“I must tell you,” said Louis, with a note of enjoyment in his voice, “that my cousin has always lived on his estates, from choice.”
“Indeed!” said the Englishman, a little taken aback, and Gilbert was conscious that he was craning his neck in the darkness to look at him. “I did not believe that there was a single proprietor in France who did so; I had heard rumours, but discredited them.”
“There are,” said the Vicomte judicially, “a number of such persons, and in my opinion it is they who are responsible for the Revolution.”
The champion of the resident landlord could by no means accept this staggering statement, and he proceeded to combat it with due vigour, evidently expecting the Marquis to bear his part in rebutting the charge brought against him by his kinsman. But nothing was further from Gilbert’s intentions, and the argument, which had now taken the place of the lecture, continued as a duologue.
Owing to the inferior horses of the cousins, the little cavalcade progressed but slowly, but it did not appear that Mr Trenchard was at all chafing at having to accommodate his pace to theirs. Indeed, when pressed once or twice to leave them, he absolutely refused, asserting that since the Frenchmen were making for the Loire at Varades or Ingrande, and he was going to Nantes, their ways lay together as far as Candé. Dawn, therefore, found the three still jogging along the high-road. But since the paling of the stars conversation had flagged, and when, about six o’clock, the travellers came in sight of a little village, they drew rein not unwillingly. Having got a good meal, they then bought provisions, made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain better horses, an equally abortive one to induce Louis to rest for an hour, and set off again unmolested. At midday they rested themselves and their nearly worn-out horses by the side of the lonely road, and, though scanned curiously by a passing peasant or two, were unmolested by questions. Slow as their progress was thereafter, they had crossed the Oudon by five o’clock. A little later Mr Trenchard, who seemed determined to find characteristics markedly dissimilar in every one of the newly formed departments, realised that he had been for some time on the soil of Maine-et-Loire, and began to look about him with new interest that he might differentiate it from that of Mayenne. In so doing his glance fell upon a clump of wayside poppies.
“That—unfortunately—reminds me of my native Suffolk!” he exclaimed, pointing to it with his whip.
“You come from Suffolk, then?” asked Gilbert, surprised. He might have heard the fact being imparted to him during the night, had he been attending more closely.
“I live near Bury St Edmunds,” replied the Englishman. “But I suppose that conveys little to you, Monsieur le Marquis.”
“On the contrary,” returned Gilbert, “I know the neighborhood quite well. My mother’s sister married an Englishman, Sir William Ashley of Ashley Court, near Mildenhall. My cousin and I both stayed with him some years ago.”
Trenchard expressed considerable surprise, though he knew, it appeared, that Sir William’s late wife had been a Frenchwoman. Having elicited from Château-Foix that he had stayed in Suffolk partly for the sake of gaining an acquaintance with English methods of agriculture, he entered into a discussion of these which lasted for another five miles or so.