One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ dost. Go on! go on! What wert thou saying?"

      "Nothing, then, Signor Leonard," answered the dwarf, with his usual sardonic grin; "but that I am certain we have passed them, quite certain: for I saw each day's march laid down before they set out; and though we were two days behind them, and had to take a round of ten leagues to avoid their route, yet we have done five leagues more than they each day that we have travelled."

      "Well, then, well!" said the youth; "dine, and make these varlets dine. If I am in Paris three days before them, it is enough. Yet lose no time; for I would fain be on far enough to-night to be beyond their utmost fourriers ere I stay to rest. I go up yon hill to look over this woody world. When all is ready, whistle, and I will come." Thus saying, he turned away with a slow step, and, climbing the banks, was quickly lost amongst the trees and underwood.

      As soon as he was gone, the dwarf beckoned to the servants; and, making them sit down beside him on the grass, did the honours of the feast, but still taking care to maintain that air of superiority with which a master might be supposed to portion out their meal to his domestics, on some of those accidental expeditions which level, for the time, many of the distinctions of rank. The servants, too, submitted to this sort of assumption as a matter of course; and though the eye of each might be caught running over the diminutive limbs of the dwarf with a glance in which the contempt of big things for little was scarcely kept down by habitual deference, yet, in their general demeanour, they preserved every sort of respect for their small companion, keeping a profound silence in his presence, and treating him with every mark of reverence.

      Scarcely had they concluded their meal, however, and were in the act of yawning at the horses they were about to harness, when the rustling of the bushes on the hillside, and the fall of a few stones, gave notice of the approach of some living being. The moment after, the light and graceful form of their young master appeared, bounding down the slope like a scared deer, with his cheek flushed, and all the flashing eagerness of haste and surprise sparkling in his dark eye. "Quick!" he cried, as he came up, "quick as lightning! Draw the carriage into that brake, and lead the horses in amongst the bushes. Scatter as far as possible, and come not hither again till you hear my horn."

      "But the carriage!" cried the dwarf, looking towards the spot to which the page pointed--"the brake is deep and uneven."

      "We must get it out afterwards as best we may," replied the youth; "do as you are bid, and make haste! They are not half a mile from us, when I thought they were leagues. I saw them coming up, on the other side of the hill, and they will be here in five minutes. Quick! quick as lightning, Bartholo!"

      The dwarf and his companions obeyed at once, and in a few moments the carriage was drawn into a woody brake that completely concealed it from view; the horses were led into the forest; Bartholo betook himself one way, and the attendants another; and their young lord, climbing the hill, sought himself out a place amongst the shrubs and larger trees, where he could see all that passed upon the high road, without running any risk of being seen himself. A quick and impatient spirit, however, gauging all things by its own activity, had, as is often the case, deceived him as to the movements of others; and instead of five minutes, which was the utmost space that his imagination had allowed for the arrival of the persons he had beheld, full half an hour had elapsed ere any one appeared.

      At length, however, the trampling of horses sounded along the road; and the moment after, winding round from the other side of the hill, was seen a party of six horsemen, each bearing in his hand a short matchlock, with a lighted match, while three other weapons of the same kind hung round at the different corners of the steel saddle with which every horse was furnished. After a short interval, another small party appeared; and, succeeding them again, might be seen, first moving along above the interposing shoulder of the hill, and then upon the open road, the dancing plumes of a large body of officers and gentlemen, in the midst of whom rode the young Marquis of St. Real, and his cousin, the Count d'Aubin. The eyes of Leonard de Monte fixed eagerly upon that party, and followed its movements for many a minute, till a new bend of the road concealed it from his sight; and he turned to gaze upon the strong body of troops that then appeared. Two companies of infantry, each consisting of two hundred men, came next; and a gay and pleasant sight it was to see them pass along with their shining steel morions, and tall plumes, and rich apparel, in firm array and regular order, but all gay and cheerful, and singing as they went. Amongst them, but in separate bands, appeared the various sorts of foot soldiers then common in France; the musketeer with his long gun upon his shoulder, and the steel-pointed fork, or rest, used to assist his aim in discharging his piece, while, together with the broad leathern belt which supported his long and heavy sword, hung the innumerable small rolls of leather, in which the charges for his musket were deposited. The ancient pikeman, too, was there, with his long pike rising over the weapons of the other soldiers, and one or two bodies of arquebusiers, armed with a lighter and less cumbersome, but even more antique kind of musket, here and there chequered the ranks. A troop of cavalry, still stronger in point of numbers, succeeded, consisting of two companies of men-at-arms, which old privileges permitted the two houses of St. Real and D'Aubin to raise for the service of the crown, and of about four hundred of more lightly armed horse of that description which, from having been first introduced from Germany and Flanders, had acquired the name of reitters, even when the regiment was composed entirely of Frenchmen. The first body contained none but men of noble birth, and consisted principally of young gentlemen attached to the two great houses who raised it. Each carried his lance, to which weapon the men-at-arms of that day clung with peculiar tenacity, as a vestige of that ancient chivalry which people felt was rapidly passing away before improved science, but from which they did not like to part. Each also was splendidly armed; and gold and polished steel made their horses shine in the sunbeams.

      The reitters, however, were more simply clothed, and were composed of such persons from the wealthier part of the classe bourgeoise as the love of arms, the distinctions generally affixed to military life, or feudal attachment to any particular house, brought from the very insecure tranquillity then afforded by their paternal dwellings, to the open struggle of the field. This corps, however, was not distinguished by the lance: a long and heavy sword, which did terrible execution in the succeeding wars, together with a number of pistols, each furnished with a rude flint lock, composed the offensive arms of the reitter. His armour, too, and his horse were both somewhat lighter than those of the man-at-arms; but his movements were, in consequence, more easy, and his march less encumbered.

      The whole body wound slowly on with very little disarray Of confusion, till, one by one, the several bands turned the angle of the wood, and disappeared in the distant forest. A few scattered parties followed; then a few stragglers, and then all was left to solitude, while nothing but a cloudy line of dust, rising up above the green covering of the trees, and two or three notes of the trumpet, told that such a force was near, or marked the road it took. Leonard de Monte gazed from the place of his concealment upon each party as it passed, and then waited for several minutes, listening with attentive ear till the trumpet sounded so faintly that it was evident his own small hunting-horn might be winded unheard by the retiring squadrons. He descended, however, in the first instance, to the bank of the stream where he had been previously sitting, and then gave breath to a few low notes, as of a huntsman recalling his dogs. The sounds were heard by his attendants, and instantly obeyed. The horses were led forth from the wood; and, while the two servants bestirred themselves to draw out the carriage from the brake in which it had been concealed, the youth beckoned the dwarf towards him, demanding--"Now, Bartholo! now! what think you of this?"

      "Why, I think it a very silly trick, sir," replied the dwarf: "I could forgive a raw youth like the Marquis for leading his men through such a wood as this; but how an experienced soldier, like my good lord the Count, could let him do it, I cannot fancy. Why, the League might have taken them all like quails in a falling net!"

      "You are wrong," said the youth; "you are wrong, Bartholo. He knows full well that the League, close cooped in Paris, have not men to spare, and that Longueville and La Noue keep Aumale in check near Compeigne. St. Real is СКАЧАТЬ