"Could he be permitted," he asked, "to pay his respects to the ladies, whose fellow-lodger he was about to become?"
The innkeeper was uncertain. "They went not abroad," he said, "and received no one at home."
"With the exception, I presume, of Maitre Pierre?" said Durward.
"I am not at liberty to name any exceptions," answered the man, firmly, but respectfully.
Quentin, who carried the notions of his own importance pretty high, considering how destitute he was of means to support them, being somewhat mortified by the innkeeper's reply, did not hesitate to avail himself of a practice common enough in that age. "Carry to the ladies," he said, "a flask of vernât, with my humble duty; and say, that Quentin Durward, of the house of Glen-houlakin, a Scottish cavalier of honour, and now their fellow-lodger, desires the permission to dedicate his homage to them in a personal interview."
The messenger departed, and returned, almost instantly, with the thanks of the ladies, who declined the proffered refreshment, and with their acknowledgments to the Scottish cavalier, regretted that, residing there in privacy, they could not receive his visit.
Quentin bit his lip, took a cup of the rejected vernât, which the host had placed on the table. "By the mass, but this is a strange country," said he to himself, "where merchants and mechanics exercise the manners and munificence of nobles, and little travelling damsels, who hold their court in a cabaret, keep their state like disguised princesses! I will see that black-browed maiden again, or it will go hard, however;" and having formed this prudent resolution, he demanded to be conducted to the apartment which he was to call his own.
The landlord presently ushered him up a turret staircase, and from thence along a gallery, with many doors opening from it, like those of cells in a convent; a resemblance which our young hero, who recollected, with much ennui, an early specimen of a monastic life, was far from admiring. The host paused at the very end of the gallery, selected a key from the large bunch which he carried at his girdle, opened the door, and showed his guest the interior of a turret-chamber, small, indeed, but which, being clean and solitary, and having the pallet bed, and the few articles of furniture, in unusually good order, seemed, on the whole, a little palace.
"I hope you will find your dwelling agreeable here, fair sir," said the landlord. – "I am bound to pleasure every friend of Maitre Pierre."
"O happy ducking!" exclaimed Quentin Durward, cutting a caper on the floor, so soon as his host had retired: "Never came good luck in a better or a wetter form. I have been fairly deluged by my good fortune."