By which time he was asleep.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
TO REMIREMONT
In the morning there were none of the other peasants about, although Andrew could see them plainly enough as they lolled in front of their houses, or brushed the dust and rubbish from their doors into the road, where it would lie until the next rain swept it into the common sewer; or drove a grunting pig in front of them. And, as he looked at them through the window, while he ate the rude meal his host was able to set before him, he knew very well that the moment they suspected he had gone upstairs with Muhlenbein to begin trafficking for any of the "relics," they would flock in to take part in the bargain. For the "Goldener Hirsch" was, he had learnt overnight, the repository of their joint property, as being the place, or mart, where the "merchants" could most easily see all that was for disposal.
"Well!" He said to Muhlenbein after he had finished his breakfast, while, prior to beginning it, he had been round to see to his horse, "well, my host of the Golden Hart, if we are to have any dealings with the choice curiosities above now is the time. I must away ere long, and--and," this was an afterthought, which he considered would make him look still more like a merchant--"there is Entzheim, you know. Perhaps they have something there to sell, too."
"Nothing, nothing!" exclaimed Muhlenbein hastily. "Nothing. Unless the Herr wants to buy a wounded horse or two and some gun carriages and powder--tumbrils left behind by the Austrians--that's all they have got. The Herr doesn't want those."
"No," replied Andrew, "the Herr does not. Still, he must visit Entzheim. But now for the merchandise. Up, my man, up, and let us see what I can have for a few pieces of silver."
Up the ladder they went, therefore, as they had gone overnight, Muhlenbein muttering, however, that it was not "a few pieces of silver," but many pieces of gold which would be required to purchase anything worth having from his choice museum of relics; and, as Andrew had suspected, hardly were they in the room above, ere the men who had been with them on the evening before were there again.
"Fore gad!" he said to himself, "they are as keen as hawks. Their eyes must be able to see through the walls to know that I am a-marketing." And undoubtedly, whether they had seen through the walls, or the open door, or the two-foot-square window, there they were.
Disguising his desire to inspect the medallion which he believed to have hung round De Bois-Vallée's neck on the night when his sword had passed within four inches of it, disguising also his wish to observe if one of the rapiers in the bundle was likely to prove that which he suspected it to be, Andrew turned his attention to the wigs. Yet he had no intention of becoming a purchaser of any of these melancholy relics, nor of wearing the hair that had been on the head of any recently dead man. And, in spite of the recommendations of their present possessors--one of whom tried several on to give Andrew an idea of their suitability!--and of their chatterings and mutterings, he soon announced that he would have nothing to do with any of them.