Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

"But not good hot soup, I feel sure," said this benevolent old mayor. "See, I will send for a bowl of it while you show me your papers. One of my grandchildren here shall go for it. Here, Toinette, run off to your mother and tell her——" The rest was lost as he turned away from the window.

"I don't want any soup," immediately said (like a later famous character) Anne-Hilarion. He spoke peevishly, and, what was much worse, in English. The apparition of the unknown official had distinctly sobered him, but he was still intermittently heaving with sobs.

"My child," interposed La Vireville in the same tongue, since he dared not say it in French, "I have told you before that you must not talk English!" And he went on quickly in his own language, "Take the bowl of soup when it comes, to please this kind old man, and then we shall be able to go on again."

"But I don't want it!" repeated Anne—reverting, however, to French. Then he added, just as the procureur-syndic was turning back to the window again, "Why must I not talk English, M. le Chevalier?"

"Oh, untamable tongue of childhood!" thought the luckless Chouan. Anne had called him by his title too! The situation hung on the mayor's deafness. La Vireville frowned at Anne, said meaningly in a low tone, "Thy uncle wishes thee to drink the soup, Annibal!" and immediately after, in a loud one to the old man, "Will the citizen procureur-syndic see my papers now? He will find them in good order." For on that score at least, since his interview at Caen, he was happy.

As the citizen expressed his desire and readiness to do so without any demur, it seemed clear that he had not caught the child's remarks, so that Fortuné was not called upon to put into practice the wild expedients which had scurried through his fertile brain—as, to assert that his proper name was Chevalier (which would not be borne out by those papers in the name of Duchâtel) or (on the chance that the sound of English was unfamiliar to the procureur-syndic) that Anne-Hilarion had been pedantically brought up to speak Latin on occasions. He began to pull out his papers and was preparing to leave the chaise, when the mayor suggested that he should enter instead, and since the traveller could find no good reason against this, he gathered the now tearless Anne-Hilarion out of the way—for there were only two seats—and set him on his knee, while the old man got out his spectacles and wetted his thumb for the proper perusal of the documents.

Then the soup came, borne by an elderly, responsible person of about ten. Neither she, however, nor the train of smaller fry who accompanied her were exempt from curiosity, and clambered up on both steps of the chaise to witness its consumption. Anne received the refreshment with resignation. It was all very kind and homely and unexpected, this gift from the enemy, but if anybody ever realised the discomfort caused by coals of fire on the head, it was M. de la Vireville. Nor was he unaware of the ludicrousness of his position, conscious that possible pursuers on the road from Caen might overtake them because their postchaise, instead of hastening towards the coast, was stationary in the place of Villers-Bocage, while a little boy unwillingly drank soup in the company of the official who ought to be arresting them.

The old mayor, who was taken with Anne because, as he explained, his numerous grandchildren were mostly girls, would plainly have liked to talk to him—a proceeding which, in the child's present unnerved state, would surely have resulted in some disastrous revelation or other. But Anne, for once, was not inclined to converse, and also there was the soup to be disposed of. Never, to La Vireville's knowledge, had soup been so hot in this world; it seemed to him that it must have been specially heated by demons in a lower, so long did it take to consume.

At last—at long last—the ordeal was over, the nearly empty bowl handed back to Toinette, her train ejected from the steps, the postilion on his horse, the charitable old procureur-syndic back, smiling, on the stones of the place. The horses jerked forward . . .

"Well, nephew Annibal," began La Vireville, "of all the uncomfortable quarters of an hour——" But nephew Annibal, worn out by emotion and full of good soup, had fallen instantly asleep like a puppy, his head against the Chouan's breast.