The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 97

and she laid a wager of many pieces of gold he should not be able to prove his words. So he weighed in her presence the tobacco before he put it into his pipe, and the ashes after he had consumed it, and convinced her majesty that the deficiency did proceed from the evaporation thereof. So then she paid the bet, and merrily told him 'that she knew of many persons who had turned their gold into smoke, but he was the first who had turned smoke into gold.'"

The young gentleman being amused at this story, I likewise told him of Sir Walter's hap when he first returned to England, and was staying in a friend's house: how a servant coming into his chamber with a tankard of ale and nutmeg toast, and seeing him for the first time with a lighted pipe in his mouth puffing forth clouds of smoke, flung the ale in his face for to extinguish the internal conflagration, and then running down the stairs alarmed the family with dismal cries that the good knight was on fire, and would be burnt into ashes before they could come to his aid.

My unknown companion laughed, and said he had once on his travels been taken for a sorcerer, so readily doth ignorance imagine wonders. "Near unto Metz, in France," quoth he, "I fell among thieves. My money I had quilted within my doublet, which they took from me, howsoever leaving me the rest of my apparel, wherein I do acknowledge their courtesy, since thieves give all they take not; but twenty-five French crowns, for the worst event, I had lapped in cloth, and whereupon did wind divers-colored threads, wherein I sticked needles, as if I had been so good a husband as to mend mine own clothes. Messieurs the thieves were not so frugal to take my ball to mend their hose, but did tread it under their feet. I picked it up with some spark of joy, and I and my guide (he very sad, because he despaired of my ability to pay him his hire) went forward to Chalons, where he brought me to a poor ale-house, and when I expostulated, he replied that stately inns were not for men who had never a penny in their purses; but I told him that I looked for comfort in that case more from gentlemen than clowns; whereupon he, sighing, obeyed me, and with a dejected and fearful countenance brought me to the chief inn, where he ceased not to bewail my misery as if it had been the burning of Troy; till the host, despairing of my ability to pay him, began to look disdainfully on me.

The next morning, when, he being to return home, I paid him his hire, which he neither asked nor expected, and likewise mine host for lodgings and supper, he began to talk like one mad for joy, and professed I could not have had one penny except I were an alchemist or had a familiar spirit."

I thanked the young gentleman for this entertaining anecdote, and asked him if France was not a very disquieted country, and nothing in it but wars and fighting.

"Yea," he answered; "but men fight there so merrily, that it appears more a pastime than aught else. Not always so, howsoever. When Frenchman meets Frenchman in the fair fields of Provence, and those of the League and those of the Religion--G.o.d confound the first and bless the last!--engage in battle, such encounters ensue as have not their match for fierceness in the world. By my troth, the sight of dead bodies doth not ordinarily move me; but the valley of Allemagne on the day of the great Huguenot victory was a sight the like of which I would not choose to look on again, an I could help it."

"Were you, then, present at that combat, sir?" I asked.

"Yea," he replied; "I was at that time with Lesdiguieres, the Protestant general, whom I had known at La Roch.e.l.le, and beshrew me if a more valiant soldier doth live, or a worthier {641} soul in a stalwart frame. I was standing by his side when Tourves the butcher came for to urge him, with his three hundred men, to ride over the field and slay the wounded papists. 'No, sir,' quoth the general, 'I fight men, but hunt them not down.' The dead were heaped many feet thick on the plain, and the horses of the Huguenots waded to their haunches in blood. Those of the Religion were mad at the death of the Baron of Allemagne, the general of their southern churches, brave castellane, who, when the fight was done, took off his helmet for to cool his burning forehead; and lo, a shot sent him straight into eternity."

"The Catholics were then wholly routed?" I asked.

"Yea," he answered; "mowed down like gra.s.s in the hay-harvest. De Vins, however, escaped. He thought to have had a cheap victory over those of the Religion; but the saints in heaven, to whom he trusted, never told him that Lesdiguieres on the one side and d'Allemagne on the other were hastening to the rescue, nor that his Italian hors.e.m.e.n should fail him in his need. So, albeit the papists fought like devils, as they are, his pride got a fall, which well-nigh killed him.

He was riding frantically back into the fray for to get himself slain, when St. Cannat seized his bridle, and called him a coward, so I have heard, to dare for to die when his scattered troops had need of him; and so carried him off the field. D'Oraison, Janson, Pontmez, hotly pursued them, but in vain; and all the Protestant leaders, except Lesdiguieres, returned that night to the castle of Allemagne for to bury the baron."

A sort of shiver pa.s.sed through the young gentleman's frame as he uttered these last words.

"A sad burial you then witnessed?" I said.

"I pray G.o.d," he answered, "never to witness another such."

"What was the horror of it?" I asked.

"Would you hear it?" he inquired.

"Yea," I said, "most willingly; for methinks I see what you describe."

Then he: "If it be so, peradventure you may not thank me for this describing; for I warrant you it was a fearful sight. I had lost mine horse, and so was forced to spend the night at the castle. When it grew dark I followed the officers, which, with a great store of the men, also descended into the vault, which was garnished all round with white and warlike sculptured forms on tombstones, most grim in their aspect; and amidst those stone imager, grim and motionless, the soldiers ranged themselves, still covered with blood and dust, and leaning on their halberds. In the midst was the uncovered coffin of the baron, his livid visage exposed to view--menacing even in death.

Torches threw a fitful, red-colored light over the scene. A minister which accompanied the army stood and preached at the coffin's head, and when he had ended his sermon, sang in a loud voice, in French verse, the psalm which doth begin,

'Du fond de ma pensee, Du fond de tous enuuis, A tol s'est adresse Ma clamear jour et nult.'

When this singing began two soldiers led up to the tomb a man with bound hands and ghastly pale face, and, when the verse ended, shot him through the head. The corpse fell upon the ground, and the singing began anew. Twelve times this did happen, till my head waxed giddy and I became faint. I was led out of that vault with the horrible singing pursuing me, as if I should never cease to hear it."

"Oh, 'tis fearful," I exclaimed, "that men can do such deeds, and the while have G.o.d's name on their lips."

"The ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew," he answered, "hath driven those of the Religion mad against the papists."

"But, sir," I asked, "is it not true that six thousand Catholics in Languedoc had been murthered in cold blood, {642} and a store of them in other places, before that ma.s.sacre?"

"May I be so," he answered in a careless tone. "The shedding of blood, except in a battle or lawful duel, I abhor; but verily I do hate papists with as great a hate as any Huguenot in France, and most of all those in this country--a set of knavish traitors, which would dethrone the queen and sell the realm to the Spaniards."

I could not but sigh at these words, for in this young man's countenance a quality of goodness did appear which made me grieve that he should utter these unkind words touching Catholics. But I dared not for to utter my thinking or disprove his accusations, for, being ignorant of his name, I had a reasonable fear of being ensnared into some talk which should show me to be a papist, and he should prove to be a spy. But patience failed me when, after speaking of the clear light of the gospel which England enjoyed, and to lament that in Ireland none are found of the natives to have cast off the Roman religion, he said:

"I ween this doth not proceed from their constancy in religion, but rather from the lenity of Protestants, which think that the conscience must not be forced, and seek rather to touch and persuade than to oblige by fire and sword, like those of the south, who persecute their own subjects differing from them in religion."

"Sir," I exclaimed, "this is a strange thing indeed, that Protestants do lay a claim to so great mildness in their dealings with recusants, and yet such strenuous laws against such are framed that they do live in fear of their lives, and are daily fined and tormented for their profession."

"How so?" he said, quickly. "No papist hath been burnt in this country."

"No, sir," I answered; "but a store of them have been hanged and cut to pieces whilst yet alive."

"Nay, nay," he cried, "not for their religion, but for their many treason."

"Sir," I answered, "their religion is made treason by unjust laws, and then punished with the penalties of treason; and they die for no other cause than their faith, by the same token that each of those which have perished on the scaffold had his life offered to him if so he would torn Protestant."

In the heat of this argument I had forgot prudence; and some unkindly ears and eyes were attending to my speech, which this young stranger perceiving, he changed the subject of discourse--I ween with a charitable intent--and merrily exclaimed, "Now I have this day transgressed a wise resolve."

"What resolve?" I said, glad also to retreat from dangerous subjects.

'"This," he answered: "that after my return I would sparingly, and not without entreaty, relate my journeys and observations."

"Then, sir," I replied, "methinks you have contrariwise observed it, for your observations have been short and pithy, and withal uttered at mine entreaty."

"Nothing," he said, "I so much fear as to resemble men--and many such I have myself known--who have scarce seen the lions of the Tower and the bears of Parish Garden, but they must engross all a table in talking of their adventures, as if they had pa.s.sed the Pillars of Hercules. Nothing could be asked which they could not resolve of their own knowledge."

"Find you, sir," I said, "much variety in the manners of French people and those you see in this country?"

He smiled, and answered, "We must not be too nice observers of men and manners, and too easily praise foreign customs and despise our own --not so much that we may not offend others, as that we may not be ourselves offended by others. I will yield you an example. A Frenchman, being a curious observer of ceremonious compliments, when he hath saluted one, and began to entertain him with speech, if he chance to espy another {643} man, with whom he hath very great business, yet will he not leave the first man without a solemn excuse.

But an Englishman discoursing with any man--I mean in a house or chamber of presence, not merely in the street--if he spy another man with whom he hath occasion to speak, will suddenly, without any excuse, turn from the first man and go and converse with the other, and with like negligence will leave and take new men for discourse; which a Frenchman would take in ill part, as an argument of disrespect. This fashion, and many other like niceties and curiosities in use in one country, we must forget when we do pa.s.s into another.

For lack of this prudence I have seen men on their return home tied to these foreign manners themselves, and finding that others observe not the like toward them, take everything for an injury, as if they were disrespected, and so are often enraged."

"What think you of the dress our ladies do wear?" I inquired of this young traveller.

He smiled, and answered:

"I like our young gentlewomen's gowns, and their ap.r.o.ns of fine linen, and their little hats of beaver; but why have they left wearing the French sleeves, borne out with hoops of whalebone, and the French hood of velvet, set with a border of gold b.u.t.tons and pearls? Methinks English ladies are too fond of jewels and diamond rings. They scorn plain gold rings, I find, and chains of gold."

"Yea," I said, "ladies of rank wear only rich chains of pearl, and all their jewels must needs be oriental and precious. If any one doth choose to use a simple chain or a plain-set brooch, she is marked for wearing old-fashioned gear."

"This remindeth me," he said, "of a pleasant fable, that Jupiter sent a shower, wherein whosoever was wet became a fool, and that all the people were wet in this shower, excepting one philosopher, who kept his study; but in the evening coming forth into the market-place, and finding that all the people marked him as a fool, who was only wise, he was forced to pray for another shower, that he might become a fool, and so live quietly among fools rather than bear the envy of his wisdom."

With this pleasant story our conversation ended, for supper was over, and the young gentleman soon went away. I asked of many persons who he should be, but none could tell me. Polly, the next day, said he was a youth lately returned from France (which was only what I knew before), and that Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had written a letter to Lady Ingoldsby concerning him, but his name she had forgot. O what strange haps, more strange than any in books, do at times form the thread of a true history! what presentiments in some cases, what ignorance in others, beset us touching coming events!

The next pages will show the ground of these reflections.

CHAPTER XXV.

One day that Mrs. Wells was somewhat disordered, and keeping her room, and I was sitting with her, her husband came to fetch me into the parlor to an old acquaintance, he said, who was very desirous for to see me. "Who is it?" I asked; but he would not tell me, only smiled; my foolish thinking supposed for one instant that it might be Basil he spoke of, but the first glance showed me a slight figure and pale countenance, very different to his whom my witless hopes had expected for to see, albeit without the least shadow of reason. I stood looking at this stranger in a hesitating manner, who perceiving I did not know him, held out his hand, and said,

"Has Mistress Constance forgotten her old playfellow?"

"Edmund Genings!" I exclaimed, suddenly guessing it to be him.