Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent

by G. P. R. James

The Prevot was silent; and Ganay, after considering his hawklike features for a moment or two with an inquiring glance, added quietly, "Well, well, Sir Maillotin, we will see. These sudden gleams of convalescence often precede death in the badly wounded. I know these matters better than you do, my good friend; and I have no faith in this sudden and strange amendment. Let us keep ourselves in readiness, and wait the result. You will be prepared at a moment's notice," he added, in a more sharp and decided tone, throwing off at once the quiet conversational manner of his former speech; "perchance he may die to-morrow, perchance the next day; but be you on the watch, and ever ready to secure the house."

"I will! I will!" answered Maillotin du Bac; and then speaking to the druggist's purpose more than to his words, he added, "I will be ready to secure the house and all that, Master Ganay; but I can do no more in this business. To take men off except by the cord or the steel, when they have merited their fate, is out of my line of operations."

"Who required you to do so?" demanded the druggist, gravely. "No, no, Sir Prevot, men may die without your help or mine either. So, now to the bowl! We understand each other, and that is enough. Be you ready when I send to warn you that the good count is dead. If he live, you know, which is likely, vastly likely--if he live, why all the rest is in the moon. Sir Prevot, I carouse to your good rest this night; do me justice--do me justice in the bowl!"

Thus ended their more important conversation; and all that passed farther referred to the mysteries of the tankard, and need not be here inflicted on the reader. It may be necessary to observe, however, that the druggist did not suffer the Prevot Marechal to leave his house till he had imbibed a sufficient quantity of various kinds of intoxicating liquors to require the aid of two stout men to bear him home; and that Ganay himself was, at the same time, incapable of quitting the chair in which he sat.

It may be asked, was a man of such subtle schemes an habitual drunkard, then? Far from it, though he could drink as deep as any one, when some object might be gained by so doing: but he was one of those men whose limbs only became inebriated, if we may use such an expression, while their brain remains unclouded; and the debauch in which he indulged was one of calculation, not pleasure. He had soon seen that, in the case of the Prevot, the prudent guard which was usually placed upon his lips was half asleep at the post long before their conversation was over; and though he believed that he could trust to old habits of caution to keep his companion from any indiscreet babbling, either drunk or sober, yet he determined not to let him leave his dwelling till utterance itself was drowned in wine. Of himself he had no fear; and, leaning on his boy, he tottered to his bed in silence.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Oh, the dull silent hours of the night, when not a sound stirs upon the heavy air to steal one thought from man's communion with his own dark heart!--when the stern silence renders the sleep that covers all the world more like one universal death, and everything around us bids our conscience scan the brief records of our past existence, and prejudge us for the long eternity! The days had been, when, on a clear spring-tide night, like that--while all the countless stars seemed living diamonds in the heaven--Albert Maurice, full of fine soul and noble aspirations, would have gazed forth enchanted; and, without one heavy tie between his heart and the low earth, would have bade his spirit soar up in grand, calm dreams to heaven--when, between him and the multitude of bright orbs that sparkled before his eyes, there would have been felt a communion and a sympathy; and when the knowledge that each wondrous frame was the creation of the same Almighty hand, would have awakened in his bosom a feeling of kindred with the living lights of the sky. But now, how heavy was the night! how dark! how hopeless! how reproachful! There was a voice even in the solemn stillness; and the blood, which yet reeked upon the scaffold beneath the very windows of the apartment where he sat, seemed crying up, through the silence of the universe, to the Judge enthroned above those eternal stars.

He was left, too, entirely alone, and had been so during the greater part of the day; for such was the awful sensation produced in Ghent by the events of the morning, that all the shops were shut, and every kind of business was very generally suspended. Even the affairs of the city seemed to be neglected by general consent. Neither the council of the town, nor the deputies of the states, returned to consult over the future. Nor was it the higher functionaries alone that seemed to feel this sort of bewildered apathy. The clerks and secretaries were absent; not above one or two of the many couriers usually in attendance were now found in readiness; and Albert Maurice, after having endeavoured, in vain, to occupy his mind with business during the day, found himself, at night, left in utter solitude, to revolve the tragedy of the morning, without any other thing to distract his thoughts, or any voice to plead his cause against the accusation of his own conscience.

He strove, however, to convince himself that he had acted justly. He read over the evidence against the dead. He read over the sentence of the judges. He thought over all the many specious reasons that had before seemed to afford a thousand clear and patriotic excuses for sweeping away those whose views were likely to thwart his own: but the reasons had lost their force; the sentence was manifestly unjust; the evidence was broken and inconclusive.

"At all events," he thought, "the act is not mine; the award has been pronounced by the lawful magistrates of the land; and I have taken no part either in the judgment or its execution."