If you stand outside the old fortifications of the town of Toul and look eastward toward the German peoples, you see a long even line of hills, very high but not quite mountainous; they end in a sharp dip, and rise again, and terminate in an isolated summit which, like so many of the striking conical peaks of Europe, is dedicated to St. Michael.
These heights, like all the crests which surround the basin of that entrenched camp, are fortified, both with complete works and with connecting trenches and batteries; save in the gap between the isolated hill and the ridge I have mentioned the guns are everywhere. In this gap, in the hollow of it and upon the hillside, is a little village which, like all the villages on the actual line of the encircling forts, is wholly dominated by the soldiery; these furnish it with all its trade, these give it its few adventures and its manner of life. The peasants are woken summer and winter by the sound of bugles; the heavy firing of practice is a usual thing to them; a profitable commerce with a garrison twice as numerous as the civil population enriches those who work upon their land.
In this village there lived one of those families which are poor in a country of free men through their own fault; they had land, of course; no rent was asked of them; they were in a community which had now for many ages administered itself, and had for more than a hundred years forgotten the oppression of a territorial class. Nevertheless, by some vice of temperament, they lived like slatterns, and if they cultivated at all some tiny patch of their ruined and weedy holding, it was but just so much as would keep their souls within their bodies, and they preferred chance begging and barefoot jobs at the railway-station or in the streets of the town. Their house was more a cave than a hut; it was dug out of the hillside, with beaten earth walls, save where the front portion of it jutted out, and was roofed with old bits of corrugated iron borrowed or stolen from the sappers. These were supported by a jumble of ramshackle wood, old railway-sleepers, and here and there were gaps stopped roughly with canvas.
In such a place, surrounded by brothers and sisters of all ages, and the only houseworker to a drunken and worthless mother, lived, by accident, one of those women who have such great power in this world. Her ugliness was singular; it had nothing to do with that power save perhaps to enhance it. Her hair, which was sparse and crisp, was of a bright, unpleasing red, harsh and offensive; her eyes were green and stood very far apart in her head;her mouth was large and very decided and firm. It is not by any recapitulation of her features (though any one who had once seen them would always remember them) that one can give the impression of her power. This rather proceeded from a gesture, a manner, and a whole being which was the continual outer manifestation of a certain kind of soul. There was strength in all her gestures, an upstanding challenge in the poise of her body whether she worked or walked, and a sort of creative handling of things whenever she grasped them which at once arrested the attention of a man. Her excessive poverty and the gross carelessness of her surroundings, by contrast greatly enhanced these things.
The young soldiers cared very little for mysteries; their religion was indifferent to them, their knowledge of the perils and of the adventures of the soul was less than that of children; for those who might have guessed at the mysterious things which everywhere surround our existence, even at twenty-one, had such imaginings drowned and purged out of them by continual labour in the open air, by hours of grooming and of riding, by the deep and glorious fatigue of such a life, by sleep in the night, by hunger and by fellowship. Nevertheless, among the more leisured, that is, among the non-commissioned officers, there was one man who fell under the spell. He was handsome, unintelligent, lacking in judgment, and perhaps twenty-five years of age. His father was a large farmer to the north of Rheims;he had a very fair allowance from home; he was regular and did his service well; he was, so far as the non-commissioned ranks can be in any army, popular with the men. This fellow felt the spell. He felt it neither deeply nor violently, for his nature was one on which the great emotions could have no play; but he would seek such duties as brought him to the village, he would intrigue to be sent upon any inspection of the reserve forces or with provisions up into the forts, or upon any other business which would give him for a few moments a chance of seeing her at the door of that miserable hovel, and of exchanging half-a-dozen words from the saddle. His leave he would often spend in the inn of that village, some said in her company (but I doubt if this were true); he would have taken her once into Nancy to see some public show or other, but she would not go.
Between the end of winter and the start for camp, the thing had become as much a habit to him as his own name, and by a sort of code which the regiment observed, his habit was respected and passed by; indeed, to have become so immeshed regarded no one but himself, and the singular net that had been thrown over him was not one which others envied. But there was one who envied him.
When he had been Vaguemestre, that is, the sergeant deputed to fetch the letters of the regiment, and often also when he had gone out to note the condition of the reserve horses or upon anyother message, he had taken with him one of the two-year men, a Belgian who had crossed the frontier to find work in his teens, and was not ill content to have been caught by the conscription, for he was utterly destitute and knew neither father nor mother. This man was dark, short and broad; he was kindly in temper and, one would have said, an animal for stupidity. He was possessed of great physical strength; he was a faithful servant and follower where he was employed. And his Sergeant who thus favoured him would often see to it that his service should be lightened in one way or another, and made his life more easy to him than it was to the other drivers of the battery. He was popular, every one helped him, he had done harm to no one, he was always willing. He very rarely spoke, amid all that voluble clatter of young men, and when he did, it was to crack some simple peasant joke or to repeat some old tag of a proverb.
But one day the head of the room who happened to have no stripes and was no more than an older soldier, or, as it was called in that service, "an ancient," found him sitting on his bed and crying. The lout was crying in a gentle but despairing sort of way. The ancient was a rough man, a miner and rather brutal. He would have none of it. And just as he was making things rough for the Belgian, the Sergeant's voice came down the wooden corridors calling him to saddle the two beasts: and all the Belgian did was to refuse. It was a quite unheard-ofthing. There was no elasticity in the service; and if any one in authority said "Do this," to say "I will not," or even to be slow in obedience, was as grave, or rather as unknown, as is a crime of violence among wealthy men.
Now the Sergeant, with more womanliness and discernment than one would have thought any one could have shown in such a place, made no noise about it, but came in to see what miracle had happened. He saw the lad sitting there upon his bed with his coarse face full of despair, and he did not in the least understand what could have happened. The eyes of the lad were as full of wonder and of terror and of hopelessness as though he had seen some full tragedy of human life. The Sergeant shrugged his shoulders and let him be, and to save his being worried sent him off upon an easy job until he should come round. Then taking another man to saddle the two horses and to accompany him, he went off upon his usual round towards the hills, upon some official errand or other which he had managed to secure. But when he got there he found in the village, without leave, and having run and panted through the newly ploughed fields, this Belgian fellow, looking like an angry dog, sullen, and with new tears in his eyes, standing outside the door of the hovel.
He ordered him back; he rode his horse after him as the Belgian obeyed, and began trudging suddenly away, and said that he would not report it, but thatit was a piece of madness, and that if that sort of thing went on it ended in Africa.
The Belgian said nothing, but plodded off, his enormous strength apparent in every step; and apparent also in the set of his neck and shoulders, and the bending of his head, something of doom. When he got back to quarters he got a ball cartridge from the workroom—no one knows how—he put it in one of the gunner's carbines, which he took from the rack—he had never handled such a weapon before—pulled off the boot from his sockless right foot, put the barrel of the thing in his mouth, and with his toe pressed down the trigger. In this way he killed himself.
I have told the thing exactly as it happened. Then many of the young men first knew that our lives are not wholly of our own ordering, or, to put it better, learned that to ride one's destiny needs in the soul of a man a training, a quickness and a constancy like that which, in the body, helps a man to ride a strong horse and to control him.
It was with great astonishment combined with a sense of misfortune that I discovered the other day in a garret off the King's road in Chelsea a poor hack formerly of my acquaintance, who in his endeavour to keep body and soul together had formerly been distinguished or rather ridiculous among journalists by his excursions into every conceivable subject and his preparedness to write any sort of books that a publisher might order of him.
When I found him after these many years he was lying in the last stages of some disease the name of which I forget but which anyhow was mortal; and it was the character in the disease which most affected him—to its scientific appellation he was indifferent.
He confessed to me that he had long had it on his conscience that in a work of his now long forgotten he had promised the reader to tell a certain story, and that this promise had never been fulfilled.
"It is in the beginning of the book," he whispered feebly as his dying eyes were turned towards the four chimneys of the electrical works, "that Ipromised to tell the story—nay, two stories; I promised to tell the story of The Hungry Student, and also the story of the Brigand of Radicofani. Both these stories weigh heavily upon my conscience. I have promised," he continued in a nervous manner which was tragically affecting, "and I have not redeemed my promise. Readers of mine may have died, still wondering what the truth may be. I beg you, therefore, to take this manuscript" (and he motioned with his wasted hand to some sheets of paper by the side of his bed) "and to give it to the world. At once," he said with the haste and fever of a dying man, "to-morrow you shall come and I will give you the second manuscript concerning the Brigand of Radicofani." ("Both," he moaned, "I took from the writings of others.") "And then I can die in peace."
I took the manuscript and left him, and to fulfil his last wishes I publish it here.
* * * * * *
A student in the University of Paris had the misfortune to be wholly deprived of money in any form, and such credit as he had once enjoyed was also entirely exhausted. It was now thirty-six hours since he had eaten any memorable meal, and during that long period of time he had tasted no more than one roasted potato, a pennyworth of chestnuts, a cup of coffee, and a little bread which he had kept in his pocket from the day before yesterday, and which was therefore of a hard and ungracious sort. Even that had been consumed in the small hours of the morning,and he sat upon a stone bench in the evening of the day about fifty yards from the Odéon Theatre, carefully considering what course he should pursue, and determining, if it were necessary, to thieve; for hunger had got him where hunger gets us all—which is not, as too many assert, in the stomach, but in the throat and palate and brain.
As he there sat he thought of delicious things; not of a mere filling, but of rare matters. He had longings. He remembered that beans, green beans, are better crisp than soft; and he thought of irrecoverable aubergines, and of what an onion was when it was well fried, and of larded chickens, and of great Touranian pears, and of the kind of wine called Chinon; he thought of all these things. But there is this quality about hunger, that the imagination does not satisfy it in any degree at all, but stimulates it only, and he was tortured as he sat upon that bench. Remember that he had not any money at all. He even recalled as he there sat the excellent taste of fresh bread and chocolate, and he was about to get up and walk off the memory of such things when a confused and growing rumour coming up the steep street round the corner broke upon him. It was the noise of many young men. It was almost military in its character, though it had no precision, for one felt in it the advance of numbers. It swelled with every moment, and at last there swung round the corner and up towards his bench a considerable body of students who were walking rapidly, excitedly,and happily, gesticulating freely and telling each other good news, while a very powerful and loud-voiced young man led them on. He could hear snatches of what was said by this company. One was crying: "It is surely the best cooking in the world!" Another, "I care nothing for the cooking, but what wine!" Two others were eagerly disputing whether the lark or the thrush were the better bird, and one was hoping that there would be a chaudfroid of nightingales. Some few sang songs, others in a sort of contented silence went forward eagerly; all evidently had before them some great goal.
As the Herd swept by him a lean young man with black hair just stooped in passing the Hungry Student and whispered: "Would you like to eat to-night?" He whispered back "Yes." "Then," said the first, whose eyes burned like coals, "up you get and follow, and hold your tongue until you learn the tricks of the rest."
So the Hungry Student rose up at once and went forward, mingling with the rest; and still their robust leader plunged through the streets before them like a captain bringing on a young army of saviours into an oppressed land. Now and then this captain would turn round and walk backward like a bandmaster or a drum major, shouting out good news of food to come and of the wine that has been pressed in Paradise.
So they went until they came to the Boulevard,which they crossed, one of them fighting with a policeman on the way. The band plunged into the narrower streets, and came at last to a little open square where was a restaurant with a balcony upon the first floor, and upon that balcony an awning. The name written above the restaurant was this: "The Widow Bertrand—a house founded in 1837." They all trooped in.
Upon the balcony a table was spread; there were other tables in the room with which the balcony communicated. At these some few and rather diffident guests had sat down; but the large table was reserved for the Herd. They took their places noisily, and falling upon a few little sardines and one or two stale strips of sausage they began loudly exclaiming upon every side at the excellence of the fare.
The Hungry Student said nothing, though he wondered much, but seizing an enormous piece of bread he ate it all up with the rapidity of a storm, and heard round him as he did so ceaseless exclamations of enthusiastic surprise. The wine was very thin and sour—but the wine of students is always so. What astonished him was to see a curly-headed fellow, very Northern in type, suddenly jump up and shout, so that all the street below could hear—
"Upon my word this is amazing! Send for Gaston!"
Gaston, a very weary waiter, came.
"Gaston," said the Northerner, "I really must know where the Widow gets this wine!"
The whole chorus of them shouted together: "Yes, Gaston, you must tell us where she gets this wine!"
Gaston murmured something which the Hungry Student did not hear.
"Oh, do not be afraid," shouted the Northerner, "we will not give the secret away. But what wine!" he added, turning round to his companions, who applauded with their hands. "We will get it through the Widow. She shall provide it to us. A wine like this is not to be missed." And he took the miserable stuff and sipped it slowly from his glass, cocking one eye up wisely towards the ceiling like a knowing fellow.
There followed bad soup, bad fish, bad meat, bad vegetables, and bad roast. But the Hungry Student was not particular, and he fed. Lord! how heartily he fed! He fed so heartily that he got into that mood when a man thinks he will never be hungry again. He ate great quantities of cheese, which alone of all the courses was served them with some liberality. He drank their coffee, and the whole host rose to go. He was still in a profound mystery.
An elderly woman, whose face betrayed keen avarice overspread with conventional courtesy, bade them good-night as they left her establishment. They cheered her, and the leader of the band kissed her warmly upon both cheeks. Then they went out, turned into the Rue Cujas, and quite suddenly their enthusiasm wholly disappeared, and a council of warwas summoned. The powerful man, the leader, stood in their midst, gave the recommendation and took counsel with his peers.
"It is the last time!" he said grimly.
"Do you mean," said the dark-haired student who had first whispered to the Hungry Student as he passed, before the meal, "do you mean the Widow will not receive us again?"
"You are right," said the leader, in a solemn tone. "The bargain was for five nights; she has extended it to six. But it seems"—bitterly—"that we have done our work too well. There is no need of a seventh. Only yesterday the business was bought by a very foolish fellow from Auxerre."
"That," said a short fat young man, who had not yet spoken, "accounts for the intolerable wine."
The leader shrugged his shoulders, and said gloomily: "Friend, it was the same old wine, but from the bottom of the barrel."
"Then there is no meal for to-morrow," said a fourth man, anxiously, a red-headed, vague-eyed man who had gone in for Anarchism the year before, but was at that particular moment a Symbolist.
"Well," said the leader, "there is a meal for to-morrow. But the conditions are a little hard."
"Where is it to be? What is the rendezvous? What are those conditions?" cried several voices.
The strong leader obtained silence, and said: "I can tell you at once; Berteaux wants to sell hisplace by private treaty next week, and he will take us from to-morrow."
"For how many days?" broke in a silent man who had not yet spoken.
"A full week," said the leader.
"Well, that's good enough," said the dark man sullenly.
"Yes, but the point is," said the leader, "there is another offer: the new railway station wants to start a meal at a fixed price."
"It will be better cooking," said the red-haired Symbolist doubtfully.
"You are right," answered the leader, a little wearily, "but it is one of their conditions that one should eat at the absurd hour of half-past five, and hurry through the meal exclaiming all the while chance things about the express to Toulouse, and noting the rapidity of the service."
"I will never do that!" said the red-headed man firmly, amid murmurs of approval. "If I must eat their deathly stuff I will eat it, but I will not be hurried into the bargain; and half-past five is the hour for poisons, not for food. Absinthe is mine."
"No, Berteaux is the man," said the leader with a sigh. He put it to the vote, as is the fashion with the French. There was a large majority for Berteaux.
Next day that same enthusiastic whirl of youth went through other streets of the learned centre of Europe, their lips vivacious, their eyes aflame, togive Berteaux's business a selling value, and themselves to have food for nothing.
In this way was the Hungry Student filled.
* * * * * *
Next day, having sent in this manuscript that you have read, I called upon my poor friend to receive the Brigand of Radicofani; but you may imagine how shocked I was to hear that he was dead.
It is with the utmost pleasure that I am able to communicate to the English-speaking world a literary document of capital importance which my readers had only too great reason to mourn as lost. It will be remembered that my poor friend the Hack, recently deceased in the neighbourhood of the King's road, suffered in his last hours from the fear that the world might never receive his two masterpieces which he had so long promised them, "The Story of the Hungry Student" and "The Brigand of Radicofani." It will also be remembered that on reaching his humble lodgings after the publication of the first, I discovered him to be dead, and feared, therefore, that the second of these two classics would never be discovered. I am delighted to say that a Rag and Bottle Merchant and Dealer in Kitchen Stuff near The World's End (which is a landmark in that neighbourhood) has been found in possession of the precious paper, which by a providential accident is still legible, although it had been used to wrap up two boot-brushes and a second-handpot of blacking. Such coincidences are not unknown in the history of English Letters.
* * * * * *
A young Colonial journalist, full of a great determination to succeed in life, but insufficiently equipped for that ambition, had occasion to visit the country north of Rome in the year 1903. He had been sent by his proprietors to gather information upon the customs of the peasantry for a series of articles which they designed to publish; he had orders to photograph these natives with or without their leave, and to acquire such a knowledge of the local dialects as would permit him to converse with them.
With his numerous adventures in the extinct volcanoes of that district I need not detain you, nor tell you of how he was imprisoned in Ronciglione, fined by a magistrate in Viterbo, nor how he was soundly beaten by a drunken mason in the town of Bolsena, whose lovely lake he still remembers with associated feelings of admiration and regret. It is more to my purpose to retail how in each of these towns as he wandered northwards, and at every intervening house of call, he was perpetually reminded of the Brigand of Radicofani. Some, when he would ask them questions upon their local habits, would reply, "Oh, go and discuss it with the Brigand of Radicofani"; others, when he attempted to stammer his experiences of the road, would tell him that the Brigand would make a better audience than they. The magistrate who fined him at Viterbomade an allusion to the Brigand of Radicofani which he caught but ill, but which provoked, to his annoyance, considerable laughter in court. The policeman who locked him up in Ronciglione turned the key with an allusion to the same individual, and even the drunken mason in the very act of beating him in Bolsena bade him begone to the Brigand of Radicofani. As for Acquapendente, the town was full of rumours about this strange man, the children in the streets, who should have known better, took the young Colonial twice for the Brigand and followed him in chorus, calling him by that name; while a little brown man who was pushing a barrow assured him with great solemnity that he was taking its contents of private refreshment for the Brigand of Radicofani.
It may be imagined with what eagerness the journalist left the town next morning by the northern road and with what curiosity of attention he marked the little town of Radicofani perched upon its distant conical hill and glaring white under the hot morning. "There," said he to himself, as he laboriously panted up the last slope, "I shall find a character indeed worthy of so many pains, and discover something perhaps of permanent value for the history of this ancient land."
He seated himself in the principal room of the first inn he came to within the gate and boldly asked whether it were possible at that hour to interview the Brigand. The young woman who was themistress of the house looked at him for a moment in a sort of stupor, then bursting into wild cries not unmixed with laughter, she fled from him and left him for quite a quarter of an hour alone; she returned with a little crowd of Radicofanian burgesses who stood round, hats in hand, looking at him lugubriously. At last the oldest of them, a man with a noble head, handsome and grey, said to him solemnly—
"Do we understand, Excellence, that you desire to see the well-known Brigand of Radicofani?"
"That is so," replied the journalist manfully. "I am indeed sorry if my pursuit of such an audience seems impertinent, for I recognise the high position held by this gentleman in your community; and I am equally sorry if I have given you any trouble by my request. But as I am deputed by a foreign newspaper of high standing to discover what I can of the customs of an ancient land, I could hardly proceed onward to the notable town of Sienna and leave behind me uninterviewed the principal personage of your countryside."
"Not a word," said the grave leader of that band, "it is a pleasure to serve one who takes so flattering an interest in our poor affairs. If your Excellency will but wait a moment and read the local newspapers, one of which he will discover to be religious, the other of contrary tone, the Brigand shall shortly be introduced to you."
Heartened by this promise, the young journalistread with some care the leading articles of the greasy rags before him, and maintained his dignity and his apparent attention to the text in spite of occasional openings of the door accompanied by the giggling and elbowing of the curious who, in out-of-the-way places, infest a stranger.
At last the door opened wide before the sweeping gesture and the advancing stride of one accustomed to command, and the Brigand of Radicofani stood before the traveller.
His dress was picturesque in the extreme: he had on knee breeches ornamented with parti-coloured ribbons, his calves were swathed round with crisscross bands, a rustic pipe hung from his belt, which also sheathed four knives of different dimensions with variegated and curious carved handles. Aslant across these he wore a naked dagger quite eighteen inches long; a gloomy cloak depended from one shoulder; upon his head was a steeple-crowned hat, very tall and pointed, and adorned, like the rest of his person, with ribbons of gay hue. In either ear he wore an enormous ring of gold, and black ringlets which shone with some oily substance depended in profusion from either side of his head. This extraordinary figure was completed by a gigantic blunderbuss with a bore about the size of a duck gun and ending in a huge bell mouth quite nine inches across.
The Brigand (for it was he) startled the journalist by asking in a terrible voice what he wanted withhim, and bidding him be brief and to the point in his interrogations or demands. As he so spoke he tapped with his left hand the curious handle of his dagger, keeping his fist clenched upon his haunch and his right arm akimbo, while his left leg and foot were advanced in a martial and even in a threatening manner. The young Colonial, who was acquainted—by his reading—with many situations of danger, summoned all his firmness, begged the Brigand to share the wine which stood before him, and assured him that he had only disturbed his leisure in order to hear from the lips of one so justly prominent in the ancient and noble town of Radicofani memories of its great past intermingled, as he hoped, with records of the Brigand's individual career.
Mollified by such an address, the great man sank into the rickety chair opposite the journalist, assumed the attitude of the warrior at ease, and began with plentiful and dramatic gesture the recital of many things.
Brigandage, he assured his companion, was now by no means the trade it had been; he had himself taken to the road at the early age of fifteen, having been persuaded to that industry by an uncle of his, a Canon of Viterbo. "For in the old days" (he was careful to add) "this country was very easily administered, and the clergy in especial defended and encouraged the picturesque customs which such an ease of administration bred. Often after a hardnight upon the highway, or after some successful business in the brushwood above the city, I would make it my business to call upon my revered uncle to press upon him some trinket as a mark of my esteem, or if the day had been exceptionally lucky, some piece of foreign gold which a tourist (for they were even then numerous in these parts) might have left in my possession. The old man died," continued the Brigand with a sigh, "in the year '68, during the reign of the late Pope Pius IX, and it was perhaps as well, for great changes were impending which, had he lived to see them, would have broken his heart. For myself," the Brigand went on thoughtfully, "I am too much of a patriot to complain of the unification of my country, and I had some hopes on the establishment of a new government of obtaining a permanent situation under it which, as I was now approaching middle age, would be more consonant to my years than the precarious though active and healthy career I had hitherto pursued. For some moments in the year 1873 I hoped I might be appointed receiver of the taxes, a post for which my intimate knowledge of the whole countryside and my many connections with the farmers of the locality seemed singularly to fit me. A former chief of mine, for whom I had always preserved a reverent attachment, was very powerful in this department, and assured me that I might look for a regular post so soon as he was himself installed in the office of the Fisc at Orvieto. But there!" continued theBrigand, sighing, "loyalty and gratitude are sentiments soon dissipated in the atmosphere of politics, and though I had the pleasure of seeing my old chief installed as the head of his department, no such post as he had hinted at came my way. Meanwhile trade sank: artists, literary men, and poor fowl of that sort still thought it an eccentric and therefore a desirable thing to approach the Eternal City by road, and these I would not infrequently be at the pains of carrying off for ransom; but it was a dwindling and a most unsatisfactory trade. The wealthy took more and more to the railway; the new government at the Quirinal, after a certain amount of hesitation, definitely decided upon a policy inimical to our profession, if not actually hostile to it. My advancing years, and the various circumstances I have detailed, made the dear old life less and less possible, until one day" (here he sighed again profoundly) "in '93, just ten years ago, I was constrained to accept a situation as a model under an agency which provides such individuals for the entertainment of foreigners. I was already old (I am over seventy as you see me here and now), but I often think with bitterness as I poise upon one leg in an attitude of flight, or shield my eyes with my hands with a gesture that is very much applauded by the ladies who sketch me—I often think with bitterness, I say, as I adopt these various attitudes to order, of the days when I was known as the Lion of the Amiata, when my name was a terror from farbeyond the Tiber to the marshes that border the Mediterranean Sea."
The old man was silent, and the journalist, who had been busy taking notes, and was profoundly moved by the recital he had heard, asked the Brigand most deferentially and in a gentle tone whether these memories did not stir him to some particular story, and whether he could not recite before the stranger left some especially telling incident of his great past.
"Why," mused the vigorous old man, rising slowly from his chair, "I think I can reconstruct for you that famous occasion which the old wives still tell as a winter story, when I held up the Syndic of Montefiascone, and without the trouble of binding him to a tree nor of inflicting the slightest mutilation, I acquired for the purposes of my expenditure all that was movable upon his person. Come, let us reconstruct the scene." He put a heavy hand upon the young journalist's shoulder, looking round the room as he did so for a favourable stage upon which to order the drama.
The Colonial rose at the same time, and the Brigand, shaking his head, and growling like a monarch of the forest, muttered deeply: "No, no, this place is too small!"
With the moving of the chairs many had come into the little inn parlour and followed the pair out into the blazing market square, and the brigand led the now dubious journalist into that public place.Their appearance in the open was the signal for a great gathering; children ran from narrow alleys, market women rushed up with shrill voices, farmers engaged in bargaining left their sport for the superior attractions of the scene, and loud cries of "The Brigand is going to work—come and see the Brigand" were heard upon every side. The journalist maintained his dignity, and even allowed a faint smile to flicker upon his anxious lips as the Brigand, pacing the cobblestones of the market-place in a thoughtful manner, decided the spot where his companion should stand.
"Here," he said, stamping with his foot, "this was about the distance."
The journalist found himself alone, the crowd retired at some fifty yards; before him was the street leading northward out of the town towards Sienna; it was empty. He turned and saw facing him the large concourse of people recounting to each other the interest of the proceedings; and he further perceived that the Brigand, who stood a little in front of them all, was slowly disembarrassing his blunderbuss from the innumerable details of his costume.
"Thus," shouted the old giant in a terrible voice, "stood I. There where you are stood the Syndic. Come, look slightly away and upwards as though you did not perceive me, for such was the Syndic's attitude upon the occasion in question. Make as though you were walking leisurely, but do not actually take a step, for that would destroy thereconstruction of the scene which I am arranging for your entertainment."
With great deliberation the Brigand of Radicofani next proceeded to pour into the huge bell mouth of his blunderbuss a measure of gunpowder from a horn; next he rammed in a piece of the anticlerical newspaper with the rusty ramrod which he had with difficulty drawn from its rings; he replaced the ramrod, and as deliberately dropped into the mouth of his deadly instrument a number of large leaden slugs.
"Thus," said he as he made these preparations, "did I carefully load while the unsuspecting Syndic leisurely crossed before my line of fire."
As he said these words the Brigand slowly raised the blunderbuss to his shoulder, leaned his great body forward, and bent his head until an eye of extraordinary brilliance and power was gleaming down the top of the barrel. The concourse was now silent, and the journalist, with an admirable sense of what was required of him, adopted the attitude of a man walking at a leisurely pace, and acted to perfection the part of the Syndic.
"Halt!" roared the Brigand in startling and quite novel tones. The journalist instinctively started, and the Brigand bitterly added: "Must I fire, or will you spare me that expense by laying carefully upon the ground at your feet your watch, your purse, your rings, your pocket-book, and such valuables as you may have about you?"
The journalist with no little hesitation (for he found this too realistic) threw down a coin byway ofsimulacrum.
"He mocks me!" bellowed the Brigand, while all the crowd applauded. "He hesitates to obey (thus did I speak to the Syndic). Come, empty all your pockets and turn them inside out that I may see them."
The journalist, excusing his pride by the reflection that the whole thing was but a game, with some reluctance did as he was bid. There lay at his feet upon the market square of Radicofani a little heap of valuables, a quantity of private correspondence, a handkerchief and a note-book.
"Now," shouted the Brigand, still carefully aiming at the foreigner's head, "go! Go warily, and step backward if you choose, to assure yourself that I shall not lower my gun."
For some few steps the journalist so walked toward the northern gate, and step by step, keeping his distance, the immense old man pursued, while the crowd with subdued applause, encouraged his action, and with rising menaces bade the stranger not cross the Brigand's purpose, since upon these occasions he was terrible if he was thwarted. When he had nearly reached the limits of the town the unfortunate traveller began to protest that the joke should end. To his horror the reply which reached him, not from the Brigand alone but from many of his supporters, was given in tones of increasing sincerity, and heshuddered to see, or to think he saw, the pressure of the finger upon the trigger. He hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly he ran....
The northern road out of Radicofani is steep: its steepness aided his flight, and when he was well down toward the valley he heard (and that increased his determination) a loud report, and high over his head sung a covey of slugs. He neither looked back nor attempted to order his confused mind, but ran without ceasing until from sheer exhaustion he dropped at the roadside.
To his delight he saw two mounted policemen in splendid uniforms. He recounted his tale; they looked at him severely, and one of them, beckoning with his finger, said, "Follow us."
He followed them for miles and miles. Of how he was subsequently examined, disbelieved, threatened with fine and imprisonment, and at last escaped only by an appeal to his consul in Sienna, you may read in the interesting memoirs which he is about to publish under the title of "Etruscan Wine and Song."
Meanwhile in Radicofani the Brigand drinks and sings.
A man who prided himself very justly upon his uncompromising temper and love of truth had the misfortune the other night to wake at about three o'clock in the morning and to see the Devil standing by his bedside, who begged him that he (the Honest Man) should sell him (the Devil) his soul.
"I will do nothing of the kind," said the Honest Man in a mixture of sleepiness and alarm.
"Very well," said the Devil, quite obviously put out, "you shall go your own way; but I warn you, if you will have nothing to do with me I will have nothing to do with you!"
"I ask for nothing better," said the Honest Man, turning over on his right side to get to sleep again, "I desire to follow Truth in all her ways, and to have nothing more to do with you." With these words he began a sort of regular and mechanical breathing which warned the Devil that the interview was now at an end. The Devil, therefore, with a grunt, went out of the bedroom and shut the door smartly behind him, shaking all the furniture; whichwas a rude thing to do, but he was very much annoyed.
Next morning the Honest Man, before going out to business, dictated his letters as was his wont into a phonograph; this little instrument (which, by the way, had been invented by the Devil though he did not know it) is commonly used in the houses of the busy for the reception of dictated correspondence, comic verse, love sonnets, and so forth; and if the busy also live by their pen, the phonograph spares them the use of this instrument. The Honest Man of whom I speak had no such profession; he used the phonograph for his daily correspondence, which was enormous; he dictated his answers into it before leaving his private house, and during the forenoon his secretary would take down those answers by reversing the machine and putting it at a slower pace so that what it said could easily go down upon the typewriter.
At about half-past five the Honest Man came back from his business, and was met by his secretary in a very nervous fashion.
"I fear, sir," said the secretary, "that there must be some mistake about your correspondence. I have taken it down literally as was my duty, and certainly the voice sounded like yours, but the letters are hardly such as I would post without your first reading them. I have therefore forborne to sign them in your name, and have kept them to show you upon your return. Here they are. Pray, pray read themin seclusion, and advise me at the earliest moment." With these words the secretary handed the documents to his bewildered employer, and went out of the room with his eyes full of nervous tears.
The Honest Man put on a pair of gold spectacles, exchanged these for some gold pince-nez, hummed twice, then began to read. This is what he read—
IThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Lady Whernside,Yes, I will come to Whernside House next Thursday. I do not know you well, and I shall feel out of place among your friends, but I need not stop long. I think that to be seen at such a gathering, even for but a few moments, is of general advantage to my business; otherwise I should certainly not come. One thing I beg of you, which is that you will not ask me a number of private questions under the illusion that you are condescending. The habit is very offensive to me, and it is the chief drawback I feel in visiting your house. I may add that though I am of the middle classes, like your late father, I have a very pretty taste in furniture, and the inside of your house simply makes me sick.I am,Very faithfully yours,John Roe.
I
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Lady Whernside,
Yes, I will come to Whernside House next Thursday. I do not know you well, and I shall feel out of place among your friends, but I need not stop long. I think that to be seen at such a gathering, even for but a few moments, is of general advantage to my business; otherwise I should certainly not come. One thing I beg of you, which is that you will not ask me a number of private questions under the illusion that you are condescending. The habit is very offensive to me, and it is the chief drawback I feel in visiting your house. I may add that though I am of the middle classes, like your late father, I have a very pretty taste in furniture, and the inside of your house simply makes me sick.
I am,Very faithfully yours,John Roe.
IIThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Sir,No; I will not entertain your proposal to use the Imperial British Suction Apparatus upon my ships. It may be a very good apparatus, and it might possibly increase my profits by £2000 in the year, but the fact is that I am so well to do it is hardly worth my while to bother about these little things. The bother of arranging the new installation, and the risk that, after all, my men might not know how to use it, has decided me. I note what you say, that the French, the German, the Italian, the Russian, and the United States Governments have all bought your patent for use in their Navies; but it does not influence me one jot. What are they, after all, but foreigners? Besides which, it is my experience that somehow or other I muddle through, and I hate having to think.We are,Your obedient Servants,John Roe & Company.
II
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Sir,
No; I will not entertain your proposal to use the Imperial British Suction Apparatus upon my ships. It may be a very good apparatus, and it might possibly increase my profits by £2000 in the year, but the fact is that I am so well to do it is hardly worth my while to bother about these little things. The bother of arranging the new installation, and the risk that, after all, my men might not know how to use it, has decided me. I note what you say, that the French, the German, the Italian, the Russian, and the United States Governments have all bought your patent for use in their Navies; but it does not influence me one jot. What are they, after all, but foreigners? Besides which, it is my experience that somehow or other I muddle through, and I hate having to think.
We are,Your obedient Servants,John Roe & Company.
IIIThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Doctor Burton,I wish you would come round this afternoon or to-morrow morning and see my eldest child,James. There is nothing whatever the matter with him, but his mother is in a flurry, because some children with whom he went out to a party the other evening have developed mumps, and his voice is husky, which she idiotically believes to be a symptom of that disease. Your visit will cost me two guineas; but it is well worth my while to spend that sum if only to avoid her intolerable fussing. My advice to you as man to man is, to look at the child's tongue, give him some plain water by way of medicine, and go off again as quick as you can. Your fee will be the same in any case, and it is ridiculous to waste time over such business.I am,Your sincere friend,John Roe.
III
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Doctor Burton,
I wish you would come round this afternoon or to-morrow morning and see my eldest child,James. There is nothing whatever the matter with him, but his mother is in a flurry, because some children with whom he went out to a party the other evening have developed mumps, and his voice is husky, which she idiotically believes to be a symptom of that disease. Your visit will cost me two guineas; but it is well worth my while to spend that sum if only to avoid her intolerable fussing. My advice to you as man to man is, to look at the child's tongue, give him some plain water by way of medicine, and go off again as quick as you can. Your fee will be the same in any case, and it is ridiculous to waste time over such business.
I am,Your sincere friend,John Roe.
IVThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Doctor Mills,I enclose five guineas and a subscription for your new church. I confess that I do not clearly see what advantage this expenditure will do me, and I should have some hesitancy in setting down in black and white my reasons for sending you the money at all. Your style of preaching is monotonous, your doctrines (if they are really your doctrines) are particularly offensive to me; and after all we could get along perfectly well with the oldchurch. At bottom I think this kind of thing is a sort of blackmail; you know I cannot afford to have my name left out of your subscription list, and probably the same motive is causing many another sensible neighbour of mine to part most reluctantly with a portion of his property. Perhaps the best way out of it would be to form a sort of union and to strike all together against your exactions; but I cannot be at the pains of wasting any more time upon the matter, so here's your five guineas and be hanged to you!Very faithfully and respectfully yours,John Roe.
IV
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Doctor Mills,
I enclose five guineas and a subscription for your new church. I confess that I do not clearly see what advantage this expenditure will do me, and I should have some hesitancy in setting down in black and white my reasons for sending you the money at all. Your style of preaching is monotonous, your doctrines (if they are really your doctrines) are particularly offensive to me; and after all we could get along perfectly well with the oldchurch. At bottom I think this kind of thing is a sort of blackmail; you know I cannot afford to have my name left out of your subscription list, and probably the same motive is causing many another sensible neighbour of mine to part most reluctantly with a portion of his property. Perhaps the best way out of it would be to form a sort of union and to strike all together against your exactions; but I cannot be at the pains of wasting any more time upon the matter, so here's your five guineas and be hanged to you!
Very faithfully and respectfully yours,John Roe.
VThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Sir,I have received your estimate for the new conservatory; I have figured it out and undoubtedly you will lose upon the contract. I therefore accept it without reserve and beg you to begin work as soon as possible. I fully appreciate your motive in making so extraordinary a bargain: you know that I shall make further alterations to the house, and you hope by throwing away a sprat to catch a whale. Do not imagine that I shall be misled in this regard. The next alteration I haveto make I will accept the tender of some other builder as gullible as yourself, and so forth to the end of the chapter. And I am,Your obedient servant,John Roe.
V
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Sir,
I have received your estimate for the new conservatory; I have figured it out and undoubtedly you will lose upon the contract. I therefore accept it without reserve and beg you to begin work as soon as possible. I fully appreciate your motive in making so extraordinary a bargain: you know that I shall make further alterations to the house, and you hope by throwing away a sprat to catch a whale. Do not imagine that I shall be misled in this regard. The next alteration I haveto make I will accept the tender of some other builder as gullible as yourself, and so forth to the end of the chapter. And I am,
Your obedient servant,John Roe.
VIThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.My Dear Alice,I will not send the small sum which you ask me as a brother to afford you, though I am well aware that it would save you very poignant anxiety. My reason for acting thus is that a little annoyance is caused me when I have to disburse even a small sum without the chance of any possible return, and especially when I have to do it to benefit some one who cannot make things uncomfortable for me if I refuse. I have a sort of sentimental feeling about you, because you are my sister, and to that extent my refusal does give me a slight, though a passing sense of irrision. But that will very soon disappear, and when I balance it against the definite sacrifice of a sum of money, however small, I do not hesitate for a moment. Please do not write to me again.Your affectionate brother,John Roe.
VI
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
My Dear Alice,
I will not send the small sum which you ask me as a brother to afford you, though I am well aware that it would save you very poignant anxiety. My reason for acting thus is that a little annoyance is caused me when I have to disburse even a small sum without the chance of any possible return, and especially when I have to do it to benefit some one who cannot make things uncomfortable for me if I refuse. I have a sort of sentimental feeling about you, because you are my sister, and to that extent my refusal does give me a slight, though a passing sense of irrision. But that will very soon disappear, and when I balance it against the definite sacrifice of a sum of money, however small, I do not hesitate for a moment. Please do not write to me again.
Your affectionate brother,John Roe.
VIIThe Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.Dear Sir,I enclose a cheque for £250, my annual subscription to the local War Chest of the Party. I beg you particularly to note that this subscription makes me the creditor of the Party to the extent of over £3000, counting interest at one above bank rate from the first subscription. I have carefully gone into this and there can be no error. I would further have you note that I desire no reward or recognition for my disbursement of this sum beyond the baronetcy of which we spoke the last time I visited you, in the presence of a third party; and I must conclude by assuring you that any lengthy negotiation would be extremely distasteful to me. You need not fear my attitude in the approaching election; I am quite indifferent to parliamentary honours, I will take the chair five times and no more; I am good for one large garden party, three dinners, and a set of fireworks. I will have absolutely nothing to do with the printing, and I am,Always at your service,John Roe.
VII
The Laurels,Putney Heath, S. W.November 9.
Dear Sir,
I enclose a cheque for £250, my annual subscription to the local War Chest of the Party. I beg you particularly to note that this subscription makes me the creditor of the Party to the extent of over £3000, counting interest at one above bank rate from the first subscription. I have carefully gone into this and there can be no error. I would further have you note that I desire no reward or recognition for my disbursement of this sum beyond the baronetcy of which we spoke the last time I visited you, in the presence of a third party; and I must conclude by assuring you that any lengthy negotiation would be extremely distasteful to me. You need not fear my attitude in the approaching election; I am quite indifferent to parliamentary honours, I will take the chair five times and no more; I am good for one large garden party, three dinners, and a set of fireworks. I will have absolutely nothing to do with the printing, and I am,
Always at your service,John Roe.
When the Honest Man had perused these letters he decided that they should not be posted in their present form; but upon attempting to amend themhe found himself singularly lacking in those phrases which he could usually discover so readily for the purposes of his correspondence.
He sent, therefore, for his secretary, and told him to re-write the letters himself according to his own judgment, which that gentleman did with singular skill and dispatch, maintaining the cheques as drafted and putting every matter in its proper light.
That night the Honest Man, who was sleeping soundly, was more annoyed than ever at the reappearance of the Devil at his bedside in the middle of the night.
"Now," said the Devil, "have I brought you to your senses?"
"No," said the Honest Man, composing himself for sleep as before, "you have not. You should have remembered that I have a secretary."
"Oh, the devil!" said the Devil impatiently, "one cannot be thinking of everything!" And he went out even more noisily than the night before.
In this way the Honest Man saved his soul and at the same time his face, which, if it were the less valuable of the two organs, was none the less of considerable moment to him in this mundane sphere.
[The Main Room over the Terrace of the Palace in Compiègne. An autumn night in 1782. The room is lit with many candles, and there is dancing. The Queen of France is present, the Court, and some few of the neighbouring gentry, among whom a Lady called Madame d'Escurolles, about forty, silent, and rather timid. A gentleman about the Court, a trifle older than herself, stands by and talks to her as she sits and looks at the dancing. He takes his title from Noirétable in the Forèz, but he has never been there.]
[The Main Room over the Terrace of the Palace in Compiègne. An autumn night in 1782. The room is lit with many candles, and there is dancing. The Queen of France is present, the Court, and some few of the neighbouring gentry, among whom a Lady called Madame d'Escurolles, about forty, silent, and rather timid. A gentleman about the Court, a trifle older than herself, stands by and talks to her as she sits and looks at the dancing. He takes his title from Noirétable in the Forèz, but he has never been there.]
Madame d'Escurolles.I cannot see anything in the Queen of what you say, M. de Noirétable. She seems to be a little violent, but not vulgar.
Monsieur de Noirétable.It is precisely as you will, but I confess she spoils a room for me. The truth is that if she jostled and elbowed she would please me better; she always looks as though she would. I am disappointed in my amusement.
Madame d'Escurolles.M. de Noirétable, she is a good woman. I can see it in her eyes. They are very frank.
Monsieur de Noirétable.Oh! Yes! Madame, they are frank enough. They are being frank just now to half the room. Ugh! I have seen market women looking so, but only at the return from market (he pauses). Have you ridden to-day?
Madame d'Escurolles(laughing gently). No, sir, I have not ridden. We do not ride at my age in Compiègne ... but, tell me, do you not think there is something majestic about the Queen?... You must remember I have not seen her for three years, and it may be you are used to her carriage. But do you not admire that poise of the head and that high manner; or perhaps I should say, have you not admired them?
Monsieur de Noirétable.Oh! yes, Madame, I have admired it, and I do, as also her hairdresser and her shoemaker. Am I not at Court?
Madame d'Escurolles.But they say it is at Court that she is least admired?
Monsieur de Noirétable(shocked). I would not presume to say that! God forbid! From what I have heard in the street I would say she was least admired in Paris, or, perhaps—(musing)—perhaps in the village of Louveciennes ... nay, I have forgotten St. Cloud. St. Cloud would run Louveciennes hard.
Madame d'Escurolles.I have do doubt these names are well known in Versailles.
Monsieur de Noirétable.Madame, Versailles knows everything and everybody, because Versaillesis the Queen. For myself, after many years in the full view of Versailles and taking my money from Versailles, yet I cannot say I like Versailles.
Madame d'Escurolles(innocently). And why not, sir?
Monsieur de Noirétable(looking vaguely at the distant candles and speaking as vaguely). Upon my soul I cannot say!... It may be that Versailles is too frank or perhaps there is too much poise about it ... it is certainly majestic.
Madame d'Escurolles(as though merely to continue). It must compare well with poor Compiègne!
Monsieur de Noirétable(ceasing to look at the candles). I would not compare Versailles with Compiègne because I have seen Versailles so much and Compiègne so little. Indeed, Madame (if you will believe me!), I have but twice visited Compiègne since my year in garrison there, but that was fifteen years ago, and in those days, as you will remember, it was your father who befriended me. I found Compiègne very hospitable, and if I have returned there too seldom I very readily acknowledge my error.
Madame d'Escurolles(as though to change the subject). Pray, sir, do you not find Compiègne much older? They say that age particularly affects Compiègne.
Monsieur de Noirétable(with a little humour). I know thatIhave aged, but I would not swear for Compiègne. Madame d'Escurolles (with enthusiasm), I cannot forbear to tell you that Compiègne in myeyes does not age, but grows. The walls of Compiègne are more subtle and her woods more deep; her air is more gracious and full of certitude and peace than in those days I speak of when she held me for a full year.
Madame d'Escurolles.Oh!Heldyou, Monsieur de Noirétable! You were under no constraint. It was your garrison.
Monsieur de Noirétable(rapidly). Madame, my youth was held. But I have not told you all of my own ageing nor of this return to Compiègne.... You say the town has aged also. Ah! You should see other towns! There is in Compiègne to-day, I swear to you, more deep and more desirable laughter than in the youngest and most virginal of towns!
Madame d'Escurolles. Why, M. de Noirétable, you grow lyrical! (Smiling.) One would think you had seen too many towns!
Monsieur de Noirétable(lightly and rapidly). A man in the Service must see many towns.... It is not wholly his choice. I volunteered as well, and saw more towns than I positively needed, Madame; to tell the truth, a man is none the better for visiting too many towns.
Madame d'Escurolles.It is the appetite for travel, Monsieur, and the love of adventure.
Monsieur de Noirétable.Precisely, Madame, you put it very well ... the appetite, Madame, and the love ... of adventure ... you put it very wellindeed. (Abruptly.) It led me to Narbonne, to Florac, and to Cahors.
Madame d'Escurolles(shuddering). Oh! Monsieur de Noirétable! What dreadful names!
Monsieur de Noirétable(lightly). Not at all, Madame! Not at all! Delightful!... but passing, very passing! Believe me, in the presence of Compiègne, no man desires to return to Florac or to Narbonne, nor even to Cahors.
Madame d'Escurolles. No ... but he may choose to visit other places.
Monsieur de Noirétable(gravely). He may be compelled to visit them, Madame. (She looks away.)
Madame d'Escurolles(is silent for a little while and then looks up at him as gravely).Musthe visit so many towns?
Monsieur de Noirétable(slightly lifting his shoulders). Oh! Must! Must! Must is a strong word, Madame. ButDoes, Does;doesis a working word, Madame. And a mandoesvisit many towns, and he comes back to Compiègne.
Madame d'Escurolles(thoughtfully). Sir, Compiègne has age upon it, though you are pleased to call it by prettier names. Compiègne is even sad with age. I will not deny her charm, I will even concede her beauty—but it is harder than ever to-day to be content with Compiègne. (With a sudden change of tone.) We have spoken too much of cities. We old friends who do not dance treat the place too much like a card-room, and we converse when youngersouls are full of the music.... Tell me, Monsieur de Noirétable—since the subject is more consonant with music and with dancing—are you fond of verse?
Monsieur de Noirétable(solemnly). I dote upon it! especially such verse as may be written in praise of Compiègne....
Madame d'Escurolles(laughing). Oh! Monsieur de Noirétable, you begin to be ridiculous. Come, is there no verse you may cite as your favourite?
Monsieur de Noirétable.Why, Madame, I fear to seem even more ridiculous if I quote Latin.
Madame d'Escurolles(good-humouredly). Not at all, sir! We know Latin in Compiègne!
Monsieur de Noirétable(grimly). So I seemed to remember. Well, then, I confess my favourite verse is the Horatian Ode which begins—