“Not more than a month or two—till we start to rough it in the hills.”
He groaned and his face fell so that I laughed, and to hide it dismounted and told him to go into the house and make such arrangements as he could for our accommodation, without mentioning my name. “Be very guarded, Buller, for much hangs upon your discretion, and I don’t want our lives to be imperilled by any loose talk.”
Then I walked away up the narrow hilly street, whistling. I was in such spirits that I could not resist the temptation of playing this small joke upon my superlatively proper and decorous servant. In my humour, the veriest trifle set me smiling, the minutest detail of life in the little place interested me.
The children came out to stare at me and I scattered some small coins among them and brought them about me in a scrambling, laughing, boisterous crowd. Some of the men recognised me; and I stopped now and again to exchange a word or two with them and gave them money. The whole of the little street was full of smiling faces and I had such a body guard when I reached Father Michel’s cottage, that the good priest came out in some surprise to learn the cause of the clatter.
“I need your protection again, father,” I cried cheerily; “but from a different sort of crowd this time. Let me come in and talk to you, and send these young brigands away. They take me for the witch this time with a power to coin money.”
“I bid you welcome, sir,” he said gravely as he bade the youngsters run home and led me indoors.
I was closeted with him for an hour or more, telling him many things which vastly surprised him, gaining his help for the purpose I had in view, preparing him for what was coming, and binding him to secresy until the time arrived for all to be explained.
When I got back to the inn Karasch, as the result of my instructions had a carriage ready, and Buller looking very glum and very much out of his element was standing by a saddle horse for me.
“You can go on, Karasch, I shall overtake you,” I said, and he drove off.
“Am I not to go, sir?” asked Buller, nervously.