.
“Oh!” continued he, “if fat Father Ambrose, the cook of the convent, only had you, one at a time, to turn the spit for him, in place of the poor dogs of Quebec, which he has to catch as best he can, and set to work in his kitchen! but, vagabonds that you are, you are rarely set to work now on the King's corvée--all work, little play, and no pay!”
The men took his raillery in excellent part, and one, their spokesman, bowing low to the Superior, said,--“Forgive us all the same, good Father. The hard eggs of Beauport will be soft as lard compared with the iron shells we are preparing for the English breakfast when they shall appear some fine morning before Quebec.”
“Ah, well, in that case I must pardon the trick you played upon Brothers Mark and Alexis; and I give you my blessing, too, on condition you send some salt to our convent to cure our fish, and save your reputations, which are very stale just now among my good Recollets.”
A general laugh followed this sally, and the Reverend Superior went off merrily, as he hastened to catch up with the Governor, who had moved on to another point in the line of fortifications.
Near the gate of St. John they found a couple of ladies, encouraging by their presence and kind words a numerous party of habitans,--one an elderly lady of noble bearing and still beautiful, the rich and powerful feudal Lady of the Lordship, or Seigniory, of Tilly; the other her orphan niece, in the bloom of youth, and of surpassing loveliness, the fair Amélie de Repentigny, who had loyally accompanied her aunt to the capital with all the men of the Seigniory of Tilly, to assist in the completion of its defences.
To features which looked as if chiselled out of the purest Parian marble, just flushed with the glow of morn, and cut in those perfect lines of proportion which nature only bestows on a few chosen favorites at intervals to show the possibilities of feminine beauty, Amélie de Repentigny added a figure which, in its perfect symmetry, looked smaller than it really was, for she was a tall girl: it filled the eye and held fast the fancy with the charms of a thousand graces as she moved or stood, suggestive of the beauty of a tame fawn, that in all its movements preserves somewhat of the coyness and easy grace of its free life.
Her hair was very dark and thick, matching her deep liquid eyes, that lay for the most part so quietly and restfully beneath their long shading lashes,--eyes gentle, frank, and modest, looking tenderly on all things innocent, fearlessly on all things harmful; eyes that nevertheless noted every change of your countenance, and read unerringly your meaning more from your looks than from your words. Nothing seemed to hide itself from that pure, searching glance when she chose to look at you.
In their depths you might read the tokens of a rare and noble character--a capability of loving which, once enkindled by a worthy object, might make all things that are possible to devoted womanhood possible to this woman, who would not count her life anything either for the man she loved or the cause she espoused. Amélie de Repentigny will not yield her heart without her judgment; but when she does, it will be a royal gift--never to be recalled, never to be repented of, to the end of her life. Happy the man upon whom she shall bestow her affection! It will be his forever. Unhappy all others who may love her! She may pity, but she will listen to no voice but the one which rules her heart, to her life's end!
Both ladies were in mourning, yet dressed with elegant simplicity, befitting their rank and position in society. The Chevalier Le Gardeur de Tilly had fallen two years ago, fighting gallantly for his King and country, leaving a childless widow to manage his vast domain and succeed him as sole guardian of their orphan niece, Amélie de Repentigny, and her brother Le Gardeur, left in infancy to the care of their noble relatives, who in every respect treated them as their own, and who indeed were the legal inheritors of the Lordship of Tilly.
Only a year ago, Amélie had left the ancient Convent of the Ursulines, perfected in all the graces and accomplishments taught in the famous cloister founded by Mère Marie de l'Incarnation for the education of the daughters of New France, generation after generation of whom were trained, according to her precepts, in graces of manner as well as in the learning of the age--the latter might be forgotten; the former, never. As they became the wives and mothers of succeeding times, they have left upon their descendants an impress of politeness and urbanity that distinguishes the people of Canada to this day.
Of all the crowd of fair, eager aspirants contending for honors on the day of examination in the great school, crowns had only been awarded to Amélie and to Angélique des Meloises--two girls equal in beauty, grace, and accomplishments, but unlike in character and in destiny. The currents of their lives ran smoothly together at the beginning. How widely different was to be the ending of them!
The brother of Amélie, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, was her elder by a year--an officer in the King's service, handsome, brave, generous, devoted to his sister and aunt, but not free from some of the vices of the times prevalent among the young men of rank and fortune in the colony, who in dress, luxury, and immorality, strove to imitate the brilliant, dissolute Court of Louis XV.
Amélie passionately loved her brother, and endeavored--not without success, as is the way with women--to blind herself to his faults. She saw him seldom, however, and in her solitary musings in the far-off Manor House of Tilly, she invested him with all the perfections he did and did not possess; and turned a deaf, almost an angry ear, to tales whispered in his disparagement.
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{
"id": "2735"
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A CHATELAINE OF NEW FRANCE.
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The Governor was surprised and delighted to encounter Lady de Tilly and her fair niece, both of whom were well known to and highly esteemed by him. He and the gentlemen of his suite saluted them with profound respect, not unmingled with chivalrous admiration for noble, high-spirited women.
“My honored Lady de Tilly and Mademoiselle de Repentigny,” said the Governor, hat in hand, “welcome to Quebec. It does not surprise, but it does delight me beyond measure to meet you here at the head of your loyal censitaires. But it is not the first time that the ladies of the House of Tilly have turned out to defend the King's forts against his enemies.”
This he said in allusion to the gallant defence of a fort on the wild Iroquois frontier by a former lady of her house.
“My Lord Count,” replied the lady, with quiet dignity, “'tis no special merit of the house of Tilly to be true to its ancient fame--it could not be otherwise. But your thanks are at this time more due to these loyal habitans, who have so promptly obeyed your proclamation. It is the King's corvée to restore the walls of Quebec, and no Canadian may withhold his hand from it without disgrace.”
“The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc will think us two poor women a weak accession to the garrison,” added she, turning to the Chevalier and cordially offering her hand to the brave old officer, who had been the comrade in arms of her husband and the dearest friend of her family.
“Good blood never fails, my Lady,” returned the Chevalier, warmly grasping her hand. “You out of place here? No! no! you are at home on the ramparts of Quebec, quite as much as in your own drawing-room at Tilly. The walls of Quebec without a Tilly and a Repentigny would be a bad omen indeed, worse than a year without a spring or a summer without roses. But where is my dear goddaughter Amélie?”
As he spoke the old soldier embraced Amélie and kissed her cheek with fatherly effusion. She was a prodigious favorite. “Welcome, Amélie!” said he, “the sight of you is like flowers in June. What a glorious time you have had, growing taller and prettier every day all the time I have been sleeping by camp-fires in the forests of Acadia! But you girls are all alike; why, I hardly knew my own pretty Agathe when I came home. The saucy minx almost kissed my eyes out--to dry the tears of joy in them, she said!”
Amélie blushed deeply at the praises bestowed upon her, yet felt glad to know that her godfather retained all his old affection. “Where is Le Gardeur?” asked he, as she took his arm and walked a few paces apart from the throng.
Amélie colored deeply, and hesitated a moment. “I do not know, godfather! We have not seen Le Gardeur since our arrival.” Then after a nervous silence she added, “I have been told that he is at Beaumanoir, hunting with His Excellency the Intendant.”
La Corne, seeing her embarrassment, understood the reluctance of her avowal, and sympathized with it. An angry light flashed beneath his shaggy eyelashes, but he suppressed his thoughts. He could not help remarking, however, “With the Intendant at Beaumanoir! I could have wished Le Gardeur in better company! No good can come of his intimacy with Bigot; Amélie, you must wean him from it. He should have been in the city to receive you and the Lady de Tilly.”
“So he doubtless would have been, had he known of our coming. We sent word, but he was away when our messenger reached the city.”
Amélie felt half ashamed, for she was conscious that she was offering something unreal to extenuate the fault of her brother--her hopes rather than her convictions.
“Well, well! goddaughter! we shall, at any rate, soon have the pleasure of seeing Le Gardeur. The Intendant himself has been summoned to attend a council of war today. Colonel Philibert left an hour ago for Beaumanoir.”
Amélie gave a slight start at the name; she looked inquiringly, but did not yet ask the question that trembled on her lips.
“Thanks, godfather, for the good news of Le Gardeur's speedy return.” Amélie talked on, her thoughts but little accompanying her words as she repeated to herself the name of Philibert. “Have you heard that the Intendant wishes to bestow an important and honorable post in the Palace upon Le Gardeur--my brother wrote to that effect?”
“An important and honorable post in the Palace?” The old soldier emphasized the word HONORABLE. “No, I had not heard of it,--never expect to hear of an honorable post in the company of Bigot, Cadet, Varin, De Pean, and the rest of the scoundrels of the Friponne! Pardon me, dear, I do not class Le Gardeur among them, far from it, dear deluded boy! My best hope is that Colonel Philibert will find him and bring him clean and clear out of their clutches.”
The question that had trembled on her lips came out now. For her life she could not have retained it longer.
“Who is Colonel Philibert, godfather?” asked she, surprise, curiosity, and a still deeper interest marking her voice, in spite of all she could do to appear indifferent.
“Colonel Philibert?” repeated La Corne. “Why, do not you know? Who but our young Pierre Philibert; you have not forgotten him, surely, Amélie? At any rate he has not forgotten you: in many a long night by our watch-fires in the forest has Colonel Philibert passed the hours talking of Tilly and the dear friends he left there. Your brother at any rate will gratefully remember Philibert when he sees him.”
Amélie blushed a little as she replied somewhat shyly, “Yes, godfather, I remember Pierre Philibert very well,--with gratitude I remember him,--but I never heard him called Colonel Philibert before.”
“Oh, true! He has been so long absent. He left a simple ensign en second and returns a colonel, and has the stuff in him to make a field-marshal! He gained his rank where he won his glory--in Acadia. A noble fellow, Amélie! loving as a woman to his friends, but to his foes stern as the old Bourgeois, his father, who placed that tablet of the golden dog upon the front of his house to spite the Cardinal, they say,--the act of a bold man, let what will be the true interpretation of it.”
“I hear every one speak well of the Bourgeois Philibert,” remarked Amélie. “Aunt de Tilly is ever enthusiastic in his commendation. She says he is a true gentleman, although a trader.”
“Why, he is noble by birth, if that be needed, and has got the King's license to trade in the Colony like some other gentlemen I wot of. He was Count Philibert in Normandy, although he is plain Bourgeois Philibert in Quebec; and a wise man he is too, for with his ships and his comptoirs and his ledgers he has traded himself into being the richest man in New France, while we, with our nobility and our swords, have fought ourselves poor, and receive nothing but contempt from the ungrateful courtiers of Versailles.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden rush of people, making room for the passage of the Regiment of Béarn, which composed part of the garrison of Quebec, on their march to their morning drill and guard-mounting,--bold, dashing Gascons in blue and white uniforms, tall caps, and long queues rollicking down their supple backs, seldom seen by an enemy.
Mounted officers, laced and ruffled, gaily rode in front. Subalterns with spontoons and sergeants with halberds dressed the long line of glistening bayonets. The drums and fifes made the streets ring again, while the men in full chorus, à gorge deployée, chanted the gay refrain of La Belle Canadienne in honor of the lasses of Quebec.
The Governor and his suite had already mounted their horses, and cantered off to the Esplanade to witness the review.
“Come and dine with us today,” said the Lady de Tilly to La Corne St. Luc, as he too bade the ladies a courteous adieu, and got on horseback to ride after the Governor.
“Many thanks! but I fear it will be impossible, my Lady: the council of war meets at the Castle this afternoon. The hour may be deferred, however, should Colonel Philibert not chance to find the Intendant at Beaumanoir, and then I might come; but best not expect me.”
A slight, conscious flush just touched the cheek of Amélie at the mention of Colonel Philibert.
“But come if possible, godfather,” added she; “we hope to have Le Gardeur home this afternoon. He loves you so much, and I know you have countless things to say to him.”
Amélie's trembling anxiety about her brother made her most desirous to bring the powerful influence of La Corne St. Luc to bear upon him.
Their kind old godfather was regarded with filial reverence by both. Amélie's father, dying on the battle-field, had, with his latest breath, commended the care of his children to the love and friendship of La Corne St. Luc.
“Well, Amélie, blessed are they who do not promise and still perform. I must try and meet my dear boy, so do not quite place me among the impossibles. Good-by, my Lady. Good-by, Amélie.” The old soldier gaily kissed his hand and rode away.
Amélie was thoroughly surprised and agitated out of all composure by the news of the return of Pierre Philibert. She turned aside from the busy throng that surrounded her, leaving her aunt engaged in eager conversation with the Bishop and Father de Berey. She sat down in a quiet embrasure of the wall, and with one hand resting her drooping cheek, a train of reminiscences flew across her mind like a flight of pure doves suddenly startled out of a thicket.
She remembered vividly Pierre Philibert, the friend and fellow-student of her brother: he spent so many of his holidays at the old Manor-House of Tilly, when she, a still younger girl, shared their sports, wove chaplets of flowers for them, or on her shaggy pony rode with them on many a scamper through the wild woods of the Seigniory. Those summer and winter vacations of the old Seminary of Quebec used to be looked forward to by the young, lively girl as the brightest spots in the whole year, and she grew hardly to distinguish the affection she bore her brother from the regard in which she held Pierre Philibert.
A startling incident happened one day, that filled the inmates of the Manor House with terror, followed by a great joy, and which raised Pierre Philibert to the rank of an unparalleled hero in the imagination of the young girl.
Her brother was gambolling carelessly in a canoe, while she and Pierre sat on the bank watching him. The light craft suddenly upset. Le Gardeur struggled for a few moments, and sank under the blue waves that look so beautiful and are so cruel.
Amélie shrieked in the wildest terror and in helpless agony, while Philibert rushed without hesitation into the water, swam out to the spot, and dived with the agility of a beaver. He presently reappeared, bearing the inanimate body of her brother to the shore. Help was soon obtained, and, after long efforts to restore Le Gardeur to consciousness,--efforts which seemed to last an age to the despairing girl,--they at last succeeded, and Le Gardeur was restored to the arms of his family. Amélie, in a delirium of joy and gratitude, ran to Philibert, threw her arms round him, and kissed him again and again, pledging her eternal gratitude to the preserver of her brother, and vowing that she would pray for him to her life's end.
Soon after that memorable event in her young life, Pierre Philibert was sent to the great military schools in France to study the art of war with a view to entering the King's service, while Amélie was placed in the Convent of the Ursulines to be perfected in all the knowledge and accomplishments of a lady of highest rank in the Colony.
Despite the cold shade of a cloister, where the idea of a lover is forbidden to enter, the image of Pierre Philibert did intrude, and became inseparable from the recollection of her brother in the mind of Amélie. He mingled as the fairy prince in the day-dreams and bright imaginings of the young, poetic girl. She had vowed to pray for him to her life's end, and in pursuance of her vow added a golden bead to her chaplet to remind her of her duty in praying for the safety and happiness of Pierre Philibert.
But in the quiet life of the cloister, Amélie heard little of the storms of war upon the frontier and down in the far valleys of Acadia. She had not followed the career of Pierre from the military school to the camp and the battlefield, nor knew of his rapid promotion, as one of the ablest officers in the King's service, to a high command in his native Colony.
Her surprise, therefore, was extreme when she learned that the boy companion of her brother and herself was no other than the renowned Colonel Philibert, Aide-de-Camp of His Excellency the Governor-General.
There was no cause for shame in it; but her heart was suddenly illuminated by a flash of introspection. She became painfully conscious how much Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift her eyes from the ground lest some one, even a stranger, she thought, might see her confusion and read its cause. “Sancta Maria,” she murmured, pressing her bosom with both hands, “calm my soul with thy divine peace, for I know not what to do!”
So she sat alone in the embrasure, living a life of emotion in a few minutes; nor did she find any calm for her agitated spirits until the thought flashed upon her that she was distressing herself needlessly. It was most improbable that Colonel Philibert, after years of absence and active life in the world's great affairs, could retain any recollection of the schoolgirl of the Manor House of Tilly. She might meet him, nay, was certain to do so in the society in which both moved; but it would surely be as a stranger on his part, and she must make it so on her own.
With this empty piece of casuistry, Amélie, like others of her sex, placed a hand of steel, encased in a silken glove, upon her heart, and tyrannically suppressed its yearnings. She was a victim, with the outward show of conquest over her feelings. In the consciousness of Philibert's imagined indifference and utter forgetfulness, she could meet him now, she thought, with equanimity--nay, rather wished to do so, to make sure that she had not been guilty of weakness in regard to him. She looked up, but was glad to see her aunt still engaged in conversation with the Bishop on a topic which Amélie knew was dear to them both,--the care of the souls and bodies of the poor, in particular those for whom the Lady de Tilly felt herself responsible to God and the King.
While Amélie sat thinking over the strange chances of the morning, a sudden whirl of wheels drew her attention.
A gay calèche, drawn by two spirited horses en flèche, dashed through the gateway of St. John, and wheeling swiftly towards Amélie, suddenly halted. A young lady attired in the gayest fashion of the period, throwing the reins to the groom, sprang out of the calèche with the ease and elasticity of an antelope. She ran up the rampart to Amélie with a glad cry of recognition, repeating her name in a clear, musical voice, which Amélie at once knew belonged to no other than the gay, beautiful Angélique des Meloises. The newcomer embraced Amélie and kissed her, with warmest expressions of joy at meeting her thus unexpectedly in the city. She had learned that Lady de Tilly had returned to Quebec, she said, and she had, therefore, taken the earliest opportunity to find out her dear friend and school-fellow to tell her all the doings in the city.
“It is kind of you, Angélique,” replied Amélie, returning her caress warmly, but without effusion. “We have simply come with our people to assist in the King's corvée; when that is done, we shall return to Tilly. I felt sure I should meet you, and thought I should know you again easily, which I hardly do. How you are changed--for the better, I should say, since you left off conventual cap and costume!” Amélie could not but look admiringly on the beauty of the radiant girl. “How handsome you have grown! but you were always that. We both took the crown of honor together, but you would alone take the crown of beauty, Angélique.” Amélie stood off a pace or two, and looked at her friend from head to foot with honest admiration, “and would deserve to wear it too,” added she.
“I like to hear you say that, Amélie; I should prefer the crown of beauty to all other crowns! You half smile at that, but I must tell the truth, if you do. But you were always a truth-teller, you know, in the convent, and I was not so! Let us cease flatteries.”
Angélique felt highly flattered by the praise of Amélie, whom she had sometimes condescended to envy for her graceful figure and lovely, expressive features.
“Gentlemen often speak as you do, Amélie,” continued she, “but, pshaw! they cannot judge as girls do, you know. But do you really think me beautiful? and how beautiful? Compare me to some one we know.”
“I can only compare you to yourself, Angélique. You are more beautiful than any one I know,” Amélie burst out in frank enthusiasm.
“But, really and truly, do you think me beautiful, not only in your eyes, but in the judgment of the world?”
Angélique brushed back her glorious hair and stared fixedly in the face of her friend, as if seeking confirmation of something in her own thoughts.
“What a strange question, Angélique! Why do you ask me in that way?”
“Because,” replied she with bitterness, “I begin to doubt it. I have been praised for my good looks until I grow weary of the iteration; but I believed the lying flattery once,--as what woman would not, when it is repeated every day of her life?”
Amélie looked sufficiently puzzled. “What has come over you, Angélique? Why should you doubt your own charms? or really, have you found at last a case in which they fail you?”
Very unlikely, a man would say at first, second, or third sight of Angélique des Meloises. She was indeed a fair girl to look upon,--tall, and fashioned in nature's most voluptuous mould, perfect in the symmetry of every part, with an ease and beauty of movement not suggestive of spiritual graces, like Amélie's, but of terrestrial witcheries, like those great women of old who drew down the very gods from Olympus, and who in all ages have incited men to the noblest deeds, or tempted them to the greatest crimes.
She was beautiful of that rare type of beauty which is only reproduced once or twice in a century to realize the dreams of a Titian or a Giorgione. Her complexion was clear and radiant, as of a descendant of the Sun God. Her bright hair, if its golden ripples were shaken out, would reach to her knees. Her face was worthy of immortality by the pencil of a Titian. Her dark eyes drew with a magnetism which attracted men, in spite of themselves, whithersoever she would lead them. They were never so dangerous as when, in apparent repose, they sheathed their fascination for a moment, and suddenly shot a backward glance, like a Parthian arrow, from under their long eyelashes, that left a wound to be sighed over for many a day.
The spoiled and petted child of the brave, careless Renaud d'Avesne des Meloises, of an ancient family in the Nivernois, Angélique grew up a motherless girl, clever above most of her companions, conscious of superior charms, always admired and flattered, and, since she left the Convent, worshipped as the idol of the gay gallants of the city, and the despair and envy of her own sex. She was a born sovereign of men, and she felt it. It was her divine right to be preferred. She trod the earth with dainty feet, and a step aspiring as that of the fair Louise de La Vallière when she danced in the royal ballet in the forest of Fontainebleau and stole a king's heart by the flashes of her pretty feet. Angélique had been indulged by her father in every caprice, and in the gay world inhaled the incense of adulation until she regarded it as her right, and resented passionately when it was withheld.
She was not by nature bad, although vain, selfish, and aspiring. Her footstool was the hearts of men, and upon it she set hard her beautiful feet, indifferent to the anguish caused by her capricious tyranny. She was cold and calculating under the warm passions of a voluptuous nature. Although many might believe they had won the favor, none felt sure they had gained the love of this fair, capricious girl.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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4
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CONFIDENCES.
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Angélique took the arm of Amélie in her old, familiar schoolgirl way, and led her to the sunny corner of a bastion where lay a dismounted cannon.
The girls sat down upon the old gun. Angélique held Amélie by both hands, as if hesitating how to express something she wished to say. Still, when Angélique did speak, it was plain to Amélie that she had other things on her mind than what her tongue gave loose to.
“Now we are quite alone, Amélie,” said she, “we can talk as we used to do in our school-days. You have not been in the city during the whole summer, and have missed all its gaieties?”
“I was well content. How beautiful the country looks from here!” replied Amélie. “How much pleasanter to be in it, revelling among the flowers and under the trees! I like to touch the country as well as to look at it from a distance, as you do in Quebec.”
“Well, I never care for the country if I can only get enough of the city. Quebec was never so gay as it has been this year. The Royal Roussillon, and the freshly arrived regiments of Béarn and Ponthieu, have turned the heads of all Quebec,--of the girls, that is. Gallants have been plenty as bilberries in August. And you may be sure I got my share, Amélie.” Angélique laughed aloud at some secret reminiscences of her summer campaign.
“It is well that I did not come to the city, Angélique, to get my head turned like the rest; but now that I am here, suppose I should mercifully try to heal some of the hearts you have broken!”
“I hope you won't try. Those bright eyes of yours would heal too effectually the wounds made by mine, and that is not what I desire,” replied Angélique, laughing.
“No! then your heart is more cruel than your eyes. But, tell me, who have been your victims this year, Angélique?”
“Well, to be frank, Amélie, I have tried my fascinations upon the King's officers very impartially, and with fair success. There have been three duels, two deaths, and one captain of the Royal Roussillon turned cordelier for my sake. Is that not a fair return for my labor?”
“You are shocking as ever, Angélique! I do not believe you feel proud of such triumphs,” exclaimed Amélie.
“Proud, no! I am not proud of conquering men. That is easy! My triumphs are over the women! And the way to triumph over them is to subdue the men. You know my old rival at school, the haughty Françoise de Lantagnac: I owed her a grudge, and she has put on the black veil for life, instead of the white one and orange-blossoms for a day! I only meant to frighten her, however, when I stole her lover, but she took it to heart and went into the Convent. It was dangerous for her to challenge Angélique des Meloises to test the fidelity of her affianced, Julien de St. Croix.”
Amélie rose up in honest indignation, her cheek burning like a coal of fire. “I know your wild talk of old, Angélique, but I will not believe you are so wicked as to make deadly sport of our holiest affections.”
“Ah, if you knew men as I do, Amélie, you would think it no sin to punish them for their perjuries.”
“No, I don't know men,” replied Amélie, “but I think a noble man is, after God, the worthiest object of a woman's devotion. We were better dead than finding amusement in the pain of those who love us; pray what became of Julien de St. Croix after you broke up his intended marriage with poor Françoise?”
“Oh! I threw him to the fishes! What did I care for him? It was mainly to punish Françoise's presumption that I showed my power and made him fight that desperate duel with Captain Le Franc.”
“O Angélique, how could you be so unutterably wicked?”
“Wicked? It was not my fault, you know, that he was killed. He was my champion, and ought to have come off victor. I wore a black ribbon for him a full half-year, and had the credit of being devoted to his memory; I had my triumph in that if in nothing else.”
“Your triumph! for shame, Angélique! I will not listen to you: you profane the very name of love by uttering such sentiments. The gift of so much beauty was for blessing, not for pain. St. Mary pray for you, Angélique: you need her prayers!” Amélie rose up suddenly.
“Nay, do not get angry and go off that way, Amélie,” ejaculated Angélique. “I will do penance for my triumphs by relating my defeats, and my special failure of all, which I know you will rejoice to hear.”
“I, Angélique? What have your triumphs or failures to do with me? No, I care not to hear.” Angélique held her half forcibly by the scarf.
“But you will care when I tell you that I met an old and valued friend of yours last night at the Castle--the new Aide-de-Camp of the Governor, Colonel Philibert. I think I have heard you speak of Pierre Philibert in the Convent, Amélie?”
Amélie felt the net thrown over her by the skilful retiaria. She stood stock-still in mute surprise, with averted eye and deeply blushing cheek, fighting desperately with the confusion she feared to let Angélique detect. But that keen-sighted girl saw too clearly--she had caught her fast as a bird is caught by the fowler.
“Yes, I met with a double defeat last night,” continued Angélique.
“Indeed! pray, from whom?” Amélie's curiosity, though not usually a troublesome quality, was by this time fairly roused.
Angélique saw her drift, and played with her anxiety for a few moments.
“My first rebuff was from that gentlemanly philosopher from Sweden, a great friend of the Governor, you know. But, alas, I might as well have tried to fascinate an iceberg! I do not believe that he knew, after a half-hour's conversation with me, whether I was man or woman. That was defeat number one.”
“And what was number two?” Amélie was now thoroughly interested in Angélique's gossip.
“I left the dry, unappreciative philosopher, and devoted myself to charm the handsome Colonel Philibert. He was all wit and courtesy, but my failure was even more signal with him than with the cold Swede.”
Amélie's eyes gave a sparkle of joy, which did not escape Angélique, but she pretended not to see it. “How was that? Tell me, pray, how you failed with Colonel Philibert?”
“My cause of failure would not be a lesson for you, Amélie. Listen! I got a speedy introduction to Colonel Philibert, who, I confess, is one of the handsomest men I ever saw. I was bent on attracting him.”
“For shame, Angélique! How could you confess to aught so unwomanly!” There was a warmth in Amélie's tone that was less noticed by herself than by her companion.
“Well, it is my way of conquering the King's army. I shot my whole quiver of arrows at Colonel Philibert, but, to my chagrin, hit not a vital part! He parried every one, and returned them broken at my feet. His persistent questioning about yourself, as soon as he discovered we had been school companions at the Convent, quite foiled me. He was full of interest about you, and all that concerned you, but cared not a fig about me!”
“What could Colonel Philibert have to ask you about me?” Amélie unconsciously drew closer to her companion, and even clasped her arm by an involuntary movement which did not escape her friend.
“Why, he asked everything a gentleman could, with proper respect, ask about a lady.”
“And what did you say?”
“Oh, not half enough to content him. I confess I felt piqued that he only looked on me as a sort of pythoness to solve enigmas about you. I had a grim satisfaction in leaving his curiosity irritated, but not satisfied. I praised your beauty, goodness, and cleverness up to the skies, however. I was not untrue to old friendship, Amélie!” Angélique kissed her friend on the cheek, who silently allowed what, in her indignation a few moments ago, she would have refused.
“But what said Colonel Philibert of himself? Never mind about me.”
“Oh, impatient that you are! He said nothing of himself. He was absorbed in my stories concerning you. I told him as pretty a fable as La Fontaine related of the Avare qui avait perdu son trésor! I said you were a beautiful chatelaine besieged by an army of lovers, but the knight errant Fortunatus had alone won your favor, and would receive your hand! The brave Colonel! I could see he winced at this. His steel cuirass was not invulnerable. I drew blood, which is more than you would have dared to do, Amélie! But I discovered the truth hidden in his heart. He is in love with you, Amélie de Repentigny!”
“Mad girl! How could you? How dare you speak so of me? What must Colonel Philibert think?”
“Think? He thinks you must be the most perfect of your sex! Why, his mind was made up about you, Amélie, before he said a word to me. Indeed, he only just wanted to enjoy the supernal pleasure of hearing me sing the praises of Amélie De Repentigny to the tune composed by himself.”
“Which you seem to have done, Angélique!”
“As musically as Mère St. Borgia when singing vespers in the Ursulines,” was Angélique's flippant reply.
Amélie knew how useless it was to expostulate. She swallowed her mingled pleasure and vexation salt with tears she could not help. She changed the subject by a violent wrench, and asked Angélique when she had last seen Le Gardeur.
“At the Intendant's levee the other day. How like you he is, too, only less amiable!”
Angélique did not respond readily to her friend's question about her brother.
“Less amiable? that is not like my brother. Why do you think him less amiable than me?”
“Because he got angry with me at the ball given in honor of the arrival of the Intendant, and I have not been able to restore him to perfect good humor with me since.”
“Oh, then Le Gardeur completes the trio of those who are proof against your fascinations?” Amélie was secretly glad to hear of the displeasure of Le Gardeur with Angélique.
“Not at all, I hope, Amélie. I don't place Le Gardeur in the same category with my other admirers. But he got offended because I seemed to neglect him a little to cultivate this gay new Intendant. Do you know him?”
“No; nor wish to! I have heard much said to his disadvantage. The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc has openly expressed his dislike of the Intendant for something that happened in Acadia.”
“Oh, the Chevalier La Corne is always so decided in his likes and dislikes: one must either be very good or very bad to satisfy him!” replied Angélique with a scornful pout of her lips.
“Don't speak ill of my godfather, Angélique; better be profane on any other topic: you know my ideal of manly virtues is the Chevalier La Corne,” replied Amélie.
“Well, I won't pull down your idol, then! I respect the brave old soldier, too; but could wish him with the army in Flanders!”
“Thousands of estimable people augur ill from the accession of the Intendant Bigot in New France, besides the Chevalier La Corne,” Amélie said after a pause. She disliked censuring even the Intendant.
“Yes,” replied Angélique, “the Honnêtes Gens do, who think themselves bound to oppose the Intendant, because he uses the royal authority in a regal way, and makes every one, high and low, do their devoir to Church and State.”
“While he does his devoir to none! But I am no politician, Angélique. But when so many good people call the Intendant a bad man, it behooves one to be circumspect in 'cultivating him,' as you call it.”
“Well, he is rich enough to pay for all the broken pots: they say he amassed untold wealth in Acadia, Amélie!”
“And lost the province for the king!” retorted Amélie, with all the asperity her gentle but patriotic spirit was capable of. “Some say he sold the country.”
“I don't care!” replied the reckless beauty, “he is like Joseph in Egypt, next to Pharaoh in authority. He can shoe his horses with gold! I wish he would shoe me with golden slippers--I would wear them, Amélie!”
Angélique stamped her dainty foot upon the ground, as if in fancy she already had them on.
“It is shocking if you mean it!” remarked Amélie pityingly, for she felt Angélique was speaking her genuine thoughts. “But is it true that the Intendant is really as dissolute as rumor says?”
“I don't care if it be true: he is noble, gallant, polite, rich, and all-powerful at Court. He is reported to be prime favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour. What more do I want?” replied Angélique warmly.
Amélie knew enough by report of the French Court to cause her to shrink instinctively, as from a repulsive insect, at the name of the mistress of Louis XV. She trembled at the thought of Angélique's infatuation, or perversity, in suffering herself to be attracted by the glitter of the vices of the Royal Intendant.
“Angélique!” exclaimed she, “I have heard things of the Intendant that would make me tremble for you, were you in earnest.”
“But I am in earnest! I mean to win and wear the Intendant of New France, to show my superiority over the whole bevy of beauties competing for his hand. There is not a girl in Quebec but would run away with him tomorrow.”
“Fie, Angélique! such a libel upon our sex! You know better. But you cannot love him?”
“Love him? No!” Angélique repeated the denial scornfully. “Love him! I never thought of love and him together! He is not handsome, like your brother Le Gardeur, who is my beau-ideal of a man I could love; nor has the intellect and nobility of Colonel Philibert, who is my model of a heroic man. I could love such men as them. But my ambition would not be content with less than a governor or royal intendant in New France. In old France I would not put up with less than the King himself!”
Angélique laughed at her own extravagance, but she believed in it all the same. Amélie, though shocked at her wildness, could not help smiling at her folly.
“Have you done raving?” said she; “I have no right to question your selection of a lover or doubt your power, Angélique. But are you sure there exists no insurmountable obstacle to oppose these high aspirations? It is whispered that the Intendant has a wife, whom he keeps in the seclusion of Beaumanoir. Is that true?”
The words burnt like fire. Angélique's eyes flashed out daggers. She clenched her delicate hands until her nails drew blood from her velvet palms. Her frame quivered with suppressed passion. She grasped her companion fiercely by the arm, exclaiming,--“You have hit the secret now, Amélie! It was to speak of that I sought you out this morning, for I know you are wise, discreet, and every way better than I. It is all true what I have said, and more too, Amélie. Listen! The Intendant has made love to me with pointed gallantry that could have no other meaning but that he honorably sought my hand. He has made me talked of and hated by my own sex, who envied his preference of me. I was living in the most gorgeous of fool's paradises, when a bird brought to my ear the astounding news that a woman, beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was accompanied by a few Indians of a strange tribe, the Abenaquais of Acadia. The woman was utterly exhausted by fatigue, and lay asleep on a couch of dry leaves under a tree, when the astonished Hurons led the Intendant to the spot where she lay.
“Don't interrupt me, Amélie; I see you are amazed, but let me go on!” She held the hands of her companion firmly in her lap as she proceeded: “The Intendant was startled out of all composure at the apparition of the sleeping lady. He spoke eagerly to the Abenaquais in their own tongue, which was unintelligible to the Hurons. When he had listened to a few words of their explanation, he ran hastily to the lady, kissed her, called her by name, 'Caroline!' She woke up suddenly, and recognizing the Intendant, embraced him, crying 'François! 'François!' and fainted in his arms.
“The Chevalier was profoundly agitated, blessing and banning, in the same breath, the fortune that had led her to him. He gave her wine, restored her to consciousness, talked with her long, and sometimes angrily; but to no avail, for the woman, in accents of despair, exclaimed in French, which the Hurons understood, that the Intendant might kill and bury her there, but she would never, never return home any more.”
Angélique scarcely took breath as she continued her eager recital.
“The Intendant, overpowered either by love of her or fear of her, ceased his remonstrances. He gave some pieces of gold to the Abenaquais, and dismissed them. The strange Indians kissed her on both hands as they would a queen, and with many adieus vanished into the forest. The lady, attended by Bigot, remained seated under the tree till nightfall, when he conducted her secretly to the Château, where she still remains in perfect seclusion in a secret chamber, they say, and has been seen by none save one or two of the Intendant's most intimate companions.”
“Heavens! what a tale of romance! How learned you all this, Angélique?” exclaimed Amélie, who had listened with breathless attention to the narrative.
“Oh, partly from a hint from a Huron girl, and the rest from the Intendant's Secretary. Men cannot keep secrets that women are interested in knowing! I could make De Pean talk the Intendant's head off his shoulders, if I had him an hour in my confessional. But all my ingenuity could not extract from him what he did not know--who that mysterious lady is, her name and family.”
“Could the Huron hunters give no guess?” asked Amélie, thoroughly interested in Angélique's story.
“No. They learned by signs, however, from the Abenaquais, that she was a lady of a noble family in Acadia which had mingled its patrician blood with that of the native chiefs and possessors of the soil. The Abenaquais were chary of their information, however: they would only say she was a great white lady, and as good as any saint in the calendar.”
“I would give five years of my life to know who and what that woman is!” Angélique added, as she leaned over the parapet, gazing intently at the great forest that lay beyond Charlebourg, in which was concealed the Château of Beaumanoir.
“It is a strange mystery. But I would not seek to unravel it, Angélique,” remarked Amélie, “I feel there is sin in it. Do not touch it: it will only bring mischief upon you if you do!”
“Mischief! So be it! But I will know the worst! The Intendant is deceiving me! Woe be to him and her if I am to be their intended victim! Will you not assist me, Amélie, to discover the truth of this secret?”
“I? how can I? I pity you, Angélique, but it were better to leave this Intendant to his own devices.”
“You can very easily help me if you will. Le Gardeur must know this secret. He must have seen the woman--but he is angry with me, for--for--slighting him--as he thinks--but he was wrong. I could not avow to him my jealousy in this matter. He told me just enough to madden me, and angrily refused to tell the rest when he saw me so infatuated--he called it--over other people's love affairs. Oh, Amélie, Le Gardeur will tell you all if you ask him!”
“And I repeat it to you, Angélique, I cannot question Le Gardeur on such a hateful topic. At any rate I need time to reflect, and will pray to be guided right.”
“Oh, pray not at all! If you pray you will never aid me! I know you will say the end is wicked and the means dishonorable. But find out I will--and speedily! It will only be the price of another dance with the Chevalier de Pean, to discover all I want. What fools men are when they believe we love them for their sakes and not for our own!”
Amélie, pitying the wild humors, as she regarded them, of her old school companion, took her arm to walk to and fro in the bastion, but was not sorry to see her aunt and the Bishop and Father de Berey approaching.
“Quick,” said she to Angélique, “smooth your hair, and compose your looks. Here comes my aunt and the Bishop--Father de Berey too!”
Angélique prepared at once to meet them, and with her wonderful power of adaptation transformed herself in a moment into a merry creature, all light and gaiety. She saluted the Lady de Tilly and the reverend Bishop in the frankest manner, and at once accepted an interchange of wit and laughter with Father de Berey.
“She could not remain long, however, in the Church's company,” she said, “she had her morning calls to finish.” She kissed the cheek of Amélie and the hand of the Lady de Tilly, and with a coquettish courtesy to the gentlemen, leaped nimbly into her calèche, whirled round her spirited horses like a practised charioteer, and drove with rapid pace down the crowded street of St. John, the observed of all observers, the admiration of the men and the envy of the women as she flashed by.
Amélie and the Lady de Tilly, having seen a plenteous meal distributed among their people, proceeded to their city home--their seigniorial residence, when they chose to live in the capital.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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5
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THE ITINERANT NOTARY.
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Master Jean Le Nocher the sturdy ferryman's patience had been severely tried for a few days back, passing the troops of habitans over the St. Charles to the city of Quebec. Being on the King's corvée, they claimed the privilege of all persons in the royal service: they travelled toll-free, and paid Jean with a nod or a jest in place of the small coin which that worthy used to exact on ordinary occasions.
This morning had begun auspiciously for Jean's temper however. A King's officer, on a gray charger, had just crossed the ferry; and without claiming the exemption from toll which was the right of all wearing the King's uniform, the officer had paid Jean more than his fee in solid coin and rode on his way, after a few kind words to the ferryman and a polite salute to his wife Babet, who stood courtesying at the door of their cottage.
“A noble gentleman that, and a real one!” exclaimed Jean, to his buxom, pretty wife, “and as generous as a prince! See what he has given me.” Jean flipped up a piece of silver admiringly, and then threw it into the apron of Babet, which she spread out to catch it.
Babet rubbed the silver piece caressingly between her fingers and upon her cheek. “It is easy to see that handsome officer is from the Castle,” said Babet, “and not from the Palace--and so nice-looking he is too, with such a sparkle in his eye and a pleasant smile on his mouth. He is as good as he looks, or I am no judge of men.”
“And you are an excellent judge of men, I know, Babet,” he replied, “or you would never have taken me!” Jean chuckled richly over his own wit, which Babet nodded lively approval to. “Yes, I know a hawk from a handsaw,” replied Babet, “and a woman who is as wise as that will never mistake a gentleman, Jean! I have not seen a handsomer officer than that in seven years!”
“He is a pretty fellow enough, I dare say, Babet; who can he be? He rides like a field-marshal too, and that gray horse has ginger in his heels!” remarked Jean, as the officer was riding at a rapid gallop up the long, white road of Charlebourg. “He is going to Beaumanoir, belike, to see the Royal Intendant, who has not returned yet from his hunting party.”
“Whither they went three days ago, to enjoy themselves in the chase and drink themselves blind in the Château while everybody else is summoned to the city to work upon the walls!” replied Babet, scornfully. “I'll be bound that officer has gone to order the gay gallants of the Friponne back to the city to take their share of work with honest people.”
“Ah! the Friponne! The Friponne!” ejaculated Jean. “The foul fiend fly away with the Friponne! My ferryboat is laden every day with the curses of the habitans returning from the Friponne, where they cheat worse than a Basque pedler, and without a grain of his politeness!”
The Friponne, as it was styled in popular parlance, was the immense magazine established by the Grand Company of Traders in New France. It claimed a monopoly in the purchase and sale of all imports and exports in the Colony. Its privileges were based upon royal ordinances and decrees of the Intendant, and its rights enforced in the most arbitrary manner--and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of the Friponne--the swindle--a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once cheated and oppressed.
“They say, Jean,” continued Babet, her mind running in a very practical and womanly way upon the price of commodities and good bargains, “they say, Jean, that the Bourgeois Philibert will not give in like the other merchants. He sets the Intendant at defiance, and continues to buy and sell in his own comptoir as he has always done, in spite of the Friponne.”
“Yes, Babet! that is what they say. But I would rather he stood in his own shoes than I in them if he is to fight this Intendant--who is a Tartar, they say.”
“Pshaw, Jean! you have less courage than a woman. All the women are on the side of the good Bourgeois: he is an honest merchant--sells cheap, and cheats nobody!” Babet looked down very complacently upon her new gown, which had been purchased at a great bargain at the magazine of the Bourgeois. She felt rather the more inclined to take this view of the question inasmuch as Jean had grumbled, just a little--he would not do more--at his wife's vanity in buying a gay dress of French fabric, like a city dame, while all the women of the parish were wearing homespun,--grogram, or linsey-woolsey,--whether at church or market.
Jean had not the heart to say another word to Babet about the French gown. In truth, he thought she looked very pretty in it, better than in grogram or in linsey-woolsey, although at double the cost. He only winked knowingly at Babet, and went on to speaking of the Bourgeois.
“They say the King has long hands, but this Intendant has claws longer than Satan. There will be trouble by and by at the Golden Dog--mark that, Babet! It was only the other day the Intendant was conversing with the Sieur Cadet as they crossed the ferry. They forgot me, or thought I did not hear them; but I had my ears open, as I always have. I heard something said, and I hope no harm, will come to the good Bourgeois, that is all!”
“I don't know where Christian folk would deal if anything happened him,” said Babet, reflectively. “We always get civility and good pennyworths at the Golden Dog. Some of the lying cheats of the Friponne talked in my hearing one day about his being a Huguenot. But how can that be, Jean, when he gives the best weight and the longest measure of any merchant in Quebec? Religion is a just yard wand, that is my belief, Jean!”
Jean rubbed his head with a perplexed air. “I do not know whether he be a Huguenot, nor what a Huguenot is. The Curé one day said he was a Jansenist on all fours, which I suppose is the same thing, Babet--and it does not concern either you or me. But a merchant who is a gentleman and kind to poor folk, and gives just measure and honest weight, speaks truth and harms nobody, is Christian enough for me. A bishop could not trade more honestly; and the word of the Bourgeois is as reliable as a king's.”
“The Curé may call the Bourgeois what he likes,” replied Babet, “but there is not another Christian in the city if the good Bourgeois be not one; and next the Church there is not a house in Quebec better known or better liked by all the habitans, than the Golden Dog; and such bargains too, as one gets there!”
“Ay, Babet! a good bargain settles many a knotty point with a woman.”
“And with a man too, if he is wise enough to let his wife do his marketing, as you do, Jean! But whom have we here?” Babet set her arms akimbo and gazed.
A number of hardy fellows came down towards the ferry to seek a passage.
“They are honest habitans of St. Anne,” replied Jean. “I know them; they too are on the King's corvée, and travel free, every man of them! So I must cry Vive le Roi! and pass them over to the city. It is like a holiday when one works for nothing!”
Jean stepped nimbly into his boat, followed by the rough country fellows, who amused themselves by joking at Jean Le Nocher's increasing trade and the need of putting on an extra boat these stirring times. Jean put a good face upon it, laughed, and retorted their quips, and plying his oars, stoutly performed his part in the King's corvée by safely landing them on the other shore.
Meantime the officer who had lately crossed the ferry rode rapidly up the long, straight highway that led up on the side of the mountain to a cluster of white cottages and an old church, surmounted by a belfry whose sweet bells were ringing melodiously in the fresh air of the morning.
The sun was pouring a flood of golden light over the landscape. The still glittering dewdrops hung upon the trees, shrubs, and long points of grass by the wayside. All were dressed with jewels to greet the rising king of day.
The wide, open fields of meadow, and corn-fields, ripening for harvest, stretched far away, unbroken by hedge or fence. Slight ditches or banks of turf, covered with nests of violets, ferns, and wild flowers of every hue, separated contiguous fields. No other division seemed necessary in the mutual good neighborhood that prevailed among the colonists, whose fashion of agriculture had been brought, with many hardy virtues, from the old plains of Normandy.
White-walled, red-roofed cottages, or more substantial farmhouses, stood conspicuously in the green fields, or peered out of embowering orchards. Their casements were open to catch the balmy air, while in not a few the sound of clattering hoofs on the hard road drew fair faces to the window or door, to look inquisitively after the officer wearing the white plume in his military chapeau, as he dashed by on the gallant gray.
Those who caught sight of him saw a man worth seeing--tall, deep-chested, and erect. His Norman features, without being perfect, were handsome and manly. Steel-blue eyes, solidly set under a broad forehead, looked out searchingly yet kindly, while his well-formed chin and firm lips gave an air of resolution to his whole look that accorded perfectly with the brave, loyal character of Colonel Philibert. He wore the royal uniform. His auburn hair he wore tied with a black ribbon. His good taste discarded perukes and powder, although very much in fashion in those days.
It was long since he had travelled on the highway of Charlebourg, and he thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the road he traversed. But behind him, as he knew, lay a magnificent spectacle, the sight of the great promontory of Quebec, crowned with its glorious fortifications and replete with the proudest memories of North America. More than once the young soldier turned his steed, and halted a moment or two to survey the scene with enthusiastic admiration. It was his native city, and the thought that it was threatened by the national enemy roused, like an insult offered to the mother that bore him. He rode onward, more than ever impatient of delay, and not till he passed a cluster of elm trees which reminded him of an adventure of his youth, did the sudden heat pass away, caused by the thought of the threatened invasion.
Under these trees he remembered that he and his school companion, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, had once taken refuge during a violent storm. The tree they stood under was shattered by a thunderbolt. They were both stunned for a few minutes, and knew they had had a narrow escape from death. Neither of them ever forgot it.
A train of thoughts never long absent from the mind of Philibert started up vividly at the sight of these trees. His memory flew back to Le Gardeur and the Manor House of Tilly, and the fair young girl who captivated his boyish fancy and filled his youth with dreams of glorious achievements to win her smiles and do her honor. Among a thousand pictures of her hung up in his mind and secretly worshipped he loved that which presented her likeness on that day when he saved her brother's life and she kissed him in a passion of joy and gratitude, vowing she would pray for him to the end of her life.
The imagination of Pierre Philibert had revelled in the romantic visions that haunt every boy destined to prominence, visions kindled by the eye of woman and the hope of love.
The world is ruled by such dreams, dreams of impassioned hearts, and improvisations of warm lips, not by cold words linked in chains of iron sequence,--by love, not by logic. The heart with its passions, not the understanding with its reasoning, sways, in the long run, the actions of mankind.
Pierre Philibert possessed that rich gift of nature, a creative imagination, in addition to the solid judgment of a man of sense, schooled by experience and used to the considerations and responsibilities of weighty affairs.
His love for Amélie de Repentigny had grown in secret. Its roots reached down to the very depths of his being. It mingled, consciously or unconsciously, with all his motives and plans of life, and yet his hopes were not sanguine. Years of absence, he remembered, work forgetfulness. New ties and associations might have wiped out the memory of him in the mind of a young girl fresh to society and its delights. He experienced a disappointment in not finding her in the city upon his return a few days ago, and the state of the Colony and the stress of military duty had so far prevented his renewing his acquaintance with the Manor House of Tilly.
The old-fashioned hostelry of the Couronne de France, with its high-pitched roof, pointed gables, and broad gallery, stood directly opposite the rustic church and tall belfry of Charlebourg, not as a rival, but as a sort of adjunct to the sacred edifice. The sign of the crown, bright with gilding, swung from the low, projecting arm of a maple-tree, thick with shade and rustling with the beautiful leaves of the emblem of Canada. A few rustic seats under the cool maple were usually occupied, toward the close of the day, or about the ringing of the Angelus, by a little gathering of parishioners from the village, talking over the news of the day, the progress of the war, the ordinances of the Intendant, or the exactions of the Friponne.
On Sundays, after Mass and Vespers, the habitans of all parts of the extended parish naturally met and talked over the affairs of the Fabrique--the value of tithes for the year, the abundance of Easter eggs, and the weight of the first salmon of the season, which was always presented to the Curé with the first-fruits of the field, to ensure the blessing of plenty for the rest of the year.
The Reverend Curé frequently mingled in these discussions. Seated in his accustomed armchair, under the shade of the maple in summer, and in winter by the warm fireside, he defended, ex cathedra, the rights of the Church, and good-humoredly decided all controversies. He found his parishioners more amenable to good advice over a mug of Norman cider and a pipe of native tobacco, under the sign of the Crown of France, than when he lectured them in his best and most learned style from the pulpit.
This morning, however, all was very quiet round the old inn. The birds were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed in whatever business they were engaged in. Two of these persons were Dame Bédard, the sharp landlady of the Crown of France, and her no less sharp and pretty daughter, Zoë. The third person of the trio was an old, alert-looking little man, writing at the table as if for very life. He wore a tattered black robe, shortened at the knees to facilitate walking, a frizzled wig, looking as if it had been dressed with a currycomb, a pair of black breeches, well-patched with various colors; and gamaches of brown leather, such as the habitans wore, completed his odd attire, and formed the professional costume of Master Pothier dit Robin, the travelling notary, one of that not unuseful order of itinerants of the law which flourished under the old régime in New France.
Upon the table near him stood a black bottle, an empty trencher, and a thick scatter of crumbs, showing that the old notary had despatched a hearty breakfast before commencing his present work of the pen.
A hairy knapsack lay open upon the table near his elbow, disclosing some bundles of dirty papers tied up with red tape, a tattered volume or two of the “Coutume de Paris,” and little more than the covers of an odd tome of Pothier, his great namesake and prime authority in the law. Some linen, dirty and ragged as his law papers, was crammed into his knapsack with them. But that was neither here nor there in the estimation of the habitans, so long as his law smelt strong in the nostrils of their opponents in litigation. They rather prided themselves upon the roughness of their travelling notary.
The reputation of Master Pothier dit Robin was, of course, very great among the habitans, as he travelled from parish to parish and from seigniory to seigniory, drawing bills and hypothecations, marriage contracts and last wills and testaments, for the peasantry, who had a genuine Norman predilection for law and chicanery, and a respect amounting to veneration for written documents, red tape, and sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own, which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen. Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation for the rest of their days. If he did happen now and then to settle a dispute between neighbors, he made ample amends for it by setting half the rest of the parish by the ears.
Master Pothier's nose, sharp and fiery as if dipped in red ink, almost touched the sheet of paper on the table before him, as he wrote down from the dictation of Dame Bédard the articles of a marriage contract between her pretty daughter, Zoë, and Antoine La Chance, the son of a comfortable but keen widow of Beauport.
Dame Bédard had shrewdly availed herself of the presence of Master Pothier, and in payment of a night's lodging at the Crown of France, to have him write out the contract of marriage in the absence of Dame La Chance, the mother of Antoine, who would, of course, object to the insertion of certain conditions in the contract which Dame Bédard was quite determined upon as the price of Zoë's hand and fortune.
“There! Dame Bédard!” cried Master Pothier, sticking the pen behind his ear, after a magnificent flourish at the last word, “there is a marriage contract fit to espouse King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba! A dowry of a hundred livres tournoises, two cows, and a feather bed, bedstead, and chest of linen! A donation entre vifs!”
“A what? Master Pothier, now mind! are you sure that is the right word of the grimoire?” cried Dame Bédard, instinctively perceiving that here lay the very point of the contract. “You know I only give on condition, Master Pothier.”
“Oh, yes! trust me, Dame Bédard. I have made it a donation entre vifs, révocable pour cause d'ingratitude, if your future son-in-law, Antoine la Chance, should fail in his duty to you and to Zoë.”
“And he won't do his duty to Zoë, unless he does it to me, Master Pothier. But are you sure it is strong enough? Will it hold Dame La Chance by the foot, so that she cannot revoke her gifts although I may revoke mine?”
“Hold Dame La Chance by the foot? It will hold her as fast as a snapping-turtle does a frog. In proof of it, see what Ricard says, page 970; here is the book.” Master Pothier opened his tattered volume, and held it up to the dame. She shook her head.
“Thanks, I have mislaid my glasses. Do you read, please!”
“Most cheerfully, good dame! A notary must have eyes for everybody--eyes like a cat's, to see in the dark, and power to draw them in like a turtle, so that he may see nothing that he does not want to see.”
“Oh, bless the eyes of the notary!” Dame Bédard grew impatient. “Tell me what the book says about gifts revocable--that is what concerns me and Zoë.”
“Well, here it is, dame: 'Donations stipulated revocable at the pleasure of the donor are null. But this condition does not apply to donations by contract of marriage.' Bourdon also says--” “A fig for Bourdon, and all such drones! I want my gift made revocable, and Dame La Chance's not! I know by long experience with my dear feu Bédard how necessary it is to hold the reins tight over the men. Antoine is a good boy, but he will be all the better for a careful mother-in-law's supervision.”
Master Pothier rubbed the top of his wig with his forefinger.
“Are you sure, dame, that Antoine La Chance will wear the bridle easily?”
“Assuredly! I should like to see son-in-law of mine who would not! Besides, Antoine is in the humor just now to refuse nothing for sake of Zoë. Have you mentioned the children, Master Pothier? I do not intend to let Dame La Chance control the children any more than Zoë and Antoine.”
“I have made you tutrice perpetuelle, as we say in the court, and here it is,” said he, placing the tip of his finger on a certain line in the document.
Zoë looked down and blushed to her finger-ends. She presently rallied, and said with some spirit,--“Never mind them, Master Pothier! Don't put them in the contract! Let Antoine have something to say about them. He would take me without a dower, I know, and time enough to remind him about children when they come.”
“Take you without dower! Zoë Bédard! you must be mad!” exclaimed the dame, in great heat. “No girl in New France can marry without a dower, if it be only a pot and a bedstead! You forget, too, that the dower is given, not so much for you, as to keep up the credit of the family. As well be married without a ring! Without a dower, indeed!”
“Or without a contract written by a notary, signed, sealed, and delivered!” chimed in Master Pothier.
“Yes, Master Pothier, and I have promised Zoë a three-days wedding, which will make her the envy of all the parish of Charlebourg. The seigneur has consented to give her away in place of her poor defunct father; and when he does that he is sure to stand godfather for all the children, with a present for every one of them! I shall invite you too, Master Pothier!”
Zoë affected not to hear her mother's remark, although she knew it all by heart, for it had been dinned into her ears twenty times a day for weeks, and sooth to say, she liked to hear it, and fully appreciated the honors to come from the patronage of the seigneur.
Master Pothier pricked up his ears till they fairly raised his wig, at the prospect of a three days wedding at the Crown of France. He began an elaborate reply, when a horse's tramp broke in upon them and Colonel Philibert wheeled up to the door of the hostelry.
Master Pothier, seeing an officer in the King's uniform, rose on the instant and saluted him with a profound bow, while Dame Bédard and Zoë, standing side by side, dropped their lowest courtesy to the handsome gentleman, as, with woman's glance, they saw in a moment he was.
Philibert returned their salute courteously, as he halted his horse in front of Dame Bédard. “Madame!” said he, “I thought I knew all roads about Charlebourg, but I have either forgotten or they have changed the road through the forest to Beaumanoir. It is surely altered from what it was.”
“Your Honor is right,” answered Dame Bédard, “the Intendant has opened a new road through the forest.” Zoë took the opportunity, while the officer looked at her mother, to examine his features, dress, and equipments, from head to foot, and thought him the handsomest officer she had ever seen.
“I thought it must be so,” replied Philibert; “you are the landlady of the Crown of France, I presume?” Dame Bédard carried it on her face as plainly marked as the royal emblem on the sign over her head.
“Yes, your Honor, I am Widow Bédard, at your service, and, I hope, keep as good a hostelry as your Honor will find in the Colony. Will your Honor alight and take a cup of wine, such as I keep for guests of quality?”
“Thanks, Madame Bédard, I am in haste: I must find the way to Beaumanoir. Can you not furnish me a guide, for I like not to lose time by missing my way?”
“A guide, sir! The men are all in the city on the King's corvée; Zoë could show you the way easily enough.” Zoë twitched her mother's arm nervously, as a hint not to say too much. She felt flattered and fluttered too, at the thought of guiding the strange, handsome gentleman through the forest, and already the question shot through her fancy, “What might come of it? Such things have happened in stories!” Poor Zoë! she was for a few seconds unfaithful to the memory of Antoine La Chance. But Dame Bédard settled all surmises by turning to Master Pothier, who stood stiff and upright as became a limb of the law. “Here is Master Pothier, your Honor, who knows every highway and byway in ten seigniories. He will guide your Honor to Beaumanoir.”
“As easy as take a fee or enter a process, your Honor,” remarked Master Pothier, whose odd figure had several times drawn the criticizing eye of Colonel Philibert.
“A fee! ah! you belong to the law, then, my good friend? I have known many advocates--” but Philibert stopped; he was too good-natured to finish his sentence.
“You never saw one like me, your Honor was going to say? True, you never did. I am Master Pothier dit Robin, the poor travelling notary, at your Honor's service, ready to draw you a bond, frame an acte of convention matrimoniale, or write your last will and testament, with any notary in New France. I can, moreover, guide your Honor to Beaumanoir as easy as drink your health in a cup of Cognac.”
Philibert could not but smile at the travelling notary, and thinking to himself, “too much Cognac at the end of that nose of yours, my friend!” which, indeed, looked fiery as Bardolph's, with hardly a spot for a fly to rest his foot upon without burning.
“But how will you go, friend?” asked Philibert, looking down at Master Pothier's gamaches; “you don't look like a fast walker.”
“Oh, your Honor,” interrupted Dame Bédard, impatiently, for Zoë had been twitching her hard to let her go. “Master Pothier can ride the old sorrel nag that stands in the stable eating his head off for want of hire. Of course your Honor will pay livery?”
“Why, certainly, Madame, and glad to do so! So Master Pothier make haste, get the sorrel nag, and let us be off.”
“I will be back in the snap of a pen, or in the time Dame Bédard can draw that cup of Cognac, your Honor.”
“Master Pothier is quite a personage, I see,” remarked Philibert, as the old notary shuffled off to saddle the nag.
“Oh, quite, your Honor. He is the sharpest notary, they say, that travels the road. When he gets people into law they never can get out. He is so clever, everybody says! Why, he assures me that even the Intendant consults him sometimes as they sit eating and drinking half the night together in the buttery at the Château!”
“Really! I must be careful what I say,” replied Philibert, laughing, “or I shall get into hot water! But here he comes.”
As he spoke, Master Pothier came up, mounted on a raw-boned nag, lank as the remains of a twenty-years lawsuit. Zoë, at a hint from the Colonel, handed him a cup of Cognac, which he quaffed without breathing, smacking his lips emphatically after it. He called out to the landlady,--“Take care of my knapsack, dame! You had better burn the house than lose my papers! Adieu, Zoë! study over the marriage contract till I return, and I shall be sure of a good dinner from your pretty hands.”
They set off at a round trot. Colonel Philibert, impatient to reach Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig, while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling gait of his spavined and wall-eyed nag.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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6
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BEAUMANOIR.
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They rode on in silence. A little beyond the village of Charlebourg they suddenly turned into the forest of Beaumanoir, where a well-beaten track, practicable both for carriages and horses, gave indications that the resort of visitors to the Château was neither small nor seldom.
The sun's rays scarcely penetrated the sea of verdure overhead. The ground was thickly strewn with leaves, the memorials of past summers; and the dark green pines breathed out a resinous odor, fresh and invigorating to the passing rider.
Colonel Philibert, while his thoughts were for the most part fixed on the public dangers which led to this hasty visit of his to the Château of Beaumanoir, had still an eye for the beauty of the forest, and not a squirrel leaping, nor a bird fluttering among the branches, escaped his notice as he passed by. Still he rode on rapidly, and having got fairly into the road, soon outstripped his guide.
“A crooked road this to Beaumanoir,” remarked he at length, drawing bridle to allow Master Pothier to rejoin him. “It is as mazy as the law. I am fortunate, I am sure, in having a sharp notary like you to conduct me through it.”
“Conduct you! Your Honor is leading me! But the road to Beaumanoir is as intricate as the best case ever drawn up by an itinerant notary.”
“You seldom ride, Master Pothier?” said Philibert, observing his guide jolting with an audible grunt at every step of his awkward nag.
“Ride, your Honor! N--no! Dame Bédard shall call me plaisant Robin if she ever tempts me again to mount her livery horse--'if fools only carried cruppers!' as Panurge says.”
“Why, Master Pothier?” Philibert began to be amused at his odd guide.
“Why? Then I should be able to walk to-morrow--that is all! This nag will finish me. Hunc! hanc! hoc! He is fit to be Satan's tutor at the seminary! Hoc! hanc! hunc! I have not declined my pronouns since I left my accidence at the High School of Tours--not till to-day. Hunc! hanc! hoc! I shall be jolted to jelly! Hunc! hanc! hoc!”
Philibert laughed at the classical reminiscences of his guide; but, fearing that Pothier might fall off his horse, which he straddled like a hay-fork, he stopped to allow the worthy notary to recover his breath and temper.
“I hope the world appreciates your learning and talent, and that it uses you more gently than that horse of yours,” remarked he.
“Oh, your Honor! it is kind of you to rein up by the way. I find no fault with the world if it find none with me. My philosophy is this, that the world is as men make it.”
“As the old saying is,-- “'To lend, or to spend, or to give in, 'Tis a very good world that we live in; But to borrow, or beg, or get a man's own, 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.'
And you consider yourself in the latter category, Master Pothier?” Philibert spoke doubtingly, for a more self-complacent face than his companion's he never saw--every wrinkle trembled with mirth; eyes, cheeks, chin, and brows surrounded that jolly red nose of his like a group of gay boys round a bonfire.
“Oh, I am content, your Honor! We notaries are privileged to wear furred cloaks in the Palais de Justice, and black robes in the country when we can get them! Look here at my robe of dignity!” He held up the tattered tail of his gown with a ludicrous air. “The profession of notary is meat, drink, and lodging: every man's house is free to me--his bed and board I share, and there is neither wedding, christening, nor funeral, in ten parishes that can go on without me. Governors and intendants flourish and fall, but Jean Pothier dit Robin, the itinerant notary, lives merrily: men may do without bread, but they will not live without law--at least, in this noble, litigious New France of ours.”
“Your profession seems quite indispensable, then!” remarked Philibert.
“Indispensable! I should think so! Without proper actes the world would soon come to an end, as did Adam's happiness in Eden, for want of a notary.”
“A notary, Master Pothier?”
“Yes, your Honor. It is clear that Adam lost his first estate de usis et fructibus in the Garden of Eden, simply because there was no notary to draw up for him an indefeasable lease. Why, he had not even a bail à chaptal (a chattel mortgage) over the beasts he had himself named!”
“Ah!” replied Philibert, smiling, “I thought Adam lost his estate through a cunning notary who persuaded his wife to break the lease he held; and poor Adam lost possession because he could not find a second notary to defend his title.”
“Hum! that might be; but judgment went by default, as I have read. It would be different now; there are notaries, in New France and Old, capable of beating Lucifer himself in a process for either soul, body, or estate! But, thank fortune, we are out of this thick forest now.”
The travellers had reached the other verge of the forest of Beaumanoir. A broad plain dotted with clumps of fair trees lay spread out in a royal domain, overlooked by a steep, wooded mountain. A silvery brook crossed by a rustic bridge ran through the park. In the centre was a huge cluster of gardens and patriarchal trees, out of the midst of which rose the steep roof, chimneys, and gilded vanes, flashing in the sun, of the Château of Beaumanoir.
The Château was a long, heavy structure of stone, gabled and pointed in the style of the preceding century--strong enough for defence, and elegant enough for the abode of the Royal Intendant of New France. It had been built, some four-score years previously, by the Intendant Jean Talon, as a quiet retreat when tired with the importunities of friends or the persecution of enemies, or disgusted with the cold indifference of the Court to his statesmanlike plans for the colonization of New France.
A short distance from the Château rose a tower of rough masonry--crenellated on top, and loopholed on the sides--which had been built as a place of defence and refuge during the Indian wars of the preceding century. Often had the prowling bands of Iroquois turned away baffled and dismayed at the sight of the little fortalice surmounted by a culverin or two, which used to give the alarm of invasion to the colonists on the slopes of Bourg Royal, and to the dwellers along the wild banks of the Montmorency.
The tower was now disused and partly dilapidated, but many wonderful tales existed among the neighboring habitans of a secret passage that communicated with the vaults of the Château; but no one had ever seen the passage--still less been bold enough to explore it had they found it, for it was guarded by a loup-garou that was the terror of children, old and young, as they crowded close together round the blazing fire on winter nights, and repeated old legends of Brittany and Normandy, altered to fit the wild scenes of the New World.
Colonel Philibert and Master Pothier rode up the broad avenue that led to the Château, and halted at the main gate--set in a lofty hedge of evergreens cut into fantastic shapes, after the fashion of the Luxembourg. Within the gate a vast and glowing garden was seen--all squares, circles, and polygons. The beds were laden with flowers shedding delicious odors on the morning air as it floated by, while the ear was soothed by the hum of bees and the songs of birds revelling in the bright sunshine.
Above the hedge appeared the tops of heavily-laden fruit-trees brought from France and planted by Talon--cherries red as the lips of Breton maidens, plums of Gascony, Norman apples, with pears from the glorious valleys of the Rhone. The bending branches were just transmuting their green unripeness into scarlet, gold, and purple--the imperial colors of Nature when crowned for the festival of autumn.
A lofty dove-cote, surmounted by a glittering vane, turning and flashing with every shift of the wind, stood near the Château. It was the home of a whole colony of snow-white pigeons, which fluttered in and out of it, wheeled in circles round the tall chimney-stacks, or strutted, cooing and bowing together, on the high roof of the Château, a picture of innocence and happiness.
But neither happiness nor innocence was suggested by the look of the Château itself, as it stood bathed in bright sunshine. Its great doors were close-shut in the face of all the beauty of the world without. Its mullioned windows, that should have stood wide open to let in the radiance and freshness of morning, were closely blinded, like eyes wickedly shut against God's light that beat upon them, vainly seeking entrance.
Outside all was still: the song of birds and the rustle of leaves alone met the ear. Neither man nor beast was stirring to challenge Colonel Philibert's approach, but long ere he reached the door of the Château, a din of voices within, a wild medley of shouts, song, and laughter, a clatter of wine-cups, and pealing notes of violins struck him with amazement and disgust. He distinguished drunken voices singing snatches of bacchanalian songs, while now and then stentorian mouths called for fresh brimmers, and new toasts were drunk with uproarious applause.
The Château seemed a very pandemonium of riot and revelry, that prolonged the night into the day, and defied the very order of nature by its audacious disregard of all decency of time, place, and circumstance.
“In God's name, what means all this, Master Pothier?” exclaimed Philibert, as they hastily dismounted and, tying their horses to a tree, entered the broad walk that led to the terrace.
“That concert going on, your Honor?” --Master Pothier shook his head to express disapproval, and smiled to express his inborn sympathy with feasting and good-fellowship--“that, your Honor, is the heel of the hunt, the hanging up of the antlers of the stag by the gay chasseurs who are visiting the Intendant!”
“A hunting party, you mean? To think that men could stand such brutishness, even to please the Intendant!”
“Stand! your Honor. I wager my gown that most of the chasseurs are lying under the table by this time, although by the noise they make it must be allowed there are some burly fellows upon their legs yet, who keep the wine flowing like the cow of Montmorency.”
“'Tis horrible! 'tis damnable!” Philibert grew pale with passion and struck his thigh with his palm, as was his wont when very angry. “Rioting in drunkenness when the Colony demands the cool head, the strong arm, and the true heart of every man among us! Oh, my country! my dear country! what fate is thine to expect when men like these are thy rulers?”
“Your Honor must be a stranger in New France or you would not express such hasty, honest sentiments upon the Intendant's hospitality. It is not the fashion, except among plain-spoken habitans, who always talk downright Norman.” Master Pothier looked approvingly at Colonel Philibert, who, listening with indignant ears, scarcely heeded his guide.
“That is a jolly song, your Honor,” continued Pothier, waving one hand in cadence to a ditty in praise of wine, which a loud voice was heard singing in the Château, accompanied by a rousing chorus which startled the very pigeons on the roof and chimney-stacks. Colonel Philibert recognized the song as one he had heard in the Quartier Latin, during his student life in Paris--he fancied he recognized the voice also: “'Pour des vins de prix Vendons tous nos livres! C'est pen d'être gris, Amis, soyons ivres! Bon. La Faridondaine! Gai. La Faridondé!'”
A roar of voices and a clash of glasses followed the refrain. Master Pothier's eyes winked and blinked in sympathy. The old notary stood on tiptoe, with outspread palms, as with ore rotundo he threw in a few notes of his own to fill up the chorus.
Philibert cast upon his guide a look of scorn, biting his lip angrily. “Go,” said he, “knock at the door--it needs God's thunder to break in upon that infamous orgie. Say that Colonel Philibert brings orders from His Excellency the Governor to the Chevalier Intendant.”
“And be served with a writ of ejectment! Pardon me! Be not angry, sir,” pleaded Pothier supplicatingly, “I dare not knock at the door when they are at the devil's mass inside. The valets! I know them all! They would duck me in the brook, or drag me into the hall to make sport for the Philistines. And I am not much of a Samson, your Honor. I could not pull the Château down upon their heads--I wish I could!”
Master Pothier's fears did not appear ill-grounded to Philibert as a fresh burst of drunken uproar assailed his ears. “Wait my return,” said he, “I will knock on the door myself.” He left his guide, ran up the broad stone steps, and knocked loudly upon the door again and again! He tried it at last, and to his surprise found it unlatched; he pushed it open, no servitor appearing to admit him. Colonel Philibert went boldly in. A blaze of light almost dazzled his eyes. The Château was lit up with lamps and candelabra in every part. The bright rays of the sun beat in vain for admittance upon the closed doors and blinded windows, but the splendor of midnight oil pervaded the interior of the stately mansion, making an artificial night that prolonged the wild orgies of the Intendant into the hours of day.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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7
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THE INTENDANT BIGOT.
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The Château of Beaumanoir had, since the advent of the Intendant Bigot, been the scene of many a festive revelry that matched, in bacchanalian frenzy, the wild orgies of the Regency and the present debaucheries of Croisy and the petits appartements of Versailles. Its splendor, its luxury, its riotous feasts lasting without intermission sometimes for days, were the themes of wonder and disgust to the unsophisticated people of New France, and of endless comparison between the extravagance of the Royal Intendant and the simple manners and inflexible morals of the Governor-General.
The great hall of the Château, the scene of the gorgeous feasts of the Intendant, was brilliantly illuminated with silver lamps, glowing like globes of sunlight as they hung from the lofty ceiling, upon which was painted a fresco of the apotheosis of Louis XIV., where the Grand Monarque was surrounded by a cloud of Condés, Orléanois, and Bourbons, of near and more remote consanguinity. At the head of the room hung a full-length portrait of Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV., and the friend and patroness of the Intendant Bigot; her bold, voluptuous beauty seemed well fitted to be the presiding genius of his house. The walls bore many other paintings of artistic and historic value. The King and Queen; the dark-eyed Montespan; the crafty Maintenon; and the pensive beauty of Louise de la Vallière, the only mistress of Louis XIV. who loved him for his own sake, and whose portrait, copied from this picture, may still be seen in the chapel of the Ursulines of Quebec, where the fair Louise is represented as St. Thais kneeling at prayer among the nuns.
The table in the great hall, a masterpiece of workmanship, was made of a dark Canadian wood then newly introduced, and stretched the length of the hall. A massive gold epergne of choicest Italian art, the gift of La Pompadour, stood on the centre of the table. It represented Bacchus enthroned on a tun of wine, presenting flowing cups to a dance of fauns and satyrs.
Silver cups of Venetian sculpture and goblets of Bohemian manufacture sparkled like stars upon the brilliant table, brimming over with the gold and ruby vintages of France and Spain; or lay overturned amid pools of wine that ran down upon the velvet carpet. Dishes of Parmesan cheese, caviare, and other provocatives to thirst stood upon the table, amid vases of flowers and baskets of the choicest fruits of the Antilles.
Round this magnificent table sat a score or more of revellers--in the garb of gentlemen, but all in disorder and soiled with wine; their countenances were inflamed, their eyes red and fiery, their tongues loose and loquacious. Here and there a vacant or overturned chair showed where a guest had fallen in the debauch and been carried off by the valets, who in gorgeous liveries waited on the table. A band of musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the hall, and filled the pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing strains of Lulli and Destouches.
At the head of the table, first in place as in rank, sat François Bigot, Intendant of New France. His low, well-set figure, dark hair, small, keen black eyes, and swarthy features full of fire and animation, bespoke his Gascon blood. His countenance was far from comely,--nay, when in repose, even ugly and repulsive,--but his eyes were magnets that drew men's looks towards him, for in them lay the force of a powerful will and a depth and subtlety of intellect that made men fear, if they could not love him. Yet when he chose--and it was his usual mood--to exercise his blandishments on men, he rarely failed to captivate them, while his pleasant wit, courtly ways, and natural gallantry towards women, exercised with the polished seductiveness he had learned in the Court of Louis XV., made François Bigot the most plausible and dangerous man in New France.
He was fond of wine and music, passionately addicted to gambling, and devoted to the pleasant vices that were rampant in the Court of France, finely educated, able in the conduct of affairs, and fertile in expedients to accomplish his ends. François Bigot might have saved New France, had he been honest as he was clever; but he was unprincipled and corrupt: no conscience checked his ambition or his love of pleasure. He ruined New France for the sake of himself and his patroness and the crowd of courtiers and frail beauties who surrounded the King, whose arts and influence kept him in his high office despite all the efforts of the Honnêtes Gens, the good and true men of the Colony, to remove him.
He had already ruined and lost the ancient Colony of Acadia, through his defrauds and malversations as Chief Commissary of the Army, and instead of trial and punishment, had lately been exalted to the higher and still more important office of Royal Intendant of New France.
On the right of the Intendant sat his bosom friend, the Sieur Cadet, a large, sensual man, with twinkling gray eyes, thick nose, and full red lips. His broad face, flushed with wine, glowed like the harvest moon rising above the horizon. Cadet had, it was said, been a butcher in Quebec. He was now, for the misfortune of his country, Chief Commissary of the Army and a close confederate of the Intendant.
On the left of the Intendant sat his Secretary, De Pean, crafty and unscrupulous, a parasite, too, who flattered his master and ministered to his pleasures. De Pean was a military man, and not a bad soldier in the field; but he loved gain better than glory, and amassed an enormous fortune out of the impoverishment of his country.
Le Mercier, too, was there, Commandant of Artillery, a brave officer, but a bad man; Varin, a proud, arrogant libertine, Commissary of Montreal, who outdid Bigot in rapine and Cadet in coarseness; De Breard, Comptroller of the Marine, a worthy associate of Penisault, whose pinched features and cunning leer were in keeping with his important office of chief manager of the Friponne. Perrault, D'Estebe, Morin, and Vergor, all creatures of the Intendant, swelled the roll of infamy, as partners of the Grand Company of Associates trading in New France, as their charter named them--the “Grand Company of Thieves,” as the people in their plain Norman called them who robbed them in the King's name and, under pretence of maintaining the war, passed the most arbitrary decrees, the only object of which was to enrich themselves and their higher patrons at the Court of Versailles.
The rest of the company seated round the table comprised a number of dissolute seigneurs and gallants of fashion about town--men of great wants and great extravagance, just the class so quaintly described by Charlevoix, a quarter of a century previous, as “gentlemen thoroughly versed in the most elegant and agreeable modes of spending money, but greatly at a loss how to obtain it.”
Among the gay young seigneurs who had been drawn into the vortex of Bigot's splendid dissipation, was the brave, handsome Le Gardeur de Repentigny--a captain of the Royal Marine, a Colonial corps recently embodied at Quebec. In general form and feature Le Gardeur was a manly reflex of his beautiful sister Amélie, but his countenance was marred with traces of debauchery. His face was inflamed, and his dark eyes, so like his sister's, by nature tender and true, were now glittering with the adder tongues of the cursed wine-serpent.
Taking the cue from Bigot, Le Gardeur responded madly to the challenges to drink from all around him. Wine was now flooding every brain, and the table was one scene of riotous debauch.
“Fill up again, Le Gardeur!” exclaimed the Intendant, with a loud and still clear voice; “the lying clock says it is day--broad day, but neither cock crows nor day dawns in the Château of Beaumanoir, save at the will of its master and his merry guests! Fill up, companions all! The lamplight in the wine-cup is brighter than the clearest sun that ever shone!”
“Bravo Bigot! name your toast, and we will pledge it till the seven stars count fourteen!” replied Le Gardeur, looking hazily at the great clock in the hall. “I see four clocks in the room, and every one of them lies if it says it is day!”
“You are mending, Le Gardeur de Repentigny! You are worthy to belong to the Grand Company! But you shall have my toast. We have drank it twenty times already, but it will stand drinking twenty times more. It is the best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man--a woman--” “And the best epilogue too, Bigot!” interjected Varin, visibly drunk; “but let us have the toast, my cup is waiting.”
“Well, fill up all, then; and we will drink the health, wealth, and love by stealth, of the jolliest dame in sunny France--The Marquise de Pompadour!”
“La Pompadour! La Pompadour!” Every tongue repeated the name, the goblets were drained to the bottoms, and a thunder of applause and clattering of glasses followed the toast of the mistress of Louis XV., who was the special protectress of the Grand Company,--a goodly share of whose profits in the monopoly of trade in New France was thrown into the lap of the powerful favorite.
“Come, Varin! your turn now!” cried Bigot, turning to the Commissary; “a toast for Ville Marie! Merry Montreal! where they eat like rats of Poitou, and drink till they ring the fire-bells, as the Bordelais did to welcome the collectors of the gabelle. The Montrealers have not rung the fire-bells yet against you, Varin, but they will by and by!”
Varin filled his cup with an unsteady hand until it ran over, and propping his body against the table as he stood up, replied, “A toast for Ville Marie! and our friends in need! --The blue caps of the Richelieu!” This was in allusion to a recent ordinance of the Intendant, authorizing him to seize all the corn in store at Montreal and in the surrounding country--under pretence of supplying the army, and really to secure the monopoly of it for the Grand Company.
The toast was drunk, amid rapturous applause. “Well said, Varin!” exclaimed Bigot; “that toast implied both business and pleasure: the business was to sweep out the granges of the farmers; the pleasure is to drink in honor of your success.”
“My foragers sweep clean!” said Varin, resuming his seat, and looking under his hand to steady his gaze. “Better brooms were never made in Besançon. The country is swept as clean as a ball-room. Your Excellency and the Marquise might lead the dance over it, and not a straw lie in your way!”
“And did you manage it without a fight, Varin?” asked the Sieur d'Estebe, with a half sneer.
“Fight! Why fight? The habitans will never resist the King's name. We conjure the devil down with that. When we skin our eels we don't begin at the tail! If we did, the habitans would be like the eels of Mélun--cry out before they were hurt. No! no! D'Estebe! We are more polite in Ville Marie. We tell them the King's troops need the corn. They doff their caps, and with tears in their eyes, say, 'Monsieur le Commissaire, the King can have all we possess, and ourselves too, if he will only save Canada from the Bostonnais.' This is better than stealing the honey and killing the bees that made it, D'Estebe!”
“But what became of the families of the habitans after this swoop of your foragers?” asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of the wine he had swallowed.
“Oh! the families--that is, the women and children, for we took the men for the army. You see, De Beauce,” replied Varin, with a mocking air, as he crossed his thumbs like a peasant of Languedoc when he wishes to inspire belief in his words, “the families have to do what the gentlemen of Beauce practise in times of scarcity--breakfast by gaping! or they can eat wind, like the people of Poitou: it will make them spit clean!”
De Beauce was irritated at the mocking sign and the proverbial allusion to the gaping of the people of Beauce. He started up in wrath, and striking his fist on the table, “Monsieur Varin!” cried he, “do not cross your thumbs at me, or I will cut them off! Let me tell you the gentlemen of Beauce do not breakfast on gaping, but have plenty of corn to stuff even a Commissary of Montreal!”
The Sieur Le Mercier, at a sign from Bigot, interposed to stop the rising quarrel. “Don't mind Varin,” said he, whispering to De Beauce; “he is drunk, and a row will anger the Intendant. Wait, and by and by you shall toast Varin as the chief baker of Pharoah, who got hanged because he stole the King's corn.”
“As he deserves to be, for his insult to the gentlemen of Beauce,” insinuated Bigot, leaning over to his angry guest, at the same time winking good-humoredly to Varin. “Come, now, De Beauce, friends all, amantium irae, you know--which is Latin for love--and I will sing you a stave in praise of this good wine, which is better than Bacchus ever drank.” The Intendant rose up, and holding a brimming glass in his hand, chanted in full, musical voice a favorite ditty of the day, as a ready mode of restoring harmony among the company: “'Amis! dans ma bouteille, Voilà le vin de France! C'est le bon vin qui danse ici, C'est le bon vin qui danse. Gai lon la! Vive la lirette! Des Filettes Il y en aura!'
Vivent les Filettes! The girls of Quebec--first in beauty, last in love, and nowhere in scorn of a gallant worthy of them!” continued Bigot. “What say you, De Pean? Are you not prepared to toast the belles of Quebec?”
“That I am, your Excellency!” De Pean was unsteady upon his feet, as he rose to respond to the Intendant's challenge. He pot-valiantly drew his sword, and laid it on the table. “I will call on the honorable company to drink this toast on their knees, and there is my sword to cut the legs off any gentleman who will not kneel down and drink a full cup to the bright eyes of the belle of Quebec--The incomparable Angélique des Meloises!”
The toast suited their mood. Every one filled up his cup in honor of a beauty so universally admired.
“Kneel down, all,” cried the Intendant, “or De Pean will hamstring us!” All knelt down with a clash--some of them unable to rise again. “We will drink to the Angélique charms of the fair Des Meloises. Come now, all together! --as the jolly Dutchmen of Albany say, 'Upp seys over!'”
Such of the company as were able resumed their seats amid great laughter and confusion, when the Sieur Deschenaux, a reckless young gallant, ablaze with wine and excitement, stood up, leaning against the table. His fingers dabbled in his wine-cup as he addressed them, but he did not notice it.
“We have drunk with all the honors,” said he, “to the bright eyes of the belle of Quebec. I call on every gentleman now, to drink to the still brighter eyes of the belle of New France!”
“Who is she? Name! name!” shouted a dozen voices; “who is the belle of New France?”
“Who is she? Why, who can she be but the fair Angélique, whom we have just honored?” replied De Pean, hotly, jealous of any precedence in that quarter.
“Tut!” cried Deschenaux, “you compare glowworms with evening stars, when you pretend to match Angélique des Meloises with the lady I propose to honor! I call for full brimmers--cardinal's hats--in honor of the belle of New France--the fair Amélie de Repentigny!”
Le Gardeur de Repentigny was sitting leaning on his elbow, his face beaming with jollity, as he waited, with a full cup, for Deschenaux's toast. But no sooner did he hear the name of his sister from those lips than he sprang up as though a serpent had bit him. He hurled his goblet at the head of Deschenaux with a fierce imprecation, and drew his sword as he rushed towards him.
“A thousand lightnings strike you! How dare you pollute that holy name, Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink it in blood--retract, I say!”
The guests rose to their feet in terrible uproar. Le Gardeur struggled violently to break through a number of those who interposed between him and Deschenaux, who, roused to frenzy by the insult from Le Gardeur, had also drawn his sword, and stood ready to receive the assault of his antagonist.
The Intendant, whose courage and presence of mind never forsook him, pulled Deschenaux down upon his seat and held fast his sword arm, shouting in his ear,-- “Are you mad, Deschenaux? You knew she was his sister, and how he worships her! Retract the toast--it was inopportune! Besides, recollect we want to win over De Repentigny to the Grand Company!”
Deschenaux struggled for a minute, but the influence of the Intendant was all-powerful over him. He gave way. “Damn De Repentigny,” said he, “I only meant to do honor to the pretty witch. Who would have expected him to take it up in that manner?”
“Any one who knows him; besides,” continued the Intendant, “if you must toast his sister, wait till we get him body and soul made over to the Grand Company, and then he will care no more for his sister's fame than you do for yours.”
“But the insult! He has drawn blood with the goblet,” said Deschenaux, wiping his forehead with his fingers; “I cannot pardon that!”
“Tut, tut; fight him another day. But you shall not fight here! Cadet and Le Mercier have pinned the young Bayard, I see; so you have a chance to do the honorable; Deschenaux; go to him, retract the toast, and say you had forgotten the fair lady was his sister.”
Deschenaux swallowed his wrath, rose up, and sheathed his sword. Taking the Intendant by the arm, he went up to Le Gardeur, who was still trying to advance. Deschenaux held up his hand deprecatingly. “Le Gardeur,” said he, with an air of apparent contrition, “I was wrong to offer that toast. I had forgotten the fair lady was your sister. I retract the toast, since it is disagreeable to you, although all would have been proud to drink it.”
Le Gardeur was as hard to appease as he was easy to excite to anger. He still held his drawn sword in his hand.
“Come!” cried Bigot, “you are as hard to please as Villiers Vendôme, whom the King himself could not satisfy. Deschenaux says he is sorry. A gentleman cannot say more; so shake hands and be friends, De Repentigny.”
Impervious to threats, and often to reason, Le Gardeur could not resist an appeal to his generosity.
He sheathed his sword, and held out his hand with frank forgiveness. “Your apology is ample, Sieur Deschenaux. I am satisfied you meant no affront to my sister! It is my weak point, messieurs,” continued he, looking firmly at the company, ready to break out had he detected the shadow of a sneer upon any one's countenance. “I honor her as I do the queen of heaven. Neither of their names ought to be spoken here.”
“Well said! Le Gardeur,” exclaimed the Intendant. “That's right, shake hands, and be friends again. Blessed are quarrels that lead to reconciliation and the washing out of feuds in wine. Take your seats, gentlemen.”
There was a general scramble back to the table. Bigot stood up in renewed force.
“Valets!” cried he, “bring in now the largest cups! We will drink a toast five fathoms deep, in water of life strong enough to melt Cleopatra's pearls, and to a jollier dame than Egypt's queen. But first we will make Le Gardeur de Repentigny free of the guild of noble partners of the company of adventurers trading in New France.”
The valets flew in and out. In a few moments the table was replenished with huge drinking-cups, silver flagons, and all the heavy impedimenta of the army of Bacchus.
“You are willing to become one of us, and enter the jolly guild of the Grand Company?” exclaimed the Intendant, taking Le Gardeur by the hand.
“Yes, I am a stranger, and you may take me in. I claim admission,” replied Le Gardeur with drunken gravity, “and by St. Pigot! I will be true to the guild!”
Bigot kissed him on both cheeks. “By the boot of St. Benoit! you speak like the King of Yvetot. Le Gardeur de Repentigny, you are fit to wear fur in the Court of Burgundy.”
“You can measure my foot, Bigot,” replied Le Gardeur, “and satisfy the company that I am able to wear the boot of St. Benoit.”
“By jolly St. Chinon! and you shall wear it, Le Gardeur,” exclaimed Bigot, handing him a quart flagon of wine, which Le Gardeur drank without drawing breath. “That boot fits,” shouted the Intendant exultingly; “now for the chant! I will lead. Stop the breath of any one who will not join in the chorus.”
The Intendant in great voice led off a macaronic verse of Molière, that had often made merry the orgies of Versailles: “'Bene, bene, bene, respondere! Dignus, dignus es, entrare In nostro laeto corpore!'”
A tintamarre of voices and a jingle of glasses accompanied the violins and tambours de Basque as the company stood up and sang the song, winding up with a grand burst at the chorus: “'Vivat! vivat! vivat! cent fois vivat! Novus socius qui tam bene parlat! Mille mille annis et manget et bibat, Fripet et friponnat!'”
Hands were shaken all round, congratulations, embracings, and filthy kisses showered upon Le Gardeur to honor his admission as a partner of the Grand Company.
“And now,” continued Bigot, “we will drink a draught long as the bell rope of Notre Dame. Fill up brimmers of the quintessence of the grape, and drain them dry in honor of the Friponne!”
The name was electric. It was, in the country, a word of opprobrium, but at Beaumanoir it was laughed at with true Gallic nonchalance. Indeed, to show their scorn of public opinion, the Grand Company had lately launched a new ship upon the Great Lakes to carry on the fur trade, and had appropriately and mockingly named her, “La Friponne.”
The toast of La Friponne was drunk with applause, followed by a wild bacchanalian song.
The Sieur Morin had been a merchant in Bordeaux whose bond was held in as little value as his word. He had lately removed to New France, transferred the bulk of his merchandise to the Friponne, and become an active agent of the Grand Company.
“La Friponne!” cried he; “I have drunk success to her with all my heart and throat; but I say she will never wear a night-cap and sleep quietly in our arms until we muzzle the Golden Dog that barks by night and by day in the Rue Buade.”
“That is true, Morin!” , interrupted Varin. “The Grand Company will never know peace until we send the Bourgeois, his master, back to the Bastille. The Golden Dog is--” “Damn the Golden Dog!” exclaimed Bigot, passionately. “Why do you utter his name, Varin, to sour our wine? I hope one day to pull down the Dog, as well as the whole kennel of the insolent Bourgeois.” Then, as was his wont, concealing his feelings under a mocking gibe, “Varin,” said he, “they say that it is your marrow bone the Golden Dog is gnawing--ha! ha! ha!”
“More people believe it is your Excellency's!” Varin knew he was right, but aware of Bigot's touchiness on that point, added, as is the wont of panders to great men, “It is either yours or the Cardinal's.”
“Let it be the Cardinal's, then! He is still in purgatory, and there will wait the arrival of the Bourgeois, to balance accounts with him.”
Bigot hated the Bourgeois Philibert as one hates the man he has injured. Bigot had been instrumental in his banishment years ago from France, when the bold Norman count defended the persecuted Jansenists in the Parliament of Rouen. The Intendant hated him now for his wealth and prosperity in New France. But his wrath turned to fury when he saw the tablet of the Golden Dog, with its taunting inscription, glaring upon the front of the magazine in the Rue Buade. Bigot felt the full meaning and significance of the words that burned into his soul, and for which he hoped one day to be revenged.
“Confusion to the whole litter of the Golden Dog, and that is the party of the Honnêtes Gens!” cried he. “But for that canting savant who plays the Governor here, I would pull down the sign and hang its master up in its stead to-morrow!”
The company now grew still more hilarious and noisy in their cups. Few paid attention to what the Intendant was saying. But De Repentigny heard him utter the words, “Oh, for men who dare do men's deeds!” He caught the eye of De Repentigny, and added, “But we are all cowards in the Grand Company, and are afraid of the Bourgeois.”
The wine was bubbling in the brain of Le Gardeur. He scarcely knew what the Intendant said, but he caught the last words.
“Whom do you call cowards, Chevalier? I have joined the Grand Company. If the rest are cowards, I am not: I stand ready to pluck the peruke off the head of any man in New France, and carry it on my sword to the Place d' Armes, where I will challenge all the world to come and take it!”
“Pish! that is nothing! give me man's work. I want to see the partner in the Grand Company who dare pull down the Golden Dog.”
“I dare! and I dare!” exclaimed a dozen voices at once in response to the appeal of the Intendant, who craftily meant his challenge to ensnare only Le Gardeur.
“And I dare; and I will, too, if you wish it, Chevalier!” shouted Le Gardeur, mad with wine, and quite oblivious of the thousand claims of the father of his friend, Pierre Philibert, upon him.
“I take you at your word, Le Gardeur! and bind your honor to it in the presence of all these gentlemen,” said Bigot with a look of intense satisfaction.
“When shall it be done--to-day?” Le Gardeur seemed ready to pluck the moon from the sky in his present state of ecstasy.
“Why, no, not to-day; not before the pear is ripe will we pluck it! Your word of honor will keep till then?”
Bigot was in great glee over the success of his stratagem to entrap De Repentigny.
“It will keep a thousand years!” replied Le Gardeur, amid a fresh outburst of merriment round the board which culminated in a shameless song, fit only for a revel of satyrs.
The Sieur Cadet lolled lazily in his chair, his eyes blinking with a sleepy leer. “We are getting stupidly drunk. Bigot,” said he; “we want something new to rouse us all to fresh life. Will you let me offer a toast?”
“Go on, Cadet! offer what toast you please. There is nothing in heaven, hell, or upon earth that I won't drink to for your sake.”
“I want you to drink it on your knees, Bigot! pledge me that, and fill your biggest cup.”
“We will drink it on all fours if you like! come, out with your toast, Cadet; you are as long over it as Father Glapion's sermon in Lent! and it will be as interesting, I dare say!”
“Well, Chevalier, the Grand Company, after toasting all the beauties of Quebec, desire to drink the health of the fair mistress of Beaumanoir, and in her presence too!” said Cadet with owlish gravity.
Bigot started; drunk and reckless as he was, he did not like his secret to be divulged. He was angry with Cadet for referring to it in the presence of so many who knew not that a strange lady was residing at Beaumanoir. He was too thoroughly a libertine of the period to feel any moral compunction for any excess he committed. He was habitually more ready to glory over his conquests, than to deny or extenuate them. But in this case he had, to the surprise of Cadet, been very reticent, and shy of speaking of this lady even to him.
“They say she is a miracle of beauty, Bigot!” continued Cadet, “and that you are so jealous of the charms of your belle Gabrielle that you are afraid to show her to your best friends.”
“My belle Gabrielle is at liberty to go where she pleases, Cadet!” Bigot saw the absurdity of anger, but he felt it, nevertheless. “She chooses not to leave her bower, to look even on you, Cadet! I warrant you she has not slept all night, listening to your infernal din.”
“Then, I hope you will allow us to go and beg pardon on our knees for disturbing her rest. What say the good company?”
“Agreed, agreed!” was the general response, and all pressed the Intendant vociferously to allow them to see the fair mistress of Beaumanoir.
Varin, however, proposed that she should be brought into the hall. “Send her to us, O King,” cried he; “we are nobles of Persia, and this is Shushan the palace, where we carouse according to the law of the Medes, seven days at a stretch. Let the King bring in Queen Vashti, to show her beauty to the princes and nobles of his court!”
Bigot, too full of wine to weigh scruples, yielded to the wish of his boon companions. He rose from his chair, which in his absence was taken by Cadet. “Mind!” said he, “if I bring her in, you shall show her every respect.”
“We will kiss the dust of her feet,” answered Cadet, “and consider you the greatest king of a feast in New France or Old.”
Bigot, without further parley, passed out of the hall, traversed a long corridor and entered an anteroom, where he found Dame Tremblay, the old housekeeper, dozing on her chair. He roused her up, and bade her go to the inner chamber to summon her mistress.
The housekeeper rose in a moment at the voice of the Intendant. She was a comely dame, with a ruddy cheek, and an eye in her head that looked inquisitively at her master as she arranged her cap and threw back her rather gay ribbons.
“I want your mistress up in the great hall! Go summon her at once,” repeated the Intendant.
The housekeeper courtesied, but pressed her lips together as if to prevent them from speaking in remonstrance. She went at once on her ungracious errand.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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8
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CAROLINE DE ST. CASTIN.
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Dame Tremblay entered the suite of apartments and returned in a few moments, saying that her lady was not there, but had gone down to the secret chamber, to be, she supposed, more out of hearing of the noise, which had disturbed her so much.
“I will go find her then,” replied the Intendant; “you may return to your own room, dame.”
He walked across the drawing-room to one of the gorgeous panels that decorated the wall, and touched a hidden spring. A door flew open, disclosing a stair heavily carpeted that led down to the huge vaulted foundations of the Château.
He descended the stair with hasty though unsteady steps. It led to a spacious room, lighted with a gorgeous lamp that hung pendant in silver chains from the frescoed ceiling. The walls were richly tapestried with products of the looms of the Gobelins, representing the plains of Italy filled with sunshine, where groves, temples, and colonnades were pictured in endless vistas of beauty. The furniture of the chamber was of regal magnificence. Nothing that luxury could desire, or art furnish, had been spared in its adornment. On a sofa lay a guitar, and beside it a scarf and a dainty glove fit for the hand of the fairy queen.
The Intendant looked eagerly round, as he entered this bright chamber of his fancy, but saw not its expected occupant. A recess in the deep wall at the farthest side of the room contained an oratory with an altar and a crucifix upon it. The recess was partly in the shade. But the eyes of the Intendant discerned clearly enough the kneeling, or rather the prostrate, figure of Caroline de St. Castin. Her hands were clasped beneath her head, which was bowed to the ground. Her long, black hair lay dishevelled over her back, as she lay in her white robe like the Angel of Sorrow, weeping and crying from the depths of her broken heart, “Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me!” She was so absorbed in her grief that she did not notice the entrance of the Intendant.
Bigot stood still for a moment, stricken with awe at the spectacle of this lovely woman weeping by herself in the secret chamber. A look of something like pity stole into his eyes; he called her by name, ran to her, assisted her to rise, which she did, slowly turning towards him that weeping, Madonna-like face which haunts the ruins of Beaumanoir to this day.
She was of medium stature, slender and lissome, looking taller than she really was. Her features were chiselled with exquisite delicacy; her hair of a raven blackness, and eyes of that dark lustre which reappears for generations in the descendants of Europeans who have mingled their blood with that of the aborigines of the forest. The Indian eye is preserved as an heirloom, long after all memory of the red stain has vanished from the traditions of the family. Her complexion was pale, naturally of a rich olive, but now, through sorrow, of a wan and bloodless hue--still very beautiful, and more appealing than the rosiest complexion.
Caroline de St. Castin was an Acadienne of ancient and noble family, whose head and founder, the Baron de St. Castin, had married the beautiful daughter of the high chief of the Abenaquais.
Her father's house, one of the most considerable in the Colony, had been the resort of the royal officers, civil and military, serving in Acadia. Caroline, the only daughter of the noble house, had been reared in all the refinements and luxuries of the period, as became her rank and position both in France and her native Province.
In an evil hour for her happiness this beautiful and accomplished girl met the Chevalier Bigot, who as Chief Commissary of the Army, was one of the foremost of the royal officers in Acadia.
His ready wit and graceful manners pleased and flattered the susceptible girl, not used to the seductions of the polished courtesies of the mother-land of France. She was of a joyous temper--gay, frank, and confiding. Her father, immersed in public affairs, left her much to herself, nor, had he known it, would he have disapproved of the gallant courtesies of the Chevalier Bigot. For the Baron had the soul of honor, and dreamt every gentleman as well as himself possessed it.
Bigot, to do him justice, felt as sincere a regard for this beautiful, amiable girl as his nature was capable of entertaining. In rank and fortune she was more than his equal, and left to himself, he would willingly have married her. Before he learned that his project of a marriage in the Colony was scouted at Court he had already offered his love to Caroline de St. Castin, and won easily the gentle heart that was but too well disposed to receive his homage.
Her trust went with her love. Earth was never so green, nor air so sweet, nor skies so bright and azure, as those of Caroline's wooing, on the shores of the beautiful Bay of Minas. She loved this man with a passion that filled with ecstasy her whole being. She trusted his promises as she would have trusted God's. She loved him better than she loved herself--better than she loved God, or God's law; and counted as a gain every loss she suffered for his sake, and for the affection she bore him.
After some months spent in her charming society, a change came over Bigot. He received formidable missives from his great patroness at Versailles, the Marquise de Pompadour, who had other matrimonial designs for him. Bigot was too slavish a courtier to resent her interference, nor was he honest enough to explain his position to his betrothed. He deferred his marriage. The exigencies of the war called him away. He had triumphed over a fond, confiding woman; but he had been trained among the dissolute spirits of the Regency too thoroughly to feel more than a passing regret for a woman whom, probably, he loved better than any other of the victims of his licentious life.
When he finally left Acadia a conquered province in the hands of the English, he also left behind him the one true, loving heart that believed in his honor and still prayed for his happiness.
The days of Caroline's disillusion soon came; she could not conceal from herself that she had been basely deceived and abandoned by the man she loved so ardently. She learned that Bigot had been elevated to the high office of Intendant of New France, but felt herself as utterly forgotten by him as the rose that had bloomed and withered in her garden two summers ago.
Her father had been summoned to France on the loss of the Colony; and fearing to face him on his return, Caroline suddenly left her home and sought refuge in the forest among her far-off kindred, the red Abenaquais.
The Indians welcomed her with joy and unbounded respect, recognizing her right to their devotion and obedience. They put upon her feet the moccasins of their tribe, and sent her, with a trusty escort, through the wilderness to Quebec, where she hoped to find the Intendant, not to reproach him for his perfidy,--her gentle heart was too much subdued for that,--but to claim his protection, and if refused, to die at his door.
It was under such circumstances that the beautiful, highborn Caroline de St. Castin became an inmate of Beaumanoir. She had passed the night of this wild debauch in a vigil of prayers, tears, and lamentations over her sad lot and over the degradation of Bigot by the life which she now knew he led. Sometimes her maddened fancy was ready to accuse Providence itself of cruelty and injustice; sometimes, magnifying her own sin, she was ready to think all earthly punishment upon herself as too light, and invoked death and judgment as alone adequate to her fault. All night she had knelt before the altar, asking for mercy and forgiveness,--sometimes starting to her feet in terror, as a fresh burst of revelry came rushing from the great hall above, and shook the door of her secret chamber. But no one came to her help, no one looked in upon her desolation. She deemed herself utterly forgotten and forsaken of God and man.
Occasionally she fancied she could distinguish the voice of the Intendant amid the drunken uproar, and she shuddered at the infatuation which bound her very soul to this man; and yet when she questioned her heart, she knew that, base as he was, all she had done and suffered for him she would infallibly do again. Were her life to live over, she would repeat the fault of loving this false, ungrateful man. The promise of marriage had been equivalent to marriage in her trust of him, and nothing but death could now divorce her from him.
Hour after hour passed by, each seeming an age of suffering. Her feelings were worked up to frenzy: she fancied she heard her father's angry voice calling her by name, or she heard accusing angels jeering at her fall. She sank prostrate at last, in the abandonment of despair, calling upon God to put an end to her miserable life.
Bigot raised her from the floor, with words of pity and sympathy. She turned on him a look of gratitude which, had he been of stone, he must have felt. But Bigot's words meant less than she fancied. He was still too intoxicated to reflect, or to feel shame of his present errand.
“Caroline!” said he, “what do you here? This is the time to make merry--not to pray! The honorable company in the great hall desire to pay their respects to the lady of Beaumanoir--come with me!”
He drew her hand through his arm with a courtly grace that seldom forsook him, even in his worst moments. Caroline looked at him in a dazed manner, not comprehending his request. “Go with you, François? You know I will, but where?”
“To the great hall,” repeated he; “my worthy guests desire to see you, and to pay their respects to the fair lady of Beaumanoir.”
It flashed upon her mind what he wanted. Her womanly pride was outraged as it had never been before; she withdrew her hand from his arm with shame and terror stamped on every feature.
“Go up there! Go to show myself to your guests!” exclaimed she, with choking accents, as she stepped back a pace from him. “Oh, François Bigot, spare me that shame and humiliation! I am, I know, contemptible beyond human respect, but still--God help me! --I am not so vile as to be made a spectacle of infamy to those drunken men whom I hear clamoring for me, even now.”
“Pshaw! You think too much of the proprieties, Caroline!” Bigot felt sensibly perplexed at the attitude she assumed. “Why! The fairest dames of Paris, dressed as Hebes and Ganymedes, thought it a fine jest to wait on the Regent Duke of Orleans and the Cardinal du Bois in the gay days of the King's bachelorhood, and they do the same now when the King gets up one of his great feasts at Choisy; so come, sweetheart--come!” He drew her towards the door.
“Spare me, François!” Caroline knelt at his feet, clasping his hand, and bathing it in tears--“Spare me!” cried she. “Oh, would to God I had died ere you came to command me to do what I cannot and will not do, François!” added she, clasping hard the hand of the Intendant, which she fancied relaxed somewhat of its iron hardness.
“I did not come to command you, Caroline, but to bear the request of my guests. No, I do not even ask you on my account to go up to the great hall: it is to please my guests only.” Her tears and heartrending appeal began to sober him. Bigot had not counted on such a scene as this.
“Oh, thanks, François, for that word! You did not come to command my obedience in such a shameful thing: you had some small regard left for the unfortunate Caroline. Say you will not command me to go up there,” added she, looking at him with eyes of pitiful pleading, such as no Italian art ever portrayed on the face of the sorrowing Madonna.
“No,” he replied, impatiently. “It was not I proposed it: it was Cadet. He is always a fool when the wine overflows, as I am too, or I would not have hearkened to him! Still, Caroline, I have promised, and my guests will jeer me finely if I return without you.” He thought she hesitated a moment in her resolve at this suggestion. “Come, for my sake, Caroline! Do up that disordered hair; I shall be proud of you, my Caroline; there is not a lady in New France can match you when you look yourself, my pretty Caroline!”
“François,” said she, with a sad smile, “it is long since you flattered me thus! But I will arrange my hair for you alone,” added she, blushing, as with deft fingers she twisted her raven locks into a coronal about her head. “I would once have gone with you to the end of the world to hear you say you were proud of me. Alas! you can never be proud of me any more, as in the old happy days at Grand Pré. Those few brief days of love and joy can never return--never, never!”
Bigot stood silent, not knowing what to say or do. The change from the bacchanalian riot in the great hall to the solemn pathos and woe of the secret chamber sobered him rapidly. Even his obduracy gave way at last. “Caroline,” said he, taking both her hands in his, “I will not urge you longer. I am called bad, and you think me so; but I am not brutal. It was a promise made over the wine. Varin, the drunken beast, called you Queen Vashti, and challenged me to show your beauty to them; and I swore not one of their toasted beauties could match my fair Acadienne.”
“Did the Sieur Varin call me Queen Vashti? Alas! he was a truer prophet than he knew,” replied she, with ineffable sadness. “Queen Vashti refused to obey even her king, when commanded to unveil her face to the drunken nobles. She was deposed, and another raised to her place. Such may be my fate, François.”
“Then you will not go, Caroline?”
“No; kill me if you like, and bear my dead body into the hall, but living, I can never show my face again before men--hardly before you, François,” added she, blushing, as she hid her tearful eyes on his shoulder.
“Well then, Caroline,” replied, he, really admiring her spirit and resolution, “they shall finish their carouse without seeing you. The wine has flowed to-night in rivers, but they shall swim in it without you.”
“And tears have flowed down here,” said she, sadly,--“oh, so bitter! May you never taste their bitterness, François!”
Bigot paced the chamber with steadier steps than he had entered it. The fumes were clearing from his brain; the song that had caught the ear of Colonel Philibert as he approached the Château was resounding at this moment. As it ceased Bigot heard the loud impatient knocking of Philibert at the outer door.
“Darling!” said he, “lie down now, and compose yourself. François Bigot is not unmindful of your sacrifices for his sake. I must return to my guests, who are clamoring for me, or rather for you, Caroline!”
He kissed her cheek and turned to leave her, but she clung to his hand as if wanting to say something more ere he went. She trembled visibly as her low plaintive tones struck his ear.
“François! if you would forsake the companionship of those men and purify your table of such excess, God's blessing would yet descend upon you, and the people's love follow you! It is in your power to be as good as you are great! I have many days wished to say this to you, but alas, I feared you too much. I do not fear you to-day, François, after your kind words to me.”
Bigot was not impenetrable to that low voice so full of pathos and love. But he was at a loss what to reply: strange influences were flowing round him, carrying him out of himself. He kissed the gentle head that reclined on his bosom. “Caroline,” said he, “your advice is wise and good as yourself. I will think of it for your sake, if not for my own. Adieu, darling! Go, and take rest: these cruel vigils are killing you, and I want you to live in hope of brighter days.”
“I will,” replied she, looking up with ineffable tenderness. “I am sure I shall rest after your kind words, François. No dew of Heaven was ever more refreshing than the balm they bring to my weary soul. Thanks, O my François, for them!” She kissed his lips, and Bigot left the secret chamber a sadder and for the moment a better man than he had ever been before.
Caroline, overcome by her emotions, threw herself on a couch, invoking blessings upon the head of the man by whom she had been so cruelly betrayed. But such is woman's heart--full of mercy, compassion, and pardon for every wrong, when love pleads for forgiveness.
“Ha! ha!” said Cadet, as the Intendant re-entered the great hall, which was filled with bacchanalian frenzy. “Ha! ha! His Excellency has proposed and been rejected! The fair lady has a will of her own and won't obey! Why, the Intendant looks as if he had come from Quintin Corentin, where nobody gets anything he wants!”
“Silence, Cadet! don't be a fool!” replied Bigot, impatiently, although in the Intendant's usual mood nothing too gross or too bad could be said in his presence but he could cap it with something worse.
“Fool, Bigot! It is you who have been the fool of a woman!” Cadet was privileged to say anything, and he never stinted his speech. “Confess, your Excellency! she is splay-footed as St. Pedauque of Dijon! She dare not trip over our carpet for fear of showing her big feet!”
Cadet's coarse remark excited the mirth of the Intendant. The influences of the great hall were more powerful than those of the secret chamber. He replied curtly, however,--“I have excused the lady from coming, Cadet. She is ill, or she does not please to come, or she has a private fancy of her own to nurse--any reason is enough to excuse a lady, or for a gentleman to cease pressing her.”
“Dear me!” muttered Cadet, “the wind blows fresh from a new quarter! It is easterly, and betokens a storm!” and with drunken gravity he commenced singing a hunting refrain of Louis XIV.: “'Sitot qu'il voit sa Chienne Il quitte tout pour elle.”'
Bigot burst out into immoderate laughter. “Cadet,” said he, “you are, when drunk, the greatest ruffian in Christendom, and the biggest knave when sober. Let the lady sleep in peace, while we drink ourselves blind in her honor. Bring in brandy, valets, and we will not look for day until midnight booms on the old clock of the Château.”
The loud knocking of Philibert in the great hall reverberated again and again through the house. Bigot bade the valets go see who disturbed the Château in that bold style.
“Let no one in!” added he “'tis against the rule to open the doors when the Grand Company are met for business! Take whips, valets, and scourge the insolent beggars away. Some miserable habitans, I warrant, whining for the loss of their eggs and bacon taken by the King's purveyors!”
A servant returned with a card on a silver salver. “An officer in uniform waits to see your Excellency: he brings orders from the Governor,” said he to the Intendant.
Bigot looked at the card with knitted brows; fire sparkled in his eyes as he read the name.
“Colonel Philibert!” exclaimed he, “Aide-de-Camp of the Governor! What the fiend brings HIM at such a time? Do you hear?” continued he, turning to Varin. “It is your friend from Louisbourg, who was going to put you in irons, and send you to France for trial when the mutinous garrison threatened to surrender the place if we did not pay them.”
Varin was not so intoxicated but the name of Philibert roused his anger. He set his cup down with a bang upon the table. “I will not taste a drop more till he is gone,” said he; “curse Galissonière's crooked neck--could he not have selected a more welcome messenger to send to Beaumanoir? But I have got his name in my list of debtors, and he shall pay up one day for his insolence at Louisbourg.”
“Tut, tut, shut up your books! you are too mercantile for gentlemen,” replied Bigot. “The question is, shall we allow Colonel Philibert to bring his orders into the hall? Par Dieu! we are scarcely presentable!”
But whether presentable or no, the words were scarcely spoken, when, impatient at the delay, Philibert took advantage of the open door and entered the great hall. He stood in utter amazement for a moment at the scene of drunken riot which he beheld. The inflamed faces, the confusion of tongues, the disorder, filth, and stench of the prolonged debauch sickened him, while the sight of so many men of rank and high office revelling at such an hour raised a feeling of indignation which he had difficulty in keeping down while he delivered his message to the Intendant.
Bigot, however, was too shrewd to be wanting in politeness. “Welcome, Colonel Philibert,” said he; “you are an unexpected guest, but a welcome one! Come and taste the hospitality of Beaumanoir before you deliver your message. Bustle, valets, bring fresh cups and the fullest carafes for Colonel Philibert.”
“Thanks for your politeness, Chevalier! Your Excellency will please excuse me if I deliver my message at once. My time is not my own to-day, so I will not sit down. His Excellency the Governor desires your presence and that of the Royal Commissaries at the council of war this afternoon. Despatches have just arrived by the Fleur-de-Lis from home, and the council must assemble at once.”
A red flush rested upon the brow of Philibert as in his mind he measured the important business of the council with the fitness of the men whom he summoned to attend it. He declined the offer of wine, and stepped backward from the table, with a bow to the Intendant and the company, and was about to depart, when a loud voice on the further side of the table cried out,-- “It is he, by all that is sacred! Pierre Philibert! wait!” Le Gardeur de Repentigny rushed like a storm through the hall, upsetting chairs and guests in his advance. He ran towards Colonel Philibert, who, not recognizing the flushed face and disordered figure that greeted him, shrank back from his embrace.
“My God! do you not know me, Pierre?” exclaimed Le Gardeur, wounded to the quick by the astonished look of his friend. “I am Le Gardeur de Repentigny! O dear friend, look and recognize me!”
Philibert stood transfixed with surprise and pain, as if an arrow had stricken his eyes. “You! you Le Gardeur de Repentigny? It is impossible! Le Gardeur never looked like you--much less, was ever found among people like these!” The last words were rashly spoken, but fortunately not heard amid the hubbub in the hall, or Philibert's life might have paid the penalty from the excited guests.
“And yet it is true; Pierre, look at me again. I am no other than he whom you drew out of the St. Lawrence, the only brother of Amélie!”
Philibert looked hard in the eyes of Le Gardeur, and doubted no longer. He pressed his old friend to his heart, saying, in a voice full of pathos,-- “O Le Gardeur! I recognize you now, but under what change of look and place! Often have I forecast our meeting again, but it was in your pure, virtuous home of Tilly, not in this place. What do you here, Le Gardeur?”
“Forgive me, Pierre, for the shame of meeting me here.” Le Gardeur stood up like a new man in the glance of his friend; the shock seemed to have sobered him at once. “'What do I do here?' say you, O dear friend!” said he, glancing round the hall, “it is easier seen than told what I do here. But by all the saints, I have finished here for to-day! You return to the city at once, Pierre?”
“At once, Le Gardeur. The Governor awaits my return.”
“Then I will return with you. My dear aunt and sister are in the city. News of their arrival reached me here; my duty was to return at once, but the Intendant's wine-cups were too potent for me--curse them, for they have disgraced me in your eyes, Pierre, as well as my own!”
Philibert started at the information that Amélie was in the city. “Amélie in the city?” repeated he, with glad surprise, “I did not expect to be able to salute her and the noble Lady de Tilly so soon.” His heart bounded in secret at the prospect of again seeing this fair girl, who had filled his thoughts for so many years and been the secret spring of so much that was noble and manly in his character.
“Come, Le Gardeur, let us take leave of the Intendant, and return at once to the city, but not in that plight!” added he, smiling, as Le Gardeur, oblivious of all but the pleasure of accompanying him, grasped his arm to leave the great hall. “Not in that garb, Le Gardeur! Bathe, purify, and clean yourself; I will wait outside in the fresh air. The odor of this room stifles me!”
“You are not going to leave us, Le Gardeur!” Varin called, across the table, “and break up good company? Wait till we finish a few more rounds, and we will all go together.”
“I have finished all the rounds for to-day, Varin, may be forever! Colonel Philibert is my dearest friend in life; I must leave even you to go with him, so pray excuse me.”
“You are excused, Le Gardeur.” Bigot spoke very courteously to him, much as he disliked the idea of his companionship with Philibert. “We must all return by the time the Cathedral bells chime noon. Take one parting cup before you go, Le Gardeur, and prevail on Colonel Philibert to do the same, or he will not praise our hospitality, I fear.”
“Not one drop more this day, were it from Jove's own poculum!” Le Gardeur repelled the temptation more readily as he felt a twitch on his sleeve from the hand of Philibert.
“Well, as you will, Le Gardeur; we have all had enough and over, I dare say. Ha! ha! Colonel Philibert rather puts us to the blush, or would were not our cheeks so well-painted in the hues of rosy Bacchus.”
Philibert, with official courtesy, bade adieu to the Intendant and the company. A couple of valets waited upon Le Gardeur, whom they assisted to bathe and dress. In a short time he left the Château almost sobered, and wholly metamorphosed into a handsome, fresh chevalier. A perverse redness about the eyes alone remained, to tell the tale of the last night's debauch.
Master Pothier sat on a horse-block at the door with all the gravity of a judge, while he waited for the return of Colonel Philibert and listened to the lively noise in the Château, the music, song, and jingle of glass forming a sweet concert in the ears of the jolly old notary.
“I shall not need you to guide me back, Master Pothier,” said Philibert, as he put some silver pieces in his hollow palm; “take your fee. The cause is gained, is it not, Le Gardeur?” He glanced triumphantly at his friend.
“Good-by, Master Pothier,” said he, as he rode off with Le Gardeur. The old notary could not keep up with them, but came jolting on behind, well pleased to have leisure to count and jingle his coins. Master Pothier was in that state of joyful anticipation when hope outruns realization. He already saw himself seated in the old armchair in the snug parlor of Dame Bédard's inn, his back to the fire, his belly to the table, a smoking dish of roast in the middle, an ample trencher before him with a bottle of Cognac on one flank and a jug of Norman cider on the other, an old crony or two to eat and drink with him, and the light foot and deft hand of pretty Zoë Bédard to wait upon them.
This picture of perfect bliss floated before the winking eyes of Master Pothier, and his mouth watered in anticipation of his Eden, not of flowers and trees, but of tables, cups, and platters, with plenty to fill them, and to empty them as well.
“A worthy gentleman and a brave officer, I warrant!” said Pothier, as he jogged along. “He is generous as a prince, and considerate as a bishop, fit for a judge, nay, for a chief justice! What would you do for him, Master Pothier?” the old notary asked himself. “I answer the interrogatory of the Court: I would draw up his marriage contract, write his last will and testament with the greatest of pleasure and without a fee! --and no notary in New France could do more for him!” Pothier's imagination fell into a vision over a consideration of his favorite text--that of the great sheet, wherein was all manner of flesh and fowl good for food, but the tongue of the old notary would trip at the name of Peter, and perversely say, “Rise, Pothier; kill, and eat.”
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{
"id": "2735"
}
|
9
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PIERRE PHILIBERT.
|
Colonel Philibert and Le Gardeur rode rapidly through the forest of Beaumanoir, pulling up occasionally in an eager and sympathetic exchange of questions and replies, as they recounted the events of their lives since their separation, or recalled their school-days and glorious holidays and rambles in the woods of Tilly--with frequent mention of their gentle, fair companion, Amélie de Repentigny, whose name on the lips of her brother sounded sweeter than the chime of the bells of Charlebourg to the ear of Pierre Philibert.
The bravest man in New France felt a tremor in his breast as he asked Le Gardeur a seemingly careless question--seemingly, for, in truth, it was vital in the last degree to his happiness, and he knew it. He expressed a fear that Amélie would have wholly forgotten him after so long an absence from New France.
His heart almost ceased beating as he waited the reply of Le Gardeur, which came impetuously: “Forgotten you, Pierre Philibert? She would forget me as soon! But for you she would have had no brother to-day, and in her prayers she ever remembers both of us--you by right of a sister's gratitude, me because I am unworthy of her saintly prayers and need them all the more! O Pierre Philibert, you do not know Amélie if you think she is one ever to forget a friend like you!”
The heart of Philibert gave a great leap for joy. Too happy for speech, he rode on a while in silence.
“Amélie will have changed much in appearance?” he asked, at last. A thousand questions were crowding upon his lips.
“Changed? Oh, yes!” replied Le Gardeur, gaily. “I scarcely recognize my little bright-eyed sister in the tall, perfect young lady that has taken her place. But the loving heart, the pure mind, the gentle ways, and winning smiles are the same as ever. She is somewhat more still and thoughtful, perhaps--more strict in the observances of religion. You will remember, I used to call her in jest our St. Amélie: I might call her that in earnest now, Pierre, and she would be worthy of the name!”
“God bless you, Le Gardeur!” burst out Colonel Philibert,--his voice could not repress the emotion he felt,--“and God bless Amélie! Think you she would care to see me to-day, Le Gardeur?” Philibert's thoughts flew far and fast, and his desire to know more of Amélie was a rack of suspense to him. She might, indeed, recollect the youth Pierre Philibert, thought he, as she did a sunbeam that gladdened long-past summers; but how could he expect her to regard him--the full-grown man--as the same? Nay, was he not nursing a fatal fancy in his breast that would sting him to death? for among the gay and gallant throng about the capital was it not more than possible that so lovely and amiable a woman had already been wooed, and given the priceless treasure of her love to another? It was, therefore, with no common feeling that Philibert said, “Think you she will care to see me to-day, Le Gardeur?”
“Care to see you, Pierre Philibert? What a question! She and Aunt de Tilly take every occasion to remind me of you, by way of example, to shame me of my faults--and they succeed, too! I could cut off my right hand this moment, Pierre, that it should never lift wine again to my lips--and to have been seen by you in such company! What must you think of me?”
“I think your regret could not surpass mine; but tell me how you have been drawn into these rapids and taken the wrong turn, Le Gardeur?”
Le Gardeur winced as he replied,--“Oh, I do not know. I found myself there before I thought. It was the wit, wine, and enchantments of Bigot, I suppose,--and the greatest temptation of all, a woman's smiles,--that led me to take the wrong turn, as you call it. There, you have my confession! --and I would put my sword through any man but you, Pierre, who dared ask me to give such an account of myself. I am ashamed of it all, Pierre Philibert!”
“Thanks, Le Gardeur, for your confidence. I hope you will outride this storm!” He held out his hand, nervous and sinewy as that of Mars. Le Gardeur seized it, and pressed it hard in his. “Don't you think it is still able to rescue a friend from peril?” added Philibert smiling.
Le Gardeur caught his meaning, and gave him a look of unutterable gratitude. “Besides this hand of mine, are there not the gentler hands of Amélie to intercede for you with your better self?” said Philibert.
“My dear sister!” interjected Le Gardeur. “I am a coward when I think of her, and I shame to come into her pure presence.”
“Take courage, Le Gardeur! There is hope where there is shame of our faults. Be equally frank with your sister as with me, and she will win you, in spite of yourself, from the enchantments of Bigot, Cadet, and the still more potent smiles you speak of that led you to take the wrong turn in life.”
“I doubt it is too late, Pierre! although I know that, were every other friend in the world to forsake me, Amélie would not! She would not even reproach me, except by excess of affection.”
Philibert looked on his friend admiringly, at this panegyric of the woman he loved. Le Gardeur was in feature so like his sister that Philibert at the moment caught the very face of Amélie, as it were, looking at him through the face of her brother. “You will not resist her pleadings, Le Gardeur,”--Philibert thought it an impossible thing. “No guardian angel ever clung to the skirts of a sinner as Amélie will cling to you,” said he; “therefore I have every hope of my dear friend Le Gardeur Repentigny.”
The two riders emerged from the forest, and drew up for a minute in front of the hostelry of the Crown of France, to water their horses at the long trough before the door and inform Dame Bédard, who ran out to greet them, that Master Pothier was following with his ambling nag at a gentle pace, as befitted the gravity of his profession.
“Oh! Master Pothier never fails to find his way to the Crown of France; but won't your Honors take a cup of wine? The day is hot and the road dusty. 'A dry rider makes a wet nag,'” added the Dame, with a smile, as she repeated an old saying, brought over with the rest of the butin in the ships of Cartier and Champlain.
The gentlemen bowed their thanks, and as Philibert looked up, he saw pretty Zoë Bédard poring over a sheet of paper bearing a red seal, and spelling out the crabbed law text of Master Pothier. Zoë, like other girls of her class, had received a tincture of learning in the day schools of the nuns; but, although the paper was her marriage contract, it puzzled her greatly to pick out the few chips of plain sense that floated in the sea of legal verbiage it contained. Zoë, with a perfect comprehension of the claims of meum and tuum, was at no loss, however, in arriving at a satisfactory solution of the true merits of her matrimonial contract with honest Antoine La Chance.
She caught the eye of Philibert, and blushed to the very chin as she huddled away the paper and returned the salute of the two handsome gentlemen, who, having refreshed their horses, rode off at a rapid trot down the great highway that led to the city.
Babet Le Nocher, in a new gown, short enough to reveal a pair of shapely ankles in clocked stockings and well-clad feet that would have been the envy of many a duchess, sat on the thwart of the boat knitting. Her black hair was in the fashion recorded by the grave Peter Kalm, who, in his account of New France, says, “The peasant women all wear their hair in ringlets, and nice they look!”
“As I live!” exclaimed she to Jean, who was enjoying a pipe of native tobacco, “here comes that handsome officer back again, and in as great a hurry to return as he was to go up the highway!”
“Ay, ay, Babet! It is plain to see he is either on the King's errand or his own. A fair lady awaits his return in the city, or one has just dismissed him where he has been! Nothing like a woman to put quicksilver in a man's shoes--eh! Babet?”
“Or foolish thoughts into their hearts, Jean!” replied she, laughing.
“And nothing more natural, Babet, if women's hearts are wise enough in their folly to like our foolish thoughts of them. But there are two! Who is that riding with the gentleman? Your eyes are better than mine, Babet!”
“Of course, Jean! that is what I always tell you, but you won't believe me--trust my eyes, and doubt your own! The other gentleman,” said she, looking fixedly, while her knitting lay still in her lap, “the other is the young Chevalier de Repentigny. What brings him back before the rest of the hunting party, I wonder?”
“That officer must have been to Beaumanoir, and is bringing the young seigneur back to town,” remarked Jean, puffing out a long thread of smoke from his lips.
“Well, it must be something better than smoke, Jean!” --Babet coughed: she never liked the pipe--“The young chevalier is always one of the last to give up when they have one of their three days drinking bouts up at the Château. He is going to the bad, I fear--more's the pity! such a nice, handsome fellow, too!”
“All lies and calumny!” replied Jean, in a heat. “Le Gardeur de Repentigny is the son of my dear old seigneur. He may get drunk, but it will be like a gentleman if he does, and not like a carter, Babet, or like a--” “Boatman! Jean; but I don't include you--you have never been the worse for drinking water since I took care of your liquor, Jean!”
“Ay, you are intoxication enough of yourself for me, Babet! Two bright eyes like yours, a pipe and bitters, with grace before meat, would save any Christian man in this world.” Jean stood up, politely doffing his red tuque to the gentlemen. Le Gardeur stooped from his horse to grasp his hand, for Jean had been an old servitor at Tilly, and the young seigneur was too noble-minded and polite to omit a kindly notice of even the humblest of his acquaintance.
“Had a busy day, Jean, with the old ferry?” asked Le Gardeur, cheerily.
“No, your Honor, but yesterday I think half the country-side crossed over to the city on the King's corvée. The men went to work, and the women followed to look after them, ha! ha!” Jean winked provokingly at Babet, who took him up sharply.
“And why should not the women go after the men? I trow men are not so plentiful in New France as they used to be before this weary war began. It well behooves the women to take good care of all that are left.”
“That is true as the Sunday sermon,” remarked Jean. “Why, it was only the other day I heard that great foreign gentleman, who is the guest of His Excellency the Governor, say, sitting in this very boat, that 'there are at this time four women to every man in New France!' If that is true, Babet,--and you know he said it, for you were angry enough,--a man is a prize indeed, in New France, and women are plenty as eggs at Easter!”
“The foreign gentleman had much assurance to say it, even if it were true: he were much better employed picking up weeds and putting them in his book!” exclaimed Babet, hotly.
“Come! come!” cried Le Gardeur, interrupting this debate on the population; “Providence knows the worth of Canadian women, and cannot give us too many of them. We are in a hurry to get to the city, Jean, so let us embark. My aunt and Amélie are in the old home in the city; they will be glad to see you and Babet,” added he, kindly, as he got into the boat.
Babet dropped her neatest courtesy, and Jean, all alive to his duty, pushed off his boat, bearing the two gentlemen and their horses across the broad St. Charles to the King's Quay, where they remounted, and riding past the huge palace of the Intendant, dashed up the steep Côte au Chien and through the city gate, disappearing from the eyes of Babet, who looked very admiringly after them. Her thoughts were especially commendatory of the handsome officer in full uniform who had been so polite and generous in the morning.
“I was afraid, Jean, you were going to blurt out about Mademoiselle des Meloises,” remarked Babet to Jean on his return; “men are so indiscreet always!”
“Leaky boats! leaky boats! Babet! no rowing them with a woman aboard! sure to run on the bank. But what about Mademoiselle des Meloises?” Honest Jean had passed her over the ferry an hour ago, and been sorely tempted to inform Le Gardeur of the interesting fact.
“What about Mademoiselle des Meloises?” Babet spoke rather sharply. “Why, all Quebec knows that the Seigneur de Repentigny is mad in love with her.”
“And why should he not be mad in love with her if he likes?” replied Jean; “she is a morsel fit for a king, and if Le Gardeur should lose both his heart and his wits on her account, it is only what half the gallants of Quebec have done.”
“Oh, Jean, Jean! it is plain to see you have an eye in your head as well as a soft place!” ejaculated Babet, recommencing her knitting with fresh vigor, and working off the electricity that was stirring in her.
“I had two eyes in my head when I chose you, Babet, and the soft place was in my heart!” replied Jean, heartily. The compliment was taken with a smile, as it deserved to be. “Look you, Babet, I would not give this pinch of snuff,” said Jean, raising his thumb and two fingers holding a good dose of the pungent dust,--“I would not give this pinch of snuff for any young fellow who could be indifferent to the charms of such a pretty lass as Angélique des Meloises!”
“Well, I am glad you did not tell the Seigneur de Repentigny that she had crossed the ferry and gone--not to look for him, I'll be bound! I will tell you something by and by, Jean, if you will come in and eat your dinner; I have something you like.”
“What is it, Babet?” Jean was, after all, more curious about his dinner than about the fair lady.
“Oh, something you like--that is a wife's secret: keep the stomach of a man warm, and his heart will never grow cold. What say you to fried eels?”
“Bravo!” cried the gay old boatman, as he sang, “'Ah! ah! ah! frit à l'huile, Frit au beurre et à l'ognon!'”
and the jolly couple danced into their little cottage--no king and queen in Christendom half so happy as they.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
|
10
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AMÉLIE DE REPENTIGNY.
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The town house of the Lady de Tilly stood on the upper part of the Place d'Armes, a broad, roughly-paved square. The Château of St. Louis, with its massive buildings and high, peaked roofs, filled one side of the square. On the other side, embowered in ancient trees that had escaped the axe of Champlain's hardy followers, stood the old-fashioned Monastery of the Recollets, with its high belfry and broad shady porch, where the monks in gray gowns and sandals sat in summer, reading their breviaries or exchanging salutations with the passers-by, who always had a kind greeting for the brothers of St. Francis.
The mansion of the Lady de Tilly was of stone, spacious and ornate, as became the rank and wealth of the Seigneurs de Tilly. It overlooked the Place d'Armes and the noble gardens of the Château of St. Louis, with a magnificent sweep of the St. Lawrence, flowing majestically under the fortress-crowned cape and the high, wooded hills of Lauzon, the farther side of the river closing the view.
In the recess of an ornate mullioned window, half concealed by the rich, heavy curtains of a noble room, Amélie de Repentigny sat alone--very quiet in look and demeanor, but no little agitated in mind, as might be noticed in the nervous contact of her hands, which lay in her lap clasping each other very hard, as if trying to steady her thoughts.
Her aunt was receiving some lady visitors in the great drawing-room. The hum of loud feminine voices reached the ear of Amélie, but she paid no attention, so absorbed was she in the new and strange thoughts that had stirred in her mind since morning, when she had learned from the Chevalier La Corne of the return to New France of Pierre Philibert. The news had surprised her to a degree she could not account for. Her first thought was, how fortunate for her brother that Pierre had returned; her second, how agreeable to herself. Why? She could not think why: she wilfully drew an inference away from the truth that lay in her heart--it was wholly for the sake of her brother she rejoiced in the return of his friend and preserver. Her heart beat a little faster than usual--that was the result of her long walk and disappointment at not meeting Le Gardeur on her arrival yesterday. But she feared to explore her thoughts: a rigid self-examination might discover what she instinctively felt was deeply concealed there.
A subtile, indefinable prevision had suggested to her that Colonel Philibert would not have failed to meet Le Gardeur at Beaumanoir, and that he would undoubtedly accompany her brother on his return and call to pay his respects to the Lady de Tilly and--to herself. She felt her cheek glow at the thought, yet she was half vexed at her own foolish fancy, as she called it. She tried to call upon her pride, but that came very laggardly to the relief of her discomposure.
Her interview, too, with Angélique des Meloises had caused her no little disquiet. The bold avowals of Angélique with reference to the Intendant had shocked Amélie. She knew that her brother had given more of his thoughts to this beautiful, reckless girl than was good for his peace, should her ambition ever run counter to his love.
The fond sister sighed deeply when she reflected that the woman who had power to make prize of Le Gardeur's love was not worthy of him.
It is no rare thing for loving sisters who have to resign their brothers to others' keeping to think so. But Amélie knew that Angélique des Meloises was incapable of that true love which only finds its own in the happiness of another. She was vain, selfish, ambitious, and--what Amélie did not yet know--possessed of neither scruple nor delicacy in attaining her objects.
It had chimed the hour of noon upon the old clock of the Recollets, and Amélie still sat looking wistfully over the great square of the Place d'Armes, and curiously scanning every horseman that rode across it. A throng of people moved about the square, or passed in and out of the great arched gateway of the Castle of St. Louis. A bright shield, bearing the crown and fleur-de-lis, surmounted the gate, and under it walked, with military pace, a couple of sentries, their muskets and bayonets flashing out in the sun every time they wheeled to return on their beat. Occasionally there was a ruffle of drums: the whole guard turned out and presented arms, as some officer of high rank, or ecclesiastical dignitary, passed through to pay his respects to the Governor, or transact business at the vice-regal court. Gentlemen on foot, with chapeaux and swords, carrying a cloak on their shoulders; ladies in visiting dress; habitans and their wives in unchanging costume; soldiers in uniform, and black-gowned clergy, mingled in a moving picture of city life, which, had not Amélie's thoughts been so preoccupied to-day, would have afforded her great delight to look out upon.
The Lady de Tilly had rather wearied of the visit of the two ladies of the city, Madame de Grandmaison and Madame Couillard, who had bored her with all the current gossip of the day. They were rich and fashionable, perfect in etiquette, costume, and most particular in their society; but the rank and position of the noble Lady de Tilly made her friendship most desirable, as it conferred in the eyes of the world a patent of gentility which held good against every pretension to overtop it.
The stream of city talk from the lips of the two ladies had the merit of being perfect of its kind--softly insinuating and sweetly censorious, superlative in eulogy and infallible in opinion. The good visitors most conscientiously discharged what they deemed a great moral and social duty by enlightening the Lady de Tilly on all the recent lapses and secrets of the capital. They slid over slippery topics like skaters on thin ice, filling their listener with anxiety lest they should break through. But Madame de Grandmaison and her companion were too well exercised in the gymnastics of gossip to overbalance themselves. Half Quebec was run over and run down in the course of an hour.
Lady de Tilly listened with growing impatience to their frivolities, but she knew society too well to quarrel with its follies when it was of no service to do so: she contented herself with hoping it was not so bad. The Pope was not Catholic enough to suit some people, but, for her part, she had generally found people better than they were called.
A rather loud but well-bred exclamation of Madame de Grandmaison roused Amélie from her day-dream.
“Not going to the Intendant's ball at the Palace, my Lady de Tilly! neither you nor Mademoiselle de Repentigny, whom we are so sorry not to have seen to-day? Why, it is to be the most magnificent affair ever got up in New France. All Quebec has rung with nothing else for a fortnight, and every milliner and modiste in the city has gone almost insane over the superlative costumes to be worn there.”
“And it is to be the most select in its character,” chimed in Madame Couillard; “all gentry and noblesse, not one of the bourgeois to be invited. That class, especially the female portion of them, give themselves such airs nowadays! As if their money made them company for people of quality! They must be kept down, I say, or--” “And the Royal Intendant quite agrees with the general sentiment of the higher circles,” responded Madame de Grandmaison. “He is for keeping down--” “Noblesse! Noblesse!” The Lady de Tilly spoke with visible impatience. “Who is this Royal Intendant who dares cast a slight upon the worthy, honest bourgeoisie of this city? Is he noble himself? Not that I would think worse of him were he not, but I have heard it disputed. He is the last one who should venture to scorn the bourgeoisie.”
Madame de Grandmaison fanned herself in a very stately manner. “Oh, my Lady, you surely forget! The Chevalier Bigot is a distant relative of the Count de Marville, and the Chevalier de Grandmaison is a constant visitor at the Intendant's! But he would not have sat at his table an hour had he not known that he was connected with the nobility. The Count de Marville--” “The Count de Marville!” interrupted the Lady de Tilly, whose politeness almost gave way. “Truly, a man is known by the company he keeps. No credit to any one to be connected with the Count de Marville.”
Madame de Grandmaison felt rather subdued. She perceived that the Lady de Tilly was not favorably impressed towards the Intendant. But she tried again: “And then, my Lady, the Intendant is so powerful at Court. He was a particular friend of Madame d'Étioles before she was known at Court, and they say he managed her introduction to the King at the famous masked ball at the Hôtel de Ville, when His Majesty threw his handkerchief at her, and she became first dame du palais and the Marquise de Pompadour. She has ever remained his firm friend, and in spite of all his enemies could do to prevent it His Majesty made him Intendant of New France.”
“In spite of all the King's friends could do, you mean,” replied the Lady de Tilly, in a tone the sound of which caught the ear of Amélie, and she knew her aunt was losing patience with her visitors. Lady de Tilly heard the name of the royal mistress with intense disgust, but her innate loyalty prevented her speaking disparagingly of the King. “We will not discuss the Court,” said she, “nor the friendships of this Intendant. I can only pray his future may make amends for his past. I trust New France may not have as much reason as poor lost Acadia to lament the day of his coming to the Colonies.”
The two lady visitors were not obtuse. They saw they had roused the susceptibilities--prejudices, they called them--of the Lady de Tilly. They rose, and smothering their disappointment under well-bred phrases, took most polite leave of the dignified old lady, who was heartily glad to be rid of them.
“The disagreeable old thing--to talk so of the Intendant!” exclaimed Madame Couillard, spitefully, “when her own nephew, and heir in the Seigniory of Tilly, is the Intendant's firmest friend and closest companion.”
“Yes, she forgot about her own house; people always forget to look at home when they pass judgment upon their neighbors,” replied Madame de Grandmaison. “But I am mistaken if she will be able to impress Le Gardeur de Repentigny with her uncharitable and unfashionable opinions of the Intendant. I hope the ball will be the greatest social success ever seen in the city, just to vex her and her niece, who is as proud and particular as she is herself.”
Amélie de Repentigny had dressed herself to-day in a robe of soft muslin of Deccan, the gift of a relative in Pondicherry. It enveloped her exquisite form, without concealing the grace and lissomeness of her movements. A broad blue ribbon round her waist, and in her dark hair a blue flower, were all her adornments, except a chain and cross of gold, which lay upon her bosom, the rich gift of her brother, and often kissed with a silent prayer for his welfare and happiness. More than once, under the influence of some indefinable impulse, she rose and went to the mirror, comparing her features now with a portrait of herself taken as a young girl in the garb of a shepherdess of Provence. Her father used to like that picture of her, and to please him she often wore her hair in the fashion of Provence. She did so to-day. Why? The subtile thought in many Protean shapes played before her fancy, but she would not try to catch it--no! rather shyly avoided its examination.
She was quite restless, and sat down again in the deep recess of the window, watching the Place d'Armes for the appearance of her brother.
She gave a sudden start at last, as a couple of officers galloped in to the square and rode towards the great gate of the Château; one of them she instantly recognized as her brother, the other, a tall martial figure in full uniform, upon a fiery gray, she did not recognize, but she knew in her heart it could be no other than Colonel Philibert.
Amélie felt a thrill, almost painful in its pleasure, agitating her bosom, as she sat watching the gateway they had entered. It was even a momentary relief to her that they had turned in there instead of riding directly to the house. It gave her time to collect her thoughts and summon all her fortitude for the coming interview. Her fingers wandered down to the rosary in the folds of her dress, and the golden bead, which had so often prompted her prayer for the happiness of Pierre Philibert, seemed to burn to the touch. Her cheek crimsoned, for a strange thought suddenly intruded--the boy Pierre Philibert, whose image and memory she had so long and innocently cherished, was now a man, a soldier, a councillor, trained in courts and camps! How unmaidenly she had acted, forgetting all this in her childish prayers until this moment! “I mean no harm,” was all the defence she could think of. Nor had she time to think more of herself, for, after remaining ten minutes in the Château, just long enough to see the Governor and deliver the answer of the Intendant to his message, the gray charger emerged from the gate. His rider was accompanied by her brother and the well-known figure of her godfather, La Corne St. Luc, who rode up the hill and in a minute or two dismounted at the door of the mansion of the Lady de Tilly.
The fabled lynx, whose eye penetrates the very earth to discover hidden treasure, did not cast a keener and more inquisitive glance than that which Amélie, shrouded behind the thick curtains, directed from the window at the tall, manly figure and handsome countenance of him whom she knew to be Pierre Philibert. Let it not detract from her that she gave way to an irresistible impulse of womanly curiosity. The Queen of France would, under the same temptation, have done the same thing, and perhaps without feeling half the modest shame of it that Amélie did. A glance sufficed--but a glance that impressed upon her mind forever the ineffaceable and perfect image of Pierre Philibert the man, who came in place of Pierre Philibert the boy friend of Le Gardeur and of herself.
|
{
"id": "2735"
}
|
11
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THE SOLDIER'S WELCOME.
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The voices of the gentlemen mingled with her aunt's in eager greetings. She well knew which must be the voice of Colonel Philibert--the rest were all so familiar to her ear. Suddenly footsteps ran up the grand stair, clearing three at a time. She waited, trembling with anticipation. Le Gardeur rushed into the room with outstretched arms, embraced her, and kissed her in a transport of brotherly affection.
“Oh, Le Gardeur!” cried she, returning his kiss with fond affection, and looking in his face with tenderness and joy. “O my brother, how I have prayed and longed for your coming. Thank God! you are here at last. You are well, brother, are you not?” said she, looking up with a glance that seemed to betray some anxiety.
“Never better, Amélie,” replied he, in a gayer tone than was quite natural to him, and shyly averting his eyes from her tender scrutiny. “Never better. Why, if I had been in my grave, I should have risen up to welcome a friend whom I have met to-day after years of separation. Oh, Amélie, I have such news for you!”
“News for me, Le Gardeur! What can it be?” A blush stole over her countenance, and her bosom heaved, for she was very conscious of the nature of the news her brother was about to impart.
“Guess! you unsuspecting queen of shepherdesses,” cried he, archly twisting a lock of her hair that hung over her shoulder. “Guess, you pretty gipsy, you!”
“Guess? How can I guess, Le Gardeur? Can there be any news left in the city of Quebec after an hour's visit from Madame de Grandmaison and Madame Couillard? I did not go down, but I know they inquired much after you, by the way!” Amélie, with a little touch of feminine perversity, shyly put off the grand burst of Le Gardeur's intelligence, knowing it was sure to come.
“Pshaw! who cares for those old scandal-mongers! But you can never guess my news, Amélie, so I may as well tell you.” Le Gardeur fairly swelled with the announcement he was about to make.
“Have mercy then, brother, and tell me at once, for you do now set my curiosity on tiptoe.” She was a true woman, and would not for anything have admitted her knowledge of the presence of Colonel Philibert in the house.
“Amélie,” said he, taking her by both hands, as if to prevent her escape, “I was at Beaumanoir--you know the Intendant gave a grand hunting party,” added he, noticing the quick glance she gave him; “and who do you think came to the Château and recognized me, or rather I recognized him? A stranger--and not such a stranger, either Amélie.”
“Nay; go on, brother! Who could this mysterious stranger and no stranger have been?”
“Pierre Philibert, Amélie! Pierre--our Pierre, you know! You recollect him, sister!”
“Recollect Pierre Philibert? Why, how could I ever forget him while you are living? since to him we are all indebted for your life, brother!”
“I know that; are you not glad, as I am, at his return?” asked Le Gardeur, with a penetrating look.
She threw her arms round him involuntarily, for she was much agitated. “Glad, brother? Yes, I am glad because you are glad.”
“No more than that, Amélie? That is a small thing to be glad for.”
“Oh, brother! I am glad for gladness's sake! We can never overpay the debt of gratitude we owe Pierre Philibert.”
“O my sweet sister,” replied he, kissing her, “I knew my news would please you. Come, we will go down and see him at once, for Pierre is in the house.”
“But, Le Gardeur!” She blushed and hesitated. “Pierre Philibert I knew--I could speak to him; but I shall hardly dare recognize him in the stately soldier of to-day. Voilà la différence!” added she, repeating the refrain of a song very popular both in New France and in Old at that period.
Le Gardeur did not comprehend her hesitation and tone. Said he,--“Pierre is wonderfully changed since he and I wore the green sash of the seminary. He is taller than I, wiser and better,--he was always that,--but in heart the same generous, noble Pierre Philibert he was when a boy. Voilà la ressemblance!” added he, pulling her hair archly as he repeated the antistrophe of the same ditty.
Amélie gave her brother a fond look, but she did not reply, except by a tight pressure of the hand. The voices of the Chevalier La Corne and the Lady de Tilly and Colonel Philibert were again heard in animated conversation. “Come, brother, we will go now,” said she; and quick in executing any resolution she had formed, she took the arm of her brother, swept with him down the broad stair, and entered the drawing-room.
Philibert rose to his feet in admiration of the vision of loveliness that suddenly beamed upon his eyes. It was the incarnation of all the shapes of grace and beauty that had passed through his fervid fancy during so many years of absence from his native land. Something there was of the features of the young girl who had ridden with flying locks, like a sprite, through the woods of Tilly. But comparing his recollection of that slight girl with the tall, lithe, perfect womanhood of the half-blushing girl before him, he hesitated, although intuitively aware that it could be no other than the idol of his heart, Amélie de Repentigny.
Le Gardeur solved the doubt in a moment by exclaiming, in a tone of exultation, “Pierre Philibert, I bring an old young friend to greet you--my sister!”
Philibert advanced, and Amélie raised her dark eyes with a momentary glance that drew into her heart the memory of his face forever. She held out her hand frankly and courteously. Philibert bent over it as reverently as he would over the hand of the Madonna.
The greeting of the Lady de Tilly and La Corne St. Luc had been cordial, nay, affectionate in its kindness. The good lady kissed Pierre as a mother might have done a long-absent son.
“Colonel Philibert,” said Amélie, straining her nerves to the tension of steel to preserve her composure, “Colonel Philibert is most welcome; he has never been forgotten in this house.” She glanced at her aunt, who smiled approvingly at Amélie's remark.
“Thanks, Mademoiselle de Repentigny; I am indeed happy to be remembered here; it fulfils one of my most cherished hopes in returning to my native land.”
“Ay, ay, Pierre,” interrupted La Corne St. Luc, who looked on this little scene very admiringly, “good blood never lies. Look at Colonel Philibert there, with the King's epaulets on his shoulders. I have a sharp eye, as you know, Amélie, when I look after my pretty goddaughter, but I should not have recognized our lively Pierre in him, had Le Gardeur not introduced him to me, and I think you would not have known him either.”
“Thanks for your looking after me, godfather,” replied Amélie, merrily, very grateful in her heart for his appreciation of Pierre, “but I think neither aunt nor I should have failed to recognize him.”
“Right, my Amélie!” said the Lady de Tilly. “We should not, and we shall not be afraid, Pierre,--I must call you Pierre or nothing,--we shall not be afraid, although you do lay in a new stock of acquaintances in the capital, that old friends will be put aside as unfashionable remnants.”
“My whole stock of friendship consists of those remnants, my Lady,--memories of dear friends I love and honor. They will never be unfashionable with me: I should be bankrupt indeed, were I to part with one of them.”
“Then they are of a truer fabric than Penelope's web, for she, I read, pulled in pieces at night what she had woven through the day,” replied Lady de Tilly. “Give me the friendship that won't unravel.”
“But not a thread of my recollections has ever unravelled, or ever will,” replied Pierre, looking at Amélie as she clasped the arm of her aunt, feeling stronger, as is woman's way, by the contact with another.
“Zounds! What is all this merchant's talk about webs and threads and thrums?” exclaimed La Corne. “There is no memory so good as a soldier's, Amélie, and for good reason: a soldier on our wild frontiers is compelled to be faithful to old friends and old flannels; he cannot help himself to new ones if he would. I was five years and never saw a woman's face except red ones--some of them were very comely, by the way,” added the old warrior with a smile.
“The gallantry of the Chevalier La Corne is incontestable,” remarked Pierre, “for once, when we captured a convoy of soldiers' wives from New England, he escorted them, with drums beating, to Grand Pré, and sent a cask of Gasçon wine for them to celebrate their reunion with their husbands.”
“Frowzy huzzies! not worth the keeping, or I would not have sent them; fit only for the bobtailed militia of New England!” exclaimed La Corne.
“Not so thought the New Englanders, who had a three days feast when they remarried their wives--and handsome they were, too,” said Philibert; “the healths they drank to the Chevalier were enough to make him immortal.”
La Corne always brushed aside compliments to himself: “Tut, my Lady! it was more Pierre's good-nature than mine--he out of kindness let the women rejoin their husbands; on my part it was policy and stratagem, of war. Hear the sequel! The wives spoiled the husbands, as I guessed they would do, taught them to be too late at reveille, too early at tattoo. They neglected guards and pickets, and when the long nights of winter set in, the men hugged their wives by the firesides instead of their muskets by their watch-fires. Then came destruction upon them! In a blinding storm, amid snow-drifts and darkness, Coulon de Villiers, with his troops on snow-shoes, marched into the New England camp, and made widows of the most of the poor wives, who fell into our hands the second time. Poor creatures! I saw that day how hard it was to be a soldier's wife.” La Corne's shaggy eyelash twinkled with moisture. “But it was the fortune of war! --the fortune of war, and a cruel fortune it is at the best!”
The Lady de Tilly pressed her hand to her bosom to suppress the rising emotion. “Alas, Chevalier! poor widows! I feel all they suffered. War is indeed a cruel fortune, as I too have had reason to learn.”
“And what became of the poor women, godfather?” Amélie's eyes were suffused with tears: it was in her heart, if ever in any mortal's, to love her enemies.
“Oh, we cared for them the best we could. The Baron de St. Castin sheltered them in his château for the winter, and his daughter devoted herself to them with the zeal and tenderness of a saint from Heaven--a noble, lovely girl, Amélie!” added La Corne, impressively; “the fairest flower in all Acadia, and most unfortunate, poor girl! God's blessing rest upon her, wherever she may be!” La Corne St. Luc spoke with a depth of emotion he rarely manifested.
“How was she unfortunate, godfather?” Philibert watched the cheek flush and the eyelid quiver of the fair girl as she spoke, carried away by her sympathy. His heart went with his looks.
“Alas!” replied La Corne, “I would fain not answer, lest I distrust the moral government of the universe. But we are blind creatures, and God's ways are not fashioned in our ways. Let no one boast that he stands, lest he fall! We need the help of the host of Heaven to keep us upright and maintain our integrity. I can scarcely think of that noble girl without tears. Oh, the pity of it! The pity of it!”
Lady de Tilly looked at him wonderingly. “I knew the Baron de St. Castin,” said she. “When he came to perform homage at the Castle of St. Louis, for the grant of some lands in Acadia, he was accompanied by his only daughter, a child perfect in goodness, grace, and loveliness. She was just the age of Amélie. The ladies of the city were in raptures over the pretty Mayflower, as they called her. What, in heaven's name, has happened to that dear child, Chevalier La Corne?”
La Corne St. Luc, half angry with himself for having broached the painful topic, and not used to pick his words, replied bluntly,--“Happened, my Lady! what is it happens worst to a woman? She loved a man unworthy of her love--a villain in spite of high rank and King's favor, who deceived this fond, confiding girl, and abandoned her to shame! Faugh! It is the way of the Court, they say; and the King has not withdrawn his favor, but heaped new honors upon him!” La Corne put a severe curb upon his utterance and turned impatiently away, lest he might curse the King as well as the favorite.
“But what became of the poor deceived girl?” asked the Lady de Tilly, after hastily clearing her eyes with her handkerchief.
“Oh, the old, old story followed. She ran away from home in an agony of shame and fear, to avoid the return of her father from France. She went among the Indians of the St. Croix, they say, and has not been heard of since. Poor, dear girl! her very trust in virtue was the cause of her fall!”
Amélie turned alternately pale and red at the recital of her godfather. She riveted her eyes upon the ground as she pressed close to her aunt, clasping her arm, as if seeking strength and support.
Lady de Tilly was greatly shocked at the sad recital. She inquired the name of the man of rank who had acted so treacherously to the hapless girl.
“I will not utter the name to-day, my Lady! It has been revealed to me as a great secret. It is a name too high for the stroke of the law, if there be any law left us but the will of a King's mistress! God, however, has left us the law of a gentleman's sword to avenge its master's wrong. The Baron de St. Castin will soon return to vindicate his own honor, and whether or no, I vow to heaven, my Lady, that the traitor who has wronged that sweet girl will one day have to try whether his sword be sharper than that of La Corne St. Luc! But pshaw! I am talking bravado like an Indian at the war post. The story of those luckless New England wives has carried us beyond all bounds.”
Lady de Tilly looked admiringly, without a sign of reproof, at the old soldier, sympathizing with his honest indignation at so foul a wrong to her sex. “Were that dear child mine, woman as I am, I would do the same thing!” said she, with a burst of feeling. She felt Amélie press her arm as if she too shared the spirit of her bolder aunt.
“But here comes Felix Baudoin to summon us to dinner!” exclaimed Lady de Tilly, as an old, white-headed servitor in livery appeared at the door with a low bow, announcing that dinner was served.
Le Gardeur and La Corne St. Luc greeted the old servitor with the utmost kindness, inquired after his health, and begged a pinch from his well-worn snuff-box. Such familiarities were not rare in that day between the gentlemen of New France and their old servants, who usually passed their lifetime in one household. Felix was the majordomo of the Manor House of Tilly, trusty, punctilious, and polite, and honored by his mistress more as an humble friend than as a servant of her house.
“Dinner is served, my Lady!” repeated Felix, with a bow. “But my Lady must excuse! The kitchen has been full of habitans all day. The Trifourchettes, the Doubledents, and all the best eaters in Tilly have been here. After obeying my Lady's commands to give them all they could eat we have had difficulty in saving anything for my Lady's own table.”
“No matter, Felix, we shall say grace all the same. I could content myself with bread and water, to give fish and flesh to my censitaires, who are working so willingly on the King's corvée! But that must be my apology to you, Pierre Philibert and the Chevalier La Corne, for a poorer dinner than I could wish.”
“Oh, I feel no misgivings, my Lady!” remarked La Corne St. Luc, laughing. “Felix Baudoin is too faithful a servitor to starve his mistress for the sake of the Trifourchettes, the Doubledents, and all the best eaters in the Seigniory! No! no! I will be bound your Ladyship will find Felix has tolled and tithed from them enough to secure a dinner for us all--come, Amélie, with me.”
Lady de Tilly took the arm of Colonel Philibert, followed by Le Gardeur, La Corne, and Amélie, and, marshalled by the majordomo, proceeded to the dining-room--a large room, wainscotted with black walnut, a fine wood lately introduced. The ceiling was coved, and surrounded by a rich frieze of carving. A large table, suggestive of hospitality, was covered with drapery of the snowiest linen, the product of the spinning-wheels and busy looms of the women of the Seigniory of Tilly. Vases of china, filled with freshly-gathered flowers, shed sweet perfumes, while they delighted the eye with their beauty, etherializing the elements of bread and meat by suggestions of the poetry and ideals of life. A grand old buffet, a prodigy of cabinet-maker's art, displayed a mass of family plate, and a silver shield embossed with the arms of Tilly, a gift of Henry of Navarre to their ancient and loyal house, hung upon the wall over the buffet.
In spite of the Trifourchettes and the Doubledents, Felix Baudoin had managed to set an excellent dinner upon the table of his lady, who looked archly at the Chevalier La Corne, as if assenting to his remark on her old servitor.
The lady remained standing at the head of her table until they all sat down, when, clasping her hands, she recited with feeling and clearness the old Latin grace, “Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona,” sanctifying her table by the invocation of the blessing of God upon it and upon all who sat round it.
A soup, rich and savory, was the prelude at all dinners in New France. A salmon speared in the shallows of the Chaudière, and a dish of blood-speckled trout from the mountain streams of St. Joachim, smoked upon the board. Little oval loaves of wheaten bread were piled up in baskets of silver filigree. For in those days the fields of New France produced crops of the finest wheat--a gift which Providence has since withheld. “The wheat went away with the Bourbon lilies, and never grew afterwards,” said the old habitans. The meat in the larder had all really been given to the hungry censitaires in the kitchen, except a capon from the basse cour of Tilly and a standing pie, the contents of which came from the manorial dovecote. A reef of raspberries, red as corals, gathered on the tangled slopes of Côte à Bonhomme, formed the dessert, with blue whortleberries from Cape Tourment, plums sweet as honey drops, and small, gray-coated apples from Beaupré, delicious as those that comforted the Rose of Sharon. A few carafes of choice wine from the old manorial cellar, completed the entertainment.
The meal was not a protracted one, but to Pierre Philibert the most blissful hour of his life. He sat by the side of Amélie, enjoying every moment as if it were a pearl dropped into his bosom by word, look, or gesture of the radiant girl who sat beside him.
He found Amélie, although somewhat timid at first to converse, a willing, nay, an eager listener. She was attracted by the magnetism of a noble, sympathetic nature, and by degrees ventured to cast a glance at the handsome, manly countenance where feature after feature revealed itself, like a landscape at dawn of day, and in Colonel Philibert she recognized the very looks, speech, and manner of Pierre Philibert of old.
Her questioning eyes hardly needed the interpretation of her tongue to draw him out to impart the story of his life during his long absence from New France, and it was with secret delight she found in him a powerful, cultivated intellect and nobility of sentiment such as she rightly supposed belonged only to a great man, while his visible pleasure at meeting her again filled her with a secret joy that, unnoticed by herself, suffused her whole countenance with radiance, and incited her to converse with him more freely than she had thought it possible when she sat down at table.
“It is long since we all sat together, Mademoiselle, at the table of your noble aunt,” remarked Philibert. “It fulfills an often and often repeated day-dream of mine, that I should one day find you just the same.”
“And do you find me just the same?” answered she, archly. “You take down the pride of ladyhood immensely, Colonel! I had imagined I was something quite other than the wild child of Tilly!”
“I hardly like to consider you as in the pride of ladyhood, Mademoiselle, for fear I should lose the wild child of Tilly, whom I should be so glad to find again.”
“And whom you do find just the same in heart, mind, and regard too!” thought she to herself, but her words were,--“My school mistresses would be ashamed of their work, Colonel, if they had not improved on the very rude material my aunt sent them up from Tilly to manufacture into a fine lady! I was the crowned queen of the year when I left the Ursulines, so beware of considering me 'the child of Tilly' any longer.”
Her silvery laugh caught his heart, for in that he recognized vividly the gay young girl whose image he was every instant developing out of the tall, lovely woman beside him.
La Corne St. Luc and the Lady de Tilly found a thousand delights in mutual reminiscences of the past. Le Gardeur, somewhat heavy, joined in conversation with Philibert and his sister. Amélie guessed, and Philibert knew, the secret of Le Gardeur's dulness; both strove to enliven and arouse him. His aunt guessed too, that he had passed the night as the guests of the Intendant always passed it, and knowing his temper and the regard he had for her good opinion, she brought the subject of the Intendant into conversation, in order, casually as it were, to impress Le Gardeur with her opinion of him. “Pierre Philibert too,” thought she, “shall be put upon his guard against the crafty Bigot.”
“Pierre,” said she, “you are happy in a father who is a brave, honorable man, of whom any son in the world might be proud. The country holds by him immensely, and he deserves their regard. Watch over him now you are at home, Pierre. He has some relentless and powerful enemies, who would injure him if they could.”
“That has he,” remarked La Corne St. Luc; “I have spoken to the Sieur Philibert and cautioned him, but he is not impressible on the subject of his own safety. The Intendant spoke savagely of him in public the other day.”
“Did he, Chevalier?” replied Philibert, his eyes flashing with another fire than that which had filled them looking at Amélie. “He shall account to me for his words, were he Regent instead of Intendant!”
La Corne St. Luc looked half approvingly at Philibert.
“Don't quarrel with him yet, Pierre! You cannot make a quarrel of what he has said.”
Lady de Tilly listened uneasily, and said,-- “Don't quarrel with him at all, Pierre Philibert! Judge him and avoid him, as a Christian man should do. God will deal with Bigot as he deserves: the crafty man will be caught in his own devices some day.”
“Oh, Bigot is a gentleman, aunt, too polite to insult any one,” remarked Le Gardeur, impatient to defend one whom he regarded as a friend. “He is the prince of good fellows, and not crafty, I think, but all surface and sunshine.”
“You never explored the depths of him, Le Gardeur,” remarked La Corne. “I grant he is a gay, jesting, drinking, and gambling fellow in company; but, trust me, he is deep and dark as the Devil's cave that I have seen in the Ottawa country. It goes story under story, deeper and deeper, until the imagination loses itself in contemplating the bottomless pit of it--that is Bigot, Le Gardeur.”
“My censitaires report to me,” remarked the Lady de Tilly, “that his commissaries are seizing the very seed-corn of the country. Heaven knows what will become of my poor people next year if the war continue!”
“What will become of the Province in the hands of François Bigot?” replied La Corne St. Luc. “They say, Philibert, that a certain great lady at Court, who is his partner or patroness, or both, has obtained a grant of your father's sequestered estate in Normandy, for her relative, the Count de Marville. Had you heard of that, Philibert? It is the latest news from France.”
“Oh, yes, Chevalier! Ill news like that never misses the mark it is aimed at. The news soon reached my father!”
“And how does your father take it?”
“My father is a true philosopher; he takes it as Socrates might have taken it; he laughs at the Count de Marville, who will, he says, want to sell the estate before the year is out, to pay his debts of honor--the only debts he ever does pay.”
“If Bigot had anything to do with such an outrage,” exclaimed Le Gardeur warmly, “I would renounce him on the spot. I have heard Bigot speak of this gift to De Marville, whom he hates. He says it was all La Pompadour's doing from first to last, and I believe it.”
“Well,” remarked La Corne, “Bigot has plenty of sins of his own to answer for to the Sieur Philibert, on the day of account, without reckoning this among them.”
The loud report of a cannon shook the windows of the room, and died away in long-repeated echoes among the distant hills.
“That is the signal for the Council of War, my Lady,” said La Corne. “A soldier's luck! just as we were going to have music and heaven, we are summoned to field, camp, or council.”
The gentlemen rose and accompanied the ladies to the drawing-room, and prepared to depart. Colonel Philibert took a courteous leave of the ladies of Tilly, looking in the eyes of Amélie for something which, had she not turned them quickly upon a vase of flowers, he might have found there. She plucked a few sprays from the bouquet, and handed them to him as a token of pleasure at meeting him again in his own land.
“Recollect, Pierre Philibert!” said the Lady de Tilly, holding him cordially by the hand, “the Manor House of Tilly is your second home, where you are ever welcome.”
Philibert was deeply touched by the genuine and stately courtesy of the lady. He kissed her hand with grateful reverence, and bowing to both the ladies, accompanied La Corne St. Luc and Le Gardeur to the castle of St. Louis.
Amélie sat in the recess of the window, resting her cheek upon her tremulous hand as she watched the gentlemen proceed on their way to the castle. Her mind was overflowing with thoughts and fancies, new, enigmatical, yet delightful. Her nervous manner did not escape the loving eye of her aunt; but she spoke not--she was silent under the burden of a secret joy that found not vent in words.
Suddenly Amélie rose from the window, and seated herself, in her impulsive way, at the organ. Her fingers touched the keys timidly at first as she began a trembling prelude of her own fantasy. In music her pent-up feelings found congenial expression. The fire kindled, and she presently burst out with the voice of a seraph in that glorious psalm, the 116th: “'Toto pectore diligam Unice et Dominum colam, Qui lenis mihi supplici Non duram appulit aurem.
Aurem qui mihi supplici, Non duram dedit; hunc ego Donec pectora spiritus Pulset semper, amabo.'”
The Lady de Tilly, half guessing the truth, would not wound the susceptibilities of her niece by appearing to do so; so rose quietly from her seat and placed her arms gently round Amélie when she finished the psalm. She pressed her to her bosom, kissed her fondly, and without a word, left her to find in music relief from her high-wrought feelings. Her voice rose in sweeter and loftier harmonies to the pealing of the organ as she sang to the end the joyful yet solemn psalm, in a version made for Queen Mary of France and Scotland when life was good, hope all brightness, and dark days as if they would never come.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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12
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THE CASTLE OF ST. LOUIS.
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The Count de la Galissonière, with a number of officers of rank in full uniform, was slowly pacing up and down the long gallery that fronted the Castle of St. Louis, waiting for the Council of War to open; for although the hour had struck, the Intendant, and many other high officials of the Colony, had not yet arrived from Beaumanoir.
The Castle of St. Louis, a massive structure of stone, with square flanking towers, rose loftily from the brink of the precipice, overlooking the narrow, tortuous streets of the lower town. The steeple of the old Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, with its gilded vane, lay far beneath the feet of the observer as he leaned over the balustrade of iron that guarded the gallery of the Château.
A hum of voices and dense sounds rose up from the market of Notre Dame and from the quay where ships and bateaux were moored. The cries of sailors, carters, and habitans in thick medley floated up the steep cliffs, pleasant sounds to the ear of the worthy Governor, who liked the honest noises of industry and labor better than all the music of the Academy.
A few merchantmen which had run the blockade of the English cruisers lay at anchor in the stream, where the broad river swept majestically round the lofty cape. In the midst of them a newly-arrived King's ship, the Fleur-de-Lis, decorated with streamers, floated proudly, like a swan among a flock of teal.
Le Gardeur, as an officer of the garrison, went to report himself to the military commandant, while La Corne St. Luc and Colonel Philibert proceeded to the gallery, where a crowd of officers were now assembled, waiting for the Council.
The Governor at once called Philibert aside, and took his arm. “Philibert,” said he, “I trust you had no difficulty in finding the Intendant?”
“No difficulty whatever, your Excellency. I discovered the Intendant and his friends by ear long before I got sight of them.” An equivocal smile accompanied Philibert's words, which the Governor rightly interpreted.
“Ah! I understand, Philibert; they were carousing at that hour of daylight? Were they all--? Faugh! I shame to speak the word. Was the Intendant in a condition to comprehend my summons?” The Governor looked sad, rather than surprised or angry, for he had expected no less than Philibert had reported to him.
“I found him less intoxicated, I think, than many of his guests. He received your message with more politeness than I expected, and promised to be here punctually at the hour for opening the Council.”
“Oh, Bigot never lacks politeness, drunk or sober: that strong intellect of his seems to defy the power of wine, as his heart is proof against moral feeling. You did not prolong your stay in Beaumanoir, I fancy?” remarked the Governor, dinting the point of his cane into the floor.
“I hastened out of it as I would out of hell itself! After making prize of my friend De Repentigny and bringing him off with me, as I mentioned to you, I got quickly out of the Château.”
“You did rightly, Philibert: the Intendant is ruining half the young men of birth in the Colony.”
“He shall not ruin Le Gardeur if I can save him,” said Philibert, resolutely. “May I count upon your Excellency's coöperation?” added he.
“Assuredly, Philibert! Command me in anything you can devise to rescue that noble young fellow from the fatal companionship of Bigot. But I know not how long I shall be permitted to remain in New France: powerful intrigues are at work for my removal!” added the Governor. “I care not for the removal, so that it be not accompanied with insult.”
“Ah! you have received news to-day by the frigate?” said Philibert, looking down at the King's ship at anchor in the stream.
“News? Yes; and such news, Philibert!” replied the Governor in at one of despondency. “It needs the wisdom of Solon to legislate for this land, and a Hercules to cleanse its Augean stables of official corruption. But my influence at Court is nil--you know that, Philibert!”
“But while you are Governor your advice ought to prevail with the King,” replied Philibert.
“My advice prevail! Listen, Philibert: my letters to the King and the Minister of Marine and Colonies have been answered by whom, think you?”
“Nay, I cannot conceive who, out of the legal channel, would dare to reply to them.”
“No! no man could guess that my official despatches have been answered by the Marquise de Pompadour! She replies to my despatches to my sovereign!”
“La Pompadour!” exclaimed Philibert in a burst of indignation. “She, the King's mistress, reply to your despatches! Has France come to be governed by courtesans, like imperial Rome?”
“Yes! and you know the meaning of that insult, Philibert! They desire to force me to resign, and I shall resign as soon as I see my friends safe. I will serve the King in his fleet, but never more in a colony. This poor land is doomed to fall into the hands of its enemies unless we get a speedy peace. France will help us no more!”
“Don't say that, your Excellency! France will surely never be untrue to her children in the New World! But our resources are not yet all exhausted: we are not driven to the wall yet, your Excellency!”
“Almost, I assure you, Philibert! But we shall understand that better after the Council.”
“What say the despatches touching the negotiations going on for peace?” asked Philibert, who knew how true were the Governor's vaticinations.
“They speak favorably of peace, and I think, correctly, Philibert; and you know the King's armies and the King's mistresses cannot all be maintained at the same time--women or war, one or other must give way, and one need not doubt which it will be, when the women rule Court and camp in France at the same time!”
“To think that a woman picked out of the gutters of Paris should rule France and answer your despatches!” said Philibert, angrily; “it is enough to drive honorable Frenchmen mad. But what says the Marquise de Pompadour?”
“She is especially severe upon my opposing the fiscal measures and commercial policy, as she calls it, of her friend the Intendant! She approves of his grant of a monopoly of trade to the Grand Company, and disputes my right, as Governor, to interfere with the Intendant in the finances of the Colony.”
Philibert felt deeply this wound to the honor and dignity of his chief. He pressed his hand in warmest sympathy.
The Governor understood his feelings. “You are a true friend, Philibert,” said he; “ten men like you might still save this Colony! But it is past the hour for the Council, and still Bigot delays! He must have forgotten my summons.”
“I think not; but he might have to wait until Cadet, Varin, Deschenaux, and the rest of them were in a condition fit to travel,” answered Philibert with an air of disgust.
“O Philibert! the shame of it! the shame of it! for such thieves to have the right to sit among loyal, honorable men,” exclaimed, or rather groaned, the Governor. “They have the real power in New France, and we the empty title and the killing responsibility! Dine with me to-night after the Council, Philibert: I have much to say to you.”
“Not to-night, your Excellency! My father has killed the fatted calf for his returned prodigal, and I must dine with him to-night,” answered Philibert.
“Right! Be it to-morrow then! Come on Wednesday,” replied the Governor. “Your father is a gentleman who carries the principles of true nobility into the walks of trade; you are happy in such a father, Philibert, as he is fortunate in such a son.” The Governor bowed to his friend, and rejoined the groups of officers upon the terrace.
A flash, and a column of smoke, white and sudden, rose from the great battery that flanked the Château. It was the second signal for the Council to commence. The Count de la Galissonière, taking the arm of La Corne St. Luc, entered the Castle, and followed by the crowd of officers, proceeded to the great Hall of Council and Audience. The Governor, followed by his secretaries, walked forward to the vice-regal chair, which stood on a daïs at the head of a long table covered with crimson drapery. On each side of the table the members of the Council took the places assigned to them in the order of their rank and precedence, but a long array of chairs remained unoccupied. These seats, belonging to the Royal Intendant and the other high officers of the Colony who had not yet arrived to take their places in the Council, stood empty.
The great hall of the Castle of St. Louis was palatial in its dimensions and adornments. Its lofty coved ceiling rested on a cornice of rich frieze of carved work, supported on polished pilasters of oak. The panels of wainscoting upon the walls were surrounded by delicate arabesques, and hung with paintings of historic interest--portraits of the kings, governors, intendants, and ministers of state who had been instrumental in the colonization of New France.
Over the Governor's seat hung a gorgeous escutcheon of the royal arms, draped with a cluster of white flags sprinkled with golden lilies, the emblems of French sovereignty in the Colony.
Among the portraits on the walls, besides those of the late and present King,--which hung on each side of the throne,--might be seen the features of Richelieu, who first organized the rude settlements on the St. Lawrence into a body politic--a reflex of feudal France; and of Colbert, who made available its natural wealth and resources by peopling it with the best scions of the motherland, the noblesse and peasantry of Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine. There too might be seen the keen, bold features of Cartier, the first discoverer, and of Champlain, the first explorer of the new land and the founder of Quebec. The gallant, restless Louis Buade de Frontenac was pictured there side by side with his fair countess, called by reason of her surpassing loveliness “the divine;” Vaudreuil too, who spent a long life of devotion to his country, and Beauharnais, who nourished its young strength until it was able to resist not only the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations but the still more powerful league of New England and the other English Colonies. There, also, were seen the sharp, intellectual face of Laval, its first bishop, who organized the Church and education in the Colony; and of Talon, wisest of intendants, who devoted himself to the improvement of agriculture, the increase of trade, and the well-being of all the King's subjects in New France. And one more striking portrait was there, worthy to rank among the statesmen and rulers of New France,--the pale, calm, intellectual features of Mère Marie de l'Incarnation, the first superior of the Ursulines of Quebec, who, in obedience to heavenly visions, as she believed, left France to found schools for the children of the new colonists, and who taught her own womanly graces to her own sex, who were destined to become the future mothers of New France.
In marked contrast with the military uniforms of the officers surrounding the council-table were the black robes and tonsured heads of two or three ecclesiastics, who had been called in by the Governor to aid the council with their knowledge and advice. There were the Abbé Metavet, of the Algonquins of the North; Père Oubal, the Jesuit missionary of the Abenaquais of the East, and his confrère, La Richardie, from the wild tribes of the Far West; but conspicuous among the able and influential missionaries who were the real rulers of the Indian nations allied with France was the famous Sulpicien, Abbé Piquet, “the King's missionary,” as he was styled in royal ordinances, and the apostle to the Iroquois, whom he was laboring to convert and bring over to the side of France in the great dispute raised between France and England for supremacy in North America.
Upon the wall behind the vice-regal chair hung a great map, drawn by the bold hand of Abbé Piquet, representing the claims as well as actual possessions of France in America. A broad, red line, beginning in Acadia, traversed the map westerly, taking in Lake Ontario and running southerly along the crests and ridges of the Appalachian Mountains. It was traced with a firm hand down to far-off Louisiana, claiming for France the great valleys of the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the vast territories watered by the Missouri and the Colorado--thus hemming the English in between the walls of the Appalachian range on the west and the seacoast on the east.
The Abbé Piquet had lately, in a canoe, descended the Belle Rivière, as the voyageurs called the noble Ohio. From its source to its junction with the solitary Mississippi the Abbé had planted upon its conspicuous bluffs the ensigns of France, with tablets of lead bearing the fleur-de-lis and the proud inscription, “Manibus date lilia plenis,”--lilies destined, after a fierce struggle for empire, to be trampled into the earth by the feet of the victorious English.
The Abbé, deeply impressed with the dangers that impended over the Colony, labored zealously to unite the Indian nations in a general alliance with France. He had already brought the powerful Algonquins and Nipissings into his scheme, and planted them at Two Mountains as a bulwark to protect the city of Ville Marie. He had created a great schism in the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations by adroitly fanning into a flame their jealousy of English encroachments upon their ancient territory on Lake Ontario; and bands of Iroquois had, not long since, held conference with the Governor of New France, denouncing the English for disregarding their exclusive right to their own country. “The lands we possess,” said they at a great council in Ville Marie, “the lands we possess were given to us by the Master of Life, and we acknowledge to hold of no other!”
The Abbé had now strong hopes of perfecting a scheme which he afterwards accomplished. A powerful body of the Iroquois left their villages and castles on the Mohawk and Genesee rivers, and under the guidance of the Abbé settled round the new Fort of La Presentation on the St. Lawrence, and thus barred that way, for the future, against the destructive inroads of their countrymen who remained faithful to the English alliance.
Pending the arrival of the Royal Intendant the members of the Council indulged freely in conversation bearing more or less upon the important matters to be discussed,--the state of the country, the movements of the enemy, and not seldom intermingled remarks of dissatisfaction and impatience at the absence of the Intendant.
The revel at Beaumanoir was well known to them; and eyes flashed and lips curled in open scorn at the well-understood reason of the Intendant's delay.
“My private letters by the Fleur-de-Lis,” remarked Beauharnais, “relate, among other Court gossip, that orders will be sent out to stop the defensive works at Quebec, and pull down what is built! They think the cost of walls round our city can be better bestowed on political favorites and certain high personages at Court.” Beauharnais turned towards the Governor. “Has your Excellency heard aught of this?” asked he.
“Yes! It is true enough, Beauharnais! I also have received communications to that effect!” replied the Governor, with an effort at calmness which ill-concealed the shame and disgust that filled his soul.
There was an indignant stir among the officers, and many lips seemed trembling with speech. The impetuous Rigaud de Vaudreuil broke the fierce silence. He struck his fist heavily on the table.
“Ordered us to stop the building of the walls of Quebec, and to pull down what we have done by virtue of the King's corvée! --did I hear your Excellency right?” repeated he in a tone of utmost incredulity. “The King is surely mad to think of such a thing!”
“Yes, Rigaud! it is as I tell you; but we must respect the royal command, and treat His Majesty's name as becomes loyal servants.”
“Ventre saint bleu! --heard ever Canadian or Frenchman such moonshine madness! I repeat it, your Excellency--dismantle Quebec? How in God's name are the King's dominions and the King's subjects to be defended?” Rigaud got warmer. He was fearless, and would, as every one knew, have out his say had the King been present in person. “Be assured, your Excellency, it is not the King who orders that affront to his faithful colony; it is the King's ministers--the King's mistresses--the snuff-box-tapping courtiers at Versailles, who can spend the public money in more elegant ways than in raising up walls round our brave old city! Ancient honor and chivalry of France! what has become of you?”
Rigaud sat down angrily; the emotion he displayed was too much in accord with the feelings of the gallant officers present to excite other than marks of approbation, except among a few personal friends of the Intendant, who took their cue from the avowed wishes of the Court.
“What reason does His Majesty give,” asked La Corne St. Luc, “for this singular communication?”
“The only reason given is found in the concluding paragraph of the despatch. I will allow the Secretary to read so much of it, and no more, before the Intendant arrives.” The Governor looked up at the great clock in the hall with a grim glance of impatience, as if mentally calling down anything but a blessing upon the head of the loitering Intendant.
“The Count de le Galissonière ought to know,” said the despatch sneeringly, “that works like those of Quebec are not to be undertaken by the governors of colonies, except under express orders from the King; and therefore it is His Majesty's desire that upon the reception of this despatch your Excellency will discontinue the works that have been begun upon Quebec. Extensive fortifications require strong garrisons for their defence, and the King's treasury is already exhausted by the extraordinary expenses of the war in Europe. It cannot at the same time carry on the war in Europe and meet the heavy drafts made upon it from North America.”
The Secretary folded the despatch, and sat down without altering a line of his impassive face. Not so the majority of the officers round the table: they were excited, and ready to spring up in their indignation. The King's name restrained them all but Rigaud de Vaudreuil, who impetuously burst out with an oath, exclaiming,--“They may as well sell New France at once to the enemy, if we are not to defend Quebec! The treasury wants money for the war in Europe forsooth! No doubt it wants money for the war when so much is lavished upon the pimps, panders, and harlots of the Court!”
The Governor rose suddenly, striking the table with his scabbard to stop Rigaud in his rash and dangerous speech.
“Not a word more of comment, Chevalier Rigaud!” said he, with a sharp imperative tone that cut short debate; “not another word! His Majesty's name and those of his ministers must be spoken here respectfully, or not at all! Sit down, Chevalier de Vaudreuil; you are inconsiderate.”
“I obey your Excellency--I am, I dare say, inconsiderate! but I am right!” Rigaud's passion was subsiding, but not spent. He obeyed the order, however. He had had his say, and flung himself heavily upon his chair.
“The King's despatch demands respectful and loyal consideration, remarked De Lery, a solid, grave officer of engineers, “and I doubt not that upon a proper remonstrance from this council His Majesty will graciously reconsider his order. The fall of Louisbourg is ominous of the fall of Quebec. It is imperative to fortify the city in time to meet the threatened invasion. The loss of Quebec would be the loss of the Colony; and the loss of the Colony, the disgrace of France and the ruin of our country.”
“I cordially agree with the Chevalier de Lery,” said La Corne St. Luc; “he has spoken more sense than would be found in a shipload of such despatches as that just read! Nay, your Excellency,” continued the old officer, smiling, “I shall not affront my sovereign by believing that so ill-timed a missive came from him! Depend upon it, His Majesty has neither seen nor sanctioned it. It is the work of the minister and his mistresses, not the King's.”
“La Corne! La Corne!” The Governor raised his finger with a warning look. “We will not discuss the point further until we are favored with the presence and opinion of the Intendant; he will surely be here shortly!” At this moment a distant noise of shouting was heard in some part of the city.
An officer of the day entered the hall in great haste, and whispered something in the Governor's ear.
“A riot in the streets!” exclaimed the Governor. “The mob attacking the Intendant! You do not say so! Captain Duval, turn out the whole guard at once, and let Colonel St. Remy take the command and clear the way for the Intendant, and also clear the streets of all disturbers.”
A number of officers sprang to their feet. “Keep seated, gentlemen! We must not break up the Council,” said the Governor. “We are sure to have the Intendant here in a few minutes and to learn the cause of this uproar. It is some trifling affair of noisy habitans, I have no doubt.”
Another loud shout, or rather yell, made itself distinctly heard in the council-chamber. “It is the people cheering the Intendant on his way through the city!” remarked La Corne St. Luc, ironically. “Zounds! what a vacarme they make! See what it is to be popular with the citizens of Quebec!”
There was a smile all round the table at La Corne's sarcasm. It offended a few friends of the Intendant, however.
“The Chevalier La Corne speaks boldly in the absence of the Intendant,” said Colonel Leboeuf. “A gentleman would give a louis d'or any day to buy a whip to lash the rabble sooner than a sou to win their applause! I would not give a red herring for the good opinion of all Quebec!”
“They say in France, Colonel,” replied La Corne de St. Luc, scornfully, “that 'King's chaff is better than other people's corn, and that fish in the market is cheaper than fish in the sea!' I believe it, and can prove it to any gentleman who maintains the contrary!”
There was a laugh at La Corne's allusion to the Marquise de Pompadour, whose original name of Jeanne Poisson, gave rise to infinite jests and sarcasms among the people of low and high degree.
Colonel Leboeuf, choleric as he was, refrained from pressing the quarrel with La Corne St. Luc. He sat sulkily smothering his wrath--longing to leave the hall and go to the relief of the Intendant, but kept against his will by the command of the Governor.
The drums of the main guard beat the assembly. The clash of arms and the tramp of many feet resounded from the court-yard of the Château. The members of the Council looked out of the windows as the troops formed in column, and headed by Colonel St. Remy, defiled out of the Castle gate, the thunder of their drums drowning every other sound and making the windows shake as they marched through the narrow streets to the scene of disturbance.
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{
"id": "2735"
}
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13
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THE CHIEN D'OR.
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On the Rue Buade, a street commemorative of the gallant Fontenac, stood the large, imposing edifice newly built by the Bourgeois Philibert, as the people of the Colony fondly called Nicholas Jaquin Philibert, the great and wealthy merchant of Quebec and their champion against the odious monopolies of the Grand Company favored by the Intendant.
The edifice was of stone, spacious and lofty, but in style solid, plain, and severe. It was a wonder of architecture in New France and the talk and admiration of the Colony from Tadousac to Ville Marie. It comprised the city residence of the Bourgeois, as well as suites of offices and ware-rooms connected with his immense business.
The house was bare of architectural adornments; but on its façade, blazing in the sun, was the gilded sculpture that so much piqued the curiosity of both citizens and strangers and was the talk of every seigniory in the land. The tablet of the Chien D'or,--the Golden Dog,--with its enigmatical inscription, looked down defiantly upon the busy street beneath, where it is still to be seen, perplexing the beholder to guess its meaning and exciting our deepest sympathies over the tragedy of which it remains the sole sad memorial.
Above and beneath the figure of a couchant dog gnawing the thigh bone of a man is graven the weird inscription, cut deeply in the stone, as if for all future generations to read and ponder over its meaning: “Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os, En le rongeant je prends mon repos. Un temps viendra qui n'est pas venu Que je mordrai qui m'aura mordu.” 1736.
Or in English: “I am a dog that gnaws his bone, I couch and gnaw it all alone-- A time will come, which is not yet, When I'll bite him by whom I'm bit.”
The magazines of the Bourgeois Philibert presented not only an epitome but a substantial portion of the commerce of New France. Bales of furs, which had been brought down in fleets of canoes from the wild, almost unknown regions of the Northwest, lay piled up to the beams--skins of the smooth beaver, the delicate otter, black and silver fox, so rich to the eye and silky to the touch that the proudest beauties longed for their possession; sealskins to trim the gowns of portly burgomasters, and ermine to adorn the robes of nobles and kings. The spoils of the wolf, bear, and buffalo, worked to the softness of cloth by the hands of Indian women, were stored for winter wear and to fill the sledges with warmth and comfort when the northwest wind freezes the snow to fine dust and the aurora borealis moves in stately possession, like an army of spear-men, across the northern sky. The harvests of the colonists, the corn, the wool, the flax; the timber, enough to build whole navies, and mighty pines fit to mast the tallest admiral, were stored upon the wharves and in the warehouses of the Bourgeois upon the banks of the St. Lawrence, with iron from the royal forges of the Three Rivers and heaps of ginseng from the forests, a product worth its weight in gold and eagerly exchanged by the Chinese for their teas, silks, and sycee silver.
The stately mansion of Belmont, overlooking the picturesque valley of the St. Charles, was the residence proper of the Bourgeois Philibert, but the shadow that in time falls over every hearth had fallen upon his when the last of his children, his beloved son Pierre, left home to pursue his military studies in France. During Pierre's absence the home at Belmont, although kept up with the same strict attention which the Bourgeois paid to everything under his rule, was not occupied by him. He preferred his city mansion, as more convenient for his affairs, and resided therein. His partner of many years of happy wedded life had been long dead; she left no void in his heart that another could fill, but he kept up a large household for friendship's sake, and was lavish in his hospitality. In secret he was a grave, solitary man, caring for the present only for the sake of the thousands dependent on him--living much with the memory of the dear dead, and much with the hope of the future in his son Pierre.
The Bourgeois was a man worth looking at and, at a glance, one to trust to, whether you sought the strong hand to help, the wise head to counsel, or the feeling heart to sympathize with you. He was tall and strongly knit, with features of a high patrician cast, a noble head, covered thick with grizzly hair--one of those heads so tenacious of life that they never grow bald, but carry to the grave the snows of a hundred years. His quick gray eyes caught your meaning ere it was half spoken. A nose and chin, moulded with beauty and precision, accentuated his handsome face. His lips were grave even in their smile, for gaiety was rarely a guest in the heart of the Bourgeois--a man keenly susceptible to kindness, but strong in resentments and not to be placated without the fullest atonement.
The Bourgeois sat by the table in his spacious, well-furnished drawing-room, which overlooked the Rue Buade and gave him a glimpse of the tall, new Cathedral and the trees and gardens of the Seminary. He was engaged in reading letters and papers just arrived from France by the frigate, rapidly extracting their contents and pencilling on their margins memos, for further reference to his clerks.
The only other occupant of the room was a very elderly lady, in a black gown of rigid Huguenot fashion. A close white cap, tied under her chin, set off to the worst advantage her sharp, yet kindly, features. Not an end of ribbon or edge of lace could be seen to point to one hair-breadth of indulgence in the vanities of the world by this strict old Puritan, who, under this unpromising exterior, possessed the kindliest heart in Christendom. Her dress, if of rigid severity, was of saintly purity, and almost pained the eye with its precision and neatness. So fond are we of some freedom from over-much care as from over-much righteousness, that a stray tress, a loose ribbon, a little rent even, will relieve the eye and hold it with a subtile charm. Under the snow white hair of Dame Rochelle--for she it was, the worthy old housekeeper and ancient governess of the House of Philibert--you saw a kind, intelligent face. Her dark eyes betrayed her Southern origin, confirmed by her speech, which, although refined by culture, still retained the soft intonation and melody of her native Languedoc.
Dame Rochelle, the daughter of an ardent Calvinist minister, was born in the fatal year of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when Louis XIV. undid the glorious work of Henri IV., and covered France with persecution and civil war, filling foreign countries with the elect of her population, her industry, and her wealth, exiled in the name of religion.
Dame Rochelle's childhood had passed in the trying scenes of the great persecution, and in the succeeding civil wars of the Cevennes she lost all that was nearest and dearest to her--her father, her brothers, her kindred nearly all, and lastly, a gallant gentleman of Dauphiny to whom she was betrothed. She knelt beside him at his place of execution--or martyrdom, for he died for his faith--and holding his hands in hers, pledged her eternal fidelity to his memory, and faithfully kept it all her life.
The Count de Philibert, elder brother of the Bourgeois, was an officer of the King; he witnessed this sad scene, took pity upon the hapless girl, and gave her a home and protection with his family in the Château of Philibert, where she spent the rest of her life until the Bourgeois succeeded to his childless brother. In the ruin of his house she would not consent to leave them, but followed their fortunes to New France. She had been the faithful friend and companion of the wife of the Bourgeois and the educator of his children, and was now, in her old age, the trusted friend and manager of his household. Her days were divided between the exercises of religion and the practical duties of life. The light that illumined her, though flowing through the narrow window of a narrow creed, was still light of divine origin. It satisfied her faith, and filled her with resignation, hope, and comfort.
Her three studies were the Bible, the hymns of Marot, and the sermons of the famous Jurieu. She had listened to the prophecies of Grande Marie, and had even herself been breathed upon on the top of Mount Peira by the Huguenot prophet, De Serre.
Good Dame Rochelle was not without a feeling that at times the spiritual gift she had received when a girl made itself manifest by intuitions of the future, which were, after all, perhaps only emanations of her natural good sense and clear intellect--the foresight of a pure mind.
The wasting persecutions of the Calvinists in the mountains of the Cevennes drove men and women wild with desperate fanaticism. De Serre had an immense following. He assumed to impart the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues by breathing upon the believers. The refugees carried his doctrines to England, and handed down their singular ideas to modern times; and a sect may still be found which believes in the gift of tongues and practises the power of prophesying, as taught originally in the Cevennes.
The good dame was not reading this morning, although the volume before her lay open. Her glasses lay upon the page, and she sat musing by the open window, seldom looking out, however, for her thoughts were chiefly inward. The return of Pierre Philibert, her foster child, had filled her with joy and thankfulness, and she was pondering in her mind the details of a festival which the Bourgeois intended to give in honor of the return of his only son.
The Bourgeois had finished the reading of his packet of letters, and sat musing in silence. He too was intently thinking of his son. His face was filled with the satisfaction of old Simeon when he cried, out of the fulness of his heart, “Domine! nunc dimittis!”
“Dame Rochelle,” said he. She turned promptly to the voice of her master, as she ever insisted on calling him. “Were I superstitious, I should fear that my great joy at Pierre's return might be the prelude to some great sorrow.”
“God's blessing on Pierre!” said she, “he can only bring joy to this house. Thank the Lord for what He gives and what He takes! He took Pierre, a stripling from his home, and returns him a great man, fit to ride at the King's right hand and to be over his host like Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, over the host of Solomon.”
“Grand merci for the comparison, dame!” said the Bourgeois, smiling, as he leaned back in his chair. “But Pierre is a Frenchman, and would prefer commanding a brigade in the army of the Marshal de Saxe to being over the host of King Solomom. But,” continued he, gravely, “I am strangely happy to-day, Deborah,”--he was wont to call her Deborah when very earnest,--“and I will not anticipate any mischief to mar my happiness. Pshaw! It is only the reaction of over-excited feelings. I am weak in the strength of my joy.”
“The still, small voice speaks to us in that way, master, to remind us to place our trust in Heaven, not on earth, where all is transitory and uncertain; for if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, let him remember the days of darkness, for they are many! We are no strangers to the vanity and shadows of human life, master! Pierre's return is like sunshine breaking through the clouds. God is pleased if we bask in the sunshine when he sends it.”
“Right, dame! and so we will! The old walls of Belmont shall ring with rejoicing over the return of their heir and future owner.”
The dame looked up delightedly at the remark of the Bourgeois. She knew he had destined Belmont as a residence for Pierre; but the thought suggested in her mind was, perhaps, the same which the Bourgeois had mused upon when he gave expression to a certain anxiety.
“Master,” said she, “does Pierre know that the Chevalier Bigot was concerned in the false accusations against you, and that it was he, prompted by the Cardinal and the Princess de Carignan, who enforced the unjust decree of the Court?”
“I think not, Deborah. I never told Pierre that Bigot was ever more than the avocat du Roi in my persecution. It is what troubles me amidst my joy. If Pierre knew that the Intendant had been my false accuser on the part of the Cardinal, his sword would not rest a day in its scabbard without calling Bigot to a bloody account. Indeed, it is all I myself can do to refrain. When I met him for the first time here, in the Palace gate, I knew him again and looked him full in the eyes, and he knew me. He is a bold hound, and glared back at me without shrinking. Had he smiled I should have struck him; but we passed in silence, with a salute as mortal as enemies ever gave each other. It is well, perhaps, I wore not my sword that day, for I felt my passion rising--a thing I abhor. Pierre's young blood would not remain still if he knew the Intendant as I know him. But I dare not tell him! There would be bloodshed at once, Deborah!”
“I fear so, master! I trembled at Bigot in the old land! I tremble at him here, where he is more powerful than before. I saw him passing one day. He stopped to read the inscription of the Golden Dog. His face was the face of a fiend, as he rode hastily away. He knew well how to interpret it.”
“Ha! you did not tell me that before, Deborah!” The Bourgeois rose, excitedly. “Bigot read it all, did he? I hope every letter of it was branded on his soul as with red-hot iron!”
“Dear master, that is an unchristian saying, and nothing good can come of it. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!' Our worst enemies are best left in His hands.”
The dame was proceeding in a still more moralizing strain, when a noise arose in the street from a crowd of persons, habitans for the most part, congregated round the house. The noise increased to such a degree that they stopped their conversation, and both the dame and the Bourgeois looked out of the window at the increasing multitude that had gathered in the street.
The crowd had come to the Rue Buade to see the famous tablet of the Golden Dog, which was talked of in every seigniory in New France; still more, perhaps, to see the Bourgeois Philibert himself--the great merchant who contended for the rights of the habitans, and who would not yield an inch to the Friponne.
The Bourgeois looked down at the ever-increasing throng,--country people for the most part, with their wives, with not a few citizens, whom he could easily distinguish by their dress and manner. The Bourgeois stood rather withdrawn from the front, so as not to be recognized, for he hated intensely anything like a demonstration, still less an ovation. He could hear many loud voices, however, in the crowd, and caught up the chief topics they discussed with each other.
His eyes rested several times on a wiry, jerking little fellow, whom he recognized as Jean La Marche, the fiddler, a censitaire of the manor of Tilly. He was a well-known character, and had drawn a large circle of the crowd around himself.
“I want to see the Bourgeois Philibert!” exclaimed Jean La Marche. “He is the bravest merchant in New France--the people's friend. Bless the Golden Dog, and curse the Friponne!”
“Hurrah for the Golden Dog, and curse the Friponne!” exclaimed a score of voices; “won't you sing, Jean?”
“Not now; I have a new ballad ready on the Golden Dog, which I shall sing to-night--that is, if you will care to listen to me.” Jean said this with a very demure air of mock modesty, knowing well that the reception of a new ballad from him would equal the furor for a new aria from the prima donna of the opera at Paris.
“We will all come to hear it, Jean!” cried they: “but take care of your fiddle or you will get it crushed in the crowd.”
“As if I did not know how to take care of my darling baby!” said Jean, holding his violin high above his head. “It is my only child; it will laugh or cry, and love and scold as I bid it, and make everybody else do the same when I touch its heart-strings.” Jean had brought his violin under his arm, in place of a spade, to help build up the walls of the city. He had never heard of Amphion, with his lyre, building up the walls of Thebes; but Jean knew that in his violin lay a power of work by other hands, if he played while they labored. “It lightened toil, and made work go merrily as the bells of Tilly at a wedding,” said he.
There was immense talk, with plenty of laughter and no thought of mischief, among the crowd. The habitans of en haut and the habitans of en bas commingled, as they rarely did, in a friendly way. Nor was anything to provoke a quarrel said even to the Acadians, whose rude patois was a source of merry jest to the better-speaking Canadians.
The Acadians had flocked in great numbers into Quebec on the seizure of their Province by the English, sturdy, robust, quarrelsome fellows, who went about challenging people in their reckless way,--Etions pas mon maître, monsieur? --but all were civil to-day, and tuques were pulled off and bows exchanged in a style of easy politeness that would not have shamed the streets of Paris.
The crowd kept increasing in the Rue Buade. The two sturdy beggars who vigorously kept their places on the stone steps of the barrier, or gateway, of the Basse Ville reaped an unusual harvest of the smallest coin--Max Grimau, an old, disabled soldier, in ragged uniform, which he had worn at the defence of Prague under the Marshal de Belleisle, and blind Bartemy, a mendicant born--the former, loud-tongued and importunate, the latter, silent and only holding out a shaking hand for charity. No Finance Minister or Royal Intendant studied more earnestly the problem how to tax the kingdom than Max and Blind Bartemy how to toll the passers-by, and with less success, perhaps.
To-day was a red-letter day for the sturdy beggars, for the news flew fast that an ovation of some popular kind was to be given to the Bourgeois Philibert. The habitans came trooping up the rough mountain-road that leads from the Basse Ville to the Upper Town; and up the long stairs lined with the stalls of Basque pedlars--cheating, loquacious varlets--which formed a by-way from the lower regions of the Rue de Champlain--a break-neck thoroughfare little liked by the old and asthmatical, but nothing to the sturdy “climbers,” as the habitans called the lads of Quebec, or the light-footed lasses who displayed their trim ankles as they flew up the breezy steps to church or market.
Max Grimau and Blind Bartemy had ceased counting their coins. The passers-by came up in still increasing numbers, until the street, from the barrier of the Basse Ville to the Cathedral, was filled with a noisy, good-humored crowd, without an object except to stare at the Golden Dog and a desire to catch a glimpse of the Bourgeois Philibert.
The crowd had become very dense, when a troop of gentlemen rode at full speed into the Rue Buade, and after trying recklessly to force their way through, came to a sudden halt in the midst of the surging mass.
The Intendant, Cadet, and Varin had ridden from Beaumanoir, followed by a train of still flushed guests, who, after a hasty purification, had returned with their host to the city--a noisy troop, loquacious, laughing, shouting, as is the wont of men reckless at all times, and still more defiant when under the influence of wine.
“What is the meaning of this rabble, Cadet?” asked Bigot; “they seem to be no friends of yours. That fellow is wishing you in a hot place!” added Bigot, laughing, as he pointed out a habitan who was shouting “A bas Cadet!”
“Nor friends of yours, either,” replied Cadet. “They have not recognized you yet, Bigot. When they do, they will wish you in the hottest place of all!”
The Intendant was not known personally to the habitans as were Cadet, Varin, and the rest. Loud shouts and execrations were freely vented against these as soon as they were recognized.
“Has this rabble waylaid us to insult us?” asked Bigot. “But it can hardly be that they knew of our return to the city to-day.” The Intendant began to jerk his horse round impatiently, but without avail.
“Oh, no, your Excellency! it is the rabble which the Governor has summoned to the King's corvée. They are paying their respects to the Golden Dog, which is the idol the mob worships just now. They did not expect us to interrupt their devotions, I fancy.”
“The vile moutons! their fleece is not worth the shearing!” exclaimed Bigot angrily, at the mention of the Golden Dog, which, as he glanced upwards, seemed to glare defiantly upon him.
“Clear the way, villains!” cried Bigot loudly, while darting his horse into the crowd. “Plunge that Flanders cart-horse of yours into them, Cadet, and do not spare their toes!”
Cadet's rough disposition chimed well with the Intendant's wish. “Come on, Varin, and the rest of you,” cried he, “give spur, and fight your way through the rabble.”
The whole troop plunged madly at the crowd, striking right and left with their heavy hunting-whips. A violent scuffle ensued; many habitans were ridden down, and some of the horsemen dismounted. The Intendant's Gascon blood got furious: he struck heavily, right and left, and many a bleeding tuque marked his track in the crowd.
The habitans recognized him at last, and a tremendous yell burst out. “Long live the Golden Dog! Down with the Friponne!” while the more bold ventured on the cry, “Down with the Intendant and the thieves of the Grand Company!”
Fortunately for the troop of horsemen the habitans were utterly unarmed; but stones began to be thrown, and efforts were made by them, not always unsuccessfully, to pull the riders off of their horses. Poor Jean La Marche's darling child, his favorite violin, was crushed at the first charge. Jean rushed at the Intendant's bridle, and received a blow which levelled him.
The Intendant and all the troop now drew their swords. A bloody catastrophe seemed impending, when the Bourgeois Philibert, seeing the state of affairs, despatched a messenger with tidings to the Castle of St. Louis, and rushed himself into the street amidst the surging crowd, imploring, threatening, and compelling them to give way.
He was soon recognized and cheered by the people; but even his influence might have failed to calm the fiery passions excited by the Intendant's violence, had not the drums of the approaching soldiery suddenly resounded above the noise of the riot. In a few minutes long files of glittering bayonets were seen streaming down the Rue du Fort. Colonel St. Remi rode at their head, forming his troops in position to charge the crowd. The colonel saw at once the state of affairs, and being a man of judgment, commanded peace before resorting to force. He was at once obeyed. The people stood still and in silence. They fell back quietly before the troops. They had no purpose to resist the authorities--indeed, had no purpose whatever. A way was made by the soldiers, and the Intendant and his friends were extricated from their danger.
They rode at once out of the mob amid a volley of execrations, which were replied to by angry oaths and threats of the cavaliers as they galloped across the Place d'Armes and rode pell-mell into the gateway of the Château of St. Louis.
The crowd, relieved of their presence, grew calm; and some of the more timid of them got apprehensive of the consequences of this outrage upon the Royal Intendant. They dispersed quietly, singly or in groups, each one hoping that he might not be called upon to account for the day's proceedings.
The Intendant and his cortège of friends rode furiously into the courtyard of the Château of St. Louis, dishevelled, bespattered, and some of them hatless. They dismounted, and foaming with rage, rushed through the lobbies, and with heavy trampling of feet, clattering of scabbards, and a bedlam of angry tongues, burst into the Council Chamber.
The Intendant's eyes shot fire. His Gascon blood was at fever heat, flushing his swarthy cheek like the purple hue of a hurricane. He rushed at once to the council-table, and seeing the Governor, saluted him, but spoke in tones forcibly kept under by a violent effort.
“Your Excellency and gentlemen of the Council will excuse our delay,” shouted Bigot, “when I inform you that I, the Royal Intendant of New France, have been insulted, pelted, and my very life threatened by a seditious mob congregated in the streets of Quebec.”
“I grieve much, and sympathize with your Excellency's indignation,” replied the Governor warmly; “I rejoice you have escaped unhurt. I despatched the troops to your assistance, but have not yet learned the cause of the riot.”
“The cause of the riot was the popular hatred of myself for enforcing the royal ordinances, and the seditious example set the rabble by the notorious merchant, Philibert, who is at the bottom of all mischief in New France.”
The Governor looked fixedly at the Intendant, as he replied quietly,--“The Sieur Philibert, although a merchant, is a gentleman of birth and loyal principles, and would be the last man alive, I think, to excite a riot. Did you see the Bourgeois, Chevalier?”
“The crowd filled the street near his magazines, cheering for the Bourgeois and the Golden Dog. We rode up and endeavored to force our way through. But I did not see the Bourgeois himself until the disturbance had attained its full proportions.”
“And then, your Excellency? Surely the Bourgeois was not encouraging the mob, or participating in the riot?”
“No! I do not charge him with participating in the riot, although the mob were all his friends and partisans. Moreover,” said Bigot, frankly, for he felt he owed his safety to the interference of the Bourgeois, “it would be unfair not to acknowledge that he did what he could to protect us from the rabble. I charge Philibert with sowing the sedition that caused the riot, not with rioting himself.”
“But I accuse him of both, and of all the mob has done!” thundered Varin, enraged to hear the Intendant speak with moderation and justice. “The house of the Golden Dog is a den of traitors; it ought to be pulled down, and its stones built into a monument of infamy over its owner, hung like a dog in the market-place.”
“Silence, Varin!” exclaimed the Governor sternly. “I will not hear the Sieur Philibert spoken of in these injurious terms. The Intendant does not charge him with this disturbance; neither shall you.”
“Par Dieu! you shall not, Varin!” burst in La Corne St. Luc, roused to unusual wrath by the opprobrium heaped upon his friend the Bourgeois; “and you shall answer to me for that you have said!”
“La Corne! La Corne!” The Governor saw a challenge impending, and interposed with vehemence. “This is a Council of War, and not a place for recriminations. Sit down, dear old friend, and aid me to get on with the business of the King and his Colony, which we are here met to consider.”
The appeal went to the heart of La Corne. He sat down. “You have spoken generously, Chevalier Bigot, respecting the Bourgeois Philibert,” continued the Governor. “I am pleased that you have done so. My Aide-de-Camp, Colonel Philibert, who is just entering the Council, will be glad to hear that your Excellency does justice to his father in this matter.”
“The blessing of St. Bennet's boots upon such justice,” muttered Cadet to himself. “I was a fool not to run my sword through Philibert when I had the chance.”
The Governor repeated to Colonel Philibert what had been said by Bigot.
Colonel Philibert bowed to the Intendant. “I am under obligation to the Chevalier Bigot,” said he, “but it astonishes me much that any one should dare implicate my father in such a disturbance. Certainly the Intendant does him but justice.”
This remark was not pleasing to Bigot, who hated Colonel Philibert equally with his father. “I merely said he had not participated in the riot, Colonel Philibert, which was true. I did not excuse your father for being at the head of the party among whom these outrages arise. I simply spoke truth, Colonel Philibert. I do not eke out by the inch my opinion of any man. I care not for the Bourgeois Philibert more than for the meanest blue cap in his following.”
This was an ungracious speech. Bigot meant it to be such. He repented almost of the witness he had borne to the Bourgeois's endeavors to quell the mob. But he was too profoundly indifferent to men's opinions respecting himself to care to lie.
Colonel Philibert resented the Intendant's sneer at his father. He faced Bigot, saying to him,--“The Chevalier Bigot has done but simple justice to my father with reference to his conduct in regard to the riot. But let the Intendant recollect that, although a merchant, my father is above all things a Norman gentleman, who never swerved a hair-breadth from the path of honor--a gentleman whose ancient nobility would dignify even the Royal Intendant.” Bigot looked daggers at this thrust at his own comparatively humble origin. “And this I have further to say,” continued Philibert, looking straight in the eyes of Bigot, Varin, and Cadet, “whoever impugns my father's honor impugns mine; and no man, high or low, shall do that and escape chastisement!”
The greater part of the officers seated round the council-board listened with marks of approval to Philibert's vindication of his father. But no one challenged his words, although dark, ominous looks glanced from one to another among the friends of the Intendant. Bigot smothered his anger for the present, however; and to prevent further reply from his followers he rose, and bowing to the Governor, begged His Excellency to open the Council.
“We have delayed the business of the King too long with these personal recriminations,” said he. “I shall leave this riot to be dealt with by the King's courts, who will sharply punish both instigators and actors in this outrage upon the royal authority.”
These words seemed to end the dispute for the present.
|
{
"id": "2735"
}
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