In Kings' Byways Part 19

He was spared that, yet came near to it. "Mr. Eubank," said Birkenhead sternly, "you will come with me. I have a sloop at the old landing-place, and before daylight we shall be in Calais roads. There is a cell in the Bastille waiting for you, and I shall see you in it. I'll hold you a hostage for Bernardi."

The wretch shrieked and fell on his knees and grovelled, crying for mercy; but Birkenhead only answered, "Get up, man, get up; or must my men p.r.i.c.k you?" And then to the others, "Mr. Hunt," he continued, "you too must come with us. But have no fear. Believe me you will be better there than here, and shall be well reported. Mr. Fayle and your daughter will come, of course. Tie the others and leave them. And hurry, men, hurry. Bring your money, Mr. Hunt; King James has none too much of that.

I can give you ten minutes to pack, and then we must be moving lest they take the alarm in Romney."

As a fact they took no alarm in Romney. But a shepherd, belated that night with a sick ewe, saw a long line of lanthorns go bobbing across the marsh to the sea, and went home and told his neighbours that Hunt was at his old tricks again. One of them, knowing that the soldiers were there, laughed in his face and went to see, and learning the truth carried the story into Romney, whence it spread to London and brought down a mob of horse and foot and messengers, and from one end of England to the other the descent and the audacity of it were a nine days'

wonder. However, by that time the nest was cold and the birds long flown, and Birkenhead, with one more plume in his crest, was preening his feathers at St. Germains.

THE TWO PAGES

(1580)

Yes, I have seen changes. When I first served at court, whither I went in the year 1579--seven years after the St. Bartholomew--the King received all in his bedchamber, and there every evening played primero with his intimates, until it was time to retire; Rosny and Biron, and the great men of the day, standing, or sitting on chests round the chamber. If he would be more private he had his cabinet; or, if the matter were of prime importance, he would take his confidants to an open s.p.a.ce in the garden--such as the white-mulberry grove, encircled by the ca.n.a.l at Fontainebleau; where, posting a Swiss guard who did not understand French, at the only bridge that gave access to the place, he could talk without reserve.

In those days the court rode, or if sick, went in litters. Coaches were only coming into fas.h.i.+on, Henry, who feared nothing else, having so invincible a distaste for them that he was wont to turn pale if the coach in which he travelled swayed more than usual. Ladies, the Queen's mother and her suite excepted, rode sideways on pads, their feet supported by a little board; and side-saddles were rare. At great banquets the fairest and n.o.blest served the tables. We dined at ten in the country and eleven in Paris; instead of at noon, as is the custom now.

When the King lay alone, his favourite pages took it by turns to sleep at his feet; the page on duty using a low truckle bed that in the daytime fitted under the King's bed, and at night was drawn out. Not seldom, however, and more often if the times were troublous, he would invite one of his councillors to share his couch, and talk the night through with him; a course which in these days might seem undignified.

Frequently he and the Queen received favourite courtiers before they left their beds; particularly on New Year's morning it was the duty of the Finance Minister to wait on them, and awaken them with a present of medals struck for the purpose.

And I recall many other changes. But one thing, which some young sparks, with a forwardness neither becoming in them nor respectful to me, have ventured to suggest, even in my presence--that we who lived in the old war time were a rougher breed and less dainty and chivalrous than the Buckinghams and Ba.s.sompierres of to-day--I roundly deny. On the contrary, I would have these to know that he who rode in the wars with Henry of Guise--or against him--had for his example not only the handsomest but the most courtly man of all times; and has nothing to learn from a set of pert fellows who, unable to acquire the stately courtesy that becomes a gentleman, are fain to air themselves in a dandified-simpering trim of their own, with nought gallant about them but their ribbons and furbelows.

That such are stouter than the men of my day, no one dare maintain. I have seen Crillon, whom veterans called the brave; and I have talked with La Noue of the Iron Arm; for the rest, I can tell you of one--he was a boy fourteen years old--known to me in my youth, who had it not in him to fear.

He was page, along with me, to the King of Navarre; a year my junior, and my rival. At riding, shooting and fencing he was the better; at paume and tennis he always won. But naturally, being the elder, I had the greater strength, and when the sharp sting of his wit provoked me, I could drub him, and did so more than once. No extremity of defeat, however, no, nor any severity of punishment could wring from Antoine a word of submission; prostrate, with bleeding face, he was as ready to fly at my throat as before I laid hand on him. And more, though I was the senior, he was the life and soul and joy of the ante-chamber; the first in mischief, the last in retreat; the first to cry a nick-name after a burly priest who chanced to pa.s.s us as we lounged at the gates--and the first to be whipped when it turned out that the King had a mind to please the clergy.

It followed that from the first I viewed him with a strange mixture of rivalry and affection; ready at one moment to quarrel with him and beat him for a misword, and the next to let him beat me if it pleased him. At this time the King of Navarre had his court sometimes at Montauban, sometimes at Nerac; and there were rumours of a war between him and the King of France; to be clear, it was this year, that in the hope of maintaining the peace, the latter's mother, the Queen Catherine, came with a glittering train of ladies to Nerac, and paid her court to our King, and there were ball and pageants and gay doings by day and night.

But the Huguenots were not lightly taken in, and under this fair mask suspected treachery, and not without reason; for one night, during a ball, Catherine's friends seized a strong town, and but for Henry's readiness--who took horse that moment and before daylight had surprised a town of France to set against it--they would have gained the advantage. So in the event Catherine did little, no one trusting her, and in the end she returned to Paris wiser than she came; but for the time the visit lasted the court gaieties continued, and there were masques and dances, and the thought of war was seemingly far from the minds of all.

Now in the room which was then the King's Chamber at Montauban, is a window, at a great height from the ground, a very deep ravine, which is one of the main defences of the city, lying below it. In the adjoining ante-chamber is a similar window, and between the two is a projecting b.u.t.tress, and outside the sill of each is a stone ledge a foot wide, which runs round the b.u.t.tress. I do not know who first thought of it, but one day when the King was absent and we pages were lounging in the room--which was against the rules, since we should have been in the ante-chamber--some one challenged Antoine to walk on the ledge round the b.u.t.tress, going out by the one window and returning by the other. I have said that the ledge was but a foot wide, the depth below infinite. It turned me sick only to look down and see the hawks hang and circle in the gulf. Nevertheless, before any could speak, Antoine was outside the cas.e.m.e.nt poising himself on the airy ledge; a moment, and with his face turned inwards to the wall, his slight figure outlined against the sky, he began to edge his way round the b.u.t.tress.

I called to him to come back; I expected each moment to see him reel and fall; the others, too, stood staring with uneasy faces; for they had not thought that he would do it. But he did not heed; an instant, and he vanished round the b.u.t.tress, and still we stood, and no one moved; no one moved, until with a shout he showed himself at the other window, and sprang down into the ante-chamber. His eyes were bright with the triumph of it; his hair waved back from his brow as if the breeze from the gulf still stirred it. He cried to me to do the feat in my turn, he pointed his finger at me, dared me, and before them all he called me "Coward!

Coward!"

But I am not ashamed to confess a weakness I share with many men of undoubted courage--I could never face a great height; and though I burned with wrath and shame, and raged under his taunts, though I could have confronted any other form of death, at his instigation, or I thought I could, though I even went so far as to leap on the seat within the window and stand--and stand irresolute--I stopped there. My head turned, my skin crept. I could not do it. The victory was with Antoine; he whom I had thrashed for some impertinence only the night before, now held me up to scorn and drove me from the room with jeers and laughter.

None of the others had greater courage; none dared do the feat; but I was the eldest and the biggest, and the iron entered into my heart. Day after day for a week, whenever the chamber was empty, I crept to the window and looked down and watched the kites hover and drop, and plumbed the depth with my eyes. But only, to turn away--sick. I could not do it.

Resolve as I might at night, in the morning, on the window ledge, with the giddy deep below me, I was a coward.

One evening, however, when the King was supping with M. de Roquelaure, and I believed the chamber to be deserted, I chanced to go to the window of the ante-chamber after nightfall. I stepped on the seat--that I had done often before; but this time, looking down, I found that I no longer quailed. The darkness veiled the ravine; to my astonishment I felt no qualms. Moreover, I had had supper, my heart was high; and in a moment it occurred to me that now--now in the dark I could do it, and regain my pride.

I did not give myself time to think, but went straight out to the gallery, where I found Antoine and two or three others teasing Mathurine the woman-fool. My entrance was the signal for a taunt. "Ho, Miss White Face! Come to borrow Mathurine's petticoats?" Antoine cried, standing out and confronting me. "It is you, is it?"

"Yes," I answered sharply, meeting his eyes and speaking in a tone I had not used for a week. "And if you do not mend your manners, Master Antoine----"

"Go round the b.u.t.tress!" he retorted with a grimace.

"I will!" I answered. "I will! And then----"

"You dare not!"

"Come!" I said; "come, and see! And when I have done it, my friend----"

I did not finish the sentence, but led the way back to the ante-chamber; a.s.suming a courage which, as a fact, was fast oozing from me. The cold air that met me as I approached the open window sobered me still more; but Antoine's jeers and my companions' incredulity stung me to the necessary point, and at once I stepped on the ledge, and without giving myself time to think, turned my face to the wall and began to edge myself slowly along it; my heart in my mouth, my flesh creeping, as I gradually realized where I was; every nerve in my body strung to quivering point.

Certainly in the daylight I could not have done it. Even now, when the depth over which I balanced myself was hidden by the darkness, and I had only my fancy to conquer, I trembled, my knees shook, a bat skimming by my ear almost caused me to fall; I was bathed in perspiration. The depth drew me; I dared not for my life look into it. Yet I turned the corner of the b.u.t.tress in safety, and edged my way along its front, glueing myself to the wall; and came at last, breathing hard, to the second corner, and turned it, and saw with a gasp of relief the lights in the chamber. A moment--a moment more, and I should be safe.

At that instant I heard something, and cast a wary eye backwards the way I had come. I saw a shadowy form at my elbow, and I guessed that Antoine was following me. With a shudder I hastened my steps to avoid him, and I was already in the angle formed by the wall and b.u.t.tress--whence I could leap down into the chamber--when he called to me.

"Hist!" he cried softly. "Stop, man! the King is there! He has been there all the time, I think."

I thought it only too likely, for I could see none of our comrades at the window; and I heard men's deeper voices in the room. To go on, therefore, and show myself was to be punished; and I paused and knelt down in the angle where the ledge was wider. I recognized the King's voice, and M. Gourdon's, and that of St. Martin, the captain of the guard; I caught even their words, and presently, in a minute or two, and against my will, I had surprised a secret--so great a secret that I trembled almost as much as I had trembled at the outmost angle of the b.u.t.tress, hanging between earth and sky. For they were planning the great a.s.sault on Cahors; for the first time I heard named those points that are now household words; the walnut grove, and the three gates, and the bridge, that fame and France will never forget. I heard all--the night, the hour, the numbers to be engaged; and turned quaking to learn what Antoine thought of it. Turned, but neither saw nor addressed him; for he had gone back, and my eye, incautiously cast down, saw far, far beneath me a torch and a little group of men--at the bottom of the void.

I became giddy at this sudden view of the abyss, wavered an instant, and then with a cry of fear I chose the less pressing danger, and tumbled forward into the room.

M. de Roquelaure had his point at my throat before I could rise; and I had a vision of half a dozen men part risen, of half a dozen startled faces all glaring at me. Fortunately M. de Rosny knew me and held the other's arm. I was plucked up roughly, and set on my feet before the King, who alone had kept his seat; and amid a shower of threats I was bidden to explain my presence.

"You knave! I wish I had spitted you!" Roquelaure cried, with an oath, when I had done so. "You heard all?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

They scowled at me between wrath and chagrin. "Friend Rosny, you were a fool," M. de Roquelaure said with grimness.

"I think I was," the other answered. "But a flogging, a gag, and the black hole will keep his tongue still as long as is needful."

Henry laughed. "I think we can do better than that!" he said, with a glance of good nature. "Hark you, my lad; you are big enough to fight.

We will trust you, and you shall wear sword for the first time. But if the surprise fail, if word of our coming go before us, we shall know whom to blame, and you will have to reckon with M. de Rosny."

I fell on my knees and thanked him with tears; while Rosny and M. St.

Martin remonstrated. "Take my word for it, he will blurt it out!" said the one; and the other, "You had better deliver him to me, sire."

"No," Henry said kindly. "I will trust him. He comes of a good stock; if the oak bends, what tree shall we trust?"

"The oak bends fast enough, sire, when it is a sapling," Rosny retorted.

"In that case you shall apply _your_ sapling!" the King answered, laughing. "Hark ye, my lad, will you be silent?"

I promised--with tears in my eyes; and with that, and a mind full of amazement, I was dismissed, and left the presence, a grown man; overjoyed that the greatest sc.r.a.pe of my life had turned out the happiest; foreseeing honour, and rewards, and already scorning the other pages as immeasurably beneath me. It was a full minute before I thought of Antoine, and the chance that he, too, before he turned back, had overheard the King's plan. Then I stood in the pa.s.sage horrified--my first impulse to return and tell the King. It came too late, however, for in the mean time he and M. de Rosny had repaired to the closet, and the others had withdrawn; and while I stood hesitating, Antoine slipped out of the ante-chamber, and came to me on the stairs.

His first words went some way towards relieving me; they told me that he had overheard something but not all; enough to know that the King intended to surprise a place of strength, and a few details, but not the name of the place. As soon as I understood this, and that I had nothing to fear from him, I could not hide my triumph. When he declared his intention of going with the expedition, I laughed at him.

"You!" I said. "You don't understand. This is not child's play!"

"And you will not tell me where it is?" he asked, raging.

"No! Go to your nurse and your pap-boat, child."

He flew at me at that like a mad cat, and I had to beat him until the blood ran down his face before I could shake him off. Even then, and while I thrust him out sobbing, he begged me to tell him--only to tell him. Nor was that all. Through all the next day he haunted me and persecuted me, now with prayers and now with threats; following me everywhere with eyes of such hot longing that I marvelled at the irrepressible spirit that shone in the lad.