St. Ives, Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England Part 8

'And I am afraid I am that kind of man,' said I. 'But do not think of me too harshly for that. I talked just now of something to remember by. I have many of them myself, of these beautiful reminders, of these keepsakes, that I cannot be parted from until I lose memory and life. Many of them are great things, many of them are high virtues-charity, mercy, faith. But some of them are trivial enough. Miss Flora, do you remember the day that I first saw you, the day of the strong east wind? Miss Flora, shall I tell you what you wore?'

We had both risen to our feet, and she had her hand already on the door to go. Perhaps this att.i.tude emboldened me to profit by the last seconds of our interview; and it certainly rendered her escape the more easy.

'O, you are too romantic!' she said, laughing; and with that my sun was blown out, my enchantress had fled away, and I was again left alone in the twilight with the lady hens.

CHAPTER IX-THREE IS COMPANY, AND FOUR NONE

The rest of the day I slept in the corner of the hen-house upon Flora's shawl. Nor did I awake until a light shone suddenly in my eyes, and starting up with a gasp (for, indeed, at the moment I dreamed I was still swinging from the Castle battlements) I found Ronald bending over me with a lantern. It appeared it was past midnight, that I had slept about sixteen hours, and that Flora had returned her poultry to the shed and I had heard her not. I could not but wonder if she had stooped to look at me as I slept. The puritan hens now slept irremediably; and being cheered with the promise of supper I wished them an ironical good-night, and was lighted across the garden and noiselessly admitted to a bedroom on the ground floor of the cottage. There I found soap, water, razors-offered me diffidently by my beardless host-and an outfit of new clothes. To be shaved again without depending on the barber of the gaol was a source of a delicious, if a childish joy. My hair was sadly too long, but I was none so unwise as to make an attempt on it myself. And, indeed, I thought it did not wholly misbecome me as it was, being by nature curly. The clothes were about as good as I expected. The waistcoat was of toilenet, a pretty piece, the trousers of fine kerseymere, and the coat sat extraordinarily well. Altogether, when I beheld this changeling in the gla.s.s, I kissed my hand to him.

'My dear fellow,' said I, 'have you no scent?'

'Good G.o.d, no!' cried Ronald. 'What do you want with scent?'

'Capital thing on a campaign,' said I. 'But I can do without.'

I was now led, with the same precautions against noise, into the little bow-windowed dining-room of the cottage. The shutters were up, the lamp guiltily turned low; the beautiful Flora greeted me in a whisper; and when I was set down to table, the pair proceeded to help me with precautions that might have seemed excessive in the Ear of Dionysius.

'She sleeps up there,' observed the boy, pointing to the ceiling; and the knowledge that I was so imminently near to the resting-place of that gold eyegla.s.s touched even myself with some uneasiness.

Our excellent youth had imported from the city a meat pie, and I was glad to find it flanked with a decanter of really admirable wine of Oporto. While I ate, Ronald entertained me with the news of the city, which had naturally rung all day with our escape: troops and mounted messengers had followed each other forth at all hours and in all directions; but according to the last intelligence no recapture had been made. Opinion in town was very favourable to us: our courage was applauded, and many professed regret that our ultimate chance of escape should be so small. The man who had fallen was one Sombref, a peasant; he was one who slept in a different part of the Castle; and I was thus a.s.sured that the whole of my former companions had attained their liberty, and Shed A was untenanted.

From this we wandered insensibly into other topics. It is impossible to exaggerate the pleasure I took to be thus sitting at the same table with Flora, in the clothes of a gentleman, at liberty and in the full possession of my spirits and resources; of all of which I had need, because it was necessary that I should support at the same time two opposite characters, and at once play the cavalier and lively soldier for the eyes of Ronald, and to the ears of Flora maintain the same profound and sentimental note that I had already sounded. Certainly there are days when all goes well with a man; when his wit, his digestion, his mistress are in a conspiracy to spoil him, and even the weather smiles upon his wishes. I will only say of myself upon that evening that I surpa.s.sed my expectations, and was privileged to delight my hosts. Little by little they forgot their terrors and I my caution; until at last we were brought back to earth by a catastrophe that might very easily have been foreseen, but was not the less astonishing to us when it occurred.

I had filled all the gla.s.ses. 'I have a toast to propose,' I whispered, 'or rather three, but all so inextricably interwoven that they will not bear dividing. I wish first to drink to the health of a brave and therefore a generous enemy. He found me disarmed, a fugitive and helpless. Like the lion, he disdained so poor a triumph; and when he might have vindicated an easy valour, he preferred to make a friend. I wish that we should next drink to a fairer and a more tender foe. She found me in prison; she cheered me with a priceless sympathy; what she has done since, I know she has done in mercy, and I only pray-I dare scarce hope-her mercy may prove to have been merciful. And I wish to conjoin with these, for the first, and perhaps the last time, the health-and I fear I may already say the memory-of one who has fought, not always without success, against the soldiers of your nation; but who came here, vanquished already, only to be vanquished again by the loyal hand of the one, by the unforgettable eyes of the other.'

It is to be feared I may have lent at times a certain resonancy to my voice; it is to be feared that Ronald, who was none the better for his own hospitality, may have set down his gla.s.s with something of a clang. Whatever may have been the cause, at least, I had scarce finished my compliment before we were aware of a thump upon the ceiling overhead. It was to be thought some very solid body had descended to the floor from the level (possibly) of a bed. I have never seen consternation painted in more lively colours than on the faces of my hosts. It was proposed to smuggle me forth into the garden, or to conceal my form under a horsehair sofa which stood against the wall. For the first expedient, as was now plain by the approaching footsteps, there was no longer time; from the second I recoiled with indignation.

'My dear creatures,' said I, 'let us die, but do not let us be ridiculous.'

The words were still upon my lips when the door opened and my friend of the gold eyegla.s.s appeared, a memorable figure, on the threshold. In one hand she bore a bedroom candlestick; in the other, with the steadiness of a dragoon, a horse-pistol. She was wound about in shawls which did not wholly conceal the candid fabric of her nightdress, and surmounted by a nightcap of portentous architecture. Thus accoutred, she made her entrance; laid down the candle and pistol, as no longer called for; looked about the room with a silence more eloquent than oaths; and then, in a thrilling voice-'To whom have I the pleasure?' she said, addressing me with a ghost of a bow.

'Madam, I am charmed, I am sure,' said I. 'The story is a little long; and our meeting, however welcome, was for the moment entirely unexpected by myself. I am sure-' but here I found I was quite sure of nothing, and tried again. 'I have the honour,' I began, and found I had the honour to be only exceedingly confused. With that, I threw myself outright upon her mercy. 'Madam, I must be more frank with you,' I resumed. 'You have already proved your charity and compa.s.sion for the French prisoners, I am one of these; and if my appearance be not too much changed, you may even yet recognise in me that Oddity who had the good fortune more than once to make you smile.'

Still gazing upon me through her gla.s.s, she uttered an uncompromising grunt; and then, turning to her niece-'Flora,' said she, 'how comes he here?'

The culprits poured out for a while an antiphony of explanations, which died out at last in a miserable silence.

'I think at least you might have told your aunt,' she snorted.

'Madam,' I interposed, 'they were about to do so. It is my fault if it be not done already. But I made it my prayer that your slumbers might be respected, and this necessary formula of my presentation should be delayed until to-morrow in the morning.'

The old lady regarded me with undissembled incredulity, to which I was able to find no better repartee than a profound and I trust graceful reverence.

'French prisoners are very well in their place,' she said, 'but I cannot see that their place is in my private dining-room.'

'Madam,' said I, 'I hope it may be said without offence, but (except the Castle of Edinburgh) I cannot think upon the spot from which I would so readily be absent.'

At this, to my relief, I thought I could perceive a vestige of a smile to steal upon that iron countenance and to be bitten immediately in.

'And if it is a fair question, what do they call ye?' she asked.

'At your service, the Vicomte Anne de St.-Yves,' said I.

'Mosha the Viscount,' said she, 'I am afraid you do us plain people a great deal too much honour.'

'My dear lady,' said I, 'let us be serious for a moment. What was I to do? Where was I to go? And how can you be angry with these benevolent children who took pity on one so unfortunate as myself? Your humble servant is no such terrific adventurer that you should come out against him with horse-pistol and'-smiling-'bedroom candlesticks. It is but a young gentleman in extreme distress, hunted upon every side, and asking no more than to escape from his pursuers. I know your character, I read it in your face'-the heart trembled in my body as I said these daring words. 'There are unhappy English prisoners in France at this day, perhaps at this hour. Perhaps at this hour they kneel as I do; they take the hand of her who might conceal and a.s.sist them; they press it to their lips as I do-'

'Here, here!' cried the old lady, breaking from my solicitations. 'Behave yourself before folk! Saw ever anyone the match of that? And on earth, my dears, what are we to do with him?'

'Pack him off, my dear lady,' said I: 'pack off the impudent fellow double-quick! And if it may be, and if your good heart allows it, help him a little on the way he has to go.'

'What's this pie?' she cried stridently. 'Where is this pie from, Flora?'

No answer was vouchsafed by my unfortunate and (I may say) extinct accomplices.

'Is that my port?' she pursued. 'Hough! Will somebody give me a gla.s.s of my port wine?'

I made haste to serve her.

She looked at me over the rim with an extraordinary expression. 'I hope ye liked it?' said she.

'It is even a magnificent wine,' said I.

'Aweel, it was my father laid it down,' said she. 'There were few knew more about port wine than my father, G.o.d rest him!' She settled herself in a chair with an alarming air of resolution. 'And so there is some particular direction that you wish to go in?' said she.

'O,' said I, following her example, 'I am by no means such a vagrant as you suppose. I have good friends, if I could get to them, for which all I want is to be once clear of Scotland; and I have money for the road.' And I produced my bundle.

'English bank-notes?' she said. 'That's not very handy for Scotland. It's been some fool of an Englishman that's given you these, I'm thinking. How much is it?'

'I declare to heaven I never thought to count!' I exclaimed. 'But that is soon remedied.'

And I counted out ten notes of ten pound each, all in the name of Abraham Newlands, and five bills of country bankers for as many guineas.

'One hundred and twenty six pound five,' cried the old lady. 'And you carry such a sum about you, and have not so much as counted it! If you are not a thief, you must allow you are very thief-like.'

'And yet, madam, the money is legitimately mine,' said I.

She took one of the bills and held it up. 'Is there any probability, now, that this could be traced?' she asked.

'None, I should suppose; and if it were, it would be no matter,' said I. 'With your usual penetration, you guessed right. An Englishman brought it me. It reached me, through the hands of his English solicitor, from my great-uncle, the Comte de Keroual de Saint-Yves, I believe the richest emigre in London.'

'I can do no more than take your word for it,' said she.

'And I trust, madam, not less,' said I.