The Road to Paris Part 41

Gerard laughed, in spite of this setback, at the droll manner in which d.i.c.k asked this question.

Then d.i.c.k turned his eyes back towards Frankfort, took on a peculiar smile, and said, in the coolest and mildest of voices:

"It is a pity,--because I see a number of soldiers or police riding out of the gate we rode through a few minutes ago."

Gerard looked around, and turned pale. "My G.o.d!" said he. "It is the city guard! And don't you recognize Wedeker by his uniform, with the officer at their head?"

d.i.c.k heaved a gentle sigh, then looked at his empty pistol and his sword. "This is an occasion for horses, not for weapons," he said, with his former quietness. "To think that, after all the flying, the fighting, and the killing, a man should be nabbed at last, merely for want of a fresh horse. Why do you wait, Gerard? You can easily escape with Catherine. You must save her."

"And leave you? Never!"

"Well said, my brother," whispered Catherine.

"I see yonder a kind of country inn, to judge from the horse-shed near it," said d.i.c.k, indicating a low building a short distance ahead on their road.

He started towards it afoot, followed by the two who were mounted. When he reached the shed, he saw therein, to his amazement, two horses. A peasant was in the act of giving them grain.

"Whose animals are these, my friend?" queried d.i.c.k.

"They belong to a soldier, mein herr, who arrived last night with the black, and won the gray from another guest, at cards."

"And where is this fortunate person to be found?"

"In the house, mein herr; in the first room at the head of the stairs."

"I'll go and try to make a bargain with him," said d.i.c.k.

"No," said Gerard, "let me go. I am now better able to make bargains than you are." And he leaped off his horse and ran to the house. He desired that he, not d.i.c.k, should be at the expense of the purchase.

d.i.c.k stood waiting beside Catherine, looking now into her anxious eyes with a rea.s.suring smile, now towards the distant troops that were steadily drawing nearer on the road.

Soon Gerard reappeared from the house, with a dejected face. "The fellow refuses to sell," he said. "He sat playing a violin, and blamed me for interrupting his music. I think we should be justified in taking one of his horses, in spite of him."

"You cannot do that, mein herr," said the peasant, looking towards the inn, from which came the sounds of men gambling and drinking.

"What sort of a man is this horse-owner?" asked d.i.c.k, not as if with any hope, but as if duty required the last possible effort.

"A gaunt rascal," said Gerard, "who began to answer me in French, and then veered into a kind of Scotch-English, with an Irish phrase or two."

A strange, wondering look came over d.i.c.k's face. "Let me try," he said, in a barely audible voice, and made hastily for the house.

He flung open the door, rushed up the rickety stairs, and stopped before a chamber at their head. From within came the sound of a fiddle sc.r.a.ping out the tune of "Over the hills and far away."

d.i.c.k burst into the room, crying out, "Tom MacAlister, dear old Tom, _I_ am the man that wants to buy your horse!"

"'Tis no sic a vast warld, they that do a mickle travelling will discover," said MacAlister, as he and the three fugitives cantered westward towards Mayence, having left the Frankfort territory, and, consequently, the Frankfort city guard, far behind them.

The two St. Valiers rode one of Tom's horses, which were both stronger and fresher than the animal on which Gerard had come out of Frankfort.

The latter beast now carried MacAlister, who had nothing to fear from being overtaken, and whose second horse was ridden by Wetheral. The piper's son had not expressed any great surprise at seeing d.i.c.k, a fact explained by him in the words already quoted.

"I mak' nae doot your ain presence in these parts was brought aboot in the most likely way," he continued; "and, sure, there's devil a bit extraordinary in my being here."

He then gave account of his movements since the attack on Quebec.

Exchanged, with Morgan and the other prisoners, he served under that gallant commander in the glorious campaign of Saratoga. His term of enlistment expiring on the very day of Burgoyne's surrender, he voluntarily accompanied the troops that escorted the defeated British and Hessian army to Boston. In that town he met a Virginia Scotchman, whose people he had known in Scotland. This man, who had added the name of Jones to that of John Paul, held the rank of captain in the newly projected navy of the United States of America, and was on the very eve of sailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in a vessel called the _Ranger_. Love of diversity impelled Tom to ship for the cruise across the Atlantic. Sailing November 1, 1777, the _Ranger_ captured two prizes, sent them to the port of Malaga, and arrived on the second of December at Nantes, in the harbor of which Captain Jones caused the new flag of the United States to receive its first salute in European waters, as its white stars set in blue and its red and white stripes fluttered high above the _Ranger's_ deck. MacAlister accompanied Jones to Paris, where he grew weary of inaction while the captain was trying, with the aid of the American commissioners, to obtain a certain fine frigate for the new navy. So Tom, in whom a returning inclination for some more European service had begun to a.s.sert itself, started for Germany, with a thought of finding employment in the war that Frederick of Prussia had been conducting against Austria, since the first of the present year of 1778, over the Bavarian succession.

"But now that I've met you," MacAlister said to d.i.c.k, "it's devil an inch further I'll gang eastward. Sure, 'tis nae self-sacrifice to turn aboot and trot back to Paris, for that war has been plodding along sin'

'most a year agone, and never a battle yet, for whilk I should think the King of Prussia, auld as he is, would be ashamed,--as nae doot he is.

Weel, weel, so 'tis the young lady of Quebec ye are, miss! Sure, d.i.c.kie, lad, do ye mind what I tauld ye once, aboot the wind of circ.u.mstance?"

"Ay, Tom, but if we had left all to the wind of circ.u.mstance, we should not be this moment riding free towards Paris."

"No more ye should, lad. 'Tis one part circ.u.mstance, and three parts wark and fight, that lands a man safe and sound in the snug harbors of this warld."

They tarried briefly at Mayence, keeping the while an eye on the gate by which Wedeker would enter if he should continue his efforts. But, if Wedeker entered at all, it was after the four travellers had departed from the city of priests and were on their way to Birkenfeld.

From Birkenfeld they went to Metz, where they disposed of their horses and hired a coach and four to convey them onward by easy stages. Once on French ground, they breathed with perfect freedom.

"And when ye do get to Paris, lad," asked Tom, "what then? If ye have a mind to serve your country in the way of sea-fighting, we can do nae better than seek out Captain Jones."

"I think," was the answer, "after I see Paris,--for I never have seen it, though I have pa.s.sed through it,--I would like to have a look at my own country again. But it is for others to say."

"No," said Catherine, gently. "It is for you to say. Is it not, Gerard?"

"When my affairs in France are settled," replied Gerard, "I am sure the other side of the Atlantic will be good enough for me."

Verdun, Chalons, epernay, one after another, were left behind; then Meaux, and, at last, one cold but sunny afternoon late in December, the coach rolled through a faubourg, pa.s.sed under an arch, and rumbled along the Rue St. Martin, whence it was to take its pa.s.sengers to a hotel in the Rue St. Honore. But, at d.i.c.k's desire, the coachman drove first to the Pont Neuf, and there stopped. Through the right-hand window the four pa.s.sengers could see the Louvre and the Tuileries, as well as the buildings at the opposite side of the Seine; through the left-hand window they could see, above the ma.s.s of roofs and spires, the towers of Notre Dame, flashing back the horizontal sun-rays.

"It is like in the picture-book," said d.i.c.k, softly,--for his fancy had long since transfigured the stiff engravings he had studied in his childhood. Then he turned and looked at the friendly faces within the coach,--Gerard's, old Tom's; last of all, the face beside him, whose dark eyes met his.

"Do you know, I was always sure," he said, "that the road to Paris was to be my road to happiness."

THE END.