THEY met the landlord in the passage.
"Welcome, messieurs," said he taking off his cap with a low bow.
"Come, we are not in Germany," said Gerard.
In the public room they found the mistress, a buxom woman of forty. She curtsied to them and smiled right cordially. "Give yourself the trouble of sitting ye down, fair sir," said she to Gerard, and dusted two chairs with her apron, not that they needed it.
"Thank you, dame," said Gerard. "Well," thought he, "thisisa polite nation: the trouble of sitting down? That will I with singular patience; and presently the labour of eating, also the toil of digestion, and finally, by Hercules his aid, the strain of going to bed, and the struggle of sinking fast asleep."
"Why, Denys, what are you doing? ordering supper for only two?"
"Why not?"
"What can we sup without waiting for forty more? Burgundy for ever!"
"Aha! Courage, camarade. Le dia—"
"C'est convenu."
The salique law seemed not to have penetrated to French inns. In this one at least wimple and kirtle reigned supreme; doublets and hose were few in number and feeble in act. The landlord himself wandered objectless, eternally taking off his cap to folk for want of thought; and the women, as they passed him in turn, thrust him quietly aside without looking at him, as we remove a live twig in bustling through a wood.
A maid brought in supper, and the mistress followed her empty handed.
"Fall to, my masters," said she cheerily, "y'have but one enemy here; and he lies under your knife." (I shrewdly suspect this of formula.)
They fell to. The mistress drew her chair a little towards the table; and provided company as well as meat; gossiped genially with them like old acquaintances: but, this form gone through, the busy dame was soon off and sent in her daughter, a beautiful young woman of about twenty, who took the vacant seat. She was not quite so broad and genial as the elder, but gentle and cheerful, and showed a womanly tenderness for Gerard on learning the distance the poor boy had come, and had to go. She stayed nearly half an hour, and, when she left them, Gerard said, "This an inn? Why it is like home."
"Qui fit François il fit courtois," said Denys bursting with gratified pride.
"Courteous? nay, Christian; to welcome us like home guests and old friends, us vagrants, here to-day and gone to-morrow. But indeed who better merits pity and kindness than the worn traveller far from his folk? Hola! here's another."
The new comer was the chambermaid, a woman of about twenty-five, with a cocked nose, a large laughing mouth, and a sparkling black eye: and a bare arm very stout but not very shapely.
The moment she came in, one of the travellers passed a somewhatfree jest on her, the next the whole company were roaring at his expense, so swiftly had her practised tongue done his business. Even as, in a passage of arms between a novice and a master of fence, foils clash—novice pinked. On this another, and then another, must break a lance with her: but Marion stuck her great arms upon her haunches, and held the whole room in play. This country girl possessed in perfection that rude and ready humour, which looks mean and vulgar on paper but carries all before it spoken: not wit's rapier; its bludgeon. Nature had done much for her in this way, and daily practice in an inn the rest.
Yet shall she not be photographed by me, but feebly indicated: for it was just four hundred years ago, the raillery was coarse, she returned every stroke in kind, and, though a virtuous woman, said things without winking, which no decent man of our day would say even among men.
Gerard sat gaping with astonishment. This was to him almost a new variety of "that interesting species," homo. He whispered Denys, "Now I see why you Frenchmen say 'a woman's tongue is her sword'": just then she levelled another assailant; and the chivalrous Denys to console and support "the weaker vessel," the iron kettle among the clay pots, administered his consigne, "Courage, ma mie, le—" etc.
She turned on him directly. "How canhebe dead as long as there is an archer left alive?" (General laughter at her ally's expense.)
"It is 'washing day' my masters," said she with sudden gravity.
"Après? We travellers cannot strip and go bare while you wash our clothes," objected a peevish old fellow by the fireside, who had kept mumchance during the raillery, but crept out into the sunshine of commonplaces.
"I aimed not your way, ancient man," replied Marion superciliously. "But,since you ask me" (here she scanned him slowly from head to foot), "I trow you might take a turn in the tub, clothes and all, and no harm done" (laughter). "But what I spoke for, I thought—this young sire—might like his beard starched."
Poor Gerard's turn had come: his chin crop was thin and silky.
The loudest of all the laughters this time was the traitor Denys, whose beard was of a good length, and singularly stiff and bristly:so that Shakespeare, though he never saw him, hit him in the bull's eye.
"Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard."As You Like It.
Gerard bore the Amazonian satire mighty calmly. He had little personal vanity. "Nay, 'chambrière'" said he with a smile, "mine is all unworthy your pains: take you this fair growth in hand!" and he pointed to Denys's vegetable.
"Oh, time for that, when I starch the besoms."
Whilst they were all shouting over this palpable hit, the mistress returned, and, in no more time than it took her to cross the threshold, did our Amazon turn to a seeming Madonna meek and mild.
Mistresses are wonderful subjugators. Their like I think breathes not on the globe. Housemaids, decide! It was a waste of histrionic ability though; for the landlady had heard, and did not at heart disapprove, the peals of laughter.
"Ah, Marion, lass," said she, good-humouredly, "If you laid me an egg every time you cackle, 'Les Trois Poissons' would never lack an omelet."
"Now, dame," said Gerard, "what is to pay?"
"What for?"
"Our supper."
"Where is the hurry? cannot you be content to pay when you go? lose the guest, find the money, is the rule of 'The Three Fish.'"
"But, dame, outside 'The Three Fish' it is thus written—'Ici—on ne loge—'"
"Bah! Let that flea stick on the wall! Look hither," and she pointed to the smoky ceiling, which was covered with hieroglyphics. These were accounts, vulgo scores; intelligible to this dame and her daughter, who wrote them at need by simply mounting a low stool, and scratching with a knife so as to show lines of ceiling through the deposit of smoke. The dame explained that the writing on the wall was put there to frighten moneyless folk from the inn altogether, or to be acted on at odd times when a nonpaying face should come in and insist on being served. "We can't refuse them plump, you know. The law forbids us."
"And how know you mine is not such a face?"
"Out, fie! it is the best face that has entered 'The Three Fish' this autumn."
"And mine, dame?" said Denys; "dost see no knavery here?"
She eyed him calmly. "Not such a good one as the lad's: nor ever will be. But it is the face of a true man. For all that," added she drily, "an I were ten years younger, I'd as lieve not meet that face on a dark night too far from home."
Gerard stared. Denys laughed. "Why, dame, I would but sip the night dew off the flower; and you needn't take ten years off, nor ten days, to be worth risking a scratched face for."
"There, our mistress," said Marion, who had just come in, "said I not t'other day, you could make a fool of them still, an if you were properly minded?"
"I dare say ye did: it sounds like some daft wench's speech."
"Dame," said Gerard, "this is wonderful."
"What? Oh: no, no, that is no wonder at all. Why, I have been here all my life: and reading faces is the first thing a girl picks up in an inn."
Marion.] "And frying eggs the second; no, telling lies; frying eggs is the third, though."
The Mistress.] "And holding her tongue the last, and modesty the day after never at all."
Marion.] "Alack! Talk ofmytongue. But I say no more. She, under whose wing I live, now deals the blow. I'm sped—'tis but a chambermaid gone. Catch what's left on't," and she staggered and sank backwards on to the handsomest fellow in the room, which happened to be Gerard.
"Tic! tic!" cried he, peevishly, "there, don't be stupid! that is too heavy a jest for me. See you not I am talking to the mistress?"
Marion resumed her elasticity with a grimace; made two little bounds into the middle of the floor and there turned a pirouette. "There, mistress," said she, "I give in, 'tis you that reigns supreme with the men; leastways with male children."
"Young man," said the mistress, "this girl is not so stupid as her deportment: in reading of faces, and frying of omelets, there we are great. 'Twould be hard if we failed at these arts, since they are about all we do know."
"You do not quite take me, dame," said Gerard. "That honesty in a face should shine forth to your experienced eye, that seems reasonable:but how by looking on Denys here could you learn his one little foible, his insanity, his miserable mulierosity?" Poor Gerard got angrier the more he thought of it.
"His mule—his what?" (crossing herself with superstitious awe at the polysyllable).
"Nay, 'tis but the word I was fain to invent for him."
"Invent? What can a child like you make other words than grow in Burgundy by nature? Take heed what ye do! why we are overrun with them already, especially bad ones. Lord, these be times. I look to hear of a new thistle invented next."
"But, dame, I found language too poor to paint him. I was fain to invent. You know Necessity is the mother of—"
"Ay! ay, that is old enough, o' conscience."
"Well then, dame, mulierose—that means wrapped up, body and soul, in women. So prithee tell me; how did you ever detect the noodle's mulierosity?"
"Alas! good youth, you make a mountain of a molehill. We that are women be notice-takers; and out of the tail of our eye see more than most men can, glaring through a prospect glass. Whiles I move to and fro doing this and that, my glance is still on my guests, and I did notice that this soldier's eyes were never off the womenfolk: my daughter, or Marion, or even an old woman like me, all was gold to him: and there a sat glowering; oh you foolish, foolish, man! Nowyoustill turned to the speaker, her or him, and that is common sense."
Denys burst into a hoarse laugh. "You never were more out. Why this silky smooth-faced companion is a very Turk—all but his beard. He is what d'ye call 'em oser than ere an archer in the duke's body guard. He is more wrapped up in one single Dutch lass called Margaret than I am in the whole bundle of ye brown and fair."
"Man alive, that is just the contrary," said the hostess. "Yourn is the bane, and hisn the cure. Cling you still to Margaret, my dear. I hope she is an honest girl."
"Dame, she is an angel."
"Ay, ay, they are all that till better acquainted. I'd as lieve have her no more than honest, and then she will serve to keep you out of worse company. As for you, soldier, there is trouble in store for you. Your eyes were never made for the good of your soul."
"Nor of his pouch either," said Marion striking in, "and his lips they will sip the dew, as he calls it, off many a bramble bush."
"Overmuch clack! Marion; overmuch clack."
"Ods bodikins, mistress; ye didn't hire me to be one o' your three fishes, did ye?" and Marion sulked thirty seconds.
"Is that the way to speak to our mistress?" remonstrated the landlord, who had slipped in.
"Hold your whisht," said his wife sharply, "it is not your business to check the girl, she is a good servant to you."
"What is the cock never to crow, and the hens at it all day?"
"You can crow as loud as you like, my man—out o' doors. But the hen means to rule the roost."
"I know a byword to that tune," said Gerard.
"Do ye now? out wi't then."
"'Femme veut en toute saison,Estre dame en sa maison.'"
"I never heard it afore: but 'tis as sooth as gospel. Ay they that set these bywords a rolling had eyes and tongues, and tongues and eyes. Before all the world give me an old saw."
"And me a young husband," said Marion. "Now there was a chance for you all, and nobody spoke. Oh! it is too late now. I've changed my mind."
"All the better for some poor fellow," suggested Denys.
And now the arrival of the young mistress, or, as she was called, the little mistress, was the signal for them all to draw round the fire, like one happy family, travellers, host, hostess, and even servants in the outer ring, and tell stories till bedtime. And Gerard in his turn told a tremendous one out of his repertory, a MS. collection of "acts of the saints," and made them all shudder deliciously; but soon after began to nod; exhausted by the effort I should say. The young mistress saw, and gave Marion a look. She instantly lighted a rush, and laying her hand on Gerard's shoulder invited him to follow her. She showed him a room where were two nice white beds, and bade him choose. "Either is paradise," said he. "I'll take this one. Do you know, I have not lain in a naked bed once since I left my home in Holland."
"Alack! poor soul!" said she; "well then the sooner my flax andyour down (he! he!) come together, the better; so—allons!" and she held out her cheek as business-like as if it had been her hand for a fee.
"Allons? what does that mean?"
"It means 'good-night.' Ahem! What don't they salute the chambermaid in your part?"
"Not all in a moment."
"What, do they make a business on't?"
"Nay, perverter of words, I mean we make not so free with strange women."
"They must be strange women if they do not think you strange fools then. Here is a coil. Why all the old greasy greybeards, that lie at our inn, do kiss us chambermaids; faugh! and what have we poor wretches to set on t'other side the compt, but now and then a nice young—? Alack! time flies, chambermaids can't be spared long in the nursery; so how is't to be?"
"An't please you arrange with my comrade for both. He is mulierose; I am not."
"Nay 'tis the curb he will want, not the spur. Well! well! you shall to bed without paying the usual toll; and oh but 'tis sweet to fall in with a young man, who can withstand these ancient ill customs, and gainsay brazen hussies. Shalt have thy reward."
"Thank you! But what are you doing with my bed?"
"Me? oh only taking off these sheets, and going to put on the pair the drunken miller slept in last night."
"Oh no! no! You cruel, black-hearted thing! There! there!"
"A la bonne heure! What will not perseverance effect? But note now the frowardness of a mad wench! I cared not for't a button. I am dead sick of that sport this five years. But you denied me: so then forthwith I behoved to have it; belike had gone through fire and water for't. Alas, young sir, we women are kittle cattle; poor perverse toads: excuse us: and keep us in our place, savoir, at arm's length! and so good-night!"
At the door she turned and said with a complete change of tone and manner: "The Virgin guard thy head, and the Holy Evangelists watch the bed where lies a poor young wanderer far from home! Amen!"
And the next moment he heard her run tearing down the stairs,and soon a peal of laughter from the salle betrayed her whereabouts.
"Now that is a character," said Gerard profoundly; and yawned over the discovery.
In a very few minutes he was in a dry bath of cold, clean, linen, inexpressibly refreshing to him after so long disuse: then came a delicious glow: and then—Sevenbergen.
In the morning Gerard awoke infinitely refreshed, and was for rising, but found himself a close prisoner. His linen had vanished. Now this was paralysis; for the night-gown is a recent institution. In Gerard's century, and indeed long after, men did not play fast and loose with clean sheets (when they could get them), but crept into them clothed with—their innocence, like Adam: out of bed they seem to have taken most after his eldest son.
Gerard bewailed his captivity to Denys; but that instant the door opened, and in sailed Marion with their linen, newly washed and ironed, on her two arms, and set it down on the table.
"Oh you good girl," cried Gerard.
"Alack, have you found me out at last?"
"Yes indeed. Is this anothercustom?"
"Nay, not to take them unbidden: but at night we aye question travellers, are they for linen washed. So I came in to you: but you were both sound. Then said I to the little mistress, 'La! where is the sense of waking wearied men, t'ask them is Charles the Great dead, and would they liever carry foul linen or clean, especially this one with a skin like cream.' 'And so he has, I declare,' said the young mistress."
"That was me," remarked Denys with the air of a commentator.
"Guess once more, and you'll hit the mark."
"Notice him not, Marion; he is an impudent fellow; and I am sure we cannot be grateful enough for your goodness, and I am sorry I ever refused you—anything you fancied you should like."
"Oh, are ye there," said l'espiègle. "I take that to mean you would fain brush the morning dew off, as your bashful companion calls it; well then, excuse me, 'tiscustomary, but not prudent. I decline. Quits with you, lad."
"Stop! stop!" cried Denys as she was making off victorious, "I amcurious to know how many of ye were here last night a-feasting your eyes on us twain.'"
"'Twas so satisfactory a feast as we weren't half a minute over't. Who? why the big mistress, the little mistress, Janet and me, and the whole posse comitatus, on tiptoe. We mostly make our rounds, the last thing not to get burned down; and in prodigious numbers. Somehow that maketh us bolder, especially where archers lie scattered about."
"Why did not you tell me? I'd have lain awake."
"Beau sire, the saying goes that the good and the ill are all one while their lids are closed. So we said 'Here is one, who will serve God best asleep. Break not his rest!'"
"She is funny," said Gerard dictatorially.
"I must be either that or knavish."
"How so?"
"Because 'The Three Fish' pay me to be funny. You will eat before you part? Good! then I'll go see the meat be fit for such worshipful teeth."
"Denys!"
"What is your will?"
"I wish that was a great boy, and going along with us, to keep us cheery."
"So do not I. But I wish it was going along with us as it is."
"Now Heaven forfend! A fine fool you would make of yourself."
They broke their fast, settled their score, and said farewell. Then it was they found Marion had not exaggerated the "custom of the country." The three principal women took and kissed them right heartily, and they kissed the three principal women. The landlord took and kissed them, and they kissed the landlord; and the cry was "Come back, the sooner the better!"
"Never pass 'The Three Fish;' should your purses be void, bring yourselves: 'le sieur crédit' is not dead for you."
And they took the road again.
They came to a little town, and Denys went to buy shoes. The shopkeeper was in the doorway, but wide awake. He received Denys with a bow down to the ground. The customer was soon fitted,and followed to the street, and dismissed with graceful salutes from the doorstep.
The friends agreed it was Elysium to deal with such a shoemaker as this. "Not but what my German shoes have lasted well enough," said Gerard the just.
Outside the town was a pebbled walk.
"This is to keep the burghers' feet dry, a-walking o' Sundays with their wives and daughters," said Denys.
Those simple words of Denys, one stroke of a careless tongue, painted "home" in Gerard's heart. "Oh! how sweet," said he. "Mercy! what is this? A gibbet; and ugh, two skeletons thereon! Oh, Denys, what a sorry sight to woo by!"
"Nay," said Denys, "a comfortable sight; for every rogue i' the air there is one the less a-foot."
A little farther on they came to two pillars, and between these was a huge wheel closely studded with iron prongs; and entangled in these were bones and fragments of cloth miserably dispersed over the wheel.
Gerard hid his face in his hands. "Oh to think those patches and bones are all that is left of a man! Of one who was what we are now."
"Excusez! a thing that went on two legs and stole; are we no more than that?"
"How know ye he stole? Have true men never suffered death and torture too?"
"None of my kith ever found the way to the gibbet, I know."
"The better their luck. Prithee how died the saints?"
"Hard. But not in Burgundy."
"Ye massacred them wholesale at Lyons, and that is on Burgundy's threshold. To you the gibbet proves the crime; because you read not story. Alas! had you stood on Calvary that bloody day we sigh for to this hour, I tremble to think you had perhaps shouted for joy at the gibbet builded there; for the cross was but the Roman gallows, Father Martin says."
"The blaspheming old hound!"
"Oh fie! fie! a holy and a book-learned man. Ay, Denys, y'had read them, that suffered there, by the bare light of the gibbet. 'Drive in the nails!' y'had cried: 'drive in the spear! Here be three malefactors. Three "roués."' Yet of those little three onewas the first Christian saint, and another was the Saviour of the world which gibbeted him."
Denys assured him on his honour they managed things better in Burgundy. He added too after profound reflection, that the horrors Gerard had alluded to had more than once made him curse and swear with rage when told by the good curé in his native village at Easter-tide; "but they chanced in an outlandish nation; and near a thousand years agone. Mort de ma vie, let us hope it is not true: or at least sore exaggerated. Do but see how all tales gather as they roll!"
Then he reflected again, and all in a moment turned red with ire. "Do ye not blush to play with your book-craft on your unlettered friend, and throw dust in his eyes, evening the saints with these reptiles?"
Then suddenly he recovered his good humour. "Since your heart beats for vermin, feel for the carrion crows! they be as good vermin as these: would ye send them to bed supperless, poor pretty poppets? Why, these be their larder: the pangs of hunger would gnaw them dead, but for cold cutpurse hung up here and there."
Gerard, who had for some time maintained a dead silence, informed him the subject was closed between them and for ever. "There are things," said he, "in which our hearts seem wide as the poles asunder, and eke our heads. But I love thee dearly all the same," he added with infinite grace and tenderness.
Towards afternoon they heard a faint wailing noise on ahead: it grew distincter as they proceeded. Being fast walkers they soon came up with its cause: a score of pikemen, accompanied by several constables, were marching along, and in advance of them was a herd of animals they were driving. These creatures, in number rather more than a hundred, were of various ages, only very few were downright old: the males were downcast and silent. It was the females from whom all the outcry came. In other words the animals thus driven along at the law's point were men and women.
"Good Heaven!" cried Gerard. "What a band of them! But stay, surely all those children cannot be thieves: why there are some in arms. What on earth is this, Denys?"
Denys advised him to ask that "bourgeois" with the badge. "This is Burgundy: here a civil question ever draws a civil reply."
Gerard went up to the officer and removing his cap, a civilitywhich was immediately returned, said, "For our Lady's sake, sir, what do ye with these poor folk?"
"Nay, what is that to you, my lad?" replied the functionary suspiciously.
"Master, I'm a stranger, and athirst for knowledge."
"That is another matter. What are we doing? ahem. Why we—Dost hear, Jacques? Here is a stranger seeks to know what we are doing," and the two machines were tickled that there should be a man who did not know something they happened to know. In all ages this has tickled. However the chuckle was brief, and moderated by their native courtesy, and the official turned to Gerard again. "What we are doing? hum!" and now he hesitated not from any doubt as to what he was doing, but because he was hunting for a single word that should convey the matter.
"Ce que nous faisons, mon gars?—Mais—dam—NOUS TRANSVASONS."
"You decant? that should mean you pour from one vessel to another."
"Precisely." He explained that last year the town of Charmes had been sore thinned by a pestilence, whole houses emptied and trades short of hands. Much ado to get in the rye; and the flax half spoiled. So the bailiff and aldermen had written to the duke's secretary; and the duke he sent far and wide to know what town was too full. "That are we," had the baillie of Toul writ back. "Then send four or five score of your townsfolk," was the order. "Was not this to decant the full town into the empty, and is not the good duke the father of his people, and will not let the duchy be weakened, nor its fair towns laid waste, by sword nor pestilence; but meets the one with pike, and arbalest (touching his cap to the sergeant and Denys alternately), and t'other with policy? LONG LIVE THE DUKE!"
The pikemen of course were not to be outdone in loyalty: so they shouted with stentorian lungs "LONG LIVE THE DUKE!" Then the decanted ones, partly because loyalty was a nonreasoning sentiment in those days, partly perhaps because they feared some further ill consequence should they alone be mute, raised a feeble tremulous shout "Long live the Duke!"
But, at this, insulted nature rebelled. Perhaps indeed the sham sentiment drew out the real, for, on the very heels of that loyalnoise, a loud and piercing wail burst from every woman's bosom and a deep groan from every man's; oh! the air filled in a moment with womanly and manly anguish. Judge what it must have been when the rude pikemen halted unbidden, all confused; as if a wall of sorrow had started up before them.
"En avant," roared the sergeant, and they marched again, but muttering and cursing.
"Ah the ugly sound," said the civilian, wincing. "Les malheureux!" cried he ruefully: for where is the single man can hear the sudden agony of a multitude and not be moved? "Les ingrats! They are going whence they were de trop to where they will be welcome: from starvation to plenty—and they object. They even make dismal noises. One would think we were thrusting them forth from Burgundy."
"Come away," whispered Gerard, trembling; "come away," and the friends strode forward.
When they passed the head of the column, and saw the men walk with their eyes bent in bitter gloom upon the ground, and the women, some carrying, some leading, little children, and weeping as they went, and the poor bairns, some frolicking, some weeping because "their mammies" wept, Gerard tried hard to say a word of comfort, but choked and could utter nothing to the mourners; but gasped: "Come on, Denys. I cannot mock such sorrow with little words of comfort." And now, artist-like, all his aim was to get swiftly out of the grief he could not soothe. He almost ran not to hear these sighs and sobs.
"Why, mate," said Denys, "art the colour of a lemon. Man alive, take not other folks' troubles to heart! not one of those whining milksops there but would see thee, a stranger, hanged without winking."
Gerard scarce listened to him.
"Decant them?" he groaned: "ay, if blood were no thicker than wine. Princes, ye are wolves. Poor things! Poor things! Ah, Denys! Denys! with looking on their grief mine own comes home to me. Well-a-day. Ah, well-a-day!"
"Ay, now you talk reason. That you, poor lad, should be driven all the way from Holland to Rome, is pitiful indeed. But these snivelling curs, where is their hurt? There is six score of 'em to keep one another company: besides they are not going out of Burgundy."
"Better for them if they had never been in it."
"Méchant, va! they are but going from one village to another, a mule's journey! whilst thou—there, no more. Courage, camarade, le diable est mort."
Gerard shook his head very doubtfully, but kept silence for about a mile, and then he said thoughtfully, "Ay, Denys, but then I am sustained by book-learning. These are simple folk that likely thought their village was the world: now what is this? more weeping. Oh! 'tis a sweet world. Humph? A little girl that hath broke her pipkin. Now may I hang on one of your gibbets but I'll dry somebody's tears:" and he pounced savagely upon this little martyr, like a kite on a chick, but with more generous intentions. It was a pretty little lass of about twelve: the tears were raining down her two peaches, and her palms lifted to heaven in that utter, though temporary, desolation, which attends calamity at twelve; and at her feet the fatal cause, a broken pot, worth, say the fifth of a modern farthing.
"What, hast broken thy pot, little one?" said Gerard, acting intensest sympathy.
"Hélas! bel gars; as you behold;" and the hands came down from the sky and both pointed at the fragments. A statuette of adversity.
"And you weep so for that?"
"Needs I must, bel gars. My mammy will massacre me. Do they not already" (with a fresh burst of woe) "c-c-call me J-J-Jean-net-on C-c-casse tout? It wanted but this; that I should break my poor pot. Hélas! fallait-il donc, mère de Dieu?"
"Courage, little love," said Gerard: "'tis not thy heart lies broken; money will soon mend pots. See now, here is a piece of silver, and there, scarce a stone's throw off, is a potter; take the bit of silver to him, and buy another pot, and the copper the potter will give thee keep that to play with thy comrades."
The little mind took in all this, and smiles began to struggle with the tears: but spasms are like waves, they cannot go down the very moment the wind of trouble is lulled. So Denys thought well to bring up his reserve of consolation. "Courage, ma mie, le diable est mort!" cried that inventive warrior gaily. Gerard shrugged his shoulders at such a way of cheering a little girl.
"What a fine thingIs a lute with one string,"
said he.
The little girl's face broke into warm sunshine.
"Oh, the good news! oh, the good news!" she sang out with such heartfelt joy, it went off into a honeyed whine; even as our gay old tunes have a pathos underneath. "So then," said she, "they will no longer be able to threaten us little girls with him, MAKING OUR LIVES A BURDEN!" And she bounded off "to tell Nanette," she said.
There is a theory that everything has its counterpart; if true, Denys it would seem had found the mind his consigne fitted.
While he was roaring with laughter at its unexpected success and Gerard's amazement, a little hand pulled his jerkin and a little face peeped round his waist. Curiosity was now the dominant passion in that small but vivid countenance.
"Est-ce toi qui l'a tué, beau soldat?"
"Oui, ma mie," said Denys, as gruffly as ever he could, rightly deeming this would smack of supernatural puissance to owners of bell-like trebles. "C'est moi. Çà vaut une petite embrassade—pas?"
"Je crois ben. Aie! aie!"
"Qu'as-tu?"
"Çà pique! Çà pique!"
"Quel dommage! je vais la couper."
"Nenni, ce n'est rien; et pisque t'as tué ce méchant. T'es fièrement beau, tout d' même, toi; t'es ben miex que ma grande sœur."
"Will you not kiss me too, ma mie?" said Gerard.
"Je ne demande par miex. Tiens, tiens, tiens! c'est doulce celle-ci. Ah, que j'aimons les hommes! Des fames, çà ne m'aurait jamais donné l'arjan blanc, plutôt çà m'aurait ri au nez. C'est si peu de chose, les fames. Serviteur, beaulx sires! Bon voiage; et n'oubliez point la Jeanneton!"
"Adieu, petit cœur," said Gerard, and on they marched: but presently looking back they saw the contemner of women in the middle of the road, making them a reverence, and blowing them kisses with little May morning face.
"Come on," cried Gerard lustily. "I shall win to Rome yet. Holy St. Bavon, what a sunbeam of innocence hath shot across our bloodthirsty road! Forget thee, little Jeanneton? not likely, amidst all this slobbering, and gibbeting, and decanting. Come on, thou laggard! forward!"
"Dost call this marching?" remonstrated Denys: "why we shall walk o'er Christmas-day and never see it."
At the next town they came to, suddenly an arbalestrier ran out of a tavern after them, and in a moment his beard and Denys's were like two brushes stuck together. It was a comrade. He insisted on their coming into the tavern with him, and breaking a bottle of wine. In course of conversation, he told Denys there was an insurrection in the duke's Flemish provinces, and soldiers were ordered thither from all parts of Burgundy. "Indeed I marvelled to see thy face turned this way."
"I go to embrace my folk that I have not seen these three years. Ye can quell a bit of a rising without me I trow."
Suddenly Denys gave a start. "Dost hear, Gerard? this comrade is bound for Holland."
"What then? ah, a letter! a letter to Margaret! but will he be so good, so kind?"
The soldier with a torrent of blasphemy informed him he would not only take it, but go a league or two out of his way to do it.
In an instant out came inkhorn and paper from Gerard's wallet; and he wrote a long letter to Margaret, and told her briefly what I fear I have spun too tediously; dwelt most on the bear, and the plunge in the Rhine, and the character of Denys, whom he painted to the life. And with many endearing expressions bade her be of good cheer; some trouble and peril there had been, but all that was over now, and his only grief left was that he could not hope to have a word from her hand till he should reach Rome. He ended with comforting her again as hard as he could. And so absorbed was he in his love and his work, that he did not see all the people in the room were standing peeping, to watch the nimble and true finger execute such rare penmanship.
Denys, proud of his friend's skill, let him alone, till presently the writer's face worked, and soon the scalding tears began to run down his young cheeks, one after another, on the paper where he was then writing comfort, comfort. Then Denys rudely repulsed the curious, and asked his comrade with a faltering voice whether he had the heart to let so sweet a love letter miscarry? The other swore by the face of St. Luke he would lose the forefinger of his right hand sooner.
Seeing him so ready, Gerard charged him also with a short, cold letter to his parents; and in it he drew hastily with his pen two handsgrasping each other, to signify farewell. By-the-by, one drop of bitterness found its way into his letter to Margaret. "I write to thee alone, and to those who love thee. If my flesh and blood care to hear news of me, they must be kind to thee and then thou mayst read my letter to them. But not else, and even then let this not out of thy hand or thou lovest me not. I know what I ask of thee, and why I ask it. Thou knowest not. I am older now by many years than thou art, and I was a month agone. Therefore obey me in this one thing, dear heart, or thou wilt make me a worse wife than I hope to make thee a husband, God willing."
On second thoughts I believe there was something more than bitterness in this. For his mind, young but intense, had been bent many hours in every day upon Sevenbergen and Tergou, and speculated on every change of feeling and circumstance that his exile might bring about.
Gerard now offered money to the soldier. He hesitated, but declined it. "No, no! art comrade of my comrade; and may"——(etc.)——"but thy love for the wench touches me. I'll break another bottle at thy charge an thou wilt, and so cry quits."
"Well said, comrade," cried Denys. "Hadst taken money, I had invited thee to walk in the court-yard and cross swords with me."
"Whereupon I had cut thy comb for thee," retorted the other.
"Hadst done thy endeavour, drôle, I doubt not."
They drank the new bottle, shook hands, adhered to custom, and parted on opposite routes.
This delay however somewhat put out Denys's calculations, and evening surprised them ere they reached a little town he was making for, where was a famous hotel. However, they fell in with a roadside auberge, and Denys, seeing a buxom girl at the door, said, "This seems a decent inn," and led the way into the kitchen. They ordered supper, to which no objection was raised, only the landlord requested them to pay for it beforehand. It was not an uncommon proposal in any part of the world. Still it was not universal, and Denys was nettled, and dashed his hand somewhat ostentatiously into his purse and pulled out a gold angel. "Count me the change, and speedily," said he. "You tavern-keepers are more likely to rob me than I you."
While the supper was preparing, Denys disappeared, and was eventually found by Gerard in the yard, helping Manon, his plump but not bright decoy duck, to draw water, and pouring extravagantcompliments into her dullish ear. Gerard grunted and returned to table, but Denys did not come in for a good quarter of an hour.
"Up-hill work at the end of a march," said he shrugging his shoulders.
"What matters that to you?" said Gerard, drily. "The mad dog bites all the world."
"Exaggerator. You know I bite but the fairer half. Well, here comes supper; that is better worth biting."
During supper the girl kept constantly coming in and out, and looking point-blank at them, especially at Denys; and at last in leaning over him to remove a dish, dropped a word in his ear; and he replied with a nod.
As soon as supper was cleared away, Denys rose and strolled to the door, telling Gerard the sullen fair had relented, and given him a little rendezvous in the stable yard.
Gerard suggested that the cow-house would have been a more appropriate locality. "I shall go to bed, then," said he, a little crossly. "Where is the landlord? out at this time of night? no matter. I know our room. Shall you be long, pray?"
"Not I. I grudge leaving the fire and thee. But what can I do? There are two sorts of invitations a Burgundian never declines."
Denys found a figure seated by the well. It was Manon; but instead of receiving him as he thought he had a right to expect, coming by invitation, all she did was to sob. He asked her what ailed her? She sobbed. Could he do anything for her? She sobbed.
The good-natured Denys, driven to his wits' end, which was no great distance, proffered the custom of the country by way of consolation. She repulsed him roughly, "Is it a time for fooling?" said she, and sobbed.
"You seem to think so," said Denys, waxing wroth. But the next moment he added, tenderly, "and I who could never bear to see beauty in distress."
"It is not for myself."
"Who then? your sweetheart?"
"Oh, que nenni. My sweetheart is not on earth now: and to think I have not an écu to buy masses for his soul;" and in this shallow nature the grief seemed now to be all turned in another direction.
"Come, come," said Denys, "shalt have money to buy masses for thy dead lad; I swear it. Meantime tell me why you weep."
"For you."
"For me? Art mad?"
"No. I am not mad. 'Tis you that were mad to open your purse before him."
The mystery seemed to thicken, and Denys wearied of stirring up the mud by questions, held his peace to see if it would not clear of itself. Then the girl finding herself no longer questioned seemed to go through some internal combat. At last she said, doggedly and aloud, "I will. The Virgin give me courage! What matters it if they kill me, since he is dead? Soldier, the landlord is out."
"Oh, is he?"
"What, do landlords leave their taverns at this time of night? also see what a tempest! We are sheltered here, but t'other side it blows a hurricane."
Denys said nothing.
"He is gone to fetch the band."
"The band! what band?"
"Those who will cut your throat and take your gold. Wretched man; to go and shake gold in an innkeeper's face!"
The blow came so unexpectedly it staggered even Denys, accustomed as he was to sudden perils. He muttered a single word, but in it a volume.
"Gerard!"
"Gerard! What is that? Oh, 'tis thy comrade's name, poor lad. Get him out quick ere they come; and fly to the next town."
"And thou?"
"They will kill me."
"That shall they not. Fly with us."
"'Twill avail me nought; one of the band will be sent to kill me. They are sworn to slay all who betray them."
"I'll take thee to my native place full thirty leagues from hence, and put thee under my own mother's wing, ere they shall hurt a hair o' thy head. But first Gerard. Stay thou here whilst I fetch him!"
As he was darting off, the girl seized him convulsively, and with all the iron strength excitement lends to women. "Stay me not! for pity's sake," he cried; "'tis life or death."
"Sh!—sh!" whispered the girl, shutting his mouth hard with her hand, and putting her pale lips close to him, and her eyes, thatseemed to turn backwards, straining towards some indistinct sound.
He listened.
He heard footsteps, many footsteps: and no voices. She whispered in his ear "They are come."
And trembled like a leaf.
Denys felt it was so. Travellers in that number would never have come in dead silence.
The feet were now at the very door.
"How many?" said he in a hollow whisper.
"Hush!" and she put her mouth to his very ear.
And who, that had seen this man and woman in that attitude, would have guessed what freezing hearts were theirs, and what terrible whispers passed between them?
"Seven."
"How armed?"
"Sword and dagger: and the giant with his axe. They call him the Abbot."
"And my comrade?"
"Nothing can save him. Better lose one life than two. Fly!"
Denys's blood froze at this cynical advice. "Poor creature, you know not a soldier's heart."
He put his head in his hands a moment, and a hundred thoughts of dangers baffled whirled through his brain.
"Listen, girl! There is one chance for our lives, if thou wilt but be true to us. Run to the town; to the nearest tavern, and tell the first soldier there, that a soldier here is sore beset, but armed, and his life to be saved if they will but run. Then to the bailiff. But first to the soldiers. Nay, not a word, but buss me, good lass, and fly! men's lives hang on thy heels."
She kilted up her gown to run. He came round to the road with her; saw her cross the road cringing with fear, then glide away, then turn into an erect shadow, then melt away in the storm.
And now he must get to Gerard. But how? He had to run the gauntlet of the whole band. He asked himself, what was the worst thing they could do? for he had learned in war that an enemy does, not what you hope he will do, but what you hope he will not do. "Attack me as I enter the kitchen! Then I must not give them time."
Just as he drew near to the latch, a terrible thought crossed him."Suppose they had already dealt with Gerard. Why, then," thought he, "nought is left but to kill, and be killed;" and he strung his bow, and walked rapidly into the kitchen. There were seven hideous faces seated round the fire, and the landlord pouring them out neat brandy, blood's forerunner in every age.
"What? company!" cried Denys, gaily: "one minute, my lads, and I'll be with you;" and he snatched up a lighted candle off the table, opened the door that led to the staircase, and went up it hallooing. "What, Gerard! whither hast thou skulked to?" There was no answer. He hallooed louder, "Gerard, where art thou?"
After a moment in which Denys lived an hour of agony, a peevish half-inarticulate noise issued from the room at the head of the little stairs. Denys burst in, and there was Gerard asleep.
"Thank God!" he said, in a choking voice, then began to sing loud, untuneful ditties. Gerard put his fingers into his ears; but presently he saw in Denys's face a horror that contrasted strangely with this sudden merriment.
"What ails thee?" said he, sitting up and staring.
"Hush!" said Denys, and his hand spoke even more plainly than his lips. "Listen to me."
Denys then pointing significantly to the door, to show Gerard sharp ears were listening hard by, continued his song aloud, but under cover of it threw in short muttered syllables.
"(Our lives are in peril.)
"(Thieves.)
"(Thy doublet.)
"(Thy sword.)
"Aid.
"Coming.
"Put off time." Then aloud.
"Well, now, wilt have t'other bottle? say Nay."
"No, not I."
"But I tell thee, there are half a dozen jolly fellows. Tired."
"Ay, but I am too wearied," said Gerard. "Go thou."
"Nay, nay!" Then he went to the door and called out cheerfully, "Landlord, the young milksop will not rise. Give those honest fellows t'other bottle. I will pay for't in the morning."
He heard a brutal and fierce chuckle.
Having thus by observation made sure the kitchen door was shut,and the miscreants were not actually listening, he examined the chamber door closely: then quietly shut it, but did not bolt it: and went and inspected the window.
It was too small to get out of, and yet a thick bar of iron had been let in the stone to make it smaller; and, just as he made this chilling discovery, the outer door of the house was bolted with a loud clang.
Denys groaned, "The beasts are in the shambles."