CHAPTER XLVIIIPRESSURE
“Do you suppose I came here to amuse myself?” asked Malletort, passing his arm under his companion’s so as to turn him round on the gravel walk within a yard of Alice’s hiding-place. “Do you think it is agreeable to reside in a pot-house where eggs and bacon form thene plus ultraof cookery, and if a man cannot drink sour claret he must be satisfied with muddy ale? Every one of us has to sacrifice his own identity, has to consecrate himself entirely to such an effort as ours. Look at me, Florian, and ask yourself, was I born for such a life as this, to vegetate by the wayside in the dullest province of the dullest country in Europe—my only society, that awful landlady, my only excitement, the daily fear of a blunder from that puzzle-headed brigand who calls himself Captain Bold, and whom I can hang at any moment I please, or I would not trust him five yards from my side. If I should be discovered, and unable to get out of the way in time, why itmightgo very hard with me, but even against this contingency I have provided. You would find all the directions you need drawn out in our own cipher, and consigned to my respectable hostess. I have left the money for her weekly account sealed up and addressed to Mrs. Dodge on my chimneypiece, also the day and hour of your visit, as we have agreed. If webothfall into difficulties, which is most improbable, the packet will be burned, for I can trust the woman, I believe, and with so much the more confidence, that I doubt if any one on this side the Channel has the key to our cipher. So far, you observe, I have provided for all contingencies; and now, my goodFlorian, what haveyoudone? You tell me you have failed with his confidential servant.”
“What, Slap-Jack!” answered Florian, and the name brought Alice’s heart to her mouth as the two priests again approached her hiding-place. “Impossible! I tell you he is as true as steel. Why, he sailed with us in the brigantine. We were all like brothers. Ah, Malletort, you cannot understand these things!”
“I can understand any scruple, any superstition, any weakness of humanity, for I see examples every day,” replied the Abbé, “but I cannot andwillnot understand that such imaginary obstacles are insurmountable. Bah! You havecarte blanchein promises, you have even a round sum to draw upon in hard cash. Will you tell me that man’s honesty or woman’s virtue is not to be bought if you bid high enough? The whole business is simply a game ofbouillote. Not the best card, nor even the deepest purse, but the boldest player sweeps the stakes. Florian, I fear you have done but little in all these long weeks; that was why, at great risk, I sent you a note, begging an interview, that I might urge on you the importance of despatch.”
“It was a risk,” observed Florian. “The note was brought by Sir George himself.”
Malletort laughed. “He carried his fate without knowing it,” commented the Abbé. “After all, it is the destiny of mankind. Every one of us bears about with him the germ of that which shall some day prove his destruction. I don’t know that one’s step is the heavier till palsy has begun to tingle, or one’s appetite the worse till digestion already fails. Come, Florian, the plot is nearly ripe now, and there is little more time to lose. We must have Sir George in it up to his neck. He carries this district with him, and I am then sure of all the country north of the Trent. You have impressed on him, I trust, that it is an earldom to begin with, if we win?”
“And if we lose?” asked the other wistfully.
Malletort smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, making, at the same time, a significant gesture with his hand under his ear.
“A leap from a ladder would finish it,” he remarkedabruptly. “For that matter we are all in the same boat. If a plank starts, it is simply,Bon soir la compagnie!”
Florian could control himself no longer. “Are you a man?” he burst out. “A man? Are you anything less devilish than the arch-fiend himself, to bid me take part in such a scheme? And what a part! To lure my only friend, my comrade, whose bread has fed me in want, whose hand has kept me in danger, down, down, step by step, to crime, ruin, and a shameful death. What am I? What have I done, that you should ask me to join in such a plot as this?”
“What youare, is a novice of the Society of Jesus,” answered Malletort coldly, “degraded to that rank for what you havedone, which I need hardly remind you. Florian, it is well that you have to deal with me, who am a man of the world no less than a priest, instead of some stern provincial who would report your disobedience to the Order, even before he referred you to its statutes. Look your task firmly in the face. What is it? To make your friend, the man for whom you profess this ludicrous attachment, one of the first subjects in England. To raise his charming wife—they tell me she has grown more charming than ever—to a station for which she is eminently fitted; and all this at a certain risk of course, but what risk?—that the best organised movement Europe has seen for a hundred years, should fail at the moment of success, and that Sir George should be selected for a victim, amongst a score of names nobler, richer, more obnoxious to the Government than his own. And even then. If worst came to worst, what would be Lady Hamilton’s position? An heiress in her own right, a widow further enriched by marriage, beautiful, unencumbered, and free. I cannot see why you should hesitate a moment.”
Florian groaned. “Have mercy on me!” he muttered hoarsely, writhing his hands in despair. “Can you not spare me this one trial, remit this one penance? Send me anywhere—Tartary, Morocco, Japan. Let me starve in a desert, pine in a dungeon, suffer martyrdom at the stake; anything but this, and I submit myself cheerfully, willingly, nay, thankfully. Malletort, youmusthave a human heart. You are talented, respected, powerful. You have influencewith the Order. You have known me since I was a boy. For the love of Heaven have pity on me, and spare me this!”
The Abbé was not one of those abnormal specimens of humanity who take pleasure in the sufferings of their fellow-creatures. It could not be said of him that his heart was cruel or malicious. He had simply no heart at all. But it was a peculiarity he shared with many governing spirits, that he grew cooler and cooler in proportion to the agitation with which he came in contact. He took a pinch of snuff, pausing for the refreshment of a sneeze before he replied:
“And with the next report I furnish to the Order send in your refusal to obey? Your refusal, Florian; you know what that means? Well, be it so. The promotion to a coadjutor’s rank is revoked, the former novice is recalled, and returns to St. Omer at once, where I will not enlarge on his reception. Riding post to the seaboard he meets another traveller, young, handsome, well provided, and unscrupulous, hurrying northward on a mission which seems to afford him considerable satisfaction. It is Brother Jerome, we will say, or Brother Boniface! the one known in the world as Beauty Adolphe of the King’s Musketeers, the other as Count Victor de Rosny, whose boast it is that love and credit are universally forced on him, though he has never paid a tradesman nor kept faith with a woman in his life. Either of these would be an agreeable addition to the family party up there on the hill. Either would labour hard to obtain influence over Sir George, and do his best or worst to be agreeable to Lady Hamilton. Shall I forward your refusal by to-morrow’s courier, Florian, or will you think better of it, and at least take a night to consider the subject in all its bearings?”
Florian pondered, passed his hand across his brow, and looked wildly in his adviser’s face.
“Not a moment!” said he, “not a moment! I was wrong—I was impatient—I was a fool—I was wicked,mea culpa, mea culpa. What am I that I should oppose the will of the Order—that I should hesitate in anything they think fit to command? What is a Jesuit priest, what isanyone, after all, but a leaf blown before the wind—abubble floating down the stream? There is no free agency—Destiny rules the game. The Moslem is not far wrong when he refuses to stir out of the destroyer’s way, and says, ‘It is ordained!’ I am wiser now—I seem to have woke up from a dream. What is it you would have me do? Am I to put poison in his wine, or cut Sir George’s throat to-night when he is asleep? You have only to say the word—are you not my superior? Am I not a Jesuit? I must obey!”
Alice, still crouching behind the close-cut hedge, might well be alarmed at the scraps she overheard of such a dialogue as this. Malletort, on the contrary, watched his junior with the well-satisfied air of a cook who perceives the dish on which his skill is concentrated bubbling satisfactory towards projection. He allowed the young man’s emotion to exhaust itself ere he plied him again with argument, and knowing that all strong feelings have their ebb and flow like the tide, trusted to find him more malleable than ever after his late outbreak.
It was difficult to explain to Florian that his superiors desired him to make love to Lady Hamilton, in order that he might bring her husband into their hands; and the task was only rendered the more delicate by the young Jesuit’s hopeless yet sincere attachment to his hostess—an attachment which had in it the germ of ruin or salvation according to his own powers of self-control—such an attachment as the good call a trial and the weak a fatality.
At times the Abbé almost wished he had selected some less scrupulous novice for the execution of this critical manœuvre—one like Brother Jerome or Brother Boniface, who would have disposed himself to it with all the relish and good-will of those who resume a favourite occupation which circumstances have obliged them, for a time, to forego. Such tools would have been easier to manipulate; but perhaps, he reflected, their execution would not be so effectual and complete. The steel was dangerously flexible and elastic, but then it was of the truest and finest temper forged. He flattered himself it was now in the hands of a workman.
“Let us talk matters over like men of the world my dear Florian,” said the Abbé, after they had made twoturns of the walk in silence, approaching within a foot of Alice while he spoke. “We are neither of us boys, but men playing a game atbouillote,ombre,picquet, what you will, and holding nearly all the winning cards in our hands. You are willing, I think, to believe I am your friend?”
Florian shuddered, but nodded assent.
“Well, then, as friends,” continued the Abbé, “let there be no concealment between us. I have already gone over the details of our programme. I need not recapitulate the plan of the campaign, nor, to a man of intelligence like yourself, need I insist on the obvious certainty of success. All dispositions of troops and such minor matters are left to our commanders, and they number some of the first soldiers of the age. With such affairs we need not meddle. Intellect confines itself to intrigue, and leaves hard knocks to the hard-fisted, hard-headed fools whose business it is to give and take them. I have been busy since I came here—busier almost than you could believe. I have made acquaintance with —, and —, and —.”
Here the Abbé sank his voice to a cautious whisper, so that Alice, straining her ears to listen, could not catch the names he enumerated.
“Although they seemed lukewarm at first, and are esteemed loyal subjects of King George, they are ripe for a restoration now. By the by with these people never forget to call it a Restoration. Nothing affects an Englishman so strongly as a phrase, if it be old enough. I have seen a red-nosed squire of to-day fidget uneasily in his chair, and get quite hot and angry if you mentioned the Warrant of the Parliament; call it the law of the land and he submits without a murmur. They eat beef, these islanders, and they drink ale, muddy ale, so thick, my dear Florian, you might cut it with a knife. Perhaps that is what makes them so stupid. It is hard work to drive an idea into their heads; but when once there, it must be admitted, you cannot eradicate it. If they are the most obstinate of opponents, they are also the staunchest of partisans. Well, I have a score of names here in my pocket—men who have pledged themselves to go through with us, even if it comes to cold steel, sequestration—ay, hanging for high treason!Not a man of them will flinch. I can undertake to say so much; and this, you observe, my dear Florian, would greatly facilitateourescape in the event of a failure. But in the entire list I have none fit to be a leader—none whose experience would warrant him in taking command of the others, or whose adventurous spirit would urge him to assume such authority. Sir George Hamilton is the very man I require. He is bold, reckless, ambitious, not entirely without brains, and has been a soldier of France. Florian, wemusthave him at the head of the movement. It is your duty to put him there.”
Florian bowed submissively.
“I can only persuade,” said he; “but you do not know your man as well as I do. Nothing will induce Sir George so much as to have a horse saddled until he can see for himself that there is a reasonable prospect of success. I have heard him say a hundred times, ‘Never show your teeth till your guns are shotted;’ and he has acted up to his maxim, ever since I have known him, in all the relations of life. It is, perhaps, presumptuous in me to advise one of your experience and abilities, but I warn you to be careful in this instance. On every account I am most anxious that our undertaking should not miscarry. I am pledged to you myself, but, believe me, I must have something more than empty assurances to enlist my friend.”
“Quite right,” answered the other, slapping him cheerfully on the shoulder; “quite right. A man who goes blindly into these matters seldom sees his way very clearly afterwards. But what would your friend have? We possess all the material of success, only waiting to be set in motion; and this I can prove to him in black and white. We have men, arms, artillery, ammunition, and money. This insurrection shall not fail, like some of its predecessors, for lack of the grease that keeps all human machinery in motion. A hundred thousand louis are ready at an hour’s notice, and another hundred thousand every week till the new coinage of James the Third is issued from the mint. Here, in the next province, in Lancashire, where the sun never shines, everyseigneur, squire—what are they called?—has mounted his dependents, grooms, falconers, huntsmen,tenants—all horsemen of the first force. Five thousand cavalry will be in the saddle at twenty-four hours’ notice. Several battalions of Irish soldiers, brave and well-disciplined as our own, are assembled on the coast of Normandy, waiting only the signal to embark. Our infantry have shoes and clothes; our cavalry are provided with farriers and accoutrements; our artillery, onthisoccasion, not without draught-horses and harness. Come to me to-morrow afternoon, and I will furnish you with a written statement of our resources for Sir George’s information. And, Florian, you believe honestly that he might be tempted to join us?”
The other was revolving a thousand probabilities in his mind.
“I will do my best,” he answered, absently.
“Then I will risk it,” replied Malletort. “You shall also have a list of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who have given their adhesion to their rightful sovereign. I have upstairs a manifesto, to which these loyal cavaliers have attached their signatures. I never trust a man by halves, Florian, just as I never trust a woman at all. Nothing venture, nothing have. That paper would hang us all, no doubt; but I will confide it to you and take the risk. Yours shall be the credit of persuading Sir George to subscribe to it in his own hand.”
Florian assented, with a nod. Too much depressed to speak, he felt like some poor beast driven to the shambles, blundering on, dogged and stupefied, to its fate.
Malletort’s keen perceptions detected this despondency, and he endeavoured to cheer him up.
“At the new Court,” said he, “we shall probably behold our retired Musketeer commanding the Guards of his Sovereign, and carrying his gold baton on the steps of the throne. A peer, a favourite, a Councillor of State—what you will. His beautiful wife the admired and envied of the three kingdoms. They will owe their rank, their grandeur, their all, to Florian de St. Croix. Will not he—will not she be grateful? And Florian de St. Croix shall choose his own reward. Nothing the Church can offer will be esteemed too precious for such a servant. I am disinterested for once, since I shall return to France. InEngland, a man may exist; were it not for the climate he might even vegetate; but it is only in Paris that he can be said to live. Florian, it is a glorious prospect, and the road to fortune lies straight before us.”
“Through an enemy’s country,” replied the other, gravely. “Nothing shall persuade me but that the mass of the people are staunch to the Government.”
“The mass of the people!” repeated Malletort, contemptuously; “the mass of the people neither make revolutions nor oppose them. In point of fact they are the women and children who sit quietly at home. It is the highest and the lowest who are the discontented classes, and if you set these in motion, the one to lead in front, the other to push behind, why, the mass of the people, as you call them, may be driven whichever way you please, like a flock of sheep into a pen. Listen to those peasants singing over their liquor, and tell me if their barbarian ditties do not teach you which way the tide of feeling acts at present amongst the rabble?”
They stopped in their walk, and through the open window of the tap-room could hear Captain Bold’s treble quavering out a Jacobite ballad of the day, no less popular than nonsensical, as was attested by the stentorian chorus and wild jingling of glasses that accompanied it.
“We are done with sodden kale,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with sodden kale,Are we not?And the reptile in his mail,Though he tore with tooth and nail,We have got him by the tail,Have we not?“We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not? Will we not?We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not?With a whip to curl and crackRound the Hanoverian pack,And ’twill lend King George a smack,Will it not?“We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not?We will teach them ‘Please the pigs!’English tunes for foreign jigs,And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not? Will he not?And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not?”
“We are done with sodden kale,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with sodden kale,Are we not?And the reptile in his mail,Though he tore with tooth and nail,We have got him by the tail,Have we not?“We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not? Will we not?We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not?With a whip to curl and crackRound the Hanoverian pack,And ’twill lend King George a smack,Will it not?“We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not?We will teach them ‘Please the pigs!’English tunes for foreign jigs,And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not? Will he not?And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not?”
“We are done with sodden kale,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with sodden kale,Are we not?And the reptile in his mail,Though he tore with tooth and nail,We have got him by the tail,Have we not?
“We are done with sodden kale,
Are we not? Are we not?
We are done with sodden kale,
Are we not?
And the reptile in his mail,
Though he tore with tooth and nail,
We have got him by the tail,
Have we not?
“We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not? Will we not?We will bring the Stuart back,Will we not?With a whip to curl and crackRound the Hanoverian pack,And ’twill lend King George a smack,Will it not?
“We will bring the Stuart back,
Will we not? Will we not?
We will bring the Stuart back,
Will we not?
With a whip to curl and crack
Round the Hanoverian pack,
And ’twill lend King George a smack,
Will it not?
“We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not? Are we not?We are done with rebel rigs,Are we not?
“We are done with rebel rigs,
Are we not? Are we not?
We are done with rebel rigs,
Are we not?
We will teach them ‘Please the pigs!’English tunes for foreign jigs,And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not? Will he not?And the devil take the Whigs!Will he not?”
We will teach them ‘Please the pigs!’
English tunes for foreign jigs,
And the devil take the Whigs!
Will he not? Will he not?
And the devil take the Whigs!
Will he not?”
While the priests were thus occupied, Alice darting past them unobserved, took refuge in the house.