EXIT LE CHEVALIER
"The King of France with forty thousand men,
Went up a hill, and so came down agen."
Clothilde, Cæsar, and I had ridden late into the night before we had reached the little village on the Seine where my boatman, Gustave, was to tie up. But it was moonlight and we rode through a beautiful country dotted with royal châteaus,—the birthplaces of illustrious kings,—and I had my thoughts, and Clotilde and Cæsar had each other: for Cæsar was the first of her kind Clotilde had seen since coming to France, and much as she might enjoy the attentions of footmen in gorgeous liveries, after all they were only "white trash," and she loved best her own color. Clotilde was rapidly becoming consoled; and though she only spoke creole French, and Cæsar only English, save for the few words he had picked up since coming to Paris, they seemed to make themselves very well understood.
So the ride had not been so tedious as it might have been. And when we had found Gustave's boat tied to the bank and had routed up him and his wife, and delivered Clotilde into their care (and their admiration and awe of the black lady was wonderful to see), and Cæsar and I had hunted up a fairly comfortable inn and had two or three hours of sleep, we were all quite ready to start on again.
Feeling that Clotilde was a sacred trust, I was anxious both for her safety and for her welfare, and thus it was that the early morning found me following the windings of the Seine by a little bridle-path on its banks, hardly twenty feet from Gustave's boat dropping down with the tide. Gustave's wife was in the forward part of the boat, preparing breakfast for the three, and the savory odor of her bacon and coffee was borne by the breeze straight to my nostrils on the high bank above her. Gustave himself was in the stern of the boat, lazily managing the steering-oar and waiting for his breakfast, and incidentally grinning from ear to ear at Cæsar, riding a pace behind me and casting longing glances at the thatched roof of the little boat's cabin, whence issued in rich negro tones the creole love-song Yorke had sung to Clotilde on the Ohio boat:
"Every springtime
All the lovers
Change their sweethearts;
Let change who will,
I keep mine."
I had straitly charged Clotilde that she must keep herself closely concealed within the cabin, but I had said nothing to her about also keeping quiet. Now I was idly thinking that perhaps I had better give her instructions upon that point also, when down the stony road some three feet higher than the bridle-path, and separated from it by a bank of turf, came the thunder of hoofs. I glanced up quickly. A little party of horsemen, five or six in number, were dashing down the road toward us, and in the lead was the Chevalier Le Moyne! At sight of us they drew rein, and the chevalier, looking down on me (for the first time in his life), brought his hat to his saddle-bow with a flourish.
"Good morning, Monsieur. I hear you are off for America."
"Good morning," I answered coolly, merely touching my own hat. "You have heard correctly"; and I wished with all my heart that I had had time to tell Clotilde to keep still, for up from the boat below, louder and clearer than ever, it seemed to me, came the refrain of her foolish song:
"Tous les printemps,
Tous les amants
Changent de maîtresses;
Qu'ils changent qui voudront,
Pour moi, je garde la mienne."