From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. Stanley John Weyman

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II.

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THE TENNIS BALLS.

       Table of Contents

      A few weeks before the death of the Duchess of Beaufort, on Easter Eve, 1599, made so great a change in the relations of all at Court that "Sourdis mourning" came to be a phrase for grief, genuine because interested, an affair that might have had a serious issue began, imperceptibly at the time, in the veriest trifle.

      One day, while the King was still absent from Paris, I had a mind to play tennis, and for that purpose summoned La Trape, who had the charge of my balls, and sometimes, in the absence of better company, played with me. Of late the balls he bought had given me small satisfaction, and I bade him bring me the bag, that I might choose the best. He did so, and I had not handled half-a-dozen before I found one, and later three others, so much more neatly sewn than the rest, and in all points so superior, that even an untrained eye could not fail to detect the difference.

      "Look, man!" I said, holding out one of these for his inspection. "These are balls; the rest are rubbish. Cannot you see the difference? Where did you buy these? At Constant's?"

      He muttered, "No, my lord," and looked confused.

      This roused my curiosity. "Where, then?" I said sharply.

      "Of a man who was at the gate yesterday."

      "Oh!" I said. "Selling tennis balls?"

      "Yes, my lord."

      "Some rogue of a marker," I exclaimed, "from whom you bought filched goods! Who was it, man?"

      "I don't know his name," La Trape answered. "He was a Spaniard."

      "Well?"

      "Who wanted to have an audience of your excellency."

      "Ho!" I said drily. "Now I understand. Bring me your book. Or, tell me, what have you charged me for these balls?"

      "Two francs," he muttered reluctantly.

      "And never gave a sou, I'll swear!" I retorted. "You took the poor devil's balls, and left him at the gate! Ay, it is rogues like you get me a bad name!" I continued, affecting more anger than I felt—for, in truth, I was rather pleased with my quickness in discovering the cheat. "You steal and I bear the blame, and pay to boot! Off with you and find the fellow, and bring him to me, or it will be the worse for you!"

      Glad to escape so easily, La Trape ran to the gate; but he failed to find his friend, and two or three days elapsed before I thought again of the matter, such petty rogueries being ingrained in a great man's VALETAILLE, and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a man's arm. At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate. The stranger proved to be a small, slight man, pale and yet brown, with quick-glancing eyes. His dress was decent, but very poor, with more than one rent neatly darned. He made me a profound reverence, and stood waiting, with his cap in his hand, to be addressed; but, with all his humility, I did not fail to detect an easiness of deportment and a propriety that did not seem absolutely strange since he was a Spaniard, but which struck me, nevertheless, as requiring some explanation. I asked him, civilly, who he was. He answered that his name was Diego.

      "You speak French?"

      "I am of Guipuzcoa, my lord," he answered, "where we sometimes speak three tongues."

      "That is true," I said. "And it is your trade to make tennis balls?"

      "No, my lord; to use them," he answered with a certain dignity.

      "You are a player, then?"

      "If it please your excellency."

      "Where have you played?"

      "At Madrid, where I was the keeper of the Duke of Segovia's court; and at Toledo, where I frequently had the honour of playing against M. de Montserrat."

      "You are a good player?"

      "If your excellency," he answered impulsively, "will give me an opportunity—"

      "Softly, softly," I said, somewhat taken aback by his earnestness. "Granted that you are a player, you seem to have played to small purpose.. Why are you here, my friend, and not in Madrid?"

      He drew up his sleeves, and showed me that his wrists were deeply scarred.

      I shrugged my shoulders. "You have been in the hands of the Holy Brotherhood?" I said.

      "No, my lord," he answered bitterly. "Of the Holy Inquisition."

      "You are a Protestant?"

      He bowed.

      On that I fell to considering him with more attention, but at the same time with some distrust; reflecting that he was a Spaniard, and recalling the numberless plots against his Majesty of which that nation had been guilty. Still, if his tale were true he deserved support; with a view therefore to testing this I questioned him farther, and learned that he had for a long time disguised his opinions, until, opening them in an easy moment to a fellow servant, he found himself upon the first occasion of quarrel betrayed to the Fathers. After suffering much, and giving himself up for lost in their dungeons, he made his escape in a manner sufficiently remarkable, if I might believe his story. In the prison with him lay a Moor, for whose exchange against a Christian taken by the Sallee pirates an order came down. It arrived in the evening; the Moor was to be removed in the morning. An hour after the arrival of the news, however, and when the two had just been locked up for the night, the Moor, overcome with excess of joy, suddenly expired. At first the Spaniard was for giving the alarm; but, being an ingenious fellow, in a few minutes he summoned all his wits together and made a plan. Contriving to blacken his face and hands with charcoal he changed clothes with the corpse, and muffling himself up after the fashion of the Moors in a cold climate he succeeded in the early morning in passing out in his place. Those who had charge of him had no reason to expect an escape, and once on the road he had little difficulty in getting away, and eventually reached France after a succession of narrow chances.

      All this the man told me so simply that I knew not which to admire more, the daring of his device—since for a white man to pass for a brown СКАЧАТЬ