One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

St. Real made no reply; and the Dominican, bowing his head with an air of conscious dignity, withdrew from the apartment, and, proceeding through the doorway by which he had entered, left the young Marquis and his attendant alone. The sound of turning keys and drawing bolts succeeded, and St. Real for the first time found himself a prisoner indeed. Now "The soul, secure in its existence, may smile at the drawn dagger, and defy its point;" yet there are many things which may happen to the body, that defy the soul to preserve her equanimity, although they be much less evils, in comparison, than that irretrievable separation of matter and spirit, which we are accustomed to look upon with more indifference. For a moment or two, St. Real lost his calmness, and, striding up and down the room with his arms folded on his breast, gave way to that bitterness of spirit, which every noble heart must feel on the loss of the great, the incomparable, the inestimable blessing of liberty. His more philosophical attendant, who had been selected in haste from among the rest of his followers, without any great attention to his mental qualities, consoled himself, under the privation which so painfully affected his master, by examining every hole and corner in the apartments to which they were consigned; and comforted himself not a little, under all their woes and disasters, by the sight of soft and downy beds, rich arras, and velvet hangings. Before his perquisitions were well complete, however, and just as his master was reasoning himself into calmer endurance of an event he could not avoid, the door once more opened, and admitted a brother of the order, on whose appearance and demeanour we must pause for a moment.

He was younger than any of the friars that St. Real had yet seen,--pale in countenance, heavy in expression, with a certain degree of sadness, if not wildness, in his eye, and that close shutting of the teeth and compression of the lips, which, in general, argues a determined disposition. A little above the middle height, he was powerful in limb and muscle; but the appearance of strength and activity, which his form would otherwise have displayed, was contradicted by a certain slouching stoop, which deprived his demeanour of all grace; while the habit of gazing, as it were, furtively from under the bent brows which almost concealed his eyes, gave his dull countenance a sinister expression, not at all prepossessing.

"Benedicite!" said the friar, as he advanced towards St. Real; "benedicite!"

St. Real made some ordinary answer in Latin; but the dull unreplying countenance of the monk showed that his stock of Latinity did not extend even to the common phrases in use amongst persons of his profession; and the young Marquis proceeded in French: "You are, I presume, the brother appointed to keep watch over us in our confinement?"

"The Prior has given me, for a penance," replied the monk, "the task of lying in a down bed, and waiting your will in communicating with the parlour and the refectory, till to-morrow morning. I am commanded to ask you if you will have supper: it grows late."

"I am here, father," replied St. Real, with a smile, "as a bird in a cage, and you must feed me at what hours you please: it matters but little to me."

The monk gazed on him, for a moment, in sullen silence, as if he hardly attended to his reply, or hardly understood its meaning; and then, as his slow comprehension did its work, he turned away with a few muttered, half-intelligible words, and left the apartment, going apparently to command the meal of which he had spoken. It was soon after brought in; and, during its course, the Dominican sat by, turning over the leaves of his breviary in silence, from time to time reading a few sentences, and filling up the intervals in gazing vacantly upon the pages, seemingly occupied in dull and gloomy dreams.

The meal did not occupy much time; and after it was concluded, St. Real, anxious to hear something more precise concerning the state of the capital, and to obtain some information in regard to his own situation, endeavoured to enter into conversation with the monk; but the course of all their thoughts lay in such different lines, that he soon perceived the attempt would be in vain. The Dominican sat and listened, and replied either by monosyllables, or by long fanatical tirades, in general totally irrelevant to the topic which called them forth; and, as twilight began to grow upon the world, the young Marquis abandoned the endeavour, and intimated, by his silence, a desire to be left alone. It was long before the other gratified his inclination in this respect, however, but sat mute and absent, still turning over the leaves of his breviary, and gazing, from time to time, upon the face of his companion. Nor was it till St. Real expressed his desire to have a lamp, and to be left to his own thoughts, that the monk deemed it advisable to retire.

Fatigued in body and mind by the events of the day, St. Real soon cast himself down to rest; and sleep was not long in visiting his eyelids. His slumber was profound also; and he awoke not till various sounds in the immediate vicinity of his chamber disturbed his repose somewhat rudely.

The nature of the first noises that roused him he could not very well distinguish, for slumber, though in flight, still held, in some degree, possession of his senses. They seemed, however, as far as he could remember afterwards, to have proceeded from some smart blows of a hammer upon a wooden scaffolding; but, before he was well awake, those sounds had ceased, and a buzzing hum, like that of a turner's wheel, or a quickly moved saw, had succeeded. St. Real listened attentively; and, having convinced himself that the noises, by whatever they were occasioned, were not produced by anything in his own chamber, but rather seemed to proceed from some part of the building opposite his window, he addressed himself to sleep again, and not without success.