“How so?” asked I.
“I begin to suspect,” said he, “that our prisoner was worth a much heavier ransom, and that his friends would willingly have paid four times this sum for him.”
“You are entirely mistaken there,” said I. “It is the astonishment of every one that he has been ransomed at all. He is a good-for-nothing spendthrift fellow, whom most families would be heartily glad to be rid of; and so far from being worth a thousand pounds, I believe nine out of ten parents would n't have paid as many shillings for him.”
“We all liked him,” said he. “We found him pleasant company; and he fell into all our ways like one of ourselves.”
“A scamp was sure to do that easier than an honest man,” said I, forgetting, in my eagerness, how rude my speech was.
“Perhaps there is truth in what you say, sir,” said he, haughtily. “Communities like ours scarcely invite men of unblemished morals, and therefore I do not ask you to return with me.”
He arose as he spoke, and swept the coin into a bag which he wore at his side. Still, thought I, he might tell me something more about these brigands. Are they partisans of the Bourbons, or are they mere highwaymen? Here is a man fully equal to the discussion of such a question. Shall I ask him to decide the matter?
“I see,” said he, laughing, as I propounded my mystery; “you want to make a book about us. But our people don't understand that sort of curiosity; they distrust, and they occasionally resent it. Stay a week or ten days where you are. Fra Bartolo will feed you better than we should, and cram you with brigand stories better still. You 'll find it far pleasanter, and your readers will think so too. Addio;” and he touched his hat in a half-haughty way, and strolled out. I sat down for an instant to recover myself, when the quick clatter of a horse's feet aroused me, and he was gone.
There was no doubt of it; he was a very remarkable man,—one who in happier circumstances might have made a figure in life, and achieved a conspicuous position. Who was he; whence came he? The Frate could tell me all these things. As the robber said, he could cram me admirably. I arranged at once to stay a week there. My week was prolonged to a fortnight, and I was well into the third week ere I shook his great hand and said good-bye.
During all this I wrote, I may say, from morning till night. At one time it was my Blue Book; at another I took a spell at stories of robber life. I wrote short poems,—songs of the brigands I called them. In fact, I dished up my highwayman in a score of ways, and found him good in all. The portmanteau which I had brought out full of gold I now carried back more closely packed with MSS. I hurried to England, only stopping once to call at the Legation, and learn that Mr. St. John had returned to his post, and was then hard at work in the Chancellerie. When I arrived in London, my report was ready; but as the ministry had fallen the week before, I was obliged to rewrite it, every word. Lord Muddlemore had succeeded my patron, Lord Scatterdale; and as he was a strong Tory, the brigands must be Bourbons for him; and they were so. I had lived amongst them for months, and had eaten of their raw lamb and drunk of their fiery wine, and pledged toasts to the health of Francesco, and “Morte” to everybody else. What splendid fellows I made them! Every chief was a La Rochejaquelin; and as for the little bit of robbery they did now and then, it was only to pay for masses for their souls when they were shot by the Bersaglieri. My Blue Book was printed, quoted by the “Times,” cited in the House; I was called “the intrepid and intelligent witness” by Disraeli; and I was the rage. Dinners fell in showers over me, and invitations to country-houses came by every post. Almost worn out by these flatteries, I was resolving on a course of abstinence, when a most pressing invitation came to a country gathering where Mr. St. John was to be of the party. I had never met him, and, indeed, was rather irritated at the ingratitude he had displayed in never once acknowledging, even by a few lines, the great service I had rendered him. Still I was curious to see a man whose figure occupied so important a place in my life's tableau.