He rode on quietly, speaking little to any one; and that which he did say was all uttered in a calm, soft, insinuating tone, which corresponded well with the expression of his countenance. The rest of the party laughed and talked with much less ceremony and restraint than the presence of so dignified a person as an ambassador might have required, had he been by state and station fit to have inspired respect. Such seemed not to be the case in the present instance; and though not one word on any other than the most common-place subjects passed amongst the followers of the Count de Meulan--for so the ambassador was called--yet their light laughter and gay jokes, breaking forth every moment close to his ear, were anything but reverential.
Some little difficulty seemed now to occur in regard to the road that the party were travelling. It appeared that hitherto, on turning slightly from the high road, they had followed the foot-marks of the Vert Gallant's charger; taking them for those left by the horse of an avant-courier, who had been despatched to prepare for them at the next town. When they found, however, that the steps turned into the savannah, and lost themselves in a number of others, a halt immediately took place; and, after a short consultation, by order of the ambassador, the whole party wheeled round, and wisely returned to the high road.
Their whole proceedings, however, had been watched by one they knew not of; and almost before they were out of sight, the Vert Gallant emerged from his concealment, and, with a laugh which rang with contempt, turned his horse's head and galloped away.
The Count de Meulan--or, in other words, Olivier le Dain, the barber of Louis XI. whom that monarch had raised from the lowest class for the basest qualities, and whom he now sent as ambassador, to treat with the young heiress of Burgundy, and to intrigue with her subjects--had hardly proceeded two hours on the high road, when a fat rolling monk of the order of St. Francis, mounted on a sleek mule, the picture of himself, joined the rear of the ambassador's escort, and entering into jovial conversation with some of the men-at-arms, besought their leave to travel as far as they went on the road to Ghent under their protection, alleging that the country was in such a disturbed state, that even a poor brother like himself could not pursue his journey in any safety. The light-hearted Frenchmen easily granted his request, observing, in an under tone to each other, that Oliver the Devil--such was the familiar cognomen of the respectable personage they followed--could not in all conscience travel without a monk in his train.
Father Barnabas, whom we have seen before, no sooner found himself added to the suite of the ambassador, than he displayed all those qualities he well knew would make his society agreeable to the men-at-arms who had given him protection; and by many a jolly carouse, and many a licentious bacchanalian song, he soon won favour on all hands. Even the barber count himself, whose more sensual propensities were only restrained by his cunning, found no fault with the merry friar, whose sly and cutting jests, combined with the sleek and quiet look of stupidity which always accompanied them, found means to draw up even his lip into a smile, that might have been mistaken for a sneer. On one occasion he felt disposed to put some shrewd questions to worthy Father Barnabas as to his situation and pursuits, and even began to do so on the second night of their journey, as, occupying the best seat by the fire in the little hostelrie at which they lodged, he eyed the impenetrable fat countenance before him with the sort of curiosity one feels to pry into anything that we see will be difficult to discover.
But the monk was at least his match; and if the weapons with which they engaged in the keen contest of their wits were not precisely the same on both parts, the combat resembled that of the elephant and the rhinoceros; whenever Oliver the wicked strove to seize the monk and close with him, his antagonist ran under him and gored him. Thus, when, by some casual words, the envoy thought he had discovered that his companion was a native of Saarvelt, and suddenly put the question to him at once, the other replied, "No, no; I only remember it well, on account of a barber's boy who was there, and whose real name was--pho! I forget his real name; but he is a great man now-a-days, and has held a basin under the nose of a king."
The quiet, unconscious manner in which this was said, left Olivier le Dain, with all his cunning, in doubt whether the jolly friar really recognised in him the barber's boy of Saarvelt, or whether the allusion had been merely accidental; but he resolved not to interrogate any more a person of such a memory, and possibly determined to take care that the most effectual stop should be put to its exercise in future, if those plans regarding Ghent should prove successful, in the execution of which he was now engaged.
Too wise, however, to show any harshness towards the monk at the time--a proceeding which would have pointed home the sarcasm for his men-at-arms, on whose faces he thought he had remarked a sneering smile as the other spoke--he allowed good father Barnabas still to travel under his escort, meditating a lesson for him when he arrived at his journey's end, which some might have thought severe. In the meantime, as they journeyed on, there was about the monk a sort of subdued triumph--a self-satisfied chuckle in his laugh, especially when he jested with the gay and boasting Frenchmen upon their arms and their exploits--which occasionally wakened a suspicion in the mind of Olivier le Dain, whose own conduct was far too crooked for him to believe that any one else could act straightforwardly.
Still no danger appeared; and the party arrived in perfect safety, within about four leagues of Ghent. There, after pausing for supper at an inn, it was found, on preparing to resume their journey, and enter the city that night, that the person who had hitherto guided them was so drunk as hardly to be able to sit his horse. The ambassador demanded a guide of the host, but none could be found; and the worthy keeper of the inn answered, with true Flemish coolness, that he would not spare any one of his own household. "Could not the monk guide them?" he demanded. "If his eyes served him, he had seen his broad face in that part of the world before."
"Ay, marry can I, my son," replied Father Barnabas; "but I offer no service before it is asked. There is a proverb against it, man."