The Cloister and the Hearth Part 60

"I gather 'em off the trees by the road-side," said he surlily.

"Then you gathered these too ripe," said the hostess, who was only a fool externally.

"Ay, rotten ripe," observed another, inspecting them.

Gerard said nothing, but pointed the circular satire by pantomime. He slily put out both his feet, one after another, under Denys's eye, with their German shoes, on which a hundred leagues of travel had produced no effect. They seemed hewn out of a rock.

At this "I'll twist the smooth varlet's neck that sold me mine," shouted Denys, in huge wrath, and confirmed the threat with singular oaths peculiar to the mediaeval military. The landlady put her fingers in her ears, thereby exhibiting the hand in a fresh att.i.tude. "Tell me when he has done his orisons, somebody," said she mincingly. And after that they fell to telling stories.

Gerard, when his turn came, told the adventure of Denys and Gerard at the inn in Domfront, and so well, that the hearers were rapt into sweet oblivion of the very existence of mijauree and hands. But this made her very uneasy, and she had recourse to her grand coup. This misdirected genius had for a twelvemonth past practised yawning, and could do it now at any moment so naturally as to set all creation gaping, could all creation have seen her. By this means she got in all her charms. For first she showed her teeth, then, out of good breeding, you know, closed her mouth with three taper fingers. So the moment Gerard's story got too interesting and absorbing, she turned to and made yawns, and "croix sur la bouche."

This was all very fine: but Gerard was an artist, and artists are chilled by gaping auditors. He bore up against the yawns a long time: but finding they came from a bottomless reservoir, lost both heart and temper, and suddenly rising in mid narrative, said, "But I weary our hostess, and I am tired myself: so good night!" whipped a candle off the dresser, whispered Denys, "I cannot stand her," and marched to bed in a moment.

The mijauree coloured and bit her lips. She had not intended her by-play for Gerard's eye: and she saw in a moment she had been rude, and silly, and publicly rebuked. She sat with cheek on fire, and a little natural water in her eyes, and looked ten times comelier and more womanly, and interesting than she had done all day. The desertion of the best narrator broke up the party, and the una.s.suming Denys approached the meditating mijauree, and invited her in the most flattering terms, to gamble with him. She started from her reverie, looked him down into the earth's centre with chilling dignity, and consented, for she remembered all in a moment what a show of hands gambling admitted.

The soldier and the mijauree rattled the dice. In which sport she was so taken up with her hands, that she forgot to cheat, and Denys won "ecu au soleil" of her. She fumbled slowly with her purse, partly because her s.e.x do not burn to pay debts of honour: partly to admire the play of her little knuckles peeping between their soft white cus.h.i.+ons. Denys proposed a compromise. "Three silver franks I win of you, fair hostess.

Give me now three kisses of this white hand, and we'll e'en cry quits."

"You are malapert," said the lady with a toss of her head; "besides they are so dirty. See! they are like ink:" and, to convince him, she put them out to him and turned them up and down. They were no dirtier than cream fresh from the cow. And she knew it: she was eternally was.h.i.+ng and scenting them.

Denys read the objection like the observant warrior he was, seized them and mumbled them.

Finding him so appreciative of her charm, she said timidly, "Will you do me a kindness, good soldier?"

"A thousand, fair hostess an you will."

"Nay, I ask but one. 'Tis to tell thy comrade I was right sorry to lose his most thrilling story, and I hope he will tell me the rest to-morrow morning. Meantime I shall not sleep for thinking on't. Wilt tell him that--to pleasure me?"

"Ay, I'll tell the young savage. But he is not worthy of your condescension, sweet hostess. He would rather be aside a man than a woman any day."

"So would--ahem. He is right: the young women of the day are not worthy of _him_, 'un tas des mijaurees.' He has a good, honest, and right comely face. Any way I would not guest of mine should think me unmannerly, not for all the world. Wilt keep faith with me and tell him?"

"On this fair hand I swear it: and thus I seal the pledge."

"There; no need to melt the wax, though. Now go to bed. And tell him ere you sleep."

The perverse toad (I thank thee, Marion, for teaching me that word) was inclined to bestow her slight affections upon Gerard. Not that she was inflammable: far less so than many that pa.s.sed for prudes in the town.

But Gerard possessed a triple attraction that has ensnared coquettes in all ages. 1. He was very handsome. 2. He did not admire her the least.

3. He had given her a good slap in the face.

Denys woke Gerard and gave the message. Gerard was not enchanted. "Dost wake a tired man to tell him that? Am I to be pestered with 'mijaurees'

by night as well as day?"

"But I tell thee, novice, thou hast conquered her: trust to my experience: her voice sank to melodious whispers: and the cunning jade did in a manner bribe me to carry thee her challenge to Love's lists: for so I read her message."

Denys then, a.s.suming the senior and the man of the world, told Gerard the time was come to show him how a soldier understood friends.h.i.+p and camaraderie. Italy was now out of the question. Fate had provided better; and the blind jade Fortune had smiled on merit for once. The "Head of Gold" had been a prosperous inn, would be again with a man at _its_ head. A good general laid far-sighted plans; but was always ready to abandon them, should some brilliant advantage offer; and to reap the full harvest of the unforeseen: 'twas chiefly by this trait great leaders defeated little ones; for these latter could do nothing not cut and dried beforehand.

"Sorry friends.h.i.+p, that would marry me to a mijauree," interposed Gerard yawning.

"Comrade, be reasonable; 'tis not the friskiest sheep that falls down the cliff. All creatures must have their flings soon, or late; and why not a woman? What more frivolous than a kitten? what graver than a cat?"

"Hast a good eye for nature, Denys," said Gerard, "that I proclaim."

"A better for thine interest, boy. Trust then to me; these little doves they are my study day and night; happy the man whose wife taketh her fling before wedlock; and trippeth up the altar-steps instead of down 'em. Marriage it always changeth them for better or else for worse. Why, Gerard, she is honest when all is done: and he is no man, nor half a man, that cannot mould any honest la.s.s like a bit of warm wax, and she aye aside him at bed and board. I tell thee in one month thou wilt make of this coquette the matron the most sober in the town, and of all its wives the one most docile, and submissive. Why she is half tamed already. Nine in ten meek and mild ones had gently hated thee like poison all their lives, for wounding of their hidden pride. But she for an affront proffers affection. By Joshua his bugle a generous la.s.s, and void of petty malice. When thou wast gone she sat a thinking and spoke not. A sure sign of love in one of her s.e.x: for of all things else they speak ere they think. Also her voice did sink exceedingly low in discoursing of thee, and murmured sweetly; another infallible sign. The bolt hath struck and wrankles in her; oh be joyful! Art silent? I see; 'tis settled. I shall go alone to Remiremont, alone and sad. But, pillage and poleaxes! what care I for that, since my dear comrade will stay here, landlord of the 'Tete d'Or,' and safe from all storms of life? Wilt think of me, Gerard, now and then by thy warm fire, of me camped on some windy heath, or lying in wet trenches or wounded on the field and far from comfort? Nay" (and this he said in a manner truly n.o.ble), "not comfortless. For cold, or wet, or bleeding, 'twill still warm my heart to lie on my back and think that I have placed my dear friend, and comrade true, in the 'Tete d'Or,' far from a soldier's ills."

"I let you run on, dear Denys," said Gerard softly, "because at each word you show me the treasure of a good heart. But now bethink thee, my troth is plighted there where my heart it clingeth. You so leal, would you make me disloyal?"

"Perdition seize me, but I forgot that," said Denys.

"No more then, but hie thee to bed, good Denys. Next to Margaret I love thee best on earth, and value thy 'cur d'or' far more than a dozen of these 'Tetes d'Or.' So prithee call me at the first blush of rosy-fingered morn, and let's away ere the woman with the hands be stirring."

They rose with the dawn, and broke their fast by the kitchen fire.

Denys inquired of the girl whether the mistress was about.

"Nay: but she hath risen from her bed: by the same token I am carrying her this to clean her withal;" and she filled a mug with boiling water and took it upstairs.

"Behold," said Gerard, "the very elements must be warmed to suit her skin; what had the saints said, which still chose the coldest pool?

Away, ere she come down and catch us."

They paid the score, and left the "Tete d'Or," while its mistress was was.h.i.+ng her hands.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Sinclair was a singer; and complained to the manager that in the operatic play of Rob Roy he had a mult.i.tude of mere words to utter between the songs. 'Cut, my boy, cut!' said the manager. On this vox et p. n. cut Scott, and doubtless many of his cuts would not have discredited the condensers of evidence. But only one of his master-strokes has reached posterity. His melodious organs had been taxed with this sentence: "Rashleigh is my cousin; but, for what reason I cannot divine, he is my bitterest enemy." This he condensed and delivered thus:--"Rashleigh is my cousin, but for what reason I cannot divine."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

OUTSIDE the town they found the snow fresh trampled by innumerable wolves every foot of the road.

"We did well to take the old man's advice Denys."

"Ay did we. For now I think on't I did hear them last night a-scurrying under our window and howling and whining for man's flesh in yon market-place. But no fat burgher did pity the poor vagabones, and drop out o' window."

Gerard smiled, but with an air of abstraction.

And they plodded on in silence.

"What dost meditate so profoundly?"

"Thy goodness."

Denys was anything but pleased at this answer. Amongst his oddities you may have observed that he could stand a great deal of real impertinence, he was so good-humoured. But would fire up now and then where not even the shadow of a ground for anger existed.