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

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СКАЧАТЬ putting foot in stirrup, he sprang upon his horse's back.

      "Answer your question I cannot," replied the boy, with a degree of calm earnestness that seemed to speak greater interest in the stranger than he had at first evinced; "but I can do more for you," he proceeded. "Where the reitters went I did not see, for I hid myself behind the rocks till they were past; but I can show you paths where no reitters will ever come. Often have I flown my hawk across those plains," he added in an explanatory tone, as if he wished to recommend his guidance to the stranger by showing how his acquaintance with the country had been acquired;--"often have I followed my hound through these valleys, in other days long gone; and I know their every turning better than my father's house."

      "In other days!" said the stranger; "why thou art now but a boy!"

      "True," replied the youth; "yet I may have known other days, and happier ones--but to my purpose. What I offer you, I offer knowing what I am doing:" and he fixed Ins eyes upon the stranger's face with a meaning, but not a disrespectful, glance, and then proceeded: "Tell me whither you would go. I will conduct you thither in safety, and will not betray you, upon my honour!"

      "In faith, I believe I must even trust you," replied the stranger. "There are many who, with wise saws and cautious counsels, would fain persuade me to be as prudent, and as careful of my life, as a great-grandmother of eighty years and upwards. But life, at best, is but as gold, a precious thing given to be spent. Whip me all misers, whether of their purse or of their safety, say I; and, therefore, boy, you shall be my guide, though you should give me over to all the reitters that ever the factious house of Lorraine brought to back the treason which they call piety."

      "I will give you over to no reitters," replied the boy; "so be your mind at ease."

      "Odds life! it is seldom otherwise than at ease," rejoined the other: "my heart is a light one, and will not be heavy now, as I ride on beside thee; though I may have caught thy tongue tripping, my fair boy. Thou art no Frenchman, or thine accent sorely belies thee."

      "Now do you think me both a German and a reitter, I warrant!" replied the youth, with a playful smile, and a toss back of his dark hair. "But cannot your ear distinguish between the hoggish twang of the Teutonic gutturals, and the soft music of the Italian liquids?"

      "Methinks it can," replied the stranger; "but, whether German or Italian, Switzer, or even Spaniard, thou shalt be my guide. Knowest thou the chateau of the Marquis of St. Real?"

      The youth started. "Do I know it!" said he, "do I know it!" then suddenly seeming to check, in full career, some powerful feelings that were in the very act of bursting from his heart to his lips, he added, more calmly, "I know it well! I know it well! Willingly will I show you your road thither, and, perhaps, may name my guerdon by the way; but it is too far a journey for me on foot in one day."

      "We will buy thee a horse, my fair boy," replied the stranger: "I must be at St. Real this night, and at Tours ere noon to-morrow; so we will buy thee a horse at the first village where we can find one."

      "An ass will serve my turn as well as the best Barbary steed," said the youth; "and the one will be more easily found than the other; for, what between the League and the Huguenots, there are more asses in France than any other kind of beast--so now let us on our way."

      Returning into the road from which he had strayed to wash his feet, the boy stepped lightly, from stone to stone, across the stream, and soon stood on the same side with the traveller. He, on his part, as if unwilling to save himself fatigue by continuing to ride while the youth walked by his side on foot, once more dismounted; and they then turned their steps up the broad way which led through the forest to the top of the hill, descanting, as they went, on the fineness of the day, the beauty of the scene, and all the ordinary topics which furnish conversation to those who have few subjects in common; but each avoiding, as if by mutual consent, any allusion to the purpose or station of his companion.

      It was, as we have said, as fair and sunshiny an April day as ever woke since first the beautifying will of the Almighty robed the hills with verdure, and spread out loveliness as a garment over earth. The trees that, springing from the high broken banks on either side, canopied the road with their green boughs, were living and tuneful with all the birds of spring. There is not a cheerful feeling in the heart of man that might not there have found some sweet note to wake it into harmony. The air was balm itself--soft, yet inspiring like the breath of hope; and the dancing light and shade, that chequered the long perspective up the hill, had something in it gay and sportive, which--joined with the song of the birds, and the sparkling glee of a small fountain that, bursting from the midst of the road, rushed in a little diamond rivulet down to the stream below--addressed itself to all the purer sources of happiness in the human breast, and spoke of peace and joy. Both the journeyers, however, were grave; although the one was in the early spring of youth--that bright season of man's life where every pulse is light; and although each line in the countenance of his companion spoke that constitutional cheerfulness which is the most blessed auxiliary that this world can afford to aid man in maintaining his eternal warfare against time and circumstance.

      At the top of the ascent, a wide and magnificent scene lay stretched beneath their eyes. The hill was not sufficiently high, indeed, to afford one of those map-like views, in which we see all the objects spread out over a vast extent in harsh and unshadowed distinctness, like the prospect of life and of the world which we take, when in mature age, after having passed through the illusions of youth and the passions of manhood, we gaze upon the past and the present, and see the hard, cold, naked realities of existence without a softening shade or an enlivening hue. Still the elevation was sufficient to let the eye roam wide over scenes where line after line, in sweet variety, presented a continual change of beautiful forms, softening in tint, in depth of colour, and in distinctness of outline as the objects became more remote, and forming a view such as that which is offered to the eye of youth, when after having climbed over the light ascent of boyhood, the joys of existence, grouped together without its cares, are first presented to the sight, one beyond another, to the very verge of being, all lighted up by hope, and coloured by imagination.

      "Run your eye," said the youth, "over that ocean of green boughs which lies waving below us, to that tree-covered mound which starts high above the rest. In a straight line beyond you catch the spire of Beaumont en Maine, at the distance of nearly four leagues; and a little farther to the right, upon a woody hill, you may see the dark towers of the chateau of St. Real."

      His companion gazed on in the direction which he pointed out, and then replied, "I once knew this land well, and could have marked out in it many a fair field either for the chase or the battle; but other scenes have made me forget it. Our memory is but like a French crown-piece, since so many kings have been called, one after another, to rule this unhappy land. First, one figure is strong upon it; then it goes to the mint, and a new king's head drives out the other, and keeps its place, till something fresh is stamped upon it again; while, all the time, traces of former impression may be seen below, but indistinct and meaningless. Ay! there is Beaumont en Maine, and there the chateau of St. Real; I remember them now: but what is that massive building, with that large square keep, still farther to the right?"

      The youth fixed his eyes upon it, and remained silent for more than a minute: he then replied, abruptly, "That chateau belongs to the Count d'Aubin. Let us on!"

      CHAPTER II.

      Memory is like moonlight, the reflection of brighter rays emanating originally from an object no longer seen; and all our retrospects towards the past times, as well as our individual remembrances, partake in some degree of the softening splendour which covers small faults and imperfections by grand masses of shade, and brings out picturesque beauties and points of interest with apparently brighter effulgence than even when the full СКАЧАТЬ