An Enemy to the King / From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire

by Robert Neilson Stephens

I followed her to the inn door, and bade her rest without fear, assuring her that I would die ere the least harm should befall her.

"Nay," she answered smiling, "I would endure much harm rather than buy security at such a price."

For an instant her smooth and delicate fingers lay in mine. Then they were swiftly withdrawn, and she passed in, while I stood outside to muse, in the gathering dusk, upon the great change that had come over the world since my first meeting with her, six hours before. The very stars and sky seemed to smile upon me; the moonlight seemed to shine for me consciously with a greater softness; the very smell of the earth and grass and trees had grown sweeter to me. I thought how barren, though I had not known it, the world had been before this transformation, and how unendurable to me would be a return of that barrenness.

I rejoined the now somewhat boisterous party at the wine-butt in time to catch Blaise making an attempt to kiss Jeannotte, who was maintaining a fair pretence of resistance. She seemed rather displeased at my return, for as Blaise, unabashedly, continued his efforts, she was compelled, in order to make her coyness seem real to me, to break from him, and flee into the inn.

Blaise, in whom the spirit of his father was now manifestly gaming the ascendancy, consoled himself for the absence of Jeannotte by drinking more heroically and betaking to song. The boys labored assiduously to keep him company. Finally the stalwart fellow, Hugo, succumbed to the effects of the wine, and staggered off to the shed. Pierre followed him a few minutes later, and Blaise was left alone with the remains of the wine. The landlord and his wife had retired to rest, on their pallets on the kitchen floor, some time before. Blaise sat on a log, singing to himself and cursing imaginary enemies, until all the wine at hand was exhausted. Then he let me lead him into the kitchen, where he immediately dropped to the floor, rolled over on his back, and began snoring with the vigor that characterized all his vocal manifestations.

Making a pillow of my cloak, I lay down beside him, and tried to sleep; but the stale air of the kitchen, the new thoughts to which my mind clung with delight, the puzzling questions that sought to displace those thoughts, and the tremendous snoring of both the landlord and his wife, as well as of Blaise, made slumber impossible to me. I therefore rose, and went out of the inn. At a short distance away was a smooth, grassy knoll, now bathed in moonlight. I decided to make this my couch. I had proceeded only a few steps from the inn when the silence of the early night was disturbed by the sound of footsteps on the crisp, fallen leaves in the woods close at hand.

The smallness of the village and the obscurity of the locality gave importance to every sound, proceeding from a human source, at this hour. I, therefore, dropped behind the thick stump of a tree, where I might see and hear without being observed. Presently a figure emerged from the edge of the wood and moved cautiously towards the inn. It stopped, made a gesture towards the wood, and then continued its course. Three more figures then came out of the wood, one very tall, one exceedingly broad, and the third extremely thin. They came on with great caution, and finally joined the first comer near the inn. By this time I had recognized the leader as my old friend, Barbemouche. The others were his companions.

I awaited their further proceedings with curiosity. Was it in quest of us, at the behest of De Berquin, that they had come hither so cautiously and without their horses? Very probably. Doubtless, from afar, they had seen us turn into the byway which, as one or more of them perhaps knew, led to this inn and to no other. It was not likely that, having certainly made some bargain with De Berquin, and being moneyless, they had quitted his service so soon. Yet, if they were now carrying out orders of his against mademoiselle or against me, the supposed lackey who had incurred his wrath, why was he not with them? I hoped soon to see these questions answered by the doings of the rascals themselves.

The fat ruffian sank down, with a heavy sigh of relief, on the log where Blaise had sat. He pulled down with him the thin fellow, who had been clutching his arm as if for support. The latter had a wavy, yellow beard, a feminine manner, and a dandified air, as if he might once have been a fop at the court before descending to the rags which now covered him. The fat hireling had a face on which both good nature and pugnacity were depicted. At present he was puffing from his exertions afoot. The most striking figure of the group was that of the tall rascal. He was gaunt, angular and erect, throwing out his chest, and wearing a solemn and meditative mien upon his weather-beaten face. This visage, long enough in its frame-work, was further extended by a great, pointed beard. There was something of grandeur about this cadaverous, frowning, Spanish-looking wreck of a warrior, as he stood thoughtfully leaning upon a huge two-handed sword, which he had doubtless obtained in the pillage of some old armory.

"The place seems closed as tight as the gates of Heaven to a heretic," growled Barbemouche, scrutinizing the inn.