At the other end of the room, opposite the fireplace, was a broad, low stairway of oak, blackened with time and smoke, which led to the upper story. This was on one side of the great outer door. On the other was a raised platform, with a chair and a table for Madame Michot, and behind it a cupboard for her choice liquors. An iron grille screened this platform off from the main room, and presented a fiction that Madame Michot did not know everything that went on around the huge fireplace and at the long table. Madame Michot, however, had no illusions on this point. It was the custom for the frequenters of the inn—gentlemen all—to make a profound bow in passing the excellent woman, who, having grown very stout on her own good fare, did not rise, but returned these salaams by a polite inclination of her head. Dukes, marquises, and barons thus paid homage to her; for the inn of Michot was distinctively an aristocratic institution, although entirely different from most aristocratic institutions in being very jolly. The fact was, however, that the palace of St. Germains was exceedingly dull, and the inn was a city of refuge to gentlemen who loyally supported King James, but who had no mind for the austerities he practised. The royal table was stinted, and the wine was poor; the Queen went with shabby gowns and equipages, that the money might be given to penniless gentlemen and ladies, who eked out a living in lodgings in the town. Much of this money went to the inn, but all who spent there had full value received; and it was a place where a man could laugh and sing, after having done his duty by the great gloomy palace. And there was always laughing and singing going on of evenings, and sometimes all night long, in that quaint old common room, to say nothing of dancing and playing. The cards and dice were flying every night; the violins and viols da gamba were forever thrilling and making melody; some voice was ever being lifted up in song, proclaiming the joys that awaited all good Jacobites in England; and rattling choruses in praise of war and love and wine, and dispraise of William of Orange, were perpetually rolling and reverberating among the black rafters of the ceiling. And the Scotch gentlemen liked a loup and a fling when the fiddles played a Scotch reel, and the Irish gentlemen commonly jigged it when the fiddles spoke Irish, and the Englishmen footed it nimbly when “Kiss me sweetly,” was played.
On the whole, the inn of Michot was about the most cheerful place in the town of St. Germains. It was not, however, the most peaceable, although in general good feeling prevailed. Madame Michot could never recall without a shudder the night that the Irish gentleman, Mr. O’Mahoney, and Sir Thomas Chesbrough had it out with musquetoons in the orchard behind the house, by the light of a couple of stable lanterns, each gentleman protesting he could not wait until morning or for better weapons. And the look on the Irish gentleman’s gray face, when he was brought in shot through both lungs, haunted Madame Michot for long. Then, there was that affair between Colonel Macgregor, and Sandy Murray, Lord Tullibardine’s nephew, in which both were pretty nearly sawed to pieces with each other’s rapiers. Decidedly, the inn of Michot was like the Comédie Française—it had its tragedies as well as its comedies.
Like all truly aristocratic institutions, this inn was on a democratic basis. It was “First come, first served.” Nothing was reserved for anybody, and the poorest gentleman, who had not got a penny from England for a year, was as well served as he who had got a remittance yesterday. And so great was Madame Michot’s talent for inn-keeping that she prospered even under this system.
And of this pleasant inn was Roger Egremont to make acquaintance, about ten days after he had last seen Egremont. The evening was cold and chill for mid April, and a small, dismal rain was falling. The river was muddy, and the town, lighted only by the faint gleam from candle-lit windows, looked uninviting as Roger approached it in the misty gloom. Roger had with him, to make his way in a difficult world, a pair of pistols, some changes of linen, and less than fifty pounds in money. His soul was as gloomy as the evening. He ached, and was wearied with many days of riding, after three years of imprisonment. He had grown conscious, day by day, in seeing people at inns, and along the highroad, that he was poorly dressed, his horse was a scrub, his accoutrements ridiculous. As for poor Merrylegs, he was literally on his last legs, although Roger had been tender with him, and had often walked rather than burden the creature’s feeble back. At last, just as the highroad turned from the river, the horse suddenly sank upon his knees. Roger leaped off, and one look at the poor beast’s glazing eyes showed him that the end of journeys had come for the ploughman’s nag. Roger quickly unstrapped the saddle, and sat down on the ground patting the horse’s head. It came to him that the dumb creature felt the strangeness of his surroundings; used to the sweet fields of Egremont, and knowing only the air of Devon, he felt lonely in this strange land; and then Roger smiled at the conceit, but smiled very sadly.
After a while the horse scrambled to his feet, and just as he got upon his trembling legs with Roger’s help, a horseman, with a servant riding behind him, galloped out of the dusk. A clear, resonant voice rang out in the misty twilight, saying in French,—
“Hold! It is impossible you should mount that poor beast. The horse is dying.”
Roger deigned no answer to this, but gently led the poor tottering horse to the river’s brink.
When Merrylegs felt the cool water about his legs, he stooped down, and drank a little, and then lifted his head with an almost human look of resignation in his eyes. Roger, standing knee deep in the water, patted his head, saying kindly,—
“Good-bye; good-bye, old Merrylegs. You have been a faithful friend, and you shall have no more work nor pain in this world.”
Then, trying to help the horse along, Roger led him to the side of the road. This brought him nearer to the horseman, and quite close to the serving-man, who was watching with a grin the proceedings. Roger primed his pistol, put it to Merrylegs’ head, and fired. The poor beast dropped in his tracks, and the next instant, the servant, to his horror, found himself looking down the muzzle of the other pistol, and heard Roger Egremont, in a passion of rage, crying, “Laugh once at that poor horse, and you are a dead man!”