The Bright Face of Danger. Robert Neilson Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ me with that gentleman's superiorities,"—if I had made this reply, I should have been taken for the most foolish person on horseback in France that day. Yet the answer would have been true, though I accounted myself one of the wisest young gentlemen you might find in Anjou or any other province.

      I was, of a certainty, studious, and a lover of books. My father, the Sieur de la Tournoire, being a daring soldier, had so often put himself to perils inimical to my mother's peace of mind, that she had guided my inclinations in the peaceful direction of the library, hoping not to suffer for the son such alarms as she had undergone for the husband. I had grown up, therefore, a musing, bookish youth, rather shy and solitary in my habits: and this despite the care taken of my education in swordsmanship, riding, hunting, and other manly accomplishments, both by my father and by his old follower, Blaise Tripault. I acquired skill enough to satisfy these well-qualified instructors, but yet a volume of Plutarch or a book of poems was more to me than sword or dagger, horse, hound, or falcon. I was used to lonely walks and brookside meditations in the woods and meads of our estate of La Tournoire, in Anjou; and it came about that with my head full of verses I must needs think upon some lady with whom to fancy myself in love.

      Contiguity determined my choice. The next estate to ours, separated from it by a stream flowing into the Loir, had come into the possession of a rich family of bourgeois origin whom heaven had blessed (or burdened, as some would think) with a pretty daughter. Mlle. Celeste was a small, graceful, active creature, with a clear and well-coloured skin, and quick-glancing black eyes which gave me a pleasant inward stir the first time they rested on me. In my first acquaintance with this young lady, the black eyes seemed to enlarge and soften when they fell on me: she regarded me with what I took to be interest and approval: her face shone with friendliness, and her voice was kind. In this way I was led on.

      When she saw how far she had drawn me, her manner changed: she became whimsical, never the same for five minutes: sometimes indifferent, sometimes disdainful, sometimes gay at my expense. This treatment touched my pride, and would have driven me off, but that still, when in her presence, I felt in some degree the charm of the black eyes, the well-chiselled face, the graceful swift motions, and what else I know not. When I was away from her, this charm declined: nevertheless I chose to keep her in my mind as just such a capricious object of adoration as poets are accustomed to lament and praise in the same verses.

      But indeed I was never for many days out of reach of her attractive powers, for several of her own favourite haunts were on her side of the brook by which I was in the habit of strolling or reclining for some part of almost every fair day. Attended by a fat and sleepy old waiting-woman, she was often to be seen running along the grassy bank with a greyhound that followed her everywhere. For this animal she showed a constancy of affection that made her changefulness to me the more heart-sickening.

      Thus, half in love, half in disgust, I sat moodily on my side of the stream one sunny afternoon, watching her on the other side. She had been running a race with the dog, and had just settled down on the green bank, with the hound sitting on his haunches beside her. Both dog and girl were panting, and her face was still merry with the fun of the scamper. Her old attendant had probably been left dozing in some other part of the wood. Here now was an opportunity for me to put in a sweet speech or two. But as I looked at her and thought of her treatment of me, my pride rebelled, and I suppose my face for the moment wore a cloud. My expression, whatever it was, caught the quick eyes of Mlle. Celeste. Being in merriment herself, she was the readier to make scorn of my sulky countenance. She pealed out a derisive laugh.

      "Oh, the sour face! Is that what comes of your eternal reading?"

      I had in my hand a volume of Plutarch in the French of Amyot. Her ridicule of reading annoyed me.

      "No, Mademoiselle, it isn't from books that one draws sourness. I find more sweetness in them than in—most things." I was looking straight at her as I said this.

      She pretended to laugh again, but turned quite red.

      "Nay, forgive me," I said, instantly softened. "Ah, Celeste, you know too well what is the sweetest of all books for my reading." By my look and sigh, she knew I meant her face. But she chose to be contemptuous.

      "Poh! What should a pale scholar know of such books? I tell you, Monsieur de Launay, you will never be a man till you leave your books and see a little of the world."

      Though she called me truly enough a pale scholar, I was scarlet for a moment.

      "And what do you know of the world, then?" I retorted. "Or of men either?"

      "I am only a girl. But as to men, I have met one or two. There is your father, for example. And that brave and handsome Brignan de Brignan."

      Whether I loved or not, I was certainly capable of jealousy; and jealousy of the fiercest arose at the name of Brignan de Brignan. I had never seen him; but she had mentioned him to me before, too many times indeed for me to hear his name now with composure. He was a young gentleman of the King's Guard, of whom, by reason of a distant relationship, her family had seen much during a residence of several months in Paris.

      "Brignan de Brignan," I echoed. "Yes, I dare say he has looked more into the faces of women than into books."

      "And more into the face of danger than into either. That's what has made him the man he is."

      "Tut!" I cried, waving my Plutarch; "there's more manly action in this book than a thousand Brignans could perform in all their lives—more danger encountered."

      "An old woman might read it for all that. Would it make her manly? Well, Monsieur Henri, if you choose to encounter danger only in books, there's nobody to complain. But you shouldn't show malice toward those who prefer to meet it in the wars or on the road."

      "Malice? Not I. What is Brignan de Brignan to me? You may say what you please—this Plutarch is as good a school of heroism as any officer of the King's Guard ever went to."

      "Yet the officers of the King's Guard aren't pale, moping fellows like you lovers of books. Ah, Monsieur Henri, if you mean to be a monk, well and good. But otherwise, do you know what would change your complexion for the better? A lively brush with real dangers on the field, or in Paris, or anywhere away from your home and your father's protection. That would bring colour into your cheeks."

      "You may let my cheeks alone, Mademoiselle."

      "You may be sure I will do that."

      "I'm quite satisfied with my complexion, and I wouldn't exchange it for that of Brignan de Brignan. I dare say his face is red enough."

      "Yes, a most manly colour. And his broad shoulders—and powerful arms—and fine bold eyes—ah! there is the picture of a hero—and his superb moustaches—"

      Now I was at the time not strong in respect of moustaches. I was extremely sensitive upon the point. My frame, though not above middle size, was yet capable of robust development, my paleness was not beyond remedy, and my eyes were of a pleasant blue, so there was little to rankle in what she said of my rival's face and body; but as to the moustaches——!

      I scrambled to my feet.

      "I tell you what it is, Mademoiselle. Just to show what your Brignan really amounts to, and whether I mean to be a monk, and what a reader of books can do when he likes, I have made up my mind to go to Paris; and there I will find your Brignan, and show my scorn of such an illiterate bravo, and cut off his famous moustaches, and bring them back to you for proof! So adieu, Mademoiselle, for this is the last you will see of me till what I have said is done!"

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