The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

It was all the news he could give. Laurent rode very soberly away. He had only been thinking of success for his friend—for sometimes he ventured privately so to call him. And this—at the very outset of the campaign! Still, if La Rocheterie himself had escaped, as was rumoured, that was chiefly what he cared about. If he could only be sure of that; for that he should meet him now was a thousand times more unlikely than before. He must be in hiding—pursued perhaps. . . And the desire to meet him, to share his danger, grew with every second that Laurent frowned at the signpost.

As it was impossible to read it he stooped at last to do what he had in reality dismounted for, take a stone out of the sorrel's shoe. He had just dislodged the obstacle when he heard a sound that made him raise himself sharply. Yes, not more than two hundred yards away, trotting up the sloping road on his left towards the signpost, was a patrol of Bonapartist cavalry—red and green hussars. And here he was, dismounted, in uniform, full in their view!

He did not long remain so, at least—he was in the saddle and dashing along the road in front of him as hard as he could go; and as he went he thought, "This has solved the problem of the choice of road, anyhow! What a fool I was . . . but it is rather good fun, all the same!" He could not see the hussars yet over his shoulder, but from the sounds and shouts they were certainly after him. However, he had a good horse, and though there was nothing to take from him now save his liberty, he was not going to make them a present of that if he could help it. And what if he were to make across country? The bank here was no more than an English hedgerow. He set the sorrel at it.

Laurent was staring up into the blue sky, and everything was going round. The sensation having been his once before he knew of course what had happened—a fall out hunting.

But why was someone kneeling on his chest and pinning his arms down? It was a curious way of succouring an accident in the hunting-field; he could not breathe.

"Damn you, get off me!" he said angrily and indistinctly in English.

"Tiens, c'est un Anglais!" exclaimed a surprised voice.

But Laurent was soon able to explain the falsity of this deduction. The hussars helped him up, disarmed and searched him, finding little. The officer said courteously, "You have a deep scratch on your forehead, Monsieur, taken, no doubt, from the hedge when your horse fell with you.—One of you tie it up, and then we must be getting on."

It appeared that no shot had been fired, no blade unsheathed. His horse had fallen at the leap, and then they had come and sat on him; thus ingloriously was Laurent de Courtomer made a prisoner. Even the blood which was now trickling rather copiously down his cheek had been drawn by nothing more lethal than a broken bough. He was a little savage, but there was no profit in ill-temper. His captors were quite pleasant; one of them tied up his forehead with his handkerchief, and then they mounted, fastened his bridle to one of theirs and trotted back the way they had come. It seemed that they were out scouting from a considerable distance, and knew little of happenings in this neighbourhood, beyond the bare fact that there had been a Royalist defeat there a few days ago. And so, said Laurent to himself, ends my dream of meeting with La Rocheterie. Seeing what it had brought about, he almost regretted having indulged it.

As evening drew on, they entered a village to water the horses. The officer went into the inn. M. de Courtomer was by now beginning to revolve the chances of escape, but his captors were pretty wary. It was best at least to appear resigned, so he sat most meekly on his slightly lamed steed between his guards at the village trough, speculating as to what the village was, and where, for he had lost his sense of direction. And, thus engaged, he found himself all at once observing the slow approach of a farm cart along the one street of the place—an ordinary and rather small cart drawn by an old white horse, but driven, oddly enough, by a soldier, and having another, with fixed bayonet, seated sideways on the edge. That there was something unusual about this conveyance was shown by the fact that everyone whom it passed in its progress over the cobbles was straight away smitten with immobility and remained staring after it. Laurent himself became curious to see what was in it.