He waited an hour, then went to the room where slept the secretary and the physician. They were both up and dressing. The physician had been to his patron's room. "Yes, his lordship was better—was awake—meant after a while to rise." Glenfernie would send in a request. Something had occurred which made him very desirous to see his lordship. If he might have a few minutes—? The secretary agreed to make the inquiry, went and returned with the desired invitation. Glenfernie followed him to the nobleman's chamber and was greeted with geniality. Seated by the Englishman's bed, he made his explanation and request. He had so much gold with him—he showed the contents of the belt and purse—and he had funds with an agent in Paris and again funds in Amsterdam. Here were letters of indication. With a total unexpectedness there had come to him in this town a call that he could not ignore. He could not explain the nature of it, but a man of honor would feel it imperative. But it would take nicely all his gold and so many pieces besides. He asked the loan of these, together with an additional amount sufficient to bring him through to Paris. Once there he could make repayment. In the mean time his personal note and word—The Englishman made no trouble at all.
"I'll take your countenance and bearing, Mr. Jardine. But I'll make condition that we do travel together, after all, as far, at least, as Tours, where I mean to stop awhile."
"I agree to that," said Glenfernie.
The secretary counted out for him the needed gold. In the narrow room in which he had slept he put this with his own in a bag. He put with it no writing. There was nothing but the bare gold. Carrying it with him, he went out to find the horses saddled and waiting. With Gil behind him, he went from the inn and out of the town. The letter to Señor Nobody had given explicit enough direction. Clear of all buildings, he drew rein and took bearings. Here was the stream, the stump of a burned mill, the mountain-going road, narrower and rougher than the way of main travel. He followed this road; the horses fell into a plodding deliberateness of pace. The sunshine streamed warm around, but there was little human life here to feel its rays. After a time there came emergence into a bare, houseless, almost treeless plain or plateau. The narrow, little-traveled road went on upon the edge of this, but a bridle-path led into and across the bareness. Alexander followed it. Before him, across the waste, sprang cliffs with forest at their feet. But the waste was wide, and in the sun they showed like nothing more than a burnished, distant wall. His path would turn before he reached them. The plain's name might have been Solitariness. It lay naked of anything more than small scattered stones and bushes. There upgrew before him the tree to which he was bound. A solitary, twisted oak it shot out of the plain, its protruding roots holding stones in their grasp. Around was shelterless and bare, but the heightening wall of cliff seemed to be watching. Alexander rode nearer, dismounted, left Gil with the two horses, and, the bag of gold in his hand, walked to the tree. Here was the stone shaped like a closed hand. He put the ransom between the stone fingers and the stone palm. There was no word with it. Señor Nobody had no name. He turned and strode back to the horses, mounted, and with Gil rode from the naked, sunny plain.
CHAPTER XXVI
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle lay a year in the future. Yet in Paris, under certain conditions and auspices, Scot or Englishman might dwell in security enough. The Jacobite remnant, foe to the British government, found France its best harbor. A quietly moving Scots laird, not Jacobite, yet might be lumped by the generality with those forfeited Scots gentlemen who, having lost all in a cause urged and supported by France, now, without scruple, took from King Louis a pension that put food in their mouths, coats on their backs, roofs over their heads. Alexander Jardine, knowing the city, finding quiet lodgings in a quiet street, established himself in Paris. It was winter now, cold, bright weather.
In old days he had possessed not a few acquaintances in this city. A circle of thinkers, writers, painters, had powerfully attracted him. Circumstances brought him now again into relation with one or two of this group. He did not seek them as formerly he had done. But neither could he be said to avoid companionship when it came his way. It was not his wish to become singular or solitary. But he was much alone, and while he waited for Ian he wandered in the rich Paris of old, packed life. Street and Seine-side and market knew him; he stood in churches, and before old altarpieces smoked by candles. Booksellers remarked him. Where he might he heard music; sometimes he would go to the play. He carried books to his lodging. He sat late at night over volumes new and old. The lamp burned dim, the fire sank; he put aside reading and knowledge gained through reading, and sat, sunk deep into a dim desert within himself; at last got to bed and fell to sleep and to dreams that fatigued, that took him nowhere. When the next day was here he wandered again through the streets.
One of his old acquaintances he saw oftener than he did others. This was a scholar, a writer, an encyclopedist of to-morrow who liked the big Scot and to be in his company. One day, chance met, they leaned together upon the parapet of a bridge, and watched the crossing throng. "One's own particles in transit! Can you grasp that, Deschamps?"