In Kings' Byways.

by Stanley J. Weyman.

PART I

IN KINGS' BYWAYS

FLORE

(1643)

It was about a month after my marriage--and third clerk to the most n.o.ble the Bishop of Beauvais, and even admitted on occasions to write in his presence and prepare his minutes, who should marry if I might not?--it was about a month after my marriage, I say, that the thunderbolt, to which I have referred, fell and shattered my fortunes. I rose one morning--they were firing guns for the victory of Rocroy, I remember, so that it must have been eight weeks or more after the death of the late king, and the glorious rising of the Sun of France--and who as happy as I? A summer morning, Monsieur, and bright, and I had all I wished. The river as it sparkled and rippled against the piers of the Pont Neuf far below, the wet roofs that twinkled under our garret window, were not more brilliant than my lord the Bishop's fortunes: and as is the squirrel so is the tail. Of a certainty, I was happy that morning. I thought of the little hut under the pine wood at Gabas in Bearn, where I was born, and of my father cobbling by the unglazed window, his nightcap on his bald head, and his face plaistered where the sherd had slipped; and I puffed out my cheeks to think that I had climbed so high. High? How high might not a man climb, who had married the daughter of the Queen's under-porter, and had sometimes the ear of my lord, the Queen's minister--my lord of Beauvais in whom all men saw the coming master of France! my lord whose stately presence beamed on a world still chilled by the dead hand of Richelieu!

But that morning, that very morning, I was to learn that who climbs may fall. I went below at the usual hour; at the usual hour Monseigneur left, attended, for the Council; presently all the house was in an uproar. My lord had returned, and called for Prosper. I fancied even then that I caught something ominous in the sound of my name as it pa.s.sed from lip to lip; and nervously I made all haste to the chamber.

But fast as I went I did not go fast enough; one thrust me on this side, another on that. The steward cursed me as he handed me on to the head-clerk, who stormed at me; while the secretary waited for me at the door, and, seizing me by the neck, ran me into the room. "In, rascal, in!" he growled in my ear, "and I hope your skin may pay for it!"

Naturally by this time I was quaking: and Monseigneur's looks finished me. He stood in the middle of the chamber, his plump handsome face pale and sullen. And as he scowled at me, "Yes!" he said curtly, "that is the fellow. What does he say?"

"Speak!" the head-clerk cried, seizing me by the ear and twisting it until I fell on my knees. "Imbecile! But it is likely enough he did it on purpose."

"Ay, and was bribed!" said the secretary.

"He should be hung up," the steward cried, truculently, "before he does further mischief! And if my lord will give the word----"

"Silence!" the Bishop said, with a dark glance at me. "What does he plead?"

The head-clerk twisted my ear until I screamed. "Ingrate!" he cried. "Do you hear his Grace speak to you? Answer him aloud!"

"My lord," I cried piteously, "I do not know of what I am accused. And besides, I have done nothing! Nothing!"

"Nothing!" half a dozen echoed. "Nothing!" the head-clerk added brutally. "Nothing, and you add a cipher to the census of Paris!

Nothing, and your lying pen led my lord to state the population to be five millions instead of five hundred thousand! Nothing, and you sent his Grace's Highness to the Council to be corrected by low clerks and people, and made a laughing-stock for the Cardinal, and----"

"Silence!" said the Bishop, fiercely. "Enough! Take him away, and----"

"Hang him!" cried the steward.

"No, fool, but have him to the courtyard, and let the grooms flog him through the gates. And have a care you," he continued, addressing me, "that I do not see your face again or it will be worse for you!"

I flung myself down and would have appealed against the sentence, but the Bishop, who had suffered at the Council and whose ears still burned, was pitiless. Before I could utter three words a dozen officious hands plucked me up and thrust me to the door. Outside worse things awaited me. A shower of kicks and cuffs and blows fell upon me; vainly struggling and shrieking, and seeking still to gain his lordship's ear, I was hustled along the pa.s.sage to the courtyard, and there dragged amid jeers and laughter to the fountain, and brutally flung in. When I scrambled out, they thrust me back again and again: until, almost dead with cold and rage, I was at last permitted to escape, only to be hunted round the yard with stirrup-leathers that cut like knives, and drew a scream at every stroke. I doubled like a hare; more than once I knocked half a dozen down; but I was fast growing exhausted, when some one more prudent or less cruel than his fellows, opened the gates before me, and I darted into the street.

I was sobbing with rage and pain, dripping, ragged, and barefoot; for some saving rogue had prudently drawn off my shoes in the scuffle. It was a wonder that I was not fallen upon and chased through the streets.

Fortunately in the street opposite my lord's gates opened the mouth of a little alley. I plunged into it, and in the first dark corner dropped exhausted and lay sobbing and weeping on a heap of refuse. I who had risen so happily a few hours before! I who had climbed so high! I who had a wife new-married in my garret at home!

I do not know how long I lay there, now cursing the jealousy of the clerks, who would have flayed me to save themselves, and now the cruelty of the grooms who thought it fine sport to whip a scholar. But the first tempest of pa.s.sion had spent itself, when a woman--not the first whom my plight had attracted, but the others had merely shrugged their shoulders and pa.s.sed on--paused before me. "What a white skin!" she cried, making great eyes at me; and they had cut my clothes so that I was half bare to her. And then, "You are not a street-prowler. How come you here, my lad, in that guise?"

I was silent, and pretended to be sullen, being ashamed to meet her gaze.

She stood a moment staring at me curiously. Then, "Better go home," she said, shaking her head sedately, "or those who have robbed you may end by worse. I doubt not this is what comes of raking and night-work. Go home, my lad," she repeated, and went on her way.

Home! The word raised new thoughts, new hopes, new pa.s.sions. I scrambled to my feet. I had a home--the Bishop might deprive me of it: but I had also a wife, from whom G.o.d only could separate me. I felt a sudden fire run through me at the thought of her, and of all I had suffered since I left her arms: and with new boldness I turned, and sore and aching as I was, I stumbled back to the place of my shame.

The steward and two or three of his underlings were standing in the gateway, and saw me approach; and began to jeer. The high grey front of Monseigneur's hotel, three sides of a square, towered up behind them; the steward in the opening sprawled his feet apart and set his hands to his stout sides, and jeered at me. "Ha! ha! Here is the lame leper from the Cour des Miracles!" he cried. "Have a care or he will give you the itch!"

"Good sir, the swill-tub is open," cried another, mocking me. "Help yourself!"

A third spat at me and bade me begone for a pig. The pa.s.sers--there were always a knot of gazers opposite my lord of Beauvais' palace in those days, when we had the Queen's ear and bade fair to succeed Richelieu--stayed to stare.

"I want my goods," I said, trembling.

"Your goods!" the steward answered, swelling out his brawny chest, and smiling at me over it. "_Your_ goods, indeed! Begone, and be thankful you have escaped so well."

"Give me my things--from my room," I said stubbornly; and I tried to enter. "They are my own!"

He moved sideways so as to block the pa.s.sage. "Your goods? They are Monseigneur's," he said.

"My wife, then!"

He winked, the great beast. "Your wife?" he said. "Well, true; she is not Monseigneur's. But she will do for me." And with a coa.r.s.e laugh he winked again at the crowd.

At that the pent-up rage which I had so long stemmed broke out. He stood a head taller than I, and a foot wider; but with a scream I sprang at his throat, and by the very surprise of the attack and his unwieldiness, I got him down and beat his face with my fists. His fellows, as soon as they recovered from their astonishment, tore me off, showing me no mercy. But by that time I had so marked him that the blood poured down his fat cheeks. He scrambled to his feet, panting and furious, his oaths tripping over one another.

"To the Chatelet with him!" he cried, spitting out a tooth and staring at me through the mud on his face. "He shall swing for this! He tried to break in. I call you to witness he tried to break in!"

"Ay, to the Chatelet! To the Chatelet!" cried the crowd, siding with the stronger party. He was my lord of Beauvais' steward; I was a gutter-snipe and dangerous. A dozen hands held me tightly; yet not so tightly, but that, a coach pa.s.sing at that moment and driving us all to the wall, I managed by a jerk--I was desperate by this time, and savage as a wild-cat--to s.n.a.t.c.h myself loose. In a second I was speeding down the Rue Bons Enfants with the hue and cry behind me.

I have said, I was desperate. In an hour the world was changed for me.

In an hour I had broken with every tradition of safe and modest and clerkly life; and from a sleek scribe was become a ragged outlaw flying through the streets. I saw the gallows, I felt the lash sink like molten lead into the quivering back, still bleeding from the stirrup-leathers: I forgot all but the danger. I lived only in my feet, and with them made superhuman efforts. Fortunately the light was failing, and in the dusk I distanced the pack by a dozen yards. I pa.s.sed the corner of the Palais Royal so swiftly that the Queen's Guards, though they ran out at the alarm, were too late to intercept me. Thence I turned instinctively to the left, and with the cry of pursuit in my ears strained towards the old bridge, intending to cross to the Cite, where I knew all the lanes and byways. But the bridge was alarmed, the Chatelet seemed to yawn for me--they were just lighting the brazier in front of the gloomy pile--and doubling back, while the air roared with shouts of warning and cries of "Stop thief! Stop thief!"--I evaded my pursuers, and sped up the narrow Rue Troussevache, with the hue and cry hard on my heels.

I had no plan now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another; with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase.

Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time--but in a half-hearted way, not knowing if I were armed--made an attempt to stop me or trip me up.

Suddenly turning a corner--I had gained a quiet part where blind walls lined an alley--I discovered a man running before me. At the same instant the posse in pursuit quickened their pace in a last effort; I, in answer, put forth my last strength, and in a dozen paces I came up with the man. He turned to me, our eyes met as we ran abreast; desperate myself, I read equal terror in his look, and before I could think what it might mean, he bent himself sideways as he ran, and with a singular movement flung a parcel he carried into my arms. Then wheeling abruptly he plunged into a side-lane on his left.

It was done in a moment. Instinctively I caught the burden: but the impetus with which he had pa.s.sed it to me, sent me reeling to the right, and the lane being narrow, I fell against the wall before I could steady myself. As luck would have it, that which should have destroyed me, was my salvation; I struck the wall where a door broke it, the door, lightly latched, flew open under the impact, I fell inwards. I alighted, in darkness, on my hands and knees, heard the stifled yelp of a dog, and in a second, though I could see nothing, I was up and had the door closed behind me.

Then I listened. Panting and breathless, I heard the hunt go raving through the lane, and the noise die in the distance; until only the beating of my heart broke the close silence of the darkness in which I stood. When this had lasted a minute or two, I began to peer and wonder where I was; and remembering the dog I had heard, I moved stealthily to find the latch, and escape. As I did so, the bundle, to which through all I had clung--instinctively, for I had not thought of it--moved in my arms.

I almost dropped it; then I held it from me with a swift movement of repulsion. It stirred again, it was warm. In a moment the truth flashed upon me. It was a child!

Burning hot as I had been before, the sweat rose on me at the thought.

For I saw again the man's face of terror, and I guessed that he had stolen the child, and I feared the worst. He had mistaken the rabble hooting at my heels for the avengers of blood, and had been only too thankful to rid himself of the d.a.m.ning fact, and escape.

And now I had it, and had as much, or more, to fear. For an instant the impulse to lay the parcel down, and glide out, and so be clear of it, was strong upon me. And that I think is what the ordinary clerk, being no hero, nor bred like a soldier to risk his life, would have done. But for one thing, I was desperate. I knew not, after this, whither to go or where to save myself. For another thing my clerk's wits were already busy, showing me how with luck I might use the occasion and avoid the risk; how with luck I might discover the parents and without suffering for the theft, restore the child. Beyond that I saw an opening vista of pardon, employment and reward.

Suddenly, the dog whined again, close to me; and that decided me. I had found the latch by this time, and warily I drew the door open. In a moment I was in the lane, looking up and down. I saw nothing to alarm me; darkness had completely fallen, no one was moving, the neighbourhood seemed to be of the quietest. I made up my mind to take the bold course: to return at all hazards to the Rue St. Honore, seek my father-in-law at the gates of the Palais Royal--where he had the night turn--and throw the child and myself on his protection.