A solitary traveller along a bleak and desolate road—solitary, that is, to all intents and purposes, since he could comprehend scarcely a word spoken by the sturdy Breton peasant who jogged along on foot by his horse's side.
Morice Conyers was in anything but good humour.
Away from the merry throng at Almack's and Arthur's, things in general presented a vastly different complexion.
In a certain set it had been fashionable to talk glibly of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and to drink bumpers to the health of those who strove for them across the Channel. The young bloods of the coffee-houses—though only that particular coterie, mind you—found it easy and amusing to toast such an upheaval of law and order.
And the Marseillaise was a demned catchy tune. Thus the pigeons prepared themselves for roasting.
And French chefs were not lacking.
That was how Morry Conyers became a member of the London Corresponding Society, a membership which consisted in talking very largely on a score of subjects of which he knew nothing, and vowing, by tremendous oaths, to assist the French Republic as far as lay in his power.
Empty phrases, emptier oaths. But the day of reckoning had most unexpectedly come. Marcel Trouet knew to a hair how to play his mouse.
Flattery and high-sounding jargon of binding vows had succeeded admirably, and Morice, reluctant at first, had begun to look upon himself as a fine hero, whose name would be spoken in every London coffee-house and club before history—and Marcel Trouet—had done with him. Twinges of conscience had been sternly repressed, drowned in the "flowing bowl," to whose honour every wit and poet sang.
But ghosts will rise at night, and they were rising now on every side—impalpable, shadowy creatures, less tangible than the brooding mists which floated over the desolate lande before him, like the fleeing spirits of a phantom army.—Ghosts of memories, ghost of honour, ghost of his better self, ghost of little Gabrielle, whom he loved well enough in his crooked, careless way,—all ready to taunt him and upbraid him as he rode onwards to Varenac.