CHAPTER XXIVA VOLUNTEER
Beaudésir, by the wretched light of two tallow-candles, looked paler, thinner, more dejected, than even that pale, thin, anxious recruit who had joined the Grey Musketeers with so formidable a character as a master of defence some months before. No wonder. He was an enthusiast at heart, and an enthusiast can seldom withstand the pressure of continuous adversity. A temporary gleam of sunshine, indeed, warms him up to the highest pitch of energy, daring, and intellectual resource; nay, he will battle nobly against the fiercest storm so long as the winds blow, the thunder peals overhead, and less exalted spirits fly cowering to the nearest shelter; but it is in a bitter, bleak, protracted frost that he droops and fades away. Give him excitement, even the excitement of pain, and he becomes a hero. Put him to mere drudgery, though it be the honest drudgery of duty, and he almost ceases to be a man.
There is, nevertheless, something essentially elastic in the French character, which even in such a disposition as Beaudésir’s preserved him from giving way to utter despair. Though he might well be excused for repining, when thus compelled to gain his bread by teaching the landlord’s children to dance at a low pot-house, yet this young man’s natural temperament enabled him to take interest even in so unworthy an occupation, and he was jealous enough of their progress to resent that rude interruption he experienced from the parlour with a flash of the old spirit cherished in the King’s Musketeers.
Still he looked pale and wan, nor was it till George had forced on him a beaker of steaming punch that his eye recovered its brightness and the blood mantled once more in his clear sallow cheek.
“And you escaped them?” said the Captain, reverting to the fatal night of their affray in the Montmirail gardens. “Escaped them without a scratch! Well, it was ten to one against you, and I cursed the Duke with all my heart as I galloped on towards the coast when I thought of your predicament. Guard-room, court-martial, confession, and a firing party was the best I could wish you; for on the reverse of the card I pictured alettre de cachet, and imprisonment for life in Vincennes or the Bastile! But how did you get away? and above all, how did you elude the search afterwards?”
Eugène wet his lips with the hot punch, which he seemed to relish less than his more robust comrade, and looked distrustfully about him while he replied—
“I had little difficulty in extricating myself from the gardens, my Captain, for when I had disposed of Bras-de-Fer, there was norealswordsman left. The Musketeers fight well, no doubt; but they are yet far from true perfection in the art, and their practice is more like our fishermen’s cudgel-play than scientific fencing. I wounded two of them slightly, made a spring at the wall, and was in the street at the moment you entered the Prince-Marshal’s carriage. My difficulty then was, where to conceal myself. I do not know Paris thoroughly, to begin with, and I confess I shuddered at the idea of skulking for weeks in some squalid haunt of vice and misery. I think I had rather have been taken and shot down at once.”
“You would not have been safe even in dens like those,” interrupted the other. “Our Débonnaire is not so refined in his orgies but that I believe every garret in the Faubourgs is frequented by himself and hisroués. Bah! when we drew pay from Louis le Grand at least we served agentleman. The Jesuits would have been your best chance. Why did you not take refuge withthem?”
Eugène shuddered, and the pale face turned paler still, but he did not answer the question.
“When we used to hunt the hare in Normandy,” heresumed, “I have observed that, if hard pressed, she would return to her form, and often thus made her escape, whereas the wolf and the stag, flying straight away, were generally run down. Like the hare, then, I doubled back and lay hid in the very house where I habitually lodged. It was the first place they searched, but they never came near it again; and the second day an old comrade found me out, took me to his own home, and furnished me with a disguise.”
“An old comrade!” repeated the Captain. “Bravo!Ah! we had always plenty ofesprit de corpsin the Musketeers. It was Adolphe, I’ll wager a crown, or the young Count de Guiches, or Bellegarde!”
“None of these, my Captain,” explained Eugène. “It was no Musketeer; Black, Red, or Grey. When I said comrade, I meant an old college friend. It was an Abbé. I know not why I should keep it secret. Abbé Malletort.”
The Captain pondered. “Abbé Malletort!” said he. “That is more than strange. The Regent’s confidant; his chief adviser, men said; his principal favourite! He must have had some reason—some deep-laid scheme of double treachery. I know the man. A smooth-spoken churchman; a pleasant fellow to drink with, and a good judge of drill. But if it was his interest to betray the poor thing, I wouldn’t trust him with the life of a dog!”
“You little know him,” urged the other, eagerly. “Generous, kind, and secret—had it not been for his advice and his exertions I should never have got away alive. He kept me a fortnight in his apartment, till the heat of the pursuit was over and Paris had ceased to talk of our affray, which everybody believed an organised conspiracy of the Huguenots—of the Jansenists—of the young King’s party—of the British Government. What shall I say?—of the Great Mogul. I did not dare show myself, of course. I could only hear the news from my friend, and I saw him but seldom. I was forced to leave Paris at last without knowing how far the disturbance affected the ladies in whose grounds it took place. I tried hard to find out, but it was impossible.”
The Captain glanced sharply in his face, and took a strong gulp at the punch. Eugène continued:—
“I got through the barrier with an Italian company of jugglers, disguised as a Pantaleone. It was not too amusing to be obliged to perform antics for the amusement of the Guard, fortunately they were of the Prince de Condé’s regiment, which had just marched into Paris. But the mountebanks were good people, kindly, and perfectly trustworthy. They were polite enough to say that I might make an excellent livelihood if I would but take in earnest to the business. I left them at Rouen, and from that place reached the seaboard on foot. My object was to take refuge in England. Here alone I felt I should be safe for a time, and when the storm should blow over I hoped to return again. I little knew what a climate it is! what a country! what people! They are somewhat better when you are used to them, and I own I accustom myself more easily than I could have believed to their beef, their beer, their barbarous language, and their utter want of politeness. But they have been kind to me, these rough islanders. It was an English fishing-boat that landed me from Havre, and the fisherman made me stay a week in his house for nothing because he discovered accidentally that I had exhausted my purse to pay for my passage. Since then, my Captain, I have supported myself by teaching these awkward English to dance. It is a noble exercise after all, were they not so stiff, so ungraceful! And yet my pupils make progress! These children above stairs have already begun the minuet. Egotist that I am! Tell me, my Captain, how you too come to find yourself in this miserable town, without gardens, without barriers, without barracks, withoutHôtel de Ville, without a church, even without an opera!”
The Captain smiled. “You have a good right to ask,” said he, “since, but for you, I should not have been here at this moment. When I drew on the Regent that night, as I would have drawn on the young King himself had I seen him guilty of such an outrage, I was, as you know, surrounded and attacked by an escort of my own men. I tell you, Beaudésir, I never expected to leave the gardens alive, and I do not believe there is another fencer in France who could have helped me out of so awkward a scrape. I was sorry to see our old Bras-de-Fer go down, I admit; but what would you have? When it’s give and take,thrust and parry, ten against two, one cannot stand on these little delicacies of feeling. As I vanished through the garden-gate I looked for you everywhere, but there was no time to lose, and I thought we could escape more easily separate than in company. I knew you were neither down nor taken, because there was no shout of triumph from the men to announce the fact. The Prince du Chateau-Guerrand, my old general, was standing at the door of his coach when I gained the street. How he came there I am at a loss to guess, for you may believe I asked no questions; but that you and he should have dropped from the clouds at the Hôtel Montmirail, in the moment of my need, is one of those happy strokes of accident by which battles are won, and which we call fortune of war. I thought him a martinet when I was on his staff, with his everlasting parades, and reports, and correspondence, to say nothing of his interminable stories about Turenne, but I always knew his heart was in the right place. ‘Jump in!’ said he, catching me by the arm. ‘Drive those English horses to death, and take the coach where you will!’ In five minutes we were out of Paris, and half a league off on our way to the coast.
“I hope the English horses may have survived the journey, but they brought me to my first relay as fast as ever I went in the saddle, and I knew that with half an hour’s start of everything I was safe. Who was to question a Captain of King’s Musketeers riding post for England on the Regent’s business? The relays were even so good that I had time to stop and breakfast comfortably, at leisure, and to feed my horse, half-way through the longest stage.
“I had little delay when I reached the Channel. The wind was easterly, and before my horse had done shaking himself on the quay, an honest fellow had put his two sons, a spare oar, and a keg of brandy, on board a shallop about as weatherly as an egg-shell, hoisted a sail the size of a pocket-handkerchief, and stood out manfully with a following wind and an ebb tide. I know the Channel well, and I was as sure as he must have been that the wind would change when the tide turned, and we should be beating about, perhaps in a stiffish breeze, all night. It was notfor me to baulk him, however, and I only stipulated for a loaf or two of bread and a beaker of water in the bows. I tell you before they led my horse to the stable, we were a cable’s length off shore.
“A fair wind, Eugène, does not always make a short voyage. At sundown it fell to a dead calm. The lads and the old man, and I, who speak to you, took our turns, and pulled like galley-slaves at the oars. With the moon-rise, a light breeze came up from the south-west, and it freshened by degrees till at midnight it was blowing half a gale. The egg-shell behaved nobly, and swam like a duck, but it took all the old man’s time to steer her, and the sons said as manyAvesbefore dawn as would have lasted a whole convent for a month.
“At one time I feared we must put her head about, and run for it, on the chance of making Ambleteuse, or even Calais, but the old fellow who owned her had a conscience, and to give him his due he was a first-rate sailor. The wind moderated at sunrise, drawing round by the south, and at noon we had made Beachy Head, when it fell a dead calm, with a ground swell that was no child’s play when we laid out on our oars. By dint of hard pulling we ran her ashore on the English coast about sundown, and my friend put off again with his two sons, none the worse for the voyage, and all the better for some twenty gold pieces with which I paid my passage. He deserved it, for he earned it fairly. She was but an egg-shell, as I said before, but she swam like a duck; it’s only fair to allow that.”
“And now, my Captain,” asked Beaudésir, looking round the strangely-furnished apartment, “you are living here? you are settled? you are a householder? Are you reconciled to spend your life in this dirty little town, ill-paved, ill-lighted, smelling of salt water and tar, where it always rains, and they bring you nothing to drink but black beer and hot punch?”
Captain George laughed heartily. “Not such a bad thing that hot punch,” said he, “when you can get neither Chambertin, Burgundy, nor Bourdeaux. But I understand you nevertheless, comrade. It is not likely that a man who has served Louis le Grand in the Musketeers would becontent to vegetate here like a wisp of seaweed left at high-water mark. It was lucky I met you to-night. In twenty-four hours, at most, I hope to be off the Needles if the wind holds.”
Beaudésir looked interrogatively at the pile of accounts on the table.
“You have turned trader, my Captain?” said he. “You will make a fortune in two voyages. At College they pretended I had some skill in reading characters. You have luck written on your forehead. I wish I was going with you, were it only as a clerk.”
Captain George pondered for a while before he answered, nay, he filled and emptied his glass, took two or three turns in the narrow apartment, which admitted indeed but of what sailors called “a fisherman’s walk—two steps and overboard,” and finally, pulling back the shutter, pointed to the light in the foretop of his brigantine.
“You won’t catch me afloat again,” said he, “in a craft like a walnut-shell, with a scrap of paper for a sail. No, no. There she rides, my lad, the lady that would take me round the world, and never wet a stitch on my back from head to heel. Why, close-hauled, in a stiff breeze, there’s not a King’s cutter in the Channel can hold her own with her; and off a wind, she’d have the whole fleet hull-down in six hours, making such good weather of it, too, all the while! I wish you could see her by daylight, with her straight run, and her raking masts, and bran new spars, and a fresh lick of paint I gave her in dock before we came round. She looks as trim as a pincushion, and as saucy as a dancing-girl. She carries a few popguns too, in case of accidents; and when she shows her teeth, she means to bite, you may take your oath! I’ll tell you what, Eugène, you must come on board to-morrow before I weigh. I should like to show you over ‘The Bashful Maid’ myself, and I hope to get my anchor up and shake out my foretopsail with the afternoon tide.”
Landsman, Frenchman, though he was, Beaudésir’s eyes kindled, and he caught his friend’s enthusiasm like wildfire.
“I would give my right arm to be going with you,” said he. “Excitement, adventure, storms, seamanship, and allthe wonders of the tropics! While for me, muddy beer, gloomy fogs, dirty streets, and clumsy English children learning to dance! Well! every man to his trade. Here’s a good voyage to you and my best wishes!”
Again he wet his lips with the punch, now grown cold and sticky in his glass. Captain George was so preoccupied, he forgot to acknowledge the courtesy.
“Can you keep accounts?” he asked abruptly, pointing to the papers on the table.
“Any schoolboy might keep such as these,” answered Eugène, running his eye over one of the columns, and adding, as he examined it, “Nevertheless, my Captain, here is an error that will falsify the whole sum.”
He pointed to a mistake in the numerals that had repeatedly escaped the other’s observation, and from which much of his labour had arisen. In a few minutes, he had gone through, and corrected as many pages of calculation. The figures came right now, as if by magic. Captain George had found what he wanted.
“Where did you learn all this?” he inquired in astonishment.
“At Avranches, in Normandy,” was the answer.
“Where they taught you to fence?”
“Precisely; and to shoot with musquetoon or pistol. I can pick the ace of diamonds off a card at fifteen paces with either weapon.”
He spoke modestly, as he always did of his proficiency in such feats of skill. They came so easily to him.
“Will you sail with me?” asked George frankly. “You can help me with my papers, and earn your share of the plun—I should say of the profits. No, my friend! you shall not leap blindfold. Listen. I have letters of marque in my cabin, and I mean them to hold good whether peace be proclaimed or not. It may be, we shall fight with a rope round our necks. The gains are heavy, but the risk is great.”
“I never count risk!” was the reply.
“Then finish the punch!” said Captain George; and thus the bargain was ratified, which added yet one more to therôleof characters Beaudésir was destined to enact on the stage of life.