“No, you were not dreaming,” returned his cousin. “It was the man whom M. de la Rouërie came here to meet—a salt-smuggler named Jean Cottereau or Chouan.”
CHAPTER XXIII
TRAVELS OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
“Well hail’d, well hail’d, you jolly gallants,
And whither are you bound-a?
O let me have your company till
We come unto the Sound-a.”
—The Two Noble Kinsmen.
As the sun set on Nuillé-sur-Vicoin a single horseman clattered into its main street, and, drawing rein before the Soleil d’Or, looked about him. Mr Harry Trenchard had been journeying in France for pleasure, but even to his impassivity there had come an intimation that the pleasure was well-nigh over, and that its place was being taken by an increasing peril which was not, however, without its own charm. The young man—he might have been thirty—was therefore proceeding to Nantes by leisurely stages, and on horseback, as his custom was, he having a dislike to the diligence. Tall, well-built, well-dressed, he sat his mare with a confident aspect, and as he looked along the almost deserted street he exclaimed aloud at the negligence of the hostelry which hung out its sign of refreshment and provided no ostler to hold the steed of the traveller.
He shouted; no one appeared at the moment, but, as he withdrew his foot from the stirrup preparatory to dismounting, the figure of a young man emerged from a side-street on his right and crossed the cobbles towards the inn. Mr Trenchard was not sure that his voice had evoked him, but as he looked very shabby he hailed him again in his resolute tones.
“Hi! my good fellow, come and hold my horse! I shall be out in a minute.” He swung out of the saddle as he spoke, and when he turned, with the reins in his hand, was astounded to find the shabby young man regarding him with what he instantly characterised to himself as “a d——d insolent French stare.” He looked very handsome, rather ill, and at the moment decidedly quarrelsome.