Henry of Guise (Historical Novel). G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ sweep of disappointment's heavy wing, a sort of misanthropy is cast upon us which we own not even to our own hearts. We doubt, without our will, that there is such a thing as affection, or gratitude, or kindly feeling, or generous sensibility left upon earth; and it is sweet, and happy, and consoling when any thing happens, however light or small, to show us feelingly that our dark judgment of the world was wrong. He still refused the boy's music, however, though kindly; for he was busy with his own thoughts, and wished to pursue them undisturbed.

      On the following morning he continued his journey: nor is it worth while to follow him day by day, while, taking his way by Bourges and Chalons, he approached the north-eastern frontier of France. The journey was long and tedious, but it was accomplished without any accident or interruption; and, indeed, till he approached near the frontiers of Lorraine, the traces of the war which desolated France were comparatively small. Commerce, indeed, there was little or none throughout the land; but agriculture was pursued with less difficulty; and in those districts where the strife was not actually going on, the first return of spring saw the husbandman again in the field.

      The neighbourhood of Troyes and Chalons, however, began to show evident marks of the ravages of war: the fields were uncultivated; the towns guarded with rigorous strictness; no tall ricks of corn were seen near the farm-house; the cattle lowed not in the plains; the shepherd turned anxiously round at every sound of a horse's steps; and, in many places, the vineyards themselves showed the marks of fire, and the vines were seen cut down and piled up for fuel. Wherever the traveller stopped and inquired what was the cause of the destruction he beheld, he was told that a body of reiters had pillaged here, or a horde of Germans wasted there; and, although there were some who ventured, in the angry indignation of their heart, to curse both the house of Guise and the house of La Mark, and to express their horror of all parties alike, yet it was evident that the chivalrous spirit of the Guises, their gracious demeanour, and their heroic actions against a foreign enemy, had in general won the love of the people, so that they were greatly preferred to the Protestant princes of Sedan, who had led an army of thirty thousand strangers to the invasion of their native country.

      Charles of Montsoreau learned all these tales as he passed; and at each inn where he stopped he received some warning not to advance rashly in this direction, or in that, lest he should meet with some of the scattered bands who had turned their swords into reaping hooks in a very different sense from the pacific one, and were gathering in a harvest which they had not sown, from the fears and necessities of the country.

      Thus it happened in setting out from Chalons, the good aubergiste, who had taken care to extract from the purse of the young nobleman as much as could be obtained with any appearance of honesty, counselled him strongly, instead of pursuing the high road towards Rheims, to follow the way along the river towards Mareuil, and thence across the country. "For," said he, "there is a band of at least fifty reiters have been watching the Rheims' gate for the last ten days, and have taken toll of every one that passed, be he citizen or gentleman. Your train, too, is so scanty, young sir, that one sees evidently you come from a quieter place. Why, no one here ever thinks of riding without forty men at least; and the good Duke of Guise dare not go himself from one château to another without a hundred salads at his back."

      As Charles of Montsoreau was not by any means well satisfied with the peculiar species of honesty of his host, he made no reply to his counsels, but followed his former purpose, and took the high road. Ere he had pursued it two miles, however, the merry huntsman Gondrin rode up, with the boy Ignati by his side, and some eagerness on his countenance.

      "My Lord," he said, "the boy declares that he saw the gleaming of spear-heads upon the side of the hill a mile on."

      "Indeed, Ignati!" said the Count--"your eyes must be sharp. Point out to me these spears; for I have seen nothing of them, though I have been watching anxiously."

      "I can't show them to you now, sir," replied the boy, "for they have gone slowly behind the wood; but I saw them, believe me, and I am not mistaken."

      Even while he was speaking a peasant was seen coming along the road upon an ass which he was beating forward to as fast a pace as the brute's natural indocility would admit. The moment, however, that he saw the count's troop drawn up in the midst of the road, he suddenly paused in his course, with a look of some alarm, which did not seem at all to subside upon the young nobleman riding up to him with Gondrin and the boy, and insisting upon his stopping; for he was now endeavouring to drive his beast into one of the by-paths through the country.

      He was soon re-assured, however; and no sooner did he find that the party he had met with was not calculated to be an object of terror, than he endeavoured to inspire the persons of whom it was composed with the same fears which had taken possession of himself, informing the young count that he had just himself passed the reiters, who, though they had left him the vegetables that he was carrying in his panniers to the market at Chalons, had taken from him all his poultry and eggs. He magnified their number and their ferocity very greatly; and as it was evident that they would not prove the most agreeable of companions on the road he was about to travel, Charles of Montsoreau obtained more correct information of the peasant as to the way to Mareuil, and struck back again from the high road towards the course of the Marne.

      The circuit that he had made, however, and the time that had been lost by one interruption or another, rendered it late before he reached the village of Condé, and it was dark before he approached Mareuil. The place was unfortified, and, as far as he could judge in passing through the little narrow street by which he first entered it, had an air of greater tranquillity and comfort than he had lately seen.

      No house of public entertainment was apparent till he reached an open part of the street, near the centre of the little town, where a large stone building stood back from the rest, and displayed a wide front, with windows few and far between, and a single large archway for a door. Over this swung the sign of the inn, under a highly ornamented and gilded grating of iron-work; and as soon as the feet of horses were heard in the dusty open space before the building, mine host and two of his palefreniers rushed forth to receive the new guests.

      The night was clear, and the moon was up; and what between the assistance of the fair planet and the host's lantern, a very sufficient knowledge could be obtained in a moment of the persons of the strangers. That knowledge seemed in some degree to surprise and puzzle the landlord; and had Charles of Montsoreau remarked very acutely, he would have perceived that some one else had been expected in his place.

      He noted not the demeanour of the landlord at all, however; but, springing from his horse, entered the archway, and passed through a door which stood ajar to the right, showing through the crevice a well lighted room within. It was one of the large open halls of an old French inn, the rafters low and black with smoke, the chimney wide and stretching out far into the room, the andirons, on which were piled up immense masses of wood, containing each more than one hundred weight of iron, and the table in the midst fit to support viands for forty or fifty people. The light which the young nobleman had seen proceeded both from the fire which was blazing and crackling cheerfully, and from two large sconces of polished brass hung in different parts of the room.

      The hall possessed at the moment of the Count's entrance only one tenant, of whom he could see little more, than that he was dressed in grey of the most ordinary kind. His hat was on, and differed a good deal from the cap and feather then common at the court of France, being tall in the crown, broad in the brim, and decorated by a single cock's feather raising itself from the button on the right side. Large untanned riding-boots were drawn up above his knees, a light sword was by his side, as if he felt himself in perfect security; and he wore a falling collar of lace over his doublet, instead of the ruff, which was ordinary at that period. The buttons of the grey suit were of jet, and on the middle finger of his right hand was a large seal ring, of apparently coarse manufacture. He was sitting at one of the farther corners of the table, with an inkhorn before him and a pen in his hand, busily writing on a sheet of coarse paper, which had been supplied to him СКАЧАТЬ