The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ I was about to enter; looked at the vulnerable points in my nature; considered where I was most likely to be attacked, and how I might best defend myself. I had arrived at an age when the human intellect is in full strength; I had much acquaintance with books, and my mind, therefore, was not enfeebled for want of exercise. I had every power of looking into my own heart, guiding, guarding, and directing myself, which any other man at the same age possesses. But where I was deficient was in knowledge of the world and of my fellow-men; and here I felt that I was utterly ignorant and without experience.

      I had, indeed, had some little dealings with mankind during the last two or three years; but that had only served to confirm a fact which books before had taught, me--that, in general, man looks upon himself but as a human shark, whose great object it must ever be to seize upon and devour the unwary.

      In order, then, at once to conceal and defend my weak point till it could be remedied by knowledge and observation, was one part of my determination. But there were other things to be considered; and I made up my mind as to the general conduct I was to pursue before I reached the first village inn. To be honest and true, daring and firm, was, of course, the foundation of all; but, in order to prevent those with whom I was likely to have dealings from perceiving my ignorance of the world, I made up my mind to put a guard upon my lips; to affect a light and jesting tone, in order to conceal deeper feelings; to assume that perfect indifference to all things which I had already learned was a natural consequence of that experience which I did not possess; and, repressing every expression either of surprise, pleasure, or grief, to be in some degree a stoic externally, and never to lay open my heart to any persons till I had tried them long and deeply.

      To execute such a resolution may appear more difficult than to form it; but there were many things which rendered the enterprise more easy to me than it would have proved to other men. My natural character was gay and light, not easily repressed, with a large share of hope, and a fearlessness of consequences which gave me a great command over my own actions and over those of others. The pitiful neglect and want of respect with which my cousin's servants had treated me, as soon as another heir had appeared in his house, had taught me to assume a tone of indifferent contempt, when the occasion served, which now stood me in great stead; and the very feelings of grief and indignation which were at my heart, by giving me matter to dwell upon in my own bosom, rendered me more careless of all that passed without.

      Such, then, were my resolutions, and my means of accomplishing them, as far as the government of myself was concerned: but there were many other things, of course, to be thought of; with whom I was to take service; how I was to shape my course to join the army; how I was to obtain the necessary arms and equipments; for, following the determination I had before made, not to take anything from the castle but that which absolutely belonged to myself, I had left behind both the horses which had been given to me for my use, and the arms in which I had exercised myself since I was a boy, with the exception of the sword and dagger that I usually wore, and a rich knife, with a hilt and a sheath of gold, inlaid with jewels, which my father had brought from the East when warring against the Turks in former days.

      On the first point, how I was to join the army, many difficulties existed. The short peace which had been granted to the Protestants had now been some months at an end, and the third war of religion had already began. The principal forces of the Huguenots were assembled in the neighbourhood of La Rochelle, and a considerable distance remained to be traversed before I could hope to fall in with the army.

      While I was considering all these things, the eastern sky became somewhat brighter, and the faint pink of the morning air afforded sufficient light to see all the objects distinctly. I had taken my way towards Bordeaux, as the first great town where I could hope to obtain any information, and had walked on rapidly, while the boy, carrying on his shoulder the valise with which I had charged him, trudged on in perfect silence by my side, without making the slightest inquiry as to the end or object of my journey, or where he himself was going.

      I had chosen him, indeed, from the rest of the servants, when I was permitted to select two of them to attend upon me, principally because he had always shown both respect and attachment towards me, but scarcely less because there was a degree of similarity between his fate and my own; his father having been killed at the battle of St. Denis, and he left an orphan to the care of strangers. He was now a stout, active youth of about nineteen, somewhat variable it his mood, occasionally loquacious, but more frequently quite the reverse; replying with a sharp, quick word, observing keenly all that passed, and having much shrewd sense under a somewhat dull and boorish exterior. On the present occasion, however, his taciturnity had been even more marked than usual. When I had roused him, at first he had looked at me with some wonder, but he had not said a word since, doing exactly as I bade him in profound silence.

      At the distance of about two miles from the chateau of Blancford, we reached the first village, which boasted such a thing as an auberge; and there I had proposed to make the lad put down the valise, and, getting some one else to carry it forward with me, to give him some small pieces of money as a parting gift, and send him back. On entering the village, however, we found that no one was up; and, though there was written over the door of the inn, "Were lodge travellers on foot. A dinner six sous. A bed eight sous. Come in and try!" the closed door belied the hospitable invitation, and I was somewhat puzzled how to proceed.

      "I suppose I must wait till they get up, Andriot," I said. "So you can put down the valise and return to the castle. I shall find somebody up presently to carry it on to Bordeaux for me."

      "I can carry it on, sir," he said; "they'll be an hour before they're up, and I don't see why you should get an inn-boy while you've your own man."

      "Alas! my good Andriot," I said, "you can be my own man no longer. I am too poor a gentleman to afford attendance upon me, and you had better go back at once, lest any review of the servants should be made at the chateau, and the baron should be angry at your absence."

      "The baron may be angry once," said the lad, "but he'll not be angry any more than once with me, at least; for we all saw and heard enough last night to make me very glad when I found you were going. No, no, sir, I have been your servant for two years, and not the baron's, and the chateau of Blancford is no more a home for me if you are not there."

      "But think a while, my good Andriot," I replied; "it is utterly impossible for me either to pay you any wages or to support you. I go forth with scarcely the means of supporting myself till I reach the army. I seek fortune there as a common soldier, and may not even obtain, for aught I know, the means of gaining bread for myself with my own sword. Me, therefore, you cannot accompany; and you must remember how many chances there are in these troublous times against your obtaining any situation at all comparable to that which you may still hold in the chateau of Blancford."

      "I have thought of all that you say, sir," he replied, "as we came along; for it is always right to think well what one is about, after one has taken a resolution. I took mine an hour or two ago. When you first roused me I was half asleep, and didn't understand what you meant. But then again, as soon as both my eyes were open, I understood the whole, for I had thought to myself, when I went to bed, that, if what the baroness' groom had said about the baron and you was true, you would not stay in the castle much after daylight; so I made up my mind in a moment, as soon as I found that you were going. As to wages, I owe you three weeks' service, for you paid me a month in advance last Monday; then, as for food, I have taken care to have all the money that you ever gave me in my pocket to the last sous; then, besides that, I have got three crowns of the sun, and two livres Tournois, which were brought me by Sampson the squire from my poor father when he was killed at St. Denis. So you see, sir, I have plenty to keep me for a year; and as for the rest, if you are going to seek your fortune, I do not see why I should not go and seek mine with you."

      "Well, then, Andriot," I replied, with a smile which I could not refrain at his using arguments for following me which were so like the reasons that existed in my own bosom for my own conduct, "if such be your СКАЧАТЬ