CHAPTER XXIX — THE CELL IN THE FOSSE
By this time the morning was well gone; the town had wakened to the day's affairs—a pleasant light grey reek with the acrid odour of burning wood soaring from chimneys into a sky intensely blue; and the roads that lay interlaced and spacious around the castle of Argyll were—not thronged, but busy at least with labouring folk setting out upon their duties. To them, meeting the wounded form of the Chamberlain, the hour was tragic, and figured long at fireside stories after, acutely memorable for years. They passed astounded or turned to follow him, making their own affairs secondary to their interest in the state of one who, it was obvious even to Montaiglon, was deep in their affections. He realised that a few leagues farther away from the seat of a Justiciary-General it might have gone ill with the man who had brought Simon MacTaggart to this condition, for menacing looks were thrown at him, and more than once there was a significant gesture that made plain the animosity with which he was regarded. An attempt to escape—if such had occurred to him—would doubtless have been attended by the most serious consequences.
Argyll met his Chamberlain with the signs of genuine distress: it was touching, indeed, to see his surrender to the most fraternal feeling, and though for a while the Duke's interest in his Chamberlain left him indifferent to him who was the cause of it, Count Victor could not but perceive that he was himself in a position of exceeding peril. He remembered the sinister comments of the Baron of Doom upon the hazards of an outsider's entrance to the boar's cave, and realised for the first time what that might mean in this country, where the unhappy wretch from Appin, whose case had some resemblance to his own, had been remorselessly made the victim (as the tale went) to world-old tribal jealousies whose existence was incredible to all outside the Highland line. In the chill morning air he stood, coatless and shivering, the high embrasured walls lifting above him, the jabbering menials of the castle grouped a little apart, much of the language heard savage and incomprehensible in his ears, himself, as it were, of no significance to any one except the law that was to manifest itself at any moment. Last night it had been very gay in this castle, the Duke was the most gracious of hosts; here, faith! was a vast difference.
“May I have a coat?” he asked a bystander, taking advantage of a bustle in the midst of which the wounded man was taken into the castle. He got the answer of a scullion.
“A coat!” exclaimed the man he addressed. “A rope's more like it.” And so, Count Victor, shrugging his shoulders at this impertinence, was left to suffer the air that bit him to the marrow.
The Chamberlain disposed of, and in the leech's hands, Argyll had the Frenchman brought to his rooms, still in his shirt-sleeves. The weapon of his offence was yet in his hand for evidence, had that been wanting, of an act he was prepared to admit with frankness.
“Well, Monsieur Montaiglon,” said his Grace, pacing nervously up and down the room before him, “this is a pretty matter. You have returned to see my pictures somewhat sooner than I had looked for, and in no very ceremonious circumstances.”
“Truly,” said the Count, with a difficult essay at meeting the man in his own humour—“Truly, but your Grace's invitation was so pressing—ah! c'est grand dommage! mais—mais—I am not, with every consideration, in the key for badinage. M. le Duc, you behold me exceedingly distressed at the discommoding of your household. At your age this—”
He pulled himself up, confused a little, aware that his customary politeness had somehow for once shamefully deserted him with no intention on his part.
“That is to put the case with exceeding delicacy,” said the Duke. “At my age, as you have said, my personal inconvenience is of little importance in face of the fact that a dear friend of mine may be at death's door. At all events there is a man, if signs mislead me not, monstrously near death under this roof, a man well liked by all that know him, a strong man and a brave man, and a man, in his way, of genius. He goes out, as I say, hale and hearty, and comes back bloody in your company. You came to this part of the world, monsieur, with the deliberate intention of killing my Chamberlain!”