A Gentleman of France: Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne Sieur de Marsac, - [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud .txt] 📗

Before I could say any more he turned on me savagely, and with a loud oath thrust his bloated face, flushed with passion, close to mine. ‘Now look here, M. de Marsac!’ he cried violently, ‘once for all, it is no good! I have not got the money, and I cannot pay it. I said a fortnight ago, when you lent it, that you should have it this week. Well,’ slapping his hand on the bench, I have not got it, and it is no good beginning upon me. You cannot have it, and that is flat!’

‘Damn the money!’ I cried.

‘What?’ he exclaimed, scarcely believing his ears.

‘Let the money be!’ I repeated fiercely. ‘Do you hear? I have not come about it, I am here to offer you work—good, well-paid work—if you will enlist with me and play me fair, Fresnoy.’

‘Play fair!’ he cried with an oath.

‘There, there,’ I said, ‘I am willing to let bygones be bygones if you are. The point is, that I have an adventure on hand, and, wanting help, can pay you for it.’

He looked at me cunningly, His eye travelling over each rent and darn in my doublet. ‘I will help you fast enough,’ he said at last. ‘But I should like to see the money first.’

‘You shall,’ I answered.

‘Then I am with you, my friend. Count on me till death!’ he cried, rising and laying his hand in mine with a boisterous frankness which did not deceive me into trusting him far. ‘And now, whose is the affair, and what is it?’

‘The affair is mine,’ I said coldly. ‘It is to carry off a lady.’

He whistled and looked me over again, an impudent leer in his eyes. ‘A lady?’ he exclaimed. ‘Umph! I could understand a young spark going in for such—but that’s your affair. Who is it?’

‘That is my affair, too,’ I answered coolly, disgusted by the man’s venality and meanness, and fully persuaded that I must trust him no farther than the length of my sword. ‘All I want you to do, M. Fresnoy,’ I continued stiffly, ‘is to place yourself at my disposal and under my orders for ten days. I will find you a horse and pay you—the enterprise is a hazardous one, and I take that into account—two gold crowns a day, and ten more if we succeed in reaching a place of safety.’

‘Such a place as—’

‘Never mind that,’ I replied. ‘The question is, do you accept?’

He looked down sullenly, and I could see he was greatly angered by my determination to keep the matter to myself. ‘Am I to know no more than that?’ he asked, digging the point of his scabbard again and again into the ground.

‘No more,’ I answered firmly. ‘I am bent on a desperate attempt to mend my fortunes before they fall as low as yours; and that is as much as I mean to tell living man. If you are loth to risk your life with your eyes shut, say so, and I will go to someone else.’

But he was not in a position, as I well knew, to refuse such an offer, and presently he accepted it with a fresh semblance of heartiness. I told him I should want four troopers to escort us, and these he offered to procure, saying that he knew just the knaves to suit me. I bade him hire two only, however, being too wise, to put myself altogether in his hands; and then, having given him money to buy himself a horse—I made it a term that the men should bring their own—and named a rendezvous for the first hour after noon, I parted from him and went rather sadly away.

For I began to see that the king had not underrated the dangers of an enterprise on which none but desperate men and such as were down in the world could be expected to embark. Seeing this, and also a thing which followed clearly from it—that I should have as much to fear from my own company as from the enemy—I looked forward with little hope to a journey during every day and every hour of which I must bear a growing weight of fear and responsibility.

It was too late to turn back, however, and I went about my preparations, if with little cheerfulness, at least with steadfast purpose. I had my sword ground and my pistols put in order by the cutler over whom I lodged, and who performed this last office for me with the same goodwill which had characterised, all his dealings with me. I sought out and hired a couple of stout fellows whom I believed to be indifferently honest, but who possessed the advantage of having horses; and besides bought two led horses myself for mademoiselle and her woman. Such other equipments as were absolutely necessary I purchased, reducing my stock of money in this way to two hundred and ten crowns. How to dispose of this sum so that it might be safe and yet at my command was a question which greatly exercised me. In the end I had recourse to my friend the cutler, who suggested hiding a hundred crowns of it in my cap, and deftly contrived a place for the purpose. This, the cap being lined with steel, was a matter of no great difficulty. A second hundred I sewed up in the stuffing of my saddle, placing the remainder in my pouch for present necessities.

A small rain was falling in the streets when, a little after noon, I started with my two knaves behind me and made for the north gate. So many were moving this way and the other that we passed unnoticed, and might have done so had we numbered six swords instead of three. When we reached the rendezvous, a mile beyond the gate, we found Fresnoy already there, taking shelter in the lee of a big holly-tree. He had four horsemen with him, and on our appearance rode forward to meet us, crying heartily, ‘Welcome, M. le Capitaine!’

‘Welcome, certainly,’ I answered, pulling the Cid up sharply, and holding off from him. ‘But who are these, M. Fresnoy?’ and I pointed with my riding-cane to his four companions.

He tried to pass the matter off with a laugh. ‘Oh! these?’ he said. ‘That is soon explained. The Evangelists would not be divided, so I brought them all—Matthew Mark, Luke, and John—thinking it likely you might fail to secure your men. And I will warrant them for four as gallant boys as you will ever find behind you!’

They were certainly four as arrant ruffians as I had ever seen before me, and I saw I must not hesitate. ‘Two or none, M. Fresnoy,’ I said firmly. ‘I gave you a commission for two, and two I will take—Matthew and Mark, or Luke and John, as you please.’

‘’Tis a pity to break the party,’ said he, scowling.

‘If that be all,’ I retorted, ‘one of my men is called John. And we will dub the other Luke, if that will mend the matter.’

‘The Prince of Conde,’ he muttered sullenly, ‘employed these men.’

‘The Prince of Conde employed some queer people sometimes, M. Fresnoy,’ I answered, looking him straight between the eyes, ‘as we all must. A truce to this, if you please. We will take Matthew and Mark. The other two be good