The Scourge of God. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ monsieur," said the man, as all the other men had said on seeing this, and saluting as all the other men had saluted; after which, with a direction to the coachman to proceed, he retired into his room in the gatehouse.

      "The last, thank God," the occupant of the Berline muttered, "the last. It has been wearisome, but, well, it is over. Now for my aunt."

      In spite of his weariness incurred by an unhalting journey from London, in which sleep could only be obtained by snatches here and there, in spite of the dust along the highroads both of England and France having discoloured his scarlet coat and tarnished his gold lacings and rendered dirty his Valenciennes cravat, as well as having turned the whiteness of his wig to a dirty yellowish brown, Martin Ashurst presented an attractive appearance. His features were handsome and manly, clear-cut and aristocratic-Madame la Princesse de Rochebazon, once Aurora Ashurst, had herself possessed the same features when young-his figure was slight, yet strong and well knit, his whole appearance satisfactory. Also he bore about him those indefinable traits which mark the gentleman, which, perhaps, it may be said without offence to others, mark and distinguish the English gentleman particularly. A certain calm, a self-contained air, a lack of perception of the existence of those who were unknown to him, and thereby without his ken, distinguished Martin Ashurst as it has always distinguished so many of the well-bred of our land.

      Yet his life had not been all passed in England, the first fifteen years of it being, indeed, spent in France under the patronage of the aunt to whom the Berline à quatre chevaux was now bearing him as fast as four heavy Flanders roadsters could drag it.

      Gabriel Ashurst, his father, and Gabriel's sister Aurora, had been two among the hundreds of Royalists who, in the year 1647, were taken by their parents to France as soon as it was possible to escape out of England and from the clutches of the Parliamentarians. Then, in France, in Paris, had begun for them that long career of exile against which so many of the followers of the Stuarts had repined so much at first, and which, in due course, so many had come to like and, in some cases, to appreciate. Also there had come to this exiled family a splendid piece of good fortune, the like of which did not fall often in the way of English exiles. Aurora Ashurst, a girl of twenty, had won the heart of Henri de Beauvilliers, then Baron de Beauvilliers, but with, before him in the near future, the titles and wealth and great positions of Comte de Montrachet, Marquis du Gast d'Ançilly, and Prince de Rochebazon, for the head of the house who held them all was near his end; they were almost within the grasp of Henri, as he stood at the altar with his English bride. Three months after their marriage they were his.

      Time passed. Gabriel married, as well as his sister, his wife being a countrywoman of his own, also in exile with her family. Cromwell died, the Stuarts were restored. Then Gabriel and his wife returned to England, but the lad, Martin, was left in charge of the Princesse de Rochebazon, who had become by now a childless widow-was, indeed, almost adopted by her. It was true she could not make him heir to the great titles-those must die out! – but at least she could provide for him, and she set about doing it. The whole control of the de Rochebazon wealth was hers to do what she pleased with; she might, if she had desired, have left their châteaux, their woods and forests in half a dozen provinces, their hotel in the Rue Champfleury-everything, to him. Only, because she was a just woman and a religious, she would not do that, recognising that the wealth accumulated by generations of French nobles ought not in common honesty to go to one who had no tie of blood with them and who belonged to a land which was almost always at war with France. Therefore, urged partly by the promptings of her own heart and deep Catholic feelings, partly by the promptings of a priest, and partly by those of the De Maintenon, as well as by a whispered hint in the soft courtly tones of le Roi Soleil, now cowering under the awful terrors that too often assail the self-righteous, she left all the wealth of the heirless De Rochebazons to the Church, reserving only for Martin Ashurst the fortune she had saved out of her private purse.

      Yet 'twas a fortune which would make him rich for life, place him on a high pinnacle in either France or England, cause women either at St. James's or Versailles to angle for him, and throw aside forever, as commodities too expensive to be indulged in, the men whom they loved; a fortune that would buy him a peerage in England, obtain for him the justaucorps à brevet in France, and orders and decorations, the command of regiments, the governorships of provinces, embassies, stars and ribbons, surround him with parasites and flatterers! Half a million pistoles! In English money nigh upon five hundred thousand guineas!

      As the berline rolled through St. Ouen and Aubervilliers, the wheels sometimes sticking in a rut of the ill-kept roads-whereby the great, cumbersome vehicle lurched so heavily that the young man expected to be overturned at every moment-sometimes, too, scattering a flock of ducks and fowls before it as they sought for subsistence amid the dust and filth, while the coachman and postillion hurled curses at all and everything that came in their way, and the English man servant in the banquette roared with laughter, Martin Ashurst thought of what lay before him in the future. For he knew well enough to what he went-the princess had long since apprised him of the inheritance that was to be his-he knew that future. Yet he was not particularly enamoured of it.

      "The conditions," he muttered more than once to himself, "are irksome. To live in France, yet with my thoughts ever cast back to England, to London, to St. James's and the suppers at Locket's and Pontac's, the merry nights at Chaves's and White's. And-and-to be banished from England! Faugh! whatever my aunt has to leave me can scarce be worth that."

      In sober truth, although he knew he was heir to Madame la Princesse, he did not know how great the inheritance was to be. In thinking it all over, in talking it all over, too, with his father and mother, he had imagined with them that there might be some thirty or forty thousand pounds which would be his, and that, owning this sum of money, he would thereby be a rich man. But that any such sum as that which his aunt had really put aside was ever likely to come to him had never entered his thoughts.

      "Also," he mused, "how serve Louis, be subject to him when my own country may require me? And though we are at peace, how long shall we be so? Marlborough, the Dutch, are restless; they itch to fly at this French king's throat. It will come again. It must. No treaty ever yet put an end to our wars for any considerable time. Also-also-there is the other thing. In honour I must tell her that, even though by doing so I cause her to renounce me, to disinherit me. To leave me not so much as will pay the score at Locket's for suppers. She must know it."

      Down the Rue de la Boucherie the berline rumbled, the dry fetid smell of the blood of slaughtered beasts being perceptible to the young man's nostrils as he passed through it, since it was still the shambles of Paris; down the Rue des Chants Poulets and past the Rue des Mauvais Garçons it went, with still the driver hurling curses at all who got in his way, at children playing in the road and at a cordelier telling his beads as he walked, yet glinting an evil eye at the coachman and muttering maledictions at him under his breath, and with the English servant still laughing as now he donned his drugget coat and put on his puff wig. For the driver, in between his curses and howls and whoops at the animals, had found time to mutter that the next street was La Rue Champfleury, though, diantre! few flowers grew there now, except in the gardens of the great Princesse de Rochebazon.

      "Sir," said the man servant, glancing down through the open window in the back of the great vehicle, "we are nearly there."

      "I know it," Martin Ashurst replied. Then asked suddenly, as they passed under the Beau Dieu stuck in a corner house of the street, "Why does he roar afresh, and why pull up with such a jerk?"

      "There are red cords stretched all about the street, sir, in front of a great house; also the road is half a foot deep in tan to deaden sounds. And a fellow with a three-cornered hat as big as a table waves a gilt stick to him to stop. What shall we do?"

      "Why, stop to be sure. Also I will alight. We have arrived."

      Whereon he descended out of the berline, bidding the man follow with his sword, as well as pay the driver СКАЧАТЬ